Retreat (38 page)

    
“But how did she get these shots?” Clara
asked, staring at them in disbelief. “We would have seen the flash.”

    
“Not if she was using a high-end digital
camera,” Jon said. “The shutter speed can be set so fast that she wouldn’t need
a flash.”

    
“She wouldn’t know how to work something
like that and she couldn’t afford it even if she did,” Clara said. “She’s dead
broke!”

    
“You underestimate her. She’s pretty smart,
Clara,” Jon said. “I bet you for the right price she’d learn anything.”

    
Clara considered what he said. “But what
about Elizabeth?
Why drag her into this? It doesn’t make any sense.”

    
“I don’t know. But we’re going to find
out,” Jon said, taking back off down the trail. He called out behind him, “She
needs to pay for what she’s done to that little girl and her family. And to
you.”

    
The Foster’s Folly trail head was beyond Slippery Falls, down a wide, well-mulched path
that cut a straight line through the dense woods.

    
They sprinted past two families and what
looked like a college hiking club until they were standing at the top of the
trail.

    
Clara stared down the mountainside. She
could see the first section of Foster’s Folly, which traveled steeply down a
narrow dirt path that zigzagged in a series of switchbacks. She could make out
a group of people resting on a landing a hundred feet down. She wondered what
Karen was thinking sending the group down such a treacherous stretch,
especially her father, who, while in decent shape, was not a young man anymore.

    
Jon pulled the map out of the backpack and
studied it. “We don’t really want this,” he said, pointing to where they were
on the map.

    
“Want what?” Clara asked, confused. “To go
after Rebecca?”

    
He shook his head. “No. We don’t want to
start out at this trail head. We’ll never be able to catch up to them. We
should start here,” he said, pointing at the trail’s end on the map. “That way
we’ll run into them on their way back up instead of trying to chase them down.”

    
Clara looked around, disoriented. “But
where does the trail end?”

    
“Follow me,” he said.

    
Jon found a small footpath that cut through
the woods. Fifteen minutes later they were standing at the trail’s end as tired
hikers stumbled up from the final climb.

    
“We could just sit here and wait for them
to come up,” Clara suggested as she watched a group of teens collapse on a
nearby rock. “They have to come out here eventually. We could have the police
waiting here with us.”

    
“Clara, I don’t know. Your dad’s down there
hiking with her. Who knows what she’s capable of,” Jon said.

    
“She doesn’t know that we’re on to her. And
my dad can take care of himself. He’s been dealing with Rebecca for a long
time,” Clara said. “And the trail is hard hiking. It’s steep and we’d be
heading down it instead of up it, which would be difficult to do as people are
coming up. They’ve got to be nearly half done by now, and if it’s a race they
may be moving even faster. I’d rather catch her up here on solid ground than on
the steep trail.”

    
Jon considered what Clara said.

    
“You’re probably right. But I can’t just
sit here and do nothing,” he said, pacing back and forth in the clearing. “I
can’t just wait around.”

    
Clara heard a police siren circling the
park in the distance. She looked at Jon, who seemed more than ready to run down
the trail and drag Rebecca back up by the hair. There was no way he was going
to be patient enough to wait here for the hikers to emerge from Foster’s Folly.

    
“I think the most constructive thing you
could do right now is help Josie explain to the police that she isn’t the one
who kidnapped Elizabeth,”
Clara suggested. “Maybe you could try to head the cops off before they storm
the place. It would help if you’re there to explain the situation and let them
know that we’re the ones who alerted the police.”

    
Jon stopped pacing. “What about you?” he
asked.

    
“I’m waiting right here,” Clara said,
pulling herself up onto the top rung of a split-rail fence that edged the woods
near the trail’s end. “I want to see Rebecca’s face when I tell her I know what
they hell she’s been up to. I haven’t decided whether I’m going to punch her
for the pictures or kick her in the teeth for Elizabeth.”

    
“There’s the Clara I know,” he said,
unclenching his teeth momentarily to allow a smile. “Okay. You do that. But I
can’t just wait here. I’ll go give Josie a hand with the police and then lead
them back here so they can arrest Rebecca as soon as she comes off the trail.”
He paused. “After you kick her ass, of course.”

    
“Do you think the cops will let me do it?”
Clara asked hopefully.

    
“Probably not,” he said as he leaned down
and kissed her. He handed her the backpack. “Stay put. I’ll be back soon. Are
you sure you don’t want to come along?”

    
“Honestly, Jon, I can’t come with you,” she
said, a pained expression crossing her face. “I can’t stand the thought of
watching them take Elizabeth
away from my mom. If I’m there she will crumble completely and when she does
I’ll crumble completely. That isn’t going to do anyone any good. If you’re there
she’ll try to be stronger, to put on a good front.”

    
The sirens were growing louder.

    
“Go,” she said, motioning for him to get
moving.

    
She watched him jog back onto the trail
they’d just emerged from. She hadn’t been thinking straight when she left Josie
at the cabin by herself with Elizabeth.
The police would probably surround the place and arrest her, thinking she was
the one who took the baby. If Jon could intercept them as they arrived he might
be able to defuse the situation.

    
Clara reached down into the backpack and
took a swig of her water. She could feel the hot sun beating down on her. It
had to be in the high 80s at the top of the trail, even warmer in the sun. She
repositioned herself on the railing so she was completely in the shade.

    
After a few minutes the sirens stopped. A
news helicopter buzzed overhead, causing the leaves in the tall trees to rustle
and shake. The boys who’d collapsed on the rock watched the copter, then pulled
themselves up and started on the trail Jon took earlier.

    
She prayed Jon got to the police in time.
She could just kill Rebecca for doing this to their mother.

    
And those pictures. Unbelievable! Why would
she do that? What possible purpose would it serve for her to take pictures of
her and Jon together? Even if she was working for David what good would
pictures like that do? It was just sick. And where did she get them developed?

    
Clara squirmed on the railing as she
thought about the little grocery store they’d passed down in Valleyview. She
wondered if the person who developed the shots was in the diner this morning.
She bet he got a real eyeful.

    
But what bothered her most was the
connection to David. Where had that come from? Talk about two people whose
paths should never have crossed. Clara tried to think of where they could have
met or how David could have even found Rebecca. She was such a gypsy that her
own mother didn’t know where she was most of the time.

    
Tipsy Tops, Clara thought. That had to be
the connection. She wondered if Rebecca went there to work at some point while
she was out of touch. Clara shook her head at the thought. Rebecca was a lot of
things but she didn’t think she was a stripper. Of course, before this morning
she never would have pegged her for a kidnapper, either. Still, it didn’t make
sense. If David wanted to hurt Jon he’d have been looking for dirt on Clara,
not waiting for her sister to magically show up at his strip joint.

    
“What’s the connection?” she asked softly,
closing her eyes as she tried to think it through.

    
Her eyes flew open when a hot hand clamped
down over her mouth.

    
Before she could brace herself she was
being pulled backward off the railing, the rough wood tearing at the backs of
her bare legs.

    
Clara didn’t need to see his face to know
it was David. She recognized his smell. It was a combination of white shaving
cream and ivory soap. He didn’t wear cologne.

    
She tried to pull away, to rip the hand
from her mouth but he was too strong. She couldn’t turn her head because he was
holding her too tightly against his chest as he dragged her through the
underbrush deep into the woods.

    
Clara tried to elbow him but he was pulling
her so fast she couldn’t get a good shot at him. She tried digging her feet
into the ground, which slowed him a little until her left sneaker came off on a
root that jutted out of the dirt. She kept digging with her other foot until
that shoe came off, too.

    
He moved his hand until it practically
covered her nose in addition to her mouth, making it hard to breathe. She bit
down as hard as she could to try to make him let go.

    
It worked. He pulled his hand back, nearly
dropping her on the ground in the process. She used the moment to scurry away
from him and start running back the way they’d came.

    
“Help me!” she screamed. “Somebody please
help! Over here!”

    
The ground ripped at the socks on her feet,
rocks jabbing into her bare flesh. She could hear him gaining on her.

    
“Fire!” she yelled in desperation as she
felt him gaining on her. She’d learned once that no one responded to a call for
help but everyone liked to watch a fire. “Fire!”

    
When she realized she wouldn’t be able to
outrun him she stopped short and spun around.

    
“What the hell are you doing here?” she
spit, using the back of her hand to wipe off the salty taste from her mouth
where he’d held her. “Why can’t you just leave me the hell alone?”

    
“Nice try, Clara,” he said, nearly upon
her. He leaned down on his knee for a moment to catch his breath, shooting her
a victorious look with his hazel eyes. She turned to start running again but he
grabbed her arm, nearly ripping it out of the socket. She started to tell him
that Jon was on his way, but a flash of pain stole her words.

    
The deafening roar of the small plane’s
engine jarred her awake. She tried to open her eyes but they stayed closed. She
could feel that she was lying down, probably across the backseat, strapped in
with both seatbelts. She tried to sit up but a pain flared through her head and
neck.

    
“Where are you taking me?” she croaked
blindly.

    
No answer.

    
She tried again to open her eyes. She could
make out David in the pilot’s seat, but he was blurry. It looked like he was
wearing a headset.

    
No wonder he couldn’t hear her over the
noise of the plane and the muffling headset, she thought.

    
She reached out and touched the back of his
arm, still unable to sit up. He jumped and looked back at her, causing the
plane to bank slightly to the right.

    
“Don’t do that,” he barked. “Go back to
sleep.”

    
“Where are we going?” she asked, this time
yelling as loudly as she could, even though it made her head hurt worse.

    
“Home.”

    
She closed her eyes.

    
Back to Tulsa. Just where she didn’t want to be.

    
She knew he couldn’t do anything to her
while they were in the plane so she relaxed back onto the seat and allowed her
eyes to stay closed. Her lids were so heavy she could barely keep them open
anyway. She comforted herself with the idea that resting now would give her all
the energy she could muster to fight him off later.

    
She woke again as David picked her up and carried
her from the plane to the front seat of his Cadillac. She glanced around,
trying to get her bearings. It didn’t look like Tulsa but she couldn’t be sure. The trees
around the airstrip seemed too tall. As they pulled out of the airport she
recognized the road in front of her. They were back in Brighton.