Don't Move

by James S. Murray

  I’m the only one he can’t push over.

  “Would you please slow down!” Emma demanded.

  “No.”

  “Ryan!” she wheezed.

  He skidded to a stop by a small stream. “Babe, he ain’t getting out of this one, no matter your history with him.”

  Emma rolled her eyes. “Don’t be an idiot all your life, Ryan. Are you seriously jealous?”

  “Jealous? Of that third-rate pimp? Get real.”

  “You’re behaving like a jerk,” Emma replied harshly. “You don’t even know what we’re running into.”

  Ryan scanned the woodland in the direction of the camp. The shack was on the right, in dim light under a dense canopy. He recognized the spot where he had seen the family last.

  But the place was deserted.

  “Jim?” he bellowed. “Maryann? Connor?”

  No reply.

  Ryan listened intently. Nothing moved except the thick undergrowth of bayberry and sumac rustling gently in the breeze.

  Emma caught up and rested with her hands propped on her knees. Sweat dripped down her face. In hindsight, he was happy she had come along rather than staying with her father and Megan. He only hoped the rangers would get there before Vargas tried another dangerous move.

  “Guys,” he shouted. “It’s Ryan and Emma. Where are you?”

  Again no one replied.

  “Anyone?” Ryan shouted. “Connor, where are you?”

  “What’s that?” Emma wheezed, scanning the ground.

  He followed her eyes to a clump of ferns stippled with thick brown flecks. Moving toward them, he realized that he was staring at spattered blood.

  I knew it.

  Emma staggered backward. “R-Ryan . . .” she stammered. “We’d better go back. Let the right people deal with this.”

  “Wait . . .”

  Ryan examined the ferns. A small area lay flat. He swiped the tall, dense fronds out of the way to see what had flattened them.

  A black leather jacket lay bunched on the ground—the same jacket Vargas had worn until he returned to the campsite with his bullshit story.

  Ryan felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. He grabbed the jacket’s collar and raised it into the air. The back was caked with dried blood.

  “Is that . . .” Emma gasped.

  “I told you, Vargas is guilty as all hell! This proves it.”

  “We . . . we don’t know what it proves, Ryan.”

  Ryan bit his lip lest he say something he might regret. The anger welled inside him. He still had no clue to Vargas’s real motives for coming on this trip, but murdering a good man for no apparent reason? Sure, Ricky Vargas was a dishonest creep. But this?

  He peered around the undergrowth, searching for Paul DeLuca’s body. It must be close by. He dreaded the thought of finding the bloody remains.

  But there was nothing beyond a few blood-spattered ferns.

  Ryan walked around the immediate area, searching every inch and seething over the lies Vargas had tried to sell last night.

  “Keep your cool, Ryan,” Emma said. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  “You mean like murdering DeLuca? I’m far from cool, babe.”

  “Forest rangers are on their way. We’ll figure it all out then.”

  “And what if Ricky doesn’t wait until then to attack your dad? Or Megan? Or you?”

  Her eyes widened. “Ricky wouldn’t do anything like . . .”

  Ryan lifted the bloodstained jacket into the air. “You sure about that?”

  She turned back in the direction they had come from.

  “I’m not waiting for the rangers,” Ryan said, tucking the jacket under his arm. “I’m putting a stop to this right now.”

  With that, he set off back toward the group at a fast jog. Now he had a legitimate reason to beat the living daylights out of Vargas.

  As they approached to within shouting distance and he spotted the figures between the trees, Ryan slowed to a walk. Vargas was sitting against a tree trunk, smoking a cigarette. Megan and Rizzo stood close to him, talking about something.

  The adrenaline racing through Ryan’s body gave him all the energy and strength he needed to take down this asshole. He hefted the stick in his free hand.

  He would circle around behind them, sneak up, and smash the back of that thick skull.

  He won’t see me coming.

  Emma caught up with him. She leaned against a tree trunk to catch her breath. He hated that Vargas had put her in a situation like this. And he had put her father in the same situation.

  “Ryan, please, don’t walk in swinging.”

  “And what if he has a knife on him? This stops now.”

  “You’re putting everyone at risk doing this,” Emma said. “Let’s leave the jacket here. We’ll go back and play dumb until the cavalry arrives.”

  “That’s not gonna work. He isn’t stupid.”

  In the distance, Ryan saw Vargas tilt his head skyward and puff out a stream of smoke. How could he act so casual?

  Ryan gave Emma a stern glance, then headed off at an oblique angle to Rizzo, Megan, and Vargas. He stepped softly and carefully, not wanting to startle a deer or flush up a grouse and give himself away. Every few paces, he glanced over at the group. They seemed oblivious.

  When he was sure he had passed them undetected, Ryan turned. Then he dropped to his knees, keeping the stick in his right hand, and crawled through the undergrowth toward his prey.

  He ignored the dew drenching his cargo pants, the flick of a wet fern in his face, the sharp stone pressing into his left hand.

  Only two things were important right now: revenge and justice. Delivered by him. Swift and brutal.

  Vargas would have years to spend in a prison cell regretting the day he crossed Ryan Andrews.

  Chapter

  Seventeen

  Megan stared into the clear blue sky, listening for the beat of a Forest Service helicopter. It was probably too soon. Wishful thinking on her part, but it was about all she could do right now.

  First DeLuca went missing, and now that scream from the forest. What the hell was happening?

  The scream had brought her fully alert, despite the lack of sleep. Her best guess was that Connor had rolled his ankle. Ryan would help him back here, saving Jim and Maryann the struggle of carrying him through the woods.

  But that didn’t answer the DeLuca question.

  In her time, she had dealt with hundreds of bluffers from all walks of life. She could spot them from a mile away. Vargas wasn’t bluffing. He believed his own words. Whether the unlikely story turned out to be true was another question. For now, she just wanted to get back on the road to New York. With DeLuca driving.

  “You watch, Pastor,” Vargas said to Rizzo. “They’ll come back and blame me for whatever is going on now.”

  “Don’t be so cynical, Richard,” Rizzo replied. “You know Emma. She doesn’t jump to conclusions.”

  “Her douche of a boyfriend does.”

  Rizzo gave him a faint smile. “He is . . . impetuous.”

  “Precisely what I said,” Ricky replied. “A douche. She’s too good for him.”

  “Emma can be the judge of that.”

  Vargas squinted as he took another drag from his cigarette. The smoke drifted away on the breeze. He stared directly past Megan in the direction of the bus. His pensive look raised a few questions in her mind.

  Although Megan believed him, working out his motivation was an impossible conundrum. It was clear to her that he loathed and distrusted the outdoors. It was like an alien planet to him. He had no good reason to be here and had never offered one. And even after his supposed incident last night, and the terrifying scream they just heard, Ricky still seemed suspiciously preoccupied with other things.

  Li
ttle by little, she could feel her old self clicking back into action as she studied Vargas. Her skill at piecing together complex puzzles, her ability to analyze events and assign probabilities. Everything pointed to his guilt.

  And yet . . .

  Behind the tree that Vargas leaned against, some tall ferns moved, pulling Megan from her thoughts. She peered into the gloom.

  Then, closer, a sapling trembled. Something was coming directly at Vargas.

  Rizzo hadn’t noticed. He gazed down at the sat phone, waiting for a response.

  Whatever it was moved closer still.

  Megan squeezed her pocketknife. She shuddered. Human or animal, she expected a fight.

  Just as she opened her mouth to shout a warning, Ryan’s head rose above the ferns. Crouched only a few paces from the small clearing, he put a finger to his lips, then raised a hefty stick in his right hand. More of a club, actually.

  Was he going to attack Vargas? What did he find?

  She couldn’t ask him outright. It would blow his cover. Then again, she had seen the animosity between the two men, and she refused to stand by and watch the trip descend into violence when the guide was already missing and the Johnson family was nowhere to be seen.

  “Ricky,” she said. “Can you come here for a minute?”

  “What for?”

  “I need help with something.”

  Vargas let out a heavy sigh. He flicked his cigarette to the side, then walked over to her. Behind him, Ryan had bobbed back down into the ferns.

  She needed to manage this situation now, before it spiraled any further.

  “What does a woman like you need from a guy like me?” Vargas asked.

  Megan ignored the question and peered beyond him at the forest. “Hey, Ryan, is that you?”

  Vargas and Rizzo both looked between the trees.

  Ryan rose to his feet, holding a makeshift club in one hand and a black leather jacket in the other. His cover blown, he glared at Megan as he stepped into the clearing. Then he threw the jacket down by Vargas’s boots. “Care to explain that?” he snapped.

  Ricky eyed the club in Ryan’s hand. “Care to explain that?”

  “Answer the question, asshole,” Ryan shot back, raising the stick menacingly. “Why did we find your leather jacket hidden in the forest, covered in blood?”

  Vargas looked at Pastor Rizzo, whose face was now full of fear. “I tried to tell you earlier, Pastor,” Vargas said. “I dumped it last night after DeLuca disappeared.”

  Ryan strode toward him, club in hand. “It’s got bloodstains all over it, Ricky! What did you do to him?”

  “Man, I didn’t do nothing,” Vargas replied. “That blood is on the back of my jacket. Something sprayed me. I turned, and DeLuca was gone. Like I told you. I threw it away when I was escaping.”

  “You are so full of shit.”

  “It’s the truth, I’m telling you all!”

  Megan could see that Ryan was ready to swing. His chest heaved. He stared at Vargas like a heavyweight contender at weigh-in, his intent clear.

  “Out of the way, Megan,” Ryan demanded. “He’s not doing the same to us.”

  Rizzo, reliably kindhearted but ineffective, moved to Vargas’s side. “You’ve got to admit, Richard, this doesn’t look right.”

  “It looked even worse yesterday evening.”

  Emma entered the clearing and stood by her boyfriend’s side. “Ricky,” she said, “if you’ve done anything stupid, now is the time to tell us.”

  “Think about it, Emma. What reason do I have for ghosting DeLuca, returning to camp, then showing you where it all happened?”

  “To make yourself look innocent,” Ryan said. “You’re staying right here until the rangers show up. You so much as move an inch, and I’m taking you down. And you will not be getting back up.”

  Megan didn’t sense danger from Vargas, but a hint of desperation crept over his face. His eyes darted between Ryan and the direction of the bus. She thought he was going to run at any moment. Had he fooled her after all?

  “He’s right, Richard,” Rizzo added. “We wait here until the Forest Service arrives to help. But in the meantime, let’s put that weapon down, Ryan.”

  Rizzo walked over to Ryan and reached for the club.

  Ryan drew it away from him. “I respect you, Pastor. But the game has changed.”

  “Okay, I get that. Just stay calm, please. Now, did you find Jim, Maryann, or Connor?”

  “No, Dad,” Emma replied. “I thought they’d be back here by now.”

  Vargas grunted. “Suppose you reckon I killed them too.”

  “I’ll bet a million bucks you’re responsible for them going missing as well,” Ryan shot back.

  “Yeah, bro,” Vargas replied. “I killed them while hiking through the woods a hundred yards ahead of them.” He gave his head a weary shake. “We’ll be safe only when we’re out of this damned forest.”

  “We’ll be safe when you’re behind bars,” Ryan growled.

  Megan pitied Pastor Rizzo. The sweat beading on his brow seemed a lot for just light exertion in the mild morning air. His sunken eyelids and slumped posture made him look like a sick man. He was clearly not equipped to handle this baffling situation.

  It wasn’t worth questioning him at this point. They all had enough to deal with, and Rizzo clearly didn’t want to discuss his health problems.

  The sat phone chirped to life.

  All eyes went to the pastor.

  “Pastor Dwayne Rizzo’s group,” a crackly voice said through the speaker. “This is the Monongahela Forest Service chopper. Are you there?”

  “Hearing you loud and clear,” Rizzo replied with undisguised relief.

  “We’re approaching Davies Canyon. What’s your current location?”

  “About halfway between the mountain and the road. We’re in a small clearing.”

  “You said you parked your bus at the end of the road?”

  “Yep. It’s only a couple of miles from the campsite. Close to the river.”

  “The river?”

  “That’s what I said. You can’t miss us.”

  “Pastor, the river doesn’t pass through the canyon.”

  Rizzo’s smile dropped. “I don’t . . . I don’t understand.”

  “We’re above the road now. Um, there’s no bus here.”

  “It has to be there,” Rizzo insisted. “Unless it’s been stolen.”

  “Do you hear or see the chopper?”

  Rizzo looked skyward. Megan lifted her head, already knowing the answer.

  The sky was clear. The forest was silent.

  “Uh, no. No, we don’t,” Rizzo stammered.

  “Pastor, are you sure you’re in Davies Canyon?”

  Chapter

  Eighteen

  The rising sun shone directly in Vargas’s face. He shielded his brow, keeping a close eye on Ryan.

  This punk could go off like a volcano at any moment.

  That wasn’t his biggest problem, though. He could easily take the guy. What he couldn’t take was the other thing coming his way if he didn’t do something.

  With the Forest Service closing in by road and air, four people missing, and him as a person of interest, it would bring too much heat.

  Vargas toyed with the idea of running. He doubted any of these losers would catch him before he reached the bus. One of his memorized landmarks was only a few hundred yards through the woods, meaning he could get back from here without getting lost.

  But then what?

  Fleeing would make him look guilty. At least two people here would point the finger at him for a crime he never committed.

  Then I’d have to hitch a ride as a wanted man.

  Every option in his mind carried big risk. The saving grace was that DeLuca appeared to hav
e led the group to a different part of the forest—not Davies Canyon. That meant a delay in locating the group. But for how long? He had no idea, but it gave him some breathing space to think things through.

  Rizzo hunched in the center of the clearing, slowly turning while gripping the sat phone. He had the expression of a puppy dog, silently pleading with everyone to stay peaceful until help arrived.

  Ryan and Emma were whispering, glancing over at Vargas every few seconds. Those two were damn sure not deciding his fate. If she had her head screwed on right, she’d tell the mechanic that they were finished.

  The only one who looked calm was Megan. She stood beside Vargas, staring up in thought. If anyone here could work out what the hell had happened, he supposed it was her. She was the only one smart enough to realize he wasn’t lying—at least, not about yesterday evening.

  A faint buzz filled the air.

  Vargas tensed.

  So much for space to think.

  “It’s the helicopter!” Emma blurted.

  “Thank God,” Pastor Rizzo said, pressing the transmitter on the sat phone. “Forest Service, we hear you approaching! You must be close!”

  “Ten-four. We’re on the lookout for you.”

  Ryan wrapped his arm around Emma. “Not long now, baby.”

  All eyes looked toward the clear cobalt sky.

  Vargas peered up, though an alarm went off in his head.

  The thrumming sound grew louder, closer, though nothing appeared overhead.

  Rizzo peeled off his jacket and waved it in the air. He walked around the edge of the clearing, ducking in and out of trees. Vargas wondered whether that would make a difference. He hoped not. Any airlift out of here would take him straight in for questioning.

  Last chance to make a break for it . . .

  Megan edged toward him, interrupting his train of thought. “That doesn’t sound like a helicopter to me.”

  Vargas saw the concern on her face. He focused on the building sound.

  Then it hit him.

  The breeze, carrying the sound from a greater distance than last night, had distorted the constant rhythm. It was the same eerie cadence from before.