Summer Searcher

by M K Dymock

  One minute, he told himself. He’d give her one more minute, certain she’d never forgive him if interrupted her. After forty-five seconds, he took off down the crack into the canyon. His feet slipped out from under him in the unstable soil and rock, and he slid down a good twenty feet before scrambling upright again.

  He slowed himself to a maddening pace, knowing a broken ankle wouldn’t do anyone any good. Several pebbles worked their way into his boots and dug into his heels, which he ignored. The GPS still in his grasp did not vibrate with any messages.

  A ledge halfway up halted his descent. Thirty feet separated him from the canyon’s floor.

  He paced the ridge, desperate for any way to climb down that wouldn’t require him to backtrack. With a pair of binoculars, he crouched on the edge, begging Hylia to move or signal—anything to reveal her position and condition. Nothing.

  This had been a bad idea, and he swore to God and the universe that if he got her back in his sight he would not lose her again.

  They should’ve kept quiet about David and waited for him to come down for his fall visit to take him then. Jim, the lawyer, was right when he warned against pushing David too hard.

  Sol stopped pacing as those two thoughts collided in his brain, forming a memory.

  Jim had been the guest in the hotel asking about trails when Sol considered if they should wait until David’s next supply run. While that had been several days ago, he’d given off the impression he’d flown in only the day before.

  Did Hylia know he was here this long and not told him? She had kept other things from him. No, he decided, she would’ve told him by now. There were no secrets left between them.

  He whipped his gaze between the binoculars and the GPS still grasped in his other hand. The dot didn’t move. He punched a few buttons, praying she would see a message.

  When the strike came, he never saw it.

  A blow slammed into the back of his head. With his last conscious instinct, he rolled back from the edge before blacking out.

  59

  Hylia remembered how to breathe or, more technically, how to hyperventilate.

  Her father knelt in front of her as she gasped for air. “It’s okay,” he said.

  A thousand emotions flashed through her mind, but she could only articulate one thought. “No, it’s not.”

  A soft smile, with a few missing teeth, flashed through the thick beard that had gone from graying to white in ten years. Had it been time or hard living that had brought that change? “I know, but it will be.” He’d promised something similar after her mother died, and she’d doubted his words then, and now . . . ?

  “I found Link.” The tears she’d held back since she’d beheld her brother in the cave poured out. None of this was going to plan, but she needed her dad to share in this pain.

  His eyes reflected her heartbreak. “I am so sorry.” He reached out a tentative hand but took a step back as she flinched. “Our enemies tracked us during a blizzard and set a trap. They shot him.” His voice shook. “I tried to save him.”

  Sol had already told her about the cabin owner and the break-in. She wouldn’t waste time arguing with her father’s paranoia.

  “Where’s my niece?”

  Surprised flooded his face. Link must’ve not told her about their “meetings.” “She’s safe, and her name is Zelda.”

  Of course it was. A longing filled Hylia at the confirmation of her niece’s survival. “Where is she? Can I see her?”

  He didn’t answer, and they stood there with the years between them. “We have to go now. He’s closing in.”

  An unuttered scream echoed through her, who’s them, she wanted to shout at him. There are no them. As she opened her mouth, she realized he’d said him. All these years there had been a nameless group after them. “Who?”

  He took a step closer, but she didn’t retreat. “The man who killed your mother. I saw him.”

  Was this one final ploy to save himself? Did he understand how much she wanted to believe it was anyone else besides him? Then Hylia considered Shea and how much attention he’d paid to her mother.

  Dread dripped through her veins. Had he followed her from the trail? Had she brought her mother’s killer to her family? Almost not wanting to know the answer, she finally asked, “What does he look like?”

  “Like he did back then—dark hair and carries himself like he’s a soldier.”

  That didn’t describe the blond-haired detective at all. Then she considered Sol, who had some dark hair left and should be walking in her shadow. Anger and regret filled her for once again allowing Merrell to suck her in. Like with her mother and with Link, he had witnessed the truth and chosen his own interpretation fed by the schizophrenia.

  She thought of Zelda and reminded herself not to engage. He had to trust her.

  “I’m so sorry, Dad; that’s why I came here. When they found me, I told them about some of our old hideouts. I knew you wouldn’t be there anymore. Figured if I could give them something it would draw them away, giving you a way out.”

  “They’re too smart for that, little girl. Come on.” He gestured up the trail. “I have a better way out.”

  What would he do if he spotted Sol again? The rifle he carried took up a greater part of her notice. She followed him, hoping to keep his attention on her and not their imaginary enemy.

  “The newspapers said mom committed suicide, I didn’t believe it.”

  He relinquished a few expletives. “The government make it look that way. Nobody who knew her would believe that.”

  Sela Tang hadn’t; Detective Shea hadn’t. They all believed this man did it. She took a furtive glance down the canyon but still didn’t spot Sol. She mentally pleaded with him to stay low and out of sight.

  He paused in his step, and she almost bumped into him before he kept going. “I thought he was going to kill me that night,” he whispered. “I almost gave up when he attacked me.” He turned to her, his face drooping in pain and memory. “I thought he’d killed you and Link along with her. I figured if that had happened, my living didn’t matter so much. Then I heard the video game music from the TV playing, and a cold breeze crossed my face. I realized the front door was open, and I was sure you’d escaped.”

  He smiled at her through the tears. “I hit him hard, got out from his grasp, and left him behind. When I found you in the woods, I swore I would keep you both safe.”

  All those years of the three of them traversing the wilderness and this was the most he’d ever spoken of that day. She remembered the bruising but couldn’t reconcile those memories with what she now knew. “Did you know who he was?”

  “Yeah, he’d been stalking us for several weeks. Even moved into the neighborhood to keep an eye on me. Of course, I didn’t realize it at the time. Brilliant move to have someone on the inside. He was a soldier, but he claimed to be a lawyer.”

  Blood rushed through Hylia’s brain, and she stopped on the path to try to sort through her thoughts. Jim had lied about the money being gone, had encouraged her not to go to the police, and had befriended her mother.

  “Dad.” She had not called him that since she was twelve years old. “Who was he?”

  “I don’t remember his name. Your mother asked him to come over and help us put a will together. All the personal information she must’ve given him. Some of the money we’d set aside was gone when I went to withdraw it.” He turned to her. “Hylia, keep moving.”

  The sound of her name on his lips brought her upright far more than his stern voice. She moved—understanding for the first time the enemy who chased them—whom she’d led to her family.

  She glanced down at the GPS and considered everyone on the other side of her tracker.

  60

  Hylia’s worldview shifted as she struggled to process everything. Her father could be lying, but she knew he wasn’t. It could be that Jim Healy was good guy, but she knew he wasn’t.

  Jim had sworn to her that Charlotte had been about to
leave her father, but Sela, her mother’s best friend, had said she wasn’t ready—not yet. She’d given Jim her father’s bank account number, and he’d claimed it was almost empty.

  With her father’s attention on the path in front of them, Hylia bent down and pulled the GPS off her leg and stuck it in her pocket. She couldn’t confess her sins now; she still needed her father to trust her.

  She managed to type out a message with furtive glances down at the small orange unit.

  Jim is the killer. He’s in the canyon.

  After the last word, she turned off the unit’s tracking capability. Jim would have no idea where they were, but neither would Sol. She kept it on for messages to and from Sol. She zipped it into her pants pocket. “You said you knew a way out?” she asked.

  “Yes.” He didn’t elaborate, and she knew he wouldn’t tell her anything until he had to.

  He led her up the side of the canyon, the thick brush scratching her arms. She bit her tongue even as blood smeared across one cheek.

  She kept waiting for the GPS unit to buzz against her leg with a response from Sol. Where was he?

  The path turned steep, and both she and David scrambled up the rock face. For a long moment they were exposed to the canyon floor below. She clutched the wall, waiting for a gunshot to pierce her, grateful she’d dressed in black and green. They pulled hand over hand until her father disappeared over the edge above her. She followed suit.

  As she stood, a small crack in the canyon wall faced her with two skinny pine trees growing out of the rock on other side.

  Her father slipped between the trees without a backward glance to check if she followed. Hylia stood at the entrance, her hands in fists to quell their shaking. What if Zelda wasn’t there? What if she’d died with one of her parents? What if her father held on to even bigger delusions?

  She could take a lot, but she couldn’t take that.

  Then she heard the sweet voice that had upended her world a few years ago. “Grandpa, where you been?”

  Hylia gasped and almost collapsed at that sound so much like another little voice from years ago. She would’ve recognized it had she heard it on a crowded bus. Her heart would’ve known.

  With a deep breath and a promise to herself not to cry and freak out the girl, she ducked down and crawled into the entrance. A light from the thin crack shown on the waif. Her soft blonde hair had been shorn, probably with knife, into jagged clumps over her ears. Wide hazel eyes stared at Hylia, making her look elf-like.

  Had Zelda ever been this close to another woman besides her own mother?

  Hylia wasn’t so stupid as to try to the hug the girl; she knelt down instead. David moved between the two generations. “Zelda, this is your Aunt Hylia. I told you about her.”

  The little girl glanced around his long legs with wide but not fearful eyes. “You knew my daddy?”

  All this time, Hylia hadn’t once thought what she would say to this almost stranger. Had she believed she’d really find her? “Yes, your daddy and I were kids together. He was my brother.”

  She scrunched up her face like that was the strangest thing she’d ever heard. “My dad wasn’t a kid.”

  “No, you’re right.” Arguments with these two could wait until later. She turned to her father. “What now?”

  “I taught you, girl.” He walked to the back of the mine. “To always have an exit strategy.”

  A small tunnel had been chiseled out in the back corner floor. “Does it connect to the others?” There was no way he’d managed to blow a hole clear through the mountain.

  “Yes, but not all of them. Eventually, you’re going to have to surface, but hopefully you’ll be down the canyon far enough to escape notice.”

  She started nodding before his words registered. “What do you mean, by you’ll?”

  “Zelda, why don’t you go into the next cave and show Hylia the way? She may be out of practice at climbing through tunnels.” As soon as she disappeared, he turned back and the tears in his eyes stunned her. “All I ever wanted was to keep my kids safe.”

  “No.” She glanced away from his piercing gaze. “No.”

  “They want me. If they wanted you, they wouldn’t have let you roam these mountains alone. I’ll go out and keep walking up the canyon. It starts to narrow towards the top. They can’t miss me.”

  She shook her head desperately. “We go together.”

  He took her arms and held them to her side until she looked at him. “Losing Link after losing you almost did me in. I would’ve stepped off that cliff for real if it hadn’t been for Zelda.”

  She shouldn’t take the time to ask, but all those years of wondering. “I tried to find you.”

  “I’m sorry, but I was worried they would follow you back to us. We couldn’t take that chance–”

  “I have a friend,” she interrupted, realizing no matter what he said could make it okay. “He can help us. I’ll send him word, and we can wait here—safe and protected.”

  “Hylia, it’s been almost twenty years and he still is following us. I have to end it.”

  “Please, we can get out of this.”

  His hands moved to her face and he held her like a blind man. “Okay, you take Zelda and go first. I’ll watch the canyon for a minute and follow.” Later, Hylia would know that her father truly believed all the paranoia he’d spouted over the years because in that moment when he lied, she saw through it.

  Except she told herself it was the truth, that he would follow them. “Okay,” she whispered. “I’ll take her, but come quickly.”

  He kissed her forehead. “Everything I ever did, I did for my kids.” He wiped away her tears with his thumb. “Now go.”

  Hylia climbed through the tunnel to find Zelda kneeling at the exit in the next cave. “Grandpa said I had to stick with you no matter what.”

  “No matter what,” Hylia said as they hustled to the next tunnel and the next cave.

  They made it through before the gunshots rang out.

  61

  Three loud booms echoed across the narrow canyon with a second or so between each shot. A second series blasted louder with the rapid fire of a semiautomatic that she knew neither her father nor Sol carried.

  As the shots rang out, Hylia grabbed Zelda in a tight hug before the girl could freak out. She should’ve known better because the hug by a stranger caused her to kick out more than the loud booms.

  She quickly set the wriggling body down. “I’ve heard hunters before,” Zelda whispered. “We just have to be quiet.” She put a finger to her lips.

  Hylia mirrored the gesture to quiet her trembling fingers and followed the girl into the next hole. “Zelda, can you stay here while I go check on Grandpa.”

  “Okay.”

  The ease of the answer meant this child had been left alone far more often than she should’ve been. “Do not leave.”

  “I know,” she said, her pride offended.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  Hylia took a second and covered the hole with the giant rock that marked its place. At the entrance to the canyon, she ducked and slipped out to a vantage point. They were two-thirds of the way to the top, almost above the tree line. Any farther up and there would be no cover.

  She crawled through the barren grass until she spotted the first drops of blood smeared across the rock—drops that soon grew into a blot. The short gasping breaths of her father, who didn’t have much left to hold onto, pulled her attention. He’d managed to crawl under a nearby pine and waited, his eyes wide open and unblinking. Jim, the former army man, had found his target at last.

  For a second that spanned twenty years, the body in front of her blurred with her mother’s unseeing eyes. She knew that in a few moments her father would finally join her mother, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  She crawled to his side and took his still-warm hand. “Dad.” Her voice broke, making her sound like the little girl who’d hid in a culvert waiting for her father to save them.r />
  “Leave.” He took a breath. “He’s coming for me.”

  A breath tore out of his body, and the next didn’t come for sixty-two seconds. Hylia knew because she counted until he drew another gasp. Help wouldn’t come fast enough nor with enough experience to save his life.

  She leaned into him, her head touching his shoulder. “I won’t let them hurt Zelda; I promise.” His body relaxed. The next breath didn’t come for eighty-seven seconds and then not again.

  With his face finally at peace, she picked up his rifle and half stumbled and half crawled back to the cave along his blood trail. He must’ve stood on the high ridge in clear view of anyone who’d waited in hiding. She suspected he’d fired the first shots to draw attention to himself and away from his girls.

  With a desperate determination to make sure he would not die for nothing, she crawled back into the cave and to Zelda, who waited with anxious eyes.

  “Where’s Grandpa?” she squeaked.

  “We’ll meet him at the end,” she lied. “You’ll have to show me the way out. Grandpa always makes an exit.”

  Zelda led her to a small hole connecting to the next tunnel. True to himself, her father had carved one in each would-be mine, some only a few feet long.

  “This is the last one,” Zelda murmured as they climbed to their feet. Several bushes covered the main entrance, casting the cave into a dim light. They pushed the rock back over, covering the connecting hole.

  Hylia unzipped her pocket and pulled out the GPS. No new messages. She wanted to hurl the little piece of plastic at the wall. How could there be no new messages? Where was Sol?

  “Stay back here,” she commanded Zelda.

  She stepped to where the shadow met the light at the entrance and did her best to stay out of it, which was the story of her childhood. She didn’t know what she expected to see, but the peaceful canyon didn’t offer any clues as to where the shots had come from or where Sol waited.