if I gave it to them, they would leave. I did.” Her voice became even more brittle. “They lied. They said they had to kill us but it needed to look like an accident.”
The fire. It had to be the fire. Seth had been completely surprised at the fire when he came across it while out patrolling. He’d assumed it was started by careless campers. Now he knew.
Laura wasn’t done. “They said the smoke from the fire would kill me and Abby long before the actual flames. I panicked. They hit me, and the next thing I knew was you were there waking me up.”
Seth exhaled deeply. He had asked and now he knew. The men must have been watching from somewhere safe to make sure the fire actually consumed the cabin. The cabin with an unconscious woman and a three-year-old little girl inside.
Seth looked out the window again. The men were still waiting. The more the men outside stayed still, the more Seth felt like he needed to be doing something. Standing and waiting for someone else to act did not sit well with him. He wouldn’t—no he couldn’t—play the victim and wait to see what his fate would be.
He wondered if something had gone wrong with the fire. While it was certainly healthy when he’d come across it, it wasn’t moving terribly fast. It had run horizontally, blocking the road back down. And it would eventually reach the cabin and probably burn it down. But it wasn’t going to do so in the next few hours.
This Mahoney must have started the fire far away from the cabin so it wouldn’t look deliberate. But he’d miscalculated. And now it seemed that Mahoney would settle for Laura and Abby dying even if it didn’t look accidental.
Seth really wanted to know more about this Mahoney and how Laura found herself in this situation. But not now—right now, Seth wanted a satellite phone and an extraction team. He wasn’t going to get either. He needed to be smart and deliberate. And quick. He doubted the men would wait much longer.
Laura was just looking at him. Her hand was still making that steady circle on Abby’s back. Her other arm must be hurting from supporting all of Abby’s weight, but Laura wasn’t showing any signs of stopping. The little girl was resting her head on her mother’s shoulder, breathing into Laura’s neck. One tiny fist clutched a stuffed yellow duck. She looked warm and sleepy. Safe. Seth glanced at the back door. The clear path into the forest. They could make a run for it, but it wouldn’t work.
Laura spoke, her eyes also on the back door. “We won’t make it, will we?” It wasn’t really a question. Seth wanted to puff out his chest, flex his muscles and tell her that he would keep her and her daughter safe. That he could pick them both up and run them out that back door. Run them to safety. But Laura deserved honesty more than false assurances.
“No. If there are two men out front, then someone has to be watching the back. Even if they aren’t, the men out front would hear us. Chase us. And we—”
Laura finished for him. “Have Abby. We’re trapped.”
Trapped. They were trapped. Inside a cabin, surrounded by men with guns. Men who had been very clear about wanting to kill both Laura and sweet Abigail.
And Laura didn’t even know what this was all about. Why?
Laura hugged Abby more closely to her body, breathing in the smell of children’s shampoo, grilled cheese and that musky scent that came from playing in the forest. Abby’s body was warm and slightly damp from when Laura had piled blankets on top of her and put her down for her nap. The fever she’d been fighting all week was gone for now.
One little foot was bare. Laura found her other shoe and put it on, feeling better that Abby was fully dressed. She ran her hands over the small feet, then went back to rubbing a circle on Abby’s back, though that was more for her own benefit than the little girl’s. Abby was asleep, but the repetition and physical contact soothed Laura. Grounded her. Reminded her that she and Abby were here together. Abby was the only thing Laura needed in this world.
Laura wanted to go look out the window for herself, but she made her legs stay where they were. She wasn’t sure she would be able to peer through the curtains without being detected. And those men had already shown they were willing to shoot in.
She didn’t want to put Abby down, and she sure didn’t want to carry Abby closer to the window—to the men with guns. Laura wished again that her dad were still here. He would know what to do. How to make it right.
Laura smiled as she thought of what he’d say. His voice would be exasperated. Never out of patience with her, but his tone would have suggested that the answer was right there in front of her. Obvious and logical. “Use the tunnel, girl. It’s an escape tunnel. Escape in it.”
The tunnel. Laura sucked in a deep breath, her hand faltering in its circle pattern. How could she have forgotten? When she had first come to live with her dad, she’d been convinced he was some sort of alien. He lived on a mountain. A whole mountain to himself. He talked about not going into their world. And he had a tunnel. It made sense to a seven-year-old.
Laura had found it by accident about a month after coming to the mountain. She had refused to go hunting with Malcolm Grant, still stuck in the grief of losing her parents and the surreal timidity that came with finding herself living on a strange mountain with a new dad.
Mad at herself for crying, yet again, she had thrown her stuffed teddy bear as hard as she could. He’d landed in the closet. After a few minutes of telling herself she wasn’t a baby and didn’t need the silly bear, Laura had climbed off the bed and retrieved her only friend. And she had discovered the latch to the tunnel.
Laura smiled, remembering that moment so clearly. She had lifted the trapdoor, found a flashlight and jumped into the tunnel without thinking. Laura didn’t know enough to be afraid. All Laura knew was that aliens were real, and she was going to take that tunnel to a different planet. She’d talked out loud as she explored, encouraging the aliens to come out and play. They never did, of course.
Her dad had been livid when he found her several hours later. It was the closest he’d ever come to yelling at her. “It’s an escape tunnel, girl. Not a playground. It’s secret. And we both need to pray to God that we’ll never, ever need to use it.”
And they hadn’t. Until now.
Laura tried to take a deep breath, hoping it would calm her. Please, God, let this be the right decision. “I know how we can get out. There’s a tunnel.”
“A tunnel.” Seth sounded like he had just been told that there was a teleportation device hidden in the cabin. Laura couldn’t blame him.
“Yes, a tunnel. An escape tunnel. My dad made it, when he built the cabin. For situations like this.” Laura’s voice didn’t betray the absurdity of those words. Incredulity might be an expected response to a secret escape tunnel, but Laura was loyal to her dad. Even though he’d been dead for a few months now, she was never going to betray him by mocking him. Especially not in front of park rangers.
“Your dad often find himself being shot at by random people?”
Laura tried to hide her wince. She had spent most of her life hearing people criticize her dad, and she had learned to ignore them. Kind of.
“I’m sorry, Laura. I
