She moved to the other side of the tree and pulled her pants low, hating that she would be so exposed while she peed. She couldn’t imagine knowing this guy. Why was he so attached to her?
She finished but stood behind the tree for another moment, trying to figure out an escape plan. If she could wrestle away the controller from him, maybe she could get away. That relied on her knowing how to best him in a fight, or maybe she could take it while he slept.
The sky had grown even darker as she’d pissed. They wouldn’t be able to get far this evening. Maybe that would help. But she didn’t know how. Was anyone even looking for them? They’d been walking for a while, but not hours. She didn’t know if anyone in the area could follow their trail.
Maybe she should break a few branches or do something else to draw attention to the path they’d traveled.
“Hey, what’s taking you so long? You want to get zapped again?” the guy called out.
She rolled her eyes and then stepped into view. “I’m ready.”
“We’re going to bed down here tonight.”
She nodded, unsure what else she could say. She wanted information from this jerk, like his name to start with and why the hell he’d come after her.
He pulled out a water bottle and handed it to her. “Drink only a little. This is all that you have for tomorrow.”
She eyed the bottle, thinking it was way too little. She would need multiple bottles of water if she wanted to survive.
After she took a sip and capped the bottle, he pulled out a sandwich and gave her half. She watched him take a bite before she tried the sandwich. It didn’t taste weird, so she ate some more. She didn’t think he would poison their food supply, but he had taken her hostage, so there was no telling what he would do.
The last of the pink and purple in the sky was gone. The trees reached up high like fingers searching for an unseen god in the dark sky. But no god would help her now. The hush of being surrounded by tall tree trunks was only interrupted when branches scraped against each other or the leaves rustled from animal movements.
A twig snapped off to her left. She didn’t want to panic, but bears roamed freely in the wild, along with cougars and bobcats. The thing making noise with the leaves could be a squirrel, or it could be a cougar.
The guy gathered some branches and placed them in a clear spot before using his lighter to catch some leaves on fire. Of course, when he dropped the leaves onto the log, the fire died. He tried again and got the same results.
April thought about helping, but the temperatures weren’t too bad, and she didn’t care to explain anything to him. He should have planned better.
After several more attempts, the man screamed and kicked at the sticks he’d gathered. April flinched but didn’t back away. She studied and made mental notes, searching for something that would give her room to escape. So far, she knew nothing other than he was a jerk.
There was just enough light from the stars that she saw him drop to the ground nearby. Anger radiated off him though she couldn’t make out his features. But she felt it. She needed sleep, and it seemed like this was where he wanted them to stay. The sun wouldn’t be up for about another nine hours, giving her plenty of time to sleep if she could drift off out here.
Fear twisted its fingers through her, making her wonder if she would ever escape. The collar around her neck made her more fearful than if he held a gun on her. It was the pain. She would likely be dead fast if he had a gun. The jerk could keep dosing her with pain from the shock collar until she lost herself.
“You don’t remember me, do you?”
The guy’s voice split through her thoughts. This really was her stalker. “No.” She’d thought about lying, but it wouldn’t do her any good.
“In January, you signed into a computer lab. I was sitting next to you. You let me have a stick of gum.”
Her mind blazed over the times she’d signed into labs, and she couldn’t come up with anyone she’d interacted with. She remembered nothing of this guy. He was a complete stranger to her, or close enough.
“You still don’t remember?” the guy asked. His voice was tinged with incredulity.
Anger surged, but she kept it to herself. “No, I don’t remember you.”
Somehow, she had to survive long enough to get back to civilization where she could get rid of this stupid collar and this stupid man. He had become obsessed over her just because of some tiny interaction that had meant nothing to her. Why did she have to be so nice?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The sky went from blue to pinks and oranges, then purple and finally black, hope leaking away as the colors changed. Mac had checked earlier, and the moon wouldn’t be up for a few hours, and even then, it wouldn’t be full, so if they sent a rescue team out, they wouldn’t have enough light to search.
“Hey, Mac, you okay?” Zeke asked.
Mac blinked at him, wondering what kind of question that was. Instead of yelling at the man, Mac nodded. Zeke wasn’t being a jerk. “I’ll be okay. I just want someone to find her.”
Zeke nodded. The Eagle Point Rescue ground hadn’t been called out yet. The guy who’d taken Rachel could have hit the interstate, and they could be in Virginia or headed west. The police had no clue, and until they found the car, they wouldn’t have any idea where to look.
“The cops have put out an APB, and people are looking. Someone will know something. If they are on the interstate, someone will see them.”
Mac nodded as worry pelted him. There was no way any of them knew where April was. She could be anywhere.
The cops had allowed Mac to watch the one video they had of April in the car with the man who’d taken her. It wasn’t a good shot of either of them, but he’d confirmed the woman was April. She’d been wearing the right clothes, and her hair was braided down the back of her head like April had done hers that morning.
The guy was another matter. Mac had no clue who the man was, and the cops had little to go on. It wasn’t like in the movies where they could clean up the clip, run his picture through a database, and find everything out about the man. The image was low resolution at best.
With the video clip of April, they’d assumed a lot. The clip of her was also grainy, but Mac had known what she’d worn to work. It was easy to assume the woman in the car was April. He only wished they had an idea who the guy was.
Pain sliced through his skull and down his neck to his shoulders. His head injury still made things difficult. Worry and fear made the symptoms worse. He was sure a doctor would tell him to chill out, but he couldn’t calm down with April missing.
The hours ticked by slowly, and they moved from standing outside Grinders on the street to sitting in a conference room at the police station. Mac closed his eyes and may have drifted off as he leaned his head against the wall. Something drew him from sleep, and he slowly opened his eyes. A few guys were talking in the other room, one waving his arms around. They were speaking fast, excitement evident in their voice. Mac headed into where they were, focusing on the officer pointing at a map.
“What’s going on?” Mac asked.
Chief Hill turned to Mac, worry replacing the excitement in his eyes. “We don’t know what we found, but someone called in a car parked at a shutdown trailhead. Said it had been there for a while. The engine was cold.”