Vanished (9 page)

Picking her way through the trees and snow-covered underbrush, Jeri wondered what–if anything–the divers had found at the lake. She’d give her right arm for a cell phone right now. It was blizzarding, no one knew where she was, and there was no way to communicate. Unease nagged at her. Was she being guided by God … or doing something stupid?

Progress was slower now, with the blowing snow obscuring her vision. Pressing on deeper into the woods, she fought down terror that threatened to engulf her. Courage, her mom used to say, didn’t mean you felt no fear. It meant doing something while afraid. As Jeri pushed on, determined to find the missing girls, she understood her mom’s words like never before.

Star halted when they came to the edge of a ravine. Jeri hoped the wide gully below would lead her to the farm. Leaning back in the saddle, she rode Star down the slope. Turning left at the bottom of the ravine, the swirling snow hit right in her face, and she jerked her scarf up to her eyes.

Deciding to use Star as a shield from the blowing snow, Jeri slipped to the ground and walked beside her. As she guided the horse around a broken limb and a pile of brush, a sudden snarling
yooowl
rang out. Jeri swallowed a cry of terror that rose in her throat.

Star shied sideways, jerking the reins from Jeri’s hand. She bolted up the slope and out of the ravine. Jeri scrambled up after her. “Star! Stop! Come back!” But Star zigzagged through the trees and was soon out of sight, taking the food and drinks with her.

Turning her back to the blowing snow, Jeri feared her trembling knees would buckle. She stared through the blowing snow at the trees around her, the branches overhead, and the thicket of brush in the ravine. Where had that yowl come from? Was there any chance it was only the howling wind?

No, it had to be that bobcat! Nikki said their dens could be in hollow logs or brush piles or under rock ledges. Nikki had also said bobcats rested on low overhanging tree branches, and their mottled fur made great camouflage. With everything blanketed in white, though, it was impossible to distinguish anything. What if the house mother was wrong? What if bobcats
did
attack people? Nikki said they were meat eaters, that they stalked their victims and pounced on them!

Dear Lord, protect me!

Jeri looked to the left and right. No bobcat – at least that she could see. Snow clumped on her eyelashes, and she brushed it away, trying to get her bearings. The swirling snow messed with her sense of direction. She was still pretty sure the farm was to her left. Or was it? Fear trickled down her backbone like drops of icy water.

Star had gone back toward the road. Her hoofprints clearly marked the path, but only for a very short time. The heavy snow was already covering them. What should she do? Jeri knew her own best chance of survival would be to immediately follow Star’s tracks back to the school. And yet, if Rosa and the others were trapped in that freezing barn, she couldn’t abandon them.

She had to keep moving ahead. She had to try.

Back down in the ravine, she trudged on, head down, forcing herself to put one foot in front of the other. She fought against the thick brush and flattened weeds that pulled at her legs and scratched and jabbed her. Once she tripped on a hidden root and went face first in a drift. With snow down her neck and in her eyes, she crawled to a nearby pile of logs and flopped down.

At that moment, a blurry form flashed out of the log pile, and Jeri jumped up. A scream tore from her throat. A two-foot-high spotted cat howled, its long white whiskersblowing in the wind. Its yawning mouth revealed two long fangs on the top and two on the bottom. The bobcat snarled and screamed again, and Jeri’s arms flew up to cover her face.

When nothing attacked her, Jeri finally peered through her upraised arms. The bobcat was gone; she spotted its dark shape running off to her right. Jeri collapsed on the tree trunk. Sobs of relief and fear convulsed her throat, but not a sound came out. She began to tremble uncontrollably.

Move! Get moving!
Jeri said to herself.

Jeri forced herself to her feet. The winter storm fury seemed worse, and the swirling whiteout confused her. The ravine curved around. Was she still heading toward the barn or in the opposite direction?

She fought down panic that whispered she would freeze to death, be buried by snow, and never found. No one knew where she was, and she might die without saving anyone. Yet, the urge to keep going grew stronger with each step.

She stumbled and fell so many times that she barely felt the impact before struggling to her feet again. Her boots were packed with snow that numbed her feet. Each boot felt as if it weighed a hundred pounds.

Her burning thighs let her know she was climbing steadily uphill. At the top, while resting in the shelter of a tree trunk, she glimpsed a large, dark-red building below. The barn! Even if she were wrong about the van hiddenthere, she’d be able to find refuge and wait out the storm. Slowly, slowly, she picked her way down the hill to the rear of the barn.

Three small windows in the building were encrusted with snow. Jeri crouched under the middle one, straining to hear sounds from inside. Was it music? She cleared a small corner of the glass. An inch at a time, ever so slowly, Jeri raised herself up to peer inside the barn.

At first she couldn’t make out a thing. Then the main doors at the front of the barn came into focus. They were open a few inches, and a tiny drift of snow had blown in. Gradually her eyes adjusted to the darkness. What she saw made her catch her breath–both with horror and with joy.

The van was there. It was parked, facing the large front door as if ready to drive out at a moment’s notice. Was there movement inside the van? With its tinted windows, she couldn’t tell.

At a center pole that reached up to the hayloft, a man sat with his back to the post. His arms, pulled behind him around the pole, were tied together at the wrists. Jeri watched as the man turned his face toward the van. The profile was clear–Keith Reeves was being held captive by a person or persons unknown.

Okay, Lord,
Jeri prayed,
now what?

Saturday, 10:24 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.

Mr. Reeves must be freezing,
Jeri thought,
even if he’s out of the wind.
And where were the girls? In the van? Had they been moved to the house? And where was the kidnapper?

Without warning, someone in a fur-lined parka passed by in front of the main barn door. The second time he appeared, he stuck his head outside. Jeri strained to see who it was, but his hood hid his face. Unless she was mistaken, that guard carried a gun.

Crouching down, Jeri shivered violently and rubbed her legs to keep the circulation going. To her right, she noticed aback door. It was split in half so the top could open for fresh air without letting the animals escape. Dutch doors, Nikki called them. Jeri could get into the barn there. First, though, she had to create a distraction to make the guard leave.

She sneaked around the side of the barn, which was mercifully out of the wind, and peered toward the house. The snow was so thick she couldn’t make it out. Between the barn and the house was a storage shed. If she could manage to smash one of its small windows, the guard should run out to investigate, and that would allow her to get inside.

What could she find to throw? A white quilt of snow covered everything. Poking along the side of the barn with her boot, Jeri found a pile of broken bricks. Some were too heavy for her to throw far, and others were too light to break a window. Finally she found two that should do the job. At the corner of the barn, she pulled her arm back, took careful aim, and threw hard. Good grief! She missed the building altogether! The rock landed silently in a drift.

One more time.

Two seconds later, the crash of breaking glass brought the guard out of the barn, running toward the shed. Jeri raced back around behind the barn; she jerked open the Dutch door, slipped inside, and then pulled it shut. After the glaring white outside, she was blinded for a moment. Music blared from a country music station. Breathing hard, she crept toward the middle of the barn where Mr. Reeves was tied and dropped to her knees.

“Mr. Reeves!” she hissed. “It’s me. Jeri McKane.”

She pulled a rag down from where it cut across his mouth.

“Thank God!” His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he gulped. “Are you alone?”

“Long story, but yes.” Jeri yanked and tugged at the rope tying the teacher’s hands together behind his back. Finally she loosened the knot enough for him to work his way out. From the condition of his raw wrists, Jeri figured he’d been trying for hours to get loose. With heavy bags under his eyes, the husky art teacher looked like a zombie. His cheeks were prickly as cactus from two days’ growth of beard.

She glanced nervously toward the open door and spotted a large portable radio balanced on a bale of straw. Between the howling wind outside and the music inside, at least their voices were drowned out. Pigeons cooed in the rafters, and Jeri searched overhead for a good spot to hide in the loft. The “ladder” to the hayloft consisted of several short boards nailed to the barn wall. Long ropes hung loose from pulleys above. Could she use them somehow? Maybe she could jump from the loft and swing like Tarzan to knock the kidnapper down when he returned?

“Where are the girls?” Jeri asked.

“In the van, but it’s locked. Looped chains through the door handles are padlocked.”

Jeri pressed her face against the window of the van that was open an inch. “Rosa, are you okay?” she called as loudas she dared. In a moment Rosa stuck her fingers through the window. Jeri grabbed her fingers and squeezed. She could see Rosa’s tears, and she held back her own.

The other girls whispered excitedly, but Jeri put a finger to her lips. They didn’t dare get the attention of the man in the parka. Mr. Reeves struggled to his feet, and his knees almost buckled.

Jeri grabbed his arm. “Do you have a cell phone?”

“No, they took it.”

“They who? And what happened? Quick! The window I broke won’t keep him away for long.”

Just then she heard the guard cussing and yelling. He sounded very close to the barn. “Quick! Sit down!” Jeri said.

Mr. Reeves dropped, and she looped the rope around his wrists and pulled the dirty bandana back across his mouth. His head drooped. She dashed behind a stack of bales in a darkened corner of the barn as the guard appeared in the doorway. If only there was a heavy shovel or a pitchfork! Head down against the wind, the guard’s parka hood shielded his face – and kept him from seeing her.

Dropping to her knees, Jeri peered between the bales. There were small rustlings behind her, and she held her breath.
Please, God, no rats or mice!
The guard walked near Mr. Reeves and stopped. He had a battered look, with his nose slightly flattened. Her teeth started to chatter, and she clamped her jaw shut. Satisfied that Mr. Reeves was still tied up, the guard flipped on a hanging lightbulb and

left again. He slid the barn door completely closed behind him. Despite the dim bulb, the barn was very dark.

Jeri waited a minute and then hurried back to Mr. Reeves. He threw off his rope and stood.

Jeri shook all over, from both cold and fear. “He’ll be back soon. We need a plan!”

Lord, help us. Please!
Jeri closed her eyes and held her breath. What could they do? As she waited, Jeri recalled how Gideon in the Bible fought and won a battle, using directions as strange as those followed at the battle of Jericho. His army attacked the enemy in the dark, carrying blazing torches and trumpets. The combination of light and noise confused the enemy – and Gideon’s army won the battle. Could they use blinding light combined with noise right here?

Jeri grabbed Mr. Reeves’s arm. “I’ve got an idea. Listen.” She sketched her plan. He smiled grimly and nodded agreement.

Through the open window, Mr. Reeves gave the girls in the van their instructions. “Everyone in place now,” he said.

“Wait,” Jeri said. “Tell me what happened. Quick!”

“We were nearly home from the field trip,” Mr. Reeves said. “Halfway through the Stretch, a big trailer truck was stopped. A guy I’d never seen before was squatting by it. I figured the truck had broken down.”

“Then what?”

“I stopped and offered the man a ride into town, and he pulled a gun! A second guy in a ski mask opened the back of the trailer truck and let down a ramp. The first guy–that guard in the parka–took my phone. Then he held a gun on us until I drove up the ramp into the back of the trailer truck.”

“Oh no!”

“I considered making a break, but I was afraid he’d open fire on the students. So I drove in, and he got in the van with us, and then the truck was closed.” He shivered. “The silent guy drove us here. And you’ll never guess who he is.”

“You
know
him?”

“You do too. The guy from the stables, Houston.”

Jeri’s mouth dropped open. “No way! He’s been helping search for the van!”

“Clever of him,” Mr. Reeves said. “But he comes here too, on a snowmobile. They take turns sleeping and guarding us.”

Houston?
Jeri couldn’t believe it. Was
he
the snowmobiler who spooked her horse on the trail?

“Hurry. Get in place,” Mr. Reeves said. He went to sit by his pole, replaced his gag, and pretended to be tied up. Jeri turned off the overhead light, silenced the radio, and crouched behind the van in nearly total darkness. Peering around the rear fender, she stared at the barn door.

Waiting.

Listening to the pounding of her own heart.

All was quiet. Then suddenly the door screeched open just far enough for a man to slip through. He stomped his snowy feet and threw back his parka hood. From his stocking cap hung greasy gray hair, reminding Jeri of mop strings. A thin shaft of weak sunlight shone across the floor on Mr. Reeves, still sitting by the post.

The man glanced at the lightbulb, then the silent radio. “What the–”