Foster Siblings 3: Brokedown Hearts (40 page)

When Ben got back on dry land, if Braden hadn’t yet found David, Ben would go to Skye and bring them in on the investigation. Over and over again, he told himself he wouldn’t have to.

Everything would work out fine. It had to. Ben couldn’t bear to risk so much to bring his brother home, only to lose the man he loved. Life wouldn’t be that cruel to Ben. He’d had a sucky childhood and hadn’t let it make him bitter. He deserved something good as a reward. Right there in the airplane, Ben called in his marker with God.

I want David. I want him safe. I want him back in my arms.

God better answer his prayers this time. There would be hell to pay if he didn’t.

* * * *

Light-headed, God only knew how many hours later, David blinked in the oppressive darkness but kept rubbing the duct tape against the zipper on his jeans. Heat filled the closet, and sweat coated David’s skin under his clothes. Drops of perspiration fell into his eyes, stinging them, but he’d successfully cut through almost half the tape binding his wrists, and with a little bit more, he’d be able to slip one hand through and get free. He didn’t dare stop for anything.

With every scrape of the duct tape against the metal zippers, the adhesive stuck itself to the teeth. As David had gone on, it had become increasingly difficult to get the zipper to cut through the thick layers of tape.
I’m so close
. David yanked and yanked and yanked his left arm, trying to get it to slip free of the tape, but it stuck shy of sliding through, and more skin tore on his wrists, bloodying his hands further.

Too exhausted to scream or cry, David saved his energy and worked on. When he’d first started cutting into the tape, he’d realized that with his hands in front, he could remove the tape from his mouth and shout for help. He’d done that, wasting precious time yelling, hoping someone would hear him, only to receive silence as his answer. His throat had become raw, and he’d begun losing his voice, so he’d given up and switched back to his original plan to free himself.

Biting his lip, fighting through the pain firing in his arms, David moved his wrists back and forth over his zipper again, pushed down harder, and silently pleaded with any higher power out there watching him to aid him in his attempt to escape. Faster and faster, David pushed and pulled his arms over the zipper, desperate to loosen more of the binding. Suddenly a
riiiiip
rent the air, and a chunk of the tape tore free from his wrists.

Oh my God, oh my God
. Pushing with his right arm and pulling with his left, David fought with every ounce of power in him and finally yanked his left hand through the remaining tight circle of duct tape, freeing his arms. Such emotion washed through David, he whimpered and choked on a sob.
Oh my God. I did it. I really did it.

A new wave of adrenaline drenched David’s system and gave him a second boost of energy. Faster and steadier than he’d ever worked in his life, David felt his way down his legs, found the end of the duct tape around his ankles, peeled it back, and then unwound and unwound the stuff, rolling it into a sticky ball along the way. Eventually, he reached the end, and stabs of ice-pick-sharp pain shot up his calves and thighs as blood began flowing in earnest again.

David twisted the door handle and jammed his shoulder against the wood, but the door didn’t budge. Not dejected in the slightest, David shifted to his rear, braced his shoulders against the back wall of the closet, pulled his legs up to his chest, and then launched them both forward at the same time, straight into the door. He did it a second and then a third time, jarring his whole body with the force he put into crashing his feet into the wood. On the forth blow, the chair on the other side clattered to the floor, and the door swung open.

Shaking all over, David crawled into the shadowed cabin and, with the aid of the wall, pulled himself to his feet. Through every knife of pain cutting into his body, he ran to the open kitchen, where his phone still rested on the bar. He turned it on, but
no service
scrolled across his screen before he got a chance to dial 911. With only one bar of battery life left on the device—he always charged it at night when he got home from work—David turned off the cell and shoved it in his pocket.

Okay
. He spun and searched the kitchen and living area but could find no phone, laptop, tablet, or any device he could use to reach out to the world.
What now?
Scrambling again, he checked a sparsely decorated bedroom but had no success there either. He couldn’t even find a pair of shoes to steal to protect his feet. A clock on the nightstand showed it was after five o’clock in the evening.
If it was morning when Dr. Fariday left me, and he had to go to work, he’ll be back soon
. David rushed back into the kitchen, yanked out all the drawers, and found a butcher knife.

The blade felt foreign in David’s hand. Heavy and awkward. David’s father had taught his sons how to hunt with guns, and David had barely stomached that for a few years, let alone any butchering of animals his father or brothers had killed.
I have to run
. David’s heart lurched into his throat, but he forced his wobbly legs to carry him to the front door.
It’s my only chance.

Keeping the knife for a little bit of security, David unlocked the two bolts and the lock on the door and slipped outside. Late-afternoon light blinded him, and he used his hand to shade his eyes. Surrounding David, unending, monstrous trees, tall grass, tangled bramble, and rich soil reached out in every direction from the cabin as far as the eye could see. Everywhere he turned, more and more wooded area loomed far and wide. No houses or cars were anywhere in sight. In fact, the only sign that this cabin existed was a well-trampled narrow line of smashed grass and earth serving as a homemade road.

Oh God. Where am I?
Another layer of fear sizzled through David. He quickly checked the phone again but still didn’t get a signal. Then, before he could plan his next move, an engine and wheels spinning on dirt cut through the air like a chain saw, and his location and how prepared he was to deal with it didn’t matter.
I have to go.

Abandoning his thought to stay hidden within the trees but keep near the makeshift road, David shot off the porch to his right toward the thickest, densest line of foliage he could see. He pushed through a thicket of some kind of berry tree, into the cooler temperatures and shadows of the forest, just as a silver SUV pulled into sight and stopped in front of the cabin.

Not waiting to see Dr. Fariday—or whoever else it might be—get out of the truck, David clutched the handle of the knife, positioning it to stab someone if necessary, and took off in a dead run through the tangle of trees. He didn’t know in which direction he ran; he just wanted to get as far away from that cabin as possible.

Within moments, as David churned his legs as fast as he could and kicked dirt up under his socked feet, Dr. Fariday yelled, “David!” and his name carried with terrifying clarity through the leaves. “There’s nowhere to run! Come back to me now, and I won’t be mad!”

David didn’t stop moving his legs for a second. His heart thumped painfully, and his lungs burned with the need for air, but David ignored the cries of his body and kept running. He jumped a fallen tree but then tripped over a big rock and careened face-first into a bed of dead branches and leaves. When he slammed into the ground, the knife flew from his hand. Spitting musty moss from his mouth, David started to scramble to his feet, but the tip of a branch jammed into his knee, breaking skin, and the sound of an engine revving locked him in place like a statue.

Unlike the deep sound of a car revving, this engine whizzed at a higher pitch, familiar, and memories tumbled through David’s brain like someone pulling an apple from the middle of a pyramid display.
Oh God. He’s got a motorbike
. David remembered that sound from going to watch his brother Alan compete in motocross when they were kids.
I can’t outrun a bike.

Dr. Fariday shouted for David again, and David squeezed his eyes shut, as if as long as he couldn’t see anything, he would be invisible to everyone else too. But the cycle’s engine made a different sound, something steadier, and David knew the doctor had begun riding the bike through the woods, searching for him.

Abandoning his run for freedom, David grabbed the knife, slid under a tree with heavy, leafy branches that drooped all the way to the ground, and started digging. Faster than he’d ever moved in his life, David used his arms and hands, pushed great piles of earth and dead leaves behind him, keeping everything under the tree, and quickly created a shallow hole in the earth. The sound of the motorbike got softer at first, but then it sharply became louder, and David stopped digging; he’d done what he could. He gathered dead foliage and branches quietly, dropped into the small ditch in a fetal position, and pulled all the refuse within arm’s reach on top of him, all the while praying it would be enough to keep him hidden from sight.

Thanking God for every horrific hunting trip he’d had to go on as a kid, where he’d had to learn the techniques his father had used to keep hidden and silent from the animals he was hunting, David stayed as quiet as a church mouse now, barely breathing, as Dr. Fariday rode past him on the bike. The motor suddenly died, and while David couldn’t see anything, he didn’t think Dr. Fariday could be more than a couple of feet away.

Dozens of tiny bugs, whose home David had disrupted, crawled on him, under his clothes and into his hair, tickling his skin each time they moved. Closing his eyes once more, David clamped his teeth together and willed himself not to so much as twitch. The slightest shift could make a noise loud enough to attract the doctor’s attention.

“David! Stop toying with me! I don’t like your games!”

The way Dr. Fariday shouted gave David new life and almost allowed him to breathe again. If the doctor knew where David was hiding, he wouldn’t need to yell. Still, David clutched the knife like a lifeline, and as a beetle walked across his face, he didn’t so much as flinch.

“I have all night! These woods go on forever, and they’re all mine! There’s no one around to help you! Give up now, and I’ll give you a second chance!”

David silently counted the seconds—
one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three, and four
—and one hundred and thirty-six endless seconds ticked by while Dr. Fariday remained somewhere close to David, but David could not risk peeking to find out where. Finally, the doctor cursed something horrifically explicit, gunned his bike, and rode on.

In the aftermath, David stayed in place, letting more long minutes pass, until he could hardly hear the motorbike and felt safe to move. He expelled a breath, shuddered as his skin crawled with bugs, and pushed out of his hiding hole. Taking a split second to brush the critters off him, he then took another to rearrange the area under the tree, eliminate the evidence of his hiding place, and then crawled out from under the branches.

Weary and terrified to his core, David checked the phone again, still found himself in a dead spot, and cursed. He turned in a circle, searching for familiar markers, and tried to reorient himself. As long as he kept moving in a straight line, sooner or later he’d come across a road or home or some kind of civilization. He couldn’t stay in one place; the doctor would definitely find him. But David also knew, even with running, eventually Dr. Fariday would get close to him again, and when that happened, he’d have to hope for nearby coverage and another place to hide.

Once again, as shades of orange and yellow started breaking through the leaves above, indicating the beginning of nightfall, David asked for help from a higher power and started to run.

* * * *

Late into the night, after what felt like forever, Ben reached the motel. He shoved his way past a small crowd, into David’s room. A uniformed officer tried to block his path, but Ben chest bumped the guy and ordered him to step aside.

Deeper in the room, Braden’s voice cut through the din. “Let him in. He’s with me.”

Ben rushed to Braden, who stood in the middle of a small group of officers around a table with computer equipment. “Where is he?” Ben had already learned from texts that Braden had not been able to locate David but had found a threatening note balled up under the bed. After finding a few others in a drawer, Braden had begun a search. “Tell me something good.”

His lips tight, Braden shook his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t have anything yet.” Before Ben could shout a protest or demand action, Braden held up his hand and said, “Let me refresh you on what I know, in case I missed something in my messages. Maybe something in what I’ve gathered will ping for you in a way it wouldn’t for me.” Once Ben gave a curt nod, Braden started ticking things off on his fingers. “David hasn’t made contact with anyone since he left the shelter last night. He took the bus home. I talked to the driver on duty for that route, who identified David and said he got off up the road. A guy staying at the motel says he remembers David walking to his room as he was pulling out to go get some food.

“I can’t find David’s phone anywhere in the room. I also can’t find the backpack you mentioned he carries, and there is not a kitten here like you said there should be. I’m sorry, man.” Braden clasped Ben’s shoulder and squeezed. “David is definitely missing. And if you say he would never run from you, then that can only mean someone has him.”

His entire body burning with the need to tear these walls down and hurt anyone in the path of his finding his man, Ben clenched his hands into fists and crossed his arms hard against his chest in an effort not to cause serious damage to something. “Son of a bitch. What about that bastard prison guard?” Upon learning of the threatening notes to David, Ben had forsaken David’s unspoken wish for privacy and told Braden about Cyril Hanson. “Did you track him down?”

Braden nodded but still looked grim. “I talked to him on the phone. He’s a slimy bastard, and I could tell he was lying about the abuse, but it’s not him. I talked to the warden up there, and he assured me the guy worked all day. And from talking to Cyril, I could tell he isn’t intelligent or forward thinking enough to arrange to have someone do the kidnapping for him. It’s not the guard.”