It would have to do.
She set down the water and went to the zipper again to examine it in the light. Her fingers had told the truth last night—there was no tab for the zipper inside. Maybe she could rip it at the seam. She grasped each side of it and tugged as hard as she could, but it didn’t give even a little. The tent seemed to be new and very well built.
If only she had a sharp edge of some kind. Her gaze fell on the toilet, but all the metal on it was smooth and round. No help there.
They’d have to wait.
The minutes ticked into hours as they sat in the dimness. The food ran out sometime in the afternoon, but they conserved as much water as possible.
When she thought it would never come, she heard the rumble of an ATV motor. She moved back to the side of the zipper and grabbed the water again. Her arms tired of the weight almost at once, and she prayed the guy would move quickly.
Footsteps came toward the tent, and a guy whistled the tune to the old country song, “Sixteen Tons.” It had been playing in her cottage that time he’d broken in.
Her pulse sped to a patter in her chest, and she braced herself for the coming confrontation. She nodded to Hailey, who moved into position and began to cry.
“Daddy! I want my daddy. She’s dead, Torie is dead. Let me out of here!”
What a great little actress! Torie wanted to hug her for the inspired improvisation. If the guy thought she was dead, he’d be more likely to run inside to verify it without expecting an attack.
“Quiet down, kid. She wasn’t hurt that bad. She’s probably just sleeping.”
Torie inhaled at the sound of the man’s voice. The voice was familiar, but she couldn’t place him.
The zippered entrance fell open as the man ran the tab around the teeth. The guy stepped inside, his back to Torie, and she swung the case of water with all her might. Her aim was off from using just one hand, and it struck only a glancing blow that knocked him to his knees and left him stunned facedown on the tent’s floor.
Torie reached out with her right hand and grabbed Hailey’s hand. “Run!” She lunged through the opening with Hailey close to her side, and they plunged into the underbrush. “We have to hide,” she whispered.
With the scent of mud and wildflowers in her nose, she pulled Hailey down behind some dense bushes and underbrush. The foliage was so thick she couldn’t see through it to watch for the man emerging from the tent. Surely he’d look for them, but she prayed he would assume they would make for the trail to escape.
Stumbling footsteps snapped twigs as someone moved on the other side of the bushes guarding them.
“I’m in big trouble,” he said. “She’s going to kill me.”
The footsteps faded away, and she held her breath to see if he would return. Once she caught the sound of an ATV engine, she rose and looked over the vegetation. They were alone.
The sound of the ATV’s engine sputtered out. “I think he’s got machine trouble. Let’s wait until he gets farther away.”
“What if he comes back?”
“I don’t think he wanted us to see his face, so I think he’ll walk out. Let’s get out of the heat for a few minutes. We can grab some water for our hike out of the woods.”
She guided Hailey back inside and listened with a sharp ear to the noises outside the tent. No sounds other than birds chirping and frogs croaking.
* * *
As Joe paced the floor all night waiting for daylight, he’d realized he needed to get into more remote places, areas his truck couldn’t go, so at daybreak he borrowed an ATV from Craig and set out. Joe had searched all day, and he was bone weary, but he wasn’t about to give up as he maneuvered the ATV into tracks so narrow the bushes scraped his arms.
He’d searched alone since he hoped to be able to have room to bring back Hailey and Torie. He couldn’t let himself think it might be a vain hope. They had to be all right.
At five he drove down a narrow track to Horton Pond, moving in a circular pattern into smaller and smaller trails. He rounded a curve and spotted an ATV in his path. He dismounted.
“Hello, anyone there?”
The marshy ground was soft underfoot, and birds squawked overhead at his intrusion into their space. He saw no one around, but when he touched the hood of the ATV, he found it warm. Someone had driven this thing recently and abandoned it. Had it run out of gas?
He got back on his ATV and veered around the abandoned machine to continue the search. In a couple of minutes he found himself breaking through a hedge into a small clearing. At first he thought it was another dead end until he spotted torn leaves and broken twigs where someone had forced his way through the underbrush to make a narrow path.
He cupped his hands to his mouth and started to yell for his daughter, then shook his head and dropped his arms. If this happened to be the girls’ location, he didn’t want to tip off their kidnapper. He pulled out his phone to call for backup, but found no bars back here, so he reached into his ATV and retrieved his SIG Sauer. With the gun in hand he walked back to the other ATV and searched for signs of where the kidnapper had gone.
With the ground marshy and soft back here, he quickly found footprints that led away from the ATV and toward the main road. Joe went back to the path he’d found and forced his way into the bushes. He struggled against the thorns that scraped at his jeans and shirt.
His elation deflated on the other side of the barrier at the sight of a canvas tent on the far end of another clearing. Just campers. He started to go back the way he’d come when he hesitated. Why not at least ask if they’d seen Hailey or Torie? It was a long shot, but it was all he had.
The open door revealed the darker interior, and he thought he saw movement, so he moved that direction. “Hello?”
A head popped through the opening, and he blinked. “Hailey?” It was her and not a mirage. “Hailey!”
“Daddy!” His daughter tumbled out into the sunlight and ran toward him with her arms out.
He sprang forward and scooped her up. Her heart beat like a frightened bird against his chest, and he inhaled the wonderful live scent of her as he buried his face in her matted hair. He didn’t care if she reeked of canvas and mud.
He looked past her to the opening and saw Torie step out into the sunshine with two bottles of water. Her hair had fallen out of its braid, and her lovely face showed the trauma of her ordeal. Purple marks marred her high cheekbones, and she sported a black eye. Livid scratches had crusted over on her arms, and she limped as she stepped out of the tent.
“Joe?” Her choked voice trembled. “Oh, Joe.”
She moved into a rambling half jog-half stumble, and he moved one arm away from Hailey to catch her as she fell against him. Her trembling transferred to him, and he shook with the intensity of the moment too.
Alive. They were both alive.
He kissed her forehead and embraced both of them with all his strength. “Thank you, God, thank you.”
He hadn’t even admitted to himself how much he doubted this would end well. His past traumas had shown him that things didn’t always turn out okay. Good people died or disappeared. Loved ones left. Jobs disappeared. But as long as Hailey and Torie were alive, he could tackle any other problem.
Torie drew away and gestured to the tent. “We were locked in there all night. The guy came back on an ATV and I clobbered him with the case of water. While he was stunned, we escaped. We never saw him, but he sounded familiar.”