Chapter 13 #2
A beat. Then, “Who is this girl?”
Aw, he didn’t want to give her away, but if he had any hope of getting her back, then all options needed a good scrutiny. “Have you ever heard of Bliss?”
“Bliss? The pop singer? Who hasn’t? Vic plays her songs down at the Midnight Sun, sometimes. I actually walked in on her playing Bliss’s televised concert on the flat-screen last fall. Wait—your girlfriend is Bliss?”
He keyed the mic. “Yeah, sorta. She was up here on . . . sort of a vacation, and . . . she’s keeping it all on the down-low.”
“For sure. If the world knew she’d been kidnapped—”
“Which we don’t want anyone to find out. The media would lose it.”
“You think they know who she is and want her money?”
“I can’t put anything else together. Maybe Thornwood—Sorros—recognized her when he got on the plane. Except, why would he threaten Wilder Frost and take a plane down because of it? We thought it might be because of the trial, so that Wilder couldn’t testify.”
“Where did the plane go down?” Echo asked.
“Northwest of Woodcrest and the Bowie cabin.”
“Near the cache cabin, then.”
Right. He hadn’t thought about that. Wait—“Do you think one of the other brothers was waiting for him at the cache cabin?”
“It’s pretty remote. But it’s safe and warm and usually uninhabited.”
“They planned on the plane going down,” he said quietly.
Static on the other end.
“Keely put a thorn in those plans by surviving,” he said.
“Or by getting on the plane in the first place,” Echo said. “You could be right. Plans changed when Sorros recognized her. Do you know what brother it was?”
“Not for sure. Keely said he had a scar under his eye.”
“Oh, that’s Conan.”
“You know this guy?”
“The whole family, sort of. Jago, Conan, and Mars. Conan got in a fight in school, and his younger brother, Jago, sliced open his cheek with a knife. Mars has a forehead tattoo. And their cousin Sloan came around in the summers. He was a couple years older and taught them all his tricks. They terrified me. Don’t you remember them? ”
“Vaguely.”
“They were a few years older than us. My dad got in a scrape with them once, years ago. Caught them poaching. Their dad was a mean guy. Went to jail for dogfighting for a couple years.”
He couldn’t help but glance down at Caspian, who met his gaze with his big brown eyes. “Sounds like a fantastic role model.”
“I think their mom might have moved them to Anchorage after that.”
“To start their life of crime there.”
“Yeah, but they started haunting the Copper Mountain area maybe seven years ago. Poaching. Squatting. Then into drugs and trafficking, growing their seedy empire. They’re not to be messed with.”
Oh, he was going to mess with them.
Static. “I can’t believe you’re dating Bliss.”
Dating seemed not the right word. “Maybe that was overstated.”
“I just could never see you with someone so . . . dramatic. She once wore mechanical wings during a concert, had pulleys lift her into the air so she could fly over the crowd. And she’s pretty famous for this crystal-encrusted bodysuit that she wore for her Grammy performance a few years ago.”
“For a woman who’s lived off the grid most of her life, you know a lot about Bliss.”
“The entire world knows a lot about Bliss, Daws. Unless you live under a rock. Or your work. Maybe it’s time to come into the light.”
Right.
Well, the world might know a lot about Bliss, but he knew a lot about Keely. And maybe that’s what mattered.
Her voice dropped. “Just don’t get hurt, Dawson.”
Probably too late.
“I’m seeing Dodge on radar. Looks like he’ll be there soon. I’ll call Deke. Be safe, Dawson. AL7SKY clear.”
He hung up. Turned off the ham handheld and stowed it. Then he doused the fire in the hearth and closed the damper. Put the soup in a jar and stuck it in the freezer.
Bundled up himself and grabbed hold of Caspian’s collar.
Then he shut off all the lights and went out onto the porch, hearing the chopper pounding the air in the darkness.
Or maybe that was just his heartbeat, pounding out his broken promises.
If the hour-long snowmobile ride through a blizzard and frigid winds didn’t kill her, then the trip in the back of the closed pickup should have. But Keely had found an old packing blanket to roll up in and had warmed up enough to call herself alive by the time she arrived—wherever.
An old house, for sure, reeking of age and dust and beer.
Wan kerosene light spilled onto the cement floor, and a large stove stood against one wall on bricks.
A small kitchen area held broken cabinetry with many of the doors off, a cracked sink with a pump for a faucet.
A hint of sewer smell saturated the place, probably from the back room toilet, which looked more like an outhouse, with a wooden box topped with a stained toilet seat.
The odors swilled together as Thornwood pushed her inside, followed by another man—could be his twin, really, clad in padded overalls and a grimy wool hat over his long hair.
The men wore matching disgusting beards, and the scent of danger lifted off of them.
The other man, however, boasted a forehead tattoo, a sort of insignia, high, nearly to his hairline.
Sort of like Charles Manson, so that was a calming comparison. But the mark matched with a name in her memory—Mars Sorros.
“Upstairs,” barked Thornwood, and she fled up a creaky ladder to a crawl space. His twin followed her up, and for a second, her worst nightmare played out, but he simply grabbed the trapdoor and closed it, pulling the rope through a hole in the top and securing it below.
So, locked in.
The light from below pushed up into the room, enough for her to make out her surroundings.
Not tall enough to stand in, she could still bend at the waist and move around.
The space held a bare mattress, and the stench of mouse droppings could make her retch.
At the far end, a frozen window rattled, the wind fighting to get in.
Which meant, maybe—
But if she escaped? Where would she go? In the darkness, and the tangle of wilderness, she was just as likely to get lost forever.
The stove shuddered, and a whoosh suggested someone had opened the damper, maybe would be starting a fire. Note to self—don’t touch the metal.
She drew up her knees, working her fingers to get the blood flowing, then put her forehead down on her hands.
Why hadn’t they killed her?
“You sure you’re right about this?” One voice, a growl. “She’s—”
“It’s her.” The other voice.
She crept over to the trapdoor and peered down.
Movement, the sound of a bottle opening, then one of them came into view, and she jerked away before he could look up and see her.
“So, what are you going to do with her?”
“After the handoff? Put a bullet in her head, probably. It’s about time. I’m tired of her harassing us.”
Harassing? She hadn’t harassed anyone.
Not even Dawson. He’d been the one to make her promises.
Oh, he was going to be out of his mind with worry.
She scooted back, her heart a fist banging against her ribs, and put a hand over her mouth.
So they were going to hold her for ransom and then kill her. Maybe Thornwood had recognized her on the plane.
Her daughter would never know. Never know that she was loved by her birth mother. And of course, Dawson’s words found her, in that steady voice of his.
“I think giving up your daughter for adoption just might have been the most unselfish thing you’ve ever done. It tells me you’re strong and smart and brave.”
Oh, she wanted to be brave, but . . .
Keely closed her eyes. What was it that she’d prayed before? God, I trust you?
This wasn’t quite what she meant.
Still, River’s voice found her. “Trust God, and surrender to him . . . you’ll be set free to discover yourself too. The person you were made to be.”
She hadn’t a clue who that might be. Not Bliss—she’d become out of control, a character she wiggled into before she went onstage. Sometimes, she even saw herself as if from a distance.
Maybe it was a good thing her mother hadn’t lived long enough to watch. And the thought grabbed her by the throat, burned it. “Oh, Keely, you have such a beautiful voice. Don’t let it die.”
Yeah, so much for that voice. She’d shredded it, hadn’t she? So much for healing . . .
The furnace had started to radiate heat from the metal pipe. She held her hand up to it, careful not to make contact.
From below, “When’s he s’posed to get here?”
“Dunno. Early.” A long burp rattled up from the room below, along with the clank of a beer can hitting the wall.
“Stay alert, stay alive.”
She stilled, hearing her father’s voice.
Right. Downstairs, the two men stopped talking, one of them asleep on a ratty sofa. She couldn’t see the other from her peephole. But outside, the night had started to recede, just a little.
She crept up to the window, the wind curling around the frame. Ice had worked in too, lifting the top of the window from the casing, at an angle.
One good kick on the frame, and the whole thing might break.
And, by the grace of God, she still wore her Sorels, from dragging Dawson in from the cold. That, and her snowsuit and wool underjacket, thank you, River.
She leaned back and gave the frame a kick. Nothing too hard, but enough to test it. The window shuddered but didn’t break.
Downstairs, snoring sawed through the floorboards. The wind still buffeted the house, but not as wild as during the blizzard, so maybe the storm had started to die.
Which boded well for her escape.
She leaned back, took a breath, and slammed her foot again into the edge of the casing.
The window wedged free at the top.
Another kick, and it bent, the glass cracking. She got on her hands and knees and pushed.
The window gave, wood breaking with a crack. She stilled, held her breath.
Snoring. No movement below. Okay then—
She stuck her head out. Below her jutted the roof of the entryway to the house. Perfect.
Then she lay on the floor and scooted out of the opening.