Chapter 1 #2
Without waiting to see what he’d do next, she ran.
A minute later, she stopped to listen. All was quiet except the soft rustle of the breeze.
Maybe she’d knocked him out. She changed her direction and headed toward Maddy, making a wide arc.
If she didn’t get back to the little girl soon, she couldn’t count on her to remain in her hiding place.
After running for another five minutes, she slowed her pace and looked around. She’d always had an excellent sense of direction. Now wasn’t the time for it to fail her. The tree where she’d told Maddy to hide had to be nearby.
A rustle sounded in the distance, sending her heart into her throat. She strained to listen. Just as she’d feared, the initial rustle became the rhythmic sound of footsteps, and they were moving closer. Where was that tree?
She spun in a slow circle. About twenty feet to her right, a mass of roots was barely visible through the trees and undergrowth. She’d almost reached it when Maddy poked her head into an opening between roots. Fresh tears streaked her face. “Nicole!”
“Shh. Let’s pretend we’re spies, hiding out in our secret fort. But we have to be really quiet.” She crawled into the space, roots and debris poking her palms and knees. After maneuvering as close to the base of the trunk as she could, she motioned to Maddy. “Come on. Snuggle against me.”
Maddy crawled closer, and Nicole wrapped her arms around her. God, please make this work. And please don’t let there be any copperheads or rattlesnakes in here. She didn’t even want to see a harmless black snake.
She held Maddy and waited, tamping down the grief threatening to overwhelm her. She couldn’t fall apart. There’d be time for that later. Now, nothing mattered except the two of them getting to safety.
The breeze picked up, sending a “shh” swelling around them. The rhythmic crunch of footsteps punctuated the sound.
Maddy stiffened. “Hear that?”
“It’s okay. He won’t find us in here.”
The man moved closer. Nicole tightened her hold on Maddy, willing her to remain silent. Then the footsteps stopped. A deep voice penetrated the rustle of the trees, sending Nicole’s heart into her throat.
“We got a problem. Woodard found out and threatened to go to the police. I took care of it, but his kids saw me.”
After a brief pause, he continued. “Hey, I didn’t know they were there.” Another pause. “Just get out here, and bring the drones.”
Drones? Nicole’s stomach sank. If it was just the two men chasing them, they could possibly escape. Once those men had eyes in the sky, that would be almost impossible.
Rustling began anew, growing closer. The man continued his conversation. “I’ll meet you up front. They won’t get far.”
The sound of footsteps faded until they disappeared altogether. Nicole released a pent-up breath. After waiting for another minute, she nudged her sister. “Let’s go, but we still have to be super quiet.”
Maddy nodded and followed her from the space. Nicole looked around. They were alone. But those drones might be in the air within thirty minutes. They needed to get to safety. But how? In the middle of four hundred acres, the nearest neighbor was at least a half mile away.
Returning home wasn’t an option. Neither was going to her uncle’s house. The two homes were within view of one another. Her father’s attacker would likely be waiting for them. Besides, her uncle wasn’t even there. He’d left early this morning to spend the day in town.
Going deeper into the woods would eventually put them at the fence separating the back of their property from the prison grounds.
They could make their way toward the neighbor’s farm, but they’d have to cross too much open, unprotected area.
Their best bet would be to head in the opposite direction, into the national forest.
She squeezed Maddy’s hand. “We’re gonna run. I’ll take you somewhere you’ve never been.”
It had been years since she’d been herself. During the months she lived there, she and her friends often took hikes on the weekends, venturing well onto national forest land. They’d even found some caves.
Maybe caves was exaggerating. More like the occasional hollowed-out place in a rock face or natural ledges that formed a roof for the space beneath. If she could find any of those spots again, they might offer a place to hide, especially from the drones.
Nicole tightened her hold on her sister’s hand and began a slow jog.
Maddy did well keeping up. Maybe their father had been grooming her to follow in his footsteps and become a track star also.
If so, she hoped Maddy was doing better than she had.
She’d never been able to break second place at any of her track meets, a perpetual disappointment to her trophy-winning father.
A sudden pang of grief stabbed through her. What could he have been involved in that would make someone want to kill him? She shoved the thoughts aside. She had to focus on keeping herself and Maddy alive.
A few minutes later, rusted wire fencing came into view, stretched between wooden posts. They’d reached the edge of their property.
Nicole pointed with her other hand. “There’s the park.”
“What park?”
“Mammoth Cave National Park.” More than fifty-two thousand acres of nature.
“There’s no swings.”
“Not that kind of park.” Nicole stopped where a tree had fallen, crushing the wire fencing. “We’ll climb over right here.”
She released Maddy’s hand to swing one leg, then the other, over the dilapidated barrier. Then she lifted Maddy over with a grunt. Another change since spring break—Maddy had grown.
Once clear of the fencing, they resumed their prior pace, until Maddy jerked her hand free and skidded to a stop. She crossed her arms in her typical stubborn stance.
“I’m tired.”
“I know, but we need to keep going. We don’t want those bad men to find us.”
“We can hide.”
“We can’t stay hidden forever. We need to find a policeman.”
Maddy looked around. “There aren’t any policemen here.”
No, there weren’t. Not even a forest ranger. “That’s why we have to keep going. We need to find one.”
When Maddy still didn’t move, Nicole pressed her lips together. She wouldn’t cover any ground dragging her sister. Carrying her piggyback wouldn’t be much better.
She extended a hand, palm up. “You wanna run like Tyson?”
Maddy loved the movie Tyson’s Run, about the autistic boy who dreamed of running a marathon. It was her all-time favorite movie. They’d watched it together when Nicole had come home for spring break and had seen it again last night.
Maddy took the offered hand with eagerness. “Let’s run like Tyson.”
Nicole heaved a sigh of relief. Some would consider what she’d done manipulation. She called it putting that brand-new psychology degree to good use.
For several more minutes, they ran, slowing on the uphill slopes, increasing their speed going downhill.
Soon, Nicole’s thighs burned, and her breath came in jagged pants.
Maddy was probably in better shape than she was.
Nicole had dropped her track activities as soon as she’d been out from under her father’s demands.
For the past several months, she’d been too busy finishing her coursework and internship to bother with exercising in any form.
“I’m hungry.” Maddy made the complaint without stopping.
Nicole was hungry, too. She slowed to a walk. She’d planned to feed them lunch and then head for the hospital to visit Mom. Those plans had blown up an hour ago.
There was lots of sustenance in the woods, if one knew what to look for. Some of the mushrooms they’d seen were edible. Nicole even had a pretty good idea of which ones. She just wasn’t confident enough to give it a try.
But there were plenty of wild blackberries. They wouldn’t ripen for another two or three weeks. But sour blackberries beat possibly poisonous mushrooms.
“Let’s try these.” She held one of the branches between a thumb and forefinger, careful to avoid the thorns. The berries were mostly red, with some starting to turn glossy black. But none had yet taken on the dark dullness that indicated they were ready to eat.
She picked a handful and passed some to her sister. “They won’t be sweet.”
Maddy’s pucker gave her second thoughts about eating what was still in her hand. She did it anyway. The sour tartness exploded across her mouth, creating a tingling sensation in her jaw that was borderline painful.
As Maddy picked some more berries, Nicole looked around them, uneasy about being stopped for even a short time. They’d had enough of a head start, the men weren’t likely to come upon them. But how much area could a drone cover and how quickly?
“We’d better get moving again.” If they could make it to a camping area or a popular hiking trail, they could summon help. Except she had no idea where those areas might be. With the sun almost overhead, she didn’t even know if they were traveling in a straight line.
Soon, a distant buzz formed the backdrop for their movements. She pulled Maddy to a stop to listen.
“What is it?” Maddy’s eyes were round.
Nicole swallowed hard. She knew that sound. She’d only heard a drone one other time, when a friend at school had gotten one and she’d gone with him to test it.
“Run!”
They needed to find better cover. A lot of the trees in the area were pines, their needle-shaped leaves creating shifting patterns of shade and sunlight on the forest floor. Those “caves” she’d seen years earlier seemed to have disappeared.
The buzz grew louder. It was gaining on them. Nicole ran faster, pulling Maddy with her. Suddenly, Maddy tripped, and her hand jerked free. Nicole spun to find her little sister face down on the ground.