by Angela Foxxe
She nodded, leading the way into the cabin and stepping back as he spread a map on a table in the middle of the room. He took a pen out of his pocket and circled two spots.
“We’re here, and here’s where you were when you sent me your coordinates when you first called.”
“That’s really close to here,” she said, a little surprised.
“It is, but it’s also a lot of rugged terrain, so it’s going to take about the same time whether we go to the road and try to track her that way, or we start from here and try to intercept her. You’re sure she went this way?”
“I am. The video went on for a long time, and she never came back. And the phone was where it was dropped. Mr. Baker didn’t know that she had a phone on her, but Mrs. Baker knew that she did. If she came back, I’m sure she would have found it in the bushes. It wasn’t far from where he dumped her out of the SUV.”
“That poor woman. She should have been able to trust her own husband.”
“I can see why she did. I had him pegged as a grieving, then worried husband throughout this. I never suspected that he could be part of this.”
“Do you think he had her kidnapped in the first place?”
“I do. It makes sense. There’s a huge problem with human trafficking in this country, and people are just now becoming aware. It’s such an easy story to sell. And with her husband helping set it up, it’s no wonder that they were able to lure her as easily as they did. They had all the information they needed and then some.”
Ty listened intently, but Senora knew his face hid the anger bubbling beneath the surface. Ty was hardwired to protect, and she knew that he was one of those men that valued his promises more than most. He would take wedding vows more seriously than most people, and anyone that would break a vow as heinously as Mr. Baker had would infuriate him.
She liked that about Ty.
When she stopped talking, he looked back at the map, using his fingers to measure the miles.
“How fast do you think she was going? Was she in good shape?”
“She is in excellent shape; she’s an avid runner. But she had a gash on her head, and the way she was running, she looked unsteady. She was still faster than him.”
“Would the head injury account for the unsteady gait?”
“I don’t think so. I think he drugged her. But I don’t think he counted on her adrenaline being that high. She just went through this, being kidnapped a few weeks ago. I think he underestimated her reactions.”
“That’s good. So it would make sense that she would keep going, and she’s a survivor, so she probably bedded down for the night when she got far enough away.”
He took his pen and made a light line down the middle of one of the thin trails on the map.
“If she kept going straight and following the path of least resistance, she should have ended up on this trail,” he said.
“Is there any other way for her to go?”
“Not really. Taking this trail would take her to the road, but if you look at the legend, it’s marked in red, which is the highest difficulty. Plus, she’s not going to go to the road, because her husband could be on the road, waiting for her.”
“That’s true. And Mrs. Baker is a smart woman. She escaped from her captors and managed to find help. If you saw the area she was found in, you would be shocked that she survived at all.”
“I believe you. I trust your judgment. If you think her instinct to survive overrode whatever drug was in her system, I agree with you. So that leaves us with a few options. We can try to intercept her here, but she might not be there yet. Then, there’s this trail, but I think our best bet is this one.”
“The falls?”
“Yes. It’s a rough hike to the top, but we can see a good portion of all three trails this way. We might be able to see her from here, and if we can’t, we can rule out this section,” he circled a big area between the cabin and the waterfalls, “and we can take this easy trail down and focus on this area. I have a feeling that she didn’t go far after the initial burst of adrenaline, and if she’s hiding, I would say that she’s more than likely going to be in this area.”
Senora followed along, looking at the area he’d circled, then at the map’s legend and groaning.
“That’s six square miles,” she said. “She could be anywhere.”
“She could, but you forget what I am.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” Senora countered.
“Well, then you underestimate me. If we can get close, I can find her.”
“Will you be able to smell her or something?”
Ty laughed.
“No. Well, maybe. But most likely I’ll be alerted to her whereabouts by how the wildlife is behaving and how much the area is disturbed. These trails here aren’t traveled often at all, and the height of tourist season ended a few months ago. The only people left hiking these areas are the people hiking the entire mountain range and then locals. We have a very good chance of finding her trail and tracking her.”
Senora felt the relief flooding through her.
“I’m glad I called you,” she said.
“I think you mean that you’re glad Betty called me. I can’t believe you were going to go on vacation without me.”
“Let’s not talk about that now,” she said. “I have my reasons.”
“I’m sure you do. But this worked out. I’m here to help you, and once we find Mrs. Baker, we’ll take her to safety and we can make the plane tomorrow night.”
“How did you know about that?” she hissed, narrowing her eyes. “And what is this ‘we?’”
“Betty may have told me where you were going and there’s a possibility I have the seat next to you in First Class.”
“I’m flying coach.”
“Not anymore,” he said.
Senora shook her head, but she wasn’t as angry as she was pretending to be. She was going to have a talk with Betty when she got back to the office, but her best friend had done her a favor. After so many months had gone by, Senora hadn’t known how to call Ty and even suggest that they get together. Betty had taken care of that for her. She wasn’t amused, but she wasn’t mad.
That might change once the vacation was over.
“We need to get going,” she said. “We have a lot of ground to cover.”
“Do you want to walk or do you want to ride?”
“It’s daylight. I’ll walk. I don’t want to explain to some random hiker why I’m riding a giant wolf.”
“It could be a fun conversation,” he joked.
“For you,” she shot back.
She grabbed the waterproof backpack she’d bought and stuffed a change of clothes inside, along with thick socks and the hiking boots. When he arched an eyebrow, she shrugged.
“When Jessica left the FBI office, she was wearing sweatpants, a long-sleeved t-shirt and flip flops. He picked her up from the office and brought her straight here, and she was wearing the same when I saw her on the video. I thought it would be a good idea to have something for her to wear just in case.”
“That’s smart. What about water?”
“I have another bottle aside from the one I grabbed for myself with its own filtering system. I have three of these in all, so we each have one. I’ve already filled them, and they can be refilled from any water source.”
“I bet the ranger’s station loved you.”
“They loved Susan Frost. It was about time her credit card got a workout.”
“I’ll bet it was. Alright, Susan. I’ve got what I need. Let’s head out.”
He slung her backpack over his shoulder and started walking.
“What are you doing? I can carry that.”
“I know you can, but I’m going to carry it for a while. You need all your strength for the first leg of this hike.”
“It can’t be worse than Colorado,” she said, remembering the crazy lengths they’d gone through to get to the dragon’s nest hidden in the mountains.
&nbs
p; “It’s not worse, but it’s not much better.”
“Oh, great,” she said.
“It’s the fastest way.”
“Let’s get it over with.”
She took her car keys, hiding them in the hide-a-key affixed to the underside of her vehicle.
“You know that everyone knows about those, right?”
“I do. But I don’t want to leave my keys in the cabin.”
Ty shook his head.
“You city folk do things ass backwards,” he said, thickening his accent for effect.
“It’ll be fine,” she said, falling into step beside him.
He reached out and grabbed her hand, squeezing it and letting it go before she could pull away reflexively.
“I’ve missed you,” he said, his dark brown eyes soulful as they bored into her.
She smiled uncomfortably and felt the heat rising as she blushed.
“I’ve missed you, too,” she admitted.
He nodded, picking up speed and forcing her to lengthen her stride to keep up.
“We need to talk when this is all over, Senora. I’m not letting this go.”
“I know.”
“Good. I need to know what’s going on with you and what’s going on with the FBI.”
“What do you mean?”
“Someone has been following me, Senora. Ever since you left, I’ve had a tail. It’s not always the same person, but I know when I’m being watched. They stopped coming around when I quit calling, and that’s why I quit trying to get ahold of you. We’re being watched, and I want to know why.”
“I don’t know, honestly.”
“But you feel it too, right?”
“I do. That’s part of the reason I left my phone at home. I didn’t want them to track me. Same with my car. I was afraid if it was found just off the road that they would get suspicious.”
“Can’t they just track your GPS unit?”
She shook her head.
“Betty helped me fix that when I bought the car. The only one who knows the actual VIN is Betty.”
“So who are they tracking?”
Senora shrugged.
“It’s some kind of ghost program,” she said. “Betty told me that my car is sitting in my garage until I’m back from vacation. Agent Patterson is going to be pissed if she ever finds out.”
“And J?”
“I don’t know about J. I haven’t heard much since he pulled me out of the field.”
“Doesn’t that make you suspicious?”
“It does.”
“Are you going to do anything about it?”
“There’s nothing to do about it. The only thing I can do right now is keep my head down and hope that they quit watching me.”
“And then what’s your plan?”
She stopped, looking at him as she caught her breath.
“Once they quit watching me, I’m going to turn the tables on them and find out what they’re hiding. They took us apart because we got too close to something we were never supposed to know about. I’m going to find out what that is, and when I do, I’m going to find everyone involved and nail their asses to the wall.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Matt Baker looked around the grassy area that served as a picnic area for his office building, making sure that no one had come out of the buildings and was within earshot since he’d first left his office on the fourth floor and made his way down to make this call. His boss has been kind, assuming that he was calling to check on Jessica and telling Matt to take all the time he needed.
He wondered when everyone in the office would stop treating him like some broken, pathetic victim. He wasn’t going to start dancing around the office and celebrating his freedom from Jessica just yet, but it was getting a little tiresome having to acknowledge all the looks of pity and the mock understanding. He’d gone from the guy no one in the office knew to everyone’s best bud. It was annoying, and he knew that it wasn’t genuine. Until his darling wife had gone missing, he’d been invisible. Now that she had escaped what everyone thought was certain death, suddenly he was there.
It infuriated him. If only they knew what kind of person Jessica was and how she was nothing like people assumed. They were always taken in by her beauty and that fake smile of hers. He’d almost been rid of her, and now, he was going to have to wait and see how things went down. He’d felt so trapped in the office, and his nerves were getting the best of him. He’d taken care of her the night before, and he was sure that she was a goner. But a late-night call from his contact still had him on edge, and he was afraid that Jessica had nine lives and no amount of money could make her disappear.
The call had been a surprise, the sound of the phone shattering the silence in the house not long after he’d come home to find that his mother had already put the baby down to sleep and left his dinner on the table. She didn’t say a word when he walked into the house without Jessica, but she didn’t have to. Jessica had been nothing but trouble for both of them, and it was his mother’s idea to take care of her.
Too bad it hadn’t worked.
He was just sitting down to eat when the phone rang, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. The caller ID was a familiar one that sent his heart racing. It was him, and he wasn’t going to be happy.
He answered the phone.
“Did she come back to you?” the man on the phone asked.
“She did, but the FBI got to her first.”
“Did they question her?”
“Yes, but she doesn’t know.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because she got into the car with me when I showed up to pick her up. If she knew, she wouldn’t have gotten into the car with me.”
“Good. Bring her to The Campus first thing in the morning and-”
“She’s gone,” Matt said.
Silence.
“I couldn’t risk her getting away again. I don’t know what I paid you people for, but it wasn’t that. How hard is it to take care of one-”
“Where did you take her?”
“I took her to the woods off Skyline Drive. She’s dead. I left her there for the animals to deal with.”
“You don’t think she’ll be found before then?” the man asked, his voice calm and steady.
His control made Matt’s skin crawl.
“No. I drove down a fire road deep into the woods beyond where the public is allowed to go. No one is going to go that way, especially this time of year.”
“You’d be surprised.”
“It’s taken care of. I’m sure that she’s already half-eaten.”
Matt’s stomach turned at the visual, and he shoved away the plate in front of him. As ready as he was to be done with Jessica and move on, the thought of what was happening to her body made him gag.
Then there was the fact that she’d run off and gotten away from him. She wouldn’t last the night, and her injuries were bad enough that he doubted she got far, but just knowing that she’d been alive when he left her worried him. He knew it was stupid, but he couldn’t help it. She wasn’t invincible, but it had felt like it at the time.
“So, you’re sure she’s dead?” the man asked.
“Yes,” Matt answered a little too quickly.
He took a deep breath, hoping that the truth wouldn’t come out. She was dead; he was sure of it. No one could survive the night in the condition he’d left her in. But she’d surprised him by getting up and running, and she’d managed to get away. It wouldn’t matter. She’d run right into the thick of the wilderness. If the cold didn’t get her, the wildlife would.
He almost started to say something more when the line went dead in his ear, and he breathed a sigh of relief. This was almost over, and by the time Jessica’s body was found-if it was ever found-no one would blame him for moving on. There was nothing to tie him to her death, and there was no reason to think he was anything other than a husband who had been through hell. His ordeal was almost finished, and if he wasn’t care
ful, he was going to blow it overthinking. Everything was going to be alright. He deserved this new life without the messes that Jessica created. The universe wouldn’t deny him that, and he knew he had nothing to worry about.
***
But across town, the man on the other end of the line was already springing into action. He called over one of the men walking through the control room in crisp black fatigues and combat boots.
“I need you to get a team together to go out in the woods and find someone.”
“Yes, sir,” the man said.
“Jake. Gather up the Elites and take them with you. We let humans handle this before, and they messed up. If word gets out that this one got away twice, we’re going to start losing money.”
Jake nodded, took down the scant amount of information that Matt Baker had provided over the phone and put the paper in his pocket.
“How many, sir?”
“All that are available. We can’t risk letting her slip through our fingers again.”
“Is she alive?”
“He says she isn’t, but Matt Baker is the kind of weasel that pays others to do his dirty work. He might have attempted to kill her, but I heard it in his voice; he dropped her off in the woods alive. There’s no telling what shape she’s in, but I guarantee he didn’t kill her, so be prepared for a live takedown.”
Jake nodded.
“Got it.”
“Don’t leave until you find her. Even if it’s her body. This woman is making a mockery of us, and we need to get her contained and reprogrammed.”
Jake nodded and left without another word. He knew that this was a serious situation, and he wasn’t going to leave the success of the mission to chance. Only the best of the best would do, and he knew exactly which guys he was going to take.
He walked into the rec room, flipping the lights once to get the attention of the men engaged in various activities around the room. Play stopped so abruptly that only the sound of a ball sinking in the corner pocket of one of the three pool tables in the room could be heard. The man standing with the pool cue in his hand smirked almost imperceptibly, but Jake didn’t pay him any attention. He was focused.