Maggie Black - Rescue At Cedar Lake

“Well, I think he’s the same man I saw shooting up the Rhodeses’s cottage and who killed Brick. Which does not bode well.” Alex swung his leg over and stood up. “Can I take it from the look on your face that you don’t like something about how I handled things back there?”

Was she still that transparent around him?

“You drove a snowmobile straight at a gunman.”

“He was going to kill us. We may not know much about these guys, but we know they’re not above murder.” He stretched. “But they’re also sloppy and reckless. Castor, as you call him, was only holding the gun with one hand. Which is cute if you’re trying to look all tough, but absolute garbage when it comes to aiming. My gut told me that if I was fast enough off the mark he’d have no hope of hitting us.” He shrugged. “I was right.”

All right, he had been right about that. Her studies in human psychology told her that there was a lot to be said for reading body language like that, and she could even concede that sometimes a person’s instincts took over and acted, before the rational brain had processed what they already knew. But it was one thing to believe these men were nothing but a ragtag group of amateurs. It was another to risk your life on that.

“So, we’ve stopped here to talk things through and make a plan?” She climbed off, too. The fact that Castor had killed his own henchman worried her, as did the fact he hadn’t taken the time to thoroughly check every corner of the cottage when he’d found her gone—despite how relieved she was he hadn’t seen them. But for now, she could only guess what all that could mean.

“Pretty much,” Alex said. “We should be safe here for a bit. This cottage is pretty hard to find from the main lake road if you don’t know what you’re looking for. If they were coming after us on snowmobiles we should have heard them by now. I’m going to try to call Zoe again on my cell phone and, also, the police and Daniel. Not that I expect I’ll be able to get a signal. So I’d like to try the CB radio, too. But that’s going to be trickier because anything we say on an open channel could be overheard.”

“Absolutely.” Theresa eased the backpack off her shoulders and pulled out the radio. “I’m sorry. You must be worried sick.”

“Yeah, I am.” He took it from her. “Zoe’s not just my little sister. She’s my colleague, and right now she’s somewhere with our client.”

He strode off down the side of the cottage under the porch roof.

“Alex, wait! You said you’re worried about being overheard on the radio. Like I tried to tell you, one of the guys called me by an old nickname.” She took a deep breath. “In fact, it was ‘finicky little princess.’”

She didn’t know what kind of response she’d expected from that, but it wasn’t the one she got. He didn’t even turn. “Okay, well, we can talk about that after if you think that means anything.”

If it meant anything? Didn’t he remember?

“But the kids at Cedar Lake used to call me princess, remember? And they thought I was spoiled.”

He still didn’t turn.

“The only person who ever called me a ‘finicky little princess’ was you. Just you. When you broke off our engagement.”

Alex spun back. His face had gone oddly pale. He opened his mouth, and for a long moment no words came out.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to that,” he managed, finally. “I’m sorry if whatever those thugs said reminded you of our breakup. I don’t remember things like you apparently do. Certainly, I never meant to hurt you. But right now, our past doesn’t matter.”

She could tell he was upset, but she didn’t know why. Did it bother him to be reminded that he was the one who’d broken off their engagement? Either way he was completely failing to get what she was saying. Like when he’d seemed to think “I don’t know if I can marry you right now” had meant “Please go away forever. I don’t love you anymore.”

“Listen,” she said. “Please. What I’m saying is that it was very bizarre and specific. Added to the fact he seemed convinced I knew something about this trunk, which I don’t, it makes me think that maybe he had some kind of deeper link to our history here.”

“Maybe? I don’t know. It sounds like a pretty big leap of logic to me.” He didn’t look convinced. “But we can talk about it more when I’ve located Zoe and Mandy, we’re somewhere safe, we’re not trying to outrun a pending storm and nobody’s shooting at us. Just give me half a second and then we’ll keep going. Won’t be long.”

He turned away. She nearly groaned. The storm was growing worse by the second. His sister and Mandy were missing. She’d just been kidnapped and shot at. A man was dead. Yet here they were, reliving the very same kind of argument they’d had a hundred times before. He wanted to leap into action. She wanted to pause long enough to actually think.

Alex had already given up on the cell phone and was fiddling with the radio. She glanced at the cottage. The families at Cedar Lake used to have an open-door policy for all the kids on the lake in case of emergency. Maybe she could still find a key. Her hand ran along the underside of the window boxes, feeling in the snow. Then she stopped short. The cottage door was already ajar.

“Hey, Alex? I think the cottage is open.”

No response. She pressed her hand against the door. It swung open under her touch.

She stepped inside the cottage and cried out in shock.

It had been ransacked.

* * *

Theresa’s cry was faint and yet to Alex’s ears it seemed to rise above the sound of the wind and the static hissing in his ear.

“Theresa?” He turned back. For a moment he couldn’t see her, just snow swirling around the empty place he’d left her standing just moments ago. He ran back three strides and burst through the open door. The cottage had been turned inside out. Drawers hung open. Furniture was tossed. They’d theorized the carnage at the Rhodeses’ cottage had had something to do with Josh’s second cousins and maybe something expensive one of them owned. But why ransack a neighboring cottage? Theresa stood in the clutter. Her hand rose to her lips.

“The poor Pattersons,” she said.

He slid his helmet off. Theresa still had her back to him. His hand reached up instinctively to slide around her shoulder. At the last moment, he caught himself and brought his hand back down, just before his fingertips brushed the back of her neck. He set the helmet down and slid his hands into his pockets.

“We knew Castor and his buddies were looking for a trunk,” he said. “Maybe they’re going door to door looking for it.”

“Mandy’s brothers have done well for themselves financially, and Castor mentioned her by name. So I could at least come up with some theories why somebody would rob them. But the Pattersons are just a really nice, low-key, modest family who never did anything to anyone...” Then she turned back suddenly and he could see the same question crossing her mind that had just crossed his.

“Except for Corey,” he finished.

Corey Patterson was four years younger than Alex and had gotten in trouble with the law for drug possession at sixteen. Alex wasn’t sure of all the details. But sometime around the time they’d been getting engaged, Josh’s dad, who was a cop, had smelled marijuana on Corey and threatened to turn him in. Rumor had it that Corey had been in trouble with the law off and on after that. Then, around the time their engagement had ended, Corey had been charged with possession.

“Whatever happened to him?” Theresa leaned against the wall.

“I honestly don’t know,” Alex said. “I kind of checked out of what was going on up here after you and I broke up. Last I heard, he’d been sent to a youth rehabilitation facility. All my mom would say is that every family had their problems. I just can’t imagine anyone doing this to their own grandparents. I hate to say this, but if they’re ransacking small cottages then they probably hit your family’s cottage, too.”