Chapter 21

21

D ean’s hands trembled as he scrubbed them over his face, replaying the last few moments he had with Elsie to Sadie. “I swear, it couldn’t have been five minutes that passed between Elsie disappearing around the corner of the building to when I realized she was missing. Ten minutes tops.”

Mr. and Mrs. Sweet sat at one of the picnic tables, Jimmy between them, and spoke in hushed tones to Tommy.

Boo whined at his side. He sniffed the air and strained at the leash.

Sadie nodded toward the dog. “Have you let him roam and catch her scent?”

“First thing I did,” Dean said. “He led me to an empty parking spot. He’s got her. I know that sonofabitch snuck her right out from under my damn nose. Guessing he got a hold of her mom’s phone and lured her away.”

Sadie glanced behind her where Mrs. Sweet sat with tears streaming down her face, her arms wrapped tightly around a confused and terrified Jimmy. “She still hasn’t found it?”

“Nope. She dumped everything out of that giant purse and it’s nowhere. She swears she had it when they got here. She set it on a bench away from the playground. Justin must have snatched it when we weren’t looking.” His chest tightened, and he rubbed the heel of his hand over his sternum. Fear gnawed at the pit of his stomach and grew with each passing second. “She blames herself. Dammit, Sadie, we have to find her. Please tell me you guys have something we can use to get her back.”

“I wish I could. We still haven’t located him. Owen is at the station looking into other leads. We have to be close.”

Tommy walked over, anger and worry clear on his face. He turned so his back faced Elsie’s family. “They’re a wreck. I told them to take Jimmy and head home. There’s nothing else they can do.”

“I want to talk to them. Give me a second.” Dean approached the trio with Boo at his side. Anxiety dampened his palms. Not too long ago he’d spoken to Elsie’s dad about kids and marriage and the possibility of Elsie being the right woman.

Now he had to face him with zero answers and no clue where his daughter might be.

Mr. Sweet rose from the table and took a few steps away from his wife. His eyes were red and glassy. The wrinkles running across his forehead had deepened in the last twenty minutes. “Anything?”

Boo leaned against Mr. Sweet’s legs.

Dean shook his head, and Mr. Sweet’s face crumpled. It took all of Dean’s effort not to follow suit. Terror clawed at him from the inside out, causing a streak of pain to flash so bright it threatened to bring him to his knees.

But he couldn’t fall, couldn’t crumple under the unrelenting pressure when Elsie’s life was in the balance.

“I’m sorry,” he said, clearing the rising emotion from his throat. “But I promise you, I’ll do whatever it takes to find Elsie and bring her home safely.”

His phone vibrated against his leg. He grabbed his device and a tiny bit of relief unwound the tension wrapped around his neck. “I have to take this. Why don’t you and your wife head home with Jimmy? I’ll call if I hear anything.”

Mr. Sweet swallowed hard and ran a hand along Boo’s back. “Okay. I’m trusting you to bring her home. You got me?”

The expectation was like a two-ton weight on his chest, but it was nothing more than what he planned. “I do. If you’ll excuse me.”

Stepping away, he took the call. “Calvin? Tell me you found something. Anything.” The plea scraped against his raw throat, but he didn’t care. All he cared about was Elsie.

“I finally connected with that friend of Justin’s I told you about. Said that they didn’t keep in contact much after Justin hooked up with Malcom. They tried to rope this guy into their business, and he wasn’t having it.”

“Good for him,” Dean said, a bite in his voice. He didn’t have the patience to hear mundane details about some guy. “But what about that can I use?”

Calvin didn’t miss a beat. “Justin was a friend of his since elementary school and stayed in touch. Last time he spoke with him was before Justin moved in with his grandma. Told this guy his mom and stepdad were driving him crazy. That he’d been staying in the clubhouse the two of them had built back in the woods when they were younger so he didn’t have to listen to his stepdad bitch at him to get a job.”

Adrenaline zipped through Dean’s veins. His pulse raced. “Where’s the clubhouse?”

“On Justin’s mom’s property.”

The answer was like a sucker punch in the jaw, and Mr. Sweet’s words from earlier came back. “Shit. The mines.”

“What mines?” Calvin asked.

“Pull up a map of Jackie Thomas’ property. See if there are any old mines on her land.”

The sound of Calvin pounding on a keyboard reached Dean’s ears. “Okay. I’m looking at the property now. Wow, she owns a lot of land, but I don’t know how to tell if there are mines there or not.”

“One second.” Dean searched for Mr. Sweet. He made a beeline across the grass to the parking lot, stopping Elsie’s dad before he climbed behind the steering wheel. “Mr. Sweet. You mentioned the abandoned mines in Cooper County. Do you know how to tell where they are on someone’s property?”

“The Department of Environment and Conservation have claimed ones on file, but there are dozens more that aren’t claimed.” Mr. Sweet’s eyes sharpened, his jaw tight. “Why?”

Dean held up a finger asking the man to wait. “One second. Calvin, look up maps on the Department of Environment and Conservation website. See if Jackie has claimed any mines.”

“Okay,” Calvin said. “Looks like there’s one on here. On the back edge of her property.”

A beat of hope pulsed along with his racing heart. “Meet me there.”

Disconnecting the call, he faced Mr. Sweet. Adrenaline pumped through his system and the need to alert Tommy and Sadie about what he’d just learned made him spit out the information to Elsie’s dad as fast as he could. “Thanks to you, we have a new lead and possible location. I’ll give you more details when I have them, but now I need to speak with the deputies. We need to get search parties together fast.”

“I’m going with you,” Mr. Sweet said.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“I don’t care what you think. That’s my daughter out there, and if I can do anything to help bring her home, I will.”

The quiver in Mr. Sweet’s voice matched the one threatening to take over Dean’s body. He wanted to argue, to save him from any more pain, but he understood Mr. Sweet’s need to act. Hell, he respected the man for it. “Okay. I’ll leave you to talk to your wife and meet you at the pavilion.”

He ran to where Sadie spoke with Tommy at the far end of the building. He waved an arm high over his head to grab their attention. “Call in as much backup as you can. I may have figured out where Justin would hide Mila and Elsie.”

Something skimmed across Elsie’s cheek, calm and gentle. She struggled to open her eyes. Pain ricocheted around her skull. Her leg throbbed. Darkness kept her under its spell, refusing to let her wake. She was all right with that. In the dark, she could escape the agony tearing at her head.

Another touch against her face stirred her consciousness.

Dean?

No, his hands were larger, his skin rougher.

Jimmy?

No, he’d never tried to wake her so calmly. If he wanted her out of bed, he’d pester her with his endearing sass until she gave him what he wanted. Probably at the crack of dawn.

“Elsie, wake up.”

The gentle prodding tickled her awareness. Her eyelids fluttered open. Not much light filtered in, but enough to cause a jolt of pain that squeezed her eyes shut again. A cold breeze whipped across her body. She tried to curl into herself, to escape whatever hell waited for her, but her body wouldn’t cooperate.

“Please, Elsie. I don’t want to be alone anymore. I need you.”

Oh my God!

Elsie ignored the knife she swore stuck in the back of her neck and bolted awake. Her hands brushed against dirt and moist stones. Nausea pitched high in her stomach, but the tearful face hovering inches above hers made her forget every awful thing assaulting her senses. Joyful tears filled her eyes. “Mila! You’re alive.”

A tiny smile curved Mila’s dry, cracked lips. Dirt stained her cheeks. Mud and leaves matted into her hair, which hung limply around her shoulders. Long, red scratches streaked across her face. “Barely.”

Elsie ignored every ounce of agony licking through her body and lunged for her friend, pulling her into a fierce hug. The effort zapped her limited energy. “It’s you. It’s really you. I can’t believe it.”

For a brief moment, all the pain and terror melted away. She’d found her friend, and Mila was alive. Nothing else mattered. Together, they’d find a way out of this mess.

Mila melted against her, sobs shaking her shoulders. “I hate that you’re hurt, that you’re stuck in this hellhole, but I’m so happy to see you. I thought I’d die without laying eyes on you again. Without seeing Jimmy. My poor baby, he’s probably so scared.”

Wincing, Elsie pulled away but kept her hands secure in Mila’s. Wounds on her palms stung, but she couldn’t let go of her friend for fear she was only an illusion. “He’s worried, but he’s safe. What happened?” Her muscles screamed as she turned her head to study the space around her. Darkness engulfed nearly every inch, the hole above them allowing glimmers of moonlight to leak in. Dirt and rocks covered the ground, and wooden tracks led away into unknown parts of the cave.

Mila sank against the rough rock wall. “I’m not really sure. I stopped by to check on one of the women I used to care for.”

“Mrs. Pauly?”

Hissing out a sharp breath, Mila used her free hand to rub her temple. “Sorry. I haven’t eaten in days and the water I found is nearly gone. I alternate between violent chills and being so hot I can’t stand it.”

Mila was in worse shape than Elsie first suspected. She needed a doctor quick. “Where are we? How did I get here?” Dizziness made the space spin in large, loopy circles.

“Don’t move too quick. Preserve your energy.” Mila kneeled beside her. “I’m not exactly sure where we are. He knocked me out, then I woke up here. It’s like some kind of cave but I can’t find a way out.”

“If he got us in here, there has to be a way back out.” Elsie studied her friend and fought not to cringe. Even with the limited light, she could see the dark circles under her eyes and ashy pallor of her skin. Her cheeks were sunken in, showcasing the weight she’d lost. One pantleg was ripped, revealing dried blood.

“Don’t you think I’ve tried to get myself out of here? I’ve spent hours crawling through this place, searching for escape. There’s a tunnel that I followed for a while but it got too small to fit in, and I was afraid I’d get stuck. Then there’s the shaft right above us.” She flicked her wrist toward the small opening above them. “But there’s no way up. When I climbed, the walls crumbled under my hands.” Mila rested her head on Elsie’s shoulder. “Now I’m too weak to do anything. All I want to do is close my eyes and sleep.”

A fresh wave of horror grabbed hold of Elsie’s throat. She might be reunited with Mila, but they were far from out of danger. “We have to keep searching.”

“Can we wait? I need a second.”

As much as she wanted to let Mila rest, time was too precious to waste. “We have to go now. People are searching for us. We need to give them every chance to find us, and that means locating the best place to be rescued.”

“People know where I am? They’re coming to find us?”

Elsie couldn’t crush the hint of hope that crept into Mila’s weak voice. Unless someone witnessed Justin taking her and Dean followed suit, she wasn’t sure how close anyone was to uncovering Mila’s location.

How close anyone was to rescuing either one of them.

Instead, she infused as much enthusiasm in her words as she could. “You have no idea how many people have worked day and night to find you. Now let’s do what we can to make it easier for them. Can you help me up?”

Mila slowly stood. She closed her eyes on a long breath before reaching down to help Elsie.

Elsie took her cold hand and pressed the other against the moist wall of the cave to support most her weight. In Mila’s condition, she’d topple over if Elsie leaned on her too much. Once on her feet, she blew out quick puffs of air to keep from getting sick.

Her injured leg buckled under her. A raw, hot burning sensation snaked from her calf up to her thigh. She glanced down. Her pant leg had been shoved up, a torn piece of fabric tied around the top of her calf. “Did you do that?”

“I ripped off a strip of my scrubs and used it to stop the bleeding. I can’t do more beyond that, but the blood stopped pretty quickly. I think the bullet grazed you because I didn’t see an entry point.”

“Thank God for small favors, but I don’t know if I can walk.”

“Loop your arm around my neck,” Mila said.

Taking in Mila’s slight frame and gaunt face, Elsie hesitated. “You sure?”

Mila managed a small smile that looked more like a grimace. “You bet your ass. Come on.”

Elsie hooked an arm over Mila’s shoulders and winced. The limited amount of weight on her injured leg set her limb on fire, but she had no choice. She wouldn’t lay in this cave and wait for death. They had to move, no matter how slowly.

They had to find a way out or die trying.