ROCKY MOUNTAIN RESCUE by Cindi Myers Page B

sandwich wrapper, and the deep impression where someone had sat, possibly for a long time. Had someone staked out this area, just in case they’d decided to come this way? The idea that whoever was behind the kidnapping would have gone to such trouble—invested the manpower to cover even this remote route—disturbed him. Why was one little boy worth so much trouble and expense?
    Whoever had been here wasn’t here now. They’d either anticipated his arrival and made their getaway while they had the chance—or they’d taken advantage of his absence to descend to the road, and Stacy. He’d heard no shots, but there were other ways of killing a person. The image of Stacy at the hotel, a knife to her throat, flashed through his mind, and a wave of sickness shook him.
    “Stacy!” he shouted.
    Stacy! echoed back to him from the canyon walls.
    Half climbing, half sliding, he made his way down the side of the canyon. He tried to stay in cover, behind trees or boulders, but as he descended, no one shouted at him or fired at him or tried in any way to stop him. This indication that he was alone spurred him to move almost recklessly, stumbling down the steep embankment toward the car.
    “Stacy!” he shouted again as he ran toward the vehicle. No answer came.
    The car sagged in the roadway with three flat tires. Most of the windows were shattered, and bullet holes riddled the body. Patrick registered the damage as he made his way around the wreck, but there was no sign of Stacy. She wasn’t underneath or inside, or back in the niche between the rocks where she’d initially sought shelter.
    He examined the snow beside the car, but his own movements earlier had trampled it into slush. On his knees now, he studied the ground for the waffle-soled tread of the hiking boot he’d seen in the tracks on the opposite side of the canyon. He found a partial print that might have been a match, but he couldn’t be sure. He started to stand, but a glint of something bright in the gravel caught his attention. He leaned forward and plucked a thin gold earring from the mud. His blood turned to ice as he recognized one of the hammered hoops Stacy had worn. She’d lost it here in the mud, in a struggle he hadn’t been around to protect her from.
    * * *
    “N O ! L ET ME GO !” Stacy tried to vent her rage on the man who held her in his unyielding grip, but he muffled her shouts with the sleeve of his jacket, shoving the fabric into her mouth until she was almost choking on the taste of dusty tweed. Thus silenced, she fought all the harder, kicking and scratching, but her struggles did nothing to slow his progress as he dragged her down the canyon. A second man trailed after them, an automatic weapon cradled in his arms as he scanned the embankments on either side of them.
    Her heel connected hard with her captor’s shin and he grunted and shifted his hold enough to uncover her mouth once more. “Let me go!” she screamed again.
    The man with the gun was on her in two strides, punching her hard on the side of the face so that her vision blurred and her ears rang. “Shut up!” he commanded.
    She blinked and his face returned to focus—a hard, lean face, skin stretched tight over wide cheekbones and a square jaw. His eyes were so pale they were almost colorless, like ice chips set in his face, and his expression was just as cold. It was a face she’d seen before, but the knowledge only confused her. This man had worked for Sam; she was sure of it. So why did he want to hurt her now?
    He leaned close to speak to her, his breath smelling of stale coffee and cigarettes. “You make any more noise and I’ll cut your tongue out.” As if to demonstrate, he pulled a knife from his pocket and flicked open the blade.
    She tried to swallow, but her mouth was dry. “What do you want with me?” she whispered.
    His gaze swept over her, stripping her, reducing her to an object, not a person. “I want a lot of things,” he said. “The question