The Cabin

by Carla Neggers

  He nodded toward the lane, ice collecting on the truck's windshield as the snow continued to fall. "Alice left her car just out of sight down that way. The teahouse is about a hundred-fifty yards through the woods, but it's rough going. She and Destin apparently planned to meet there."

  "Destin never made it," Sam said, grim.

  "No." Jack shifted, pointing up toward the house. "Beau's driving an SUV. It's parked up there. I decided to check back with you instead of sitting here waiting for him."

  "He had Alice. He must have the tape. Why take Maggie and Ellen?"

  "His ticket out of here," Jack said. "Revenge. Desperation. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I don't know how this bastard thinks."

  "The girls are a win for him no matter what happens. If we catch him, he'll think he can bargain. If we don't catch him—"

  "Jesus," Jack said. "He's going to dump them in the woods."

  Sam nodded. "That's my guess. He knows how they're dressed. He knows the conditions. He knows we're up here, hunting his ass. He'll leave them, and he'll use them as a bargaining chip."

  Jack turned the truck, blocking the road as best he could, but there was still room for an SUV to maneuver around him. He got out of the truck, sinking into six inches of fresh snow. It was still coming down, blowing in their faces out in the open. He drew the SIG, pushing away more images of Maggie and Ellen in the woods in their slippers.

  When he met Sam in front of the truck, Jack handed him the weapon. "Unless you think you'll pass out, take it."

  "I'm not passing out, but Jack—"

  "I'll shoot him, Sam. The second I see him. I won't think." He could feel the cold through his jacket. "I'm the girls' father."

  Sam took the SIG. He was in obvious pain, the light-colored scarf on his leg mostly red with blood now, but his mind was on the task at hand. His eyes narrowed, and he pointed up ahead. "Here he comes."

  A black sedan moved out from the cover of a giant spruce up near the Herrington house, Beau McGarrity at the wheel. Sam raised the SIG, pointing it at the car. His aim was steady, no sign of shakiness from pain or loss of blood. "I have a clean shot," he said. "I don't see the girls."

  "He sees you," Jack said.

  Sam didn't answer, his attention focused on what he was doing.

  The sedan slowed. Jack had no idea what was going through the man's mind. Run for it, hope Sam didn't shoot him? Charge into them? Surrender?

  Then he heard an engine gun down toward the lane. Jack swore. Alice's car. It barreled through the snow and slammed hard into the back of the sedan, knocking it sideways.

  McGarrity never saw her coming. His airbag deployed, and Jack moved in fast, Sam covering him as he tore open the driver door, disarmed McGarrity and dragged him out into the snow. He was dazed from the impact of the airbag, coughing as Jack slammed him against the car. "Where are my daughters?"

  McGarrity was covered in snow, ice in his gray hair, and he was breathing hard, panting from exertion—and fear, hatred, righteousness. Jack could see them simmering in McGarrity's blue eyes. He smirked. "They're dying."

  "You don't want to go this far, McGarrity." Jack kept his voice steady. "You don't want anything to happen to those girls because of you. Tell me where they are."

  "They won't last long enough for you to find them on your own. You need me." He coughed, his nose bleeding. Alice Parker was still in her car, probably stunned from the impact. "I'll call you when I'm free and clear. Then I'll tell you. Not one second before."

  "You might want to rethink that," Sam said, falling in behind Jack. "He's those girls' father, and he has your gun. You've already shot me today, and I have my gun. A .357 SIG Sauer pointed at your head."

  "Fuck you," McGarrity said. "You won't shoot me without provocation. You have all that Texas Ranger bullshit honor working against you. I don't. I have a passport under a new name, money in an offshore account, a reason to live."

  Alice staggered out of her car. She seemed to have trouble walking, and when she spoke, her words were slurred. "That's you, Mr. Beau. You don't do anything the easy way. I think you just like to kill people."

  She sniffled, a little hysterical, and Jack realized she was in rough shape from her ordeal. Cold, terrified, guilt-ridden. "Alice, we don't have time—"

  "I'm sorry for everything, Lieutenant Galway." She was sobbing now. "He tried to frame me. A stupid change purse my Grandma gave me—he stole it and planted it at the crime scene. I should have told you. Grandma always said I wasn't cut out for the law." She shifted back to McGarrity, her eyelids heavy, her skin chalky. "Beau, honey, you shot a Texas Ranger, and you kidnapped a Texas Ranger's daughters. You're in deep shit."

  "Fuck you," McGarrity said.

  Alice sighed, turning back to Jack. "If he's caught, anyway, he's not going to tell you where he left them. He'll let them die. It'll give him satisfaction while he sits in prison. He doesn't think like other people. Rachel and I learned that the hard way. He convinced himself we were going to kill him. That's crazy thinking."

  Sam agreed with her. "Maggie and Ellen are his trump card." He kept the SIG on McGarrity. If his leg was bothering him, no one would ever know. "Go on, Jack, before this snow covers his tracks. We don't need to waste more time trying to get him to listen to reason. I'm right in thinking you don't want to let him go and give us a call later?"

  "Hold him for the locals," Jack said. "If he blinks wrong, shoot him. I'll back you up."

  McGarrity smirked. "Alice wandered around out here for hours. Destin Wright was out here. Other hikers and snowshoers. You won't be able to tell my tracks from anyone else's—"

  "Sure, you will, Lieutenant," Alice said. "His'll be the ones with the forked tail dragging behind them."

  Beau made a move toward her, but Sam cocked his SIG. "I wouldn't, McGarrity."

  He backed off, but a muscle started working in his jaw. Jack could see he'd gotten all he was going to get from Beau McGarrity, at least for now.

  Alice walked over to Jack's borrowed truck, opened the driver door and climbed in. "I know you boys aren't going to shoot me for stealing a damn truck. Sam, I left your SUV up off the main road. I hiked in here so I wouldn't leave tire tracks. Thought I'd fall on my face and die, but I didn't." Her speech wasn't as slurred, and she sounded more energetic. "Tell Davey Ahearn I'll get him his truck back one day. And Jack—I didn't mean to hurt you the other night."

  She shut the door and started the truck, gunning the engine.

  Sam kept his eyes on McGarrity. "There are about four thousand state and local cops about to converge on this place. She's bound to run into one of them. Go on, Jack. Go after your daughters."

  He could have put a bullet in the engine and stopped Alice Parker, but he looked at the snow-covered ground, thought of Maggie and Ellen. And his wife. "Susanna—"

  Sam didn't waver. "You know damn well she and Granny have already gone after them."

  And he did, Jack thought. That he did know.

  He tucked the Heckler & Koch in the waistband at the small of his back and started through the heavy snow. He picked up Beau McGarrity's trail near the lane to the teahouse and followed it into the woods, moving fast, not daring to think beyond finding the next print, taking the next step.

  * * *

  Susanna leaned forward and forced herself to take another step. She was moving up a steep hill against the wind, the snow blowing in her face, spraying off the low-hanging branches of the evergreens that flanked the trail. The scrapes on her arm hurt. Her legs burned. She kept fighting tears and panic.

  Gran had turned back ten yards up the trail. She knew her limits, and this would kill her. "I'll help organize the search parties," she said. "I'll fill them in on what's happened." She'd grabbed Susanna's hands and squeezed them hard, her eyes knowing, frightened. "Maggie and Ellen won't last until nightfall out here. We have to find them. There's a very narrow ravine off the main trail, just over the crest of the hill. If I were looking to stash someone, or protect my
self from the brunt of the storm, that's where I'd be."

  The wind whistled in the trees, gusting hard, but Susanna was moving well, a fresh surge of adrenaline helping her pick up speed. The prints were disappearing fast in the conditions, but she could still make them out—three sets, leading up Gran's trail.

  The hill crested, and even with the limited visibility, Susanna could feel she was high above the lake. The landscape was rugged here, with huge, jagged rock formations and a sense of remoteness and isolation that made her shudder at the thought of what could happen to her daughters. Not here. She couldn't lose everything here.

  She could see Maggie and Ellen running to her as four-year-olds, jumping in bed with her and Jack, squealing with laughter as he tickled them and tossed them into the air.

  And suddenly she was twenty-two again, picking them up from their cribs and holding their warm little bodies against her.

  If Beau McGarrity still had them, he could take her. He could shoot her, hold her for ransom. She didn't care. Just let her daughters go. This wasn't their fight.

  "Bastard."

  She let her anger overcome her terror and pressed on, working her way down the other side of the hill. She kept looking for Gran's ravine amidst the boulders, ledges, rises and falls of the land alongside the trail. It descended sharply, then curved to the right, and she wondered if she'd gone too far and stopped abruptly.

  There were no prints.

  Panic welled up in her, and she looked around wildly. She pulled off her gloves and wiped her eyes with her fingertips, her hair and face dripping with melting snow.

  There.

  More tracks, off the trail to her right. They moved along the base of a rock ledge, scrubby evergreens clinging to its cracks and crevices, then disappeared around to the other side, where the land swooped sharply down, then straight back up again, creating a deep, narrow V-shaped crevasse in the hillside.

  Gran's ravine.

  Susanna almost stopped breathing. She didn't want McGarrity to know she was there. She slowly stepped off the trail, following the tracks. There were still very clearly three sets. But as she came to the end of the ledge, where the rock sloped back down toward the trail, she could see one set of tracks rejoining the trail several yards from her. They had to be McGarrity's. He must have dumped the girls and proceeded on his own.

  "Mom! Dad!" The voice was faint, exhausted, coming from the other side of the ledge, further off the trail. "Someone…"

  Ellen.

  Susanna felt a surge of adrenaline so hard, so painful it almost brought her to her knees. She pushed forward around the rock, edging along the steep, downward sloping hill, breaking through fresh snow. The wind was quiet here, blocked by the terrain. Even the snowfall was lighter. But the air was cold, and she yelled out, "Ellen! Maggie!"

  "We need help!"

  "I'm coming—"

  She saw a splash of bright green in the snow. Mag-gie's sequined slipper. Susanna gulped in a breath, stifled a gasp of panic and picked up her pace, ducking among a stand of birches as she made her way deeper into the ravine. But she lost the tracks and wondered in a moment of sheer terror if she'd only imagined Ellen's cries, Maggie's slipper.

  "Maggie! Ellen!"

  Her pole hit a rock under the snow, and she almost fell, recovering her balance before she could tumble down the steep hill. Her heart was racing, her pulse pounding in her ears. She was panting, sobbing as she continued on through the snow that had drifted up against a massive, ten-foot boulder.

  "Mom…"

  It was more a moan than a cry, and very close. Susanna burst around the boulder, immediately sinking to her knees when she saw Maggie and Ellen. "I'm here," she whispered. "I'm here. It's going to be okay."

  They were huddled in the snow at the base of the boulder, bungee-corded together at the waist. Ellen was red-faced from the cold, shivering uncontrollably, her hands tucked up in the sleeves of her rugby jersey, wearing just her slippers, no socks.

  Maggie was moaning incoherently, her skin very pale, her arms tucked in front of her, against her sister. She had on Ellen's socks.

  "I got one cord off," Ellen said through her chattering teeth. "He had it around our knees. I gave Mag my socks. Her slippers came off, but I can't…the other cords…my hands…" Her face screwed up, and she started to cry. "Mom."

  "Help's on the way," Susanna said. "Gran knew you'd be here. She'll tell the search parties. Look, she packed water and a medical kit. She's our living legend, Gran is, right?"

  She kept talking, trying to keep her daughters awake, conscious, fighting their hypothermia as she threw down her poles and pulled off her hat. Ellen grabbed it and stuck it on Maggie's head. Their clothes were soaked from the snow. Susanna got off her gloves and scarf and gave them to Ellen, then quickly peeled off the hip pack and set it against the boulder, unzipping her coat. She slipped it off and draped it over Maggie. With her thinner clothes, she was in worse condition. But Ellen would get there fast if they stayed out here much longer.

  Susanna's fleece vest came off next. She wrapped it around Ellen's shoulders. "Mom," Ellen breathed, "you'll freeze."

  "I've been hoofing it up this damn hill." She tried to smile. "I'll be fine."

  "Dad…"

  "He's coming. You know he is."

  She dug in the hip pack, saw that blood from her scraped wrist and forearm had dripped onto her palm. Her fingers were too cold, the muscles too weakened, for her to manage the bungee cord around their waist. The bastard, she thought. The fucking bastard.

  "Gran packed hot water," she said calmly. "It should still be warm…"

  She tried to get Maggie to drink a little first, but only ended up wetting her lips and tongue.

  Ellen was sobbing, hanging on to the edges of the fleece vest. Susanna saw she hadn't managed the gloves and dropped down next to her, pulling them onto Ellen's frozen hands. But she gasped, crying harder. "Mom, you're bleeding!"

  "It's okay, sweetie. I fell. I'm fine."

  "Sam—that man shot him—"

  "Sam went with your father. He's not badly injured. Ellen, we're okay, honey. Let's just get you and Maggie warm. Here, try to drink some water."

  But Ellen wasn't listening. "Went where? Mom, he has a gun. He'll shoot Daddy. He'll kill him. He'll—"

  "Ellen, this is what Dad and Sam do." Susanna spoke quietly, as reassuring and as confident as she could be. But she knew what she was saying was true. "Trust them. It'll be all right."

  She sank into the snow, gasping at the shock of cold on her back, and scooted in close to her daughters, trying to reduce their exposure to the elements. She pulled them onto her as much as she could. Maggie was limp, mumbling incoherently, but Susanna kept talking to her, kept Ellen talking as she held both girls close, trying to warm them with her own body heat. Their temperatures had dipped below 98.6 degrees. She could feel it in their bodies, feel the cold seeping deep into her own body.

  She heard a man's voice, a curse, and then Jack was there, charging up the ravine toward them.

  Susanna found she couldn't speak. He tore off his coat and threw it around Maggie and Ellen, and he sank down against the boulder, pulling them and Susanna onto him, enveloping him with his warmth.

  "He was going to shoot us." Ellen gulped in air, talking fast. "Maggie kept talking to him—she stayed calm, Dad. She didn't panic. She told him he'd be better off if he left us out here alive, because we were slowing him down and you were going to come after him. But if he didn't have us, he could negotiate if you caught him. Then he got out these cords and tied us together—" She sobbed into her father's chest, her voice muffled as she continued. "He gagged me with his scarf, but I got it off, and I got off one of the cords and—"

  She couldn't go on, and Jack carefully unknotted the last cord that bound the two girls together and tossed it aside. Susanna saw he had tears in his eyes, and she touched his cheek, the tears spilling as he kissed her fingertips.

  Twenty-Two

  When Susan
na finally collapsed onto a chair at her big oak table, Gran and Sam Temple were arguing over a monster pot of chili. Sam wanted to dump in tons of hot peppers. Gran didn't want any at all.

  Susanna knew this scene of normality was for her benefit and tried to smile through her exhaustion. The rescue crews had found them not long after Jack had arrived, and she, Maggie and Ellen were all treated and released at the local hospital. The doctors had wanted to keep Maggie overnight, but she refused. Neither she nor Ellen would suffer any permanent damage from their hypothermia and frostbite. But it was a close call. One of Susanna's cuts had required a couple of stitches. Her arm was gooed up and wrapped from wrist to elbow in bandages, and she had pain medication if she needed it.

  "Give up, Sam," she said. "They eat their chili with saltine crackers up here."

  He looked over at her from the stove, his wooden spoon poised midair. He was on painkillers, too, and had helped himself to one of Gran's walking sticks. "Saltines? No."

  Gran sniffed at Susanna. "What do you mean, 'they'?" But she turned back to Sam, resuming their argument. "Davey Ahearn eats crackers with his chili, but I wouldn't make any generalizations of northern behavior based on what he does. I simply don't like hot peppers. There's nothing anti-Texas about it."

  Sam handed her the wooden spoon and sank against the counter, his face slightly pale. He was also treated and released, but he'd driven himself to the hospital in his rented SUV, with a New York State Trooper riding shotgun with him. They all spent a long time with the state and local police. They had Beau McGarrity in their custody, arrested on a series of charges, including one count of attempted murder in the first degree for shooting Sam, two counts of attempted murder in the second degree for dumping the twins in the ravine and two counts of kidnapping in the first degree. Jack had done most of the real talking, and he'd made it clear right from the start that he'd do what he could to get Beau returned to Texas for the murder of Rachel Tucker McGarrity.

  Alice Parker and Davey Ahearn's truck still hadn't turned up.

  "The plumber's not going to be happy about his truck," Sam said.