Chapter Twenty-Eight
Travis stood in the middle of cabin number six, looking around. It was as though Retta had just vanished into thin air. Her legal pad was on the floor. Her purse and phone were on the end table. He squeezed his eyes shut – her walking boot was on the floor, propped against the sofa. She liked to take it off while she sat. But how had she left without it? Her crutches were leaning against the little counter that divided the kitchen from the living area.
Her SUV was still outside where she’d parked when they arrived this morning. He took his hat off and ran his hand through his hair. His hands were shaking. He felt … powerless, and that wasn’t a feeling he liked.
Trip came and rested his hand on his shoulder. “We’ll find her, bud.”
He nodded. He just hoped that she’d be all right when they did.
Deacon came and stood directly in front of him. “Pull it together, Duke. Time’s ticking.”
He squared his shoulders and stood up a little straighter. “Right. But … I can’t think straight. What … ? How …?”
“What do you know about this Jamie woman?” Trip asked.
Travis grabbed Retta’s phone. He didn’t know much about Jamie, but he knew a man who did – Marty. And Retta had his number in her phone. As he unlocked it, he thanked his lucky stars that Retta had told him her password.
He found Marty’s number and hit the call button.
“Retta?”
“No, Marty. It’s Travis. Is your wife in Montana?”
“Jamie? No. she’s … oh, shit! Why? Is Retta alright?”
Travis scowled. “She’s gone – disappeared – and someone who looks like Jamie was seen on our property this morning. What can you tell me?”
“Nothing. I … I mean, I want to help, but I don’t know anything. I can call and see if she’s still at home in Georgia. She … she gets a little … obsessive.”
“Do you think it’s likely that she followed you out here?”
Marty blew out a sigh. “Yes. She’s done it before. I don’t know how she finds me, but … she … Yes. It’s entirely possible. What can I do?”
“You find out if she’s at home and you let me know. Call me back.” Travis ended the call.
“What’s her full name?” Deacon asked.
“I don’t know – yeah, I do – Hoffman. Jamie Hoffman. Why?”
Deacon waved a hand – he was already making a call.
Travis paced around the small cabin. He didn’t know where to start, his brain was frozen in fear. Jamie could have taken her anywhere, and he didn’t know where to start.
He turned to Zeke. “Where exactly did you see her?”
“Where the road passes in front of that cabin. About a quarter mile in from the main road.”
“We should check all the cabins,” said Ace. “They could still be here on the property.”
“Yeah.” Travis knew it made sense to check, but he also knew that they wouldn’t find her in any of the cabins. She wasn’t here anymore; he could sense it. It might seem fanciful, but this whole place had a different feel to it when she was here, and that feeling was gone.
Ace and Ty left to go and check the cabins. He felt like they should be doing something more useful – he just didn’t know what.
Deacon ended his call. “I figured if she’s following her husband she must have flown in – and rented a car at the airport. I tracked it down and put out a BOLO on the vehicle.”
“Thanks, Chief.” If Jamie was out there driving around, having law enforcement officers on the lookout for her was something. Travis just didn’t know if she’d be driving around or if she’d have Retta with her.
His mind kept going back to Ty’s girl, Shayna. The crazy bastard who’d taken her had marched her up into the mountains.
Tanner appeared in the doorway to the cabin, with Ford just behind him. “Ty told us what’s going on. What can we do?”
“We think that a woman named Jamie took her in a white Rav 4,” Trip told them.
Travis shook his head.
“No?” Trip asked. “You don’t think so?”
“Yeah, I do. But where’s she going? She’s not just taking her out for a joyride, is she? Deacon’s deputies aren’t going to just find her riding around on the highway. She … she’s going to want to get rid of her.” His voice cracked on the last few words, and Trip grasped his shoulder again.
“She’s not going to succeed though, is she?”
“And she’s not a local, right?” asked Tanner.
“No, she’s someone Retta knows from Georgia.”
Zeke was nodding. “So, where would someone who doesn’t know this valley go if they didn’t want to be found?”
Tanner shook his head. “I can’t think that way – I do know this valley.”
“I think we need to get out there and see,” said Ford. “Unless you have anything more concrete to go on, I say we test it and see. When we leave your place, some of us can go south and some go north – keep our eyes out for anything that might look like a good route to take if you wanted to …” He stopped.
Travis was glad that he didn’t finish that sentence. What would he have said? The thought that came to his mind was ‘if you wanted to get rid of a body’ – and that was a thought he wouldn’t entertain.
“Have you ever been here before?” Tanner asked Zeke.
“Not for years. I can look at it with the eyes of a stranger.”
“Do you want to come with me, then – I’ll drive?”
Zeke looked at Travis, and he nodded. “I’ll call you if we come up with something more concrete but for now, we might as well start searching blind.”
Ford looked back outside. “Wade just arrived; I’ll take him with me.”
“Thanks.”
After they’d all gone, Travis stared at Trip and Deacon. “I can’t lose her.”
“You won’t,” said Trip.
“Not going to happen,” Deacon added.
They spoke with such confidence that it gave Travis some strength. He had to have faith – in Retta, in his friends, in himself.
“I need to get out there and look – I can’t just stand around here waiting.”
“I’ll go with you,” said Trip.
“I’ll call Cash,” said Deacon. “See if there’s anything Amelia can do to track this woman down.”
~ ~ ~
Retta leaned forward and rested her head in her hands. She’d given up trying to hop a while ago. The third time she fell, she couldn’t manage to get back up. She needed to keep going, she knew that, but she needed to rest. Her head hurt so badly that it made her vision swim. She knew without a doubt that her leg was broken again.
She’d been frightened at first. She was all alone. Out here in the mountains, unable to walk. Even if she could make it back to the road, who knew how long it would be before someone came along? There wasn’t much traffic on the highways out here – a gravel road like this one might only see a car once a week.
She shuddered. She wouldn’t allow herself to think that way. She was no longer frightened. She was good and mad. She finally had the kind of life that she’d never even dared to hope for. She lived here, in this beautiful place, with her wonderful Travis. She was right on her daughter’s doorstep – closer than she’d been to her in years. They were part of each other’s lives. She was going to be a part of her new grandson’s life. She had all these wonderful new friends and the MacFarlands had welcomed her into their family.
There was no way she was going to let stupid Jamie Hoffman take all of that away from her. She let her hands fall back into her lap. She had to keep going. She turned her back to the road and used her arms to pull herself in that direction – dragging her legs behind her. It would be slow going, but she was moving in the right direction.
Half an hour later, she hadn’t made much progress; she could still see the spot where she’d been sitting when she started. She sat perfectly still and listened when she thought she heard a vehicle.
The sound got closer, and her heart started to pound. She struggled to get to her feet and yelled as loudly as she could. A black pickup truck appeared through the trees, she screamed and waved, but it rolled on by.
When it was gone, she let herself fall back down to the ground and cried. They’d been so close. They could’ve found her, taken her home to Travis.
She wiped her eyes and gritted her teeth. She’d learned a long time ago – and she’d reminded the girls on her squad often enough after they lost in competition – there was no point in dwelling on what might have been. You just had to regroup and keep pushing forward.
~ ~ ~
When they reached the end of the driveway, Trip looked over at Travis. “Which way do you want to go?”
Travis looked up toward town and then down toward the park. “If she was coming from town, following Marty toward the park and she stopped here, would she keep going in the same direction she was traveling, or turn back?”
Trip stared at him. He knew that Travis wasn’t asking for an answer. He was thinking out loud – sharing his process so that Trip could chime in if he came up with anything. They’d done it when they were kids in grade school, when Trip was helping him with homework. They’d done it in the sandbox when they were on a mission gone wrong. Travis had spoken his every move to Trip as he carried him over his shoulder – not even sure if his friend was conscious.
He looked down toward the park. “I reckon she’d keep going – she’s obsessed with Marty; she wouldn’t deliberately double back away from him.”
Trip pulled out onto East River Road, going slowly enough that they could keep an eye on any turnoffs.
Travis knew the entrance to every property on this stretch of the road. He couldn’t think of anywhere that would look like a good option to get off the main road and disappear into the mountains – and he was thinking that was exactly what Jamie would try to do.
“The lake!” He looked over at Trip. “The turnoff for the lake’s coming up – she might have taken that road.”
“Let’s try it.”
Travis jumped when his phone rang. “Talk to me, Ty.”
“Nothing. All the cabins are empty,” said Ty.
“We’re going to search the whole property,” Ace called. “We’ll keep you posted.”
Travis ended the call, he wasn’t surprised.
Trip turned off the highway onto the gravel road that led up to the lake. He pointed ahead. “Looks like Tanner and Zeke had the same idea.”
Travis nodded. The road led across wide open fields before it reached the lake, and he could see Tanner’s truck maybe a mile ahead of them.
“Do you want to follow them?” Trip asked. “Or should we go back and explore a different option?”
Travis pursed his lips, trying to picture what other turnoffs Jamie would have passed before East River Road rejoined the highway farther to the south.
“Turn around!”
“Where are we going?”
“The old Ziller ranch. The entrance to that place looks abandoned – it looks like exactly the kind of place you’d go if you didn’t want anyone to see you.”
Trip stopped the truck and made a U-turn. Just as they reached the road, Travis’s phone rang again.
“You were right to turn around,” Zeke told him when he answered. “There’s no tree cover out here, nothing. You can see for miles – and I don’t see anything. We’re going to head back that way.”
“Okay. Tell Tanner that we’re going to check out the old Ziller ranch.”
“You want us to follow you?”
“I’ll let you know when we get there.”
“Okay. Tanner said to tell you that Ford hasn’t seen anything.”
“I want to tell those guys to come back this way – I’m convinced she’s headed south, but …”
“I think so, too, but we’ve got this direction covered – might as well let them cover the options.”
~ ~ ~
Retta was almost too tired to keep moving. Her mind was foggy with pain, but she couldn’t let that stop her. She just had to keep dragging herself back down toward the road. She was covered with deep scratches and bruises. Her leg was screaming, and her head was pounding, but she was still alive, still moving, and somehow, she just knew that Travis was going to find her.
It wasn’t just a hope – wasn’t something she was telling herself so that she wouldn’t give up. She somehow just knew, right down to her bones that her man wouldn’t stop until he found her. All she had to do was keep herself going until he did.
Ever since Callie’s dad had walked out when Callie was just a baby and Retta herself was still a girl, she’d prided herself on not needing anyone. She made her way through life by herself. She might not have done a great job of it much of the time, but she’d survived, and she’d raised a wonderful daughter – all by herself.
Now, she was no longer by herself. Travis had walked into her life and made himself part of it in a way that let her know that he’d always be there – like Trip had told her; she’d never be able to shake him. He was coming for her; she knew it. And while she was still determined to get as far as she could under her own steam, the pressure she’d put on herself her whole life just wasn’t there anymore. She was capable, she was as independent as she wanted to be – but now, she had that big, beautiful man. Somehow, she just knew in her heart that he wouldn’t let her down when she needed him the most.
She started moving again – the road was getting closer now.
~ ~ ~
Travis peered out through the windshield as Trip drove slowly across the Ziller ranch. He was convinced that the tire tracks on the dirt road were recent. Jamie had brought Retta up here, he knew it.
Trip brought the truck to a stop and looked over at Travis when they reached a fork in the road.
“That way leads to the old ranch house.” Trip pointed to the right.
Travis nodded. “And this way leads up into the foothills.” He pointed. “I still think those tracks are Jamie’s.”
Trip raised his eyebrows but didn’t comment. There were tire tracks on the other fork of the road, too – they could both see that.
Travis called Zeke. “When you get onto the Ziller property and you reach the fork in the road, go right, we’re taking the left.”
“Will do.”
When the road curved around and entered the forest, Travis leaned forward in his seat. “She’s here somewhere. I know she is.”
Trip drove slowly, and they both peered out through the windows.
“There!” Travis shouted. “The shack!” He jumped out of the truck before Trip had stopped and ran to the dilapidated building by the side of the road. He tugged at the door, but it didn’t open. He kicked and kicked until his foot went through one of the rotten boards. His heart was pounding as he pulled the door open, but it sank when he saw the inside of the shack. Retta wasn’t there – it didn’t look like anyone other than mice had been there in years.
Trip peered in over his shoulder. “Come on, let’s keep going.”
When they got back to the truck, Travis looked closely at the tire tracks they’d been following. They’d stopped here, too. And they didn’t continue on the road. He looked all around and noticed flattened undergrowth and broken branches.
“Retta!” he yelled as loudly as he could.
He closed his eyes and waited, willing her to hear him and shout back.
Only silence echoed in return.
He yelled again. “Retta! Where are you, darlin’?”
Trip gave him a sympathetic look, no doubt thinking that he was just yelling out his frustration.
It was more than that, though, she was out here somewhere, Travis just knew it.
His heart leaped into his mouth, and he started running through the trees when he heard her.
“Trav! Travis! I’m here!”
He trampled through the undergrowth, following the sound of her voice – and the trail of freshly broken tree limbs that clearly told him someone had driven through here not long ago.
“Retta? Keep shouting, darlin’.”
“I’m here! Over here!”
And then he saw her. He stumbled and almost fell as he changed direction slightly and then he was there. She was standing, wavering on her feet, until he wrapped his arms around her and lifted her. Hugging her to his chest in the way that was now so familiar.
“Jesus, darlin’. You had me scared.”
Her eyes shone with tears as she reached up to touch his face. “I knew you’d come.”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “Too damn right.”
Trip appeared at his side. “Told you – you can’t shake him once he’s decided that you’re his.”
She looked up into his eyes. “I wouldn’t want to.”
He dropped a kiss on her lips. “Are you okay? That’s a nasty knock to your head by the look of it.”
“It’ll be alright. I think I might end up needing another cast, though. It was Jamie – and she stomped on my leg again.”
He tensed and she patted his cheek. “It’ll heal. And in the meantime, you’ll just have to go back to carrying me around like this for a while.”
He held her closer to his chest and smiled. “I don’t have a problem with that.”
As they tramped back through the trees, Trip called the others to tell them that they’d found her. Travis didn’t pay attention; all he cared about was having the woman he loved back in his arms and safe.
When they got back to the truck, he sat her in the passenger seat and gently ran his fingers down her cheek.
“I’m going to be fine,” she told him.
“I know.” He smiled. “They’re all going to give me so much shit for doing this right now, but I have to. I love you. I was scared I might have lost you. I can’t wait another minute.”
She gave him a puzzled smile. “Who’s going to give you shit for doing what?”
He dug in his pocket and pulled out the ring box. He’d only bought it this morning, but that already felt like a lifetime ago.
He dropped down on one knee next to the truck and held the box up. “I love you, Retta. Marry me, darlin’?”
Her hand came up to cover her mouth and tears ran down her cheeks as she nodded. There was a big bruise forming on her temple, a streak of blood ran down her cheek, but she’d never looked more beautiful.
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes,” she croaked. “I love you, too, Trav.”
He took the ring out of the box and slid it onto her finger, then got to his feet and gently cupped her face between his hands to kiss her.