You callous, spineless asshole. He’s worth a hundred of you.
If only she could give Eric instructions. Instead of stumbling through the forest, fighting their way through vines and brush and over moss-covered tree trunks rotting on the forest floor, he should have hidden her somewhere and gone for help. Even fled by himself to the cauldrons to look for Wes and Becca.
Carrying her was a huge mistake. It slowed them down. By the time he finally staggered onto the trail with a shout (please stop talking and crying out, she begged him), it had been at least twenty minutes since Kaitlyn and Benjamin came down from the habitat to search for them. Those two would have been busy. Doing what?
They’d rouse Jerry Usher. Kaitlyn was manipulating the facility administrator, and in the current circumstances, she’d apply all manner of pressure to gain his help. Maybe Usher would contact local police, warning them that one of the residents had kidnapped her. When the police, not speaking English, caught them, they’d ignore Eric’s frightened babbles, and turn them back over to Colina Nublosa.
Even more alarming was that bit she’d overheard about Kaitlyn discovering Diego’s cell phone had Eric’s contact information in it. Kaitlyn knew about Eric’s brother and his wife looking for Meggie. And what about the part where Kaitlyn spotted Diego talking to someone at Devil’s Cauldron? It wasn’t a stretch to expect Eric to run back to the hot springs.
And here they were, trudging up the hill, Eric like a pack animal, hauling her along. The rain had stopped, but the trail remained a mess of mud and puddles and exposed roots. He slipped and stumbled, almost dropping her several times. The barest moonlight illuminated the trail and it was a trick to keep moving in the right direction. He never complained.
After a few minutes he shifted her from his arms to drape her over his shoulder like she was a child. Her head bounced up and down and she could see back down the trail. Water dripped from her hair and she blinked to clear her eyes.
They came around a bend and the woods momentarily cleared on the steep hillside to show a dark expanse below and behind them, all the way down to the clearing of Colina Nublosa. Lamps dotted the property, casting it in a soft, diffused light, fuzzy through the humid air. They’d made it farther than Meggie had thought possible. Surely Eric would run out of steam long before he reached the top. But no, here they were, almost up and over the shoulder of the mountain. A hint of sulfur lingered over the smell of wet forest. They must be close. They were going to make it.
And then she spotted a blue light sweeping back and forth below them, somewhere between their position and the care center. A second light flicked on, this one brighter, with a stronger beam. It turned off again and the people coming up after them continued by the small penlight. It too blinked out a moment later, obscured behind trees.
Eric! They’re coming.
But he continued to move doggedly up the hill, never stopping to look behind. He hummed a song, which came out in scattered bits between his grunts of exertion. It was the theme song from an old sitcom.
Turn around. Please.
He shifted her again and her right arm, which had been dangling by her side, now got tossed over his shoulder. Meggie’s hand came to rest on his bare back. He’d never put his shirt on again after wiping her face, but had tucked the wet, muddy thing into the elastic band of his pajama bottoms.
Meggie tapped her finger. Three times, then her arm swung free again. The pursuit drew closer. Any moment their enemies would round one of the bends below them and they’d be caught.
Eric reached the next bend and leaned into it, grunting. Her hand fell across his back again. She tapped and tapped.
“Hey, you can move.” Eric stopped and shifted her around to look her in the eyes. “Are you getting better? Are you getting out of your prison?”
She blinked furiously.
“Oh, that’s impossible. Because the witch hurt you. I remember.”
He stared at her with a look of deep concentration as she tried to blink him a message. It amounted to nothing more than a shout that something was wrong. But he wasn’t getting it. His arms were trembling and he looked like he wanted to put her down.
No, not yet. Look behind you.
“What is it? Do you need something? Are you thirsty? I’m kind of thirsty. Wesley drinks soda, but I don’t like the bubbles.”
Wesley came out sounding like Wussy, but she’d heard him say it before and had eventually parsed it out. Eric’s beloved brother, never far from his mind.
Eric, please. I’m begging you. Look downhill.
Something dawned on his face. His head whipped around and his eyes widened. “Very bad. Very very bad.”
Go. Run.
She was lucky he didn’t understand her. Instead, he resorted to the one tactic that had served him well so far. He found the closest spot to hide and took it. In this case, it was a rounded hump of rock off the right shoulder, covered with moss and ferns, and even a small tree trying to grip the rock by burrowing its roots into the fissures. He carried her off the trail and got them mostly around the boulder moments before Benjamin and Kaitlyn came up behind them. Meggie slumped with her back against the rock and her head drooping to one side, and she could see the trail clearly as her two enemies rounded the bend.
Kaitlyn and Benjamin were moving silently, mostly in the dark, with the single penlight pointing down at the ground. They were trying to catch Eric unawares. If he hadn’t been in the switchbacks, but in the flatter, thicker forest, he might not have spotted them. As it was, they’d only just gotten off the trail in time.
“I’ve lost the prints,” Benjamin whispered. He held the penlight.
Kaitlyn put a finger to her mouth and pointed to the ground. Benjamin nodded.
With all the rain and mud, it must have been simple to follow their trail most of the way. And the fresh prints, not yet washed away by the rain, could only be Eric’s. And deep too, no doubt, given that he was carrying a heavy burden. But out of sheer luck, Eric and Meggie had been passing over a stretch of bare stone, washed free of dirt and worn by hikers over the years.
Kaitlyn held the larger flashlight, presently turned off, in one hand. The other drew something black from a jacket pocket. It glinted when Benjamin’s penlight passed over it.
A gun.
Meggie tried to turn her eyes to see Eric’s face, but he remained out of sight. He stayed frozen. She silently begged him to stay that way. If he moved at all, he might catch their attention. As it was, if Benjamin turned his light a few inches, it would expose them and show that they were not lumpy protrusions of the boulder.
After several tense moments, Kaitlyn and Benjamin continued up the trail.
“They’re ahead of us,” Eric said a moment later. “We can’t keep going. And then they’ll get to the hot springs and see we’re not there. What will they do then?”
They’d come back searching again. With no muddy prints to follow, it would surely occur to Kaitlyn that Eric had taken Meggie off the trail. They’d backtrack to this point. And find them.
Eric took her hand and turned her so the moonlight was on their faces. He looked into her eyes. “What do I do? You’re smart, you can think of something.”
Meggie didn’t want to start blinking. That would only confuse him as he tried to decipher her signals.
He looked so earnest, staring into her eyes. Vulnerable, yet determined. She wished she could move and speak, if only this once, so she could put her hand on his cheek and thank him. Even if Kaitlyn caught them, this moment of kindness, this helping hand freely offered, meant so much. Seven years since someone cared. Seven long years of crushing loneliness.
Thank you, Eric. Thank you for trying.
“I’m sorry, Meggie. I did my best. I tried to be like the knight in Wesley’s story and carry you out of the witch’s dungeon.” He shook his head. “Everything falls out of my head. It won’t stick there. And now I can’t think. Please don’t be angry.”
He gave her such an ang
uished look that her heart broke for him. Tears welled in her eyes.
“Don’t cry, pretty lady. I’m sorry.”
She tapped her finger on his palm. It was the only way she could touch him and let him know it was all right.
He looked down and something flickered in his eyes. “When Uncle Davis’s computer broke,” he said, “Wes and Becca had him blink his answers. He can only blink one eye. You have two. Could you send me a message if I ask you a question?”
Yes! Give me instructions.
He stared at her, confused, then brightened again. “Wait. I remember how they did it. Blink your eyes once for yes and twice for no.”
She blinked once.
“Yes, like that. Yes! You understand.” He was so excited that he looked like he was going to kiss her. He stopped just in time and pulled back with a horrified expression.
When he got over that, he scrunched his face in another look of intense concentration. “Do I go to the hot springs or should I go back to Foggy Hill? And should I take you with me or try to find help?”
She stared back in frustration. Begging him to try harder. Her finger tapped frantically.
“Yes or no?”
She blinked twice. No.
“No? Which one? Oh! One question at a time. Should I go to the hot springs?”
She hesitated, weighing her decision. She should send him back to the care center. Then, hopefully Eric would ask if he should take her or leave her, and she could tell him to go on without her, to run down and get help. They’d never make it together. And yes, there were risks that way, but better than stumbling into Kaitlyn with her gun and her little minion.
A shot split the air from the trail ahead. A woman screamed. Kaitlyn? Had Benjamin finally snapped? Good Lord, what was going on up there?
Eric whipped his head toward the gunshot, alarm spreading on his face. “What was that? A gun? What should I do? Should I go up there?”
It was a hunch. Meggie blinked once. Yes. Go.
But Eric wasn’t looking at her. His head cocked and the alarm turned to horror. Meggie heard it then, a woman’s cry. And a man’s angry shouts.
Eric sprang to his feet. “It’s Becca! And Wesley!”
Another gunshot.
Eric sprinted off and left Meggie with her back propped against the rock. Watching him disappear around the corner as he ran toward the hot springs.
He’d forgotten all about her, bless him. In his alarm at the gunshot and the shouted voices and realizing that somehow Kaitlyn must have come across his brother and his sister-in-law, every other thought seemed to have vanished from his mind except to help them.
Meggie was glad. She was terrified to be left behind in the dark, waiting for someone or something to find her, and knowing that no matter what happened she couldn’t defend herself. But more than that, she was afraid for Eric. She needed them not to kill him like they had killed Diego. If her enemies came back for her, to torture her one last time before they snuffed her out forever, knowing that they had murdered her protector would be more than she could bear.
Her eyes followed up the trail in the direction he had disappeared and she cast all her hopes, all her strength in his direction.
Be safe, my knight.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Wes and Becca had been waiting for almost an hour. The rain had stopped briefly, but now picked up again. The canopy channeled away some of the water, but then it would collect on a broad leaf far overhead, suddenly giving way in a cascade that dumped on someone’s head. Becca huddled within her poncho, and Wes tried to do the same with his garbage sack, but it was a poor substitute for the real thing.
Where the devil was Diego Palomar? He hadn’t equivocated in his email; he’d been insistent he’d film Meggie after dinner, then hike up here and leave the phone. Something must have happened. Had he spotted Kaitlyn lurking on the grounds and called it off?
Just when Wes was ready to declare it a bust, Becca grabbed his arm and squeezed. A light blinked across the clearing from the trail that led over the hill to Colina Nublosa. It had a bluish tint, and was small, like a penlight, rather than a full-size flashlight.
No wonder it took Diego so long, if that’s all he had to find his way up. It did little to cut the sheets of rain pouring over the open hillside around the hot pots and basins. The light blinked off, then came on again closer.
Wes started to rise, but something made him stop. It might have been nothing more than paranoia, or the long wait in the cold rain, with the smell of sulfur swirling around them. What was therapeutic in the daylight seemed sinister in the dark, like the vapors of hell.
He took hold of Becca’s arm. “Wait. Make sure it’s him.”
The light bobbed along the hillside in their direction. When it drew closer, Wes froze. Two figures, not one. Diego and Eric? Or Kaitlyn and Benjamin Potterman? Voices spoke, and his fears were realized.
“Damn it,” a woman said. “Where the hell is he?”
“He must have gone back for help.”
“Carried her all the way down the hill? I don’t think so. And we would have seen prints. Not to mention he’d have passed us on his way down.” She sounded disgusted. “God, I swear sometimes you should be committed yourself.”
“Stop riding me.”
Becca squeezed Wes’s hand, so tightly the nails dug into his palm. This was them. Kaitlyn and Benjamin. Had to be. So what did that mean? They were chasing Diego, who had hiked up here carrying Meggie? What would possess him to do that?
Kaitlyn came behind the cauldron, her silhouette erect against the sky. Her companion followed, braced against the rain. She ran the blue penlight along the trees. Wes wore a black garbage sack and kept his legs tucked under his body. Becca was behind him in an olive-green poncho. The light passed right over their position.
There were only two people. The man sounded weak, cowardly. The hard, ruthless edge in the woman’s voice gave Wes pause, but he still wanted to spring to his feet and confront them. He was sure Becca would feel the same way. But they were in a foreign country, Becca was pregnant, and what if things turned physical? Even assuming Wes managed to overpower Kaitlyn, they still had no proof.
“Then where are they?” Benjamin asked. He turned on a more powerful light, but he swept it down the hillside instead of searching the woods. The pair were only about ten feet away now. “Did they go down toward the lake? They’d be trapped against the shoreline.”
“That’s a long way down. He’s tired—he has to be exhausted—there’s no way he’d make it to the lake.”
“He’s not so good at planning ahead. Maybe he tried. He might be stuck on the trail. Could be fifty feet from here, for all we know.”
“That’s better—now you’re thinking.” Kaitlyn was quiet for a moment. “Maybe he did that exact thing. Probably we lost his prints and he came right past here. But he might have jumped off the trail behind us and hid. If he did that, he might return home. And then we’re in trouble. We’ll have to deal with Usher, we’ll have even more of a mess to clean up. We’ve got to turn around just in case. If that doesn’t work, we’ll search toward the lake.”
They looked ready to go back and Wes felt his body uncoiling. Kaitlyn had something in her hand. The soft glow of a phone turned on in her palm.
“What’s up with this phone, anyway?” she asked. “Diego had it. The resident must have given it to him. But there’s no signal up here. So what was he doing?”
“Don’t overthink it, Kait. He’s just some brain-damaged reject. What could he possibly do?”
The woman turned off her penlight, shuffling with something else in her hand as she followed the light cast by her companion’s more powerful flashlight.
Wes bristled hearing his brother dismissed in such callous terms. Becca tightened her grip on his hand, as if to keep him from springing to his feet.
Then it struck him. They weren’t looking for Diego, they were looking for Eric. It was Wes’s brother who had left Colina
Nublosa carrying Meggie up to the Devil’s Cauldron. He must be coming to look for Wes. And these two were searching for Eric. Then where was Diego? Had they done something to him?
Furious now, he shrugged off Becca’s warning hiss.
“Hey!” he shouted as he rose to his feet. “That’s my brother you’re talking about. And that pisses me off.”
He turned on his flashlight and shone it on the pair, who whirled, blinking as he blasted it in their eyes.
“No, Wes,” Becca said. “She has a gun!”
Too late, he realized she was right. That was what Becca was trying to warn him about. When Kaitlyn had been putting away the phone, it was to bring out a handgun. They weren’t searching for Eric and Meggie to question them—they were hunting to kill them. The gun now pointed at Wes’s chest as Kaitlyn stepped toward him.
Wes lowered his flashlight to the gun, his anger giving way to fear. For himself, of course, but mostly for Becca, now rising to her feet. And for Eric, hiding somewhere with a paralyzed woman.
“What are you doing here?” Kaitlyn asked.
His mind turned quickly. First, protect his pregnant wife and his brother. Then himself.
“My brother thought someone was trying to kill him. He’s paranoid, he worries about stuff like that, but I agreed to—”
Kaitlyn fired her gun. Wes flinched, anticipating the bullet slamming into his chest. She was only ten feet away and her aim was steady. But nothing hit him.
Someone was screaming behind him, and through the ringing in his ears—mostly caused by fear, not the gunshot—he realized it was Becca.
“I’m okay!” he shouted. “Becca!” Then, to Kaitlyn, he said angrily, “What the hell is wrong with you? Put that down!”
“You had one warning shot,” Kaitlyn said. “That was it. Lie to me again and you will die.”
Tell the truth and I die, too.
There was no questioning her intentions. She stared at him coldly through the rain, while Benjamin shone the flashlight in his face. Her gun hand remained steady. As soon as Wes told her the full truth, she would kill him.
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