The Cabin (39 page)

his plan went awry, while he still had the chance?

The man operated according to a logic and standards

all his own. He’d sabotaged his damn automatic garage

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door-opener, forcing Rachel to get out of the car. So he

could shoot her. Why not just trip her in the bathtub,

make it look like an accident? Because he wanted to ruin

Alice, because she was Rachel’s friend, her confidante,

because she’d know he’d killed her, no matter how it

happened. So, he swiped her change purse, tossed it into

his wife’s blood and started Alice down this path of

misery and lies, as if he’d known everything she’d do.

Australia…

Alice scooped up the SUV keys. It was all she

wanted. A new life in Australia. Now Destin Wright was

dead, Susanna Galway was out there in the snowstorm,

her daughters had been kidnapped—
Jesus, Beau, what

were you thinking?

Iris had out a cell phone, and Alice could hear her

talking to the police.

She stepped outside. She saw drops of blood in the

snow, Sam Temple on the edge of the driveway with his

weapon raised.

Beau was up by the evergreen where he’d taken

cover, marching the twins onto the snowshoe path he

and Alice had taken. He had a gun to Maggie Galway’s

head, keeping her in front of him, and he hung on to

Ellen Galway, shielding himself with her as he dragged

her along, sobbing. Maggie was completely silent.

Temple didn’t have a clean shot, and Alice knew he

wouldn’t fire unless he did. He wouldn’t risk killing one

of the girls.

She eased open the door to the SUV and slid behind

the wheel, breathing in the new car smells. She pulled

off her gloves and stuck the key in the ignition, her fin-

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gers stiff, frozen. The engine started, and she turned on

the windshield wipers, watched them flap off the accu-

mulated snow.

Tears flowed down her frozen cheeks, searing them,

streams of hot lava.

Beau McGarrity had just shot one Texas Ranger and

taken another Texas Ranger’s daughters hostage, and

she’d been a part of it. She hadn’t stopped it.

Nothing she did ever turned out right. There wasn’t

one thing more she could do except clear the hell out of

there and not cause anymore trouble.

Beau and the Galway girls disappeared into the storm.

Before Sam could turn his SIG onto her, Alice hit the

gas and got out of there.

��

Twenty-One

Jack stepped outside his emotions and listened to Sam

Temple run down the facts, his voice steady, profes-

sional, but his eyes on fire. Blood dripped into the snow

from his wounded leg. They were in the cabin driveway,

the snow falling hard, the wind howling out on Black-

water Lake.

Beau McGarrity had Maggie and Ellen.

Susanna was missing, injured if Alice Parker was to

be believed.

Jack absorbed the situation piece by piece. Iris had

called the police. They were on the way. She sat on the

bench in the mud room, her shawl pulled over her thin

shoulders. Her lips were a bluish purple. “I told them

to send an ambulance.” She raised her vivid green eyes

to Jack. “This isn’t Sam’s fault. I never should have let

Susanna go alone. The girls—they have minds of their

own. Alice…I thought she was my friend.”

Sam was having none of it. “Screw that. I was sup-

posed to protect your family. I didn’t.” He turned to

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Jack and handed him his SIG. “Go after McGarrity. I’ll

fill in the locals when they get here.”

Jack shoved the weapon into his waistband and

squinted out at the snow, trying to concentrate on what

he had to do right now, not the images in his head of his

daughters being dragged through the woods at gun-

point—of Susanna out on the lake alone, hurt. He

glanced at Sam, who gave no sign he was in pain from

his leg. “McGarrity went into the woods, not down to

the lake?”

Iris looked up from the bench, her lips trembling

now. “Alice said he has a car at the Herrington house.”

“I was just there,” Jack said. “I found her car, too, and

checked out the teahouse on the lake. She’d obviously

spent the night there.” He took a breath, fought to stay

focused. “Goddamn it.”

Sam hobbled into the mud room and grabbed a scarf

off a peg, tied it around his bloody thigh. “McGarrity

has an escape plan. He didn’t come all the way up here

to freeze to death in the woods.”

But Jack could see he was losing Iris, and he stepped

inside and knelt in front of her, took both her cold hands

into his. “Nothing will happen to Susanna or the girls.

I won’t let it.”

Her eyes were haunted. “That’s what I said over sixty

years ago.”

Jack stood up and shifted to Sam. “Get her inside

where it’s warm.”

But Sam’s jaw tightened as he looked behind Jack.

“Susanna. Jesus.”

Jack spun around, and Susanna fell into his arms.

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“Maggie and Ellen,” she said. “Jack…he can’t hurt

them…don’t let him…” Her left arm was bloodied and

half-frozen, and she had scrapes on her face that he

doubted she even felt. Her legs were caked with snow

from the knees down. She clawed at his chest, alert, and

he could see her willing herself not to lose control.

“Destin’s dead. His body’s not far from here. I’ll show

the police.”

She wasn’t showing anyone anything. One look at

her, and they’d stick her in an ambulance. “The police

are on their way. Tell them.”

Sam appeared at her side, taking her weight. “Come

on, Susanna. You need to get warm. You won’t be good

to anyone with hypothermia.”

She gripped Jack’s arm. “Find our babies, Jack. Mag-

gie and Ellen—” Her eyes filled with tears. “My God,

they haven’t done anything…”

Iris got up from the bench, her color better as she

took her shawl and put it over her granddaughter. “You

boys go on,” she said. “I’ll take care of Susanna. Honey,

we need to get you out of these cold, wet clothes, okay?

Alice has early stage hypothermia. I don’t know how far

she’ll get before she collapses.”

“I should have shot her,” Sam said.

Iris cast him a look. “What good would that have

done? She saved your life. She was unarmed.”

“She created a diversion for McGarrity.” But he

stopped himself, glancing at Jack. “You can beat the shit

out of me later.”

Jack nodded. “Let’s go.”

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* * *

which Gran had filled with lukewarm water and a heavy

sprinkling of baking soda. She winced at the pain. “Just

for a minute,” Susanna told her as she tried to contain

her impatience, her panic. “I don’t think we have a lot

of time before the police arrive.”

Gran nodded. “They’ll stick you on a stretcher.”

Susanna shuddered at the thought of forced immo-

bility. She’d put on dry pants and socks and was doing

all she could to absorb the reality of the situation with-

out letting it overwhelm her. If she did that, she’d be lost,

useless, no help to her daughters. But she was so tired,

her eyelids heavy and her mind sluggish as the warmth

of the cabin penetrated, making her even sleepier.

“I have to go after them,” she said. “Jack and Sam

can head him off at the Herrington place, and I can

come in from behind.” The warm water swirled over her

cuts and frostbitten skin, but the pain cut through her

fog. “In case he lied to Alice or went another direction,

or got lost. I can follow their tracks—”

Gran lifted Susanna’s arm from the sink and laid it

on a dish towel she’d opened on the counter. “If I die,”

she said, not looking at her granddaughter as she un-

wrapped gauze from the cabin’s medical kit, “I would

rather it be out here in these woods, today, searching for

Maggie and Ellen than a year or two from now at home

in my bed. I want you to know that, in case I’m not as

up to hiking these woods in a snowstorm as I think I am.”

In the distance, Susanna heard sirens and fought to

stem a fresh wave of useless, destructive panic. “Six mil-

lion acres of wilderness, Gran. They could be anywhere.”

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“They won’t be,” she said. “They’re here on Black-

water Lake, and we can find them. Susanna, we can’t

wait. We don’t have much time.”

She wasn’t talking about the sirens and the impend-

ing arrival of police cars and ambulances. Susanna

wrapped the towel around her arm, foregoing the gauze

as she ran into the mud room, taking in Maggie and

Ellen’s boots, their gloves, their coats, their hats. All

their warm clothes.

They’d been in their rooms reading Jane Austen to

each other.

Susanna spun around at her grandmother. “Gran—

Gran, they’ll freeze out there—”

She picked up Maggie’s boots and thrust them at Su-

sanna. “You two wear the same size. Hers are dry.”

Gran hurried back to the kitchen, throwing water and

the medical kit into a hip pack while Susanna pulled on

her dry winter gear. The snow hadn’t let up. She grabbed

Jack’s new snowshoes and headed outside, slipping

them on easily with their spring-loaded bindings. Gran

joined her, thrusting the hip back at her granddaughter

and strapping on a pair of snowshoes.

“Gran—”

“I know these woods, Susanna. If I’m no help, I’ll

turn back. I won’t slow you down.” She tilted her wrin-

kled face to the sky. “Help us, Jared. Help us.”

Jack drove. The roads were miserable. The plows and

sanders hadn’t yet reached this isolated north end of

Blackwater Lake. He didn’t know how fast a small town

in the Adirondack wilderness could pull together local

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and state forces in the midst of a major snowstorm. He

knew they’d do their damnedest to get it done as fast as

possible.

But he also knew it wouldn’t be fast enough.

Neither girl was wearing shoes. Sam had told him.

Ellen had on fur-lined L.L. Bean slippers she’d made her

mother buy just for this trip, and Maggie had on lime-

green sequined slippers from the 1970s.

“Socks?” Jack asked.

“Ellen. Not Maggie. She’s wearing pink satin ankle

pants and a navy-blue lumberjack shirt. Ellen’s wear-

ing a black rugby jersey and leggings.”

Jack gripped the wheel. “They’ll die of exposure if

we don’t find them soon.”

Sam stared straight ahead. “If I’d had a clean shot—”

“You’d have taken it. Sam, my family—” Jack could

feel the tension—the fear—in every muscle in his body.

“They’re not easy to protect.”

Sam said nothing, and Jack turned off the main road

onto the rutted, barely maintained dirt road that led

down to the Herrington place. It was a huge, lodge-style

house, its windows boarded up, its porches sagging, its

sprawling, sloping yard obviously overgrown, even with

the deep snow. He followed the driveway to a parking

area behind the house. Just up ahead, another narrower

road—more of a lane—veered off toward the lake.

He nodded toward the lane, ice collecting on the truck’s

windshield as the snow continued to fall. “Alice left her

car just out of sight down that way. The teahouse is about

a hundred-fifty yards through the woods, but it’s rough

going. She and Destin apparently planned to meet there.”

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“Destin never made it,” Sam said, grim.

“No.” Jack shifted, pointing up toward the house.

“Beau’s driving an SUV. It’s parked up there. I decided

to check back with you instead of sitting here waiting

for him.”

“He had Alice. He must have the tape. Why take

Maggie and Ellen?”

“His ticket out of here,” Jack said. “Revenge. Des-

peration. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I don’t

know how this bastard thinks.”

“The girls are a win for him no matter what happens.

If we catch him, he’ll think he can bargain. If we don’t

catch him—”

“Jesus,” Jack said. “He’s going to dump them in the

woods.”

Sam nodded. “That’s my guess. He knows how

they’re dressed. He knows the conditions. He knows

we’re up here, hunting his ass. He’ll leave them, and

he’ll use them as a bargaining chip.”

Jack turned the truck, blocking the road as best he

could, but there was still room for an SUV to maneu-

ver around him. He got out of the truck, sinking into six

inches of fresh snow. It was still coming down, blow-

ing in their faces out in the open. He drew the SIG, push-

ing away more images of Maggie and Ellen in the

woods in their slippers.

When he met Sam in front of the truck, Jack handed

him the weapon. “Unless you think you’ll pass out,