Midnight Sacrifice Read online

  Mae put a hand on Mandy’s forearm. “Go find those girls. You and Danny are the ones walking into danger. Be careful. I love you.”

  “Love you, too.” Mandy hugged her mother and brother.

  “Bill, can you look after Honey for me?” Jed asked.

  “I sure will.” Bill put a hand on the dog’s head. Honey panted up at him, her brown eyes filled with complete adoration.

  “Can’t the dog help find the hikers?” Danny asked. He’d changed out of his jeans into tan camouflage army fatigues tucked into military-type boots. A snug T-shirt outlined the lean muscles of his chest and shoulders, reminding her that for all his easygoing nature, Danny had been a soldier until very recently. All decked out in his military gear, he looked more badass than bad boy.

  Jed shook his head. “Honey’s a retriever. She isn’t trained to follow a scent.”

  “She can find Bill.” Danny shoved a few items into his pack.

  “She knows Bill. That’s different.” Jed faced Mandy. “You ready?”

  “Yes. Let’s move.” Mandy led the way out into the yard. “Jed’s going to drive us to the trailhead and set up a base camp for the searchers.”

  Jed’s strained expression and tight-as-a-raw-clam mouth said he wasn’t happy with staying behind. But Mandy knew he’d do what was best for her—and for the missing girls. As much as she wanted to push him away, Danny had already proved back in December that she could trust him with her life. Other than Jed, every other man in town was a possible blackmailer.

  “We’re about the same size. I have a spare waterproof jacket in my truck.” Jed opened the pickup and rummaged behind the driver’s seat, coming up with a green nylon jacket. “Weather looks like it might get rough.”

  “Thanks, man.” Danny took the jacket, tossed his pack into the extended cab, and climbed in behind the driver’s seat. “How about a sidearm?”

  Mandy handed Danny her pack. He stowed it next to him. She got into the passenger seat.

  “Got you covered on that, too.” Jed handed his 9mm, a holster, and several clips over the seat. Danny checked the weapon and secured it to his belt. They drove out of town. By the time they’d reached the turnoff, he’d secured the weapon and shrugged into Jed’s jacket.

  The truck bounced along the dirt lane. The trailhead was a clearing with space for parking and a sign with crisscrossed wooden arrows marking the trails. Three weather-beaten cedar picnic tables occupied the open area to one side. A police cruiser was angled behind the hikers’ Ford Edge. Mandy got out of the truck. Though a cold front had chilled the night air, the shiver than zoomed through her wasn’t temperature related. Nor was it a result of the electric snap of the coming storm in the air. Thunder rumbled in the dark.

  Doug Lang got out of the police car. “You’re sure you want to go tonight? The storm headed this way is going to be a bad one.”

  “All the more reason for us to find those girls.” Mandy secured her pack and adjusted the straps. Though Bill often went into the woods with Jed, responsibilities had kept Mandy out of the woods for the past year or so. Had her pack always been this heavy? “They were only planning for a day hike. They shouldn’t have gotten much farther than the lake. If we’re lucky, we’ll find them in a few hours.”

  “I have more volunteers coming.” Doug opened a map on the closest picnic table. “There are actually three trails that leave from this spot.”

  “Did they leave a trail plan in their car?” Jed clicked on a flashlight and illuminated the map.

  “I wish.” Doug glanced at Mandy. “You’re the first team here. You get first dibs. Which trail do you want?”

  Mandy stared at the map. Which path had the girls taken? The most scenic route pointed north. It angled toward the river and continued along the water. With an uphill grade and rocky footing, it was the most difficult choice. She thought of the ultra-fit blonde who acted like the leader of the group. She’d want the challenge. “We’ll take the north trail.”

  Jed handed her a walkie-talkie. “You be careful. Check in every thirty minutes.”

  “I will.” She took the handset and zipped it into a pocket of her jacket.

  Jed gave Danny a pained look. “You look out for her.”

  “Of course,” Danny answered.

  Mandy didn’t bother to insist she could take care of herself. She switched on her powerful flashlight and shone it on the ground in front of her. Danny followed close behind her as they started up the trail. As Mandy’s thighs burned, she realized she wasn’t in the best shape of her life.

  “How long does it take to reach the end?” Danny asked.

  “This trail leads to Lake Walker. We’ll hit the river in about a mile. Then it’s another four before it ends at the lake. The girls probably hiked it in a morning, but with the dark, it’ll take us longer.”

  On the other side of the river, lightning snaked across the deep-purple sky.

  “We’d better move,” Danny said. “It’s getting closer.”

  Four check-ins later, Danny trudged uphill. He kept close behind Mandy. The woods bordered the path to the right. To the left, the ground dropped off sharply. Twenty feet below, the river undulated.

  “Careful here,” she said over her shoulder.

  Danny tripped over a tree root. Rocks and loose dirt shifted underfoot and cascaded down the packed earth behind him. A dislodged stone tumbled over the lip of the trail. A second passed before it plunked into the river below. Danny glanced over the edge. With no moonlight, the water was black as an oil flow. “How much farther is the lake?”

  Mandy stopped at a level patch of ground and looked around. She checked her watch. “We’re not even halfway.”

  Mandy’s voice was strained. Her breaths sounded labored. Danny lifted the beam of his flashlight to her face. Her cheeks were flushed, but not in a healthy way. He’d been pushing her hard the last half hour. Running had kept him in decent shape. He suspected Mandy didn’t have much time for exercise. Though she hadn’t complained once, the steep grade and heavy pack were taking their toll. Plus, the temperature had dropped as the storm barreled toward them.

  The first raindrops pinged off the hood of his borrowed jacket. He reached into his pocket and pulled out one of the latex gloves he’d lifted from Dr. Chandler’s office. He tugged it over his left hand to keep the bandage dry.

  Camping, hiking, the woods. It all sucked in the rain.

  Static blasted. “Mandy.”

  She removed the bright-yellow handset from her pocket. “Here.”

  “That storm is about fifteen minutes away from you. Find some cover.” Jed’s voice squawked from the receiver. “Now.”

  “Will do.” She put the walkie-talkie back in her pocket. Another bolt of lightning sprinted overhead. “That was closer.”

  Much closer.

  Danny squinted ahead in the darkness. Wind whipped off the river and dampened his face. “We should move away from the water. Does this trail open up anytime soon?”

  “Not really, but if I remember correctly, there’s a rock overhang we can take shelter under coming up. It’s hard to get my bearings in the dark,” Mandy shouted over the howl of the wind.

  “Let’s move, then,” Danny yelled back. Solid rock would be preferable to the flimsy emergency tent they’d packed. He glanced down at the river to his right. They were high enough above the water that he doubted flash flooding would be an issue.

  Mandy slipped. Danny caught her by the bicep until she righted herself. “Let me take your pack.”

  The last three times he’d suggested it, she’d waved him off, but urgency supplanted pride as the rain turned the incline from unstable to treacherous. She let him pull the straps from her shoulders. Lightened from her load, her pace recovered. She pushed onward. Danny followed her lead. She was better at finding decent footing.

  The rain turned into a downpour, slashing into Danny’s face. Lightning lit the woods in a few quick, strobe-like flashes. Thunder crashed. A few feet ahead, M
andy jumped. Her foot slipped on the muddy incline. She fell to her butt and slid toward the drop-off.

  Danny lunged forward. “Mandy!” His hand swiped air, and Mandy’s orange jacket disappeared over the edge.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  A clap of thunder woke Kevin. A breath hitched in the dark. He looked down at his son, cradled in his arms. Hunter’s eyes were closed, his breathing even in deep sleep. Someone else was in the barn with them.

  Was that sobbing?

  Kevin sat up slowly, carefully sliding away from his son so he didn’t wake the sleeping boy. He surveyed the interior of the barn. Rain pounded on the roof. Water dripped through the holes and puddled on the dirt floor. Lightning flashed. His ears strained for noise not related to the storm.

  Hiccup.

  Kevin looked up at the solid wood ceiling of his cage. There was someone above them. Except for the crying person, the barn seemed empty. Thunder boomed. Hunter jolted. Another soft cry sounded above them.

  Hunter pressed his lips to Kevin’s ear. “Dad?”

  His son’s weak voice chiseled another crack into Kevin’s heart, threatening to splinter it into pieces. Their captor had been supplying them daily with water and food. Yesterday there’d been some sort of charred meat and a pile of weeds. Not enough to give them real strength, but sufficient to keep them alive. The fact that they both tended to sleep heavily after drinking confirmed the presence of drugs in their rations. But they had little choice. Several days had passed. At this point, dehydration and starvation were as threating as their captor.

  Kevin whispered back, “I think there’s someone else here.”

  Her cries echoed in the lofty space.

  Hunter trembled. “It sounds like a girl.” His breath passed over the side of Kevin’s face.

  “It does.”

  “She sounds scared,” Hunter said. “We should call out to her.”

  His son’s brave comment fractured Kevin’s heart anew. Through the agony of helplessness, his boy wanted to reach out to another in need. Chivalrous despite his own terror.

  What did they have to lose?

  “Hello?” Kevin cringed. His voice rang out louder than he’d intended.

  The crying cut off suddenly.

  Kevin tried again, with a softer voice. “Is someone there?”

  “Here.” Wood scraped above them. “We’re here. I can’t see you.”

  We?

  “We’re under you. How many of you are up there?”

  Something tapped at the top of his cage. Kevin crawled to the edge and reached up through the bars. His fingers closed around a slim, feminine hand.

  “Two. There are two of us.” Her skin was ice-cold. “My name is Samantha. My friend Victoria is still unconscious. She won’t wake up.”

  Kevin squeezed her hand. “Hi, Samantha. I’m Kevin.”

  Hunter crawled into his lap. He stuck his bony arm through the slats and followed Kevin’s forearm up to Samantha’s hand. “I’m Hunter.”

  Samantha’s breath hitched. She switched her grip to give Hunter an awkward shake. “Where are we?”

  “I don’t know, Samantha,” Kevin answered.

  “What’s he going to do with us?” Her voice dropped.

  “I don’t know that either.” He was trying to be optimistic for Hunter’s sake, but their captor hadn’t protected his identity. One of the deepest fissures in Kevin’s heart was the certainty that the blond man didn’t care if they knew who he was.

  No fear of police lineups, mug books, or sketch artists.

  Their captor fed and watered them like a farmer treated the cattle intended for slaughter.

  Where was she? Stretched out on his belly, shoulders hanging over the precipice, rain ran into his eyes. “Mandy!”

  He strained his ears but heard only the rush of water and wind.

  “Where are you?” he shouted.

  “Here.” Her voice was strained.

  Danny batted the underbrush aside. He caught a flash of bright orange. Her jacket? Lightning flashed. And he saw her, hanging onto a tree root five feet below him. Her feet dangled a few yards above the river.

  “Hold on.” He slid back. Where the hell was her backpack? There. He spotted the yellow-and-black nylon on the trail where he’d dropped it to try and catch her. He dug out a coil of rope, tied one end around his waist, and made a loop at the other end. Returning to the trail edge, he tossed the loop toward her. “Grab this.”

  Her free hand swiped through the air and missed. The base of the root, loosened by her movement, jerked partially out of the dirt.

  “Oh!” Mandy slid another foot down the nearly vertical slope. One hand clutched the loosening root while the other clawed at the dirt for another purchase, but there wasn’t anything else for her to grab. Pebbles and dirt cascaded into the river below.

  “Stop moving.” Danny coiled the rope and threw it again. It bounced on the slimy slope beside Mandy’s head. She inched a hand toward the rope ring until she gripped it in a tight fist. Slowly, she pulled it to her body and worked it over her head and one shoulder. The root sprang free.

  “Ah!” She let go and caught the rope in both hands. Danny shifted back on his haunches and pulled on the rope. He dragged her up over the edge and back onto the trail.

  She lay still in the mud for a minute.

  Danny crawled over to her. He put his hand on her back. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded and sat up. Her hood had fallen back. Rain plastered her hair to her head, and her sodden ponytail dripped. Mud splattered her face. “We have to get moving.”

  That’s my girl. Danny stood and helped her to her feet. He picked up her pack and stuffed the wet rope inside. She led the way up the trail while the rain, driven sideways by the wind, lashed their faces. A hundred yards farther, she stopped and pointed to the left. “There!”

  Danny looked where she pointed. Between the sheeting rain and the dark, he didn’t see shit.

  She led him away from the river. The trail widened around an outcropping of boulders. Thirty feet of sheer rock rose from the earth. Danny put a hand to the wall, which was already blocking some of the deluge. They continued, circling to the side opposite the river. Millennia of rock movement had resulted in a five-foot-deep, ten-foot-wide overhang that looked as inviting as a five-star hotel.

  Mandy shone her light into the space. “Empty.” She sounded disappointed, as if maybe the girls could’ve found this tiny hole. Danny was just glad there weren’t any bears inside.

  She scuttled into the space. Danny followed. He couldn’t stand without hunching his shoulders and ducking his head, but the tiny shelter was blissfully dry.

  The tent and a fire wouldn’t both fit in the tiny space. Since the overhang was blocking the rain, the warmth from a fire won the mental coin toss. “Let’s see if we can start a fire.”

  “OK.” Mandy’s voice trembled, and her teeth chattered. “Our chances of finding dry wood aren’t good, but I have fire starters, which should help.” She set her pack on the packed earth. Her hands were shaking from cold or effort or both. “I’ll scrounge up some mostly dry wood.”

  He was not sending her out in the rain. Danny emptied one of the packs. “I’ll do it.”

  She didn’t argue. With her can-do attitude, she must be in worse shape than he thought.

  He tightened the cord around his hood and stepped out of the shelter. The rocks blocked most of the rain. Danny rooted around until he found some nearly dry pinecones and twigs under a fallen tree. Using the knife blade of his Leatherman tool, he scraped dry timber from the underside of the tree and stuffed everything into the backpack to keep it dry. He scouted under rocks and logs for moderately dry wood and gathered an armload before heading back to the overhang.

  When he was shipped off to Iraq, he’d thought the training exercises in the woods had been a waste of time. Finding dry stuff and keeping warm hadn’t been an issue over there. Now he was grateful the army had prepared him for survival in
multiple environments.

  Danny dumped the dry bits from the pack in the rear of the shelter. “We’ll start with some of that. Make the fire small so we can keep it going. Build it at the edge in case the damp stuff smokes.”

  “I got it.” Mandy knew what she was doing. She rummaged in her pack for matches and fire-starter sticks. Danny left her to it while he scraped the wet bark from the wood he’d gathered and stacked it out of the rain. By the time he’d finished, a tiny flame was dancing in the center of her timber pile.

  Mandy rubbed her hands over the small fire. Her teeth chattered loudly enough to carry over the sounds of wind and rain lashing through the surrounding woods.

  “How wet are you?”

  “Not very. J-just cold.”

  Danny pulled out their sleeping bags and unzipped both. There was just enough room between the fire and the back wall to squeeze them in. He spread one out and laid the other on top. The rock around and above them was trapping the heat from the fire nicely. He stripped off his wet jacket and tossed it over a boulder to dry. Underneath, his T-shirt was damp around the neck where rain had leaked in. Danny removed his shoulder holster, then pulled the shirt over his head and spread it on a warm rock. The thighs of his fatigue pants were wet, but they were made to dry quickly.

  He fished in his pack and came up with another shirt. Next to him, Mandy was fumbling with her jacket.

  “Let me help you.” He unzipped her nylon shell and tugged it off. Her fleece sweater, like her pants, was made of synthetic material that didn’t hold water. He put a hand to her neck. Her skin was freezing. “Why didn’t you tell me you were this cold?”

  He tugged off both their wet boots and pulled her toward the sleeping bags.

  “Didn’t want to s-slow us down.”

  Danny lifted the top cover and pushed Mandy under it. He climbed in with her and wrapped the down snugly around them both. Her shivering body clung to his bare chest.

  Really, she probably could have warmed up all by herself, but after her tumble-and-dangle act over the water, he needed to hold her. He wrapped his arms around Mandy’s body. Her softness fit his hard angles just right. Breasts squished against his ribs. Maybe the wilderness didn’t suck as badly as he’d thought, even in the rain.