Page 34 of Glimmer in the Darkness

Forever and ever. Emotion clogged her throat at the memory. She breathed through it. James didn’t need that right now. She didn’t need it. When she could speak, she said, “We walked a long time. Stopped for the night, and he built a fire, tied us up, and told us to sleep. Not that we did. Then we walked a long distance again the next day.”

With narrowed eyes, James studied her. “How did you think you could find it in one day?”

“With your sister, progress was slow, really slow. We got started late, after six in the evening. I figure we hiked three hours that night, around four the next day. I was moving faster than we did back then. And I have more hours of daylight now that it’s summertime.”

“And you’re scared to stay on the mountain alone.”

Terrified. “I thought if I could get close, I could call the police, report something. Not as me, but anonymously. Lead them in the right direction.”

“Why was progress slow? With the… the kidnapper?”

“Your sister was little. She couldn’t move very fast, and she was crying and—”

“Got it.” The grief on his face made her wish the words back. He took another map from the console and opened it. “This is Mt. Ayasha, and these”—he pointed to a tiny portion on the north side of the mountain—“are the trails. From what you said, you probably explored around this area.”

She followed his finger. Seemed about right.

“Obviously, there’s still a lot of ground to cover. Would you say you were climbing a lot or moving across level ground? Or even… do you remember going down?”

“Climbing and level, I think. We never went down, at least not very far.”

“Did you cross any roads? Any streams or rivers?”

She considered the question. “There was a stream, but nothing so wide it was hard to get across. Of course, it was below freezing, and there was snow on the ground. It’s possible we crossed a frozen stream and didn’t realize it. There were no roads.”

“What else?”

She closed her eyes, forced herself back. “We had to go over rocks, like… like big boulders. There was one section he wanted us to climb, but Hallie couldn’t do it. Most of the time, he carried her, but he couldn’t carry her up that hill. We had to go around. Which I think must have taken longer. We left the trail right away, but it wasn’t like we were forging new ground. It was a path, a very narrow path. I had the impression he’d gone that way before, many times.” There’d been trees, trees, and more trees. Bare branches, stark against the snow-covered ground and gray skies. “Everything looked the same.”

“When you walked in the morning, do you remember the position of the sun? Was it shining on you, or—?”

“Yes. Yes! There were thick clouds, but a few times the sun poked through.”

He studied the map. “You must’ve been on the east side or the southeast side.”

“That was until the snow started.”

He looked up. “The snow didn’t start until late that afternoon. It rained most of the day.”

“It didn’t rain on us. It was snow.”

He gazed at the map again. “You must have climbed pretty high. Did you see the lake?”

“Never in the morning. It might have been visible at night but—”

“Too dark to see.” James tapped the map on the south side of the mountain. “There are some old logging roads over here. Let’s see if we can get started higher up.”

About a half hour later, they turned off the state highway onto a narrow opening that most passersby would never see. Though the day was dry, about a quarter mile up, a stream cut across the road. James splashed through it and drove until it dead-ended in a wide opening.

He used the area to turn around and headed back down.

“Wait,” she said, “where are we going?”

He was peering into the woods on both sides of the path. “We don’t want anyone to see the Jeep.”

“But—”

“Trust me, Cassidy.”