Sudden Second Chance
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Carol Ericson
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19
Chapter One
Beth’s heart skipped a beat as she ducked onto the path that led through a canopy of trees. The smell of damp earth and moldering mulch invaded her nostrils. She took a deep breath. The odor evoked the cycle of life—birth, death and rebirth. She’d smelled worse.
She gasped as a lacy, green leaf brushed her face. Then she knocked it away. If she freaked out and had a panic attack every time she delved into the forest, she’d have a hard time doing this story—and getting to the truth of her birth.
Straightening her shoulders, she tugged on her down vest and blew out a breath. She stepped over a fallen log, snapping a twig in two beneath her boot. The mist rising from the forest floor caressed her cheek and she raised her face to the moisture swirling around her.
The scent of pine cleared her sinuses and she dragged in a lungful of the fresh air. She’d definitely classify herself as a city girl, but this rustic, outdoor environment seemed to energize her.
Either that or the adrenaline was pumping so hard and fast through her veins, a massive anxiety attack waited right around the corner.
She continued on the path through the dense foliage, feeling stronger and stronger with each step. She could do this. The reward of possibly finding her true identity motivated her, blocking out the anxiety that the forest usually stirred up inside her.
She’d convinced Scott, the producer of Cold Case Chronicles, that she needed to come out ahead of her crew to do some initial interviews and footwork. She had her own video camera and could give Joel, her cameraman, a head start. Stoked by the show’s ratings from the previous season, Scott had been ready to grant her anything. Of course, she had a lot of work to do on her own before she got her guys up here. She’d have to stall Scott.
The trees rustled around her and she paused, tilting her head to one side. Maybe she should’ve researched the presence of wild animals out here. Did bears roam the Pacific Northwest? Wolves? She was pretty sure there were no tigers stalking through the forests of Washington. Were there?
As she took another step, leaves crackled behind her, too close for comfort, and she froze again. The hair on the back of her neck stood up and quivered, all her old fears flooding her senses.
She craned her head over her shoulder and released a gusty breath of air. A man walking a bicycle stuttered to a stop, his eyes widening in his gaunt face.
“Ma’am?”
The relief she’d felt a moment ago that it hadn’t been a tiger on her trail evaporated as she took in the man’s appearance. He had the hard look of a man who’d been in the joint. She recognized it from previous stories she’d done on her TV show, Cold Case Chronicles.
“Oh, hello. My husband and I were just taking a walk. He went ahead.”
He nodded once, a jerky, disjointed movement. “Come out to look at the kidnapping site, did ya?”
Heat washed into Beth’s cheeks. She wanted to make it clear to this man that she wasn’t just some morbid looky-loo, but what did it really matter?
“We were in the area anyway, and it’s so pretty out here.” She waved a hand toward the path she’d been following. “Is it much farther?”
“Not much.” He pushed his bike forward, wheeling around the same fallen log she’d stepped over earlier. “They were lookin’ at me for a bit.”
“Excuse me?” Beth tucked her hands into the pockets of her vest, her right hand tracing the outline of her pepper spray.
“For the kidnappings.” He hunched his scrawny shoulders. “Like I’d snatch a couple of kids.”
“Th...that must’ve been scary.” She slipped her index finger onto the spray button in her pocket. “How’d the police get that idea?”
“Because—” he looked to his left and right “—because I’d been in a little trouble before.”
Taking one step back, Beth coiled her muscles. She could take him—maybe—especially if she nailed him with the pepper spray first.
“And because I was there the first time.”
“What?” She snapped her jaw closed to keep it from hanging open. Did he mean he’d been in Timberline at the time the Timberline Trio was kidnapped? He definitely looked old enough.
“You know.” He wiped a hand across his mouth. “The first time when them three kids were snatched twenty years ago.”
Twenty-five years ago, she corrected him in her head.
“You were living here during that time?”
“I wasn’t the only one. Lots of people still around from that time.” His tone got defensive. “It’s just ’cause I had that other trouble. That’s why they looked at me—and because of the dead dog, only he wasn’t dead.”
A chill snaked up Beth’s spine. She definitely wanted to talk to this man later if he was telling the truth, but not now and not here in the middle of a dense forest with only the tigers to hear her screams.
“Well, I’d better catch up to my husband. A...are you going to the site, too?”
“No, ma’am. I’m just taking the shortcut to my house.” He raised one hand.
Then he turned his bike to the right and her shoulders dropped as she released the trigger on her pepper spray.
“Ma’am?”
She stopped, and without turning around, she said, “Yes?”
“Be careful out there. The Quileute swear this forest is haunted.”
“I will and I’m...we’re not afraid of ghosts—my husband and I.”
He emitted a noise, which sounded a lot like a snort, and then he wheeled his bike down another path, leaving the echo of crackling leaves.
Beth brushed her hair from her face and strode forward. He wouldn’t be hard to locate later—an ex-con on a bicycle who’d been questioned about the kidnappings. Maybe he’d have some insight into the Timberline Trio.
She tromped farther into the woods but never lost sight of the trail as it had been well used recently. What was wrong with people who wanted to see where three kids and a woman had been held against their will?
If she didn’t have a damned good excuse for being out here, she’d be exploring the town or sitting in front of the fireplace at her hotel enjoying a caramel latte with extra foam, reading—okay, she’d probably be reading a murder mystery or a true-crime book about a serial killer. The Pacific Northwest seemed to have those in spades.
A piece of soggy, yellow tape stirring in the breeze indicated that she’d reached the spot. Law enforcement had drilled orange caution cones into the ground around the mine opening and had boarded over the top. Nobody would be able to use this abandoned mine for any kind of nefarious purpose again.
She nudged one of the cones with the toe of her boot—it didn’t budge. Wedging her hands on her hips, she surveyed the area. No recognition pinged in her chest. Her breathing remained calm, too, so nothing here was sending her into overdrive.
Not that she’d really expected it. Wyatt Carson had chosen this place to stash his victims because he’d discovered it or had searched for someplace to hide the children, not because he’d known it from twenty-five years before when he was just a child himself, when his own brother Stevie Carson had been snatched.
But one kidnap story might lead to another. Maybe the Timberline Trio had been held here before...before what? If she really were one of the Timberline Trio, those children obviously weren’t dead. So, why had they been kidnapped? Why had she been kidnapped?
There was something about this place—Timberline—that struck a chord within her. As soon as she’d seen that stuffed frog in the window of the tourist shop during a TV news story about the Wyatt Carson kidnappings, she’d known she had to come here. She could be Heather Brice, and she had to find out.
Crouching down, she scooted closer to the entrance of the mine. When Carson had found it, the mine had a cover that he’d then blocked with a boulder. All that had been removed and cleared out.
She flattened herself onto her belly and army-crawled between the cones. Someone had already pried back and snapped off a piece of wood covering the entrance.
With her arms at her sides, she placed her forehead against one slat of wood and peered into the darkness below. She’d like to get down there just to have a look around. Maybe the local sheriff’s department would allow it if she promised to get their mugs on TV.
A swishing noise coming up behind her had her digging the toes of her boots into the mushy earth. She’d just put herself into an extremely vulnerable position—an idiotic thing to do with that ex-con roaming the woods. A branch snapped. She slipped her hand inside her pocket and gripped the pepper spray, her finger in position.
A man’s voice yelled out. “Hey!”
Then a strong vise clamped around her ankle. This was it. In one fluid motion, she dragged the pepper spray from her pocket, rolled to her back, aimed and fired.
The man released her ankle immediately and staggered back, one arm flung over his face.
Beth jumped to her feet, holding the spray in front of her with a shaky hand, ready to shoot again.
Her attacker cursed and spit.
Beth’s eyebrows shot up. The ex-con had gotten bigger...and meaner.
Then he lowered his hands from his face and glared at her through dark eyes streaming with tears. Those eyes widened and he cursed again.
He cleared his throat and coughed. “Beth St. Regis. I should’ve known it was you.”
Beth dropped her pepper spray and clasped her hand over her heart. She’d rather be facing a tiger right now than Duke Harper—the man she’d loved and betrayed.
