I didn’t know any of his family. Did he have family? How could I get free? We drove for hours up and around the wild hills of Idaho, crisscrossing and going higher and higher.
Was Lacey okay? I hadn’t seen if she’d hit her head when she fell. I hoped she was okay and had run for help. My dad would find me.
But what if he didn’t? I was almost too scared to even move. Maybe this was a bad dream. It had to be.
I heard motors in the distance. Dirt bikes and four wheelers. Were they looking for me already? If Lacey had gotten to the family, they’d be looking right away. All the campers all up and down the river would be. Then a helicopter finally roared above.
“Shit,” the man said, jerking a hard right and heading for an old cabin set against some rocks. I hadn’t even seen it until we were almost there. He parked the four-wheeler under a bunch of trees, undid my rope, and picked me up again.
I started fighting him, punching his throat.
He didn’t seem to notice.
Then we were inside a one room cabin with a mattress on the floor and a kitchen with hotplate and pans.
I started to shake. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I needed to throw up. I could see through the slats of some of the boards to the forest outside. If I could just get free, I could run.
He set me down.
I backed away, toward the counter with the hotplate.
He shut the door and turned to face me. “We’re married now.”
No, we weren’t. I panicked and grabbed a cast-iron pan to hold in front of me. It was so heavy that my arms shook. Could I lift it high enough to hurt him?
He chuckled and moved toward me, so much bigger than me that I felt really small. But I swung. As hard as I could, I hit him in the ribs.
He jumped back, his face turning red. Then he lunged at me.
The door burst open, and a boy rushed inside, colliding with the man so hard that they hit the opposite wall.
I screamed and dropped the heavy pan. I recognized the boy from seeing him around town, but he was in high school. He hit the man in the face several times so rapidly I could barely see it. It was like he’d gone wild. The man hit back, and blood sprayed. Then the boy grabbed the pan I’d dropped and hit Jareth full in the face. The man slumped once and passed out.
The boy stood, blood on his chin, and looked at me. He had the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. “You okay?”
I couldn’t breathe. Tears blocked my vision. “N-no,” I said.
“You will be.” He reached for my hand, and I took his much bigger one, holding as tight as I could. “My dirt bike is outside. I’ll take you home.”
Home. I wanted to be home. I sniffed and let him lead me out of the bad place.
“I’m Aiden,” he said. “You’re safe now. I promise.”
Years later, I sat up on my couch, surprised that night had fallen. Jareth Davey had gone to trial and then gotten off with a technicality. It didn’t matter why. He was free and had been since that day.
I received an anniversary card every year on the date of my kidnapping and around Christmas, not signed and sent from different postal locations. I couldn’t prove they were from Jareth Davey, but they had to be. They were sent to the post office box I’d kept in Silverville all these years, and the next one was due the following Wednesday. Things were coming full circle, and the nightmare was expected.
Now things had changed. Aiden Devlin was back, and now he was in trouble. Could I save him this time?
Chapter 3
Quiet chaos ruled the office when I returned the next day, although the DEA had exited the premises with what I heard was boxes and boxes of documents. I had no doubt they didn’t need most of the stuff for their case, but I hadn’t been there. I was oddly gratified to see that the receptionist’s picture with Stan Lee had survived the raid. She smiled widely when I returned, leaning over the desk. “Have you heard anything about Scot?” she whispered.
“No,” I whispered back. “Have you heard anything?” How could Scot have been arrested by the DEA? It was crazy, and nobody knew a thing.
She shook her head. While she’d been friendly during my month of tenure, she was usually busy, and I was just a deputy prosecutor. I’d obviously been bumped up a bit in her mind. She handed over a stack of messages. “I sent the interns to clean up your office, and they should be finished soon.”
“Thanks.” As the fresh and new lawyer, I didn’t have a secretary or paralegal of my own, and the interns usually handled things for the more experienced attorneys. “Is anybody else back yet?”
