After we traveled for another hour or so, the narrow valley began to spread out and the trees started to thin. We stayed in the denser trees for cover.
We trudged on another half an hour before Mason stopped and looked around. “Let me get our bearings and make sure we’re headed in the right direction.”
I squatted and leaned over my legs, trying to stifle my disappointment over the thought that we might be going the wrong way. But we were following the valley and I doubted it pointed to true north. It was inevitable that we would be slightly off course.
After a few moments, he squatted next to me and brushed a few stray hairs out of my eyes.
“How bad is it?” I asked.
“We’re actually we’re heading slightly northeast. Not bad at all.” He paused. “Do you want to take a break?”
“Just a few more minutes.”
We didn’t talk, but it was a comfortable silence. We drank the bottle of melted snow, then I stood and reached down to give Mason a boost. When he grabbed my hand, my head started to tingle and my peripheral vision faded to black.
It was dark all around me, and I could hear heavy panting, which I quickly realized was my own. My hands were bound behind my back and a searing pain was shooting through my right ankle and up my leg.
I heard Daniel Crocker’s voice. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this, Rose.”
A woman’s scream shot through my head.
The vision faded and I staggered as I said, “He’s gonna catch us.”
Mason grabbed my elbow to help me remain upright. “Did you just have a vision?”
I nodded, still in shock.
“What did you see?”
I shook my head, unable to find the words.
His grip tightened as panic filled his eyes. “Rose!”
I swallowed, my body shaking. “You were in the dark, and your hands were tied behind your back.” I fought to take a breath, squatting again to fight the feeling of lightheadedness.
Mason sank down next to me. “What else?”
“I heard Daniel Crocker’s voice. He was talking to me, and then I heard a scream.”
“What did he say?”
I closed my eyes, trying to get the sound of the scream out of my head. “He’d been waiting for a long time for this.” I swallowed. “And he called me by name.”
Mason stood and jogged several feet into the valley, spinning around as he took in the terrain. “Do you know where we were?”
“No.” My tears won and slid down my cheeks. “It was dark.”
“Was I sitting or standing?”
“Sitting. Your back was against a wall.”
“Was the floor wood? Carpet? Dirt?”
I shook my head, crying harder. “I don’t know.”
He knelt in front of me and took my hands. “Yes, you do. Just think about it.”
I focused on what I’d felt in my vision. “It was hard. I think it was wood. And the room had strange smell. Like fish and animals.”
He nodded. “That’s good. Anything else?”
“It was a small space. There was light at the bottom of a door. I think you were shut in a closet.” I shook my head and stood. “That doesn’t tell us anything.” I glanced at the bag slung over his shoulder. “I want to start carrying a gun again.”
A war of emotions waged on his face.
“A handgun, not a rifle.”
Mason watched me for several seconds before sliding the bag down his arm and digging out one of the handguns. He reminded me how to load it and click the safety on and off. He held onto my hand as I grabbed the weapon from him. “Promise me that if you point it at Crocker or his men, you’ll do it with the intent to use it. Otherwise it might get you killed.”
I tugged without answering.
“Rose.”
I looked up into his eyes. “I used it last time, Mason.”
He studied my face. “You shot him in the leg. This time you have to shoot to stop him. You have to shoot to kill.”
I still had to wonder if I could purposely shoot someone. But if backed into a corner, I hoped I’d do what needed to be done. “Okay.”
He released his hold and I double checked the safety before tucking the gun into the waistband at the small of my back.
Mason watched me with wary eyes before snagging my hand. “Let’s keep going.”
My fingers tightened over his. The feel of the cold gun against my skin made me feel better, which I found shocking. I had been a different person when I shot Daniel Crocker. Though it had happened less than six months ago, I felt years older than the girl who had naïvely convinced a hardened criminal to drag her upstairs. Would I have done the same thing today? I knew I would, but I’d be so much more aware of the dangers now. My fears had been so shallow before I began to truly experience life and all its great joys and disappointments.
My world had been so much smaller.
There had been so much less to lose.
Chapter Twenty-Four
We were both exhausted and weak from hunger, but my vision had spooked us enough to pick up a faster pace. The land flattened for a while before it began to climb again, which made our trek easier. By late morning, we took a break next to a creek and drank more water.
“I think we’ve traveled at least four or five miles,” Mason said, leaning his back against a tree.
I looked up. “So we’re getting closer to Moore County.”
“Yeah. I think we could be there in another few hours. Sooner if we could find more flat patches. Or a house.”
I breathed out a sigh of relief. “I’ve lived here all my life, and I never realized you could get so lost in the woods of northern Fenton County.”
“Like I mentioned, that’s why the meth lab operators hide out here.”
I shivered. We had a big enough enemy without throwing another one into the mix. “Let’s get going.”
The sun shone brightly overhead, which was a double-edged sword. While I was warmer than I’d been the day before, the thin layer of snow was beginning to melt, making our footing slippery in places and leaving muddy footprints behind us.
The terrain quickly became hilly again. The denser sections were easier to traverse since they had seen lighter snowfall, but the ground was wet no matter where we went and we kept losing our footing. We crossed the top of another hill, facing another steep climb down. I leaned over my knees. “Let me take a moment to catch my breath.”
“Sure.” Mason put his hands on his hips and walked along the ridge. “I think it will be easier to climb down over there.” He was pointing to our right when the ground underneath him collapsed, taking him with it.
“Mason!” I ran over to the edge, terrified as I watched him tumble down the thirty-foot embankment and land at a heap at the bottom.
“Mason!” Trying to control my sobs of panic, I scrambled down the hill, falling onto my butt and sliding the rest of the way. “Mason!”
He lay unmoving on his side, and my heart leapt into my throat as I reached for him with shaky hands, leaning over his shoulder to look at his face. “Mason, talk to me.” Blood from a cut on his forehead covered his face, and his right cheek had already begun to swell.
His eyes blinked open and his face contorted in pain.
“Can you get up?”
“Give me a second.” He closed his eyes for several moments and I suddenly worried he might have a concussion. His eyes opened again. “I might need your help. I think I bruised some ribs.”
My breath stuck in my chest, my worry deepening. “Okay.”
I reached my arm around his shoulders and gently helped him into a sitting position. He released a cry of pain, breathing rapidly and scrunching his eyes shut. “Give me a minute.” His clothes and exposed skin were covered in mud and leaves.
I pulled a leaf off his hand. “You look pretty banged up. Let me check you over.”
He cracked a grin. “In a different context, I’d like the sound of that.”
&
nbsp; I smiled despite my tears. “You’ve got a nasty cut on your forehead.” Blood was trailing from his cheek to his neck. “We have to stop the bleeding.” I looked around for something to press on his wound, but we were surrounded by mud and dried leaves. The blankets were still in Mason’s bag, but they had to be germ-infested. I stripped off my jacket and pulled my T-shirt over my head. The hairs on my arms stood on end when the cold air hit my bare skin.
“Rose, what are you doing?”
I folded up the shirt and pressed it to his forehead. “Can you hold this in place?”
He reached up and winced.
I picked up my jacket and shoved my arms in the sleeves, buttoning it up. “Where else do you hurt?”
He paused before looking into my face. “I think I might have broken my right leg.”
“Let me see.” His two legs were stretched out in front of him and I gently tugged on the hem of his jeans.
Mason groaned.
“I’m sorry,” I said through my tears. He didn’t answer, so I kept pulling, lifting the jeans high enough to see that his lower calf was already swollen and purple with bruising. I struggled to keep my tears in check. How would we get out of here?
Mason grabbed my hand. “Rose, listen to me. You need to keep going without me.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “No.”
“We’re so close,” he said. “If you just keep going in this direction, I think you’ll end up on Moore County Road HH. You can flag down someone who can help us both.”
“No.” I shook my head, getting angry. “I’m not leaving you, Mason.”
He paused. “I don’t think I can walk.”
“Then I’ll help you.”
His grip on my hand tightened and he winced at the movement. “Rose, you have to go. If you stay with me, there’s a good chance your vision will come true. I won’t be able to walk fast enough to keep us away from Crocker and his men. But if you go, you can get help.”
I started to cry harder, panic swamping my head. “I can’t, Mason. What if I get lost? What if I forget where you are? What if Crocker finds you first?” There was no way I could walk away and leave him here. I sat down next to him and crossed my legs.
“What are you doing?”
“Waiting for you to try to get up.”
“I told you that I can’t walk.”
“You haven’t even tried, Mason. We agreed we were in this together. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Rose.”
I just stared at him in silence. We stayed that way for several moments before he groaned. “Where’s my rifle and the bag?” he asked, looking back at the hill.
I leaned away from the tree and scanned the area. The bag must have fallen off during his tumble and continued on its own path. It lay at the bottom of the hill about twenty feet away. The gun was halfway up the hill. “There.”
“Bring them over here.”
I climbed partway up the hill to retrieve the gun and then made my way over to the bag. When I reached down to pick it up, it required more effort than I’d expected. My body tilted sideways from the weight and when I reached Mason, I dropped it next to him. “How on earth have you been carrying that thing this whole time?”
“It’s not that heavy.”
“Braggart.”
He laughed but then cringed from pain.
When I saw him fumbling with the bag’s zipper, I brushed his fingers out of the way. “What do you want?”
“Pull out the ammo and let’s see what I have the most of.”
“Why?”
His face was taut from pain. “To figure out which guns to bring.”
I smiled as tears filled my eyes. “Thank you.”
“You can’t carry this thing and I sure can’t. We’ll bring the handguns and a shotgun with some ammo and some water. We’ll leave the rest behind.”
“But…Crocker and his men could find it.”
He continued to watch me. “That’s why you need to go on without me.”
“So then they’d find you and the bag.”
“Rose, either way, I’m not going to move very far or fast.”
“Then we’ve wasted too much time. Figure out which guns we’re taking and let’s go.”
He exhaled and gave a slight shake to his head.
After I stacked the ammo boxes in piles next to him, he decided I’d carry the rifle and a much lighter version of the bag. He took out the blankets and put in several boxes of ammunition, leaving the rest on the ground.
“We might need to lighten it more,” Mason said, grabbing the stouter shotgun. He cocked it open and removed all the bullets, handing them to me. “Put those in the bag too.”
When I was ready, he reached a hand out to me, resting the butt of his gun on the ground. “Let’s try this.”
I squatted on his right side and slung his arm around my shoulder. Balancing his weight on his left leg, Mason used the barrel of the gun to help hoist himself up. He cried out in pain and nearly fell back down, but I bent my knees to absorb his weight and lift him upright.
He stood on his left leg, panting and cursing under his breath.
“Are you okay?”
“Give me a minute,” he said through gritted teeth.
I stood next to him, at least half of his weight pressing into my shoulders. I wasn’t sure how we were going to walk out of here, let alone how I would support him, the rifle, and the bag, but we’d find a way. We didn’t have a choice.
We traveled for at least an hour without covering much distance. Mason kept getting weaker, his face paler. I was beginning to wonder if our only option was for me to leave him to get help when I spotted a building through the trees.
“Mason, look.” I pointed.
He exhaled in relief. “Leave me here, but take the rifle with you to the door.”
“I’m not gonna look very friendly toting a rifle to their front door.”
He shook his head, already lowering himself to the ground. I struggled to keep him from landing too quickly. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. But I’m worried about how they’ll react to a complete stranger showing up on their doorstep in the middle of nowhere. Some of these people live in the middle of nowhere for a reason.”
I handed him the gun. “I’m not getting into a shootout, at least not if I can avoid it. I’ll look less suspicious if I’m not carrying a weapon.” I turned to leave and he grabbed my hand, flinching with pain from the sudden movement.
“Be careful, Rose.”
I leaned down and pressed a kiss to his lips. “I will.”
The one-story ranch house was old and worn, but it didn’t look abandoned like the last house, which gave me hope. I knocked on the storm door and stepped back onto the gravel path. While I waited, I glanced down at my clothes, suddenly worried about how I would look to anyone in the house. I was a sight. Most of my clothes were covered in mud and my jacket sleeve was bloody from the cut on Mason’s forehead.
After ten seconds, I knocked again, louder this time. When no one answered, I banged on the door and shouted, “Is anyone home?”
Several seconds later, Mason called out, “See if the door’s unlocked.”
My jaw dropped. “The other place was obviously abandoned, but someone lives here. I can’t just walk into someone’s house!”
“Rose, this is an emergency. I’m the Fenton County Assistant DA and I’m sure as hell not pressing charges. Do whatever it takes to get inside.”
Taking a deep breath, I opened the storm door and tried the door knob. “Locked.”
“Go around back and see if there’s a door open somewhere else. If not, we’ll have to break a window.”
I would hate for us to resort to literally breaking in, but a quick examination revealed that the back door was locked, so it didn’t seem like there were a lot of options.
I walked over to Mason and found him slumped against a tree trunk, his eyes clenched shut. Squatting next to him, I placed the back of my hand against his forehe
ad where he wasn’t cut. His eyelids blinked open and he gave me a startled look.
“It’s okay,” I said, moving my hand down to his cheek. “The doors are locked, but the back door has lots of window panes. I’m going break one of the panes and reach in to open the door.”
“Be careful,” he groaned. “Bust out all the glass and then pull your hand into your sleeve before you put it through the hole.”
“You sound like an experienced felon,” I teased.
A hint of an ornery smile cracked his lips. “Guilty by association.”
“I’ll be right back.”
I didn’t find a rock that was big enough, but I found a broken tree branch that did the trick. The sound of the shattering glass echoed loudly and I expected someone to jump out of the woods and attack us. But no one did, and I managed to get in without cutting my hand.
The door opened onto a dated kitchen and I nearly cried from relief when I saw a phone on the wall. As I lifted the receiver, I was struck with the fear that the phone wouldn’t work, but the dial tone filled my ear. I suddenly wondered whom to call. I couldn’t call 911 because the call would most likely go to the sheriff’s department, and I didn’t know the number of the state police. But I did know the number of a state policeman.
I punched in Joe’s phone number, thanking my lucky stars that I’d memorized it and hadn’t become reliant on speed dial. His phone rang three times and I was sure it was about to go to voice mail when a man answered, sounding groggy. “Who is this?”
“Joe?” I asked, worried I’d called the wrong number.
“Rose?”
He had actually answered. I started crying out of relief. “Joe, I need help. Crocker found us and Mason got hurt…” My last words were nearly incomprehensible.
“Rose, slow down.”
I was grateful that he sounded more like my Joe. I tried to catch my breath. “Okay.”
“Take it slow. What happened?”
“Daniel Crocker broke into my house while I was sleeping and left a threatening note. So the sheriff’s department had Mason and me go out to my birth mother’s farm to hide until they caught him. They even gave us a guard. Only the sheriff’s department has a leak and at least one of the deputies told Crocker where we were. Then he showed up.”
Thirty-One and a Half Regrets (Rose Gardner Mystery #4) Page 26