Broken Bonds (25 page)

“I’m glad you’ve made a decision, Mandy Lee, and I’ll help you any way I can, including looking for a job for you. If there’s room in the school van, Henry Hanson could get you down the mountain for work until you can move to town, but we’re hoping to get more kids to ride, so that probably won’t last long. But I will see if there’s something for you at Lake Azure. A few of the employees there live on-site.”

“Oh, Miss Charlene, that would be so good. Then all I got to worry about is Sam.”

They hugged, and Char went out to her truck. It was spitting ice flakes, very pretty but they could make the driving worse. At least, because of the tanker truck traffic and the noise at the fracking site, not many used this road to get into town anymore, so she didn’t have to worry about sliding into other cars. Besides, she had new tires that gripped the road. She tried to buck herself up. If a girl who had been mostly raised in Michigan couldn’t drive on slippery roads just because she’d lived in the desert for a while, there was something wrong. And, she noted, at least the bad weather had evidently kept the Green Tree protestors from picketing the fracking site, since she didn’t see them along the road.

She drove carefully and thought over her plans and her route. She was going to head back to Lake Azure, move back into the Mannings’ house, though she knew Matt wanted her to spend the night at his place. She’d feel safer there with him—but at risk, too, since she knew they were combustible together. And that—that would mean, at least to her, they couldn’t go back, could only go forward...

The road was icing a bit. She saw a shiny, new-looking black truck was coming at her on the two-lane road, coming too fast. It had huge tires that made the chassis sit higher than usual. Thank heavens, it wasn’t the old rattletrap Matt had described that hit him.

She slowed and got way over on the narrow berm, near the forest side of the road about a mile past Fencers’ and a half mile before her family’s old land.

The truck came at her, slowing, but too far over.
With those big tires, couldn’t he control his vehicle?
She braced herself as it hit, not too hard into her front driver’s side, pushing her, pinning her back bumper against a big tree.

Damn!
She’d just gone through the pain of making an insurance claim. Just when she’d gotten her independence back, just when things were going better, now an accident. Or was it? Had the truck actually slid on the road? At least she wasn’t on the edge of a cliff, though there was a drop-off to the valley on the other side of the road.

She started to get out until she saw the driver of the truck was really covered up for the weather. She could see through his windshield that he wore a ski mask, leaving only his eyes visible. He climbed down and started toward her truck, holding up his hands as if to apologize.

Could this be the man who nearly ran Matt off the cliff?

She turned the ignition back on, put the truck in Reverse, yanked the steering wheel and tried to back up to get some maneuvering room, but she was held tight by the tree, and her wheels spun. She laid on her horn, but saw no other vehicle on the road.

The man went back to his truck and returned, holding a metal carjack, the kind needed to change a flat tire. He walked now with swift, strong strides. She knew he was going to use it to smash her window. Was this guy desperate or crazy? They were on a public road in broad daylight.

She waited until he came close and raised the car jack. He hit the glass of the driver’s-side window, which only cracked on the first blow. She had to do the unexpected and fast, run for help. She’d seen a car parked at her childhood home if she could make it there. She dug in her big purse for her phone. Too much in here—couldn’t feel it. She had to go now or he’d have her!

In an instant, she unlocked her doors, tried to grab her heavy purse, but he reached for it, too, yanked it and tipped her toward him. She slid away from the steering wheel and clambered out the other side, forced to leave the purse, the phone. She had no illusions he just wanted the purse. She slipped to her knees in the ice-crusted snow, then clawed her way up and raced toward the trees.

27

C
har’s thoughts ran as fast as she did. She knew this woodlot, this land. She had to head for her girlhood home, the closest house. She’d seen a car there.

But she’d have to cross an open field.

If only someone had driven along the road, but most people avoided Valley View now with the trucks, noise and smoke down by the fracking site.

She tried to thrust branches out of her way, but some whipped her. The untouched snow was thick in here—hard going—the icy flakes making it even more slippery. Her pursuer had to be the man who tried to shove Matt off the cliff. Newer truck is all. And he’d wanted to get her out of her truck.

Gasping for breath, she looked back. Unless he was hiding behind a tree, he had not followed her into the woodlot. Could she have mistaken his intent? Maybe he thought she’d hurt herself, and it was his fault, that he had to get her out of her truck to help her. Or did he just want her purse?

But no. That ski mask, that look in his eyes, which was all she could see...and what had happened to Matt.

Still scanning the ground behind her, she sucked in great gulps of cold air that bit far down into her lungs. She couldn’t risk stopping or even circling back to see what he was doing. Stealing her truck? And now he had her purse, phone, her ID. She had to get help, have someone call Gabe, call Matt.

Pulling her scarf up over her head, she started out into the windswept cornfield toward her girlhood home. She could see the car still parked over there. Someone had to be home, but it seemed so far away....

Out in the open, the wind buffeted her, but she bent into it and went on. At least the open field had been scoured by the wind so the snow was not deep. It clung to corn stubble and huddled in the furrows. As she trudged across the uneven, frozen ground, she realized this was the very L-shaped cornfield where Tess had been abducted so long ago—the start of her family’s nightmare.

But she mustn’t think of that, only who that man might be. She realized she should have told Matt exactly where she was going, but Mandy Lee lived so close and it hadn’t taken long. No one but Henry Hanson knew she was going to see Mandy Lee, yet it seemed this man knew she’d be heading toward town. Maybe he’d followed her, waiting for his chance. No way she’d been picked at random.

The man was too tall and sturdy to be Bright Star, though it could be one of his robots, even the one who had cut her hand. It couldn’t be Orlando, though she knew he didn’t like her—he was with Royce in Columbus. Matt had said Orlando was spending the holiday with his widowed sister somewhere. He was probably still there.

Sam?
No, they said he never left the mountain. He walked with a limp and had an old pickup he was trying to repair. It had for sure been a man, hadn’t it? Ginger was athletic and tall and that getup hid the person’s face and gender.

She heard a sound, a roar. Halfway across the field, she turned and screamed. The black truck was coming at her, crushing stubble, its big tires chewing up the distance.

* * *

Matt was working midafternoon in his office with the door open, hoping Char’s pretty face would appear there soon, when he took a call from Gabe.

“Hey, Matt. Char’s not answering her phone, and I can never get Kate when she’s working in the tomb. Please let them know that Grace has gone into labor and I’m driving Tess up there to be with her. I didn’t even want to ask Vic where she was before, because I worry about phones being hacked. That Wi-Fi you’ve got there at Lake Azure is vulnerable—you know that.”

“We’ve never had a problem, but yeah, I know. We advise everyone about security. We have a secure system but anything can be hacked.”

“Just to be safe, I’m not going to say where we’re going. I’ll call you later. It’s a four-hour drive where Vic’s got her and the kids placed in a really nice foster family situation. No way I want Tess to drive alone. If Grace’s baby comes quick, I’ll probably wait it out and bring Tess back with me. I’ll be in touch. Let Char and Kate know, okay?”

“Will do. Drive carefully and give Grace our love.”

When he hung up, he realized the last thing he’d said sounded a little presumptuous, as if he knew Grace well or was part of the family—or as if he spoke for him and Char as a couple. But he wanted it to be that way, and he had no desire to have a long engagement now that he’d found the woman he wanted. He had to convince Char of that tonight.

But why wasn’t she answering her phone?

* * *

As the black truck roared at her, Char realized it was too far to go back to the woodlot where the truck could not follow. She ran toward her old home, zigzagging, but the truck was gaining on her.

She fell so hard that all the air was knocked out of her. Scrambling up, gasping, she staggered on, but the man was out of the truck now, running. She didn’t have the breath to scream. If only someone back on the road or in the house would see her, call for help. Her old house looked so lonely in the scrim of snow starting to fall, hiding all this.

The man grabbed her from behind, spun her. Panting, too, he did not speak.

She fought hard as the man picked her up and half dragged, half carried her to his truck. She tried to claw at his face, his eyes. Kicking, writhing, she fought his strength.

He swore under his breath and hit her so hard on the side of her head that the world went black.

* * *

Matt couldn’t understand why Char didn’t answer her phone, so he kept leaving voice mail. He tried Kate’s cell. Same thing, but he knew why she wasn’t taking calls. Grant had joked that he’d be better off sending a carrier pigeon than trying to get her on a phone when she was working in the ancient Adena mound.

Matt yanked his coat on and went out into the hall, told Jen to tell Char to use his cell phone number rather than his office number if she called. He went out to his car and drove to the Mannings’. Her truck wasn’t there. Still he knocked and called her name. Nothing. Maybe she’d driven to Kate’s, was in the mound with her, but he doubted that. She’d been going to take the gas station courtesy van down to pick up her truck, so he could check on that, but why turn off her phone if that’s where she was?

He looked up the number of the Lake Azure Gas Station then punched the number that came up.

“Oh, yeah, Mr. Rowan, but she left over an hour ago,” Leo, the owner, told him when he explained.

“She didn’t say where she was going, did she?”

“No, sir, but she was talking to Henry Hanson, who was here filling up that new school van.”

“Thanks, Leo.”

He hit his fist on his steering wheel.
That was it,
he thought. She’d evidently talked Henry into taking her back up on the mountain to talk to more families about their truant kids. He’d made her promise she wouldn’t go alone until they learned more about where Bright Star had gone. He’d told her he’d take her up there himself tomorrow, but that they’d have to work around Clint, who was coming at noon to take more water samples. Matt had given Joe Fencer a cell phone, but he’d bet anything Henry didn’t have one, and if he did, they worked in very few spots up on the mountain.

He called Jen and told her he had to run an errand, that he was leaving his car and taking the new truck. Too bad school was out until Monday or he’d have a better idea where to find Henry. He’d have to drive clear up to the Hanson place. Not only could that take time and be risky with this ice-snow mix falling, but he’d have to pass Coyote Rock again. Darn that woman. He’d like to chain her to his wrist—his bed.

Despite the ugly weather, he didn’t hesitate. He had to find Char and not only to tell her Grace was in labor and that Tess and Gabe were gone. He needed to know she was safe, and that she would agree to be his.

* * *

Char swam slowly upward from the cold, black pool. Where was she? Moving, in a car or truck, that much was sure. Her head throbbed, but when she tried to lift a hand to it, she realized she was tied. Her feet, too. Bound tight, she was lying under some kind of cover on the floor of a vehicle. This truck was climbing, turning. Up Pinecrest? Why? And who had taken her?

She tried to shift her position but she was cramped here. Her mouth was dry. She felt sick, then realized she had some sort of gag in her mouth.

This had to have something to do with Bright Star. He’d taken all those cult members’ money. He’d hired a hit man, a kidnapper to get even with her. Maybe they were going to meet him right now, wherever he was hiding out. Maybe he was going to try to trade her to get Grace back—or punish her for helping Grace escape. Though she was sweating, she shuddered as she pictured that horrible waterboarding table.

The ride seemed endless, upward, more turns and then a jolt as the vehicle moved onto bumpy ground. She tried to memorize the turns and ruts, but it was useless. She was dizzy. Scared out of her mind.

The truck finally came to a stop, and the driver killed the engine. He got out, slammed his door, opened hers. Cold air and more light rushed in. He yanked the blanket off her, dragged her toward him by the ties around her ankles, lifted and threw her over his shoulder. He slammed the truck door. In the screech of wind, she thought she heard distant dogs, but it could be her blood roaring in her ears, her terror chattering at her.

Ice pellets and snowflakes whipped around. She thought she might throw up, held like this, her belly bouncing into his shoulder. She tried to lift her head, to look around, figure out where she was. Trees, both drooping pine and leafless skeletons. She saw no house where he could be taking her. They were high, because she could glimpse part of the Cold Creek valley far below.

Dear God, please don’t let him throw me off a cliff!

* * *

It scared Matt that he was in the new Lake Azure truck that had replaced the one that had crashed and burned. But in this storm, he hadn’t wanted to go up Pinecrest in his car, didn’t want to go up the mountain at all, but the Henry Hanson hint was all he had.

Before he got too high, he pulled over twice to try Char’s cell phone again. No dice, as Royce always said. The traffic on the road was sparse. He’d counted just six vehicles, four going up, two down, all pickups, one with big tires on it. He’d stopped at a small old grocery store partway up to get directions to where the Hansons lived.

“Back in the northwest holler,” the man told him. “Down by those veins of black gold, been played out long ago.”

As if, Matt thought as he got back in the truck and put the windshield wipers on high again, he’d know where the old coal mine shafts were up here, but at least he knew which direction was northwest, even in this mess. He’d have to drive right into the teeth of the storm.

* * *

Char could tell she was being carried into an old mine shaft. The tracks the coal cars once ran along glinted in the glow from the big flashlight her captor held. She caught glimpses of support beams and other entrances to the mine. They went a long way in. She tried to memorize the turns but there were too many. He stopped and put her down on a blanket, then tied her wrist bonds to a wooden beam that, with others, appeared to hold up the roof. As he lit two lanterns, her eyes darted around.

This place reminded her of the inside of the ancient tomb Kate had let her glimpse after they had propped up the parts that had caved in. She saw her captor had supplies in here, a sleeping bag, some stacked cans of food, bottles of water.

At least he hadn’t thrown her off the cliff—yet. Was she to be his prisoner here? For ransom, but from whom? No one she knew could pay a steep price, except Royce. Could someone think she was important to Royce because she was important to Matt? No, all her thoughts were going in circles, and her head was hurting so bad that bright colors flashed before her eyes.

“Mmmm!” she protested through her gag, hoping he’d take it out of her mouth.

“Mmmm!”

He came at her with a piece of cloth stretched between his hands. A new gag? Or did he mean to strangle her?

She tried to press back against the wall, but he slipped it down over her head. Ready to struggle and kick, she went rigid in panic.

He tied the cloth over her eyes to blindfold her, then yanked the gag out of her mouth. Shaking, she sucked in big breaths, then had a coughing fit as she inhaled cold air and maybe coal dust, too.

He moved away, then came back to thrust what felt like a plastic bottle in her hands. She heard him unscrew the cap. At least he was taking care of her. If he was going to kill her, why would he bother?

She could only lift her arms partway to her mouth, but she slumped down to take a long swallow of water.

“Please,” she said, then cleared her raspy voice and coughed again. “Aren’t you going to talk? Please tell me why I’m here and how we can solve this situation.”

He didn’t answer. Had he gone out and left her here alone?

* * *

Matt was terrified. He knew he’d found Hanson’s holler, not from the directions the guy gave him but from seeing the school van parked in front of a ramshackle house with a crooked roof almost buried in snow. The place had a stovepipe sticking out a window exuding cloudy air, probably from a potbellied stove. The crooked chimney also trailed a finger of smoke, partly beaten back by the wind. And there was an outhouse, for heaven’s sake.

It made Lake Azure seem like paradise. Even more than visiting the McKitricks, this place was an eye-opener to him about how some still lived in Appalachia. No wonder Char had been so determined to get Henry a job. No wonder he seemed so elated to have it, though it was just driving a school van twice a day. But then again, Char had mentioned that Royce had given Henry some extra cash, saying it was “to take care of her.”

But, for the first time, he really grasped Char’s calling, her drive to help the kids and families who lived up here. Yet the ruin of coal country—some of the defunct mines were near here—had not broken the backbone of the people.

He knocked on the door, which rattled. Henry opened it, and his daughter Char liked so much—ah, her name was Penny—peeked around behind him. They both wore more than one sweater and their boots.