Born To Be Wild (17 page)

“I already did!” one of the onlookers said.

Micah went down at an angle, mostly on his butt, snaking around obstacles to keep traction.

“Are you all right, sweetheart?” he heard Isabel ask Lucy.

“No! Why did Mr. Perez jump? He’s not a bad man, Mom, I promise.”

Micah negotiated the last few feet to get to Perez. Afraid to turn the unconscious man onto his back, he felt for a pulse instead. His own was pounding so hard, it took him a minute to find it. Perez’s pulse was faint and slow, but it was fairly steady.

“He’s alive!”

A murmur went through the crowd, but Micah was fully aware of his daughter weeping.

He glanced back to see Isabel and Lucy carefully coming down the ladder from the
cavate
. Then he heard hoofbeats coming from the other direction. Two mounted rangers approached. The woman they’d seen earlier, and a man. Dismounting, they rushed to where he waited with Perez.

“Emergency medical technicians are on their way,” the woman said.

Her partner yelled at the people pressing in on the edge of the trail for a better look. “Everyone back off! We need room to get medics in here to help this man.” He asked Micah, “Someone said he jumped. What happened?”

“It’s a long story,” Micah said, climbing back up the ten-foot incline toward Isabel and Lucy. “His name is Jorge Perez, and his wife died last year. Then a couple of months ago, he lost his only child in a school bus accident.”

“He had a breakdown and thought our daughter was his,” Isabel said as Lucy ran into Micah’s arms for a hug. “He took her.”

“Sweetie.” Micah crushed his daughter to him in relief until she squirmed. He loosened his grip but held onto her, then wrapped his other arm around Isabel and pulled her close to join them.

“A kidnapping?” the female ranger said. “Why didn’t you tell me that earlier when you showed me your daughter’s picture?”

“We thought we could handle it,” Isabel replied. “The man had a psychotic break. He believed Lucy was his Annie. I can give you a statement about everything that happened.”

“We’ll need that from all three of you.”

“He’s not a bad man,” Lucy said again, pulling free of Micah. “He didn’t hurt me.”

A forest service vehicle pulled up as close as it could get, and two paramedics jumped from the vehicle, one carrying a flat, body-sized board. Isabel told the first park ranger their story, and the other ranger joined Micah to watch as the paramedics checked on Perez.

One of the medics carefully rolled the unconscious man onto his back, while the other held his head and neck immobile. Moving a fracture could paralyze him. They used a thick padded strap to secure his head in place so it couldn’t move, and tied it down across his chest. Then they carefully lifted him onto the stretcher. Perez might be breathing, but he didn’t stir, didn’t look good, making Micah wonder if he would even make it to the hospital. The medics tied his whole body down with padded straps. All done in less than ten minutes.

Micah waited until they carried the unconscious man up the incline to the back of the ambulance and lifted him in. The doors slammed, the siren whooped once, and the vehicle slowly drove away, following the foot trail as best it could.

The tight knot in Micah’s stomach finally started to loosen.

It was over. He’d gotten his daughter back again, safe and sound.

Thank God
.

Letting out a sigh, he said to Lucy, “Don’t worry, honey, we’ll ask the detective on the case to go easy on him, if that’s what you want.”

When she didn’t answer, he glanced back at her. Isabel was still talking to the park rangers. But Lucy wasn’t at her side.

Alarm trickled through him. “Isabel, where’s Lucy?”

Isabel jerked up her head and, wide-eyed, looked around. “I-I don’t know.”

Their gazes met in growing panic.
What now?

Lucy was gone.

Again!

Chapter Seventeen

Heart lodged in her throat, Isabel didn’t hesitate. She ran straight to one of the park rangers’ horses and swung up into the saddle.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing with Dakota?” the female ranger yelled as Isabel reined the horse away from the other woman’s reaching hands.

“I’ll return Dakota when I find my daughter!” Isabel called to the ranger, dancing the horse out of her reach.

Despite the second ranger’s trying to stop him, Micah jumped on the other horse.

Isabel yelled, “Move aside! Move!” and plunged through the crowd, doubling back along the trail the way they’d originally come from the visitor center.

“You won’t get away with this!” the second ranger shouted after them. “There are other mounted officers in the park!”

“Good! Send them after us. We could use their help!” Isabel said, charging straight through the crowd, which parted as if by magic.

Though she kept her gaze roaming, hoping to find Lucy, instinct told her that Lucy hadn’t simply wandered off alone.

Micah was next to her in less than a minute. “How the hell did Lucy disappear like that?”

“I have no idea. I was giving the ranger the short version of what happened…and I would have sworn Lucy was right there.” Her attention was caught by a new line of visitors, but she didn’t see any hint of an eleven-year-old with mahogany hair. “Probably everyone was too distracted by what was going on with Mr. Perez and the medics to notice Lucy at all, but she couldn’t have gone very far.”

She hadn’t been talking to the park ranger for more than a few minutes.

When they got back to the split in the trail, Micah said, “I’ll take the short ride to the visitor center. You take the nature trail. If I don’t find Lucy, I’ll catch up to you. And if I do find her, I’ll call.”

“Okay. I’ll do the same.”

Starting off, Isabel took a quick look back at Micah, who rapidly passed several groups of visitors. By contrast, there were far fewer people on the trail she was taking, one that soon led straight across Frijoles Creek into the wilderness.

Isabel remembered after the record-breaking wildfire had finally subsided, park workers had taken down the concrete footbridges because they could be washed out by the flash flooding that followed wildfires. If that happened, the footbridges could become dangerous projectiles. The concrete bridges had therefore been replaced with simple wooden boards so that visitors could at least keep their feet dry.

Isabel took the horse straight through the creek alongside a couple of backpackers on one of the makeshift bridges, then she stretched Dakota out into a comfortable lope and kept her gaze glued ahead of her.

No sign of Lucy.

She kept waiting for her cell to ring, but Micah didn’t call, so she pressed on into the wilderness, passing two small groups of hikers. She sped through the spooky forest of leafless black trees, proof of the terrible wildfire burn.

Isabel was getting more and more frightened. How could Lucy have disappeared in such a short time? Had someone
else
taken her? Who? The thought was beyond all reason. She was thinking that lightning didn’t strike twice when she saw a flash of purple though the trees on a rise ahead. Lucy’s T-shirt? The road curved and then disappeared, so she didn’t have a clear view. She urged the horse into a lope, and as she focused through the trees, saw her daughter being pulled along the trail.

Her stomach churned with excitement at finding Lucy…and flooded with dread when she got a look at the man dragging her against her will.

Bobby Soto.

What the hell? Why now? How on earth had Bobby found Lucy? And what did he plan to
do
with her?

Alarm electrified Isabel.

Suddenly she realized her imagination
hadn’t
been playing tricks on her. It must have been
Bobby
following them since yesterday morning in that dark SUV. Micah had said it was following them through the campground the night before, too.
They
must have led him straight to their daughter.

Had he spent the night in the same campground loop they did? How close had Bobby been to them? The idea that the creep might have watched her and Micah make love in front of the fire shot a chill down her spine and a surge of nausea through her belly.

All of a sudden, her horse squealed and turned away from a switchback curve in the trail. Intent on getting to Lucy, Isabel reined her mount in a circle and tried to retake the path. The horse’s reaction was to squeal louder and rear up. When she got him back down, he gave a short, sharp buck and turned in panic the way they’d come. She simply couldn’t force the horse to her will. Dakota seemed determined to go in the direction opposite that which Bobby had taken with Lucy. Fighting the horse was getting Isabel nowhere. He seemed terrified of something. She couldn’t even make him stop, so, while still moving, she attempted a dismount. She flew through the air several yards and landed on her butt, raising a cloud of black ash around her. Landing like that didn’t feel great, but she wasn’t hurt.

Swiftly she got to her feet and rounded that bend in the road. And suddenly saw what had made Dakota fight her so hard.

Bears
. Two really big black bears. And they were having a serious altercation.

How would she ever get around them and back on the trail? Every moment she delayed, Lucy was being taken farther away from her.

The bears had pulled themselves onto their hind legs and stood nearly seven feet tall. They were now battering each other with bites and punches so vicious they drew blood. Undoubtedly a territorial dispute, one that Isabel would avoid at all costs.

She was pulling out her cell phone to call Micah when she heard hoofbeats behind her. Turning, she was relieved to see him loping the big bay toward her.

“Bears!” she called, pointing in the other direction. “And Lucy is farther up the trail that way.”

“Thank God.”

His horse started protesting and throwing his head around, but Micah somehow urged him straight to her. He held out his arm and unhooked his left foot from the stirrup.

“Get up behind me!”

She grabbed onto his arm with one hand, the saddle with the other, and threw her leg over the horse’s back. Before she even settled behind him, Micah moved them far enough away from the bears so that his horse calmed down.

“Bobby has Lucy,” she told him.

“What?” He half-turned in the saddle toward her. “
Bobby?
What the hell?”

“He had to have been following us, Micah, and we led him right to her. I…I must have given him the idea when I accused him of taking Lucy.”

“He doesn’t think Hank should have to pay for killing those kids.” Micah cursed. “Did you see which way he took her?”

“I saw them up that way a few minutes ago.” She pointed to the area through the trees. Of course there was no sign of them now. “He must have gotten Lucy through this area before the bears became a problem.”

“We’ll have to circle around,” Micah said, “which will give the bastard more time to get away with Lucy.”

“What is he going to do with her?” Isabel cried, not really wanting to imagine it.

“He better not hurt her if he wants to leave these parts alive. The question is, how long will it take us to find them? In this wilderness, they could be anywhere. Who knows where he was taking her.”

About to put the cell phone back in her pocket, Isabel remembered getting the call earlier from Lucy. “Wait! Lucy’s cell phone is working again. We can use GPS to track them!”

“Good thinking!”

Micah immediately pulled out his smartphone. Her left foot still in the stirrup, Isabel stood, and hands on his shoulders, peered around to watch him bring up the website. His fingers flew over the pad and the next thing she knew, a map of Bandelier appeared with a flashing red dot that was generated by that special tracking app she’d downloaded.

Handing her the phone, Micah said, “You navigate, and I’ll steer.”

And then he signaled the horse to move out fast.

…

Lucy had fought the man dragging her along as hard as she could for a while, but she’d simply run out of energy. So much had happened in the last couple of days that she was both mentally and physically exhausted. And now this. What was this jerk
doing
with her?

When Mom had been telling that lady park ranger how they’d been looking for her ever since Mr. Perez had taken her, she’d stepped away to go over to the ambulance to see how the poor man was doing.

She never found out.

Something hard and metal had pressed into the small of her back, and this creep had whispered in her ear not to scream or he would shoot her. He’d said she had to come with him now, or he would shoot her
mother
. He’d told her not to fight him, or he would shoot her
father
.

Lucy hadn’t believed him and had been about to scream anyway. He’d given her a glimpse of the revolver, and stuck it into her ribs. Her heart had practically pounded out of her chest. This guy might be crazy like she’d thought Mr. Perez was at first, but not because he was broken inside. This creep was dangerous and evil, and he really might have killed someone if she’d made a fuss.

So she’d gone with him and hadn’t started fighting him until they were clear of any people he could hurt. Then she’d tried her best to free herself, but he’d just dragged her along any way he could. She was bruised all over.

But now she just couldn’t keep going anymore. Her legs were giving out on her.

So she tried a new method of resistance—sitting down in the middle of the trail.

“I need to rest a minute!” she cried, when he pointed the scary gun at her.

She needed a minute to think. How could she trick him into letting her get away?

“One minute,” he snapped. “That’s all you get.”

They were in the middle of nowhere, and now that she had a stable look at the huge wilderness around them, Lucy got the shivers. Blackened earth and trees were a gross setting for a nightmare. She’d had more than enough of those lately. And this guy was the worst nightmare of all.

“What do you want with me?” she asked, thinking he looked familiar, even if she couldn’t place him. “Please let me go. My parents have been trying to find me for days.”

“I know that, but you’re not going anywhere on your own, sweet-cheeks. Now get up and let’s move!”

“No!” She still hadn’t figured out how she could get away from him.

“Fine.”

He hooked his fingers through her hair and started to drag her. Lucy cried out. It felt like he was ripping the hair right out of her head by the roots.

“Okay, okay! Stop and I’ll get up!”

“Five seconds.”

She was on her feet in three. He manacled her wrist with an iron hand and nearly hauled her shoulder from her body.

“Slow down! I’m coming!”

She hurried to keep up with him, but had the weirdest feeling, like someone else was around. And she thought she heard a twig snap nearby. Mom or Daddy? She darted a quick look behind her but didn’t see anyone.

They walked another five minutes before she got so tired she started tripping over her own feet.

“Stop that!” he demanded.

“I can’t help it. I have to rest for a little while.
Please.
”

“Fine, whatever.” He took a good look around. “This is as good a place as any.”

She looked, too. They were still in the burn, but now they were next to a slope that rolled down into a ravine covered with thick bushes that the fire had passed by.

A shiver of fear went through her. “What do you mean…a
good place
?”

“I mean, brat, where no one will ever find you.”

The answer put a huge knot in her stomach and made her more afraid than she’d ever been before. Well, except for when she’d tried to save Annie Perez and couldn’t.

“I-I don’t understand. You want me to…disappear?” She couldn’t say the word
die.

“Smart girl.”

“Why? I never did anything to you! I don’t even
know
you.”

“You didn’t do anything to
me
. You did it to my brother, Hank. You gave the police a description of his lowrider, told them he caused the bus accident.”

“Hank Soto is your brother?”

“Right on.”

“Well, he
did
cause the accident! He killed two kids and hurt lots of others.” Sometimes with wounds inside that no one could see.

“And now Hank could get life in prison unless the main witness disappears,” he said in a mean voice.

She
must be that witness, Lucy realized. “But he confessed! And he
should
be punished!”

“With no witnesses, a good lawyer can get the confession thrown out.”

“What are you going to do?” She already knew the answer. He was going to use that gun of his to shoot her and throw her down into the ravine. But he seemed to like to talk, as if he thought that would make it worse for her. She looked around for an escape route. Something moved behind him in a stand of fire-blackened trees. Hope skittered through her. Was someone else there? Or was it just the local wildlife?

“You can thank your mother, sweet-cheeks. It’s her fault you’re going to die. She’s the one gave me the idea when she came after me, thinking I had you stashed up at the family cabin. But I didn’t think of a plan to get rid of you then. That only happened after my trying to get the reward went bad.”

Her attention snapped back to him. “What reward?”

“Old Caleb Wild put up twenty-five grand for your return.”

“Gramps? Where would he get that kind of money?”

“Well, that would be the question, wouldn’t it? The old buzzard
didn’t
have it, not with him. And unfortunately, he recognized me, which left me with a messy detail to take care of. I was not about to go back to prison because of him. And if I was going to be in for one mess to clean up, I might as well go for two and get Hank sprung.”

Tears gathered in Lucy’s eyes, and she sobbed out, “You killed Gramps?”