Military Heroes Bundle: A Soldier's Homecoming / A Soldier's Redemption / Danger in the Desert / Strangers When We Meet / Grayson's Surrender / Taking Cover

Connie had pulled on her own uniform and gun, ready to get going. But Gage wouldn’t let her, not just yet.

“The doors were locked,” she kept saying.

Gage looked at Ethan. “You’d have heard her.”

“If she’d come downstairs, yes,” he said. “I know myself well enough that even when I sleep, I’m still alert if I need to be. And those stairs creak.”

“So that leaves...” Gage’s scarred face frowned at the dormer of Sophie’s room.

“Exactly,” Ethan said. “It wouldn’t have been hard for her to get down.”

“Or someone to get in,” Connie said.

Ethan shook his head. “A normal-size man would have made too much noise. This room’s right over the living room.”

She turned on him. “Are you saying Sophie left on her own?”

He didn’t answer, but his dark eyes said everything.

“Why would she do that, Ethan? Why?”

“She said she saw him on Friday. Maybe she talked to him. If it’s Leo...”

Connie bit her lip. “You think he could have talked her into meeting him?”

“Remember her questions?”

Connie nodded slowly. It was all starting to make sense, and she hated the sense it was making. She looked from Gage to Ethan. Her voice came out as little more than a terrified whisper. “He won’t hurt her. Will he?”

Nobody could truthfully answer.

“Why the hell couldn’t he just knock on the door like an ordinary person?” she demanded.

Gage pulled no punches. “I know you’re upset, Connie. Hell, I’m upset, too. But if he’d knocked on the door, would you have let him meet Sophie?”

Despair swamped her. “No.”

“That’s probably why, then.”

“But what if he takes her away? What if he kidnapped her?”

That was the ugly possibility. The one they all feared.

“We’re working on it,” Gage assured her. “I’m assuming she didn’t leave until the storm let up, so she’s only got a few hours lead on us. Everyone’s looking, Connie, and I’ve notified the neighboring counties. He won’t get past us.”

Given the wide-open spaces that made up so much of this part of the state, Connie had her doubts. Doubts she didn’t want to think about right now.

“Okay,” Gage said. “We’re all fanning out. Julia, you stay here to wait for Sophie. She might just come skipping home. Micah, see that Julia has a radio, so she can call us directly.”

Micah nodded and went to get a spare from his car.

Gage turned to Ethan and Connie. “You two stay together. I know I can’t keep you from looking, Connie. But don’t do something you’ll live to regret. Something Sophie will live to regret.”

She knew exactly what he meant, because right now, in the midst of her terror, she could have killed Leo without a second thought.

“She won’t,” Ethan said, speaking for her. Taking responsibility for her. “She won’t.”

Gage clasped Connie’s shoulder. “Word’s getting out, Connie. At the church, at Maude’s. Everyone in town is going to be looking very soon.”

She nodded, trying to take heart from that, but she couldn’t. What if someone angered Leo or scared him into doing something awful? But she knew as well as anyone that when this county went on alert, there was no way anyone could keep her neighbors from taking a hand. That was the way they’d always lived. Today they would beat the bushes, and if they found any kind of information about where Sophie had gone, they would gather and form a search party faster than you could say lickety-split.

Cars began to peel away as directions were given, but Connie and Ethan remained. He kept looking at the dormer and the cottonwood that nearly brushed the roof.

Connie spoke. “You think she climbed down that tree.”

“That or one of the others. Weird, but the first time I walked around the house, I saw those trees as a security risk. I had to remind myself I wasn’t in Afghanistan.”

“You’d have cut them down?”

“Back there, yeah.”

She nodded, trying to focus on the problem in the now, not on her fears. Fear could only inhibit clear thinking, and she needed her mind as clear as it had ever been.

Okay, she told herself. It was probably Leo. The only reason she could think of for him to develop this interest in Sophie was to get at her. The terrifying question, of course, was what kind of punishment did he want to inflict on her?

But another possibility existed, a slim one. Maybe during his years in prison he’d learned something. Maybe...

No, she couldn’t allow herself to think he might be a changed man. Without proof, that could only be a vain hope.

Ethan started toward the side of the house, to the tree nearest the dormer. Connie’s heart rose to her throat at the thought of Sophie crawling across the wet roof to grab on to that tree and climb down. Had her daughter lost her mind?

No, of course she hadn’t. Sophie wanted something she felt her mother had denied her. Talk about a knife in the heart.

Near the base of the tree, Ethan paused and pointed. “There? You see?”

She did indeed see. Someone had walked on the wet grass, although with all the rain they’d had, the grass had bent, not broken.

“Small footprints.”

Connie nodded. It was then that Micah joined them. “Julia has a radio,” he said. “Am I seeing what I think?”

Ethan looked at him. “I think she went toward the park.”

“That general direction.” Father and son locked eyes. Micah spoke. “I’ll follow in the car.”

Ethan nodded. “Connie, why don’t you ride with Micah?”

“Ethan...”

“I can track better if I’m not disturbed.”

Feeling almost as if she’d been slapped, she finally gave a short nod and went to join Micah in the car.

“It’s nothing personal,” Micah said to her as he began to ease down the street behind Ethan. “A tracker can’t afford to be disturbed.”

“I get it.” But her voice came out tight from her huge number of warring emotions. The only things she didn’t feel right now were happiness and peace. All the rest of it was there, though. All the ugly, terrifying emotions people associated with their less civilized parts.

Ethan was walking along the sidewalk now, looking from side to side, apparently trying to see if footprints left the pavement at any point.

Finally they reached the park, and Ethan squatted.

“What’s he doing?” Connie asked.

“The rain we had is actually a help for this. When he gets down like that, he can see anywhere there’s been a disturbance in the moisture pattern.”

“But it could be anybody.”

“At this hour on a Sunday morning, it’s not likely to be.”

She couldn’t argue with that. Why should she? Besides, what other method did they honestly have, other than a wide search net?

“If anything happens to her...” Connie didn’t finish the thought. She couldn’t. Her hands clenched into fists so tight that her short nails bit into her palms. “Micah...”

“I know.” His tone was grim. “I know. I killed once to protect Faith from her ex. I’ve got kids of my own. Trust me, Connie, you won’t get to your gun fast enough.”

She believed him. One look at his face, and she believed him.

And there was Ethan, moving now along the edge of the park. His face looked every bit as grim and determined as his father’s. In her heart, she understood that these two men were as dedicated to finding Sophie safe and alive as she was. Gage, too, she thought, remembering his face. He’d lost his whole family to a car bomb many years ago. He knew what she was facing.

The support from those three was enough to light a flame of courage in her heart. They would get Sophie back. Soon.

* * *

Back at the sheriff’s office, a command post was building. Velma ran off copies of Leo’s photo and handed them out to the locals. Pretty soon every road in the county had a patrol on it, even the muddiest back roads, where ranchers and their hired hands patrolled with shotguns, looking behind every bush and tree. In town, residents combed every street, alleyway and backyard. With cell phones and CBs, contact was maintained. Airwaves crackled with calls as people reported nothing on one road and announced their intention to move to another. Others mounted their horses to go places vehicles couldn’t on the muddy ground.

Micah and Connie heard a great deal over the car’s radio. “That bastard is gonna need a hole in the ground,” Micah remarked.

They were now following Ethan down a quiet side street. He strode now, as if he knew exactly where he was going. Micah picked up the radio. “What’s going on, Ethan?”

“She was picked up by a car at the park. I can just about see the tire tracks heading this way.”

Micah looked at Connie. “He’s good. Trust him.”

“He’s all I can trust,” Connie said.

“I meant something else, but I guess now’s not the time. You can trust all your neighbors, Connie. That’s one thing I’ve learned living here. When the chips are down, these folks get together.”

“I know. God, I wonder...” She trailed off.

“Wonder what?”

“Oh, last night we played some poker. Julia thought it would be a good lesson for Sophie in risk-taking and calculating risks versus benefits.”

“And you’re wondering if that had something to do with Sophie’s decision to climb out her window.”

“Yes. What if I helped her to take this risk?”

Micah fell silent for a bit as they followed Ethan. They were getting closer and closer to one of the least-used county roads, one that had no destination other than the mountains. Then he spoke. “You can’t blame yourself. I doubt she made up her mind based on a poker game.”

“She’s seven. Anything could have been enough to influence her.”

“Exactly. That’s the point, Connie. She’s seven. She must have been thinking about doing this since Friday, when she saw him. It was probably planned then. I don’t think a card game had anything to do with it, any more than playing Candyland would have. Regardless of what your mother might have said, Sophie’s very young. I doubt she was extrapolating the lessons of poker to life.”

“Except for what my mother said.”

“Julia was talking over Sophie’s head. Maybe in time she could have learned something valuable from the game, but from playing for an hour or two? Too abstract.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“I’ve been raising my own. At that age, they’re pretty damn literal.”

She nodded, shoving down another wave of guilt and fear that she had somehow pushed Sophie into this craziness.

She should have tried to establish a relationship between Sophie and Leo, she thought now. Maybe if her daughter had seen him in prison often enough, she wouldn’t now have the kind of curiosity and need that made her want to climb out a second-story window.

If it was Leo.

That thought terrified her. A total stranger scared her more than Leo. At least he was a known quantity. His violence, ugly as it was, hadn’t been directed at children in some sick way. So why would he want to kill Sophie? To punish Connie? Somehow that didn’t add up in her mind.

The problem was, nothing was adding up quite right. Fear and terror rode her shoulders, whispered in her ears and interfered with rational thinking.

They reached the county road. Ethan squatted, looking both ways, then came back to the car. He climbed in the backseat.

“Drive slow,” he said. “They headed west. What’s out there?”

“Nothing,” Micah said. “Mountains. He could have come back into town.”

“Drive up to the western edge, then I’ll check for turnoffs.”

Connie felt an absolute wave of certainty come over her. “He didn’t come back into town. He had to know everyone would be looking for him. He took her to the old mining camp.”

For several moments the car was filled with a silence interrupted only by the quiet hum of the engine and the whine of tires on wet pavement.

All of sudden Micah floored it. “You’re right,” he said grimly. “And that place is probably as dangerous as he is. Maybe more so.”

Connie nodded, feeling the blood drain from her face. Unstable ground, old shafts ready to cave in, buildings standing merely from the pressure of memory. Even without Leo, Sophie could get killed up there just by taking one wrong step. And Connie doubted Leo had any idea just how dangerous the place was.

“Hurry,” she said. “Oh, God, hurry!”

Chapter 20

The closer they drew to the mountains, the worse the road grew. Past the last ranch, it was mainly used in the autumn by hunters, and sometimes in summer by people who wanted to hike. After the winter, it desperately needed grading again, but as muddy and rutted as it was, good drainage kept them from bogging down. Better still, they could see the fresh tire tracks made since the night’s rain.

Micah spared no speed, sometimes skidding in the mud, but going as fast as he possibly could.

As they began the climb, trees closed in around them.

“I’ve gotta slow down, Connie. We can’t risk driving past him.”

“I know. I understand.” And she did. But she hated it. She peered intently into the shadows beneath the evergreens, feeling the air grow steadily cooler as they climbed. Ethan gripped her shoulder and squeezed comfortingly.

“I’m looking out the left side,” he said. “You concentrate on the right.”

“Thanks.”

Finally they rounded the last curve before the old mining camp, and Connie gasped as she saw the vehicle, a battered old pickup, muddy and almost colorless, parked near the warning sign that advised would-be explorers of the many dangers.

She wanted to jump out before Micah had fully stopped their SUV, but Ethan held her back, his fingers tightening. “Just wait,” he said. “You don’t want to break a leg.”

“How could he take her in there, with all those signs?”

Nobody had an answer for that. Nor did anybody want to say that Sophie might not even be there.

“We’ll split up and circle,” Ethan said. “Around the outside. Maybe he didn’t take her in there, but if we circle, we’ll hear or see something if he did. And if he didn’t, they can’t be far away.”

“He had to have heard our car coming,” Connie said. Her heart beat a rapid tattoo, and she began to breathe heavily.

“I know,” Ethan said. “So we’ve got to approach carefully.”

“I’m no good at tracking,” Connie said. “You two do the perimeter. I’m going in there.”

The two men hesitated, but finally nodded. “All right,” Micah said.

“I’ll disable his vehicle,” Ethan added. He slipped out of the car and within a minute had removed the distributor cap from beneath the truck’s hood. He shoved it into a pocket.

Then, speaking not a word, he and Micah signed to each other and headed out in opposite directions. Connie stood at the sign, looking into the camp, her mind trying to chart the most dangerous places. Once, this had been a small town, but now collapsing cabins and mine shafts could be found all over the mountainside. Most of the shaft openings had been boarded over, many marked with the radiation-hazard trefoil. Radon gas built up in the shafts, and some shafts had exposed uranium deposits.

And the ass had brought her daughter here.

Anger resurged, more helpful than the fear that had dogged her. Unsnapping her holster guard, she walked into the camp.

The rains had made the place even more treacherous. Running in rivers, pooling in potholes, undoubtedly pouring down shafts. Eroding support everywhere. The old miners had been good builders, but not even they could prevent the ravages of time. Timber rotted. Water carried away supporting ground and rock.

Almost all the tailing mounds had been carted away years ago by the Environment Protection Agency. The stuff the miners didn’t want contained all kinds of toxic elements that the rain swept into rivers. Even today, where tailings remained, nothing grew.

The work done here had created a scar on the landscape that not even more than a century had repaired. Trees had not returned, and even scrub still didn’t grow in most places.

She walked cautiously, pausing often to listen and look around. If there were any cracks in the ground to give her warning, the rain had filled them in, making this place more dangerous than ever. She tried to remember from times past where the firmest ground lay, but it had been so long...

Then she heard it. Sophie’s voice.

She turned immediately to the left, looking. She couldn’t see a damn thing other than tumbled buildings and rusting equipment. She bit back an urge to call her daughter’s name, for fear she might precipitate something.

Then she heard it again. A child’s piping voice, speaking quietly, but sounding normal. Not sounding hurt or frightened.

Thank God!

Trying not to let eagerness overwhelm caution, she moved as lightly and quickly as she could, listening intently and scanning the ground for dangers.

To the left again. Along what had once been a narrow street lined by small dwellings. Rotting, sagging, windows gaping without glass or other coverings except for a faded scrap that might once have been a curtain. Boarded-up doors to discourage explorers. More warning signs, posted in just the past couple of years after a hiker was injured by a collapsing building.

Then, oh, God, then...

Sophie’s voice again, coming from just behind one of the buildings. Quiet. As if she was trying not to be heard. Then another voice, this one even quieter, low, a man’s voice.

Pulling her gun, Connie held it in both hands and slowly worked her way around the weatherbeaten remains of some long-dead person’s dreams.

Her heart stopped, and she rounded the back corner. There was Sophie, clad in jeans, sweatshirt and a pink raincoat, sitting on a camp stool. On the muddy ground in front of her sat a man. Connie could see only his back, covered by a denim jacket. His hair was long, graying. She didn’t recognize him at all.

Slowly raising her gun, she pointed it straight at the man’s back.

“Sophie,” she said, keeping her voice calm, “move away from him.”

“But, Mommy, it’s Daddy.”

The man turned his head, and with a slam, Connie recognized him. Leo, aged by his time in prison, looking seedy and too thin.

“Sophie,” she said, keeping her gun leveled. “Come here. Now.”

“Mommy, don’t shoot him.”

“I won’t shoot him if you come here.”

Scowling, Sophie slid off the camp stool and walked toward her mother. Connie, tensed in expectation that Leo might reach for Sophie to use her as a hostage, was relieved when he let their daughter pass him without even twitching a muscle.

As soon as Sophie reached her side, Connie wrapped one arm around her, gun still pointed at Leo.

“You kidnapped her,” she said.

“No. She came to me.”

“I did, Mommy.”

“The minute you put her in the car with you, you kidnapped her.” She keyed her shoulder mike. “Micah? Ethan? I’ve got her. Leo’s here. I’m behind a building one block from the town center, uphill.”

They rogered her simultaneously over the crackling radios.

“Don’t you read the signs, Leo? You could have gotten her killed!”

“I checked the place out. I’ve been here a while.”

“Why? Why?”

“Can I get up?”

“You just stay where you are.” No way was she going to let him move until she had backup.

He sighed and shook his head. “I was a bastard, Connie. I’ve had plenty of time to face that fact.”

“Yeah, rehabilitated by prison. Next you’ll be thumping the Bible at me.”

To her amazement, his face actually saddened. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I found God. About time.”

She hesitated, holding Sophie even tighter. “I’m supposed to believe that—when you kidnapped my daughter?”

“She’s my daughter, too! I figured that one out, finally.”

“You never cared before.”

“I never did a lot of things before that I should have. Instead, I did a lot of things I shouldn’t have. I had this cell mate in prison. He was in for dealing. He spent the whole damn time whining about how much he missed his kids. At first it pissed me off. But then I began to realize something.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I realized I’d thrown away the only good things in my life. The only things that mattered.”

“Amazing conversion.”

He shook his head. “I don’t expect you to believe me. But I’d never hurt a hair on Sophie’s head.”

“Then why the hell didn’t you just knock on my door, instead of putting her and me through hell for a week?”

“Because I knew you’d never let me see her. I tried to talk to you on the phone, but you hung up before I could say anything more than that you have a beautiful daughter.”

That was true. The truth of it pierced her. But not enough to make her trust this man.

Ethan appeared, his own gun unholstered, and took up position to one side. “Sophie, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” the girl said. “Why is everyone pointing guns at my daddy?”

Connie answered. “Because he did a bad thing when he brought you up here.”

“No, he didn’t. I wanted to talk to him. He’s my daddy!”

Slowly, without permission, Leo rose and put his hands in the air. “So send me back to prison,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. I got to see her. And I’ll be gone in a couple of months, anyway.”

Connie’s hand wavered, and she lowered her pistol. “What kind of crap is that?”

“No crap,” Leo said. “You can check. Remember how you always said I should quit smoking? You were right. I got lung cancer. Nothing they can do.”

That explained why he looked so worn and way too thin. And now, as she stared at him, she could see lines of pain around his eyes and mouth.

Micah had appeared to one side, and now he spoke. “This isn’t a good place to talk. Let’s go back into town, where it’s safe and dry. We can sort it out there.”

Connie slipped her pistol back into its holster and snapped the guard strap into place, then turned to squat and hug Sophie as tightly as she could. “Do you know how scared I was? Do you have any idea?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Next time, talk to me first. Please.”

Sophie nodded, but she was watching Micah and Ethan walk her father away. “You won’t put him in jail, will you?”

Connie hesitated, but as she looked into her daughter’s eyes, she realized there could be a worse crime than the scare she’d had this morning. The seeds of it were already in her daughter’s clear blue eyes.

“Not if he’s been telling the truth. Fair enough?”

That seemed to satisfy Sophie, for now at least. Taking her mother’s hand, she followed her back to the SUV.

Chapter 21

Connie sat on the edge of Sophie’s bed, holding her hand. She’d never felt so tired in her life, but the strain was mostly gone. The threat to her daughter had been eliminated. All the adrenaline that had been keeping her going seeped away like gas from a punctured balloon.

“I know he was bad to you,” Sophie said. “But he was nice to me.”

“And I promised you could see him here, in this house, if his story checks out.”

“I know. People can get better, Mommy.”

Connie had her doubts, but she wasn’t about to share them with Sophie. People could change, she supposed. After all, that was the basis of her religion. The fact that it didn’t often happen didn’t mean it never could.

The thought of Leo dying... Well, despite everything, that disturbed her. Saddened her. She didn’t have a lot of feelings about him one way or another anymore, but she could still be saddened by the news. As she would be for anyone.

She only cared that he treated Sophie well. It would have been kinder if he’d stayed away, so Sophie wouldn’t have to suffer through his death, but that had become moot. In the meantime, she could only hope that Sophie garnered some good memories to make up for not having a father all this time.

“Where’s Ethan?” Sophie asked.

“Downstairs, I think.”

“I want a good-night hug.”