by Jenna Night
Torrent tilted his head to the side and gave her an appraising look. She stopped tugging at the binding on her wrists while he was watching her so closely.
As soon as he was distracted she would start trying to get loose again.
“I inherited some small businesses from my parents,” he said. “One by one, they began to fail, so I cashed out and sold them. I don’t like things that are slow and tedious. I like things that are exciting. I like to gamble. The money from the businesses fueled my gambling and I did well for a while.”
He glanced away and Lily pulled hard on the belt on her wrists a couple of times.
“Then my wife got sick,” Torrent continued. He turned back to Lily. Now his expression was an angry, piercing stare. “We knew early on that recovery was a long shot. But I’d won a few long shots so I thought there might be a chance. The treatments didn’t work. My wife was in pain. I needed more money to take care of her, plus a few extra bucks to help lift my spirits. So I took a gambling trip to Vegas. And I lost. A lot. Afterward, I got a visit in my hotel room. A man offered me a line of credit to earn back what I’d lost. Of course, I’d have to pay a small fee. I took the loan, sure I could win it back. I didn’t. Torrent Trucking was the collateral.”
His shoulders slumped and he took a deep breath.
“My wife died,” Torrent said flatly. “Everyone believes the insurance money was enough to help me recover financially. The truth is, I get a monthly payment for letting some people out of Vegas use my company. We make it look as if I’m still running it. They’re probably involved in the cargo thefts, but I don’t ask questions.”
“So the two men who tried to kill me were working for you?”
“No.” Torrent shook his head. “Several of my employees were fired. New employees like you were hired because they wouldn’t notice any changes. Those two drivers who tried to kill you were hired by the people who are now running my company. They talked when they should not have and you overheard them. They tried to kill you because they were terrified of what would happen to them if their bosses heard about it.
“Eddie was brought in by the Vegas people for his computer and hacking expertise. He, too, was terrified some bit of information you’d overheard would get him killed by the company’s new owners. That’s why he tried to shoot you on the highway.
“If the whole operation gets busted, I lose my income. So I did what I could to keep Eddie scared and I was there to watch him grab you tonight. My plan was for him to die in a hail of police gunfire. That obviously didn’t work. But then I couldn’t believe my good fortune when you walked outside of that shopping arcade and right to me.”
“Did Eddie Drake kill Sheila?”
“She was enamored with Eddie. And you know how much he likes to blabber about himself to impress the ladies.” Torrent sighed. “If he hadn’t already told her too much, he would have eventually. So I took care of it. I told him the new owners were in town and they’d killed Sheila. And that he’d be next if he didn’t get to you tonight.”
“Are the people who own your business in town?”
“They’re staying away, but they’re watching. And if they aren’t happy, I’m in big trouble.”
He sighed heavily but didn’t say anything else. His story was at an end. The binds on Lily’s hands weren’t free, but they were looser. If she was going to do something, she needed to do it now.
She took off to her right, running as fast as she could. There were some thick trees to the side of the canyon, and big boulders farther in. She only needed a place to hide and a minute to work her hands free. Then she could move faster. She’d be able to climb. She could get away.
Torrent cursed and called out her name. She made a couple of turns and heard him chasing after her, but then she heard him going in the wrong direction, away from her.
She crouched down behind a large boulder. There was a small pine tree behind her and she managed to slide a slender branch beneath the leather binding and get her hands free.
She could now see the leather belt he’d used to tie her wrists. After shaking it off and letting it fall to the ground, she brought her hands in front of her and rubbed her wrists.
If she stayed in the small canyon, Torrent was sure to find her. She had to make her way back to the canyon entrance and out into the wilderness, where she at least had a chance of hiding in the darkness. She took a deep breath to fortify herself, then crouched down low and moved around the boulder.
Torrent stood in her way.
“Change of plans,” he said dryly. He grabbed her by the hair and pulled her close to him. Then he started walking, shoving a gun into her ribs and forcing her to keep up with him. “Forget the cabin. I was going to be nice, shoot you in there and make it quick. But I’m not feeling so nice anymore.”
Lily stumbled, her knees weak with fear, and he yanked her back to her feet.
“There’s a lovely little waterfall at the back of the canyon with a small pool at the bottom. It hasn’t frozen over yet. Beautiful spot. Families have been coming out here to splash around in the summer for generations.”
“Let go of me,” Lily shrieked in a panic, fighting to pull away from him.
He dropped her hair and clamped his hand around her arm, holding her tighter. “No! I already lost everything once. Thanks to you, I could lose it all again. You’re going into the pond. I might fire a shot or two into you to speed things up, but I am going to watch you shiver until you sink down into the water and stay there.” He looked at her with strangely empty eyes and grinned. “Just think how pretty you’ll look when true winter sets in and the water freezes solid.”
* * *
Nate drove west on the county highway north of Painted Rock, watching the light snow falling in the dark night and thinking about Lily and how important she’d become to him in such a short amount of time. She accepted people just as they were. She seemed to have trouble forgiving herself for some of the decisions she’d made, but Nate saw her work through that and it had helped him get better at accepting himself and the rough childhood he’d survived.
He could see himself with a family of his own now. And he’d started imagining Lily in his future. The truth was he didn’t want to imagine a future without her.
He pushed aside the dark thoughts gathering in his mind and cleared his throat. “Did you have a particular destination in mind where we should look out here?” he asked Elijah. He hadn’t had much time to patrol in the wilderness since he’d been assigned to Painted Rock. He stayed busy with calls closer to town.
“There’s another county road that intersects with this one about twenty miles ahead of us.”
“Yeah. There’s a gas station and a truck stop there.”
“Right,” Elijah confirmed. “It’s worth stopping there to see if anybody’s seen anything that could help us. Maybe Torrent had to stop for gas. If he’s taking Lily much farther out into the wilderness he’s got to fuel up somewhere.”
“All right.” Nate wanted to find Lily right now. Talking to people along the highway felt like a feeble way to track down and rescue the woman he loved. But at the moment it was all he had.
There wasn’t much conversation about Lily on the police radio. But since anybody could easily listen in on that, the sheriff’s department often used cell phones to share important information. Nate pulled his phone from his pocket and handed it to Elijah, asking him to connect it to the hands-free system. “Let’s call Rios.”
Before Elijah could place the call to her, a radio transmission came through. A citizen had called in to report witnessing some kind of altercation between a man and woman beside the highway. The general location given was on the highway Nate was now traveling, heading in the same direction and just a few miles ahead. Elijah’s instincts had been right.
A deputy responded from the truck stop Nate
and Elijah had just been talking about, confirming that he’d heard the transmission and that he’d start looking for the man and woman in question.
At the end of the transmission Elijah put through the call to Rios. The only detail she could add was that the vehicle was described as a large light-colored car. Certain they were on the right track, Nate drove even faster.
Elijah called his wife so she could update the members of Vanquish the Darkness. After he ended his call, Jonathan spoke up from the backseat. “What if Torrent didn’t go all the way to the truck stop? What if he turned off onto some road in the wilderness before then?”
Nate glanced at Elijah, hoping for a helpful response.
“I can only think of one road he could drive very far on in a sedan,” Elijah said after thinking for a minute. “Most of the roads around here are just cleared paths for off-roaders. But he could drive his car out to Heart Canyon. The canyon is fairly shallow and an easy climb. There’s a waterfall in spring. People take kids out there. The county keeps the road graded so cars can make it through.”
“Then that’s where we’re going.”
“It’s about seven or eight miles ahead.”
Nate’s focus stayed riveted on Lily as he drove, his thoughts bouncing back and forth between fear that she was in grave danger, and hope that they would both make it through this night and have a life together. Maybe he didn’t know from experience what a normal family was like, but he knew what his family was like. Bud, Ellen and his adoptive brother, Gaston. They were a family. What Nate didn’t know about being a husband and father, he was determined to figure out. Fear had held him back from being a family man, but it wouldn’t any longer. He’d trusted God with so many things. He could trust Him to help Nate with raising a healthy family. If Lily would have him. If she loved him as he loved her.
“Slow down, we’re almost there,” Elijah called out.
A few seconds later Nate made the turn onto a snow-dusted road.
“There aren’t any tracks in the snow,” Nate said, his heart sinking like lead. “Torrent must not have turned down here.”
“It only stopped snowing a few minutes ago,” Jonathan said. “Snow could have fallen on their tracks and covered them. Don’t lose hope, man.”
The road curved. As Nate drove around a bend, his headlights splashed across an object that looked like an oblong boulder.
Driving closer, he saw Bryan Torrent’s car, easily identifiable despite the speckling of snow on it.
Nate’s blood felt like fire and ice shooting through his veins. He would rescue Lily and stop Torrent. Didn’t matter what he had to do. “Call Sheriff Wolfsinger.” He ground out the words at Jonathan. “Tell him where we are.”
Nate slammed on the brakes, killed the truck’s engine and threw open his door. He got out and hurried toward the car, scanning the ground for tracks. Elijah stepped in front of him. Nate stepped to the side and Elijah got in front of him again.
“We’re going to be smart about this,” Elijah said.
Nate impatiently stepped around him a second time, but as he did a quiet inner voice told him Elijah was right. Staying calm in a horrible situation saved lives. He couldn’t let his feelings for Lily cloud his good judgment. Not when she needed him most. He paused and nodded at Elijah.
Elijah reached into the truck for his rifle and the coil of climbing rope. He grabbed the backpack from beside his brother in the backseat, took out a handgun and passed it to Nate. “It’s loaded.”
Nate took a couple seconds to check out the gun and then tucked it into the waistband of his jeans.
“That’s the entrance to the canyon.” Elijah gestured toward a large fissure in the wall of rock across from them.
It just took a few seconds to spot partial footprints in the shallow, sparse snow. Nate quickly followed them for a few feet until he was certain they were leading to the mouth of the canyon.
Jonathan got out of the truck and caught up with Nate and Elijah. “Cavalry’s on the way.”
“I’m not waiting,” Nate said. “You two stay here and make sure no one goes into the canyon behind me. Could be a trap. And it’ll speed things up if you can wave the deputies over when they arrive.”
“Got it,” Jonathan said.
“You’re not doing this alone,” Elijah warned. “Give me time to get up to the rim of the canyon. It doesn’t go back very far and I can climb down to the floor at the other end. It’s not a far drop to the bottom. We can box in Torrent and Lily and whoever else might be in there.”
A good plan, but Nate wasn’t waiting any longer.
“Move fast,” Nate said as he stepped around Elijah and walked into the canyon.
Nate stayed close to the wall, moving as carefully and quietly as possible. He stopped to listen several times, but the only noise he heard was the faint windblown sound of cars passing by on the highway in the distance.
He looked at the ground for tracks, but couldn’t see anything obvious. Didn’t matter—he was pretty sure Torrent had taken Lily into the farthest depth of the canyon to make certain there were no witnesses.
He reached the old shack Elijah had mentioned and paused outside, watching and listening. Nothing. Slowly, he stepped up onto the slab of rock that served as a front porch and then through the door, bracing himself to see Lily’s lifeless body.
The shack was empty. She wasn’t there. Relief washed over him. But then terror gripped his heart. What if Torrent had simply swapped out vehicles here? What if he’d gotten back on the highway in a different car? What if Nate never found Lily?
As he stood there disheartened, he heard a sound at the end of the canyon. He hurried in that direction, hearing more sounds as he drew closer to the source. The noises seemed to be coming from ground level, but also from up on the rim. Had Elijah had enough time to get up there or was someone else watching him?
Nate shoved past trees and spiky bushes and into the clearing at the base of a trickling waterfall at the end of the canyon. He saw an odd shape there, and at first he couldn’t understand what he was looking at. Then he knew. It was Lily, lying on a large flat rock beside the small pool at the bottom of the waterfall.
She was still and unmoving. He was too late.
No!
Nate rushed toward her. At the same time he sensed movement up on the canyon rim. If someone was up there watching him, if this was a trap, he didn’t care. Lily might still be alive! And if she stayed out here any longer she would freeze to death. Her jacket and shoes were gone. She had only jeans and a T-shirt to protect her from the bone-chilling temperatures.
Nate dropped to his knees beside her and touched her skin. She was alive! Weak, but alive. She tried to speak but she was shaking and her teeth were chattering so badly he couldn’t understand her.
Nate tore off his coat, gently lifted her to a sitting position and wrapped the coat around her trembling shoulders. “Are you wounded?” he asked, terrified that she was already too far gone. “Have you been shot?”
She shook her head. And then he saw the large bruise that covered half of her face. Her broken glasses were on the ground a few feet away.
He pulled off his cowboy hat and tried to put it on her, but she wouldn’t stop shaking her head.
“Bryan Torrent. He’s here,” she finally said clearly enough for him to understand, her voice a weak whisper.
“I haven’t seen him,” Nate said, kneeling down and holding her close to his body.
“I’m right here.”
Nate whirled toward the voice and something smacked him in the face. It hit hard enough to knock him backward and wrench Lily from his arms.
Momentarily stunned, Nate couldn’t see anything, couldn’t even get his eyes open. His head was spinning and he couldn’t regain his balance. Finally he managed to get himself onto his hands and kn
ees. He crawled around on the sandy ground, desperately trying to find his way back to Lily.
Torrent laughed, stomped on Nate’s hand and grabbed the handgun from Nate’s waistband.
Then he kicked him in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him and rolling him onto his back. Nate finally got his stinging eyelids to open. The first thing he saw was Lily. He fought to stand and steady his feet beneath him so he could get to her.
He wasn’t fast enough. Torrent grabbed Lily and started yanking her to her feet.
But then Nate saw something by the waterfall behind Lily and Torrent. It was moving down the side of the canyon wall, from one rocky shelf to the next. Nate tried to focus his eyes, not certain if it was a falling rock or a shadow.
It took him a moment to see in a beam of moonlight that it was Elijah.
Torrent appeared to see Elijah at the same time and he hesitated. Those few seconds gave Nate the time he needed to take a few shaky strides and throw a punch that knocked Torrent to the ground.
Seconds later, Elijah was there making sure Torrent wouldn’t escape.
Nate turned to Lily, wrapped his arms around her and held on tight. If he had his way, he would never, ever, let her go.
SIXTEEN
Lily was wearing two coats. She had on Nate’s, plus a raincoat he’d borrowed from a responding deputy. He’d also fetched a blanket from the EMTs and draped it over her shoulders. But it was having Nate holding her close with his arms wrapped around her that truly made her feel warm.
Snowflakes were falling again, but they were sparse and lazy. Jonathan had moved Elijah’s truck to the mouth of the canyon and Nate and Lily were now leaning against it and watching the sheriff’s department take care of business. Lily was finally dry and warm. Nate had been holding an ice pack up to his right cheek for a while, but at least nothing was broken. Lily had also been holding an ice pack up to her own cheek until just a few minutes ago.