“I’m winning, Wes.”
“I don’t give a fuck if you’re beating the pants off a Saudi prince. Get out of there and go to room 214 at the Sierra.”
Wyatt makes an irritated sound and I hear him say, “I gotta go, guys. I’ll kick your asses next time.”
I stay on the phone as he takes off, listening to the sounds of his truck coming to life. Warner jabs my arms and gives me a What the hell? look, but I wave him off. I can’t talk right now. My mind is racing. I have a bad feeling the barn fire and the man at Dakota’s door are connected. I don’t know why, I just do.
“I’m parked, Wes,” Wyatt tells me. “Now I’m going through the front door. Past the front desk and the restaurant. Up the stairs to the second floor. Down the hall and… oh, shit.”
“What?” I yell, fear gripping my heart.
“Her door is open.”
“Fucking go in!” I shout.
“I already am,” Wyatt replies. “Her phone is on the ground. She’s not here.”
“Fuck,” I grit out.
“Wes, I found something.” I picture Wyatt leaning down cautiously, reaching out a hand to lift something off the floor. “It’s a pocket knife. Initials HDC.”
My mind races, flipping through a catalog of people I know, but I’m coming up empty. Every second I spend rifling through the catalogue of people I know is a frustrating waste. “Who the fuck does that belong to?”
“Howard Dixon Calhoun. Or as you know him, just Dixon.”
Everything stops. Time stands still. Dixon’s words from the night at The Chute come back to me. Do you want to know what kings do, Hayden? They fall. And you will too. Maybe even soon.
“Get back here now. You’re taking us to Dixon’s cookhouse.”
“Horses, no trucks,” Wyatt instructs. He huffs like he’s running. In the background a door slams, and I hear heavy, metallic footfalls. He’s taking the secondary stairs, the same ones Dixon almost certainly used to take Dakota. “I don’t know of any roads that will get us close. I’m on my way,” Wyatt answers, then hangs up.
I look up into the anxious faces of my family. Derrick has gone back to work with the firefighters, and the cowboys play horseshoes for lack of anything better to do.
“Dakota is missing,” I inform them, “and I think Dixon might have her. I know it sounds insane, but I think he started the fire to distract us and make sure I stayed here, then he went into town.” I tell them about the voicemail and the pocketknife.
“Wyatt’s on his way. He knows where Dixon lives and he’s going to take me to him.”
“You’re not going without me,” Warner announces.
“Or me.”
We all stare at my dad.
He holds up a hand. “Before you start, I’m not asking any of you for permission.” He walks past Warner toward the stable. “Come on. Get the horses ready so we can leave as soon as Wyatt gets here.”
“Go help Dad,” I tell Warner. “I have to go to my cabin.”
When I get back, I find four horses ready to go. “I stopped at the homestead, too,” I tell my dad, handing him the gun he keeps in the top of his closet. “Here.” I hand another gun to Warner.
“You think we’re going to need these?” Warner grimaces. He likes to hunt, but what we’re hunting now is vastly different than the elk and deer he’s used to.
“I hope not, Warner, but there’s not a doubt in my mind that Dixon is strapped. Knowing that, do you want to go up against him with or without a gun?”
He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to.
Wyatt’s truck hauls ass down our road. He slams it into park and hops out, running toward us. Without a word he jumps on his horse, leans down and whispers something to her that none of us can hear. He’s the first to start, and he motions for us to follow. My body is tense, on high alert, and all I can think about is Dakota. Ranger, sensing my mood, is rigid, his muscles as taut as my own.
We ride in a line across the flat plain, into the trees, and ascend into the sooty darkness of the mountain.
35
Dakota
Ow.
It’s my first thought when I open my eyes.
My face muscles clench as I register the pain in the back of my head. I’m moving. Or rather, I’m in something that’s moving. It’s bumpy, and I wince every time I’m jostled. My heart beats furiously, but I feel it in my neck, not my chest.
I force a deep breath in, exhaling slowly, trying to slow my pulse. I remember opening the door. I should have looked through the peephole, but I didn’t. I had just seen the email congratulating me on paying off my balance in full, and I was stupefied. I was leaving Wes a message, and when I heard the knock, I thought maybe it was him. I flung open the door, and the smile that had been on my face melted like cotton candy in water. The immediate sense of danger chilled my entire body.
Dixon said something I didn’t comprehend because my pulse was throbbing in my ears, then rushed forward, putting his weight against the door so I had no hope of slamming it. I turned, wild eyes seeking anything I could use as a weapon. There was a pen on the table. A pen was my best bet, and yet I knew it wouldn’t be enough. I dropped my phone and lunged for the pen, thinking carotid artery. He wrapped an arm around me from behind, pressed something to my mouth, and that was it. My fingertips brushed the pen and then I woke up here.
I blink twice, look up, and for the first time notice the sky. Clouds move across, the moon and stars in view before being covered up, only to be revealed moments later. I turn my head left, then right, ignoring the pain in the back of my head, and it becomes clear I’m in the bed of a truck.
Dixon’s truck, I assume. Trees surround us, and based on the uneven drive, I don’t think the road is paved. These are the kinds of trees that are around the HCC, so I know I’m north of the town.
I need to have a plan for when the truck stops. I don’t want to alert Dixon by sitting up, so I feel around with my legs and arms.
Nothing. There isn’t a single thing back here that I can use against him.
My eyes fly open when the truck rolls to a stop. No, it’s too soon. I haven’t had time to prepare.
I have nothing. Nothing but my limbs and a will to live. That’s what it’s going to come down to, right? Why would he have brought me all the way out here to the woods?
The truck door creaks open. My shaking hands ball into fists. I close my eyes, pretend that whatever the hell he put me to sleep with is still working.
A pulling, ripping sound fills the quiet mountain air. I haven’t heard it in years, and yet my brain knows it immediately. Duct tape.
I fly up onto my feet and jump from the truck, landing unevenly on the dirt and falling to my knees.
“What the fuck?” I hear the shout from the other side of the truck.
I pop up, ignoring the stinging in my knees, and run. A cloud has covered the moon and it’s pitch black. I stay on the road, because I know I won’t make it in the trees. The land is too foreign, and I’m not wearing shoes.
I hear him behind me. His exhalations mix with my own. He is close. In mere seconds he will overtake me, but I can’t stop.