Juicy Secrets Forbidden Tales of Lesbian Love

The Story Thus Far

Chapter One: Mallory Kalvornek and her lover Julie Hanson have returned to Bronning, Minnesota, for the first time in years to catch up with friends and family. Meanwhile, their old friend (and occasional sex partner) paramedic Nettie Hastings fights to save a life, her lover Hannah drops by with an unexpected surprise, Terry Wilder grapples with writer’s block… and two little girls living in a trailer park named Heather and Gina are being carefully observed by a hidden stranger.

Chapter Two: Mallory and Julie get together at Nettie’s home with Nettie and her lover Hannah, Nettie’s friend Terry Wilder, Terry’s teen daughter Halee, and Mallory and Julie’s friend (and occasional sex partner) Cindy. Gossip is exchanged, memories shared, and an unexpected attraction between Mallory and Terry Wilder reveals itself. Meanwhile, the mother of the two trailer park girls Heather and Gina goes out for a night on the town, oblivious to the presence of the man spying on her home.

Chapter Three: At Nettie’s place, Nettie and Hannah leave the others to indulge in a bit of romantic pleasure, while Julie and her old friend Cindy get it on with Terry’s teen daughter Halee. As for Mallory, she has repaired to Terry’s place for one of her occasional bouts of heterosexual action. Appetites are indulged, confidences shared. Meanwhile, Heather and Gina are abducted from their trailer home by a mysterious and very scary man.

Chapter Four: At Nettie’s place, four women and Halee Wilder greet the morning after an evening of lesbian abandon. Later that day, Mallory rejoins Julie, Nettie, Cindy and Hannah for a day of fishing. Halee returns home and spends the day upgrading her internet in preparation for promised to be a fun night of video chat sex with her girlfriend Bethany. Meanwhile, Grace and Heather are in the custody of the mysterious man, who seems to takes delight in terrorizing them.

Chapter Five: After their day of fishing, Nettie, Julie, Cindy, Mallory & Hannah engage in a five-woman sexfest inside a tent… and with the use of Cindy’s phone, their old friend and occasional bedmate Emma attends the orgy virtually. In the midst of their abandon, Nettie has a weird, vague memory flashback that leaves her shaken, but she conceals it from the others. Back home, Halee and her new love interest Bethany (Hannah’s daughter) are having long-distance sex via their laptops. 

Chapter Six: Nettie has a heart-to-heart with Hannah about her personal demons. Later, she gets a call from Agent Bridgett Ramscone, who has an unsettling request: for Nettie to go through the documentation of her own childhood kidnapping — and the murder of her sister — as a possible way to gain insight into the abduction of Heather and Gina (who are still being emotionally abused by their kidnapper, but are also taking steps to escape). Nettie is shaken, but agrees to do what she can. 

Chapter Seven: Many years after the fact, submerged memories of Nettie’s kidnapping began to make themselves known — memories of a possible accomplice to the original crime. She shares her thoughts with Bridgett. Meanwhile, Heather and Gina work on a potential escape from their makeshift prison.

Chapter Eight: Nettie unearths more hints that kidnap victims Heather and Gina were abducted by the same man who kidnapped and brutalized Nettie and her deceased sister over a decade ago — but that man was known to have died in prison.  Gina manages to escape captivity. But Heather can’t fit through the opening they dug, and must remain behind. Nettie gets a possible fix on the girls’ captor who, while out and about, gets a flat tire — then he discovers the spare is flat as well. 

For a list of the characters from the story you are now reading, visit this page. 

For a list of the characters from the previous two stories that you will encounter here as well, visit this page.

And now, dear readers, we make our way into the next installment. Read on…

by Rachael Yukey

Look around, wrong information
Attempt on our life
Hard to find, balance and wisdom
In this absurd circus
Labyrinth, 2021

The lean man with the clean-shaven head and careworn face pauses on the narrow shoulder of Scout Camp Road, heaving a sigh of relief at the sign reading MATER”S GARAGE, planted next to a driveway leading to a country auto shop nestled snugly amongst the pine trees. Sweaty and out of breath, he clutches the Datsun’s spare tightly to his chest and soldiers on, gravel crunching beneath his boots. The donut seemed light enough to begin with, but lugging the thing almost five miles has proven to be another matter altogether. He’s not looking forward to the return trip.

He does have help available, and it occurs to him that he probably has cellphone bars now that he’s not buried quite so deep in the woods. He’s reluctant to make that call, and decides to leave the option open, depending on how long it takes him to catch his breath after he puts this thing down.

He curses himself as he realizes he left the big, stupid-looking hat in the car. Hoping the little garage in the big woods doesn’t have security cameras, he resolutely continues up the drive.

***

“Mater’s Garage, this is Jesse.”

“Hey, Jess, it’s Steve.”

Jesse Thompson blinked in surprise. His relationship with his brother Steve was chilly at the best of times, and the two rarely spoke. Jesse had never cared much for cops, and Steve’s participation in a drug bust that got Jesse’s girlfriend sent up for fifteen months did nothing to improve their relationship.

“Steve.” As always, Jesse replied to his brother in as few syllables as he could muster.

“I was wondering if you could do something for me,” the voice on the other end replied.

“If you want me to check the other guys’ lockers for pot, go fuck yourself.”

“Jesus, Jesse.” Steve’s voice was exasperated now. “It’s not like I knew Katya was part of the ring, you know that. Look—we got an APB on a car, and you’re inside of the circle they’re canvassing. Datsun 210, 1981, gray with lots of rust, Minnesota plates. I’ll give you the plate number if you have a pen handy.”

“Why the hell are you telling me?”

“Because you work at a place that fixes cars, why else?”

“Solve your own damn cases, Steven.”

“Jesse, come on. We’re checking with all the other auto shops in the area, too. If you won’t talk to me, I’ll call your boss directly, because we need someone at your shop keeping an eye. Can you take that number, or what?”

Jesse grudgingly plucked a pen from a cup on the reception desk, pulling a notepad close with the other. If the boss found out he wasn’t cooperating with the cops on something like this—well, he was already one small step from being fired.

“All right,” he said, not trying to disguise the resentment in his tone, “hit me with it.” As he spoke, a hint of motion outside drew his attention to the front window.

“4HF 401”, said Steve. “If that car shows up at your place for any kind of service, don’t fuck around. Go where the driver can’t hear you and…”

“The fuck?” Jesse broke in, cutting Steve off.

“Something wrong?” Steve’s voice had gone from conciliatory to sharp and professional.

Jesse squinted at the window. “Well, there’s some fucknut walking up our drive right now clutching a goddamn donut.”

“You mean like—a pastry?”

“I mean like a spare tire, dumbass. Some guy walking in carrying it. I’d better go out and see what’s—”

“Whoa, hold on. What’s he look like?”

“Like a fucking guy carrying a fucking donut,” Jesse snapped, then let out a sigh. “Okay, fine. He’s thin, kinda tall, completely bald. Wearing what looks like an army surplus jacket. He’s—”

“Okay, okay.” Steve’s voice had gone up half an octave in pitch. “Listen to me, Jesse! Stall him. Tell him you’ve got a shitload of other things you have to do before you can fix his tire. Keep him there! We’ll have deputies on the way.” The line went dead.

Resentment rapidly flaring into anger, Jesse turned his eyes toward the glass-plated entry door, which the guy in the army jacket appeared to be considering how to open without having to set down his burden. At this distance, Jesse could see that the man was sweaty and disheveled. The spare, he noted, was mounted on a rim of outdated design, and small even for a donut. Both tire and rim appeared shiny and unused, most likely removed from a compartment that had never been opened.

Hurrying from behind the counter, he crossed to the door and pushed it open. The man staggered wordlessly past him, crossing the room and depositing the donut on the counter with a thud. Mopping sweat from his brow, he turned towards Jesse, the thinnest of smiles forming upon his lips.

Jesse glanced towards the inside service window that afforded a view of the garage area. Tim Jensen was rotating tires on a Honda Civic; Sam Noel changing oil on an F150. Neither seemed to have noticed that a customer had entered the lobby. Eyes narrowing, Jesse stepped close to the man.

The rundown middle-aged dude gestured towards the tire. “I’m afraid my spare is—”

“No time for that,” Jesse muttered, taking the man’s arm. “I don’t know who the hell you are, but we have cops heading this way, and I’m pretty damn sure you’re the one they’re after. You best bug the fuck outa here while there’s still time.”

The thin smile faded, and the man jerked his arm from Jesse’s grip. Speaking not another word, he crossed the lobby in two long strides, and was out the door before Jesse even registered that he’d moved. The ragged figure cut sideways across the lawn and ducked into the forest.

Slowly rounding the counter, Jesse ran his fingers across the smooth rubber of the tire still lying on the grease-stained surface. A glance at the service window assured him that Sam and Tim remained oblivious.

Settling slowly into the office chair, he considered how long it was likely to take for the deputies to arrive, knowing they’d most likely be lurking in the more populous areas of the county. Figuring he had at least fifteen minutes, he began concocting the story he would tell.

Lighting a Marlboro, then exhaling a long plume of smoke, Jesse extended a middle finger to the “No Smoking” sign posted on the opposite wall. Fuck Steve, and fuck the St. Louis County Sheriff’s Department. Be goddamned if I’ll help ‘em put some poor dipshit behind bars for what’s probably nothing more than a baggie of dope.

***

The bald man in the army field jacket didn’t stop running until he was almost a mile into the woods. Finally he came to a halt, sagging against an oak, clutching his side, the breath exploding from his lips in harsh, tearing gasps. This kind of shit was a young man’s game and no getting around it—he wasn’t anywhere near young anymore.

As his heartbeat gradually slowed, the fear began giving way to something darker. He hadn’t finished. He’d only just begun to play his special games with those two little lambs—so young, so delicate, so vulnerable. He’d been nearing the end of the first stage—simply drinking in their terror, letting it wash over him like summer rain—an appetizer for the feast of the senses that was to follow.

Next would come the screams, the cries of agony as he inflicted pain on those sweet little pre-nubile bodies. The music of those hideous shrieks was, for him, the ultimate ecstasy. He’d so been anticipating the indescribable surges of pleasure, the tightening in his jeans as his erection bloomed. It had been so long.

Resting his head against the tree, he began to beat it with his fist. “Fuck!” It came out harsh and guttural. Later he would rue his loss of control, belatedly realizing how lucky he was that none of his pursuers had been close enough to hear him bellowing out his fury and sense of loss. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK!”

He heard a scattering in the leaves; saw a fat brown squirrel staring at him from about fifteen feet to his left. Seizing a dead, rotted branch jutting out from the tree at eye level, he broke it off, hurling it at the varmint with an inarticulate roar of rage. The tiny animal bolted, the stick of wood crashing down in his just-vacated bed of leaves.

There was a jolt of pain as he threw, quickly bringing him back to himself. Looking down at his hand, he saw that he’d beaten it bloody and raw against the tree.

Slumping back against the old oak, he weighed his options. Half a dozen scenarios danced through his head in which he somehow found his way through the woods back to that abandoned shed, and finished his barely-begun work with those tender little doves.

Painful though it was, he brusquely cast those possibilities aside. It was time to cut his losses. He’d avoided yelling for help when the tire blew, but now he had no choice but to call in the cavalry. He had maybe an hour to vacate this part of the forest before the pigs turned it into a killing box he’d never get out of.

Tugging his phone from its jacket pocket with the hand that wasn’t beaten bloody, he called up his GPS and located the nearest gravel road. Trudging off in that direction, he got into his contacts and placed a call.

***

Nettie was sitting in her car on the side of the highway, eyes fixed on the cordoned-off entrance to Keenan Trail and wondering just what the hell her next move should be, when the phone rang again, Bridgett Ramscone’s name on the screen.

She snatched it from the seat. “Where ya at, Bridgett?”

“Still a ways out. It looks like we have a hit, Nettie. A guy matching your description, minus the hat, has been sighted approaching a rural auto repair shop carrying a donut-sized spare tire.”

“Holy fuck.”

“Yep.” Bridgett’s voice remained level, but Nettie detected an undercurrent of excitement.

“Do we know if he’s still there?”

“Staff at the garage have been instructed to slow-walk whatever his request is,” Bridgett replied. “It’s gonna take the Sheriff’s Department at least twenty minutes to hit scene, and the FBI is in even worse shape. Where are you?”

“Just a couple miles up the road from the convenience store. What’s the name of the garage?” Nettie was already calling up her GPS, hands shaking with excitement.

“Now hold on there, lady. Doing a little snooping is one thing. Butting heads with a murdering kidnapper—that’s something else. I don’t want you on that scene till the suspect is cuffed. We don’t go in until the police do.”

“I don’t want to go in, dammit,” Nettie protested. “If he’s there, he’s not wherever those girls are. Maybe if I go out in that direction, I can get some idea where he came from.”

Bridgett sighed. “All right. It’s Mater’s Garage. Promise me you won’t take any risks.”

Fumbling with the keypad, Nettie plugged the information into her phone. “Looks like a twelve-minute drive, Bridgett. I’ll be there in eight.” She was already shoving the gearshift into drive.

“No risks, Nettie.”

“Promise,” said Nettie, thumbing the steering wheel button to kill the connection as she floored the accelerator.

***

Gina hunkers down next to a little stream, greedily scooping handfuls of ice-cold water to her lips. Most of it runs out between her fingers, but she manages enough to take the edge off her thirst. She wonders how long she’s been stumbling along the little game trails that cut a maze through the undergrowth. It feels like forever, but some part of her mind is aware that it’s most likely been no more than a couple of hours.

She wonders if the bad man has returned to the shed, and if so what horrors he’s been visiting on her sister. The thought galvanizes her. She has to find help, before the bad man does something truly horrible to Heather. Pushing herself to throbbing feet, the grubby, exhausted child pushes on through the forest, this time following the stream. That, she’s been taught from earliest childhood, is what you’re supposed to do when you’re lost in the woods.

Fifteen minutes later, she emerges unexpectedly onto an abandoned stretch of highway, patches of asphalt appearing randomly between the encroaching shrubbery. She throws both hands up to shield her eyes from the glaring sunlight.

***

Nettie slowed as she approached the entrance to Mater’s Garage. The building was set back from the highway, only traces showing through the trees. She pulled off onto the shoulder.

Unfolding her lean frame from the car, she cast her eyes downward. The shoulder was recently graded, leaving a thick layer of fresh macadam. Good; new gravel meant an adult on foot would leave easily identifiable tracks.

It took her just a few minutes to find them, fresh-looking ones on the opposite side of the driveway from where she’d parked. The tracks came from the northeast, then terminated where the person who left them turned onto the concrete apron of the auto shop driveway.

Nettie hurried back to her car, put it in gear, and eased forward. She could no longer see the tracks directly alongside the car once she exceeded twenty-five miles per hour, but by looking ahead to where they were no longer rushing by, they were discernible at a higher speed. She found the sweet spot at around fifty, hugging the shoulder with her passenger-side tires just barely brushing gravel.

About two miles up the shoulder disappeared, the grassy ditch reaching its zenith at the edge of the blacktop. No more tracks. Nettie mumbled a few choice curses but kept on driving, knowing she would simply have to take the first side road she came across and hope for the best. She slowed to forty, keeping her eyes peeled.

Less than a quarter mile from where the shoulder gave way was a well-worn field approach, leading to what looked like four or five acres of alfalfa. There was an implement path around the edge of the field consisting of bare-earth tire tracks, a stretch of weedy grass in between. Nettie pulled into the approach, put the car in park, and got out. Walking around to the front of the car, she squatted down and examined the path closely.

The imprint of tractor tires were in evidence, but didn’t appear to be recent. Visible over the top of these was a set of tracks that looked a hell of a lot like the ones in the photo Nettie had been perusing at home just a few hours ago. These tracks barely made an imprint in the hard-packed earth, and she wouldn’t have seen them had she not gotten out of her car to look. The implement path skirted the edge of the field in both directions, but the car tire imprints veered off to the right. Looking more closely, Nettie realized the vehicle had been in and out of here a number of times.

Straightening, she turned back to her car, sliding behind the wheel once more. She eased forward to follow the implement path–alfalfa field to the left, forest to the right. A quarter of the way around the field she found what she was looking for, a vehicle-width path into the trees that might have been a hunting trail.

It was rough going, her Kia very nearly bottoming out a couple of times as she jounced along the rutted path. She kept it dead slow, alert for any trails veering off to the left or right. Pine boughs jutted into the trail, brushing her car and obscuring her vision. She didn’t see the Datsun until she was nearly on top of it.

She got out of the car, senses on high alert, wondering if this tallied with Bridgett’s warning to avoid risks. She pushed it aside, reminding herself that whoever the hell was behind this was currently several miles away, getting his spare tire fixed. She walked around the car. It was jacked up on the passenger side with a wobbly-looking center-screw jack, the right front tire lying in the dirt. The tire, Nettie noted, was so old dry-rot had set in, and a big hole had been ripped out of the side when it blew. No fixing that one. How long had this car been sitting undriven before it was pressed back into service?

She ran a finger across the side of the vehicle, shivering a little despite the heat. Was this the car that had transported her and Anna to that abandoned trailer deep in the pine forest? She searched her mind desperately, trying to dredge up a memory that might provide some insight. Nothing was forthcoming.

***

“What do you mean, he ran off?” St. Louis County Sheriff’s Deputy Steve Thompson stared at his brother Jesse. Jesse’s lips were pressed together, face sullen. Rex Mater, the owner of the garage, was standing next to Jesse behind the reception counter, arms folded and a thunderous expression on his face.

“I mean, he ran off,” a bristling Jesse repeated. He waved his hand at the donut spare, which had simply needed to be resealed and reinflated. It was on the counter, ready to be paid for and picked up. “I let him in,” Jesse went on, “he slammed the donut on the counter, just said, ‘fix this, please, I’ll be back,’ and ran back out. Last I saw of him.”

Steve’s mouth opened, then closed again. He turned to his partner. “Jake, you wanna go into the garage and question the other two mechanics on duty? I’ll handle this.” The beefy man with the handlebar mustache nodded once and turned to the door that led to the main shop. As the door closed behind him, Steve turned back to Jesse and his boss.

“So he just—left. Where the hell would he even go on foot? There’s nothing out here.”

“How the hell should I know?” Jesse shot back. “Maybe he went to take a dump in the woods. Maybe he has a baby momma holed up in some little shack. He could be jerking off in the middle of the goddamn highway for all I know. Or care. It’s not my problem, Steve. He wanted his tire fixed. I fixed it.” He slammed his hand down on the hard rubber of the spare tire.

“Cool it, Jesse,” his boss admonished.

“Fuck,” Jesse muttered, folding his arms and plopping his ass down on a stool.

Steve spread his hands on the counter, wracking his brain. He’d expected a quick pickup and arrest, some glowing accolades and maybe even a commendation. Not for a second had he anticipated anything like this. “Did you see which way he went from here?”

“Just back up the drive, I think,” said Jesse, making a vague motion of his hand in that direction. “Didn’t really pay attention, truth to tell. I had to go take a shit.”

Steve’s eyes narrowed. “So—I tell you to stall this guy, keep him around, do his fix slow so he doesn’t take back off—and you couldn’t even bother to watch which direction he took off in?”

Jesse glared right back. “I told you, Steve—I don’t care. Solve your own fucking cases. Don’t drag me into it. I don’t owe you any favors.”

“Would you care if I told you we’re after a kidnapper, maybe a murderer?” Steve was yelling now.

Rex, a portly man in chinos and a polo, fixed Steve with a wide-eyed stare. “Those little girls up by Iron Junction? You’re looking for whoever did that?”

Jesse’s mouth dropped open. He quickly closed it, his pale face gone distinctively paler.

Realizing he’d said more than he should, Steve sucked in his breath. He was opening his mouth to speak when his partner emerged from the shop door.

“The two guys in the shop didn’t see anything,” he said, settling himself onto one of the stools at the reception counter. “They didn’t even know someone came in.”

“Fuck my life,” muttered Steve. He turned his attention to the owner. “I don’t see security cams in here. Any hidden ones?”

Rex sniffed. “I’ve got two big dogs and a deer rifle. I don’t need security cams.”

“Jesus,” said Steve. They all turned their attention to the big front window at the sound of an engine outside. A black late-model SUV was pulling into the lot.

“And there’s the FBI,” said Jake. “This is going to be fun.”

***

Nettie glared at her cellphone, brow furrowed in annoyance. No bars. She didn’t know what to do next. There wasn’t room to get her car around the immobilized Datsun, and she had no idea how much further she had to go. Could be miles. Nor was there enough room to turn her own vehicle around. She’d just resigned herself to backing the Kia down a couple miles of badly rutted trail and phoning for help when she heard the sound.

At first she struggled to identify what animal made that particular noise, then realized it was someone crying. No, it was someone sobbing, high-pitched, heartbreaking sobs evocative of a world ripped asunder. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought it was probably a child.

Nettie opened her mouth to call out, then thought better of it. Closing her eyes and listening hard, she decided the sound was coming from off to her left. She plunged into the forest, pushing aside branches, heedless of the nettles and brambles scratching her skin. A few yards in she happened across a deer trail that seemed to be going in the right direction and followed it, hands out in front of her to push aside pine boughs and other assorted foliage.

The sound of weeping was steadily increasing in volume, so she was clearly headed in the right direction. The deer trail spilled out into an open space, about the width of a two-lane road and stretching from one direction to the other as far as the eye could see. Some broken chunks of asphalt identified it as an abandoned highway, but it must have been left for dead a very long time ago. A great deal of shrubbery had grown up, and even some smallish trees were beginning to dot the landscape.

Huddled on the ground in the center, head buried in arms, was a grubby, half-grown figure, most likely a girl from the long, scraggly hair. The child was filthy from head to toe, clothes torn and ragged, covered with fresh scratches and scrapes. Nettie rushed forward, stumbling over a jutting piece of asphalt and almost falling headlong. She caught her balance and proceeded more cautiously.

A small head jerked up at the sound of her approach. The girl’s face was dusky with grime, tears having smeared the dirt rather than washed it away. On closer inspection, Nettie saw the child had removed her shoes. Her feet, shockingly dirt-free compared to the rest of her, were bleeding.

“Who’re you?” The voice was hoarse from thirst and from crying, taut with fear.

“My name is Nettie. I’m a friend.” She knelt before the girl, reaching out to her but not quite touching. She didn’t want to scare her any more than she already was. Mentally comparing the face before her with the case file photos she’d studied, she was pretty sure this was Gina Dulcey. A wash of triumph and relief coursed through her, dashed away by an icy pit in her stomach at the realization that Heather was nowhere to be seen. Oh please God, no. 

She pushed the dread aside, keeping her voice calm and reassuring. “Are you Gina?”

Dissolving into sobs once more, the child propelled herself from the ground and into Nettie’s arms.

***

Bridgett Ramscone put her government SUV in park, surveying the scene with the automatic ease of long practice. Mater’s Garage might be an auto repair shop in the middle of nowhere, but judging from the condition of the poured cement driveway, the grounds, and the buildings, she figured it must do reasonably good business. Along with her own ride, the parking lot contained a few employee vehicles, a squad car with St. Louis County Sheriff’s Department emblazoned across the side, and yet another shiny black SUV. That would be the FBI.

She’d just been on the phone with the FBI agent in charge of the case, one Latisha Miller, who was speaking to her with a newfound respect now that one of Bridgett’s agents had gotten them this much closer to locating the kidnapper and, hopefully, the missing girls. Miller had given her the rundown on everything that had transpired on the ground, so Bridgett would be walking in fully briefed, ready to move on to the next thing.

She was worried about Nettie, though. It had been almost an hour since they’d last touched base, and she’d been unable to make contact since. Agent Miller had obligingly run a trace on the phone number, hoping to pinpoint her position, but that cellphone was nowhere to be seen. Nettie had gone off-grid.

As Bridgett exited her vehicle, the glass front door of the building was pushed open from the inside, a slender woman with milk chocolate skin, thick shoulder-length black hair, and black business attire similar to her own holding it open and beckoning to her.

“Latisha Miller.” The woman extended a hand as Bridgett approached. Bridgett grasped the hand firmly, receiving an equally firm grip in return.

“Bridgett Ramscone.” Their eyes met, and Agent Miller gave her a slight smile that instantly put Bridgett’s gaydar on high alert. She smiled in return, hoping to send a similar message, then filed the momentary exchange away for future consideration.

Bridgett stepped into a room that looked pretty much like the reception area of every auto repair establishment she’d ever been in. Promotional posters for auto parts and tools adorned the walls, a fake potted palm occupied one corner along with a couple of waiting area chairs, a battered Formica coffee table in between, stacked with hunting and fishing magazines. The reception counter was worn and grimy, with four padded bar stools on the customer side. The spare tire that had precipitated all of this was still resting on the counter.

The room was packed with bodies. On the customer side of the counter stood two male agents in FBI black business suits. A tall, lanky sheriff’s deputy leaned against the counter, a stormy expression on his chiseled features. His partner, a stout fellow with a handlebar mustache, was perched on one of the stools. Behind the counter on a stool was a sour-looking man with greasy hair, his features displaying a striking resemblance to the tall police officer, the nametag on his mechanic’s coveralls identifying him as Jesse. In an office chair sat a bulky man wearing business casual attire.

“Special Agents Tso and Fischer,” said Latisha Miller, indicating the FBI agents. “Sheriff’s Deputies Thompson and Lanne. Jesse Thompson here is the mechanic who interacted with the suspect, and this is Rex Mater, the owner. Do you have questions for anybody here, or are you satisfied with the briefing you’ve received?”

“No questions at the moment, thank you,” Bridgett replied.

“Excellent,” said Latisha. “Mr. Mater, we don’t want to interfere with your business any longer than necessary, and we’re kind of monopolizing your reception room. Is there another place that the rest of us can go to discuss the situation, so you and Mr. Thompson can carry on with your operations?”

“You can use my office,” said Rex Mater, indicating a door on the opposite side of the room, then gave Jesse a disgusted glance. “As for Mr. Thompson, he doesn’t work here anymore. Empty your locker, Jesse. You better wait around until these people leave, in case they have questions for you.”

“Fuck them,” Jesse snapped. “If they want to talk to me, Steve knows where I live. But he’d better have a fucking warrant.” Launching himself from the stool, he threw open the door to the shop. Through the window, they could see him cutting across the floor with long strides, approaching a bank of lockers against the wall.

The agents and deputies filed into Rex Mater’s small, cluttered office, Agent Latisha Miller bringing up the rear and closing the door behind them all. Bodies pressed together in the cramped space, they all turned to face her.

“Okay,” she said. “We have three issues in front of us. First off: the suspect was momentarily on the radar, and has gone right the hell off of it again. If you want my opinion, Mr. Thompson back there tipped him that we were coming.”

“Probably,” said Deputy Thompson. “Jesse’s been in and out of legal trouble since he was fifteen, and I was part of a sting that put his girlfriend in Shakopee. He hates cops, and he hates me especially. He’ll take any chance he gets to screw things up for us. I should never have called him.”

“If you hadn’t, we wouldn’t be this far,” Bridgett reassured him.

“I agree,” said Latisha. “Anyway, we have a helicopter coming down from Hibbing to do a sweep of the woods—what’s the status on the dogs, Deputy Thompson?”

“The guy we contract for this stuff is on a fishing trip up by Duluth,” Steve responded. “We won’t get dogs today.”

Latisha nodded, without changing expression. Bridgett was impressed with how she took bad news in stride. “Unfortunate. Okay, item two. The suspect blowing a tire near here doesn’t necessarily mean the kidnap victims are close by. We don’t even know for sure that this is the actual perp. But it does give us an area to focus on, so once we’re done with this meeting, I’ll have Agents Tso and Fischer take a close look at our satellite photos of the immediate surrounding area. Some stuff that we dismissed before might be worth checking, now that we have a smaller circumference to focus on.”

She turned her attention to the two sheriff’s deputies, standing side-by-side with their backs to a bookcase stuffed to bursting with auto repair manuals. “Officers, I’ll ask you to start combing the roads. See if you can determine from tracks which direction the suspect walked in from, and start there. You’re looking for a car with a flat tire. Since he carried the spare in, it has to be pretty close. Maybe a five-mile radius, at the outside?”

“There’s a lot more little back roads and stuff within five miles than you might think,” said Steve’s partner Jake. “But we have another car coming as soon as they get through with a domestic about eight miles from here. We’ll get started.” Twisting their way past the black-suited agents, the two deputies exited the room, pulling the door closed behind them.

“Last item,” said Latisha, “Agent Ramscone, your agent on the ground that’s gone missing. We need to—”

Bridgett’s phone chose that moment to ring. Extracting it from the pocket of her blazer, she glanced at the screen—and felt a smile stretch the corners of her mouth.

“It’s her,” she said, and swiped at the green, following it up with a jab at the speaker button. “Nettie, I’m with a roomful of FBI agents, and you’re on speaker. Where are you?”

“At the top of a goddamn tree,” Nettie sounded thoroughly irritated. “I had, like, one bar on the ground, and it wouldn’t put a call through. Bridgett, I have Gina Dulcey. Heather is still back where they were being held, and was alive when Gina last saw her. We can—”

“Ms. Hastings, this is Latisha Miller with the FBI,” the supervising agent broke in. Her voice remained businesslike, but she was smiling. “Outstanding job, but I’d like you to back up. First off: does Gina require immediate medical attention?”

“No,” Nettie replied without hesitation, falling instantly into a long-practiced medical reporting mode. “She’s obviously dehydrated and a little malnourished, has minor lacerations and contusions in multiple locations, but the biggest problem right now is that she can’t easily ambulate. She walked her feet raw after she escaped this morning, so she took off her shoes to give them a few minutes relief. Then, of course, her feet swelled up, and she couldn’t get the shoes back on. I carried her to where we are now.”

“Okay, good. I figured if there was a medical crisis you’d have led with that, but I still had to ask. Tell us what happened. Be brief, but start from when you last talked to Agent Ramscone and end with where you currently are.”

“I found the footprints on the shoulder where the guy walked in with the tire,” said Nettie. “I followed those till the shoulder gave out, about two miles up. From there I just kept going till I hit a field approach. That’s the first field approach after the shoulder ends, on the right as you’re traveling northeast. I found car tire tracks there, but the ground is firm enough that I had to get out of my car to see them. I followed those tracks to the right on the implement path at the edge of the field, then found a little hunting trail leading into the woods, roughly a quarter of the way around the field. It’s pretty rough, but I was able to follow it in my car until I came across a Datsun jacked up with the front passenger side tire removed. Hang on a second.”

When next she spoke, her voice was distant. “I’m right here, Gina,” they heard her call out. “I’m on the phone with people who are going to help us.”

Her voice then came through more clearly. “Sorry,” she said. “Anyway, the Datsun is definitely the same one from the security cam footage I saw this morning. It’s blocking the path, and I couldn’t get my car around it. There isn’t room to turn around, so I’d have had to back out, and it’s quite a stretch. I was about to try it when I heard someone crying. I followed the noise through the woods and found Gina Dulcey on what looks like an abandoned highway. She…”

“Excuse me, Ms. Hastings,” said Agent Tso. He was a compact man of Eastern Asian descent, and spoke with a deep voice. He’d seated himself behind the owner’s desk, and had a laptop open. “I have the field approach pinpointed, and it looks like you must be on what was formerly County Highway Eight which, according to the information I have here, was taken out of service in 1967. Do you see anyplace on the old roadbed that might be usable as a helicopter landing zone?”

“I’m afraid not,” Nettie replied. “That’s the first thing I thought of, but it’s overgrown and pretty rough to boot. I don’t think it’d be safe.”

“That’s all right,” said Latisha. “We can at least get the deputies re-routed to your location.”

“I wouldn’t send a car up that trail,” said Nettie. “It’ll then be stuck behind mine, and we’ll have one more vehicle to back out of that mess. An ATV would be better.”

Agent Fischer spoke up. “I saw an ATV out back of this building when Tso and I canvassed the grounds. A Ranger; two seats and a rear storage bed. If the owner will let us use it, I could most likely get everyone out in that.”

“Let’s get the rest of the report first,” said Latisha. “Go ahead, Ms. Hastings.”

“Okay. Gina tells me Heather found a siding board that was rotted, where the wall met the floor of the shed they’re being kept in. The kidnapper has only been with them during the day. At night he goes somewhere else. They’ve been loose in the shed, but it’s locked. Anyway, they managed to break the rotted board out, then Heather spent most of the night digging enough of a hole that Gina could squeeze out. Heather wouldn’t fit, but insisted Gina go anyway. She walked through the woods till she hit a stream, followed that, and eventually it spit her out on this old roadbed.”

Nettie took a deep breath, then went on. “So—Gina tells me on the night they were taken, they drove down this long bumpy road through the woods. Probably the same trail my car is parked on. They stopped in a little clearing, and walked from there to where the shed is. Gina said there’s a few small buildings there, nothing as big as a barn or a house. She says it’s a long walk, but it was along the top of a ridge following a game trail. She thinks she could find it again.”

“She’ll probably have to,” Agent Tso broke in. “I’m not seeing any buildings at all within a reasonable walk of your location. It must be under complete tree cover. Not surprising; there’s a lot of deciduous stuff in that area right along with the pines. A few oak branches can obscure pretty much anything.”

“Can you carry Gina back to where the cars are parked, Ms. Hastings?” Latisha inquired.

“Yeah, we’ll make it,” Nettie replied. “Be advised that I’ll be out of contact from the moment I climb out of this tree.”

“All right, get moving. Our agent will meet you at the location of the vehicles. I can’t stress enough what amazing work you’ve done today.”

Latisha Miller turned to Agent Fischer. “You get going, too. Offer the owner compensation if you have to, but get the use of that ATV. We need to find Heather Dulcey as soon as possible. Have the sheriff’s department cover the field approach, and the entrance to the woodland trail, once you find that.”

Fischer nodded once, then exited the office.

***

An aged four-cylinder engine idled roughly, exhaust blatting through rusted-out pipes. The Toyota van parked at the edge of the badly-graded macadam didn’t look any better than it sounded. The bottom edge of the body was laced with rust; the remainder of the royal blue paint job caked with dust and bearing the dings and scratches of long, hard use.

The woman seated behind the wheel of this eighties relic wasn’t much better kept. Forty-seven and going to flesh, her uncombed hair yanked back into a ponytail, ragged old jeans and a t-shirt with so many wash cycles behind it that one could no longer make out the logo.

Not that she cared. Her life had narrowed down to a single focus, a desire put on hold for a long run of years. During that dry spell, this desire had escalated to the level of a burning obsession—an obsession that finally seemed back on track to realization. The dream had been thwarted this day, and here she sat, waiting to rescue the idiot responsible.

She wondered how he managed to bungle this one. She wondered what excuses he’d give. She wondered why she was waiting for him at all—why she didn’t let the cops just scoop him up and nail his sorry ass to the cross.

Because, damn it, she needed him. By taking what he wanted, he got her what she wanted. It was a symbiosis, and she needed him to do that which she could not quite manage to do herself.

But where the fuck was he? She couldn’t hang around waiting much longer. Before long they’d be doing sweeps by air, and a van parked on a minimum maintenance road not three miles from that damn auto-shop was sure to set alarm bells ringing.

And then he was there, approaching from within the trees across the road from her at a brisk walk, a thin, bald man in a faded olive jacket, his face dripping with sweat.

Jesus Christ—about goddamn time.

She beckoned impatiently through the open driver’s side window. “Come on, already. We have to move!”

Breaking into a trot as he emerged from the foliage, the thin man rounded the front of the ancient Toyota MasterAce, popped the passenger side door, and slid into the seat. Before the door slammed shut, the woman was already shoving the gearshift into first.

She spared him a withering glance as she goosed the accelerator and let the clutch out, the van shuddering into motion. “What the fuck just happened?”

On to Chapter Ten!