by Lisa Jackson
And for a span of ten seconds, she hated him for that. Laura was her daughter, damn him! Hers! And if he thought she was going to stand around like some meek little woman and hold her tongue while he dragged his feet finding her, he was in for a rude awakening. She would say whatever she liked, do whatever she had to to light a fire under him if that’s what it took to get him to move. And if he didn’t like it, that was just too damn bad.
But if she did, she could start looking for someone else to help her. And Lucas said he was the best.
Frustrated, resenting his dispassion when her nerves were wound tighter than a broken clock spring, she reminded herself that finding Laura was what was important here, not proving a point to Hunter Fortune. If he was as good as Lucas said he was—and she had every reason to believe that he was—then she had to trust him to know what he was doing.
Still, it wasn’t easy for her to back down from a challenge, and she was less than gracious when she said grudgingly, “I don’t want another tracker. Lucas said you were the best, so do what you have to do. Just find Laura.”
“I wouldn’t have agreed to look for her if I didn’t think I could find her,” he said simply, and had no idea how his quiet confidence reassured her. “Now that we’ve got that settled, let’s head on over to the day care. We’re burning daylight.”
Sarah Rivers, Laura’s day care teacher, was a middle-aged woman with a kind smile and gentle ways, but she was nobody’s fool. “Mr. Barker told me he had Naomi’s permission to take Laura shopping for her birthday, but I didn’t believe him for a second,” she said tartly. “There was just something about the way he was acting. You know…kind of jumpy? He just looked like he was up to no good. That’s why I told him I had to call Naomi first. Then, when I was on the phone, he took her. I’ll never forgive myself for that. I should have known better!”
“Please don’t beat yourself up over this, Sarah,” Naomi told her, giving her a hug. “You had no way of knowing what James was capable of. As well as I know him, I never thought he would do something like this, so don’t blame yourself. You’re not the only one he fooled.”
“What else did you notice about him, Mrs. Rivers?” Hunter asked. “You said he looked like he was up to no good. What do you mean by that? How did he look?”
“Like he was going hunting or something. It was weird. He said he was going shopping, but he was wearing all this outdoor gear. You know—snow boots and a big down parka, the whole nine yards. If he was planning to walk through the mall in that getup, he was going to burn up.”
His gaze shifting to the wide windows of the day care that overlooked the school’s playground, Hunter frowned thoughtfully. The calendar might say March, but winter still appeared to have a firm grip on the countryside. The snow on the ground showed no sign of melting anytime soon, and they hadn’t seen the last of the winter storms. Still, the first faint hints of spring were definitely in the air, and temperatures weren’t nearly as brutal as they had been in January. The only people who went around in the kind of heavy gear Sarah Rivers described were those who planned to spend an extensive amount of time outdoors.
And that wasn’t something you would expect a man to do when he had a three-year-old in tow.
“What about Laura?” he asked. “How was she dressed?”
“In a pair of corduroy overalls and a turtleneck,” Naomi answered for the teacher. “And tennis shoes.”
“What about a jacket? Did Barker take time to put a jacket on her before he rushed out with her?”
Startled, Sarah Rivers gasped softly. “Oh, I don’t see how he could have. There wasn’t time. I’d hardly left the foyer to use the phone in my office before he was racing away. Of course, he could have had something in the car or stopped and bought her something.”
Hunter didn’t comment one way or the other, but he doubted that Barker stopped for anything once he got Laura in his clutches. It would have just been too risky. Considering the way he was dressed and the speed with which he had moved, it didn’t sound like the abduction was a spur-of-the-moment thing but rather something he’d planned for some time, so he’d probably had a stash of clothes for the little girl in his car. The question now was where had Barker taken Laura after he’d abandoned his car. And what did he hope to gain from all this? If he was hoping to convince Naomi that they were made for each other, he couldn’t have picked a worse way to do it.
There was little else that Sarah Rivers could tell them, so after thanking her for her help, they headed out to Elk Canyon and the place where Barker had abandoned his car. Hunter took one look at the snow-covered spot where the car had been nearly concealed behind a rocky outcrop and started to scowl. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all.
“This doesn’t smell right,” he muttered to himself as he inspected the area. “Why would Barker drive all the way back into the canyon just to switch vehicles?”
“Maybe because it’s isolated,” Naomi suggested. “Only a few people live back here, so the chances of anyone seeing him had to be pretty slim.”
“True,” he agreed, “the cutoff for the canyon isn’t that far from the day care. But once he grabbed Laura he had to know that Mrs Rivers would call the police immediately, and that in all likelihood they would cordon off all roads in the area leading out of town. Even if he did change cars, the canyon’s a dead end. He had to go out the same way he came in, and once he did that, the odds were pretty good he was going to run into a roadblock once he hit the main road.”
“So you’re saying if he did switch cars, he should have done it closer to the day care?”
“That’s what I’d have done. The closer the better. Preferably right around the corner.”
“But wouldn’t it be more likely that someone would see him right in town?”
“Possibly. But if I was going to kidnap a kid, I’d have taken that risk. Think about it. You snatch the kid, drive right around the corner to another car, make the switch even as the kidnapping is being reported to the police and head straight for the middle of town. Everyone is expecting you to flee the state—no one’s going to think to look right in town. So you hole up somewhere and wait for things to calm down. Once the authorities figure you’re long gone across country, the roadblocks come down and you drive out of town without anyone even looking twice at you.”
“But James couldn’t have done that since he left his car here and the dragnet would have closed around him by the time he made it back to the main road. So why did he bring Laura to Elk Canyon?”
“I don’t know,” he said flatly. “But I mean to find out.”
The police had impounded James’s car and towed it back to town after they’d searched the immediate vicinity. Even to the untrained eye, it was obvious the police had gone over the area with a fine-tooth comb. The snow-covered ground was littered with footprints, making it impossible to tell if any of them might have belonged to James Barker or his little girl.
Swearing roundly at the ignorance of men who should have known better, Hunter started at the spot where the car had been parked and slowly began working his way outward in ever-growing circles, looking for something, anything, the police might have missed. A broken branch, a mound of snow that had been inexplicably disturbed, a footprint that hadn’t, miraculously, been covered up by last night’s snowfall. There had to be something—in his gut, he knew it was there. He could feel it.
An icy wind howled down through the canyon, the lonely sound echoing through the pines that stood like sentinels in the snow. Naomi shivered and dug her hands deeper into the pockets of her down jacket, but Hunter hardly noticed. Totally focused on his search, he was a hundred yards from the last footprint left by the police and making his way up the steep side of the mountain when he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. Stopping in his tracks, he snapped his head around and searched the stand of trees off to his right.
For a second he thought he might have surprised an elk, then he saw it again, a piece of green ribbon
caught on the low branch of a fir and swaying in the wind. Forest green and the exact shade of the tree it was caught on, it blended in so perfectly with the foliage that he never would have seen it if the wind hadn’t set it gently flapping.
When he brought it to Naomi, who’d stayed by the car to make sure she didn’t destroy any evidence, she took one look at it and blanched. “Oh, God,” she whispered, clutching it to her breast. “It’s Laura’s. I tied it in her hair right before I dropped her off at day care yesterday. Where did you find it?”
“Up there,” he said, nodding toward the trees that had concealed him from her once he’d left the road. “The wind’s always swirling in this canyon, and there’s a possibility that if Barker did change cars here, the ribbon could have somehow fallen out of Laura’s hair and got swept up into the trees. Or she was up in the trees for some reason and the ribbon snagged on a branch and pulled free.”
“But there’s no way out of the canyon up there,” she said in alarm. “That only leads up into the mountains. Why would James take her up there?”
Hunter couldn’t tell her that, at least not yet. But the answer was there, somewhere in that canyon. He just had to find it.
Ten minutes later he came across snowmobile tracks fifty yards from where he’d found Laura’s hair ribbon. The tracks should have been buried under yesterday’s snowfall, but the thick tree branches overhead had caught most of that, preserving the tracks. Studying them, Hunter knew there was no way to tell who had made them. The canyon was isolated, but it wasn’t completely deserted, and anyone could have been up there recently. He didn’t even know if Barker knew how to operate a snowmobile, but his gut told him he did. And his gut was very seldom wrong.
With his mouth pressed flat into a hard, grim line, he made his way back down the side of the mountain to where Naomi patiently waited for him. She took one look at his face and stiffened. “You found something.”
He nodded. “Snowmobile tracks. They cut through the trees and head farther up into the mountains.”
“And you think James made them?”
“If I was a betting man, I’d say, yeah. I think he’s holed up somewhere in a line cabin while you worry yourself sick about your daughter. But then again,” he added, “I don’t know the man. Anybody who goes up into the mountains on his own in the winter damn sure better know what he’s doing, or he’s going to find himself in a hell of a lot of trouble. You think he’s got the skills to make it up there?”
Stricken, she lifted widened eyes to the snowy mountains that seemed to tower threateningly over them. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but snow and trees and wilderness. And somewhere up there, James could be hiding with her baby.
Horrified, she said hoarsely, “He likes to think he’s a survivalist. He read all these books and stuff about living in the wild and used to think that he could do it. But he hasn’t had any training—he doesn’t even know how to build a fire without charcoal and lighter fluid!”
Hunter swore, his narrowed eyes, like hers, trained on the rugged terrain that rose all around them in deadly majestic splendor. “Then he’s in over his head,” he said coldly. “The mountains don’t like amateurs.”
“But why?” she cried. “Why is he doing this? Why is he putting his own daughter in danger? Doesn’t he realize that they could both die up there and no one would find them until the snow melts?”
“My guess is he’s not even thinking about Laura. His only concern right now is making you sweat. And he’s doing a damn good job of it.”
Naomi couldn’t deny it. Just thinking about Laura out there in the wilderness, possibly without even a decent jacket, was enough to make her want to run screaming into the trees to search for her. She was out there—she could feel her—so close that she could almost reach out and touch her. Did she know that she was coming for her? That she would move heaven and earth if she had to just to get her back? Was that why James was doing this? Laura was just window dressing? Was it really her he wanted to get his hands on and Laura was just the bait?
Appalled at the thought, she started to ask Hunter if he thought she might be right, when she saw him stiffen like a wolf that suddenly caught the scent of its prey. “What is it?” she asked in alarm when he stared at a particular rocky ridge high above them. “What do you see?”
“Binoculars,” he retorted, never taking his eyes from the ridge. “I just caught the glint of sun off the lenses. The son of a bitch is up there now, watching us, just daring us to catch him.” Glancing down at her, he said, “He really gets his kicks out of torturing you, doesn’t he?”
Hugging herself, her eyes flashed with angry resentment. “It’s the only thing he’s really good at. All I can say is, he’d better enjoy it. Because when I get through with him after this, I’m going to make him wish he’d never been born.”
And if she couldn’t do it, he could, Hunter thought angrily. Any man who would put his own child in danger to torment the mother of that child deserved whatever he got. “C’mon,” he growled as he turned back to his truck. “We’ve done all that we can do here for now.”
“But you can’t just leave Laura up there with that monster!” she cried, hurrying after him. “We have to do something!”
“We are. I’m going back to my place to get my snowmobile and supplies, and you’re going home to pack some warm clothes for Laura just in case she needs them when I find her. I’ll be by within the hour to pick them up.”
Three
Naomi had a backpack packed and was waiting on her front porch when Hunter returned to her house forty minutes later with his snowmobile strapped to a trailer hitched to his truck. He took one look at the size of the pack and arched a dark brow in amusement. “I’m not taking Laura to Disneyland, Naomi. I just need a snow suit or something for her in case Barker didn’t think of anyone but himself.”
Lifting the backpack, Naomi shrugged into it. “I’m going with you. And since I didn’t know how long we’ll be gone, I thought it would be better to be prepared. Let’s go.”
She took a quick step toward the porch steps, but that was as far as she got before he moved to cut her off. “Hold it right there, Kemosabie,” he growled. “What do you mean you’re going with me?”
“Just what I said. Do you have a problem with that?”
“You’re damn right I do! I work alone.”
His tone was flat and as unyielding as stone and rubbed Naomi the wrong way. “Not this time, you don’t,” she retorted, bristling. “In case you’ve forgotten, that’s my daughter up there in those mountains. And not you or any other man is making me stay home like the good little mother as long as she’s in danger. So you can either take me with you or I’ll rent my own damn snowmobile and follow you, but either way, I’m going.”
Standing toe-to-toe with him, she just dared him to argue with her, and he didn’t disappoint her. “Dammit, woman, this isn’t a walk in the park! You saw how rugged Elk Canyon was—the mountains are ten times more treacherous than that. There’s no way in hell I’m taking a woman up there. It’s too dangerous.”
“Fine. Then it looks like I’ll have to take myself.”
Cursing, he growled, “What part of no didn’t you understand? I’ve got enough to do up there tracking Barker without having to watch over you, too. You’ll only slow me down.”
“Then I suggest you quit wasting time arguing with me and get a move on,” she said reasonably. “I’m just waiting for you.”
Grinding his teeth on an oath, Hunter glared down at her and didn’t know if he wanted to shake her or turn her over his knee. When she’d walked into his office earlier, he’d suspected she was the kind of woman a man wouldn’t be able to easily dismiss from his mind, and he hadn’t been wrong. The lady was trouble, and if circumstances had been different, he would have already sent her packing. All his energy was focused on getting Fortune Construction in the black by the end of the year, and nothing was interfering with that. Especially a woman. He just didn’
t need the hassle.
That didn’t mean he would renege on his promise to find Laura, however. He didn’t care how much work he had to do, there was no way in hell he was going to stand around with his hands in his pockets when a child was in trouble. He’d find her if he had to go over every damn inch of the mountains—but he didn’t have to drag her mother along to do it. She really would slow him down and no doubt talk him to death, and he wasn’t having it!
“Look,” he said, struggling for patience, “I can understand why you want to go along. If I had a daughter lost up there somewhere in those mountains, there’s no way in hell anyone could convince me to stay at home while someone else went looking for her. But I have experience in the mountains. You don’t.”
“That’s why I came to you,” she reminded him. “Lucas said you were the best.”
“At tracking, maybe,” he conceded. “But accidents happen. What if you get hurt and we haven’t found Laura yet? Have you thought of that? I’ll have to choose between getting you to medical help and finding your daughter, and you might not like the decision I make.”
“That’s not going to happen. I’ll be careful—”
“Experienced guides have fallen off the side of a mountain being careful. If something happens to you, Laura’s got no one to turn to except James. Is that what you want?”
“Of course not!”
“Then stay here and wait for me to bring her to you. I’ve got a cell phone—I can be in constant contact with you.”
For a minute he thought he had her convinced. She hesitated, weighing his words, and he was sure she was going to give in. But then she stiffened and dug in her heels and it was all he could do not to curse. “No,” she said flatly. “I’m going.”
She was as stubborn as a rock. Any other time, Hunter might have laughed at the idea of this slip of a woman standing up to him, but at that particular moment, he couldn’t find a damn thing funny about the situation. She was just bullheaded enough to rent a damn snowmobile and follow after him if he didn’t let her go with him, and then he’d spend half his time looking over his shoulder making sure she was all right. That would cost him even more time than if he just took her with him to begin with.