Page 75 of Final Escape
CHAPTER TWENTY
Carrie moved forward, her heart racing and her palms damp. A jagged wall of rock rose high overhead, blocking the wisp of moonlight. Coupled with the dense trees all around, she might as well have been in a deep cave as she blindly felt her way along the narrow path.
Please, Lord, please help me find this child in time.
The wall of rock ended and the path curved. And now the sound of rushing water filtered through trees, growing louder and louder as she pushed on through the tangle of overgrown branches crowding the trail.
A branch snapped forward, slicing her cheek. A few yards back, she’d fallen against a sharp outcropping of rock that sliced through her jeans and lacerated her leg, and now the fabric was pasted against her calf with warm, coppery blood, shifting and scraping at the wound with every step.
But none of it mattered.
A few yards ahead the trees thinned and the moonlight washed a small clearing with silver. Beyond, the forest and rock fell away.
The roar of the waterfall was deafening now. Ahead, glittering in the faint light, a wide mountain stream narrowed at the very lip of the falls by massive granite walls on either side, boiling wildly over the edge. A fine, wet mist hung in the air, glistening on the surrounding rocks and trees, and turned the gritty soil at her feet to mud. Somewhere far, far below, the water thundered into a turbulent pool.
She stopped at the edge of the clearing. Tried to listen for cries for help, anything, but the deafening sound of the falls obliterated everything else. As her eyes adjusted, she carefully scanned the clearing, her heart sinking. There was no sign of Noah. No sign of his abductor. She sank back into the dark shadows and leaned against the rough, wet rock, her heart breaking.
She was too late.
* * *
HE CURSED THE CAR HE’Dborrowed.
His own bad luck.
The fact that he’d ever been so incredibly careless on that fateful day nearly two years ago.
Since then, his life had been one disaster after another, thanks to an ignorant judge and a jury of idiots who hadn’t taken believable evidence as fact. But all that was going to change.
And the next time he decided to fool around, he’d go into the next county. Find some low-down, backwoods tavern where no one knew his face. Where a girl might be down on her luck. Grateful. And know how to keep her mouth shut.
Though if she turned out as mouthy as the last one, she’d be breathing her last—and he’d handle it far better than he had with Sheryl Colwell. Grizzly country offered nature’s own handy disposal system, but he hadn’t gone far enough into the wilderness with her. She’d been found too soon.
Live and learn.
The boy cowering against a jumble of boulders fidgeted against the duct tape that held his hands behind his back, his eyes wide and terrified above the bands of tape that covered his mouth.
Too bad.
Raising his arm to backhand the kid again, he thought better of it at the last moment. Dragging an unconscious boy would be more work.
“C’mon, kid. Hurry up.” He grabbed the boy’s elbow and shoved him ahead on the slippery path, cursing when the kid slipped and fell with a muffled cry. Once again, he hauled Noah to his feet and pushed him on.
If the car hadn’t bogged down on the muddy road up here, they would have been done with this an hour ago. Instead, he’d had to ditch it, camouflage it in the brush, and then he’d had to push on by foot.
With luck, he’d be able to get the vehicle turned and headed back down to the main highway, then run it through a car wash so no one would ever wonder about where it had been. Not that anyone would ever think to question him.
He smiled to himself. It helped being important. Being someone that everyone admired...and trusted.
