As she wiggles her wrists, the ropes loosen.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Darcy rounds a bend in the trail, paranoid she missed the secret path down to the stream. It seems they’ve been walking for too long before Hunter spots a break in the flora where Darcy fought her way to the water last night. He moves toward the opening, and she grabs his arm as an unexpected noise comes from the far end of the valley.
“What’s wrong?” Hunter asks.
Darcy listens. Something in the sky. She’s about to write off the sound as her nerves playing tricks on her when the distinctive chop and whir of helicopter blades travel over the stream. Leading the way into the thicket, Darcy ducks when the spotlight slashes across her face. The light blinds her, and when her vision clears, the helicopter has already swooped over the park and circled back.
Searching for an opening in the canopy, Darcy waves her arms at the helicopter’s second pass. Wind generated by the blades sets the trees in motion and whips dead leaves into a cyclone. As they shield their eyes, Darcy and Hunter grab hold of the trees and descend the steep drop-off, the moon shimmering off the waters below.
A snapping sound pulls Darcy’s head up. As if someone stepped on a fallen twig. She places her hand over Hunter’s mouth to keep him quiet while the helicopter shoots over the creek.
There’s no time to react before the gunshot explodes through the copse. The bullet ricochets off a tree trunk. An explosion of bark clips Darcy’s forehead above the eye. She drops to her back, stunned, her vision black as she claws at the sodden earth above the creek. Hunter’s warning rings out a moment before the next shot gouges a hole in the earth. He yells and falls behind Darcy, clutching his knee.
Darcy’s vision clears, but her ears ring, the sounds of the forest muffled as if smothered under a blanket.
“You’ve been shot,” she says, throwing her body over her son’s chest to cover him.
“No, the bullet missed. A rock got me in the knee.”
“Don’t move.”
He protests and tries to roll her off before another explosion flattens them, Darcy’s hands covering the back of her head. She scans the forest down to the stream. The kidnapper must be close. No way he could see them inside the copse from across the stream. She slips her own gun from the holster and swings it across her field of vision. The next shot burrows into the earth a foot from her head. A blast of pebbles peppers her face and draws blood as mud and sediment rain down on her hair.
Setting her elbows on the ground, she aims the gun between the trees, eyes fixed on a narrow clearing between a stand of elms that might give the killer a sight line. At the same time, she maneuvers herself over Hunter and gestures toward the thick trunk beside them.
“Get behind the tree.”
He shakes his head.
“Hunter, you don’t have a gun.”
He tenses his jaw and crawls on his belly toward the tree. Darcy exhales in relief when her son gets to safety, but then he limps to the next tree, and Darcy realizes he means to circle around the shooter and cut him off. Another blast drops Hunter to the ground. Darcy holds her breath until she spies his shadow slinking into hiding. It occurs to her she hasn’t heard the helicopter in the last minute. Either the pilot set the helicopter down, or the helicopter is too far downstream. Someone must have heard the gunfire.
Light flashes across the water, and Darcy shoots the Glock. She rolls behind the trunk, expecting return fire. A second after she vacates her position, the ground erupts with gunshots. The killer fooled her, attempted to draw her out. He could have reflected the moonlight with a knife.
Unable to see the killer, she’s terrified to shoot. Jennifer might be in the line of fire, but Darcy’s daughter solves the problem by crying out. There. A hundred feet off to the right.
Just past the shoreline, a shadow ducks behind a small cliff. Darcy edges down the hill to the next trunk, her heartbeat loud in her ears as she searches for her daughter. A slap follows a muffled scream, and Darcy knows the killer struck Jennifer when she tried to warn them. As Darcy slips closer to the cliff, the helicopter rounds the high terrain of the state park and angles down the stream. The spotlight no longer sweeps the ground. It focuses on the cliff. The state police must have eyes on the killer.
Anticipating he’ll grab Jennifer and flee, Darcy studies the land for an escape route. Either he reverses course and runs along the stream in full view of the state police, or he drags Jennifer up the hill and attempts to reach Cass Park. As Darcy leaps from behind the tree and moves along the hill to intercept the killer, three shadows emerge ahead of the approaching helicopter. Hensel’s team. Darcy’s heart fills with hope before the bullet slices across her thigh with white fire and drops her to the forest floor.
Blood soaks her pants leg. Pulling herself forward, crawling on her elbows, she ducks when another shot whistles past her ear. Unable to see the killer, she fires the Glock to the left of the cliff and toward the stream, hoping she can pin him down until Hensel closes in.
More shadowed figures descend the hill off to her right. Though she can’t make out their faces, she recognizes the shapes as Reinhold and Filmore. They’ve hemmed the killer in, but the killer might murder Jennifer in his last stand.
Darcy catches the glint of moonlight reflecting off his gun when he rounds the cliff. Darcy is ready. She pulls the trigger.
The bullet clips the killer’s kneecap and spins him around. As he stumbles beside the stream, the gun tumbles from his hand and vanishes beneath Darcy’s sight line. Reinhold and Filmore are coming fast now, but they’re still a long way up the hill. The three members of Hensel’s team struggle along the rocky shore, shutting off the killer’s escape route, but they won’t reach the killer in time if he attacks Jennifer. Hunter climbs down the other side of the ridge, hangs over the cliff face, and drops to his feet, doubling over when his knee buckles. Hunter struggles toward the madman, diverting his attention. They’ve cut off all escape routes, but Darcy knows nothing fights harder than a cornered animal.
Darcy screams for Jennifer to run when the killer climbs to his feet with a knife. She focuses the gun on the killer, prepared to strike him down if he turns on her daughter. But Jennifer wavers on her feet in the line of fire. Spotting the agents cutting across the stream, Hunter yells for Hensel to hurry. But the FBI has the same problem as Darcy—Jennifer stands between their guns and the killer.
Why won’t Jennifer run? With blood pouring from the killer’s knee, he’s in no position to beat her in a footrace.
Jennifer’s chin hangs against her chest as if overcome by exhaustion. Ropes bind the girl’s wrists behind her back. Darcy’s breath hitches when one of Jennifer’s hands slips free from the bindings. She uses her other hand to clasp the ropes against her back so the killer doesn’t see them fall away.
While Hunter steps over rocks to cross the stream, the killer brandishes his knife so everyone can see. He wants everyone to stay back, realizing nobody will shoot through the teenage girl to get to him.
But there’s one problem. He’s blind to Jennifer’s hands and believes the girl is about to lose consciousness when she feigns dizziness.
“Freeze! FBI. Drop the weapon.”
Fisher’s voice.
Under the moonlight, the killer’s smile gleams as he stalks toward Jennifer. The world moves in slow motion, Darcy begging the FBI to open fire as she spins past Reinhold and Filmore for a better angle…the helicopter blades driving mist off the stream, turning the killer’s hands slick...Hunter wading through the water and into the heart of the impending firestorm.