Taken - Before her very Eyes (22 page)

The house numbers declined,
growing close to Percy’s hideout as the cliff grew to a dizzying height of over
fifty feet. The view was magnificent, but the beach access left little to
desire. As the land curved around, creating a slight cove, Summer saw the
massive staircases the home owners had built down to the water’s edge below. It
seemed like a lot of work just to have access to the water for a quick dip, but
she supposed if you paid the price for a beach front property, you wanted it
any way you could get it.

Summer followed the curve of the
road and slowed as the numbers counted closely down. She looked ahead and saw
two homes on the far side of the treed lot and knew Percy’s hideout was one of
them.

Not risking being spotted driving
past the house, Summer pulled across the roadway and tucked the car as far into
the wooded lot as she could, praying that the rumble of the exhaust hadn’t
given away her arrival. After shutting off the car, she squinted at the closest
house sign and realized that Percy’s house should be on the far side of this
home.

She paused with the door half
open debating whether she should wait for backup, or if she should take the
initiative and get Sabrina out of there before Percy goes nuts and does
something she’ll regret for the rest of her life.

When Summer glanced in the rearview
mirror, she saw no flashing lights racing down the road in her direction and realized
that she was all alone. It was her, or nobody.

She grabbed the gun and climbed
from the car. There were no hiding places in the front yards. The homes were
practically sitting right on the edge of the road, with a clear view of anybody
approaching from either direction, so she turned and headed into the wooded lot
beside.

As Summer made her way through
the cloak of woods, she realized that she’d have to cut across the properties
and approach Percy’s hideout from the back, then hope to take him by surprise.
When she stepped from the woods onto the manicured green grass, Summer heard
the extent of the waves crashing below and hoped that it had been enough to
mask the roar of the Malibu’s broken exhaust.

She tried to put herself in
Percy’s shoes and figure out what his next move would be. He hasn’t called
since the botched drop off, so maybe he’d given up on getting the money, or
maybe he decided to take off and disappear making ends meet another way? Or
maybe he was waiting, staring through the sight of his rifle for me to come?

The first house appeared to be
empty. Patio furniture had been stacked in the back corner beside the fence,
next to the barbecue and every window covering had been drawn tightly closed to
fend off the approaching winter winds. Keeping low, she moved across the back
of the house until she came to the six-foot high fence separating this yard
from the next, then followed the fence to the back of the property and the edge
of the cliff. The owner had made his point. This fence was to keep the
neighbours out as it stopped a foot short of falling off the edge of the cliff,
leaving only a narrow, dangerous passageway into the next yard.

“If fences make good neighbours,
then these guys should be best friends,” Summer muttered, clinging to the fence
post and peering carefully over the edge of the cliff. She felt her stomach
flip at the sight of the fifty-foot drop, straight down to the sandy beach
below and it made her realize just how much she hated heights.

At the far side of the yard, two
huge cement pillars had been sunk deep in the ground with stairs attached to
the upper landing. Her eyes followed the zigzagging levels down the side of the
cliff until the stairs stopped beside the small boathouse.

A shutter filled her body as she
stared down into the pit of churning water below. She holstered her gun, not willing
to risk dropping it, then clamped her fingers onto the fencepost, clinging to
it, praying that her stomach would stop flipping. It was a long ways down and
she couldn’t imagine braving those wooden steps in her life time.

The second she peered around the
corner of the fence, she understood why the owner had erected such a large
barrier. The house on the other side was like night and day. It looked totally
rundown, beaten and battered by years of gusting wet winds coming off the lake.
Of the two houses, this one screamed hideout if she’d ever seen one.

There was no mistaking that this
was Percy’s place. Besides being the right address, it reeked of being disregarded
for years like the utility records showed.

With her fingernails dug into the
wooden fence post, Summer closed her eyes and threw one leg around the fence,
straddling the post and praying that she wouldn’t slip and fall down the cliff.
The sound of the waves crashing below combined with the pounding of her heart
in her throat made her whole world spin like a top. It’d been years since she’d
last fainted, but the way she felt right now, Summer didn’t think fainting was
far off.

She clamped her eyes so tight
that the tears of fear couldn’t even escape as she forced herself to move,
dragging her right leg around the fence and collapsing to the ground, gasping
for breath. Crawling to her knees, Summer swore she’d never do anything like
that ever again in her lifetime. The fear of falling, arms flailing, to her
death was too much to even comprehend. She guessed it was the feeling of no
control as you sailed helplessly to your own demise, like what she’d felt with
John Scott when he’d kept her hooded during the attacks. It was that same
feeling of being in the dark, not knowing when death would come.

Summer wiped the tears from her
face, squatted low behind the overgrown bushes next to the fence then withdrew
her gun. She glanced inside every window on the back side of the house, but
never saw any movement from the cracks in the drapes. If Percy was inside, he’d
be busy watching for her to drive past, or at least approach from the front of
the house. He would never expect her to know the exact location of his hideout,
but she had outsmarted him.

The sound of a car approaching
ignited fear that the backup was arriving as she waited, huddled down in the
shadows. She couldn’t stand the thought of being a witness to what was going to
happen. She needed to be the cause and effect of the final outcome.

As the car soared past the house,
continuing down the road, Summer took advantage of the distraction that would
have old Percy running to the front windows, watching for the police to arrive,
and dashed along the fence until she stood with her back against the house.

Peering in the first window, she
saw the room was empty except for a dusty box lying in the centre of the room,
overflowing with an assortment of old toys. Everything from dinky cars right up
to a broken microscope sticking out the top. The layer of grime on the floors
was enough to bring a tightening to her chest. With no fresh footprints in the
room, she started to believe this wasn’t his hideout after all.

Summer let her guard down and
quickly moved to the next window. The old dining table was against the wall,
tipped on its side and there was no indication that anybody had been here for
years. The possibility of finding Sabrina here was dwindling with each second
she spent gazing through the rotten old curtains.

Stepping to the back door, Summer
tried the handle, but it was locked. She peered through the window and was
willing to bet her life that nobody was home so she lifted her revolver and,
after closing her eyes, tapped the butt of the gun on the thin glass window,
shattering it into large fragments that fell noisily to the yellowed linoleum
floor.

There was no screaming from
inside. No footfalls racing to see what the noise was. There was nobody here.
Not Percy and not Sabrina.

Reaching through the opening,
Summer found the lock and quickly opened the door. Time was running out and she
had to find Sabrina—and fast! She stepped quickly across the kitchen, scanning
the front entrance floor for signs of visitors, but the floor was undisturbed.

Moving through the house at a
dangerous speed, unconcerned about her own safety and well-being, Summer
checked every room but came up empty handed. The house was vacant and it had
been for a long time. Sabrina had never been here.

Maybe she was dealing with a
smart man after all? He’d planned the whole kidnapping so thoroughly and seemed
to be prepared for anything they threw at him, even smart enough not to use the
obvious hideout. But where else would he go? He was definitely heading down to
the lake front. But why would he settle for this rundown place when half the
other cottages were sitting empty, packed up for the approaching winter
weather? Why settle for a cold damp building with no running water? Why not
find an empty cottage and invite yourself in for a little visit?

“Think like a criminal on the
lam. If I had to hide out, I’d want somewhere where I could see the cops
coming, and somewhere where I could see them checking my grandmother’s place,
knowing that they’re getting close and knowing that it’s time to get out of the
area.”

Summer cautiously stepped to the
front window and glanced across the road at the empty field which stretched for
miles and miles. There was no place comfortable across there. She moved back into
the kitchen and glanced out the window on the end of the house.

She knew it the second she saw
it. There down the road, partially hidden in a sloping valley was the ideal
hideout. A large beach house sat perched on the edge of the cliff, equipped
with a double car garage big enough to hide a brown Silverado and a car that
would match the tire print back at the station.

Summer stepped to the side of the
window, peering down at the beach house. There was movement inside the window,
but from this distance she couldn’t tell if it was from a man or child. She
backed away, searching through the boxes on the floor for a pair of binoculars,
but there was none. Only cheap old china and dusty blue drinking glasses filled
the rotten cardboard.

“Looks like even he didn’t want
this shit.” Summer moved down the hall and into the first room she’d glanced
into. She remembered seeing the microscope sitting atop the old box and ran
inside, dumping the contents onto the floor. She heard the glass crack as the
microscope hit the hardwood floor, but fumbled to grasp the rolling telescope
as it tumbled over the assorted toys.

“Bingo,” Summer said, raising the
kids telescope from the toys and peering quickly through the lens. “Dusty, but
then again what isn’t dusty in here?”

Moving quickly through the house,
careful to stay out of sight, Summer rubbed the thick dusty grime from the
glass lenses. The movement in the beach house was gone, but that was good.
She’d hate to stick the telescope in the window and have the kidnapper see the
sun reflect off the lens.

Summer tipped the telescope
toward the window. The landscape bounced through the viewfinder, making her
dizzy in the process. Trees passed by upside down and Summer looked away from
the viewfinder, peered out the window then aimed the telescope in the right
direction.

When she gazed back into the
viewfinder, her breath caught in her throat. It was Sabrina inside that house.
She was there. Right there! Inside that room. Summer scanned the rest of the
house, peering into each window as she went, but there was no sign of Percy.

“Where the hell are you, Percy?
Did you take off and leave Sabrina behind?” There was a quick flash of movement
and a growing shadow on the inside wall. Summer quickly stepped to the side of
the window and dropped the telescope to the floor.

It was time to go. Time to make
her move and get Sabrina.

Summer stepped out the back door,
tucking in close to the wall and hoping for her sake that Percy wasn’t aiming
binoculars in this direction. But he’ll be watching out front for me to come
down the road.

The empty field between this
house and the beach house down in the valley was sparse and rocky, nothing like
the wooded lot where she’d left the Malibu sitting. There was no way she’d be
able to cross it without being spotted, and that was exactly why Percy had
chosen it. It stood all alone with a clear view of the countryside in all
directions. Every direction except beyond the cliff.

Summer scanned the backyard of
the beach house and saw the familiar sight of the zigzagging stairs at the very
edge of the cliff. It was identical to the staircase mounted at the back of the
next door neighbours yard—the one she swore she’d never step foot on.

Summer’s legs started shaking at
the thought of scaling down the cliff side on that wooden deathtrap.

There has to be another way.
Summer racked her brain, but knew unless she had the cloak of night, she was
shit out of luck. It was either take the back way in, or take the risk of being
gunned down in broad daylight.

She held her gun out, peering
through the sight. She’d been one of the best shots on the force, but she knew
a rifle always won for shooting distance. She had to get close. Close enough to
take a clean shot at Percy’s head, because if she took a shot and missed her
mark, it would cost Sabrina’s life.

“Damn it!” Summer moved quickly
down the steps, hugging the back of the house as she made her way along the
yard. When she met the fence, she climbed on the overturned flowerpot and
jumped for the top of the high fence. Her hands ached gripping the cold wooden
boards, but Summer concentrated on the task. She’d done obstacle courses in her
past and nothing ever slowed her down. She could scale a fence like this at full
speed and drop down before most had a chance to throw a foot over. So why was
she having such a hard time now? She knew she should’ve been over it in five
seconds flat, but here she was hanging onto the top board, grimacing in pain.

Summer knew her reluctance was
only mental. She still had the same physical abilities as she did five months
ago. Her body had healed. There was nothing wrong with it. She stared at her
shaking hands clinging to the top board and wondered how deep the mental wounds
had cut.