Page 2 of Mountain Captive

“The family calmed down a lot when I assured them we had a ‘real doctor’ on the way to take care of their father,” Danny said. He glanced over to where Margo and her mother were huddled with the balding man and the two boys, their anxious faces focused on the process of loading Buddy into the litter. “But I won’t call you except in cases of emergency, if that’s what you want.”

“No. I want you to treat me like any other volunteer,” Rand said.

“You mean, go through the training, attend the meetings, stuff like that?”

“Yes. That’s exactly what I mean. I like being outdoors, and I need to get out of the office and the operating room. I’m in good physical shape, so I think I could be an asset to the team, beyond my medical knowledge.”

“That’s terrific,” Danny said. “We’d be happy to have you. If you have time, come back to headquarters with us, and I’ll introduce you around. Or come to the next regular meeting. Most of the volunteers will be there. I’ll give you a training schedule and a bunch of paperwork to sign.”

“Sounds good.” Rand turned back to the crowd around the litter as it began to move forward. He searched among the dozen or so volunteers for the woman with the blue hair but didn’t see her. Then he spotted her to one side. She stood in the shadow of a pine, staring up the trail.

He followed her gaze, trying to determine what had caught her attention. Then he spotted the man—midforties, a dirty yellow ball cap covering his hair and hiding his eyes. But he was definitely focused on the woman, his posture rigid.

Rand looked back toward the blue-haired woman, but she was gone. She wasn’t by the tree. She wasn’t with the volunteers or in the crowd of onlookers that was now making its way down the trail.

“Is something wrong?” Danny asked.

“The volunteer who was with Mr. Morrison when I arrived,” he said. “With the blue hair.”

“Chris. Chris Mercer.”

“Has she been a volunteer long?”

“Off and on for four years. Her work has taken her away a couple of times—she’s an artist. But she always comes back to the group.” Danny looked around. “I don’t see her now.”

“She was just here,” Rand said. “I was wondering where she went.”

“There’s no telling with Chris. She’s a little unconventional but a good volunteer. She told me she was hiking about a mile down the trail when the call went out, so she was first on the scene,” Danny said. “She’s supposed to stick around for report back at the station. Maybe she’s already headed back there.”

“Looks like she left something behind,” Rand said. He made his way to the spot where she had been standing and picked up a blue day pack, the nylon outer shell faded and scuffed. He unzipped the outer pocket and took out a business card. “‘Chris Mercer, Aspen Leaf Gallery,’” he read.

“That’s Chris’s,” Danny said. He held out his hand. “I’ll put it in the lost and found bin at headquarters.”

“That’s okay. I’ll take it to her.” Rand slipped one strap of the pack over his shoulder.

“Suit yourself,” Danny said. He and Rand fell into step behind the group wheeling the litter. Morrison’s family was hiking ahead, though the daughter, Margo, kept looking back to check on their progress. Every twenty minutes or so, the volunteers switched positions, supporting the litter and guiding it down the trail or walking alongside it with the IV bag suspended. They continually checked on Mr. Morrison, asking him how he was doing, assessing his condition, staying alert for any change that might indicate something they had missed. Something going wrong.

Rand felt the tension in his own body, even as he reminded himself that this was a simple accident—a fall that had resulted in a fracture, free of the kinds of complications that had plagued his patients on the battlefield, and the motor vehicle collision and gunshot victims he often met in the emergency room where he now worked.

Heavy footfalls on the trail behind them made Rand turn, in time to see the man in the dirty yellow ball cap barreling toward them. The man brushed against Rand as he hurried by, head down, boots raising small puffs of dirt with each forceful step. “Hey!” Rand called out, prepared to tell the man to be more careful. But the guy broke into a run and soon disappeared down the trail.

“Guess he had somewhere he needed to be,” Danny said.

“Guess so,” Rand said, but the hair on the back of his neck rose as he remembered the expression on Chris’s face as she had stared at the man.

She hadn’t merely been curious or even afraid of the man.

She had been terrified.

Chapter Two

Chris prowled the bedroom of her apartment above the art gallery, throwing random items into the suitcase on her bed, her mother’s voice on the phone trying, but failing, to soothe her jangled nerves. “I’m sure the man was only looking at you because you’re so striking,” April Mercer said.

Chris stepped over her dog, Harley, who raised his head and looked at her with brown eyes full of concern. The Rhodesian ridgeback mix had picked up on her mood as soon as she entered the apartment, and he refused to be more than a few inches away from her. “I don’t think so,” Chris told her mother. “He looked familiar. Do you remember that guy who used to stand at the back of the room, glaring at everyone during Sunday-night meetings? Jedediah?” Chris grabbed a handful of socks and stuffed them into the side of the suitcase. A shudder went through her as she remembered the man on the trail.

“Oh, honey, I’m sure it wasn’t him,” April said. “It’s been so long. I’m sure all of those people have forgotten about you by now.”

“Do you really believe that, Mom?”

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