The Coltons: Fisher, Ryder & Quinn: Soldier's Secret Child

Wiping her hands on her apron, she headed toward a side door in the kitchen and he followed.

The door opened into the two-car garage which had a recessed area on one side. Shelves and a large plastic storage bin were tucked into the recess and Macy immediately went to the storage bin and pulled up the top.

“The camping equipment and knapsacks are gone. T.J. must have taken them and if he did that…I bet that’s where he took her. We used to go up in the hills and camp. We even found a cave one time.”

“Was the cave big enough for someone to hide in or stay for any length of time?” he asked.

“Definitely. We slept there one night when it was raining,” she said with a quick bob of her head. “T.J. and his dad used to go there often until…I only went a few times, though. Hiking and camping were not my thing.”

“Do you think you could take us there? Find the trail that T.J. would be most likely to use to get to the cave?”

“I think so. It’s been a while, but I’m good at remembering places. We’ll need some supplies—”

“I’ve got camping gear back at Dad’s house and we can stop by the feed and supply to pick up some MREs.”

“MREs?” she questioned, clearly unfamiliar with the term.

“Ready to eat meals. Dad has everything we need in his camping section,” he explained.

“I’ll get changed and pack some warmer clothes. It can get cold in the hills.”

“And they’re predicting heavy rains. I hope T.J. knows enough to stay to the high ground and away from those arroyos. They can be dangerous if there’s a flash flood.”

Macy paled a little, but kept her cool. “I hope he knows that as well. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

“I’ll finish cooking breakfast. The food will help us to be prepared for a long day.”

As Macy walked back into the kitchen and he went about finishing the meal, he only hoped that by the end of the day, they would have a better idea of where T.J. and Sara might be.

Fisher had called Buck Yates ahead of time and his dad had a few days worth of rations as well as some maps of the area ready for them when they arrived at his feed and supply store on the outskirts of town. Combined with the camping equipment that Fisher had picked up at his dad’s house, they would be well-prepared for a trip into the hill country.

As Buck helped them stow supplies in their knapsacks, Fisher asked, “Is Jericho still due home tomorrow?”

Buck nodded. “As far as I know he is.”

Fisher shot a look at her and said, “Tell him that we think T.J.’s helping Sara and that they’re hiding up in the state park. We’ll check in with the park ranger when we get there, but Jericho should try and reach me on the cell phone as soon as he can.”

When their bags were packed, they tossed them into the back of Fisher’s Jeep, climbed in and started the ride to the state park. It was about thirty miles away in the hill country and easily reached along a small interstate.

The weather station had predicted torrential rains for that afternoon. Macy hoped that they could reach the park and pick up T.J.’s trail before the rains came and obliterated any sign of him and Sara.

The weather forecast was on her mind during the entire ride along with concerns about what would happen if Deputy Rawlings decided to come by the house to question T.J. Would he assume the worst if he found them all gone? If he did, would he issue an all points bulletin for T.J. as if he were a fugitive?

At her prolonged silence during the ride, Fisher glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “Don’t worry. We’ll find them before there’s any more problems,” he reassured her.

“If Deputy Rawlings—”

“Jericho will be home soon enough and I think Rawlings is smart enough to know that Jericho would be less than pleased with the kind of grief he’s already given you. He’s not going to escalate this.”

She shook her head, recalling the dour look on the deputy’s handsome face when she had gone to pick up T.J. “He seemed pretty determined to me.”

“Focus on what we’ll do once we get to the park. Which trail we’ll take and where T.J. might have hidden Sara,” he urged and she did, forcing herself to remember the two or three trips she had taken with Tim and T.J. up into the hills. Trusting that between that and Fisher’s military expertise in tracking, they could find where T.J. and Sara might have gone.

Hoping that whoever it was that had tried to run down T.J. or had been asking questions back at the honky tonk would not already be on the teen’s trail.

Chapter 18

When Fisher pulled into the main lot of the state park, her heart skipped a beat.

Stationed at the farthest corner, beneath some thick oaks, was T.J.’s GTO. She pointed at it and Fisher drove to the car and parked beside it. As she stood beneath the canopy of the oaks, she realized why he had chosen the spot. It would be difficult for anyone searching from above to spot the car.

Fisher kneeled by the driver’s side door, observing some impressions in the gravel by the car. He tracked the impressions to a dirt path besides the gnarly pines surrounding the parking lot. “The footprints lead from the car to here, but there’s only one set that I can see.”

“From last night when he came back to where he’d hidden Sara,” she said.

He nodded, lifted his hand and pointed to the small ranger station about thirty feet away on the opposite side of the lot. “Why don’t you stay here while I talk to the ranger?”

If someone was chasing the teens, they might also have a picture of her and be showing it around. Better she lay low as well, she thought and eased back into the Jeep to wait for Fisher’s return.

Nearly half an hour went by as she sat there, tapping her foot and fidgeting with her cell phone. She was on the verge of calling Fisher when she saw him via the rearview mirror, exiting the ranger station. He had a piece of paper in his hand which he glanced at once or twice as he came closer.

When he reached the car, he eased back in and laid out the paper—a map of the park areas—in the space between the two seats. “The ranger says there’s at least three trails into the hills. One of them starts right here where T.J. parked.”

He pointed to a spot on the map and she leaned over, followed the meandering uphill path of the trail on the paper until it arrived at an overlook.

She remembered such a spot at which she, Tim and T.J. had stopped on at least two of their hikes. Thinking back on it, the scenic hillside site had taken them nearly three hours to reach and she mentioned that to Fisher.

He examined the map and said, “Assuming you were only walking about two miles an hour, this overlook would be about six miles away so it seems as if this might be the trail T.J. would take since he was familiar with it.”

Trailing her finger along the path, she stopped and circled one area on the map. “The rock face around here had a lot of openings. That’s where we found a cave that one time and stayed inside overnight.”

“Could be where T.J. stashed Sara,” he said and then his mouth tightened to a grim line as he jabbed at another spot on the map. “This is a bridge over an arroyo. Let’s hope that it’s more than a foot bridge and that they have the sense to stay away from it if the rains are as bad as they say they’ll be.”

Her stomach turned at the thought of how bad a flash flood could be high up in the hills. The water would come churning down the arroyos, sometimes ripping up small bushes and trees. Cascading with powerful roughness against anything in their path. Anyone caught up in the way of the raging waters faced serious injury or death.

“He’ll know better,” she said, but it was almost as if she was trying to convince herself.

“Are you ready to go? If we’re lucky the rains will hold out until we’ve got a solid grasp on where T.J. was headed.”

“I’m ready,” she said. As she eased on the knapsack and adjusted its weight on her shoulders, she worried about why Sara had run away and why T.J. would have found it necessary to hide the young girl.

But then she remembered the bruises on Sara’s arms when she had arrived at the ranch and T.J.’s comments about the driver who had challenged him a few nights ago. The teens had clearly been afraid of whoever was responsible for both.

Because of that, she hoped she and Fisher would find the teens before anyone else did.

Although heavy rains were expected later that day, it had been at least a week since it had rained and the ground was hard and dusty. Despite that, Fisher was able to track the impressions in the gravel by T.J.’s car to a distinctive set of sneaker treads on the dirt path leading to the trail.

“What size shoe does T.J. wear?” he asked.

“A thirteen,” she responded and stood by him as he kneeled to examine the footprints.

“That’s about the size of this shoe which confirms that T.J. probably went up this trail.”

He rose and adjusted the straps on the knapsack, making sure they were tight so that the pack would not shift as they headed up the trail. From the trunk, he removed a rifle, eased the strap over his head and settled the weapon securely beside the pack on his back. Then he faced Macy, reached for her straps, but paused by the bindings on her knapsack.

“May I?” he asked.

She nodded and he quickly adjusted her pack to keep it from shifting and then gestured to the trail. “I’ll lead the way. If I’m going too fast—”

“Believe me I’ll let you know.”

He smiled, ripped out a baseball cap from his back pocket and plopped it on her head. “Put this on. There’ll be glare on the footpath and once it starts raining, it’ll keep you dry.”

“Thanks.”

He grabbed his cowboy hat from the backseat of the Jeep and also put on a pair of polarized sunglasses which would help cut down on the glare. Taking the point, he focused on the sneaker tread pattern and followed it up the trail.

T.J. had not tried to hide his tracks. The footprints were clearly visible along the path. He had been in a hurry, however, judging from the wide distance between his steps. If he recalled T.J.’s height correctly, the space between the footprints indicated that he had been almost jogging up the trail.

If Macy hadn’t been with him, he would have done the same, eager as he was to find the teens and put to right what was happening so Macy could have some peace of mind. But she was with him and so he kept his pace reasonable, his mind focused on tracking T.J., but also aware of how she was doing as she followed behind him.

About a mile up the path, T.J.’s stride began to shorten and about a quarter of a mile after that, they became the length of a normal walking step. He paused then and perused the path ahead of them as well as the open country all around.

Pines and oaks dotted the rolling hillsides. In between the stands of the trees were patches of grass and larger meadows which in the springtime would be awash with the colors of Texas wildflowers. Even now there were spots of bright color from some of the later blooming plants and stretches of prickly pear cactus. Up ahead of them, the trail wound through stands of trees before a limestone rock face rose up to the left, leading to the overlook Macy had identified on the map.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked as she stood beside him.

“It is,” he said and pointed to a herd of fallow deer feeding on grass in one distant meadow, their almost white coats bright against the dull brown of the parched grasses.

Macy leaned against him and took hold of his hand as she witnessed the sight. “I wish that one day…”

He didn’t need her to finish. He knew what she wished and inside of him, something had been slowly taking root since last night. Something that said maybe what they both wished wasn’t so far apart.

Looking up the trail, he said, “You mentioned a cave?”

She nodded. “There’s quite a few of them up ahead, but I think the biggest one is quite a ways up. Probably past the overlook and closer to the bridge.”

Once again concern rose in him as he cast his gaze upward at the thickening clouds above. Inhaling deeply, he could smell the coming rain and hoped the forecasters were wrong about the force of the storm.

“Let’s get going. The rain will be here soon,” he said and they once again set off, following T.J.’s sneaker prints in the dust of the trail.

They had been on the winding path for another half an hour when the first fat raindrop plopped on the brim of his cowboy hat. He quickly removed two large rain ponchos from one of the pouches on his pack and helped Macy ease hers on over the backpack. Then he slipped on his own as the drops grew more frequent and quite heavy in a matter of seconds.

There was little shelter on the trail as they continued upward, just an occasional stand of oaks here and there, but they couldn’t pause for any delayed shelter under the trees. The impressions of T.J.’s sneakers vanished quickly beneath the onslaught of the rain. The trail in front of them became a difficult morass of mud.

As they struggled ever onward, he kept his eyes trained on the areas around the trail to make sure T.J. had not detoured off the path. There wasn’t any sign that he had deviated from continuing up the trail. If anything, up ahead he found an impression protected by a thick oak beside the trail. Bending down, he examined the footprint more closely just to make sure. It was T.J.’s.

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