Chapter Thirty

Harri was about to turn away from the window when she saw Charlie running toward the hotel. Her face brightened as she turned to Teesh and headed to the door. “Charlie’s here.”

Harri threw the door open with a big smile on her face, but her smile changed quickly as she saw the desperation and fear on Charlie’s face. He did not hesitate this time but bombarded his way in through the open door.

“Harri, come! Help Billie!” Charlie took Harri by the hand and tried to drag her to the door.

“Wait, Charlie! You’re not making sense.” Harri stopped Charlie, who began to jump up and down and shake his hands.

Teesh hurried to his side and hugged him. “It’s okay, Charlie. Calm down and tell us what’s wrong.”

Charlie pulled loose from Teesh and began again. “Harri come! Help Billie and baby! Billie scared!”

Harri looked at Teesh and headed for the flyer that was still in the parlor. She opened it and showed it to Charlie. “Is this Billie, Charlie?” Harri pointed to the girl on the back of the motorcycle.

“Billie got no hair! Billie in dark! Billie scared!”

“But is this Billie, Charlie?”

“Billie!” Charlie pointed to the girl on the bike. “Billie got no hair! Billie scared!”

Harri grabbed her jacket and headed out the door behind Charlie. “Wait, Charlie! We need a flashlight if Billie’s in the dark.” Harri grabbed a big flashlight out of a kitchen drawer and ran after Charlie. “Where are we going?” Harri yelled to Charlie once she stepped off the porch.

“Peg’s mine!” Charlie headed down the road, but turned back and ran up to Harri when she moved too slowly. “Charlie not scared. Help Billie and baby. Harri come! Help Billie!” Again, Charlie grabbed Harri’s hand and pulled her toward the entrance to the mine.

“Teesh, hit redial on the satellite phone. It will call Hank back. Then call the sheriff,” Harri yelled to Teesh, who stood on the porch wringing her hands and watching as Harri ran after Charlie.

****

The Keeper was careful to drive the speed limit only because of the bloodied tools he was carrying in the back of the now dark green SUV. The email he had received was very alarming, and he knew it was time to move the rescue operation to a new location.

I was careless. I should never have buried the body so close to the mission, but I was afraid of getting caught. My faith was not strong enough in that weak moment.

Not much farther and I’ll be able to get off the main highway.

He picked up the satellite phone and dialed. “Is everything all right at the mission?…There’s trouble. Be on high alert.…No, I can’t tell you any more right now. I will be there in another hour or so.”

****

Zach regained his composure but dreaded going into the cabin. It was confession time, and with the new development, he felt helpless. He was a failure, and he had broken a promise to a person who had been important to him.

Piper turned and looked at Zach when he opened the door. She gave him a smile of reassurance, something he needed from her. He had fallen in love with this green-eyed girl and thought she felt the same about him, but he knew he was about to put their relationship in jeopardy.

Piper patted the bench beside her, and Zach came over and sat. As he rubbed his hands on his thighs, everyone tried to ignore him to make him feel more at ease. Piper slipped her arm through his, sensing he needed support.

“I know I owe you all an explanation, but this is very complicated.” Zack turned to face Piper. “It’s really hard to tell you, Piper. I’m afraid you’ll never trust me again.” He turned to face Cayce and Hank. “I guess it’s no secret to any of you I’ve fallen in love with Piper.” He looked back at Piper. “I’ve not been honest with you, Piper. I told you I was unattached, and I was telling the truth, to a degree.”

Piper removed her arm from Zach’s and gave him a look of disbelief.

“Where is this going, Zach? I’m not liking what I’m hearing.” Piper stood and moved to the wall beside the fireplace. “I was feeling so bad for you. I thought perhaps Billie was your little sister and you recognized her from the sketch I did of the dream.”

“Let me explain, Piper, but you’re not going to like what I tell you.” Zach stood. “You sit down. I think this will be easier if I stand.”

Piper took Zach’s seat on the low bench, pulled her knees up to her chest, and rested her chin in her hands. She did not look at him as he spoke.

“Several months ago, I was in a relationship with a girl. She was a graduate student at BYU.” Zach dropped his gaze, focusing on the floor. “Yes, what you’re thinking is correct. She was one of my students. I knew it was wrong, but she was beautiful and swept me off my feet, so to speak, and we were both impulsive. From the start, she was a lot more serious about me than I was about her, but we moved in together. I finally realized I didn’t care enough about her to stay in the relationship and risk losing my job, so I told her I was moving out. She was pretty upset, but we split under amiable terms.”

Zach leaned against the wall. “A month went by, and I didn’t see her or talk to her. Then one day, I got a call. She told me she was pregnant with my child. I was shocked. She had told me she was taking birth control when we lived together. At first, I didn’t believe her, so she emailed me a copy of her doctor’s report. She was eleven weeks, so I knew the baby was mine.”

Cayce moved to sit by Piper. She picked up her daughter’s hand and held it tightly. Piper did not let go and finally looked up at Zach.

“I went to see her and told her I would take care of her and the baby, and that we could get married. I promised to be a good father and husband, if that was what she wanted.” Zach’s voice cracked. He cleared his throat and changed his stance while looking at Piper, afraid of her reaction. She met his gaze only briefly, and he felt he had lost her forever.

“She hugged me and told me that was all she wanted to hear and she would be in touch with me later. I never heard from her again. I went to see her parents, and they told me she had left Utah and was going to have an abortion. I’m Mormon, though not as active as I should be, and I don’t believe in abortion unless there’s a threat to the mother’s health, or the mother was raped, pretty much the stance the church takes. I tried to find her to stop her. I looked everywhere, but it was like she had disappeared off the face of the earth.”

“You’re obviously not talking about Billie, since your girl was a graduate student.” Piper made eye contact with Zach and this time did not turn her gaze away from him.

“No. Her name was Denise Mansfield, the first girl to go missing in this area.” Zach redirected his focus to Cayce. “I promise I’m not the kind of man to shirk my responsibilities, Cayce. I took a sabbatical to search for Denise. I’ve been in touch with my friend in the FBI, and he told me they had indications she might have been kidnapped outside an abortion clinic in Boise, information not released to the news media. A homeless guy in a building across the street from the clinic saw a man watching the clinic through binoculars. The man didn’t see the homeless guy. When the man left, he got in a black SUV and followed Denise’s car. The clinic was the last place she was seen before she disappeared. Her car has never been found, but the black rig has been spotted in this area.”

“So the whole story about researching Bar None was a lie.”

“Not totally, Piper. I am researching ghost towns for my book. But I did pick Bar None because it was a remote location in the area where the vehicle was last seen about a month and a half ago, about the time Billie and Johnny disappeared. The FBI believes the missing girls are all somehow connected to this black SUV.”

“So how did you recognize Denise in my sketch? Other than Billie and the girl beside her, who looked to have been dead for days, all that was in the pit was another decomposed body.”

“I don’t want to look at that sketch again, but I need to show you. Can you get it, Piper?”

Piper went to her pack and took out the sketchpad and turned to the gruesome sketch. “Are you sure you want to do this, Zach? You don’t have to. I believe your story.”

“I need to look at it again…just to be sure.”

Piper handed the sketch to Zach and stood beside him as he looked at it.

“Even with the decomposition, the facial features look like Denise, and she had auburn hair, although it was never that short. But the real identifying factor is her hand. Look at her hand, propped against the wall.” Zach pointed to the girl’s hand. It was becoming skeletal, but some skin was still intact. “Denise was born with her index finger on her left hand half the length it should have been. If you look at your sketch, you’ll see it in the drawing.”

“I remember sketching that and thought I’d made a mistake. I closed my eyes several times while sketching, and some details almost sketched themselves. Her hand bones are a good example of the power in detail given to me by my Gift.”

Zach continued to stare at the sketch. “Oh, my gosh! Look here, at this scar on this girl’s head. No, it’s not a scar. It’s like a brand. Where did we see this? Hank, look.”

Hank left his seat to see what Zach had found. As soon as he looked at the brand, he reached in his pocket and pulled out the small piece of paper with the diagram he had gotten from the sheriff’s office. “Yep, it’s the same. I bet if we could see the back of the other two girls’ heads, we would find the same brand. That monster!” Hank handed the diagram to Cayce, who also compared it to the sketch.

“It’s the same. You didn’t recognize this when you were sketching this morning, Piper?” Cayce showed the diagram to Piper.

“I’ve never seen this before. When did you show this to everybody, Hank?”

“Last night when we were all in the hotel lobby.”

“Wait a minute. That was when you went in the kitchen for that second piece of pie, Piper. You didn’t see this, and we forgot to show it to you.” Zach handed the piece of paper back to Hank. “It doesn’t matter. We still don’t know what it means, but with what we know, the abortion clinic abduction of Denise and possibly the other girls, and the cross in the middle of this peculiar diamond shape, I’d say we’ve got some extremist religious and/or anti-abortion group we’re dealing with. In fact, my FBI buddy mentioned it as a possibility, but he never mentioned any group names.”

“Like that book I had to read in high school, The Scarlet Letter. These poor girls were branded for their sin.” Piper shook her head. “Let’s hope the abductor at least had the decency to sedate them before he branded them.”

Just as everyone was trying to come to terms with Zach’s disclosure, Hank’s satellite phone rang. Hank walked outside with the phone, but Zach could hear his voice getting louder and sounding panic-stricken. He burst back through the door and yelled for everyone to saddle up.

Everyone hurried outside and threw their blankets and saddles onto the horses while Hank filled them in on what Teesh had told him on the phone.

“Charlie is leading Harri to Billie somewhere in the mine tunnels. That mine has tunnels running all through the mountain, but there is an entrance not far from here. I just hope we can still get through it. The mine has had a lot of cave-ins in that section, so we have to be careful. There are plenty of flashlights in the saddlebags on the packhorse. Zach, let’s get the guns and ammunition, and Cayce and Piper, you find the flashlights. We’ve got to hurry. Charlie and Harri are in more danger than they know.”

Zach held out his hand. “Give me the satellite phone, Hank. I need to call Frank, my FBI friend, and get them involved. I’ll catch up with you.”

****

Billie felt under her mattress for the hole. Being as discreet as possible, she removed the pocketknife and then the flashlight, putting each one under the edge of the mattress. Next, she took out the ketchup containers already opened. She was lying on her stomach but flipped to her side, her back to the camera. She smeared the ketchup on the front of her paper dress and put some between her legs just in case the woman looked before Billie could grab her. Billie felt strong, her adrenaline at the highest level it had ever been.

Be not afraid; God is with you. Be not afraid; God is with you.

Billie began flailing around on the mattress and groaning as if in severe pain.

“Oh…oh! Something’s wrong! Help me!” She grabbed her stomach and bowed up, intentionally letting her gown ride up so the fake blood would show. Then she looked down at her dress and screamed.

“I’m bleeding! Oh, God, I’m bleeding! Please help me!”

The synthesized voice came over the speaker. The woman’s voice had panic in it. “What’s wrong, Billie? Where do you hurt?”

Billie rolled into a fetal position facing the camera. “Everywhere! I’m bleeding! My baby! Help me! Please!”

“I’ll be right there, Billie. You will be all right!”

A few seconds later, Billie heard keys rattling at the door she had never seen opened since being held captive. Billie screamed again, writhing in pretend pain and whimpering as she held her stomach with her knees up. Just under her mattress was the knife with the blade open and ready for her to use if she needed it.

A small lady who looked to be in her forties entered the room and practically ran to Billie on the mattress. She knelt beside the girl, who continued to cry and yell.

The woman peeked under Billie’s dress and saw the red on her upper thighs and on her dress. “You’re bleeding, Billie! You need to come with me. It looks like you’re miscarrying.” She stood and held her hand out to Billie. “You have to stand and lean on me. I need to get you to the delivery room before you hemorrhage.”

Billie reached for the woman’s hand, but pulled her down onto the mattress. Quickly, before the woman could realize she had been fooled, Billie had flung her over on her stomach and was sitting astride her, holding her hands behind her back. When the woman began to struggle, Billie pulled the knife from under the mattress and held it to her throat.

“Be still and very quiet, or I will cut your throat.”

The woman was no match for Billie’s strength and did as she was told.

The knife was very sharp, and with quick slices, using only one hand, holding the woman tight against the mattress with the other hand, Billie cut strips of mattress ticking. She tied the woman’s hands behind her back, but not before removing the woman’s jacket. Billie cut the tail off the woman’s skirt and made a tight gag for her mouth. Then she pulled her to her feet and dragged her over to the shower area beneath the camera.

Billie used the other ticking strips to bind the woman’s feet together, but not before removing her tennis shoes. These, she slipped on. They were snug, but she knew she could run faster with shoes than barefooted. She then pulled the woman behind the toilet, as close to the back corner as possible, and tied her to the pedestal with long strips of mattress ticking as well as strips of material from her skirt.

Billie grabbed the flashlight from under the mattress and put the woman’s jacket on over her paper dress as she headed for the cell door. The woman had left the key in the lock. Billie pushed the door shut and locked it with the key. She stuffed the key chain, which held two keys, into her jacket pocket and ran through the tunnel lit down each side with track lights.

She had no idea where she was going but burst through the big door at the end of the tunnel, only to find she was again in darkness. When she tried to go back through the door, she discovered it had locked behind her. Quickly, she pulled out the keys and tried each one, but neither of them worked.

“Damn! She must have more keys on her that I didn’t see!” Billie cursed in a whisper, and then felt guilty knowing God was hearing her. She looked up in the endless dark and said, “Sorry!” Then she began running again.

A tiny bit of light shone in the tunnel, coming from a few spotty, battery-operated lights, the kind that her dad put along their sidewalk that would automatically come on in the dark. She would save the flashlight batteries for the pitch dark she knew she would be in eventually, remembering she could see nothing through the hole Charlie had peeked through.

She stopped for a moment to get her bearings.

My cell would be that way.

She pointed to her left.

That means Charlie was behind the wall just there.

Billie took off running again in the direction she thought Charlie had been, but came to a solid rock wall. She was forced to turn the flashlight on to find another way out. The light was bright, and Billie was thankful to the peeper for his gift. She folded the pocketknife and put it in her right-hand pocket. Luckily, the pocket had a zipper so she could secure it, with no risk of it falling out. Casting the light all around, she saw a small opening a few yards ahead.

There!

Billie ran toward the opening.

Now she was in total darkness. She cast the light up ahead and ran at full speed.

Thank you, Lord, for making me cheer and run track even though I would rather have been sneaking out with Johnny.

Soon Billie came to a juncture and had to stop. Once again, she tried to get her bearings in order to make a decision as to which opening to take. She took the one on the left, but soon came to a dead end. Backtracking, she took the one to the right and found a track of some kind, like a small railroad track.

This is some kind of old mineshaft, probably a gold mine. These tracks were used to haul out ore. If I follow the tracks, eventually I’ll reach outside.

Once again, she ran, keeping the light pointed just ahead of her on the track. She was glad for the woman’s tennis shoes. The tracks and the loose rocks fallen from the walls and ceiling would have hurt or cut her feet and slowed her down.

Be not afraid; God is with you. Be not afraid; God is with you.

She was panting now but refused to slow down. She had to get out of the tunnel she knew was part of a mineshaft. The flashlight flickered, and Billie gasped as she ran.

Please don’t go out on me, batteries! Please!

Billie flashed the light ahead as far as she could see and then turned it off to save the batteries. Just ahead lay a downed timber covered in rocks, and she had to remove some of the rocks to get through.

Billie worked fast and soon made a hole big enough to slip through. The track was no longer in front of her, and she knew the cave-in must have hidden the main tunnel. She was in a side tunnel and slowed some, unsure of her footing. She didn’t know how long she had been running, but it seemed an eternity.

And God said, “Let there be light;” and God saw the light that it was good.

Billie repeated the verse from Genesis in her mind, over and over as she ran, but no light appeared. Once again, she took the flashlight out and shined it ahead. Again she ran without the light on, but this time, she was not so lucky. She had not seen the big rock lying to the side, and she tripped over it, taking a nasty spill on her knees and hands.

She knew her knees were cut and bleeding, but she couldn’t take the time to whimper.

I’m not a baby; I’m having a baby. Help me, Jesus!

Running blind through the tunnel now more like a cave, she decided not to turn the light on but to trust her instincts and her faith. She dragged her right hand down the tunnel wall and felt outcroppings of rocks like the walls in her cell. She stopped when she felt the wall curve. Then, and only then, did she turn on her Maglite.

Rock outcroppings went as high as she could see on the tunnel walls, and she felt it must be some type of underground opening. It was not closed in like the tunnel but was like Blanchard Caverns in Arkansas, where her mom had taken her when she was a child.

She began to tire and slowed her pace. Her breaths had become rapid, and she felt nauseous breathing in the musty, stale air. She wished she had grabbed the remainder of her ration of water, but there had been no time to think. She only hoped the Keeper would not return to find she had escaped. He probably knew the tunnels, but she was only running on faith and the promise God was with her.

When I get out of here, I’ll never miss church, and neither will my child.

She started to turn her flashlight on when she heard something. She stood still and listened. Water dripped somewhere above her, but there was something else.

Voices!

Someone was in the tunnel.

Billie stuck the flashlight in her pocket with the knife and re-zipped it. Then she took off the tennis shoes, tied the strings together, and tied them around her neck where the shoes could dangle behind her and out of her way.

Now let’s see if all that rock-climbing training will pay off.

Billie felt for rock ledges and put her hands and feet in place. It was a slow climb, and she could hear the voices getting closer. She put them out of her mind and continued up, knowing she had to be careful and surefooted. Without light, she had to feel her way as high as she dared go, hand over hand, foot over foot, until she sensed her nearness to the top of the cave wall. The voices grew loud, two men talking, and then a light appeared. Fortunately, she had a good hand and foot hold and felt she could hide suspended like a bat until the men passed. She could only hope they were friendly.

“I ain’t never been this far in the tunnel before. I don’t like it…kind of claustreephobic, or whatever that word is.”

“Claustrophobic, you moron! Just keep going. We still have a ways to go to get to the cells and the chapel. The Keeper said he would meet us and the rest of the Fold there.”

“I still don’t see how come we couldn’t just go the usual route. Don’t nobody know nothing about the Fold. The Keeper’s too smart for that.”

“Obviously not, or we wouldn’t be trudging through here like moles. Just keep quiet and walk. I don’t like trying to make conversation with a person who talks like he was raised by a pack of wolves…no, make that marmots. Wolves are too smart for you.”

“I’ve heard you talk, and you don’t sound no better, Mr. Big Shot, so keep your smart-ellic remarks to yourself.”

“The colloquialism is smart alec, in reference to Alec Hoag, a notorious criminal from the 1800s. My speech is pretense…for the sake of the lambs and the Fold, and you know it. I am a medical doctor, in case you’ve forgotten, not a mountain bumpkin. Yours is pure ignorance. Now keep quiet and keep moving. The sooner we’re out of here, the better.”

“How come the Keeper killed that motorcycle boy? I thought the Fold don’t believe in killing. Seems to me killing a boy is same as killing an unborn child.”

“Thinking is not your strong suit, Lester, so be quiet and walk.”

Tears stung her eyes as she clung to the rocks and heard the men’s conversation. Now she knew.

The Keeper killed Johnny because Johnny wanted me to have an abortion. The Keeper must have been there and saw us come out of the clinic. It’s the only way he could have known.

Billie thought back to that day and remembered a long, black SUV had pulled out behind them when they left the clinic. She had not noticed it following them, but she had seen it again at the service station where they stopped for gas. She’d thought nothing of it at the time.

Slowly, she climbed back down the wall, hoping she would not have to climb again. Her legs and arms were trembling from holding on so tightly. After removing the tennis shoes from her neck, she quickly put them on, tying them tight. Again she ran, this time in the direction from which the men had come.

****

Harri had a hard time keeping up with Charlie and was amazed at how fast he could move through the darkness of the mine. He was too far ahead, and she couldn’t see him in her flashlight beam. They had been running for a long time and getting nowhere, and she wondered whether her little friend was sure of the trail.

This must be the secret place where he goes.

Suddenly, Charlie came running back toward her. He grabbed the flashlight and turned it off and took Harri by the hand, pulling her back in the direction they had come. After only a few feet, Charlie yanked her into a side tunnel and stopped, shoving her close to the wall and pulling her down into a crouching position. He put his hand over her mouth, and Harri knew she needed to be quiet and still. Then she heard voices. Two men were coming up the main tunnel. She saw light and heard mumbling but could not make out what they were saying. As they got closer, she could feel Charlie trembling. The man in the back stumbled and cursed.

“Walk behind me, Lester, before you make us both fall.”

Now Harri knew why Charlie was afraid. Teesh had said Charlie did not like Lester even though he was Charlie’s financial guardian. Harri thought she recognized the other voice as Steve’s, but it sounded different, more polished.

We’ve trusted the wrong people. So who else will end up as part of this nightmare? Teesh? Hank? Zach?

Harri put it all out of her mind when Charlie tugged at her hand. They were off to the races again. A short time later, Charlie led her into another short side tunnel. Again, he placed his hand over her mouth. She waited beside him and heard him making a soft scratching noise. A small circle of light shot through a hole in the tunnel wall. Charlie had his eye to the hole, and then moved back and pushed Harri toward the hole. Harri could see movement in the lighted room and heard a man’s booming voice. She moved her ear to the hole so she could hear what they were saying.

“Billie escaped. I don’t know how she came up with a knife, but she did. I sent Janie to the infirmary to settle down. She’s an emotional wreck and a liability.”

“Don’t you go gettin’ no ideas about doing harm to Janie like you done to that boy! She’s a good member of the Fold and helped you and the doc here save a lot of lambs. She was a lamb herself, you know, and she’s my granddaughter. And don’t you forget it!” Lester sounded angry.

“No one is going to harm Janie, Lester, so be quiet! We need to find the girl before she gets out. Are you sure you didn’t see her in the tunnel? I don’t know how you could have missed her.”

“No. She was not in the tunnel.” Steve was speaking, but not like the Steve they all knew. Harri put her eye to the hole again to make sure it was Steve.

“Perhaps she was hiding in one of the offshoot dead ends. We didn’t know we needed to be looking for an escapee.”

“Let’s get going. I’m going to get the electric eye lights to the pit ready. If she gets close to the entrance, she’ll fall right in like the others. It’s our last chance to stop her.”

“Others? Wait a minute, Keeper. I don’t know nothin’ ’bout no pit. I ain’t helpin’ harm no girl!” Lester was yelling and backing up with his hands raised.

Harri could now see one of the men, a very big man, but he had a mask on.

He must be my age or older, and he thinks he’s the Lone Ranger.

Lester looked from the Keeper to the other man. Harri had to restrain a gasp when she saw a fist come up and strike the old man hard, knocking him down. A man with white hair and beard bent over Lester and hit him again, knocking him out this time.

Steve!

Harri knew they had to act fast. She reached for Charlie and pulled him out of the offshoot, as the man who called himself the Keeper had referred to it. When they were far enough away not to be heard, Harri stopped Charlie and whispered in his ear.

“Where’s the pit, Charlie?”

“Charlie not like pit!” Charlie was speaking too loudly, and Harri covered his mouth, holding her hand tight.

“Charlie not like pit!” Charlie repeated in a whisper.

“We have to go to the pit, Charlie, to save Billie and the baby.” Harri whispered, taking Charlie’s arm. “Take me there, Charlie. Please! We have to hurry to save Billie.”

“Billie scared! Charlie run like wind.” Charlie began running again, holding Harri’s hand.

Harri ran with her eyes closed, as if she could make it any darker or less scary, and prayed she wouldn’t trip. She could not risk turning on the light; the Keeper and Steve would be coming behind them soon. Charlie took her so fast she felt like a kite on a string, and Charlie was controlling the string.