Amy was taken aback. “That’s Jamie’s favorite blanket.”
“Dan brought it to the house so he could sleep. I knew Jamie loved that blanket so I packed it,” she explained. “Thank God I did.” She spread it over them. Amy held Jamie on her lap, trying to keep him dry.
Suddenly, a bright light and a loud voice made them jump. Eickher stood in front of them. “Aha!” he yelled, “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we have to keep moving. I saw the sheriff back there,” he snapped. “Come on. Up! Up! Let’s go.”
The voice sent fear coursing through Amy. She knew the trail was dangerous, but Eickher was lethal. Now they had to deal with both.
Dallas jumped from the car and threw on his raincoat. He couldn’t wait for his team. Following the concrete wall to its end, he found a set of hidden stairs and had just started down when a man ducked out a door below him. “Hold it!” Dallas shouted, pulling his weapon.
Francisco put his hands over his head. “No, no. Don’t shoot! I was checking to see if they came back.”
“Who?” Dallas motioned him over to the stairs. “Put your back against the wall.”
“The Senoritas and the boy. They were running from Señor Eickher. He has a gun.”
“Who are you?” Dallas asked suspiciously.
“Francisco Mandez. I work for Señor Eickher. I am hired to protect him, but right now I think it’s the senoritas that need protecting.”
“Where did they go?”
“Come, I show you.” Dallas followed Francisco inside the house, down two flights of stairs, and out onto a balcony. Francisco pointed to the narrow staircase. “At the bottom, there’s a trail. I followed it a few days ago. It goes to the caves, but it gets very dangerous, so I came back. It is too thin. I don’t wish to go again.”
“You mean, narrow?”
“Si. Narrow. Sometimes it slides away.”
“Did you actually see Eickher go down this trail?”
“Si. I was right behind.”
“And the two women? You’re sure they went this way?”
“Si. They came out here. Where else could they go?”
Dallas looked around. He had a point. “Who’s inside the house?”
“Señoras Doris and Maria,” he hesitated, “and an old man in a wheelchair. He had a tire iron and he come just when everything go wrong and the gun go off.”
Dallas rubbed his eyes in frustration. “The gun went off. Anyone hurt?” Dallas asked, silently cursing Hadden and trying to picture the scene.
“Dr. Johnstone. He was shot.”
“Did someone call the Paramedics?”
“Si. And Señora Doris is a doctor. She is with him.”
Dallas couldn’t wait any longer. “Okay, go back inside. My men will be here any minute.”
Dallas sprinted down the trail, his radio in hand, and gave them the heads up on the situation inside the house; then he said, “Get SAR out to The Caves. The chopper too. Make it fast. I’m headed down the old trail from The Cliff House.”
They picked their way along the steep, slippery incline, Amy leading, followed by Alesha and behind her, Jamie. Eickher was last, the revolver in one hand, Jamie’s jacket collar clutched in his other, forcing the boy to walk along the outer edge of the trail. If anything happened to the scientist, the child would go over the edge. That was Eickher’s protection in case the women got ideas of overpowering him. It would also prevent the sheriff from taking a shot at him from behind.
Before going after the women, Eickher had stopped for his raincoat and had seen the sheriff’s Yukon pull up on the surveillance monitor. He had to assume the sheriff would be behind them soon, if he wasn’t already.
Eickher needed to figure out which woman was Alesha and then get off the trail, out of the area, and out of the country, for that matter. The gun he was holding had gone off inside the house. From what he saw, Johnstone was probably dead. The bullet had blown away part of his skull. There was no way Eickher was going to allow himself to be arrested and tried for murder in the U.S.
He knew Alesha disliked heights, so he kept his eye on the two women, watching to see which one of them would show signs of that phobia. Not that it mattered at the moment. He scanned the bluff above him and below him with his powerful flashlight and then shut it off. It was sheer and steep in both directions. There was no way off the ledge right now.
The night was black and the going was painfully slow. Gusting wind and driving rain made the passage almost impassable. So far, neither woman showed any particular fear of heights. Of course, that would change with first light, when the steep drop became visible. As soon as Alesha showed herself, he’d get rid of Amy. The architect had learned too much. A little slip over the edge and that problem would be solved.
He needed the boy though. Alesha loved the child. She had the same ridiculous weakness for children as Doris, so the boy would prove valuable. He’d use the child to manipulate Alesha. Damned incorrigible woman. She got worse every year. But he still needed her to give him a son so he could finish his project. The sooner he did that the better. The thought of taking Alesha to bed excited him. His heart raced as he imagined her perfect body naked against his.
The penlight ahead of him caught his attention. “Keep that light down,” he yelled, “or I’ll take it away and you can find your way in the dark.” Insolent, he thought, the both of them. Last thing he needed was the sheriff seeing the light.
Dallas recalled the trail from years earlier, when he’d used it to hike down to The Caves. A nasty piece of work. When The Cliff House was built, public access to the trail was cut off, so a new access was built a few miles up the highway. Last he’d heard, it was almost unusable in winter due to storms.
Ahead of him, a flickering light was visible intermittently. It diminished, and then reappeared further along. Dallas couldn’t see the foursome in the dark, but he knew they would be inching along single file. The last thing he wanted to do was to agitate Eickher, prompting the man to fire his gun or send someone over the edge. Dallas stayed back, hoping that with the coming dawn, he might get a clear shot at the scientist. Truth was, from this distance, he needed Larson’s rifle.
He pulled out his radio. “I can’t get close enough to risk a shot. Send Larson out with his rifle. And tell him to grab my coil of rope out of the Yukon. Any word on the chopper?”
“A no go, Sheriff. Too windy.”
“What about SAR?”
“On their way. I’ll keep you informed. Things inside the house aren’t good. Johnstone took a headshot. He didn’t make it. The four witnesses say Eickher pulled the trigger.”
“That explains why he’s so damned determined to get out of here.” Dallas said.
“Hey, Sheriff, what’s all the noise? Where exactly are you?”
“Still on the trail. Worst place in the world on a night like this.”
Early morning light filtered through the low cloud cover, giving the group the first glimpse of the precipice they were descending. It was a sheer drop from the trail to the ragged rocks that were now thirty feet below them. The sea hurtled itself over the pinnacles, sending spray up over their feet and onto the trail, which had diminished to about a foot in width. One slip would lead to certain death.
Amy felt Alesha’s grip tighten on her shoulder, warning Amy that her sister had a fear of heights. Amy stole a glance over her shoulder and saw Alesha’s eyes wide with fear. Did Eickher know about this phobia? If he did, he’d recognize it in Alesha immediately. If that happened, Amy knew her life would become instantly worthless.
Amy glanced back at Jamie. He looked up at her with large, frightened eyes and reached his hand out. “I want to walk with you.”
She gave him a small smile. “Soon, we’ll change places soon.”
“I want to change now,” he said, trying to pull away from Eickher
The scientist yanked the child hard. “Stop it!” Eickher still gripped Jamie’s jacket. The gun hung from his other hand.
Furious, and helpless to do anything about it, Amy turned back around. She didn’t want Jamie to talk for fear he’d call out,
Mommy
and give her away.
Eickher shouted, “Keep moving!”
“We can’t go much further,” Alesha told him, “The trail’s almost gone!”
Amy could hear panic in her sister’s voice and reached for her hand, squeezing hard, hoping Alesha understood the warning.
Don’t give yourself away.
Putting one foot ahead of the other with extreme care, Amy continued forward. She tried to remember how far they were from the caves. When she was working with the design team on The Cliff House, she and a couple of co-workers hiked the trail during the summer months. If her memory served, they now were about a hundred feet from the caves.
Rounding a corner, Amy stopped dead. Her right foot was only inches from the edge. The trail had disappeared, taken out by a slide. She looked down into the boiling sea. Alesha’s fingertips dug deeper into Amy’s shoulder.
“Why are you stopping? Get the lead out!” Eickher yelled.
“Trail’s gone. It’s been taken out by a slide.” Amy called back.
He peered around Alesha, frowning. “Jump!” he ordered.
Amy swallowed and looked down. The ledge on the other side was just as narrow. There was no way of getting a run at it. Amy thought she could make it, but what about Jamie? Worse, Alesha would never get across. In desperation, Amy looked around. A tree limb would bridge the gap, but there was nothing like that at hand.
Anger ignited in Amy. They had reached a dead end to this treacherous journey. To have gone this far in these conditions was incomprehensible. To go further, was sheer insanity. To send Jamie across that gap was to put his young, precious life in peril, and that made Amy sick. She looked back at Eickher. He had put the gun away, but he still held onto Jamie. A small movement of the man’s hand and her child would go careening over the edge. Either way, her son was in extreme danger.
Eickher’s cold dark eyes bored into her. He seemed to read her thoughts. With deliberate slowness, he placed his other hand on Jamie’s shoulder and looked down into the boiling sea below. He spat through his teeth, his jaw snapping. “I wouldn’t hesitate to send the boy over. He’d be gone in a heartbeat.”
His words chilled Amy to the bone. She was trapped. There was no way out of their predicament. She asked Alesha, “Do you still have that blanket?”
Alesha passed her the bag and Amy pulled it out.
“What are you waiting for? Get your ass across.” Eickher yelled.
Amy didn’t answer. Instead, she folded the blanket lengthwise and turned to Alesha. “I’m going to jump. When I get to the other side, I’ll throw you one end of the blanket. Stand on it. It’ll act as a safety net for Jamie.” Amy undid her belt. “Put this around Jamie, then take yours off and attach it, so it works like a safety line.” Alesha’s eyes grew wider. Amy tried to reassure Alesha and spoke into her ear “You’ll be fine. Just don’t look down.”
Amy prepared for the jump. She closed her eyes and told herself she could do it. She
had to do it.
Taking a step back, then one forward, she sunk down into her knees, and leapt. Mid-air she thought she was going to fall short.
Her right foot landed on the ledge. She grabbed for the rock wall to stop her forward momentum so she wouldn’t continue right over the ledge. “Oh, thank God,” she whispered, bending over to catch her breath. When she turned around, Alesha’s eyes were riveted on Amy, her sister’s face ashen. “Put the belts on Jamie,” Amy reminded her.
As Alesha did so, Jamie’s gray eyes locked on his mom’s. For a second Amy thought he was going to call out to her,
Mommy.
She winked at him like she usually did when she wanted to tell him
it’s going to be okay.
He seemed to understand.
“Hurry it up. This is taking too damn long, you aggravating whore.” Eickher hollered.
When Jamie was ready, Alesha picked him up and set him down in front of her. The moment she took Jamie out of Eickher’s control, the scientist put the gun to the back of her head and cocked the hammer. “No tricks,” he said harshly.
Amy unrolled the blanket and tossed it to Alesha. “Put both feet on it.” Amy did the same thing, creating a sling over the gap. She prayed that it would not only act as a safety net for Jamie, but also block Alesha’s view of the drop-off, so her sister could help Jamie make the jump and then take the leap herself. Amy leaned out over the gap. “Okay, throw me one end of the belt.”
“Come on! Come on!” Eickher looked anxiously behind him.
Alesha sent an end of the belt over to her. Amy knew it wouldn’t hold her small son for long, but she only needed it for a split second. Amy braced herself against the rock wall. “Okay, when I yell,
“Now,”
throw Jamie into my arms.”
Alesha swallowed and nodded. Amy was glad to see her sister’s concern for Jamie was overriding her fear. Amy looked at her son. His big gray eyes were fixed on hers. “Okay, Jamie,” she told him, “When I say,
“Now”,
you reach out and grab me.” The boy nodded. “Ready?
Now!
”
Dallas had his Glock trained on Eickher. Now that it was light, Dallas had a fair view of the foursome, even though they were some distance away. What was unfolding on the bluff was sheer insanity. A dark anger burned in his gut. The man in his gun sight wouldn’t hesitate to send Amy, Alesha, and Jamie to their deaths, if it benefited him to do so. Conversely, Eickher kept the three of them close because he needed them, for now. And he was right. So far, there had been no chance for Dallas to fire his weapon.
Eickher would have seen Dallas’s flashlight following at a steady distance, so the scientist had to continue moving forward in the hope of finding an escape route.