“This was supposed to make things better, not worse.”
She looked at her phone face again. As if it would work better in the basement than on the main floor. But service bars had not magically appeared on the screen.
Did one have anything to do with the other? It seemed bizarre that her company phone would suddenly stop working. Everything disappearing like that… it didn’t make any sense. She’d have to go into EvPro in the morning and have IT take a look at it. Maybe they’d had an employee quit without returning his phone, and they had bricked it to prevent him from using any of the EvPro client contacts or other proprietary information. But they had slipped up or down a line when looking up which phone was his, accidentally bricking Micah’s instead of the rogue ex-employee’s.
That was probably what had happened.
Chapter Forty-Three
Micah headed back up the stairs.
Her first idea was probably still the best. Sleep until morning. See if it straightened itself out. If it did not, she could drive to the electric company’s office to make a complaint, and then drive to EvPro to have them look at her phone. Or, she could head to the nearest coffee shop and make phone calls to both the electrical company and the EvPro IT department. She could have good coffee and a relaxing morning while she waited for them to straighten everything out for her. She could use the coffee shop’s Wi-Fi so that she could still log in to EvPro to do her work. It wasn’t her fault that she hadn’t been able to get the annual report information to Amy Bradshaw before her power had gone out. That was out of her control.
Micah tripped as she reached the top of the stairs. She realized from the dark shape that darted away from her and its squeal of protest that it was the cat.
“Sorry,” she apologized. “But I can’t see in the dark. Don’t stand in front of me, or I’m going to trip over you.”
There was a noise in the darkness. Micah tried to identify it. What had the cat gotten into?
She stood still, listening, straining her ears.
Footsteps?
Her heart raced, and she tried to soothe herself. There was no one else in the house. She had a new security system. Top of the line. No one could get in.
Except that the power was off. So the system was down. She didn’t know if there was any emergency power backup, but how could there be? She couldn’t hear a generator, and none of the lights had come back on. Her house was completely blacked out.
But the doors were still secure. There were new locks. Cole hadn’t said that they couldn’t be defeated, but he said that they were better, that she would be safer with them. Was any door or lock impenetrable?
Micah looked down at her phone again. It was useless. If someone had been able to enter her home, Micah’s only choice was to run. They would know she was there; she couldn’t hide. She needed to get away and to get to somewhere she could call for help. But with the condition she was in, even just going down the stairs and climbing up them again had fatigued her, and she didn’t know how she was going to get any farther.
❋
Micah shut off her phone screen and light. She stayed as low as she could and crept along the wall, listening for any movement in the house. She was sure her mind was playing tricks on her. She thought that Mr. X was Kirk Haynes, so suddenly she thought that everyone was after her. She was paranoid. Even if Mr. X was Kirk Haynes, why would he or his minions be coming after her? How would he know that she had produced a composite picture of him that was a close enough match to be recognizable?
She was sure she heard footsteps. Slow and furtive.
Then there was another yowl from the cat, and a startled, whispered curse.
There was someone else in the house. There could be no doubt in Micah’s mind. She froze where she was, looking for a hiding place or escape route. Even though the adrenaline was being pumped through her veins by her pounding heart, she knew she didn’t have the energy to run. If she snuck out the back door, they would hear her and come after her. And this time, there would be no police officers just happening to drive by on patrol to make sure she was okay. Kirk Haynes would be free to finish the job he had started. And then he would be free of suspicion.
He wouldn’t be, though. The thought was satisfying. Even if he took Micah out, she had sent a picture to Deputy Bellows already. And she had saved a copy of it on the Baby Thompson-Smith file. If something happened to her, someone else in the company would need to clean up those files, and they would see his picture. They would, sooner or later, be able to match Haynes’s DNA to the baby’s in a paternity test, and that would prove…
What?
It would prove that he was the baby’s father, but that wouldn’t prove that he’d had anything to do with Trisha’s death and the baby’s abandonment. There would be shadows of doubt that dogged him for the rest of his career, but proof? That would be up to the police, and Micah had no idea whether they would be able to get it.
Could they prove that he was the one who had attacked her?
She had ruined the chain of evidence as far as his DNA under her nails went. She had not let the police take and preserve the evidence, she had handled it herself.
She couldn’t let him get away with it all.
Chapter Forty-Four
“Computer here,” a voice whispered. It was as audible to Micah as if he’d been in the room with her.
She could hear them touching her things. Anger welled up in her. He hurt her. He broke into her house. And he touched her things. He would do the same thing to her computer as he had done to her phone, wiping it completely if he couldn’t find the information he was looking for.
She couldn’t stand it when people touched her stuff.
Micah found herself creeping closer to her office. She didn’t have a clue what she was going to do when she got there. It was as if her body were acting of its own accord. She should be taking the opportunity to get past them to the front door. Even if she could only get a few steps, she could at least raise the alarm, attract some attention. Not like when she was in the back yard, hidden by the tall fence and the darkness. In front, at least she had a chance.
“Is it on there?”
Micah crept ever so quietly to the doorway and peeked in.
Two men. One of them had to be Kirk Haynes. He had the right body size and shape. The other man was smaller, shorter than Micah, with a slight build. Like a gangly teenager.
Light beamed from Micah’s laptop screen, silhouetting them.
The slim man hunched over, tapping the keys, studying the screen. He was already past the password lock. He must have had the higher-order IT EvPro password to log in. He had complete access to her laptop.
“Should we just grab it and go?” the little man questioned nervously. He looked over his shoulder. Micah didn’t move. He was less likely to see her peering past the doorframe if she stayed still, his eyes dazzled by the bright screen. If she moved, he might see her.
“I want to know what she’s done with it.”
“Where is she?”
“She can’t get far,” Haynes said dismissively, as if it were of no importance. “She can’t do us any harm.”
Micah’s blood was like ice in her veins. She suppressed a shiver. How much did Haynes know about her condition? Was he relying on the fact that with her physical injuries, she wouldn’t be able to run?
She started to inch backward, ears straining, every muscle tense, doing her best to avoid making any sound that they might hear.
She had always been opposed to violence. She had never even considered owning a gun. Even non-lethal weapons like pepper spray or a taser had been out of the question. But for the first time, she wished she had listened to her father so she had something in the house. She was a sitting duck and Haynes was utterly confident that she had no chance of getting away from them, even while they were busy looking at her computer. They had their backs to the door, and if she’d had a gun or taser, she could have taken them down.
At l
east one of them.
Maybe.
Micah continued to back down the hall toward the front door. That was her best bet. If she could get out the front, she could yell and attract attention. In the front, there was a chance that someone would see what was going on and come to her aid.
She let out her breath when she got to the living room, and stood there for a moment, just breathing in and out and trying to regulate her breathing and slow her pounding heart. She was closer to the door than they were. Even though she didn’t have any energy, she at least had a chance of getting out the door before they did.
In and out. In and out. She breathed slowly, trying to convince herself that she was not really in any danger.
Pretty hard to do with intruders in the house. But they hadn’t tracked her down, yelled at her, or threatened her. They had just walked into the office and checked out her computer. How dangerous was that?
“Where did she send it?” Haynes’s voice cut through the darkness, above a whisper this time, frustrated and not caring if anybody heard him. “And where is it saved? We need to get rid of every trace. This has to be stopped now.”
There was a softer answer from the smaller man. Micah couldn’t hear him clearly. Some plea to keep his voice down and not do anything that he was going to regret later. If they were there to clean up the trail they had already left, they needed to take care not to leave a worse mess than they started with.
Did that mean not killing Micah?
Or just not leaving any physical evidence behind when they did?
Newly energized by her anxiety, Micah turned and started walking toward the door, facing forward this time and taking long, deliberate steps instead of the tiny, careful shuffle. A few long strides and she would be out of the house. She would be safe.
Or safer.
Micah thought fleetingly that she should get a coat on before she left. It was cold out. She always dressed properly before she left the house. She recognized that it was a ridiculous impulse, but that didn’t stop it from entering her head.
She gave her head a quick shake as if to banish it from her mind, and took the last step toward the door, reaching out to grab the handle.
Chapter Forty-Five
A hand went over Micah’s mouth and jerked her backward into a body waiting in the little alcove inside the door. He was strong and pulled her to him, squeezing her tightly and overwhelming any attempt by Micah to fight back against him.
“I’ve got her, boss.”
Micah gave another mighty attempt to pull free of him without any success. She could barely even wiggle.
She heard footsteps down the hallway. Not tiptoeing this time, not trying to keep quiet at all. She was turned and pushed into the living room and saw Kirk Haynes come around the corner to see her.
“Micah Miller,” he said in a flat tone. “I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure before.”
Micah tried to free her head and her mouth. The man who was holding her apparently decided there was no danger in allowing this and released her mouth.
“We have met once before,” Micah pointed out. “But you didn’t stop to introduce yourself then.”
He chuckled quietly. “I stand corrected.” He walked closer to them. Micah couldn’t see him well in the dim living room, lit only by the streetlights outside. She could see the lines of his face, his nose, his forehead. She couldn’t see into the dark hollows of his eyes. “Well, I’m not sure I can say I am happy to make your acquaintance now. I haven’t ever been… unmasked before.”
She remembered the balaclava that he had worn when he’d attacked her. He’d thought that keeping her from seeing his face would keep her from seeing his face. But his own skin cells had betrayed him. Somewhere on his body, she wasn’t even sure where, there was a scratch she had inflicted while trying to fight him off. And that had been all it took.
“You’re not going to get away with this.” Her voice was shaky, near tears. She hated the way that it made her sound vulnerable and afraid, when she was equally angry and outraged. Emotion was strangling her and she could barely get the words out. “You might have up until now, but it’s over.”
“Oh, it is, is it?” He was so close to her now that she could feel his breath on her face. It was pleasantly minty and warm, but to Micah it was like breathing in the exhalations of a coyote. She turned her face to try to get unpolluted air. “You may have made better progress than anyone else, but you don’t have me trapped. I am the one who has you.”
“The sheriff’s department has your picture. You are not going to get away with this.”
“The sheriff’s department isn’t going to get very far with it. In fact, it’s going to stop right where it started.”
“What?”
“Deputy Bellows. Sadly, the picture never made it past his desk.”
“Frank?” Micah gasped. It was inconceivable that he had been involved in the conspiracy. He couldn’t be part of Kirk’s organization. But what else was she supposed to think? She had sent him a picture of the killer, and he had turned around and put Kirk onto Micah.
Kirk laughed again. “Frank,” he repeated, in a quiet, satisfied tone.
“No. He was… he was working the case. He let me go with him to do interviews. He wouldn’t have done that if he was working for you.”
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Take care of her,” Kirk told the man holding Micah. “We need to get out of here.”
The hand went back to her mouth, this time squeezing up to cut off her ability to breathe through her nose as well. Micah fought harder than she thought she had strength for, but he kept his hand there, held her still, and everything went black.
Chapter Forty-Six
Micah awoke slowly and groggily. Her body hurt all over. Her mind took her back to immediately after the assault when she was trying to sort out all of the sensory inputs, her body seized so strongly with pain that she couldn’t focus.
She groaned and tried to move, to test out which part of her body hurt the most and to establish herself somewhere in space. She was disoriented and unanchored, floating somewhere in the universe, but not sure where.
Every movement was excruciating. Micah kept her eyes closed and let the pain wash her away again.
She had several more partial awakenings, growing a little more alert each time, but it seemed like a long time had passed before she was able to raise enough consciousness to force her eyes open.
It was dark. It must still be night. Or several days and nights had passed, Micah wasn’t sure. She squinted, waiting for her night vision to give her some clue of where she was. She didn’t think she was at home anymore, but couldn’t be sure.
She was lying somewhere, uncomfortable and cold, her body pulsing with pain. She wanted to go back to sleep and recede into the darkness once more, but she knew that she was in danger. She couldn’t remember why, but she remembered the feeling, and it was growing stronger, trying to assert itself amid all of the other messages her body was sending her. The danger was more important than the pain. It was important for her to figure out where she was and how to escape the danger.
There was a noise nearby. Micah froze. She turned her head, trying to find her way free of the darkness to see what had caused it.
She was cold. The only light in the room seemed to be the moon outside, which was dimming and brightening as clouds went past. She blinked away tears of pain and tried to focus. There was another shape nearby. It could have been a pile of clothes, or it might have been something else.
“Is…” Micah licked dry lips. “Is someone there?”
“Micah?”
Micah tried to place the voice, while at the same time trying to bring him into focus, straining her eyes in the dimness. “Frank?”
Relief flooded through her. Frank was there. He would help her.
The shape moved, shifting around and eventually turning in her direction. She could see his pale face in the moonlight. She filled in the detail
s from her memory, trying to make him more real.
“Frank? Where are we?”
He didn’t answer right away. Micah closed her eyes to try to steady herself, then opened them again because it was too dark.
“It’s some cabin or shack,” he said, his voice sounding rough and gravelly. “I assume we’re in the Sweetgrass Hills, but I don’t know where. And I assume… no one else knows where.”
“What happened?” Micah tried to remember how she had gotten there. “I… there was someone in my house…”
“A break-in?”
“Yes. All that new security that my dad put in…”
“If someone is determined, they’ll find a way.”
“They cut off my power.”
“You don’t have a backup?”
“I guess not.”
Micah tried to move but found that she could not. It wasn’t just her tired, sore body. Something was wrong with her. She strained her muscles. It was some time before she realized that she was bound.
“Are you okay?” Frank asked. “Are you hurt?”
“I hurt all over… but I don’t know… I don’t know if I’m hurt.”
They were both silent for a while. “Why did they bring us here? What are they going to do?” Micah asked.
“I have come to the conclusion… that they plan to leave us here.”
“To die?”
“I think so.”
“Why? I don’t understand.”
“I guess he thinks we got a lot closer to him than we did.”
“Oh.” Micah’s consciousness drifted for a while. “Do you know who he is?”
“Papa Doe? No. I just had the picture you sent me. But I guess… he found out about that, somehow. There must be a leak, someone on the inside.”
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