Laura needed to stay calm to get out of this situation. Calm. She needed to be calm.
That was impossible. Seth was bleeding into the forest somewhere. Or not. Maybe he had stopped bleeding. Maybe he was dead. Laura bit the side of her tongue until the pain added to her tears. She wasn’t going to think like that. Seth was okay. Seth had to be okay.
Except, she knew he wasn’t. Mahoney had walked over to him, and Laura feared he was going to let the man who called dibs finish it. To kill Seth. Instead, he had laughed and said to leave Seth. To let him die a slow death.
No. Please, please, please. Please, God. Let Seth be okay.
Abby made a little squeak and Laura realized she was holding her too tight. She lessened the pressure of her arms. “Sorry, baby. Mama’s sorry.”
For so much. Much, much more than a tight hug.
They were sitting on what used to be a chair in her home. The boss’s men had used their guns to get Laura and Abby into yet another Jeep. A gun pointed at her daughter made Laura startlingly eager to do whatever was asked of her. Whatever she was told—ordered to do.
Laura couldn’t identify the emotions at seeing her cabin again. The forest all around was destroyed. But this cabin. It was safe. It was whole. Well, for the most part, anyway. The fire had come in. Touched some things. Left. But most of her belongings were salvageable.
Mahoney had laughed at her expression. “Yeah. I saved it. Couldn’t have it going up in flames empty, could I? Good thing my guys were prepared.”
He’d pointed to the chair and Laura had sat. Ten minutes later, she still felt…nothing. Numb. Too numb even for the terror to come through.
But it was there. She had Abby on her lap. Had both arms wrapped tight around her. Was clutching her and vowing to protect her daughter with everything she had.
Right now, Abby felt an awful lot like a shield. Like whatever tried to hurt Laura would have to go through Abby.
Laura hated that. Numb or not, she could feel her skin crawling with the realization that her daughter was protecting her in a very real way. She wanted to move Abby from her lap. From in front of her chest. But where would she put her? Wasn’t she safer in her mother’s arms than anywhere else? That should be the safest place in the world for a little girl.
But if this man chose to shoot her, to shoot her in the same place where he shot Seth, that bullet would have to go through Abby to get to her.
Suddenly, Laura wasn’t numb. She was feeling everything all at once. Hot and cold and terror. The urge to run. To flee. To hide. The need to fall to her knees, both to beg God and to beg this man.
Please, please, please. Don’t hurt my baby. Not my baby.
Laura wanted to offer herself. To see if she could be enough of a sacrifice to appease this man. But, if she was, if he chose only to hurt her and not Abby, then where would her daughter be? How could she survive left alone on this mountain?
They had spent days, literally, trying to get away from Mahoney. Running and hiding. Praying. Planning. Using every bit of physical and mental energy that they had.
It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Laura and Abby were right back where they started. And, Seth. Seth was, well, not here. Maybe not alive.
No. No, no, no.
This was not happening.
Laura stood up, still clutching Abby. All the men in the room turned toward her. All with guns drawn. Laura swallowed, but she just knew she would go insane if she had to sit and wait and wonder. She couldn’t take the possibilities anymore.
“Sit back down, Mrs. Donovan. Right now.” Mahoney did not sound upset, but he still sounded deadly. His hand held the gun like he knew what he was doing with it. That hand wasn’t shaking. It looked awfully sure and ready.
“Why? You’re just going to kill us anyway, aren’t you? Like you did Seth?”
“I am. But I would really prefer it looked like an accident.”
Anger rushed a course of fire across Laura’s face. “Yeah. And I’d really prefer that someone knows we were killed. That someone looks for our killer. That someone comes after you.”
Laura swallowed a sob. She could do this. She had to. It had come down to this, and it was time for her to leave Abby in Jesus’s hands and trust that He would protect her. Laura swallowed again, determined to not talk to this man with a trembling or weak voice. He probably knew that he had gotten to her, but she refused to give him the evidence of that fact.
“Besides, you already shot Seth. The authorities are going to know there was a murderer up on the mountain.”
Mahoney lowered his gun and smiled at the man standing to his left. Laura noticed that none of the other men had lowered their weapons even a fraction.
“Oh, I disagree, Mrs. Donovan. Killing the ranger wasn’t ideal, but you’re the one who brought him into this. And when the authorities look into his death, they will have no reason to ever connect him to me. Especially since you and your daughter will have died in this unfortunate fire.”
Laura felt herself glaring, but this wasn’t an ideal time to physically attack the man. For one, she’d have to put Abby down. For two, well, she didn’t have a two. All she cared about, all she knew, was that she had to figure out a way to save Abby.
That wasn’t true. She still cared about Seth. So much. He was also struggling with his own regrets. He’d had been with her these last few days. She did not want him to die.
And for a woman who had wanted to sit in the dark and hide after her husband died, Laura found that she cared very much about her own future, too. But she could not help Seth. She couldn’t even help herself. Maybe, just maybe, she could help Abby.
Please, God. Please let this work.
“I want my daughter to survive this. She’s young. Too young. She’ll never remember what happened. Or what you looked like. Your name. If you drop her off in town, make sure she is found, she can still live a full life. And she won’t be any kind of threat to you.”
Laura swallowed several times in a row. Her daughter. Her baby. She hopefully wouldn’t remember the terror of this week. But she wouldn’t remember Laura, either. She wouldn’t remember that she was wanted and loved. That her mother did not leave her willingly.
“Ah, Mrs. Donovan, you’re touching my heart. Really, I’m feeling it right here.” He tapped his chest, where his heart would be. Laura didn’t think he had one, though. He couldn’t. “And what would convince me to take your child to safety after I kill you?”
Laura forced herself to ignore the part where he confirmed that he was actually going to kill her. She already knew that, but it still didn’t feel good to hear him say it out loud. “Because you’re not an evil man.” He was. He really was. But she was desperate.
Mahoney crossed his arms over his chest and looked at Laura. His eyes were narrowed and his mouth was a rigidly straight line. “I do not like being manipulated, Mrs. Donovan. I like to be in charge. I am always in charge.”
Laura met his gaze. She wasn’t going to look away from this man. And, if she was going to die, she wanted to know why. “How did you know Josh? What did you do to him?”
Mahoney smiled. “Oh, your Joshua was one of my best employees.”
Laura sat down. She was breathing as slowly as possible, trying to stop the tears.
Mahoney sat across from her. He leaned back in his chair, crossing the ankle of one suit-clad leg over the knee of the other. He looked comfortable, as though they were discussing the weather instead of her husband’s attachment to a criminal. “I’ll be brief, Mrs. Donovan. I’ve had an eventful few days, and I’m actually quite ready to get back to the comforts of my home. I’m a drug dealer. A really, really good one.”
Laura stared at him with her eyes so wide that her skin felt stretched.
“I’m also a man of business. And I like things to be—” he quirked his lips at Laura and she swallowed back even more bile “—neat. I needed help with my money, and so I hired the best.”
No. Laura knew where he was going now. He had hired Josh?
“Ah, you’re catching on. My private detectives told me that you were smart. I can see they were correct. Yes, I hired your husband’s firm. He handled my account. He was excellent at what he did.”
“Josh wasn’t a criminal. He wasn’t.” It seemed ridiculous to argue this point, but Laura couldn’t help herself. This man would never convince her that Josh had been involved with the drug trade.
“No. Sadly for all of you, he was not. He worked for me for several years, and all was well. Then, somehow, he realized something was, shall we say, amiss. I did not know it at the time, but he started gathering evidence of my misdeeds. He was going to turn me in to the authorities.”
Yes. That was the Josh that Laura had known.
“Thankfully, I discovered what he was doing. I’m a careful man. I have certain, ah, safeguards in place. And they protected me.”
Laura was back to glaring. He sounded so proud of his criminal system.
“Once I became aware, I took actions to eliminate the threat. I had an associate kill your husband.”
There was a roaring in her ears. It sounded like a train. And a wail. He’d just told her he killed her husband. He said it like it was nothing. Like he washed his car and picked up pizza for dinner.
“Unfortunately, my associate was a bit hasty. He killed young Joshua before finding the papers.”
“Papers?” Laura didn’t know what he was talking about, but that might have been because her brain was stuck back on the part about how he killed her husband and destroyed her life.
“Keep up, Mrs. Donovan. I dislike having to repeat myself. Your husband collected papers proving my guilt. It would be quite difficult for me if those papers landed in the wrong hands.”
“Like the police.”
“Exactly.”
“The safe-deposit box,” she whispered. That key she had found.
“We had looked everywhere. We even searched your home.”
Laura’s throat was almost too tight to talk. “My home?”
Mahoney looked almost rueful. “Oh, yes. While you were at young Joshua’s funeral. We did not find the papers anywhere.”
Laura was going to throw up. “I’ve been wanting to know. How did you know about the key?”
Mahoney’s face tightened. “We’ve been watching you. Waiting. Thinking that eventually you would take the papers to the authorities. But you never did.”
They had been watching her, even up on the mountain. Seth had been right. Of course he had been. The logical answer was usually the true answer. Was the feeling of safety ever real?
“We’ve been monitoring calls—both your phone and Joshua’s firm,” Mahoney said. “You called them last week, asking about the key.”
She really was the reason Mahoney was here.
“Once I knew you had the key to the box that held those papers,” Mahoney continued, “I had to plan a way to get to you. It turned out that my preparation really paid off.” More anger in his voice. “You and that park ranger made this much more difficult than it needed to be.”
Laura’s own anger bubbled and roiled.
“But I have you where I want you now. And this will all be over in a minute.”
The bubbling and roiling froze and Laura’s blood was ice.
* * *
For a second, Seth thought he was stuck in yet another dream about Afghanistan. The only thing he could feel was the acid inside his body, eating away at what was left of his soul. And he was alone, all alone.
Seth opened his eyes and sucked in a ragged breath. Smoke. Wetness. Rocky ground. He wasn’t in his bed having another nightmare. He was up on Laura’s mountain. And she and Abby weren’t here.
The men. Seth jerked as the full implication hit him. Those men had Laura and Abby. They took them. Why did they take them if they were just going to kill them? Where were they now?
Slowly, Seth turned on his side. He took a couple of deep breaths and tried to assess what his body was telling him. Beyond the pain. Beyond the shock. After a minute, he sat up. He saw Laura’s pack on the ground not too far away. It had either fallen or been thrown there. Seth tried not to picture that scene, what it had looked like when those men had taken them.
Seth crawled to the pack and opened it. Laura had lightened it up before making that run to the rafts. He rummaged around and smiled. The first-aid kit was still in there. That woman was an expert survivalist and she knew how to prioritize. Thank you, Laura Donovan.
Hs hand froze when he saw Abby’s Duckie. That sweet girl was scared somewhere. She needed her Duckie. She needed Seth.
Seth groaned and slowly took off his shirt. The bleeding had slowed and the entry wound was crusty on the outside. How long had he been out? Seth tried to reach his hand around to his back, but that wasn’t happening. He could feel blood running down his back, so the bullet had exited. At least it wasn’t still inside.
Seth shouldn’t be alive. Those men were pros. Why wasn’t he dead?
Seth looked down and felt his breath catch. His dog tags. He’d had them on under his shirt. They’d been a part of him for so long, had seen him through so much. He still wore them every day, even though he had left military service far behind.
They were a mess. Not just covered in blood, but…dented? Seth quickly took them off, examining them with his eyes and fingers. They’d been hit. With a bullet.
It was impossible that they saved his life. But here he was, alive. The bullet should have killed him. They must have slowed it down. Maybe changed its path. He didn’t know. All that mattered is that he was still alive.
Seth bandaged his wounds as best he could and then crawled to where he saw a large stick. Using it as a makeshift cane, he slowly stood up. This was doable. Seth knew what it felt like to be dying, and this wasn’t it.
He wouldn’t say he was in good shape, but he was much better than he should be, all things considered. Leaning on the stick, Seth looked around. He did not see or hear anything except the normal forest sights and sounds.
Mahoney must have taken them back to the cabin. To kill them there. That was the only thing that made any kind of sense.
Seth looked up the mountain. That’s where Laura’s cabin was. That’s where the fire was. That’s where Mahoney had wanted to kill her and Abby to begin with. He swallowed and took a couple steps in that direction. That was probably where Laura was. The helicopter could have left while Seth was unconscious. But if it hadn’t, then Laura and Abby were up there.
Seth took a few more steps and had to stop again. Going uphill was not easy at the best of times, but especially not with a hole going through his body. He’d have to go through the fire again. And when he got there, then what? It would be him against a large number of armed men. Men who were not injured.
Seth wanted to go up. He wanted to charge up that mountain and save Laura and Abby. Save the day. He wanted to know that they were safe because he made them safe. That the bad guys were captured because he captured them.
Seth wanted to climb the mountain and be the hero. Do it all himself.
He sat down on a large rock, dropped the stick and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his thighs and holding his head. It hurt, bent over like this, but it hurt even more when Seth realized what he was thinking.
Do it all by himself. Isn’t that how he got here in the first place? Isn’t that what he counted as one of his greatest regrets? He didn’t want his family to help him recover. He didn’t want to admit weakness. No, he left so he could do it all by himself.
And it had been a mistake. He should have stayed. He should have leaned on those who loved him. He should have let them help.
No. He wasn’t making that mistake again. He needed to go down the mountain. Away from Laura and Abby.
It felt an awful lot like he was running away and leaving them to take care of themselves.
But it was the right move. The hard move, but the right one. It gave Laura and Abby the greatest chance of surviving whatever it was they were enduring right now.
Seth stood and started walking down the mountain. He turned each step into a prayer.
Let me find help.
Let Laura and Abby be okay.
Don’t let them be afraid.
Comfort them.
Help them feel loved.
Don’t let me be too late.
Please, God.
Please.
The prayers were a rhythm, his heart bleeding into his pleas to God. He didn’t feel the pain of his injuries. He didn’t consider how far away help might be. He didn’t look at the setting sun or the dark shadows that surrounded him. He only looked at the ground about three feet in front of him. Made sure he placed each foot securely. Firmly on the ground. Held on to his cane and begged God to find Laura and Abby in this mess and be with them.
His mom would have chastised him for that prayer. She believed that God was always with you. No one needed to ask God to be with a hurting person, because He never left. Ever. Instead, she would have told Seth to pray for the hurting person to be aware of God’s presence. To open themselves up enough to feel it and to take comfort in it.
Seth almost missed a step as a longing for his mom caught him off guard. He should have called her. He’d written that his leaving was his fault. Not hers. His demons to face. Not her mistakes. Not her anything. But he should have called his mother.
Seth coughed and intentionally cleared his head. No. Laura and Abby didn’t need his regrets over his past mistakes. They needed his prayers. And his help. Both came with him taking this next step. Then the one after that. And the next one.
Seth walked for forever. He started to wonder if he was maybe still on the forest floor unconscious. Maybe this was a nightmare where he walked and walked and walked but never reached his destination.
Maybe he should have gone up the mountain. To the fire at least. There might have been emergency personnel there, fighting the blaze. They could have helped.
The fire was closer than the bottom of this never-ending slope.
He should have gone up.
Seth stopped walking and looked back up the mountain. The scent of smoke had faded. He could not see any. Had they finally managed to put the blaze out? Or was he that far away?
Should he continue on? Maybe he should reverse course. Maybe going down was yet another mistake, but he still had time to fix it.
Seth was frozen. He didn’t know which way to walk, but he needed to move somewhere. Do something. Soon.
Seth was all alone in the forest.