He watched road signs, but they were in the middle of wilderness. It had taken over an hour to reach the cabin, and it might take that long to find a signal. He spotted a high ridge with a fire tower poking out of the trees. Maybe he could get a signal there.
He parked in a scenic overlook and got out, then opened the rear door. “Let’s go, kid.”
“Where are we going?”
“We’re going to see a fire tower, up there.” He pointed.
“Cool!” Alex scrambled out. “My friend Brandon climbed one once. I’ll be able to tell him I got to climb one too.”
The climb up the ridge would take a little time with a kid in tow. He set his hand on Alex’s head and steered him toward the path. “Let’s hurry so you can see your grandmother soon.”
“Okay.” Alex scampered up the pine-strewn path and paused several times to make sure he didn’t get too far ahead.
This kind of hike was for kids. He was huffing and puffing, and Alex still had enough energy to pick wildflowers and examine a caterpillar or two. They were nearly to the top of the ridge. If the coverage was still poor, he’d have to head for town, but that would mean removing his mask. The kid would be able to identify him.
It probably didn’t matter. He would have to do whatever it took to escape.
The small hairs on the back of Shauna’s neck stood at attention as she walked between her dad and Zach. Someone was stalking them, but he’d failed to shoot or make his presence known in any way. Zach took point, and her dad paused often behind her to check out the landscape, but neither of them seemed to feel the alarm dogging her steps.
She checked her phone. “Still no signal.”
“And you won’t get one for quite a distance,” her dad said. “Probably not until the clearing where you landed your bird.”
She stopped and looked back at her dad, who seemed sprier by the minute. “I can’t believe you stopped your phone service. How am I supposed to call to check on you?”
His grizzled jaw jutted, and he narrowed his eyes at her. “Don’t need anyone checking on me. I’m a grown man, Shauna. Can take care of myself.”
She bit her lip and didn’t answer. Going over all the ways he failed to take care of himself was a waste of breath. “Someone’s out there.”
He shrugged. “Sometimes in these woods you can get the heebie-jeebies, and there’s no one there at all.”
She heard the snap of a broken twig. “Get down!” She threw herself to the ground at the same instant a shot rang out. The bullet dug into a tree near where she’d been standing.
Zach turned and fired. She heard the sound of someone running away, and Zach rushed after the sniper. Shauna turned to check on her dad and found him jogging after Zach, so she joined in the chase as well. They came to a stream running through a small clearing and stopped.
Zach tipped his head and listened. “I don’t know which way he went. The dude is fast.”
Her dad stopped and examined the ground. “I think we made a wrong turn. I don’t see any recent tracks through here.”
Zach’s hand came down on her shoulder, and she welcomed the warm reassurance with a smile. “You weren’t hit, were you?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I think he ran off because he realized we were all armed. Three against one. He probably thought he could pick us off easily, then abandoned the idea when you returned fire.”
“Probably, but let’s play it safe and get to the helicopter as soon as possible.” He took her hand as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
She curled her fingers into his warm grip, and they turned back toward their destination. Something major had shifted between them today, and it was going to take some time to adjust to these new, crazy feelings.
Her dad eyed her, then stared at Zach. “What’s going on with you two?”
A surge of color ran up Zach’s neck, but he held her dad’s gaze. “We’ve always been good friends, and we realized maybe there could be more than that between us. You okay with that?”
Her dad shrugged. “She’s the one to make that decision.”
The laconic disinterest in his voice pierced her. He’d long ago given up any desire to be part of her life, to voice any opinion about what she did or where she went. She’d hoped for that to change, but it was never going to be any different.
Zach’s fingers tightened on hers, and she clung to the gentle encouragement in his grip. He and her father were polar opposites. Zach would always be a steady influence on her and Alex. He’d always have an opinion on anything that concerned her. She and her dad were strangers and always would be.
They were within five hundred yards of the helicopter when her cell phone rang. She stopped. “Looks like we have a signal!” She glanced at the screen. “Hey, Marilyn, sorry we’re late. I’ll tell you about it when we get back.”
“This isn’t Marilyn, so listen carefully.” The man’s voice was pitched in a way to disguise his identity. “I have Marilyn and your boy. If you want them back, we’ll make an exchange.”
Her heart seized, and she gripped Zach’s hand. “Who is this? What do you want?” Zach’s expression had gone somber. He stood close to her, and she held the phone out from her ear a bit so he could hear.
“Clarence gave you some stuff, and I need one item back immediately. If you don’t do exactly what I say, you’ll never see your boy and Marilyn again.”
“Don’t hurt them!” Terror roughened her voice and squeezed her chest. “I’ll do whatever you say. But the sheriff has all that stuff.”
“He doesn’t have it all. He gave an item back to you.”
Realization washed over her. “The necklace, you mean? I have it. Where can we exchange it for Alex and Marilyn?”
“Take it to the lookout point at Rainshadow Bay. There’s a plaque on the point. Tape it to the back, then call me when you’re done. Once I have it, I’ll release them.”
“That’s not good enough! I want to meet. I’ll give you the necklace, and you can give me Alex and Marilyn.”
“You have one hour to deliver the necklace there, or the deal is off. Don’t call the sheriff, or you’ll never see them alive again.”
“How do I know you really have them?”
“Hang on. Here, Alex, tell your mommy you want to go home.”
Her mouth went dry. “Alex? Talk to me, baby.”
“Mommy? Spider-Man isn’t nice. He tried to make Grammy use the outhouse with the black widows. I want to come home.”
“I’m coming to get you, Alex. Stay strong, sweetheart.” She could barely force the words past the tightness in her throat.
The distorted voice came back on. “Satisfied? Do what I ask if you want to see him again.”
The call ended, and her fingers went numb. The phone would have fallen to the ground, but Zach caught it. Her eyes burned, and she struggled to hold back the sobs. Crying wouldn’t get her boy back. “I have to do what he says.”
Her dad sidled closer. “Someone has my boy?”
She nodded and told him what the man had said. “I’m so scared.”
“I always knew it would come to this,” her dad said. “I’m the only one who can fix it.”
He plunged off into the forest, and she quickly lost sight of him. Zach pulled her into an embrace. “We have to call the sheriff.”
She buried her face in his shirt. “We can’t! He’ll kill them.”
“We don’t have a choice. This gets bigger by the minute. We have to protect Alex and Marilyn, and we can’t do that by walking into a trap.” He kept one arm around her as he called the sheriff on her phone.
Chapter 35
Shauna couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think beyond flying the helicopter out of the clearing. The chopper made its way through blue skies punctuated with puffs of white clouds, but her hands did what they had to do while her heart urged her to get to Alex, to scoop him into her arms and never let him go.
Who was this maniac who killed her friends and tar
geted her own family? And why had her dad run off like that? She had no way to contact him to find out what he’d meant about fixing it.
Zach’s voice spoke in her ear through the headset. “We’ll find Alex. Stay calm, Flygirl.”
She gave a jerky nod. “We shouldn’t have called the sheriff. The man said not to.”
“We can’t fight him on our own. You know that.”
It felt wrong to go against the kidnapper’s orders. What if he had someone inside the sheriff’s office? What if he’d tapped her cell phone in some way? There was so much that could go wrong. She prayed for God to keep watch over Alex and Marilyn as she pushed the chopper as fast as she dared for the airport.
Two sheriff’s department squad cars were in the parking lot when she set the helicopter down. Zach leaped out when the skids touched the ground. The wind blew his hair, and he ducked down to run out from under the rotors. Shauna did the same as soon as she had everything shut off.
She rushed up to the sheriff, who appeared very somber. “Any idea who has my boy and Marilyn?”
Sheriff Burchell shook his head. “Marilyn lives in the middle of nowhere, so there are no witnesses of the kidnapping. I have two deputies at her house right now going over the premises to see if they can find any evidence.”
“I’ve got to take the necklace and leave it for him like he demanded. I’ve barely got enough time to get there by the deadline.”
“Where is the necklace?” the sheriff asked.
She tugged it out from under her shirt. “I like wearing it. It makes me feel closer to my mother, but it’s nothing compared to Alex’s life. And Marilyn’s.”
“I have several deputies masquerading as tourists around the pull-off. They’ve been instructed to follow him and see if he leads them to Alex and Marilyn.” Everett reached into his car and pulled out a roll of duct tape. “Use this to tape the necklace to the back of the sign like he said, then leave immediately.”
“This feels wrong,” Zach said. “What’s to ensure he returns Alex and Marilyn once he has the necklace? I don’t think you should do it, Shauna. Once he gets the necklace, he can do what he wants.”
She chewed on her lip and nodded. “I tried to tell him I wasn’t going to do it that way, and he said I’d never see them again if I didn’t.”
“Of course that’s what he’d say,” Zach said. “He’s trying to force your hand. This leaves you no bargaining power.”
“What if I tape a note to the back of the sign with an alternate plan? I can tell him we’ll meet him in Rainshadow Bay, by Eagle Rock. I’ll tell him I will fly him wherever he wants to go in my helicopter if he lets Zach take Alex and Marilyn.”
Zach was shaking his head before she finished. “I don’t like it. What’s to keep him from killing you once he escapes? I’ll fly him out in my plane, and you can take Alex and Marilyn to safety.” He rested his hands on her shoulders, and his dark-blue eyes held desperation as he stared into hers. “You can’t risk leaving Alex an orphan. You just can’t.”
“It might work,” the sheriff said.
A vivid image of Zach floating lifeless in the bay struck her, and she shuddered. What she felt for Zach wasn’t just attraction or loneliness, but a deep, lasting love like she’d had for Jack. She couldn’t bear to lose him like she’d lost Jack, but she knew he was right. Alex had only her. It would destroy him to lose her too.
She pushed away the fearful image and nodded. “Okay.” A search of her purse yielded a notepad, and she wrote out the alternate exchange offer, then grabbed the roll of tape from the sheriff. “I think I should go alone. If he sees too many people milling around, he’ll take off.”
“Any idea why he wants that necklace?” the sheriff asked.
“Not a clue. He didn’t say.”
Zach pursed his lips. “I just thought of something. You know how Alex has those vivid dreams and sleepwalks? I caught him looking for what he called ‘the key’ last night. He said Spider-Man needed him to find it so Alex could be his sidekick and save us all from the Joker.” He held up his hand. “I know, I told him the Joker was a Batman villain, and Alex had an explanation for that. What if this guy tried to get Alex to grab the necklace for him, but when he failed, he took him to force you to give it up?”
Shauna took it off and looked it over closely. It was still just a Haida argillite stone with an abalone hummingbird. “But it’s not a key. It’s a necklace.”
“It’s even weirder that it was your mother’s yet it’s important to him all these years after she died,” the sheriff said.
She glanced at her watch. “It’s four thirty, and I only have an hour. None of that matters right now. I have to get Alex and Marilyn back.” She clasped Zach’s neck to bring his head down, then brushed her lips across his. “Pray for me.”
He gripped her shoulders. “Constantly.” He snagged the necklace from her fingers. “Let me keep this for now.”
The drone of a small plane landing on the runway made Sheriff Burchell raise his voice. “You have no intention of letting her go in there alone, do you?”
Zach shook his head and started for the hangar with the sheriff on his heels. “Not a chance. I knew she’d object if I told her, but I’m taking my ATV after her. I can run it in the fields, and I’ll get there before she does.”
The sheriff caught his arm. “My men are watching. I think we’d be better off trying to track down Lewis and find out what he knows. This could all go very badly if we’re not careful.”
Zach stopped in the hangar doorway and ran his hand over the back of his neck. The stakes couldn’t be higher. “We don’t know where Lewis went.” But he remembered the look on Lewis’s face when Shauna asked him about the strange building. He told the sheriff about it. “He could have gone there. He did head in that direction.”
“I’ll go with you. Can you take your plane in there?”
“There’s not enough room to land.” And it was impossible to get there by car. Hiking in would take too long. Zach crossed the yard and went to his office, where he pulled out a topo map and spread it out on his desk. He jabbed a finger on it. “We could take a boat up the river and get off about a half mile from the site, then hike in. We could be there in an hour.”
Past the deadline. He’d be in an area with no cell service and no way to know what was happening back here. The thought forced the air to leave his lungs. What should he do? Everything in him wanted to go to Shauna and protect her.
The sheriff must have seen the indecision on his face because he put his hand on Zach’s arm. “We can’t sit back and wait, Zach. If we let this guy control things, Alex and Marilyn might not make it.”
Alex was probably terrified and crying for his mother. The thought was a stab in Zach’s guts, and he rubbed his forehead. “Okay, let’s go.”
“I’ll drive,” the sheriff said.
Zach got into the passenger side of Burchell’s vehicle, and they sped toward town where Zach had a boat docked. Neither of them had much to say in the five-minute drive to the pier. Zach kept going over and over in his head everything Lewis had said. “I always knew it would come to this. I’m the only one who can fix it.”
Lewis knew exactly why this had happened and the identity of the kidnapper. But how? He barely left that cabin in the woods. How did the necklace figure in with this? It seemed an old bauble without much value, yet someone was willing to kidnap two people to get it. And how had Clarence even gotten ahold of it? There seemed no way to detangle this.
They reached the dock, and he pointed out his boat, a forty-footer he’d bought three years ago. Once they reached the pilothouse, he pulled out his phone. “You think you can captain this? I’ve got a hunch I want to check out.”
Burchell’s brows rose, but he nodded and started the engine. “I was born boating.” As the boat pulled away from the dock, Zach sat at the bow and called Dorothy Edenshaw’s shop.
She answered on the third ring. “Rings and Things, this is Dorothy.”
“Not that I know of.” Her voice was cold. “You keep trying to drag me into this, and I want nothing to do with it. Please, just leave me alone.”
She was about to hang up. “Please, Dorothy, a little boy’s life depends on us figuring this out. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” There was dead-air space, but he could still hear the faint sound of voices in the background. “I’m sure he’s scared to death.”
She finally broke the silence with a sigh. “Who has the necklace?”
“I do.”
“Turn it over and you’ll find three little ridges on it. They’re spaced evenly apart on the back.”
He pulled the necklace from his pocket and flipped it over, then ran his fingers over the smooth black surface of the argillite. “I feel them.”
“Press against them and turn it counterclockwise.”
He followed her instructions. “The back popped off. It looks weird now.” There were protrusions and indentations inside.
“There’s a matching lock the protrusions fit into. When the necklace is in place, you can turn the lock.”
“What lock?”
“That’s something you need to ask Lewis. I’ve told you everything I can.”
This time there was no mistaking the fact she’d ended the call. He looked at the phone to verify there was no connection, then put his phone back in his pocket. “Look at this.” He showed the back of the necklace to the sheriff. “She says Lewis knows what this is all about. It’s already nearly five.”
The sheriff revved the engine, and the bow of the boat lifted out of the water. “Then we’d better find him.”
Chapter 36
Shauna parked in the pull-off, then got out of her truck under blue skies and the noise of gulls fighting over a piece of bread in the parking lot. She was halfway here when she realized she’d left her weapons behind in the helicopter. An older couple glanced at her as they got back in their car to leave, and she forced a smile, then walked to the sign explaining the spot’s history. Two eagles surveyed the area from atop a tall pine to her left. The overlook held a stunningly beautiful view of the blue water of Rainshadow Bay and mountains that usually took her breath away.
The View from Rainshadow Bay Page 23