by Lisa Harris
“We’d started from a different place. It’s not going to feel familiar for a while.”
“Good point.”
They followed the stream, which climbed and circled toward the east. Brightness beckoned them forward.
“What made you decide to come with me?” Cassidy asked.
The path he’d been following—hardly a path, but it had seemed the right way—suddenly ended. In front of him, a boulder. The stream to one side, to the other…
Trees.
“What is it?”
“Lost the trail.”
She stepped up beside him, then passed him and rounded the rock that was taller than she was. He followed, saw no sign of a path.
He hopped over the stream and looked around, but again, no sign of anybody having gone that way.
Had the kidnapper—or whoever—stopped here? Was the boulder their destination?
James looked down but saw nothing to recommend this place over any other. No beautiful vista. Just forest all around.
“Could he walk in the stream?” Cassidy stared up the mountain, and he followed her gaze.
“Staying hidden worth wet feet?”
“If you’re a kidnapper.”
Good point. He hopped back over to her side.
They’d walked ten minutes when she asked, “You going to answer my question?”
He’d hoped she’d forget. “I figured I had three options. I could turn you in, pretend I hadn’t seen you, or go with you.”
“Three good choices,” she said.
“Not really. My best friend’s kid is missing, so pretending I hadn’t seen you wasn’t going to work.”
“You could have turned me in.”
“Except I think you’re right. I think everybody believes you’re behind the kidnappings.”
“Whoever did it is trying to make it look like it was me.”
“If they’d caught you and you’d told them about the cave—”
“I’ve told them. Twice. They haven’t looked. Though I never called it a cave. It felt like a cave, but it wasn’t, not really. Just boulders positioned so that there’s space beneath. Giant rocks with space under them.”
“Whatever you called them, they’ve looked,” James said. “Just haven’t found anything.”
They walked in silence for a few minutes, and James hoped the conversation was over. But then she disturbed the silence once again.
“You believe I’m innocent?”
He clenched his jaw. “Innocent is a strong term.”
She grabbed his biceps. He could have easily shrugged her off, but instead he turned and faced her.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.
“Why’d you run?”
“I told you. I was afraid they wouldn’t believe me. I was afraid—”
“Guilty people run. Innocent people don’t. It’s that simple.”
She dropped her hand. “Nothing is that simple.”
“What were you afraid of?”
She shook her head and trudged past him.
“What?”
She said nothing.
He followed her. “Come on, Cassidy. What aren’t you telling me?”
“Two days ago, you said you didn’t want to hear it. Now you do?”
He started to respond but held his tongue.
She turned, arms crossed. “Well, do you or don’t you?”
“I do. But… Not right now.”
She swiveled and started climbing again. “You have no right to distrust me when you refuse to hear the story.”
“Do you want to tell it?”
He followed as she climbed. “I need you to understand.”
He wanted to understand, but not right now. Not yet. When they weren’t moving. When he wouldn’t be distracted. When he could focus and study her face and weigh her words.
“Let’s talk about the kidnapper,” he suggested. “What can you tell me about him?”
“He wore a thick parka, but I got the sense he was slender underneath it.” Her words were measured, emotionless. “He was tall, but not…” She turned, glanced at James. “How tall are you?”
“About five-eleven.”
“I think he was taller than you.”
“How old?”
She grabbed a tree trunk and hoisted herself up a small rise. “He wore a mask.”
“The whole time you were with him? That’s weird.”
He climbed up behind her and saw she’d stopped and turned to face him. “Why?”
James thought back to Cassidy’s words Monday evening. “You said he planned to kill you, right?”
“I said he didn’t expect me to be there.” She started hiking again. “I thought he’d kill me. But… I don’t think he planned any of it. I think it was… It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. He saw Hallie, he snatched her, and then I came along and—”
“Then why the mask?”
“I guess he didn’t want Hallie to see his face, either.”
“No, I mean… If he didn’t plan to kidnap you guys, why would he have a mask?”
“I don’t know. How would I know?”
“It doesn’t make sense.”
“It was cold. People wear ski masks when it’s cold.” She skirted a huge rock blocking her way and climbed the gentle rise beside it.
“It’s not that I doubt you.” He did, but it wasn’t only that. “I’m just trying to understand.”
“Okay.”
The stream beside them went from gentle to quick, falling over stones and terrain in mini-waterfalls.
Above him, Cassidy stopped and looked up. “Not sure this is the best route.”
He followed her gaze and saw what she meant. The hillside was getting steeper, rockier. “Let’s move sideways a bit. I think we want to get more to the east anyway.” He led away from the stream. The slope was steep, and he picked his way to the side, moving upward slowly and using tree trunks as handholds to keep his feet.
“I’m wondering about the timeline,” she said. “Where do you think the kidnapper’s been all these years, assuming it’s the same guy?”
“You think he’s been gone?” James asked.
“What else accounts for the gap in time? Maybe he was in prison.”
“Possible.”
When he added nothing else, she said, “Possible he moved away. Do you know anybody who moved away then and has now come back?”
“Besides you?”
He glanced back to see she’d stopped.
“I’m just saying—”
“I’m back because he’s back.”
They walked a minute or two in silence.
“Let’s say he moved somewhere and has been doing this for years,” she said. “What if the authorities were closing in on him, so he came back?”
“Police have been in contact with the FBI, who tracks these things. They say there aren’t any similar crimes in the US. So I don’t think that’s it.”
“Could have been a tourist,” she suggested.
“In January?”
“There’re winterized places,” she said. “And now it’s summer.” They walked a few minutes in silence. Long enough that, when she spoke a few minutes later, he was surprised to find she’d fallen behind.
“You remember how we used to contact each other?” she asked.
She was studying a tree trunk. There was a knothole in the side. She stuck her finger in it.
“Careful. You never know what’s made its home in there.”
She smiled at him. “No notes.”
He trudged ahead.
“You know what I’m talking about, right?”
How could he not? Cassidy hadn’t had a cell phone, probably the only kid at their high school who didn’t. Her foster parents were strict and didn’t like her getting phone calls from boys. So, James used to leave her notes in a hole in a tree on the grounds of their high school, which was walking distance from where she lived. On those notes, he wrote times he could ge
t away to meet. Invitations for dates. Eventually, love notes.
Stupid, teenage stuff.
She said, “Remember the time—”
“This isn’t a stroll down memory lane.”
“I know. I just thought…” But her words trailed. He shouldn’t have been short with her, but he couldn’t let himself recall how they used to be. How much he used to care for her.
Fortunately, the way got steeper, and Cassidy quit trying to make conversation, just followed a few feet back.
She kept up, her heaving breaths the only indication that she was having any trouble.
And then, a thump and gasp.
He turned just as Cassidy rolled ten, twenty feet down. She crashed into the trunk of an oak.
He scrambled to her. “You okay? Cassy?”
She sat up slowly and propped her backpack against the tree. “Just like Disneyland.”
He crouched beside her and studied her legs, her arms, her face. Saw no blood, no protruding bones. “What hurts?”
She touched the hip that had hit the tree. “Nothing serious. I’ll have a few nasty bruises.”
“Did you hit your head? Can you move everything?”
She did a quick survey, moving both arms, both hands, both legs, both feet. “Everything seems to be in order.”
“I’m sorry. I should’ve—”
“It’s a mountain, James. Not your fault it’s steep. Definitely not your fault I lost my footing.” She patted the space beside her. “Let’s rest a minute.”
He took off his backpack, pulled out his water and a granola bar. “Want one?”
“Sure.”
He handed her one of each and sat beside her. They’d only been climbing a few hours, and already the trip felt fruitless. After finishing the bar in two bites and downing a couple of sips of water, he took out his phone and map and marked their coordinates.
She nibbled her snack, gazing at the map he’d spread in front of them. “We’ve hardly covered any ground at all.”
“It’s a big mountain.”
She sat back, closed her eyes. “I didn’t think it would be so hard.”
He’d just been thinking the same thing, but… “We just started.”
“I know.”
“Are you really ready to give up?”
She gazed up at him with those mesmerizing eyes. “I’m not giving up. I can’t. I failed to save your sister, and I didn’t get here fast enough to save that little girl last month.”
“Addison.” He swallowed the emotion trying to rise. Another little girl dead. Another family that would never be the same. “Her name was Addison.”
“I know.” Cassidy’s two words were solemn, as if she felt the weight of the girl’s death as heavily as he did. “I’m going to keep looking until I find Ella. Or until I find that cave. It’s possible this is all some copycat, that these recent kidnappings have nothing to do with what happened back then. But until I find that spot, see if anybody’s been there, I won’t know for sure. I can’t quit until I know.”
A sound carried from the direction they’d come from. A bud-a-dud-dud. Thud.
He turned that direction, gaze scanning the mountain, the trees.
Had a rock gotten loose, tumbled down the hill?
Not without help.
“Probably nothing.” But he whispered the words. He stood and peered below, to the sides, and above. Nobody was there.
He stayed like that for a long time, watching. Waiting.
The forest was silent, too silent. Even the birds seemed to be holding their breath.
Cassidy got to her feet and whispered, “Do you see something?”
See? No. But feel…? Yes, something was out there.
“Are we being followed?”
“I doubt it.” He forced a casual expression and looked down at her. “Lots of wildlife out here. Could be anything.”
She stared at him, her gaze probing. “What’s your best guess?”
It had been a loud noise. A falling rock, but, if so, it hadn’t been a pebble. And little animals didn’t move big rocks. “Probably something big.”
“Like?”
He tried to shrug it off, but she wasn’t going to let it go. “There’re deer, moose, bears, bobcats.”
Her eyes widened.
“I know it sounds cliché, but whatever it was is likely more scared of us than we are of it.”
Her lips tipped up in an almost smile. “You’re scared of it?”
“Obviously you are. I was trying to make you feel better.”
The smile widened, and she patted his forearm. “It’s okay, James. I’ll protect you.”
He chuckled. “We never did pick up the trail again. I thought if we just kept going, we’d catch it.”
“The kidnapper must go a different way.”
If James and Cassidy had even caught a human trail. For all he knew, the little path he’d found had been forged by wildlife, not humans.
But a cold chill skittered over his skin. He thought of the person in the woods by his house two days before. The person who’d been following Cassidy.
Who’d seen James talk to her. Who’d probably heard him call her name.
Was somebody out there?
Were they being watched?
Chapter Fourteen
Cassidy might’ve downplayed her injuries a little too much. As afternoon turned to evening, her hip throbbed and her shoulder ached. She hadn’t been thinking straight after her fall. She’d been discombobulated at the sight of James rushing to her aid. More than that, at the nickname, Cassy. James was the only person who’d ever called her that, and only after they’d started dating, kissing, falling in love.
Those old feelings had never gone far, and his tenderness had pulled them to the surface.
If this were a romance novel, now would be the time for her to remind herself of all the reasons she couldn’t be with him. Buried secrets, a distrust of men, a desire not to get attached.
None of those defined Cassidy. She’d learned to trust good men. Having lived most of her life separate and alone, she desired attachment more than the average person. And, God willing, as much as it terrified her, her secrets would all be revealed when they found Ella.
In any possible romantic scenario between Cassidy and James—if he had any feelings for her at all—there was just one reason, one giant reason, they couldn’t be together: her part in his sister’s death.
If he could forgive her, if they could move past it…
Two giant ifs.
Giant enough that she tried not to hope. The problem was, hope had saved her and guided her and fueled her for a decade. She could no more tamp it down than she could darken the sun.
The God of Hope—that was the first name for her Lord that she’d latched onto. And she wouldn’t let it go for fear she might get hurt. After all, He was the God of all Comfort, too, wasn’t He? He could handle her hope and her heartbreak. He could handle it all.
As they climbed the narrow trail, hope and pain were in a battle. Hope that they’d find Ella.
Pain begging her to quit.
Another feeling pulled her attention, though. Fear.
Ever since that noise earlier, she’d couldn’t shake the feeling that somebody was watching them. She’d brought it up once, and James had stopped and peered around. She’d expected him to brush her off or offer empty promises that they were safe, but he hadn’t.
“It was probably an animal. But…”
The but was the part that scared her.
There was nothing to do but continue the trek. The exertion kept them from talking. Every so often, James would ask if the surroundings looked familiar. Not yet, though she felt they were moving in the right direction. She didn’t know why, couldn’t have identified the things that gave her that impression. God, perhaps? Or some instinct or long-buried memory? But what had felt futile after her fall no longer did. They’d find the cave, as long as they didn’t quit.
She couldn’t sp
eak for James, but nothing short of death or serious injury would stop her. She’d overcome a lot of risk to get to this place, all to save Ella, to stop the kidnapper from destroying more lives. She’d keep at it until Ella was safe in her father’s arms.
Meanwhile, though, here she was, on this mountain she’d sworn she’d never return to. As she gazed around at the wilderness, it was hard to imagine that she’d ever had a different life. Seattle seemed a world away from this secluded place, the counseling center where she worked almost like a different dimension. That dingy basement space with its plastic, straight-backed chairs, the water-ringed wooden table covered with coffee and soda and snacks the girls devoured as if they hadn’t eaten in months. They’d sip their drinks and munch their store-bought cookies and tell stories that didn’t belong there, didn’t belong anywhere, stories of abuse so bad at home that life on the street was better. At least on the street, it wasn’t fathers and brothers and mothers and sisters who did the abusing. And then there were the other stories, the girls who’d left home chasing drugs or guys or freedom, absolutely confident that what they found in the world would be better than what they had at home. They were the hardest to reach. They were the ones who had to admit that they’d been wrong, not wronged.
All the girls were unique, all wounded, all special. And all of them needed somebody to hold their hands and tell them that they mattered, that they were okay. All of them needed somebody to help them find their way home. Often, home wasn’t where they’d come from, but it could always be where they were headed.
Cassidy had found her new home in Seattle. She’d found her place to belong in the family of God. It was her life’s goal to help others find Him, find home as well.
Now, that home felt as elusive as the place they were searching for on this mountain. It was as if that counseling center back in Seattle no longer existed. Or maybe it never had. Maybe the little room she rented was a figment of her imagination. She smiled at that thought. If she were going to conjure a place in her mind’s eye, it would be nicer than the dingy studio apartment where she’d lived since college.
But it wouldn’t be on a mountainside. Nope, this rugged wilderness world was not for her. She followed James through areas so thick with undergrowth that they’d hardly been able to forge a path. As they climbed higher, the trees were sparser, the undergrowth easier to avoid. The sun had long since fallen to the opposite side of the mountain, and the air was cooling. Not that she was cold. Trudging mostly uphill kept her warm enough.
