by Paula Graves
“Humor me, okay?” She squeezed Janelle’s arm through the open window, then looked at Carol. “Two hours.”
“Got it.”
Laney gave Carol’s arm a quick squeeze, as well, realizing only after she was heading back up the trail that she’d unconsciously mimicked one of Doyle’s people-handling habits.
He’s just lost, she told herself as she headed up the trail at a clip.
But deep in her gut, she didn’t quite believe it.
* * *
BY THE TIME Doyle’s captors finished hauling him uphill, he was bruised all over and his ears were still ringing from a particularly vicious kick delivered by whichever of his captors was holding his arms. The man at his feet let go of his legs without warning, letting them thump painfully to the ground.
“Who the hell are you?” Doyle asked, not raising his voice this time, since yelling seemed only to piss off his captors and drive them to greater violence.
There was no answer, only the sound of the wind rushing through the trees, making a clattering noise that sounded for all the world like rattling bones, reminding him of Laney’s tale of the Cherokee boneyard on their earlier hike up the mountain. Just three days ago, he thought with surprise. It felt like another lifetime.
Hands still held his wrists, keeping his torso partially upright. He tried to use his feet to push to a standing position, but they seemed to be bound together, and his effort earned him a quick, hard slap to the side of his face.
“Cut it out!” he growled, giving a hard jerk of his hands. They came loose from his captor’s grasp, but he wasn’t prepared, and all his insubordination got him was a hard thump on the back of his head when it hit a pair of steel-toed boots.
“Shut up.” It was the first time either man had spoken. Doyle didn’t recognize the voice, but he had been in Bitterwood only a few short days. There were several people in his own department he’d met maybe once so far. He certainly couldn’t have picked their voices out of a crowd.
Hands grabbed his wrists again and started tugging him backward through the underbrush. Rocks dug into his bottom and the backs of his thighs, sharp in places and cold as a tomb, sending shivers rolling up his spine in waves. He tried to dig his heels in, to make it harder for the man with the hard hands to do whatever he was trying to do.
Nobody tried to pick up his feet or stop his kicking attempts at rebellion. Had the second person left after dropping Doyle’s feet?
That would make the odds more even, but as long as he was hog-tied and hooded, he was still at a huge disadvantage. And too many more clouts to the head like the last one might make it even harder for him to fight back if the opportunity ever presented itself.
The pain of being dragged backward over the ground increased as the rough terrain started putting rips in his jeans, exposing his bare skin to the sharp-edged rocks littering the ground beneath him. He tried using his feet to lift his backside off the ground but couldn’t get enough of a foothold to make much difference. He nearly wept with relief when darkness descended, and the ground beneath his bottom smoothed out.
The man who’d been dragging him let go of his hands again. This time, however, Doyle anticipated the move and was able to stop his head from slamming into the ground. He heard footsteps moving away from him, and he struggled to roll over onto his stomach, hoping to get his knees under him enough to push to a standing position. To his surprise, nobody tried to stop him.
The footsteps receded. There was a loud creaking noise, and what little light had been filtering through the bag over Doyle’s head disappeared completely.
He lifted his hands to his neck, his gloved fingers coming into contact with something holding the hood in place. Duct tape, he realized as he gave a clumsy tug and the adhesive pulled the skin on his neck. But a little pain was worth the effort, and within a few seconds, he’d pulled the offending bag from his head and had his first look around.
There was nothing but darkness, any direction he looked.
No, he thought a few seconds later. That wasn’t quite true. Behind him, in the direction where his captor had disappeared, he thought he could make out dots and slivers of light, faint but tantalizing. But his first attempt at moving in that direction landed him facedown again, his hobbled feet giving him no way to balance.
He rolled onto his back this time and sat up, using his teeth to pull off his gloves. His fingers ached in response to the damp cold, but they were far more agile bare, and he made much quicker work of the duct tape wrapped around his ankles than he had the tape around his neck.
He pushed to his feet again and walked over to the whispers of light his adjusting eyesight had spotted. Reaching out, he felt the rough wood of a door. Following the surface, he found the door ended on either side in damp, solid rock.
A cave with a door? Or was he in an abandoned mine shaft?
Even when he found the handle that should have opened the door, he couldn’t make the slab of wood move. It must be locked on the outside.
Okay. So he was stuck here for a little while. Not exactly good news, but at least he was still alive. He wasn’t sure why, exactly, his attackers hadn’t shot him dead instead of subduing him with a Taser, but he decided not to waste time trying to figure it out. Small victories were better than none.
Using his hands to explore the contours of his dark prison, he decided he was in a cave, not a mine. Someone had apparently put a door into the cave entrance to shut people out, and judging by how far he’d been dragged uphill through the underbrush, this place wasn’t anywhere near a well-beaten path.
The men who’d tied him up had frisked him first, he remembered, the hazy memories of those mind-numbed moments after the Taser attack starting to roll back into his brain. They’d taken his Kimber 1911 for sure. Had they taken his keys, too? He tried his right jeans pocket, where he usually kept the keys. Nothing.
He tried his left pocket, half hoping he’d put the keys there for some reason he couldn’t remember. He hadn’t, but to his surprise, he felt the contours of his cell phone, which he normally kept in his back pocket. He’d put the phone there, he remembered, rather than sit on it while in the saddle and risk butt dialing everyone on his contact list.
Though he knew there was no chance of a phone signal inside this mountain cave, he tugged the phone from his pocket and hit the power button. The display lit up, casting a dim blue glow in the area directly around him. But he could do better than that, he thought with a grin of triumph. He slid his fingertip across the face of the phone and opened a flashlight app. Seconds later, bright light flowed from the tiny flashbulb beneath the phone’s camera lens.
Playing the light around the cave, he saw that it was roughly circular, the walls ending about ten feet from where he stood. Only a second sweep of the light revealed a dark opening that suggested another cavern lay beyond that back wall. He crossed there slowly, his legs still feeling rubbery after the dual ordeal of the Taser shock and the skin-shredding drag through the woods. The dark opening was narrow but large enough for him to slip through easily. Beyond, there was another, smaller chamber, with the same damp brown walls and slightly slanted floor.
But this room was different in one important respect.
It was already occupied.
She was curled up against the far wall, her knees up to her chest and her face averted from the bright light. Her hair was dirty and tangled, her cold-weather clothing grimy and torn in places. She made soft mewling noises of pure fear that ripped a new hole in Doyle’s heart.
Her own mother might not recognize her if she saw her, he thought, but he’d been looking at her photograph enough over the past few days to know exactly who she was. Directing the light away from her eyes, he slowly approached, crouching as he neared her. Keeping his voice gentle, he said her name. “Joy.”
She looked up at him, her eyes wide with fear. She’d
cried a lot over the past few days. He saw the evidence in her puffy, red-rimmed eyes.
“That’s your name, isn’t it?” he asked. “You’re Joy Adderly, right?”
“What do you want?” she whimpered, looking away.
“The same thing you do,” he answered. “To get us out of here.”
Chapter Fourteen
At some point since Laney had last passed this way, someone had beaten a highly visible path through the underbrush just off the trail where she had followed Janelle off into the woods. There were broken twigs, crushed leaves, all indicators that someone had been through on foot without worrying about leaving signs.
The problem was, there were almost too many trails to follow, going off one way or another, and following each of them, she ended up losing the trail altogether.
Where in blazes had Doyle gotten off to? How far would he wander before realizing he was lost? Would he know to stop where he was and wait for people to find him rather than to continue to wander about, getting more and more lost?
Of course he would, she scolded herself. He was a flatlander, not stupid. He’d been a deputy and had, no doubt, participated in his own share of search parties. He’d know the rules to abide by if he found himself lost.
All she had to do was find him.
The sound of movement coming through the underbrush behind her had her whirling around, reaching instinctively for the zipper of her jacket to get to her pistol. Only when she recognized the tall, thin-faced man with sharp blue eyes did she still her movements, relaxing. “Detective Bolen,” she said, dropping her hand over her pounding heart. “You scared me.”
Craig Bolen smiled his greeting. “You’re a ways off the trail, aren’t you?”
She started to explain why but stopped when she thought about the position she’d be putting Doyle in, exposing his mistake to one of his top cops. “I was up here earlier with my sister, and I think I dropped a bracelet,” she fabricated.
“And came back up here alone, with what all’s been happening out here?” Bolen looked surprised.
“What are you doing off trail?” she asked.
“The chief told me to take a few days off—since I’m so close to the Adderlys—but I hated missing out on the search party.” Bolen looked haunted. “I can’t putter around the house all day if there’s any way to find Joy Adderly alive.”
Of course, Laney thought. Bolen must be devastated by what had happened to Missy and Joy. He and the Adderlys were close.
“I’m so relieved your sister is okay,” he added with a warm smile.
“Thank you.”
“You want to join me in searching?” he suggested, waving his arm toward the wide-open wilderness around them. “Since we’re both here? We could keep an eye out for your bracelet, too.”
“That’s a great idea,” she agreed quickly, feeling a ripple of relief. She hadn’t exactly been able to relax and focus on the job of searching for Doyle when she’d spent half the time jumping out of her skin every time she heard a strange noise. Craig Bolen was the Bitterwood P.D. chief of detectives. She could hardly have picked a better bodyguard for her search.
And since Bolen knew the Adderlys well, he might even have some insight about where Joy Adderly would go if she’d somehow managed to get away from her captors.
“I guess you heard about Richard Beller,” she said as they started walking east up the incline toward the summit of Copperhead Ridge.
“Richard Beller?” Bolen sounded confused.
“The man who shot Missy and Janelle. A guy in Knoxville found his body in a Dumpster up there. Jannie identified him as the one who shot her and Missy.”
“I was fishing up on Douglas Lake the past couple of days,” he said quickly. “I haven’t watched the news since I left.” His brow furrowed. “She’s sure it’s the same fellow?”
“She identified him from his driver’s license photo.”
“So, the man who killed Missy is dead.” Bolen looked satisfied. “Do her parents know?”
“I’m not sure they’ve been told yet. The police wanted to be sure.”
“If he’s dead, where’s Joy?” Bolen’s eyes met hers, full of challenge. “Do you think she’s still alive?”
“We all hope so,” Laney answered, her gaze snagged by a glitter of sunlight glancing off something lying in the underbrush ahead. She crossed to the spot and saw, with surprise and no small bit of alarm, a set of car keys lying half-hidden in the jumble of leaves, vines and rocks underfoot. Crouching, she picked them up, recognizing the “Visit Gulf Shores” key ring belonging to Doyle.
“Find your bracelet?” Bolen called.
She started to tell him about the keys but stopped, seized by a sudden rush of caution. Were the keys dropped accidentally or as a bread crumb to mark Doyle’s trail into the woods?
She pocketed the keys and turned to look at him. “Yes. Hope we can find Joy just as easily.”
Bolen smiled at her, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to smile back at him. The keys felt heavy in her pocket, a tangible reminder of something she hadn’t let herself think about during her search for Doyle.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
Whatever had happened to Doyle, it couldn’t be good.
* * *
“ARE YOU INJURED?” Doyle edged closer to Joy Adderly, taking care not to scare her any further. She trembled like a windblown leaf, her limbs wrapped around herself as if she could roll into a cocoon and shut out the cruel world.
“Joy,” he said when she didn’t respond, “I need to know if you’re hurt.”
She finally lifted her gaze, squinting at the light, even though he took care not to direct the phone flashlight directly at her face. “They’re going to kill me.”
“Believe it or not, it’s a pretty good sign that you’re still alive after all this time.”
“Have they told anyone what they want with me?” She was crying, a soft, helpless bleat that made his heart break. He carefully reached his bound hands toward her, but she scuttled away from his touch.
He dropped his hands in front of him with a sigh. “I’m not sure. But if you’ll help me out a little, maybe I can get us both out of here.”
She slanted a suspicious look at him. “Help you how?”
He held up his hands, which were still bound by duct tape. “I don’t suppose you could help me get this off?”
She stared at him for a long time, as if she suspected a trick. “If you’re a cop, how did they get you?”
“Shot me with a Taser and tied me up while I was still incapacitated.”
He couldn’t tell if she believed him or not. But before he became desperate enough to pull up his shirt and show her the Taser marks, she reached for his hands and started tugging the tape from around his wrists.
Her fingers, he saw with horror, were bruised and bloody, the nails torn nubs as if she’d tried to claw her way out of here. Hell, she probably had, he realized. If she’d seen what had happened to her sister and Janelle, she’d be desperate to get away before the same thing happened to her.
Although, the person who brought her here couldn’t have been Richard Beller, the man who’d shot Missy and Janelle. Unless Janelle had been mistaken about Beller....
“Joy, did you see what happened at the trail shelter?”
Her fingers twitched against his wrists. “Yes.” Her voice was guttural, full of inner torment. “That man killed them. He killed them both.”
“I’m really sorry about your sister. I wish I could tell you she’d survived. But there is a small bit of good news. Janelle Hanvey is going to be okay.”
Her gaze whipped up. “No. I saw him shoot her.”
“He did,” Doyle agreed. “But that titanium plate in her head deflected the bullet. She had a co
ncussion but she’s already out of the hospital.”
“The plate in her head.” To Doyle’s consternation, Joy started laughing, the sound manic and out of control. She turned and started beating against the wall of the cave, her laughter ringing off the damp stone.
He used his teeth to tear through the few slivers of tape she hadn’t removed and reached for her, wrapping his arms around her flailing body. She felt tiny in his arms, tiny and frail, and as her laughter turned to sobs, he rocked her like a child, vowing silent vengeance against the men who’d turned her into this broken thing, huddled in a dank, dark cave, waiting for someone to finish killing her.
Hours seemed to go by while he waited for her to calm down, though a glance at his cell phone revealed that only a few minutes had passed. She finally subsided against him, letting him comfort her as she snuffled a few times before falling silent.
“Can you tell me what the man who shot Missy and Janelle looked like?” he asked after a few more minutes.
“He was older. Maybe close to sixty.” As she described Richard Beller in detail, Doyle felt a ripple of relief, although confirmation that the man who’d shot the girls was dead opened up a whole new set of questions.
Like, who had just trussed him up and thrown him in a cave?
“That man is dead,” he told Joy.
“I know. Craig killed him.”
Doyle’s body went still with surprise. “Craig?”
She pushed her way out of his grasp, her body shaking again, but this time with anger rather than fear. “Craig Bolen. My father’s best friend.”
“Craig Bolen, the chief of detectives?”
“He was in the woods. He shot Beller as he was about to kill me. I thought—I thought he was there to save me.”
“But he wasn’t?”
“No.” Joy’s anger was starting to work on her like a stiff drink, settling her nerves and adding a little steel to her spine. She met his gaze without blinking. “He helped Ray bring me here. He thinks I didn’t see him, but I did. I got away once, during the big snowstorm. I got so close to a hiding place—”