by Alice Sharpe
She looked over his shoulder and nodded toward the window. “There goes your break.”
His gaze followed hers. It had started to snow again.
He picked up the heavily laden tray and backed out the door, commanding Bonnie to stay with Pauline. Cody’s dog was notoriously friendly; still, she might provide some protection for the housekeeper as she went about her chores.
The chair outside the princess’s door was empty. Pierce knocked on the general’s door with his elbow. Where was Lucas?
The general opened it, dressed already or maybe he never took off the uniform. “You can put that over there,” he said, gesturing inside at the desktop. By the way his nose wrinkled, it was obvious to Pierce that he must still smell like ashes and smoke.
“I have things to do, you put it over there,” he said, handing off the tray. The general took it, eyebrows arched.
“Have you seen the man who was up here last night? His chair is out here but he’s gone,” Pierce added.
“I haven’t seen anyone.”
Pierce swallowed his irritation. Lucas must have needed a break, but he shouldn’t have left his post without getting someone to relieve him. “I’m waking everyone up,” he said. “We all need to talk before the police arrive.”
“Police? Why are the police coming? And why is there still no power?”
“We’ll talk in a minute,” Pierce said, rapping on Vaughn’s door, then moving down the hall. He knocked once on the maid’s door to rouse her and the boy, then softly on the princess’s door.
If it hadn’t been locked from the inside, he might not have knocked. Maybe she was still in bed, and once again the thought of how the silk all but disappeared on her body made him ache. What would it be like to kiss her awake?
He tried the knob and was alarmed when it turned easily in his hand.
The lantern on the desk emitted a very weak yellow light as though it been burning for hours and the batteries were almost dead. The room was empty. In half a dozen steps he was pushing open the bathroom door, knowing she wasn’t in there even before his eyes confirmed it.
Turning back into the room, he took in her night-clothes folded on top of the dresser. Nothing looked out of place or askew. Maybe she was in with Toby and the maid but fully dressed? If so, why hadn’t she answered their door when he knocked on it?
By now the general and Vaughn were both in the hall, the general holding a mug of coffee. Pierce rapped harder on the maid’s door and when there was no response, tried the knob. This door was unlocked, too, and he pushed it open.
The maid was on the floor, hands tied behind her back, legs tied at the ankles. She’d been blindfolded and someone had slapped a piece of duct tape over her mouth. She was wearing what appeared to be moss-green flannel pajamas and she was so still he thought she was dead.
“Bierta!” gasped the general who had come into the room behind Pierce. By that time, Pierce was on his knees, taking the blindfold off the woman on the floor. Her skin was cold to the touch, but the eyes that greeted him were wide open and terrified. Without her eyeglasses she looked younger, softer.
There was no painless way to get tape off someone’s mouth. She cried out as the last of it lifted. Pierce took his pocketknife and hacked away at the restraints around her wrists. Her hand flew up to rub her lips as he sawed through the ropes on her ankles.
“Where’s the princess? Where’s the boy?” he demanded as he helped the woman stand. She sagged when she got to her feet and stumbled toward a chair.
“They took her,” she gasped. “They must have taken them both.”
“Who’s they?”
She shook her head as she pushed brown bangs away from her brows. “I don’t know who they were. I woke up with one of them holding a gun against my neck. He said he had a message for King Thomas. He said they’d warned Princess Analise to tell her father to veto the pipeline bill and they knew she hadn’t. They said now it was up to the general to tell the king. They said Princess Analise will be safe if the king vetoes the pipeline. They said when they hear he has done this, they’ll release her.”
“Were they from Chatioux or were they Americans?”
“I don’t know. How could I—”
“Their voices,” Pierce explained. “Did they have accents?”
“I don’t know,” she said again, turning an anguished, myopic gaze up to Pierce. “I was too frightened and then I was trying to remember what they said so I could tell General Kaare. Oh, General, you have to call King Thomas. You have to get him to veto that bill!”
“When is the vote?” Pierce asked.
“Four days from now. We were to have returned home the day after tomorrow in time for the parliament meeting,” the general said, pacing now. “I pleaded with the princess to skip this unnecessary side trip to this godforsaken outpost, but she wouldn’t listen.”
“I am against the pipeline,” Vaughn announced. He was still hovering near the door. “I told the princess that. I’ll tell the king the same thing. If she’d listened to me, this wouldn’t have happened.”
Pierce turned to look at the man. “You’re the one who drove her and her bodyguard into a trap, aren’t you, Mr. Vaughn?”
“That was an accident.”
“What we haven’t discussed is the fact that the regular driver didn’t show up because someone stuck him in the trunk of his car and drove it into Puget Sound. He was found dead yesterday.”
The room grew incredibly silent.
“Something else we haven’t talked about is the dead man out in our generator shack who was apparently killed as he tried to get the power back on after it was sabotaged,” Pierce added with a meaningful look all around.
The silence deepened.
He turned back to Bierta in time to see her folded hands tremble.
“How many of them were there?”
She hesitated before she spoke. “Two, I think. Only one spoke. Maybe he was American. Maybe he wasn’t. I don’t know, I was so frightened and his voice was a low hiss. They blindfolded me right away and bound me and left me here in the dark.”
“How did you get on the floor?” the general barked.
“I tried to stand and fell.” She shivered as her teeth rattled together. “The princess has been stolen away in the night. Hours ago, now. You have to call—”
“The princess was your responsibility last night,” General Kaare interrupted as he stared into Pierce’s eyes.
“You think I don’t know that?” Pierce ripped a blanket off the bed and handed it to the maid. “Bierta, right? Bierta, do you have any idea where they took them?”
“None,” she said miserably as she pulled the blanket around her shoulders.
“I heard engines,” Vaughn volunteered. “Very early this morning. The sound moved away from the house, out that way, toward those mountains.”
“Yes, yes, I heard them, too,” Bierta said.
Pierce turned to Vaughn. “Did you go to the window and look outside?”
“No. I assumed it was connected to all the other noises last night. First the ruckus in the hall, and then that man out here knocking on your door and your voices. There was an explosion but it was a far way off—”
“That was from the fire. That’s why you heard voices. One of my men came to get me, I left him on guard here and now he’s missing, too. How long after the voices did you hear the engines?”
“An hour maybe.”
That’s a hell of a head start, Pierce thought with alarm.
Looking down his nose, Kaare cleared his throat. “If any harm befalls Princess Analise, the king will hold you personally responsible.”
“Let’s worry about the king later,” Pierce muttered as his gaze strayed to the window and the storm outside. Through the snow he could just make out parallel tracks leading away from the house, away from the ranch, toward the mountains and the lake beyond. Feeling the first stirring of hope, he moved closer to the window and peered down.
Snowmob
iles?
He turned back to see the other two men deep in hushed conversation by the door. They looked up as though they felt his gaze on them. “I’m having trouble believing neither one of you heard two men hauling away two or three hostages,” Pierce growled.
“This is a noisy, poorly run ranch,” the general said. “When you arbitrarily issued orders last night, I put in earplugs.”
Pierce ran a hand through his hair and rubbed the back of his neck. “Okay. For now, I want you all to stay in your rooms until the cops get here.”
“That’s impossible,” Kaare protested. “I need to phone Chatioux. The king must be told at once.”
“Fine, phone him, then come back here until the cops arrive.”
“Where are you going?” Kaare demanded.
“I’m going to go find the princess,” he said, kind of surprised anyone had to ask.
“No,” Vaughn and Kaare said in unison.
The general added, “We must consult the king first.”
“Yes,” Vaughn said, chiming in. “They told Bierta the princess would be released after her father vetoes the bill. Any show of force by one of us could be misconstrued.”
“They’ll kill her, I know they will,” Bierta cried.
Pierce looked at each of them in turn. “You don’t bargain with terrorists. You don’t trust them, either.”
The general returned Pierce’s gaze with fierce focus. “I forbid you to go.”
Pierce shook his head and turned to leave.
“The princess will die in this storm,” Bierta mumbled through her tears.
“Not if I can help it,” Pierce said under his breath. The woman’s cries grew hysterical as he left the room. Vaughn stood aside to let him pass, his narrow face pinched.
Pierce met Pauline on the stairs.
“What’s going on up there?”
“All hell is breaking loose. The police here?”
“No. I came running because of all the racket.”
“I hate to do this to you, but I need your help with these people.” He briefly explained what was going on, finishing with, “I don’t know where Lucas is but knowing what happened to Darrell, I’m not holding out much hope.”
“Oh, my goodness. That poor girl. First Darrell and now Lucas.”
“What girl? Who are you talking about?”
“Miley Lindquist.”
Pierce tried to clear his head. He had to get moving. “Did you hear an engine noise late in the night?”
“No. But I sleep like the dead, you know that. I didn’t even know about the fire until Jamie told me this morning.”
“I need you to go up there and keep everyone from killing each other. I’ll send someone to help you. I’m taking Jamie with me.”
“Taking him where? Where are you going?”
“To find the princess and the kid and hopefully Lucas Garvey. If the police manage to get here, try to explain what’s going on. You better call them now and report this situation, too. Go get a weapon out of the case. The combination for the lock is in Cody’s desk.”
“I’ll get Sassy Sally to help me. She can calm a rattlesnake. You just save the princess and that sweet little boy.” By the grim set of Pauline’s mouth, it was clear she meant business.
So did he.
He glanced back up the stairs as he turned in time to see the retreating back of a man hurry down the hall. Had he been eavesdropping? Did it matter?
Vaughn of Kaare? He couldn’t tell in the dismal light.
Chapter Twelve
By the time Pierce collected a couple of guns from the cabinet, he found Jamie coming across the yard under a full head of steam, fists clenched at his sides, mouth set in a grimace.
“I was just comin’ to get you,” Jamie yelled in greeting. He hadn’t changed clothes but he had found time to wash away the worst of the fire residue. “Someone got into the barn and disabled every snowmobile and four-wheeler they didn’t outright steal. Who in tarnation would do something like that?”
There went plan A: follow—fast. “I should have anticipated this.”
Jamie’s forehead wrinkled. “What are you talking about?”
Once again, Pierce explained. The need to get going churned acid in his stomach.
“They took the little boy, too?” Jamie sighed. “They took Tex?”
“It looks like it. That leaves us on horseback. I’ll saddle up while you detail a couple of men to search the ranch in case the tracks are decoys and the hostages are still around here. Lucas Garvey is missing, too. They should keep watch for him, dead or alive. My phone coverage in Wyoming stinks. You tell them to call you if they find anything. Oh, and get someone else to get the equipment moved in case the weather deteriorates again and remind everyone this is a cattle ranch which means take care of the herd. Get some additional cake out to the cows. They’ll need all the food they can get.”
“Will do.”
“Can you tell how many vehicles are missing?”
“At least two. One of the trailers is gone. Mike found the mess when he went to take a scooter out to the feeding shelter. I told him to use one of the tractors instead. Good thing they didn’t all burn up last night.”
Pierce knew it all had to be connected. “Meet me in ten minutes. We have to get out of here before the new snow completely covers the tracks.”
By the time Jamie returned, Pierce had gathered emergency supplies and saddled three horses, taking a spare gelding just in case they needed him. He’d made a return journey to the weapon cabinet and both horses were outfitted with rifle scabbards. Pierce was also wearing a leg holster and carried the Smith and Wesson .38.
He and Jamie swung into their saddles and rode out into the snow, Pierce out in front, Jamie astride his mare, trailing the extra horse. They paused when Pauline flagged them down.
“Those people are impossible,” she said through chattering teeth. “They’re all over the house doing any darn thing they want. I’ve half a mind to go get Birch and wheel him into the house. He could make them listen. Here, I packed you some food. You boys be careful.”
Pierce thanked Pauline as he stuffed the food in his saddlebag, then took off. They rounded the frozen pond where they picked up the fading trail made hours earlier and which was quickly vanishing in the snow.
However, there were just so many places someone could escape to in this kind of weather. The Open Sky was miles from anywhere. There was a chance, he supposed, that some sort of transport had managed to get close enough during the storm to whisk everyone away, but he thought that unlikely. He was pretty sure Harley would be at the center of this, maybe with an accomplice who was local and that meant the kidnapping was probably opportunistic and the retreat had been toward the lake. Open Sky land ended thirty or forty miles further on—was that where they were headed? The town of Woodwind was over there…
If there was a transport of some kind involved, all bets were off, they could be anywhere by now. But if they’d been forced to keep it local, it narrowed down the opportunities for shelter.
The first structure they’d come across would be Adam’s half-finished house on the western shore of the now-frozen lake. The second would be the ice fishing shanty. The third was a barn on the southern shore. That’s where Pierce thought it likely they’d headed. That would keep them close to the lake for air transport once the weather cleared, plus it would provide shelter.
Wait, there was another destination but it would take local knowledge; the old Indian burial cave was about five miles from the eastern shore. The tribe was long extinct, its name even lost, the site now safeguarded and tended by the Westin family as it had been for the past hundred and twenty years. Adam led regular attempts to get their father to invite the university to excavate and protect the site but Birch Westin would have none of it. “It’s ours to take care of,” their father always blustered when challenged. “We don’t need no damn outsiders telling us what to do on Open Sky land.”
Thanks to the compa
cted snow under the snowmobile imprints, the horses were able to move along at a pretty good clip. Still, the conditions were dangerous for the animals so they kept their pace slow. The snow gathered on hat brims as the men looked down at their gloved hands gripping reins and saddle horns, trying to protect their faces from the wind-driven elements.
Warm, sunny Italy seemed like a lifetime and a world away.
It took the better part of an hour to get to Adams’s building site. The house itself was two stories high though only partially visible as it stood in amidst a stand of leafless quaking aspen on a small promontory. The snowmobile tracks had long since faded so they had no way of knowing if they were riding into danger or not, but there was such an abandoned look to the place it was impossible to think anyone was inside the empty shell.
“They’d be burning something in the fireplace trying to stay warm,” Jamie said, looking up at the chimney. “No smoke.”
Still, they approached it from the shadows of the evergreen trees and were alternately comforted and disappointed when they got to the overhang on the porch and found no traces of snowy footprints or snowmobile tracks.
“We’ll have to search both it and the outbuildings,” Pierce said, “to make sure no one got left behind here.”
“I’ll take the barn,” Jamie said, sliding off the mare and tying her and the gelding in a protected spot next to Pierce’s pinto. Melting snow made streaks down his sooty cheeks. He produced a huge red bandana to wipe at himself as he walked off toward the barn.
Drawing his gun, Pierce opened the door to his brother Adam’s new house.
The inside walls had all been framed, the windows installed, the plumbing and electricity in place. Adam had chosen traditional construction as opposed to a log house. Pierce drew out the pocket flashlight he carried and used it to quickly walk through the heavily shadowed rooms, then climbed the stairs to the second floor and searched up there. He found no sign anyone had been here since the building season ended the fall before. A brief glance out one of the windows gave him a good view of the frozen lake. He saw nothing traveling on it.
