Maddy stilled her stick now in the fire and the end ignited. She shoved it the rest of the way into the flames. "I don"t really know what you mean."
"I have to be honest with you. Do you know what the worst thing is about knowing you"re sixteen?"
"Almost seventeen."
"It"s that I was starting to have feelings for you, and now I know you"re just a kid and it makes me feel like an old letch."
This was the kind of news that came as no surprise when she heard it, yet she had completely failed to antic.i.p.ate it. Kind of like realizing no one was going to ask her to the prom and the dance was that night. But this surprise from Kristi cut the opposite way. It pleased her. She felt startled in a way that made her stomach feel funny. She looked at Kristi, who was still poking at the fire.
"I don"t think you"re an old letch, Kristi."
"Well, you wouldn"t. But people my age or older would. And I"m not one who"d take advantage of a kid. That would be wrong."
They sat for a while longer with the fire. Maddy felt unwilling to say anything to Kristi, afraid the wrong thing would come out of her mouth, because she wasn"t sure what the right thing would be. Finally, as they were getting ready to turn in, she touched Kristi on the arm.
"Thanks for being honest with me, especially since I haven"t been honest with you."
"That"s okay. Did I freak you out?"
"No. But let"s talk about this when I"m seventeen, okay?"
A big smile broke out on Kristi"s face. "You"re on."
"It"ll be dark soon," Catherine said. "I"m not sure how much farther we should go."
Jan peered ahead. The dense woods were getting close to impenetrable. They didn"t have the benefit of a trail to guide them, nor a known destination. Jan led the way, picking out a route roughly parallel to the trail she"d seen Drecker travel. They hoped it would somehow burp them out onto the area where the training group was gathered. She used the compa.s.s on her phone to keep them moving in the same direction, but then they didn"t really know if that was the right direction. Jan stopped.
"You may be right. Let"s get back to the car and see if we can tail Drecker from the parking lot. I can hardly see a thing anymore."
They turned and headed back toward the car. Catherine moved through the woods as if she lived in Sherwood Forest instead of London, and stayed behind Jan in a clear acknowledgement of who was leading the search. They both turned when a beam of light bounced off the broad tree trunks in front of them.
"Looks like you ladies have taken a wrong turn somewhere."
A broad-shouldered man in cammies stood twenty feet away, a flashlight in his left hand, a nine millimeter in his right, both raised and pointing at them. He walked slowly forward.
"This is private property, ladies. You may have noticed the No Trespa.s.sing signs everywhere?"
Jan stood in front of Catherine and shielded her eyes from the beam of light. "It seems we missed seeing those," she said. "But I"d appreciate it if you"d lower your flashlight. And your gun, while you"re at it."
The man did neither. "I"m afraid all I"ll be doing is escorting you to our commanding officer. He was especially interested to see if there were ladies snooping in our woods. d.a.m.n if he wasn"t right."
He moved to within three feet of them, holstering his flashlight, but keeping the gun aimed at chest level. Catherine moved to Jan"s side as he pulled two plastic handcuffs out of his back pocket, but before he"d even moved his hand past his hip, she had him on the ground, with her knee to the back of his head and his arm twisted up behind him.
"Jesus," said Jan. She picked up the gun that had been knocked from his hand. "Do you need any help there?"
The man started to struggle and Catherine wrenched his arm higher up. He howled.
"Yes, if you could put one of these cuffs on him I"d be ever so grateful."
They both sat on him and wrestled his hands together, cuffing them with the plastic strip. Then they stood and rolled him over. His face was scrunched up with fury.
"You b.i.t.c.hes will pay for this. My sergeant will be out here any minute looking for me."
Jan looked down at him and shook her head. "That"s going to be awfully embarra.s.sing for you, isn"t it? I mean here we are, a couple of ladies, as you put it, and there you are, trussed up like a pig. I wonder what he"ll think about that?"
The radio on the man"s belt crackled and a voice came through asking him to report in.
"Just turn it off," Jan said. Catherine grabbed the radio and hit the power b.u.t.ton. "Now, you"re probably right that he"ll be coming along soon to find you. My question to you is whether you want to have us wait for him with you, which we"re just fine with. Or would you like to help us out and we"ll let you go before he sees us? Which will it be?"
"Or we could just knock him out or shoot him or something. That way we can have his sergeant find him and we could ambush them." Catherine leaned down and looked at the man"s shirt pocket label. "Does that sound like it would be less embarra.s.sing for you, Private Lawson?"
"He"s kind of old for a private, isn"t he?" Jan asked Catherine.
"A little. It"s probably been hard for him to advance."
"f.u.c.k you!" Lawson said. He tried to spit at them, but the glob landed back on his head.
"That"s the spirit!" Jan said. "It"s thinking like that that"s probably gotten you where you are today, Lawson. But listen, we"re running out of time here. All I want is to show you a photo and you tell me whether you"ve seen the person before."
She grabbed his flashlight and pointed it at the photo of Maddy, holding it in front of his face. He turned his head away.
"Does that mean you haven"t seen this girl, Private? Or that you have."
"I ain"t seen her."
"May I?" Catherine asked Jan, as she took the flashlight from her. Then she jammed the flashlight up against Lawson"s s.c.r.o.t.u.m and pushed. He tried to scramble up on his feet, but Jan held him down.
"I"m afraid you"re not being entirely honest with us, Private Lawson. Now, you can tell us what you know, or I can push harder."
His eyes were wild as he stared at Catherine. Jan saw him look up at her for salvation.
"Just tell us. It will go a lot better for you."
Lawson was breathing heavily and looked ready to fall apart. "All I know is that half an hour ago they ordered us to break camp, all of a sudden like, and then sent me and some of the others out in the woods to look for intruders. That"s all I know, I swear."
Catherine got up. "What do you think?" she asked Jan.
"I think that"s about all he knows." She took a card and put it in Lawson"s shirt pocket. "But if you think of anything else, you give me a call. If we find out you knew more and didn"t tell us, we"ll pay you another visit."
He nodded and lay still, staring up at them. "Don"t let them find me like this," he said.
Catherine looked at Jan and she shrugged. Catherine pulled the knife out of Lawson"s belt and cut the plastic tie binding his hands.
"Now get out of here," Jan said.
"But what about my gun?"
"We"re not giving you the gun back."
"Or the torch," Catherine said.
They turned and marched back the way they came, using the flashlight in the dark woods and keeping quiet. Neither turned back to see what Lawson was doing.
They avoided the parking lot and made their way out to the county road, where they"d stashed the Jeep.
"Let"s drive by the lot to see what"s there," Jan said.
"Excellent idea," Catherine said.
Jan drove slowly up the road to the parking lot with her lights off, but when they came around the curve by the pond they saw that the cars and the RVs were all gone.
"Blimey," Catherine said.
Jan laughed. "Wow. I didn"t know you guys actually said "blimey.""
"We do. I can throw a "crikey" into the conversation if it will get another smile out of you."
Jan stopped smiling. She had to remind herself to resist Catherine, but it was so hard. She kept forgetting.
"I"d say they"re a pretty well organized group to get out of here so quickly," she said.
"Except for the look of panic their bugout creates. It can"t be a coincidence that we ask about the girl and they are gone within minutes," Catherine said.
"Time to find the sheriff, but I have a feeling we"re not going to get much help there."
Jan looked up the contact information on the county"s website and placed the call to the sheriff"s office. Within five minutes, she"d hung up.
"No joy, I take it?" Catherine said.
"The deputy I spoke to claims there"s nothing they can do based on so little information. I"ll e-mail the photo to him so they have something on file there. He didn"t sound too eager to help out."
"You sound like there"s something behind that."
"When I was reading up on the militias and all the citizen patriot groups, I came across an organization of law enforcement officers called Oath Keepers who pledge to not do things like disarm the people or conduct warrantless searches on citizens. When you read their website it"s pretty clear they"re in support of an anti-government, pro-citizen group philosophy."
"And you"re thinking that this sheriff"s department might be one of these Oath Keepers?"
"I don"t know," Jan said. "Nothing would surprise me. But now we have to figure out a way to track this Drecker guy, and we"re not going to get any help at this point from the sheriff."
"Good thing I took a photo of Drecker while we were talking to him," Catherine said. "Maybe we can show it around and get a handle on him."
Jan stared at her and found herself smiling, despite her best efforts to remain stern. "Okay. Now I"m impressed."
"You"re impressed that I pushed a b.u.t.ton on my phone, but not that I just took down a rather large man pointing a gun at us?"
"That? Child"s play. But thanks for getting to him before I did."
Catherine laughed with that throaty tone that drove Jan wild. They sat in the car, both gazing out on the pond. The silence lengthened, but it didn"t grow uncomfortable. Finally, Jan started the car and pulled out of the lot.
"Let"s head into the town near here and show people the photos. Maybe we"ll get lucky," she said.
Five minutes later, they pulled into the Country Corner store in the town nearest the camp. It was more hamlet than town, but with none of the charm that word conjures. The Country Corner was more party store than general store, its dominant display was the largest selection of scratch off lottery tickets Jan had ever seen. There were mini bottles of Thunderbird at the checkout counter, live bait next to a donut rack, and a small magazine display with the newest edition of Soldier of Fortune front and center. The young man at the cash register was very much like the clerk at the store she"d visited earlier in the day, only surlier.
Jan pushed the photo of Maddy across the counter. "I"m wondering if you"ve seen this girl around here?"
He peered down at the photo and looked back up at her. "Why?"
"Because I"m looking for her, that"s why. Have you seen her?"
He turned back to the video game in his hands. "Maybe."
"Is this the point where I"m supposed to slip a bill your way to get you to answer my question?" Jan asked.
He looked back at her. "That"s an idea."
"Because I"ve got to say that having to pay for information about a missing girl, a minor let me add, seems kind of, I don"t know, insensitive?"
He shrugged. "I"m not a touchy-feely kind of guy."
"Are you the kind of guy that kidnaps teenage girls?"
He gave her a bored looked and went back to his game. Jan was reaching into her pocket just as Catherine put a twenty on the counter and kept her hand on it. "To earn this, we want answers. Have you seen the girl or not?"
He looked at the bill. "I saw her this weekend. Yesterday morning, I think. She was in here early with another chick. Not a chick, really. A d.y.k.e."
"Did you hear them say anything? Do you know what they were up to?"
Another shrug. "They bought some stuff and they left. That"s all I know." He reached for the bill.
"Hold on." Catherine showed him the photo on her phone. "Have you seen this guy?"
Jan could see his face freeze with the effort of not giving away anything, which gave away everything.
"Nope, never seen him before."
"Are you sure about that? I think he lives around here," Jan said.
"Never seen him."
Catherine released the bill and he scooped it up, turning away from them immediately. Jan left a card on the counter and spoke to his back. "We"ll expect to hear from you should your memory clear up on any of this."
Jan and Catherine got back in the car.
"He knows Drecker," Jan said.
"Definitely," Catherine said.