Blood on Copperhead Trail (15 page)

She pulled a bottle of water from her own pack. “I’m good.” After a couple of long swigs, she replaced the cap and started to tuck the bottle back into her pack when her eyes fell on the photograph she’d slipped inside one of the backpack’s inner pockets to protect it.

With a glance toward Bolen to make sure he wasn’t paying attention, she pulled the photograph from the pack and stepped into a nearby shaft of midday sunlight pouring down through the trees. Shifting the image to get rid of the glare, she took a closer look, not at the image of her sister and herself this time but at the window just beyond the bed. Earlier, when she’d found the photo back at the trail shelter, she’d thought she’d seen something strange in the background, but her sister’s rush into the woods had sidetracked her.

After scanning the image a couple of times, her eyes finally made out a faint reflection in the window. Not of herself and Janelle, as she might have assumed, but the mirror image of a man holding a camera in front of him.

The cameraman had inadvertently taken a photograph of himself.

He was holding the camera about chest high, slightly out in front of him. His face was bent toward the image screen so he could focus the shot the way he wanted, but not so much, she realized with a ripple of shock, that she wasn’t able to make out his features. It was the man in the mustache and bad wig, but he’d taken off the glasses, probably because they kept him from being able to see well through the camera’s viewfinder.

And that one small change in his appearance, the removal of the glasses, brought his features more sharply into focus, even in that window reflection, than the best shot from the security camera had.

Her heart lurched and seemed to stop for a second before it started racing like a thoroughbred. Despite the adrenaline flooding her system, she made herself move slowly, taking time as she slipped the photograph back into her pack and turned to look at Craig Bolen.

He was looking at her now, a bemused smile on his face. But his gaze was sharp and curious. “Is something wrong?” he asked.

She shook her head, trying not to panic. “No. Ready to go again?”

For a breathtaking moment, he seemed reluctant to answer. But finally, he nodded, smiled and waved his arm as if to say, “You first.”

She walked ahead of him, the skin on her back crawling.

It had been Craig Bolen, complete with wig and fake mustache, who’d shot the photo at the hospital.

Chapter Fifteen

Okay, think.

Laney trudged ahead of Bolen, wondering why she hadn’t insisted on going back down to the staging area. If she kept going much farther with Craig Bolen, she’d be a fool, even though he hadn’t shown any sign of aggression toward her.

But running down to the staging area and calling for help wasn’t going to get her very far, either. What could she say—“Hey, look, he disguised himself to take a photo of my sister and me without our permission and left it in the trail-shelter logbook”? What if nobody else saw the resemblance she’d seen?

She needed to figure out what to do and fast. Before they went much farther.

“Do you have a map of the search-party assignments?” Bolen’s friendly query sent another shudder down her spine.

“Uh, yeah.” She stopped and opened her backpack again, digging around inside for the map she’d folded and stuck in one of the pockets. She pulled it out, wincing as the Polaroid snapshot snagged in the folds and flipped out of the pack onto the ground at her feet.

She bent and picked it up, trying to be nonchalant as she dropped it back into her pack. She darted a look at Bolen and found him looking not at her but at the woods behind her, his eyes slightly narrowed.

Suddenly, pain shot through her hip and side, exploding into agony so all-encompassing that she felt as if her whole body was a giant, raw nerve. She wasn’t aware of falling until she hit the ground with a thud.

“Why’d you do that?” Faintly, through the buzzing sensation that had begun to replace the pain, she heard Craig Bolen’s soft query. “She didn’t suspect anything!”

“New plan,” the other voice, deep and unfamiliar, answered. “We wanted to scare her off the job. Now we’ll just get rid of her altogether.”

“Then why didn’t you just shoot her?” Bolen asked.

“Because we need her help first.”

* * *

“W
HAT
TIME
IS
IT
?”
Joy Adderly’s voice was barely a whisper, but in the taut silence they’d been maintaining for the past hour, it sounded like thunder, making Doyle’s already rattled nerves shimmy in reaction.

He checked the time on his phone, wondering how much longer his battery would last. “Just after noon.”

The phone itself was useless as a means of communication. Picking up signals this far up Copperhead Ridge was difficult in the best of situations, and inside a closed-off cave? Impossible. Probably why they hadn’t bothered taking the phone off him when they took his pistol and keys.

“He usually brings me something for lunch,” she said. “It’s how I kept time. Breakfast, lunch and dinner.”

Anger boiled up in him again, joining the clamorous chorus of emotions vying for top billing in his mind. Fear was there, raw and unsettling, and also determination, fed by the fear. Anger was the ever-present heat source, bubbling never far from the surface. “When he comes, we’ll be ready.”

“He’ll have a weapon.”

“I know.”

She fell silent for a long moment. “I’m studying law enforcement in college. Did anyone tell you that?”

“No,” he admitted. “What year?”

“Sophomore.”

“What college?”

“Brandon College, up near Purgatory. It’s a private four-year college.”

“Pricey.”

“Scholarship,” she said with a smile in her voice.

He turned on the flashlight app and flashed it her way. This time, instead of wincing, she shielded her eyes and flashed a half smile, half grimace his way. “Give a girl some warning!”

Her change in demeanor gave him hope that her ordeal hadn’t broken her. He hadn’t been so sure when he’d first found her. “Joy, we’re getting out of here. And you’re going to get a chance to say goodbye to your sister.”

Her smile faded. “Oh, God. Sweet little Missy.”

“I lost my younger brother to violence. It’s unfair and all kinds of wrong, and I wish it hadn’t happened to you. I’m so sorry.”

“How are my parents taking it?”

He thought about his one brief meeting with the Adderlys at the diner. Remembered Dave Adderly’s strange behavior, the way he’d looked as if he’d been keeping secrets.

He’d been with Bolen that morning, Doyle remembered. Had someone already given him his ransom instructions?

And if so, what were they?

“I haven’t seen a lot of your parents,” he answered.

“Let me guess. Craig’s been handling them?”

She was smart, he thought. She might just make a good cop. Now that she was no longer stuck in this dark hellhole alone, she seemed to have found her nerve and came across as a completely different young woman than the one he’d found cowering in the back of the cave. He just hoped she wouldn’t let this horrific experience destroy her dreams once they got out of here.

“Do you really think they’ll let us out alive?” she asked.

“I think the plan has always been to let you out alive,” he said, not sure if he believed it but saying it anyway, because she needed the hope. “You said Ray wears a disguise, and Craig Bolen has been careful not to let you see him.”

“I heard him, though.”

“He doesn’t know that.”

She didn’t answer.

The sound of footsteps outside the cave penetrated the ensuing silence, spurring them both into action. As they’d planned, Joy stood in the middle of the main cavern, her feet planted apart so that she could dodge or run the second she sensed direct danger. Doyle, meanwhile, hurried all the way to the front, waiting in the shadows for whoever was bringing the food that afternoon. Joy had told Doyle that she’d started hiding in the back of the cave after Ray had told her the more she saw of him, the less likely she’d be to live.

They were hoping her presence near the doorway would lure him inside.

But when the door opened, it wasn’t Ray who entered. In fact, the door opened just enough for a shadowy figure to stumble through the opening and land with a moan against the nearest wall. The door closed again without anyone else coming through, keys rattling in the lock and the footsteps receding quickly.

Doyle pulled out his cell phone and engaged the flashlight app. The beam of light played across a slender female figure, hands and feet bound with duct tape and a sack taped around her head.

The clothes, the shape—Doyle didn’t have to see the face beneath the hood to know who it was.

Laney.

His chest tightening, he ran across the mouth of the cave and knelt by her side, pulling away the tape around her neck. She tried to fight, but her movements were loose limbed and flailing.

“No, sweetheart, it’s me.” He removed the rest of the tape and pulled the hood off, revealing her wide, scared eyes and dirt-smudged face. He pressed his mouth against her forehead, felt the cool dampness of perspiration and residual tremors and knew what had happened to her. When he ran his hands lightly over her body, her soft whimper when he reached her back confirmed his speculation.

“That bastard Tasered me,” she growled.

He bit back a smile of relief. If she could still curse, she was going to be okay. “How long ago?” he asked, removing the tape around her wrists.

“Time was kind of fluid there for a little while.” She struggled up to a sitting position, squinting as he ran the beam of light across her to check for any other injuries. “I found your keys.”

The non sequitur threw him for a second. “Where?”

“In the woods.” As he removed the last of the duct tape around her ankles, she made a move to stand, and he helped her to her feet, keeping his arm firmly around her waist while she found her bearings. “And you’ll never guess who took that picture of Jannie and me in the hospital.”

“Let me guess,” said Joy Adderly from behind them. “Craig Bolen?”

Laney’s gaze swung to the sound of Joy’s voice, her eyes narrowing as she tried to see into the gloom beyond the circle of light created by Doyle’s cell phone application. Doyle shifted the beam to reveal Joy, and Laney gasped before pushing to her feet and stumbling toward the other girl.

Joy opened her arms for a fierce hug. “Is Jannie really going to be okay?”

“She is. And she’s going to be so glad to see you!” Laney turned to look at Doyle, a wide smile on her grimy face. “You found her.”

He laughed. “I had very little to do with it.”

“Don’t let him fool you,” Joy said, her arm still firmly around Laney’s waist. She was helping hold Laney up, Doyle realized, seeing the tremors that were rocking Laney’s slender frame. She must have been zapped recently, he thought.

“There are two of them,” Laney said. “They put that bag over my head so I didn’t see them, but of course, I know Bolen’s one of them.

“The other one is the guy we know as Ray,” Doyle told her.

“Why did they grab us?” Laney asked. “Why not just kill us?”

“I don’t know,” Doyle admitted. “Keeping us alive certainly doesn’t fit what they’ve done so far.”

“I think they may be trying to get my father to pay a ransom,” Joy said.

“But they’re not the ones who shot Missy and Janelle, right?” Laney asked. “Jannie was very sure it was a guy named Richard Beller.”

“She’s right,” Joy answered. “At least, I guess that was Richard Beller. I described the shooter to the chief here, and he seems to think it’s the same guy.”

Laney looked at Doyle for confirmation, and he nodded, watching her lean on Joy and feeling a battle of emotions raging inside him. He’d spent the past couple of hours worried sick about Laney being out there somewhere, with no idea that Craig Bolen was one of the bad guys. But as glad as he was to know she was okay, at least for the moment, he wished she were safely home, far away from this dank cave prison.

“Oh,” Laney said suddenly, slapping her hand against her right side.

“Are you hurt?” Doyle hurried over, flashing the light toward her side. He didn’t see any blood on her jacket, but her injuries could be internal, if they were as rough on her as they’d been on him while dragging her to the cave.

She unzipped her jacket, grinning up at him. “Those stupid, sexist idiots.”

He followed her gaze and saw what her captors had missed.

She was still armed.

* * *

L
UNCH
TURNED
OUT
to be a couple of peanut-butter sandwiches and two juice boxes. Doyle had found them in a paper sack near the mouth of the cave when it became clear their captors weren’t going to return with food. Apparently the small sack of supplies had been tossed in along with Laney, overlooked in the spectacle of her arrival.

Doyle shared his sandwich and juice with Laney, agreeing with her silent assessment that Joy needed food more than either of them, after several days in captivity. She also needed sleep, having been largely sleep deprived since her abduction, too fearful of the unknown to be able to sleep for more than an hour at a time. She’d nodded off after eating, and Laney had followed Doyle from the interior cavern to the larger one near the entrance in order to speak without disturbing her.

“I didn’t think we’d find her alive,” she confessed in a whisper, leaning against Doyle as they settled with their backs to the cave wall.

He wrapped his arm around her, lending extra warmth. “Neither did I.”

“What do they want from her father?”

“I’ve been thinking about that. He’s on the county commission, right?”

“Yeah.” She nestled closer, wishing they had something warmer to sit on than the grimy cave floor. “You think it has to do with the upcoming vote on the status of the Bitterwood Police Department?”

“From what I understand, he may be the deciding vote. Everyone else on the commission seems pretty set on a particular course.”

“So swinging his vote one way or another could be a viable goal.”

“But which way do they want to swing it?” Doyle asked. “For Bitterwood P.D. or against?”

“I think it has to be for,” Laney said after a moment’s thought. “If Craig Bolen is corrupt—and I think we can conclude he is, at this point—he’d be inclined toward preserving his job, wouldn’t he? Maybe he was working with Glen Rayburn on Wayne Cortland’s payroll.”

“He was Rayburn’s direct underling,” Doyle agreed. “Obvious choice for chief of detectives, taking Rayburn’s place after Rayburn’s suicide.”

“But here comes the new chief, threatening to upset the order of things,” Laney murmured.

“And a county public integrity officer’s suddenly assigned to the department for extra scrutiny,” Doyle added.

“So they have reason to want us out of the way,” she agreed. “But why keep us alive?”

Doyle took a deep breath, as if bracing himself for what he had to say. “Until you dropped in on us, I thought there was a real chance they were going to let Joy live. The only face they think either of us saw was Ray’s, and I think we all agree he’s wearing some sort of disguise.”

“But I saw Craig Bolen.”

He nodded, his cheek brushing against her temple. He tightened his hold on her. “Now I wonder if I was just being naive, thinking they’d let Joy live.”

“Still gets us back to the question at hand—why are they keeping us alive?”

“The vote doesn’t happen for another three days,” he answered.

“And they might need Joy alive as leverage, in case her father demands to see her,” Laney said. “But if they kill her, won’t her father just tell the world what he was forced to do?”

“Maybe, but who’s he going to blame? I’m damned sure he doesn’t know Bolen’s behind all this. I saw them together the other day, and he didn’t show the slightest antagonism toward Bolen. He seemed more angry at me.”

“Because you’re part of the reason his daughter was taken, in his mind,” Laney said, understanding the thought process even though she knew it was deeply unfair. “He’s being forced to maintain your job. Maybe he even wonders if you could be behind his daughter’s kidnapping.”

Doyle sighed. “I wonder if maybe I’m being set up as the fall guy.”

She turned toward him, even though there was far too little light in the cave for her to be able to make out more than the faintest outline of his profile. “How?”

“Maybe Bolen’s been hinting to Adderly that I could be behind the kidnapping. Maybe that’s what’s behind the hostility I noticed.”