Zero Visibility (12 page)

They pushed through the trees without stopping to rest. Every time a human noise met their ears, Nathan led her in a different direction. They seemed to be working gradually uphill.

Any doubt about the tenacity of the pursuers was washed away by the shouts of the men that echoed through the forest. At one point, it was as if the two pairs of thieves had flanked them. The sounds of grunts, expletives and breaking branches seemed to come from both sides.

She picked up the pace, finding the strength to fill her lungs and keep going. How long before the thieves gave up? Even over the noise of their breathing and footsteps crunching through the snow, she sensed that the thieves were closing in.

Branches broke behind her. A single gunshot boomed within yards of her head. Though fear rushed through her like a river, she had the presence of mind not to cry out. Her knees buckled. Nathan gathered her in his arms. He wrapped his arm around her waist and supported her as they catapulted through the trees and bushes.

The cluster of trees thinned, and there were only junipers growing low to the ground and other brush. The deeper snow slowed their pace.

Another gunshot zoomed over the top of them. The breaking of the branches, the shouting, the footsteps, it all threatened to overtake them like a tsunami wave.

Nathan directed her uphill. “This way. Stay low. They can see the bright colors of our coats.”

They made their way through brush. Each time they stopped to listen, thinking they had shaken their pursuers, they saw a flash of color in the trees or heard noise that indicated they weren’t in the clear yet.

Nathan stopped for a moment, scanning the landscape. “We can’t keep this up.” He grabbed her hand. He pulled her toward a rock formation and then stepped into an opening in the rocks. Nathan really knew his way around this forest. She never would have seen the cave entrance on her own, and the thieves wouldn’t see it, either.

He pulled her deeper into the cave where it was black. The temperature dropped at least ten degrees inside the cave. The opening was narrow enough that as they faced each other, their toes touched. Her inhale and exhale seemed to be turned up to high volume.

The voices and shouts of the thieves augmented and echoed inside the cave. It was hard to gauge how close they were. Hopefully, they were hidden well enough.

Dark small spaces had always made Merci anxious. Her gloved hand pressed along the cold cave wall. It felt as if her rib cage was being squeezed in a vise. She closed her eyes, trying to shut out all the pictures her imagination created of what might be in the cave. Bats and bears liked caves. She took in several shallow, stabbing breaths.

Nathan’s hand found hers in the darkness. He had slipped out of his glove and tugged hers off, as well. His calloused hand covered hers. The warmth of his touch sank through her, soothed her. She dared not speak in case the men were close. The cave functioned almost as a loudspeaker with sound bouncing around it.

“They got to be around here somewhere.” A voice boomed outside, not far from the cave opening.

Merci shuddered.

Nathan squeezed her hand. He leaned close, his cheek touching hers and whispered, “They can’t see us.”

The voices of two men pressed on her ear.

Hawthorne said something she couldn’t make out. The footsteps were so close it sounded as if they were stepping into the mouth of the cave. Nathan held tight to her hand. Then she saw a flash of color at the cave opening. She dare not take a breath or move.

Hawthorne spoke up. This time she could hear him. “Lori and Ryan haven’t seen anything, either. We need to find these guys before they can get off the mountain.” His voice was filled with venom.

“What dummies.” Orange Coat’s laughter held an undercurrent of menace. “They should have just stayed at that cabin.”

Hawthorne’s voice grew louder and more intense. “Yeah, they’ve seen me now. My name can’t be connected to any of this. After we get what we want from the girl, they both have to die.”

TEN

T
hough she remained very still and quiet, Nathan sensed the waves of fear that must be radiating through Merci. Her delicate hand trembled in his.

Hawthorne did not want to risk being identified. That explained why he hadn’t been a part of the initial robbery. He must have gotten out of the car before the other two got to where Lorelei and Merci were. They knew Hawthorne’s name. They knew his face. For that, he wanted to kill both of them. Apparently, his vow of nonviolence ended when he was at risk of going to jail.

Nathan waited several tense minutes until he was sure the men had headed away from the cave, then he gathered Merci into his arms.

She let out an anguished cry. “I heard…what he said.”

He held her for a long moment until her shaking subsided. Then he pulled back and placed his hands on her face. “Listen to me, we are going to get off this mountain alive. Don’t doubt it for a minute.”

“How are we going to do that?”

“I don’t know yet.” He eased past her and stepped through the narrow cave opening crouching behind a bush. He stared up at the late-afternoon sky as one idea after another tumbled through his mind. He couldn’t see or hear any sign of the men.

Merci came out and crouched behind him. She tilted her head toward the sky. “Is there time to get back to the cabin before dark?”

The thieves would be expecting that. They could be walking into a trap. “At this point, it’s not that much farther to get to the ski lodge.”

“How is that going to help us?”

The resort hadn’t been operational for three years. There probably wasn’t any food to speak of. They hired a security guy to check on the place once a week, but he doubted he would be up there. “I just think we’d be safer going to a place they’re not familiar with. We can wait it out until the plows can get up the road.” His keys were in the backpack the thieves had taken. They would have to break in.

She cupped a hand on his shoulder. “Okay, that’s what we will do, then. You are the one who knows this mountain.”

He turned and kissed her forehead. She was so willing to trust him. “It’s just this way.” Sunset was early this time of year. Even if they walked at a steady pace, part of their journey would be made in darkness.

As they trudged forward, Nathan stayed tuned into his surroundings. Maybe the thieves had given up and started to look for them elsewhere. Then he remembered the venom contained in Hawthorne’s vow. It would be foolhardy to drop his guard altogether.

They hadn’t eaten since early morning, and now it was getting close to dinner time. Hunger had started to gnaw at his belly. Merci walked beside him with her head down as the snow started to fall again. Though she hadn’t complained, she must be getting hungry, too.

As they walked, he picked up a tin can. “Let me know if you get thirsty. I have some matches. We can melt some snow.” At least he could give her that.

She nodded, but her body language indicated that her mind was elsewhere.

He had a pretty good guess about what was occupying her mind. “So what happened back there?”

She stopped and met his gaze. “You mean with Lorelei?” She looked off in the distance. “Hawthorne called her Lori. They must be involved. I guess you were right about her being a part of this. She pretended to be tied up and blindfolded in that cellar.”

“Yeah, that seemed really odd to me. Why would she do something like that?”

“Hawthorne said something about getting something from me before…before he killed me. Some of her questions were odd. Maybe Lorelei was trying to get some kind of information out of me. That’s why they put her in that room with me.” Merci looked at the trees up ahead and took a step forward. “The whole thing was staged.” An undercurrent of anger colored her voice.

They walked on in silence for a few minutes as the snowfall increased. At least they weren’t fighting the wind. Nathan didn’t want to push her. She seemed pretty raw emotionally. If she wanted to say more, she would.

Once Lorelei saw that Hawthorne was with them, she must have contacted them on that purple phone she had. She must have told them about the snowmobile and the camp. What they thought was a kidnapping was just Lorelei being picked up.

After about five minutes of walking, Merci piped up. “I just can’t believe I trusted her. I really am naive.” Her voice faltered.

“There is nothing wrong with thinking the best of people,” Nathan said.

Merci’s foot slipped on the snow, and Nathan caught her by the elbow. Her eyes were filled with tears.

Compassion flooded through him. “Hey, we don’t have to talk about this.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just that my father was right. I’m too trusting of people. I just really wanted to believe that Lorelei was who she said she was. Maybe it was just reflexes that made her save my life in that truck.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “My father says I’ll never make a good businessperson because I don’t see past people’s veneer.”

“I wish I could trust more easily,” Nathan said. His thoughts turned to his brother. Daniel’s past history of gambling meant he was a bad financial risk as a business partner. It just seemed easier to sell the mountain property than to go through the heartache and humiliation of losing it to pay off debt if his brother returned to his old habits. Still, there was a part of him that wanted to believe that his brother had changed after his last time in rehab.

Merci stared at the ground as she walked. “Taking people at face value just means I get burned a lot.”

“I guess,” Nathan said, his voice becoming distant. His issue with Daniel wouldn’t matter at all if they didn’t get off this mountain alive.

The sky over them darkened to a deeper gray. Nathan watched the path in front of them. A dark lump lay in clearing up ahead. He put his hand up to stop her.

“What is it?” she whispered.

Now he could discern what the lump was. “Fresh kill. Stay here.” He moved in quickly. The fawn was still warm. Maybe their voices had frightened the predator away. In any case, he’d be back quick enough. He pulled his pocketknife out and cut from the back flank where the muscle was exposed. He packed snow around the meat and placed it in the kangaroo pocket of his ski jacket.

Merci had stepped closer. She let out a sad cry when she saw the dead fawn. He paced toward her and grabbed her hand. “Come on, we got to go.”

“Why?”

“Because whatever killed this has got to be close by, and they aren’t going to be very happy that we stole some of their dinner.”

He broke out into a trot and she followed. “I thought the bears were asleep this time of year.”

“The wolves and the bobcats aren’t,” he said picking up the pace.

By now they were moving at a run, slowed down only by the drifts of deep snow. He pushed hard for at least an hour. When they stopped, the sky was black.

“We can build a fire here, cook this meat and melt some snow to drink. Look around for some dry wood.” A tall order considering the amount of snow that had fallen. “Sometimes branches that are covered by other deadfall aren’t too bad.”

She hesitated, moving only a few feet away from him. “Do you think whatever killed that fawn is still out there?”

Nathan looked around as he cleared a dry spot under a tree for the fire. “We would have heard or seen the wolves by now.” She was afraid, but he couldn’t lie to her about the level of danger. “Bobcats are quieter. Sometimes they stalk their prey for miles.”

“Have we become the prey?” Her voice faltered when she asked the question.

“Tell you what, why don’t we just look for that wood together.” They foraged for about twenty minutes. Dead branches on standing trees proved to be the best source of fuel. Nathan gathered twigs for kindling.

As he struck a match, he said, “We’ve got to keep it small and let it burn out quickly so they don’t find us.”

Nathan filled the tin can with snow and positioned it close to the flames. As the fire began to die, he placed the meat on a makeshift grill he’d fashioned from willow sticks.

They passed the can of melted water back and forth. Nathan jabbed at the meat with a sharpened willow stick. He cut it in half. “It’s kind of black, but it will fill the hole in your belly.”

“Bon appétit.” Her cheerfulness sounded forced. After she had taken several bites, she said, “This tastes better than a lot of restaurant food I’ve had.”

“That’s just because you’re starving,” he said.

“This is pretty gourmet,” she joked. “Maybe you should think about getting your own cooking show.”

“Or at least write a cookbook.” He played along, grateful for any humorous relief they could find. Merci’s
ability to find something positive or funny in the worst situation never ceased to amaze him.

She laughed. A branch broke somewhere in the forest. Her head shot up as she swallowed her laughter.

Nathan spoke in a low, solemn voice. “Maybe we should think about covering this fire up and getting out of here.” It didn’t matter if it was the bobcat or the thieves. They needed to move pronto.

As they piled snow on the fledging fire, he listened to the forest for more signs that they weren’t alone, but didn’t hear anything. By the time they got moving, the sky was pitch black with only a few twinkling stars. The flashlight had been in the backpacks. Any torch they could have fastened from the fire wouldn’t have lasted long without fuel to keep it burning.

Darkness slowed their pace.

Merci came up beside him. “How much farther do we have to go?”

He didn’t see any familiar landmarks in the darkness. “Let’s just keep going.” He hadn’t lost confidence that they would get to the ski hill. They were headed in the right direction. Their escape from the thieves had been a little erratic, and they’d gotten off course. He just couldn’t be sure how far away they were.

Night chill set in as the temperature dropped. The knife wound started to hurt again, sending radiating pain down his arm.

Merci stopped and leaned against a tree. She looked up at the sky. “I wonder what time it is?”