Page 70 of The House of Cross

Mahoney nodded. “Okay, Idaho, first thing.”

His cell phone rang. He answered it, said, “This is he.” Mahoney listened, nodded, and then thanked whoever it was.

“That was the Bureau’s contact at Verizon,” he said. “They have Bree and Sampson in Hailey, Idaho, then Salmon, and the last time they had a record of either of them was at seven yesterday evening in North Fork, Idaho.”

I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. “Which means they’ve really been out of contact for more than a day.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Get our stuff from the motel, find coffee, and drive through the night to North Fork. Something is wrong, Ned. I can feel it.”

Mahoney hesitated and then nodded. “High-test coffee for me.”

Ned drove toward the lights of Jackson. I pulled out my phone and called up one of my favorite pictures.

It had been taken several years before, when Bree and I and Sampson and his late wife, Billie, were in Jamaica. We were all standing on a cliff in Negril with the Caribbean behind us and umbrella drinks in our hands.

I looked at Bree and John, so damned happy it radiated from their faces. I felt a terrible pang in my heart.

Where the hell are you?

CHAPTER 50

A BOUNCE AND Aslam roused Bree from a drugged sleep.

She tried to say something, realized she was gagged, and moaned against the fabric. Breathing through her nose, she tried to open her eyes but found she was blindfolded.

Her wrists and ankles were bound tight. She lay on her left side on some kind of carpet and had been lying there long enough for her arm, shoulder, and hip to feel numb.

She rolled onto her back, aware that her head was splitting, that she was thirsty, and that there was an engine roaring dully somewhere. Bree swallowed against her parched throat, and her ears popped, which made her understand that someone had put plugs in them.

The drugs hit her again, made her woozy enough to want to sleep.

Whatever she was lying on bounced again; she was slammed against the carpet again, became more alert again, and finally got that she was in some kind of vehicle. Her instinct was to get the blindfold off, the gag out of her mouth, and the plugs from her ears.

But when she tried to raise her hands, she felt a tug at her ankles and could reach no higher than her throat. Her bonds were tied together somehow.

She fought a rising sense of panic. She could not give in to hysteria.

It won’t do you any good, Bree. You’ve got to calm down. Remember your training.

In the air force, she had taken an officer survival-training course. One of the first things she’d been taught was that no matter what, you had to remain calm. Assess your situation. Think clearly.

She forced herself to ignore how much she wanted the gag out. She forced herself to try to work out where she was and why.

But the drugs in her system made her swoon again. Eventually, she began to piece it together: The snowplow blocking the road. The man from the highway department pulling a gun.

He knew us. He knew who we were.

She recalled the gunman getting in the back seat of the Cherokee and ordering Sampson to drive.

John! Where is he?

And then she remembered the man injecting her neck with something. It had all gone to darkness until that bump.

How long have I been out? Where are they taking me? Is John here?

Bree rolled over again, felt the wheel well of the vehicle, a van of some sort. She rolled onto her back again, breathed through her nose, and caught the stale odor of sweat.

---