Alaska Mountain Rescue

by Elizabeth Heiter

  The tiny kitchen he stepped into was empty, but beyond an open doorway, he could hear voices. One of them belonged to Alanna.

  “I believed in you,” she was saying, the hurt palpable in her words. “After all this time, I really thought that if I could just talk to you, make you understand, that you’d—”

  “What?” Darcy interrupted, the volume of her own anger and hurt dwarfing Alanna’s. “Turn myself in? Go back to jail? Die there, like your father did?”

  “That’s the thing,” Alanna said, her tone sad but strong. “As much as you wanted to be, as much as I loved you both, you weren’t my parents. And—”

  Darcy made a sound that was half furious screech, half wounded cry.

  This wasn’t going anywhere good. Peter darted around the doorway, handgun raised, hoping to find Darcy distracted and across the room from Alanna.

  Before he’d fully entered the room, though, Darcy spun toward him, her own pistol raised.

  “You shouldn’t have come here,” Darcy spat.

  Peter aimed his gun at her head—instead of her center mass, like he’d been taught. He did a quick visual sweep—Alanna across the room, unarmed, her hands up in the air as if she’d been trying to calm Darcy down. But Alanna wasn’t his problem right now.

  It was the little boy on the floor, clutching Darcy’s leg and staring at him wide-eyed. It was the little girl held in the crook of Darcy’s arm, silent tears running down her face as Darcy used her as a human shield.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Please, just put the gun down,” Alanna begged.

  “Him again!” Darcy snapped. “What happened to all your promises that it was just the two of us talking? It’s always lies with you, isn’t it?”

  Alanna swallowed the desire to snap back, to argue about who was lying to who. She’d never seen Darcy like this. All her life, Darcy had been full of smiles and ideas and plans she couldn’t always see through. She was flighty and occasionally depressed, but she was always patient with the kids she’d called hers.

  When Alanna had entered the second cabin in Luna, she’d been amazed. She’d thought it was a sign that things were about to go right. That even though Darcy had escaped from prison, she hadn’t returned to kidnapping. That there was a chance to end it all peacefully.

  She’d been so wrong.

  Maybe Julian’s death had unhinged Darcy. Or maybe Alanna had only seen what she’d wanted to see all those years she’d lived with her. Maybe Peter had been right and she’d been brainwashed by a pair of kidnappers.

  “She didn’t know I was coming,” Peter said, his voice calm and soft as Chance walked slowly into the cabin behind him and came to a stop at his side.

  The dog’s gaze moved from Alanna to the kids, then back to Peter, as if awaiting instructions.

  Tension knotted tighter in Alanna’s chest. How had Peter found them? Why would he bring Chance into this?

  She tried to tell him with her eyes to stay out of it, to let her try to reach Darcy. Her gaze darted to the kids, the small girl in Darcy’s arms with dark, curly hair that reminded Alanna so much of herself as a child. The little boy clutching Darcy’s leg with the deep brown eyes and the short dark hair. Both of them could have easily passed as Altiers.

  “Do you know how much I miss you?” Darcy asked, her voice breaking as Alanna’s gaze returned to hers. “Do you know how much I miss all of you? Do you know what it was like to have my kids ripped away from me?”

  “I’m—” Alanna started.

  “Do you know how badly it hurt to know it was you who set it all in motion? What it feels like to have you tell me I’m not your mom?” She let out a humorless laugh. “I know I’m not your mom. Not legally. I...” She shook her head, staring through Alanna now, her brow furrowed like she was peering into the past.

  “I could never have kids,” Darcy admitted softly. She tipped her head against the child in her arms and the little girl hugged her neck.

  She obviously felt safe with Darcy, despite everything. It was what Alanna had felt right from the start, too. Irrational, maybe, but she’d instinctively known she was loved.

  A surge of hope hit, a gut feeling that she could still reach Darcy, still talk her into ending this peacefully. Because no matter what else might have changed, the Darcy she’d known for fourteen years was still in there. A Darcy who would never hurt kids she’d decided were hers. But Peter... If Darcy thought he was a threat, she’d fire at him the way she’d shot at Kensie all those years ago.

  She hadn’t done it when she could have at the cabin in Luna, a tiny voice whispered in the back of her mind. It was a voice Alanna couldn’t trust, a voice that had been born from her past life. Still, it was a past life where Darcy had raised her to be strong, had hugged her every night before bed, had greeted her every morning with love.

  “I’m sorry,” Alanna said.

  “My family never understood me,” Darcy continued, not seeming to notice Peter as he shifted just slightly to angle his good ear toward her. His weapon, too.

  Chance moved too, surprisingly stealthy for such a big dog, sticking to Peter’s side as if they were a team with a shared plan.

  Praying that Peter would just wait, that Chance wouldn’t think she was in trouble and try coming to her rescue, Alanna nodded encouragingly at Darcy. She’d never met anyone from Darcy or Julian’s families. When she was younger, it hadn’t occurred to her to wonder why. When she was older, she’d assumed it was because of the kidnappings, because of the Altiers’ constant reminders that it was the seven of them against the world. But maybe they’d been estranged long before that.

  “They were all overachievers, every one of them. They couldn’t stand failure,” Darcy said. “Me? I had so much trouble learning. But Julian always accepted me just as I was. When we got married, I wanted our life to be so different from the way I’d grown up. We always talked about having a big family, raising them differently. So when we couldn’t have kids, I was devastated. We tried to adopt. A little boy, the age Johnny would have been then. It was such a long process and we finally got to the end of it. He was supposed to come home with us over the weekend. Then that Friday, the adoption fell through. He went back to his biological family. They were drug addicts, in and out of rehab, in and out of prison, but somehow they convinced a judge they should get one more chance to be parents.”

  The sadness and loss on her face shifted to anger. “Four weeks later, he was dead. Killed in a house fire his parents had set while they were high. And we just couldn’t do it. We couldn’t go through it again. We gave up on adoption.”

  “So you took Johnny?” Alanna recalled what she’d read about his abduction in the papers years later. “From the park when his mom was distracted, right?”

  “She wasn’t even watching him,” Darcy said, a new light in her eyes, the spark of a past joy. “Julian said it had been easy to pick him off the swings and bring him home to me. Johnny didn’t even cry. It was like he wanted to come to us, like it was meant to be. But afterward...” She frowned, shook her head, glanced at Peter.

  Her eyes narrowed and Alanna was sure she’d noticed that Peter was just slightly closer, that Chance was edging closer, too. “Afterward?” Alanna pressed.

  “It was such a mix of emotions,” Darcy said, happiness back in her eyes. “Probably what it feels like right after you’ve given birth to a child. Elation like you’ve never felt, but fear, too. Almost terror, really. And the guilt...” She leaned into the little girl she held and her gun hand, still aimed at Peter, shook a little.

  She’d always known it was wrong. Alanna had wondered for years whether Darcy and Julian had felt any regret for taking her and her “siblings.” If Darcy had felt guilty then, surely the guilt was intensified now, knowing that the kids who’d gone home to their families had missed them for years.

  If she had any regret, felt any guilt, th
en Alanna could still reach her. She took a step forward, her hand out toward Darcy.

  “A few years later, when we saw you...”

  Alanna froze and her heart seemed to contract. It was a moment she remembered so distinctly and yet she’d never known how they’d picked her, or why.

  “The first time I saw you, I just knew. You looked so much like I did as a child, but it was more than that. I just felt it, deep inside, that you were meant to be my daughter.” Her eyes glassed over with unshed tears. “I still feel that, Alanna.”

  Alanna took another step closer until she could almost touch Darcy, almost reach out and push the gun down. “In some ways, I’ll always be your daughter.” The words were shaky with emotion, because they were true.

  The smile Alanna had seen every day of her childhood blossomed on Darcy’s face and the woman’s rigid arm loosened, the gun angling downward, away from Peter.

  Alanna slid forward just a tiny bit more. “But the Morgans weren’t drug addicts. They loved me. They spent so many years searching for me. They were even called into more than one morgue for identifications that turned out not to be me.”

  The smile slid from Darcy’s face. Alanna could see the guilt there as her “mom” glanced down at the little boy still hugging tightly to her leg.

  “My older sister almost died trying to find me. My older brother turned to drugs and alcohol and anything else he could find because losing me tore my family apart. They didn’t deserve that,” Alanna said, sliding forward again. Just one more step...

  “I know,” Darcy whispered.

  Hope erupted inside Alanna, a happiness that she hadn’t been wrong about Darcy; that even though the woman had kidnapped her, there was still good in her, still reasons why Alanna had grown to love her.

  Darcy was still a criminal. Once she returned to jail, Alanna would have to consider whether to see her again. She’d stolen the childhood Alanna had been meant to have. And yet, that fact didn’t erase the fourteen years of love, the happy childhood Darcy and Julian had given her. It didn’t change the fact that even though Alanna had gone home to the Morgans, even though she didn’t regret it, she still loved Darcy, too.

  Maybe that was something Alanna needed to stop feeling guilty about.

  “You have to let these kids go,” Alanna said.

  Darcy’s face immediately shuttered, the hand holding the gun shaking.

  Alanna stepped closer, put her hand on the top of the pistol and said, “You know it’s the right thing to do. Please.”

  The weapon shook violently underneath Alanna’s hand, the fight happening within Darcy written all over her face. Then her shoulders slumped and Alanna smiled gently, knowing she’d won.

  The sudden grumble of an old car engine from somewhere nearby startled her, made Chance let out a soft woof.

  In an instant, the indecision on Darcy’s face was gone, replaced by an angry determination as she took a fast step backward. The little boy stumbled along with her, the little girl lifting her head as Darcy stiffened her arm and leveled her gun on Peter.

  “Don’t,” Peter warned softly. “I’m a trained police officer. My aim is better than yours.”

  Betrayal flashed across Darcy’s face, but she didn’t glance Alanna’s way this time. Instead she stared directly at Peter, the guilt in her voice shifting to anger. “You want to find out? You’re a bigger target than I am. At this distance, I could be a terrible shot and still kill you. You want to risk being slightly off your mark and hitting my girl?”

  Chance let out a low growl, took a slow step forward with his front paw.

  Alanna held up a hand and he froze. She didn’t dare look at Peter.

  She had no idea what Peter’s training was like, how accurate a shot he was. She doubted he’d fire unless he had to with the little girl in Darcy’s arms.

  But five years ago, Darcy had fired at Kensie. And she hadn’t aimed to wound.

  Darcy’s head tipped back slightly, her lips tightening as if she’d made a decision, and panic took hold of Alanna.

  She leaped in between them, spreading her arms wide.

  “Alanna!” Peter yelled, a mix of anger and fear in his voice as he shifted sideways and she moved with him. “Get out of the way!”

  Alanna didn’t take her gaze off of Darcy.

  A ghost of a smile lifted one corner of Darcy’s mouth, a sad understanding look in her eyes, before she spun and escaped out the front door with the little girl.

  * * *

  “CHANCE, STAY!” Alanna yelled as she practically body-slammed Peter.

  Peter slid his finger off the trigger, bracing himself to absorb her weight so he wouldn’t get knocked to the ground. “What are you doing? She’s getting away!”

  “She could kill you!” The panic in Alanna’s voice was unmistakable, the desperation clear in the surprising strength of her grip as she wrapped her arms around his waist and hung on.

  He swore, angling his gun away from her as he tried to push her away with his free hand. Alanna was a lot stronger than she looked, with lean muscle in her arms and legs and a good knowledge of leverage that she used to her advantage.

  He glanced at the closed door. “If she gets away now, how will we find her? She’s got a child!”

  “Darcy won’t hurt her, but she’ll hurt you,” Alanna said, her fingers digging into him, her desperation dangerous.

  He didn’t want to hurt Alanna. But the cough and sputter of a car’s engine followed by the squeal of tires made him swear. “I’m sorry,” he said, and twisted her arm as if he was going to push her to the ground and arrest her. The move broke her grip on him, prevented her from twisting back. Then he pushed her away and darted for the door, hoping he wasn’t too late to stop Darcy.

  Alanna ran after him and he spun back, holding his pistol away from his body, afraid it would accidentally fire as she grappled him. But she wasn’t coming for him this time.

  She reached for the little boy Darcy had left behind, who’d been crying since the melee had started and now ran toward the door, too, to follow the woman who’d kidnapped him.

  Chance got there first, blocking the boy’s way and plopping onto the floor. He knocked the boy down with him, but instead of crying harder, the little boy wrapped his arms around the big dog and buried his head in Chance’s fur.

  Alanna sighed, then looked up at Peter, fear and regret in her eyes.

  She had to know he wouldn’t hurt Darcy unless there was no other choice, didn’t she? He wanted to reassure her that everything would be okay, but it wasn’t a promise he could make, so he just broke eye contact and took off out the door.

  The yard seemed empty, moonlight filtering through the towering trees and iced-over snow. But there were a lot of places to hide and no guarantee the engine he’d heard was actually Darcy’s. Would she have been able to get into a vehicle that fast? He hadn’t seen any other vehicles except his own truck when he’d arrived. The trees here were thick; there probably wasn’t enough space to hide a vehicle except close to the road.

  His heart thudded too fast as he tried to focus on any sound that didn’t belong, any movement in his peripheral vision. But the woods were too dark, the diminished hearing in his left ear made worse by the stress of knowing Darcy could be hunkered down behind a nearby tree, taking careful aim at him.

  A crunch that could have been someone stepping through the icy snow made him swivel his head right, toward the direction of his parked police vehicle. He squinted through the darkness, trying to spot any movement, then a quiet snap from the left made his head swivel. Animals? Darcy sneaking up on him, ready to eliminate the only other person with a weapon?

  If he was shot in these woods, what would Alanna do? Rush out and try to help him while Darcy took aim at her, took her revenge for Alanna’s betrayal, and then disappeared with both kids?

  Furious to be
in this position, Peter backed slowly toward the cabin, slipping inside. He shut the door, holstered his weapon and pulled out his phone.

  “What happened?” Alanna demanded from where she was crouched on the floor, her arms around both Chance and the little boy.

  “I can’t see anything. Do you know where she parked?”

  Alanna shook her head. “I didn’t see a vehicle.”

  He pulled Chief Hernandez up on his phone, but Alanna was by his side, gripping his arm, before he could hit Call.

  “What are you doing?” She sounded panicked, like she was still thinking with emotion instead of logic.

  For a few brief moments, he’d thought her raw emotion and honesty were what would change Darcy’s mind and end this whole thing peacefully. But that time had passed. Now they needed logic. And manpower.

  He pulled his hand free and did the thing he should have done from the start. “We need backup.”

  When Chief Hernandez answered the phone, he gave her a quick rundown of their location and status, then turned back to Alanna.

  She was staring wide-eyed at him, the shock on her face mixed with grief.

  Knowing she’d just lost a piece of her childhood, he squeezed her hand gently as he told her, “Lock the door behind me. Stay here with the boy and Chance.”

  Chance stood at his name, took a step toward Peter, then looked at the closed door. As if he was ready to run out with Peter or stand between a threat and Alanna.

  “Good boy, Chance,” he said, then looked sternly at Alanna. “Don’t let anyone in except the Desparre PD.”

  He didn’t mention that they considered her an accomplice and might arrest her when they arrived. He and Alanna would have to deal with that if it happened. Instead, he let go of her hand and turned for the door when her fingers latched onto his arm again. When he turned back, there was regret on her face.