Missing in the Mountains

by Julie Anne Lindsey

  “Henry!” she screamed, flashing the phone’s light wildly through the space. She ran to the window in search of someone taking off with her son outside.

  Instead, she found the missing officer. Facedown and unmoving in the grass.

  “Henry!” Her scream became a sob. Sawyer had taken the only vehicle. She was trapped. Alone. Helpless.

  Emma turned the phone over in her palm and hit Send on the call she’d had at the ready.

  “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?” A tinny voice echoed across the line.

  “Someone kidnapped my son,” she said, working to calm her labored breaths. She couldn’t report the crime if she had a panic attack, went into shock or passed out.

  “What is your name?” the dispatcher asked. “And where are you now? I’ll send someone immediately.”

  Henry’s cries broke through the intermittent blares, and Emma spun back toward the hallway. “I don’t think I’m alone,” she whispered.

  “Are you saying there’s an intruder in your home?” the voice asked. “Ma’am? Where are you?”

  A sudden scream sent Emma into the dark hallway, sprinting frantically toward the sound of her son.

  “Ma’am?” the voice asked. “I need your name and location.”

  “My name is Emma Hart,” she rasped. “I’m at a cabin on Lake Anna off of Pinehurst by the national forest.” She slid to a wild stop on socked feet at the end of the brightly flashing hall.

  Before her, a large man blocked the way. Tall and lean, he towered over her, making the baby in his arms seem impossibly more fragile.

  “Henry,” she whispered.

  “Hang up,” the man said. “Now.”

  Emma disconnected the call.

  The man stepped closer. He wore the black leather riding gear she’d come to know and loathe. He also wore a ski mask. “Put the phone down.” The eerie calm in his voice was familiar and impossibly scarier than any sound she’d ever heard. This was the man who’d taken Sara.

  Henry kicked and arched his back in a fit of fear and anger.

  Emma dropped the phone where she stood, outstretching her arms. “Please. Give him to me.” Her voice quaked. Her eyes burned and blurred with tears. She couldn’t allow this monster to have her son. “I’ll do whatever you want. Just don’t hurt him.”

  The man motioned her toward the door. “I’d hoped you’d say that.” The sinister curl of his lips was visible through the ski mask. He liked her fear, she realized. This was an elaborate game to him.

  And he would kill her when he finished playing. Her. Sara. And Henry.

  “Now, turn off your alarm.”

  Emma pried her dry, pasty mouth open and willed her words to be level and calm. “The alarm is wired to all points of entry. Windows included. When you broke it, you caused an alarm. Someone is probably already on their way.”

  He pulled a handgun from behind him and pointed it at the number pad, easily balancing her baby in one hand and the firearm in the other. “Shut it off.”

  Emma’s windpipe narrowed. She obeyed, praying the emergency call she’d made, coupled with the broken window, would bring help fast. She pressed the numbers on the keypad carefully until the red light flashed green. “It’s off,” she said, turning back to the man, arms outstretched once more. “Please,” she begged.

  “Outside.” He pointed to the door.

  Her stomach coiled, and her mind raced. She needed to get her hands on Henry. Needed to make a run for the woods or the road, get away and hide until help could arrive.

  “Out,” he repeated, this time with venom.

  Henry screamed again, a loud, maddening demand nearly as loud as the siren she’d recently silenced. It was pure fear. Pure agony, and Emma felt each new cry in her soul.

  “Okay.” She choked. “Okay.” She slid her feet into sneakers by the door and pulled back the security bar, flipped a line of new dead bolts, then moved into the windy night.

  On the living room floor behind them, her cell phone began to ring.

  “Go.” Her abductor pressed the hard barrel of his gun against her spine and forced her ahead.

  “To the trees,” he growled. “And don’t try anything stupid, or I could get confused and drop this squirming kid. I might even step on him while I’m trying to get my hands on you.”

  Emma lifted her palms. “I won’t,” she whimpered. “Just, please, don’t hurt him.”

  “Move.”

  “Where are we going?” she asked. “Are you taking us into the forest to kill us?”

  He sniffed a laugh. “I could’ve killed you in your house,” he said.

  “Why didn’t you?” She moved as slowly as possible with the gun against her back. The pressure of it bruising her spine. If she wasted enough time, maybe help would arrive.

  Emma watched the horizon for a sweep of blue and white lights against the darkness, desperate to hear the racing sirens.

  The weeds grew taller with every step away from Sawyer’s neatly manicured lawn. Sticks and weeds brushed against her legs and clung to her shoes. Bristles and briars tore at her skin.

  Beyond the first rows of trees, a black ATV waited with a rifle attached to a gun rack on the back. “Get on,” he said.

  “I don’t know how to drive,” she cried, confused and desperate. “There’s nowhere for Henry.”

  The man moved in close. “Get on the bike, and you’ll get your baby.”

  Emma scrambled onto the seat, arms reaching, tears falling.

  As promised, he placed her son into her arms. She pulled Henry against her. His small body was cold from the blasting wind. He was dressed in one-piece terry cloth pajamas, no coat, no hat. The psychopath who took him hadn’t even taken his blanket from the crib to warm him. Emma hugged and shushed and kissed Henry before turning back to the man with the gun. “I can’t hold him and drive. He can’t ride on this. It’s not safe.”

  The man fastened the strap of a helmet under his chin, then gripped Henry’s thin arm in one black gloved hand. “Fine, we’ll leave him here.”

  “No!” Emma screeched, panic racking her chest at the thought of leaving her infant on the forest floor. What was wrong with this man? Who could be so cold and damaged?

  “Move forward,” he demanded, shoving her with his free hand.

  “What?” Emma rearranged Henry in her arms, nuzzling his cold face against her warm neck and trying, uselessly, to shield him from the gusting wind. She looked at the narrowing seat and gas tank between her and the handlebars. “Where?”

  The man swung one long leg over the padded area behind her, and she instinctively scooted up.

  Her thighs gripped the icy metal of the tank.

  The man leaned against her back, reaching around her for the handlebars and doubling her over in the process, his chest against her back, Henry clutched precariously to her torso. The engine revved to life, and the man kicked the beast into gear.

  Henry gave a pained scream as the vehicle jolted into the night, his protests swallowed by the roaring engine beneath them.

  The ATV slid around curves, throwing earth into the air as it bounded over hills and flew along paths nearly invisible to Emma. She clutched Henry to her, willing him to be safe, whatever happened next.

  She couldn’t imagine where they were being taken, or what the man’s plan was for them once they got there, but Emma knew it wasn’t good. Her tears fell hard and fast, blown from her eyes by the raging, frigid wind as they tore through the darkness, one slender beam of light to guide the way.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Emma lost track of time, clinging to the bike for her life and to her son for his. Her face, arms and legs were numb from the biting wind, and Henry shook wildly in her arms. She kept her eyes and mouth closed as much as possible, fighting against the fear and nausea, trying to keep herself together for
when they stopped. Whenever that might be. She peeked, occasionally, in search of something she could use to orient herself. A landmark for location or a ranger’s office for help when she was able to get free.

  The only thing she saw were trees.

  Eventually, the ATV slowed. The engine quieted to a purr, and the force of raging wind became something more endurable. Henry’s screams were audible once more.

  The driver climbed off the machine, chilling her back instantly where his body heat had warmed her. She struggled to straighten, thankful for the coldness that meant he was away from her, and she could arrange Henry more comfortably in her arms. The moon was bigger, brighter where they were now. On a mountain devoid of objects to block or filter the light.

  Before them, the headlight illuminated a large ramshackle shed. There was nothing else in sight except trees and the collapsed remains of a home long ago given back to the forest. A thick metal chain and padlock hung strong and new around the shed’s aged door handles, and another powerful round of fear pricked Emma’s skin. Someone was storing something of great value.

  Sara.

  “Get up,” the driver barked as he approached the barn. “This is the end of the road for you.”

  Emma swallowed hard. She climbed awkwardly off the bike and stood on numb, trembling legs.

  Her captor turned to the building. His attention shifted to the lock.

  This was Emma’s chance to run. She twisted at the waist in search of an escape path. The forest was dense around her, and the slopes were steep in every direction, covered in rocks, leaves, twigs, a thousand things to trip on, fall over in the night. The path behind them was relatively clear, but her abductor had an ATV to give chase. Even without the bike, he was undoubtedly stronger, likely faster, and unlike her, he’d dressed for the weather. Even if she managed to stay out of his reach, she couldn’t hide. Not while carrying a screaming baby.

  “Let’s go,” the man snapped as the lock gave way. “Inside.”

  Emma swallowed hard. She couldn’t move. The dilapidated shed suddenly looked more like a tomb. The fine hairs on her arms and neck rose to attention. She was certain that going inside meant never coming out, and she refused to sign her son’s death warrant.

  He wrenched the heavy lock off the loosened chain and thrust the door wide. “Inside,” he repeated. “Now.”

  Emma shook her head, arms tight on Henry, lips trembling. She’d made things bad enough by getting on that bike. She couldn’t keep obliging this criminal. The bully. The killer.

  He turned on her. “I said...”

  Emma ran.

  Her feet pounded the earth, flying wildly over the path the ATV had taken, away from the shed and the man who’d forced her out of Sawyer’s home at gunpoint. Heart pounding, mind reeling, she searched the darkness for a way off the path and into the trees without falling over the sharp cliff on one side or trying to climb the hill on the other.

  Bang! A shot rang out, echoing through the hills and evacuating a thousand bats from nearby trees. Henry screamed.

  Emma slowed, raising one palm like a criminal in surrender while holding Henry tightly with the other.

  A heavy hand clamped over her shoulder and spun her around, shoving her back in the direction of the shed. The armed man stayed behind her. His thick angry fingers dug into the back of her neck and the flesh of her shoulder. He swore vehemently as he steered her to the open door.

  She dug her heels into the earth as her baby cried and flailed in her arms. Terrified of what she’d find inside.

  The man gave her another shove, and Emma stumbled forward.

  She recognized the shadowy form on the filthy wooden floor immediately. “Sara.”

  Sara shifted, raising her face to squint at Emma. Her arms and legs were bound, her face bloodied. Clothes ruined. What had he done to her? “Emma! No!” Sara cried. “No.” She slung a line of thoroughly emasculating swears at her captor, then spit at his feet.

  He dealt Emma another powerful shove, and she lurched forward, across the threshold and onto her knees.

  She released Henry with one hand to brace them against the fall, and her wrist gave a gut-wrenching crack upon impact. Shards of blinding light shot through her vision as the pain spread like a heat wave over her body.

  Beside her, moonlight shone through a hole in the roof, lending an eerie glow to the horrific scene before her. Sara sobbed and begged their captor for Emma and Henry’s safety. She was a thin and fractured mess. Bruised and battered, filthy and frail.

  The man unzipped his jacket and reached inside.

  Emma scrambled back, angling Henry away from the man and placing herself in front of Sara. “No!” she screamed, imagining the gun already pulled. “Don’t!”

  He produced a cell phone with one hand, then unfastened the chin strap on his helmet with the other. He removed the helmet and ski mask as he walked back through the door.

  Emma held her breath, watching intently as he tucked the helmet under one arm and pressed the cell phone between his ear and shoulder. She shushed Henry and cradled her probably broken wrist, avoiding eye contact as the man turned back to close the door. His face flashed into view a heartbeat before the barrier slammed shut, and Emma’s blood ran cold.

  Christopher. The man who’d stood in for Mr. Harrison at the credit union on the morning the police had found Mr. Harrison’s body. Christopher had probably murdered him, then rolled in for a day of work like nothing was out of the ordinary. He’d been cool, calm and collected when they’d spoken at nine thirty that morning. Her stomach lurched at the memory of his easy smile. It went beyond unhinged to something more like completely deranged.

  Sara sobbed against the rough wooden floorboards, apparently half-out of her mind with fear and pain. Her face was battered and caked with dried blood. Her wrists and ankles were raw from the ropes used to bind them.

  Emma crawled to her sister’s side and gently laid Henry on the floor with her. “It’s going to be okay,” she whispered, low enough to keep the hope between sisters. “I’m here. We’re together now, and we’re going to be okay.” Emma wasn’t sure she believed the words, but they had always been true before. She was counting on them to be true now.

  Sara shook her head, frantic. “He’ll kill you. You aren’t bound yet. You have to run.”

  Emma hooked her fingers into the ropes at Sara’s wrists and tugged with her good hand. Her left hand. Her weak and uncoordinated hand. Nothing happened.

  “Stop,” Sara said, tears spilling over too-pale cheeks. “You’ve got to find a way out of here.”

  Emma relented. Sara was right. Christopher could return at any minute. “Okay.”

  Outside, the ATV engine kicked to life and slowly moved away.

  Emma checked the door. Locked. She examined the hole in the roof. Too high. Nothing to climb on.

  “I’m so sorry,” Sara gasped. “It’s my fault you’re here. It’s my fault you’re hurt. That Henry’s hurt. I tried to protect you from all this.”

  Emma gave Henry a long look. “I don’t think Henry’s hurt. He’s just scared. Cold. Mad.” She backed up to get a better look at her sister and their jail cell, then levered Henry into her arms to comfort him. Her wrist screamed from the motion.

  “I should have told you what I’d been up to,” Sara said. “Then you could have told the police everything right away.”

  Emma shook her head and gently shushed her baby. “I would have done the same thing.”

  “I found discrepancies at the credit union,” Sara said. “I thought the system was miscalculating interest, but it wasn’t an accident. Christopher was stealing.”

  “I know,” Emma said, circling the small room. She needed to find a way out of the shed before Christopher returned. No windows. One chained door. One hole in the ceiling out of reach.

  “The accounts weren’t just bein
g shorted a portion of their interest. The missing interest was actually being diverted to an offshore account.”

  “I know,” Emma repeated. “I gave your notebook to the police. We figured out what was happening, but no one knew who was behind it or where to look for you.” She cuddled Henry closer, and his cries begin to soften. “Now I know it was Christopher.”

  Sara nodded. “Christopher works in IT at corporate. He wrote the program that stole the money. Harrison helped me figure out what was happening when I brought my notebook to him. We downloaded all the evidence we needed to contact the police, and I saved it on a thumb drive hidden in the picture frame on my desk at work, behind the photo of us with Mom and Dad.” She blinked back another round of tears. “I wanted to keep you out of this to protect you, but all I did was put you and Henry in danger.”

  Emma pressed an ear to the wall and listened. Silence. “I have that photo,” she told Sara with a grin. “It’s on the mantel at Sawyer’s house. The evidence is safe.” And best of all, the lunatic who mugged her for the diaper bag of Sara’s things hadn’t gotten it.

  Sara stilled. Her eyes went wide. “Sawyer Lance?” She slid her gaze to Henry. “The Sawyer Lance?”

  “Yeah.” She pressed her good hand to the door and moved clockwise around the room in search of a weak link. In a cabin older than time, complete with chunks of missing roof, there had to be a board somewhere weaker than her. “I’ll catch you up as soon as we get out of here.” She pressed the toe of her shoe against the base of every wall board where it met the floor, testing the integrity of each dark spot for signs of rot. “Come on,” she whispered.

  Sara wriggled upright on the floor, calming like Henry and beginning to regain herself. Her tears were gone, and a fresh fire burned in her eyes. “You have the evidence,” she said. “That means we can put Christopher in jail for a long time for embezzlement after we get out of here. Harrison will testify.”

  Emma sighed. “Harrison was murdered.”

  “Murdered?” Sara’s lips parted in horror. “How?”

  “Gunshot. Someone tried to make it look like a suicide, but they failed. I assume it was Christopher, but he has a crew of goons working with him now.”