Authors: Liv James
“Her backpack is here,” Jon said, walking
over to it. “This is where she was sitting when I left her. She wouldn’t have
started hiking without it.”
He reached down and picked up the backpack.
He rummaged through it and found the water and granola bars he’d watched her
load into it that morning.
“She wouldn’t have left the water behind,”
he said, glancing around. Then his eye caught on a series of dark spots on the
top fence railing.
“Does that look like blood to you?” he
asked.
Marcy walked over and examined the wood.
“It kind of does I guess,” she said, squinting at the small spots. “It’s hard
to tell. It could be anything.”
“The grass behind here is all matted down,”
Jon said as he jumped over the fence. Marcy climbed between the rails to join
him.
“Look,” Marcy said, pointing down into the
woods. It was clear that someone had tromped through there not long before. Jon
sprinted down into the trees, wishing he knew more about tracking.
He moved quickly, sticking to the places
where there were clear signs of the path Clara took. He wondered what the hell
she was thinking venturing off the trails. She’d been so disoriented with the
map to begin with. Why would she chance it?
“Clara!” he called out into the silent
forest.
No response.
He trudged on, surprised she’d trampled
through the woody underbrush. He tried to avoid the poison ivy that reached
wildly for his legs. He was stepping over a large patch of it when he spotted
Clara’s running shoe flipped over on the ground.
Marcy picked it up and handed it to him.
“Not a good sign,” she said.
He picked up his pace. He could hear Marcy
struggling to keep up behind him. He came upon Clara’s second sneaker and
cursed. It was clear that she hadn’t gone off the trail alone, or if she had,
that she’d run afoul of something. He pushed forward, following the trail of
broken sticks and matted down foliage. He stopped dead when he realized where
they were headed.
“This is the airstrip I wanted to fly into
after we landed up at the regional field,” Jon said to Marcy. “What the hell
would she be doing out here?”
Marcy frowned.
“What is it?” Jon asked.
“I think there’s something I need to tell
you,” she said.
Jon ran over to a weathered wooden shack
near the end of the runway. It was big enough to anchor down two small planes
and hold some equipment. A 100 low-lead fuel truck was parked outside. Jon
burst in, startling a white-haired man in green work pants and a baseball cap
who was dozing off inside. He was surrounded by a collection of memorabilia
from World War II.
“Slow down there, boy,” he said to Jon,
swinging his feet off the desk. “What’s your rush?”
Jon explained what happened and asked if
he’d seen anyone who looked like Clara wandering around.
“Well that explains all the copters up
there,” the old man said, pulling off his cap to rub his balding head and then
replacing it. “I was starting to wonder if we was under attack. Yeah I seen
her. She was with the guy who flew in here this morning. She didn’t look so
good. He told me she had a little mishap out on the trail and he was going to
take her home.”
Jon’s stomach dropped. “Home?” he
questioned.
The old man rifled through a mess of
paperwork on his desk and pulled up a scrap of paper. “Here,” he said. “I
jotted it down. Said he filed a flight plan for Brighton.
Hell, they’re probably there by now.”
“I
need a plane,” Jon told him.
“You qualified?” the old man asked skeptically.
“Yes sir, I am. I have over 1,500 hours.”
“Can you prove it?” he asked.
“I have my log book in the car,” Jon
replied.
The man looked him up and down and nodded.
“Alright then. The closest one you can rent is up at Valleyview municipal airport.
Do you know where that is?”
“Yes,” Jon said. “This is an emergency. Can
you call ahead and let them know I’m coming?”
“Yep. I can do that,” he said, picking up
the telephone receiver. “What kind of plane are you looking for?”
“A Cessna 182 if they have it. If they
don’t I can fly just about anything similar to it.” He turned on his heel and
headed out of the office.
“What are you going to do?” Marcy asked,
running behind him as he took off toward the main parking lot.
“Go get her,” he said. “Come on.”
“I can’t fly …”she started, panic flashing
in her eyes behind her glasses.
“You’re not going to,” he said as she got
in.
CHAPTER
20
Clara watched as David’s head began to bob
backward against the crocheted afghan that was draped across the back of the
loveseat. It would float back until his closely cropped hair grazed the blanket
and then his neck would snap it forward again. Clara knew it would continue
that way until he fell asleep for real, at which point his head would stay back
against the afghan and his mouth would hang open ushering his steady breath in
and out.
She didn’t dare to move. Not yet.
He’d pulled her up next to him on the
couch, his heavy leg draped across both of hers and an arm over her shoulder.
The other hand held the gun, trained at her chest. As his head bobbed, his grip
on the gun loosened, and Clara could see it sway slightly in his hand.
His head floated back and touched the
blanket again. This time he caught himself and grunted for air, throwing a
sideways glance to make sure she was still next to him. She stared straight
ahead at the television, trying to avoid looking at the Tipsy Tops ads he’d
carefully laid out on the coffee table.
She mentally thanked her grandmother for
her three-tape VHS collection.
It had
been nearly twenty years since she’d insisted to Clara that she needed a VCR.
The thing looked ridiculous now, a mammoth silver contraption that mechanically
ground a tray up out of the top for the tape to go in, which it would then
capture and pull down into the bowels of the thing. She could hear the faint
churning of the gears turning the tape as it worked.
There had been three tapes: the pilot movie
for Little House on the Prairie, a Bill Cosby comedy routine, and Dances With
Wolves.
Clara had suggested the VCR as a way to
distract David from what seemed to be his new favorite habit – taunting her
with the fact that she’d be dead by dinner. She could hardly believe it when
he’d agreed to watch a movie with her. Much to Clara’s relief he’d selected
Dances With Wolves, a winding epic that would give him plenty of time to doze
off.
He really wasn’t very good at the whole
hostage thing, Clara decided, stealing a glance at him. Other than brute force
he was really pretty stupid. If he’d thought about it at all he’d have realized
that she really had no desire to sit down and watch a movie with him after all
he’d done and all he planned to do.
His breathing became steadier. She
carefully picked up the remote control, which was sitting between them on the
loveseat, and inched up the volume. She hoped to cover any noise she might make
as she tried to escape. She held her breath and tried to make herself small as
she gently slid out from under his arm and leg.
He stirred and she stopped, her heart
thundering in her chest, sure he was going to catch her. But he settled his
head back down and began to breathe steadily again.
She turned over the doctored ads on the
coffee table, then started for the front door.
She stopped when she remembered his car
keys sitting on the kitchen table. She glided into the kitchen and put them
into the front pocket of her shorts, then headed toward the back door, which
was out of his line of sight. She feared that any movement would startle him
and he’d realize she’d left his side.
The back door opened off the mudroom behind
the kitchen.
As she removed the hook
from the eye on the old-fashioned lock she could hear music swelling and
peaking on the television. She hoped it was enough to hide the sound of the
door catching behind her.
She stepped out onto the small back porch,
taking a deep, shaky breath of murky afternoon air, relief pouring through her
that she’d escaped the house. Still, she knew she had to hurry. She stepped off
the back porch and ran barefooted around the side of the bungalow to where
David had parked his car.
Her relief faded as she saw that he had
beat her there, leaning up against the hood, using both hands to keep the big
gun pointed steady at her head.
“Going somewhere?” he asked.
She turned and ran as hard as she could
back around the corner. The crack of the bullet escaping the gun terrified her
and she stumbled over her own bare feet. She scrambled up and ran in through
the back door, slamming it closed, her hands shaking as she latched the hook in
the eye.
She sprinted to the front door, throwing
her whole body against it to push it closed. She twisted the deadbolt and
stepped back, panting, barely aware of the tears streaming down her cheeks.
She could hear him clamoring onto the
porch, then pounding on the door with his fists. There was a brief pause and
then a thunderous clap that shook the bungalow’s foundation. She barely had
time to cover her face as the door flew in off its hinges, caving on top of
her.
She slipped out from under the heavy door,
a fresh wave of pain arching through her neck. The nail file twisted and sliced
into her side.
She could feel warm blood grabbing at the
side of her shorts, which were still filthy from being dragged through the
woods.
She grabbed the file from her
side and held it out in front of her, her hands shaking so badly she could
barely keep hold of it.
David saw the nail file and laughed out
loud.
“That’s the best you could do?” he sneered,
coming at her. He swung his leg up to kick the file out of her hand.
She ducked and stabbed it hard into the back
of his calf.
He screamed in pain and grabbed his leg,
dropping his gun on the hardwood floor. She ran past him toward the open
doorway. He grabbed her ankle and pulled her back to him on the floor, pulling
the file from his leg and shoving it up under her neck. She went still as she
saw the fury in his eyes.
“You’re finished,” he stammered. “You’re …
not … worth
…it.”
Sweat dripped onto her face from his
forehead as he leaned over her. She twisted beneath him, trying desperately to
get away. She grimaced as she dug her bare toes into the leg she’d just
injured. He yelled out again, loosening his grip on her momentarily and then
slamming her down onto the floor even harder than before.
She groaned and closed her eyes, trying to
keep from passing out.
“Get off her.”
Clara’s eyes flew open just as David turned
his head to look at Jon, who’d walked in over top of the broken door. As he
turned Jon punched him hard in the jaw. He fell sideways on top of Clara,
crushing her beneath his weight.
She struggled to get out from under him as
he tried to stand to face Jon.
Clara could hear sirens in the distance,
circling around the other side of the lake. She prayed they would get there
soon.
“Stand up,” Jon demanded, pulling David to
his feet so they were nearly eye to eye.