The boy started crying. He was sobbing so hard Scott was afraid he was going to fall out of the tree. “Do you need help getting down from there?” Scott asked.
The boy sniffed and frowned at Scott. “Who are you?”
“This is Scott Linden,” Lily said. “He’s head of ski patrol. Remember? I introduced you one time.”
Shelby barked again. Hunter came to stand beside them and he started barking also. “You’d better come down,” Lily said. “The dogs aren’t going to quiet down until you do.”
“Let me help.” Scott reached up toward the boy.
“I can do it.” Jackson slowly began climbing down. When he reached the ground, he turned to face them. Strands of blond hair stuck out from beneath his ski helmet. His cheeks were red and streaked with dirt. His blue parka was dirty, too, with a jagged rip in the front. Lily pulled him into a hug. “I’m so glad to see you,” she said. “We were so worried.”
He squirmed, and she loosened her hold on him and stepped back. “Oh my gosh—you’re bleeding!” She pointed to his hand.
The boy looked down at the bare hand, at the gash on the web of flesh between his thumb and forefinger. He flexed his fingers. “It’s not that bad,” he said.
“What happened to you?” she asked. “Why do you only have one glove?”
“I dropped the other one somewhere.”
“We found your pack,” she said. “Why did you leave it behind?”
He shifted from foot to foot, eyes darting, not fixing on any one point. “I can tell you all of that later. Can we get out of here now?”
“We’ll go,” Scott said. “But you need a couple of things first.” He removed his pack and dug out a spare pair of gloves and another candy bar. He passed these items, and a bottle of water, over to Jackson.
“Thanks.” Jackson tore into the candy bar and ate it in four bites, then chugged the water. He handed the empty bottle to Scott. “When I realized I’d dropped a glove, I wanted to go back and look for it, but I was too afraid. I was terrified they’d find it and be able to track me.”
“Who would find it?” Lily asked.
“The people who’ve been after me. One of them even took a couple of shots at me last night. That was before I went up the tree. I guess they lost my trail in the dark and didn’t see me up there.”
“Come on.” Scott put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. The kid’s story was making him nervous. “Let’s get moving.” He wanted to put some distance between Jackson’s hiding place and themselves, in case the kidnappers were tracking him again in daylight. Which they would surely do. It sounded like they’d been pretty stubborn about keeping after the kid.
He led the way, Jackson behind him and Lily bringing up the rear, the dogs ranged between them. They were leaving a pretty big track through the woods that would be easy to follow. He glanced over his shoulder at Jackson. “How many people are after you?” he asked.
“Just the one guy, now that DJ is dead. But I’m pretty sure there are others. DJ was taking me somewhere, I just don’t know where.”
“Who is DJ?” Scott asked.
“The guy who grabbed me at the ski resort. That’s what he told me to call him. I don’t know what DJ stands for.”
“He died in the avalanche?” Lily asked.
“Yeah. He triggered the avalanche when we were crossing this big snowfield. I guess I was lucky—I was on the very edge of the slide and it kind of tossed me off into the woods.”
“You left your backpack behind,” Lily said.
“I didn’t want to, but I figured I had to. I knew DJ had friends. He had been in touch with them a couple of times on a satellite telephone. I thought if they came looking and found my backpack, they would think I had died in the avalanche, too.”
“What was DJ doing with you out here in the wilderness all this time?” Lily asked. Scott had been wondering this, too. Even given the weather and the terrain, Jackson and his captor should have been able to reach Pandora in two or three days at most. Or they could have hiked to a road, where an accomplice could pick them up.
“We walked and camped.” Jackson scowled. “At first, he tried to make it sound like we were on a big, fun adventure. But it was just cold and boring. The last couple of days he was begging whoever was on the other end of the phone to come and get us. But they told him we had to stay out here until they told us we could come in. DJ said they were waiting for my dad to pay the ransom.” His face crumpled. “I couldn’t understand why he didn’t just pay.”
“Oh, honey.” Lily held him close. “Your dad has spent every spare minute trying to find you.”
Jackson pulled away from her and scrubbed at his eyes with his fists. He sniffed, then said, “After the avalanche, I wasworried Dad would think I had died, too. I decided I needed to hike out to a road or a house or someplace where I could get help. But I ended up getting disoriented in the woods and wandering around for a long time. And then somebody started shooting and I climbed that tree.”
“That was smart,” Lily said.
