by Lisa Harris
He pulled her close again and hugged her. “You’ll see, little sis. We’re gonna be happy together.”
Chapter Seven
The keyless entry was Cassidy’s favorite amenity in the rented cabin because it meant she hadn’t had to see anybody to gain access, cutting down on the chance someone would recognize her. There was no air conditioning, but fortunately it cooled off enough at night that the breeze through the open windows had chased away the heat of the day.
When she woke Tuesday morning, the cabin was downright chilly. After prayer and Bible study and breakfast, she prepared not for a day of mountain climbing but for a day at the lake. She didn’t even own a bathing suit and wouldn’t have brought one on this trip even if she did. She made do with a halter top, shorts, and flip flops and stuffed her backpack with sunscreen, water bottles, and one of the towels from the rental cabin. She added a sandwich and tossed in the novel she’d bought at the airport bookstore.
She hated to lose a day on the mountain, but she’d given up believing she could find anything on her own. She needed help, and James would give it. She had to believe that.
If events unfolded like they had with the last missing girl, Cassidy should have time. Addison, the girl who’d been snatched a month before, had been alive until just a few hours before her body was found, ten days after she’d gone missing. Ten horrible days, no doubt, but she’d been alive.
Ella had only been gone four.
Cassidy didn’t want to think about what the killer was doing to the girl, though she could imagine. A shudder rippled through her. She knew how he’d treated her. The thought had her wanting to head up the mountain immediately.
If only James would hurry up and decide to join her.
It was a thirty-minute drive to Coventry. Cassidy hadn’t wanted to stay any closer to the small town she’d once called home. She needed a sanctuary, and the cabin far from town, a place to be herself after a long day of hiking and praying nobody would recognize her, was just the thing.
She parked in the same lot where she had the day before. It was later than it had been the other days she’d come, and cars crowded the lot. Nobody would pay attention to her rented Honda with the local plates.
Sunglasses on, she walked toward the trailhead but veered off at the campground and headed to the beach, where she laid out her towel and made herself comfortable.
If she blended in, if she chatted with other campers and looked like she belonged, nobody would question her being there.
Cassidy had always wondered where their kidnapper had come from. Both the trails and the campground were closed in the winter, the parking lot blocked off.
The two-lane road didn’t have much of a shoulder, and a car parked along it would have drawn attention. The campground offered plenty of places to park, but the owners would surely have noticed a strange car in the lot. Not many people lived within walking distance of the trails besides the Sullivan family and the Cages.
She’d never thought about what Wilson and Eugene did all winter long and hadn’t considered them as suspects until James had mentioned them the night before. Now, the idea had taken root and blossomed. They both had access to Mt. Ayasha, and what else did they have to do in the wintertime besides maintain the campground and hike the trails?
And kidnap children.
A great theory, except it wasn’t winter now. Based on the number of people on the beach, the many tents and campers among the trees in both directions, the campground was busy, which meant Wilson would be, too. And, presumably, Eugene.
How much time would it take to snatch a kid and take her up to his lair?
Lair. Like she was in a graphic novel featuring superheroes and villains. She was no superhero, and this villain had no extraordinary powers. He was just a scared, sick man. At least that had been her impression. Which made her wonder… could it be Eugene? Learning disabled didn’t mean evil. She’d met plenty of LD kids in her work with troubled girls, not as severely disabled as Eugene but with reading or other cognitive disabilities. They knew right from wrong. They didn’t always choose right, but then, who did?
It wasn’t fair to suspect Eugene just because he was different.
And nobody knew as well as Cassidy how unfair it was to be suspected of evil because of things out of your control.
But learning disabled also didn’t mean not evil. The things weren’t mutually exclusive. The question was, could he have pulled it off? Or would he have had help?
Wilson could be the kidnapper. Or he could have protected his son when he’d found out what happened.
Cassidy could be way off but, since she’d promised James she wouldn’t go back to the trails today, she had nothing else to do but hang around, see if she could get a glimpse of the father-son duo, try to hear them say something. Maybe their voices would trigger a memory. If not, she’d know that neither of them had been her captor. Either way, she’d learn something.
If only the man hadn’t worn a mask. All she’d seen were his eyes, an ordinary brown. But his voice… that she’d recognize. She had no doubt.
At least it would be better than sitting in that dingy cabin all day long. She had to act. She couldn’t do nothing knowing Ella was out there. She’d never met the child, of course, but she felt a kinship with the pretty brown-eyed girl whose face was plastered on every TV screen in the country. She could only imagine what Ella was going through. James was right—they needed more information. There was little she could do to gather it, but she could do this.
A family plopped down a few yards from her on the crowded beach. Mother, father, and three little boys. While the parents got their blanket and towels settled, the two older boys, maybe five and seven, took off for the water. The youngest wore a blue swim diaper and toddled after them.
The father chased the littlest boy down and swung him up over his head. “Let’s get your floatie on, buddy.”
The kid whined while the father wrangled him into a vest and fastened it on. Then, the kid toddled to the shore and plopped down on the sand.
The mother finished setting up their little spot and glanced Cassidy’s way.
“Good-looking boys you have there.”
The woman shaded her eyes with her hand and watched her sons. “They’re a handful.”
“I bet.”
The woman took in Cassidy’s towel and backpack. “You camping alone?”
“I wasn’t up for another day of hiking.” There. That was true, even if she’d implied things that weren’t.
“Don’t like hiking?”
“It’s fine, but I don’t go on vacation so I can tromp through the woods every day.” Also true. Not that this was a vacation.
“I understand that.” The woman settled in beside her husband. “Family vacations aren’t so much vacation as business trips, since I’m bringing work with me.”
“I can only imagine.” Cassidy had never been on a family vacation. Not with her mother and any of the guys who used to hang around. Not with any of the foster families that’d taken her in.
She faced forward and laid her head back, angling her cap and shielding her face. The last thing she needed was more freckles. She wished she’d brought a chair. It was hard to observe facing the sky.
After thirty minutes, she stood, adjusted her sunglasses, and packed her things.
“Giving up so soon?” the woman asked.
“My skin can’t handle much direct sunlight. It’s the vampire in me.” There was a picnic table beneath the trees near the volleyball court. “I think I’ll go sit in the shade.”
Cassidy settled at the picnic table and took out her novel, keeping her eyes on the surroundings. Across the dirt road from the restroom, the office was a one-story wood-sided building. It sat in the center of the campground, and dirt roads led in from both directions by the lake. She and James had snuck onto the property enough that she knew that those narrow roads branched off, so some campers were nearer the lake and some higher on the hillside.
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br /> Where were Wilson and Eugene Cage? Wilson was probably in the office. Eugene? He had to be around here somewhere.
She ate her sandwich and sipped her water, refilling it once at the fountain between the restrooms.
One thing she’d learned in her decade as a fugitive was how to look like she belonged, like she had nothing to hide. She donned that look now, resting one foot on the bench beside her and propping her elbow on the table, her chin in her hand. She smiled at passersby, always making eye contact. She had little to fear here at the campground, anyway. The lifeguard on the lake was too young to remember her from ten years past, and she’d seen no other employees. The campers were all tourists and likely not paying that much attention to local news.
Wilson and Eugene… She’d never met either of them. Officially. Of course, if one of them had kidnapped her and Hallie, then he might just recognize her. And be a threat.
Which was why, behind the casual smile and novel lifted as though she were reading, she kept her gaze scanning the campground. Where were they? If they saw her sitting here, would they recognize her? And if so, what would they do?
Chapter Eight
James pushed into The Patriot just after noon, pleased to see that all the tables were full. Between the lunch crowd from HCI and all the tourists in town, the restaurant stayed busy most of the time. He waved to the hostess and the server and headed for the coffee bar, stopping to wait for the chair he wanted.
Tip cashed out the customer, and she left with a bag full of take-out.
James slipped onto the vacated stool.
“In town two days in a row.” Tip grabbed a plastic tumbler and filled it with iced tea. “That’s gotta be a record.”
James sipped the brew. “Went by to see Reid.”
“How’s he holding up?”
“About how you’d expect.” Which was to say, not well.
Reid worked at HCI corporate, which was just a block behind Main Street, but he hadn’t returned to work since Ella’s disappearance.
James had stopped by the little house a few blocks from here that Reid and Denise had bought right after the wedding. Though Reid could afford better now, he’d kept the place. Easy to keep up, he always said, and close to work and the daycare where he left Ella a few days a week.
Both Reid’s parents and Denise’s had been at the house that morning, along with a police officer. With no new information, the mood had been somber, to say the least. After James had greeted and hugged the family, he’d found a spot on the couch, and they’d all sat, mostly in silence, for a good half hour.
Based on the fact that nobody had reamed him out when he’d walked in, Vince hadn’t told Reid that James had spoken with Cassidy. He’d need to thank his friend for that mercy.
The only topic of conversation had been Denise.
It seemed Denise had been high on the list of suspects in Ella’s kidnapping. Nobody had more motive to take Ella than her mother, who’d lost custody, and what better time to snatch her than right after another kid went missing?
The news of the day was not only that Denise couldn’t have done it, as she was in Oklahoma, of all places, shooting a movie, but that she didn’t plan to return to Coventry anytime soon.
“It’s not like she could help.” Denise’s mother, Mrs. Masterson, had always been her daughter’s biggest—perhaps only—defender in Coventry.
James had expected Reid or one of his parents to reply to that, but it was Mr. Masterson who snapped at his wife, “What kind of mother could stay away? What kind of mother could playact for a camera while her daughter is in the hands of a monster?”
That was when Reid pushed up from his chair and escaped out the back door.
James had followed, but he hadn’t had any words of wisdom. Nothing would comfort Reid until Ella was safely in his arms.
He clasped his friend’s shoulder and squeezed.
“I can’t believe she’s not coming home.”
Denise, of course.
Denise, who’d claimed to love Reid. Who’d agreed to marry him when she discovered she was pregnant. Who’d fallen into a deep depression after Ella’s birth and then, when her child was barely six months old, had disappeared.
Reid hadn’t heard from her for months, and only then when he’d been served divorce papers.
They later learned she’d gone to Hollywood to fulfill her lifelong dream to be an actress. They’d all scoffed at her choice, right up until she landed a supporting role on a Netflix Original series a couple of years prior.
Now, James had no idea what to say.
When Reid dropped his head into his hands, James slipped an arm around his shoulders and prayed, even though he had no reason to believe it would help. The prayer was not for Denise, who’d made her choices, but for Ella. Only God could bring the child home.
In the restaurant that had been his father’s and now belonged to him, James turned to the old man on the stool beside him. “How you doing today?”
Bart Bradley studied him through steel gray eyes. “Tolerating the tourists.” He gazed around the full restaurant. “They’re good for you, though.”
“Good for the town, most of the time.”
Bart grumbled something about litter and noise, but James wouldn’t rise to the bait. He wasn’t here to talk about Coventry’s booming tourism.
“I heard a rumor about your mountain recently.” The man’s family had lived on the mountain as far back as anyone could remember.
Bart’s raised eyebrow was the only indication he’d heard.
“Someone told me there’s a cave up there. You ever seen anyplace like that?”
“There are no caves on Ayasha.” Slowly, Bart turned to face him. “Not a single one.”
Amazing how many people were so certain of something that wasn’t there.
“What about rock formations that could form caves?”
Bart squinted. “There’s some big rocks. I never been much of a climber, so I never scaled ’em.”
James took out the trail map of Ayasha that he’d grabbed at the tourism center on his way into town that morning and opened it on the bar. “Where abouts?”
He flicked the paper. “They’re not gonna be on that map. They’re up high, nowhere near the trails.”
James folded the map and put it away, then pulled out his phone and, after opening to a satellite view of the mountain, turned it to face Bart. “Can you point them out here?”
“What am I, a cartographer?” But he slipped on a pair of reading glasses and peered at the screen. A moment passed before he pointed to a spot on the southeast slope of the mountain. “Prob’ly over near here.”
James narrowed the view of the mountain and turned it to face the old man again. He shrugged. “Can’t say for sure.”
“How would you reach them?”
“I stumbled on ’em hiking a few years back, but I only saw ’em from below. I wasn’t about to break my neck climbing.”
“If I were to start at your house—”
“You’d be wasting a lot of time. I live on the north side. And I don’t like trespassers.”
Never mind that James had known Bart Bradley all his life.
“There’s an old logging road”—James adjusted the map—“here. Would that be a good place to start?”
Bart shrugged. “Why you want to find it?”
“Curiosity, I guess.”
Again, the gray eyes found his. “This have something to do with your friend’s missing kid?”
James lowered his voice. “Just a hunch.”
“Seems the cops had the same ’hunch’ back when your sister was taken.”
Just like that. Unlike the rest of the residents of Coventry, Bart didn’t waste any time worrying about people’s feelings. “Vince Pollack asked me about them back then. Told him the same thing I’m telling you. I figure it’ll do you about as much good.”
If Vince had already asked, and already searched, then James was likely wasting his time. But
he had to try to help find Ella. And Cassidy might see something that would lead them in the right direction.
Assuming she was recalling the incident correctly. And assuming she wasn’t making up the whole story.
An hour or so later, James followed Detective Cote into an interview room at the rear of the small police department and took a seat at a wide table. Cote settled his substantial girth across from him. “I got plenty to do, but since your sister was the first victim, I’m making time for you.”
“There’s the silver lining.”
Cote almost smiled at that. “What do you need?”
The detective’s question told James that Vince hadn’t reported that Cassidy had contacted him. Otherwise, Cote wouldn’t need an excuse to talk to him. Probably, James would have been invited to the police station earlier than this.
James had come prepared for this meeting with a copy of the local newspaper, which he set on the desk, facing Cote, where Cassidy’s senior picture was displayed alongside a photo of Ella that James knew had been taken right before her fifth birthday, and a photo of Addison, the victim from a month prior. The article, heavily quoted from the man sitting across from him, named Cassidy as the prime suspect.
Cote barely glanced at the article. “What about it?”
“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” James said. “Just that I’d like to know why you’re so sure Cassidy is guilty.”
“You read the article?”
He had but, though Cote hadn’t been shy about naming the suspect, he hadn’t given any evidence linking the crimes. Even though Vince was taking the lead in the current investigations, Cote had been the lead detective in Hallie’s disappearance. James needed to confirm what Cassidy had told him—that she’d called the police years before and told them what happened. Cote would be more likely to tell him what he needed to know. In many ways, Vince saw James as a little brother, a victim. Someone who needed to be protected. Cote wouldn’t waste a second worrying about James’s feelings.
“It’s a little thin on details,” James said.