These were the people who had his sister.
He could see the house now, glowing pearl-gray stucco in the fading light. The car, a dark green Chrysler, stood in the driveway.
Aiden retreated to the cover of a small thicket of pines across the road. He needed a strategy; he couldn’t just knock on the door and ask for Meg Falconer. But calling the police wasn’t an option, either. He was a wanted man in this county.
That left what? He had to break into the Harper home and see for himself if Meg was a prisoner there.
What was he — crazy? A week ago, these people had tried to kidnap him right along with her. Walking into their house would be like serving himself up on a silver platter!
It’s a risk you’ll have to take.
His mind made up, he hunkered down for a long wait. When the lights in the split-level went out, and the family was asleep, only then would he make his move.
Hang in there, Meg. I’m coming.
* * *
The scream that came from Spidey was barely human.
“Where is she?”
Mickey and Tiger rushed to join him in the small bedroom where Meg had been tied up. The three kidnappers found a pile of ropes, an open window, and an empty chair.
“I tied those ropes myself!” Spidey bellowed. “Look!” He held up a frayed end. “This one’s been cut! How could she cut through a rope?”
“What are you staring at me for?” Mickey whined. “We were all here!”
“You were getting too friendly with that girl!” Spidey raged. “Feeding her cupcakes with candles! Were there any ‘presents’ at that party? Something she could have used to saw herself free?”
“No!”
“Then how did she do it?” He turned on Tiger. “You’re the one who searched her. What could you have missed?”
Tiger spoke with the cold, passionless efficiency that had made her so frightening to Meg. “It doesn’t matter how she got out. She’s out. And every second you waste with pointless accusations, she makes it that much farther away.”
Spidey bit his tongue. “Bring flashlights,” he growled. “It’ll be dark soon.”
Mickey shrugged into his coat and followed the others into the chilly dusk. As he hurried to catch up with his accomplices, he whispered a sentence he could never let them hear:
“Good luck, Meg.”
Huddled in the trees across from the Harper home, Aiden felt the cold for the first time. He had been coatless all day, but the wild bursts of physical exertion had kept the chill at bay. The sun had helped, too. But now it was dark. He hoped it wouldn’t be too long before the family went to bed.
A terrible thought came to him: What if they didn’t go to bed at all, but stood guard on Meg in shifts?
He thought back to the neighbor’s warning. If the youngest Harper was “tightly wound,” it probably had less to do with Iraq and more to do with the fact that there was a kidnapped girl in the house.
In the end, it didn’t really matter. No circumstance, no danger, would keep Aiden from going in there.
He was so concerned with watching for signs of sleep that he was totally unprepared for what happened next. All three Harpers emerged from the front door, piled into the Chrysler, and drove away.
Aiden scrambled to adjust his thinking to this new development.
They left Meg alone. That means she’s locked up, or tied up, or even unconscious …
In Dad’s books, Mac Mulvey described houses with secret holding cells hidden behind concrete walls with doors no one could see. He could be in there, just a few feet away from her, and never know it.
I’ve got to act fast!
He ran across the street. Hugging the stucco wall, he slipped into the shadows of the backyard. He selected an ornamental rock out of the garden and approached the kitchen sliders. No, somewhere less obvious. His eyes traveled to the basement windows. They were small, but he was reasonably sure he could fit his long lean body through.
With a sharp blow, he broke the glass, and then tapped the loose shards from the opening. Feet first, he eased himself through the window and dropped to the basement floor.
He switched on the light and looked around. It could have been the basement of any family in America — veneer paneling, framed photos, bowling trophies, a Ping-Pong table. He scowled at the smiling pictures. A family of kidnappers! Holiday snapshots and school portraits concealing a terrible crime.
“Meg!” he hissed, throwing open doors and tapping against walls. “Meg, where are you?” Laundry room, bathroom, cedar closet — all empty.
Something wrapped around his feet, and he almost shrieked in terror. He did a mad dance, sending a fat gray tabby fleeing for the stairs.
A cat. The pounding of Aiden’s heart was a jackhammer in his ears. Not a threat, except possibly to scare him to death.
He crept upstairs and checked the living room, dining room, kitchen, and a half bath. On the upper floor were three bedrooms and another bath. There was no sign of Meg. He searched every closet, opened every wardrobe, even riffled through the laundry hamper and peered into the whirlpool tub and stall shower.
In the hallway, he yanked on the cord that released a pull-down staircase leading to the attic. He climbed up, tense with anticipation. She would be here. She had to be.
He gestured blindly in the darkness until his hand found the string that turned on the light. The attic was jam-packed with luggage, cartons, and a huge array of sports equipment.
He inspected it all, poking his nose into anything large enough to conceal a prisoner. His sister was not there.
Now he had to face the terrible fact that he was wrong. Wrong about this family, their house, and their car. Meg wasn’t being held here. She was miles away — maybe a lot of miles. The sighting at the general store might have been real. But everything else had been Aiden Falconer jumping to conclusions because of wishful thinking.
Along with the wave of crushing disappointment came a growing sense of horror at what he was doing this very moment. He was invading the home of an innocent family whose only crime was having three members and a green sedan.
I have to get out of here!
He crawled over a pile of fishing gear sitting in a flattened inflatable raft and began to climb down out of the attic.
It was a few seconds before he realized that there was a stocky middle-aged man standing in the hall below, gaping up at him.
“What are you doing in my house?”
Aiden reacted instantly, almost without thought. He reached up into the attic, grabbed the raft, and pulled it down onto Mr. Harper. Fishing tackle rained in all directions. As the rubber boat fell, Aiden yanked on the inflator cord. With a loud hiss, the dinghy began to fill with air, expanding into the tight hallway, pinning the man against the wall.
Aiden jumped off the attic ladder and fairly leaped down the stairs to the main floor. He was about to sprint for the front door when it opened and an unseen voice called, “Dad, is everything okay?”
He did an immediate about-face, making for the kitchen sliders.
“Johnny!” came a muffled voice from upstairs. “Call the police! There’s someone in the house!”
Aiden flipped the lock and yanked on the handle. The glass door wouldn’t budge. A wooden stick had been inserted in the track for extra security. He reached down to pull it out.
Running feet in the front hall. Mr. Harper’s son!
The neighbor’s words came back to haunt Aiden: He saw action in Iraq. You don’t want him to think you’re a burglar.
Hide!
Aiden scrambled inside the kitchen broom closet and pulled it shut in front of him. There he cowered, not daring to move, barely daring to breathe.
After everything else that had gone wrong, now he was being hunted by a trained soldier.
Harris was still in the sheriff’s office when the call came in.
“Sheriff, it’s Enid Harper on her cell phone,” Janine told her boss. “She says there’s an intr
uder in their house.”
The sheriff shrugged into his coat. “I’m on my way.”
“I’ll go with you,” put in Harris. He had a sneaking suspicion that anything unusual in this sleepy mountain town might involve Aiden Falconer.
* * *
Flashlight beams cut the darkness, playing off the black trees and underbrush.
“Margaret!” called Tiger. “Come back! You’ll never survive out here all alone!” Her voice echoed in the emptiness, and there was no reply. “Nobody’s going to hurt you!” she added.
“I’ll hurt her,” Spidey muttered darkly. “I’ll wring her little neck!”
“That’s not the kind of talk that’s going to encourage her to turn herself in,” Tiger reminded him in an annoyed tone.
“What are you mad at me for?” the big man shot back. “Why don’t you ask our little friend here why he isn’t exactly screaming the mountain down? Because he wants her to get away, that’s why.”
“That’s not true!” Mickey defended himself. He wasn’t sure how nervous he should be. Did Spidey truly suspect that he had helped Meg escape? Or was he just ranting and blaming, as usual? “It’s just that — well — she has no flashlight. Even if she wants to come to us, maybe she can’t find her way.”
“Good point,” Tiger approved. “One of us should be at the cabin, in case she blunders back there. Go.”
Mickey trudged off, the light of his flashlight dancing ahead of him.
Spidey smacked a gloved fist against a tree trunk. “I feel like we’re flying by the seat of our pants. We’re being too casual about something this important!”
“What do you propose we do?” she retorted. “Burn down the forest so she’s easier to find?”
“She could put us all away for a very long time!”
“Don’t worry,” Tiger said grimly. “Even if we don’t find her, she’s lost in the mountains in winter. She’ll never make it out of here alive.”
* * *
The broom closet was closing in on Aiden. He crouched there in total darkness, afraid to move his cramped limbs in case he touched off an avalanche of mops and brooms that would send him spilling into the kitchen.
Outside his hiding place, he could hear the two Harper men tearing the house apart, searching for him.
They’ll look in the kitchen sooner or later …
He heard shoes on the basement steps and knew he’d never have a better opportunity to make a break for it. While they were scouring downstairs, he could remove the stick from the sliders and flee.
He eased the closet open and moved out onto the kitchen tiles. A door slammed almost directly below him. Activity in the basement. Perfect. He was home free.
He took one step. Only one.
An arm of iron closed around his neck, a knee jammed into the small of his back, and a knife — a serrated army blade — pressed up against his throat.
A harsh voice behind his ear called, “Dad — I’ve got him.”
Aiden tried to struggle. Bad mistake. The choke hold grew stronger, and he could not breathe.
Mr. Harper ran up from the basement and took in the sight of his soldier son throttling the young intruder. “Johnny — don’t!”
“He broke into our house, Dad!”
“He’s just a kid!” his father pleaded.
Aiden fought to stay alert, as the pressure on his windpipe did not ease. The knife at his throat was terrifying. But even more frightening was the look on Mr. Harper’s face. It said very plainly that he believed his son was on the verge of committing murder.
The front door was flung open, and in burst a man so tall that he had to duck his head to get past the hall fixture. The newcomer’s eyes widened in shock at the drama in the kitchen.
The gun was in his big hand so quickly that no one actually saw him reach for it.
“FBI! Drop your weapon!”
The knife clattered to the floor. Johnny Harper released his captive.
Gasping, Aiden slumped to his knees. He had not believed he could ever be so happy to see Agent Emmanuel Harris.
* * *
Meg raced through the blackness of the woods, making the best of what little night sight she had. The only light came from a crescent moon and a few stars. The rest of the sky was cloud covered.
Her vision was so limited that the trees would come into view when they were only inches away — as if they were being fired at her by some maniacal video game. She threaded her way between them, bobbing and sidestepping as she fled for her life. She barely noticed the branches that slashed at her skin and the roots that bruised her ankles and tried to trip her up. Her one thought: Escape. She was away from her captors at last, and there was no going back, no matter what.
Earlier that night, she’d heard the kidnappers calling her name, but not for a couple of hours now.
Have I lost them? Have they given up the chase?
Meg doubted it. Anyway, she didn’t intend to hang around to find out. She wouldn’t be safe until she had made it to some town and marched straight into the police station.
When she stepped into the hollow, it was like the world had fallen away in front of her. A sharp pain shot up her leg as her ankle twisted. She lost her balance and pitched forward. She landed hard, her shoulder ramming into a fallen log.
No-o-o!!
The effort to keep from screaming it out loud was nearly more than she could handle.
But she was out! She was away!
Calm down!
She straightened her leg and tried to wiggle the ankle. It burned with fire but didn’t seem to be broken. A sprain, nothing more.
She was lucky — this time. It would slow her down, but she could still move.
The problem isn’t speed, she reflected. It’s the fact that I can’t see an inch in front of me.
Her next misstep might bring more than a simple sprain. She could break her leg or knock herself unconscious. If that happened, she might never leave these mountains. She needed a place to wait out the night, maybe catch forty winks. To rest her ankle until first light would allow her to go on her way again.
She snuggled farther into the hollow, pressing her back against the sheltering log. Now all she needed was camouflage, just in case her captors came through here.
Favoring her injured ankle, she broke boughs off a nearby pine and leaned them up against the log, forming a curtain over the hollow. Then she crawled inside, savoring the smell of pine needles. She was completely covered. The kidnappers could pass right by, and in the darkness, they would never see her.
Her ankle throbbed, and her shoe was starting to feel tight from the swelling. Even more worrisome was the thought that she had no idea how to get out of these woods, out of these mountains.
And yet the feeling of triumph and well-being would not go away.
All at once, she understood why. As of this moment, she wasn’t kidnapped anymore. Lost, injured, hungry, cold — sure.
But free.
The first thing Agent Harris did when Aiden refused to get into the Trailblazer was to grasp him firmly by his head and one shoulder and seat him by force.
“You can’t make me go home!” Aiden ranted. “I’ll jump out of the car!”
So Harris handcuffed him to the inside of the door.
“You have no right to do this!” Aiden ranted. “I’m not a criminal!”
The agent looked amused. “Not unless you consider breaking and entering, stealing a bike, escaping a county lockup, and inflating a raft in a private home.”
“You made that last one up!” Aiden accused.
“Maybe.” Harris started the car and headed for Route 119.
Aiden struggled to keep his emotions in check. “Agent Harris, Meg is out here somewhere! Okay, not in this house. Maybe not even in this town. But in another one! The lady at the general store — ”
“Saw a green car, period,” Harris finished. “For all we know, it was the Harpers’ car. There’s no evidence that your sister is being
held anywhere around here. Even if it really was her back at that mechanic’s garage, they could have taken her a thousand miles west by now. Or turned south. Or north.”
“So we just give up?” Aiden asked bitterly.
“We notify the authorities in the areas she’s most likely to be. We update the alert with the latest information we have. Going off half-cocked doesn’t help anybody — especially when it wastes FBI manpower to save your hide!”
“Nobody asked you to save my hide,” Aiden muttered.
“As a matter of fact, your mother did,” Harris informed him. “You know her feelings about dealing with me, but that’s how worried she was. Do you have any idea what almost happened to you tonight? Can you picture what that army knife would have done to your soft little neck?”
Aiden fell silent. There was little doubt that the big agent had arrived just in time to save his life. He shivered.
“If I uncuff you,” said Harris, “there’s a jacket in the back. And a baseball cap that should probably go back to its rightful owner. But first you’ve got to promise you won’t try to jump.”
Aiden wouldn’t answer.
The agent sighed. “Suit yourself — freeze. But you will call your mother.” He handed over his cell phone. “I promise you police brutality if you don’t.”
The conversation with Mom was as painful and emotionally charged as Aiden had feared. At least learning that her son was safe took a little bit of worry off her plate. She didn’t ask about his adventure in the mountains, and he chose not to tell her. Besides, the only thing that really mattered was the ultimate piece of bad news — he had failed to rescue Meg.
Failed.
Aiden was glad to hear that Rufus Sehorn was still visiting the house on a regular basis to provide support. But there had been no new ransom demand received by www.bloghog.usa, and no new communication from the kidnappers. With Meg’s life at risk, hearing nothing was incredibly stressful for everybody.
Aiden spoke to Dad, too. He could tell from his father’s tone that Agent Sorenson was still the same gutless thumb-twiddler who had forced Aiden to run off on his own in the first place. With someone like that in charge, what chance did Meg honestly have?