“We were talking about some adventures he brought me on. He said he wanted to come up here again.”
With another shiver of unease, Jamie noticed that he would not look directly at her as he spoke. Instead, his gaze traveled around the Basin itself. A lone pond remained, with the waterfall above it stained black from the years of use. Large rocks, the size of basketballs or bigger, sat in the middle, again proving the sheer force of the water coming down from the steep cliffs above. She glanced at the sky again. The sun was still rising, but the strong rays were blunted by the wispy cloud cover.
“What if it rains?”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t.”
Not satisfied with his answer, Jamie pressed again. “Why would Andrew come up here knowing that there’s a storm coming?”
“He wouldn’t.” Adam hefted his pack higher on his back and settled it more comfortably over his hips. When he met her penetrating gaze, he nodded to the top. “Not unless he wasn’t planning on coming down anytime soon.”
His words, coupled with the chilled breeze that entered the draw and blew her hair away from her face, made Jamie feel cold inside. She regained her feet and began the slippery and steep walk. Adam led the way, his path finding skill honed from his time in the military as well as his familiarity with the mountain itself.
“It’s a tough hike from here. Are you doing okay?”
“I’m more concerned about Andrew.”
Jamie took another deep breath and glanced at Adam, who still appeared as energetic as he had when he first exited the vehicle. The only sign of exertion that she could see was a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead. She felt inadequate, knowing that he was carrying a heavy pack, and all she had was a sweatshirt. He paused long enough to offer her the water again, which she grasped eagerly.
After a slow and tedious climb, a lone single propeller plane passed the draw, lower than she and Adam. Not realizing how far they had come in so short a time, Jamie gasped. Her intake of breath caused Adam to turn. “We’re pretty high up now. It’s not much further.”
She moaned in protest, no longer caring if he knew how uncomfortable she was. “How many times have you said that already?”
“We can stop here and rest a bit if you want.”
“Thank you,” she said, sinking onto a rock. Relief surged through her as the weight came off her legs, and she closed her eyes thankfully.
“I gotta give you some credit. You’re tougher than I thought.” Adam was watching her carefully when her eyes reopened. He glanced away quickly when she caught his stare, turning his attention to his pack. From a side pocket he managed to produce two individually wrapped granola bars. The sight of them reminded her that she had yet to eat that day, and her stomach growled in protest and anticipation. He handed her one and tore open his with a shrug. “I’m not quite fully stocked, but I always have something in my pack.”
“I can tell,” she replied cautiously. Not sure why he was suddenly being so thoughtful, she glanced down at the wrapped bar suspiciously. “Thank you. I needed this.”
“I can’t have you running out of energy when we’re so close to the end. I need you with me for effect.”
“Effect?” That did not sound good. Frowning, she cocked her head to the side. “I’d hope when we find him he’ll laugh at us.”
“I don’t think he’s going to laugh, but we’ll definitely show him quite the surprise.”
The hair on the back of her neck prickled in warning. All was not what it appeared to be, she was sure of it. Adam seemed too eager to please and concerned for her well-being. “I don’t understand any of this. What could have happened to set him off so quickly?”
“Having you in his life has helped, Jamie, but there are some things that just never go away.”
Jamie took another bite of the granola bar as he spoke, washing it down with the warm water. Between the two of them, the first gallon was growing low, but Adam insisted they were close so she did not fret about their supplies. Instead she worried about Andrew. “He told me about some of it.”
“Not all, though,” Adam said cryptically. “There are some things that we never discuss with anyone. It only takes a word or a sound, and next thing you know you’re in the middle of a nightmare again. Something may have set him off… maybe he came up here to a familiar place to calm down.”
Jamie sat stunned and unable to fully comprehend how terrible an experience like that was. Having to live like that, having to attempt to function after the things that these men had seen that forevermore haunted their dreams, made a mockery of the cause in her mind. Suddenly Andrew’s words from the night before made more sense. He did not want her to see him torn up like that. Silly, in her opinion, but she could respect his desire to be alone.
Coming to his feet, he held his hand out to pull her up. She accepted his help and glanced around while Adam took the water and replaced it in his pack. With weary sighs, they began the climb again, scrambling over rocks and searching out the markers to keep on the right path. Every step was torture, and their knees cried out in agony as they scaled the large boulders that marked the trail. Pausing to catch her breath, Jamie turned to look behind her at the familiar sight of Red Mountain. Not only did it remind her of home, but she suddenly remembered that she had not called Melissa to tell her she would not be in. Jamie shook her head and wondered how long it would be before Ford called in the troops. Spying Adam several feet higher than her and still climbing, she began scrambling up the rocks again. “Do you still have your phone? I never called my receptionist to tell her I wouldn’t be in.”
He pointed to a mass of rock formations ahead. “We’re almost to the top. I’ll check my pack as soon as we get there.”
“Okay,” she breathed in relief.
He paused at the top while she scrambled up and waited for her to catch her breath before veering right. Finally, after several hours of strenuous hiking, the Flatiron beckoned. Aloe plants and prickly pear cactus littered the flat landscape, their green color contrasting sharply with the yellowish-orange, Mars-like rock upon which they dug their roots. Though Jamie was marveling at the magnificent view and the harsh landscape, one thing stuck in her head as being blatantly wrong. While Adam removed his pack and dropped it to the ground, she approached him and placed her hands on her hips angrily.
“Adam?”
He glanced up, unconcerned. “Yeah.”
“Andrew’s not here.”
His gaze never wavered, but his words sent a chill down her spine. “I know.”
***
Andrew disconnected the call from the Georgia detective in search of his brother and leaned his head against the bed of his truck. Things were far, far worse than he had feared, especially when the detective mentioned his time in jail for the strangulation death of Kit. Despite the distance of over a thousand miles, he felt almost as though the detective could read right into the deepest depths of his soul and feel his own rising suspicions. Nevertheless, keeping to his silent code he maintained his brother’s privacy in the hopes of speaking to him first.
His fears that Adam was near snapping were not as unfounded as he had hoped. The girl had claimed that he attempted to strangle her and would have succeeded if her roommate had not returned. Strangle. The very word made him shudder. That was how Kit had died. Suddenly he was gripped with rage toward his brother, a deep seated anger at the years he had lost and the hypocrisy that he had shown toward Jamie.
If Adam had left him to rot in prison… he could not even think about it. Not yet. Not now.
No sooner had he raised his head than he spotted Ford recklessly pulling into the job site. The truck came to a dirt-sliding stop in front of him, and Ford jumped from the cab without turning the engine off. “Where is she?”
The shouted angry demand caught Andrew off guard. “Who?”
“Jamie. Where’s Jamie?”
Face red with rage, Ford advanced upon him while confusion made Andrew frown in response. “What?”
Before Ford could reply, Andrew could feel the blood drain from his face as realization dawned. First the detective telling him that his brother was wanted for questioning in an attempted murder case frighteningly similar to the one he served time in prison for, now Jamie was missing. His most dreaded fears were coming true all at once. He could feel his legs buckle, and he reached for the bed of his truck to prevent himself from collapsing.
“Where’s Jamie?” Ford pressed.
“I don’t know. I left her around four this morning. I haven’t spoken to her since, but she was sound asleep when I left.”
Realizing that he was holding his phone in his hand, Andrew pressed the speed dial for Jamie. Ford watched him, shaking his head. Some of his anger had eased when he saw the stark confusion on Andrew’s face, but his eyes were still wary when he spoke.
“Melissa called me when she didn’t come in to work. I went to the house. Her phone, purse, coffee… everything was sitting on her counter... She just took off. I hoped you knew what was going on.”
Andrew swallowed hard. His heart was beating so hard that he felt as though it would burst through his chest. The words he spoke next were almost as painful to speak aloud as they were to think. “Was there any forced entry?”
He was surprised at the anguish he heard in his own voice; it was the same pain and terror in Ford’s eyes. “No. Which is why I thought…”
Ford’s voice trailed off, but Andrew caught the meaning. He responded in a low and firm voice. “I would never hurt her, Ford.”
“Who would?”
The unspoken accusation hung in the air. Neither man wanted to speak aloud what was undoubtedly thought. The realization burned Andrew, for he had paid the dues of being falsely accused before. Was it something he would never escape? Would suspicion and mistrust follow him forever?
“I don’t know what you think, Ford, but I can tell you that I would never betray the woman who gave me my life back,” he snapped.
They stared at one another, brown and honey eyes clashing. After searching his gaze for any sign of deception and finding none, Ford finally backed down. He sighed heavily, almost as though he was disappointed, but his voice was regretful. “Of course I believe you. I just hoped…”
Though stung, Andrew understood Ford’s frustration for he knew how it felt. Now they had to determine where she could have possibly gone, and at the moment Andrew did not have a clue. His fear was that it had something to do with his cryptic appearance the night before. However, Jamie had seemed okay with his request. In fact, she had promised to give him all the time that he would need. What had happened?
As Andrew pondered, Ford’s phone vibrated in his pocket, and he pulled it out and pressed it to his ear. “Yeah.”
While he turned away to take the call, Andrew continued to wrack his brain. For the life of him, he could not think of anyone or anything that could have sent her out of the house by her own free will without her handbag, keys and phone.
Nothing except him.
A thought so crazy that he almost discarded it popped into his head. In a mixture of panic and relief, he toyed with the thought briefly before shaking his head in disbelief. However, it returned even stronger than before. It made too much sense after what he had just learned.
“Ford,” he called.
Glancing over his shoulder at him, Ford held up a finger to ask Andrew to wait. When he signed off, he turned and faced Andrew, his eyes shining with worry. “No one knows where she is. She just disappeared.”
“I think she may be with my brother.”
“Your brother? Why?”
“I’m not sure yet. I just think they may be together.”
“You think, but you’re not sure?”
“Well, it’s something I’d like to investigate.”
“I’m going with you. Hayden and Ian can check things out on their end. I want to be sure.”
The truth of the matter was that he wanted to keep an eye on him, Andrew realized, but he nodded impatiently. If he wanted to come, he could come. “Do you know how to ride?”
“I’m not afraid of horses if that’s what you mean? Why?”
“It’s faster…” He glanced at his truck, the sudden urge to hurry to his grandmother’s almost too strong to bear. “I’ve got to go.”
“My truck’s running. Let’s go.”
Without a word to anyone at the site, the two climbed into Ford’s truck and Ford floored it, casting one last glance over at Andrew as he made his way back to the main road. “I hope you’re not feeding me a line of bull.”
Andrew drew his hand down his face and around his neck and sighed heavily. Unfortunately, as much as he wanted to doubt himself the feeling would not go away. Instead it was growing stronger and made even more sense than he could accept. Adam had said that he wanted to go back up the mountain one last time before he left. He said he wanted to leave with a bang. Never in a million years did Andrew think that Adam was looking to make a bang for his attention. But what else could it be?
“I wish I was,” he said softly.
“Fill me in.”
Briefly wondering what Jamie’s family’s opinion of him and his family would be once he told Ford about his concerns, Andrew realized that more than their acceptance was at stake. Though he could not see his brother hurting Jamie, obviously there was a reason Adam would have lured Jamie from her home in the early morning. Knowing he had much more to lose than their esteem, Andrew explained it all.
Chapter 20
“Did you know that my mother died of a drug overdose?”
Jamie continued to scowl at Adam. Jutting her chin forward in a show of stubbornness, she refused to respond.
“My dad took off when my mother was in the hospital having me. She couldn’t take it and started using. It just got worse and worse until she OD’d when I was five. Andrew thinks that I don’t remember any of that time, but he’s wrong. I remember quite a lot. I remember how weak she was; I remember how much she lied.”
Previous campers had spent time upon the Flatiron, so finding a fire pit had not been a problem. Once Adam had encouraged Jamie to sit by it, he wandered around the clearing to find old century plant stalks and other brush with which to light a small fire. Though she appreciated the warmth after the sun made its final departure behind the thickening cloud cover, she was still so furious that she had been duped into being lured to the top that she could not even find her voice.
Adam continued poking the fire as he spoke, but his eyes frequently scanned the trail below for any new hikers.
“My brother was the appeaser,” he continued. “My mother started telling him when my dad first took off that he was the man of the house, and Andrew took that seriously. He always took care of me, especially when my mother turned on me.”
Despite her frustration and irritation at being virtually dragged up the mountain for no reason, Jamie found herself tuning in to what Adam was saying. Andrew had only touched on his childhood with her, so this was new information and once again reminded her of what a survivor he had turned out to be.
“He defended me, Jamie. Always. Even if it meant he would get a beating he would step in and protect me. The last time was the night before his twelfth birthday. As he grew up he became more vocal, more protective, and more eager to save me from being the scapegoat punching bag. It earned him his fair share of fights, but he had grown into a strong kid and had shot up in height. That night our mother lost her temper and began pounding on me, and Andrew stepped in to pull her away. Of course the guy she was with jumped in and nearly beat him senseless. We both went back to our room to hide while our mother smoked her sadness away. The next thing we knew, an ambulance was pulling into the driveway and we were removed from the house.
“On his birthday, we stood in the driveway of Grandma’s house, and Andrew clung to me as hard as I clung to him. We didn’t know what to expect. He looked down at me and said, ‘don’t worry, Adam. I’ll always have your back’.”
>
“I’m not surprised,” she said, knowing Andrew well enough to understand he would do anything to help his brother. That was just the kind of man he was. A true hero, through and through.
“He still wants to do it. There’s nothing that my brother wouldn’t do for me. Even though he doesn’t think I know that, I do… I’ve just never thanked him.”
“Maybe you should.”
“That’s what I plan to do - as soon as he gets up here.”
Reaching into his pack, Adam withdrew a threatening looking knife and a block of cheese. Using the knife with deft fingers, he cut off a chunk and handed it to her. The growling of her stomach reminded her of how little they had eaten during the strenuous hike up, and she reluctantly took the offered piece.
“Which brings me to what exactly is going on here, Adam? Why am I up here if Andrew’s not?”
“I wanted to make sure he’d come before the storm. I didn’t think he’d make the hike unless I gave him a bit of motivation.” He indicated with his knife at her. “You’re all the motivation he needs.”
She snorted. “So you think that by worrying my family and friends you can entice Andrew to hike up here just before a storm hits? That seems a little melodramatic.”
He came to his feet and raised his face to the cloud covered sky. Jamie watched as a crooked smile broke on his face, and his eyes gleamed with barely contained excitement. This was the Adam that she had feared when she first met him, and she was beginning to fear him even more now. She recognized that she was a part of something that could only grow worse if they stayed, and she hoped she could talk some sense into him. “Drama is good. Drama is great. What better way to leave than with an adoring audience?”
“This is crazy, Adam. I think we should head back down.”
“No,” he cried, lowering his gaze to her. “I’ve tried to talk to him, but we always end up arguing. I need you with me. We have to stick together.”
“I don’t like this. I’m a little concerned.”
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