by Dana R. Lynn
FIFTEEN
What had she done?
Annie couldn’t escape the feeling that disaster was pending. She prayed as hard as she knew how, but she still could not shake the dread that had taken hold of her. She replayed the conversation with her mother multiple times. Each time, she cringed. Why had she called her mother? Karl had called her back, and she had told him about the fire. He had assured her that her mother was fine.
Annabelle hadn’t told him about the phone call.
She needed to tell Tyler what she had done. He’d be upset. And rightly so.
Hopefully, he would be better at the forgiveness thing than she had been.
She looked again at the newspaper. She had so many great memories at that house, but her mother was right. It was just a house. People were more important. That was why she had made that phone call.
“Annie?” She heard Julia calling.
“I’m coming,” she answered.
Leaving the newspaper on the desk, she headed down the stairs. She was halfway down when she realized something. She had left her stockings off. It was a warm day, so her feet were not cold. It felt strange knowing that, for the first time in several years, she was not going to cover up her legs. Granted, no one in this house would care about the scars. But it still felt like a huge step for her.
Feeling lighter than she had in days, Annie waltzed into the kitchen. Julia was getting ready to leave. She had her stockings and her shoes on. She had also placed a black bonnet over her prayer kapp.
“I need to go out for a bit. I should be back within an hour. Will you be fine here by yourself?”
Annie nodded. “Of course! You go and run your errands. I will see you when you return.”
She watched Julia as she headed out the door. It had been a while since she had been on her own. It was kind of nice.
Bethany found her a few minutes later. She had some books in her arms. “Mommy, will you read to me?”
“Of course I will.”
Annie sat at the table with Bethany at her side. They read the first two books together. They had just opened the third book, when Annie looked up. She shuddered and the blood drained from her face. Jim, the man with the gun, was sneaking down the field toward the house. She could run, but what if he shot at Bethany?
She had to save her daughter.
How? With terror blazing through her veins, she realized that the only thing she could do was distract him.
“Bethy, I want you to listen to me.” The little girl looked at her with wide eyes. “The bad man is coming. I can see him. I need to make you safe.”
She hated the frightened expression that slid over her daughter’s face, but she needed to make sure she understood the gravity of the situation. She needed Bethany to remain hidden until Tyler found her. Only then could she be sure that her daughter was safe.
Quickly, she brought Bethany into the pantry. It was hard to breathe around the terror that filled her system. Dragging Bethany over to the far wall, Annie pushed two shelving units apart just enough for her daughter to squeeze between them.
Helping her fit into the small space, she had her crouch down. “Okay, Bethany. I need you to stay here and not make a sound, do you understand?” She waited for her daughter to nod. “Good girl. Mommy is going to lead that bad man away from here so that he can’t hurt you. Stay here and keep quiet.”
Leaning forward, she kissed the blond head. She loved Bethany so much. She prayed that her daughter and Tyler would be safe. The question of whether or not she would ever see her daughter again popped into her mind, but she shoved it out. She couldn’t give up. There was too much at stake.
As soon as she was sure her daughter was safe, she left the kitchen. She had not made it far into the house when a rough arm grabbed her and a calloused hand covered her mouth. The scent of old tobacco and sweat filled her nostrils. She gagged.
“Look who’s here. I have searched for you and that sneaky husband of yours for weeks. I should have burned down your mama’s house earlier. I would have had the reward money half spent by now.” She cringed as a low chuckle filled her ears. Her call to her mother had led him right to them.
Jim forced her out of the house and down the street a short ways. There was a beat-up pickup truck parked along the side of the road. He grabbed some rope from inside and tied her hands. Then he forced her into the truck. He slammed the door behind her. “If you try to escape, somebody will die. And it will be your fault.”
She believed him. Twenty seconds later, he hauled himself behind the wheel and started the truck. He didn’t go far. He pulled the truck behind the empty house down the street and parked it. Then he took her inside. The house was falling down around them. The roof had holes in it. She could see the light from outside filtering through. The clouds were starting to gather up above. She had a feeling that the roof would leak like crazy once it started to pour. Then what?
Jim pushed her down onto the floor. She didn’t want to look down to see what was covering the floor. It couldn’t be good. She stared at Jim, waiting for him to tell her exactly what he planned.
He swung a decrepit chair around and sat facing her. The chair creaked.
“Your man, he’s gonna be searching for you real soon. When he does, I’ll catch him. I have a reward to get. Do you know how hard it was to figure out how to get it for myself? Kory was planning on getting his share. Tossing him off the bridge took care of that problem. I hadn’t planned to kill him, but when I saw him almost fall through the bridge, I knew it would be easy to accomplish.”
She had thought the other man had fallen. He had pushed him. The acid in her stomach churned.
“I decided that your mama would be the perfect lure, and I was right. I followed her to your brother’s house. She likes to leave her phone in her unlocked car. I had a buddy put a bug in her cell phone, then I burned the house. I haven’t had so much fun since I was kid. Always did like fire. When you called to check on your mother, we got to listen in. It took us a while to find you. But I was able to force someone at the cell phone company to look up her call records and where the calls came from. It was only a matter of time after that. We just had to talk to the right people to learn about a new family in the area.”
Her phone call to her mother was going to cost Annie her life. And possibly Tyler’s, too. Thankfully, she had been able to hide Bethany before Jim had gotten into the house. At least her little girl was safe. She couldn’t believe how dumb she’d been. But she had been acting on pure nerve at that point.
The clip-clop of horse hooves made the foul man fall silent.
Jim stood and walked to the door. “Good, that other woman just pulled in the driveway. Soon, the whole crew should be home. When your man finds you gone, he’ll come to find you. As soon as he’s on his own, I’ll make my move.”
Jim gave a rusty chuckle and rubbed his hands together in glee.
“This is going to be so much fun,” he gloated.
The dread that was roiling inside her went up a notch.
* * *
Where was Annie?
Tyler and Abraham had returned from helping the neighbor. Abraham immediately headed out to the barn to check on a project he’d set aside earlier. Tyler entered the house, but no one seemed to be there. Maybe she had gone somewhere with Julia. No, they wouldn’t have left Kayla. Kayla was out in the front yard, playing by herself. That was odd. The girls had been each other’s shadows ever since they had moved in with the Beiler family.
Maybe she knew where Bethany was. He sauntered to the child and crouched down so that he was at eye level with her.
“Hi, Kayla. I was wondering if you knew where Bethany was. I need to find her.”
Kayla blinked at him. “Nope. I looked for her. She wasn’t inside.” The seven-year-old shrugged her slim shoulders. In her world, not being able to find her friend one day
didn’t seem like a big deal.
Tyler had every reason to believe that it could be a very big deal. He jumped up and ran inside the house. Julia was baking something that smelled delicious in the kitchen. It barely registered with Tyler.
“Julia! Have you seen Bethany or Annie?”
She must have heard the fear threading through his voice. Stopping what she was doing, Julia shook her head. Her face paled slightly. She wiped her hands on a dish towel and started toward the door. “I’ll check upstairs. I saw Annie about an hour ago, right before I left for town.”
She ran lightly up the steps to Annie’s room. He wasn’t surprised when she came down a minute later. Her face was distressed. “She’s not there. And there was no note or any sort of clue as to where she might have gone.”
Julia’s expression was becoming concerned.
Between the two of them, they searched the house for clues. Tyler was ready to scream. He heard a sniffling noise from the pantry. Walking in, he looked between two shelving units. Crouched down on the floor was Bethany, her face wet with tears.
Heart pounding, he pulled out his daughter and lifted her into his arms. He buried his face against the side of her kapp and held her tight. His baby girl was alive. He could not stop shaking.
Finally, he managed to walk out of the pantry, still holding her in his arms. Julia ran in and saw the child. She immediately wiped her eyes.
“Bethany,” Tyler rasped out of a throat too tight. “Why were you in the pantry?”
The child gulped back another sob. “Mommy put me there. She told me to stay still and not move.” A tear broke free. “I didn’t move, Daddy. I didn’t. I heard you calling, but Mommy said don’t move.”
His poor girl.
“Why did Mommy put you in there? Did she say?” His chest was tight. He knew that something horrible had happened. And he also knew that Annie had done all she could to protect the little girl.
“Mommy saw the bad man coming. She told me to stay so he wouldn’t find me.”
“This bad man,” Julia said. “Did he come?”
Bethany nodded. “He made Mommy go with him. He said something about hurting Grandma if she didn’t.”
Of course Annie would do whatever she could to protect her mother. Really, to protect any of them.
Bethany started to cry again in earnest. “I want Mommy. Daddy, go find Mommy.”
He kissed her, blinking back his own tears. “I will, bug. I’m gonna get Mommy as soon as I can.”
He had no idea how. But he would find her. He went up to her room, to search and see if there was something that Julia might have missed. The room was spotless. The only thing out of place was a newspaper on the desk. He nearly walked by it without taking another look, but something about it made him glance down again.
The newspaper had obviously been handled a lot. It was wrinkled in various places and looked like it had been folded back to a specific page. The picture facing up was a burned-down house. At first, he almost missed it. Something about the picture caught his eye, though. When he looked closer, he realized that he knew the neighborhood. He had gone there frequently when he and Annie were still together.
It was his mother-in-law’s house. All at once, he remembered how Annie had been on edge for the past week or so. Ever since he gave her the newspaper. He should have questioned her more. Maybe then she might have confided in him what had happened.
They had used her mother to draw them out.
He knew what he had to do. Searching the room quickly, he located the phone that Karl had given them. He dialed Karl’s phone number, impatiently tapping his fingers on the table while he waited for it to be answered.
A deep voice answered. “Karl here.”
“Karl. This is Tyler Everson.” Tyler spit the words out so fast, he wasn’t sure that the marshal would be able to understand him. He forced himself to slow down and speak at a normal rate. “I think that someone has taken my wife.”
He quickly explained that Annie was missing. When he mentioned the newspaper opened on her desk to the article about the fire, Karl was concerned.
“She told me about the fire. My guess is that she contacted her mother.” Karl’s voice didn’t betray any judgment.
Tyler had already concluded the same thing. He also concluded that she had regretted her ill-advised actions. But it would have been too late. If only she had come to him. He would have helped her figure something out. At least, they should have called the marshals.
“I will send someone to check on the mother and brother. In the meantime, I will be there as soon as I can. If you hear from them, contact me at once.”
Tyler agreed. The second he hung up, he headed outside. He was going to try and see if there were any hints outside. Bethany had said that Annie had seen the man coming. Tyler decided to walk the perimeter of the property, see if he could find any clues that might lead him to discover the whereabouts of his wife.
If she was still alive.
He had never in his life felt such despair. Reaching the barn, he looked inside and then around back. Nothing. Giving in, he let his knees buckle. Falling to the ground, he knelt on the fresh grass. And for the first time in his adult life, Tyler Everson truly poured out his anguish and his fears to God.
He had no idea how long he knelt there behind the barn. When he finally stood, he felt renewed in purpose. He recalled a verse from his childhood. He thought it was from the Gospel of Matthew, but he wasn’t sure. He didn’t even remember the entire verse. The only part that he could recall was Jesus saying that He would be with them always. When all this was through, he was going to find a Bible and look up that verse.
Right now, he was going to find his wife.
He continued along the perimeter of the house. Abraham and William had joined in and were searching in another section of the property.
A drop of water hit him squarely on the cheek. Tyler glanced up at the sky. The clouds were dark and rolling through the sky at great speed. In the distance he saw a bright flash of light. Lightning. A few seconds later, thunder rumbled.
Great. He’d be searching in a thunderstorm.
He hoped that Annie was out of the elements.
He continued looking. He wanted to call out her name but restrained himself. She might hear him, but so might her kidnapper. He would lose any advantage he might have. Not that he had any. The kidnapper had to know that he was searching for her.
He kept going. Every now and then, he’d see a movement. It was always an animal or something blowing across the yard. He was trying not to lose hope.
Would he ever be able to tell her that he still loved her?
He hoped so. He needed to move faster. The rain was starting to fall harder. If it fell much harder, it would soon be hard to see anything more than a few inches in front of his face. His teeth chattered. The rain was cold. Within minutes, his clothing was soaked and his hair was plastered to his head. He shoved his hands in his pockets and kept his arms close to his body in an attempt to stay warm. He didn’t even consider going back inside the house. Not while Annie was in the control of a madman with a gun. He said another quick prayer under his breath.
His ears strained. What was that? He listened. There it was again. There was a rustling sound. It was somewhere behind him. He started to pivot to locate the sound. Something hard was shoved into his back. He didn’t have to look down to know that it was a gun.
He had been found.
SIXTEEN
Jim shoved the gun harder into Tyler’s back.
“Don’t try anything funny, you hear? I got your pretty little wife, and I have no problem with killing her to make you mind your manners.”
Tyler did not doubt that the man would do just that. At least he knew that she was still alive. He allowed the man to push him away from the house toward the street. Every step would bring
him closer to his wife. As they walked, he fought the urge to try and overpower the man forcing him along. He knew that there was a good chance that the gun would go off if he did. The other thought that kept running through his head was that this man was the only person who knew where Annie was.
The thunder boomed directly overhead. Lightning was now flashing in the sky with a vengeance, illuminating the surrounding landscape. It was frightening and awesome at the same time. The rain continued to pound on them. Soon the ground had turned into slippery mud. Tyler slipped once. The man behind him showed him no mercy. He smacked at Tyler with the gun. Tyler cringed, expecting the gun to go off. When it didn’t, he straightened. Jim pushed at him again. They continued slogging through the summer storm until they reached their destination.
Jim pushed Tyler into the darkness of the falling-down house. Tyler had noticed the house in the past week or so. Abraham had told him that it had been standing deserted for two years now. There was no running electric. There was talk that the local government was going to tear down the building one of these days. It was a hazard and an eyesore.
Tyler heard someone ahead of him. His steps quickened. He was pretty sure that he would find Annie if he just kept moving. A light speared through the shadows. Jim had turned on a flashlight.
Sitting on the floor, her back against the wall, was his Annie. Her hands were tied in front of her. She looked uninjured. Momentarily forgetting the man walking behind him, Tyler skirted around the chair sitting in the middle of the floor and knelt down in the dirt beside his wife.
She was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen.
“Annie, are you hurt?” Was that hoarse croak his voice?
She stirred. Opening her eyes, she stared at him. “Tyler? Oh, Tyler.” Her voice became a wail. “I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to lead him to us.”
“Hush, none of that. Remember what you keep trying to tell me? You are not responsible for someone else’s bad choices. If I saw my mother’s house had burned down, I would have called her, too.”
