by Dale Mayer
Mark wandered around the large marked circle. "Do we go in?"
Gem hesitated. "I don't want to do anything that will tarnish Doris or John's reputation. We'd go inside, in a heartbeat, if we only had to consider us. Not that we'd do any damage…"
"I hear you." Mark turned back toward the bush. "Let's look for the location that's shown in the pictures."
Gem followed behind, but let Reid take the rear position along the narrow path.
"Everything was pretty crazy last night," Gem said. "I don't know about you, but I covered a lot of ground. It all looked so different then."
They walked in silence. Gem pointed out the broken branches and churned pathways that revealed the various wild dashes made through the night. They stopped at the clearing that was close to the creek. Reid pulled out the photos again.
"It looks different in the pictures."
After walking another few feet, she pointed. "There's the one tree from the picture." With a male on either side of her, Gem moved forward until they stood in the clearing in the photo.
"It looks bigger in the picture." Mark stuffed his hands in his pockets and wandered throughout the open space.
"That's because it was bigger." She frowned. "At least I thought it was too."
"That's what happens in the weird half light when the sun goes down and darkness falls," Reid said.
"Let me see the photo." Taking it from Reid she positioned herself so she could see the exact alignment of space and vegetation shown on paper. "Okay, so I'm standing in the right place – right where the vehicle was."
"Which is obviously not here now." Mark fisted his hands on his hips and stared at the spot where she pointed. He walked forward several feet while the other two watched. He crouched down, motioning to the flattened grass. "It sat here. And you can see from the damage to the grass how big it was. Look at the tire tracks. There's no road back here but someone still drove in. The question is why?"
Reid walked further around the circle and turned to his friend. "Picking up stuff? Or unloading stuff most likely?"
"Yeah, but what? The creek is no longer a major water source for anything. It used to be but with the town expanding toward the river on the other side, this one isn't used any more. This is just plain weird."
"Weird, yes, but they went to a lot of trouble to keep it quiet. They were carrying that kit for some reason. So whatever it was, it could be important."
Reid walked in an ever-widening circle. "I doubt they've left anything behind, but if they did, we should be able to find it.
With that, the three of them walked, slightly apart, in a logical approximation of how the men would have traveled to the creek.
"Damn it." Gem kicked a rock out of her way. "There're so many tracks. How can we find the important ones in this mess?" She kicked a bigger rock even further, then stared glumly at the overgrowth of grass and bushes. "They could have done all sorts of things out here and no one would ever know."
Crack.
Instinct had the three dropping to the ground and they stayed that way for what seemed a long time. Silent, the kids remained frozen, staring at each other.
Gem hated the dryness in her throat… Swallowing was damn near impossible. Closing her eyes, she focused on breathing…slow and steady. She didn't know if someone else was out there, but neither did she want to find out the hard way.
Mark whispered through the brush, "Did anyone see anything?"
"No," said Reid off somewhere on Gem's left.
Gem inched closer to Mark. He'd hunkered down in bushes off to the left. Most of the area had been trampled already so she kept to the flattened ground rather than give away their position by moving the tall grass. Mark watched her approach.
"I didn't see anything. What the hell do we do now?" she asked.
"We get out of here." He searched the area as Reid snuck closer to them.
"If we head down to the creek we should be able to run north and circle back home," Reid said.
Gem considered that. It might work. "Let's do it, but we have to stay close to each other. Don't fall behind."
Both males shot her a disgusted look and crawled ahead of her. Right. So she was now the one that shouldn't fall behind. Whatever.
Ten uncomfortable minutes later, they reached the top of the bank leading down to the creek. The water, although shallow, looked awfully inviting. Gem swallowed heavily, wishing she'd thought to bring a bottle of water. The crawling had bruised her knees and filled her nostrils with dust.
She coughed softly, then coughed again, harder.
"Shh."
Shaking her head while trying to stifle a third cough didn't work. She waved them on. Just in case she was heard. She tried to cough into her shoulder and that just brought on a major coughing fit. It took several minutes for her chest to clear, until she could breathe normally again. She must have inhaled a mess of dust.
The sunlight speckled its way through the branches overhead, giving her a break from the afternoon heat. This would be a great spot to spend an afternoon someday, when they weren't trying to get away from someone. Speaking of which…she looked ahead but couldn't see her friends. Gauging the direction by their tracks, she figured they'd turned north to follow the creek.
They couldn't be too far ahead. They'd find a spot and wait for her. What she wanted was to stand up and walk though. She was tired of crawling. She listened closely. Not a sound. She stood then clambered down the bank to move along the creek. The breeze blowing off the water was refreshingly cool. Wandering down to the edge, she saw tracks leading upstream. Two sets of tracks. Mark and Reid? Yes. Now she was onto something. She picked up the pace and followed the tracks a good fifty yards.
The cool air wafted over her, easing the film of sweat she'd earned crawling on the ground. She sneezed again. How far would they have gone ahead without her?
She was used to being alone outside, but after Misty's abduction, her normal nerves of steel had taken a beating. She glanced behind her, hating how the afternoon heat added a heavy atmosphere to the stillness. Creepy.
Her steps sped up of their own volition, and she was almost running by the time she headed up the bank to get a different perspective on her surroundings. If she didn't find the guys soon, she'd turn around and go back down. The creek crossed under the road below the old pump house. It's not like she could get lost out here. Not as long as she kept the creek in sight...and her mind clear.
She carried on for another five minutes. Five minutes where her stomach chewed up her insides and her feet raced more than walked. For the first time, it occurred to her that maybe she was following someone else's footprints.
She pulled out her cell phone and sent Mark a text. "Where are you?"
The answer came right back. "Following the creek. We're waiting. Hurry up."
A sound whispered down the water just in front of her. She bent down behind an old gnarled tree trunk and roots. There. It came again. She poked her head above the cover she'd found, hoping to see what made the sound. There was nothing to see. Collapsing onto a rock, Gem couldn't help but wonder if she were letting a bad case of nerves get in her way. She'd hate for the guys to think she'd turned girlie.
This was ridiculous. She stood up but a loud sharp noise cut through the air close to her. She flattened. What the hell was that? She spun around, hoping she could head back the way she'd come, then grimaced. Her nerves were seriously jangled right now. She hunkered down and listened and tried to find an explanation for that noise.
Shouts sounded. She popped up, took a quick look around and sunk back down. Nothing.
Was she in trouble? What if Mark and Reid were in trouble? Shit. Paralyzed by indecision, she figured she'd trust that the guys hadn't ditched her. But with those shotlike sounds, what was the chance they were in a bad spot up ahead?
And if they were, she had to help them.
Should she leave to call in the cavalry and find out later it had all been for nothing…and possibly get ribbed by the guys for
ever? Hell no. Better to check it out herself first. She poked her head over the tree limb. Still nothing. Stealthily, she crept up above the bend in the creek and listened for sounds of people.
Nothing. She walked forward.
Pain exploded as something smashed into the right side of her skull and she collapsed to the ground.
CHAPTER SIX
Sheriff Danny Jerome sat at his desk and wondered what his old friend John Hartman had gotten himself into. Had he bitten off too much with this home project? John's heart was in the right place, but if this EPA team out of Portland was right, these kids were trouble. Personally, he'd met them and he had his doubts that they were. They didn't look or act like mini-criminals to him.
This area was big on family. They grew them big around here. A half dozen kids apiece and extended families that came close to being complete schoolfulls when they gathered together. John and Doris hadn't been blessed with any children of their own. But they'd done everything they could to help everyone else's.
"Problems?" Ian, his long-time deputy asked, lounging in the spare chair in his boss's office. Ian's legs stretched out in front of him and Danny envied how he could be so relaxed at work. Ian had the life. A steady paycheck from a reasonably easy job, one without any responsibilities other than the regular police routine. And not much ever happened in their town.
Which is a good thing as Danny was short on staff right now. He had Ian's cousin, Barry as a special summer constable. The kid was hoping to make it onto the force next year. But that wasn't a sure thing.
"Those kids." Danny leaned back and studied Ian. "The three EPA guys from the Criminal Division… So they have to be here for a reason, other than just to pay those kids a friendly visit – only they're keeping their investigation hush hush."
Ian snickered. "Of course, they are."
Danny rolled his eyes. That was the thing about working with the same person for a long time. You understood what the other was thinking most of the time. "Like those kids had anything to do with that kind of contamination stuff."
According to John they are all misunderstood, need-a-second-chance angels. Danny shook his head. That wasn't quite true either. These kids didn't get to juvie based on their good looks. Still, he had to consider that they'd mended their ways and had worked through their punishment. He sensed they knew this home was decent, and if things went well for them, it was one step away from freedom. These kids weren't likely to jeopardize that opportunity at a clean slate.
"I wouldn't be so quick to believe that. I didn't like the idea of that home being approved in the beginning," Ian grumbled leaning back and closing his eyes. "Like we needed delinquent kids poking around here."
Danny considered that. Regardless if it were the kids or the home, there was one thing that couldn't be disputed. That little girl recovering in hospital didn't kidnap, tie up and drug herself.
Something bad was going down in Oxford. He highly doubted those kids had anything to do with it either. But he wouldn't discount the possibility – he'd been wrong before.
Barry walked in. Damn he looked like a kid himself. Except Barry's poster-boy face was marred by a tight frown.
"What's the matter, son?" Danny watched as Barry straightened, almost to attention.
Barry faced him. "Remember those kids from the other night?" At Danny's nod, he continued, "The tall skinny male is here. He doesn't look so good."
What the hell? Danny pushed his chair back and stood up. "What does he want?"
"He says the other two have been kidnapped and he knows who did it."
Confused, Danny stared at Ian for a moment. Then both raced out to the main office. Reid Langdon stood off to one side of the room, shifting his weight unsteadily from side to side. Dirt streaked his hair and face, and dust covered his clothes. Worse than that was the haunted look on his face, as if he'd just seen his best friend die.
He almost ran to meet them. "Please, you have to help them. They're good kids. Those same assholes took Mark and Gem. They're gonna kill them." His voice took on a desperate note. "Please help."
"Whoa, slow down here a minute." Danny hitched up his loose pants, cursing his wife's insistence that he lose a few pounds, then asked, "Now, who took who? And why?"
"Those men that were here last night. They took my friends." Reid almost shouted. "We told you. Humpty and Dumpty took Misty and now they've taken Gem and Mark."
Danny shook his head. He stepped forward slightly. "Now son. Let's just back up here a moment. Did you actually see these men take your friends? Besides, why on earth would they want to take those two?"
"Because Gem and Misty saw them, down toward the creek. She took pictures of them." He gasped for breath before blurting, "I saw Humpty tackle Mark. He went down hard. You've got to help find him. That blow could have killed him."
Ian grabbed Reid by the arm.
***
Mark lay trussed like a turkey all prepped for the oven. The van was hot enough to do the job, too. Hell. He'd been so stupid. They'd come up behind him like he was a green kid and he hadn't seen them until it was too late. He deserved the pounding going on inside his skull. Stupid. It wouldn't have happened a few years ago. This last year he'd become soft. Complacent. Comfortable.
He'd been easy.
That burned him. He should never have let someone catch him. Fucking humiliating.
"Look at the spit in those eyes." Humpty grinned at him. "Without those restraints, he'd be kicking the hell out of us."
Damn right. Still will. Just wait.
He'd get loose somehow. Then he'd give them hell. The tight cloth muzzle pulled his mouth into a painful grin and his throat fought with the dangling threads, making him gag. For a long moment, he closed his eyes, and focused on pushing some of the cloth further forward in his mouth so he could breathe easier.
"He's planning something. Look at him," Humpty said. The two men watching Mark, chuckled. "Too bad. He's not getting free – ever."
Mark stilled. Ever? Shit. He didn't plan on dying today. He hoped Reid had gotten away. Mark had been disoriented and dizzy when the first blow caught him, but he'd seen Reid. Wiry and almost double-jointed, Reid had fought like a banshee rooster, breaking free and bolting through the trees. Reid had a decent head on his shoulders; he'd go for help.
"We haven't been ordered to take him out permanently," Dumpty said. "Have we?"
Humpty smirked. "Not yet."
Mark shifted on the vehicle's metal floor, almost groaning aloud from his screaming muscles. Catching back the noise at the last moment, he closed his eyes and worked to control his pain. These assholes would love to hear him suffer.
How far away could Reid have gotten by now? And who would he go to? No one cared about them. They were nothing to society.
Maybe John. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that was a damn good idea. Mark had the impression that John knew the sheriff pretty well. That couldn't hurt. Another missing kid should set off some alarms, even if the kid were from juvie.
How the hell did one leave juvie behind? It's not like he'd wanted to steal when he'd been caught. He'd had to. He hadn't had the benefit of a nice warm bed and food three times a day. He'd been on the streets, part of a gang, because they'd protected him and stopped the pedophiles from getting at him. A life like other kids experienced was so far from his experience and understanding that he couldn't believe it – or believe in it. Couldn't even imagine it.
Others lived a fairy tale. And he was no damn girl looking for a white knight to save him. He'd learned the hard way that there were no saviors in life – only deviants pretending to be normal.
He went back to glaring at the two assholes. Who the hell were they? And why were they still here? And why had they taken him? He hadn't seen anything. Not really. Hell, he hadn't even known these dweebs were near the creek. They'd come out of nowhere.
He wished he knew what was in the jugs jammed further back in the van. And where were they getting the differen
t vehicles from? They'd driven a truck in the pictures Gem had taken. A fancy government looking car to John's and now they were in this old beat up van.
Gem. What about her? How far behind had she been? Only minutes, surely. He'd been worried that Gem hadn't caught up to them. He'd waited at the rise with Reid, knowing they'd have a better view of the area and could see how far behind she was.
That must be how these guys had seen him and Reid approach.
Gem was pretty wily though. If they tried to take her, she'd fight like crazy. If they knocked her out, well, then she'd likely end up here with him.
"So where's your girlfriend?" Dumpty asked, a leer on his thick lips.
Mark narrowed his eyes at him. What girlfriend? Gem? Or did he mean Misty? She'd damn well better be in the hospital. Safe…