by Sharon Sala
He strode out of the mine, jumped into the waiting chopper and flew off into the night.
* * *
Quinn was dressed and gone before Mariah woke up. There was a note on his pillow.
Love you. Duty calls, but you can call me, too, if you want to hear the sound of my sexy voice. We’ll check out that cave this evening, after I find out a little more about Lonnie Farrell and his “new venture.”
She laughed, then rolled over and got out of bed. Her heart was lighter than it had been in weeks. Just knowing she wasn’t losing her mind was the best medicine she could have hoped for. Moses was lying at the foot of the stairs. He looked like he was laughing with her.
“So, little guy, what trouble are we going to get into today?”
Since he didn’t answer, she went to get dressed.
* * *
Quinn couldn’t stand it, knowing in his gut that his poacher was likely inside the old mine, growing mushrooms or bagging coke or whatever the hell else Lonnie Farrell was up to in there.
Even though his boss had warned him about following up on the lead, when he came to the entrance to the mine again he slowed down. To his delight, the gates were open and the little green delivery truck was on the way out. He pulled over onto the shoulder and jumped out to wave down the driver.
“Hey! How’s it going?” he asked.
The driver paused as the man with him refastened the gate. Everyone on-site had heard about the boss’s late-night visit and what Syd Colvin had done. They were all antsy. Even though he knew a ranger wasn’t a real cop, the uniform and the gun in Quinn’s holster made him nervous.
“Fine.”
“Wonder if I could ask you a couple of questions?” Quinn asked.
The driver frowned. “We got a delivery to make.”
“It won’t take long. I just want to talk to the manager.”
“That would be Buell Smith. He’s in the office.”
“Got a number?” Quinn asked, pulling out his cell.
The driver shrugged, then rattled it off as Quinn punched in the call.
“Thanks a lot,” Quinn said.
The guy drove off, leaving Quinn standing in the middle of the road with his cell phone to his ear.
* * *
Buell was coming out of the nursery when his phone began to ring. He answered without checking Caller ID.
“This is Buell.”
“Buell, this is Quinn Walker. I’m out here at the gate. I wonder if you’d have time to come talk to me for a sec.”
Buell’s heart stopped. How the hell had this man gotten his number, and why was he here? This shit just kept getting worse, and he had Lonnie’s orders ringing in his head. Detain Quinn Walker.
“Uh…I’m real busy. What did you want to talk about?”
“I wanted to get a list of the employees working at Mountain Mushrooms.”
Buell frowned. “Why do you want that?”
“Let’s just say it’s park business and leave it at that.”
Buell sighed. Walker was askin’ for it. All he had to do was go on about his business and Lonnie would never know the difference. No, it was bound to get back to Lonnie that they’d spoken, so he had to snatch the man and bring him in for Lonnie to question. On the other hand, if shit went wrong when Lonnie showed up, they couldn’t have Quinn’s vehicle on-site. He had to figure something out and do it quick.
“It’s not my place to give out information like that, but if you want to come up to the office, I can call the boss and see if it’s okay with him.”
“That would be great,” Quinn said.
“Just leave your car on the side of the road. I’ll come get you. We’re kind of limited for parking space up here.”
Quinn frowned. The place didn’t look all that crowded, but he would take what he could get.
“Yeah, okay.”
“I’ll be right there,” Buell said, then hailed one of the men, a guy named Goslin, working in the nursery. “Ride down to the gate with me and unlock it while I pick up a visitor.”
Goslin nodded and jumped into Buell’s truck. They took off down the road. When they got to the gate, Buell handed the keys to Goslin, who got out, unlocked the gate and then held it open for Quinn to walk through.
“Thanks,” Quinn said, and couldn’t help checking the tracks the man left in the dirt. They were clean. No notch in the heel. He got into the truck and nodded a hello. “Buell, I’m thinking you married Lonnie Farrell’s sister, Portia, am I right?”
Buell nodded.
“So what’s it like working for your brother-in-law?” Quinn asked.
“Interesting,” Buell said, watching in the rearview mirror as Goslin jumped into the truck bed, then putting the truck in gear and turning around.
“How’s the mushroom business?” Quinn asked.
“Growing daily,” Buell said. “Picked up another buyer down in Mount Sterling this week, and a couple in Lexington. That makes almost a dozen regular customers now, and they’re buying everything we can give them.” He pulled to a stop.
“We’re here. Come on into the office. I’ll give Lonnie a call.”
Quinn got out, waved to Goslin, who jumped out and headed back deeper into the cavern, and then waited for Buell to lead the way.
Instead Buell stopped.
“Go right on in and take a seat. I’m gonna make the call to Lonnie out here. Better signal and all. If he says it’s okay, then I’ll dig out the list for you.”
“I appreciate it,” Quinn said, and went inside.
Buell watched him head into the office and waited until the door was closed behind him, then quickly called Lonnie’s number.
He answered promptly.
“This better be good news,” he snapped.
“I have Quinn Walker sitting in the office. He says he wants a list of the employees.”
Lonnie’s pulse kicked. “Don’t let him get away. Knock him out. Tie him up and put him in the passage at the back of the lab where he can’t make any trouble. I want to talk to him myself.”
“If I do that, then we both know you aren’t gonna let him go. It means I’ll be aiding and abetting in a man’s death.”
“You’ve already done that, damn it. Three men. Their names were Colvin. Now do what I tell you or we’ll all go down.”
“We could just give him the list and let him go about his business.”
Lonnie snapped. “Listen, you dumb fuck. His business is obviously to nose around in our business or he wouldn’t be there. Now do what I told you. I’ll be there after dark.”
The line went dead in Buell’s ear. He sighed, wondering how everything had gone wrong so fast. He went back to his truck, got a couple of things out of the truck bed and headed for the office.
Quinn was looking at a chart that had been tacked to the wall and showed different varieties of mushrooms when Buell walked in behind him.
“What kind of mushrooms are you guys growing here?” he asked.
Buell hit him in the back of the head with a crowbar. Quinn dropped.
Within moments Buell had him tied up and blindfolded. He searched Quinn’s pocket for the keys to his Jeep, then threw Quinn’s body over his shoulder and headed for the tunnel where the lab was housed, phoning Carter as he went.
“It’s me, Buell,” he said when Carter answered. “Open the door. I have a package.”
“Okay,” Carter said, and after a quick glance at the crew, he went to the door and lifted the bar. He opened the door just as Buell arrived.
When Carter saw the body over Buell’s shoulder, his eyes bugged.
“Who the fuck is that?”
“The law,” Buell said. “Lonnie said to hold him.” He walked past Carter and through the cutting room.
The men sitting at the tables stared.
“Who is that?” someone asked.
“Quinn Walker,” Buell said.
“Is he dead?” another asked.
“Not yet,” Buell said, and walked
out the open end of the lab and into the natural passage at the end.
He kicked a couple of rocks aside, dropped Quinn against the wall then untied the ropes and rearranged them so Quinn was hog-tied, his hands and feet bound together behind him, with a loop around his neck connected to the ropes at his hands and feet. There was no way he could move without strangling himself.
He looked down, eyeing the dark patch of blood in Walker’s hair, and then out of curiosity felt for a pulse in his neck. It was still there. He went back into the drug room, peeled a strip of duct tape from a roll on Carter’s desk, then went back into the shaft and slapped it across Walker’s mouth. Confident he’d done what he’d been ordered to do, he walked out and grabbed another worker from the nursery.
“I need you to come with me,” he said.
“I don’t want no part of what’s going on over on the other side,” the man complained.
Buell frowned. “Yeah, neither do I, but we’re here, and in the eyes of the law, we’re all guilty as sin. I gotta go move a vehicle. I need you to drive behind me in my truck and bring me back.”
The man frowned but had no recourse.
A short while later, Buell was in Walker’s Jeep and heading into the park. The man was a ranger. It stood to reason he would be doing ranger business all day. Wouldn’t be the first time someone went missing in the Daniel Boone Reserve, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. About four miles in he pulled over and killed the engine. He got out of the Jeep, left the door open and the keys in the ignition, then told the other man to shove over, got into his truck and drove away. Neither man spoke a word on the way back to the mine, where they went their separate ways in silence.
Twenty-One
Quinn came to in darkness and pain. He could hear voices, but there was such a roaring in his ears that he couldn’t make out the words. He couldn’t remember what had happened or how the hell he’d got here—wherever here was.
When he tried to move his arms, it felt as if they were being ripped from their sockets. The coppery scent of blood was in his nose, and there was duct tape over his mouth. He quickly realized that if his nose started to bleed he wouldn’t be able to draw air and he would suffocate. Even worse, every time he tried to roll, a rope tightened around his throat. His only effort at a scream emerged as nothing more than a muffled groan. Mariah’s face slipped through his mind. It hit him that he might never see her again. The sadness that came with that thought overwhelmed him.
* * *
Mariah was trying not to panic.
It was after dark, and Quinn hadn’t called her all day. Even more concerning, he hadn’t answered her calls. According to his note he’d planned to be home before dark. Surely if there’d been an emergency at the park he would have called. She didn’t know what to do, but her gut feeling was that something was wrong.
After another hour of pacing she finally sat down and called Ryal. She needed a shoulder to lean on, and his was the first that came to mind. His voice was full of laughter when he answered, and she knew she was about to ruin the mood.
“Ryal, it’s me, Mariah.”
“Well, hello, sister. How goes it?”
“Quinn hasn’t come home.”
The humor in Ryal’s voice disappeared. “When did you talk to him last?”
“I wasn’t even awake when he left this morning. There was just a note saying he’d be back before dark. But he never called all day, and he hasn’t answered any of my calls. I didn’t know who to contact at the ranger station to see if there’d been any emergencies, so I’m dumping my fear at your feet.”
“Give me a couple of minutes. I’ll call you right back,” he said.
The line went dead, but Mariah already felt better.
She paced, waiting for Ryal’s call. The time stretched from a couple of minutes to five and then ten, and she was ready to panic when the phone finally rang.
“Ryal?”
“Yeah. Sorry it took me so long. I couldn’t get any answer at the station and had to run down one of the other rangers at home.”
“Has there been an emergency? Has Quinn been sent someplace where he just can’t get a phone signal?”
“There’s no emergency. He never checked in at the station this morning. No one knows where he is.”
Mariah’s legs went out from under her. She sank to the floor, her heart pounding in her ears.
“Mariah? Are you there?”
Her voice was shaking. “Yes. What do we do?”
“They’re already initiating a search. They’ll look for his vehicle first, and if he’s not with it, they’ll go from there.”
“Oh, my God, I can’t believe this is happening.”
Ryal was worried, but he wasn’t going to let on.
“It’s probably nothing. He’s probably stranded somewhere and pissed off because he’s stuck on foot.”
“Yes, maybe that’s it,” Mariah said, unconvinced. “Did you call Dolly?”
“Yes. She’s on her way over to you.”
Tears welled so fast that Mariah never felt them coming. “She is?”
“Yeah, and Meg’s with her.”
“They didn’t have to do that,” she whispered.
“Yes, they did, honey. It’s what family does. You don’t go through shit alone, okay?”
“Okay, and thank you, Ryal. I didn’t know what to do.”
“We’ll find him, and he’ll probably be upset at the uproar we’ve caused.”
“I won’t care how upset he is. I just want him to be okay. If you hear anything at all, call me.”
“I will. Beth sends her love. If you need us, you know where we are.”
“Okay.”
She hung up, then took a deep breath and prayed to God that this wasn’t as bad as she feared. About fifteen minutes later she saw lights coming up the driveway. For a few fleeting moments she let herself hope it was Quinn, but when Moses began barking she knew it had to be a strange car.
She turned on the porch light just as Dolly and Meg came up the steps.
“Oh, honey,” Dolly said, and held out her arms as Mariah walked into her embrace.
“I got scared,” Mariah said, and then started to cry. “This isn’t like him. I was afraid he was somewhere hurt and expecting me to help.”
“You did exactly the right thing,” Meg said, and shut the door behind them.
Moses licked Meg’s knee and Dolly’s leg, and then followed Mariah back to the sofa and sat on her feet.
“Look at that pup,” Meg said. “He’s right on your feet.”
“That’s what he does when he knows I’m upset,” Mariah said, and laid her hand on the puppy’s head.
“Talk to me, honey,” Dolly said. “Did Quinn mention anything about what was going on at work last night?”
“Yes. He was all excited because he’d finally gotten a big break in locating the poacher he’s been tracking. You know, the one who wounded the bear.”
Dolly leaned forward. “What did he say?”
“He said his boss wouldn’t let him follow up because he had no authority outside the park.”
“Yes, that’s true, but do you know what he found or where he found it?”
“Apparently the poacher has a wedge cut into the heel of one boot that makes his footprint unique. Then yesterday evening on the way home he saw it again, just outside the entrance to Mountain Mushrooms. He tried to get in, but the gate was locked. He said he wanted to get a list of the employees’ names but his boss told him to drop it. But you know Quinn—he wasn’t ready to let it go. He called the sheriff from home last night and told him what was going on.”
Dolly felt sick. She knew her son well enough to know that he wasn’t the kind of man who would quit on anything.
“What did Marlow say?” Dolly asked.
“That he’d take care of it. That’s all I know.”
Dolly kissed Mariah’s cheek. “You’ve done everything right. Have you eaten supper?”
“No. I wa
s waiting for Quinn.”
Meg caught her mother’s look. “I’ll rustle something up for all of us. Sit tight.”
“I’m going to call Ryal and let him know what you just told me,” Dolly said, and gave Mariah’s leg a quick pat. “You sit tight, sugar. When the Walkers get behind a project, stuff starts happening.”
She got up to make her call, then couldn’t get a signal.
“Darn mountains. I’m going to go out on the deck and see if I can get through,” Dolly said, and went out the front door.
Moses was still sitting on Mariah’s feet with his chin resting on her knee. The look in his eyes was so loving and so trusting that she wanted to weep. She was among people who cared about her, and yet she’d never felt more alone.
* * *
Quinn had been in and out of consciousness for what seemed like hours. He still had no memory of what had happened or where he could possibly be. Even though men were talking nearby, none of what they were saying clued him in as to where he was.
The pain in his arms and legs had moved to a level he’d never lived through before, and he wondered how long he could stay like this without dying. Someone kept moaning nearby. He didn’t know he was hearing himself. He prayed to pass out and stay that way, but even that was denied him. He was losing hope fast when he began to hear a commotion nearby. There was a flurry of footsteps, and then a sharp, angry-sounding question.
“Where is he, Buell?”
“Out in the shaft, Lonnie. Right where you said to put him.”
And just like that Quinn remembered getting in the truck with Buell Smith and coming to the mine. So that was where he was and who had put him here.
But why?
“What the fuck?” Lonnie yelled when he saw how Walker had been tied. “I said restrain him, not strangle him before I even got to talk to him. Untie him now, and get that rope off his neck.”
Buell sighed. There was no way to make this man happy, but he did as he was told.
Even when the ropes loosened and Quinn’s arms were momentarily free, he couldn’t feel them. All that mattered was that the rope around his neck was gone and he could take a deep breath without fear of strangling.