“I’m sorry, we don’t.” Lily rubbed the boy’s shoulder. “But by tonight you should be home and safe and eating whatever you want.”
Scott hoped she was right. Nothing had gone their way lately. “What happened after we ran from the top of the ridge?” he asked. “We looked and couldn’t find you.”
“I looked for you guys and couldn’t findyou!”
“Where were you?” Lily asked.
“I don’t know. After Scott was shot I just ran as fast as I could.” He frowned at Scott. “You were shot, weren’t you?”
“I was, but fortunately for me, the bullet hit something in my pack. It knocked me over, but I was okay. But in getting away from the shooter, I lost my pack.”
“What did you do when you couldn’t find us?” Lily asked. “How did you spend the night?”
“Shelby and Hunter found me,” he said. Both dogs looked up at the mention of their names. Scott had given them water, and they had laid on their sides in the snow, exhausted. “They both came running up and stayed with me. I was hoping they would lead me to you two, but they didn’t. I wandered around looking for you and they stuck with me. Then, when it got to be too dark to look anymore, I found a hollow space at the base of a big tree and crawled into that. The dogs lay on top of me.” He smiled a little. “It was kind of like sleeping under two heavy, furry blankets, but they kept me warm. And they made me feel less scared.”
“Good dogs!” Lily reached out and stroked each dog in turn. “They must be really hungry, too.”
“Not as hungry as I am,” Jackson said. “One of them caught a squirrel, and they ate it.” He wrinkled his nose. “It was gross, but I was so hungry I almost tried to get part of it.”
“Good dogs,” Scott echoed Lily’s praise. Despite Hunter’s name, he had never thought of his pet as a predator. He supposed even a tame dog still had wild instincts.
Jackson finished his second cup of coffee and handed Scott the empty cup. “Are the shooters still after us?” he asked. “Have you heard from my dad? Or the sheriff?”
“I lost the sat phone when we ran down the ridge,” Lily said. “But it doesn’t seem like anyone has been following us.”
Scott squatted down in front of the boy, so that they were eye to eye. “I know you said you don’t know who kidnapped you, but do you have any idea why you were taken?” he asked. “What is it the kidnappers want from your dad?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Jackson said. “I thought about it a lot before I fell asleep last night. And I remembered Preston asked me if I had seen any people who spoke with aforeign accent at the house. He was being real weird about it. I asked did he mean French people or people from Mexico, or what? Then he asked if I had seen my dad talking to any people from China, or people who looked Chinese. I told him no, but I thought it was a weird question.”
“Does your father do business with people in China?” Scott asked.
Jackson pulled the sleeping bag more tightly around him. “I don’t know. Maybe. He does business all over the world. It’s all high-tech stuff, but I don’t know much about it. I told Preston that, and he finally left me alone.”
Scott glanced at Lily. She looked as puzzled as he felt. “Preston works for your dad?” Scott asked. He thought he had the connection right.
“Yeah. He’s a new hire. I don’t like him.”
“I don’t like him either,” Lily said. “And it wouldn’t surprise me to find out he was involved in all of this.”
“What are we going to do now?” Jackson asked.
Scott stood. “We’re going to keep walking,” he said. “Until we get out of these woods. We’ll be near the ridge where you escaped the avalanche. From there, we can get to our vehicles.” Scott unwrapped the sleeping bag from around the boy. “Come on. The sooner we get going, the sooner we’ll reach help.”
Scott led the way, Jackson between him and Lily, the dogs ranging on either side. The snow had stopped and the sky had cleared, but without the cloud cover, temperatures had dropped. He set a rapid pace, as much to generate warmth as to hasten the journey. After the first hour, he thought he recognized some of the terrain. The trees began to thin. Suddenly, they were standing on the edge of the forest, looking out across the expanse of broken snow. Sections of earth showed where equipment had been digging, and the terrain wasstrewn with shattered trees, giant boulders and slabs of snow like icebergs emerging from the ocean.
“How are we going to get over all of that?” Jackson asked.
It was going to be brutal. Scott wondered how far he could carry the boy.
“We can send the dogs ahead of us,” Lily said. “They’ll pick out the best path.”
“We don’t have to cross the whole field,” Scott said. “We just have to get to the cleared area for parking. The vehicles are just beyond that.”
They started toward the parking area, repeatedly falling, helping each other up. In the end, they took turns carrying Jackson. The dogs led the way, guiding them around the toughest obstacles.
By the time they reached the cleared parking area, they were sweating and winded. Several inches of fresh snow had partially filled in the parking area. “It doesn’t look like anyone has been here in a few days,” Lily said.
Her eyes met his, weary and sad. “They must have halted the search.”
