by Webb, Peggy
Why weren’t they answering? Kate pressed her ear to the door, but all she could hear was the echo of receding footsteps.
“Wait! Where are you going? Come back.”
Nothing. Not a single reply, not even another footfall.
Holding the side of her head, Kate explored the room, looking for any clues that would tell her more about Betty and her son. It was spacious but sparsely furnished, a double brass bed, a dressing table with a tarnished silver-handled comb, brush and mirror set. The bedside table held a copy of the King James edition of the Bible plus an outdated Farmer’s Almanac. Had the furnishings once belonged to a great-grandmother? Or did Betty simply have a fondness for browsing antique shops?
Two rocking chairs with crewel-work cushions faced each other in the window nook. Kate’s own grandmother liked to crochet, knit, and do embroidery and crewel work. Had Betty made the cushions? The question might start a conversation that would let the woman know she didn’t have to lock Kate in. She was from a good, normal family. She wasn’t about to go prowling around Betty’s house stealing things.
Kate’s head was pounding now. She nabbed a sandwich off the tray and sank into one of the rocking chairs.
And that’s when she saw it. The snow scene was not outside the window at all. It was an enlarged photograph of a snow scene taped over the window. And behind it were iron bars.
Kate was a prisoner.
Chapter Four
Now, standing in the safety of the woods, looking back at the dark house, Kate shivered and pulled the thin borrowed coat closer. That Betty had helped her escape was a miracle. That she might not survive was a strong possibility. It was far colder than when she’d left campus, clearly below freezing and maybe even sub-zero. Frigid air bit through the inadequate coat as the wind whipped around her.
She needed more protection, and she needed it fast. The shed, barely visible in Betty’s backyard, was Kate’s best bet. People kept all kinds of stuff in sheds.
Keeping to the deep shadows, she sneaked back into the yard. She hoped Betty had gone back to bed. And she for sure didn’t want to wake that monster son of hers.
Kate wasn’t planning to steal. Just do some stealthy borrowing. If she found something she could use, she’d made sure Betty got it back. Along with a thank you note.
If she got home. When she got home.
It seemed impossible that only yesterday Kate’s only serious thought had been whether Mom would insist she wear that hideous Christmas sweater Grandma Carter had knitted for her last year. Gran would be sure to notice. And though she had poor taste in clothes, she was a sweetheart. Kate couldn’t bear the idea of hurting her feelings.
She wondered if she’d ever see Gran again. If she’d ever see any of them.
“Buck up.” Kate said this aloud. It was a trick Mom had taught her.
She always said, “When things aren’t working out the way you think they should, Katie, give yourself a little pep talk. Out loud. Sometimes all it takes to make you believe in yourself is the sound of your own voice.”
Filled with a renewed self-confidence, Kate crept toward the door of the shed.
It was padlocked, but she found a window on the far side facing the woods. Without a second thought, she shucked her coat and wrapped it around a big rock to muffle the sound of breaking glass. Then she cleared away the jagged edges and hefted herself inside.
Hurry, hurry, hurry.
It was still dark outside, but goose bumps rose at the possibility of the creepy Jonathan catching her. When her eyes adjusted to the dark, she grabbed a penlight off a workbench and trained it around the walls.
Jackpot.
Three pairs of snowshoes. An ice ax and rope. A garbage bag filled with cast-offs, including winter gear. Feeling as if she’d just aced every one of her final exams, Kate selected snowshoes first. One pair was made for running, light weight titanium frames, fewer crampon teeth and bindings, and a narrow-waisted frame for better balance and maneuverability. She grabbed them and then dug into the garbage bag.
The ski suit she pulled out was pink—probably Betty’s—far too big but thankfully long enough to fit tightly around the ankles of her boots. She nabbed a handful of extra socks from the bag, mismatched woolens--it didn’t’ matter—and an extra sweater with a few moth holes. She cinched the suit by wrapping the stolen rope around her waist then pulled on a pair of mismatched gloves and a full-face ski cap she’d found. She dropped the rest of her supplies out the window.
Training the beam of her light around, she searched for anything else she could use. A flash of red caught her eye.
Please, please, please.
Her heart pounding, she knelt to shove cardboard boxes aside. And there was her backpack, tucked into the corner beside an ornate carved wooden box.
Her hands shook as she unbuckled it and scrambled through the contents. Her wallet was there plus her thermos of water, a pack of beef jerky and her space blanket folded into a small square.
“No matter how short your journey, in the winter in Minnesota always prepare for emergencies,” her dad always said.
If he were there, Kate would kiss him.
But where was her laptop? Her cell phone? She searched all the pockets of the backpack for her phone but came up empty. Had she taken it out when she called her mom? Left it on the front seat?
She thought not. Her phone was programmed with the hands-free system in her car. She never took it out when she was driving.
That cretin, Jonathan, had taken it. It had to be him. Kate unzipped her wallet and trained the small flashlight inside. Her cash was there and her credit cards. But, wait. Where was her driver’s license? Why in the world would the jerk want her license?
She shivered. The possibilities were limitless, and all of them horrible.
“Just go,” she whispered. “Take the backpack and go!”
But the carved box more than stirred her curiosity; it seemed to be exerting some strange pull on her. Ornate and even a bit feminine, it was totally out of place in a backyard shed.
Kate opened the lid. Inside was one gold earring in the shape of a unicorn and a charm bracelet with one bangle, a turquoise and silver dream catcher. She’d seen the bracelet before. Or one like it. Had it been in one of those gift shops that sprouted up like mushrooms in Minnesota’s tourist spots?
As Kate dug beneath the jewelry, her flashlight glinted off something shiny. Plastic, maybe. She trained her light closer. It was a driver’s license for Jennifer Olsen, blond, blue eyes, 5’3”, Duluth, Minnesota. She was nineteen years old.
A chill ran through Kate. She remembered the bracelet now. Jennifer Olsen had been wearing it in the Missing Girl posters she’d seen in gas stations all over Minnesota.
The second license was for Linda Stephenson, blond, blue eyes, 5’ 6”, Fargo, North Dakota. Twenty years old. She’d gone missing a year after Jen.
Behind that was a third. Kate Carter, blond, blue eyes, 5’9”, Grand Marsais. She’d turned nineteen in November.
Terror seized her. Jen’s and Linda’s bodies had been found in the snow, located by the SAR team of Maggie Carter and Jefferson.
There was something else, too, something so unspeakable Kate felt the bile rise to her throat.
When she’d searched her prison/room she’d discovered two doors. The first one led into a windowless bathroom with a small prefabricated shower, a toilet and a wall-hung sink with two toothbrushes in a holder on the porcelain lip. Two bathrobes hung on hooks behind the door, one pink, practically new and a larger blue one, well-worn.
The other door had led to a closet. Inside was only one garment, a wedding dress with tags still on it. Size six. Kate’s size.
Both Jen’s and Linda’s bodies has been posed in the snow with a single arrow through the heart and a wedding veil on their heads. Whoever murdered them had a sick notion that they were brides.
And Kate was supposed to be next.
“Not while I have breath.”
She grabbed her driver’s license, slammed the box shut then bolted through the window with her backpack. Outside, she gathered up her stolen gear and sprinted toward the woods.
Without breaking her stride she found the trail then ran as if the hounds of Hell were after her. That’s what being around Jonathan had felt like, facing a whole pack of raving mad dogs bent on devouring her.
Pace yourself. Run smart. Coach Keith Lucas’s voice brought her to a halt.
It played through her head as clearly as if she were back on the high school track training with her teammates.
Speed is not everything, Coach said. When Keith Lucas gave one of his famous pep talks, he paced along the side of the track, fists slightly balled, shoulders relaxed and arms loose and swinging as if he were running a marathon. You’ve got to be mentally tough. A fearless mind is your biggest ally.
Kate centered herself with some deep breaths.
“First things first,” she said. The sound of her own voice was reassuring in the silence of the woods.
She strapped on the running snowshoes then mentally ran down the list of things she needed to do in order to run smart and strong.
If she didn’t properly strap the ice ax to her backpack she was liable to have a mishap and cut herself so deeply she wouldn’t have to worry about Jonathan. She’d bleed out before he ever found her.
Next she trained her stolen flashlight into the woods, checking out her surroundings, searching for her captor, peering through the gloom, listening for a single sound that didn’t belong in the deep wilderness.
Except for the stirring of air from hawks on the wing and a flash of fur from a fox on the run, the woods were strangely silent. This close to Wayne’s Trading Post signs of human life should be evident, tracks in the snow from other snowshoes and snowmobiles, a distant hum from air stirred by motors and human voices, radios turned too loud and the electronic dinging of the gas pumps, doors opening and shutting, the whine of traffic on a nearby highway.
Kate tamped down her rising panic.
Focus, Coach said.
In the darkness, the trail was discernable only because the gap in the trees allowed more light.
“I’ve got this,” Kate said, and she felt the confidence pouring through her. She was a superb athlete, and her mom and dad would surely come looking for her. Were they searching already?
She broke the branch of a sapling beside the trail just enough to leave it hanging. For good measure she jerked off her ski cap and ran her gloved hands roughly through her hair, imagining her hair and skin flaking off in such quantity Jefferson would alert to the strong scent trail.
“There now.” She got back on the trail and readied herself for a race that meant life or death.
Stay steady. Coach Keith Lucas cheered her on. Finish strong.
Kate relaxed her shoulders, slightly balled her fists and took off running, focusing on what lay ahead. Running in snowshoes was entirely different from running in track shoes. She had to widen her stance to accommodate the shoes and lift her knees higher.
“I’m tough. I’ve got this.”
Visibility was not good, but she could make out a sharp curve just ahead.
Don’t follow the curves, Kate. Coach’s advice played like a record in her head. It increases the distance. Run the tangents.
She stayed in the center of the trail, taking the straight line through the curve and the next two that followed.
Soon she was in a rhythm, running with ease, imagining her destination as the finish line.
But where was Wayne’s Trading Post? She paused to listen for sounds of human habitation and got nothing except deep woods silence. Logic told her that this close to the holidays and with a blizzard coming, folks wouldn’t be gadding about the general store. They’d be securing doors and windows, laying in a supply of wood for their fireplaces, checking their backup generators to make sure they had enough fuel to get through the power outages, checking their food supplies.
Still, she had to be close to the finish line.
“Forward, Kate Carter.”
She picked up speed, racing against time. A storm was bearing down on her, and so, possibly, was a mad man.
Chapter Five
5:45 a.m.
Screeching tires and slammed-on brakes jerked Maggie out of a deep sleep. She lurched forward, her seatbelt sawing into her ribs as the truck skidded toward a ditch.
“Joe?” She braced her feet against the floorboard. “What the heck?”
“Don’t know.” He fought with the wheel, brought the truck out of a spin and came to a halt just inches short of a red Jeep Grand Cherokee stopped in front of him on the highway. A ghostly line of traffic was barely visible in front of the Jeep, their taillights glowing in the early morning darkness.
Gusts of snow swirled in a wind that was much stronger than when they’d left the house. The weatherman was right. The blizzard was coming, and it was coming on strong.
“Oh, no,” she said. “How far are we from Glen’s Crossing?”
“At least another fifteen miles.”
And traffic wasn’t moving. Most of the cars idled, keeping the heater on, but a few of the drivers had bailed out and were walking toward the front of the line.
“Wait here, Maggie. I’ll see what I can find out.”
“Sure.” Maggie wanted to tear her hair out. All she’d done since yesterday was wait. And with each passing minute, her chances of finding Kate alive diminished.
Jefferson whined and stuck his nose over the back of her seat. He not only in tune with the weather but with her every mood. As she patted his head, she tried to tamp down her growing anxiety. “It’s okay, boy. We’ll find her.”
With her dog in the car, the windows fogged quickly. Maggie wiped the moisture off with some paper napkins she found wadded on the front seat. When she shifted, two empty paper cups rattled at her feet. She spotted another on the back seat beside Jefferson. Joe had never been especially neat, but lately he didn’t seem to care about anything, particularly picking up after himself.
She used to find his slightly messy ways endearing. Now, when she found a dirty towel on the bathroom floor or picked up a coffee cup he’d left on the table by his recliner, she was likely to say, “I’m not your housekeeper.” And say it in a very snarky voice.
No wonder he couldn’t stand to be around her.
“And vice versa.”
When Jefferson whined again she realized she was talking to herself. Was she trying to convince herself of something? What? That their long history together made the marriage worth saving, or that it just proved they’d been doomed from the beginning?
What a ridiculous line of thought. Her only excuse was that it kept her mind off Kate and this horrible, unexpected delay.
“Maggie.” Joe tapped on her window and she powered it down. “There’s a four-car pileup ahead. It’ll be hours before it’s cleared.”
“Oh, no.”
“A little boy’s missing from one of the wrecked vehicles.”
“How could he be missing?”
“Both parents are so drunk they don’t know how he got out or when. They’ve both been passed out and are still addled. They figure the kid bailed out after the wreck. Cops are already there. I told them you’d help.”
“Of course.”
As Maggie sprang into action, she prayed her daughter was out there alive somewhere, staying strong. Hang on, Katie. I’m coming for you.
Knowing what the harness and vest meant, Jefferson went into full search and rescue mode, posture erect, ears alert, his sleek body powered by muscles toned with exercise and proper diet.
“Good boy.” Maggie leaned down to pat his head and then headed down the line of cars toward the wreckage.
The scene at the front of the line broke Maggie’s heart, a man with a bloody bandage on his head, sobbing, the woman beside him wrapped in a blanket and looking shell-shocked as she and her husband took turns telling that that their little boy
was only five. His name was Timmy. They had no idea why he left the car or where he was.
Skid marks showed where their blue Toyota had started sliding on the road. It had crossed lanes to hit an elderly man in an oncoming pickup truck. The two cars following had crashed into him.
The strong odor of alcohol wafted through the open doors of the Toyota.
Joe approached a young highway patrolman. Ken Hawkins, according to his badge. “This is my wife, Maggie Carter, and Jefferson, the SAR dog I told you about.”
“I’m grateful for your help, Mrs. Carter. We’ve got men searching the stretch of highway, but so far, nothing.”
“I’ll need something that belongs to the missing child,” Maggie said. With all these people milling around, there would be scent trails everywhere.
When Ken approached the parents, the mother stumbled upright then sank into a heap on the icy road. It was the father who limped to the car and came back with a little red jacket.
“Is the child out there without his coat?” Maggie asked. If anything was more horrible than a lost child, it was one lost in winter without proper clothing. When the mother shrugged, Maggie wanted to shake some sense into her. How could she be so careless with a small child?
How could she be so careless with Kate? Why had she caved into the wishes of a stubborn teenager who didn’t have the experience to make wise decisions involving traveling in snowstorms? Why had she brushed aside Joe’s worries with that drivel about letting Kate test her wings, letting her grow up and be independent?
“Maggie?” Joe took the little wool jacket from the father and pressed it into her hand. “You okay?”
“I’m good. I’ve got this.”
She led Jefferson away from the crowd to improve his focus…and hers. Squatting beside him, she let him sniff the jacket and prepped him for the search. Then she took him off lead and he set off in a trot in the opposite direction of the other searchers.
Within minutes her dog plunged down the embankment from the highway and loped across a field of scrub brush and stunted trees, cross sweeping for scent. In the distance Maggie could see the vague outline of a creek snaking through the field. She trained her flashlight on Jefferson and saw him streaking in the direction of the water.