Escape to Morning

by Susan May Warren

  That felt good to say. She smiled, letting his image run through her mind. Yeah, he made a charming package with that slightly Western drawl, those worn cowboy boots and jeans, the way he filled out his suede shirt and jacket. He should probably have a warning label attached to him. And he had the most beautiful, devastatingly powerful eyes. They did crazy things to her—like make her reveal her secrets for humiliating scrutiny.

  Only he’d treated those secrets like a gift. And that’s when she knew he was more than a package. He was the genuine article. He might have reporter written on his forehead, but she felt sure she wouldn’t see any of her skeletons unmasked on the front page of the Moose Bend Journal.

  “Will took me out for breakfast, and then we walked along the shore and he fed the seagulls scraps that Nancy had given him.” She rubbed her arms, remembering how the seagulls had swooped out of the sky and argued for the meat and bread. And mainly how the wind had raked Will’s dark hair, how his smile had nearly turned her to a puddle right there on the rocky shore. Especially after he’d listened to her story, not only with his glistening eyes and posture but with his heart. “Then we took his truck and made two trips to retrieve the vehicles. Your Jeep is out in the lot.”

  “I saw that, thanks.” Sarah motioned with her root beer for Dannette to continue.

  Dannette grinned. “We spent the rest of the afternoon at the vet. He climbed right inside the cage with me and didn’t make me feel strange or weird as I petted Missy. He even listened to a few SAR stories. In fact, he’s a Christian. At least I think so. He prayed for our meal and for Missy. In a restaurant. In public. I should have guessed. He seems so honest, even for a reporter. Amend my first statement—for sure I was wrong about him.”

  “I think you like him.”

  Dannette felt heat rise to her face. “Nah. He’s only a friend. But it feels pretty good.”

  Sarah shook her head, smiling. “I have to admit, he’s cute. And capable. To be honest, I’m not sure we would have made it out without him last night.”

  Dannette lowered her voice into I’ve-got-a-secret mode. “He held my hand. Twice. Once at breakfast and then when we walked on the beach.”

  “That doesn’t sound like ‘just friends’ to me. When is the last time Conner held your hand?”

  Dannette stared at the lake, knowing she wore a silly grin. “It just … I don’t feel like it was a date or anything. He didn’t try and kiss me—”

  “I hope not!”

  Dannette rolled her eyes. “Seriously. He acted like the perfect gentleman, and even the hand holding was either because I was going to fall or because I … ah … told him …” A hard lump suddenly lodged in her throat.

  Sarah’s smile vanished. “You told him about Ashley, didn’t you?”

  Dannette nodded, staring at her hands. “I wanted to explain why I didn’t like reporters … and well, one thing sorta led to the next.”

  Sarah turned the bottle in her hands, staring at the label. “I knew you needed to talk to someone after the incident with Emily. I didn’t expect it to be him.” She looked up at Dannette. “Just be careful, okay? I don’t want you getting too close to this guy until we know more about him.”

  “What’s to know? He’s a small-town reporter.”

  “With a predisposition to stalk—”

  “He was looking for the girl.”

  “And, why? I mean, he’s not exactly an SAR type, is he?”

  Dannette frowned. “Actually, I think he’s very search and rescue. He’s dedicated, he doesn’t stop for trees in his way, and he believes in hope. He prays out loud.”

  “Or maybe he wanted to impress you.”

  Dannette didn’t like the feelings roiling through her chest. She fought her rising voice. “You’re just jealous because you can’t let yourself enjoy Hank. You have to suspect every man who walks into your life.”

  Oh, man she so didn’t mean to say that, but the words hung there between them, stinging.

  Sarah’s eyes filled, and her voice was tight, quiet. “You’re right. So right. But I guess I don’t feel any shame about wanting to know a guy pretty well before I let him into my life. Or spend any time alone with him.” A tear crested down her cheek.

  “I’m sorry, Sarah.” Dannette reached out and touched Sarah’s knee.

  Sarah stared at Dannette’s hand only a moment before she covered it with hers. “I forgive you.”

  Dannette closed her eyes and squeezed Sarah’s hand. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to get in over my head with Will. It’s just that he was a good friend today, and he seems trustworthy to me.”

  Sarah swiped away the tear. “He is nice. And I hope, for your sake, he turns out to be everything you hope.”

  Dannette frowned. “I don’t have any hopes. I don’t have room in my life for hopes.”

  Sarah tipped the root beer at her. “Yeah. Me neither.”

  Silence descended between them as waves lapped the shore.

  A knock sounded at the door. Sarah turned, but Dannette rose and went inside to answer it.

  Kelly stood in the doorway. “Hey there.” The petite EMT with the long brown braids, intense brown eyes, and a slow smile looked like a woman in a hurry, her jacket open and swinging her car keys. “I called the vet to check on Missy. I’m so relieved.”

  Dannette gave her a hug. “Are you coming or going?”

  Kelly made a wry face. “I just pulled into town, and I’m headed up the trail to dig out some campers from their crushed RV.”

  “Sounds messy.”

  Kelly braced her hand on the wall. “I’ll be there for a while. But I talked to Sarah earlier, and she said that you might be heading back out, looking for that girl?”

  She was?

  Scary how well Sarah knew her. Better, sometimes, than she knew herself.

  “Well, I would be, but they found her.”

  “Um … well, maybe not, Dannette.”

  Dannette turned to look at Sarah.

  “Well, there’s a bit of a hum at the sheriff ’s office about your little field trip. The dispatcher—I think her name is Mary—told me that the sheriff himself went out to check out the address, and according to her, he came back swearing.”

  “I knew it.” Dannette shook her head. “That girl is still out there.”

  “Yeah, well, there’s more. Evidently, another call came in. This time it was local and reported seeing the girl about thirty miles south of town. Said she must have gotten picked up, possibly by a trucker.”

  Dannette frowned. “That’s what Will said. I’ve been thinking about that all afternoon, but it doesn’t make sense. We found a blanket in the forest, and Missy alerted to scent right before the storm.”

  Kelly shrugged.

  “Did Fadden get a number on that report?”

  “No. They hung up when Mary started pressing for details.”

  Dannette leaned against the doorjamb. “I don’t feel good about this.”

  “Me neither.” Kelly took a deep breath. “You can take Kirby.”

  Surprise must have shown on Dannette’s face because Kelly smiled reassuringly and nodded. “You know him. And we’ve trained long enough together for him to know you also. I trust you.” She glanced toward Kirby’s kennel, out near the driveway. The shepherd lay curled in the corner of his pen, a pool of fur. “Besides, I’m sure he’s itching to get out. And he could use more practice before our certification trial.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. You’ll find his trailing harness and vest in the little shed by the kennel.”

  Dannette sighed, looked back at Sarah, then at the darkening sky. If there had been SAR dogs out there, they would have found us. “Okay. Thank you, Kelly. I’ll keep you posted.”

  “Be careful.”

  Dannette nodded, then stood for a moment watching Kelly descend the steps and climb into her SUV. Dannette waved as she pulled out.

  Sarah came up behind Dannette, touched her shoulder. “I figured that
if you wanted to go back out, I could stay here and watch Missy. I’ll call you if something should happen.”

  Dannette shook her head. “I shouldn’t go out alone.”

  “What about Will?”

  “Now that would be a really bad idea. Alone in the woods? I thought you said I needed to know him better.”

  Sarah made a face. “Sorry, you’re right. Listen, why don’t you go out during the day tomorrow? You can start from the forest-service road we hiked out on.”

  “I dunno. Let’s look at the maps.”

  They unrolled them on the bed, leaned over them. “Okay, we were on Tom Lake, right?” Sarah said.

  Dannette nodded, traced her finger to where she thought they’d camped.

  “Look at this. Tom Lake has cabins on the southern end. If she made it to the lake, it’s feasible she’d see the cabins. And maybe hike to one of them and hole up. I doubt they have telephones or electricity, but at least it would be warm.”

  Dannette saw the girl in her mind’s eye, trekking toward the cabins, breaking in, maybe wrapping herself in a blanket. “That’s a good idea. Worth checking, I suppose.”

  “Not with Will.” Sarah made it sound more like reassurance than a question.

  “Of course not.” But Dannette smiled, her heart warming probably a little too much at the memory of him in the woods, looking like an over-the-top Boy Scout, keeping her company with stories and, most of all, helping carry her dog to safety.

  “I’ll leave first thing in the morning,” Dannette said. “But I’m taking my cell phone. And if anything happens to Missy, you call me.”

  “Of course.” Sarah sat down on the bed. “You’ll find her, I promise. Dani.”

  Dannette gave her a good swat with her pillow.

  “What idiots!” Bakym exploded in anger and slammed his fist into Daniel’s face. The skinny one—a weak American with earrings and a nose stud—grunted in pain. Then Bakym rounded on Gazim. “Why didn’t you follow them?”

  Gazim flinched but didn’t move. “We did. They hiked out. Their dog was injured.”

  “Are you sure they were looking for Fadima?”

  Daniel held his mouth where blood trickled out. His eyes flashed. “There’s a bodyguard with them. Someone with ‘special ops’ written all over him—he’s carrying a gun and knew to hide the women before the storm. But they’re heading into town.”

  Gazim cut his glance to Daniel, then back to Bakym.

  “And if he goes back out?” Bakym asked.

  “We’ll kill him.”

  “We need fresh maps and radio batteries,” Gazim said. “Fadima’s out there, and we just have to know where to look.”

  “We’re running out of time.” Bakym walked over to the window. The storm had shredded trees around the compound, littered it like bomb debris. He smiled at the comparison. “Her father has disappeared.”

  Silence behind Bakym made him wonder if they understood the ramifications of his statement. Ataman Erkan Nazar, a key player in Hayata, had gone AWOL three days before what would be their greatest victory on American soil. It didn’t bode well for confidence among the Hayata terror masterminds.

  What if Nazar was betraying them? He’d always been the weak one. Philosophical. A purist, he’d voiced dissent on occasion—such as their liaison with North Korea and the bombing in Macedonia.

  Then again, he was probably trying to spare his wife from the justice of Hayata. Thankfully, they found the traitorous woman and her daughter. And Bakym had been among the privileged who made Nazar’s wife suffer for her betrayals. Nazar should remember that.

  “We have to find Fadima. Find out what she knows. Draw her father out of hiding.” Then Nazar would be reminded what it meant to turn on his Hayata brothers.

  Bakym turned, zeroed in on Daniel, stepping an inch away from his face. “Get back out there. Find her. Or I’ll do to you what I plan to do to her.”

  Daniel nodded, a cold glint in his eye, probably meant for Bakym but useful for the task. “We’ll find her. I promise.”

  “So, she’s still out there.” Will tucked his night-vision goggles into his rucksack and readjusted the cell phone in his ear. “I can’t wait for your guy, Jeff. I gotta go. Tell—”

  “Phil Branden.”

  “Right—Phil—that I’ll contact him when I get back, and to check the progress of the ME’s investigation on Simon.”

  “You going back out with the dog team?” Jeff asked.

  Will had already dismissed the idea of bringing Dani and Sarah along. They’d been good company and had even led him to his current lead. But this time he was going alone. Just in case the terrorists still scoured the woods.

  “Nope. I studied the map, and I think I have a pretty good idea of where she might be hiding out. We tracked her to an inland lake, semiprivate with rustic cabins on the southern end. I’m going to hike in just before first light tomorrow and start a systematic search. My gut is telling me that she’s hiding out in one of the cabins.”

  “What about those Hayata operatives you saw?”

  “I don’t know. They were in the same stretch of forest I was, and the storm nearly sliced and diced me. I wonder if they’re even alive.”

  “You better hope not.”

  Will sighed, grabbed another ammunition clip, and shoved it into one of his vest pockets. “Any news on General Nazar?”

  “Yeah, and it’s not good. He’s disappeared, along with his son. We think he went into hiding.”

  “Or Hayata figured him out.”

  “Maybe. But you gotta find that girl. Our hunch is that only she knows where he is. And if we don’t find her soon, Hayata is going to find them both—and accomplish their mission.”

  “Right,” Will said, smelling the smoke, hearing the screams of his own Hayata nightmares in Kazakhstan. He checked his watch and grimaced. The new agent, Phil, had sacrificed hours tracking down a phantom caller while he’d spent the day with Dani.

  Well, he wouldn’t really call that a sacrifice.

  “Will, when you find her, don’t stop. Get on a plane and bring her back here.”

  “Roger that.” Will clicked off the phone, tucked it into his pocket, and surveyed the mess he’d made of his room. He’d packed little for this undercover mission, and it had taken him less than an hour to assemble most of it into two duffel bags. The rest he’d stuff into the rucksack he planned to carry on his back as he hiked into Tom Lake.

  It hadn’t escaped him that he wouldn’t be able to say goodbye to Dani. Or Sarah for that matter, although somehow that didn’t feel quite so painful.

  “Thanks, Will, for being my friend,” Dani had said today as she got out of the truck. Those words felt like fingerprints on his heart, marking him as a different man. He’d smiled, and something akin to peace filled his heart. It felt really heart-sweepingly good to be called a friend. So good that he’d even managed to keep in check all the desires to run his hand into her short, silky hair, pull her close, and kiss her.

  Friends didn’t do that.

  Right?

  Will picked up a pile of books off his nightstand. Bonnie’s wedding invitation lay on top. He’d retrieved it from the floor of his truck, and now he smoothed it against his leg, opened it again.

  It was dated for this weekend. He was going to be a real slouch and not show up. Even if he wanted to go, he couldn’t. But it wasn’t too late to do the right thing. To check in and be the friend he should have been to her … to Lew. Especially since he seemed to be batting one thousand in the friends department.

  He sank to the floor, his head back, eyes closed as Lew strolled into his mind.

  “Hey, pal, great hit!” Lew, hanging out of the dugout, baseball cap shadowing his lazy brown eyes, a shank of blond hair peeking out the back. He slapped Will on the back as he jogged in after clinching the game with a homer. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Will threw his hard hat into the bag and joined the team for the endgame congrats. The Cotter Bulls raking
in another victory. The sun blazed, still powerful despite the late hour, even in its downward slide. The smell of barbeque simmered in the warm air.

  Baseball fans dispersed as Lew gathered his stuff. “Mom’s got lasagna waiting. Wanna join us?”

  Will’s mind tracked to his own house. His mother had left a couple of weeks ago, and things in the Masterson household had deteriorated like Jell-O on a hot day. Currently, food wasn’t high on his father’s list of priorities. Will had breakfasted on a bag of microwavable burritos and washed them down with a cold beer, hoping his dad wouldn’t notice his dwindling supply. Dinner at the Strongs’ would fill the nooks and crannies of latent hunger.

  However, hanging out with the Strongs felt like salt in open wounds lately. Probably because Will’s mother had stayed longest this time. Nearly a year. Long enough for it to really rip his heart from his chest when she left. Long enough for Will to see his father cry.

  Still, the Strongs offered an escape from his dark house. And if he was especially unlucky, his dad would be there, already drinking hooch, and he’d have to duck a few good swings. In the end, he’d wind up sleeping on the Strongs’ front-porch swing anyway.

  When Lew came out of the showers an hour later and repeated the dinner invitation, Will gave a slight nod. They exited the locker room of the high school, and Lew waved to Bonnie and a friend, sitting like ornaments on her father’s Mustang. Will tried to ignore the stab of envy. Bonnie so adored Lew it felt like they were already married. Even so, Will knew that Lew and Bonnie had some sort of religious agreement—one that said they were only close friends until Lew put a ring on her finger in a church.

  Will had earned a shiner once, challenging that agreement, calling Lew a fool.

  “Hey ya, Will,” Bonnie said. “I want you to meet my cousin Katie.”

  He could like Katie, with her long brown hair, slightly mischievous eyes, the look of danger in her smile. She hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her Levi’s 501 jeans, drawing them low, revealing skin. “Hi, ya,” she said softly.

  But he heard the invitation in her voice loud and clear. She was Bonnie’s cousin?

  “She’s in for the weekend,” Bonnie said, not seeing or perhaps ignoring the sudden shift in temperature. “She’s a freshman at Brookings College.”