Page 35 of Mountain Refuge

Maybe it was enough, just that touch of hands. Maybe we didn’t need some quick, fleeting romance that would haunt us for the rest of our lives. Maybe all we needed was just to know the other one cared.

I was such a bad liar; I couldn’t even fool myself with that bullshit.

I needed more, wanted more. But if this was all I could get, then I would take it all and hold onto it for as long as I could.

The sun began to rise over the horizon. A tear escaped down my cheek. Adam had packed what he could the nightbefore, so the kids could sleep as long as possible in the morning. Corbin would be heading out soon now that the sun was up. We had about an hour before his arrival.

I slowly lifted myself to sit up in the chair. At some point during the night, I had slumped over onto my outstretched arm. Adam started sitting up as well. He looked as tired and weary as I felt.

We said nothing as we stood, our hands still gripped tightly together. I could feel my chin start to tremble and my vision blurred as more tears came forward. As one, we walked toward the hallway. I started towards the kitchen, and he started towards the bedroom. Our arms gradually stretched to their limits, our fingers’ grip failing.

It would only take one more step and we would have to relinquish our hold. The tightness in my chest intensified. My teeth started chattering as the tremble worsened.

One of us stepped forward. I’m not sure which. Our fingers untangled, the tips just barely touching. I couldn’t look back. I’d break if I did. Clenching my eyes closed, tears streaming down my cheeks, I took that final step.

Our hands fell.

I kept walking.

Chapter Fifteen

Josephine

Four Months Later

Isat outsideJack’s General Storein Whitefish, Montana and, not for the first time, wondered if this bounty was worth all the time and money I’d spent on it.

For starters, I’d been given false information by the children’s own father as towhenthey’d been kidnapped. That alone had sent me on a wild goose chase that had taken up the better part of two months. Then a hefty bribe to one of the household servants had told me the actual date of the kidnapping. Except the father claims to have been out of town that day, according to his calendar and the plane ticket stubs he had. Which is in complete contradiction to the father’s claim to be the only witness to the fact that his nanny, Adam Greene, had taken his children. No other staff or security guards could or would corroborate the man’s story. Per the head of Gunther’s security, Greene, a former schoolteacher, had disabled the cameras, motion sensors, and gate locks to make his Great Escape.

None of which made any sense. He was no Virgil Hilts, after all.

Gunther was offering a million-dollar bounty for the return of his daughter and her kidnapper. A million dollars was still a million dollars, but any idiot would know that million had blood on it. That was the type of man Sebastian Gunther was. I didn’t need to see his bank records to know that. It also struck my notice that there was no bounty out for the safe return of his infant son.

I was very protective of children, and most women. I added the ‘most’ before the women because I knew firsthand that being my gender did not automatically make them harmless or innocent.

Adam Greene was being labeled as a pedophile, as well as a murderer. Gunther was portraying himself as the concerned and grieving father, but he was enjoying the media attention too much for me to buy it. The children’s older brother was also suspiciously absent during every press conference.

Whether Greene had nefarious intentions or Gunther was the psychopath I believed him to be, it didn’t change the fact that there were two missing children. I was determined to find those children. Other bounty hunters would be out for the money, not caring about the children. While I certainly wasn’t going to turn down a million dollars—girl’s got to eat—my main concern was the welfare of those kids.

When I’d first taken the case, I’d reached out to a contact of mine who specifically specialized in making abused and vulnerable women and children disappear. For the past fourteen years, Art Jackson had made a name for himself as a protector. I’d never met the man, but I knew his reputation and, more importantly, I knew his phone number.

I’d come across Jackson’s group, the Mountain Mutineers, several years ago when I’d been hunting a pedophile who had escaped custody. A single phone call with the man had revealed just how big a reach he had. We’d come to an understandingthat, while I was in it for the profit and he was in it out of the goodness of his heart, we both had similar goals.

Problem was, when I’d reached out to Jackson initially, I’d had misinformation. Everyone, including the police, did. I’d nearly given up on this case entirely, which was not something I did lightly, when I’d decided to go to the people who saw and noticed everything within the household.

Donna Novak had been a maid in the Gunther household for nearly twenty years. I’d approached her at the bus stop on her way home from her shift. It had taken some prodding, and most of the cash I had on hand, for her to tell me the children were not taken on the date their father claimed. That was all she would say, but it was enough to get me to look into the claim further.

One month. The children had been gone twenty-nine days before their father had reported them missing. When I’d confronted Gunther, he’d told me I had been misinformed and, if I wanted to get my bounty, I should be more careful about who I bought false information from.

My first conversation with Jackson had been more informative on my part to clue him in to the situation. While I didn’t want to give away my chance of getting the bounty, I also knew that, if anyone would know about the missing children, it would be Art Jackson.

My conversation with him a month ago had been far different. I’d told him about how suspicious the father was acting. While Gunther’s actions were strange, it did not prove that Greene was not the pedophile he was reported to be. Jackson had thanked me for the updated information and assured me that he had not heard anything but that his contacts were still looking. Frustrated that a schoolteacher with no history of criminal activity could disappear so thoroughly, I started back at square one.

It was convenient for Gunther that, on the date of the real kidnapping, the security tapes were also suspiciously blank. I had no video evidence to prove or disprove Gunther’s version of events. But Donna Novak’s story seemed more believable than Gunther’s, so I started looking into it further.

A contact at the NYPD traffic watch had let me pull up the license plate scanner readings for Greene’s car. It had cost me front row tickets toHamilton.

By the time I’d finished with this case, I wondered how much of the million I would even have left after all these bribes. Not to mention the ones I’d wasted before I’d known the correct date of the kidnapping.

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