Jake had always considered himself a multitasker. So he was able to talk to his son—still wrapping his mind around that one—and keep half an eye on Cassie up ahead, all the while not letting himself forget that there could be trouble on this hike, more than Levi Wicks would be prepared to handle on his own even though he was an excellent officer.
He was fairly confident they should be okay or he wouldn’t have let Cassie bring Will. Exposing Will to danger wouldn’t be okay for any reason. But Jake couldn’t control this environment as well as he could many others and that fact was making him nervous.
The woods were quiet today, still. Some days the wind blew hard and made it almost impossible to hear the person next to you, but today was the opposite and the hush was getting to him, making him antsy deep down.
“So did you sleep okay last night?” he asked Will, wondering if he knew anything about the events of the night before.
“Yeah, I slept fine. I usually do.” He shrugged, used his stick to whack some fireweed growing beside the trail. “Can we stop talking now? I’m getting tired.”
The kid said what he was thinking, that was for sure. Something he’d gotten from Jake or Cassie? He’d have said Cassie because she’d never been the type of person to hide how she felt. But he wasn’t sure anymore. Who could be engaged to someone, seem like everything was going fine, and then just disappear with no explanation? Come back seven years later with a kid?
Hurt made him want to say he’d never really known her at all, a bitter thought. But he knew none of that was true and wouldn’t be helpful anyway. He’d known her well. She’d just reacted out of fear. Or maybe she’d changed her mind about him. Either way, Jake didn’t believe her to be capable of deceit.
They still needed to hash this out, and he wanted the full story. Not just about Will but on why she’d left. Her aunt’s disappearance and her own jeopardy were getting in the way of that conversation. Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. Maybe God was giving him time to accept the news of his paternity before he delved into the reasons Cassie had hidden it from him, let alone left him.
He hiked along without talking anymore, but he kept watching Will. The kid pressed on with admirable determination. It didn’t sound like this was the kind of thing he was used to, but he was doing a good job. It was hard to picture a son of his being raised away from these mountains that surrounded Raven Pass, but Will fit right in here.
Was Cassie planning to just leave when the search was over? And what, have Will fly up in the summers to visit him? He didn’t want to be a summer-vacation dad. He wanted to be a real one, starting today.
God, help me because I’m not even sure I know how. His dad was amazing, so it wasn’t that Jake lacked for inspiration. He just wasn’t sure how to put it into play in his own life. A son was obviously top priority over things like work. But he still had a job and needed to do it well. How would that all fit together?
One day at a time.
He took a deep breath, looked around them. Cassie was still ahead with Adriana, and Babe was sniffing, working the area like he’d seen the dog do so many times before. He’d been skeptical at one point at the idea of trusting an animal as a full-on teammate, but Babe had proven it was worth it. More than, really. He looked behind him. Piper and Caleb were deep in conversation but their eyes scanned back and forth over the terrain, looking for any aberrations in the landscape that could indicate a struggle, or someone taking the wrong path. Ellie and Levi brought up the rear.
Help us find her, God.
“What are your thoughts on this?” Levi’s voice asked him only a few minutes later. He must have hiked up ahead of Piper and Caleb.
“On Mabel’s disappearance?”
Levi nodded.
“It seemed reasonable to believe it was an accident until Cassie showed up and things started happening. At this point...” Jake trailed off. No need to voice what he was thinking, but Levi seemed to understand. Their chances of finding the woman alive were slim.
Jake had seen Cassie’s eyes, knew the hope there that she’d tried to temper. He hoped she could bear up under the storm he feared was coming.
“I agree.” Levi nodded and Jake turned to his friend, confused about why Levi had been so ready to accept Cassie’s help to show them Mabel’s preferred hiking routes.
“So why these trails? This is where she hiked, but you don’t think she disappeared while hiking.”
“I didn’t say that.” Levi said the words slowly. “I don’t think she disappeared of her own volition. Or even by accident. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t around here. According to Cassie, her aunt hiked every day and told her niece about these trails often. Someone watching her would know her routine, and be aware of the best places to attack.”
“What you’re saying makes sense, just not for Raven Pass.” Jake shook his head. “The man showing up last night was strange enough for this town, but you’re saying it may not even have been a crime of opportunity. That someone might actually have targeted an older woman and done some kind of harm to her?”
Levi didn’t answer right away. Jake respected the fact that as law enforcement, his friend had lines he couldn’t cross, things he couldn’t share with him. But he knew from that look that Levi had reason to believe his assumptions were correct. He hadn’t found the body, or he would have told Jake and he wouldn’t have them all out there.
What did he know then that they didn’t?
“We found forensic evidence at the house.”
“You know who it was?”
“No.” Levi shook his head. “Unless someone has committed a crime, or has some other kind of exception that would make their fingerprints stay in the system, their prints may not be available to match immediately.”
“But there are prints.”
Levi nodded.
“She had friends though. Surely that explains it.”
“Mabel had a .44, like any good Alaskan.”
Quite the non sequitur, but okay. Jake nodded.
“There are prints on the safe that match the prints on the door and around the house in other places.”
Jake didn’t want to consider his next question, or the ones that followed. “And the weapon?”
“Missing.”
The farther she hiked, the more the past came back to chase Cassie. Every step through the alders as the trail twisted deeper into the woods and the brushy foliage that gave way to tall spruce trees and thick vegetation seemed to bring her closer to who she had been. Seven years ago.
Her aunt’s disappearance hurt even more now that she was back on these familiar trails, battling with what had been and what was true now. The rift between herself and Jake wasn’t something Cassie could fix. She knew that. A person made choices in life, but she didn’t always get to go back and change them. Still, she wished she could tell her aunt about the situation, get her thoughts on how to handle it.
Why did everyone she love leave her?
Something inside corrected the thought as soon as it appeared. Jake hadn’t left her. She took another step, looked at the way the trail was disappearing and tried to remember if they went left or right here.
“I’m hungry, Mom.”
Will had caught up to her again. Cassie slowed her pace as she bent to talk to him. “Sorry, bud. I have snacks, but it’s not quite time to stop, okay? About another half mile.” If she remembered correctly, they’d come to a turnaround point up there. They could stop for snacks and then Jake or Officer Wicks, or whoever was in charge, could decide if they wanted her to keep going.
The truth was that Cassie didn’t think it was likely her aunt would have hiked in even this far. She had years ago, but she’d gotten older, and surely that would have slowed her down some. Besides that, she just didn’t feel they needed to go any farther. How much did intuition play into situations like this? Cassie wasn’t sure.
“You okay?”
Now Jake’s voice. She really needed to up her situational awareness for people coming up behind her apparently.
“I’m fine,” she answered without thinking, sighed and tried again. “I’m tired. Tired of not knowing if she’s okay, not sure if I should let the search go for today... She isn’t here, I don’t think.”
Jake nodded, not commenting. He’d always been good at listening.
“I just...” She trailed off.
“I know.”
And she believed in the moment that he did. He knew her fear of what they would eventually find.
They stopped for a snack at a place where the trail widened into a meadow, which had fireweed just starting to bloom around the edges. The sky was bright blue above them and for a few minutes Cassie felt her shoulders relax. Like she could breathe here. But their rest didn’t last long.
“We need to leave.” Officer Wicks’s voice was steel, his expression all-business.
Jake nodded immediately, started shoving Will’s pile of snacks and trash into his own backpack. “All right, let’s go.”
Will nodded, childlike trust on his face.
Cassie felt none of that trust. She had questions.
“Now.”
Officer Wicks’s directive left no time for her to get answers.
They were back on the trail, hiking at a faster pace this time. Officer Wicks was ahead of the group now, and it wasn’t lost on Cassie that his eyes never stopped scanning the path ahead. His hand was at his side, presumably on his weapon.
What had changed? What was going on? Surely someone should tell her, the actual potential victim, right?
She wanted to ask Jake, who was at her side, matching his pace to hers perfectly, which she suspected was intentional. But she didn’t want Will to hear the answer.
Did she need to know?
Cassie exhaled, pushed her pace faster and tried to focus her mind anywhere it would land. The gorgeous desolation of deep woods like this. The pace of Babe, Adriana’s dog, up ahead of her. According to Adriana, whom she’d talked to while they were taking their snack break, the dog hadn’t alerted to Cassie’s aunt’s scent at all. Which didn’t mean she hadn’t come this way, Adriana had said, trying to leave her a scrap of hope.
Hoping was starting to hurt Cassie more than it helped. No one told you that there was a blackness underneath hope that was nothing more than positive thinking. Was that why Jake put his hope in something more, in trusting God instead of just thinking and wishing for the best?
The foliage started to change again, grew less thick, the trees less tall. They were close to where they were parked. Half a mile? Give or take?
The first gunshot hit the dust at Cassie’s feet, the noise exploding in a sudden sharp snap of sound.
“Will, get down!” she yelled when she knew what it was, tackling her son and rolling into the cover of the alders.
“Was that a gun, Mommy?”
She’d never thought she’d have to answer that question. Her heart pounded, thudding a terrified rhythm in her ears and then there was a weight on top of her. She tensed, almost fought it off and then realized it was Jake. He’d dove on top of her to shelter her the way she had her son.
Without a second thought. Ready to sacrifice his own life.
Cassie wanted time alone to think, figure out what this meant, if anything, but processing time was a luxury people didn’t have when there was a gunman in the woods and they were pinned down under bushes with no means of escape.
Another gunshot. Then another. Who were they shooting at? Cassie would have assumed it was at her, but none of the shots were hitting very close, so maybe she wasn’t the target after all. Who then? Jake? The people around her?
“What do we do?” Cassie whispered to Jake. The branches were too thick to crawl through, it seemed to her. But wasn’t a moving target better than one lying still? Then again, moving could expose Will and she wouldn’t let him be hurt.
She never should have let him come today. Why had she assumed the daylight would ensure their safety? Maybe because coming after them didn’t make sense.
Unless they had come close to finding something.
Another flicker of hope, even as the shots stopped and the stillness returned to the woods.
Will started to cry. Cassie’s already broken heart broke again.
“You’re okay, buddy.”
Jake’s voice was solid, powerful but calming, soothing in a way that washed over her like a swift glacial river.
“Everyone all right?” Officer Wicks’s voice.
No, Cassie wanted to say. She wasn’t all right. None of them were.
God, why?
She’d wondered earlier if Jake trusted God because it was a more solid base for his hopes than positive thinking. But was it really? Couldn’t the God of the universe have stopped the shots in the first place, rather than just protecting them through it? For that matter, why had He let her aunt disappear if He was really in charge and could change things like that?
Jake’s faith hadn’t been something that divided them years ago, even though they’d disagreed on issues. Like whether or not “waiting” for marriage was fully necessary.
But now Cassie felt further from him, even though his body was just above hers, pressed against her back like a shield.
How could he believe in a God who cared but let bad things happen?
“We’re okay over here,” Jake answered for all three of them.
Physically, Cassie supposed, it was true.
“Why didn’t you shoot back at them?” she asked the officer when she saw that his weapon was drawn.
“I never had a clear shot. I saw muzzle flash that way.” He gestured to a rise in the land that Cassie could see would have made a good place for a shooter to hide. “But you should never shoot at an unknown target.”
Cop shows didn’t always get it right, Cassie realized. She opened her mouth to apologize for questioning his judgment, but he was already on his phone, calling the incident in and asking for officers to canvas that hillside and see if any evidence was left behind.
Jake climbed off her and Cassie let Will move away from her. He wiped another stray tear from his face, but besides that, he’d stopped crying quickly. Kids were resilient, people said. She was extremely thankful that appeared to be true.
But kids weren’t invincible. And while Cassie had never dreamed she was really allowing Will to be in danger today, she was certainly not going to put him at risk again. If that meant she had to lock them both up inside some kind of safe house, she wouldn’t fight it. Whatever it took to keep him safe.
Running appealed to her, straight back to Florida. But she knew their safety there would only be an illusion.
“I’m hit.” Ellie’s voice wasn’t very close, and Cassie had to look around to find her. She was ten, fifteen feet away. She must have been behind them on the trail.
“How bad?” Jake had started moving that way as soon as she’d spoken up. Now he bent over, looked at the site.
“Not badly. Just a graze on the outside of my left arm.”
Not far enough away from her heart to make any of them breathe deeply. If the shot had been six, eight inches to the right...
Cassie pulled Will close to her, running her hand through his hair. To reassure him or herself, she wasn’t sure.
“You okay, bud?”
“I’ll feel better when we are back inside.” His little voice was honest, a quiver in it. Cassie squeezed him tighter, then looked to Jake, who was looking over at her.
“Let me help Ellie. I’m a nurse,” Cassie said.
“No. You need to stay down. I’ll take care of it.”
Jake held her gaze for a minute, but a look she once would have been able to read was perplexing to her now, so much time had come between them. Finally he glanced away, swung his backpack down off of his shoulders and rummaged through it. For a first aid kit, she was guessing.
Cassie scanned the area around them, fought against full-body shakes, only somewhat successfully. It wasn’t safe to just stop here. It couldn’t be.
“We need to move,” Officer Wicks spoke up. “Jake, do what you can quickly and we’ll take better care of it when we get to town. Sorry, Ellie.” He shrugged but she nodded, understanding their situation.
They started hiking again, faster this time, and Cassie kept her eyes roving, looking for a threat she knew was out there somewhere.
Someone had shot at them today, and could still be watching even now. She had a son to keep safe, to keep raising. She couldn’t afford to be an easy target for the shooter.
And yet any moment she could be.
Cassie walked faster.