Deadly mountain trap, p.31
Deadly Mountain Trap, page 31
She waited, but all he did was shake his head.
“I can’t, Cassie.”
She stared in his eyes till she saw it. The faith issue. It was a bigger deal to him than she’d anticipated, and it was something he hadn’t known to be true the last time around.
Could they not get married because of that? It was that important to Jake? She wanted to be angry, but it was part of who he was. His commitment to doing what he felt was right was part of why she loved him; Cassie knew that. To change him would be changing him in such a fundamental way that he wouldn’t even be the same person she was in love with.
He was being true to his beliefs. She admired him for it.
But it still broke her heart.
She stood. Nodded. “I understand.” Another hard swallow. “Don’t worry about it, okay? We can still figure this out together. I still want Will to know you. We’ll be friends. Like you said, right?” She nodded again and turned to the door.
Then she brushed a tear from her eye.
She’d almost had the fairy-tale ending with Jake, and she’d been the villain in that story who stole it from herself by leaving. She should have known a second chance was too good to be true. She should never have gotten her hopes up.
Because the thing about hopes?
They hurt the worst when they come crashing down.
* * *
Jake sat in the dark for another half hour after Cassie left, trying to figure out what he could have done differently. Well, not kissed her for one, but she’d been sitting there, looking gorgeous, and he had told her the truth, he did still love her. He was every bit as in love with her as he had been years ago. But none of those feelings changed what was right, and she didn’t believe the same way he did.
It shouldn’t have been a deal breaker, not in his opinion, not when they had a son together. But truth was truth and it didn’t change no matter what your preferences or situations or circumstances. Hadn’t he been saying that for years? Here was his chance to live it.
When he’d thought out their situation from every angle, and spent some time praying too, Jake finally went back to bed. He slept lightly though. Too many things on his mind to do otherwise.
By the time he got downstairs for breakfast just after six o’clock, Cassie was already awake and scrambling eggs.
“Did you sleep okay?” he asked as he started toward the coffee maker to brew a pot only to find she’d already made enough for both of them. Jake blinked, the contrast to last night, the bad way it had ended, hurting him somewhere in his chest.
She shut off the burner she’d been using and separated the eggs onto two plates. She handed him one and then pulled bread out of a toaster, placing it on each plate before walking to the table. He followed.
“Not really.” She finally answered the question as she reached for a jar of strawberry jam she must have put on the table earlier. She met his eyes and he blinked against the unflinching nature of her gaze. He didn’t know what he’d expected after last night, maybe for her to be embarrassed, or upset with him, he wasn’t sure. But he hadn’t expected this. She seemed bolder. More confident.
One thousand times more beautiful and irresistible.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said and then put jam on his own toast. Cleared his throat. “About the search today...”
“Do you want to start as soon as Will wakes up?”
He nodded.
“I can get him up if necessary. He has to be woken up for school usually.”
“That...” He was about to say it wasn’t necessary when he realized that if they didn’t leave soon, he would just be sitting here, staring at Cassie after shattering any chance things between them could ever go back to how they used to be. He couldn’t handle this level of awkward. Breakfast was hard enough. “That would be great, actually.”
“Okay.” She finished her breakfast without saying anything else to him and then started up the stairs.
She and Will came back down minutes later. Will had some quick breakfast, and Jake loaded them in the car only saying what needed to be said. He didn’t feel much like talking this morning.
As he pulled out of the driveway, a shiver went down his spine. Things between him and Cassie were so strained that he felt even more pressure not to let anything happen to her today. If she was hurt it would crush him no matter what, but he did not want last night to be the final real conversation they’d had.
Surely he was overreacting. But none of the reassurances he tried to offer himself would stick. Because he wasn’t being paranoid. Someone was after Cassie, they might want her dead, and he had no leads yet on who it could be. Neither did the police. He’d texted Levi enough times that his friend had finally sent him a message that said, Nothing new to tell.
None of it sat right with Jake. It had been too quiet, too easy and calm since the last attack—the gunshots outside of the library.
It made him feel like the danger was a rubber band being stretched and stretched and sometime soon...
It would snap.
THIRTEEN
Nothing improved after they dropped Will off.
“You remember we only have a couple more days before he stays with us again, right?” Cassie asked Jake, her voice completely void of any extra warmth. She wasn’t rude. Just matter-of-fact and not especially...friendly.
Ironic, since that’s what they’d established they were. Friends. Funny how much of a step back that could seem like.
“So we just need to figure out who was responsible for your aunt’s death before then.”
“Sure, we’ll solve a decades-old legend superfast and eliminate our need for childcare.” Jake didn’t look at her, but he could hear the roll of her eyes.
Then she sighed. “Listen, Jake...”
He felt his shoulders tense, unsure of how this conversation was going to go. But he waited anyway.
“I’m sorry about that. It’s not your fault that I...got the wrong idea, and...you know...” She shrugged. “Anyway, we’re adults. We were in love once. We share a son. I can be nicer than I have been this morning and I’m sorry.”
He wasn’t sure what to say. And just as he opened his mouth to do so, movement in the rearview mirror caught his eye. They’d just passed a narrow driveway and someone was turning out of it, toward them.
“You’re buckled, right?” Jake double-checked with Cassie.
“Yes, why?”
His worst fears were realized when whoever was tailing him advanced. He couldn’t see the driver well, but he could tell he was wearing a hat, low over his eyes. It was a white sedan, something like a Honda Accord, and its intentions were clear to Jake.
The road was narrow and wound up the mountain toward the trailhead. The mountainside itself was on the right and there was a guardrail on the left. Then it just dropped off. There was little room to maneuver if someone was driving aggressively. The car behind them qualified for that description now.
“What on earth?” Cassie’s voice was breathless but not full of fear yet. She hadn’t realized that whoever was tailing them was part of the group that was after her, or was the one person behind her. He wasn’t sure quite how many people were involved, only that Cassie had said she’d seen more than one individual during the attack at the library.
There was only one person in the car behind them. Was his partner up ahead somewhere, or in town? If Jake knew, it could change how he drove. Should he keep going in, knowing they’d be alone in the trailhead parking lot and still needing to face the person behind them and possibly more people if others were involved and waiting somewhere, or turn into a driveway on the side of the road and try to change direction?
He wasn’t completely sure either one would help.
Then the white car smashed into his bumper. They were thrown forward and back and Cassie’s screams pierced his ears.
He wasn’t going to be able to get away if the white car tried again. It accelerated, moved to the right edge of the road. If the car ran into him now, they’d be pushed directly against the guardrail on the left and the side of the mountain.
Jake hit the gas.
The car behind them slowed down.
“Are they gone?” Cassie twisted around in her seat, breathing hard, her eyes wide with pure fear.
“They are. Don’t worry, okay?”
But she wasn’t a child and she wasn’t the kind of woman who would blindly accept reassurances. She knew they were still in danger and she wasn’t going to act like that wasn’t the case. Not even when he tried to offer comfort.
“Where did they go?” Now fear was creeping in the edges of her tone, and Jake felt it too, the sensation that something was coming, that a weight was pressing in on them.
They weren’t safe. No matter how much of a relief it was that the car had gone.
The next pullout, Jake was taking it and driving back down the mountain. He could take Cassie and Will and just keep them safe in his house for as long as this lasted.
He said as much to Cassie as he kept driving up the road, which was too narrow to turn around in yet. He kept his eyes on the rearview mirror.
“You know you can’t do that forever.”
“It wouldn’t be forever,” he argued. “Surely the police will find them eventually.”
Cassie shook her head. “You said yourself that they weren’t looking at anything even related to why we think she was taken. Not the treasure or the legend or any of it. It could be literally years before they look there. Or they might close the case first.” Her voice raised a bit in pitch, turned tight. He knew how much she’d loved her aunt and hated that she was having to deal with the lack of closure that resulted from not knowing who had killed her or being sure why it had happened.
“Still, I need to turn around.” The pullout should be in the next half mile or so, at least he thought, but he eyed the next driveway on the right anyway, tempted to use it to turn around. He didn’t want to be sitting still for that long, just in case the white car came at them from farther down the mountain at a high rate of speed.
“No.”
He looked over at her, and blinked. That’s how firm her voice had been.
“Jake, please. We are so close.”
“I’ve got to call the car in anyway and let the police know.” Was he really considering carrying out today’s plan? When it was clear someone knew what they were doing?
No. He couldn’t.
“Cassie...” He trailed off. He glanced her way and then back to the road again. Her expression made it clear she wasn’t pleased, but he was much less concerned with her happiness than he was with her safety.
He’d just looked up at the rearview mirror to confirm no one was behind them when a car came flying at them down the mountain. This one was black, a crossover.
And it edged over the line toward him.
“Jake, watch out!” Cassie yelled.
Jake jerked the wheel hard to the right and worked to keep the car from crossing the edge of the road while avoiding the head-on hit from the other car. It happened so fast he didn’t know how he was able to react at all. Maybe God’s mercy.
The car still rammed them, despite his efforts. It spun Jake’s vehicle almost forward, and swung it to the right. He fought with the wheel but couldn’t control it, couldn’t stop it from spinning.
They hit the side of the road hard, then the black SUV knocked them again.
Jake’s head smacked the steering wheel before the airbag deployed and threw him backward, and for the second time in two days he felt himself lose consciousness.
Please, God, no.
But nothing changed. Jake blacked out, aware of Cassie’s yelling beside him, and completely powerless to help her.
* * *
When she woke up, Cassie felt like...gravel. Hard. Uncomfortable. All of her hurt. Cassie’s eyes were dry, sandpapery. Her throat was scratchy. She swallowed. Licked her lips and swallowed again, desperate for some moisture.
She blinked, and saw that she was in the dark somewhere. And it was bumpy. She blinked some more, feeling much heavier than when she normally woke from sleep. Was it a side effect from the accident she’d been in? Or had someone drugged her? As her eyes focused, she was able to see that she was in the trunk of a car. Her hands were bound behind her by something that felt tough and plastic. Not rope, maybe something like zip ties. Her eyes weren’t covered, because she could see variations in the dark and as they adjusted to the dim light, she was able to make out shapes in the trunk itself. It was fairly good-sized, she had room to stretch out. It was clean—there was nothing in there with her that she could use for a tool to escape.
Will. Was he safe? Cassie didn’t know for sure but she hoped so. She was alone in the trunk and for now that encouraged her. She remembered being hit while she and Jake were driving to the trailhead to search using her directions and to see if they could find a location for the treasure. In retrospect, they never should have headed to do that alone.
How many mistakes would they make in their attempts to investigate? Come to think of it, probably no more now. Because their investigation was officially over. She’d been caught by whoever had been after her. Chills chased up her spine. Was this it, the last few minutes or hours or even seconds of her life? Cassie had no way of knowing and the thought tortured her.
God, help me.
What did she want help with? Her current situation? The mess she’d made of her relationship with Jake? Or life in general? Or her unbelief?
Can You help me believe, God? Much to her surprise that was what bothered her most. She’d thought about what Jake had said last night, when she couldn’t sleep. She felt oddly pursued by a God she hadn’t been sure existed. Like maybe He did want her to know Him and maybe He had been working on their behalf. But surrendering and trusting was so against her nature. When you trusted people, they let you down. Look at how her mom had let her and her dad down. How Cassie had then taken her own hurts and let Jake down, and by extension Will, who didn’t know his own dad because of her fears.
God, I have really messed up. I don’t know how I could be scared to trust You because clearly I’m not doing a great job without You. I believe You’re real. I believe what I’ve heard in church over the years, that You sent Jesus to die in my place and if I trust that, I can live with You in Heaven and know You here, right now. Cassie was surprised at how many snippets came back to her from church services she’d sat in and conversations with Jake. She was surprised too at how she didn’t feel like she was talking to air, or to the trunk walls, but really like she was talking to... God?
Help me believe more, God. Help me, okay? And if You can help me out of this too...that would be really good. I want to raise my son. I want to tell Jake I still love him. And more than that, I want to show him.
The car hit a pothole and Cassie was thrown against the top of the trunk. Impulse had her jerking her arms to shield her head, but she couldn’t get them in position with how they were bound. Instead she hit her head.
Wincing from the pain, she closed her eyes again. But not to go to sleep or to give up.
She needed to figure out a plan for when whoever had her opened up that trunk.
Because she had too much to live for to go down without a fight.
* * *
The car edged to a stop after another little while of driving. Cassie was hopeless enough measuring distances when she hadn’t been unconscious for part of the time and left tied up in a trunk, so she didn’t know how far they’d gone. Her head hurt and the accident itself was fuzzy in her head. She did remember heading up the road to the trailhead. The white car. Being tailed. She frowned.
The car that had been behind them had backed off, she remembered that. But she hadn’t been completely relieved since she’d still felt like something was coming.
Sometimes she hated being right.
She heard footsteps crunching outside the car. Her heart rate sped up. She couldn’t imagine seeing who’d been behind all this and her stomach churned at the idea of the terror they’d put her through, and the fact that they’d killed her aunt.
Unconsciousness couldn’t be summoned though. So she had no choice but to face this.
The trunk opened and daylight spilled in. The light hurt her eyes.
Please, God, I’m not ready.
“Get out.”
The voice was gruff, a male voice she didn’t recognize. Somehow she’d assumed whoever killed her aunt was from Raven Pass, but this voice wasn’t familiar to her. As soon as she had the thought, she remembered that a good portion of the rescue team had moved to Raven Pass after she’d left town. There were likely more newcomers also. Cassie not knowing who the man was didn’t mean her aunt hadn’t known him.
“My hands are tied so it’s hard to move. Untie them.”
The gruff laughter was void of any actual humor. “No.”
Cassie kicked her feet forward to roll herself over as best she could, but finally the man reached in and grabbed her by the arms and lifted her out.
His strength scared her. She didn’t want to die, but it would have been easier in the car crash. It terrified her to think of dying at the hands of someone with that much raw strength.
Her eyes still burning and dry, Cassie blinked against the daylight. They were in a parking lot, but not the one for the trailhead she and Jake had been heading to. “Where are we?”
“Near the gold. You’re going to take us to it.”
“We were heading to where we thought it was. You need to take me there. Of course, all that assumes I would actually help you find it.” Neither honesty nor sarcasm were likely to hurt her at this point. At least she didn’t think so. They’d already abducted her. It could only get worse if they had her son.
