6:29 A.M.
Ninety seconds after the first shot had been fired, the gunfight had ended, and Stockwell had cleared the rest of the house before waiting for her teammate to return.
After killing Hendricks, Jacob had weaved his way back through the woods, collected his discarded weapons, and met his partner.
Now, surrounded by three dead bodies, Jacob and Stockwell stood in the living room with their overlapped hands resting on the butt of their slung rifles, their NVGs up and out of the way, their weapon-mounted flashlights sending beams of light bouncing off the floor.
Jacob shook his head. “I screwed up, Stockwell. I let my emotions get in the way of the mission...finding the Innocent.”
Facing him, she laid her right hand on his left shoulder. “Don’t beat yourself up, Jake. He had a deadly weapon.”
“He was wounded. I could’ve disarmed him. I didn’t have to kill him.”
“Or,” she bobbed her head from side to side, “he might’ve been sandbagging you to get you to let down your guard.” She gave him a gentle squeeze. “You did what you had to do.”
He made a face. “I’m not so sure. If I hadn’t killed him, we would be able to force him to tell us where Miranda is.”
“Jake,” Stockwell sighed, “he said he,” she faltered, “he said he killed her.”
“But that makes no sense. Why go through the trouble of taking a teenage girl with you when your world is crashing down...only to then kill her in the woods?” Jacob planted hands on hips and glanced around the room. “I think we’ve missed something.”
“All right. Assuming Hendricks is lying, and Miranda’s still alive, where would she be?” Stockwell held out her hands, palms up. “We’ve searched everywhere. She’s clearly not here.”
He fast walked out of the house, stopped at a spot equidistant from the outbuildings, arched his back, and shouted into the air. “Miranda!” He turned around, shouted her name again, and waited.
Nothing.
Stockwell faced him. “Maybe she escaped during the shooting and is now hiding somewhere...afraid to come out.”
Jacob cupped his hands around his mouth. “Miranda, we’re federal agents. We’re here to take you home.”
Fifteen seconds of silence passed.
“What if we head back to the Appalachian Trail and start searching,” said Stockwell? “We have a starting point—the compound—and we have a destination...here.”
He eyed his partner. “That’s a lot of territory to cover.”
She shrugged. “We’ll call in whoever we need to. But, if there’s a chance she’s alive, then we need to start looking for her.”
Drawing his lips into his mouth, he nodded. “You’re right. We need to do something.” Jacob headed toward the driveway. “Let’s go put together that search party.”
Stockwell followed.
He came to a quick halt ten paces later and whirled around to stare at the main house.
Studying her man, she noticed a look on his face, the same rattled look she had seen after he had come back from surveilling the compound from high above. “Talk to me. What’s going on inside that brain of yours?”
Putting his left hand on his hip and wringing the back of his neck with his other hand, Jacob grimaced while shaking his head and squinting at the landscape. “I can’t explain it, Stockwell. I,” he pumped the fingertips of his open right hand toward his chest, “I just have this feeling, this,” a tick, “this overwhelming sense that,” he spun around in a complete circle, “I...”
She noted sweat beads forming on his brow.
“...that my place is,” he jammed an index finger toward the ground, “here.” He whipped his head left and right. “We can’t leave, Stockwell.” His words were coming out at a quick clip, “We just...”
She clutched his arms.
“...have to...”
“It’s okay, Jake.”
“...stay—”
“Easy, easy.” She took his face in her hands. “Look at me.”
He resisted.
“Jake, look at me.”
His fast-blinking eyes settled on her.
“Just relax.” Her tone was quiet, gentle, soft. “We’ll stick around for as long as we need to. All right?”
He grabbed a quick breath, let it out, and nodded. “Sorry. I-I...I’ve never felt anything like that before.” His chest rising and falling once, he exhaled a blast of air and spied the buildings again.
She patted his chest. “Tell me. What is it you want to do?”
He flicked his eyes toward her then went back to gaping at the structures. “I want to go over everything again. My heart’s telling me—” he closed his eyes and waggled his head, “my gut...is telling me we’ve overlooked something.” He wandered a few steps away from her while gesturing. “Let’s start with the house first.”
*******
TEN MINUTES LATER...
Jacob and Stockwell had gone over every square inch of the main house. Having found nothing that might lead them to the teen girl, they spent two minutes searching the ‘A’ frame hut. Again, they came up empty-handed on clues to Miranda’s whereabouts.
Leaning back against a counter, the tiny sink behind him, the table and chairs a couple feet ahead of him, he looked down, pinched the bridge of his nose, and sighed.
Stockwell eyeballed him. “We’ll find her, Jake.” She tipped her head toward the door. “We still have that cabin and outhouse left to check.” She envisioned the man Jacob had taken down and zipped earlier. “We also have someone we can press for information.”
He glimpsed her. Why didn’t I think of that? He pushed off from the counter. “Good idea. Let’s go ask him—” he stopped and cocked his head to one side to gape under the kitchen table.
She followed his gaze. “You see something?”
He pointed under the table while giving the entire interior another once-over. “Everything in here is old, broken down, outdated...except for,” he wagged his finger at a four-foot-square brown rug under the table’s legs, “that rug.”
She frowned at the floor covering, “It does seem to be new,” then half shrugged. “So what?”
“Give me a hand.” He gripped two corners of the table.
She grasped the other end.
They moved the table further away from the sink, knocking over a chair in the process.
Jacob kicked the overturned furniture out of the way, stooped, lifted a corner of the rug, and lit up the area underneath with the flashlight on his CMMG. His heart rate doubling at the sight of a thin black line bisecting several floorboards, he swept away the plush mat then followed the black line with the light’s beam.
Stockwell’s eyes grew bigger, as she watched him make a square over the boards. “A trap door.”
“Or,” sticking two fingers into an opening that used to be a knot in one of the planks, “the door to a prison cell,” he hefted the three-foot-square panel past ninety degrees.
At one hundred thirty degrees, the heavy weight stopped, a rusted chain keeping it from going any further.
Stockwell shined her MP5’s flashlight into the black opening. “It looks to be a good six or seven feet down.”
Jacob glanced beyond her and saw the long, wooden lattice-like object he had seen earlier leaning against the wall. “I’m guessing,” he skirted around the square hole, “it’s probably,” and dragged the eight-foot-long ‘ladder’ away from the wall, “six feet. Grab that end, will you?”
They maneuvered the ladder into the opening and stabilized it, leaving a two-foot section protruding above the floor.
He unslung his rifle and handed the weapon to his teammate before drawing his Coonan and retrieving his SureFire E1B Backup flashlight. He grabbed the topmost rung and placed a boot on a lower rung. “Stay up here. I don’t want both of us down in a hole at the same time.”
She nodded while laying his rifle on the floor beside her. “Be careful.”
He descended. “Always.” A beat. “Give me some light.”
She aimed her own E1B Backup behind his head, covered the lens with her free hand, and barely spread apart two fingers to diffuse the beam’s intensity.
*******
His boots landing on compacted earth, he turned around, clicked on his E1B, and illuminated the enclosure.
An elementary school ‘Four square’ court in size, its walls made of clay, vertical posts supporting horizontal beams overhead, the barren space was cool and moist.
He directed his light straight ahead.
A floor-to-ceiling door save a three-inch header above and a one-inch-thick board below.
Hunching forward a bit to keep from hitting his head on the beams, he walked to the other side of the cavern and examined the barrier.
Wide, rough sawn boards, the up-and-down planks held together by five, evenly spaced left-and-right 2x4s; three rusty hinges on the left side; on the right, a corroded metal clasp secured by a U-shaped bolt.
He frowned at the sight. Definitely meant to keep people IN. He lifted the U-bolt, rotated the hasp out of the way, and looped the U-bolt through the staple again. He pulled the hasp and opened the door.
Darkness.
His 357 Magnum pointed forty-five degrees downward, he shined his light all around the cell.
A red form entered and left the circle of light.
Swinging his arm back, he centered the beam on a figure.
Her back against the wall, holding her balled hands up to her face, her left forearm out in front of her to block the blinding light, a girl blinked rapidly. “Don’t come any closer. Just,” her voice hitched, “just stay the hell away from me.”
Jacob aimed the 400 lumens at the dirt floor between him and the frightened teen. The spill light was plenty bright to make out her red, sleeveless mid-thigh dress and facial features, features that matched the mental image he had of Miranda. He narrowed his eyes and tilted his head to one side. Staring at the teenager gawking back at him, a different name, a familiar name came to him.
It took Miranda’s mind a few moments to strip away the black paint from his cheeks and chin and add a full beard. Lowering her fists a few inches, listing away from the wall, she squinted at him. “Dad?” Her heart skipped a beat. “Is that you?”
His imagination zipped back to when he was in the tree above the compound, to when he had thought he had caught a glimpse of his daughter’s profile. That WAS you. Jacob raced toward his little girl, “DD,” his outstretched hands leading the way. “Oh, my sweet baby girl.”
Missing for nearly three years, sixteen-year-old Deanna Delilah St. Christopher (DD) rushed into her father’s open arms.
He embraced her.
She squeezed him with all her might. “I just knew you’d find me, Dad. I never gave up hope. Never.”
He kissed her head and her cheeks then gave her another huge hug before holstering his firearm and setting the flashlight on the dirt. “Let me look at you.” He grasped her upper arms and took a step backward. “Are you all right? Are you hurt? Do you...” he went to one knee.
DD shook her head. “No.”
“...need medical attention?”
She snickered. “No. I’m fine, Dad...now that you’re here.”
Expecting to be at eye level with her, he had to crank his head back to meet her gaze. “I can’t believe this. You’re so,” he ran the back of his left hand across his wet cheeks while unsuccessfully trying to choke down the knot in his throat, “you’re so tall.”
DD touched fingertips to his face. “And you’re not furry anymore.”
He laughed while swiping at the never-ending water lines running from his eyes. “No. I’m not, kiddo.” He sniffled then stood and drew her to himself for a third clinch. “I’ve missed you so,” his voice cracked, “so much.”
“I’ve missed you, too, Dad.”
He pecked the top of her head then kept his face buried in her hair. “I love you.”
*******
Having heard the entire exchange from her earbud, a beaming Stockwell stood near the opening in the floor.
In her ear, DD’s voice: “I love you, too, Dad.”
Jacob: “Come on. Let’s get you out of here and home where you belong.”
Five seconds later, Stockwell saw her man’s smiling countenance appear from below.
“I’m coming up,” a beat, “plus one.”
She grinned at him. “Copy that.”
DD ascended the ladder first.
Stockwell helped the younger female make the changeover from ladder rung to solid footing.
Moments later, Jacob emerged from the square, stood behind his kid, planted hands on her shoulders, and faced his partner. “This...is my daughter,” he paused, “Deanna St. Christopher.”
“I know.” Stockwell smiled at him and tapped her ear. “I heard everything.” She acknowledged DD. “We have something in common, you and me. We share the same name.” She lifted her right hand. “I’m Deanna Stockwell. I’m your dad’s—”
“Work partner. She’s my work partner. We work together.”
Stockwell confronted Jacob.
Jacob arched his brows once and proffered a pleading look.
Her gaze went from him to DD to him again before settling on the teen. “Yes. That’s...that’s right. Your dad and I work together. And I...I,” faltering, she blinked a few times then extended her hand a little further, “I’m so glad to finally meet you.”
DD dodged the handshake and wrapped arms around the older woman’s waist. “Thank you. Thank you for finding me.”
Stockwell hesitated a beat then returned the hug while eyeballing Jacob.
He mouthed the words ‘Thank you’ to her.
She flashed a partial smile, nodded at him, and patted the youngster’s back twice. “You’re very welcome, Deanna.”
“DD,” the girl shot back while pulling away from Stockwell. “Everyone close to me calls me DD. That now includes you.”
The female FBI agent glimpsed Jacob, came back to his offspring, and smiled. “Thank you, sweetie. I appreciate that...very much.” She rubbed the teen’s bare upper arms before wrapping her left arm around the girl’s shoulders. “You must be freezing. Let’s go find you a blanket or something.”
The corners of Jacob’s mouth curled upward as far as they could go, as he crossed arms over his chest and watched two loves in his life begin the bonding process.
DD cranked her head around. “Are you coming, Dad?”
He picked up his CMMG rifle and slung the weapon. “I’m right behind you, sweetheart.”
∞=∞=∞=∞=∞=∞=∞
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