by Nora Roberts
She clicked off, pushed to her feet. She turned to face west, hoped Ethan could see the tears, the fear. And she threw the phone away. Then ran.
She picked up the trail right away. Trampled brush, broken twigs, prints in soft ground. He didn’t want her to go astray, she thought. He might be leading her miles from wherever he had her mother, but there was no choice.
Her wedding ring smeared with blood. The hacked-off hank of her beautiful hair.
She forced herself to slow, to breathe. If she rushed she might miss a sign or follow a false one. He might be watching her still, so she’d have to take care in the markings she left for Coop.
He’d given her two hours. Had he taken her mother from home? It seemed the most logical. Wait until she was alone, then take her. On foot or by horseback?
On foot most likely. A hostage would be easier to control on foot. Unless he’d forced her into the car and . . . No, no, don’t think that way, she ordered herself as panic bubbled into her throat. Think simple. Under it, he’s simple.
Two hours from her cabin—and he’d want to push her, want it to be close. She put a map in her mind. Somewhere accessible and solitary from the cabin and from the farm. If she was alive—She was alive, she had to be alive. He’d have to hide her. A cave would be best. If he . . .
She stopped, studied the tracks, the carelessly trampled wildflowers. He’d backtracked. She drew a breath, then another, steadying her nerve, and did the same until she found where he’d laid the false trail.
She scuffed out his prints, used her penknife to mark the bark of a tree so Coop wouldn’t make the same mistake. She picked up the trail again, then picked up her pace. She had an idea where he was leading her and knew she’d need nearly all the time he’d allotted.
JENNA WORMED AND rolled. She’d lost all sense of direction, could only pray she was inching her way to the mouth of the cave. He’d blindfolded her before he’d left so her dark was complete. Whenever she had to rest she lay still and tried to judge if the air was any fresher. But all she smelled was dirt, her own sweat, her own blood.
She heard him coming, screamed against the gag, struggled against the rope.
“Just look at you, Jenna. You’re a real mess. And with company coming.”
When he yanked off her blindfold the lantern light burned her eyes. “She’ll be along soon, don’t you worry. I’m going to clean up a bit.” He sat cross-legged on the cave floor, and with a travel razor, a broken piece of mirror, began to shave.
AT THE REFUGE Lena waved to Eric. “Hey! What did you think of Creepy Guy?”
“I never saw him. He must’ve gone right through the center, or changed his mind.”
“Oh. Well, what did Lil say?”
“About what?”
“About the guy. When she came over.”
“I didn’t see her either.”
“But . . . She was going over. I don’t see how you could’ve missed her.”
“Maybe she got hung up.” Eric shrugged it off. “She wanted to help Matt when he got to the cougars. Listen I’ve got to get back to—”
Lena simply grabbed him by the sleeve of his T-shirt. “I’ve just come from Matt. She’s not there, and he’s waiting for her.”
“She’s around somewhere. So okay, we’ll look around. I’ll check the commissary, you check her place.”
“She knows Matt’s waiting,” Lena insisted, but she hurried over to the cabin. She knocked, then pushed open the door to call out. “Lil? Lil?” Baffled, she walked straight through, and out the back. Maybe the office, she thought.
When she jogged down the steps, she heard the jingle of the phone. Relieved, she glanced back, expecting to see Lil striding along with the phone to her ear. But there was no one. She turned back, following the ring.
She snatched the phone off the ground, flipped it open.
“Hey, Lil, I just saw my mother off, so—”
“Tansy, Tansy, this is Lena. I think something’s really wrong.” She began to run toward the office cabin. “I think we need the police.”
ON A STRETCH of road between the farm and the stables, Coop tightened the lug nuts on the spare tire of a minivan. The two kids inside watched him like owls while they sucked on sippy cups.
“I really appreciate this. I could’ve changed it, but—”
“Looks like you’ve got your hands full.” He nodded toward the windows. “It’s no trouble.”
“You saved me a lot of cursing.” The young mother beamed a smile. “And took care of it in probably half the time it would’ve taken me, not including breaking up the fights inside. We’ve been running errands all day, so they missed their nap.” Her eyes sparkled with a laugh. “Boy, so did I.”
After sending the kids a wink, he rolled the flat around the back of the van to stow it. He shook his head when she offered him a ten-dollar bill. “No, but thanks.”
She leaned in, rooted around in the grocery bags. “How about a banana?”
He laughed. “I’ll take it.” He replaced the tools, gave the kids a quick salute with the banana and made them both giggle, then closed the door. “You’re good to go.”
“Thanks again.”
He walked back to his truck, waited for her to pull out. He did a U-turn to head back the way he’d been coming when he’d seen the van on the side of the road. In about half a mile, his phone signaled a voice mail.
“I got your Hefty bags, Grandma,” he muttered. “And the big-ass bottle of Lysol.” Still, he punched the key to play the message.
He has my mother.
Coop slammed on the brakes, swerved to the shoulder.
After the first flash of heat, everything in him went to ice. He punched the gas, pushed speed dial for the sheriff.
“Put me through to him. Now.”
“Sheriff Johannsen’s not in the office.”
“You patch me through to wherever the hell he is. This is Cooper Sullivan.”
“Hey, Coop, it’s Cy. I can’t really do that. I’m not authorized to—”
“Listen to me. Ethan Howe has Jenna Chance.”
“What? What?”
“He may have Lil by now, too. You get Willy, and you get him over to the refuge. Now. Fucking now.”
“I’ll get him, Coop, Jesus God, I’ll get him. What should I—”
“I’m heading to the refuge now. I want Willy there, and as many men as he can get. No air search,” he said quickly, fighting to stay focused. “He’ll just kill them if he sees copters. Tell him she said she’d leave me a trail. I’ll be following it. Do it.”
He shut it off and burned up the miles to Lil’s.
LIL SAW HIM sitting cross-legged at the mouth of the cave, the crossbow in his lap. His face was raw, cross-marked with vicious scratches under the streaks of war paint he’d applied. She thought of the bearded man who’d set off Lena’s radar.
He wore a braided leather strap around his head, with a feather from a hawk woven through it. On his feet were soft leather knee boots, around his neck a necklace of bear teeth.
It would’ve been funny, she thought, this half-assed play at being Indian. If she didn’t know how murderously serious he was.
He lifted his hand in greeting, then slid back into the cave. Lil climbed the rest of the way, held her breath, then followed him in.
It opened after the first few feet, but was still low enough she had to crouch. Deep though, she noted, as she watched the pale light of the lantern.
He sat in that light with a knife to her mother’s throat.
“I’m here, Ethan, you don’t have to hurt her. If you do hurt her, you’ll get nothing from me.”
“Have a seat, Lil. I’ll explain how things are going to be.”
She sat and wanted to tremble. Cuts and bruises marred her mother’s face, her hands. Blood stained the rope around her wrists, her ankles.
“I need you to take that knife away from my mother’s throat. I did what you asked me to do, and I’ll keep doing that. But not if y
ou hurt her more than you already have.”
“She did most of this to herself. Didn’t you, Jenna?”
Jenna’s eyes said everything. Run. Run. I love you.
“I’m asking you to take the knife off my mother. You don’t need it. I’m here. I’m alone. That’s what you wanted.”
“It’s just the start.” But he lowered the knife an inch. “Everything else was just the start. This is the finish. You and me.”
“You and me,” she agreed. “So let her go.”
“Don’t be stupid. I’m not wasting time on stupid. I’m going to give you ten minutes. That’s a good head start for somebody who knows the hills. Then I hunt you.”
“Ten minutes. Do I get a weapon?”
“You’re prey.”
“A cougar, a wolf, have fangs and claws.”
He smiled. “You’ve got teeth, if you get close enough to use them.”
She gestured toward the bow. “You weigh the game heavily in your favor.”
“My game, my rules.”
She tried another angle. “Is this how a Sioux warrior shows his honor, his courage? Hunting women?”
“You’re more than a woman. This one?” He yanked Jenna’s head back by the hair and had Lil braced to leap. “Half-breed squaw? She’s mine by rights now. I took her as captive, just like our ancestors took captives from the white. Made them slaves. I might keep her for a while. Or . . .”
He knew so little, she realized, about those he claimed as his own. “The Sioux were hunters of buffalo and deer, of bear. They hunted for food, for clothing. How does it honor your blood to kill a woman who’s bound and helpless?”
“You want her to live? We hunt.”
“If I win?”
“You won’t.” He leaned forward. “You’ve disgraced your blood, your spirit. You deserve to die. But I’m giving you the honor of the hunt. You’ll die on sacred ground. If you play the game well, maybe I’ll let your mother live.”
Lil shook her head. “I won’t play at all unless you let her go. You’ve killed before, you’ll kill again. It’s what you are. I don’t believe you’ll let her live, however I play your game. So you’ll have to let her go first.”
He lifted the knife to Jenna’s throat. “I’ll just kill her now.”
“Then you’ll have to kill me, too, where we sit. I won’t play your game, use your rules unless she’s out of it. And you’ll have wasted all this time, all this effort.”
She ached to look at her mother, reach out to her, but kept her gaze on Ethan’s face. “And you’ll be nothing but a butcher then. Not a warrior. The spirit of Crazy Horse will turn from you.”
“Women are nothing. Less than dogs.”
“A true warrior honors the mother, for all life comes from her. Let mine go. You won’t finish this, Ethan. It’ll never be finished unless we compete. Isn’t that right? You don’t need her. But I need her to be worthy of the game. I’ll give you the hunt of your life. I swear it.”
His eyes glowed at her promise. “She’s useless anyway.”
“Then let her go, and it’s just you and me. Just the way you want it. It’s a bargain worthy of a warrior, worthy of the blood of a great chief.”
He cut the ropes on Jenna’s wrists. She moaned as she tried to lift her aching arms to pull off the gag. “Lil. No, Lil. I won’t leave you.”
“Touching,” he said, and spat as he cut the ropes at her ankles. “Bitch probably can’t even walk.”
“She’ll walk.”
“I won’t. I won’t leave you to him. Baby—”
“It’s all right.” Lil drew Jenna close, gently. “It’s all right now. Step back from her,” she told Ethan. “She’s afraid of you. Step back so I can give her comfort, and say goodbye. We’re only women. Unarmed. You can’t fear us.”
“Thirty seconds.” Ethan stepped back three paces.
“Lil, no. I can’t leave you.”
“Help’s coming,” she whispered in Jenna’s ear. “I need you to go, I need to know you’re safe or I won’t be able to think to win this. I know what to do. You have to go or he’ll kill us both. Give her some water,” Lil demanded in disgust. “What kind of honor is it to beat a woman, to deny her water?”
“She can drink her own spit.”
“Water for my mother and you can take five minutes off my lead time.”
He kicked a bottle over. “I don’t need your five minutes to beat you.”
Lil uncapped it, held it to her mother’s lips. “Slow now, a little at a time. Can you find home?”
“I—Lil.”
“Can you?”
“Yes. Yes, I think.”
“Won’t help you. By the time she gets there—if she does—and they start looking for you, you’ll be dead. And I’ll be smoke.”
“Take the water and go now.”
“Lil.”
“If you don’t he’ll kill us both. The only chance I have to live is for you to go. You have to believe in me. You have to give me that chance. I’m going to help her out of the cave, Ethan. You can hold the bow on me. I won’t run.”
She helped her mother to her feet, cursing when Jenna wept from pain, from grief. Crouched over in the shallow space, she helped Jenna hobble to the mouth. “Help’s coming,” she whispered again. “I can keep him off me until they come. Get home as fast as you can. Promise me.”
“Lil. Oh, God, Lil.” As the sun lowered toward the hills, Jenna held her tight.
“I’m going to lead him to the grassland above the river.” Lil pressed her face to her mother’s hair as if in grief, and murmured against her ear. “Where I saw the cougar. Remember that. Send help there.”
“Shut up! You shut up and she goes now, or she dies now, and you after her.”
“Go on, Mom.” Lil pried Jenna’s scraped and bruised arms away. “Go on or he’ll kill me.”
“Baby. I love you, Lil.”
“I love you.” She watched her mother limp and stumble, saw the agony of emotion in her battered face when she looked back. For that alone, Lil thought, he’d pay. Whatever it took.
“Start running,” Ethan ordered.
“No. The hunt doesn’t start until I know she’s away. Until I know you won’t go after her first. What’s your hurry, Ethan?” Deliberately she sat on a rock. “You’ve waited a long time for this. You can wait a little longer.”
30
The compound was chaos. A dozen people raced from various directions when Coop jumped out of his truck, and all of them talked at once.
“Stop! You.” He jabbed a finger at Matt. “Sum it up, and fast.”
“We can’t find Lil. Lena found her phone in the yard behind the cabin. And when I went back, I found this.” He held out the plastic bag with Jenna’s hair and wedding ring. There was somebody here, paying customer. Lena got a bad feeling about him. Baby didn’t like him either. Nobody can find him. We’re afraid he took Lil. Mary’s inside, calling the police.”
“I already called them.”
“I think it’s Jenna’s ring.” Tears spilled down Tansy’s cheeks.
“Yeah, it’s Jenna’s. He’s got her, and Lil’s gone in to find her. Shut up and listen,” he ordered when everyone began to talk at once. “I need anyone who can handle a gun without shooting themselves. Lil’s got a good hour’s head start, but she’s leaving a trail. We’re going to follow it.”
“I can.” Lena stepped forward. “I can handle a shotgun. Trap shooting champion, three years running.”
“In Lil’s cabin. Shotgun in the front closet, ammo on the top shelf. Go.”
“I’ve never shot a gun in my life, but—”
“Stay here.” Coop cut Matt off. “Wait for the police, then lock the place down. Tansy, go to the Chance farm. If Joe hasn’t heard, he needs to. Listen to me. Tell him it’s most likely Jenna was taken from there. He and Farley, and whoever else he can round up, should start from there. He taught Lil to track. He’ll pick up the trail. We need radios.”
Mary
came out of the cabin as two interns sprinted for radios. “The police are on their way. Fifteen minutes.”
“Send them in after us. We’re not waiting for them. You upstairs, bedroom, top left dresser drawer. Three ammo clips. Get them. Wait.” Struck, he held up a hand, looked over to the enclosures. “I need something of Lil’s, something she was wearing.”
“Sweater in the office,” Mary said. “Hold on.”
“That cat loves her. Will he track her?”
“Yes! God, yes.” Tansy pressed a hand to her mouth. “He followed her back every time she tried to release him.”
“We’re going to let him out.”
“He hasn’t been out of the habitat since he was six months old.” Matt shook his head. “Even if he leaves the compound, there’s no telling what he’ll do.”
“He loves her.” Coop took the sweater Mary brought him.
“We’ll have to separate the others.” Tansy hurried to the enclosure with him.
“Do what you have to do. Make it fast.”
He held the sweater to the bars. Baby prowled over, then grumbled in his throat. Rubbed his face against the sweater. Purred.
“Yeah, that’s right. You know her. You’re going to find her.”
Interns chicken-baited the range area while Eric pulled up the door. Baby lifted his head, looked around while his companions rushed through the feed. Then turned back, pushed his face against the sweater.
“This is crazy,” Matt said, but he stood by with the drug gun. “Get back, well back. Tansy.”
She unlocked the cage. “Find Lil, Baby. You find Lil.” Using it as a barrier, she opened it.
He slunk out slowly toward the unknown, drawn by Lil’s scent. Coop held up a hand toward Matt as the cougar approached him. “He knows me. He knows I’m Lil’s.”
Once more, the cougar rubbed against the sweater. Then he began to track. “She’s everywhere, that’s the problem. She’s everywhere.”
