The man was crazy, as indoctrinated as Alice had been. And without the eighteen years Alice had had for foundation. No love for the father, she’d seen that. Could she use it?
Words could be a weapon just like a bullet or a blade.
“I’m not going to die here,” she declared aloud. “I’m not going to be a victim here. I’m going to get out. I’m going to get home. Goddamn it, Callen, I’m going to marry you. I decided. I say that’s it.”
Furious with herself, she dashed away tears, blinked her eyes clear, and kept working.
At one point she dozed off, shocked herself awake. She’d sleep when she got home. Take a hot shower, drink a gallon of coffee. No, a gallon of Coke, cold, cold on her dry throat.
Eat a hot meal.
God, Alice. God, how did you survive?
Thinking of that, of the years Alice had done just that, survived, Bodine worked harder.
When she heard the click, her mind emptied. Every thought simply drained out. Her hands shook, dripped blood as she pried open the irons.
On legs that felt like rubber, she stood, calculating how to reach the window, heard the locks thump and thud on the door.
Scrambling, fresh fear sweat popping onto her skin, she slapped the foam back down, dragged the chain, stood beside the cot with her heart hammering and the dull pocketknife palmed in her hand.
She’d talk him down, she told herself. Somehow she’d talk him down, and if she couldn’t? She’d fight.
The door opened, and her hammering heart jerked to a stop as she met the bitter eyes of the man who’d held Alice captive for twenty-six years.
She knew there would be no talking him down.
*
Callen unloaded Sundown from the trailer. Though he hadn’t fired one in years, he had a gun on his hip. So did Chase.
They’d spread out, family, deputies, friends. A lot of ground to cover, he thought, but not as much as before. Easy had grown up south of Garnet, and Tate had confirmed the man they now knew as John Gerald LaFoy had a cabin somewhere south of Garnet.
He’d calculated in his head, as best he could, the most likely areas working back from where Alice had been found.
“Twenty-eight men out,” Chase said as they both mounted. “A lot of rough country to cover, but twenty-eight men can cover it.” He looked skyward. “FBI copter’ll be up shortly.”
The sun peeked, a hint of light, over the western peaks.
“I’m not waiting,” Callen said, and rode.
Since LaFoy stayed off the grid, Callen figured he’d plant himself away from ranch houses and roads, use trees and the rise of the land for cover. But he’d need a way in and out.
They traveled the ranch road for a time, in silence, scanning.
“He’s going to stay away from the ghost town, the tourists, the ATV routes.” Chase lifted the field glasses that hung around his neck, peered through.
“The son of a bitch told Clintok we’d had a beer together after work the night that college girl was killed. We didn’t, but I didn’t say otherwise. Figured he was covering for me, but he was covering for himself as much. I didn’t see it in him, Chase. I never saw this in him.”
“Nobody did.”
“He wasn’t after Bodine. I can’t resolve if that means she’s safe until he figures out what to do, or…”
“Just don’t. She’s alive. She can handle herself.”
“She can handle herself,” Callen echoed … because he needed to believe it. “I’m going to marry her.”
“I thought that’s how it was.”
“That’s how it is. I’m going west from here, off the road now. How about you keep north another quarter mile, then do the same? We’re covered east.”
“You see any sign, you signal.”
On a nod, Callen led Sundown down a slope, up a rise, and into the trees. He saw signs, but of animal. Deer, bear, elk. Sam had taught him to track when he’d been a boy, just as he’d taught Chase, Bodine, Rory.
But Callen rode half a mile while the sun strengthened without seeing a single sign of human or machine.
He scented cattle, crossed into a pasture where they grazed, followed the fence line north until he could cross. Another ranch road, and since Alice had spoken of walking over more than one, he felt a twinge of hope.
He should’ve waited for her. Why hadn’t he waited for her under that big red moon? Since those thoughts only brought on fear and despair, he blocked them out. Instead, he willed her to think of him. Maybe if she thought of him hard enough he’d know it, he’d sense it.
He came across a rancher mending fences, pulled up.
“You lost, son?” The man pushed up his hat, gave Callen and the gun on his hip a cool, hard stare.
“No, sir. This your land?”
“That’s right. I expect you’ve got reason to be on it.”
“I do. A woman was taken last night. We’ve got reason to believe she’s being held in this area.”
“You got a badge?”
“No, but others out looking for her do. She’s my woman.”
“Well, I ain’t got her. Maybe she ran off.”
“She didn’t. Bodine Longbow.”
The hard look shifted into concern. “I know the Longbows. Bodine’s their girl? The one who runs the resort?”
“That’s right. I’m looking for the LaFoy place. John Gerald LaFoy. He’s got a son goes by Easy.”
“Don’t know it. Can’t place that name.”
“He’s got a cabin, at least one outbuilding. An old horse, a dog, a milk cow, some chickens. Living off the grid. Has some business with the true patriots.”
“Don’t know the name LaFoy, but there’s a place about a mile as the crow flies.” He gestured northwest. “Mad Max—my boy called him that. My boy and his friends used to like riding up that way, till they got too close to that squatter—and he’s nothing more than that—and he ran them off. I had some words with him about that, but that’s ten years back easy. Sovereign citizen, half-crazy, you ask me, but live and let live. We steer clear of each other.”
Hope, stronger, brighter, ran steady through Callen. “Have you got a phone on you?”
“I do.”
“I need you to call Sheriff Tate, tell him what you told me, tell him where to find the cabin.”
“You think he grabbed her up?”
“He’s got a son, too, and yeah, they’ve got her.”
“You wait for me to get a horse—quickest way to get there from here. I’ll go with you.”
“I can’t wait. Call Tate,” Callen said, kicking Sundown into a gallop.
He had to slow when the ground roughened, the trees thickened. As he rode, he dragged out his own phone, called Chase. He barked out the location.
“I’ll be coming in from the north.”
“I’m a half mile out,” Callen said, and shoved the phone away.
He’d barely done so when he heard the gunshot.
*
LaFoy studied Bodine as he shut the door. Leaned on it, she noted—braced like he needed the support. His color looked sickly, his eyes red-rimmed. Easing her hand behind her thigh, she slid the dulled blade between her fingers.