Page 80 of Valor

He’d let Micha get to him. Instead of convincing Heather not to listen, he’d fallen for the bait. “What do you want from me?” Now he was angry. Since this man seemed to know about his past, his childhood, maybe information he didn’t even have himself. He tugged on his wrists and the tie slid the last few inches, freeing his hands.

“I want you to disappear. I want you to go far away so my mother can quit mourning over you and crying that you don’t know her,” Micha spat the words at him.

Heather gasped and looked over at him, accusation suddenly making her eyes hard. “Your mother?” she whispered.

“I don’t know who my mother is. Never have. I don’t believe you.” He was motherless. That wouldn’t change.

“Wrong. Your mother is Gwenn Reicher. She worked at the bar here in town thirty-four years ago. Your worthless father decided to seduce her one night, and she got pregnant. She didn’t want to tell him because he was a drunk with no future. Fortunately for her, she got a grant to go to school to make something of herself. Unfortunately for you, she couldn’t take you with her. When I was asked to find you because those two former associates stole our thumb drive and slipped it in her bag, I was more than happy to get involved in something that would bring you running to help.” Micha rubbed his hands together, then held them up to the flame.

He turned his icy stare back to Allen. “And if I have anything to say about it, you won’t make it out of this cave. I’m tired of my own mother seeing me as ‘the other son’ when I was there. I gave her everything I could. You weren’t.”

He had a mother? Could this guy be telling the truth? Everyone knew who his father was, but no one seemed to know his mother. Not that he’d asked. That would lead to questions, and the last thing he wanted was for people to question his past.

“You’re lying.”

Micha shot to his feet. “You want proof? You have a birthmark on your right leg, just above your knee. My mother told your father after you were born when she had no one to watch you while she was in school. He was terrified of being a father to anyone, yet he could see my mother was struggling at the time. He told her he would take you, but under the condition that she could never, ever come for you. She had to walk out of your life for good because he didn’t want to marry her, and he didn’t want anyone to know about his one-night stand. He’s worthless. And so are you.”

That mark on his thigh had always been there. He never thought it would lead him to his mother. It was dark brown, and he’d been self-conscious about it his entire life, so he never wore shorts. The only ones who knew about it were his father and his doctor.

“I can see you’re processing that. Don’t worry. As I said, you don’t have to worry about her. You’ll never meet her.”

The fire crackled again, but the silence of the park and the others in the cavern made the sound loud. He promised himself this wasn’t the end. He needed to wait and see if Ed was still alive so they could all escape together. Until then, he’d be silent. Now, after Heather and her father were safe, he had to find his mother.

* * *

Heather forcedher breaths to come slowly. Poor Allen. To learn in this awful way about his mother was downright low. But what else did she expect from a man like Micha? Someone willing to help another man murder people and take land. Since she didn’t recognize him, she assumed he wasn’t from Wall, which meant Allen’s mother wasn’t either.

Even though she’d left as much room as possible with the ties around her wrists, the plastic still dug into the pad of her thumb as she worked to get it off. The darkness helped. Micha stayed near the fire, ignoring them. She refused to think about the fact that they’d been to this very place earlier and she’d heard what she’d assumed was her father. If he wasn’t here now, where was he? Micha had said their abductor wasn’t a killer yet. What did that mean? That he hadn’t killed her father? He hadn’t been told the man had killed someone right in front of them.

She looked around the narrow passage. Curious, she decided to distract Micha by asking questions. She’d found as a photographer that if she could lead people into answering simple questions, they became more at-ease with her.

“How did you hollow out this cavern?” She swallowed hard. The surrounding rock was incredibly dry, like microfiber sucking the moisture from her skin.

“Water,” came Micha’s short answer. “Rainwater washes away the rock very slowly over time, but blasting it with a pressure washer makes the process much faster. There were four of us working on it every night for months. The rocks here erode about one inch a year because of rain. Multiply that and you can make a small space like this for protection pretty quickly.”

The man’s weakness was his ego. Heather committed the fact to memory. If she had to distract him, she would have to play to his weaknesses.

“Interesting. I wouldn’t have thought of that.”

Her breath hitched as she finally freed herself from the zip tie. With care, she hid her hands in her lap. Allen looked over at her, his eyes hooded in shadow. She wouldn’t hold up her wrists to show him, but he had been so observant the whole time, she was sure he knew what she’d done.

A scuffling sound from above them made Micha glance over at the makeshift entrance. “There you are. Just like I said, these two were completely boring.” He motioned with his thumb over his shoulder. “Next time, I’ll need a more interesting job.”

Heather’s dad weakly stumbled in front of their captor and slid down the wall next to her. His hands were bound like hers had been, but his were raw. The skin around the plastic tie was swollen and red. There were cuts like he’d tried to pull his hands apart.

“Dad...” Tears burned her eyes.

“I’m fine,” his gruff voice bolstered her. At least she’d been able to see him again. “You got what you wanted. You know the drive is destroyed. Let us go.” She clasped her hands together to keep from jumping to her feet and fighting her way free.

“Let you go? Oh, I don’t think so.” Micha laughed. “You know what’s going on now. There’s no way you can leave. I told you he wasn’t a killer, but I am. Who do you think it was who took care of those two in Rapid City who thought they’d get back at us by telling the world our plans?”

The whole plan was on that drive? Her chest clenched tightly. Rod had looked through everything that he’d been able to, but hadn’t come up with any information except the land description. That in itself wasn’t illegal. “Then why did you hold on to my father so long if you planned to kill him?” None of this made sense.

“I still need to make sure nothing goes wrong. While you three are missing, they’ll be looking for you. They won’t be paying attention to Oliver and Aaron, who don’t realize they’re working for me, not themselves. They managed to successfully rush the vote. You’ll need to be seen by someone to ramp up the intensity of the search. We can’t do that if you’re dead.” He slowly smiled at them, clearly enjoying the threat.

Her mouth went dry. She’d known Oliver for fifteen years and his involvement had come as an enormous surprise. Learning that he hadn’t been part of the actual plot made her feel better. The poor man would be so ashamed to know someone was using him, especially if he ever learned that his help led to the deaths of his friends.

“It’s horrible that you’ve used Oliver like that.” She didn’t know Aaron, though he had purposely avoided his father for as long as she’d known him. That made her suspect something was wrong, either with him or between himself and Oliver.

---