Blake stretched onto his feet and braced his back against the wall outside the partly open hotel room door, then kicked it wide. “FBI!”
He stormed the rooms, clearing them one by one. The place was empty but tossed. Someone had thrown all the lamps and broken one. Marissa hadn’t left the room without a fight. Blake could only hope she wasn’t out cold now, like the deputy.
Blake called the paramedics, then began a more calculated search of the room. “Where did you take her, Nash?” he whispered.
Her jacket and purse lay on the carpet near the door as if she’d planned to go somewhere. He said a silent prayer that she’d made it out on her own, that maybe she’d taken Nash down with the busted lamp and left him to lick his wounds like she had in the forest.
He dialed her phone again, a bubble of hope rising in his chest. They could trace her phone. Even if she wasn’t answering, they could find her as long as the phone stayed on.
A phone rang several feet away. He kicked Marissa’s jacket aside and watched the abandoned device pulse and vibrate on the floor, extinguishing the last of his hope.
The deputy moaned, drawing Blake’s attention. He dialed West on his way back outside. “Your man’s down, but alive. Looks like head trauma. Nash took his walkie-talkie. He’ll be listening. Paramedics are on the way for this one.”
“Marissa?” West asked, the engine of his cruiser growling in the background.
Blake swallowed a brick of emotion and rubbed the deep ache in his chest. “Gone.” Of all the things he wanted to say, that seemed all that mattered. He rolled his eyes skyward, searching a soaring sea of evergreens. Where are you, Marissa?
A shrill and distant sound echoed through the trees. Blake’s muscles tensed. He turned his head in search of the scream as it came again, louder this time. He moved into the lot and craned his neck for a better look at the towering mountains behind the hotel. Raindrops fell and burst over his forehead and shoulders. “One more time, baby,” he whispered. “Where are you?”
“Blake?” West asked.
Blake’s gaze darted over the hills. “I heard her scream.” Come on, he willed her to yell again, to give him some indication of which direction to go. She could be anywhere. He didn’t know how long she’d been gone or how much of a head start she had. He needed another scream.
“Do you still hear it?” West asked. “Did she yell again?”
The wail of an ambulance mucked up the silence.
“Damn it! She’s somewhere in the hills behind the hotel, but the ambulance is coming. Now, I can’t hear anything.” He waved an arm to draw the EMTs in his direction. Maybe when the deputy had his wits back, he could tell Blake which way Marissa went.
“Behind the hotel?” West made the sound of a falling missile. “That can’t be right. You must be getting the tail end of an echo from somewhere else. Those hills are mostly rock cliffs and—”
“Caves.” Blake cut him off. “You’re a genius, West.” He shoved the phone into his pocket and ran straight for the trees.
Chapter Sixteen
The terrain behind the hotel was unexpectedly steep, slowing Blake within minutes. Thick craggy plants caught on his pant legs and tangled between his feet as he powered through the forest. Tiny mudslides seemed to sprout before his eyes, cutting slick paths between endless rocky snares. There were no trails. No well-trodden paths left by hikers or narrow byways formed by wildlife. There was only one obstacle after another, challenging his ability to stay upright and vigilant in the freezing rain.
He clipped his toe on the exposed roots of another towering tree and ground his teeth in frustration. This was nothing like the places he’d grown up hunting. Only black bears and bobcats would find this hellacious environment worth the trouble, and he had no interest in running into either.
Blake’s phone vibrated in his pocket, and he pulled it free. “Garrett.” He spoke in a hushed tone, eyes set to scan for any signs of Nash or Marissa.
“This is West. What do you have up there?”
Besides a broken toe and a growing ulcer, Blake didn’t have much. “I think I’m going the wrong way. She hasn’t called out again. Not since the ambulance finally shut up. I’ve got nothing.” He wiped rain from his eyes and peered up the mountain. The clouds had darkened the day, and thanks to the recent time change, they’d be out of daylight in under two hours.
Where was the path Marissa had taken up here? He scanned the area more closely, begging an overlooked set of footprints to appear. There should be a path. A lump filled his throat as the memory of her scream replayed in his mind. What if the last scream he’d heard was the last she’d ever make? What if he’d been too slow? Struggling up the wrong part of the mountain, wasting time while Nash ended her life? Blake forced the thoughts aside and refocused on two things he knew were fact: Marissa’s scream had come from this general direction, and he needed a better plan. “You know anything about the caves up here?” he asked West. “Marissa said she did some spelunking up here. She said the caves were naturally camouflaged, but I don’t see anything that looks like a cave.”
“I’ve been around the other side of the mountain, skiing, but I don’t know anything about the caves.”
Blake marched ahead, boots sliding in the soft earth. “If Nash doesn’t have her, I think she’ll hole up in one of the caves until we get there.”
“I’ll get a team together.” West’s words were followed by utter silence.
Blake examined the phone’s screen. “I’m almost out of bars.”
“...on our way.”
He sure as hell hoped so. At the pace he was moving, he’d be lucky to find one cave before nightfall, let alone
