Danger on Dakota Ridge

by Cindi Myers

  “I thought I heard someone over there.” He nodded toward the fence that marked the boundary of CNG’s property.

  They stood still, listening. After a long moment, Paige shook her head. “I didn’t hear anything. It was probably just a bird or a deer or something.”

  “You’re right.” He took his hand from the gun, but kept his palm against her back. “As beautiful as it is up here, it spooks me.”

  “Me, too. And that makes me even angrier. Whoever fired those shots took away my peace of mind in the wilderness.”

  “The way to regain that peace is to fight back,” he said.

  “Yes. And that’s exactly what I intend to do.” She quickened her pace as they passed the place where the shots had been fired, but she couldn’t resist the urge to look in that direction. There was nothing to see but an opening in the trees and part of the fence.

  Rob put a hand on her back again. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. The warm, firm weight of his touch told her he had faith in her to fight through this—and that he would be fighting with her. “I should have brought the bolt cutters and hacksaw with me,” she said, her tone teasing. “Would you have to arrest me if I cut off the lock?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I might have to place you in my personal custody.”

  “You might have to handcuff me to keep me from escaping.”

  “I might have to,” he said. “And do a thorough search to make sure you aren’t carrying any weapons.”

  The slope they were climbing had little to do with her heavy breathing now. She hoped the press conference was short. She would suggest they go back to Rob’s hotel room and try out some of his ideas.

  He must have had the same idea, because he began to walk faster, and she hurried to keep up. They topped a rise and she could see the gate—and the section of trail where the gate wasn’t supposed to be. The heavy iron structure was still in place, blocking the way, with heavy barbed wire preventing anyone from getting around it.

  She stopped and swore.

  “When did Reed say he was going to remove it?” Rob asked.

  “Right away, I thought,” she said. “Just wait until I see him. I’m going to give him a piece of my mind about this. And I’ll make sure every reporter at this press conference hears. If he expects my support for this project, then he needs to keep his promises. He can’t restrict public access to a historic trail. This hiking trail has been in use for over a hundred years. The easement transfers with the title and all his money and power can’t make it go away. When I finish with him—”

  She stopped, aware of Rob’s calm gaze on her. He looked as if he was trying very hard not to smile. “What?” she demanded. “What’s so funny?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing’s funny. I just love how you’re so passionate.”

  Warmth spread through her body as she remembered how he had brought out another kind of passion in her—one she had kept in check for too many years. Had he deliberately chosen that word to distract her? “At least you didn’t tell me I’m cute when I’m angry,” she said.

  “No, not cute,” he said. “Beautiful, and more than a little intimidating—but not ‘cute.’”

  He shuddered, and she couldn’t help but laugh. She took his hand. “Come on. Let’s get over to the press conference.”

  On the way back down the trail, she stopped again at the opening where she had looked in and seen the two men with the crate. “While I’m holding Reed’s feet to the fire,” she said, “I’m going to ask him to walk back here with me and look for that opening where the two men I saw stowed the crate. He says he has nothing to hide—let him prove it.”

  “He’s not going to know what hit him,” Rob said.

  “By the time I’m done,” she said. “I have a feeling Bryce Reed is going to wish he hadn’t invited me today.”

  They returned to the car and, after she unlocked it, stashed their packs in the back once more. Instead of then going to the passenger door, however, Rob took a slow walk around the vehicle, studying it carefully.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Making sure no one’s tampered with it while we were gone.” His eyes met hers over the top of the car, and his grave expression sent a shiver down her spine. “Just being careful.”

  “Do you see anything?” she asked.

  He opened the passenger door. “No. I think we’re fine.”

  Her heart sped up when she turned the key in the ignition, movie scenes of exploding cars replaying in her brain. But the engine turned over smoothly and she backed out of the parking space without incident.

  The gates to the resort compound were open. The first thing she noticed was that the fading sign advertising the resort had been replaced with a new placard that proclaimed this was the Future Home of Dakota Ridge Research and Development, a project of CNG Development.

  The second thing she noticed was that hers was the only car in sight. “Where is everybody?” she asked. She checked the time. Nine forty-five. “The press conference is supposed to start at ten. I would think at least some people would be here by now. Reed, at least, should be here.”

  “Let’s take a look around,” Rob said. “But do me a favor and drive back out and park on the shoulder of the road.”

  “Why?” she asked, even as she turned the car around.

  “If someone comes along and closes that gate, you don’t want to be stuck in here.”

  She stared at him. “Do you always think in terms of worst-case scenarios?”

  “It’s part of my training.”

  She parked on the shoulder, facing toward town, and they both got out and walked back up to CNG’s property, and through the open gates. Their footsteps sounded overly loud on the gravel, and louder still as they crunched over a carpet of dried leaves that had settled in a low spot where the asphalt had worn away from what had once been the main street of the resort.

  She zipped up her jacket and fought off a chill. “Maybe I got the time wrong,” she said. “Maybe it’s supposed to be at noon instead of ten. Though I could have sworn Reed said ten.”

  “The gate’s open,” Rob said. “Someone’s been up here.”

  “Then where are they now?” She stopped and scanned the empty streets and abandoned buildings. Empty landscapes usually didn’t upset her. Deserted forests and vacant mountaintops usually made her feel surrounded by peace. But this ghost town, where people had tried and failed to make their mark, creeped her out right down to her toes.

  Rob took her arm, breaking the eerie spell. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go find out where everyone is.”

  * * *

  “THIS PRESS CONFERENCE will be the perfect opportunity for us to visit CNG’s Dakota Ridge property with no worries about trespassing.” Professor Gibson wore an excited expression that made him look years younger than the eightysomething he would admit to. “As much as I appreciate you doing the legwork so far, I’m determined to see the place for myself.”

  “I doubt they’re going to let people wander anywhere they please,” Parker said. “And maybe they’re only going to let in people they’ve invited. Paige said Bryce Reed from CNG called to invite her.”

  “My guess is there will be a lot of people there,” the professor said. “You can’t keep something like this quiet in a small town. Everyone in the county who can make the time will be there to see what’s so special it has to be protected with a big iron gate and razor wire. They won’t be able to keep track of all of us. Besides, I intend to question this CNG executive—Reed—to try to determine how much he knows about local history. It could be his bunch has already located the secret lab and is keeping the find to themselves.”

  “If they’re doing that, they won’t tell you about it,” Parker said.

  “You might be surprised how persuasive I can be in my ‘teacher’ guis
e,” Gibson said. “Most people are conditioned from a young age to obey that voice of authority. It’s a very hard habit to break.”

  Parker wasn’t buying it, but he kept quiet about it. The professor did have an uncanny way of getting things done. “Paige said the press conference is at ten,” he said. “What time do you want to leave?”

  “I want to get there a few minutes early,” Gibson said. “I can introduce myself to Mr. Reed and talk to him while you have a look around. You still have the map I gave you?”

  “Yes, sir.” Parker grinned. He might have guessed the old man intended for him to do his dirty work. Which was fine by Parker. Working with the professor was way more exciting than delivering pizza or writing English papers.

  “We’ll take my car.” Gibson handed Parker the keys to the late-model Nissan. “You drive. And park on the road—not on the property itself. I would rather walk than get caught in the press of people leaving.”

  “Okay.” Parking on the road was better if they needed to make a quick getaway, too.

  “I’ve uncovered some new material on how Russia tested tularemia as a weapon of mass destruction in some very remote populations on the steppes,” Gibson said. “Fascinating stuff.”

  For the rest of the drive out of town and up toward Dakota Ridge, the professor retold the tales of Russian experimentation, which were both fascinating and horrifying.

  “The US didn’t do anything like that, did they?” Parker asked.

  “Not that I have been able to determine,” Gibson said. “Of course, the work they were doing in Rayford County lasted less than a decade. I think by the end, they had determined that tularemia wasn’t as effective a method of infecting a large number of people as things like anthrax or Q fever.”

  “Not with the antibiotics we have today, right?” Parker asked.

  “Antibiotics don’t do any good if you don’t administer them,” Gibson said. “In remote areas, or on particularly vulnerable populations, I imagine it would still be quite harmful.”

  They fell silent for the rest of the drive, Parker remembering the last time he had been up here—the day he had watched a helicopter land and a mysterious tall man in a suit and two men in camo emerge. He hadn’t told the professor about that yet. Partly because he didn’t want to upset the old man, and partly because he worried Gibson would call off the search for the lab just when they were so close to finding it.

  “I had expected more traffic coming up here,” Gibson said, as they passed the turnout for the hiking trail and climbed toward the entrance to CNG’s property. “Park anywhere in here.” He motioned to the side of the road.

  Parker swung the car around so that it faced back toward town, and parked on the shoulder. He got out and waited while the professor unfolded himself from the seat and stood. Then he locked the vehicle and pocketed the keys. He figured he would be driving back, so he might as well keep them.

  They walked up the road a short distance and turned in at the entrance to the property. The professor stopped first, staring at the big iron gate, which was pulled over the drive and locked with a large padlock. Parker stared at the lock, then shifted his eyes to a piece of paper affixed to the gate with duct tape.

  The professor moved toward the paper, and Parker followed. The note, written on what looked like a plain 8½-by-11-inch piece of copy paper, was neatly typed, and read, “Today’s press conference has been canceled. It will be rescheduled for a later date. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

  That was it—no explanation and no signature. The professor pushed back the sleeve of his jacket and checked his watch—a big, old-fashioned nickel-colored one with an expandable metal band. “It is almost exactly ten o’clock,” he said.

  “There must have been other people who didn’t get word about the cancellation,” Parker said. “Where are they?”

  “I don’t know.” The professor tugged at the gate. It didn’t move. He looked at the fence on either side, which had wicked curls of razor wire along the top. Prison wire, Parker thought, then pushed the thought aside.

  “Did you say there’s another way in?” the professor asked.

  “There is, but you have to climb a tree. It’s pretty rough going.”

  Gibson took Parker’s arm. “Show me. And don’t look at me as if I’ve lost what mind I have left. I was quite the athlete in my day. I think I can handle a tree. And I didn’t come this far not to get a look at this place.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I feel like an extra in some B-grade horror movie,” Rob said, as he and Paige made their way down the deserted streets. He stared hard at the few remaining buildings. “I keep expecting a badly made-up zombie to lurch out at us.”

  “You’re not helping,” she said, and took his arm. “Maybe we should leave. Obviously, no one is here.”

  “Someone is here,” Rob said.

  “What makes you say that?”

  He shrugged. “It’s like when you’re in a room in the dark—you can tell someone else is there because the air is different.”

  She looked at him as if he had grown an extra head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Maybe it’s a cop thing.”

  “Or maybe you’re paranoid.”

  “Maybe that, too.”

  She inhaled slowly and straightened her shoulders. “If someone else is here, that means they’re watching us,” she said. “So I really think we should leave.”

  “We’ll leave in a little bit,” he said. “But something is going on here, and I’d like to find out what.”

  She nodded. “Yeah. I would, too. But I’d like to do it without getting shot at this time.”

  “Me, too.” He took her arm and pulled her closer. “We’ll just look around a little more. If we don’t find anything, we’ll leave. Why don’t we try to find that entrance you saw to that underground chamber?”

  This idea apparently intrigued her enough to set aside her fear. “It’s nearer the fence,” she said. “Do you remember where I showed you?”

  “I think so.” He led the way across a crumbling foundation, rusting rebar jutting up from the concrete, weeds sprouting in cracks. They both jumped when a chipmunk darted in front of them.

  Paige gave a nervous laugh. “Maybe that was a zombie squirrel,” she said.

  “Can’t be,” Rob said. “He wasn’t badly dressed.”

  They relaxed a little after that. Moving into the woods, out of the open, helped, he thought. He didn’t feel so exposed in the shelter of the trees. They moved slowly, studying the ground for any sign of a trapdoor or grate, or any access to an underground chamber.

  “I know I didn’t imagine those two men disappearing into the ground with that crate,” Paige said, frustration tightening her voice. “I’m sure it was right around here. I can see the fence where I was standing.” She gestured toward the iron bars, and the small opening in the trees on the other side.

  “They would have hidden it well,” Rob said. “Let’s keep looking.”

  He moved forward a few more steps, scanning the ground. Behind him, Paige let out a cry. “Rob. Come here!”

  When he joined her, she was kneeling in the dirt and leaves, tugging at what he thought at first was a tree root. “I think this is the handle to the trapdoor,” she said. “I remember now one of the men lifted a door out of the way before he climbed down into the hole.”

  Rob dropped to his knees beside her and together they raked back dirt and leaves to reveal a square piece of rusty steel, with a metal handle attached. He stood and helped Paige to her feet, then took hold of the handle and tugged. “Uh.” He let out a grunt. “It’s heavy.”

  “Let me help.” She wedged her fingers next to his and together they hauled back on the door. With a groan of metal on metal, it shifted, and they managed to drag it aside.

  They leaned over
and stared down into a black opening. Cool air hit Rob in the face, bringing the scents of damp earth and rusting metal. He pulled his phone from his pocket and switched on the flashlight app, then shone the beam into the opening, illuminating an iron-runged ladder affixed to wooden timbers sunk into the earth. But the darkness beyond quickly swallowed up the light.

  “I think it might be an old mine shaft,” he said.

  “Just down in the ground like this?” she asked. “Don’t they usually have some kind of structure over them?”

  “Maybe there was one, but it was torn down,” he said. “Or the main entrance is somewhere else and this is just a side tunnel someone decided to access. The ladder looks new.” He leaned over, trying to see into the darkness. “I wonder what’s down there.”

  Paige took a step back. “I’m not going to go check.”

  “No.” He pocketed the phone again. “Maybe we can get a warrant and come out here with a team.” Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to conceal this place, and he wanted to know why. And he wanted to find out what those two men had been hiding down there that had been so important they had tried more than once to kill Paige. “I’d like—”

  But he never finished his sentence, as the rapid tattoo of gunfire echoed off the ridge. Men’s voices shouted, and branches popped and the ground rumbled with the pounding of running feet.

  “We have to get out of here before they see us,” Paige said.

  But it was already too late for that. A man in forest camo emerged from the woods and raised a rifle to his shoulder. Rob shoved Paige hard toward the opening in the ground. “Get down there,” he said.

  He was prepared to force her out of the range of gunfire if he had to, but she didn’t argue, merely descended the ladder. Rob dropped in after her, as bullets struck the dirt near his head. At the last minute, he reached up and, strengthened by fear and dire need, dragged the trapdoor back into place.

  “What do we do now?” Paige’s voice trembled as it came to him in the utter darkness.