To Save Her Child

by Margaret Daley

  The second he figured out that the hole in the stone wasn’t just a crevice but a cave, the brush pulled away from the rocks. He teetered on the edge, flapping his arms to get his balance.

  * * *

  Deeper in the cave, Ella spied a faint glow up ahead of her; the only light guiding her way was the one Keith wore strapped to his head.

  “We aren’t far from the cavern I’ve prepared for us.”

  They turned a corner, and the faint glow was gone. She couldn’t hold her arms out to feel the side of the cave as he did. She took another cautious step, and her foot twisted as it came down between two rocks.

  She cried out as she went down, her left arm colliding with a jutting piece of the wall. She fought the tears that welled into her eyes, making what little she could see blurry, and she averted her head before he saw. He’d loved to see her cry and beg. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

  “Get up.” Keith kicked her leg, now pinned between two stones.

  Rising anger vied with her fear as she finally yanked her foot free.

  “Now.”

  “I am! If you’d give me a light, I could see where I’m going” were the first words she spoke since he’d asked her if she had anything to say to him.

  “Ah, she finally speaks.” Mockery laced each of his words.

  She struggled to stand, keeping her back to him while she blinked the last of her tears. Her fury was taking over. She wouldn’t give up the fight until she drew her last breath.

  “As usual, you think you’re a big man because you think you can cow a woman a foot shorter than you.”

  He snorted. “I haven’t even begun toying with you. To even the playing field a little, I’ll give you a head start. I’ll count to one hundred while you try to get away from me. I suppose it’s possible you could find a hiding place. Who knows? But the only way you can escape is into the mountain.”

  She finally glanced over her shoulder. The bright light nearly blinded her. The only thing she could see was him holding the gun aimed at her.

  “One, two, three. You better get going.”

  She started forward.

  “Four, five, six.”

  She brought her left arm across her chest so she could run her hands along the side of the wet, cold cave. She tried to block his counting from her mind.

  But she couldn’t.

  “Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two.”

  Using the wall as a guide wasn’t working well. She gave it up and lifted her arms out in front, then increased her pace. The cave curved to the right, and the glare of his headlamp no longer lit her way, even vaguely. Darkness shrouded her, but she kept going. She needed to find somewhere to hide.

  “One hundred. Here I come.”

  FOURTEEN

  Josiah lost his balance and slipped from the ledge. He began to fall down the slope, his arms flailing for a handhold. A stone jutting out from the outcropping grazed his fingers, and he grasped it, stopping his descent down the side of the mountain. He swung his other hand around the rock while his legs dangled in the air. Willing all his strength into his arms, he slowly pulled himself back up to the shelf, his muscles twitching with the strain.

  He lay on the rough surface and dragged oxygen into his lungs. He couldn’t stay here. He needed to get to that cave and see if Ella was in there. Otherwise she and her kidnapper were already on the ridge, and it would take him a while to pick up their trail. Cautiously he made his way to the right and up.

  When he reached the cave’s entrance, he checked the ground for any sign Ella was in there. In the dirt just inside the opening, he glimpsed footprints like the ones he’d been tracking. He took a step toward them and halted. Sweat popped out on his forehead. His heartbeat thumped against his chest, and his pulse raced.

  Suddenly he was thrust back into the past when he was kept prisoner in a cage in a cave. His legs refused to move forward into the waiting darkness, as though he’d been flash frozen.

  * * *

  Ella groped around another turn, moving away from the glow she’d spied earlier. She wouldn’t put it past Keith to have set it up as a lure, knowing he was going to do something like this. The longer she kept Keith away from Robbie, the better the chance her son would get away. Alex and Josiah would know something was wrong by now and go for help.

  You’re not alone in this. She felt those words deep in her heart. This wasn’t the same as before with Keith when she’d become so cut off from friends and family. When Keith found her, he would discover she wasn’t the same docile woman he’d terrorized. If she didn’t leave this cave, neither would he.

  She glanced back and noticed a light coming closer to the turnoff she’d taken. Twisting forward again, she picked up speed, going several yards when her left foot slammed against a rock. Even in her boots, pain zipped up her leg. She stumbled and went down, using her arms to break her fall. At the same time the collision with the wall knocked the breath from her. She labored to sit up and tried to stand. She crumpled to the rock surface, back against the side of the tunnel.

  Before trying to rise again, she patted the area around her. She had to hide. Watching the light growing brighter as Keith stalked her, she hoisted herself to her knees and checked the evenness of the floor in front of her. She encountered another rocky obstacle. She crawled forward to see if there were more. For the next twenty feet she painstakingly made her way from one stone obstruction to another. The path ahead grew narrower.

  Until she came to a drop-off. Trapped.

  * * *

  Josiah lifted his foot and moved forward into the cave’s entrance. His body shook. His past captors were not going to control him. The anger he always experienced when thinking about them flooded him, making the next step even more difficult.

  Lord, help me. Please. Ella needs me.

  But the panic threatened to immobilize him. He quaked even more. His breathing became shallow inhalations that left his lungs starving for oxygen-rich air.

  Let it go. Forgive.

  The conversation he had with Ella took over his thoughts. As long as I hate them, what they did to me will influence all aspects of my life. Will dominate my actions.

  No! I won’t let them.

  Time was running out. Every second could be Ella’s last. He gritted his teeth and focused on eradicating his hatred, on washing his mind clean, as though he’d been baptized again.

  He raised another foot and put it down in front of him. Then another. A faint light ahead drew him in a little farther. Sweat stung his eyes. He swiped the back of his hand across his forehead and pictured Ella’s smiling face, her eyes bright with the gleam of mischief.

  Then the illumination drawing him into the cave vanished. He halted.

  * * *

  Ella lay flat on the cave floor, inched forward and felt to see if she could figure out how deep the drop-off was. Reaching down as far as she could, she couldn’t touch the bottom.

  “I will find you, Ella. You won’t escape me this time. Never again.”

  Keith’s words echoed through the cavern, chilling her to the bone.

  With a quick glance back, she watched the brightness grow nearer. Although it lit that last bend she’d taken, it wasn’t enough to illuminate her surroundings. She began exploring them with her hands, searching for anywhere to conceal herself from Keith. To the side was a large stone. Maybe she could hide behind it and pray he didn’t know she’d gone this way.

  She crawled behind the rock and curled into the smallest ball she could, sending up her prayers to be saved.

  His headlamp washed the area in brightness as though a spotlight was pointing to her hiding place. Her heartbeat pounded against her skull. Her body ached all over, and she couldn’t seem to breathe enough.

  “Come out. Come out. Wherever you are.�
��

  She couldn’t even cover her ears to keep from hearing Keith’s taunting words. They bombarded her as though he was hammering his fists into her body.

  The light came closer. The sound of his breathing seemed to resonate against the rocky walls, drowning out her own thundering heartbeat.

  “Gotcha.”

  Claws grabbed her upper arms and yanked her from her hiding place, which in the glow barely blocked her from his view. He hoisted her into the air, his bright light glaring in her eyes. Squinting, she peered down. Her legs dangled a few feet off the stone ground. He edged toward the dark drop-off.

  “I wonder what’s down there, how deep it is.”

  He held her over the hole. She refused to look and instead stared at his waist.

  “Mmm. I can’t see the bottom.”

  He’d put his rifle down and had stuffed his revolver in his belt because his two hands were busy gripping her. As he finally stepped back from the ledge, Ella decided it was now or never.

  She shrieked and swung her legs toward him.

  * * *

  A high-pitched blood-curdling cry vibrated through the tunnel. Josiah’s grasp on his flashlight tightened. The sound chilled him. He increased his pace. In his gut he knew that was Ella, and she was in trouble.

  He rushed around the bend in the cave where the glow had disappeared to a faint then nonexistent illumination. He stumbled over the uneven surface and caught himself before going down. Noises drifted to him. A fight? Although the ground was rugged, with large cracks, he accelerated even more.

  “I’m gonna kill you,” a gruff masculine voice shouted.

  Then the blast of a gunshot, the sound ricocheting off the stone walls in deafening waves. Then another gun went off—different, though. A revolver?

  Click. Click. Click, followed by an explosion of words that scorched Josiah’s ears. Had the gun stopped working?

  He flew over the rough terrain, readying his rifle the best he could one-handed since he held the flashlight in the other. As he neared another curve in the tunnel, he slowed because light shone as though it came from somewhere nearby. He flattened himself against the wall and peeked around the wall into the corridor.

  The first thing he saw was Ella racing toward him, a revolver clasped in her handcuffed hands. Then he glimpsed a large, muscular man with blond hair charging Ella, holding a rifle like a club, his face red with rage.

  Ella rounded the curve. She spied him and slowed her pace. When she was safe behind him, Josiah thrust the flashlight into her hand, then stepped out into the corridor.

  “Stop! Drop your gun,” Josiah said, and raised his rifle.

  But before he could line up a shot, the tall man kept coming, swinging his gun toward Josiah’s head. He crouched and barreled into the blond giant, driving both of them deeper into the tunnel. The man’s rifle came down on Josiah’s back. Josiah rammed him into the wall. Once. Twice. Until the rifle clattered to the ground.

  The giant wrapped his arms around Josiah’s torso instead and squeezed so tight that pain stabbed into his chest as if his bruised rib hadn’t healed. Josiah brought his hands up and hit the man’s ears, hoping to throw him off balance so he would loosen his grip. His arms slackened enough that Josiah broke his hold. Then quickly he moved in and punched one fist into the man’s nose and the other into his throat.

  The guy staggered back, gasping for air while blood ran down his face. His left foot came down on the edge of a drop-off. He flapped his arms, trying to regain his balance, but before Josiah could reach him, he fell backward. The giant’s scream echoed through the cave, followed by a thumping sound.

  Panting, Josiah peered down into the hole. The man’s light still shone, illuminating his broken body at the bottom of a deep pit.

  “Is he dead?” Ella’s voice quavered behind him.

  Josiah swung around, took one glance at her pale features and wide eyes and drew her away from the drop-off. Then he retrieved the flashlight from her and checked the bottom of the pit again to reassure her that it was over.

  When he returned to her, he tugged her against him, trying to absorb the tremors that racked her body. “Yes, he’s dead. You’re safe now.”

  “That was Keith. He was going to kill me,” she murmured against his chest in a monotone as though she was going into shock.

  “Let’s get out of here. Into the sunshine. He can’t hurt you ever again.”

  “Are you sure?” A sob tore through her.

  “He fell sixty or seventy feet onto a rocky surface, and by the pool of blood around his head, I’m positive.”

  “Is Robbie all right? He was going to take him.” She shuddered.

  “He’s safe. My sister is guarding him.”

  When he brought Ella into the sunlight, he sat her down on the ledge and pulled her into the crook of his arm. “When you’re ready, we’ll hike to the beach to be picked up. Alex and Robbie left in the boat to get help. Then when Keith’s body is recovered, you’ll have to ID him, and the medical examiner can confirm he’s dead.”

  * * *

  Ella stood at her living room window as Alex parked her car, hopped out and walked toward her house. For the past two days, since returning from the island, Ella had gone through the motions of living, but a part of her was numb as though she was still in the cave with Keith, listening to him telling her how he was going to kill her.

  Earlier she’d talked with her minister, but didn’t really think she was free from her ex-husband. She’d thought she was before and he’d found her.

  He’s dead. Everyone has told me that.

  She’d repeated that so many times in the past forty-eight hours she would have thought it would finally sink in. But for so long she had lived in terror, and it wasn’t that easy to shake it off.

  Maybe when she finally identified his body, she’d be free. No more nightmares for her or Robbie. Was that even possible?

  Then her minister’s words repeated themselves in her mind. You won’t be free until you forgive Keith. You can’t let go while holding on to that kind of hatred.

  Alex rang the doorbell. Ella headed to the foyer to answer it, knowing she had to find the power to forgive.

  She forced a smile on her face and greeted Alex. “I’m glad you could take Robbie while I go to ID Keith.”

  “Sadie is waiting for him to come visit. We’ll have fun. Don’t hurry to come pick him up. You and Josiah should talk. You haven’t had much of a chance since all this happened.”

  “Do you know if they found Keith’s campsite?”

  “Yes, I got a call when Josiah landed at the airport. They found it and a stash of firepower that could wipe out a lot of people. Josiah said it looked as though he was planning a small war.”

  Ella hugged her arms. “A US Marshal came to see me this morning to find out what happened. Apparently my husband left their protection and in the process killed a man. He obviously was very determined to get to me.”

  “He can’t anymore.”

  “I’m trying to realize that, but he’s been such a big part of my life for so long. It’s hard to think I’m really free.” Am I really until I finally say that I’ve forgiven Keith and mean it?

  “Sam and I are ready to go, Alex,” Robbie said behind Ella.

  “That’s great. Sadie’s in the car waiting.” To Ella she added, “We’re going to the park before going to my house. Don’t worry about the time you pick him up.” Alex looked pointedly at her. “Take care of all your business.”

  “I will.”

  Robbie threw his arms around Ella. “I love you, Mom.”

  She ruffled his hair. “I love you, too.”

  Ella stood in the entrance and watched her son lead his twelve-week-old puppy to Alex’s car. She was right about talking with Josiah. She needed to.
Once they’d walked out of the woods onto the beach, they hadn’t been alone in the midst of Josiah helping with the recovery of Keith’s body and the search for his campsite. She’d had her hands full with reassuring Robbie they would be all right and then being interviewed by the authorities about what had happened. A whirlwind forty-eight hours. She desperately wanted her life to return to normal, or rather settle into a new normal. She knew where she would go before she went to ID Keith and see Josiah.

  * * *

  Emotionally and physically drained, Josiah entered the State Medical Examiner’s building. He didn’t see Ella’s Jeep out in the parking lot, so he would wait for her in the lobby. Thomas would be here soon, too.

  As he stared out the double glass doors, he realized that now that he’d had time to think, he wanted to move on in his life. Seeing what Ella had gone through for years, all he wanted to do was be there for her and give her a life that would erase her ex-husband from her memories. He’d seen firsthand what anger could do to a person if left to fester and grow. He didn’t want that for his life.

  As he’d accompanied Thomas and trudged all over the island with Buddy looking for the campsite, they had talked. He’d finally shared his captivity with his best friend. Through Thomas’s guidance, he’d given his rage at his captors to the Lord. He never wanted to hate someone so much that he ended up consumed like Keith.

  He caught sight of Ella. He held one of the doors open for her, and she entered the building. When she turned toward him, he sucked in a deep breath. She was beautiful inside and out. She gave him hope for the future.

  “Are you ready to ID him?” he asked, clasping her hand.

  She nodded. “Let’s get this over with.”

  When she saw Keith’s face, all she said to the ME was “Yes.”

  Thomas came into the room as she turned away.

  “Thomas, you look as tired as Josiah.”

  “I’ve hiked miles the past two days, and I’m ready for a rest. Sorry I’m late. I was turning in the evidence we found at Keith’s campsite.”