Page 49 of Mountain Captive

“I’ll just put this on over my old clothes.” Before the girl could protest, Chris slipped the dress over her head. Burlap sacks had more shape than this piece of clothing, Chris decided. “Do you know where we’re going?” she asked.

Serena fussed with the tie at the back of the dress. Chris thought she wasn’t going to answer, but after a moment she spoke very softly. “I wasn’t supposed to hear, but Jedediah said something earlier about a helicopter flying in to take you and the Exalted to a safe place.”

“A helicopter?”

“Yes. The Exalted flies in one sometimes.”

This was certainly a step up from Edmund Harrison’s mode of transportation back when Chris and her mother were part of his followers. Then again, he had been collecting money from his acolytes for a long time. Enough, apparently, to pay for a private helicopter. If he took Chris away in that, her friends would have a very difficult time locating her.

Before she could prod the girl for more details, Jedediah returned with three other men. “We need to go now.” He took Chris’s arm. One of the other three took hold of Serena. “Don’t try to fight,” Jedediah said. “If you do, we’ll hurt the girl.”

The look in his eyes made her believe he would enjoy doing so. She bowed her head and meekly went with him. But inside, she was seething, her mind furiously searching for some way out of the mess.

She was startled to find it was almost dark out, the sun only a lavender afterglow above the mountains, the air cool despite her layers of clothing. It would be full dark soon, an inky blackness without the benefit of light from buildings or cars or streetlights. The kind of darkness in which a person could step off a cliff and never know it until they were falling.

The guard’s headlamps lit the way up the trail. The group climbed higher, up into the mountains. Were they taking her to a place where the helicopter could land and pick her up? It seemed very late in the day for that. If walking in the mountains after dark was dangerous, flying then presented a host of other hazards. The rescue helicopters they sometimes used needed daylight for their maneuvers.

They stopped before what was clearly a mine entrance, complete with a massive iron gate designed to keep out treasure hunters who might end up falling down a shaft or crushed by collapsing rock or drowned in flooded tunnels. Jedediah pulled open the gate and shoved hard at Chris’s back so that she stumbled forward. Serena was pushed in after her, and the gate clanged shut. Jedediah fitted a heavy chain and a brass lock to the entrance. “You can’t break the lock,” he said. “Don’t waste time trying. And we won’t be far away.”

They left, and Serena began to sob. Chris put her arms around the girl and tried to comfort her even as she fought her own fear. “It’s going to be okay,” she whispered. “I have a lot of friends looking for me.”

“Are the police your friends?” Serena asked.

“Yes.” At least, Chris was sure law enforcement would be part of the search. The sheriff and the deputies she knew were friendly and good at their job, even if she wasn’t close to them. She wasn’t really close to anyone other than her mother.

And Rand. She was beginning to feel close to him. Surely he would be looking for her.

“I saw two men in uniform with guns,” Serena said. “I came to the camp where Jedediah had sent a few of us. I wanted to get water for you, and the ginger tea. The two uniformed men and a third man with them saw me. That made the others angry at me. They told me it wasn’t smart of me to let the lawmen see me.”

“You are smart,” Chris said. “I had only known you a few minutes before I figured that out. And it’s good that the officers saw you.” And the third man—had that been Rand? “That means they were close. They’ll keep looking for us.”

“How will they find us now that we’ve moved?”

They had probably been moved in order to get farther away from the searchers. “Search and rescue has a dog that can follow people’s scents and find them,” Chris said. She had marveled at how adept fellow SAR volunteer Anna Trent’s standard poodle, Jacquie, was at locating lost and missing people.

“A dog?” Serena sounded skeptical.

“It doesn’t matter how they find us,” Chris said. “I know they won’t give up until they do.” And Chris wouldn’t give up either. She would find a way to fight back. She would follow her mother’s example and do whatever it took to break free of the Vine once again.

DESPITERAND’SDETERMINATIONto search for Chris all night if necessary, he was sent home as darkness fell. Danny had cornered him as he prepared to set out with a new group of volunteers who planned to focus around the area where he and Travis and Dwight had interviewed the campers. “Go home,” Danny said. “You’re dead on your feet, and you’re going to end up hurt and we’ll have to rescue you too.” Before Rand could protest, he added, “I haven’t announced it yet, but we’re pulling in all the searchers. It’s not safe to have people up on the mountains after dark. Try to get some rest, and we’ll start up in the morning.”

Rand wanted to protest that he could keep going. He’d be careful, stick to known trails and use his headlamp. But he saw the wisdom in Danny’s words. The chances of finding Chris in the dark were minuscule, and the odds of himself or someone with him getting hurt increased with the loss of daylight.

When he unlocked his door, he was greeted by Harley, who howled and sniffed him all over, then gave him what seemed to Rand a reproachful look. “I’m sorry, but she’s not with me,” he said, rubbing the dog’s ears. “I promise we’re going to find her soon.” He hoped that was a promise he could keep.

He fed the dog and forced himself to eat a ham sandwich. He should take a shower and go to bed, but he was too agitated. He riffled through his collection of hiking maps and found one for the area around Guthrie Mill and spread it on the table. While Harley watched from his dog bed in the corner, Rand studied the map. He circled the spot where he thought the campers he had visited today had been with a yellow highlighter, then chose a blue marker to inscribe a circle around this spot. At least half the circle was occupied by a rocky couloir falling away from a 13,000-foot peak that was unnamed on the map. Hard to get to for searchers, but also for anyone trying to hide Chris.

That left the rest of the area encompassed by the circle—a network of abandoned mines, lesser peaks and high mountain meadows. Chris could be anywhere in this area. There were no roads up there, so the only way to get her away from the trail near the mill where they had taken her was to walk. And they would be able to walk only so far in the approximately six hours since they had kidnapped her. Darkness would halt their progress, just as it had the progress of searchers. Or at least, it would slow them down, if they were foolish enough to try to traverse the terrain by starlight. So the odds were high that she was still in the area within that blue circle.

Harley followed Rand into his bedroom, where he filled his pack with extra clothing and first aid supplies. Then the two of them went into the kitchen, where Rand packed food and water. He glanced at the dog, then stuck in packets of canine food and biscuits. Harley wasn’t a trained tracker, but he was devoted to Chris. Rand counted on the dog to home in on any scent of her.

Lastly, he returned to the bedroom and unlocked the safe where he kept the sidearm he had owned since his days in the service. He had no doubt the members of the Vine were armed, and he wanted to be prepared.

Only then did he take a shower and go to bed. He set his alarm for an hour before sunrise. At first light, he and Harley would be back at the spot where he had seen the girl, Serena, emerging from the woods. The girl was part of the Vine. Following her should lead him to the group and—he hoped—to Chris.

CHRISCOULDN’TSLEEP. Her head pounded and her stomach churned. Everywhere she tried to sit or lie was uncomfortable. Her stomach growled, and she realized she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. And what about the girl? “Are they not going to feed us?” she asked.

“I guess not.” Serena sat nearby, close enough that Chris could hear her breathing. “The Exalted says fasting is good for purifying one’s thoughts.”

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