Читать книгу Military Heroes Bundle: A Soldier's Homecoming / A Soldier's Redemption / Danger in the Desert / Strangers When We Meet / Grayson's Surrender / Taking Cover - Catherine Mann, Merline Lovelace - Страница 30

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.