Chapter 38
Hailey kicked Elias,who still lay curled on the floor of the camper. He’d been unconscious ever since fur-coat man had deposited her in this nasty trailer. It smelled like ass in here. He’d barely even bothered to tie her up, other than her hands behind her back, which she found vaguely insulting. Did he think she was incapable of escaping while he talked on his big-ass phone?
He was mostly talking in some foreign language, but sometimes he spoke English. She’d put together enough to realize he was talking to Charlie. She was at Fire Peak Lodge, and so were the other people on the phone. He wanted Charlie to help them do something.
She kept hearing the word “fire,” but that could just mean Fire Peak.
Elias stirred and moaned.
“Elias.” She stayed in position, in case the man checked on her through the window. “Wake up,” she hissed. “Come on, we have to do something. We have to get out of here.”
His eyes opened, and a moment later he sat up and put a hand to the back of his head. “Ow.”
“Yeah. Sorry. Eric said that bad man knocked you out with a bat.”
“Who?”
“He’s outside. He’s really weird. They’re trying to make Charlie do something, that’s why he has us.”
She passed him the Crystal Geyser water bottle the man had left for them. Elias took a long swallow. It seemed to make him more alert. He scanned the interior of their little jail.
“This is Solomon’s camper.”
“You know where we are?” That was good news. At a certain point the man had tied a smelly bandanna around her eyes so she couldn’t see where they were going. Not that it would have made a difference. She didn’t know these woods the way Elias did.
“Sure. It’s near his mining claim. Is he here too?”
“I haven’t seen anyone else. Just the kidnapper man. Listen. Don’t move. He thinks you’re out cold. I’ve been looking around and I think we can squeeze out that window.” The camper had the kind of half-windows that slid down from the top. With a roll of her eyeballs, she indicated the one at the back of the trailer, where the bed was located. “I can’t move because he keeps checking on me. But I figured if we can make a dummy, we can fool him. But you have to do it.”
“A dummy?”
She knew that word triggered him. The Chilkoots had considered him stupid, but he was just on the spectrum and they didn’t understand.
“Like a fake person. Pile up some blankets and make it look like me. These windows are so dirty he probably can’t make out any details.”
Amazingly, Elias seemed to think that was a good idea. He crawled across the camper—eww—and gathered enough blankets to form into the shape of a person. Or at least a small one, like her.
But the sound of the man’s voice growing louder had her hissing at him to get back down.
Shit, he was coming back.
“Lie down, Elias.” Frozen, she stayed in place, footfalls coming closer, afraid to say a word, even though Elias wasn’t doing as she’d said, he was crouching right next to the door.
Which opened. The man in the fur coat stepped through. And bam. Elias yanked his ankle and toppled him face-forward. He crashed into the cabinet opposite the door, and staggered. Then Elias did some kind of whirlwind move that got him onto the ground, fighting and spluttering.
“Go,” Elias told her.
“Not without you.” She looked around for a cast iron pan to whack the man with. But Elias didn’t need that. He used a chokehold that worked just as well.
“He won’t be out long,” Elias murmured. “Let’s go.”
Hailey scrambled off the bench, and Elias untied her hands from behind her back. Her wrists ached and tingled. The man was blocking the door, so they had to crawl over him to get out of the camper.
Only to come face to face with another man. She knew him right away.
“Solomon!”
He tilted back his straw hat and eyed them with exasperation. “Well, ain’t this a complication. Damn kids, getting into everything.”
“Getting into everything?” Hailey said indignantly. “We were kidnapped!”
“Yeah? Sorry to hear that. Ain’t nothing to do about it now. You want to stay here and babysit this asshole or you want to come with me?”
Kneeling down next to the unconscious body on the camper floor, he turned the man over just enough to see his face.
“Well I’ll be goddamned.” He whistled. “He really is back. Never thought I’d see this crazy bastard again. No wonder April’s gone bonkers.”
Hailey exchanged a glance with Elias, who shrugged. Neither had a clue what Solomon was talking about. Maybe he’d gone bonkers too.
“How about we just find our way back home?” She tried a nice smile on him. Solomon wasn’t a bad guy, at least she didn’t think he was.
“No. No.” He shook his head. “It ain’t safe for you. Better come with me. You’re just in time to give me a hand with something.”
“With what?” Elias asked.
“We don’t want to help you,” said Hailey. “We want to go home. I want to find my dad.”
When neither of them budged, Solomon pulled aside his stained leather jacket so they could see the old weapon in a holster on his belt. Hailey stared at the gun. Its handle looked so pretty and pearly, you could almost pretend it wasn’t something that could kill you.