Chapter 10 #2
She nodded. “Hunter threw himself in front of me and was hit in the shoulder. Then he wrapped around me and launched us over the falls. He hit his head on a rock, busted up his ribs and who knows what else. He was able to walk for a while, but it was just too much. He insisted I come here for help without him because he’d slow me down too much.
After pointing me in the right direction, he passed out.
I wasn’t sure what to do. I just couldn’t leave him for the shooter to find, so I dragged him over to a hole in the ground caused by a fallen clump of trees, shoved him into it, and covered him up with my survival blanket.
Then, I covered him with some dirt and branches and ran here for help.
Please. You have to find him,” she pleaded.
“Do you have any idea who the shooter is and why he’s after you, your friends, or Hunter?”
“No.”
“Was he following you?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
She shuddered as she recalled the man’s words. “He yelled that he was coming for us. He sounded close. I ran as fast as I could to get here.”
“Did anything else happen before today to make you think someone was after one of you?”
Her breath hitched as she remembered the sunglasses incident. “Yes. My sunglasses disappeared from one campsite and then reappeared at another. I know it sounds dumb, and I thought one of my friends was just messing with me, but they said they didn’t do it.”
“What exactly happened to them?”
“I thought they were on the picnic table, but when I went to get them, they weren’t. I looked everywhere for them and couldn’t find them. At the next campsite, I found them in a tree.”
The chief nodded. “Anything else?”
“I do recall that Hunter made a comment during one of our hikes that a noise we heard was unusual and he looked puzzled for a moment.”
“Hunter would know. He’s spent his life in these woods.”
“You know Hunter?”
“Yes. It’s a small town. Everyone knows everyone.”
“Good news, Chief,” the officer said from behind the reception desk.
“Cap and Cici are already on their way up here. They’re already in Florence. Only thirty minutes out.”
“Cap and Cici?” Hannah asked.
“Yes. Hunter’s brother and sister. They’ve guided up here. They know the woods almost as well as Hunter and their Uncle Lee.”
Hope filled her that with Cap and Cici, they’d find Hunter before it was too late.
“So, you have no idea who may have done this? Do you or your friends have anyone who’s threatened you in the past? Any enemies?”
Hannah’s heart sank. She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. She lifted her eyelids and zoned in on Chief Ricco. “Maybe.”
He arched a brow.
“I have an ex. There’s a trial in two weeks.”
“Trial?”
“Yes. We broke up. He stalked, kidnapped...and beat me.”
Her heart sank as she said the words. It still stung to know a man she dated would do this to her.
“Is he in jail right now?”
Her body shook.
“No. His parents are rich. He’s out on bail.”
“I’ll need his information.”
She nodded and then answered his questions about Sebastián.
“Let’s get you to the hospital before Hunter’s siblings get here,” the chief said as he gestured for her to rise.
Pain ripped through her knee, and she wobbled. Chief wrapped his large hand around the upper part of her arm.
“I fell and hurt my knee.”
“We’ll get that looked at, too.”
The chief looked at the officer. “You follow up about Sebastián and call in Officers Hansen and Collins so we can do a briefing. I’ll take Hannah to the hospital.
I’d like to think this shooting incident is.
..” The chief paused and looked back at the firefighter, “Matt, can you put your firefighters on alert to keep an eye out? Spread them out through town. Obviously, don’t say anything to alarm the citizens. ”
“You got it,” Matt replied.
His firefighters?
She glanced at the man’s shirt. Chief Ganea.
Police Chief Ricco escorted her down a long, narrow hall and out the back door of City Hall. He opened the passenger door to an SUV squad detailed with the Iron City Logo and marked ‘Chief.’
She slid into the vehicle and then he did the same on the driver’s side.
“The hospital is only a few minutes away.”
She nodded.
The chief pulled up to the emergency entrance of the small hospital and escorted her into the building. Only one person occupied the waiting room. The older man looked up from the magazine he’d been reading.
“Hey, Chief,” he said, then inclined his head, “Miss.”
“Hi, Will,” the chief said.
“Hi,” Hannah replied.
She and the chief walked up to the reception desk.
“Hi, Gloria, can we get Hannah checked out? She hurt her arm and knee.”
“Sure thing. Come on back.”
The older woman wore pink scrubs with little clouds on them. Almost looked like pajamas.
The chief followed along but stopped at the doorway, not entering the examination room.
“I’ll be right outside the door if you need anything.”
She entered the room with Gloria.
“Alright. Let’s see what we have going on here,” Gloria said.
At Hannah’s hesitation, the woman smiled and spoke again. “I’m an RN. I was just covering the desk for a moment. Jackie should be back there already. She just needed to step away for a moment. She’ll get your information when we’re done here.”
The nurse looked at her knee and felt around it a bit while asking questions. It still hurt, but was already feeling better. Probably just scraped and bruised.
“I think it’s just bruised. Good mobility. Let’s look at your arm.”
She pulled the butterfly bandage off that Chief Ganea had put on her.
“Oh yeah. We’re going to need to clean and stitch it up.”
She grabbed a thick gauze square from a drawer and held it to the wound with one hand as she picked up the phone receiver with the other.
“Hey, Jackie, can you send Dr. Fields to the ER? I have a patient who requires stitches on her arm.”
Gloria hung up the receiver and peeked under the bloody gauze. Then she disinfected the area.
Within minutes, Dr. Fields entered the room. The old man smiled warmly.
“Good afternoon, Miss?”
“Hannah Rice.”
“Hannah, we’ll have you fixed up in no time.”
She didn’t doubt that. He looked like he’d been around the block a few times.
He pushed his glasses up on his nose and edged closer to her.
“Oh yeah. Four stitches should do it.”
Gloria handed him a syringe.
“Okay, Hannah, I’m going to numb up the area.”
Hannah closed her eyes and tried to relax to prepare for the sting of the needle, but relaxation didn’t come.
All she could see on the back of her lids was Alyssa’s lifeless body.
Lifeless, possibly because of her. She opened her eyes wide to rid herself of that horrible image.
Tears flooded her eyes, and she sobbed. Her friend was dead because of her.
Sebastián. It had to be him. He was probably aiming for her and hit Alyssa instead.
Gloria grabbed Hannah’s hand. “It’s okay, sweetie,” the older woman assured her.
She probably thought Hannah was upset about the needle, and that wasn’t it at all, but the woman wouldn’t know that.
The next thing she knew, Gloria had wrapped her arms around her, holding her tight as she whispered everything would be okay, but Hannah knew it wouldn’t.
They needed to find Bianca and Hunter and get them out of harm’s way.
After a few beats, Gloria released her. It was then she realized Chief Ricco had entered the room and stood next to the nurse.
“Hannah, you’ve got to let Doc get you stitched up so we can get out of here and focus on Hunter and your friend,” the chief said with both firmness and empathy.
He was right. She swallowed back the next sob and nodded.
Gloria reached out and took her hand, holding it while Doc stitched her up. It didn’t take but a few minutes, and she and the chief were on their way to meet Cap and Cici so she could describe to them where she’d hid their brother.
She and the chief arrived at Yooper Adventures. He drove past her car and parked next to the entrance of the office. Following his lead, she slid out of the vehicle and then walked to the back of the squad where he stood. He swung his gaze around. Looking deep into the woods.
A man resembling Hunter hurriedly walked toward them. A woman with similar features kept pace at his side. Both wore concerned expressions. Must be Hunter’s siblings.
“Jack. What’s going on?” the Hunter look-a-like asked.
He didn’t call him chief, so they must know each other well.
“Is Hunter okay?” the woman asked.
Her dark brown eyes and hair matched Hunter’s. The man’s did, too. The three of them looked so much alike they could be triplets.
The chief gestured toward her. “Cap, Cici, this is Hannah Rice. She and two of her friends were on a guided trip with Hunter. We have an active shooter situation.”
“Oh, God,” Cici said as her hand flew over her mouth.
The woman’s eyes watered.
Cap swallowed audibly. “Is Hunter okay?”
“I’m going to give it to you straight. We don’t know.
When Hannah last saw him, he was alive but badly injured.
We need to find him, and the shooter is still out there.
We need to proceed with extreme caution to find Hunter, and we need to track the shooter.
My staff is calling in the appropriate resources, but it will take a while to assemble them. We’re going to look in the meantime.”
Cici swiped a tear from her cheek.
The chief focused on her. “Cici, we’ve got this. Nobody knows this property better than you two. We’ll find him.”
She nodded and then looked at Hannah. “Where did you last see him?”
Hannah quickly explained what had happened and did her best to describe the path she and Hunter had taken.
“I’ve got a boat ready for us,” Cap said.
The four of them climbed into a small boat like the one she’d seen servicing the campsites earlier in their trip. The boat provided little cover for them.
Cici reached down and pulled a handgun from a duffle bag and handed it to her brother, along with a holster.
She strapped one on as well. Next to the bag lay two rifles similar to the one the chief had pulled out of the squad car.
The chief didn’t say a word about the sibling’s guns.
If he was good with it, she was good with it.
In fact, she wished she had one, too. She had her conceal carry permit, but Bianca threw such a fit about her taking a handgun on the trip, she’d left it back.
With all that had gone on with Sebastián, she should have never caved on the issue.
Though they were well armed, her teeth still chattered with fear as they made their way down the river. Who knew where the shooter was? Who was the shooter? Sebastián? Was he watching them?