Avalanche of Trouble

by Cindi Myers

  The car made a sharp turn and she had to brace herself to keep from falling off the back seat. It bumped over a very rough road, then came to a stop. Casey risked opening her eyes just a little bit. She watched the two men in the front seat through her lashes. They looked like they were arguing, their faces screwed up in anger, arms waving and fingers pointing.

  The tall man in the passenger seat suddenly unsnapped his seat belt, got out of the car and came around to open the back door. He reached in and pulled her out. She forced herself to keep her eyes closed—to let her body go limp and pretend that she was asleep. But the man pinched her—hard—and her eyes flew open. His mouth moved—he had his face close to hers and was saying something, but she couldn’t read his lips or understand what he wanted from her.

  He picked her up and carried her, long strides moving swiftly across the ground, the second man running alongside them. She tried to see where they were, but had only a glimpse of shadowy trees and a few buildings. Then they were inside one of the buildings—a chilly space that smelled of damp dirt and rusty metal. The man who had been carrying Casey set her on the ground, then shoved her so that she fell over. She hit the ground hard and rolled, her bottom throbbing where she had landed on it. When she looked up, the man had switched on a flashlight and was shining the light all around the room. But she only caught glimpses of a ribbed metal roof and rock walls. Then the man shone the light in her eyes, making her raise her bound hands to try to shield herself from the painful glare.

  The light went out, though the ghost of it still blinded her. Casey lay frozen for a long moment, waiting for her vision to clear. When it did, she could make out two shoebox-sized squares of pale light on the dirt floor. As her eyes adjusted more, she saw that the two light squares came from a pair of vents in the ceiling, which was curved and made out of a heavily ribbed metal. Concrete block walls—not stone, as she had first thought—rose up to meet the roof. The floor was dirt, damp in places, a thin trickle of water running down a channel in the center of the space.

  The door was a thick slab of metal set at one end of the room. It fit tightly in its frame, not even a splinter of light showing around it. Casey ran to the door and threw herself against it, but it didn’t budge. She stood a moment, scanning every corner of the building, which was about the size of the living room at home. She didn’t see any place for the two men to hide, so they must have left her here and gone away.

  She leaned against the door and worked on freeing her hands from the rope the men had used to bind them. She strained and grunted, ignoring the pain when the rough cord scraped the skin from her thumb. She flexed and bent and tugged until first the thumb, then the rest of the fingers on her right hand, were free. After that, she was able to free her other hand from the binding. She tucked the rope in the pocket of her coat, then went to the far corner of the room and peed in a rusty metal can she found there. Feeling better, she began searching for a way out of the room.

  The only openings besides the door were the two air vents, high up in the curved roof, in the center of the room. Casey tried jumping, but she couldn’t come close to reaching those openings. The room didn’t contain any furniture or any boxes she could stack to climb onto, and there was no ladder. Frustrated, she sat on the floor and stared at the door. She hoped Aunt Maya and Deputy Gage would find her soon—before those two men came back.

  * * *

  “I NEED YOU to look at your sister’s things again and see if there’s anything, however small, that you don’t recognize or that seems out of character or unusual.” Gage studied Maya’s exhausted face, wondering if he was wasting time with this avenue of investigation. Was he grasping at straws that didn’t exist while a killer did away with an innocent little girl?

  “I’ll try.” Maya rubbed her temples. “I’ve been going over and over the conversations I had with Angie and Greg about this new venture of theirs, trying to remember any details that might help. But everything was very general—they had bought the property, had plans for it as the start of a new business venture and might move to Eagle Mountain because it was a quiet, beautiful place that would be good for Casey.”

  “Take a look at their belongings again,” Gage said. “Now that a few days have passed, maybe something will stand out for you.”

  She nodded, and he led her down the hall to the conference room. He watched her while she walked slowly past the tables and the items laid out like the remnants of someone’s yard sale, yellow evidence labels standing out against the blues and greens of the camping equipment and clothing. She stopped in front of one of the plastic storage containers and the miscellaneous canned and packaged food arrayed beside it, each item carefully inventoried, including a trio of glass jars with lids. “Angie liked to keep everything in these glass canning jars,” she said, picking up one that was filled with shriveling red berries. She squinted at the jar. “What are these?”

  Gage leaned over her shoulder to get a closer look at the contents of the jar. “I think the tech said they’re rose hips. Wait a minute.” He consulted the evidence sheet on a clipboard by the door. “Here it is—approximately one pint of fresh rose hips. Well, not so fresh anymore.”

  Maya set the jar down. “I’m sure she read somewhere that rose hips are good for something. She was always experimenting with new recipes and jellies and things.” She glanced at Gage. “What are rose hips, anyway?”

  He pulled out his phone and did a search on the term. “‘Rose hips are the fruit of wild roses, valued as a source of vitamins A and C and other vitamins and minerals.’” He looked up from the phone. “She must have found some wild roses on their place and picked these.” Except he had tramped over pretty much every square inch of the Hoods’ land searching for Casey and didn’t remember any roses. He did, however, have a clear memory of the rose hedges alongside Henry Hake’s property—hedges heavy with blooming roses, thorns...and fat, red rose hips.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Maya felt the change in Gage, a sudden tightening along his jaw and straightening of his shoulders, almost like a dog that has alerted on a scent. “What is it?” She gripped his arm. “You’ve thought of something, haven’t you?”

  “I’m not sure. Just an idea where your sister might have gotten these. And a connection to another case. I’m wondering if while picking these rose hips, your sister and her husband saw something they shouldn’t have.”

  “Tell me,” Maya said. “Could the kidnappers have taken Casey there? Where is it?”

  “I can’t tell you, but I promise we’re going to check it out. Right now. You can stay here and wait, or I’ll take you to Paige’s place and you can wait with her.”

  “I’m done with waiting,” she said, not suppressing the anger that rose at his suggestion. “If you find Casey, she’s going to need me—not a bunch of officers who will mean well but who won’t know how to communicate with her. When you find her—and I’m refusing to accept that you won’t—you’ll need to know what she knows right away. It could make the difference between catching these men and not.”

  He frowned, but she knew he couldn’t deny the strength of her argument. “You’d have to follow orders and stay out of the way.”

  “I could do that. You know me enough now to know that I won’t go all hysterical or try to interfere. But I need to be there for Casey.”

  “Let me talk to Travis,” he said.

  “Talk to me about what?” The sheriff, shadows under his eyes and in need of a shave, joined them in the evidence room.

  Gage glanced at Maya, clearly debating whether to say anything in front of her. “There’s no sense keeping anything a secret from me,” she said. “Don’t waste any more time.”

  Gage turned to his brother. “Angela Hood was picking rose hips some time not long before she was killed.” He picked up the canning jar and showed it to Travis. “I’m thinking she was around that big rose hedge on Henry Hake’s
property. Maybe she and her husband saw something they shouldn’t have.”

  Travis arched one eyebrow. “Such as?”

  “I don’t know. But if Henry Hake’s kidnappers took him there to hide him—or to kill him—maybe the Hoods were witnesses and that’s why they were killed.”

  “And maybe the killers took Casey there,” Maya said. “There are all kinds of buildings on that property, aren’t there? What if they took her to one of them?”

  “Can we get a warrant for a search based on a jar of rose hips?” Gage asked.

  “With Hake and Casey missing, and the Hoods’ murders right next door?” Travis nodded. “Judge Wilson would probably be sympathetic.” He clapped Gage on the shoulder. “Grab Dwight and anyone else on duty and head up there. I’ll get the request for the warrant to Judge Wilson and let you know as soon as it’s a go.”

  Travis headed for his office. Gage locked up the room, then radioed Dwight. “Get as many officers as you can round up and meet me at Eagle Mountain Resort. As soon as we get the go-ahead from Travis, we’re going in.”

  She followed him down a long hallway to a room with a heavy steel door. He unlocked it and she found herself in a small space filled with weapons, ammunition and even a battering ram. Gage scanned the array of items, then pulled a black vest from a box. “Put this on,” he ordered.

  Putting on the vest brought home the seriousness of the situation. It was hard and heavy and the fact that he felt she needed to wear it frightened her more than the rifle and ammunition he took from the room. But she pushed down the fear and followed him back out of the room to his SUV.

  “You stay in the vehicle,” he said as he started the engine. “If I tell you to get down, you get down.”

  “I will.”

  The grim expression on his face tore at her. “Gage, you know I don’t blame you for anything that’s happened.”

  His jaw tightened. “I should have realized an attacker could approach from the rear of the house,” he said. “I should have stationed another officer there.”

  “You can’t anticipate everything—” she began.

  “It’s my job to anticipate. To protect the people I care about.”

  The words rocked her back in her seat. Of course, she knew Gage cared. His every action had said as much. But to hear the sentiment spoken out loud touched her deep inside. She reached over and took his hand. “That means everything to me,” she said.

  He didn’t look at her, but he squeezed her hand and held on to it as they drove out of town. Whatever happened next, they would face it together.

  * * *

  THE SUN WAS sending a pink stain over the ash-gray sky as the officers assembled before the gates of Eagle Mountain Resort. The feathery branches of lodgepole pines and white fir looked black in the smoky light, and the air smelled of evergreen. Gage parked his SUV with the bumper up against the gates. Travis had worked quickly, and Judge Wilson had okayed the warrant before Gage was out of cell phone range.

  “Unbuckle your seat belt in case you need to get down quickly,” he told Maya.

  She did as he asked and looked at him, her face very pale, the blue ends of her hair bright in the dim light. Ridiculous hair, but he loved it. He loved pretty much everything about her, yet he had to lock all of that emotion away for now. If he didn’t, he would be too afraid for her to do his job.

  “Be careful,” she said. “Maybe I’m not supposed to say that, but I will, anyway.”

  “You can say it. And I’ll be careful.” He thought about kissing her, but settled for giving her a long look he hoped told her everything he couldn’t say, then he got out of the SUV and went to meet the rest of the team.

  “We’ve got a warrant to search this place,” he said. “Every building.” He indicated the pair of bolt cutters Dwight had pulled from his cruiser. “If it’s padlocked, cut off the lock. We’re looking for a little girl, Casey Hood, who was taken from her bed this evening while she was sleeping. If you come across any sign of her, or anything else suspicious, notify me.”

  They spread out and for the next hour, they combed over the property, peering into storage sheds full of gardening and construction tools, an empty concrete bunker whose purpose Gage couldn’t determine and what had once served as the sales office for the proposed resort, the office furniture and filing cabinets it contained coated with a thick layer of dust. The backhoe and tractor parked in a shed at the back of the property was not dust covered, and judging from the tracks leading to it, had been recently used. Elsewhere on the property tire tracks, shoe impressions, freshly cut trees and newly poured concrete attested to recent activity. But they found nothing suspicious, and no sign that either Henry Hake or Casey had ever been there.

  The officers reassembled at the gates to the development, most of them looking as discouraged as Gage felt. “This didn’t pan out, so go back and start working our other leads,” he said. “Circulate that artist’s sketch. Canvas the neighborhoods around my house and around the B and B again. Look for anything we’ve missed.”

  As they left, Gage returned to his SUV. He inserted the key in the ignition, but instead of starting the engine, he stared at the tall iron gates and the abandoned buildings and crumbling streets beyond. Something wasn’t right here. He couldn’t shake that feeling.

  “We’ve missed something,” he said. “I can feel it.” He opened the driver’s-side door again. “I want to take another look around.”

  “Let me come with you,” Maya said. “Please.”

  He hesitated. But in addition to not finding Casey, his men hadn’t found any signs of danger. “Okay,” he said. “Maybe you’ll see something we’ve missed.”

  He led the way around the gates and up what would have been the main street. An eerie silence had settled over the scene, not even the birds calling to each other. Their boots crunched on gravel as they turned down a side street, past the air vents, which had turned out to belong to an air tunnel that led into an abandoned mine, the entrance into the main adit blocked by a heavy iron gate, the hinges so rusted it was obvious it hadn’t been opened in the last decade.

  “We searched every building on the place,” Gage said, sweeping his arm to indicate the half-dozen structures along the deserted remains of streets. “But I can’t shake the feeling we’re missing something. Call it cop instinct or a hunch or whatever you like.”

  “I believe you,” Maya said. “I feel it, too. The place looks so harmless, but something isn’t right.” She turned slowly in a circle, then pointed to the end of the street, where a narrow path led into the underbrush. “What’s back there?”

  “I walked back there until the path gave out,” Gage said. “There’s nothing.” But he fell into step behind her as she held back the low limb of a tree and pushed into the underbrush.

  A breeze stirred the still air, bringing with it the scent of blooming roses. A glance to his right showed Gage the pale pink blossoms on the rose hedge along the edge of the property. The vines climbed eight feet up the fence in a thick tangle of blooms and thorns, impenetrable. In between the blossoms glowed bright red rose hips, like beads scattered from a broken necklace.

  Maya had seen the roses, too, and left the path to get a closer look. “Careful,” Gage said. “Don’t let them stick you.”

  “Angie must have really wanted those hips to risk picking them out of all these thorns.” Maya started to retreat and stumbled, and Gage lunged forward to catch her before she fell. He steadied her, and she stared at the ground at her feet. “I tripped over something metal,” she said. “Some kind of grate.”

  He released her and knelt to feel what was definitely a pair of metal grates. They showed no signs of rust. He unclipped the Maglite from his belt and played the beam across the grating. “Maybe these are for drainage,” he said. He tugged at the metal, but it refused to budge. “I’ve got some tools in the truck—let me get them
. I want to see where this leads.”

  “I’ll wait here.” Maya looked around them. “Otherwise, we might have a hard time finding this again. It’s pretty well hidden back in here.”

  He hurried back toward his SUV, excitement spurring him into a trot. They’d found something significant, he was sure, though what and whether it would lead to Casey—or to Henry Hake—he had no idea. He retrieved a pry bar and a toolbox from his SUV and hurried back down the path. Despite Maya’s fears, the place where they had turned off the path was easy enough to find, the brush bent down and crushed by their footsteps. But he didn’t see Maya. Had something else caught her attention and she had wandered away to investigate? “Maya?” he called.

  Silence was his only answer. Maya had disappeared.

  * * *

  MAYA’S HEAD HURT—a throbbing pain as if someone was using the inside of her skull as a drum. She moaned and tried to roll over, away from the pain, but a sharp ache in her right arm made her gasp and open her eyes. She looked up into Casey’s concerned green eyes. Casey, so sweet and seemingly unharmed. Maya closed her eyes again, tears leaking out of the corners. She must be dreaming. Or maybe she was dead and this was heaven—but then why would her head throb and her arm ache?

  Casey shook her, and Maya opened her eyes again and sat up. She hugged the girl close and Casey put her arms around Maya’s neck and hugged back. If this was a dream, she didn’t want it to stop.

  “Are you okay?” Casey signed.

  “I’m okay.” She was alive and that was all that mattered. But on the heels of this thought, panic rose to choke her. Gage? Where was Gage? She looked around her at the dimly lit concrete block–walled room. “Where’s Gage?” she asked Casey.

  Casey shook her head. “He isn’t here. The bad men only brought you.”