by N L Hinkens
Sonia frowned. “I don’t remember you mentioning anyone called Buck being discharged from the army.”
Finn folded his arms in front of his chest, studying her like she was a petulant child. “Sonia, my love. I am Buck.”
“What … what are you talking about?” Sonia stumbled backward, her legs wobbling beneath her.
Finn gestured around him with a jerk of his chin “How do you like the place?” His lips curled into a cunning smile. “I fixed it up with you in mind.”
Sonia retreated another couple of steps, her thoughts colliding with her senses in an explosion of terror. “But you … you were on a mission last month. That’s why you couldn’t call Jessica on her birthday.”
Finn let out an amused snort. “I was on a mission of sorts. I was hunting.”
“You mean … you haven’t been overseas all this time?” Sonia asked in a breathless whisper.
Finn chuckled, clearly enjoying watching her struggle to catch up to the reality of the situation. But what exactly was that reality? And what did he mean by saying that he’d fixed up the cabin with her in mind? She needed to keep him talking—try and figure out what was going on in his head. “I still don’t understand, Finn. How did you keep up the child support payments without your benefits?”
He pulled a chair out from the table and motioned for her to sit down. She sank down in it gratefully, unable to stop the shivering that had taken over her entire body. Finn leaned back against the table, his cruel eyes skewering her. ”I told you I’d always provide for our daughter. I found a way.”
“How?” Sonia demanded. ”You’re obviously not working if you’re living up here. Did you steal the money or something?”
He gave a reproving shake of his head. “You never did have any faith in me, did you? Of course I didn’t steal it. I didn’t have to. Our delightful neighbor, Celia, was only too happy to help when I shared our plight with her. I fed her a sob story about how the assault charges that led to my discharge were bogus, and how much Jessica was going to suffer if I wasn’t able to provide for her.”
He leaned closer, his breath hot on her cold skin. “I also told her you would use it as an opportunity to cut me out of my daughter’s life entirely if I got behind on the child support payments, and how desperately I wanted to patch up our family. Celia offered to give me the money. She was very fond of Jessica. I think she took pity on me because she knew what it was like to have an estranged child she never got to see. I used to call her every month—she liked that. I told her to say it was Tom if anyone ever asked.”
Sonia stared at him, appalled, her brain grappling to take it all in. “You were taking money from Celia Jenkins to support our child?”
“See, that’s precisely the reaction I expected you to have.” Finn cocked an amused grin. “I warned Celia not to mention it to you because you wouldn’t accept the help. I told her my brave military wife would be too proud.”
Sonia shook her head in disbelief. “How could you? Were you the one who stole her purse that time too?”
Finn smirked. “Stupid cow left it sitting out in plain view on the kitchen table with the door unlocked. What did she think was going to happen?”
Sonia glared at him. “The child support was only $1100. What did you do with the rest of the money?”
A sly grin spread over Finn’s face. “I knew old Celia wouldn’t last forever. I’ve been building a nice little nest egg so I can take care of you and Jessica. You see, when Celia showed me the coordinates to her son’s cabin and asked me to find him, I realized it would be the perfect spot to move my family to. I befriended Tom and took over this abandoned cabin. I cleaned it all up and patched the roof, and even added on a room so I could build a bunker beneath it.” He paused and gestured to the door that led into the smaller room. “I’ll show you around your new digs in a minute. “Anyway, I told Celia I couldn’t find Tom—that he’d moved on and hadn’t told anyone where he was going. I knew he would have a good chunk of money coming to him once Celia passed, so I planned on getting his signature giving me power of attorney over his inheritance.”
“Where … is Tom?” Sonia stammered, dreading the answer.
Finn gave a mockingly sad shake of his head. “Ray killed him. Couldn’t stand to share the inheritance with him. I heard them fighting over it. A shame, really. I liked the guy.”
Sonia’s breath came in short, sharp bursts as she tried to digest the information quickly enough to keep up. Conveniently, Tom was dead. She had no doubt Finn had somehow orchestrated that, despite what he was telling her. But where was Ray, and how did he play into this? Maybe he’d found out that the transfers had been going into Finn’s account all along and he’d come here to confront him.
Her blood ran cold when it occurred to her that Finn had had plenty of time to prepare for their arrival. He might even have watched Ray get out of her car and followed him up to his brother’s cabin. Had he killed him too in a bid to get his hands on the rest of Celia’s money? Her heart sank when she thought of Henry and what it would do to him if anything happened to his father. “Where’s Ray?” she asked, in a jittery whisper.
A cunning smile spread across Finn’s face. “He’s on a mission to save poor little Katie Lambert before it’s too late. He knows who the bad guy is who took her.”
A cold chill crept slowly over Sonia. So if Ray hadn’t abducted her, was Finn behind that too? “You know where Katie is, don’t you?”
“How perceptive of you, my love. I’m afraid Ray’s going to be extremely disappointed when his gallant rescue mission comes to a screeching halt.”
Sonia lunged at Finn, dragging her nails across his face and drawing blood. “Is Katie dead? Were you and Tom in on this together? Did you kill him to stop him from talking? Did Ray find the driver’s license in Tom’s cabin?”
“Whoa! So many questions,” Finn said in a mocking tone as he shoved her back down in the chair. “Save them, for now. I’m going to track Ray down and let him know you’re safe.” He let out an amused chuckle. “Then I’ll offer him a generator to charge your car battery. Of course, he’ll have to come back to the cabin to pick it up.”
“Finn, I’m begging you, please. Leave Ray out of this. He has a young son and—“
“Henry, right? Four-years-old, dark curls, big round eyes, sucks his thumb?”
Sonia’s stomach dropped. “How …. how do you know all this?”
“I knew his mother.” Finn twisted one corner of his lips into a cruel smile, watching her reaction—as if waiting for something to click. And then it hit her like a thunderbolt. No wonder Henry had looked vaguely familiar. He had Katie Lambert’s eyes. But that wasn’t the only resemblance she’d picked up on.
Her gaze traveled slowly over Finn’s thick, dark wavy hair as she finally connected the dots.
Finn was Henry’s father.
30
Reeling from everything Buck had told him, Ray stumbled back down the slick mountainside in the direction of the Deep Creek Campground parking lot where he’d left Sonia. Henry was Tom’s son. It all made perfect sense now. It explained why he and Henry had always felt like strangers to one another, and why, after his accident, he hadn’t even remembered he had a son. No wonder Henry acted so traumatized around him, so bereft of words—he barely knew him. He’d been confused by a man who looked like his father, pretending to be him.
The only question left in Ray’s mind was who Henry’s mother was. But, deep down, he was pretty sure he already knew the answer to that. The driver’s license he’d found in Tom’s pocket was a cry for justice from beyond the grave. If he was right that Katie Lambert was Henry’s mother, then Tom was even more of a sadistic monster than he’d thought him to be. He’d abducted a young girl and imprisoned her for his own evil purposes, either in his cabin or in some shack nearby—a girl who might still be alive. Henry talked about her as though he remembered her. He’d mentioned playing ball with her in his room. Just like he remembered being locked up a
nd deprived of food, and all the other terrible things Tom had done to him.
Sickened to the core, Ray quickened his pace through the thick drizzle, relieved when the campground parking lot finally came into view. As soon as he got back to the main road, he would call 911. He would keep Henry out of it—for now. He jogged over to Sonia’s car, groaning in frustration when he saw she wasn’t there. He desperately needed to get off this mountain to process everything whirling around in his head. More than anything, he needed to figure out how he was going to move forward shackled by what he had done, and the lies he had bound himself to. He cast an uneasy glance at his surroundings, confirming that Sonia was nowhere in sight.
“Sonia!” he called out, walking over to the outhouse. “Are you in here?” He nudged the swing door gingerly inward, recoiling from the stench and the flies buzzing around. Maybe she’d got bored and decided to stretch her legs and take a walk. After all, he’d been gone for several hours. Returning to the car, he tried the door, surprised to find it unlocked. Perhaps she’d left him a note. He slid into the passenger seat and rummaged around. The keys were lying in the console so she couldn’t have gone too far. There was nothing else for it but to hunker down and wait for her to return.
His head throbbed every time he thought about Tom lying beneath the dirt on the mountain somewhere, without so much as a headstone to mark his grave. Buck had helped jog his memory of that awful day. He remembered bits and pieces—fetching the shovel, agreeing to bury Tom in an unmarked grave. Accident or not, it was too horrific to dwell on what had happened, and too painful to think about what might have been if they could only have kept their anger in check.
Searching for a distraction, Ray reached into the backseat for Sonia’s black portfolio and flipped through it curiously. Her eye for detail was extraordinary. He couldn’t help but admire her artistic skills, as well as her generous nature. She’d sacrificed an entire day to drive him out here, purportedly to allow him to heal in nature. A stab of guilt assailed him. He’d lied to her and used her, and now he would be forced to keep lying to her. There was nothing she hated more. She deserved better.
He drummed his fingers on the dashboard wondering what time she had to be back in Booneville to pick up Jessica. Maybe if he started the engine, it would alert her to the fact that he’d returned. He stuck the key in the ignition and twisted it, his stomach sinking at the unmistakable metallic clicking sound that followed. Somehow, she’d let the battery run down.
Maybe she’d decided to walk down to the main road to get help. Or maybe she’d gone looking for him. Ray slapped a frustrated palm on the dash before climbing back out of the car. What was she thinking heading out alone in this rain? Why couldn’t she just have waited until he got back—hopefully, she hadn’t gone too far.
He set off at a brisk pace down the dirt track, counting on the fact that she would most likely head to the main road first to call for roadside assistance. Every few minutes, he stopped and called out her name, listening for even the faintest response. He had to consider the possibility that she might have slipped in the mud and twisted an ankle or something. Fifteen minutes later, sweating and hurting, he hadn’t found any trace of her. If he reached the main road, and there was still no sign of her, he’d be forced to trek all the way back up to Tom’s cabin in case she’d headed up the mountain to look for him.
Leaning on his thighs, he took a few deep breaths, exhausted from the exertion. As he lifted his head, a familiar figure came trudging into view. Relief surged through him. “Buck!” he blurted out. ”You couldn’t have timed that better! I need your help. My friend who drove me here has gone missing. Her car battery’s dead. I think she might have set out to look for me.”
Buck chuckled. “That she did. I found her wandering on the mountain, half-drowned and disoriented. I took her to my place and told her to sit tight in front of the fire while I tracked you down. Her heels were all blistered up from those stupid canvas shoes she was wearing.”
Ray blew out a heavy breath. “That’s a relief to hear she’s safe. Now I just need to figure out how I’m going to jumpstart her car. I guess I’ll keep hiking down to the main road and hitch a ride into town. It could be a few hours before I’m back.”
“No need,” Buck said. ”I have jumper cables and a generator you can borrow.”
“Really? Wow, that would be a huge help.” Ray cleared his throat. “Listen, Buck, obviously I can’t say anything in front of Sonia, but I didn’t thank you properly earlier for what you did. To be honest, I’m totally torn up about it. With the concussion and everything, I’d forgotten a lot of what happened. But I realize I owe you a huge debt of gratitude.”
Buck gripped Ray by the shoulder. ”We did what we had to do for the kid’s sake. Enough said.”
“Thanks, man,” Ray replied. “By the way, your cheek’s bleeding.”
Buck brushed a hairy hand nonchalantly over it. “Yeah, I took a shortcut through some heavy brush. Wasn’t paying attention. I was in too much of a hurry to find you. Speaking of which, we should make tracks so we can get you guys back on the road before dark.”
They hiked at a steady pace, stopping once or twice for Ray to catch his breath. He was hurting all over but determined not to complain. The sooner he got the car started, and got back to the main road, the sooner he could call 911. He hadn’t told Buck what he was planning to do. Buck was convinced Tom had long since killed Katie and buried her, and he’d made it clear he didn’t want police crawling all over the mountain. But Katie’s grandparents deserved answers—the right to give their granddaughter a proper burial, if nothing else.
“Nice place you have here,” Ray said politely when Buck’s log home came into view. It was more spacious than Tom’s, but utilitarian-looking—lacking the craftsmanship that Tom had painstakingly worked into every detail of his cabin.
“Well, you know what they say, it’s not much, but it’s home,” Buck chuckled, ushering him inside.
”Where’s Sonia?” Ray asked, glancing around.
”She’s sleeping in the other room. I told her to make herself at home while I was gone. She was exhausted and her heels were bleeding pretty badly.” He led the way across the cabin to the adjoining room, opened the door, and stepped aside for Ray to enter.
Shock tightened around Ray’s chest like cords of rope at the scene that awaited him. Sonia was sitting on the floor in the far corner of the room, gagged and zip tied, her feet fastened to an iron ring in the floor next to a wooden trapdoor. He spun around, only to find himself staring down the barrel of a gun.
”Walk slowly over there and sit down next to her,” Buck growled. “Sonia will tie your hands for you. If you don’t cooperate, I’ll shoot her.”
Ray opened his mouth to protest, but the look in Buck’s eyes stopped him in his tracks. He inched his hands into the air. ”All right. Take it easy. Do you want to tell me what’s going on here?”
Buck’s lips curled into a malevolent grin as he waved the gun impatiently in front of him. “We’ll get to the fun part.”
Ray grimaced, assessing his limited options. Faced with a deadly weapon, he had little choice but to comply with Buck’s orders and try to reason with him afterward. He walked over to Sonia and sat down next to her on the dirt floor, eying the zip tie in her trembling fingers. “It’s okay, do what he says,” he whispered, holding out his hands to her. Hampered by the zip tie around her own wrists, it took her several attempts before she succeeded.
When she was done, Buck tightened their wrist restraints, and then fastened Ray’s feet to the ring in the floor. Satisfied that their bonds were secure, he removed Sonia’s gag, then sat down on a wooden stool and eyed them both with an air of satisfaction.
“I don’t understand, Buck,” Ray said. “Is this about money? Are you going to try and blackmail me now for covering up what I did?”
“His name’s not Buck,” Sonia said, her eyes filling with tears. ”It’s Finn—he’s Jessica’s father … and Henr
y’s.”
31
Ray blinked uncomprehendingly at Sonia, wrestling with which shocking revelation to respond to first. “What are you talking about? Henry’s Tom’s son—he’s my nephew.”
“No.” Sonia shook her head. ”Finn lied to you about that. He’s Henry’s real father.”
”But … you told me Finn was stationed overseas.”
Sonia’s face crumpled. “I thought he was. He lied. He’s been lying about everything. He’s not even with the army anymore.”
Ray turned his head slowly in Finn’s direction, his stomach twisting as he grappled with the enormity of what was becoming clearer by the minute. “Tom didn’t abduct Katie Lambert—it was you! You planted that driver’s license on my brother’s body, didn’t you? Sent me outside to get that shovel so you could set me up. You saw the perfect opportunity to cover up your crime along with mine.”
Finn sneered at him. “Yeah, about that, Einstein. Tom wasn’t dead after your puny right hook, just dazed. It took a few good whacks with the butt of my rifle to finish him off. He was a tough old bird.”
A chill passed over the back of Ray’s neck. Of course! All that blood. It had never made sense that Tom bled that much after hitting his head on the bench. His death had been no accident. It had been a cold-blooded and heartless murder—perpetrated on a helpless man.
“Why?” Ray whispered. ”What did Tom ever do to you?”
“It’s not about what he did; it’s about what he knew,” Finn said, lifting his gaze to stare out the window. “Turns out Katie was a lot more resourceful than I gave her credit for.” He gestured to the trapdoor in the floor. “I kept her and the boy in the bunker when I wasn’t around. When I was home, I sometimes let them stay up here so they could move about. I was chopping wood at the back of the cabin one day, and she managed to pick the lock on the door with a nail and escape with Henry. Took me a couple of hours to track her down, but I found her, eventually, hiding in a hollowed-out tree like a scared rabbit.” He fell silent, anger sparking in his steely eyes. “She wouldn’t tell me where she’d hidden Henry. Tom must have found him shortly before you showed up at his cabin—probably heard him whimpering or something. Henry wasn’t much of a talker, but he knew his mother’s name. It wouldn’t have taken Tom long to put two and two together. I couldn’t let him live.”