"And you haven't seen her since?" Doc asked.
"No. I'm still waiting for the big rock." She furrowed her brow.
"What's wrong, Madeline. You seem concerned. I told you that everything is fine and you have nothing to worry about."
"The week was up today."
"That's okay, Madeline. I want you to take a deep breath and relax. We're going to talk about something else for a minute and then I'm going to take you back slowly to a complete state of well-being. You will not remember anything we've just talked about and you won't feel the least bit worried at all. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"Are you worried at all right now? You don't need to be. Everything is perfectly fine and in a minute you won't even remember talking about any of this, isn't that fine?"
"Yes."
"Would you like to remember your mother's face, before we finish?"
"Yes."
"Okay, Maddie, close your eyes again and reach way back. Can you see her yet? She's right there if you want her to be."
For an instant, the image appeared and Maddie was filled with a sense of longing, wanting to reach out for her.
"Do you see her?" Doc prompted.
"Yes!"
"Good, Madeline. And you can take that image with you. It will be the only thing you remember from this session. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"Very good. Now I'm going to slowly count backwards from ten, and with each number, you'll grow more and more awake until I reach one, at which point you'll feel totally refreshed and relaxed, not remembering anything but the image of your mother. Are you ready? Ten... nine... eight..."
When Maddie looked at the clock, she couldn't believe it. It felt as though she'd only been there a few minutes, but here Doc was ushering her out. She felt pretty good though. And for the first time in years, she could remember what her mother had looked like. It wasn't until later, after dinner, that she started to wonder what else she might have told Doc while hypnotized. But there was no time to dwell on it. Midnight marked the beginning of the eighth day.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The second Gracie told us that Maddie had run off again, Jo and I leaped onto our horses.
"The machine shop," I said. "Come on! We need to hurry!"
The three of us raced across the meadows, startling a few sleeping horses as we tore through the darkness, past the stables and down the road toward the camp. When we got close enough to the cabins that someone might hear us, we pulled up and slipped out of the saddles. Our horses were winded and sweating and we left them to find their own way back to the stables, while we went the rest of the way on foot.
I led the way as we stealthily slipped past the cabins, then made a headlong dash for the wall surrounding the recreation area behind the machine shop. I still had the rolled up duct tape in my jacket pocket and I used it again to hoist myself up onto the tree. Gracie and Jo followed suit, and the three of us plunked silently into the recreation courtyard. I scanned the darkness for a sign of Ben. To my surprise, I could make out the single glowing tip of a cigarette about fifty feet away, just inside the open rear door of the shop. His back was to us. He was facing the mine entrance, smoking while he waited.
I motioned for Gracie and Jo to stay low, pointing to where Ben stood. Then I crept along the wall until I was out of his line of sight before dropping as quietly as I could to the ground. Gracie and Jo followed suit and we huddled in the dark, listening. Finally, taking a deep breath, I tiptoed across the recreation area grounds, keeping close to the building. I pressed my back to the open door, counted to three, and stepped around, into the open doorway, my gun drawn. Ben never heard me coming.
"Drop it," I said. He whirled around, his eyes huge. He had the semi-automatic held loosely at his side and for a brief second I could see he was thinking about bringing it up, but I cocked the hammer on my gun which was pointed directly at his forehead and Ben carefully set his weapon on the ground.
"Good choice, Ben. Where's Coach?"
"How should I know? What are you doing here?" His gaze darted over my shoulder as Gracie and Jo stepped into the doorway. Gracie came forward and retrieved the fallen semi-automatic.
"Is Coach supposed to flush them out this way?" I asked.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Sure you do, Ben. Doc told you to cover this entrance. Coach went through the other one. I just want to know whether you're part of the action or just a safety valve."
"Look. All I know is a kid ran away and Doc thinks they might've gone into the mine. I'm keeping a lookout, is all."
"With this?" Gracie asked, aiming the semi-automatic at him. "Kind of heavy artillery for a thirteen-year-old girl."
I told you, I don't even know who the kid is."
"You're a lousy liar, Ben. I knew that the first time I talked to you. Your eyes go shifty and start sliding all over the place. It'll be interesting to see what they do when the police start asking you about where that gun came from. Especially when they see the blueprints on the disk I copied from your computer."
This time, his eyes practically bulged.
"So you gonna help us out voluntarily here, or does Gracie have to get tough?"
"I told you, I don't know what Coach is planning to do with them."
"Ah, so now you suddenly remember there's two of them. How long have you known she's alive, Ben?"
His face had turned ashen. "I don't know who you mean."
I turned to Gracie. "I don't have time for this bullshit. Do you?"
"Nope," she said. Faster than lightening, Gracie grabbed Ben's arm and yanked it behind him, practically lifting him off his toes. From her own jacket pocket, she produced the duct tape we'd used to climb the tree, and in a few graceful moves, she had gagged and bound Ben like a cowgirl trussing a calf in the rodeo. Ben struggled and mumbled incoherently to no avail. She liberated the walkie-talkie that was clipped to his belt and tossed it to Jo. She dug inside his pockets and came up with a thick wad of keys which she stuffed into her own pocket. From the other, she pulled out one of the remote controls for the electronic gates.
"This open the gate out front?" she asked.
He closed his eyes, refusing to acknowledge the question, lest he give away the answer.
"He's all yours," she said.
"Move," I said, waving the gun toward the tunnel entrance. Ben's eyes widened.
"Maybe your memory will get better after a few hours in the mine." I prodded him and he stumbled forward, clearly afraid of the darkness. But the minute we stepped into the mouth of the mine, I realized it was I who was petrified. The dream came rushing back at me and I could almost feel the air being sucked out of me.
"Faster," I said, disguising my fear. I was glad I still had the flashlight. Even with it, footing on the tracks was treacherous. Ben mumbled something unintelligible. He was not only pissing me off, but he was slowing us down.
"Ben, I'm going to give you a choice." I sounded much braver than I felt. "We're going to leave you tied up in here until the police arrive in the morning. The thing is, what I've read about bats is that while they can't see too well, they have a very acute sense of smell and are attracted by blood. Your first choice is, we leave you unbloodied. The second choice includes lots of blood. All you've got to do is tell me where Coach is and what he's planning."
He mumbled something and Gracie partially removed the gag.
"They're hiding in Isolation. That's all I know. What Coach does with them is his business."
"Where is Isolation?" I asked.
"Fuck if I know. Just follow the tracks."
"Put the gag back in, Gracie, and tie him to the tracks. Then catch up, okay?"
"Go," she said. Grade's voice sounded funny and I suddenly remembered what she'd said about being claustrophobic. Consumed by my own worries, I'd forgotten about hers. But Gracie was nothing if not brave and this gave me strength.
Jo and I took off, moving through the dark
mine as fast as we dared, the small beam from the flashlight bouncing along the tracks in front of us. We stopped every few feet and listened, then went forward again. Every time the tunnel curved, we slowed down, listening before rounding the bend. It was at one such juncture that Gracie caught up with us, barely winded.
With each minute that passed, my fear for Maddie grew. Coach had had too much of a head start. We reached a bend in the tunnel and slowed to catch our breaths. Just then, we heard a voice echoing off the wall ahead of us.
"I can't believe you're still here. I thought you'd run off! Put the stick down, for God's sake, Annie. I'm not going to hurt you. I was just looking for the kid."
"Stand back, Coach. Don't come any closer."
"Annie, what's happened to you? Don't tell me you've been down here in the mine all this time?"
We inched nearer, daring to get as close to them as possible without Coach seeing us. He was still around the bend from us, but I could see the light from his miner's cap ricocheting off the walls, illuminating the tracks in front of us in haphazard patterns.
"I said, back away. If you care about me so much, just go the other way and leave us alone." Annie Sisson's voice sounded strained.
"I don't understand. Don't you trust me?" Coach's voice sounded strangely convincing. "After everything we've been through, you think I'd come here to hurt you? If you're in some kind of trouble, I can help."
"I don't know what to think or who to trust." Annie sounded like her resolve was weakening.
I stepped around the bend and into plain sight. I had the gun trained on Coach.
"Drop the prod on the ground, Coach, and kick it over here," I said.
Coach looked up and his eyes narrowed with pure hatred.
"Get the fuck out of here," he snarled.
"Who are you?" Annie asked. She wasn't sure which of us posed the most danger. She was standing at the door of a cave just off the train tracks, protecting Maddie Boone behind her. Coach was a few feet away from them.
"You can't trust him, Annie. He's the one who cleaned out your cabin and got rid of your car so it would look like you'd run off in the night. Only he forgot your grandmother's quilt hanging out back and the birth control pills taped under the top drawer."
I didn't know who looked more shocked, Annie or Coach. Gracie stepped up behind me and Jo followed. To Coach, it must have looked like there was no end to the number of us who might be waiting around the bend.
"She's lying," Coach said. "If there's some kind of plot going on, they must be in on it."
"How do I know you're telling the truth?" Annie said, looking from me to Coach.
"Maddie wrote a letter to her father. There was a hidden message in it. Her father didn't get it but her mother did."
"You're lying!" Maddie shouted. "My mother's in prison."
"Not anymore," Gracie said, stepping forward. "Your mother is my cousin. She got out a few weeks ago. She wants to see you, Maddie. Your father let her read your letter and she figured it out. That's why we're here. To help."
"Don't believe them, Maddie," Coach said. "They know about the letter because Doc monitors all the e-mail before it's sent. Now come with me while there's still time. I can help you get out of here."
"You gonna trust a guy who uses a cattle prod on kids?" I asked.
"Shut up, dyke. Come on Annie, we're running out of time."
"Ask him to throw the prod away, Annie. What's he need it for if he doesn't mean you any harm?"
"For protection against you!" he shouted. "You're the one with the gun."
Annie was looking from Coach to me and back again, unsure who to trust. Coach was holding his hand out to her. Gracie started to walk forward and Coach held the cattle prod out, warning her to stay back. Then in a surprise move, he lunged for Annie, who involuntarily stepped back. Instead, Coach grabbed Maddie by the hair and pulled her out into the tunnel.
"Stay back or I'll toast her," he said.
"You do and I'll shoot you right through the balls," I said, my gun leveled at him.
"You shoot, you're gonna hit the kid," he said.
"But I'm not," Grade said. "You may stun her once but if you do I'm going to break your neck with my own hands. And then Cass can shoot you as many times as she wants. It may take her a couple of shots to hit the right parts, but I'm positive she'll do it eventually."
Coach still had his arm around Maddie's neck, the prod resting against her stomach, but he was watching Gracie as she walked slowly closer. On the other side of the track, Jo was also approaching.
"I mean it, I'll zap her if you get any closer." Maddie's eyes were huge but she stood stock-still, barely breathing.
"Not if you value your life," Gracie said. Her voice was deadly calm and Maddie, whose eyes had looked terrified a moment earlier, now watched her mother's cousin with awe.
Gracie reached out and put her hand on Coach's arm. "Let me have it, Coach. Before you do something you'll regret the rest of your life."
Coach's gaze darted from Gracie to me to Jo and back to Gracie again, calculating his odds. He could zap the kid, but once she was down, I'd have a clear shot at him. He could zap Gracie and hang onto the kid as protection from me, but I didn't think he was sure that Gracie would go down. And Jo was less than a few feet away. He couldn't take us all. Besides, once he grabbed Maddie, he'd lost his credibility with Annie. He backed away, still holding onto Maddie and lifted the walkie-talkie to his lips.
"Ben. Come in. Ben." He was startled to hear his own staticky voice boom a few feet away and Jo pulled Ben's walkie-talkie out of her pocket, smiling as she stepped forward.
"Don't think Ben's gonna be much help," she said, waving it at him. Then Coach did something that surprised all of us. He let go of Maddie, pushing her toward Gracie, and lunged for Jo. He wrenched her arm backwards until she dropped the walkie-talkie. Then, in one quick motion, he pulled a gun from his pocket and held it against Jo's temple, holding Jo in front of him as a shield.
"Go ahead and shoot, Lesbo."
I realized that Jo made a better shield for him than Maddie had. Jo's face was twisted in pain as Coach slowly backed away from us. Gracie, who'd been inching closer to him, stopped in her tracks.
"Go ahead and try it," Coach hissed at her. His laugh echoed menacingly against the walls of the mine and I watched helplessly as he backed around the corner, taking Jo and the light from his helmet with him.
Gracie whispered in the darkness. "Once he's out of sight, he'll probably let her go and take off."
We were frozen in indecision, still listening to their footsteps, not wanting to do anything that might jeopardize Jo. Suddenly, horribly, a gunshot reverberated through the tunnel, painfully sounding as if a cannon had been shot off a few feet away. Before any of us could move, another shot came blasting around the bend and we all dove, hitting the ground as the bullet ricocheted off the tunnel walls around us. Gracie had dived on top of Maddie and lay sprawled over her, protecting her from the flying bullets. Annie was the only one safely hidden inside the cave. I was in the direct line of fire.
I rolled to my left and looked up, straining to see the form that stood less than fifteen feet away with a shotgun pointed in our direction.
I aimed my .45 at the shape, struggling to see in the dark.
"Put it down, girl," a voice calmly commanded. It wasn't Coach's voice. Could whoever it was see my gun that clearly?
"I can't," a different voice said. "They'll ruin everything."
"It's all right, honey. Just give me the gun. Then we'll go back and get your medication. It will be all right." Suddenly, the tunnel was illuminated and I blinked against the sudden light as Clutch Evans walked toward his wife, a miner's cap lighting the way.
"You don't understand," she said, still aiming the shotgun at us, her hands visibly twitching. Slowly I lowered my own gun and set it on the ground, raising my hands so she could see I was harmless. But Ida didn't seem to notice.
"Everything's falling ap
art. Annie found out about the guns and I couldn't just let her get away." Her voice had a revved-up, choppy quality and she was chomping gum between syllables.
"What guns?" Clutch asked, his voice deadly calm. He had his hand outstretched for Ida's gun, but hadn't moved any closer to her.
"You weren't supposed to know," she said. "Doc said you wouldn't stand for it. Even if they did start out doing it for a good cause." She was rhythmically swinging the gun between Gracie and me. Her voice had taken on a sing-song tempo, matching her movements.
"What good cause? What are you talking about, Ida?" Clutch took a small step forward, his eyes trained on Ida's.
She looked exasperated, on the verge of hysteria. "The guns, Clutchie. Ben and Doc started supplying arms to some stupid freedom fighters back in the Seventies. They were trying to overthrow a corrupt dictator or something. Doc thought he was saving the world. That's all I know and that's more than I ever wanted to know. They said it was for a good cause and I believed them. But then word got out to the wrong people and the next thing you know they're being blackmailed into supplying others. Everything got out of hand after that.
And now it's all falling apart! After everything I've done to hold things together!" Her eyes were glassy, the pupils nonexistent.
"And you knew this? Oh, Lord, Ida. Why didn't you say something?" Clutch was struggling to keep his voice calm, and failing. Ida looked at him as if he'd slapped her.
"We needed the money, Clutch! The camp was barely holding its own. Until recently, I couldn't figure out why, but it was true. Month after month, the money didn't add up. Then I finally figured it out! Doc's been skimming the profits all along. To make me go along with their scheme, don't you see? They wanted me to think that without the guns, the camp would fail." Her voice was staccato now, and she smacked her gum between sentences, lending finality to each statement. She'd also started to bounce as she spoke, swinging the gun between Gracie and me as rhythmically as a cuckoo clock.
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