Dangerous Deceptions: A Christian Romantic Suspense Boxed Set Collection

by Lisa Harris

  Except it didn’t, and the bear got closer, and the scream she’d been holding down pressed against her mouth. But she held it in.

  The bear came close enough that its terrible breath blew against her head and fingers. It smelled like rotten vegetables and dirt and probably dead animals and her strawberry Pop-Tarts.

  It growled.

  The scream got out. Just a little, like a squeak, but once it started, she couldn’t stop it.

  She screamed and screamed and screamed.

  The bear roared back, the sound echoing off the walls and mixing with her screaming and making a terrible sound.

  She covered her ears and screamed again.

  She was gonna be bear food.

  But the bear scrambled out of the cave.

  And Ella hid under her blankets and pulled them up over her head and cried.

  Where was Daddy? Why didn’t he come to save her?

  It felt like forever later when the man came back. He crept into the cave, flashlight bouncing on the walls and floor. It hit the box of gobbled food and paused there.

  Then, the light flashed in her eyes.

  She squinted and covered her face.

  “Maryann! What happened?”

  Her terror returned, and she screamed as if the bear had come back, letting out all the terror she’d been holding in for hours.

  The man scooped her up and held her close. And even though she hated him, and even though she knew she wasn’t his sister and she wanted to go home to Daddy and away from this terrible place, she buried her face in his chest and cried. She hated him, but she was happy to see him. Happy the man hadn’t been eaten by a bear, and she hadn’t either.

  “Can you tell me what happened?” he asked.

  “It was a b-bear.”

  “Oh, Maryann. How scary. I’m so sorry.” He sat on the floor and rocked her gently. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to protect you. You know I always try to protect you. From bears and bad guys and Mommy. You know I’ll never let anything happen to you.”

  “I wanna go home.”

  “We will. Soon, I promise. We’ll go to a new home where there are no bears and no caves, only beaches and waves, and I’ll never leave you again. It’s going to be perfect.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Cassidy had worried for hours.

  This could be the end of all of it. Ten years of running could end with a single phone call from James to the Coventry PD. When he’d called that morning and said he’d pick her up for the trek up Mt. Ayasha, she’d wanted to refuse to share the address of the cabin she’d rented. But this was James. Her James. He wouldn’t betray her.

  He hadn’t yet.

  Lord, please, please…

  Cassidy stared out the front window of the dingy cabin. Either James would show up or a whole bunch of cops would. She wished she knew him like she had in high school. She wished she could guess what he’d do.

  God had this all in His hand. The question was, what was He going to do with it?

  She could take off, disappear, and never return. But… Ella.

  The thought of that little girl, all alone, kept her rooted to the scratched linoleum floors, staring at the window, willing James to arrive.

  She’d collected some clothes and toiletries in the only backpack she owned, just in case James decided to come. Just in case they’d spend the night on the mountain. Her backpack wasn’t large enough for a sleeping bag, but that wouldn’t matter. It wasn’t as if she’d sleep.

  A glance at her watch told her it was six-fifty.

  Two minutes later, his old Jeep turned into the driveway and parked. She shoved a credit card and her keys in her jeans’ pocket—always prepared to run, just in case—and jogged outside, still half-expecting to see cops squeal in behind him. But the morning was quiet and peaceful.

  Backpack in hand, she made her way toward him.

  He stepped onto the gravel driveway. “That all you have?” he asked, nodding to her small pack.

  “I wasn’t sure what I needed.”

  She barely caught his smirk before he rounded the Jeep and opened the tailgate.

  She peeked through the Jeep’s windows. She’d spent a lot of time in its passenger seat in high school, and she let the memories fill her now, hoped to get past them. This would be weird enough without their past as an awkward third passenger.

  James hefted a huge backpack from the Jeep, the kind… Well, the kind backpackers wore. “Turn around. Let’s get it fit right.”

  “Whose is it?”

  “Mine.”

  He owned two backpacks, one sized for a woman? Perhaps this had belonged to James’s mother, and he hadn’t wanted to bring it up.

  James’s had always been an outdoorsy family. Did things like backpacking and camping and hiking together all the time. As she slipped the backpack on, she wondered if Mrs. Sullivan had ever gone backpacking or camping after Hallie’s death.

  “How’s it feel?”

  “Strangely comfortable,” she said.

  “I added some necessities.” He adjusted a few straps, then tugged on the back. “Think you can handle that?”

  The backpack, no problem. Going back up to the mountain—that was a different story.

  She emptied the contents of her little backpack into the larger one. Already in there were a sleeping bag, a small pillow, and a fleece sweatshirt. Apparently, he’d assumed she hadn’t brought anything warm enough. She did have a sweatshirt but conceded that the fleece would be better. There were also a few other things she didn’t recognize, backpacking accessories, no doubt.

  “Where’s your knife?” he asked.

  She looked up from where she crouched beside the packs. “What do you mean?”

  “You have to have a hunting knife.”

  “For what?”

  He shook his head. “Just… lots of things. What if you need to skin an animal? Or a fish? Or you need firewood or to make a sharp point on a limb for—”

  “Spearfishing?” She couldn’t help the teasing tone.

  “Just saying, you should never go into the woods without a good knife.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind for next time. This time, I presume you have one?” When he nodded, opening his mouth as if to continue the lecture, she said. “Do we need food?”

  He took her backpack and stowed it in the Jeep. “I got everything we need.” He slammed the tailgate shut. “Ready?”

  “I guess.”

  “Don’t sound so enthusiastic.”

  He rounded to the driver’s seat and climbed in.

  When they’d dated, he’d always opened her door for her. Silly that she’d think of that now, but there it was.

  When she was settled, he opened an Ayasha trail map and pressed it against the dash so they could both see. “Here’s the trailhead.” He pointed to the map. “Any idea where you’ve already explored?”

  She’d never been very good with maps. Or directions. She traced the trail. There was just the one. She pointed to where she thought she’d gone.

  “You’ve barely scratched the surface.” He folded the map and angled to face her. “Just… How do you know it was Ayasha, not Coventry or another mountain?”

  “I know the difference.”

  “I’m just saying… I don’t know what happened that day. If you drove over—”

  “I didn’t own a car.”

  “But you’re saying you and Hallie were taken. Were you put in a car?”

  “No. I took your sister for a walk. She said she wanted to go on the mountain, so we went that way. It’s something you and I did with her a lot. I didn’t think your parents would mind.”

  James pressed his lips together but said nothing.

  “We were on the trail, not very far up. It was deserted.”

  “It was cold.”

  “But sunny, and Hallie’d been cooped up—”

  “It’s fine. You took her for a walk. Then what?”

  “She was running ahead, and I… I fell beh
ind. I wasn’t… I thought we were alone. I thought we were safe there.”

  “And then, what? Someone snatched you?”

  “Her. He snatched her, and I followed, screamed for help. Screamed at him to put her down. But he didn’t. Just kept going.”

  “Did he have a weapon or something? Why did you stay with him? Why not run away?”

  “He had a gun. And then…” He’d had Hallie. If Cassidy had run, he might have hurt her. Even if she could have gotten away, how could she abandon Hallie to save herself?

  James didn’t want to hear the story, and, truth was, she didn’t want to get into that now. Not with him staring at her with his narrowed eyes, his suspicion. And what if he took the information as an invitation to ask more questions? She wasn’t prepared for that.

  James watched her, waiting for her to continue.

  Cassidy pulled her thoughts back to James and his original question. “We never got off Ayasha.”

  He paused, seemed to be waiting for more. “How long was the walk?”

  Forever and ever. Emotion clogged her throat at the memory. She breathed through it. James didn’t need that right now. She didn’t need it. When she could speak, she said, “We walked a long time. Stopped for the night, and he built a fire, tied us up, and told us to sleep. Not that we did. Then we walked a long distance again the next day.”

  With narrowed eyes, James studied her. “How did you think you could find it in one day?”

  “With your sister, progress was slow, really slow. We got started late, after six in the evening. I figure we hiked three hours that night, around four the next day. I was moving faster than we did back then. And I have more hours of daylight now that it’s summertime.”

  “And you’re scared to stay on the mountain alone.”

  Terrified. “I thought if I could get close, I could call the police, report something. Not as me, but anonymously. Lead them in the right direction.”

  “Why was progress slow? With the… the kidnapper?”

  “Your sister was little. She couldn’t move very fast, and she was crying and—”

  “Got it.” The grief on his face made her wish the words back. He took another map from the console and opened it. “This is Mt. Ayasha, and these”—he pointed to a tiny portion on the north side of the mountain—“are the trails. From what you said, you probably explored around this area.”

  She followed his finger. Seemed about right.

  “Obviously, there’s still a lot of ground to cover. Would you say you were climbing a lot or moving across level ground? Or even… do you remember going down?”

  “Climbing and level, I think. We never went down, at least not very far.”

  “Did you cross any roads? Any streams or rivers?”

  She considered the question. “There was a stream, but nothing so wide it was hard to get across. Of course, it was below freezing, and there was snow on the ground. It’s possible we crossed a frozen stream and didn’t realize it. There were no roads.”

  “What else?”

  She closed her eyes, forced herself back. “We had to go over rocks, like… like big boulders. There was one section he wanted us to climb, but Hallie couldn’t do it. Most of the time, he carried her, but he couldn’t carry her up that hill. We had to go around. Which I think must have taken longer. We left the trail right away, but it wasn’t like we were forging new ground. It was a path, a very narrow path. I had the impression he’d gone that way before, many times.” There’d been trees, trees, and more trees. Bare branches, stark against the snow-covered ground and gray skies. “Everything looked the same.”

  “When you walked in the morning, do you remember the position of the sun? Was it shining on you, or—”

  “Yes. Yes! There were thick clouds, but a few times the sun poked through.”

  He studied the map. “You must’ve been on the east side or the southeast side.”

  “That was until the snow started.”

  He looked up. “The snow didn’t start until late that afternoon. It rained most of the day.”

  “It didn’t rain on us. It was snow.”

  He gazed at the map again. “You must have climbed pretty high. Did you see the lake?”

  “Never in the morning. It might have been visible at night but—”

  “Too dark to see.” James tapped the map on the south side of the mountain. “There are some old logging roads over here. Let’s see if we can get started higher up.”

  About a half hour later, they turned off the state highway onto a narrow opening that most passersby would never see. Though the day was dry, about a quarter mile up, a stream cut across the road. James splashed through it and drove until it dead-ended in a wide opening.

  He used the area to turn around and headed back down.

  “Wait,” she said, “where are we going?”

  He was peering into the woods on both sides of the path. “We don’t want anyone to see the Jeep.”

  “But—”

  “Trust me, Cassidy.”

  He was trusting her—to a degree. It seemed the least she could do.

  She feared he would drive all the way back to the highway by the time he found a spot. Then he did, bumping between the trees and over the bracken, finally coming to a stop a good twenty yards from the road.

  “Somebody obviously uses that road,” he said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Otherwise, it’d be overgrown. Could be anybody, but we ought to assume this is the killer’s route.”

  The killer. The last thing she wanted was to run into him again.

  She touched the Glock in the holster at her waist. This time, she’d be able to defend herself.

  “What’s that?”

  She lifted her shirt to show him the pistol.

  His eyes widened. “You know how to use that?”

  “Of course.”

  “Back in high school, you were anti-gun all the way.”

  “I’ve since learned more than once how vulnerable I am.”

  He lifted his own T-shirt, and she got a glimpse of the handgun he carried there. “I wasn’t going to show you because I thought you’d be mad.”

  “Relieved, more like.”

  “Good.” They climbed from the Jeep, and James took the backpacks from the rear. Then, he reached for something else, something big and plastic and camo.

  A tarp.

  He pulled it over the Jeep, tying the corners to keep it in place.

  “You think of everything.”

  “Sullivan family motto: Be prepared.”

  “I think the Boy Scouts took that one.”

  He turned from his work, a smile tugging at one corner of his lips, and she got a brief glimpse of the boy James used to be.

  But the closed-off man was back immediately. “Ready?”

  She hefted her backpack and strapped it on as James had shown her at the house. “Ready.”

  James kicked leaves and twigs to cover his tire tracks, and they set off up the road.

  Already, he was considering things she’d never thought of. She let herself believe they might really do this. They might really rescue Ella, bring the kidnapper to justice. And then… And then she could be herself again. She wouldn’t have to live her life in hiding. She wouldn’t have to live with the guilt anymore.

  Except, the guilt wouldn’t go away, not until she told James everything. And maybe not even then.

  Chapter Thirteen

  At the top of the road, James walked to the edge of the clearing, looking for a path. On the first pass, he found nothing. He stepped into the woods and again circled the clearing until he saw some pressed-down leaves and needles. He was no tracker, but he knew the woods. He’d spent his life in the woods. With a little luck and a lot of divine help—the kind other people talked about but he’d never experienced—he might be about to figure out where… whoever’d been here had gone.

  From the clearing, Cassidy said, “What’d you find?”

&nbs
p; “It’s possible someone went this way.” James started walking. Another ten yards, and he saw a broken branch on the ground. And from there, a path opened up. James followed it, and Cassidy followed him.

  “Weird that the path starts way back here,” she said.

  “Maybe he takes different routes from the clearing so as not to show the way.”

  “Like he’s trying to keep it hidden.”

  “Assuming we’re following the kidnapper’s path. For all we know, we’re tracking a hunter. Heck, it could be someone scouting for good real estate. Could be kids.”

  “Kids wouldn’t work so hard to keep it hidden. Neither would someone looking to build a house.”

  True.

  Trees towered over them on every side. Pines, birches, oaks, and maples. The leaves and needles beneath them cushioned and quieted their steps. The slope was gentle at first but grew steeper. They walked in silence, the melody of the forest the only sound. Birds twittering, twigs snapping, animals skittering about. The rustle of leaves, the sway of branches in the breeze above. The weather would warm into the eighties today, but the higher they went, the cooler it would be.

  They reached a stream, and he stopped and pulled out his phone. No service here, but GPS still tracked his location. He checked his coordinates on his screen, then checked the paper map he’d stuck in his back pocket and made a note.

  “Whatcha doing?”

  “We need to track our route. If we find her, we’ll need to tell authorities where she is. If we don’t, we’ll need to know where we’ve been so we don’t cover the same ground.”

  “It’s like you’ve done this before. I’m impressed.”

  A wash of pleasure bubbled up, but he tamped it down. He wasn’t here to impress Cassidy. He wasn’t here to feel anything for her.

  He folded the map and shoved it back into his pocket. “I thought it through last night, tried to figure the most efficient way to do this.”

  “Smart. I was just looking at landmarks and trying to remember. Of course, I’d never have even found this road, so we’re already way ahead of where I’d be by myself.”

  He looked beyond the towering trunks to the blue sky. “Except you said sunlight reached you.” He gazed at the shade all around them.