The Hero (Thunder Point #3)(80)

And between them, an ax sitting beside a stack of firewood.

She picked up the ax and ran toward the house. She softly opened the front door to the house and heard voices within, slightly muffled but she thought she could make out at least some of the words—“No, take that box while I fill this suitcase.”

“What about that?”

“I’ll take care of that. Hurry—there won’t be much time now.”

“Where will we go?”

“Doesn’t matter, just that we leave before they get here.”

It was Pilly and Jacob, with no sound from Mercy. Ax in hand, she followed the sounds and peeked into a room to find the two of them in the back of the house, a room she’d never seen before. It appeared to be Jacob’s office. She dared to peek in the door and what she saw was surreal—Jacob and Pilly were loading boxes full of stacks of papers—it looked suspiciously like manuscripts. His brilliant opus; his manifesto. And from an open safe he was stacking what had to be tens of thousands of dollars in bills into suitcases.

But of course. If he’d been selling his “medicinal herbs” he was operating a completely cash business. He wouldn’t have had the luxury of making deposits into a bank—his illegal operation would be exposed. Law enforcement always followed the money in search for clues and suspects.

She crept through the house, beginning with the kitchen where she had last seen Mercy sitting at the table, but she wasn’t there. She looked in the living room, in the bedroom, searched in vain for a cellar door, but the child was not there. Laine felt a rising panic. She had some theories about Jacob but in reality she wasn’t sure how sick or crazy he was. Would he keep Mercy as some kind of hostage? Would he just kill her out of spite? And what of Pilly? Was she that bonded with Jacob that she’d leave her baby behind in a compound in flames just to be with him?

When all else had failed, she went to the doorway of the office where the frantic packing up was happening and stood there, ax hefted in two hands.

“Where is she?” Laine asked in her most threatening voice.

Pilly gasped, but Jacob turned toward her with a controlled expression on his face. He was composed. And then it happened so quickly, Laine never saw it coming. He picked up a gun from the top of his desk, a handgun that looked like a Smith & Wesson .40 caliber, turned it on her and fired. He hit her in the upper right chest with a force so powerful it blew her out of the doorway and knocked the ax out of her grip. Laine whirled around and backed up against the hallway wall, leaving a large smear of blood on the wall.

Willing herself not to fall, Laine hurried down the hall toward escape, leaving a trail of blood behind her.

“Jacob, go get her!” Pilly yelled.

“She’s too late,” he said. “She can’t get out. She’ll just die out there. Get this in the suitcase. Hurry. We have only minutes.”

She’s too late, Laine thought. And she ran from the house, around to the back where the SUV sat with its tailgate open. It was her intention to disable it—maybe she’d pull out a bunch of wires and close it down. She pulled open the driver’s door to pop the hood and glancing into the backseat, there was Mercy, lying there on the seat, sleeping.

Laine had but one usable arm. She opened the rear door and pulled Mercy toward her with one hand, terrified that the worst might’ve befallen the little girl. “Come on, sunshine, come on,” she cooed, jostling the little girl. And thank God, Mercy opened her eyes and sat up. “Come, angel, we have to hurry. Come with me now.” Laine’s shoulder was injured and bleeding profusely; she held that arm tight against her body and with the other, she scooped Mercy out of the SUV and lowered her to her feet. “You have to help me, angel. You have to run with me.”

“Mama?” she asked, her voice laced with tears.

“I’m taking you to her right now. Come with me.”

Jacob might not bother too much with Laine, feeling he’d done enough damage to slow her down, but he was going to be enraged when he saw that Mercy was gone. Knowing this, Laine pulled Mercy by the hand in the opposite direction from whence she came, around the front of the house and toward the bridge, but after she crossed it, she huddled in the darkness beneath it at the river’s edge. The rushing water would muffle any sounds they made should Mercy start to cry.

“Not a sound,” she cautioned Mercy. “We have to hide here now, long enough for him to leave and then I can take you to your mama....” If she lasted that long. She was growing weak and a little dizzy. She shivered; the wet and night air were only making things worse. She tried to keep Mercy above the water, dry as possible, but poor Mercy shook with the cold. But little Mercy was so brave, burying her face in Laine’s neck. It seemed a long time before she heard him roar in outrage, screaming Mercy’s name. Then the SUV came to life, the headlights shining.

Laine heard a couple of gunshots, and with Jacob in the truck she wondered if they were under attack. She consoled herself that if he tried to escape out of the front of the compound, law enforcement would surely stop him before he got far. She waited tensely for the sound of that big SUV to rattle across the bridge, but it didn’t come. She heard the engine, then heard it traveling away and she took a peek and saw something unreal. He was driving right down the river.... She shook her head in confusion, standing up to peek over the bridge and yes, he was driving down the river. There must be some back road out of here, totally concealed and blocked by the forest. The right jacked-up SUV could travel down the rocky river in the shallow parts, then exit the river to a road that Laine had never been aware of and she’d poked around as much as possible.