Deadly Mountain Trap, page 33
Still. It was her only hope. And if hope wasn’t worth holding onto...what else was there?
Cassie walked back to the tree trunk. “I’m going to use the tree.”
The big man nodded, folded his arms across his chest. It seemed he was willing to use her as a guinea pig and then decide his own route based on the one she took. The spinelessness of a man who would be willing to sacrifice a woman for his own safety or gain made her sick. She wanted to tell him that, that he made her want to throw up, but in case her plan didn’t work and they ended up back together, she’d better not antagonize him.
The first step into the water was the coldest, and Cassie stepped back out immediately, her gasp reflex making her inhale sharply. She took a deep slow breath and tried again, letting the water rush over her hiking boots and soak through. Then she reached for the tree branch, her hands tightening around the wood of the branch itself, the leaves tickling her forearm. She took another step deeper into the river with her left foot, then her right. The water was above her ankles now. Cold, it was so cold. Her hiking pants soaked in the water and it crawled up her leg. The tree branch held. She continued across, the water now past her knees. On her thighs. She had to squeeze her eyes shut for a second and grasp for all her courage again because the cold made her want to cry. But she had to get across, or let herself be swept away.
Or...could she cross the river without him and manage to hide out somewhere? Cassie hadn’t considered that option, but now she saw there was a chance. Probably not much of one if she let herself be swept away in the river, but it was an option and possibly safer than...
The branch snapped, the swirl of glacial blue water tugged harder against her, and Cassie felt herself being pulled down, into the churning water, and downstream.
Cold. That was the thought first and foremost on her mind. The water was ice cold like a thousand sharp icicles puncturing her skin all at once, all over. She heard herself screaming and then forced her mouth to close as she passed the man who was running into the water after her. She was his living map, she knew, and he wasn’t likely to go without trying to get her back.
The thought was terrifying.
The current swept her farther downstream, around a curve, and when she was out of his sight, Cassie started to fight the water with her arms, desperate to gain buoyancy and get herself to the shore, where she could hide. She cupped her hands together and pulled the water with even strokes, slowing her breathing so she didn’t panic. She was five feet away from the shore. Four feet.
She paddled harder. The current tugged her back out.
She wouldn’t have much time in this water, she knew. That’s why the entire plan had been a gamble.
Please let it have been a smart one.
The shore was closer now and she swam again, against the tug of the water. One more chance. She had what she guessed was one more chance before the cold and exhaustion would team up against her, bullies that they were, and prevent her from reaching the shore safely.
Everything depended on this next try.
Cassie swam hard, and she swam not just for her, or for Will, or even Jake, but for hope and for the new life she had now that she’d trusted God.
See? I’m trusting You now, God, so please come through for me.
Her hands reached out and she grabbed another branch. It was thin, but it was flexible, and it held long enough for her to stand up in the thigh-deep water and pull herself the rest of the way to the edge with hesitant steps.
The first step on shore, Cassie almost cried. She’d made it, but she wasn’t safe yet, couldn’t rest yet. Instead of collapsing there, Cassie walked inland some, into a thick cluster of fireweed, and curled up in a ball. She had to stay warm. But she couldn’t build a fire, not without being detected. Instead she prayed the sun was enough to keep her warm, and tried to stay awake.
But she couldn’t. She fell asleep with a prayer on her mind, hoping she wasn’t foolish to, for once in her life, trust and hope and wait.
FIFTEEN
Using the story Cassie had written out, as well as the satellite map, had gotten Jake and Levi halfway to where the treasure supposedly was from the trailhead, at least according to his entirely unscientific estimation. They were standing now at a riverbank, staring at the glacial river. It wasn’t the largest Jake had ever seen, but it was silty and fast and that made it dangerous.
“You’re sure you want to cross this?” Levi asked from a few feet away where he’d been looking out, trying to find a good path across the water. Some river crossings on hiking trails in Alaska would have ropes stretched across them, to help hikers get over them safely. Even with the ropes, it wasn’t rare for someone to be pulled down by the current, held under by the heaviness of the silt, and then drowned. It was even more likely here without anything to aid in the crossing. Most Alaskan rivers were angry churning blue, filled with rocks that dared someone to not take them seriously, and offered death as a consequence of carelessness.
This one fit that profile. And Jake had too much to live for to die right now. But the story had said to cross the rivers they encountered. He pulled the wrinkled paper from his pocket, the one Cassie had written last night in her own handwriting.
“He was not stopped by rivers,” Jake read aloud, then shrugged. “It sure sounds like we are supposed to cross it. It doesn’t say to turn around or find another path.”
“And you’re sure this story really means something and is going to lead us to gold?”
Levi was trying to believe him and be supportive, Jake could tell, but he still wasn’t sold on the idea, as Jake had known he wouldn’t be. It was beyond their usual encounters with criminals, most of whom knew what they wanted. They were dealing with something unknown here, a legend. While Jake believed he and Cassie were right about their theories, he understood Levi’s hesitation.
“I’m sure, but besides that, Cassie is sure. She’ll follow what the story says.”
“So we have to cross.”
Jake nodded. He walked up and down the bank, trying to figure out where Cassie would have gone and if she’d have made it. Because the gold wasn’t the point, and the men who had been after her weren’t even the point for Jake. He would rather find Cassie safe, and if she hadn’t made it across all the way...
“Do you think she would have made it—if she crossed this?” he forced himself to ask his friend, not sure he wanted to hear the answer.
Levi looked out again, then spoke up over the roar of the river. “I don’t know. It’s an intense current and she’s been gone for a long time. You think she could do something like this?”
“She could if it wasn’t too deep.” Cassie was strong, Jake knew, but once water was over someone’s knees, their strength started to make less and less of a difference. It was simple science as far as how deep someone could go before being overpowered. If the water was too deep, she wouldn’t have stood a chance. Which meant if she had crossed, she should have done it right about where they were standing, in the middle of this clearing, straight across.
Still...he didn’t see footprints. Would he see some between the rocks, on actual soil?
Maybe. He walked the river again, this time more toward his right. A tree branch overhung the water by about a foot or two, the end of it snapped like it had broken clean off the rest of itself.
Surely...
Cassie would have known better than to cross here, right? he asked himself as he looked down at the deeper water. Using the tree branch as a way across would have been tempting, especially with her having had experience crossing rivers with rope before. She would have defaulted to the way she knew how to cross safely and that was with something to hold onto. But the river here was deeper and the current angrier than in the other locations. If the tree had broken...the water would have been up to her waist, Jake was guessing. Far too deep for her to stand and hold her ground against the flow if she’d lost her handholds.
How long ago had the tree broken? Jake wished he’d studied something that would answer that question for him, instead of being a paramedic and having only worst-case scenarios for Cassie scroll through his mind. Mindless facts he’d once memorized, about drownings and water in the lungs, and the evidence of drownings in autopsies—those were the things he was thinking about now, and pondering them in conjunction with Cassie wasn’t something he wanted to do. They weren’t helpful, and he needed to do something to help. For years he felt like he’d let her down by not coming after her. He’d let his own fears, his own desire to be wanted and not rejected keep him from trying to get her back, and he’d learned. Maybe too late, but he had learned.
She was worth fighting for. And if her lack of belief in God was all there was between them... Jake would keep loving her and pray every day that she came to know the truth. He would try harder to be an example of a good Christian, to show her what it meant to be a person of faith. He would try to gently lead her, not pressure her. But he would not, could not give up on her again.
“She crossed here,” he mumbled, knowing the truth clear down to his soul. He bent down to study the dirt. There, the slightest impressions of the soles of someone’s shoes.
He heard noise behind him and turned his head. Levi.
“Did you find something?” Levi asked.
Jake nodded. “She crossed here.”
His friend’s eyebrows rose. “Because of the tree? You think it went farther out and then...”
Jake shook his head. “No way to know for sure. But I think she went here for some reason.”
“If she was trying to escape someone, would she take her chances being swept down the river?” Levi asked.
Jake didn’t know. Cassie wasn’t a huge risk taker, and she’d struck him as even more careful now, since having Will. But if it was the only chance she’d had to escape, he knew she was brave enough to have taken it.
“Maybe,” he answered.
“So do we cross? Or do we go downstream, hoping to find her?”
Jake struggled for an answer. “If she did go down the river, we still don’t know which bank she’d have ended up on. She wants to know who killed her aunt. Would she have made an effort to cross?”
Levi didn’t answer and Jake hadn’t really expected him to. No one knew her as well as he did, and if he was asking questions, then so was everyone else.
All he could do was search all the options. “Let’s start with this side, go downstream a bit and see what we can find,” he said to Levi.
The other man nodded. “Okay. I’ll update the other officers with our general position in case we run into trouble.”
“Or...” Jake trailed off. “We could split up?”
Levi shook his head. “No. I’ve seen how that movie ends.”
Jake laughed, appreciating the bit of humor. It was a good coping mechanism, lightening the mood. “Thanks. Okay, we’ll go together. Downstream.”
The brush was thick, and bushes grew along the riverbank that Jake didn’t know enough about to identify, but there were several different kinds, of varying heights. The advantage was that if she’d come out of the river at any point, they should be able to see evidence in the trampled brush. So far, there was none of that right next to the river, or ahead of them either, which meant that no one had pursued her, at least on this side of the river.
Not a complete reassurance that they didn’t have to be on guard, but it did make Jake breathe a bit easier. Someone was still out here, he knew, but maybe not in the immediate vicinity.
He said as much to Levi and Levi shook his head. “If someone was tracking her and walked through the river, right along the edge, we’d see no evidence.”
Which meant the man who’d taken Cassie could be anywhere. Jake’s small bit of hope disappeared again.
Finally, it occurred to him to pray. Ironic that he’d pushed Cassie away because of her lack of trust in God. But when it came down to it, did he trust God either? Not as much as he wanted to, that was for sure. He was an imperfect man who could only keep trying to do better every day.
Forgive me, God, for not asking earlier, and please help me. I don’t want to give up hope. Please.
They continued on, each step in the spongy ground too slow. Neither of them wanted to end up in the river by accident, so it was slow going. Every minute that passed was a minute Cassie might be in danger, and Jake hated knowing that.
“Did you hear that?” Levi asked.
Jake hadn’t. He stopped.
Something rustled in the bushes. Up ahead, off the riverbank about twenty feet. Would she have taken shelter so far away from the river?
Or was it whoever had abducted her in the first place, lying in wait?
Or burying a body?
Jake worried his heart would stop at the last thought. Not another one he was going to let himself have again. No, he was trusting, remember? Trying to hope.
So he called out her name. “Cassie?”
The rustling stopped. He held his breath.
“Jake?”
Her voice was watery, weak, and every thought he’d had earlier about hypothermia and the dangers of the river came back to him. Jake fought again against the threatening feeling of hopelessness, knowing that with God there was always a chance. Never a reason to doubt. Always hope.
“Cassie!” he called again louder, hoping she’d answer so he could pinpoint exactly where she was. Beside him, Levi was looking around too, scanning the area for Cassie and for threats, Jake guessed.
“Here.”
He saw the fireweed waving ahead of him, moving just enough to give it away as her location and he walked there. Levi came with him, but hung back slightly, which Jake appreciated. He wanted to see her first, know how she was, and he was desperate to know if she was all right.
She was, and she wasn’t.
She was curled in a ball on the ground, the fireweed surrounding her like a tall curtain that came up from the ground. She’d been protected from being found by whoever had been after her, probably because she’d been so far off the river, and not on any obvious trail. Her choice of location had likely saved her life, and Jake thanked God for the intelligence he’d given Cassie so she could make that choice.
But while physically unharmed, she was soaked through—her clothes clung to her and her hair was wet too. She must have been pulled all the way under in her fight with the water.
This though, this he could handle. He wished he had equipment, but he could assess her at least, knew the signs of hypothermia, and no longer felt entirely helpless. A small mercy.
“How are you feeling?” He kept his voice even, reminding himself that if there’d ever been a time for professional detachment, this was it.
“I’m okay...” She sighed. “Sleepy. Just sleepy.”
She wasn’t shivering. That alarmed Jake. It was a warm day and the sun was out, which would help her, but there was a little bit of a breeze. Maybe she’d been protected from it enough by the fireweed, but he still had concerns. She needed to dry out.
“We need to get you warm, okay?”
“I can’t...clothes are wet...”
Jake heard the slight slurring in her words that time and knew he’d been right to be concerned. They were there in time, but they had to act.
Building a fire could give away their location to anyone who was after her. He knew Levi had a weapon and more than enough training to use it. While Jake wasn’t law enforcement, he’d grown up in the Alaskan woods and knew how to use a gun as well and had his own for bear protection. They were covered where that was concerned, but it wasn’t enough to make him cocky about their chances. Bad guys could have guns too. It wasn’t an automatic win for the good guys.
“How many men took you?” he asked her as he bent beside her to feel her pulse. It was fairly strong, better than expected. Jake breathed a prayer of thanks while he waited for her answer, continued to assess the situation. He removed his sweatshirt and tugged it over her head, instructing her to take off her wet shirt underneath. He turned around to give her privacy.
“Only one. I only saw one. He was so big.” Her voice trailed off again. “I had to get away.”
So he’d been right. She’d braved the river. Jake pulled her toward him, did his best to hug her though the angle was awkward and she was half asleep. “You’re going to be okay, all right? You’ve got this, Cassie.”
“Not sure I do, but God does.”
He stilled. Swallowed hard.
“What did you say?”
“God... I’m trusting, okay, Jake? But I need to sleep.”
“No. No sleeping.” Jake looked at Levi, who’d been standing by, waiting. He stood up, kept his words soft in case Cassie was still awake enough to listen. “We need a fire, like half an hour ago,” he muttered.
Levi nodded. “I agree. She sounds hypothermic, right?”
Jake nodded.
“It’s a risk,” Levi said. “But everything is at this point. It seems worth it.”
“How should we do this?” Jake knew the fire would make them more visible to anyone looking for Cassie. It was daylight, so no worries as far as the light giving them away, but the smell of smoke traveled on the wind and someone skilled in tracking would be able to pinpoint its general location.
“We’ll just keep watching out, maybe take turns wandering around the site here, seeing if there’s anything unusual.” Levi shrugged. “That’s all we can do while we wait for help.”
Jake nodded. “Okay. I’m going to get some sticks for a fire.” He glanced down at Levi. “You won’t leave her?”
“I promise.” Levi met his eyes and Jake knew his friend would watch her not just like anyone who needed police help, but like someone who was special to Jake.
When Cassie had left him in Raven Pass all those years ago, he’d tried to turn inward, back off from his friends. Instead God had kept pushing him to make new friends and he’d ended up with some of the best. Including Levi. Jake had to smile. “Thank you.”
