The sound of tires changed from a dull hum to a crunching as Luke slowed and pulled from the narrow serpentine lane that led from the main road through dense forest and to the Christian campground. The map listed the site as Manna Creek Christian Camp.
“Why are you pulling over?” Judith asked. “We have at least two miles to go.”
“I can’t take Abel and Ida into danger. We don’t know if Pennington and his pals are there, but it makes sense, and if he is, he’s not going to be happy with unexpected company.”
“So you’re giving up?”
“No. I plan to walk the rest of the way using the forest for cover. With any luck, I’ll be able to scope out the situation.”
“Then what?” Judith folded the map.
“I have no idea. I’ll figure that out when I get there.”
“When we get there. I’m going with you.” She unsnapped her seat belt. Her stomach twisted with apprehension that told her she didn’t feel as brave as she sounded.
“No, you’re not. I want Ida and Abel to stay here. I don’t know why, but this feels real bad.”
“The Truth is talking to you,” Abel said from the back.
“That’s nice, kid. I don’t know what it means, but it sounds real nice.”
Judith opened her door. “Say what you want. I’m going with you, and aside from knocking me unconscious, there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Luke took her arm in his hand. “There’s no reason for you to go.”
“Of course there is. Children respond better to women than men.”
“Oh yeah, you haven’t met my mother.”
“Luke, you know that I’m right about this. Best we can tell, it was men who took them and it is men who are holding them.”
“We don’t know that.” The protest was weak.
“We know Pennington is a man. He worked with Dr. Zarefsky. That’s at least two men. All I’m saying is that having a woman along might be helpful.” She turned to the backseat. “You like me, don’t you, Abel?”
“I like you a lot.”
“See?” Judith smiled. “I’m irresistible. Now, if we’re going to do this, you need to let go of my arm.”
Luke did and Judith slipped from the car. A moment later, Luke stood by her side. She watched him study the road and the tree line. “This way.”
“I’m right behind you.” Judith wondered if Luke could hear the thunder in her heart.
After just five minutes, Judith felt she had left the civilized world behind and was trekking through unmapped areas like Lewis and Clark. Trees, mostly ponderosa pine, towered around her like pillars. She pushed through the brush, doing her best to walk on loose pine needles in her pumps. Every step made her feet hurt. She had not dressed for this and imagined how ridiculous she looked hiking in business attire.
Having had no opportunity to change, Luke wore the same casual jeans and sneakers which were much better suited for the work, yet even he struggled at times. She marveled at his willingness to go this alone, with no knowledge of what lay ahead. Over the last two days she had come to admire the man, his keen mind, quick wit, and commitment. Of course, he was weird, paranoid, and a loner. In many ways, he was the opposite of her, his north to her south. She worked in a major business, a leader in her industry. She piloted a corporation that measured success in the billions of dollars; he apparently sat alone in his home typing on a keyboard, reading stock reports and placing money here and there. He had done well for himself, but the thought of spending hours alone working like he did would drive her crazy. Perhaps what she did would be equally insanity inducing for him.
They had not spoken once they entered the forest. Only the sounds of distant birds, the occasional tree squirrel added to the noise of their footsteps. They made no attempt to disguise their movements for the first twenty minutes. At first it concerned Judith but she said nothing, instead trusting Luke’s instincts. She hoped he had instincts.
If they had walked along the road, then it would have been a fairly easy two miles of twisting path. Plowing through the forest made the distance impossible to determine. Would it be shorter because it was more direct? Maybe. It might also be longer.
Some of the difficulty in walking came from the sloping ground. Luke had pulled to the side after descending three miles along the winding road and therefore had not reached the bottom of the sheltered valley. So the distance they had to cover had to be made over inclined ground. At least it is downhill, Judith thought, then wondered what the trip back up might be like.
Minutes chugged by, measured in carefully made steps and the occasional slip. Perspiration dotted her forehead, the scalp beneath her hair, and behind her ears. For a moment she felt disappointment that Luke would see her sweaty and dirty, with pine needles in her hair. She quickly chastised herself for the thought. She had read novels where women were portrayed being more concerned about their feelings and appearance than the danger that loomed before them. She abhorred such shallow representations and determined not to prove the authors right.
Luke slowed and Judith caught up to him. His breath came in deep draws and she could hear a slight wheeze with each inhalation. “How you doing? Am I going too fast?”
“I’m okay. Want to trade shoes?”
He looked puzzled then gazed at her feet. “No, thanks, I only wear slingbacks.”
The unexpected image of Luke in women’s shoes made her smile. “Tell me we’re not lost.”
“Not at all. I just wanted to give you a moment to rest.” He took several more deep breaths.
“Very kind of you. Of course, you don’t need a rest.”
“Are you kidding? I’m dead on my feet. I’m just trying to appear macho in your eyes.”
“My hero.”
“I also wanted to take one more stab at getting you to go back.” His face softened, draped in a concern that Judith hadn’t seen before. The iceman was melting.
“I can’t, Luke. I have to see this through. I can’t let you go alone, and if the kids are there, you’re going to need help handling them.”
“How did I know you were going to say that?”
“Maybe because we’ve learned more about each other in two days than most learn in two years.”
Luke lowered his head in thought. “And still, we know nothing about one another.”
The truth of that landed hard in Judith’s mind. Luke couldn’t be more right, yet without knowing details and history, the last two days had caused her to respect, even admire, the odd man named Luke Becker.
Luke looked at his watch. “We’ve been walking for about a half an hour.”
“How far have we come?”
“Hard to tell. If we were walking on a flat street where we didn’t have to dodge trees and lose our footing on pine needles, we could make maybe three miles an hour at a brisk pace. My guess is that we’ve done two-thirds of that.”
“So at two miles per hour, we’ve come a mile. That means we have another mile to go. We’re only halfway there.”
“Not true. We had two miles of travel along the road. The road is pretty twisty. I think we’re close. So we need to move slower and quieter.”
“I’ll let you set the pace. You’ve done a great job so far.”
“Okay. Stealth is the key.”
“Meaning if I fall down and break my leg I shouldn’t cry out in pain?”
“Do your best not to fall. I’m not carrying you back up the hill.”
“Again I say: my hero.”
Luke resumed the trek down the slippery grade. Judith followed with careful steps.
The shadows cast by nearby trees and the far-off sun painted an abstract canvas of shade and stripe. Every footfall brought more sound than Judith wanted. In the near silence of the forest, each stride elicited what sounded like a cacophony of crunching. She pressed on, walking through spiderwebs, destroying hours of arachnid work and giving her the creeps. Every minute sharpened her senses. When they started she noticed only trees, needles, and leaves. Now, even the movement of ants marching along the crevices of tree bark caught her eye. Beetles scampered when their fortress of leaves was disturbed. Gnats flew in formless clouds. The smell of damp dirt and decomposing detritus wafted up in the still air, reminding her that she walked more on compost than on soil. For some reason, she thought of the actress portraying her in the ad agency’s mock-up television ad. “I love the time I spend communing with the plants that make my garden an outdoor home.” If only they could see me now.
Luke slowed and held up a hand. Judith stopped. A second passed, he waved her forward and pointed. A short distance ahead, the trees gave way to a meadow blanketed in wildflowers. California poppies and lilacs dotted long, green grass. A breeze made bud and blade dance in undulating waves. A creek split the meadow adding its burbling sound to the chorus of singing birds. Any other time, any other place, the site would be beautiful, but the serene panorama made Judith anxious.
Closer stood several buildings all needing the attention of a skilled handyman. The structures varied in size but shared a common design: clapboard siding with weather-worn brown paint, green trim, and shingle roofing. Judith guessed that they had been built in the late sixties or early seventies. They were rustic, but that was to be expected for a complex billed as “a camp.” Several had broken windows. Judith wondered what it was about abandoned buildings that attracted vandals like a flame does a moth.
Luke pointed to the west side of the camp and Judith saw what had captured his attention: a yellow school bus. Nearby the large form of a Humvee rested.
Leaning close, Luke whispered in Judith’s ear. She could feel the warmth of his breath. “Everything around the buildings looks dirty; the bus looks clean.” Judith agreed. “The place looks like it’s been abandoned, but the vehicles look like they’ve been here less than a day or two.”
Judith understood the implication. The odds that this was the place they were looking for just increased dramatically.
Judith scanned the surroundings time and time again but saw nothing. She closed her eyes and tried to force them to listen beyond their ability. Surely children would make noise, wouldn’t they? Still, she heard nothing.
The presence of the bus and Humvee could be coincidence. Maybe the SUV belonged to a contractor. Maybe the bus was just being stored here. Maybe …
Something grabbed her attention. A vague, indistinct motion in one of the buildings. The grounds held six buildings. Three looked like bunkhouses, one appeared to be a home — maybe staff housing and offices; one looked like it could be a recreation building and one — longer than any of the others — she judged to be the dining hall. She came to that conclusion based on the number of dented trash cans at the back end, and a large metal pipe sticking up from the roof she assumed vented a large cookstove. It was all guesswork.
There it was again. Someone moved in front of the window. Judith pointed but said nothing. Luke had seen it too. He leaned close again and placed his mouth an inch from her ear as before. “I think the building farthest to the east is where campers slept. There might be some children in there. I’m going to work my way along behind the tree line and see if I can’t sneak a peek.”
“I’m right behind you.” Her voice barely made a whisper.
Luke frowned but didn’t object. He was in no position to argue.
Quietly as possible, Judith followed Luke up the slope and deeper into the woods. Once certain they couldn’t be seen, they turned east and moved with slow, deliberate steps. Haste makes waste, Judith thought, it also makes a lot of noise. Slow was the only way to go if they wanted to avoid detection.
Ten minutes passed like an hour, their trek ending with them hunkered behind an oleander bush peering at the bunk-house. They still heard nothing and saw even less.
“Looks empty,” Judith whispered.
“Only one way to find out.” They exchanged glances. Luke looked pale and uncertain. She could almost smell his fear and wondered if the terror she felt was as apparent as his. He took a couple of deep breaths, looked from side to side, then exchanged the shelter of the forest for the open gravel-covered ground that surrounded the buildings. A second later, Judith followed, wishing her shoes made less noise on the gravel.
Luke moved in a crouch and Judith mimicked the motion. When she reached the deck and stairs that bridged the distance from ground to raised floor, Judith’s heart pounded like a piston and every nerve tingled. For a moment she thought her stomach would give up its contents. More than anything, she wanted to be far away from this place; to be in the comfort of her home or even her office. Nothing in her life had prepared her for this. For a handful of seconds, Luke’s pleading that she stay in the car with Ida and Abel made impeccable sense. But that was then; this was now. She had made her choice and would now have to live with it.
Like a cat on uncertain ground, Luke moved up the stairs first, Judith two seconds behind him. She calmed her breathing and listened for sounds inside. Nothing.
The door to the building had seen better days. Its edges were worn and its face scarred. An aluminum vertical sliding window allowed a view inside. Judith stood behind Luke as he took a quick look through the filthy pane and immediately snapped his head back. A moment later, he looked again, this time lingering. Judith could see his shoulders relax.
He reached for the dented and crooked doorknob and gave it a turn. It moved easily and without noise. Judith hoped the hinges would be as cooperative. The metal protested only slightly as Luke pulled the door open and slipped inside. Judith took charge of the door and quietly closed it.
They stood in a mudroom, a small space where one could shake snow and mud from their feet before entering the main area of the building. It also provided a buffer against the entrance of cold air in the winter. Once again they faced an identical door and window. Luke gazed in for what seemed like half an hour. Judith knew that only seconds had passed.
Again, Luke tried the doorknob and pulled open the door.
Stale air, filled with the dust of decaying wood, assaulted their senses. Luke moved inside taking steps like a barefoot man on broken glass. He held the door for Judith and she entered.
Dust covered everything. Spiders had made homes in the darker corners. They were the only inhabitants. Bunk beds lined both walls making use of every foot of wall space that had no window. It reminded Judith of boot-camp barracks she had seen in old military movies — a fondness held by her late husband and something she endured.
The dust on the floor had been disturbed by many feet — small feet, although Judith could make out adult-size shoe prints. Blankets were on the bed, left from the last campers to pass through the place, the owners not taking the time to remove the bed coverings when they abandoned the camp. The sheets and bedspreads were jumbled and askew. Judith approached one bed and could see a thin layer of dust on the corner of the sheets and the pillows.
On the floor next to the beds were hamburger wrappers and empty french fry bags from McDonald’s. Paper cups with plastic straws littered the floor. Judith picked up one of the wrappers and studied it, then raised it to her nose. “These are recent. There’s no dust on the wrappers and I can still detect the smell of hamburger.”
“I guessed as much.”
“That means the kids slept in these filthy beds.” The thought disgusted her.
“I don’t see any belongings. No clothing, no toys, nothing.” He took a few steps. “There’s a bathroom here.” He went in then came back out. “Typical bunkhouse-style bathroom. There’s a couple of showers but the floor is bone-dry as are the sinks. I didn’t see any toothbrushes or combs. The kids brought nothing with them, which just further proves the abduction point.”
“I was thinking the same thing.” She dropped the food wrapper. “At least we know one place they’re not.”
“Time to move to the next building. The one where we saw the movement. I think you should stay here.”
“And I think you need to give up that line. It’s not working and it isn’t going to work anytime soon.”
“Can’t blame a man for trying.”
“I appreciate your concern, Luke. I really do. It’s sweet in a hundred different ways. Now stop it.”
This time Judith took the lead, walking through the bunk-house and toward the doors on the opposite side of those through which they entered.
The next building, she knew, would not be empty.