Using the story Cassie had written out, as well as the satellite map, had gotten Jake and Levi halfway to where the treasure supposedly was from the trailhead, at least according to his entirely unscientific estimation. They were standing now at a riverbank, staring at the glacial river. It wasn’t the largest Jake had ever seen, but it was silty and fast and that made it dangerous.
“You’re sure you want to cross this?” Levi asked from a few feet away where he’d been looking out, trying to find a good path across the water. Some river crossings on hiking trails in Alaska would have ropes stretched across them, to help hikers get over them safely. Even with the ropes, it wasn’t rare for someone to be pulled down by the current, held under by the heaviness of the silt, and then drowned. It was even more likely here without anything to aid in the crossing. Most Alaskan rivers were angry churning blue, filled with rocks that dared someone to not take them seriously, and offered death as a consequence of carelessness.
This one fit that profile. And Jake had too much to live for to die right now. But the story had said to cross the rivers they encountered. He pulled the wrinkled paper from his pocket, the one Cassie had written last night in her own handwriting.
“He was not stopped by rivers,” Jake read aloud, then shrugged. “It sure sounds like we are supposed to cross it. It doesn’t say to turn around or find another path.”
“And you’re sure this story really means something and is going to lead us to gold?”
Levi was trying to believe him and be supportive, Jake could tell, but he still wasn’t sold on the idea, as Jake had known he wouldn’t be. It was beyond their usual encounters with criminals, most of whom knew what they wanted. They were dealing with something unknown here, a legend. While Jake believed he and Cassie were right about their theories, he understood Levi’s hesitation.
“I’m sure, but besides that, Cassie is sure. She’ll follow what the story says.”
“So we have to cross.”
Jake nodded. He walked up and down the bank, trying to figure out where Cassie would have gone and if she’d have made it. Because the gold wasn’t the point, and the men who had been after her weren’t even the point for Jake. He would rather find Cassie safe, and if she hadn’t made it across all the way...
“Do you think she would have made it—if she crossed this?” he forced himself to ask his friend, not sure he wanted to hear the answer.
Levi looked out again, then spoke up over the roar of the river. “I don’t know. It’s an intense current and she’s been gone for a long time. You think she could do something like this?”
“She could if it wasn’t too deep.” Cassie was strong, Jake knew, but once water was over someone’s knees, their strength started to make less and less of a difference. It was simple science as far as how deep someone could go before being overpowered. If the water was too deep, she wouldn’t have stood a chance. Which meant if she had crossed, she should have done it right about where they were standing, in the middle of this clearing, straight across.
Still...he didn’t see footprints. Would he see some between the rocks, on actual soil?
Maybe. He walked the river again, this time more toward his right. A tree branch overhung the water by about a foot or two, the end of it snapped like it had broken clean off the rest of itself.
Surely...
Cassie would have known better than to cross here, right? he asked himself as he looked down at the deeper water. Using the tree branch as a way across would have been tempting, especially with her having had experience crossing rivers with rope before. She would have defaulted to the way she knew how to cross safely and that was with something to hold onto. But the river here was deeper and the current angrier than in the other locations. If the tree had broken...the water would have been up to her waist, Jake was guessing. Far too deep for her to stand and hold her ground against the flow if she’d lost her handholds.
How long ago had the tree broken? Jake wished he’d studied something that would answer that question for him, instead of being a paramedic and having only worst-case scenarios for Cassie scroll through his mind. Mindless facts he’d once memorized, about drownings and water in the lungs, and the evidence of drownings in autopsies—those were the things he was thinking about now, and pondering them in conjunction with Cassie wasn’t something he wanted to do. They weren’t helpful, and he needed to do something to help. For years he felt like he’d let her down by not coming after her. He’d let his own fears, his own desire to be wanted and not rejected keep him from trying to get her back, and he’d learned. Maybe too late, but he had learned.
She was worth fighting for. And if her lack of belief in God was all there was between them... Jake would keep loving her and pray every day that she came to know the truth. He would try harder to be an example of a good Christian, to show her what it meant to be a person of faith. He would try to gently lead her, not pressure her. But he would not, could not give up on her again.
“She crossed here,” he mumbled, knowing the truth clear down to his soul. He bent down to study the dirt. There, the slightest impressions of the soles of someone’s shoes.
He heard noise behind him and turned his head. Levi.
“Did you find something?” Levi asked.
Jake nodded. “She crossed here.”
His friend’s eyebrows rose. “Because of the tree? You think it went farther out and then...”
Jake shook his head. “No way to know for sure. But I think she went here for some reason.”
“If she was trying to escape someone, would she take her chances being swept down the river?” Levi asked.
Jake didn’t know. Cassie wasn’t a huge risk taker, and she’d struck him as even more careful now, since having Will. But if it was the only chance she’d had to escape, he knew she was brave enough to have taken it.
“Maybe,” he answered.
“So do we cross? Or do we go downstream, hoping to find her?”
Jake struggled for an answer. “If she did go down the river, we still don’t know which bank she’d have ended up on. She wants to know who killed her aunt. Would she have made an effort to cross?”
Levi didn’t answer and Jake hadn’t really expected him to. No one knew her as well as he did, and if he was asking questions, then so was everyone else.
All he could do was search all the options. “Let’s start with this side, go downstream a bit and see what we can find,” he said to Levi.
The other man nodded. “Okay. I’ll update the other officers with our general position in case we run into trouble.”
“Or...” Jake trailed off. “We could split up?”
Levi shook his head. “No. I’ve seen how that movie ends.”
Jake laughed, appreciating the bit of humor. It was a good coping mechanism, lightening the mood. “Thanks. Okay, we’ll go together. Downstream.”
The brush was thick, and bushes grew along the riverbank that Jake didn’t know enough about to identify, but there were several different kinds, of varying heights. The advantage was that if she’d come out of the river at any point, they should be able to see evidence in the trampled brush. So far, there was none of that right next to the river, or ahead of them either, which meant that no one had pursued her, at least on this side of the river.
Not a complete reassurance that they didn’t have to be on guard, but it did make Jake breathe a bit easier. Someone was still out here, he knew, but maybe not in the immediate vicinity.
He said as much to Levi and Levi shook his head. “If someone was tracking her and walked through the river, right along the edge, we’d see no evidence.”
Which meant the man who’d taken Cassie could be anywhere. Jake’s small bit of hope disappeared again.
Finally, it occurred to him to pray. Ironic that he’d pushed Cassie away because of her lack of trust in God. But when it came down to it, did he trust God either? Not as much as he wanted to, that was for sure. He was an imperfect man who could only keep trying to do better every day.
Forgive me, God, for not asking earlier, and please help me. I don’t want to give up hope. Please.
They continued on, each step in the spongy ground too slow. Neither of them wanted to end up in the river by accident, so it was slow going. Every minute that passed was a minute Cassie might be in danger, and Jake hated knowing that.
“Did you hear that?” Levi asked.
Jake hadn’t. He stopped.
Something rustled in the bushes. Up ahead, off the riverbank about twenty feet. Would she have taken shelter so far away from the river?
Or was it whoever had abducted her in the first place, lying in wait?
Or burying a body?
Jake worried his heart would stop at the last thought. Not another one he was going to let himself have again. No, he was trusting, remember? Trying to hope.
So he called out her name. “Cassie?”
The rustling stopped. He held his breath.
“Jake?”
Her voice was watery, weak, and every thought he’d had earlier about hypothermia and the dangers of the river came back to him. Jake fought again against the threatening feeling of hopelessness, knowing that with God there was always a chance. Never a reason to doubt. Always hope.
“Cassie!” he called again louder, hoping she’d answer so he could pinpoint exactly where she was. Beside him, Levi was looking around too, scanning the area for Cassie and for threats, Jake guessed.
“Here.”
He saw the fireweed waving ahead of him, moving just enough to give it away as her location and he walked there. Levi came with him, but hung back slightly, which Jake appreciated. He wanted to see her first, know how she was, and he was desperate to know if she was all right.
She was, and she wasn’t.
She was curled in a ball on the ground, the fireweed surrounding her like a tall curtain that came up from the ground. She’d been protected from being found by whoever had been after her, probably because she’d been so far off the river, and not on any obvious trail. Her choice of location had likely saved her life, and Jake thanked God for the intelligence he’d given Cassie so she could make that choice.
But while physically unharmed, she was soaked through—her clothes clung to her and her hair was wet too. She must have been pulled all the way under in her fight with the water.
This though, this he could handle. He wished he had equipment, but he could assess her at least, knew the signs of hypothermia, and no longer felt entirely helpless. A small mercy.
“How are you feeling?” He kept his voice even, reminding himself that if there’d ever been a time for professional detachment, this was it.
“I’m okay...” She sighed. “Sleepy. Just sleepy.”
She wasn’t shivering. That alarmed Jake. It was a warm day and the sun was out, which would help her, but there was a little bit of a breeze. Maybe she’d been protected from it enough by the fireweed, but he still had concerns. She needed to dry out.
“We need to get you warm, okay?”
“I can’t...clothes are wet...”
Jake heard the slight slurring in her words that time and knew he’d been right to be concerned. They were there in time, but they had to act.
Building a fire could give away their location to anyone who was after her. He knew Levi had a weapon and more than enough training to use it. While Jake wasn’t law enforcement, he’d grown up in the Alaskan woods and knew how to use a gun as well and had his own for bear protection. They were covered where that was concerned, but it wasn’t enough to make him cocky about their chances. Bad guys could have guns too. It wasn’t an automatic win for the good guys.
“How many men took you?” he asked her as he bent beside her to feel her pulse. It was fairly strong, better than expected. Jake breathed a prayer of thanks while he waited for her answer, continued to assess the situation. He removed his sweatshirt and tugged it over her head, instructing her to take off her wet shirt underneath. He turned around to give her privacy.
“Only one. I only saw one. He was so big.” Her voice trailed off again. “I had to get away.”
So he’d been right. She’d braved the river. Jake pulled her toward him, did his best to hug her though the angle was awkward and she was half asleep. “You’re going to be okay, all right? You’ve got this, Cassie.”
“Not sure I do, but God does.”
He stilled. Swallowed hard.
“What did you say?”
“God... I’m trusting, okay, Jake? But I need to sleep.”
“No. No sleeping.” Jake looked at Levi, who’d been standing by, waiting. He stood up, kept his words soft in case Cassie was still awake enough to listen. “We need a fire, like half an hour ago,” he muttered.
Levi nodded. “I agree. She sounds hypothermic, right?”
Jake nodded.
“It’s a risk,” Levi said. “But everything is at this point. It seems worth it.”
“How should we do this?” Jake knew the fire would make them more visible to anyone looking for Cassie. It was daylight, so no worries as far as the light giving them away, but the smell of smoke traveled on the wind and someone skilled in tracking would be able to pinpoint its general location.
“We’ll just keep watching out, maybe take turns wandering around the site here, seeing if there’s anything unusual.” Levi shrugged. “That’s all we can do while we wait for help.”
Jake nodded. “Okay. I’m going to get some sticks for a fire.” He glanced down at Levi. “You won’t leave her?”
“I promise.” Levi met his eyes and Jake knew his friend would watch her not just like anyone who needed police help, but like someone who was special to Jake.
When Cassie had left him in Raven Pass all those years ago, he’d tried to turn inward, back off from his friends. Instead God had kept pushing him to make new friends and he’d ended up with some of the best. Including Levi. Jake had to smile. “Thank you.”
Levi nodded.
Jake wandered away and gathered the wood, alarm gathering in him when he didn’t see Levi when he came back.
“Levi?”
Nothing.
“Cassie.”
Nothing.
He couldn’t remember where she’d been, not exactly. The scene reminded him so much of...yesterday? The day before? When they’d found her aunt Mabel’s body and she’d hidden in some fireweed much like this. So much life had been crammed into the time between then and now, and yet this felt oddly like déjà vu.
Was she there, just unseen as she had been at first? Or had something far worse happened?
Levi being gone didn’t bode well.
Jake kept looking around. He glanced at the fireweed, deciding he would try again there in a minute. He’d walk to the river now and make sure Levi hadn’t gone down there, maybe even with Cassie.
He found Levi on the edge of the river, unconscious.
Jake gritted his teeth and bent beside his friend. His heart rate was good. Jake didn’t see any bullet wounds, or any sign of head trauma. So either he’d been hit on the head or possibly drugged. He couldn’t tell which without more assessments and tests, which he couldn’t do out here.
Jake reached down and dragged him farther from the edge of the river. He’d gotten tangled in the branches of a small tree. Otherwise, he might have fallen in entirely. So he’d been...attacked and shoved toward the water? What had made the attacker leave?
Cassie? Could she have been awake enough to help? Jake wasn’t sure. She’d been in bad shape.
He glanced at Levi again. Tugged him a little farther from the water.
“I’ll be back. Sorry, buddy.” He pulled Levi’s phone out of his pocket and texted the police department to let them know their approximate location and that Levi needed help. Someone messaged back that they’d be coming.
One problem taken care of. Maybe two if they sent medical help along for Levi. They might come with supplies that could help Cassie too. Jake’s knowledge wasn’t much good without actual tools to put it into practice.
He hurried back to the fireweed.
“Cassie?”
Nothing.
He bent down on his knees, crawled through the bushes, sure she must be there. She’d fallen asleep, he told himself. He was just overlooking her hiding spot, which was good because it meant whoever had attacked Levi would have been unable to find her too.
He searched and searched. Found nothing.
And finally had to ask himself...why had Levi been so close to the river?
Jake had the sick feeling he’d let Cassie down again. This time though, he was going after her.
He ran toward the river, hoping he’d come up with a plan as he went.
She was so very tired. And cold. She was cold.
Should she be cold, Cassie wondered, if she was hypothermic? She’d always understood hypothermia to be a warm death. Maybe then she wasn’t dying.
At least not from hypothermia. She had many other options, sadly.
She looked across from her in the raft. The big man from earlier had been joined by another man, which was why they’d been able to overpower Levi before he’d even been able to get his weapon out. She’d felt sick as she watched the big one grab him in something like a headlock and then drop him, shoving him toward the water as the other man pushed the raft with himself and Cassie in it out into the river. The big man had jumped in at the last minute and it was just the three of them. The two men had oars and were fighting the current to the other side, where they thought the gold was.
Her aunt. Maybe Levi. Maybe her next. And where was Jake? How many lives would be lost because of some gold? Did people’s greed have no bounds?
It was something she wanted to learn about, if she lived. Why did God create people if they were going to be so messed up? She’d heard Jake mention the phrase free will but it wasn’t something she understood. Maybe she never would.
Please help me get out of here. She tried to pray, but she was so tired. Tears crept into the corners of her eyes and everything in her was still even though the men were yelling at each other, the river seemed to be yelling at all of them, and even the weather was joining in as this morning’s sunshine had been replaced by gathering clouds.
It had been too hot. Now a storm threatened. She could add lightning to the list of threats she was facing.
“Row harder!” the big man yelled at the other.
“I brought you the raft. I’ve done enough to help you, don’t you think?”
“I said row harder!” His rage was growing, Cassie could feel it and it terrified her. She wanted to hide back in her cluster of fireweed, even though that would only be false security. After all, it hadn’t kept her from being discovered earlier. The men had come soon after Jake had left, as if they’d been watching her the whole time.
“Row yourself!” the other yelled.
Cassie watched in horror as the big man hit the other with a paddle, so hard she saw the man’s eyes roll back in his head as his arms flew backward, his body off balance, and then he fell over the backside of the raft into the river.
She looked at his lifeless body, tossing in the water, hitting the rocks, then back at the big man.
“Get his paddle and row.”
Cassie did.
Fighting with terror and determination, she rowed as hard as she could. The river tossed them where it wanted, but eventually they were caught on a rock close enough to the other side that with some maneuvering, the big man was able to lean over and propel them to shore using his paddle as a pole.
“Get out,” he ordered when they’d banged up onto the rocky edge.
Cassie did.
She swallowed hard. Eventually she was going to have to defy him if she wanted to live. His temper was a liability, one she could use against him, if she was smart.
And careful. She’d have to be very careful.
Cassie climbed out, feeling her heart beat in her chest, hard and strong and tired.
She was so very tired.
“Find. The. Treasure.”
Cassie nodded, eyeing the clouds above them. She heard a rumble in the distance. If it rained, their footprints would be destroyed, and any chance of someone like Jake tracking them would be diminished. She couldn’t afford to draw attention to herself enough to mark their trail in any other kind of way though. She’d seen what the big man’s temper could do and she wasn’t about to trigger it unless she could use it to her advantage.
Please let the rain hold off.
The bedtime story in her head, Cassie remembered they’d likely have to cross at least one more river. The story had said rivers. Was there another river? How big would this one be?
She found out before too long. It may have been a branch of the same river, or this may have been the confluence of two, Cassie wasn’t sure. But there was another river, stretching in front of them.
“This time—” the man grabbed her arm again and she tried to hide her shudder “—we are going together.”
Swallowing hard, Cassie nodded and they stepped into the water.
Her mind shouted alarms as they kept stepping deeper and the water crept up and up her legs. Muscle memory remembered falling, the feel of the swirling current pulling at her, throwing her into its swift downstream flow. Her chest tightened and breathing got harder. There was no real danger in crossing the river right now. So far the water was only at her knees. Easily crossed. Not a danger like the last crossing. They were in the middle of the river now, so the chances of it getting deeper were slim.
Help me, God. We can do this. Right? she asked, not expecting an answer, but she felt reassurance settle over her anyway, soul deep, in a way that bolstered her confidence even more.
Then they were out of the river, on rocky ground again.
“What next?” the man asked.
“We go north.”
“And after that?”
“We have to go north first.” Cassie tensed as she said the words, afraid the man would be angry she wouldn’t answer him, but she’d understood all at once that if she gave him all the directions, he’d have no need of her. In order to keep herself useful, she had to leave him needing her.
For now, he seemed satisfied with that answer. Maybe it was the fact that she’d kept her tone soft and hadn’t been forceful, or maybe God had helped her. Either way, Cassie was relieved. The landscape grew more and more treeless as they climbed higher up the mountain than they’d been earlier, winding through alpine tundra. It looked like an area that could have once held a successful gold mine. Cassie walked north, thankful for the survival and navigation classes she’d taken during her high school years.
The next phrase she thought was a directional clue. It had been into the heart of darkness, which she assumed meant some kind of cave. An opening into the mountain of some kind. Maybe even a mining tunnel?
She saw it up ahead, in the distance, but instead of relief at getting them to the right place, Cassie felt fear grip her, hard and unrelenting.
She was about to become superfluous. He’d need her for the directions through the tunnels that she suspected were inside the mountain and that the story referred to when it said left, right, left, left. But after that... Time was running out to make her escape or figure out another plan. Overpowering her captor was out of the question, but there had to be something she could do.
“See the mining tunnel?” Cassie gestured to it.
The man nodded. “It’s in there?” He was breathing heavily, anticipation making him lean toward her in a way that was even more intimidating than before.
Cassie nodded, about to open her mouth to explain the mazes, so he’d know he still needed her. But she wasn’t fast enough. She saw one big fist of his coming against her head and she was unconscious.
Jake kept the story out as he hiked, like it was a literal map that he could see points on, as he moved ahead. He’d crossed the second river now and was making his way north. Soon, if he’d gone the right way, he should see whatever was described as the heart of darkness.
Was Cassie inside yet, and even more importantly, had her abductor harmed her in any way? They’d want to see the gold before they killed her, at least Jake thought so. But Cassie had seemed terrified, not just hypothermic, when he’d found her. And for her to have braved the river’s current rather than try to overpower her captor, the man must be terrifying. Because Jake knew Cassie, and the woman wasn’t scared of much. That was part of why he loved her.
He walked the trail he felt sure she must have walked just a short while before and wondered if officers had made it to Levi yet. He hoped so. He knew his friend would feel awful when he woke up, but again, that was another reason for Jake to be reminded to take these men who had Cassie seriously. His friend was no easy man to overpower.
So far the rain had held off, for which Jake was thankful, but now he felt drops starting to fall, first on his arms, then on his head as they hit hard enough to feel through the baseball cap he wore.
There. He could barely see a dark spot on the mountainside up ahead, but it was enough to see it was likely the darkness described by the story. He hurried in that direction and came to a cave. Not a cave, a mining entrance. It was cool and dark, many degrees colder than the warmer air outside. Cassie’s hypothermia came back to the forefront of his mind. She was battling more than one enemy and he could help her with neither right now. Jake hated being helpless.
The tunnel was so dark he couldn’t see, and he didn’t want to use a light and give away his presence. Jake stepped out again, back into the light where he could read the story on the paper.
“Left, right, left, left.”
He could remember that. He stepped back into the darkness and crept forward. He put both hands out and decided it felt like a standard kind of mining tunnel, at least from the little he knew about them. It was about two feet wide, maybe less. Just enough for him to walk through, but passing someone would require flattening your body against one wall while they flattened theirs on the other. People were smaller in the 1930s so they’d likely made tunnels to fit how people were built back then. That also explained why he had to stoop a little; his over six-foot frame would have scraped the ceiling if he’d stood at his full height.
He kept going forward, not noticing any place where he had the option to make any turns. The story indicated that there should be some. He’d just begun to wonder if he’d missed them at some juncture when he came to the first option. Straight or left.
Left.
He made the turn, followed a tunnel that felt identical as far as specs to the one he’d just left.
Another juncture, maybe five minutes later. Right.
At the next intersection, there were multiple ways to turn. Straight. Left. Right.
He turned left, remembering the story. And then he could hear voices. They were low, in the distance, but they echoed enough on the walls of the tunnel that he could make out some of the words.
One of the individuals was angry. A man. His voice was low and full, maybe the man who’d nabbed Cassie. Anther voice was higher pitched. Female.
And older. Familiar.
Jake frowned, struggled to place it. He’d heard it somewhere...
He crept closer, mindful of how sound echoed, and tried not to make any noise. He needed surprise on his side if he was going to help Cassie at all.
Even then, their odds weren’t good. But he wasn’t giving up.
Help us, God.
Jake held his breath, and kept walking.