Page 65 of Squatch Out!
Darren steps back. “You can scream all you want now. I’ll be waiting.”
I watch as he turns around and disappears into the trees, and I press my forehead against the cedar again.What am I going to do now?
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
SEAN
Iwatch through slitted eyes as Olivia slides out of my bed.
My girl is a lot of things, but graceful isn’t one of them. She’s trying so hard not to wake me, she ends up nearly falling over the edge and manages to catch herself just in time. Meanwhile, I’m trying my best to pretend I’m still asleep, but I’m fighting to hide my grin.
I barely slept all night. Each time I’d drift off, I’d startle myself awake again, scared she was a dream or that I imagined she came back to me.
In the soft, early morning light, I watch her pick up one of my flannels, and my heart warms when she puts it on and brings the collar to her nose before she makes her way down the hall. A few moments later, I hear her in the kitchen, followed by the robust smell of brewing coffee.
I roll to my back and tuck an arm behind my head. I should join her, but I’m enjoying listening to her moving around the kitchen as I try to imagine what she’s doing. The clink of the coffee carafe against the mug. The soft sound of the glass door opening, followed by a contented sigh before she steps outside.
Did she really mean what she said last night? About wanting to be here? I’ve spent my whole life watching people come and go, so I just always assumed you had to be born here to really appreciate this area. But the more I think back on the time I spent with Olivia, the more I realize she might be the exception.
I’m lying on my back listening to the sounds of the early morning bird songs, when suddenly everything goes quiet. It happens fast and feels too sudden to be a natural lull in their song. I’m already kicking the blankets away when I hear Olivia’s sharp inhale. The sheets somehow wind around my feet, and the harder I struggle to get free of them, the tighter they wrap around my legs until I end up rolling over the side of the bed. I land with a grunt, and I’m finally able to free myself just in time to hear the sound of her coffee mug skittering across the deck.
With my heart up in my throat, I scramble across the room and rebound off the doorjamb before sprinting down the hallway. I don’t care that I’m only wearing a pair of boxers as I skid through the kitchen then out the glass door and onto the deck. It’s still eerily silent, and the only sign of Olivia is her discarded mug still spinning beside the house.
Tilting my chin up, I breathe deep to scent the air. Olivia’s sweet honey and peaches scent mingles with the crisp early morning dew. But then my heart lurches, and wrinkle my nose when I also pick up on the foul scent of unwashed man and desperation.
My skin starts to itch as I step off the porch.Not yet,I grit as I breathe deeply, trying to keep myself calm so I don’t squatch out. The trail they left through the forest is easy to follow. Just inside the tree line, I crouch down to examine the marks left by Olivia’s bare feet next to a boot print.
The prints are deep and large. The tread of his boot is worn, and his stride is uneven beside the marks left by Olivia, telling me he didn’t take my girl willingly. I close my eyes and strain myears to listen. The birds have begun to sing again, but the rest of the forest is still eerily silent. They haven’t gone far.
My squatch is pushing for control. He wants to raze the forest until we find Olivia, but I hold him back. There is something familiar about the males scent. Something that tells me he is using her as bait to bring me out. There is only one person I can think of who would do such a thing. I should have followed up on Darren after he was released from custody. Made sure he left the area. But in my grief at losing Olivia, I didn’t think about him once.
Glancing at the house, I consider going back for my sat phone. I should let Owen know what’s going on, but that will just take more time away from finding my girl. If it is Darren, there is no telling what he might do to her. Unwanted images of him holding a knife to her throat has my squatch pushing harder to come forward, but I hold him back. Using my nose to guide me, I follow Olivia’s sweet scent deeper into the woods.
I use every bit of stealth I’ve learned over the years as I tread carefully through the trees and bushes, until I catch sight of her. Her arms are curled around the narrow trunk of a cedar, so it looks like she’s hugging it, and her wrists are tied with rope. Darren is nowhere in sight, but his stench is all around me. He’s close by. Probably has eyes on her. And me.
Olivia is muttering under her breath as she presses her cheek to the flaky bark. And I have to strain my ears to catch what she’s saying.
“Don’t come. Don’t come. Don’t come,” she repeats over and over. “It’s a trap. Darren is waiting for you.”
My smart girl knows I have good hearing, and I wonder how long she’s been whispering those words. As much as I long to charge through the trees and free her, to claw through the rope holding her so I can lift her into my arms and run back to the house. I stay where I am as I come up with a plan.
“Don’t, Sean. Please don’t,” she whispers, rocking her forehead back and forth against the tree.
Gritting my teeth, I slip back into the forest and leave her. My squatch is howling his fury as I focus on Darren’s putrid scent that crisscrosses through the trees for hundreds of yards, making it difficult to tell which trail leads to where he’s hiding. Is it on purpose, to make it harder to track him? I hate to give him that much credit, but when I circle a third time and come up with nothing, I have to assume he has more training than I originally thought.
I count dozens of trails and wonder how long he’s been out here. Likely since he was released by the authorities. It unnerves me that he could have been watching me this whole time, and I was so distracted with feeling sorry for myself that I had no idea.
Olivia’s soft gasp snaps my attention away from my self-chastising, and I’m racing back to her. My feet slide to a stop behind the prickly branches of a Douglas fir.
Darren has come out of his hiding spot and is standing behind her, with her hair fisted in his hand. He pulls her head back and hisses against the side of her face. “I told you to scream.”
Olivia clamps her lips together, but she can’t hold back a whimper when he gives her head a shake. There is a click, and then Darren presses the barrel of a gun to the side of her head.
“Do it! Call for him!”
My girl only squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head.
Stupid… stubborn… amazing brave woman!
