Dance with the Devil (25 page)

Awkwardly, with the man's big body curving over hers, the knife still at her throat, Emma bent over and clutched the pack. He forced her into the darkness. The smell of dried blood assailed her nostrils and her stomach plummeted. Bethany must still be alive, why else would Morgan need baby food, but was she injured?

She stumbled and fear that the knife would drag across her throat, clutched her heart. But the hand across her mouth held her firm. Although her eyes began to adjust to the darkness, she couldn't see the ground at her feet. He pulled her with him through the undergrowth.

'Morgan!'

Drew's desperate shout echoed through the jungle, and the wildlife noises stopped as though they'd been switched off. Just as quickly they returned.

The knife moved away from Emma's throat. Morgan's hand dropped from her mouth. Before she could focus on what he was doing, his fingers gripped her neck and the black night swirled into her head.

As soon as he had returned to the shelter and realised Emma was gone, fear had ripped through Drew. The boot prints over-treading the smaller ones of her sneakers told him what must have happened. Rage burned through his veins.

He roared Morgan's name, hoping his challenge would be answered. But no answering call echoed through the darkness.

Cold, implacable anger set in. Anger so great it would have consumed him if he hadn't channelled it into a grim determination. He would get Emma back - or die trying.

He folded the foil blanket, tucked it into his pack and covered the fire with dirt. He adjusted the miner's torch to focus on the ground just in front of him, and began to follow the tracks. The darkness slowed his progress, but the double set of tracks were clear.

When he reached the spot where the two tracks became one, his heart lurched. Why wasn't Emma capable of walking anymore? What had Morgan done to her? If he'd hurt her…

With a supreme effort he reined in his fear. He had to remain focused.

Emma's head was swinging, knocking against rough cloth. After a few seconds of disorientation, she became aware she was being carried, fireman-style, through jungle-like undergrowth. She stiffened, and immediately Morgan stopped and swung her to the ground, the knife flashing into his hand, tip at her throat.

'Don't scream. Don't say anything,' he whispered. A low-pitched, level voice, it barely carried in the night air. 'He's still following. If he gets closer, I'll have to kill him.'

He turned the knife, pale moonlight glinted on the blade, and Emma knew sheer terror. Morgan had been like a ghost, creeping up on her in the dark, and she had no doubts that he could easily do the same to Drew, even though Drew would be on his guard. She would do anything to keep him safe.

'I won't,' she whispered back, 'I promise.'

He gripped her wrist, his big hands calloused and immensely strong. Then he was pulling her through the jungle. The plants tore at her skin and ripped her clothing. She had always thought her night vision was good, but under the canopy of the dense jungle they were now in, the darkness was so intense she felt she was losing her perspective. It was difficult to judge the closeness of the plants, the trees.

Morgan seemed unaffected by the problem. He pushed his way, swerving around trees, stepping over rocks that she stumbled over. It was almost as though he could sense the objects in his way. Emma had no idea which way they were going, only that they were gradually going upwards.

They came to a small creek gurgling down the mountainside. Without pausing, Morgan picked her up, slung her over his shoulder and stepped into the water. He turned, and walked downstream. Emma felt his body vibrate, and she realised, with astonishment, that he was laughing. Silently, but definitely laughing.

He whispered, 'This'll throw him off the scent.'

She knew then that Morgan was determined not to let Drew find them, and he obviously had the ability to do just that. It looked as though she was going to be on her own. She wondered if she could escape when he put her down, but decided against trying. She was no match for him in the jungle, he would catch her easily, and she had no idea where to go. In the dark, she would become hopelessly lost. At least Morgan seemed to be walking with a purpose, and she hoped Mary's baby was that purpose.

Morgan stopped, stepped up on some rocks on the opposite side of the stream and walked a few yards before putting Emma back on the ground. Then he was dragging her through the undergrowth again.

Upwards.

In all the time he had been chained in Morgan's hut, Drew had never felt the despair that tore at him now. Now he was gambling on his tracking skills being good enough to find Morgan and Emma. And it looked as though he had lost.

The prints had led into the stream. He'd prayed they would come out the other side. But they didn't. Picking up heavy boot prints by the light of the miner's torch was one thing, trying to discern if moss had been scraped off rocks under running water was an impossibility. He returned to where the tracks had stopped. He carefully marked the spot by pushing a large stick in the ground and tying a white paper bag to it, then started walking upstream, looking for evidence that Morgan had doubled back and was still on this side of the stream.

Finally he reached a section where the stream narrowed between two boulders through which it would have been impossible for Morgan and Emma to have passed. He crossed to the other bank and started searching downstream.

The light on the torch was slowly dimming, but he was afraid to hurry, afraid he might miss a vital clue to indicate where Morgan had left the stream. The rocky banks meant he had to search in a sweeping pattern a few feet back into the undergrowth, and it ate up the minutes.

Drew never knew he possessed the utter ruthlessness that he needed now to stop the images of Emma coming into his brain. He couldn't afford to think about the woman he loved in the hands of a man who had taken life with such callous disregard. A man who would steal a baby after mutilating the father. Now he needed to concentrate on the soft earth, the leaf mulch, the thick luxurious plants, for any sign of their passage.

As he crossed the point where he'd marked the track on the opposite bank, the torch flickered and grew dimmer. He took five more steps before it faded completely.

He stood there, motionless, feeling the night close in around him, thick with the noise of animal and insect life, the oppressive, claustrophobic sensation of all-encompassing jungle.

He fought the despair that rose up in him like bile.

'Please, I need a rest.' Emma had fallen for the fifth time, and her legs thrummed with the pain of over-worked muscles. Her watch told her they'd been walking for hours, and she was beginning to wonder if Morgan
was
taking her to the baby.

Morgan stopped in the motion of pulling her to her feet. He seemed to hesitate, as though she were asking something he wasn't sure he could give, then he said, 'One minute,' and allowed her to flop down onto the leaf mulch, although he still held her wrist. She thought about leeches, and decided she was too tired to care.

They were the only words he had spoken since they'd crossed the first creek. They'd crossed three more creeks, and although he'd carried her across those as well, he'd made no effort to conceal where they'd exited. Emma sensed he was a man to whom silence was second nature, but she hoped he would tell her about Bethany.

'Is the baby all right?'

The grip on her wrist tightened, but he didn't reply. Damn! If only she could see his face, read his expression. But he was just a dark silhouette among other dark silhouettes, and she felt he would melt into the jungle if he released her. For a moment she panicked that he would do just that. As much as she would love to be free of him, he was her only link to Mary's baby.

'Come.' It was a guttural command, reinforced by a rough jerk on her arm. Her muscles protested as she was pulled to her feet. They were still climbing upwards, but within a few minutes the rainforest thinned and soon they were climbing over rock. At least now there was some moonlight to see by, and Emma lost the disoriented feeling that had plagued her in the jungle. The night was still, the air clean and sharp, a welcome change to the oppression of the jungle they'd left.

Morgan continued to pull her after him, but eventually he was forced to let her hand free so she could climb safely. The angle of the slope had increased, and there was little vegetation between the rocks, but at least now they were climbing almost horizontally, rather than vertically. In places, the rock face appeared to fall away in a long drop to the rainforest and Emma clung to the rocks, fearful of falling into the murkiness below.

A thin plaintive wail drifted on the night air. A baby's cry. The kind she knew babies made when they'd been crying for too long. She glanced around, trying to work out where it had come from. Morgan appeared to be unconcerned about her now, climbing towards a darker patch in the rock face. As he reached it, he turned back to her. 'Hurry up!' the gravelly voice ordered, then he vanished into the darkness.

Alarmed at Morgan's sudden disappearance, Emma quickened her pace. Suddenly she remembered her Mag-Lite torch, took it from her pocket and flashed it three times back towards the rainforest. Hurriedly she pushed it back into her pocket and moved on.

She was almost at the spot where she'd last seen Morgan when she realised the dark patch was actually the entrance to a cave. She hesitated, loath to enter. She'd hated bats since one had tangled in her hair as she walked beneath some fruit trees at night as a child. And although she knew now that the bat had probably been more terrified of her than she of it, the memory of its little claws grabbing frantically at her head was enough to make her shiver.

A torchlight blasted into her face. Instinctively her arm came up to shield her eyes, but it was grabbed by a familiar rough hand. 'He's hungry. He needs you to feed him.'

Morgan pulled her into the cave. The torchlight cut the blackness and revealed the baby, lying on the cave floor, feebly kicking at the blanket wrapped around her. Morgan swung the backpack towards Emma. 'You said you had food. He's hungry. Feed him.'

Emma was about to protest that the baby was a girl, but it hardly seemed the occasion for semantics. Instead she knelt down, unwrapped the blanket and quickly assessed the baby's condition as well as she could by the torchlight. Apart from being a little cold, and obviously hungry, Bethany didn't seem to have suffered from her ordeal. There was blood all over the blanket, but it hadn't come from her.

The baby began to whimper, and she shoved her little fist into her mouth and sucked strongly. Emma took the container of powdered formula and baby's bottle filled with water from the pack.

'I'll need a fire,' she said to the dark shadow that was Morgan.

'Why?'

'Because I have to get this bottle warm. If it's too cold, it could give the baby colic. And babies need to be kept warm. This cave is too cold.'

'I'll have to tie you up first.'

Exhaustion had sharpened Emma's temper, but she bit back the scathing retort that came to mind. Instead she said evenly, 'There's no need. I give you my word I won't run away. I'm a doctor, and I want to examine the baby fully. Besides, I have no intention of climbing back down those rocks in the dark and risk falling off a cliff.'

Without a word, Morgan placed the torch on a narrow ledge and disappeared through the entrance. Emma leaned against the cave wall. She wanted to work out how she could get Bethany away from Morgan, but she was too tired to formulate anything that even vaguely resembled a plan. Perhaps after a sleep her brain would function properly. She hoped that Drew had been able to pick up their tracks and was still following them, though she wondered if the miner's torch would be strong enough to track by. She placed little hope on the fire acting as a beacon; the cave entrance was at an angle which made her doubt that the glow could be seen from the rainforest below.

By the time Morgan returned, she had carried out a thorough examination of Bethany, soothing ointment on the nappy rash that had formed and putting on a clean nappy and clothing.

Morgan scraped powdery bat droppings off the cave floor to use as tinder, and with bushman's skill had a fire going within seconds. The glow filled up the cave and Emma almost gasped out loud as it revealed her kidnapper. Camouflage pants and shirt were complemented by what appeared to be a full army kit with a pistol and a knife strapped to his thighs. But it wasn't this that shocked Emma.

His hair had been cut so closely to his head it appeared to be shaved, and the hardness of his features accentuated its skull-like appearance. Huge gashes sliced into the side of his face. And something had blown away the top half of his left ear. He had taped up the wounds on his face. Crusted blood covered his ear and mottled his neck and clothing.

'Would you like me to clean up your face?' she asked. 'I'm a doctor. My medical kit is in the pack.'

'Feed the baby. He comes first. God has given me another chance. I can't make a mistake this time.'

Emma wanted to ask him what he was talking about, but the practicality of warming the bottle was more imperative. She explained the problem to Morgan. He took a metal pannikin from the kit at his belt, filled it with half the water and held it over the flames.

His concentration on his task was intense, but Emma soon realised that he was listening to every little sound, both inside and outside the cave, with the same intensity. A twig snapped outside the cave, and he drew his pistol without spilling a drop of water from the pannikin. When the unmistakable hopping sound of a rock wallaby came closer, then faded, he relaxed, placed the gun back in its holster and gestured for Emma to hand him the bottle.

Soon Emma was sitting on the cave floor, Bethany cradled in her arms as she sucked greedily on the teat. Morgan watched, his back against the opposite wall, close to the cave entrance, a peaceful expression slowly creeping over his hard face. The look puzzled Emma. Had he taken Bethany because he wanted the child for himself, and not as a punishment to Tom like she had assumed?