Flood Zone

by Dana Mentink

  Armed with that desperate knowledge, and a faith wild and untamed and new, she closed her eyes and surrendered everything to which she had clung so tightly, pride, independence, fear, anger, hurt. Lord, I trust You. Help me.

  When she opened her eyes she knew. God was there, right there with her as he had been since the beginning. Even when she’d ignored Him. Even when she’d railed at Him and yes, when she’d hated Him. He would be with her through whatever the next few hours brought.

  In a flash, she saw the way. There was one person who knew where Dr. Elias had taken her daughter. Only one.

  But Stiving would not let her go there, nor would he follow her leads. He would deliver her to jail before he conducted any search for Gracie. If Mia waited, if she let him take her, she would lose her daughter forever.

  Please, Lord.

  With cold fingers, she slipped the phone in her pocket and stepped out of the car. “All right, I’ll go.”

  “Mia,” Antonia cried out. “There has to be another way.”

  Mia grabbed her in a tight hug. She saw over Antonia’s shoulder the naked anguish on Dallas’s face. “It’s all right,” she whispered to her sister. “Tell Stiving everything. Convince him, if you can.”

  “What?” Antonia mumbled through her tears. “Where...”

  “I’m sorry,” Mia said to Antonia and Dallas. She locked onto his wondrous black eyes.

  Something in her tone must have told him what she was going to do. He shook his head, hand raised to stop her. With all her strength, she shoved her sister backward, causing her to stumble into Stiving, who toppled against his car door and they both went down in the mud.

  Mia ran as fast as she ever had in her life, heading for the rain-soaked forest, running toward the only way she could think of to save her child.

  * * *

  Dallas was thunderstruck. Juno barked and raced after Mia, thinking perhaps that it was some sort of game, until Dallas called him back. He stared as Mia raced over the uneven ground, making for the crowded wall of trees. She ran, fleet as a deer, disappearing between the branches.

  Dallas helped Antonia and Stiving to their feet, shock and disbelief rocketed through him in waves. Had Mia really just run from the police? How could she think such a rash move would help find Gracie?

  But would he not have done the same thing to find his brother?

  Or Mia? He swallowed. Yes, he would.

  Stiving barreled toward the trees, making it only a few yards, stumbling and slipping, before he must have come to the conclusion that he had no hope of catching up with her. He turned back to the car, rage suffusing his cheeks with red.

  Antonia stood in shock, hands pressed to her mouth, staring in the direction her sister had just taken.

  “Bad move.” Stiving was on the radio now, calling for assistance in apprehending Mia Verde Sandoval.

  The radio exchange seemed to snap Antonia from her inertia, and she started in on him before he could get back in the car. “Her daughter’s been kidnapped by Dr. Elias. Whether you want to believe it or not, that’s what happened. Dispatch will confirm it. I called it in moments before you arrived.”

  Stiving’s lip curled. “I will confirm it, after I bring your sister in.”

  Dallas offered up everything he knew about Peter Finnigan’s death. Susan reluctantly confirmed the facts until Stiving held up his hands. Was it Dallas’s imagination, or did he see the slightest sign of belief on Stiving’s face?

  “All right. I’ve got enough to look into. I’ll send anyone available to help search for the girl, but you have to know that Mia made an idiotic choice running from the police.”

  “She wouldn’t have done it, except that Gracie’s life is in danger,” Antonia fired back.

  “Seems to me she used that bit before, when she took the kid and went on the run after she served her jail time.”

  “She knows that was a mistake. She wanted to keep Mia away from her father,” Dallas said through clenched teeth.

  Stiving ignored him, took pictures of Antonia’s car and checked it thoroughly before he ordered her to move it off the road. “They just radioed me that they’re ordering evacuations of Spanish Canyon. This road will be jammed. I have to go back to town. You three should head to Pine Grove and wait for me there.”

  “My sister...” Antonia began.

  “Your sister is now a fugitive, and she’ll be treated as such.” He climbed in the front seat. “If you help her in any way, you’re aiding and abetting. Remember that.” Tires squelched across the road as he did a sharp U-turn and headed back toward Spanish Canyon.

  Dallas considered for a moment, trying to corral the thoughts stampeding through his brain. Mia would not hesitate to sacrifice her own life to save Gracie. Right or wrong, she felt she had no other choice than to run. He had to intercept her. Urgency burned like acid through his veins. “Take Susan and go to Pine Grove.”

  “What am I supposed to do there?” Antonia demanded. The angry quirk to her lips was so like her sister he almost smiled.

  “Convince them to look for Gracie. Get to the chief if you can.” He shot Susan a look. “And don’t let this lady out of your sight.”

  “Where do you think he took Gracie?” Susan asked.

  “I’m not certain.”

  “Promise me you won’t hand me over to Thomas, even if you do find him,” she said, staring at Dallas with those oddly haunted eyes. “You are not that kind of man, I think.”

  “You’re right, and I’m hoping you’re not the kind of woman who would walk out on a mother and child. We’ll need your testimony to bring Elias down once and for all.”

  She looked away. “I don’t know what kind of woman I am anymore. Before I was just angry, but now...”

  “It’s time for you to decide.” He faced her full-on. “You’ve been hurt and lost your husband. Now there’s a little girl involved.” He heard Antonia gulp back a sob. “She needs her mommy, and you can help put things right, but not if you run away. Do you understand?”

  She cocked her head. “Yes, I do.”

  “Then stay with Antonia. When we find Mia, we’ll need you to back up her story.” He reached out and squeezed Susan’s forearm. “This time, the doctor is going to pay for what he’s done, I promise.”

  She nodded slowly.

  He started for the truck.

  “But where are you going?” Antonia cried. “How can you help Mia?”

  “It’s my job to protect her, remember?” He opened the truck door.

  “You’re not just doing a job,” she said quietly. “It’s something much more than that.”

  He allowed a moment to acknowledge that she was right. Mia was not a job, she never had been. Not to him. “Juno and I are going to find her.”

  A freshening wind pulled at Antonia’s wet hair as the rain continued to fall. “Do you know where she’s headed?”

  “I have a pretty good idea.”

  She came close and gripped his hands. “You have to find her. And Gracie.”

  “I will,” he said, a sense of resolve turning all his fears and uncertainties into hard steel in his gut.

  I will.

  FIFTEEN

  Dallas pulled the truck off the road, crunching across the tall grass, making his own trail to a rocky outcropping behind which he parked. He picked up Mia’s purse and offered a sniff to Juno. It was probably completely unnecessary. He had always thought that Juno understood much more than the average member of his species. Juno already knew that he was going to look for the small, determined woman who had crashed through the heavy carpet of grass. Perhaps he thought it was one of their many training exercises where he would be sent to discover a prearranged “victim.”

  “Find,” he commanded anyway.

  Dallas watched hi
m run, graceful loping strides over the uneven ground, tail wagging with sheer joy at the prospect of engaging in a search. Mia was no doubt heading for Dr. Elias’s house to talk to Catherine. It would be feasible to go there and wait for her to turn up, but he did not want to leave her plunging through a heavily wooded area, wanted by the police and not in her right mind with worry about Gracie. She could fall, break an ankle, sustain a concussion. He shut down the worrisome scenarios.

  Juno returned after a short while, alerted with his ear piercing bark, and then disappeared again, scrambling up a twisting road which might have once been a logging trail. Dallas hiked onward, the muddy ground clinging to his boots, rain dripping from his hair. The trail crested the top of a wooded hill and drifted back down toward the highway.

  Every now and again, Juno would return and bark, a sign that he had tracked Mia and perhaps even found her already and why didn’t Dallas get a move on it and pick up the pace, already? Dallas smiled. They’d cross-trained together, Juno and his awkward human, and the dog was fully capable of both tracking and trailing, and air scenting, but Juno always seemed to relish the opportunity to be off leash and following his impeccable nose toward a rescue. Other dogs could do the tracking on leash.

  It never ceased to amaze him. With his paltry sense of smell, he could detect nothing but the odor of rain-washed ground and pine. Juno was easily able to discern the scent left behind by the 40,000 skin cells dropped each minute by his human quarry. Not only that, he could pick that scent from a world awash in odors. Dallas had worked with or known canines that detected everything from cadavers, to explosives, to smuggled fruits and vegetables. And now, his chance to find one small amazing woman lost in a sea of giant trees, all depended on Juno’s amazing nose.

  Dallas kept himself in high gear. In spite of the aching in his ribs and the pounding rain, he increased his clip until he was at a near jog, avoiding patches of slippery pine needles and puddles as best as he was able. She could not be that far ahead, but her pace was impressive, considering she too had survived a mudslide not many hours before.

  Time ticked away, sucking up the minutes until sundown. It was edging toward six o’clock. One more hour of daylight. Juno could track at night, they’d spent enough hours training at it, but Dallas was not as surefooted in the dark, and neither was Mia. She had to be cold and terrified. And what about Gracie? Was she frightened? Had he hurt her? Bound her? The thought haunted him.

  The way ahead was overgrown, thick underfoot with soggy debris and crowded overhead by tree limbs, weeping icy droplets down on him. And then, without warning, the trail was gone. They found themselves in a forest that showed no signs that it had ever been penetrated by humans for any reason. He listened to the incessant dripping. Wind played with branches and loosed more water down upon them which Juno blasted away with a vigorous body shake.

  Juno stopped and nosed around for Mia’s scent. With still victims on fair-weather days, the scent rose in a neat cone, emanating from the search target. Today the rain, shifting winds and highly active target, was making the search more difficult. It seemed likely that Mia would stop at some point, perhaps to try and use the GPS on her phone to locate Catherine’s house, or simply to rest, to hide.

  His heart was pounding and muscles fatigued after the brisk climb. Falling away to his left was a small hollow of firs, clustered close enough together to protect from the rain. She would head there, to regroup.

  “Mia,” he called. No answer but a quick darting movement from behind the trees. He charged toward it.

  Juno stopped him with an impatient bark.

  “She’s down there,” he said as much to himself as the dog, ignoring another louder bark from Juno.

  He half ran now, wishing his stiff leg and ribs would work in harmony with the rest of his limbs. He’d spent years, his whole adult life, really, combing through wild corners of the world, quiet forests and ruined buildings, creek beds and mountaintops, searching, searching. Sometimes he and Juno had found the target and he’d celebrated. Sometimes they didn’t get there in time and they grieved together. After every mission, the need to search always returned. There would be another someone to find, another search to be taken on, a restlessness that told him he had not yet discovered the person he was destined to find.

  “Mia,” he shouted again, earning another bark from Juno.

  He plunged into the clearing, moving so fast he skidded a good couple of feet before he stopped his forward momentum. The Stellar’s Jays in the shrubs shot out with a deafening screech, taking refuge in the branches and squawking their displeasure. The air was heavy with the scent of wet grass and decaying leaves.

  He completed a rough circle of the hollow, sinking up to his ankle in water at one point. Mia wasn’t there. Bending low, he peered under the taller bushes, searching out any hiding places.

  No Mia, nor any sign she had ever been there. Juno stared at him. Recrimination. He’d broken his own rule. Trust the dog. Dallas hadn’t.

  Early on in his career in search and rescue, a mentor watched him disregard a seemingly impossible positive alert from his dog. That’s when Dallas had learned the term “intelligent disobedience.”

  If you’ve got a smart dog and you have learned to trust each other, let the dog think for himself. Juno had, and Dallas had disregarded him.

  He dropped to a knee in the soggy grass and gave Juno a scratch. “Sorry, boy. I messed up. You’re in charge now.”

  Juno accepted the apology by licking a raindrop off Dallas’s chin, before he sprinted back in the other direction. Dallas tried to do the same, stumbling on the uneven earth and slapping aside branches as the slope became steep. He’d lost time with his dumb mistake. He prayed it wasn’t too late. As the terrain grew more and more rugged, he had to resort to using his hands to hold on to tree trunks and exposed roots as he hauled himself upward, arriving at the top to find they’d looped back to the road.

  Fifty yards ahead a yellow truck was stopped, the passenger door open.

  And Mia was just stepping in.

  “Mia,” he shouted. Juno had almost reached her when she pulled the door closed and the truck rumbled away down the road, leaving Juno and Dallas alone on the rain-soaked highway.

  * * *

  Mia’s heart plummeted as she eyed Dallas in the sideview mirror, Juno trotting back over to him as the truck pulled out. He’d come to find her, to help her out of the excruciating mess she’d fallen into. Maybe he’d intended to talk her into going back to the police. Knowing Dallas, he’d more likely determined to help her enact her own desperate plan to find her daughter.

  But she could not let him throw his life away on a fugitive. And that’s what she was, she reminded herself incredulously.

  She realized the woman at the wheel was speaking to her. “Where’d you come from? Popping out of the woods like that, I thought you were Bigfoot, till I realized you’re too small and not hairy enough.” She laughed, setting her gray curls bouncing. “Name’s Fiona. You?”

  She smiled, imagining she must look like a deranged hitchhiker. “My name’s Mia. I’m trying to get to the Spanish Villa Estates, on the edge of town. Do you know where that is?”

  “’Course. Nice digs up there.” She eyed Mia more closely, gaze flicking over her jeans and torn windbreaker. “That where you live?”

  “No.” Mia tried to stick to the truth as much as possible. “My house flooded. I know someone who lives in Spanish Villa. She said she’d help us find a place.”

  “Us?”

  Mia swallowed hard. “My daughter, Gracie. She’s four.” She could not stop the tears then, hot and fast they rolled down her face. “I’m sorry. We’ve had a difficult time.”

  “It’s okay, honey,” the driver said, patting her hand and offering her a tissue box. “I got three girls myself. All grown now with kids of their own, but I remember how ha
rd it was. Especially when my husband split town.” She offered Mia a thermos. “Hot tea. You drink some now.”

  Mia protested.

  “Your teeth are chattering. Drink the tea. I got plenty more.”

  Mia poured and sipped. The tea delivered warm comfort through her body and it had the added bonus of keeping her busy. Most of all she desperately did not want Fiona to ask her any more questions about Gracie. She could not trust her emotions.

  Just get to Catherine and find out where her husband has taken my child.

  Fiona kept up a constant commentary about the flooding and the small trucking company that she owned. Mia checked her phone constantly for any message from Dr. Elias. There wasn’t any. He was probably enjoying the thought of the agony he’d created.

  “Built it myself from the ground up,” Fiona was saying. “Got twelve trucks now, out of Pine Grove. That’s where I’m headed. Heard they’ve got the police moved up there during the flooding.”

  Mia sipped her tea and stared out the window. What else had Fiona heard?

  Fiona sighed. “Awww, man. Looks like we got a roadblock.”

  Mia stared through the water-speckled windshield. Four cars ahead of them were stopped at a set of blockades straddling the road. A police officer, or perhaps a volunteer, swathed in a yellow slicker was making his way down the line, speaking with each of the drivers.

  Her hands went icy around the cup. Were they looking for her? Nerves jumping, she darted a glance at the door handle. She could yank it open and jump down. Run away from the road. Right, and broadcast her presence like a signal flare.

  The officer finished with the first two cars and made it to the third. It was almost sunset, and he held a flashlight. To search the vehicles for her? The fugitive wanted for murdering Cora Graham?

  Fiona shot her a curious glance. “Drink more tea, honey, you’re shaking like mad.”