Chapter 29
“Brody!” Theodosia screamed.
Brody put a finger to his mouth to shush her.
“What?” Theodosia said, fighting to recover from her shock at seeing Brody. Because, for a few seconds there, she thought the kidnapper had grabbed her.
“Did you find the hollow tree?” Brody asked.
“Yes. I jammed your bag of money inside it, then came running back here. What’s…what’s going on?”
“I’ve been standing guard, waiting for you.”
“Have you seen anyone?”
Brody shook his head. “That’s the weird part. Not a single soul. No cars have driven by here either.”
“So you want to…what? Keep following those instructions?” Theodosia felt deeply unsure and wondered if she had enough mental bandwidth left to keep playing the kidnapper’s nasty game.
But Brody was insistent. “We can’t give up now—we have to find Amber. Let’s try to follow those directions to the letter and start at the…whadya call it? The narthex of this old church?”
“That would be the front,” Theodosia said.
“Then walk fifty paces east?”
“Back into the swamp.” Theodosia wasn’t thrilled. Her nerves were frayed and she felt exhausted. Worst of all, she worried that the kidnapper had completely punked them. That even though they’d left the ransom money, as instructed, they weren’t going to get Amber back.
“Please, you have to stick with me,” Brody said. He had pulled out his gun and was looking jittery. As if he wanted to fire off a few shots out of sheer frustration.
“I will stick with you, but you have to put that gun away first. Okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Brody said as he reluctantly shoved the gun back into his pocket.
Cautiously, they tiptoed their way to the front of the church and looked around. Still nobody in sight.
Brody nodded to his right. “That’s due east?”
“I think so,” Theodosia said. She felt slightly disoriented and knew she couldn’t navigate by the sun on such a dark afternoon.
They looked at each other for a few nervous moments, then started walking.
“You count,” Brody whispered.
“Five, six, seven,” Theodosia said, picking up from her silent count. “Eight, nine, ten, eleven.”
“I’m not liking this,” Brody said under his breath as they followed a worn path.
Theodosia didn’t like it either, but she kept walking and counting.
“More graves,” Brody said as the path narrowed. “Lots more graves.”
Theodosia kept counting as they were enveloped by the overgrown oak forest. There were dozens more graves here.
All unkept, many broken and vandalized, some heaved up by giant roots.
She remembered something she’d once read, a ghost story about the Old Sheldon Church Ruins.
Apparently, visitors had sometimes seen a woman in a brown dress shuffling about these grounds and mourning over a child’s tomb.
But when the woman was spotted, her image simply faded away to nothing.
Theodosia wondered if that restless spirit accounted for the melancholy feeling that had come over her. Or was she just scared out of her wits?
“Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four,” Theodosia doggedly counted.
Her wet collar chafed at the back of her neck and the going was progressively more difficult.
Dripping trees and muddy earth underfoot made walking almost impossible.
Bending forward, she picked up a limb from a fallen tree to use as a walking stick.
Now they were ducking under low tree limbs and walking on ground that squished and oozed unpleasantly. Everything was draped in a veil of green and Theodosia wished they weren’t headed back into the depths of the swamp.
Suddenly, Brody touched a hand to Theodosia’s shoulder. “Stop,” he whispered.
Theodosia stopped. “What?” She could hear her heart beating but nothing else.
“I thought I heard something. A kind of muffled cry.”
They both stood there, barely breathing, listening as hard as they could. When no sound materialized for a good forty-five seconds, save croaking frogs and the constant drip of rain, Theodosia said, “Maybe you heard a bird?”
“What if it was her? What if it was Amber?”
“I don’t think…” Theodosia began. But Brody suddenly shoved past her and sprinted down the path, heading deep into the forest and the inevitable swamp.
She hesitated for a moment, then jogged after him.
Branches swatted her and curling vines threatened to trip her, but Theodosia continued running.
Up ahead, as Brody thrashed his way into the swamp, she could hear him screaming Amber’s name, begging her to answer him.
Still the only voice Theodosia could hear was Brody’s anguished plea.
Thirty seconds later, Theodosia caught up to Brody.
He was standing there, stock-still, in the oozing mud and surrounded by a tsunami of green.
Looking utterly bereft, he clenched his fists and said, “I counted fifty paces. And…and Amber’s not here.
” Color drained from his face as he gazed around with a crazed, questioning look on his face and added, “Nothing’s here. ”
Theodosia’s heart sank like a rock dropped down a well.
They had been punked. Brody had paid the ransom even though the kidnapper had never intended to hand over Amber.
They’d been sent on a fool’s errand. Better to have waited for the police.
No, better to have followed the police rather than charging out here like a couple of wild animals.
Brody let loose an anguished scream as all the fight drained out of him.
He collapsed, going down slowly, landing on his knees in the wet mud and burying his face in his hands.
Theodosia saw his shoulders shaking uncontrollably and knew he was a shattered man.
She could think of no words of comfort to assuage his agony.
As Brody seemed to abandon all hope, Theodosia’s emotions began to take a different turn.
She felt a terrible rage and betrayal sweep over her.
Who was this mysterious kidnapper, anyway?
How dare he lure them all the way out here!
What kind of heartless person would kidnap a defenseless woman, ask for a sky-high ransom, then change the rules of the game? How could he!
Indignant and frustrated, Theodosia swung her walking stick over her head and hurled it, as hard as she could, at a nearby tree. It hit with a loud THUNK that seemed to reverberate throughout the entire forest.
And that’s when she heard it. A pitiful low cry. Like an animal caught in a trap.
Caught in a trap? Could Amber be out here after all?
“Brody!” Theodosia cried. “Be quiet, I think I heard something.”
Brody stopped his low keening and looked up at her. “What?”
“Keep quiet.” Theodosia cocked her head, hoping to catch that sound again.
And, after a few moments, she did.
“Amber!” Theodosia called out. “Where are you? We’re here! We’ve come to rescue you!”
Without waiting for Brody, Theodosia crashed headlong through the forest. Whatever she’d heard had come from up ahead. She pushed herself, running fast, jumping over fallen logs, dodging dank pools of water. Lightning strobed overhead and the atmosphere seemed to crackle with electricity.
A split second later, Theodosia was flying through the air.
Her foot had caught on something buried in the trail.
It had tripped Theodosia so hard and abruptly she had no idea what was happening.
Instinctively, her hands flew out in front of her to brace herself and hopefully cushion her fall.
Then she was tumbling ingloriously in wet, sticky mud, her breath abruptly knocked from her body in a giant whoosh.
Theodosia fought hard to hold on to consciousness as stars danced and spun before her eyes.
Breathe, she told herself. Don’t pass out.
She gasped to draw breath and tried to stay focused.
Thank goodness she did.
But what the heck?
Theodosia lifted her head and gingerly rolled over onto her left side.
Her surprise at finding herself up to her ears in mud was quickly replaced by joints and muscles that suddenly felt sore and achy.
Looking back to see what miserable thing had tripped her, she saw a rusted metal chain half buried in the mud.
It was drawn tightly across the forest floor.
Oh my Lord.
Even though Theodosia’s neck muscles twinged sharply and her hips felt like they’d been jolted from their sockets, she got on her hands and knees and started to crawl.
She didn’t know what she’d find, but she was driven to figure it out.
Reaching out, getting a firm grasp on the chain, she slowly began to pull.
Overhead, more thunder rumbled and sparks of lightning stabbed the sky.
As the chain moved, then lifted in Theodosia’s hands, she tugged harder. When the chain drew tight and she could pull no more, she gave it a vicious shake. And was rewarded with a muffled cry.
Still on her hands and knees, trying to ignore a few painful twinges, Theodosia crawled the length of the chain. Clawing her way through the underbrush, until she finally found…
“Amber!”
Amber was chained to a tree trunk and her mouth was taped shut. She was dressed only in a ripped denim skirt and dirty yellow T-shirt and she was shivering horribly.
“Ohmygosh, Amber!” Theodosia yelled again. She could hardly believe her eyes as she took it all in. The poor girl had a chain wrapped around her waist; her red, chafed wrists were bound with handcuffs; and she was covered in mud.
“Brody, she’s here!” Theodosia shouted. “I found Amber!”
Moments later, a stunned Brody came crashing toward them. When he saw Theodosia struggling to free Amber, he dropped to his knees, an expression of utter shock and confusion on his face.
“Help her,” Theodosia shouted at Brody, trying to rouse him into action.
It worked. Brody suddenly came alive. Gently, he pulled the tape from Amber’s mouth and clutched her shaking body to his, trying to warm her.