by Leigh Bale
He snorted, refusing to meet her eyes.
She touched his arm. “Everything is going to be okay, Mac.”
He stared into her eyes and she got the impression he was keeping something from her. Something big. “I hope so, Toni. I really do.”
As he turned and shuffled away, Toni stared after him, wondering what deep emotions lay hidden beneath his words. What wasn’t he telling her?
Grunt’s barking came from the vicinity of the cabin and she tensed. “Barking means an intruder, right?”
“Maybe Mom and Dad are back early.” Mac paused, staring at the thin trail of smoke rising from the cabin over the treetops. His brows knit together in concern.
“What is it, Mac?”
“Grunt’s probably found another skunk. Let’s take the back trail, just in case.”
She didn’t question him as he led her along a narrow path up to the cabin. Her thigh muscles burned as she climbed the steep grade. In spite of his bad leg, Mac’s breathing never became labored; an indication of his great physical conditioning. But he wasn’t too steady as they progressed up the hill. A feeling of urgency settled over Toni. Fear caused her to take a wobbly step and she stumbled. This time, Mac caught her arm, taking her hand as he guided her along the trail.
“Don’t worry,” he spoke low. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
He was now comforting her. His words of assurance helped her feel better, but she knew he was still just one man and injured at that.
Woof! Woof!
The dog’s call came from lower down the mountain, deep in the forest heading away from the cabin.
“Grunt has something on the run and they’re moving fast,” Mac spoke softly.
Toni’s nails bit into his palm. “What do you think he’s chasing?”
He shook his head. “Just stay close and don’t worry.”
Hah! Easier said than done.
She followed behind as he made his way over the bumpy terrain. The route he chose took them off the main trail and deep into the forest. They came out behind the cabin, just beyond the privy. Several times as they walked, Mac paused, listening to Grunt’s barking. The dog’s sounds faded as the animal moved farther away from the cabin. Toni held her breath, sensing now was a good time for silence.
When they entered the clearing, they froze. The wicker chairs had been knocked over, the cushions tossed aside on the deck. The door to the cabin stood wide open. Clothing and papers littered the yard. Grunt’s barking could be heard coming from the trees far below.
“Stay here.” Mac hopped over to the shed and returned with a rifle.
Toni stared with horror. When he cocked the gun, she flinched and prayed Hank and Inez were safe.
As Mac approached the door, he raised the weapon. He placed his finger on the trigger, his eyes narrowed to black, piercing points.
Toni held her breath while he disappeared inside. When he reappeared, he lowered the gun and jerked his head toward the cabin. “You have got to see this.”
Toni exhaled, dreading whatever might be inside.
“Hey! What’s going on here?” Hank came up the trail with Inez close beside him.
“What happened here? What a mess,” Inez exclaimed.
Mac waved to his parents. “Take a look inside. Someone did this while Toni and I were down at the lake.”
Inez crossed the deck while Hank studied the ground.
“What are you looking for?” Toni asked.
“That.” Hank pointed at fresh tracks in the dirt showing ridges and half-moons from the sole of someone’s shoes.
Frown lines creased Mac’s brow. “You recognize the prints?”
“Nah, they’re new,” Hank said. “It’s not the man that shot at Toni last night, and it’s not your friend Hooper. We passed him down below on the trail. He said he’d been up here visiting you. Whoever ransacked our cabin is one man, wearing boots. See how the impression of his footprint is too large to be a woman’s, and it cuts deeper into the soil? This man is about thirty pounds heavier than Hooper. I could follow the trail easy enough.”
Mac shook his head. “I think he’s long gone. Let’s see what’s missing, first.”
The print looked like any other boot track to Toni. How Mac and Hank could tell a person’s weight and gender, then follow him simply from his foot print, seemed like a rare art form. No wonder the military hired Hank to train recruits for the special forces.
They went inside the cabin and she gawked at the mess. Bedding and mattresses lay askew. Drawers had been pulled open and emptied onto the floor. Papers littered the room.
“My purse.” Toni snatched up the stylish handbag from where someone had tossed it on the floor. The contents lay scattered all around and she expected to find her money and credit cards missing.
Mac joined her as she inspected her wallet. “How odd. Everything’s here.”
“I don’t find anything missing, either,” Inez called from the doorway of her bedroom. “They didn’t take our cash or valuables.”
“But why trash the cabin and not take anything?” Hank asked.
Mac shrugged. “Maybe it was someone’s idea of having fun. Remember we had some teenaged vagrants at the lake two years ago. They were hiding out and stealing from campers when they left their campsites to go hiking. It took the forest ranger several weeks, but he finally caught them.”
He didn’t look convinced and Toni felt more uneasy. She didn’t understand any of this. What was going on?
“They had fun, all right,” Hank spoke in a sarcastic tone. “When we got to Toni’s car, we found the tires slashed. She’s not going anywhere in that vehicle.”
“The man with road rage must have done it.” Toni couldn’t believe someone would actually do such a thing. A heavy foreboding settled over her and she pressed her fingertips to her temples, trying to calm the pounding in her head.
“We’ll notify the sheriff as soon as we get into town.” With effort Mac bent over and picked up a packet of photographs of him and Eric in Afghanistan. The pictures had spilled from Toni’s purse. He sat in the recliner and stretched out his long legs as he gazed intently at them, one-by-one.
“I think I’ll go see if I can find out where the culprit got to,” Hank said.
“You’re not going alone.” Inez took her husband’s arm.
“Just be careful you two,” Mac cautioned.
Hank grinned and indicated his gun. “Now, son, you know what a careful man I am.”
Turning, Hank stepped outside with Inez and they followed what appeared to Toni to be an invisible trail into the trees.
She watched them go, worried, unable to shake an ominous feeling. “You think they’ll be okay? I know your father’s got special training, but he can’t stop a bullet.”
She shivered at the thought.
“Don’t worry. Dad knows how to handle himself. And he’d die before letting anything happen to Mom.”
“Do you really think a kid made this mess? They didn’t even steal my money.” Toni held up her wallet and fanned the green bills as proof.
“Toni, where did you get these pictures?” Mac spoke almost absentmindedly, seeming enthralled by the photos he still held in his large hands.
She barely spared him a glance as she set a chair upright and straightened the rug. “Those are the photos Eric sent with his letter. The ones I made from his flash drive. I printed them off yesterday, just before I drove down here. Why? Is something wrong?”
“Yeah, something’s very wrong.”
Mac held up a photo of him posing with Eric and another man Toni didn’t recognize. The scenery behind them showed a mountain of red sand. The picture could have been taken anywhere in Iraq or Afghanistan. The three men wore camouflage fatigues and looked like the best of pals, smiling and happy as they flexed their muscles and clowned around.
Toni’s stomach wrenched every time she gazed at Eric’s lopsided grin. She missed her brother terribly. “What’s wrong with that p
icture?”
Mac’s jaw tightened. “All of these hero shots of Eric and me were taken three days before the ambush. We’d just found out we had leave coming, so we felt pretty happy. Later that evening, I noticed Eric seemed upset. When I asked about it, he insisted it was nothing he couldn’t handle on his own. He wouldn’t tell me, but I knew something was wrong.”
“So?”
“This picture isn’t right.” He held up the photo again. “This third man happens to be an intelligence officer named Lieutenant Ryan Andrus. He worked with Eric on special projects, but none of the rest of our team knew him at all.”
Toni took the picture from Mac and examined it. Andrus stood about three inches taller than Mac, his body gangly, with bright red hair and a smattering of freckles across his cheeks and nose. “Yes, I remember you mentioning Lieutenant Andrus to Agent Hooper earlier this morning. But why is this picture a problem?”
“I met Andrus for the first time just one hour before the chopper picked us up for the mission.”
“And?” Toni prodded.
“And there is no possible way I could have posed in this picture with him and Eric. That photograph has obviously been altered to put all three of us together.”
She hesitated, then rifled through her purse one more time. She searched every pocket, scanning the floor for any scrap of paper she may have overlooked. Her insides clenched and a sick feeling settled in the pit of her stomach.
“Oh, no.” Her throat tightened and she could barely breathe.
“What, Toni? What’s wrong?”
She stared at him, fear burning the back of her mind. “Eric’s letter. It’s gone.”
Chapter Nine
“Eric’s letter is the only thing missing. Who would have taken it? And why?” Toni sat back in the rocking chair, looking deflated and frightened.
Mac wanted to say something to soothe her, but knew it’d do no good. “I think we both know. Whoever Eric feared must have followed you here.”
“Do you think the man with road rage last night and the person that trashed the cabin today are connected?”
“I don’t know, yet. They may have nothing to do with each other. But whoever was in the cabin may want Eric’s secret file. The fact they took his letter tells me they knew what they were after.”
“But how could they know about Eric’s letter, unless they saw him write it or he told them about it?”
“I don’t know.”
Her gaze locked with his and he saw panic in her eyes.
“Do you think whoever it is would go to my house?” she asked. “What about my grandma and Cara? I’ve got to warn them. If only we had cell phone service here. I’ve got to get back to Vegas.”
She came to her feet, grabbing her car keys. Mac waved her back. “Hang on. You can’t go anywhere yet. Your tires were slashed. My folks will be back in a few minutes and then we’ll take the boat across the lake. Even with this delay, we still should reach Clarkston before our intruder. That’s the nearest town, and he’d have to pass through there on his way out of the mountains.”
Uncertainty glimmered in her eyes as she paced the floor. “You really think we can get there first?”
He wasn’t certain, but he couldn’t let her lose control right now. If nothing else, he believed they had time to call and get Bernice and Cara Hamilton out of their house and somewhere safe. “It’ll be all right. Calm down. We don’t have any reason to believe our burglar would go to your house. As soon as we get to Clarkston, you can call your grandma and warn her. It’ll take quite a bit of time to get a tow truck out here to haul your car into town. If you’d prefer, I can drive you to Vegas.”
“Yes, please. I just want to get home. I can retrieve my car later. It’s not my priority right now.”
Trust filled Toni’s eyes, wringing every ounce of empathy from his heart. As she chewed her bottom lip and fidgeted with her keys, he felt an overwhelming urge to take her into his arms and comfort her.
Mac resisted the impulse. He had no right to be close with her anymore. Instead, he looked at the other photos strewn across his lap, searching for some logical answer as to why only one picture showed him posed with Eric and Lieutenant Andrus. It didn’t make sense. What had Eric gotten himself involved in?
“Mac, what does all of this mean?” Toni asked.
“I’m not sure.” He hesitated. “Obviously this picture has been electronically altered. Eric was good at that. He even doctored a photo of Colonel Wilkinson just before his retirement party.”
Toni gave a wobbly laugh. “Yes, Eric wrote and told me he blew up a photo of the Colonel wearing a pink and yellow polka-dot bikini.”
The memory of that hilarious night filled Mac’s mind. He and Eric had laughed with the other marines until their sides ached. Always a good sport, the Colonel enjoyed it, too.
Toni studied the photo. “But why would Eric include Andrus in this picture if you didn’t even know him?”
Mac shook his head, wracking his brain for answers. “It could be a clue. A strategy to draw my attention to that particular photograph. I definitely want to look at that flash drive. It may include something you overlooked. Eric knew of ways to hide information that an average person could never imagine, unless they knew what to look for.”
“It’s possible.” She fingered the lanyard beneath her sweatshirt, no doubt thinking about her grandmother and sister all alone in their house.
“They’ll be fine. Stop worrying.” He hoped his words were true.
Pens and pencils littered the top of his desk. He braced his hand against the wall as he scooped them up and placed them back in the pencil jar. Then, he sat back in his chair. As he closed his eyes, he ignored the throbbing pain in his leg.
Eric had been involved in something Mac didn’t understand. The thought of leaving the mountain and facing Toni’s family might prove the hardest thing he’d ever done. But Eric would do the same for him and he owed Eric. Big time.
“Mac, are you sure you’re up to this?”
He opened his eyes and found her gazing intently at his face. “Yes, I’m just thinking. I’ve got to see that flash drive and find out what Eric was afraid of.”
“You want us to come with you to Vegas?”
Mac looked up and saw his father standing in the doorway, his gruff face tight with anger.
Mac shook his head. “No, we’ll be okay. I’ll send word to Larry across the lake if I need you.”
Larry Coolidge was an old family friend that lived on the other side of the lake and let them park their vehicles on his property.
“I can’t believe someone would do this.” Inez MacKenzie came inside the cabin and began tidying up the mess.
“I’m so glad you’re back. We’ve got to leave right now. My family could be in danger.” Toni hurried to help Mac stand, then handed him his crutch.
“Did you find the intruder?” Mac asked Hank.
“Yep,” Dad said. “We trailed him to where he’d parked his car. He’s gone, now. Headed toward Clarkston on the main road. If you take the shortcuts, you might be able to beat him into town and alert the sheriff.”
Mac smiled. Ah, they had him, now. They might not catch the culprit, but the population of Clarkston was a mere three thousand people. Any stranger passing through would be noticed. What he looked like, what type of vehicle he was driving, if he ate at the diner or used the pay phone. Maybe someone talked to him or overheard a conversation.
“Come on, Toni. Let’s go.”
Hank leaned his rifle against the wall and righted one of the kitchen chairs. “Mom and I will stay here. You send word to Larry tomorrow, so we know you’re safe in Vegas. Just in case the burglar comes back, I’ll be ready with a little buck shot to welcome him.”
“Just be careful.” Toni pulled Mac toward the door where he embraced his parents.
“You be careful, too,” Hank warned. “We almost lost you in Afghanistan, and we don’t want anything else to happen to you.”
/> “Until we’re sure, I don’t think you and Mom should take any chances, either.”
“Warning taken.” Hank clasped Mac’s hand.
“I should be gone just a few days.” Mac hefted his backpack on one shoulder, the crutch braced beneath his other arm. “If you need me, leave a message on the phone machine at our house in Vegas. I’ll be staying there until we get this resolved.”
Inez kissed Mac, then looked into his eyes. “Don’t be a hero, son.”
Mac patted his mother’s cheek and flashed her a wide smile. “Don’t worry, Mom.”
As they headed toward the beach, Grunt tried to follow, but Mac sent him back. “No, boy. Stay. Mom and Dad might need you.”
Inez took hold of the dog’s collar and held him back as Hank accompanied them down the mountain.
“Do you think Grunt chased after the man who stole Eric’s letter?” Toni asked as she led the way at a brisk walk.
“I’m almost sure of it.” For once, Mac let Dad clasp his arm and help him negotiate the rocky hill to speed up the process. Mom remained behind, locked safely inside the cabin with Grunt.
The ominous thought of being stalked caused them to move cautiously. Mac prayed the vandal had just been some hiker bent on destruction, nothing more. But something niggled at the back of his mind. A prickle of danger along his spine. A feeling he always got on special ops missions.
The warning to stay alert and move with caution.
* * *
Morning sunlight filtered through the trees, highlighting dust motes and chasing shadows beneath the heavy branches overhead. Toni was grateful that Hank walked with them to the beach.
“Where’s your boat?” she asked.
Mac lifted an arm and pointed. When she saw the dilapidated craft bobbing against its tether, incredulity heated her face. “That’s your boat?”
It looked more like a dinghy plastered together with chewing gum and dental floss. The kind a sleepy old man with a big straw hat might use while he lazed on the Bayou and waited for catfish to take the bait from his fishing line.
“That?” Mac jutted his chin toward the dingy and shifted the crutch beneath his arm. “Yeah, that’s ours.”