by Kathi Daley
Houston knocked, instructing me to stand off to the side. When no one answered, he tried the knob. It was locked. There were snowmobile tracks everywhere, so even though all the windows were boarded up, it was obvious someone had been here recently. If the person who was staying in the cabin was simply a hunter who was out and would return, he was going to be angry if we damaged the place, but Houston and I both knew we couldn’t leave without looking inside, so he shot out the lock and kicked in the door.
The first thing I noticed was the stench. The second thing I noticed was the old woman who’d been feeding the girls, still sitting in the same chair she’d been sitting in during both my visits yesterday.
“She’s dead,” I said, taking a few steps into the interior for a better look. “I’d say she’s been gone for around twenty-four hours. Both times I made contact yesterday, I could see her sitting exactly like this in this chair.” I glanced down the hallway. There was no one else in this part of the cabin, so I assumed that the group fled, but we did need to check. Houston and I headed down the hallway, checking the rooms beyond the doors, but all were empty.
“Do you think he killed her?” I asked after we returned to the front porch to escape the smell of decomposition.
“I don’t know for certain, but it didn’t look as if she met with violence,” Houston said. “She was an old woman. The man with the ski mask has been dragging her around in the cold for at least two weeks. Chances are she fell ill and passed naturally.” He pulled the door closed. “When we get back to town, I’ll contact local law enforcement. They can send someone out to retrieve the body.”
I blew out a breath of frustration. “So what do we do now?”
“I guess we need to regroup. I hate to ask this of you, but it might help us to know where the group went off to if you can to connect with the boy again.”
“Yeah.” I sighed. “I thought of that. Let’s head back to the truck, and I’ll give it a try.”
We called the dogs to ride with us the entire way on the return trip to the truck, making the return trip a bit faster than the trip out to the cabin had been. Once we were settled inside, Houston cranked the heater up, and I closed my eyes and tried to focus. At first, I got nothing. Not an emotion. Not a flash of memory. Nothing. But I kept at it even though my head felt as if it was going to split in two, and I eventually began to pick up on a distinct feeling of fear and uncertainty.
I could still feel Jeremy blocking me. I really needed to work with him. He’d shut me out when I’d envisioned Laura, so I tried to bring Lily to mind. Hopefully, Lily was still alive and still with them. Hopefully, Jeremy still wanted to help her.
“I have something,” I whispered, afraid of breaking the link but wanting to let Houston know not to speak to me from that point forward.
I sensed the feeling of fear and latched on. It was difficult to know how to communicate with the boy since he apparently didn’t understand words. Usually, I’d simply “say” what I wanted to say to those I connected with, but I had to think in images with Jeremy. I thought about the cabin we’d just left. I thought about the old woman in the chair. I thought about the empty rooms and hoped he was picking up on my fear in relation to those empty rooms.
I pictured Lily. I visualized her being free to run to her mother, whose image I’d never actually seen, so I had to create a woman in my mind that could be Lily’s mother. I hoped that Jeremy would pick up on my hope and longing. I hoped he’d start to trust me.
Eventually, I felt the wall he’d erected begin to break down. I could feel both his fear and his longing to help Lily. She was the key, so I really focused in on her. I was eventually able to see Lily sitting by a fire that had been built outdoors. She was sitting on a log that was lying across the top of the snow. I was pretty sure they were out in the forest somewhere in the area, but all I could see was snow and trees, making it impossible to hone in on a location.
I desperately tried to see some sort of landmark, but the tree cover was too dense. Eventually, Jeremy must have realized this, and he must have wanted help since he fed me a memory. One of his memories.
I watched as a middle-aged man, built like Goliath, came into the cabin. He saw the old woman in the chair and said something to the boy whose memory I was sharing. I, of course, couldn’t hear what he’d said since Jeremy couldn’t hear what he said, but I got the gist of things as the man went down the hallway and came back with the dark-haired girl. Jeremy must have followed the man outside because his memory showed him following the man. There was another girl, bound and gagged on the back of the snowmobile. Chances are that his reason for being at the cabin was to deliver the third girl while he prepared the others for transport. The middle-aged man said something to Jeremy, which, again, neither of us could hear, but Jeremy seemed to understand that he wanted him to wait with the first girl while he moved the other two to another location. He seemed to know that the man intended to come back for him and the first girl, who we now knew was named Lily.
After the middle-aged man left with the girl with the dark hair and the new girl, Jeremy decided to take Lily. He tossed her a bunch of clothes, and she seemed to know to bundle up. The boy took her hand and then began dragging her away from the cabin. I supposed she may have been exhausted and lagging behind because, after a bit, he picked her up. Jeremy continued for quite a while before he finally stopped and made a fire.
“He’s on foot,” I said, which unfortunately broke the connection. That was okay since I knew what to do. “We need to go back,” I said, pulling on my outerwear. “Jeremy has Lily in the forest. They were on foot. The dogs can find them. I have a feeling if we don’t find them, neither of them will make it through the night.”
We loaded the dogs onto the snowmobiles and then headed back to the cabin as fast as we could safely travel. Once we arrived at the cabin, I grabbed one of the blankets that the girls had been sleeping on since the blanket would provide the girls’ scent to the dogs. I knew the middle-aged man would eventually come back to the cabin for Jeremy and Lily. At least I hoped he would. Maybe we could catch him if he did. Of course, he may have already returned and found the cabin empty and then left again to return to wherever the two girls he still had and must have locked up were.
I really wanted to find the kidnapper and the two girls he still had, but at this moment, the most important thing was to locate Jeremy and Lily before they froze to death.
I let the dogs sniff the blanket, telling them repeatedly, “This is Lily; find Lily.” Once the dogs understood what I was asking and were on the move, and we followed them.
Luckily, the dogs managed to pick the trail up right away. The snow was deep, but since the snow hadn’t fallen recently, it had settled and iced up, making it easier for the dogs to walk on. Houston and I followed the dogs with the snowmobiles as best we could. It seemed like the dogs wound themselves in and out of the trees in a random pattern that didn’t make a lot of sense, but in the vision Jeremy had shared, he and Lily had been running away from the cabin and the eventual return of the man with the ski mask, so I supposed putting distance between themselves and the cabin, was more important than arriving at any sort of preconceived destination.
We’d actually made it pretty far before I noticed haze from the fire they’d built that currently marred the sky. Right after I noticed the smoke, the dogs barked and took off running. I heard someone who I assumed was Lily scream for help. Within minutes, we had both Jeremy and Lily on the snowmobiles, with the dogs following behind as we made our way back to the truck.
Chapter 12
It took a bit longer to make it back to the truck with the dogs on foot, but they were young, energetic dogs who actually managed to keep up quite nicely. When we arrived at the truck, Houston loaded up the snowmobiles while I started the truck and got the heater going. Jeremy opted to sit in the back, and both dogs jumped in beside him, so I wrapped Lily up in a blanket and settled her onto the front passenger seat. Once the snowmobiles were l
oaded, I climbed in through the driver’s side door and sat in the middle, and then Houston climbed in beside me. Once the radio in Houston’s truck was in range, he called to the town where we’d been staying and let local law enforcement know about the body we’d discovered, who we had with us, and that we were on our way in. We didn’t have cell reception and wouldn’t until we got closer to town, so the police officer Houston spoke to assured him that he’d call Lily’s parents.
During the drive back, Jeremy was predictably quiet, although I could tell that he was relieved that Lily was safe. He was a huge boy who, while only fifteen, was as tall and stocky as any fully-grown man I’d ever met. While Jeremy sat silently during the long drive back to the inn, Lily was a regular chatterbox once she’d warmed up. I had to admit that the girl was resilient. She’d just been through a terrifying ordeal, but once she got started sharing her story, her overall tone and approach seemed almost animated.
She started her story at the beginning. She told us about being approached from behind and never seeing who grabbed her before waking up in a cold and drafty cabin. She talked about how terrified she’d been during those first days. She thought for sure the man who’d taken her was going to kill her or worse, but after a couple of days with no sight of him, she began to relax. After several days, she wasn’t sure how many, Bella showed up, and they moved to a different cabin. She shared that she tried to make things easier on Bella by assuring her that no one seemed interested in hurting them. At least not immediately. She’d overheard a man talking outside the room she’d been locked in the first time they’d stopped. She didn’t hear everything he said, and she didn’t know who he was talking to, but he mentioned something about needing three. Lily assumed that the man meant three girls, and she decided then and there that until they had three, they were probably safe, so she decided to center her attention on finding a way to escape. The old woman who delivered the food never hurt her, nor did she ever talk to her, but the boy who followed along on her visits seemed interested, so she decided to try to connect with him. When she was afforded the chance to do so, she’d make eye contact and then smile at him. He never said a word to her, but he eventually began to seek her out, and over time, he even began to smile back.
She asked about Bella, and I told her that she was safe at home with her parents. Then I asked her to tell me about what had happened in the last twenty-four hours that led to her being out in the woods with Jeremy. When I said Jeremy’s name, she turned her head, looked behind her, and smiled at him. He shyly smiled back.
“The old woman who’d been feeding us made me leave with her and Jeremy, but we left Bella behind. I guess there wasn’t room for everyone.” She paused. “I’m glad you found her. When she wasn’t with us, I was afraid that they’d killed her.”
I took Lily’s hand and gave it a squeeze in an offer of support and encouragement to continue.
“After we met up with the man with the ski mask, he took Emily and then moved us to the cabin where you found us. I knew he needed three, and at that point, he only had two, so I wasn’t surprised when he turned up with another girl today. I expected that they’d toss her in with Emily and me, or maybe they’d take all three of us to another location, but instead, a man, who I was sure was the man in the ski mask, although today he didn’t have a ski mask, came in and grabbed Emily and me. At first, he was going to try to take all of us at the same time, but I guess he realized that wouldn’t work, so he told Jeremy to watch me. He tied my hands and shoved me toward the cabin before he put the girl he’d brought with him, who was still tied up, and Emily on his snowmobile and left. Jeremy was supposed to take me back inside, and he did at first, but when I saw that the old woman who’d been bringing the food was dead, I totally freaked out. Jeremy wanted to calm me down, but I wanted to leave. I think he knew that since he had me bundle up and took my hand. He led me out into the forest. I was scared because we were heading out on foot, but the alternative, which was to wait for the man to come back, seemed worse, so I tried to keep up with him. Eventually, he picked me up and carried me. After we were far enough away from the cabin, he stopped and built a fire. It was then that you found us.”
“Do you know if the man with the ski mask ever came back for you?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t know. We left right after he did.”
“Did anyone mention the name of the third girl he brought with him today?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“Do you know where the man who took you was heading?” Houston jumped in.
She shook her head. “No. I don’t know. He wasn’t around much. He would only show up to drop someone off or move us, and even then, he rarely spoke to us.”
“Did the old woman with the food ever mention anything that might provide a clue about where they were heading?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No. She never spoke to us the entire time we were being held.”
Lily continued to chat with us, answering all the questions she could as we continued to head south. By the time we’d arrived in town and had taken Lily and Jeremy to the inn where the local police were supposed to meet us, it had been determined that the girl on the snowmobile who Lily had seen that morning was probably Irene Bowman. Irene had been missing from town since the previous afternoon.
“If the man with the ski mask has Emily and Irene, then he has two,” Lily said. “I doubt he’ll wait to take a third girl.” Her voice rose just a bit. “You need to find him. You need to find him before he gets three.”
“We will,” I promised her, even though I really had nothing to base that promise on.
I had to admit that Lily was a real trooper. When a man who introduced himself as Officer Preston sat her down and began asking her questions, she jumped right in with articulate answers that far exceeded the sort of response one might expect from a girl her age. Not only was the girl obviously bright, but Lily had spunk and confidence not always found in someone so young. I had the feeling that whatever she chose to do in life, she was going to be hugely successful.
Once the police had interviewed Lily, they turned their attention to Jeremy, but he, of course, couldn’t speak. I could see that Officer Preston was becoming frustrated with the mute teenager, so I asked everyone to leave Jeremy and me alone for a few minutes. I figured that if I could connect with him, we could communicate that way. He didn’t hesitate to let me in this time. I imagined the man who fit the description Bella had given us. I shrugged and then pointed to a map. Jeremy looked at the map and then pointed to a small town on the sea named Barron.
“The man is taking the girls to Barron?” I asked, even though I knew the boy couldn’t hear me. He must have “heard” my intent because he pointed at the map again. He closed his eyes and imagined the man Bella had described as well as two other men. He imagined them taking the girls and putting them on a small cargo plane.
“The man with the ski mask is taking the girls to Barron,” I said again, only this time it was a statement and not a question.
After I shared my belief with Houston that the man with the girls was taking them to meet up with someone who would transport them wherever they were being sent, he called and gave the Barron PD a heads up. Then he got on the phone and began looking for a private plane to take us north.
Lily’s parents were making plans to come for her, but we really weren’t sure what to do with Jeremy. As far as I was concerned, he was a victim rather than an accomplice, but because he’d often been alone with the girls and could probably have found a way to act sooner, things were murky. Still, Houston agreed that he didn’t want to leave him in jail with local law enforcement or return him to his abusive father, so in the end, I called Jake and Dani. Dani agreed to fly Jake and Wyatt to the town where we were staying, and Jake would take over custody of Jeremy until we got back, and Wyatt would drive Houston’s truck back to Rescue.
When Dani and Jake showed up, Jeremy seemed terrified, but Lily helped me con
vince him that going with them was the best thing for him, so he willingly went along when directed to do so. He seemed a bit less terrified when it was decided that Lily would go with Jake and Dani in the chopper and meet up with her parents in Rescue.
“I found a plane,” Houston said after we’d seen Dani off with Jake, Jeremy, and Lily. Wyatt and the dogs were going to stay in one of the rooms we’d already paid for and make the drive back to Rescue tomorrow.
“Can he take us tonight?”
“He can. I told him we’d meet him at the airfield in an hour.”
“Do you really think we can find this guy and the girls he has with him before it’s too late?”
“I’m going to try. I have my men meeting with Jake and Jeremy when they get back. I’m hoping that if Jeremy looks through a book of mug shots, he’ll recognize someone. Or maybe they can get him to draw the man he was with or the man he was planning to meet. Barron is a small town. If he’s there, we’ll find him.”
I thought about the little town, which was shrouded in twenty-four hours of darkness during this time of the year. I realized that finding a specific man I’d never seen before in a town without daylight was not going to be an easy thing to do. Still, he was traveling with at least two girls. Three if he’d snagged one to replace Lily. How many middle-aged men could there be in this tiny northern town with two or three preteen girls tagging along with him?
