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“Probably halfway to Mexico.”
“The call came in fifteen minutes ago. He couldn’t have gotten far. We’ll pick him up.” But he didn’t sound sure.
“So what the hell happened here?” Lorna asked. “What really went down?”
“Nothing good,” he said, eyeing the blood-soaked mattress and stained bedclothes beneath the canopy of still-twinkling lights. “We’ll see what the kids have to say.” At the landing, the male cop touched the woman on the shoulder, stopping her. “It might all depend upon what this one has to say.” He nodded toward Lucy.
“Oh, Jesus, Tony. Don’t even go there.” The woman’s arms tightened around Lucy, and she repeated, “She’s just a little kid.”
Cascade Mountains, Oregon
Now
The key wasn’t where she’d thought it should be. But this had to be the place. She’d looked up Jacoby on the records for the county and there weren’t any others besides Winston Jacoby.
Lucy let out a disappointed huff and saw her own breath fog in the cold.
There was no tree with a split trunk and the snow was falling wildly now, wind blowing, drifts piling along the cabin’s foundation. If they couldn’t find shelter, they would freeze and she wasn’t about to let that happen. Worse case? She would break into this godforsaken cabin through a window.
“I’m cold,” Renee complained just as the dog finally came bounding through the snowdrifts, his thick, gray-and-white fur dusted with snow, his tongue lolling from one side of his mouth.
Me too. “Just a sec,” Lucy said, worrying that her information had been wrong. She’d overheard the conversation and made a mistake or she was in the wrong spot and then she spied it, not a split trunk, but actually two trees growing out of an old stump. She trudged to the stump, brushing off the snow. Searching with gloved hands, she ran her fingers over the mossy surface, once, then again, and discovered a rusted key wedged deep into the rough bark.
Thank goodness for small favors.
She had to take off her gloves to force the key into its rusted lock, but once she did, the door swung open and the welcome smell of dry dust hit her nostrils. The cabin might be dirty, but at least it was dry and dusty rather than moldy and dank.
With the dog and Renee in tow, she explored the rambling building with two staircases, the main one near the front door by the great room and a narrow back set of steps off the kitchen that led upward to the second floor and downward to what seemed like a root cellar, which housed the furnace and shelving filled with mostly empty jars. As she ran her flashlight over the glassware, she didn’t want to think about what the filled jars that had been abandoned here held. She spied an old wooden chute connected to an opening with a cover, a place where coal or firewood or whatever could be delivered straight into the cellar. A small stack of firewood remained, an ax buried in a stump used as a chopping block, bits of wood surrounding it.
She checked, making certain the chute door was latched, along with the two, small, grimy windows, then returned to the kitchen, which was separated from the living area by a peninsula. A butcher-block counter ran beneath a bank of cabinets that, when checked, were found to be mostly empty.
The whole cabin felt as if it had been forgotten. The dust thick, the yellowed newspaper left in a box near the stone fireplace dated eight years earlier. The beds were unmade, a single sheet draped over each one, the bedding in the closets covered in dust and grime, spiders nesting in the corners of the ceiling and God-knew-what-other-creatures inhabiting the darkened nooks and crannies.
It took over an hour to set up, but yes, thankfully, the electricity was working. Another blessing, and water ran in the sink and fixtures in the kitchen and both bathrooms. All the comforts of home, she told herself, and even built a fire with dry wood stacked on a lean-to just off a small back porch. She cleaned as best she could, unloading the sled of the camping goods she’d hurriedly packed, including two slim, thermal sleeping bags, dried food, short skis, and snowshoes.
And a gun.
She’d brought a pistol, the little baby Glock she’d purchased upon returning to the States when she was just eighteen.
As night was falling, she locked the doors and barricaded them with furniture. Then she huddled with her daughter and the dog as the embers of the fire burned down to coals that cast dancing, blood-red shadows over the log walls of the main room. She’d already drawn down the shades on all the windows that had coverings, though two with broken blinds she’d had to leave exposed.
How long would she be able to hide here?
Another day?
A week?
Indefinitely, or until someone who owned the place, Jacoby, saw the change in his electric bill? Or a snow-shoer hiked by and saw the lights . . .
No, no, no! Just until you figure out a plan.
And what will that be?
I don’t know. But I’ll think of something.
Lucy glanced down at her sleeping child and prayed she wasn’t kidding herself. She had to brace herself for the inevitability that he would find her.
And when he did?
