by Dale Mayer
“How is my sister?” Gemma asked.
Zack shrugged. “I haven’t been back to her cabin yet.”
Gemma nodded and turned in the direction of their two cabins. “We should check in and make sure she doesn’t want that soup that Tim offered earlier and that I forgot to mention as I walked out.”
“Well then, we’ll ask her and come back if she does,” he said. As they headed down the pathway to the two nearby cabins, yet farther away from the rest of the group, Zack asked, “So how were the gardens?”
Becky bounced with all the answers about how wonderful it was.
He chuckled. “Glad to see you enjoyed it,” he said. “What will you do now? Bug your mom for a garden at home?”
“I wish,” she said, “but you know she’ll say no.”
Surprised at the answer and the wisdom behind it, Gemma turned to look at her niece. “Maybe she would let you have a pot at least. You could plant all kinds of things in a big pot.”
“Maybe,” she said, “but I figure that I might get bored with it real fast.”
“Will you?” Galen asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I do that now sometimes.”
“Maybe that’s just because you haven’t found anything that really interests you yet,” Galen said in surprise at her unusual maturity. As if bits of Gemma were showing up in her personality. He hoped so for the child’s sake.
“Maybe.”
As they headed to the cabin, Gemma called out, “Rebecca, how are you doing?”
No answer.
Zack jumped ahead of them and opened the door. “Rebecca?”
No answer. They immediately raced inside and spread out through the small cabin.
“She couldn’t have gone far,” Gemma said, looking at the others.
Galen shook his head and pointed out in the back, where they’d parked. Only Zack’s vehicle was there. Gemma’s was missing.
Chapter 9
Gemma stared at the empty space in shock. “She wouldn’t have left without us, would she?”
“I don’t know her anymore,” Zack said quietly. “She wasn’t very happy about being here.”
“No,” she said, “but surely no way she’d leave Becky behind.” That wasn’t the sister she knew. No, she’d have grabbed Becky, then buggered off without a care for anyone else.
“She left her with you, so that’s a different story,” Galen said.
Gemma shrugged. “I think that’s splitting hairs.”
“I’ll go check the laptops,” he said.
She looked at him with sudden understanding and nodded. “Good idea. Becky, let’s go see if your mom left a note, saying where she might have gone,” Gemma said. “Where do you think she would have hidden it?”
Immediately Becky headed to her bed. “There’s nothing on her pillow.”
“Great,” Gemma said as she searched every other surface. Inside, her heart slammed against her chest. “Are we thinking this is bad?” she murmured to Zack.
He looked at her steadily. “It’s not good.”
“After all the efforts we’ve gone through to keep her safe, I don’t understand why she would do this.”
“The trouble is,” he said, “do we know whether she’s actually done it or if somebody did it to her.”
Gemma winced at that. “I was trying to avoid that, which is pretty rough if that is the case. Would they have taken just her and not Becky?” she whispered.
“If they couldn’t get a hold of Becky, maybe,” he said.
Just then her phone rang. “Hello?”
“It’s me,” Rebecca said in a hoarse whisper. “Oh, God, you’ve got to come. I’ve been kidnapped.”
“What are you talking about?” she said. “You drove out of here in my car.”
“Yes, I did,” she said. “I just went back to Joe’s cabin though. I thought I could pick up a few things to make it a little easier. You know how little bedding there is at that hippie commune.”
“That’s hardly the point now,” Gemma said, rubbing her temple. “Where are you exactly?”
“I’m in the cabin,” she snapped, “but people are here.”
“You said you were kidnapped.”
“Well, I haven’t been yet,” she said waspishly, “but men are downstairs. It’s not like they are going to let me leave. You have to come and get me out of here.”
“Yes, we’re on the way,” she said. “You need to hide and stay hidden.” At that, the phone went dead. She turned to look right at Zack, who was already racing to the door. “Why would she do that?” she muttered.
“It doesn’t matter,” Zack said. “You stay here with Becky.”
She stared at him and frowned.
Galen returned and told them, “I just checked the laptop, and the cameras picked up people at Joe’s cabin. Rebecca too.”
She held up her phone. “My sister just called me. First, she told me that she was kidnapped, then changed it, saying she was hiding upstairs and people were down below. She wants us to go get her.”
Galen looked at her, startled. “You stay here with Becky, and we’ll be back in a bit.” He and Zack bolted out the front door.
Becky grabbed Gemma’s hand. “Is Mommy okay?
“She is at the moment,” she answered, “but she went back to the other cabin.”
“Why?” Becky cried out. “It’s nice here.”
“I don’t know, honey. Your mom has a mind of her own.”
“She didn’t want to leave our house. She said it was her home. And Joe left it to her. She’s mad at you for bringing her here. I’m not. I like it here.”
“Good. I don’t know if your daddy left it to her or not.” She turned to look at Becky. “Why did you call your daddy Joe?”
“That’s what Mommy said to call him. But he was my daddy, wasn’t he?”
She nodded slowly. “Yes.”
Becky sighed. “Sometimes I wondered.”
“Wondered if he was?”
“Yes. Mommy told Daddy that I wasn’t his.”
“Ouch,” she said, staring at the little girl with sad fascination. “That must have been rough.”
“Daddy was upset,” she said pragmatically.
“I’d be terribly upset if somebody told me that you weren’t mine,” Gemma said, reaching out an arm and hugging the little girl. “I think your mom was angry, and that’s why she said it. People say all kinds of things they don’t mean when they’re angry, honey.” She closed the front door and motioned to the couch. “Want me to put on some hot chocolate?”
Immediately Becky smiled. “Yes, please! Thank you.”
A chill had settled in the room now that the sun had set. Their cabin had a wood-burning fireplace, but she hadn’t looked for any logs. It was summertime, but it still would have been comforting to have a fire. She walked over to the little two-burner gas stove and heated up some water. She was pretty sure hot chocolate mix would be in the cabin. If not this one, at least in hers. When she couldn’t find any, she turned off the water.
“Let’s go to my cabin. I think the hot chocolate is over there.” Becky immediately hopped up, and, holding hands, they walked over to Gemma’s little cabin. As they neared hers, she caught movement of someone or something behind the cabins. Frowning, she looked down at Becky. “Shh, let’s play quiet.”
Becky looked up but seemed to have some understanding that something was wrong, and she nodded.
Together the two tiptoed inside the cabin, while Gemma watched as much as she could from the back window. With no lights on in this cabin, and the lights still on in the other one, she could see a single male approaching from the back. She didn’t recognize his shape. It definitely wasn’t Zack or Galen, and neither was it Tim. Hating this, she immediately packed up the little bit of clothing and things that they had. “We have to be really, really quiet.”
“Are we leaving again?”
“We might be, yes.”
As the stranger circled around Rebec
ca’s empty cabin, he disappeared in the front door. She knew that very quickly he’d be coming to see if they were here. She grabbed up her bag, realizing that Galen’s bag was here, but not much else was left. He must have taken his laptop and some of his gear. She quickly packed all that was here, but she couldn’t carry it all. She held out her hand, dropped everything, and took the little girl and headed over toward the long house. It was a well-worn path, and they could walk quietly.
When they got up to the main cabin, Tim stood outside, smoking a cigarette. “Did you need something?”
“Somebody’s walking around our cabins. It’s not one of us,” she said in a low tone.
His gaze sharpened. “Well, shouldn’t be anybody over there at all,” he said.
“I watched him circle my sister’s cabin, and then he went inside.”
“And who was in there?” he asked. He looked down at the two of them. “Where’s her mother?”
She quickly explained. Tim shook his head. “You know that some people you can’t ever help.”
“I know,” she said. “I keep trying to get her out of trouble, but—”
“I’ll take a look.” He stopped, gazed at the little girl, and said, “I’ll have to take a gun. Will that bother you?”
She shook her head, but her bottom lip trembled.
Gemma gripped Becky’s hand firmly. “We’ll be fine,” she said to Becky with a confident smile she wasn’t feeling. “Won’t we?”
Becky squeezed her hand and nodded.
“Good,” Tim said. “Let’s go check it out.”
“We’ll probably be too late by now,” she said.
“Maybe so, but it’s better to check it out while we can.”
“Got it,” she said, and, resolutely, with Becky at her side, she turned and followed Tim back the way they came.
*
Galen and Zack parked off the road in the brush. Silently the two men got out and slipped through the trees toward Joe’s cabin. It was nearly dark, and they blended in well. They stayed within ten feet of each other until they approached the cabin; then one went to the left, the other to the right.
Galen himself came up around the back and approached the kitchen. In his mind he remembered the layout. No spare vehicle was here, and that bothered him. If at least two guys were involved, and Galen knew there was because he had seen them on the security footage, where were they now?
He slipped into the kitchen. No lights were on, so he stopped and listened intently, searching for sounds of breathing, sounds of somebody having noticed that they’d arrived. But he heard no sounds of anybody. He moved through the kitchen, dining room, living room, and came face-to-face with Zack, his face dark and angry as he shook his head. They raced up the stairs, checking to see if anybody was there. When they didn’t find anything, he called out lightly, “Rebecca, are you here?”
Silence.
“Shit,” Galen heard Zack whisper beside him.
That was exactly how Galen felt. Because it meant that they’d missed them. It hadn’t been more than ten minutes, maybe fifteen now, since the phone call. So Rebecca may have been heard and had been grabbed and taken. But then, who the hell knew where they were now?
Galen and Zack had come down the highway without lights on and hadn’t seen another vehicle going either way. For a stretch of about one-quarter mile, they would have seen somebody leave. So, chances were that she’d been found, immediately snatched, and taken out of here. But so fast after her call to Gemma?
Galen had his laptop with him, but he couldn’t get a good internet connection at first. He walked around until he got better reception. So the kidnappers had taken her out through the kitchen and then the front door of Joe’s cabin. After another quick pass through the security tapes, he pulled out his phone and called Gemma. When she answered in a low tone, he immediately knew there was trouble. “What’s the matter?”
“Somebody just entered and searched Rebecca’s cabin,” she said. “I’m here with Tim, but I see no sign of anyone now. We just came back to search. I’d taken Becky over to the main building, and Tim came back with us. But whoever it was is gone now.”
“And so is Rebecca,” he said. “We’re at Joe’s cabin, but there’s no sign of her. No sign of anybody.”
“What about the video feed?” she asked.
“I’ve got my laptop here, but it’s not connecting well.”
“I’m walking back over to see what I can find out on mine,” she said.
He listened as she sat down to check it out.
“I just backed it up fifteen minutes. Give me a second.”
A period of silence was followed by a long sigh.
“They’ve got her,” she spoke in a soft voice. “I can see her being walked out the front door.”
“Are they holding a weapon on her?” he asked.
“I can’t tell,” she answered. “It’s only showing the heads. And I can only see the back of hers.”
“What about the camera outside? Can you see a vehicle?”
“It’s a small pickup,” she said, “similar to yours.”
“It’s not ours though,” he said. “Ours is hid in the brush.”
“This was off to the side, and I could just barely see the outline.”
“Okay,” he said. “We’re coming back to get you.”
“No,” she said. “Becky and I are safe here with Tim. Go after Rebecca. Please.”
He hesitated. The note of desperation in her voice got to him. “We’ll do a check,” he said, “but it depends on how far ahead they are.”
“It can’t be more than ten minutes,” she said. “You know you can overtake them if that’s the case.”
“Yes,” he said, “I can, but I don’t really like leaving you back there.”
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “Becky and I are here, and we’re fine. Nobody here will hurt us.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But you have to remember, you can’t trust everybody there just because you knew some of them a long time ago.”
“I know,” she said. “I’ve been reassessing a lot of my choices right now. But please, you’re closest, so go after Rebecca.” And, with that, she hung up.
Galen turned to look back at Zack. “She wants us to go after Rebecca.”
“Of course she does,” he said, as he tapped his laptop screen, staring at it. “They’re not that far ahead of us.”
“They are about fifteen minutes ahead, I’d say,” Galen stated. By now they were already inside the vehicle, with Zack driving, Galen taking over Zack’s laptop. “I still don’t understand the why of this though.”
“I’m not sure either,” Zack said. “I noticed you asked if they had weapons.”
“A part of me doesn’t trust Rebecca,” he said. “A part that still wonders if she was involved in Joe’s death somehow. I’m worried that Rebecca is not as sweet, innocent, and useless as she tries to appear.”
Zack shot him a hard look. “I hope you’re wrong for that little girl’s sake.”
“I hope I am too,” he said, but inside he didn’t think he was. “Just drive, and we’ll get to the bottom of this eventually.”
“But Joe’s already dead,” Zack said. “We’ve got to make sure there aren’t any others.”
“No,” Galen said. “We’ve got to make sure that if anyone else dies, it’s not us. But I’m totally okay taking out the asshole who killed a good family man for trying to do the right thing.”
Chapter 10
Gemma stayed at the long house where they’d had dinner, as Tim spoke with several other people. He’d organized a search of the entire ten-acre property. Groups of men had headed out, and the women were checking all the log buildings.
Gemma looked at him. “I didn’t think anybody would have come here, would have even known to come here. And we weren’t followed. I found no tracker on my car or my things.”
“It’s standard procedure to track via satellite, even for the bad guys,” he said
easily. “Times have changed since you were here—and not in a good way.”
She raised an eyebrow.
He smiled. “Not us. I mean in the world.”
“I hear you,” she said with a nod. “I thought the world was headed to a much better place, but it seems like it’s going downhill rapidly.”
“Only if you let that attitude into your consciousness,” he said, reaching out to tap her head.
She laughed. “You were always really good with that kind of stuff.”
“And so were you. What happened?”
“I got busy in the world,” she said. “And of course my ex-fiancé changed my viewpoint a bit.”
“Yes,” he said. “Things like that would do it.” He smiled. “Remember though, there’s always light. You chose darkness. The other is out there any time you want to reach for it.”
She smiled. He had always had a very simplistic way of looking at the world. She appreciated it, yet, at the same time, knew it was an easy way to look at life from here. Especially because, living the way Tim and the others did, he got to stay away from the incessant ugly news, murders, and terrible wars going on around the world. Because of the work she did, she traveled globally, and it kept her very much up on a lot of what was going on out there. She preferred his world but was mired in hers. At least for now.
She rubbed her arms, wishing she was with Galen and Zack. Becky sat beside her, coloring with several other little girls.
She looked up at Gemma. “Mom’ll be okay, right?”
She smiled. “Of course. Your mom is always okay.”
Becky nodded solemnly and went back to her coloring. Gemma sighed.
The truth was, Rebecca always seemed to land on her feet somehow. Gemma just hoped that this whole scenario would turn out better than she thought it might. Her sister wasn’t so much selfish as self-centered. If Rebecca thought she would lose the cushy lifestyle she had right now, she might have done something to change the status quo.
As Gemma sat here, her hands cradling a cup of tea, several of the men came back and shook their heads at Tim. He smiled and nodded. “In this case, no news is good news,” he said.
Several women, who had been waiting in the main cabin, got up with the men, and they all left.