Finding Shelter

by Kathi Daley

  After we arrived, Dani began shutting things down. Jake made good time, and he’d arrived within an hour of our contacting him. We all agreed to stay together. After years of participating in search-and-rescues, Jake knew the area better than anyone did, so we headed out with him leading the pack. I fell in behind Jake, Dani fell in behind me, with Houston taking up the rear.

  By the time we entered the heavily forested area, we’d found fresh snowmobile tracks. That seemed to confirm that someone was staying in one of the cabins. The fact that the tracks were fresh had caused my heart to constrict a bit. Were we too late? Had they already left? According to the theory Houston and I had worked out, the group would most likely move either today or tomorrow.

  Of course, it was still possible that the cabin was being used by poachers, as we’d already speculated. I found my impatience to get to the truth growing with each mile we traveled. As the first of the cabins in the grouping came into view, I knew that one way or another, we’d have our answers in the next few minutes.

  Jake stopped his snowmobile when the first cabin in the cluster was reached. Houston pulled up next to him. There was a clear set of snowmobile tracks to follow, so the men decided it was best to leave the snowmobiles and continue on foot. Given the fact that we didn’t know what we’d find, it seemed best to approach as quietly as possible, although, in my mind, anyone other than a totally deaf person would have heard us coming for miles.

  “There it is,” Houston said, pausing as we stood just beyond the tree line from a cabin with smoke still billowing from the chimney.

  “I don’t see a snowmobile,” I said.

  “It might be around back,” Dani pointed out.

  “I’ll take the front door,” Houston directed. “The three of you come in from the back. I’m not certain that there’s a back door, but if I meet with resistance from the front, it will be imperative that the rest of you find a way in.”

  “The windows are boarded up, but we should be able to pry one of the boards loose if there isn’t a back door to access.”

  Houston nodded, we all took our guns out, removed the safeties, and Jake, Dani, and I headed around to the back while Houston headed toward the front. After a few minutes, I heard Houston call out that it was clear and safe to enter through the front door.

  “They aren’t here, are they?” I asked, disappointment evident in my voice after Jake, Dani, and I had joined Houston.

  He shook his head. “The fire is still hot, so they haven’t been gone long.”

  I looked around the room that featured a tiny kitchen, a small seating area, and a narrow bed. There was a bathroom off the back of the building, but it was basically a studio unit.

  “This can’t be it,” I said. “In my dreams, the girls were in a room that was accessed after traveling down a long hallway. This cabin has no hallway and no bedroom.”

  “I suppose the kidnapper might have kept the girls in one of the other cabins,” Dani said. “Maybe the hallway you traveled wasn’t really a hallway. Maybe it was a path between cabins. You told me from the beginning that the hallway didn’t seem to be an actual hallway.”

  “That’s true.” I opened the front door and stepped outside. I looked around but didn’t see another cabin. I did see a structure that appeared to be a storage shed or maybe a garage of some sort. I walked in that direction. When I opened the door, I found an empty space that appeared to have been used to store a vehicle, but I heard pounding. I followed the sound toward the back of the room, where I found a door. I opened the door and gasped. “Houston,” I called out as I hurried forward and knelt down on the dirt floor. “I’m sorry this is going to hurt,” I said as I ripped the tape off the mouth of the dark-haired girl from my dreams.

  She flinched but didn’t cry out when I pulled the tape free.

  “Where are the others?” I asked as Houston, Jake, and Dani came into the room from behind me.

  “Gone.” She began to sob. “You just missed them.”

  Chapter 7

  By the following day, Bella had been returned to her parents, and we had part of the story. According to Bella, she’d been walking home from her after-school piano lesson when someone grabbed her from behind. The person who grabbed her put a hand firmly over her mouth, preventing her from calling out. A large man wearing a ski mask forced her into a van. Someone else drove, but she never saw who that someone was. Bella told Houston that she struggled at first but eventually felt a prick in her neck, and the next thing she knew, she was laying on a filthy mattress in a small cold room with another girl, who identified herself as Lily. She wasn’t sure how long they were in the first room before the man with the ski mask came for them. He taped their mouths, tied their wrists, and forced them into the back of a truck with a camper shell.

  She said that after they were forced into the truck, they drove for quite a while. Maybe a few hours, although she was terrified, and she didn’t really have a real concept of the passage of time. Eventually, they parked. After she was removed from the truck, the man with the ski mask and the old woman, she later learned was called Fran, brought her to the shed where I’d found her via snowmobile. After she was locked up, the man with the ski mask must have gone to fetch Lily and the boy since Lily was tossed in the room at some point later that same evening.

  Bella described her captor as a large man with large hands. As she’d mentioned, he wore a ski mask, so she couldn’t see his face, but he was a tall man with broad shoulders, who reminded her of the Hulk. During the two instances when they were together, he never spoke, so she didn’t have any idea whether or not he had an accent.

  She said that hours after she was brought to the cold, windowless room at the end of the snowmobile ride, the old woman had come in with food. Bella shared with Houston that she hadn’t wanted to eat, but Lily had convinced her it was important that they kept up their strength, so they could escape.

  Bella reported that the old woman who brought the food never stayed and never spoke. She shared that Lily had been calling her Fran, but she didn’t know with any certainty if that was her real name.

  Houston asked about the boy who’d been mentioned earlier. Bella shared that he appeared to be around fifteen, but she didn’t know his age for sure. The boy was large in stature and never spoke or interacted with her directly. She said he mostly just lurked in the background whenever the old woman came with the food.

  Bella and Lily had talked during their time together. Bella reported that Lily had been kind and tried to keep her mind off what was going on. Neither girl knew why they’d been taken. They weren’t beaten or sexually assaulted. They were simply held. Bella did share that Lily had mentioned that after she was kidnapped, she’d overheard a man speaking to another man from the other side of the door of the first bedroom she was held in. She didn’t know if it had been the man with the ski mask speaking or someone else, but she did hear someone make a comment about needing three before the delivery date. Three what she wasn’t sure of, but she suspected it was three girls.

  Houston was going to check into things, but we both agreed that needing three before delivery sounded like a human trafficking sort of thing. Coupled with the fact that the girls were taken but otherwise uninjured, the human trafficking angle made more sense than a serial killer or pedophile trying to get his jollies.

  Bella was obviously shaken by the whole experience, and Houston didn’t want to push, but he convinced her parents to allow law enforcement in Tok to do a follow-up interview the next day. Apparently, Lily and Bella had heard the chopper earlier in the day and had been hoping to be rescued. Of course, Dani hadn’t been able to land in the immediate vicinity, so the actual rescue had been delayed.

  The old woman had come in for Lily shortly after the chopper passed, and then Bella heard the snowmobile start up. She knew the snowmobile could accommodate three passengers since there had been three of them when they arrived, so she suspected that the old woman and the boy had taken Lily and planned to mee
t up with the man with the ski mask somewhere. She also suspected they had chosen Lily over her since she’d been with them longer.

  Bella didn’t know where they’d been heading before their progress was interrupted by the chopper, but Lily had mentioned that it seemed like they had a specific destination in mind.

  “So, what’s the plan at this point?” Harley asked as I brought him up to speed during a phone call that had already lasted almost two hours.

  “I’m not sure. Houston is going to try to figure out where they’re going. The man with the ski mask and his cohorts still have Lily, and he suspects that if the man with the ski mask is supposed to deliver three girls to whoever he’s arranged to meet up with, two more will be taken. Based on the location of the two abductions and the location of the cabin where we found them earlier today, it seems apparent they’re moving north.”

  “It does seem that way. Were you able to get any sleep last night?”

  “Actually, I slept through the night. I still don’t know who I’ve been channeling, but whoever it is seemed to take the night off. We asked Bella if there was anyone else at the cabin other than the old woman and the teenage boy, and she said not as far as she knew. Assuming the man with the ski mask wasn’t on the premises, which is what Bella believed to be true, I must have been inside the head of the teenage boy. It’s odd that he lurked in the background and never spoke. I almost wonder if he might be mentally challenged. My experience with being inside his head, assuming it’s him that I’m connected with, can best be described as being inside the head of someone without a lot of thoughts or feelings of their own. Usually, when I’m in someone’s head, I can hear a lot of internal chatter, if you know what I mean.”

  “I do know what you mean, and it is odd that whoever you’re connecting with isn’t trying to speak to you a bit more directly. I guess the boy might be intentionally blocking his thoughts. If this man with the ski mask is using the old woman and the boy to help him kidnap these girls, I guess it makes sense that he’d use people who are easily controlled.”

  “I guess.”

  “If the person you’re connecting with is this boy, do you think he even knows you’re lurking around in his head?” Harley asked.

  I paused to consider this. “I’m not sure. Maybe. In a way, it makes no sense that he’d follow the old woman when she goes to feed the girls. He doesn’t seem to be helping in any way. Even when there were two girls, she carried both bowls, and she fished the key out of her pocket and opened the door. Doesn’t it seem that if she had this person following her, she’d ask him to hold the bowls while she handled the door?”

  “I guess that would make sense.”

  “It’s almost as if the old woman isn’t aware of this boy’s presence, but that doesn’t make sense. She must know he’s there. I mean, she’d have to be blind for her not to notice him following her.”

  “Maybe she is blind.”

  I shook my head even though Harley couldn’t see me. “No. She gets around strange places too well to be blind.”

  “What if the cabins from your dreams aren’t strange to her? What if the man and the old woman have done this before? Perhaps many times. Maybe the cabins are actually places she’s comfortable moving around in.”

  “Don’t you think that if this man had done this before, Houston would have found other missing girls?”

  “Was he looking for other missing girls? Girls who might have gone missing months or even years ago, with no physical trait limitations?”

  “No, I guess not,” I admitted. “I suppose that might be something to look into, assuming Houston hasn’t already done so. If the cabins are hideouts along a route the man with the ski mask and the old woman with the food have traveled before, she might be able to get around even if she is blind. Or maybe Fran isn’t blind. Maybe she just has severely limited sight. Maybe she has cataracts that aren’t bad enough to cause her to be unable to see forms and images that are right in front of her but are bad enough so that she can’t see anything not directly in front of her face. That might allow her to move around carefully, but it might prevent her from noticing that the boy is following her if he keeps his distance.”

  I made a mental note to ask Houston about other missing girls. It seemed that if the cabins used were seasonal cabins, then the man must take and transport these girls during the winter when they were closed up.

  “So why do you think he’s following her but not offering to help?” Harley asked after a brief pause.

  “Maybe he doesn’t want her to know he’s there,” I answered. “Maybe he’s fascinated with the girls and wants to take a peek when the old woman feeds them but knows the old woman will be angry if he shows too much interest.”

  “I suppose that could be the case. If the boy is fifteen, he’s likely to be interested in the girls even if he is developmentally delayed or physically impaired in some way.”

  “Or,” I offered an alternative, “maybe he actually does know I’m in his head and is trying to show me what I need to know to help. Maybe he feels bad for the girls. Maybe he isn’t a willing participant in whatever is going on.”

  “If that were true, don’t you think he would have looked outside so you could see where they were or even jotted down a note for you to read through his eyes?”

  “I don’t know. I guess all we can do at this point is to speculate about what might be going on. I guess we’ll need to catch up with this odd group of kidnappers and ask the boy how he’s involved.”

  “I have faith that you’ll do just that,” Harley encouraged. “The Harmony Carson I know always closes the case.”

  I smiled. That wasn’t necessarily true, but I appreciated the vote of confidence.

  “So, how is the movie going?” I asked, changing the subject.

  “It’s going well. I think we’re actually ahead of schedule.”

  “That’s great. How’s Brando doing?”

  “He’s doing really well. The cast and crew love him. If I can’t be with him, someone always volunteers. He’s actually spent very little time inside the motorhome by himself.”

  “That’s great, Harley. I’m glad everything is working out for you.”

  “Well, maybe not everything,” he said.

  “Oh? What’s wrong?” I could sense that Harley was irritated more than anything else.

  “My agent decided that it would be a good idea to leak the news that my costar and I have been engaged in a steamy affair while on location. Nothing could be further from the truth. Loretta and I are friends. We’ve worked together before, so I guess you could say we are good friends. But only friends.”

  “Loretta? Are you working with Loretta London?”

  “Yeah. I thought I told you that.”

  I pictured the absolutely stunning redhead in my mind. “No. I don’t think you mentioned that. How does Loretta feel about the publicity stunt?”

  “Actually, she’s fine with it. She told me that having her name linked with mine can only help her career and even suggested that maybe we might want to play up the rumor with public displays of affection.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Are you going to do it? Publically pretend to date this woman?”

  “Absolutely not. I already have an undeserved reputation as a player that I’ve been trying to unwind. Being seen with Loretta off-screen is only going to perpetuate a stereotype I’d love to leave behind.”

  “It seems to me that this isn’t the first time you’ve been encouraged to fake an affair with a costar.”

  “It’s not.” He let out a long sigh. “I enjoy acting, but I’m really over all the drama that seems to go with it. I’m going to finish this movie, but then I think I’m going to take a long look at my life and my future.”

  “I suppose that’s a good thing to do every now and again even if you aren’t Harley Medford Superstar.”

  “I guess.” He paused and then changed the subject. “How are things going at the shelter?”

  I filled
him in on everything that had been going on, including the kittens who had literally been abandoned on our doorstep. Like me, he was glad they had been dumped there and not somewhere isolated where no one would have found them, but also like me, he wished whoever had abandoned them would have done so during business hours. We continued to chat for another twenty minutes or so, but he eventually informed me that he needed to head out for his afternoon shoot. I said my goodbyes and assured him that, while we all missed him, we’d make sure everything was taken care of during his absence.

  After I hung up with Harley, I grabbed my rifle and took my pack out for a walk. It was twilight, although we still had some time until the well-worn path would be difficult to navigate, so we set out for a brisk walk to the lake and back. I’d been noticing cougar tracks in the snow the past few days, so I made sure to keep the dogs close. Once we’d returned from our walk, I headed to the barn to clean stalls and cages. Between my shifts at Neverland, my work as a search-and-rescue volunteer, my volunteer shifts at the shelter, and the menagerie of animals I cared for on a daily basis, I had very little free time, and yet I really did love everything about my life and wouldn’t change a thing.

  After I was finished in the barn, I headed back to the house to make dinner and maybe read a few chapters of the book I’d been working on for weeks now but couldn’t seem to find the time to finish. By the time bedtime rolled around, I was exhausted. I really hoped I’d get another full night’s sleep, but the night I hoped for and the night I had, were two entirely different things.

  Chapter 8

  Tonight’s dream was similar to the dreams I’d been having the past couple of weeks. The cabin was a new one, yet it was similar to the others, although it seemed to be even more rustic than the others had been. The bricks backing the old woodstove were chipped and stained, and I didn’t notice any sort of fireplace other than an old woodstove that seemed to be doing double duty heating the cabin and heating the food in the cast iron pot.