“He was hurting Dad. He was hurting me. It was all there in front of me. I told you that’s why I had to stay with him.”
“Yes, you did. Just not in detail.” She had to ask him. “You said you’d know if Svardak was hurting your dad. You would have told me?”
He nodded. “He didn’t do anything more to him.” He paused. “But he didn’t wake up.”
She inhaled sharply. “What?”
“He’s not dead,” he said quickly. “That man, Abrams, might have done something, but I don’t think … Dad’s feeling hot, and his wound is hurting.”
“Fever,” Eve whispered. “Infection.”
He nodded. “I guess it might be. Svardak had his nail digging in that wound.”
She shuddered at the vision those words brought. “We have to get him out of there.” But they weren’t even sure where Svardak was keeping Joe. She could only pray that Jock and Cara could move fast enough to locate him if they failed to do it.
“How long will it be before we get to Lake Kedrow?” Michael asked.
She glanced at the GPS. “About an hour and a half. But Hunter’s Lake is thirty minutes closer than Kedrow.”
“I’m sorry that I couldn’t help more,” Michael said. “I should have been able to do this better. What if I’m wrong?”
“Don’t say that,” she said. “Do you believe you’re wrong?”
“No.”
“Then I trust you, and you’ll have to trust me. There has to be a reason that you were able to reach out to your dad. That means that it has to be a way to save him.” She swallowed to ease the tightness of her throat. Everything he’d said to her had frightened her. But in a world that had given her Bonnie, then Michael, she had to believe that Joe would not be taken from her. Not when they needed him so desperately. “This is alien territory for both of us. It will only work out if we do it together. Okay?”
“Sure.” Michael’s smile was gently luminous. “Okay.” He leaned back and gazed out the window at the mountains again. “Together.”
* * *
Darkness …
No, not complete darkness, Joe thought hazily. There was a warm, golden cast that lightened it to the shade of deepest honey.
“Wake up, Dad. Mom got really scared when I told her that you weren’t awake yet. I need to tell her you’ve come back.”
Michael …
He stiffened.
Michael shouldn’t be here. Svardak! He struggled to open his eyes, to tell him to get out of here. He couldn’t do either, dammit. And he’d been talking about Eve. Did that mean Eve was here, too? God in heaven, she must not—
“Mom’s not here,” Michael said. “I guess I’m not really here either.” He thought about it. “Yes, I am, but I’m in your head. Is that all right?”
“No, it probably means I’m going a little crazy. Or maybe it’s okay if neither you nor Eve is here. You’re sure she’s not here?”
“I’m sure. Right now she’s driving us to try to find the lake you were standing beside before you came to this place.” He paused. “But I wish you’d show it to me again. We have to find it right away, Dad.”
“Too tired.”
“That’s because you have a fever. But we really have to know. What’s the name of the lake?”
“It doesn’t matter … I shouldn’t even be talking. They’ll hear and come back and find you.”
“You’re not talking. No one can hear you, but me. Isn’t that cool?”
“Very cool.” He could feel himself smiling. Michael always thought that anything new and different was cool. It was one of the things he loved most about his son. Every day was a new discovery waiting to happen.
“But every day is like that for you, too, Dad,” Michael said. “You taught me that I could learn to do anything, be anything if I stayed open to everything around me. That was pretty cool, too.”
“But I don’t believe I taught you to do this.” Joe was attempting to break through the haze that kept ebbing and flowing around him. “Or maybe Eve did? This is a dream, isn’t it?”
“Sort of. But it’s the kind that can help you. We have to get you out of here. They’re … hurting you.”
“Are you crying, Michael? You never cry.”
“I never saw anybody hurt you before. It mustn’t happen again, Dad.”
“I’ll try to oblige you. However, there are … a few roadblocks that might appear … on the horizon.” He paused. Everything around him was strange and disjointed and he wasn’t sure what was happening, but he could sense his son’s worry and unhappiness. Why couldn’t he help him? He’d always been able to help or guide Michael. But if he couldn’t help him, he had to get him away from any threat. “I think it might be … a good idea if you left here. I’ll be fine. You know I’m always fine.”
“Yes, I know that.” He cleared his throat. “But let us help you this time. All we need to know is a couple things; and then I’ll get out of here. Okay?”
“No, it’s not okay. I think I hear Abrams and Svardak outside. I want you out of here now.”
“I tell you that it won’t make any difference.” He paused. “But if you hear them, then you must be pretty close to waking up. Will you open your eyes and let me see everything that you’re seeing, hear everything you do?”
“Too hard…”
“Nothing is too hard for you. We need it, Dad.”
Then, of course, he had to give it to them. He had to give them everything they needed. Concentrate. Get rid of that damn cloudy mist, banish the searing heat that was scorching his body. He couldn’t do it for long, but Michael needed it …
He struggled to open his eyes. So damn hard …
Once …
Twice …
“You’re going to owe me for this, Michael.”
“I do owe you. For everything. Just a little more…”
And then his eyes were open, and the room was swimming before them. “Not worth it. Not much to see here.” He could hear Svardak’s and Abram’s voices humming like bees in the background. “Enough?”
“Give me another minute.”
“Too long.”
“I might have enough. That door over there … And are those handcuffs like the ones you usually use?”
“Close enough. Go away, Michael.” His lids were shutting again. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but keep your mother out of it. I told you to take care of her.”
“I’m trying. Things happened.”
“Don’t try, do it.”
“Yes, Dad. But it will be easier when you come home, so we have to find a way for you to do it. You work on it, and I will, too. You just rest, and I’ll see you soon…”
The darkness was no longer dark honey but a deeper black now. Michael was gone. It was good that he was no longer here, he thought. There was danger, and Joe still couldn’t be sure that it had only been a dream and not reality.
But now Michael was safe again because only the memory and the loneliness remained with Joe …
* * *
“Mom.”
“We’re almost there, Michael,” Eve said without looking at him. “Maybe another ten minutes until we get to Hunter’s Lake. You were so quiet, I thought you’d nodded off to sleep.” She glanced at him. “Is that what—” She broke off as she saw his expression. “Michael?” She reached out tentatively and touched his tear-wet cheek. Tears? She couldn’t remember the last time Michael had cried. But now everything in the world had changed. She froze. “What’s wrong? What happened? Is it your dad? Is he—”
“No,” Michael said quickly. “He’s still sick, but he woke up for a few minutes. And no one is hurting him.”
Relief flooded her. “Thank God.” She drew a deep breath. “You scared me.”
He nodded. “I know you’ve been afraid. That’s why I had to try to make it better for you. We had to know about him. I thought I could do it.” He wiped his cheeks with the back of his hands. “And I did do it, but I’m not used to Dad’s being
sick. I wanted to let him rest, but we had to know stuff and he had to tell—”
“Michael, slow down.” She pulled over to the side of the road. “First, I’m going to assume that my speech about doing everything together fell on deaf ears?”
“You were so scared, I could feel it. I thought if I’d reached him before, that I’d probably be even better at it now and I’d be able to—”
“But you didn’t expect that seeing your dad sick would throw you for a loop,” she interrupted. She had to know the worst about Joe. “Skip to the chase. How sick is he?”
“I don’t know. It’s the fever, like we thought. He was burning up, and he couldn’t think straight. I tried to tell him what I was doing there, but he couldn’t understand.”
“What a surprise,” she said unsteadily. “He’s burning up with fever, and you expect him to comprehend that you’ve dropped in to pay him a visit that’s purely psychic in nature. Not to mention that he has no idea you’re even capable of it? It was hard for me to handle, and I had all my senses.”
“I think he still knew what I was talking about part of the time. He’s so smart, Mom.” His eyes were glistening with tears again. “And all I had to do was tell him that we needed him, and he did what I asked.”
“Yes, I can see how he would.” Keep control. Michael was upset enough. “What did you ask him? Something about the lake?”
“I asked him the name, but he didn’t answer me. He only wanted me to go away because he was afraid Svardak would know I was there. He didn’t understand that it wouldn’t— And he kept talking about taking care of you and how I had to leave.” He stopped. “So I knew I had to find out another way. I asked him to wake up so that I could see what he saw.” He swallowed. “It was so hard for him, Mom. I hated it.”
“Then make it worth what he went through to give it to you.” She paused. “Tell me it was worthwhile?”
“I think so. I thought there might be a photo of the lake somewhere in the room with a name, but there wasn’t. But there was another photo that was on the desk of a man in a brown uniform with an older man and woman standing on either side of him. They looked happy and kind of proud. Like you do when I do something good in soccer.” He was frowning with concentration. “And I found out about the cross. It was on the glass door leading out to the porch. It was a red cross with black letters, and below it said Officially Certified Facility.”
“Red Cross,” Eve said. “Facility.” She could feel the excitement start to simmer. “And that’s where they’re keeping Joe?”
“A hospital?”
“Maybe. But in the wilderness it would more likely be a mobile facility like the ones the Red Cross uses in disasters.”
He shook his head. “On the news they look all small and cramped. The room where they’re holding Dad didn’t look like that. There was even a leather couch.”
“What else?”
“Just the photo.” He had another thought. “And a map on the wall with bears all over it.”
“Bears,” Eve murmured. “Not exactly the usual decorative accessory for a Red Cross facility. Anything else?”
“I asked about his handcuffs, and he said they were kind of like his, so you’ll probably know how to get them open. But I didn’t notice anything else in that room. Nothing that he saw. But he heard Svardak and Abrams talking out on the porch, that’s why he wanted me to go. They were still talking when Dad woke for those couple minutes.”
“And?”
“Svardak was cursing about someone named Edding. That’s all, Mom.” His eyes were big as he stared at her. “Is it enough? Maybe I could go back and ask Dad to help us again. But he was so sick, and I didn’t—”
“No.” She pulled him into her arms. “You did fine. We’ll make it enough. We just have to pull it all together.” But her mind was at a loss how to do that at the moment.” She hugged him tightly, then let him go. The Red Cross. The photo of the man in uniform. A map with bears.
“But you have to do something else for me.” She handed him his notebook. “You have a great memory. Can you draw me a picture of that man in uniform in that photo? Every detail?”
He nodded. “Piece of cake.”
There was nothing resembling a piece of cake in this scenario, Eve thought. She was just glad she’d been able to give Michael something useful to do while she tried to put the rest of the pieces together. “With all due speed,” she said as she drove back on the road. “In the meantime, I’ll keep on the road toward those lakes. Maybe looking at Hunter’s Lake will cause something to click into place for you, and we won’t need to worry about soldiers or bears.”
CHAPTER
15
They reached Hunter’s Lake ten minutes later. Eve sat there for a few moments gazing out at the lake. Michael was still frantically drawing his picture, and she didn’t want to disturb him.
It was a beautiful lake, with all the purple shadows and deep green shimmer of water that moved with the wind.
But was it the right lake?
She wasn’t going to ask Michael at the moment. Give him a little more time. He’d already gone through enough during the last twenty-four hours. She unfastened her seat belt and got out of the car. She didn’t know if Michael even knew she had left him. He was totally absorbed in his sketch.
She walked over to the edge of the cliff and looked down at the curving lake that ended in a stretch of forest. That sounded right from what Michael had told her. There was no house, but it might be hidden by a curve in the lake. She would just have to rely on—
“Here it is, Mom.”
She turned around to see Michael coming toward her with his notebook in his hand.
“I think it’s pretty good.” He handed her the notebook. “He looks like a nice guy, doesn’t he? And it’s a neat uniform. Is he a soldier?”
She took the notebook. It was more than pretty good. Michael had given her all the detail she could have possibly wanted. The uniformed man did look like a nice guy and was probably not more than in his early twenties in the photo. Her gaze traveled from his face down to the uniform Michael thought was neat.
She inhaled sharply.
“Mom?” Michael’s gaze was on her face. “Did I do okay?”
She couldn’t take her eyes off that uniform. “More than okay.” She turned on her heel and ran back to the car. “You couldn’t have done better.” She handed him back his notebook and reached hurriedly for her phone. “And that means we have a lot of work to do.”
RUELL FALLS
“It’s Eve,” Cara said as she glanced at the cell ID. “They should have reached Hunter’s Lake by now, Jock. Maybe we’ve got a break.” She accessed the call. “You’re at Hunter’s Lake? Is it yes or no for us?”
“No, we’re not at Hunter’s Lake,” Eve said quickly, and Cara could hear the excitement in her voice. “It was the wrong one. But we definitely have a yes, Cara. Right now, I’m standing on a bank of Lake Kedrow and staring at a three-story A-frame building that looks like the roof is part of a tree house. Is that weird enough for you?”
Cara went still. “You found it?”
“Michael and I found it. I would never have seen the house if I hadn’t been looking for it. It’s tucked in one of the coves and surrounded by trees. I would have wasted precious time on searching Hunter’s Lake, first, if Michael hadn’t steered me in another direction.”
“Then Michael managed to identify this lake?”
“No, that didn’t work out. He had to go another route.” She hesitated. Then she drew a deep, shaky breath. “And I don’t have time to go into all the details with you now. Joe is sick, and I don’t know how bad he is. We have to get him out of that house before Svardak kills him.”
“You’re certain you’ve found him?” Jock asked gently. “You’re not making much sense, Eve.”
“Do you think I don’t realize that, Jock? Yes, I’m sure that’s where Svardak is holding Joe. I even made the calls to verify the uniform.”
“Okay, I’ll slow down. Michael drew me a sketch of a photo of a young man in a brown uniform that was on the desk in the room where Joe is being held. Michael thought he might have been a soldier, but when I saw it I knew he wasn’t. I’d seen similar uniforms in the forests south of Atlanta. We have a rich forestry industry in Georgia, and the forests are patrolled by the U.S. National Forest Service. You must have seen some of the rangers, too, Cara.”
“A few. Though I spent most of my time at the lake cottage or studying in New York.”
“Well, that photo was of a forest ranger. Michael also said there was a map on the wall with bears all over it. Who would be more likely to have a map tracking bear migration? Or a Red Cross first-aid facility at the station to treat injured hikers and tourists?”
“My God,” Cara whispered. “You actually found him.”
“Michael found him. I only verified. That sketch Michael drew was incredibly accurate down to the ID badge the ranger wore in that photo. R. Billings. I called the U.S. National Forest Service in Charleston and asked if they had a ranger station in this area. They did, and I’m looking at it now. Lake Kedrow. The two rangers who run it are Bob Duggan and Randy Billings. They haven’t reported in for a few days, but that’s not too unusual at this time of year.” She paused. “But I don’t think they’ll ever report in again, Cara. Svardak told me that he’d had some young fool take care of his wound because he couldn’t go to a hospital. That man in the photo looked so young and happy. And Michael said there was another man and a woman in the photo with him and they looked proud of him. I think it might have been when he got his first job with the Forest Service.” She cleared her throat. “I’m sending a copy of Michael’s sketch to you. Along with a photo of the ranger station and Lake Kedrow. I’ll leave it up to you to get what else you need and whip together a plan to use them. I didn’t mention what I thought was happening at that station to those clerks in that Forestry Office in Charleston. All we need is for the police to come barreling down here in full force and get Joe killed.” Her voice was suddenly hard and fierce. “Even though it’s what I want to do. I’d like to blow the whole place into a million pieces. If Svardak doesn’t kill Joe outright, then he’ll just let the damn fever do it. I’m not going to let that happen.”
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