Chapter 40
CHAPTER FORTY
The ATVs had gone silent not long after Alyssa had flagged Mei Lin down. The world was quiet now, just the occasional bird shaking the branches.
Mei Lin crouched beside Callan, a tangle of leafless twigs blocking them from view.
Somebody was coming. If not for Callan, she’d have been standing in the open, but he’d heard something and pulled her to safety.
She wanted to look, but she didn’t dare.
Callan had a pistol in his hand, gaze aimed over her head. A moment passed, and then his shoulders relaxed.
Alyssa stepped into view.
Callan waved her close. “News?”
“They’re close. I marked the trees so they can find us.” She crouched beside Mei Lin. “You okay?”
“We will find Ethan now?” She looked from Alyssa to Callan. “We must save him.”
“We’re working on it.” He checked his phone screen, then looked over her at Alyssa, shaking his head.
“Something is wrong?” Mei Lin kept her voice low. It was a dumb question. Everything was wrong.
“I can’t reach Asher.” Callan looked back at her. “There’s been no word since he sent these coordinates.”
“Oh. It’s because…” She took the phone out of her pocket. “This is his.”
Callan tapped a text on his phone, and the one she held lit up. He relaxed. “Good. That’s good.”
“But he has no way to contact us. We don’t know if he’s okay.”
“We’ll assume he is until we hear differently.”
Mei Lin didn’t like the uncertainty—the assuming of things with no evidence. She added Asher to her prayers.
“What are we doing?” She looked from Callan to Alyssa and back. “We have to do something.”
“We’re waiting.” Callan pocketed Asher’s phone. “How many men did you see?”
“At least eight. There might have been more, but Asher said he would draw some toward him. He was on a snowmobile, like us. Faster in the snow, but then it struggled.”
“How many followed you?”
“I saw three machines, but perhaps there were more.”
“Each with one man?”
“I think?” She wasn’t sure.
“How far did you go after Ethan jumped?”
She closed her eyes to remember. “I rode maybe five minutes before the snowmobile died. Then I ran, I don’t know how far. Maybe another five minutes? Not very long.”
Callan nodded, lips pressed closed.
If Ethan had escaped Lu Feng and his men, he would come this direction, but he didn’t have the marker on his phone. He could get lost in these woods. If Lu Feng didn’t find him, he could die of exposure.
She needed to find him.
“Mei Lin.” Alyssa’s hand landed lightly on her arm, and she realized she’d stood and stepped toward the narrow path that would take her back to her husband.
Mei Lin crouched again, but she wanted—
“Someone’s coming.” Callan’s voice drew her attention, and she peered around, hoping to see Ethan or Asher or both of them.
But a woman moved through the trees, a backpack on her shoulders.
Callan stood, and Alyssa and Mei Lin did as well.
She was blond, walking toward them as she swung the pack off. “Glad I found you.”
“Grant’s circling?”
“Yup. I brought comms too.” She dropped the bag on the moist ground.
Callan unzipped it, reached in, and came out with a rifle. He held it out to Alyssa.
“Thanks.” She took it and loaded it from a box she found in the backpack.
Callan handed a rifle to the newcomer, then drew a third. He looked at Mei Lin. “You shoot?”
She shook her head. “I have never held one.”
“No problem.” He kept it for himself. “We got this.”
The new woman seemed to force a smile when she looked at Mei Lin. “I’m Summer, Grant’s wife.”
Mei Lin tried to place the names but couldn’t. “You are related?”
“Grant is Ethan’s cousin,” Summer explained.
“Derrick’s brother?” Mei Lin asked. “And Michael’s?”
“Exactly.”
She was figuring the family out. She stood among them, feeling almost like a child. They were all so tall. She’d gotten used to being the shortest person by inches when she’d lived in Vancouver, but she’d forgotten what it felt like.
These people were taller than most Westerners, even the women. Mei Lin had married into a family of giants.
She turned to Callan. “We have weapons now, and people. Now we’ll save Ethan?”
“We need to wait until we hear from Grant.” Callan scanned the tree line. “We need to know what we’re facing.”
Wait, wait, and more wait, while Ethan was out there, hiding. Or worse.
But these were Ethan’s people. She would trust them.
What other choice did she have?