“Dammit,” he muttered as he hustled back to his van. He pulled a flashlight out of the console and, after a moment’s hesitation, plucked his gun from under the seat. He made sure the safety was on, then holstered it at his back.
Eddie crossed the parking lot and looked inside the woman’s car. There was a bottle of water in the cup holder. A change of clothes was folded in the passenger seat, and a pair of shoes was tossed on the floorboard. On the back seat, paper and manila envelopes sat in uneven stacks. It looked very much like she intended to come back to her car, change into clean clothes, and head back to her normal life, not spend the night in the woods.
Eddie jogged to the tree line. He glanced behind him once more, not sure what he was looking for, then stepped onto the trail. The rain was lighter under the canopy, but between the storm and the onset of evening, the darkness was nearly complete. He swung the beam of his flashlight up the first rise. No signs of movement except for the water, which was already coming down the hill in tiny rivers.
“Hello!” he called again. His voice sounded louder here, bouncing off the trees and shielded from the roar of the wind.
Just get to the top of the first hill I bet I’ll be able to see a good piece from up there.
There were two ways up. The first and more obvious path was the hiking trail, which cut back and forth in long, slow hills across the face of the mountain. That was no doubt the way the woman had gone. The second was nearly a straight shot from the bottom to the top. It was less than a quarter the distance, but it was a hell of a climb.
His knee throbbed, stiff with the cold and from sitting in the van for over an hour, and he knew his good steps were numbered. Eddie illuminated the path once more, searching for any sign of movement, but it was empty. Before he could talk himself out of it, he stepped off the trail and headed straight up the hillside, sacrificing the easier terrain for a shorter distance. The incline quickly steepened, and he had to slow down, securing footholds against roots and rocks so the muddy earth didn’t slip out from under him.
Eddie paused, panting, and glanced back, expecting to be halfway up, but he was nowhere close.
“I don’t remember this damn hill being so long,” he muttered. One thing was for sure, no matter how good of shape that woman was in, the going was hard for anyone. If she was still out here somewhere, which she must have been since her car was still in the lot, it wasn’t on purpose.
He used the thought to power him the rest of the way to the crest of the first hill. It was the smallest in a series of three peaks, but the wind still howled a different pitch up here, sharp and nervous. The sound of it slid down his back, making him edgy. He shook off the feeling and peered over the other side. In the dark, the foothills rolled ahead of him like an ocean whipped and churning. Everything was soaking wet and reflected the beam of his light. Thousands of eyes could be looking back at him out here and he’d never see them.
What if the woman took the direct trail through to the main lot and called a friend? She’d had a cell phone and every reason to wonder why the hell he was there. He stared back down the way he came, inclined more now than ever to go back to his van and go home. But wouldn’t that friend have dropped her back at her car? Maybe watched her get in and followed her out? Would they be back by now?
He swore under his breath and wiped the rain from his face. “What do I do here, Hazel?” he asked, then felt guilty. He was talking to her like he might a ghost or God; like she was gone.
Keep going, Hazel’s voice shot through him. He jumped at the sound of it. He’d never heard her voice like that. Did it mean she was dead? He refused to continue the thought. He knew these woods better than anyone; probably better than Hazel by now. Whether she was dead or not, he couldn’t think of a better way to honor Hazel than to search for someone else swallowed up by this trail. He trained the light on the descent and began his way deeper into the woods.
AMA Chapter 7 | 5:25 PM, December 1, 2006 | Tarson, Georgia
AMA CAME TO BY DEGREES. Her head throbbed, and her middle cramped with pressure. Her tongue ached with dryness, and she couldn’t swallow. As her senses returned, a clammy sweat covered her skin. Dizziness set in. Bile climbed her throat, making her gag. Something was in her mouth, sour and slimy with phlegm, but she couldn’t spit it out.
“Are you awake?” a man’s muffled voice asked from somewhere very close.
Her mind burst into full alertness. The hiker… the piano player from Atlanta. Jonathon, he’d said—if that was really his name. He’d hit her with his walking stick. She was moving, being carried. The pain in her stomach was his shoulder digging into her navel. A scratchy nylon material was wrapped around her. She began desperate attempts to kick and slap, but her arms were bound in front of her at the wrists and her ankles and knees were tied together.
“Help!” she tried to scream, but between the wad in her mouth and the cover over her head, the garbled word didn’t travel far.
The tarp slid apart with the stunted gait of his walk, revealing a sliver of the ground before closing again, enough for Ama to know it was dark out and they still looked to be in the woods. She grunted and heaved, trying to twist herself in any way that would allow her to bite Jonathon through his thin shirt, but the angle he held her in made it impossible for her to make contact. He stood still, waiting for her to stop struggling like a parent waiting out a toddler’s temper tantrum. The scratchy fabric was bound so tight around her that she couldn’t swing her legs with any real force. She let out a muffled scream of frustration.
“Save your voice,” Jonathon said, and began moving again. “You’ll need your breath and your strength. We have a lot of work to do.”
The gag pressed down on her tongue, and she could feel the heat of stomach acid clawing at the base of her throat. She turned her head to the side and swiveled her head back and forth, trying to loosen whatever was in her mouth, but it wouldn’t budge. She needed to leave a clue, some trace that she was out here.
Her watch. It was engraved with her initials. She squeezed her wrists together and contorted her fingers to try to reach it. But her arms were bare, save the binding. Either he’d taken it off or it had already fallen. No one would know where she’d been.
She examined a few inches of the material with her fingers. There was an elastic loop above her hands and what felt like a zipper pressing into her left hip. Ama surmised he’d wrapped her in his camping tent.
Ama closed her eyes, steadying her breath. She knew from statistics and history that she should fight arriving at his planned second location at all costs. Whatever he would do to her here, he’d do ten times worse once he got her somewhere he felt safe.
Ama forced herself to relax, focused on the sound of raindrops dripping from leaves, and then pissed down her legs. Jonathon shrugged her off, and she crashed to the ground in a heap. She tried to draw her knees under her so she could push off the ground, but her legs wouldn’t respond, tingling with the sensation of returning blood flow.
Jonathon yanked the tarp away from her face. Ama was right. She was tangled up in his tent. He glared down at her as he peeled his shirt off his body. Even in the gray of a misty twilight, she could see tiny white marks covering his arms and chest. She wondered if they were acne scars. Was this guy some high school outcast all grown up and seeking revenge on women who reminded him of the girl who shot him down way back when? She watched him, hoping he’d be angry enough to throw the shirt aside. Her DNA on his shirt would be slam-dunk evidence. But he balled it up, pulled a Ziploc bag from his pack, and sealed it inside. Ama’s heart sank.