“We’re going have to drink some of this lake water,” Lyle told her. “I figured we’d be to the car by now. Damn. I gave up trying to find directions on my cell phone around here hours ago.”
She didn’t tell him she knew a few places it would work out here.
“I heard this water’s kind of silty,” she told him.
“I don’t care. We’re not near some damn toxic manufacturing plant to pollute it, like in the States.”
“We are in the States.”
“Doesn’t seem like one to me—more like Siberia. Russia owned this land once. And in case your cousins send someone looking for you, we won’t sleep out in the open, but back in the forest a ways.”
“What about bears?”
He looked not only angry but scared. “I asked around in town. This area’s not supposed to have that many of them—like other places.”
“Or moose herds, either, but we saw one up close and personal. And all it takes is one bear looking for those luscious strawberries.”
“I have a gun. More bullets, too. I should have let you pick more strawberries. I hope my car doesn’t get towed.”
“Here in the Falls Lake forest on that dead end road?”
The moment she’d blurted that out, she wished she hadn’t. She wanted to give him the impression she didn’t know the area. And dead ends were not what she wanted to think about or bring up right now.
He dragged her by her arm back a little ways along the shore. She prayed he would not notice the bracelet she’d left behind for a clue, but she could say it just came off.
He knelt by the water and pulled her down beside him. She was thirsty, and he was no doubt right about the water being pure despite its murky appearance. She’d just close her eyes and think of the water Quinn had always made sure he and his trackers had. Maybe Suze and Meg had called for help by now, but if they told the troopers, she dreaded the idea of search helicopters flying over or even a search party that could panic Lyle. If only Quinn was not so far away.
The lake water tasted like chalky medicine. She swallowed a little more, then—when she didn’t keel over—Lyle drank, too, managing to keep an eye and the gun on her. Didn’t he trust her enough to put that damned thing down? And if she could grab it, did she have the courage to use it? She knew just holding it on him would not be enough because he’d risked everything to come after her, thinking he would force her to face “the end.”
“I’ll have to tie your hands and feet so I can grab a couple hours’ rest,” he said. “Let’s find a vine or some kind of natural rope for the girl always making natural products,” he added, and spit into the lake.
“Lyle, I’m hardly going to run off into the forest in the dark. I need you and that gun for protection. This is the wilds, you know.”
He yanked her to her feet. “Quit lecturing me! You deserted me, Alex! You tried to throw everything away!” He pulled her toward the edge of the forest where lower plants grew. He aimed his flashlight beam into them. “Now, get some of those vines!”
His voice echoed. She had thought she was making progress, calming him, but—out of his element—he was definitely panicked. And, of course, he could assume people would be looking for her. If only the one she really trusted in the dark were looking for her.
She found some sort of vine running along the ground next to a taller, purple blooming plant. Oh, those were the Eskimo potatoes, which were edible but could be toxic. If she could just get him to eat some of that—but then he’d make her eat it first. And it surely wouldn’t act right away. She needed some other sort of miracle.
She thought perhaps she could knee him and grab his gun while he tied her wrists, but he stood behind her to do it. Then he hugged her to him, kissed the nape of her neck, while she tried not to shudder, not to thrust him away with her hips.
“Mmm,” she said, fighting the urge to scream. “I haven’t forgotten you that way, touching, kissing me.”
He took her back a bit more from the shore, sat her down on a fallen tree trunk and tied her feet. “We’ll get to that. Stay put. I’m going just a little ways to try to see the shape of the lake to figure out which direction the road is for first daylight tomorrow. Then we’re out of here. Sit right there so I can see you when I look back.”
Of course, she thought as he walked a bit away and craned his neck to look around in the wan light of a rising quarter moon, his knowledge of this area was next to nothing, but she’d never realized before he was clueless about directions. Why hadn’t he tried to orient himself with the sinking sun since he’d still been muttering about his cell phone not working? But in so-called civilization, things were laid out on grids of streets and signs. He should have prepared more, but in this way and so many others it was crazy to try to compare him to Quinn.
He came back over, still with the gun in his hand. “I think I got it,” he said. “I just need a little rest. Hopefully your friends won’t panic you’re not back yet. I’d like to use this time for you to lie down next to me and prove that you really do love me, and that I’m boss. I’m sure you’ll be happy to do everything I say.”
“Lyle, we’re both exhausted and this ground is hard.”
“You know, I shouldn’t have tied your legs. I’d really like them wrapped around me.”
Her insides cartwheeled, and she had an almost overwhelming urge to throw up. Lovemaking with Lyle. Never again! Not anywhere, especially not here, near where Quinn had held her, protected her, the night they’d found Spenser.
He forced her onto a grassy patch and lay down beside her and, for the first time, put the gun on the ground behind him, far out of her reach.
With one hand he held her chin so hard he forced her lips to pucker. He kissed her hard and with the other hand fondled, then squeezed, her breast.
She steadied herself and tried to force herself to kiss him back. He meant to hurt her, shame her, make her prove she meant the words she’d said. But even if she did respond, would he just kill her in the morning? Was she tricking him or was he tricking her?
“What’s that?” he demanded, and lifted his head.
She listened, praying it was someone or something that would make him stop, that would let her grab that gun even if her hands were tied.
She looked up. It was a bush plane flying over from the direction of that falls toward town. She thought it was the one that Chip went into raptures over, the one he thought was piloted by his dad’s spirit.
“Do you think they’re looking for you?” he asked.
“Coming from that direction? No way. I’ve seen that plane fly over a lot, almost every day. Besides, it’s not circling, is it?”
He heaved a sigh. His hands on her relaxed and withdrew.
“We’ll get more of that when we get out of here tomorrow,” he told her, pulling her onto her back and lying down beside her. “You owe me big-time for putting me through all this.”
She let her breath out slowly, afraid to show just how relieved she felt that he’d stopped. Lyle had made a lot of mistakes, underestimating the forest, underestimating her. And these hours when he’d sleep would give Suze and Meg time to get Sam back from Anchorage to track her, to call Quinn, maybe the troopers. It was Quinn, miles and miles away, she wanted right now and always.
Quinn stared at the blur of runway lights below as the jet landed in Anchorage. He hoped the smooth landing was a good omen. It was barely morning, but light dusted the horizon. When they had taxied to a gate that took an eternity to reach, he unbuckled and shook Steve’s hand after he’d popped the outside cabin door open.
“Good luck on your quest,” Steve said. “By the way, Geoff said to tell you this flight is all on him.”
“Then thanks to you and him,” Quinn said, before hurrying down the stairs and sprinting toward the exit.
He felt the burden of finding Alex was all on him. She’d been gone for hours and now the dead of night. Thank God it was not the depths of winter when the dark was endless, but it seemed like that to him now.
In the long arm of the terminal, he looked up to read signs. He sprinted toward the hangar number he’d been given to meet his helicopter. The most important tracking quest of his life had just begun.
Suze and Meg were both waiting up for him when he landed in their parking lot and the chopper took off again. It was getting light, though the remnants of the aurora borealis still hung in the sky. He hugged them both fast.
Meg blurted, “We figured you wouldn’t have your tracking or hiking stuff, so we have some of that. And we put a few things in a backpack. I hadn’t thrown out Ryan’s clothes, so I figured...” She gestured to a pair of pants, a sweatshirt, running shoes and a khaki pilot’s jacket with a logo of air force wings on it.
“My shoes will do, but I’ll take everything else. I owe you both. Is Spenser with Chip?”
“I’m telling you,” Suze said, nodding, “he’s like a therapy dog. Oh, in the backpack we put a change of clothes for Alex. We just can figure what happened. After, well, after Val we’re scared to death.”
He frowned at how she’d put that. “Again, thanks to both of you.” He grabbed the things laid out and sprinted for the bathroom off the common area.
He tossed his city clothes, used the toilet, dressed in these things Meg had brought him. Ryan had not been quite as tall, so the pants grabbed in the crotch and hit his ankles wrong. It didn’t matter. Nothing did but finding Alex, safe and alive.
As dawn dusted the sky and then segued to morning light, Alex didn’t care that her head was partly on the grass and partly on a flat stone. She was alive. She still had a chance to get away when he untied her. Maybe she could signal someone if they came along on the road when they found Lyle’s rental car.
The pistol was still on his other side, out of her reach, and she’d wake him if she reached for it, but soon, maybe...
But again, could she actually shoot him to get free? She’d overheard Troopers Kurtz and Henson talking about people blaming law enforcement for killing someone threatening their lives instead of just wounding them. They’d told Quinn that a suspect full of adrenaline, rage and sometimes drugs could still shoot or stab an officer if their bullets just hit a limb, so forget the wounded-and-down theories of dealing with hyped-up, desperate people, and Lyle would soon again be that.
So should she shoot to kill? If, that is, she got a chance? If they made it to his car. She was so used to Quinn’s skills that she wasn’t sure the increasingly inept and uptight Lyle could find it. Would he even let her get that far or decide to just be done with her and hide her body here in the deep woods?
He was sound asleep, snoring, but she knew he’d wake if she shifted around too much. But all she wanted was Quinn’s arms around her. Only Quinn’s, but for now she let the morning forest sounds and breeze caress her. Alaska—Falls Lake. Whatever happened, this was a lovely place to live and die.