by Christa Wick
Emerson hands me the glass. "Hold it together. I know you can, Maddy."
I nod. Emerson rarely uses my first name. And never has he called me "Maddy." His use now is a gentle, calming slap.
"Delia needs you."
Another nod. There is something in the way he says my sister's name, especially the fact that he actually uses her name, that distracts me. But I don't have time to analyze it because Delia's coughing has turned to quiet sobbing.
My step brisk, I return to Royce's office and shut the door behind me. Taking a seat next to Delia on the couch, I wrap an arm around her shoulder and urge her to drink some.
"I should be out there," she rasps.
I gently shush her and encourage another sip.
She looks up at me, her gray irises vivid against the bloodshot whites of her eyes.
"I don't know how you hold it together."
I want to tell her that I'm not holding anything together, that I spent every second of every minute from her first call tonight to this moment right now silently pleading with whatever higher power the universe holds to safely deliver Caiden to his mother. I want to tell her that, mere seconds ago, I lost my shit some thirty feet away from her in the break room.
But I have never believed misery loves company.
At least not this type of misery. Delia wants and needs a rock, a steady presence, someone she trusts telling her everything is going to be okay.
I can't tell her that, either. So I stay silent and composed and push more water down her throat until her shaking stops and she rests her head on my shoulder.
"By the time you were two, nothing could make you cry." She wraps her hand around mine. Even in her current state, she remembers to keep her touch firm.
"Made me feel like a whiny baby. Mom and dad with their sunshine and rainbows bullshit all the time and you stoic as a rock. I thought I had to be some kind of a train wreck."
I disagree.
"You were the only normal one," I tell her.
Delia squeezes me hard. I return the hug with equal force. When we separate, she pulls a classic Delia move, pushing her face back into a smile, one I know she doesn't feel.
"So many people out looking for my baby," she says. "He's going to be okay."
I force a tight smile that pushes my cheeks up high and narrows my gaze.
"Your son will come back to you."
She hugs me at the reassurance. I don't deserve the affection she demonstrates—or the trust. What I just said was a dodge, the words carefully chosen and taught to me long ago by FBI trainers and field agents for situations just like this.
It was drilled in over and over.
Never promise what you can't control.
25
Sutton
Eyes focused on the thermal display in front of me, I block out all but the loudest grunts and groans coming from Teddy Raspell as he fights the wind for control of his helicopter. A big gust punches at the chopper's nose. My grip tightens on the tablet. I shoot a look at the old man.
Sweat pours down his face. I feel guilty at what I am demanding of him tonight, but the guilt is nothing compared to my need to keep searching for Caiden.
A second glance lands on the instrument panel. Dawn is still hours away, while our fuel supply is rapidly running out. It's almost time to turn back.
Shaking my head, I refocus on the tablet's display.
"Track west," I blurt as a glowing dot disappears from the edge of my screen.
The helicopter banks left. The dot reappears. So does a second dot.
"Circle," I order.
The two dots turn elliptical, their rough edges shifting.
"Little lower—"
"I'm at the floor already," Teddy protests.
We are five-hundred feet above ground level. The top of the closest tree is at least two-hundred-fifty feet below us.
"Little lower," I repeat. "Not like anyone is watching."
After a disgruntled growl barely audible over the headset, Teddy obeys.
"Circle."
When the chopper hits just the right point in its path, my worst fears about the two moving heat spots are confirmed.
"Cougars. Has to be the mother and juvenile Adler shot at earlier."
"They on the move?"
"Yes." I swipe at the screen, the gesture rewinding the video that has been recording the entire time.
"On the hunt," I amend after studying the half minute or so of video that I had missed.
I give Teddy new bearings that match the direction in which the big cats are headed.
"They could be hunting anything," he says.
"Then someone else will find the boy in a few hours," I reply.
"Fuel is getting sketchy."
I shake my head. "You don't have to make it all the way back to Willow Gap, just Mama's lawn. They'll bring fuel to you there."
His snort filters through the headset.
My gaze darts around the screen. The cats would have been following the scent of their prey, scent carried on the day's ill winds. A straight line might take us right past Caiden, leaving his little dot of light in the dark mere millimeters out of the camera's scope.
"Bob and weave, Teddy. Bob and weave."
He answers with another snort.
"You know cougars can't smell for shit."
Teddy's not wrong, but he's not exactly right. Their short muzzles make for a powerful bite, but lessen the big cat's scent tracking ability. Usually, they stay put and wait for their food to come to them. Still, their sense of smell is more advanced than a human's. They also have keen hearing that they hunt with.
And they were definitely hunting. Big brother robbed them of their meal this afternoon before they had time to do much more than kill the calf. I inspected the carcass before heading back to the ranch. There wasn't a bite of flesh missing from it.
Two miles on, the wind changes direction. Half a mile further, it catches us in a swirl. Teddy fights the controls with everything he has.
Once more, I take my eyes off the tablet. When we are flying straight again, I check the playback.
"Turn around, half a click."
After a quarter mile backtracking, I see the solitary dot again.
"Circle," I order. "Lower."
"Distance is distance, kid. Doesn't matter if I'm flying horizontal or vertical. We're burning fuel."
I jab a finger at the tablet.
"That's him." I laugh, surprised as hell that I actually found him. "Or a really skinny bear."
"Now what?" the old man asks.
I activate the radio then swipe at the screen as I type. I send the GPS coordinates in a text at the same time I speak them over the radio to Siobhan.
She immediately begins redirecting the closest search teams. With the day's dose of bad luck, I'm not surprised to learn that the nearest team is five miles out with the roughest terrain to cross.
"You think the boy will stay put?" Teddy asks.
I shrug. If we head back to the ranch, Caiden may try to follow the helicopter's noise or blinking lights—same as he followed after the butterfly. And if he does, we not only lose his position, but he would be walking straight toward the last location of the cougars.
I plug in new navigation coordinates for Teddy to follow, then stow the tablet.
"Are you on a suicide mission?"
Ignoring the question, I put on the rest of the rappelling gear then check the harness one last time.
"Boy, that wasn't rhetorical!"
Teddy can shout all he wants. I can tell from the feel of the chopper that he is headed toward the coordinates I plugged in.
Three minutes on, we are hovering at the edge of a stand of trees. Maybe a football field in length, an uneven field separates the pine from the rock face of a five-thousand-foot high plateau.
A fresh gust hits the chopper. My feet start to slide. I tighten my arms and my grip on the ropes. One foot leaves the floor of the chopper, but Teddy comes out of the tilt. I grab the roof of the
helicopter to keep from spilling forward.
"Damn wind is pushing up hard from the ground."
I nod, then open the door.
Teddy barks a warning. "Barrett couldn't make that!"
"I'm not Barrett," I remind him as I step onto the skid.
Fresh sweat pours down the old man's face.
"I don't know how close I can get you."
He probably can't see my smile, but it's there.
Nervous as fuck, but it's there.
"Well, I've got two-hundred feet of rope."
Teddy swears under his breath but begins a slow descent.
Even now, when we are so close to Caiden, the wind refuses to relent. The chopper bobs to and fro as it loses elevation. Teddy calls out the distance as he wrestles the controls closer to submission.
"Four-hundred. Three-eighty. Three-fifty."
An upswell hits us.
"Three-seventy…damn it!"
Somewhere above us, God or the Devil presses his thumb on the rotors.
We plummet.
"Three-fifty…forty…twenty..."
Panic fills the old man's voice as we descend too quickly.
The strongest gust yet hits the tail rotor. We start to spin. One foot slips off the skid.
Too busy regaining control, Teddy has stopped counting out our elevation. But I see the ground coming up fast.
"Kid, no!"
I push off the skid, his warning coming too late to heed even if I wanted to.
The rope runs through both my guide and brake hands.
The chopper lifts, then dips, the wind slinging it toward the rock face.
Falling...
Swinging…
I'm going to hit the side of the plateau or the ground. It's even money which it will be. Teddy's odds aren't much better.
Beneath me, the rope whips wildly, its sound eerily reminiscent of the tattered strips of my torn parachute.
Ignoring a whisper of panic, I bring my brake hand up to the small of my back. The position and my gloved grip should stop my descent before I reach the end of the rope and hurtle fifty feet to the ground.
The maneuver works. I slow and, for one victorious second, I stop.
The stalled momentum is only vertical. Teddy regains control of the helicopter, sharply pulling back from the plateau. I am jerked away from the structure. A second correction by Teddy—or another blast of wind—whips me in the opposite direction.
I slam into the rock face. My grip goes slack, the ring finger on my right hand broken and its middle finger jammed when I hit the wall butt first.
The last dozen feet of rope slip through my grasp.
An outcropping on the rock face breaks my fall at the same time one of the sharp-edged stones littering its surface cuts a two-inch gash across the right side of my abdomen.
More stony blades slice at my harness and the straps on my backpack and holster. I scramble to keep hold of the outcropping.
"Talk to me, Sutton Lee!"
"Alive!"
I follow the confirmation of my continued existence with a mouthful of cursing as the last of my holster shears from the pistol's weight. My best chance at defending Caiden from the cougars bounces down the side of the plateau.
"Return to base," I yell. "I'm okay."
"Boy—"
"You don't have the fuel to argue with me, old man."
A fresh string of swear words assaults my ears, some of Teddy's combinations novel despite my eight years in the Army.
"Leave," I urge one last time as I settle onto the outcropping.
Relenting, he points the helicopter toward the ranch. I sit motionless, catching my breath, until Teddy's taillights begin to fade.
Grimacing with every move, I manage to work the flashlight and first aid kit out of my pack. I check the gash in my side first. There's a lot of blood, but the cut isn't very deep. I clean the area, then pull out the wound stapler contained in the kit.
A shaky breath leaves me with each of the six squeezes it takes to hold the sliced flesh together.
Next, I splint the injured fingers on my right hand and repair the ravaged strap on my backpack.
I check my watch. The face is cracked but the display still works. The sky should begin lightening in two hours or so.
I can't wait for light before I descend to the field and head into the trees.
Even though time is of the essence, I stay where I am for a few more minutes, shining my light down the side of the plateau in search of the lost handgun and the best path down.
Seeing nothing but half eroded rock, I ease myself over the edge of the outcropping, one boot slowly sliding around in search of the first foothold. Finding it, I begin the slow, painful descent.
Reaching the bottom, I stop to inventory what remains and what is broken beyond use. The hydration chamber inside my military specification backpack absorbed some of the impact from hitting the rock face and survived without puncturing or breaking the seal. My hand radio and cell phone are busted as shit. But the damage to my equipment ends there. I have the med kit, flashlight, a flare gun and three flares, a compass, bear spray, a KA-BAR knife with a seven-inch fixed blade, food for Caiden, a multi-tool Swiss Army Knife, a fire kit, a signaling kit and a few more bits and bobs that will only matter once I find the boy.
With the helmet, I still have communications, but only at short range. Other than the gash in my side and the two fingers throbbing madly within the confines of the splint, I am uninjured.
Pulling the compass out, I head in Caiden's last known direction.
26
Maddy
Clutching my arm, Delia pulls me onto the front porch of Lindy Turk's house as a navy blue helicopter lands on the manicured lawn.
"Is that Teddy?"
Before she can answer, there is a rush of feet through the house. Siobhan thunders down the stairs from her command post in the library. Lindy and an exhausted Sage burst through the double doors that separate the dining room from the great room.
Delia retreats to the side of the porch, her body melding into the shadows of a long night. Over the wash of the rotor blades as they wind down, I hear her whispering to herself, the words repeating.
"It's just the old man…it's just the old man."
Siobhan reaches the pilot first, practically dragging him from his seat. She is yelling, but I can't make out her words or his replies. Then she talks into her radio, her update to the wider network of search teams also transmitting to the radio Lindy clutches to her chest.
"Sutton is on the ground and moving toward target. I repeat, Sutton is on the ground and moving in on target's location."
There is another dash of conversation between her and the old man before the radio crackles again.
"All search teams be on the lookout for two cougars in the vicinity of target's location."
I reach Delia before she can collapse. Wrapping my arms around her, I brace her back against the house and push my torso against hers.
Emerson steps onto the porch. He glances at Delia, then at me. In that brief instant of contact, he offers the smallest of nods.
"We have another helicopter inbound," Emerson announces as Siobhan leads the exhausted pilot onto the porch. "They were dispatched shortly after we received the coordinates from Sutton."
"How long?" I ask.
He activates his phone to check the time. "Approximately seventy minutes."
Still propping Delia up, I feel her tremble against me. The same question running through my head likely races through hers.
Can Sutton reach Caiden before the cougars?
27
Sutton
Cupping my hands to my mouth, I shout Caiden's name twice. Standing stock still, I strain to hear a reply. Only the wind rushing through the trees answers. After a few seconds, I move again, counting out my steps. When I reach another hundred steps, some two-hundred feet in new distance covered, I repeat the process.
I am on callout number forty-seven, putti
ng me somewhere around one-point-seven miles into the woods. If I am headed in the right direction and the boy hasn't run off—or worse, been dragged away—then I should be damned close to being within hearing range.
With no reply, I trudge on. At twenty-five steps, I startle an irate squirrel. At fifty, I crawl over a cluster of logs that have fallen at different times, some to the point of rotting out. One looks like today's winds ripped it from the earth.
On the eightieth step, I enter a disturbing zone of silence.
Here, the trees are so dense that the sound of the high winds above the tree line doesn't penetrate. There is no scurry of critters, no nervous chirping of birds.
I cup my mouth and shout.
"Caiden!"
Then again.
"Caiden!"
Heart jackhammering in my chest, I wait.
"Dad!"
"Caiden, I hear you!"
"Dad!"
I break into a run, my flashlight sweeping side to side. This time I stop every ten steps and call his name. His replies refine my direction.
"I see you, Daddy! I see your light!"
It breaks my heart that Caiden doesn't recognize my voice. The pain is not for me, but for the boy when he discovers that it is not his father here to rescue him.
"Stay put," I yell. "I am coming to you."
I break past a tight line of trees. The beam of my flashlight falls on his dirty face and then the boy launches himself straight at me.
My right hand screams in agony as I catch Caiden. The flashlight escapes my grip.
"Sarge…" I set him on the ground and take a knee. Like Leah on the dock, he won't let go of me.
"Sarge, it's not your dad."
The boy pulls back, wipes at his face with dirt-streaked hands. Fresh grief flashes across his features before he throws himself at me again.
"Sarge, we can't stay here," I say after a few more seconds. I pry his arms from my neck, retrieve the flashlight and run its beam over his body.
"Are you hurt anywhere?"
"Hungry," he answers, his voice raspy. "Thirsty…can I go home now?"