Snowbound Escape
Author
Dana Mentink
Reads
17.8K
Chapters
17
ONE
The sound of shattering ice yanked Mara Gilmore from an uneasy sleep. She lunged from the bed she’d fashioned from a flattened cardboard box and fell to one knee on the splintery wood floor. A patch of ice caused by the leaking roof made her slip as she scrambled upright. She clutched her fists to her pounding heart. Just an icicle falling. It isn’t him. It couldn’t be. She’d been careful, agonizingly so. Covering her snow prints as best she could. Staying away from the main roads that led visitors around the lower pastures shrouding Mount Rainier National Park. Stuffing her mane of overgrown hair under a fraying knit cap. He couldn’t have tracked her. Could he? Not when she was so close to rescue.
She strained to sort through the sounds of the storm howling around the abandoned structure that might have been a vacation cabin in its better days. There was no way to pick out the approach of an intruder from the cacophony. Helplessness left a bitter taste in her mouth.
It’s not him. Tears welled in her eyes anyway. She was exhausted from running, her body battered by cold and hunger, weakened by seven months of living as a fugitive. Not just a fugitive from the law, but on the run from the two predators stalking her since the moment she’d witnessed a double murder back in April.
The scene replayed itself in detail in her nightmares. Eli Ballard standing over the bodies of her ex-boyfriend Jonas and his new love, Stacey Stark, Jonas’s hand twitching one last time, outstretched as if he’d been trying to protect the woman dying next to him. Most chilling of all, Eli had lowered the weapon, looked right at Mara as he flung her bracelet in the bushes, threw his head back and laughed. She had no idea how he’d stolen her bracelet. He’d set her up so smoothly she hadn’t seen it coming.
As if that wasn’t damaging enough, her fellow Pacific Northwest K-9 Unit officers had witnessed her there bent over the bodies, hand outstretched to check for pulses. Another nail in her coffin.
And you ran. You confirmed your guilt in their minds, Mara. That’s on you.
A crunch from outside smacked her back to the present. She forced down the scream building in her throat. Was the noise made by a pile of snow sloughing off the damaged roof? The logical side of her brain, the one that made her perfectly suited to be a crime tech for the PNK9, a specialized team of police officers and their K-9 partners assigned to the three national parks in Washington State, could not override the fear. She was in danger. Moments away from death, possibly. Unless she was letting her fear carry her away.
The keening wind rattled the warped walls as she quickly shoved a granola bar and the half-empty bottle of water into her pack. Why had she stupidly laid them on the remains of the shelf anyway? To trick her mind into thinking she was actually going to be safe for a few days? A mental retreat from her ragged existence? Should have left everything packed. You won’t be safe until you’re back in Olympia. Not a moment before.
Chiding herself for her foolishness, she looped the backpack over her shoulders. Run or stay? If she could wait it out until daylight, she’d be much less likely to fall on the ice or die of exposure in the raging storm. The tiny abandoned cabin she’d found was a good ten miles from the border of Mount Rainier National Park, but the whole area was rugged and treacherous. The volcanic mountain itself stood sentry over the surrounding valley, cloaked by ancient, untouched forests. It was breathtakingly gorgeous, and deadly. Normal winter snowfall had been compounded by a vicious storm system which had paralyzed the whole region for a week. Howling wind and hammering sleet would prevent Eli from finding her, she told herself, unless the conditions killed her first. And Eli had recruited help. Two against one.
With meager supplies and no means to track the weather, how long would she last in the open? Once she set foot out of the cabin, there was no surety that she’d find another shelter before she froze to death. She’d made a mistake coming here, one of many, but she’d been drawn to the spot because it had been her father’s favorite place to camp, a reminder of why she was doing this—running. To save her father.
The ugly reality rose before her like an attacking bear. Eli Ballard was likely out there, or the accomplice he’d hired to track her and they’d left her two choices: run or die.
Decisions used to come so easily to her when she’d had the false notion that she was in charge of her own life. She thought fleetingly of her PNK9 colleagues, tasked with assisting in the investigation of difficult crimes in Washington’s national parks. She’d been so proud to be on board, even though she’d always stood a step outside the tight-knit team. Some of them no doubt interpreted her reserve as standoffishness, arrogance even. Still, maybe she should have turned herself in at the murder scene, trusted that justice would win out.
But Eli had made it clear with the photo he’d texted that her father would be hurt if she breathed a word.
Besides, there was too much evidence against her.
And too few friends to have her back.
And trust wasn’t something that came easily to twenty-four-year-old Mara.
But they believe you now. What good did that do? She’d heard the blessed news that the team had become convinced of Eli’s role in a gun smuggling operation, that Stacey, his business partner, may have found out about it and confronted him, and so he’d killed her—and her boyfriend. They were bringing him in for questioning and he’d bolted. Now that everyone knew the handsome charmer was a snake underneath, it was just a matter of time before they could prove he’d committed the murders too. Very recently, Mara had called her half brother, Asher, an officer with the PNK9 unit, and told him she’d seen Eli gun down two people. He seemed to believe her, but she couldn’t prove anything.
The wind howled along with her thoughts. Eli being a suspect wasn’t going to save her now, stuck in the snowy patch of wilderness she’d chosen, cut off from help, her enemies closing in. Mara had given her brother a hint about where she was holed up, but Asher was far away. Eli was coming for her, and he had nothing to lose.
You made your bed, Mara. Now try and live to sleep in it another night. Run, she decided, but when? Could she wait for daylight to bolt?
Half crawling, she crept inch by inch to the front door. The cold sliced right through the jacket she’d spent five dollars on at the thrift store in Olympia, the first stop on her frantic flight from the murder scene. Another blast of wind buffeted the tiny structure. The nastiest storms didn’t typically arrive in November, this close to Thanksgiving, but nothing had been typical for Mara since that April day when her life blew up. She thought for a moment of Tanner Ford, the quiet dark eyed officer whom she’d almost decided to trust with her suspicions about Eli.
Almost doesn’t count.
And he wouldn’t have believed you anyway.
A quiet crunch made her pulse thunder, closer now. Nature? Or a human predator?
Where was the noise originating? Behind the woodpile? But might it be an animal looking for shelter just as she had been two nights ago? She wished she could turn on the cheap flashlight, but she’d be signing her own death warrant if it was Eli out there. Gingerly, she eased across the floor, past the boarded-up windows, avoiding the gaping hole that she suspected was being used as a burrow by a marmot family. There was no window in front, but the door was so badly weathered there was a sizable chink at the bottom. Breath held, she knelt and put her eye to the spot.
Blinking, she could pick out only the flakes whistling by in lacy sheets.
Maybe she had nothing to be concerned about? The thoughts died away as she spotted a shifting shadow that was not that of a tree or animal. Someone was approaching up the walkway now, one carefully placed footstep at a time. A burly figure, swathed in thick snow pants and jacket. Short and squat... Eli’s accomplice.
Terror piled up inside her like a massive snowfall.
The back door. It was her only chance. She rushed to her cardboard box bed and pulled on her boots. The window boards were nailed firmly in place but there was a gap between two of the warped slats. Freezing cold lasered her as she peeked out.
An eyeball stared back at her through the gap. Shock drove her stumbling back. The eye retreated slightly. She saw only a tiny sliver of face, the gleam of an eyebrow. She knew that face, that smile, the same one she’d seen the day that changed everything.
“Little pig, little pig, let me in.” Eli Ballard’s laugh was colder than the blizzard.
Eli’s man was on the front step and Eli himself was waiting for her in the back...both escape routes blocked.
Trapped.
She looked frantically around for something to use as a weapon. A broken slat stood in the corner, the remnants of a chair perhaps. With shaking fingers she snatched it up.
Two strong men against a woman with no protection.
All right, Mara. It’s do or die time. Whispering a prayer, she gripped the wood and waited.
PNK9 officer Tanner Ford eased slightly to the right to quiet the pain from his healing gunshot wound. It didn’t help that his limbs were frozen slabs of meat. His winter gear barely deflected the cold. Frigid wind ripped his face as he focused the night vision binoculars on the cabin. Britta, his K-9 boxer, remained tense, her whip of a tail wagging. She seemed impervious in her zip-up vest and booties.
Britta was certain who was inside that cabin, even if Tanner wasn’t. His dog had tracked Mara’s scent for miles from the fishing cabin where she’d holed up two days earlier. Asher Gilmore, Mara’s half brother and Tanner’s one close friend, was positive he’d find her there.
“She gave me a clue on the phone before we were disconnected,” Asher had said. “Dad’s favorite spot, a place from her childhood where my father used to take her.” Tanner had registered the disdain shading the word father. “You’ve got to get her out before Eli finds her. Britta’s the only tracking dog available and you have rock star wilderness skills.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” he’d said, but knowing Mara was in grave peril had launched him into the rescue mission without hesitation. Thanks to Britta, he was optimistic they’d found her, with enormous effort, just as a blizzard completely cloaked the tiny bowl of a valley. If he was wrong about her being inside, he’d need to find out soon and trek back to his vehicle before they both got hypothermia or frostbite. Each moment he lingered intensified the risk.
Britta shoved at him with her flat nose as if to say, “I know what I’m doing. Let’s go get her already.”
But something wasn’t right. His instincts screamed at him, fingers numb around the binoculars in spite of the gloves. He refocused the lenses. A sound told him what his eyes couldn’t, the thud of a boot slamming against a door.
Eyes tearing, he zeroed in on the front porch through the deluge of snow. He could barely pick out a tank of a guy battering the wood. One more kick and he’d be through. Showtime. Tanner leaped from his snowy platform and plowed down the slope, pulling his weapon. “Police,” he yelled as loud as he could above the tumult.
The man whipped around and freed a weapon from his pocket, firing.
His pulse went into overdrive as he shouted, “Down, Britta.”
His K-9 partner flattened herself at his side. He rolled behind a snow-covered tree, Britta taking cover beside him. He aimed with care lest his bullet plow right through the fragile cabin walls.
The guy fired off two more shots, then stopped. Breath hitched, Tanner poked his head around the tree. The man yanked a snowmobile from behind a pile of rock and zoomed away. The snow fell in clumps as he and Britta crept from their hiding spot. He stayed low, hurrying to the cabin door, Britta silent and tense at his side. He had no idea what he was about to find. Mara? Eli? He pushed a palm against the door and met resistance. Fastened from the inside.
Plan B. Edging off the porch, he and Britta crunched gingerly around the periphery of the weather-beaten structure. When they paused at the corner Britta stiffened, barking once. Her bark lit up his nerves and he hit the ground next to her as Eli Ballard reeled around the corner firing. The shot would have taken off Tanner’s head if Britta hadn’t alerted him. Eardrums throbbing, Tanner attempted to return fire from his prone position, but Eli kept going. Britta barked at a deafening level at Tanner’s side. She was not a protection dog, her specialty was tracking and trailing, but she would defend him if she could as she’d tried to do when he’d been shot back in August. Tanner scrambled upright, slipped on the snow and went down hard on his knee. She nosed him anxiously. By the time he got up, Eli was out of sight.
“That didn’t go to plan.” He swiped the snow from his face. There had been no sound that he could tell from the cabin, but he wouldn’t have heard anything anyway, over the storm. He looked to Britta who cocked her head, ears twitching. She sat. Her signal. Mara was inside. Alone? Hurt? Worse? He stood and peered through the crack between the slats, but the interior was dark.
“Mara?” he called softly.
No answer. No movement.
“It’s Tanner Ford with the PNK9,” he said louder. The wind snatched his words away.
He couldn’t delay much longer in the bitter cold. “Here goes nothing.” After a command to Britta to stay, he yanked off the window board and leaped through the opening in one swift movement. He landed on his feet, the wood groaning beneath his weight.
The gloom inside didn’t reveal much.
“Mar...” He didn’t get the last syllable out before something rushed at him. He caught the briefest movement of a club or stick raised in the air. The weapon crashed into the door frame as he reeled aside. Stumbling back, he raised his arm to avoid the second blow which narrowly missed his shoulder. Britta was barking all out now, head thrust through the window gap.
He got a glimpse of heavily lashed eyes, a petite face. His attacker wore an incongruous pom-pom hat. She raised her hand to swing again, eyes unfocused and wild.
“Mara,” he got out. “It’s Tanner Ford.”
His words finally penetrated. He heard her gasp and she dropped the stick and fell to her knees next to him. “Tanner?” She panted. “I’m so sorry. Did I hurt you?”
“No, but that was an all-star–worthy swing.” He sat up and gave Britta a hand signal to enter. The dog leaped through the window, first checking on him and then inserting herself in Mara’s arms. She buried her face in the dog’s silky neck. “Oh, Britta. I missed you so much.”
Britta, it seemed, had not forgotten the woman who used to bring her special treats and hung out with her when Tanner was plowing through paperwork. Mara looked different now, thinner, her eyes filling with the gleam of tears, cheeks hollow. So young, twenty-four to his thirty-four. Maybe the circumstances made her seem younger than he remembered.
“You found me.” He wasn’t sure if she was talking to him or Britta. “I didn’t think I’d live long enough to get back home.” Tears ribboned her cheeks and her body quaked. “Eli killed them... Stacey and Jonas...and he’s been after me.”
He reached out a hand. Her fingertips were cold, impossibly small in his grasp. They got up. “Asher shared what you told him. We have proof about Eli’s smuggling. We’ll get him for double murder too, but that’ll need more solid evidence and your eyewitness account. Glad you’re okay, but we can’t stay here.”
She hugged herself, her body slight under her puffy patched jacket. What had she been through the past seven months? There was no hysteria in her voice when she answered, though. “I agree. He’s out there, with his hired guy. He won’t give up for long.”
Tanner nodded and started to jog to the front of the cabin, but Mara snagged his wrist and pointed to the floor. “Watch out for the hole.”
He sidestepped. “Thanks. Saved me a broken ankle.”
“Least I could do.” Her shaky smile teased one from him.
“My car’s parked about two miles up the road. It was snowing hard when I got here so I’m not sure we’ll be able to drive out, but I brought supplies and I can radio from there.” Through the gouge under the door, he did not see any sign of either of the two men.
But they could easily be hiding. Waiting for another chance. He looked again at Mara. She was shivering.
“Do you have anything warmer to wear?” He pointed to the hole in the collar of her jacket. Ridiculous question, probably.
She shook her head. “I’m wearing everything I have.”
Everything? How had she not fallen victim to hypothermia? He quickly pulled off his scarf and twined it around her neck. “We’ll go out the back where the moonlight’s screened by the trees. Hold on to my jacket, okay? I need my hands free, but I don’t want you to get lost in the storm.”
“Britta could find me,” Mara said with a hint of a grin, and for a moment, he saw a flash of the woman he’d been fascinated by back at their Olympia headquarters, the one who was quiet, like him, but brimming with a vibrancy that both interested him and brought back the worst pain he’d ever felt.
He swallowed, gave her his calm, professional cop voice. “If something goes wrong, head downslope and east to my car.” He tapped his breast pocket. “The keys are here. Take them and Britta.”
She tipped up her chin. “Nothing’s going to go wrong. You found me. Now we’re all getting out of here together.”
He loved the confidence. Amazing considering what she’d endured. Without it, she’d probably not have survived for them to find her.
They retraced their steps to the back. He took a deep breath. “Ready?”
He heard the tiny gulp. “Wait. I almost forgot.” She snatched a keychain, the kind with a photo in it, from the slat next to the cardboard box where she must have been sleeping, a memory she would not leave behind.
He understood.
Memories were all he had left too.
Together they climbed onto the windowsill and dropped into the raging storm.
