Page 60 of Glimmer in the Darkness

She took out her handgun and started to the left. The broad grassy area narrowed until the path was only about a foot wide. The mountain rose on one side, fell on the other. Bushes and short trees grew from the stony soil, blocking the sunshine. She made her way forward, feeling James behind her. But she couldn’t look.

They rounded a bend, and there it was.

A giant boulder, rounded by years of weather and covered with vegetation. It was flattish on the bottom and propped against a pile of other boulders, also covered with vegetation. Beneath the large boulder, a gap.

It would be impossible to see from any other direction, completely hidden from above. But here, the opening was obvious.

When she paused to listen, James gripped her upper arm and motioned that he wanted to go first.

She pressed her back against the steep hillside, and he slid past her and crept closer.

No noises came from within. Not a whimpering child or a threatening man. But Ella had to be here. She had to.

James stepped around the corner, crouched down, and moved into the opening, gun drawn.

She followed him into the darkened cave, her own gun pointed at the ground rather than at James’s back, which she nearly bumped into.

She moved to his side and let her eyes adjust to the darkness.

Empty. The scent of feces hovered in the air.

Though outside the sun shone, inside, the only light came from the narrow opening they’d just come through. James flicked on the flashlight and aimed the beam around the space.

It illuminated dirt floor, stone walls, boulder ceiling. No little girl huddled in the corner. No man prepared to defend himself.

James shined the flashlight along the walls, but Cassidy went straight to the back, got on her hands and knees, and looked at the only hiding place the cave offered.

Ella wasn’t there.

She made her way to a familiar spot against the wall and sat. With Hallie on her lap, Cassidy had spent hours upon hours here, praying for help. Waiting for a rescuer. No deliverer had come. Though she desperately wanted to be that deliverer for little Ella…

She had failed.

Ella wasn’t here.

Oh, Father. Now what?

Was the kidnapper a copycat? Somebody who knew just enough about the event a decade earlier to make it look like the same person?

Or had the kidnapper found a better hideout?

What if Eugene had seen her and told his father, and Wilson had figured out who she was. It was possible Wilson had moved the child last night, knowing Cassidy was back in town.

Or had it been the kidnapper and murderer who’d followed Cassidy on the trails two days before. Had he moved Ella then?

Was that why their stalker hadn’t tried to kill them? Better to have Cassidy find the cave and be discredited when Ella wasn’t there.

She didn’t know. She only knew she was hungry and tired and in pain, and for what?

For nothing. All for nothing.

Lord, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t… care so much, not if she’s going to be lost too. Ella is in Your capable hands. You didn’t see fit to let me find her, so… please, rescue that little girl. Please, don’t let her suffer the same fate Addison did.

She didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to imagine what it had been like, but the images were too real. She’d been the recipient of beatings the first decade of her life. Her mother always stunk of the whiskey she drank with orange juice for breakfast, on the rocks at lunchtime, and straight by the time dinner rolled around. The scent of whiskey accompanied all of Cassidy’s early memories. Mom and whiskey and a fist. Mom and whiskey and an empty bottle-turned-weapon. Mom and whiskey and a cigarette butt and the scent of burning flesh.

It had been bad enough when Mom’s rage spent itself on Cassidy, but when Mom turned her rage on Cassidy’s little sister, Becca, it had been horrible. Little Becca, too small to take the beatings, would beg for help. Cassidy would fight back then, push her mother away and yell at Becca to run and hide.

Mom was usually too drunk to pursue.