Calder Pride (Calder Saga 5)

Laughing, he opened the trailer door. Cat ducked low behind the brush as light poured through the opening. Then the door closed, muting the voices, leaving only the occasional gabble of the still-uneasy guinea hens.

What were they doing over by that hillside? Cat wondered. Could that be where they had hidden Quint? She didn’t see anything that looked like a building, just trees and some brush.

“Nobody will find him,” Lath had bragged.

Maybe she could, if she got there before the sleeping pill knocked Quint out.

TWENTY-SIX

Dammit, Cat, why couldn’t you have waited?” Logan clutched the torn swatch of satin from her nightgown. He looked in the direction of the Simpson place, his mind registering the odd noises coming from the pickup’s cooling engine. He was only scant minutes behind her.

“She can’t be far ahead of us,” Garcia echoed Logan’s thoughts.

“I know.” His fingers curled into the slick cloth an instant before he tossed it back onto the seat. “Wait here for our backup. I’ll see if I can find her—and get her out of there.” Logan checked his watch. “With or without her, I’ll be back in ten minutes. The state troopers should be here by then, and we’ll move in.”

“Right.”

Logan set off at a loping run.

An old root cellar. Cat stared at the weathered door that lay flush with the hillside slope. This had to be where they had hidden Quint. Hugging the shadows, she crept closer to it, darting wary looks at the trailer.

The door lifted with barely a sound. She slipped inside and carefully lowered it shut. Blackness swallowed her, total and absolute. She battled back the surge

of panic and reminded herself that she didn’t see either man carrying a flashlight. Somewhere, there had to be a light. She felt along the walls, encountered a string and pulled it. She heard the snick of a chain a split second before a single, bare bulb came on with blinding brightness.

Eyes narrowed against its glare, Cat looked around the cellar and saw nothing but shelves, a stockpile of canning jars, some empty and some filled. There was no sign of Quint. Her heart sank. She had been certain he would be here. But where? Where could they have hidden him when it was all so open and empty?

Taking a chance, she called in a loud whisper, “Quint, it’s Mom. Are you in here? If you can hear me, make some kind of noise.”

Cat held her breath, listening. Two seconds later, she heard a faint thump. She took a hesitant step forward, not sure where it came from.

“Do it again, Quint.”

There was a second thump, a little louder. Glass jars rattled on an end wall shelf. He was behind that wall, Cat realized. Somewhere there had to be a door. She tugged at the middle shelf, felt it give a little, heard the rubbing of wood against wood and pulled harder. With a groaning scrape, it swung toward her, almost the whole wall.

She saw Quint lying in the narrow space behind it, his mouth, hands, and legs taped. Swallowing a sob, Cat rushed to him and yanked the tape off his mouth, then dug the box-cutter out of the jacket pocket and went to work on the tape binding his wrists. Quint turned his head and spit, then spit again. “They tried to make me swallow a pill,’’ he told her, gray eyes blazing. “Yuck, it’s all stuck on my tongue.” He screwed up his face at the taste of it.

“Use your pajamas to wipe it off.” As soon as his hands were free, Cat moved to his ankles. “Your dad’s on his way here. We’ve got to find him. Okay?”

“What if those men come back?” Quint sounded as worried as she felt.

“We’ve got to get out of here before they do.” She rubbed his legs and arms hard just in case the tape had cut off the circulation to them, and resisted the urge to hug him to her. There would be plenty of time for holding him and hugging him once they were safely away from here. Cat stood him up and turned. “Get on my back. We’ll do this just like we did before.”

He climbed on and wrapped his arms around her neck. “Are we going to ride Molly again?”

“Not this time, honey. This time we’ll have to run until we find Dad. Hang on tight now.”

Outside, the guineas set up another racket. Cat stopped halfway to the slanted door, fear striking deep in the pit of her stomach when she heard a voice muttering.

“Damned noisy birds. Don’t you know that I’m the one that buys your damned feed.”

“It’s them, Mom.” Quint whispered near her ear.

Cat swung him off her back. “You hide right there by that door. When he comes in, I’m going to talk to him so he won’t see you. You run outside as soon as you can—and you run that way.” She pointed in the direction of the highway. “Don’t wait for Mom. You run as fast as you can.”

He nodded, his eyes big.

She could hear footsteps now. “Hide, quick,” she whispered and pushed him toward the side of the door.