by Cora Seton
“We’ll get it done if we can ever reach Blaine. When the hell is she on, anyway?”
Avery glanced at the television, where everyone in the Senate room was milling around.
“All right, folks, it’s obvious we’re going to run very late tonight,” a man on the screen said, speaking into a microphone. “I know you all have plans to fly back to your districts for the next few days, and I can’t help that. We’ve got to get this done. We’re going to take a two-hour break for dinner. We’ll reconvene then and keep going as long as it takes. Rebook your flights if you need to.”
No one on-screen looked happy, but Mr. Smith straightened.
“She’s bound to answer the phone now. She’ll be looking for dinner reservations.” He tried to make the call again.
Elizabeth didn’t pick up.
“This is ridiculous,” he said.
“Call this one’s boyfriend,” Owen said, gesturing at Avery. “Tell him to get it done.”
“I’m not willing to take that chance yet. We’ve got two hours before they start the hearings again. If Blaine doesn’t answer by then, we’ll make that call,” he added before Owen could protest.
Owen swore beneath his breath but paced away again.
Avery settled in as best she could, swallowing the grief that kept welling up inside her every time she thought about the wedding she wasn’t attending.
An hour later, she was still trying to find a comfortable position. With her hands tied behind her back, she couldn’t lean against the headboard. Her legs kept going to sleep, but every time she moved, she found herself face to face with a handgun.
At some point, Owen took her to the bathroom again. Later, he fed her another muffin.
Despite her best efforts, a tear slid down Avery’s cheek. Then another. She should be dancing with Walker at her reception. This should be the happiest night of her life.
“That’s not going to work,” Owen growled at her. “No crocodile tears.”
“Leave her alone. She just missed her wedding,” Mr. Smith said. “You should have ditched Walker a long time ago, anyway, you know,” he added. “A man who makes you wait like that isn’t going to be any kind of husband to you. Yeah, I watch the show,” he growled when she lifted her gaze to him in surprise.
“Walker’s a good man,” she said.
“He took his eye off the ball. Didn’t put you first,” Mr. Smith retorted. He switched from C-SPAN to a news channel. “‘Scientists face off with would-be polluters,’” he read off the screen. “Bunch of crybabies.”
“When the hell are they getting back from dinner?” Owen complained an eternity later, when Mr. Smith flipped back to C-SPAN just to check. There was nothing to see yet. “Who takes two hours to eat a meal?”
“Politicians,” Mr. Smith said scornfully. He found another game, checking C-SPAN now and then. He called Elizabeth continually.
She never answered.
“There they are,” Owen exclaimed finally as people began to file into the Senate chamber on-screen a couple of hours later.
Avery straightened. They kept their eyes on the screen but sighed when a man took a seat at the table where all day long witnesses had given testimony.
“State your full name and occupation, please,” the man chairing the meeting said.
“My name is Bryce Wollcroft, and I work with the Department of the Interior.”
“This is getting us nowhere,” Owen said. “If you don’t call Base Camp, I will.”
“We’re stopping vehicles leaving Chance Creek,” Cab said. “We’ve got the highways blocked in every direction. Choppers in the air.”
“We must have called everyone in town by now,” Clay added. “We’ve checked the motels and bed-and-breakfasts.”
“We’ve got search parties everywhere,” Boone said. “Where is she?”
Walker wished to hell he knew. They were standing in front of the community center, where they’d convened to swap information. He and Boone had been almost to Wyoming before they gave up and turned around. They’d been searching for hours, but there was no sign of Avery. He couldn’t help wondering if her kidnappers had made it out of town and eluded Cab’s blockades before they were set up. If so, she could be anywhere by now.
“What about Silver Falls?” Riley asked. “There are plenty of places up there to hide.”
“We’re on it,” Cab told her. “But you’re right; there’s a lot of ground to cover.”
Walker’s phone buzzed, and everyone stilled.
“Walker here.”
“You’re about to get a message. Watch the video,” a man’s voice said and hung up. His phone blipped again, and Walker tapped it when the message appeared. A video began to play on the tiny screen. He sucked in a breath when he saw Avery. She was trussed up, her hands tied behind her back, her wedding gown looking the worse for wear. The kidnappers’ faces weren’t visible, but a man’s hand pressed the barrel of a Glock to Avery’s temple.
“Hell,” Clay breathed.
“Avery!” Riley cried.
An iron band of pain and fury tightened around Walker’s heart. He needed to find her. Save her.
“Look for clues. Where are they?” Boone asked.
Walker snapped back to his training. “That’s no motel.” It wasn’t generic enough. He could see a bed’s headboard. A side table.
“We need to grab screenshots and post them,” Renata said. “Someone’s going to recognize that comforter.”
She was right, Walker realized. That daisy comforter was unique.
“This is Mr. Smith. Expect a call from me soon. If Elizabeth Blaine testifies, your friend dies. It’s up to you to stop her,” said the voice on-screen. The Glock pressed harder against Avery’s temple, and she shut her eyes. “When I call, you tell me the good news—that you’ve persuaded Blaine to walk away.”
Walker’s heart squeezed. There was no way Elizabeth would walk away now. Even if she did, there was no guarantee that man wouldn’t shoot Avery anyway. The minute the screen went blank, he got to work, though. “Sent you a few images,” he said to Renata.
She got busy with her own phone.
Walker forced himself to take a deep breath. Focus.
“Where are you going?” Boone called after him.
“To find her.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know!”
“I’m coming with you.”
Walker kept going.
“That ought to light a fire under your friends’ asses,” Mr. Smith said.
When the pressure of the Glock’s barrel against her temple lifted, Avery opened her eyes again. Swallowed against the fear that had threatened to close her throat. She knew these men needed to keep her alive for now to motivate Walker and the others, but what would happen when Elizabeth testified?
Because Elizabeth was going to testify—whether or not Walker or anyone else asked her to stop.
Her only hope was for Walker to find her. Surely he’d check the vacation rentals like this one—anywhere an out-of-towner might stay. Didn’t places like this have to be licensed? There’d be a list of them somewhere.
Mr. Smith’s phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen. Made a sound of impatience and accepted the call.
“Yes?”
Avery could make out a woman’s voice on the other end of the line.
Elizabeth?
She didn’t think so, especially given the way Mr. Smith was acting. Owen crossed to her and aimed his weapon at her head, lifting a finger to his lips to shush her.
“Yes, it’s very nice,” Mr. Smith said in a smooth voice. “Yes, we love Chance Creek so far. The weather? It’s been lovely. Couldn’t ask for better. How is it in Florida?” He listened again. “Your management company is doing a fine job. Everything was ready for us. The keypad worked fine. Yes, we found the extra pillows. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yes, we’re off for a walk. Thank you again.” He tapped to end the call. “Nosy bitch.”
“We’re h
er first customers, remember,” Owen drawled as he slid his handgun into its holster. They both chuckled.
Avery swallowed. First customers? This was a new rental?
Did anyone know it was here?
She must have made a noise. Owen was back, his weapon pressed to her temple. “What?”
“What?” she parroted. “What do you mean, what? I’ve been sitting here for hours. My arms hurt, everything hurts, I’m tired—I’m scared.”
“Settle down,” Mr. Smith said. He came to stand beside her. Pushed her forward and sliced through the ties around her wrists with a knife he pulled out of his waistband. Tangled a hand in her hair, dragged her off the bed and marched her around the room.
“What are you doing?”
“Letting you stretch your legs.”
It wasn’t much of an improvement, but there wasn’t anything she could do about that. Avery marched along with him back and forth, her head at an awkward angle, his fingers pulling her hair.
Her updo was toast. Her wedding dress wrinkled. Full of crumbs.
She might be dead before the night was over.
Desperation dried her throat and thickened her tongue. She wanted Walker’s arms around her. Wanted him to tell her it would all be all right.
She yelped when Mr. Smith tossed her back on the bed.
“Tie her wrists in front of her this time.”
Owen did as he was told, but Avery was ready for him and braced against his strength. When he finished tying her hands, there was a little slack. Not much but enough to give her hope. Something to work on. He nudged her over on the bed and sat beside her, weapon at the ready. It was a Glock, too, she noticed. Had he and Mr. Smith bought matching guns?
How sweet.
“Don’t even think about doing something stupid,” he said.
She was definitely thinking about doing something stupid.
Mr. Smith took out his phone again. Tapped the screen and held it to his ear. “Well?” he demanded.
“Look!” Owen pointed at the television. Avery’s breath whooshed out in a rush. She could easily identify the woman who’d just taken her seat in front of the room full of senators.
Elizabeth.
“Is that your phone?” Boone asked.
Walker didn’t know how long they’d been driving or what he was looking for. He doubted Avery’s captors would be hauling her around the streets of Chance Creek at this time of night. He simply didn’t know what else to do.
Walker answered the call.
“Well?” a man demanded.
In the background, Walker heard another man say, “Look! That’s her—she’s testifying!”
Testifying? Did he mean Elizabeth?
If so, they’d run out of time.
A crash of noise made Walker wince, and it took him a second to realize it had happened on the other end of the line. The caller swore a string of curses, and there was the sound of a door opening and a change in audio quality that suggested he’d changed location—maybe stepped outside. A burst of music blared in the distance and then dimmed, as if someone near the caller had opened another door and shut it.
Opened a door. Shut it.
Walker tried to parse the sound in his mind. That music hadn’t been close enough to be in the same building as the caller. It was as if the sound had come from down the road. Like someone in the distance had walked into an establishment that was blaring music on the inside.
Where had he heard music like that?
He covered the phone with his hand, juggling it against the steering wheel, trying not to lose control of the truck. “The Dancing Boot. They’re near the Boot!” he hissed at Boone.
“Like in the motel? The Evergreen? People already checked there.”
“I don’t know.” He lifted the phone to his ear again. “Hold on. We’ve got a plan!” He hung up and tossed the phone to Boone.
Let Mr. Smith think he meant a plan to stop Elizabeth.
He’d find out he was wrong soon enough.
Elizabeth was good at her job, Avery had to admit. The presentation she’d prepared showed step by step how opening the Renning field in Alaska to oil drilling and letting the Lawrence Oil project get underway would help push global greenhouse emissions over a cliff in a way that could not be reversed. She didn’t get mired in numbers and graphs; instead the images that flashed on the screen behind her showed the cost in photos of current environmental devastation, with overlaid projections of how much worse those natural and humanmade disasters would become in the future if even more drilling was allowed to happen.
With every sentence Elizabeth spoke, however, Avery knew her own time on earth was growing shorter. Her captors seemed mesmerized by the scene on the television screen, pinned to it as if they thought the people at Base Camp had somehow arranged for a band of rogues to burst into the senatorial chamber and carry Elizabeth off midsentence.
Avery worked at the rope that bound her wrists as quietly as she could. She’d opened her mouth to yell at the phone and tell Walker exactly where they were, but Owen must have expected something like that. He’d lunged at her, slapped a hand over her mouth and kicked over the bedside table in the process. Before she could recover, Mr. Smith was out of the bedroom and onto the balcony, where he stayed until he’d completed his phone call. Owen checked the binding on her wrists and trussed up her ankles, swearing all the while.
“We don’t have much time left,” Elizabeth said on-screen. “The clock is ticking down if we want to save ourselves.”
Don’t I know it? Avery shut her eyes and sent up a prayer.
She’d already missed her wedding.
She didn’t want to die.
Chapter Twelve
‡
“Fuck!”
Walker spared a glance at Boone.
“It’s Montague—he’s at Base Camp, and no one’s there to stop him.”
Walker stayed focused. A glance at the clock a minute ago had told him they were running out of time in more ways than one. All the delays at the hearing had sent it into the wee hours in Washington, DC, time. It was nearly eleven thirty here in Chance Creek. Elizabeth was wrapping up her testimony. Avery’s captors would have to admit defeat and deal with her one way or another. He could only hope that killing her would serve no purpose to them, so they’d simply leave her behind, but he knew he couldn’t count on that.
“Looks like he’s about to bulldoze everything we’ve built.”
Walker spared another glance his way and saw a live feed of Base Camp playing on Boone’s phone. There was the bunkhouse surrounded by the crew’s bright lights. There were the nearby tiny houses. Something was moving in front of them.
Something big.
He glanced over again. Bulldozers. Lots of them. “Tell me.”
“They’re lining up in front of the tiny houses.” Boone’s voice was rough. “Montague is going to do some kind of synchronized demolition, isn’t he? Is Fulsom in on this? I bet he is. I bet he planned this ending all along. Maybe he kidnapped Avery—”
“I don’t think so.” Someone with a lot of money and the desire for a lot more set this up. Fulsom was a billionaire and a real piece of work sometimes, but Walker thought he genuinely wanted to leave things better when he was gone.
“This is Marla Stone, reporting from Base Camp in Chance Creek, Montana,” a familiar voice said on-screen.
“Is that Star News?” Walker asked in surprise.
“You got it.”
“How the hell did they end up at Base Camp?”
“They’re working with Montague—they have to be. He must have lured them out there.” Boone swore again.
“They can’t start demolishing anything until after midnight.”
“Tell that to Montague.”
Marla was still talking. “Viewers around the world have watched this group of deluded men and women try to block progress by taking on the clothing of our ancestors and living like prisoners in barely habitable tiny houses.”
“For the love of all that’s holy,” Boone growled.
“Led by Boone Rudman, who has been accused of having a God complex more than once by viewers,” the woman went on. “It’s his wife, Riley, who I’m really sorry for, though. Did you know this property should have been hers? Stolen out from under her by the ruthless leftist agitator Martin Fulsom, this ranch has been in her family for generations. When Fulsom’s henchman, Boone, arrived to kick her out of her home, Riley had no choice but to marry him. It’s obvious she’s been miserable ever since.”
“She’s not miserable!” Boone exclaimed. “Is she miserable?” He turned to Walker.
“Now this miscreant of a husband is going to lose her property and her heart. It’s the final hour of the last day of their chance to win this ranch and all the buildings on it, and where is everyone? Gallivanting around the countryside from what we’ve heard. Base Camp’s inhabitants have one task left to achieve their goal: get Walker Norton to the altar with the woman of his choice. But there’s no wedding happening here. No wedding happening anywhere, as far as we can tell. Which means on the strike of midnight, Montague’s bulldozers will start their engines, and Base Camp will be toast.”
“Walker,” Boone said, and Walker knew exactly what his friend was thinking. They were about to lose their homes, everything they’d built, everything Riley loved—and Boone would do anything for Riley.
But Walker had to think of Avery now. He had to put her first. He never had before, and now it was almost too late.
The blonde announcer gave a shriek, capturing Walker’s attention again as Riley appeared on-screen and grabbed the microphone off her lapel.
“What the hell is Riley doing there?” Boone sputtered.
“Walker, Boone,” Riley said into the microphone. “We got a head’s up about Montague’s plans. We’re here, but don’t worry—no ranch is worth anything compared to the life of my friend. You bring Avery home. We’ll stop Montague.”
The show cut quickly to a commercial break. Walker spared a glance at Boone as he pulled into the parking lot of the Evergreen Motel.
“We’re going to have to go door to door.”
