Blood on Copperhead Trail

by Paula Graves

  “The Vesper cabin?” he guessed, remembering the scream he and Laney had heard.

  “How did you know?”

  “We heard you. We were holed up there against the storm. But when we looked for you, you weren’t out there.”

  “They grabbed me and dragged me back to this cave.”

  “Why would Bolen help someone imprison you like this?”

  “I think they want something from my father.” A hank of Joy’s tangled hair fell into her face. She pushed it back behind her ear with a quick, angry jab. “Some sort of ransom. I haven’t found out what.”

  “But that’s good news, isn’t it?” he pointed out. “It’s why you’re still alive.”

  “Craig Bolen has been like an uncle to me. Why would he do this? How could he betray my family this way, especially after what happened to Missy?”

  “I don’t know,” Doyle admitted, a new, uneasy line of thought entering his mind. “You have no idea what he’s asking of your father?”

  She shook her head. “They haven’t told me anything.”

  “What do you know about this person named Ray?”

  “He wears a disguise. I thought it might be so when we first met him on the trail the day before the shootings. Now I’m sure of it.”

  “What can you tell me about him?”

  “He’s the one who interacts with me. I think Craig still thinks he can convince my father that I imagined his being there in the woods, so he’s careful to stay clear of the cave. But his voice carries. I know it like I know my own.” Her voice lowered. “I saw him in the woods. I saw him kill that man. I know he’s the one who carried my feet after Ray overpowered me and tied me up.”

  “Put a hood over your head?” he asked, still feeling the claustrophobic sensation of the sack over his own face.

  “Yes. You, too?”

  “Yeah.” He looked back toward the cavern opening. “I guess you’ve had no luck trying to tear down that door out there?”

  She lifted baleful eyes toward him and raised her bloodied hands. “No.”

  “Does Ray come back here much? Does he come in here?”

  “Yes, but he’s always armed.”

  “There may be a way to get around that,” Doyle said quietly. “And the sooner, the better.”

  Joy gave him a curious look. “What do you have in mind?”

  He held out his hand, daring her to take it. She looked at it for a long moment, then let him help her to her feet. He walked her through the narrow opening that led into the larger cavern as he explained in quick, simple terms what he had in mind. She looked skeptical but finally nodded. “I can do that.”

  He knew her skepticism was warranted. They were both unarmed. She was hungry and demoralized, and he was still feeling the occasional tingling aftershocks of his encounter with the Taser.

  But he had to get out of here, and soon.

  Because the second Laney found Satan tied up to the tree by the trail, she’d know Doyle was out there somewhere. She’d probably assume he’d gotten lost, knowing her opinion of his mountain-hiking skills. And she’d look for him. He knew that about her if he knew nothing else in the world.

  But she wouldn’t be out there alone. Ray was out there somewhere. And even worse, so was Craig Bolen.

  She knew Craig. Probably even trusted him.

  She’d have no idea that encountering him in the woods might be the last thing she ever did.

  He was going to get out of this damned cave, whatever it took. He’d never been one to worry too much about the future, but there was one thing he knew in this sharply distilled moment of crisis: he wanted his future to include Laney. In his bed, in his home, in his life.

  He’d be damned if he’d sit here like a trapped animal while someone tried to stop that from ever happening.

  * * *

  LANEY AND CRAIG BOLEN had covered almost a square mile, moving through the woods with methodical thoroughness, and other than the keys and a couple of pieces of torn denim that might or might not match the jeans he’d been wearing that morning, they’d come across nothing to suggest Doyle had come this way.

  Of course, the keys were evidence enough. But she hadn’t yet told Craig Bolen about finding them. She wasn’t sure why.

  Was she making a mistake, trying to protect Doyle this way? What if keeping information from Bolen put Doyle in greater danger?

  She was on the verge of speaking up, trying to figure out a reasonable explanation for why she’d kept her find to herself, when Craig came to a halt and turned to look at her. He wiped a film of sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket and shot her an apologetic smile.

  “I’m getting older than I think,” he admitted, sliding the straps of his backpack off his shoulders. He unzipped the pack, reached inside and pulled a blue-tinted bottle from his backpack. “Let’s take a water break. You need one?”

  She pulled a bottle of water from her own pack. “I’m good.” After a couple of long swigs, she replaced the cap and started to tuck the bottle back into her pack when her eyes fell on the photograph she’d slipped inside one of the backpack’s inner pockets to protect it.

  With a glance toward Bolen to make sure he wasn’t paying attention, she pulled the photograph from the pack and stepped into a nearby shaft of midday sunlight pouring down through the trees. Shifting the image to get rid of the glare, she took a closer look, not at the image of her sister and herself this time but at the window just beyond the bed. Earlier, when she’d found the photo back at the trail shelter, she’d thought she’d seen something strange in the background, but her sister’s rush into the woods had sidetracked her.

  After scanning the image a couple of times, her eyes finally made out a faint reflection in the window. Not of herself and Janelle, as she might have assumed, but the mirror image of a man holding a camera in front of him.

  The cameraman had inadvertently taken a photograph of himself.

  He was holding the camera about chest high, slightly out in front of him. His face was bent toward the image screen so he could focus the shot the way he wanted, but not so much, she realized with a ripple of shock, that she wasn’t able to make out his features. It was the man in the mustache and bad wig, but he’d taken off the glasses, probably because they kept him from being able to see well through the camera’s viewfinder.

  And that one small change in his appearance, the removal of the glasses, brought his features more sharply into focus, even in that window reflection, than the best shot from the security camera had.

  Her heart lurched and seemed to stop for a second before it started racing like a thoroughbred. Despite the adrenaline flooding her system, she made herself move slowly, taking time as she slipped the photograph back into her pack and turned to look at Craig Bolen.

  He was looking at her now, a bemused smile on his face. But his gaze was sharp and curious. “Is something wrong?” he asked.

  She shook her head, trying not to panic. “No. Ready to go again?”

  For a breathtaking moment, he seemed reluctant to answer. But finally, he nodded, smiled and waved his arm as if to say, “You first.”

  She walked ahead of him, the skin on her back crawling.

  It had been Craig Bolen, complete with wig and fake mustache, who’d shot the photo at the hospital.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Okay, think.

  Laney trudged ahead of Bolen, wondering why she hadn’t insisted on going back down to the staging area. If she kept going much farther with Craig Bolen, she’d be a fool, even though he hadn’t shown any sign of aggression toward her.

  But running down to the staging area and calling for help wasn’t going to get her very far, either. What could she say—“Hey, look, he disguised himself to take a photo of my sister and me without our per
mission and left it in the trail-shelter logbook”? What if nobody else saw the resemblance she’d seen?

  She needed to figure out what to do and fast. Before they went much farther.

  “Do you have a map of the search-party assignments?” Bolen’s friendly query sent another shudder down her spine.

  “Uh, yeah.” She stopped and opened her backpack again, digging around inside for the map she’d folded and stuck in one of the pockets. She pulled it out, wincing as the Polaroid snapshot snagged in the folds and flipped out of the pack onto the ground at her feet.

  She bent and picked it up, trying to be nonchalant as she dropped it back into her pack. She darted a look at Bolen and found him looking not at her but at the woods behind her, his eyes slightly narrowed.

  Suddenly, pain shot through her hip and side, exploding into agony so all-encompassing that she felt as if her whole body was a giant, raw nerve. She wasn’t aware of falling until she hit the ground with a thud.

  “Why’d you do that?” Faintly, through the buzzing sensation that had begun to replace the pain, she heard Craig Bolen’s soft query. “She didn’t suspect anything!”

  “New plan,” the other voice, deep and unfamiliar, answered. “We wanted to scare her off the job. Now we’ll just get rid of her altogether.”

  “Then why didn’t you just shoot her?” Bolen asked.

  “Because we need her help first.”

  * * *

  “WHAT TIME IS IT?” Joy Adderly’s voice was barely a whisper, but in the taut silence they’d been maintaining for the past hour, it sounded like thunder, making Doyle’s already rattled nerves shimmy in reaction.

  He checked the time on his phone, wondering how much longer his battery would last. “Just after noon.”

  The phone itself was useless as a means of communication. Picking up signals this far up Copperhead Ridge was difficult in the best of situations, and inside a closed-off cave? Impossible. Probably why they hadn’t bothered taking the phone off him when they took his pistol and keys.

  “He usually brings me something for lunch,” she said. “It’s how I kept time. Breakfast, lunch and dinner.”

  Anger boiled up in him again, joining the clamorous chorus of emotions vying for top billing in his mind. Fear was there, raw and unsettling, and also determination, fed by the fear. Anger was the ever-present heat source, bubbling never far from the surface. “When he comes, we’ll be ready.”

  “He’ll have a weapon.”

  “I know.”

  She fell silent for a long moment. “I’m studying law enforcement in college. Did anyone tell you that?”

  “No,” he admitted. “What year?”

  “Sophomore.”

  “What college?”

  “Brandon College, up near Purgatory. It’s a private four-year college.”

  “Pricey.”

  “Scholarship,” she said with a smile in her voice.

  He turned on the flashlight app and flashed it her way. This time, instead of wincing, she shielded her eyes and flashed a half smile, half grimace his way. “Give a girl some warning!”

  Her change in demeanor gave him hope that her ordeal hadn’t broken her. He hadn’t been so sure when he’d first found her. “Joy, we’re getting out of here. And you’re going to get a chance to say goodbye to your sister.”

  Her smile faded. “Oh, God. Sweet little Missy.”

  “I lost my younger brother to violence. It’s unfair and all kinds of wrong, and I wish it hadn’t happened to you. I’m so sorry.”

  “How are my parents taking it?”

  He thought about his one brief meeting with the Adderlys at the diner. Remembered Dave Adderly’s strange behavior, the way he’d looked as if he’d been keeping secrets.

  He’d been with Bolen that morning, Doyle remembered. Had someone already given him his ransom instructions?

  And if so, what were they?

  “I haven’t seen a lot of your parents,” he answered.

  “Let me guess. Craig’s been handling them?”

  She was smart, he thought. She might just make a good cop. Now that she was no longer stuck in this dark hellhole alone, she seemed to have found her nerve and came across as a completely different young woman than the one he’d found cowering in the back of the cave. He just hoped she wouldn’t let this horrific experience destroy her dreams once they got out of here.

  “Do you really think they’ll let us out alive?” she asked.

  “I think the plan has always been to let you out alive,” he said, not sure if he believed it but saying it anyway, because she needed the hope. “You said Ray wears a disguise, and Craig Bolen has been careful not to let you see him.”

  “I heard him, though.”

  “He doesn’t know that.”

  She didn’t answer.

  The sound of footsteps outside the cave penetrated the ensuing silence, spurring them both into action. As they’d planned, Joy stood in the middle of the main cavern, her feet planted apart so that she could dodge or run the second she sensed direct danger. Doyle, meanwhile, hurried all the way to the front, waiting in the shadows for whoever was bringing the food that afternoon. Joy had told Doyle that she’d started hiding in the back of the cave after Ray had told her the more she saw of him, the less likely she’d be to live.

  They were hoping her presence near the doorway would lure him inside.

  But when the door opened, it wasn’t Ray who entered. In fact, the door opened just enough for a shadowy figure to stumble through the opening and land with a moan against the nearest wall. The door closed again without anyone else coming through, keys rattling in the lock and the footsteps receding quickly.

  Doyle pulled out his cell phone and engaged the flashlight app. The beam of light played across a slender female figure, hands and feet bound with duct tape and a sack taped around her head.

  The clothes, the shape—Doyle didn’t have to see the face beneath the hood to know who it was.

  Laney.

  His chest tightening, he ran across the mouth of the cave and knelt by her side, pulling away the tape around her neck. She tried to fight, but her movements were loose limbed and flailing.

  “No, sweetheart, it’s me.” He removed the rest of the tape and pulled the hood off, revealing her wide, scared eyes and dirt-smudged face. He pressed his mouth against her forehead, felt the cool dampness of perspiration and residual tremors and knew what had happened to her. When he ran his hands lightly over her body, her soft whimper when he reached her back confirmed his speculation.

  “That bastard Tasered me,” she growled.

  He bit back a smile of relief. If she could still curse, she was going to be okay. “How long ago?” he asked, removing the tape around her wrists.

  “Time was kind of fluid there for a little while.” She struggled up to a sitting position, squinting as he ran the beam of light across her to check for any other injuries. “I found your keys.”

  The non sequitur threw him for a second. “Where?”

  “In the woods.” As he removed the last of the duct tape around her ankles, she made a move to stand, and he helped her to her feet, keeping his arm firmly around her waist while she found her bearings. “And you’ll never guess who took that picture of Jannie and me in the hospital.”

  “Let me guess,” said Joy Adderly from behind them. “Craig Bolen?”

  Laney’s gaze swung to the sound of Joy’s voice, her eyes narrowing as she tried to see into the gloom beyond the circle of light created by Doyle’s cell phone application. Doyle shifted the beam to reveal Joy, and Laney gasped before pushing to her feet and stumbling toward the other girl.

  Joy opened her arms for a fierce hug. “Is Jannie really going to be okay?”

  “She is. And she’s going to be
so glad to see you!” Laney turned to look at Doyle, a wide smile on her grimy face. “You found her.”

  He laughed. “I had very little to do with it.”

  “Don’t let him fool you,” Joy said, her arm still firmly around Laney’s waist. She was helping hold Laney up, Doyle realized, seeing the tremors that were rocking Laney’s slender frame. She must have been zapped recently, he thought.

  “There are two of them,” Laney said. “They put that bag over my head so I didn’t see them, but of course, I know Bolen’s one of them.

  “The other one is the guy we know as Ray,” Doyle told her.

  “Why did they grab us?” Laney asked. “Why not just kill us?”

  “I don’t know,” Doyle admitted. “Keeping us alive certainly doesn’t fit what they’ve done so far.”

  “I think they may be trying to get my father to pay a ransom,” Joy said.

  “But they’re not the ones who shot Missy and Janelle, right?” Laney asked. “Jannie was very sure it was a guy named Richard Beller.”

  “She’s right,” Joy answered. “At least, I guess that was Richard Beller. I described the shooter to the chief here, and he seems to think it’s the same guy.”

  Laney looked at Doyle for confirmation, and he nodded, watching her lean on Joy and feeling a battle of emotions raging inside him. He’d spent the past couple of hours worried sick about Laney being out there somewhere, with no idea that Craig Bolen was one of the bad guys. But as glad as he was to know she was okay, at least for the moment, he wished she were safely home, far away from this dank cave prison.

  “Oh,” Laney said suddenly, slapping her hand against her right side.

  “Are you hurt?” Doyle hurried over, flashing the light toward her side. He didn’t see any blood on her jacket, but her injuries could be internal, if they were as rough on her as they’d been on him while dragging her to the cave.

  She unzipped her jacket, grinning up at him. “Those stupid, sexist idiots.”

  He followed her gaze and saw what her captors had missed.

  She was still armed.