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How long did Jon wait before he set off to find Annie and call for help if it didn’t come in a timely manner? The indecision made him pace the small cabin.
Then he heard thewhop-whopof helicopter rotors. She’d gotten through! Maybe the pilot had landed and picked her up to save her from making the trip back. With a final check onGlenn, he darted from the cabin and ran for the beach where the landing lights shone on the open space. He waved his hands to let them know they’d arrived at the right spot, then backed away to a safe distance.
It was too dark to clearly see inside the chopper, but there were several figures, and Jon waited for Annie to come bounding out.
The door opened, and two paramedics ducked under the rotors and ran toward him. “Where is he?” the woman asked.
Jon gestured behind him and to the left. “Inside the cabin. Where’s Annie?” he called after them as they headed for the building.
The male stopped and turned. “She said she would head back here. I thought she’d be here by now.”
The unease he’d felt intensified. Something was wrong. “You can take over with Glenn. I’m going to go find Annie. Maybe she fell and is injured along the way.”
The paramedic nodded. “Call if you need us to get her.” He hurried to join the other paramedic in the cabin.
Jon first checked with the pilot to make sure she hadn’t seen Annie walking along the shoreline as she flew the chopper. The woman had seen nothing. Jon told her he would be unable to call for help so to watch for a flashlight signal as they flew out.
He took off for the edge of the beach and followed it. Clouds blew across the moon and held the hint of rain. He wasn’t exactly sure where cell coverage started, so he stopped often to check. He also called Annie’s name throughout the trip to where she’d told him she was heading. All along the shoreline, he saw no sign of her. The fifteen minutes along the water seemed to take forever. He rounded a corner and squinted. Hadn’t she said something about a stand of conifer trees?
He approached the trees and tried his phone again. It lit with one bar, and he quickly called up her number. As it connected, he heard something ringing. He whirled toward the sound and saw a light flashing by a rock.
Annie’s phone and gun lay on the sand, and a wave of fear washed up his chest. “Annie!” He walked back toward the forest calling her name over and over. No answer.
He flipped on his flashlight and scoured the beach area for clues as to what had happened to her. Some indentations in the sand caught his attention, and he studied them.
He was no tracker, but even he could tell a scuffle had taken place here. There were multiple footprints near where he’d found the phone. He resumed his search and found more prints by the water. Someone orsomeoneshad likely taken her out of here by boat.
And it hadn’t been willingly. She wouldn’t leave her phone or her gun out here like this. The people who had abducted her would have tossed it aside or forced her to abandon it so they couldn’t be tracked.
His heart in his mouth, Jon called Mason, who answered on the second ring. “Mason, have you heard from Annie?”
“Not since she called to let me know she’d found Glenn. What’s up?”
Jon told him about the markings on the sand and her abandoned phone and gun. “Could she have been taken out of here by boat?”
“Possible. I’ll notify the Coast Guard. It had to have been right after we spoke.”
Which meant it had been about an hour as near as Jon could gauge it. Her abductors might have had time to get to their destination. “What if the Coast Guard doesn’t find her?”
“I don’t know, Jon. There’s no way of knowing where to search for her. I’ll ask rangers and other law enforcement to be on the lookout for her, but we don’t know why she was taken. Or where. Did the paramedics get there? How’s Glenn?”
“The paramedics took over, and I left to find Annie. He’s not in good shape. I’m not sure he’ll make it.”
“They’re taking him to Houghton.”
So the chopper wouldn’t come this way. “Could Annie’s abduction have anything to do with Glenn? Maybe the perp is whoever spirited Glenn out of the hospital.”
“Possible. You found him in his favorite hunting area. Maybe Annie saw something incriminating or they were afraid she might, so they got her out of there.”
The strain in Mason’s voice caused Jon’s worry to spike. The chances of finding her weren’t good. “Maybe Candace could give more information. Annie found her husband, and she might be grateful enough to turn over any other info she might have.”
“Maybe.” Mason didn’t sound hopeful. “I already let her know Glenn has been found, and she’s on her way to the hospital.”
“If I get there first, can I ask her?”
“Yeah, go ahead. She might be sympathetic to you since you’re engaged to Annie. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Jon had no better leads to follow than Candace, so he ended the call and tried to figure out where they’d parked. The map he called up on his phone wasn’t very detailed. He might not find his way out of the forest.
