Mountain Refuge. Sarah Varland
Summer tensed her arms, tried to wrestle out of his grip, but he was too strong, even as he released her with one arm and then threw the other one all the way across her to pull her up against him, his hand heavy, her heart thudding in her chest.
Dying wasn’t an option. Not for Summer. Not when for the last three years she felt like she’d barely lived. She’d gone through the motions, fulfilled obligations, even climbed mountains...
But she hadn’t really lived. She wasn’t ready yet, wasn’t done.
No. Dying was not an option. She stilled slightly, hoping she could lull him into complacency, somehow trick him into loosening his grip so she could escape. Instead he held her against him even tighter, drew a knife with the other hand—he was left-handed, she should remember that—and ran it slowly up her arm. There was nothing remarkable about the knife except that it was large, four or five inches. Shiny. Sharp against her skin as he pressed just hard enough to leave the smallest of scratches.
“This is how it begins.”
Something in the words sickened her, terrified her. Please, God. She didn’t remember the last time she’d prayed. For now that was all she could muster.
Noise in the bushes startled them both. She felt her captor shift and assumed he was looking at the noise. She moved her head like she was too, but lowered her chin in the process. Took a breath and slammed her head back as hard as she could.
He yelled in pain, and when he loosened his grip slightly, she rammed an elbow into his ribs.
And then she was free.
Summer didn’t stop to look back to see if he was pursuing—she just started running. She was free, she was alive and she had another chance to live like it.
She wasn’t going to mess this up.
* * *
Clay Hitchcock pulled into the parking lot at the Moose Haven Lodge, hoping his fresh start wouldn’t turn out to be a disaster. He was already later than he’d meant to be. A glance at the dash reminded him of that. It was 11:00 p.m. If Tyler hadn’t assured him any time before midnight was fine he’d feel awful. As it was, Clay just felt tired. He jerked the key from the ignition, exhaled and got out.
Tyler Dawson, the friend who had gotten him this job, ran from the lodge. “I need your help.”
“What’s wrong?”
“My sister should have been back from a hike an hour ago.”
“And she’s not?” Cop senses died hard apparently, because Clay’s instincts heightened, ready for action as if he was back in his old life.
“No. We’re spreading out. If I give you directions, can you drive around a certain area?”
“Of course.” Clay might be new here, but he did most of his growing up in the swamps and woods of coastal Georgia. Back roads were somewhere he felt comfortable.
“Here.”
Tyler handed him a ripped strip of paper, like they’d written out a list of places to search and divided them up. Not bad for civilians running an informal search. Speaking of which... “You’ve called the police, right?”
“Yes. But we’re a small town with a small department. There are only three Moose Haven officers and one of them is out on maternity leave. So that leaves two.”
Clay winced, knowing from his own police experience that the chances of both even being able to join the search were slim.
“They’re both searching because one of them is my brother.”
Clay whistled low. “Are you going out too?” He hadn’t seen any other cars in the lot when he’d pulled up and had wondered if the lodge was empty this late at night.
“My truck’s around back. Call me if you see anything and I’ll let everyone else know.”
Clay nodded, climbed back into his truck and drove away.
The woods alongside the roads he drove looked nothing like the tall Georgia pines he was used to investigating among, but the situation was familiar to him. He’d been involved in a search or two during his time at the Treasure Point Police Department, but even though he’d only been officially without a badge for two months now, it felt like a lifetime ago.
Unless Clay let himself actually remember it, hang on to that part of his life. And then it felt like yesterday. But he didn’t want that. Couldn’t take that.
He pulled out of the parking lot and looked at the note Tyler had given him. Howard’s Landing Road was the first road, followed by a list of other locations and directions from place to place. He pulled the first road up on his phone’s map setting and pressed the gas.
He realized as he drove that he hadn’t asked which sister was missing. Tyler had two. Kate and Summer, if he remembered their names correctly from hearing Tyler mention them in the past. Who was lost? What had happened?
God, we could use some help.
The words came easily. People had let him down in his lifetime, more in the last few months than usual, but God never had. More now than ever, Clay clung to that faith. Having walked away from everything else consistent in his life, God was all he had.
And this job, thanks to Tyler. Which wasn’t off to the best start. What had happened to whichever Dawson sister was missing?
He continued praying silently as he drove, even as years of law enforcement thoughts crowded his mind, pushed out any hope of peace he had been clinging to. Odds weren’t good that she was unharmed.
Clay hoped, whichever sister it was, she could take care of herself.
And hoped even more that God would take care of her.
* * *
Summer Dawson’s feet pounded the dirt beneath them as she rounded another corner in the thick spruce forest, desperately struggling to stay ahead of whoever was behind her, whoever this man was who wanted her dead. She could still hear his footfalls, the rocks in the trail scattering behind her, and knew he wasn’t far behind.
If only she knew how long she’d be running. She was in good shape, leading hikes at her family’s lodge for so many years had seen to that, not to mention her training regimen—but she’d already been out for several hours. Fatigue wouldn’t take long to set in, and Summer didn’t know where she was—she’d had to divert from the path she knew after she’d rounded one of the corners and he had been there waiting.
Summer hadn’t had time to react, hadn’t had time to assess the situation or use any of the self-defense training or survival skills she possessed. In the moment when she’d needed all of that most, all she’d been able to do was scream. Finally she’d hit him hard enough to be able to run.
But first he’d been able to talk to her, say things she wouldn’t soon forget. First, he’d been able to run a knife up her arm and promise her that death wouldn’t come quickly.
Summer wondered if, when she stopped, when she’d gotten away and didn’t have to run anymore, if she’d feel the cold blade against her skin like it was still there. Somehow she suspected she would.
Determination renewed, she pushed herself harder. She was less than ten miles from her family’s lodge, she was fairly certain about that much. Summer didn’t recognize the trail she was on right now, but it had to connect eventually to one she was familiar with, didn’t it?
As she ran, Summer went over her would-be killer’s description in her mind to make sure the details were cemented in her memory and to distract her from the burning in her lungs. He wore a mask. Black Carhartt stocking cap. She hadn’t noticed much more than that, his features—the ones she’d been able to see—weren’t etched into her mind the way the glimmering silver of the knife was.
Were it not for the noise in the bushes distracting him, Summer would