Jake’s head hurt, throbbed with pain. He blinked himself back into consciousness, thinking in a detached way as he did so that getting what was likely a concussion two days in a row wasn’t helpful to his brain.
When he was finally awake enough to panic, he looked to the passenger seat. No Cassie.
The police pulled up behind him just then, and Judah Wicks got out of his car.
Someone had called them? Jake certainly hadn’t.
Judah Wicks walked over to him, talked to him about the accident while his head throbbed in pain. Was Jake hurt? Yes. Where was Cassie? Jake didn’t know. He answered the questions like it wasn’t him talking, like he was somewhere outside himself absentmindedly wondering if this was what utter panic felt like.
She wasn’t with him, and the people who had taken her had already committed one murder.
God, please keep her safe.
Jake made himself focus until Judah drove away, after assuring him they’d look for Cassie. Judah had wanted to get Jake medical attention, but he’d deferred, told the man he’d take care of it himself.
After a deep breath, he put the key back in his dented but still functional car and got ready to drive.
They had a head start on him, but Jake wasn’t going to quit until he found Cassie.
First though, he needed help. His mind was fuzzy, but that much was clear.
Jake opened his group text and texted his search-and-rescue group. Cassie’s been taken. Meet at the trailhead from three days ago. Then he texted Officer Thomas, the man who had Will, and updated him in case the danger had heightened for his son in some way. He was relieved to receive a text back from him almost immediately. Will was fine, having fun, and Jake didn’t need to worry about it.
Something he was finding out as a father—it was nearly impossible not to worry about your kid.
His phone rang. Not Cassie, saying she’d wandered off after their accident and was fine. Not even an unknown number that could be the start to finding out where she was and getting her back.
It was Adriana. Jake slid the phone icon to answer. “Did you get my text?”
“Yes. I’m on my way to you with Babe and he’s ready to find her. Do you have something of hers he could smell to establish her scent?”
“I can find something.” His car smelled like her. Half his house smelled like her. Cassie’s presence was everywhere in his life and had been for days. And now she was gone. He had to make himself focus, and only did so by reminding himself that Cassie was counting on him right now.
“We’re going to find her, Jake.”
Adriana’s voice was confident. Firm.
He nodded even though she couldn’t see him, not sure if he believed her or not.
“Did you hear me? We are going to find her. I’ll see you at the trailhead, Jake. And bring your A game. This team needs everyone and that means you can’t be distracted right now with imagining what might have happened to Cassie in some made-up, worst-case scenario, okay? If you love Cassie, and I know you do, bring the Jake I know who is ready to handle this. Not this shell of a guy and not the cautious guy from the last few days. Bring my boss, okay?”
She hung up before he could tell her that basically everything she’d said was technically insubordination on some level. Or before he could say thank-you.
He exhaled.
God, even my realizing she didn’t believe in You was halfway a relief. God, it gave me a chance to step back emotionally, since I want the woman I marry to know You like I do. But I do love her, God. I’m still waiting for her to trust You because I want to obey You in who I commit my life to, but Lord, if she ever does, she’s the woman I want to marry. I don’t want to be afraid of loving her again, or afraid of trusting, or of anything else. Please keep her safe, help her to trust You, and bring her back to me.
Please.
Jake took another breath, then lifted his head and put the car in gear, then gunned it to the trailhead, gravel kicking out behind his tires as he started.
By the time he got there, the rest of his team was already assembled and waiting. Several members of the Raven Pass Police Department were there too. Levi Wicks and his brother Judah, Christy Ames, and another man Jake didn’t recognize.
“Where do we search? Do you have quadrants in mind?” Ellie asked.
He shook his head. “It’s going to be really unusual.” He looked at Adriana. “I still want you to search with your dog like you usually would. If my plan goes against the dog’s nose, go with his nose, okay?”
She nodded.
“The rest of you, Cassie knows where the treasure is, approximately.”
“Uh, Boss, what treasure?” Piper raised her eyebrows. “Wait...” She frowned.
“The treasure in the legend people talk about?” Caleb finished for her.
Jake nodded. “Sorry, I forgot I didn’t start at the beginning.” Adriana had told him they needed him as their boss, and he needed to get it the rest of the way together. “Cassie figured out what her aunt knew that was worth killing over. She knew how to get to where the rumored Raven Pass treasure was buried, or hidden, we aren’t quite sure which. There was an old fairy tale she told her that had directions in it.”
He opened his phone to photos, where he’d taken a screenshot of the story as Cassie had written it down for him last night, then texted it to the group. “We’re assuming this is the starting place. That’s the assumption Cassie will be acting on.”
“You think they took her to show them where the treasure is?”
Jake nodded. “Yes, because I believe that’s why her aunt Mabel was abducted also.”
Adriana frowned. “Then why kill her?”
“Maybe she wouldn’t show them.” Ellie shrugged. “I wouldn’t.”
“Your life is more important than that, just for the record,” Jake said to her and everyone else, hoping Cassie understood that too. Why hadn’t Mabel told them though? Jake hadn’t figured that out. She would have known that she was more important also.
Please don’t let Cassie make the same mistake.
“So does everyone understand our objective? Find Cassie.” He hesitated, realizing for the first time the danger he’d be putting his team in. Cassie was clouding his vision. God, help me see clearly. “But...” He trailed off. “I understand if some of you want to bow out of this search. Your position on the search-and-rescue team won’t be affected as today is outside the realm of our normal operations.”
“We’re coming, Boss. Now stop talking and let’s go find your girl.” Adriana started off first, Judah Wicks at her heels. Jake appreciated seeing the law enforcement officers spread themselves out among the search-and-rescue team so no searchers were without an officer and his or her weapon to protect them.
They followed the directions past the throne, but the trail all but disappeared. The directions from there were vague until wherever the heart of darkness was, Jake noticed when he looked at the story again. True north meant to go north. They’d have to cross at least one river, maybe two, or the same river more than once. He wasn’t sure quite how literally to take the words.
“We should split up,” Levi finally said after the group had started down several trails only to turn back when they became impossible to navigate.
“Fanning out will make it possible to cover more ground anyway, and potentially approach a dangerous situation from multiple sides,” his brother Judah spoke up.
Jake considered it and nodded. “Okay. No groups without an officer?”
Levi nodded.
Levi stayed with Jake. Judah went with Adriana. Christy went with Piper and Caleb. The other officer, whose first name he’d learned was Luke, was paired up with Ellie.
The woods seemed quiet after they split. Initially Jake could hear some of the noise from other groups, but then nothing. His heart thudded even harder in his chest. Someone was going to find her. He believed that. They’d assembled too good a team not to, especially when they had an idea of where her captors would most likely be headed. The question wasn’t that. It was whether or not she’d be alive when they got there.
“Where did they park, Jake? If they took this trail?” Levi spoke up and Jake stopped in his tracks. The thought caught him that off guard. The black SUV that had hit him hadn’t been in the lot and neither had the white car. Had another car been working with them? There had been several other cars.
“Do you think there’s a third car involved?”
Levi shook his head. “I don’t know what to think. It’s possible but it’s a lot more logical they parked somewhere else.”
“Where else is there?” Jake asked as he was already pulling up the satellite view he’d looked at with Cassie the night before. He could barely think back to that, it hurt too much to think of the note on which they’d ended. Still, he studied the landscape. Levi leaned in too and both of them stared.
They saw it at the same time; Jake could tell by the way Levi tensed.
“There. What is that?” Jake asked.
“I’m not sure.” Levi was staring at the same narrow road through the trees that showed on the satellite. It wasn’t large enough to be any kind of official trailhead parking. But it was north of where they were, well within a mile. It was possible they intended to have Cassie take them to try to find the gold but didn’t want to risk using this trailhead. They had to have known that as soon as Jake regained consciousness he’d come after her.
Which raised the question—why hadn’t they killed Jake? Had they assumed the accident had done it? Had they not had time...
“Who called in the wreck earlier, do you know?” Jake asked his friend.
Levi shook his head. “Judah said it was a guy who saw it happen. He called it in and one of the other officers talked to him in person and took his statement.”
That made sense. Jake hadn’t understood why the guys who had caused the wreck hadn’t finished the job with him when they were taking Cassie away, but if someone was there at the scene and saw it happen, murder was a bit harder to get away with.
“The witness saw them take Cassie away. How was she?”
Levi shook his head. “Unconscious, not responsive. We don’t know anything else yet, so let’s not speculate, okay?”
Jake forced himself to think about other things, things that weren’t Cassie’s limp body, maybe alive maybe not, being carried away from him. He’d promised to keep her safe and he’d failed at that. How was he supposed to forgive himself if he didn’t get her back?
Summoning all the courage he still possessed, Jake nodded and glanced back at the satellite map. “It’s a long shot, but let’s head in the direction of the spot we noticed on the satellite.”
“You think they parked there and came this way?”
“I’m almost sure of it.”
“Let’s go.”
It was ironic, really, how one of the activities Cassie had loved to do with her aunt had factored into this week back in Raven Pass to such a great degree. Here she was, hiking again. Without her aunt, but here in town because of her aunt. Wondering if what had happened to her aunt was about to happen to her.
It felt eerily like walking in someone else’s shoes as she walked down the trail. She was grateful she’d dressed in light long sleeves and long pants. It was unusually warm for Alaska, in the high seventies she’d guess, but the trail was overgrown, barely able to be called a trail from the place where the man who’d abducted her had parked. The branches of the trees scraped against her and the fabric kept them from scratching her skin.
As she walked, she felt oddly calm, whether from shock or from God kind of cushioning the emotional blows she should be feeling, Cassie wasn’t sure. She knew though, that she felt strangely confident. The treasure was in these mountains and she knew how to get to it. Roughly. And she would find it and let them have it if it meant they would let her go.
No, she amended as she pushed through the branches of several spruce trees that had grown together, it wouldn’t mean they’d let her go. She wasn’t naive enough to think it would. But it might be possible for her to get away from them when they were distracted by the gold.
Cassie wished she knew more about what it was supposed to look like. Were they talking gold nuggets, basically? She assumed so from the talk she’d heard occasionally around town and what she read in the book yesterday. The story seemed to imply that the gold had been hidden straight from the mountain, not processed in any way. So it might not be a stunning sight even if it was worth a substantial amount of money. She’d have to be ready to create her own sort of diversion if the gold itself wasn’t enough to distract them into complacency.
“Speed up.”
The harsh voice of her captor behind her startled her forward and she tripped on one of the rocks. A hand wrapped around her arm almost instantly, jerking her back to a standing position. It was a stark contrast to how she felt when Jake helped her, when his hand was on her arm.
She’d thrown away more than she’d known years ago. But she wasn’t giving up on getting him back yet. If the faith issue had been the only one between them, that was solved now. If it had only been an excuse and he really hadn’t forgiven her, or he just didn’t love her anymore... Well those were possibilities but she would cross those bridges if and when she came to them.
Thinking about him now wasn’t helping though. Her focus needed to be on the treasure and getting there as quickly as she could, as it appeared her captor was getting impatient. She had been walking at a slower pace than usual, thinking that the extra time to think might help her tactically somehow. He’d noticed and now she felt like he was watching her more carefully, so that had been a risk that hadn’t paid off.
“Let’s go.”
The muscles in her legs were burning—there was nothing false about her pace now, she truly couldn’t hike much faster. She forced herself to though, needing not to enrage him to the point that he hurt her or lost his temper. The man looked like he could crush her without much effort.
Help me, God. I want to get back to Will. And Jake, if he’ll have me.
She prayed, that sentiment and more like it, as she pushed herself down the trail. When they reached a river, she looked back at the big man. He just stared at her. “Is it across the river?” he asked.
Cassie nodded.
“Then cross it.”
There was no rope, nothing to aid her across the river. Except farther downstream there was a branch that overhung the water a little, and that might possibly be used to hang onto during the crossing. Cassie walked down that way on the gravel bank and discarded that plan. The branch was barely hanging onto the tree and could fall off any moment, and the water was deeper at that part of the river, swirling into eddies.
She walked back to where she’d been at first, thinking the shallower part might be easier.
“Do you have a preference where we cross?” she asked the man. He shook his head, then gestured with his meaty hand. “Just cross it.”
His voice was rough. Hard.
And getting swept away in the current was preferable to being at his mercy. Cassie felt her eyes widen at the thought and she looked down immediately, then looked back at the river, trying to appear natural when so many thoughts were swirling in her head so fast, the current of them almost as powerful and dangerous as the river itself.
She was facing an impossible choice, she realized. But she did have a choice. Option number one meant trusting that her captor would have some degree of honor, or decency, and not kill her the moment she showed him where the gold was. All of that assumed she could stay alive long enough to do that. It felt like his temper was on a hair trigger and at any moment he might explode and that would be the end for her.
Had her aunt died that way? Violently and suddenly? Cassie wanted to know, and didn’t.
She swallowed hard and blinked back tears.
Option two meant surrender to God, and hope, and everything that Cassie wasn’t good at. Add to that the practical aspect of surviving in the frigid water. A decade ago she’d been trained for wilderness situations by her daily activities in Alaska. She’d grown soft working in Florida, in a climate-controlled office and far from the dangers and adventures of the backcountry. Just crossing the river would be much more difficult for her now. She knew well that the temperature was enough to give someone hypothermia if they spent much more than a few minutes in it. And as a nurse, she understood hypothermia better than most. It was a fairly peaceful way to die, if one had to make choices about things like that, but it was unforgiving. Once you started down its road, it seldom let someone turn back without medical intervention, and by virtue of what she was considering and the danger she was in, medical intervention would not be an option, maybe for hours.
Still. It was her only hope. And if hope wasn’t worth holding onto...what else was there?
Cassie walked back to the tree trunk. “I’m going to use the tree.”
The big man nodded, folded his arms across his chest. It seemed he was willing to use her as a guinea pig and then decide his own route based on the one she took. The spinelessness of a man who would be willing to sacrifice a woman for his own safety or gain made her sick. She wanted to tell him that, that he made her want to throw up, but in case her plan didn’t work and they ended up back together, she’d better not antagonize him.
The first step into the water was the coldest, and Cassie stepped back out immediately, her gasp reflex making her inhale sharply. She took a deep slow breath and tried again, letting the water rush over her hiking boots and soak through. Then she reached for the tree branch, her hands tightening around the wood of the branch itself, the leaves tickling her forearm. She took another step deeper into the river with her left foot, then her right. The water was above her ankles now. Cold, it was so cold. Her hiking pants soaked in the water and it crawled up her leg. The tree branch held. She continued across, the water now past her knees. On her thighs. She had to squeeze her eyes shut for a second and grasp for all her courage again because the cold made her want to cry. But she had to get across, or let herself be swept away.
Or...could she cross the river without him and manage to hide out somewhere? Cassie hadn’t considered that option, but now she saw there was a chance. Probably not much of one if she let herself be swept away in the river, but it was an option and possibly safer than...
The branch snapped, the swirl of glacial blue water tugged harder against her, and Cassie felt herself being pulled down, into the churning water, and downstream.
Cold. That was the thought first and foremost on her mind. The water was ice cold like a thousand sharp icicles puncturing her skin all at once, all over. She heard herself screaming and then forced her mouth to close as she passed the man who was running into the water after her. She was his living map, she knew, and he wasn’t likely to go without trying to get her back.
The thought was terrifying.
The current swept her farther downstream, around a curve, and when she was out of his sight, Cassie started to fight the water with her arms, desperate to gain buoyancy and get herself to the shore, where she could hide. She cupped her hands together and pulled the water with even strokes, slowing her breathing so she didn’t panic. She was five feet away from the shore. Four feet.
She paddled harder. The current tugged her back out.
She wouldn’t have much time in this water, she knew. That’s why the entire plan had been a gamble.
Please let it have been a smart one.
The shore was closer now and she swam again, against the tug of the water. One more chance. She had what she guessed was one more chance before the cold and exhaustion would team up against her, bullies that they were, and prevent her from reaching the shore safely.
Everything depended on this next try.
Cassie swam hard, and she swam not just for her, or for Will, or even Jake, but for hope and for the new life she had now that she’d trusted God.
See? I’m trusting You now, God, so please come through for me.
Her hands reached out and she grabbed another branch. It was thin, but it was flexible, and it held long enough for her to stand up in the thigh-deep water and pull herself the rest of the way to the edge with hesitant steps.
The first step on shore, Cassie almost cried. She’d made it, but she wasn’t safe yet, couldn’t rest yet. Instead of collapsing there, Cassie walked inland some, into a thick cluster of fireweed, and curled up in a ball. She had to stay warm. But she couldn’t build a fire, not without being detected. Instead she prayed the sun was enough to keep her warm, and tried to stay awake.
But she couldn’t. She fell asleep with a prayer on her mind, hoping she wasn’t foolish to, for once in her life, trust and hope and wait.