Missing in the Mountains

by Julie Anne Lindsey

  Emma forced herself back on her haunches, deliberating, watching Finn and gauging what he might do next. Desperation drove people to do awful things, and Finn seemed as desperate as any man Emma had ever seen. “Please,” she tried again. “I’m already shot, but you can save my baby and my sister. Get them away from here and tell Christopher you buried their bodies or threw them in the river. Anything. Not this for them.” She lifted a bloodied palm. Fresh crimson drops painted a thick path down her forearm. “They’re all the family I’ve got.”

  His face contorted with indecision. He looked at his gun, at Sara and Henry on the floor, at Emma, bleeding and weak.

  “You would want to protect your family if you could, wouldn’t you?” Emma asked softly, hoping that big family of his had taught him to respect and honor a genetic bond.

  Finn swung in her direction, a belligerent look on his youthful face. “I have family too. He’ll kill them if I don’t kill you.”

  “He’s going to kill you anyway,” Emma said. “He’s going to kill all of us so he can keep his stolen money and his secret, but you don’t have to do this. I can see this isn’t who you are, and it’s not what you want.” She hoped she was right.

  “This was supposed to be easy money,” he said. “My lady just had another baby, and we don’t have money for food or diapers. My folks can’t help. They’re strapped raising my brothers and sisters. I can’t find work without leaving town. I can’t look outside town for work without a car. Can’t buy a car without money.” He raised his hands and pressed them to his head, pointing the gun at the ceiling. “I was going to be the muscle. A bodyguard for Christopher, a lookout when he needed me. I was going to earn enough to keep food, formula and diapers in the house until I got real work. Then he got his hands on my younger brothers, promising them everything. Buying them fancy ATVs and riding gear. He reeled them in and had them doing his dirty work before I even knew it was happening. Then he used them as leverage with me. If I walked out on him, he’d turn them in for the crimes he had them commit. The next thing I know, we’re all doing terrible things and we’re stuck.”

  “Now your brother David has been arrested,” Emma said. “Christopher thinks he’ll turn on him to keep you out of jail, so Christopher plans to kill you after you kill us.”

  Finn didn’t blink. It was the second time she’d told him Christopher’s plans, and the second time he’d taken the information in stride.

  “You already know,” Emma said, letting the truth settle in. “You know, but you’re still willing to become a murderer for him. Why?”

  Finn paced. “It buys me and my family time.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Emma said. “And you can’t take your whole family on the run with you. Your girl and your kids, maybe, but what about your folks and all those siblings? Have you made enough money from Christopher to relocate all of them? To keep running if he looks for you?”

  “He won’t look for us,” Finn said. “He’ll be busy running from the law too.”

  “And if he gets caught? Turns you in to make a deal for himself?”

  Finn’s breaths came more quickly. A line of sweat raised on his forehead and lip. He pressed his palms to his temples. “Shut up so I can think.”

  Henry’s cries grew desperate again, as if he was in pain. Hunger, Emma thought. When was the last time he’d eaten? Before bed last night. It was also the last time he’d been changed. Tears pricked her eyes. Her baby was hungry, and she couldn’t feed him. Scared and she couldn’t hold him.

  Finn dropped his hands and looked from Emma to Sara. “Enough. Turn around. Both of you.” He pressed his thumb to the hammer on his gun and pulled it back with a soft click that rolled Emma’s stomach. “I just want this to be over,” he said, exhausted. “Turn around. I’ll make it quick. Three shots. Three seconds. You’ll never know it happened, and it’ll be over.”

  “Please,” Sara cried. “Don’t.”

  Finn scooped Henry into his arms and set him against the wall, near the hole Emma had made. He dragged Sara back against the far wall, opposite the door, and he motioned Emma into the space between her son and sister. Lining them up like bottles for target practice. “Close your eyes.”

  Emma gripped her side and reached for her baby.

  Finn groaned. “Stop.”

  Emma couldn’t stop. It wasn’t in her. Henry was alone, crying, scared. He wouldn’t die alone like that. She didn’t care what Finn or anyone else said. “Mama’s here,” she called, working her voice into something less soaked in pain, less mired in grief. “Shh,” she cooed.

  “I said stop!” Finn raged, his boot connecting with her torso, spinning her into a hard roll that ended with a collision against the side wall, away from Henry and the escape hole. The impact stole her breath, knocked the wind from her lungs. She searched wildly through spotted vision for Henry when she stilled.

  “Henry,” she choked.

  His cries were there, but he wasn’t. Her gaze darted across the floor. Had he flailed and kicked himself through the hole? Had he fallen to the ground?

  Emma’s heart and stomach lurched.

  Finn stormed forward, peering through the hole. “What the...?” He stood upright as Henry’s cries grew distant and muffled. Panic colored his bloody face. “I should’ve just killed you all the minute I walked in here,” he said, storming for the door. “I let you talk to me and get into my head, now...”

  A blast of gunfire cut Finn’s rant short. The sudden burst rang in Emma’s ears and vibrated in her chest. Finn flew backward, arms waving, feet twisting, until he landed in a lifeless heap beside Sara.

  The door swung open and Sara screamed.

  A pair of men marched inside.

  Emma’s mind reeled. What had happened? Who had arrived? Who had shot Finn? Christopher?

  The first man kicked the gun away from Finn, then lowered to check his neck for a pulse.

  “Emma.” Sawyer’s voice broke through her muddled thoughts. His face swam into view, marred with fear and concern. He crouched before her, Henry crying in his arms. He pressed his forehead to hers, then kissed her lips with firm reassurance. “Sorry I’m late.”

  Detective Miller stood, stepped away from Finn’s body. “He’s gone,” he said sadly, then moved to Sara’s side and cut easily through her ropes with a pocketknife. Once she was freed, he hoisted her into his arms and carried her straight outside and into the day.

  Sawyer’s expression fell. His eyes stretched wide as he lifted a bloodied palm between them. “Emma?” His gaze trailed over her torso, over the smears of her blood on Henry’s pajamas between them. “You’ve been shot.”

  Emma opened her mouth to tell him she was okay, that she loved him, but the words didn’t come. She felt the strength of his arms around her. Smelled the sweet scent of Henry’s baby shampoo as her head rolled back. Her thoughts fell into darkness.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sawyer kissed Emma lightly under the canopy of lights outside her home. A lot had changed in the eight months since he’d ridden with her, breathless and terrified, to the hospital following her mountaintop rescue. His pulse still raced whenever he thought of that day. He still dreamed every manner of horrific scenarios where things went another way. Sometimes he arrived five minutes later. Too late to save her. He hated those dreams most. But when the nightmares of losing her woke him now, the way nightmares of losing his team had woken him before, he simply reached for her in the darkness and pulled her near. Then everything was right in the world.

  “I love you,” she whispered against his crisp white dress shirt, playfully flipping the end of his tie.

  He kissed her again, at a complete loss for words.

  Seeing her so healthy and beautiful under the endless rows of twinkle lights, surrounded by family and friends, it was hard to believe that he’d nearly lost her completely. She’d gone limp in his arms, an
d he’d felt the punch of it in his gut as clear and strong as if it would kill him too.

  Eight months since he’d stood sentinel at her bedside following her surgery. Eight months since he’d prayed around the clock to see her beautiful blue eyes once more. Eight months since he’d fallen to his knees the moment she’d spoken his name and begged her to be his wife. He hadn’t gotten halfway through the rambling proposal before she’d said yes. It was her first word after three long days of silence, and it had the power to change his life.

  She cradled his cheek in her palm as she smiled.

  Two hundred guests and she only had eyes for him. His chest puffed in pride and satisfaction.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Just thinking about how lucky I am. How thankful,” he said. It was a reminder he gave her often. “The hospital staff wasn’t sure you’d make it.” They’d said she lost a lot of blood on that mountain, too much for good odds.

  “But you knew I would,” she said.

  “Yes, I did,” he agreed. “They didn’t know you like I do.” They didn’t know what Emma would do, what she’d endure or survive for the chance to raise her son.

  Sawyer knew, and he’d waited patiently at her bedside with Henry and Sara until one day, Emma simply opened her eyes.

  “Well, that makes us two lucky, thankful people,” she said, sliding her palms gently against his chest.

  Sawyer lifted her left hand and kissed the knuckles beside her engagement ring. The ring had been her mother’s, but Sara had insisted Emma wear it after the engagement. Sawyer had a custom wedding band in the works to go with her mother’s ring. She’d wear that soon too. For now, they’d settled on an open house–style engagement party where friends, families and neighbors could get a look at the girls they’d read about in newspapers and gossip columns straight through Christmas. The community had followed Emma’s and Sara’s recoveries like their own lives depended on it.

  “Enough of that,” a familiar voice boomed nearby. Detective Miller approached with Sara on his arm. Their flirting had started at the hospital, both checking in on Emma, and it continued to the present. Sawyer thought it was nice. Emma was more cautious, expectedly protective of her big sister, despite the fact that, to Sawyer’s opinion, Miller had been a perfect gentleman every step of the way. “Save it for the ceremony,” Miller said with a broad grin.

  Sawyer gave Miller’s hand a hearty shake. He owed the detective more than he could ever repay. Thanks to his dogged follow-up work, Christopher Lawson was in jail and going to stay there for a very long time. The expected charges of murder, attempted murder, embezzlement, kidnapping and a half dozen of others were just the tip of the iceberg once Miller got started. He’d combed through Christopher’s personal computer as if it held the secrets of the universe, and he’d uncovered a treasure trove of evidence against Christopher in the process. Miller linked him and his accomplices to a bevy of other criminal offenses within the month. As a bonus, and as no surprise to the detective, David Finn had confessed everything he knew in trade for leniency on his brothers. Christopher turned on everyone in the hopes of reducing his sentence, but the FBI had been particularly interested in the money laundering and fraud. And they weren’t interested in giving breaks.

  Sawyer released his hand. “Sorry, man, I just can’t seem to keep my hands off of her.”

  “So I’ve heard” was Miller’s quick response. It earned him an elbow from Sara and a grin from Emma.

  She pulled Sara into a hug. “Thank you for doing all this,” she said. “Everything is absolutely beautiful, completely over-the-top for an engagement party.”

  Sara stroked Emma’s arm as she stepped back. “Consider this a test run for the big day.”

  Emma smiled into the apricot-hued horizon, lifting her chin to the warm setting sun. “I still can’t believe I’m getting married on our land. Just like Mom and Dad.”

  “They’d be really happy,” Sara said, tearing up. “I’m still just really glad you’re alive.”

  Sawyer worked to swallow the brick of emotion that presented at the slightest reminder.

  “Back at ya,” Emma said.

  Thankfully, Emma’s broken wrist had healed as nicely as her gunshot wound. Both under constant watch and care from Sawyer and Sara, not to mention an endless string of casseroles and pies hand delivered by community members, a testimony and staple of courtesy in the South.

  Sara leaned against her new beau’s side, her gaze floating across the sea of people on her lawn. “I’d started thinking of Emma and I as alone in the world after Mom and Dad died, but there are nearly two hundred people here tonight, and we’re expecting a hundred more for the wedding in September.” She eyeballed Sawyer. “Though I think half these guests belong to you.”

  He smiled. “Probably so.” The group near the stables, for example, now roaring with laughter as Henry toddled after a barn cat. He recognized every face from his team at Fortress Security, plus Wyatt’s new wife and baby. The rest of that crowd was blood-related and soon to be Emma and Sara’s family, as well. Most of them were Garretts. Cousins from Kentucky that seemed to have protect and serve in their blood.

  For a pair of sisters so accustomed to being alone, Emma and Sara were in for a major adjustment. Henry would never know a day without someone to play with.

  Sawyer’s partner, Wyatt, caught him staring and led half the pack in Sawyer’s direction. Wyatt’s new wife laughed along behind them, leading Henry by one hand. His cousins’ wives herded everyone else in his direction.

  “Well, here comes a crowd,” Sawyer muttered to his little circle, a smile already spreading on his lips. “What do you suppose they’re up to?”

  Wyatt pulled Sawyer in for a strong one-armed hug, then kissed Emma’s and Sara’s cheeks and shook Miller’s hand. “We were just talking about the happy couple,” he said, looking from Emma to Sawyer, then back.

  Sawyer’s senses went on alert. “What are you up to?”

  Others from the lawn began a sweep in their direction, whispering and pointing as they moved.

  Wyatt pressed a palm to his heart, feigning innocence. Poorly. “Henry was just telling us the story of how two quiet sisters single-handedly took down a psychopathic murderer, escaped abduction and ended a mass of fraud and embezzlement operations, armed only with wood from the dilapidated shed where they were held.”

  Emma laughed as Henry made a stumbling run for her calves. “Is that right?” she asked. “I know his vocabulary is up to fifteen words now, but I’m not sure he’s mastered dilapidated or psychopathic murderer just yet.”

  “You’d be surprised,” Wyatt said.

  Sawyer hoisted Henry into his arms, awed as usual by the sensation of looking into a mirror or at a living photo from his youth. He kissed his son and felt the familiar tug of pride.

  “What are you thinking?” Emma asked, smiling again, her skin aglow in the slowly setting sun.

  “I’m just all kinds of happy,” he said.

  Emma beamed, all eyes on her as the crowd grew silent. “Well, I’m glad,” she said, digging into the pocket of her pale pink sundress. “Because I have an early wedding present for you.” She opened her palm to him, revealing a small scroll in the center. The little paper was tied with two thin white ribbons.

  Sawyer dipped his head, unsure. “Is this a bride thing?” he asked, taking the scroll between his thumb and first finger for examination.

  Emma smiled. “Open it.”

  He frowned, especially cautious with any surprise that his entire family and group of friends seemed to be in on. “You said it’s a wedding gift?” he asked, removing and pocketing the white ribbons, then unfurling the white paper with his thumbs while Henry did his best to grab it from him.

  “More like—” Emma paused and grinned impossibly wider “—Christmas gifts.”

  “Christmas gifts? It’s the
middle of summer.” Sawyer made a sour face and kept unrolling. That clue didn’t help him at all. Finally, he turned the paper over in his fingers. One heavy black square occupied the center of the slick white paper. A grayish semicircle centered in that. In the semicircle were two white peanut shapes. Some sparse text rode along the top. The date. Yesterday. His last name. Lance. The name of the hospital where Emma had been treated last fall. Mercy General Hospital. The word female. Written twice. “What is this?” He lifted his eyes to the group, who looked collectively disappointed in him.

  He knew what he thought it was, but he didn’t dare jump to conclusions that might bring him unnecessarily to tears in front of two hundred people.

  “Here.” Emma slid in close and pulled Henry onto her hip. She pointed to the first peanut. “This is your daughter.” She slid her finger to the next peanut. “And this is also your daughter.” She stepped back and watched him, one hand set protectively on her stomach.

  “What?” He’d been right? Babies? He stared at the little paper through quickly blurring eyes. “You’re really pregnant?”

  She nodded, eyes glistening. “That’s right, Sawyer Lance,” she said. “In a few weeks, we’ll marry and become an official family of three. But by the end of the year we’ll be a family of five.”

  “Pregnant,” Sawyer’s gaze slid to her middle. He’d missed all this the first time. He’d longed for an opportunity to see her glow and bloom again one day. A day when he could be there for her. For anything she needed. That day was already here.

  “Yes.” She smiled.

  “Twins?”

  “Girls,” she answered.

  And like the day she’d opened her eyes in that hospital room, Sawyer knelt before her. This time, he kissed her belly through the soft fabric of her sundress, then rose to kiss her nose, her forehead, her cheeks and her mouth as the crowd burst into whoops and applause.

  * * *

  Look for more books in Julie Anne Lindsey’s

  Fortress Security miniseries later this year.