Kay Hooper - Hunting Fear

Everybody was past tired, nerves on edge both because of the circumstances and all the caffeine. And the terrain wasn't helping; the search was physically demanding, even grueling, and exhaustion was creeping into all of them.

By three, Wyatt Metcalf had left the search parties in order to go to his bank and get the ransom money. His instructions were to deliver the ransom alone. Those were always the instructions. /

Lucas had advised the sheriff to wear a wire or to hide a tracking device in the small bag that was to hold the money, but he'd also been forced to admit that on every previous occasion when they were involved early enough to take such measures, either the kidnapper had found a way to remove or electronically short-circuit the device or else had simply left the money unclaimed.

And his victim dead.

Metcalf wasn't willing to take any chances, not with Lindsay's life. He intended to follow his instructions to the letter. He had refused to be wired, to be accompanied, or to be watched in any way by law-enforcement personnel.

"Hard to be a cop and a lover," Jaylene murmured when the sheriff reported to them via the spotty radio communication that he was going for the money and would deliver it sans any wire or tracking device.

"He's not thinking like a cop," Lucas said, sounding tired.

"Could you?"

Without replying to that, her partner bent once more over the map spread out on the hood of their ATV and frowned. "Six more properties on our list. And two of them on or near some kind of water."

Champion joined him in examining the map and shook his head. "If we're still putting the places with water at the top of our list-"

"We are," Lucas told him.

"Well, okay, then there's no way we can cover both those places by five o'clock. There's just no way. Not only are they miles apart, but this one"-he jabbed a finger at the map-"doesn't have any kind of a road leading to it now. It'll take us at least an hour and a half from here, and that's assuming the summer rains didn't wash the hills and gullies as badly as they usually do. It'd put us there at about four-thirty, if we're really lucky, and five if the area is as bad as I'm afraid it is. And that's not counting the time it'll take to search what's left of the buildings around that old mine shaft."

"What about the other place?" Jaylene asked.

Champion chewed on his lower lip as he stared at the map and considered. "The other place is the hunter's cabin at Simpson Pond. It's remote, but there's a halfway decent service road running partway, where the old train tracks used to be. From here… less than an hour, probably. But that's in a different direction, so even if we're lucky as hell we won't be able to check out both places. Not before five. Not even before six, if you want my opinion."

"So we can only check out one of them." Jaylene was watching her partner. "One of two places only slightly more likely than the other four on our list. Should we flip a coin? Or do you have something to give us better odds?"

Lucas looked at her for a moment, grim, then drew a deep breath, bowed his head, and closed his eyes.

Champion eyed the federal agent uncertainly, reached up to touch his hat as though instinctively feeling he ought to remove it, then whispered to Jaylene, "Is he praying?"

"Not exactly." She kept her voice low but didn't whisper. "He's… concentrating."

"Oh. Okay." Champion clasped his hands behind him in a parade-rest stance and maintained a respectful silence.

Lucas tuned out his awareness of that silence and the curious stare that went with it. He tuned out the familiar presence of his partner. He tuned out the sounds of the forest all around them. And he focused on one small, bright point of light in his own mind.

The technique didn't always work, but it was the most successful meditation exercise he'd been able to develop in his years with the SCU. He was in a sense trying to narrow his own psychic abilities, or at least aim them at the smallest possible target. Concentrate on one thing, only one, and direct all his energies there.

Focus on that small, bright point of light, clear everything else out of his mind, and then picture the face of the missing person. Picture Lindsay.

The situation was unusual in that he had spent time with Lindsay before she was taken. So he knew more than merely what she looked like. He knew the sound of her voice, knew the way she moved, the way she thought. He knew the way she took her coffee and her favorite blend of pizza toppings, and he knew the man she loved.

He pushed all that into the bright, white light, seeing nothing but the light and Lindsay.

Lindsay…

The water was up to her ankles when Lindsay admitted to herself that stuffing her sock into the pipe wasn't even slowing it down. There was a lot of pressure in that pipe; every time she got the material wedged in there, it was forced back out, accompanied by a gush of water.

The water was up to her knees when she made a final attempt to kick out the glass, knowing that as the water got deeper in her tank she would be unable to use her full weight in an assault on the glass.

All she got for her trouble was soaking clothes when she slipped and fell in the attempt.

She was trying to stay angry, and at first it hadn't been hard to do that. To yell and swear at the top of her lungs and damn the animal who had done this to her. To scream until her throat was raw, just on the off chance that he'd done the more common criminal thing and screwed up somewhere, somehow, picked the wrong place or made somebody curious enough to check this place out.

Whatever and wherever this place was.

It wasn't hard, at first, for Lindsay to grimly make attempt after attempt to alter or delay her fate, staying focused on doing something.

She was no helpless maiden, dammit, to be rescued from the dragon. She'd taken down a few dragons in her time and intended to live long enough to take down a few more.

She had things to do, and not just with dragons. She wanted to see the Grand Canyon, Hawaii, and the Great Pyramid. She wanted to learn to ski. She wanted to have kids. She hadn't realized that until now, but she was sure now, absolutely sure, that she wanted kids. Maybe with Wyatt, if she could knock some sense into his stubborn head. Or maybe with some prince she hadn't met yet.

Prince. Yeah, right.

Still, she didn't doubt they were searching for her. A lot of good cops and a couple of good FBI agents. They were searching for her, and Luke and Jaylene were part of that hotshot elite unit that was supposed to be so good at stuff like this, so the odds were at least even that they'd find her.

Maybe better than even.

And maybe they had psychic help to improve the odds even more. At least-they might have if Samantha was as genuine as she seemed, as genuine as Luke seemed to believe she was. Odd, though, that she'd been right about there being another kidnapping but wrong about the victim.

Always assuming she'd told them the truth, of course.

Lindsay spent a good ten minutes thinking about that and finally decided that Sam had no reason to hate her enough to lie about it if she had seen Lindsay in that vision. So she must have gotten it wrong somehow.

But Luke and Jaylene, they were specialists at this sort of thing. They knew what they were doing.

Sure they do. And they followed this guy for a year and a half without catching him!

"They didn't know he was playing a game," she heard herself mutter defensively, her own voice a welcome sound over the rushing sound of the water pouring into her tank.

But if they're so good at this… shouldn't they have known?

"Different places, always on the move-they couldn't catch up to him. But now they can. Now he's here, staying put. And they're here."