"Sorry."
"No, don"t be sorry. Talk to me. Remember that you"ve told me about your past here? That means you don"t have to keep all of this bottled up anymore."
"I don"t know what to say," Jan said. "And we"re working. I just want to concentrate on that."
Catherine sighed and leaned back against her seat. She didn"t seem terribly concerned about whatever it was they would find at the next ranch.
It was close to an hour before they found the road that led to the property. Penny had warned her of the long entrance road, otherwise Jan would have thought she"d taken a wrong turn. The trip up the dirt road made her feel vulnerable, as if they were being observed and sights were being drawn on them as they bounced along. The feeling of familiarity was stronger here than at the last ranch.
"Let"s take the pistols out. They"re in the glove compartment."
Catherine took the Glock and the revolver out and handed the automatic to Jan.
"So you are expecting trouble?"
"I don"t want to be surprised by trouble. Let"s put it that way."
A final bend in the road brought them in sight of the ranch. Jan quickly took in the buildings scattered abouta couple of wood cabins, and farther back, a sorry looking barn. But what grabbed her immediate attention was the group of men standing in front of one of the cabins. At the sound of their car pulling up, the men turned toward them.
"That"s the bloke from the last camp in Michigan, right?" said Catherine.
Jan watched as Drecker led the men toward the car. He wore his camouflage, as did several others. The rest, the younger ones, all wore jeans and sweatshirts.
"That"s Drecker, and it looks like the guy next to him is claiming to be a major," Jan said.
She put her gun in her jacket pocket and saw Catherine do the same. They opened the doors to step out of the car, just as Drecker reached its hood. When he saw their faces he pulled his sidearm and leveled it at Jan. Guns flew into the hands of the uniformed men, who quickly spread into a circle around the car.
"Easy now," Jan said. She held her arms up, palms out.
"Sergeant, do you know these women?" The major stood next to Drecker, his hand on top of his weapon. He hadn"t bothered to draw it.
"Yes, sir. They were at our Michigan training camp just a few days ago. Now they"re nosing around"
The major raised his hand to cut Drecker off. He moved forward and stood in front of Jan.
"State your business."
Jan looked at the man, but out of the corner of her eye she kept track of Catherine. She didn"t like the way three of the men were surrounding her.
"We"re here for the same reason as in Michigan. We"re looking for a missing girl. A missing underage girl."
"I told you there that we"d never seen the girl you"re looking for. That hasn"t changed," Drecker said.
Jan kept looking at the major.
"If you"d allow me to reach into my jacket," she said. "I"ll pull out a photo of her to show you."
She reached into her left pocket and could see every gun hand brace for shooting. The major raised his hand again, this time to stop her.
"Don"t bother with the photo," he said. "I haven"t seen a girl here, and neither have my men. Right, men?"
The uniformed men barked out a "Yes, sir!" The ones in sweatshirts were less sure of themselves. Jan supposed they were frightened, but they looked more guilty than anything else. She wondered which one was David Conlon.
Drecker walked over to the sweatshirt group and sent one of them running to the back of the property.
"Now, I"ll have to ask you to leave. This is private property, and as of right now, you"re trespa.s.sing."
Jan looked at Catherine, who shrugged and seemed as if none of it mattered to her one way or the other.
"I suppose it"s your prerogative," she said to the major. "But it seems a shame for us to have to bring the sheriff out here."
Drecker motioned with his gun for them to get back in the car.
"You"re only making this harder on yourselves," Jan said. "Maddy Harrington has now been transported across state lines and that makes the charge federal." She paused and looked straight at Jacovich, ignoring the guns pointed at her head. "You don"t much like anything that"s federal, isn"t that right, Major?"
Jacovich took his gun out of its holster and kept it pointed at the ground. Jan knew he was mad, but she guessed he couldn"t decide who he was most mad at. The young men in the sweatshirts looked frightened now.
"Now, ladies," he said. "I"ve about run out of patience."
"Let"s go," Jan said, turning her back on the guns and looking over at Catherine. She had a bemused look on her face, as if she were watching a group of boys playing in a schoolyard. Jan got in the car, followed by Catherine, and quickly backed up, scattering the armed men behind them. She turned back onto the road and gunned it, punishing the sedan"s undercarriage at each b.u.mp and rut along the way.
"The direct approach didn"t work," Jan said, "so let"s go with Plan B."
"I find that Plan B is usually the one that works," Catherine said. "But it doesn"t hurt to try Plan A."
"It might have. Now they"re on high alert. And they have time to hide Maddy, which is what they sent that one guy off to do."
"Still, we didn"t even know if this was the right property. Now we do."
Jan handed Catherine her iPhone. "Use the map function and see if you can pinpoint our location."
"We"ll have to go around the back, don"t you think?"
"Yep. And I bet there"s no way to drive to it."
Jan looked for a place to hide the car.
"Another walk in the woods with you would be lovely," Catherine said. She leaned toward Jan. "Will we have time to tumble around a little?"
"That"s not even funny," Jan said.
But they both laughed.
After David led the others out of the barn, Maddy and Kristi climbed down from the hayloft. Kristi walked over to a push broom leaning against the wall and started to sweep.
"I"m going to start cleaning. This place is horrible."
Maddy stared at her. "That"s your response? To start cleaning?"
Kristi looked confused. "Response to what?"
"To them talking about underground armories, that"s what. I didn"t come out here to build a fort."
"What exactly did you come out here for? Aside from wanting to be with me, of course." Kristi was flapping her eyes most ineffectually. Maddy decided not to answer the question because she hardly knew the answer anymore. Instead, she sat in the middle of the barn floor and watched Kristi push clouds of dust in circles around her.
The door screeched open, loud and fast, and Tommy stumbled in.
"You guys have to run. Now!"
He was panting as he grabbed Maddy by the arm and tried to haul her up. Kristi stepped over and pulled his arm away.
"What the h.e.l.l, Tommy?"
"I"m not kidding. Those private investigators are here, the ones looking for you in Michigan. You can"t get caught here. David would get into a lot of trouble."
He hustled them out of the barn and pointed north toward the woods. He put his phone into Maddy"s hand.
"I don"t know if this will get a signal, but I"ll try to call when the coast is clear. If the line"s dead just stay away until we come get you."
"How are you going to know where we are?" Maddy asked.
Tommy kept pushing them toward the woods and looking behind his shoulder. "I don"t know, but we will. Just stay north."
Maddy hesitated. She didn"t know if Drecker was sending her away permanently, left to wander aimlessly in the vast woods, or whether she could count on David to come get her.
"Come on," Kristi said. "We have to get moving."
"You shouldn"t come with me. I"d rather have you finding out what"s going on here." Maddy said the words, but she desperately wanted Kristi to come with her.
Tommy pushed both of them forward. "Get the h.e.l.l out of here. Now."
They sprinted to the cover of the woods and found their way along the same path as their first trip into the woods. Only there wasn"t a path. There was only their slight memory of the route they"d taken. She tried to pinpoint the sun to orient them, but the thick tree cover made that impossible.
Kristi was leading the way, keeping up a brisk pace. "We"ve been here twenty-four hours and already everything is f.u.c.ked up."
Maddy felt stung. She was the reason things were a mess, and now Kristi hated her for it. She stopped walking and Kristi turned around.
"I think you should go back," Maddy said. "The more you stay with me, the more screwed up things will be for you."
"Girl, I am not letting you run into these woods alone. Are you crazy? The important thing is we get you out of sight so they don"t s.n.a.t.c.h you away."
"I shouldn"t have come. I really didn"t think my parents would send people looking for me."
A crashing noise came from behind Kristi, and Maddy gasped as she saw a huge buck loping through the woods. He stopped and observed them for a moment, but it was Maddy and Kristi who resembled the deer caught in the headlights. They froze in place and watched as the deer slowly turned his head away and ambled off.
"That would have been cool if I wasn"t scared to death," Kristi said. "I thought it was one of those soldier dudes again."
"If we keep heading north, we"re going to be right where we saw that guy. We should go east. I think our property goes pretty far that way."
"They"re going to be looking for us north."
"I"m not sure yet that I want them to find us. Like I said, you should go back. It will be better for you."
"No way."
Maddy headed east, leading the way this time. She was feeling more sure-footed marching through the forest, but completely at sea as to what she was doing. If the investigators really had shown up, she knew Drecker would kick her out. And if he didn"t, did she really want to stay? Her idea of the ranch hadn"t included soldiers and armories and old men. But the idea of being grabbed by the investigators and taken back home to Winnetka was horrifying.
They walked on and on, not sure how far to go to be safe. They hadn"t brought any water along, but Maddy knew there was a stream that ran through the eastern portion of the property. After another few minutes she could hear it, and soon they saw a creek at the base of a gully with steep sides carved into the earth who knows how long ago. The noise they heard was from a small stretch of rapids where the water hit some rocks and tumbled down a declivity in the stream. Above it, the water ran gently, and as clear as gla.s.s. Maddy scrambled down and knelt beside the water, scooping handfuls of water to her mouth. Kristi put her face right to the water and slurped it up.
"Didn"t anyone ever teach you the right way to drink from a creek?" Maddy said.
Kristi grinned. "We have never had creeks clean enough to drink from, so no. I just thought the direct approach was fine."
Maddy sat back on her heels. "Let"s just go a little farther and then hole up for a while. We can come back here if we need more water, but it feels a little exposed to me."
She took out Tommy"s phone, but there was no signal.
"Looks like we"re on our own," Kristi said.
"It"s either good news or bad news that there"s no way they can track us. I haven"t decided which it is."
They crossed the creek by hopping on stones and continued east on the other side. Kristi was leading the way when she screamed and dropped like a stone. Maddy could hear or see nothing around them; it was as if Kristi had been smote from above.
Kristi was laying flat on her back, her hand on her right thigh. She groaned.
"What happened?" Maddy said. She took Kristi"s other hand, still looking all around, expecting something bad to show up and explain it all.
"There"s a fence there. Look. It"s low. Hit my leg."
Maddy looked where Kristi pointed and saw three thin wires, almost invisible if you weren"t looking for them. But now that she was, she could see them stretching as far as the eye could see in both directions, held up with short stakes pounded in every six feet or so.
"It"s electrified," Kristi said. "Fried my leg."
"Fried it?" She couldn"t see anything on Kristi"s pants leg, no scorch mark or anything. "How bad is it?"
Kristi got up and hobbled around a bit. "It"s okay. I can walk it off."
"Why is there an electric fence in the middle of the forest? I"m pretty sure this is still our land."
"Really? This is like the Ponderosa or something. I didn"t know we had so much land."
"I think that if we stay on our land, we"re more likely to be caught by whoever"s following us. Let"s keep going."
Maddy found a slender tree she could use to boost herself up and over the electric fence, and Kristi followed close behind her, landing on the other side with a grunt.
"Maybe the fence is actually our fence," Maddy said, "and it"s meant to keep people from coming in. That"s possible, right?"