Dance Away with Me(102)

The person who stole Wren could be miles from here by now, but doing nothing was unthinkable. He ran outside but stopped before he reached Kelly’s car. He had to think. To push aside the nightmare images of Wren tossed on the floor of a strange car, no blanket, her tiny arms and legs flailing. He didn’t trust Kelly’s assessment of Brad’s innocence, but what if she was right?

The rain had left muddy craters in the cabin’s sad excuse for a driveway. Kelly said she hadn’t heard a car, but she could have missed it. If he backed out her car, he’d be driving over any tracks that might have been left. He switched on his cell phone’s flashlight and swept it over the ground. He might not know anything about tracking, but he knew a hell of a lot about patterns.

It was easy to match the tread on Kelly’s tires with one set of tracks. He circled the light until he found a different tread. Had it come from Tess’s car or the kidnappers? He looked more closely. He could see lots of footprints but no other tread marks. Only two cars had driven in here—Kelly’s and Tess’s. Someone could have left a car down on the road.

The longer he stood here playing boy detective, the farther away the kidnapper might be. The horrific images of Wren screaming . . . abandoned . . . cold . . . swarmed his brain. He refocused on the muddy footprints: Tess’s, his own, Kelly’s. She’d said Ava was here, so her prints were probably also somewhere in this mess.

Sweat drenched his T-shirt, and his hands started to shake. His life had shifted into slow motion. Focus! A footprint was nothing more than a pattern, and patterns were his life’s blood. Look closer.

Prints pointed toward the cabin’s back door. Prints pointed away. Impossible to sort them all out. He had to. They were only forms and shapes. An everyday part of his world.

He sorted them in his head. Cataloged them. His large shoe print was easiest to find. Next to Kelly’s car, he spotted a diamond tread and a flat imprint, each small enough to suggest a woman’s shoe. Kelly and Ava. He squatted down closer to examine a fourth pair. This one was slightly longer than the other two, and narrower, with a waffle print at the toe heel, but no visible instep. He’d drawn Tess’s foot enough to know that she had a high instep, but did that mean her sneakers had the same?

He shoved his hand through his hair. Blinked to clear his vision. And then he saw it.

A fifth footprint.

He examined it. Spotted its mate.

There.

And there.

He swept the flashlight in a wider arc to the perimeter of the muddy area. Over there. And there.

He followed his gut into the woods.

Brush clawed at his jeans, and wet branches slapped his bare arms. He hadn’t thought to grab a jacket, and it was cold. Too cold for a vulnerable infant. He found more footprints. The moon was out, but it didn’t offer enough light to penetrate the forest canopy. How much charge did he have left in his phone? If it died, he’d have no light at all.

His breath grated in his ears. He stopped looking for footprints and began to run. If he was wrong . . .

At the top of the ridge, the dogs heard him coming and unleashed a ferocious barking. The front door flew open, and Paul Eldridge stood silhouetted against the light, his rifle pointed. “Who’s there?”

“It’s Ian North.” The gate was padlocked. Ian vaulted over it, cutting his hand on the way.

“Buck! Deke!” Paul called off the dogs. They snarled at Ian’s ankles but didn’t attack.

Ian covered the uneven ground in long, quick strides, images of those small sneaker prints burned in his mind. “Where’s Eli?”

“Eli? He’s in his room. What’s going on?”

If Ian was wrong, he’d have wasted time he could never get back, but if he was right . . . “I need to see him.”

Paul, visibly confused, stepped back from the door to let him in.

Rebecca sat curled up on the couch in a dirty nightgown, greasy hair hanging around her face. She gazed at Ian with empty eyes as her husband disappeared through the curtained doorway, calling out for his son. “Eli!”

Within seconds, Paul burst back through the curtain. “He’s not here! What’s going on? Where’s my kid?”

Ian braced his bloody hand against the doorframe. “Eli has my daughter.”

“The baby? What the hell are you talking about? Why would he have a baby?”

“Later. For now, we have to find him.” Ian snatched up one of the flashlights they kept by the door and raced outside.

The dogs snarled but didn’t attack. Ian ran toward the outbuildings, stopping at Paul’s truck to whip upon the driver’s door. No one was inside.

“I’ll take the barn,” Paul shouted from behind him.

They searched the property together, calling Eli’s name. Each fruitless, passing second lasted forever. Paul asked no questions, either because he didn’t want to slow the search or because he’d figured it out for himself. “I’m going up to the knob,” he said.

“I’ll head the other way. And, Paul . . . she’s only seven weeks old.”

Paul gave an abrupt nod and took off. Ian headed the other way, working hard not to let his fear slow him down. There was only one reason for Eli to have taken Wren. His eight-year-old brain must have decided to give Wren to his mother so she’d get better. But why hadn’t he made it back here? And where was he?