Into the Storm (34 page)

“There’s a bus station that isn’t too far out of my way,” the man in the car told her. “Hop on in.”

The sound of someone pounding on the door woke Sophia from a restless sleep.

“Sophia! Open up!” It was Dave.

The clock radio said it was barely ten. It felt more like 3:00
A.M
.

She threw back the blankets, which knocked a pile of books onto the floor, and staggered to the door. It was about a million degrees in the room, and the heater was still cranking.

She opened the door. For the first time since she’d gotten soaked out at the hunting lodge she was grateful for the blast of frigid air.

Dave pushed past her. “Is Tracy here?”

“No,” she said, fanning herself with the door as she turned to look at him as he strode purposefully into her bathroom. “Well, I don’t think so. I was asleep.”

“Shit,” Dave said.
“Shit.”

Apparently Tracy was AWOL again. “Have you tried the bar that’s halfway between here and Happy Hills? I’m not sure exactly where it is, but Izzy probably knows.” As she closed the door, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her hair was doing its Bride of Frankenstein thing, and she tried to tame it, pulling it back and searching on the dresser for a scrunchee.

“Is it possible she came back while you were sleeping?” Dave asked. “Maybe she came in quietly and—”

“Not a chance,” she said, because on the dresser were two room keys. Her own and Tracy’s. She held them up for him to see.

“Terrific,” he said, heading for the door.

Sophia stopped him, one hand still holding back her hair. “Wait,” she said. “What’s going on?”

“Tracy’s missing,” he told her. “She left the cabin, and Lindsey tracked her all the way to the road. But that was it. End of trail.”

“Are you sure this isn’t just another one of Tom’s games?” she asked.

“Absolutely,” he told her. “The SEALs got the call—they’re already gone. And if the rest of us mobilized right now, we could catch a flight to California before the bad weather hits.”

Sophia had spent some time this evening watching the Weather Channel. There was a huge storm heading directly for them. It was expected to hit the coast and stall. The airports were going to start to close, probably as early as tomorrow morning. If the Troubleshooters were delayed, they’d be snowed in. Possibly for days.

Being snowed in was one thing if they were training, another entirely if they were sitting in cheap motel rooms, twirling their thumbs.

Tom was not a thumb twirler—getting home to his wife and baby son would be a priority for him.

“Tracy probably got a ride,” Sophia deducted. “Someone stopped and picked her up.”

“I hope so.” Dave didn’t sound convinced. “Lindsey and Decker walked the road, looking for signs of her in either direction. Ninety minutes, and there wasn’t a single car. We’re afraid she went back into the woods, to try to return to the cabin.” He gently pushed her aside and opened the door. “I’ve got to go talk to Stella and Rob, see if they’ve seen her. Maybe she came back here and didn’t want to disturb you.”

“Dave, wait—”

But he closed the door behind him.

Sophia quickly threw on clothes and her boots—which were finally dry. Her jacket was, too, but she couldn’t find her hat, so she borrowed one of Tracy’s and pocketed her key.

The night was bitterly cold. If Tracy were in the woods, if she’d gotten lost…Sophia hurried down to the restaurant, but Dave was already coming back out.

“This is a total nightmare,” he told her. “I’m the one who told Tracy to leave the cabin. But I didn’t have time to give her the complete instructions, tell her to look for Koehl’s team…”

Dave had told her earlier that Tom had given him an additional role to play—that of undercover operative who’d infiltrated the terrorist cell.

“I was trying to be a hotshot,” he admitted now. “Get the hostage to safety and single-handedly wipe out the terrorists. Instead, I put Tracy into danger. If she doesn’t keep moving…In this cold…If she fell or hurt herself…” His eyes were anguished. “She’ll freeze to death before dawn.”

“I’ll go with you,” Sophia said. “We’ll find that bar. I bet you anything she’s there.”

But before they reached Dave’s vehicle, the rest of the team’s SUVs and trucks pulled into the parking lot, stones crunching beneath their tires. Everyone was driving just a little too fast.

And Tom and Decker both hopped out before their vehicles came to a complete stop. Tess Bailey, Troubleshooters’ computer specialist, was right behind them. “I’ve got my computer set up in my room,” she told them. “Do you want me to bring it down to the restaurant?”

“Did you find her?” Sophia called.

“It’ll take less time if we go up there,” Tom said. “If you don’t mind.”

“Of course not,” Tess said, running up the stairs to the second floor. “Just let me make sure Jimmy’s dressed.”

Decker answered Sophia. “Haven’t found her yet,” he said. “But we will very shortly.”

“Of course,” Dave said, slapping his forehead. “The sensors in the jackets. Tracy was wearing one, so…”

Sophia understood. The sensors that identified participants as dead or alive were part of a computer program. Apparently they could use that same program as something of a tracking device, to pinpoint Tracy.

Or at least her jacket.

“Thank God someone’s thinking clearly.” Dave was so excited, he actually started to dance. He grabbed her and swung her around.

As Sophia laughed at his exuberance, she kept her thoughts to herself. She didn’t want to take away his hope, but she’d had lunch while Tess had organized the team that put up all those temporary satellite towers earlier today. Apparently, even with the additional towers, there were still large areas of what she’d called “dead zones.”

“What are you doing out here?” Decker asked Sophia. “Dave, what the hell…? Get her inside. Now.” He followed Tom up the stairs.

Dave let her go, but still danced in a circle around her.

Up on the second level, Tess had unlocked the door to her room. “Great,” she said, sounding as if it were anything but. “He’s not even here. Okay, come on in—please ignore the dirty laundry.”

Down in the parking lot, Alyssa Locke had opened up the back of the van, revealing piles of their training equipment.

“I need help getting this unloaded,” Alyssa called, motioning them over. She put a pile of jackets similar to the one Tracy was wearing into Sophia’s arms. “This should go into the storage room, off the kitchen. We’ll organize it and pack it up later.” She gave another armload to Dave, whose relief was still making him grin.

“Some people say
I love you,
” he whispered to Sophia as they headed inside. “Others say
Dave, what the hell…?
”

Sophia rolled her eyes. “Please don’t start.”

“I’m just saying,” Dave said, holding the door for her. “Just making note of what sure felt to me like, oh…I don’t know…jealousy? Maybe we should dance together more often.”

“Oh, was that what that was?” she asked him. “Dancing?”

Dave laughed. “That’s so mean. I’m a good dancer. All those exotic embassy parties. All those exotic ambassadors’ wives? Decker should be worried. You might want to mention to him, just in passing, that I actually know how to tango. Or maybe if you start sighing”—he demonstrated—“every time you say my name.”

“How much coffee have you had tonight?” She led the way into the kitchen.

“Too much,” he admitted, as she turned on the light in the storage room. He waited while she put her load of jackets onto the floor, then added his to the top. “I’m just really glad we’re going to find her. Tracy.”

What if we don’t?

But Sophia couldn’t bring herself to ask him that as they headed up to Tess’s room, to watch the miracle of the computer tracking system at work.

“Thank you
so
much,” Tracy said as the car pulled into the store parking lot.

“Now, it’s the nine-thirty bus to Concord that you want,” the man reminded her. “Not Lewiston or Burlington.”

“Got it,” she said. There was a pay phone on the wall out front, thank goodness. The trip back to civilization—if this run-down, dimly lit, squat little store in the middle of nowhere could qualify as such—had taken far longer than she’d expected.

Of course, with Crazy God-Man behind the wheel, it was a wonder they’d ever gotten here at all. He’d delivered bags of food to what he called “neighbors in need,” ringing their doorbells and running away—giggling like some prank-playing teenager—before they saw him or his car. They’d made twenty different stops since he’d picked her up. That wasn’t what made their trip so relentlessly endless, though. No, it was the praying over each bag that took the most time.

Tracy’s suggestion that they simply say one big prayer over all the bags at once had not been well received.

Now he frowned at the store, which, according to the signage, was also a FedEx pickup point, a Dunkin’ Donuts, a convenience store, and a twenty-four-hour pharmacy. “Place looks like it’s closing. I wonder if Stephen’s having septic system troubles again. Last time he was shut down tight for days.”

There was another car in the lot, and she could see at least one person inside through the window.

“I’m sure it’s open. These places are always open,” Tracy said. It was time to go—before he decided to pray for her. She tried to open the door, but it was locked. “Is there…?”

He hit a button, and it still wouldn’t unlatch. “Oopsie. I always push it the wrong way.” He giggled.

Mere fractions of a second before full panic hit, there was a click and Tracy was able to open the door. Trying not to appear too freaked, she jumped out. “Thanks again.”

With a wave and a honk, he went on his merry way.

Tracy turned, heading for the phone, and nearly ran right into the man she’d seen through the store window. “Oh, my God,” she said.

Up close like that, her first thought was that he was Izzy—that he’d somehow followed her here. But he wasn’t. He may have been tall and lean and good-looking, but his eyes were electric blue.

Any disappointment she was feeling was only because she hated the idea of having to take a bus. If she never saw Izzy Zanella again, it would be fine with her.

“Are you a nurse?” the un-Izzy asked. On him, the R-less Maine accent was kind of cute. He was carrying two big plastic shopping bags in each hand.

“What? Oh.” She looked down at her pants and shoes. “Yeah,” she said, because there was something in his eyes that was a little off. Like he’d come to the—what had Stella called it?—the
criminal
because he had the munchies from being stoned. It would have taken too many brain cells for him to understand the concept of her pretending to be a nurse for a Navy SEAL training operation.

Out here, in the natural habitat of Crazy God-Man and Hot Guy on Dope, the concept was a little difficult even for
her
to comprehend.

Tracy inched away, a little afraid to turn her back on him. But he finally nodded and headed for his car.

She picked up the pay phone and punched in the numbers of Lyle’s calling card—a number he’d made her memorize after 9/11, when their cell phones hadn’t worked due to an overloaded system.

“Now enter the number of the party you are calling,” a voice instructed her. Okay, this was the tricky part. She wanted to call Lindsey, but she wasn’t sure she remembered her phone number. She was good with memorization, though, and she’d seen it on the list of Troubleshooters personnel that was taped to her desk in San Diego. She’d stared at it for hours as she’d answered the phones. Area code 619. Just do it. If it was wrong, she’d try again. Big whoop.

Across the parking lot, the hot druggie had gotten into his car. He started it, and was just sitting there, watching her, which was a little weird.

The phone rang only twice, and a machine picked up. “Hi, you’ve reached Lindsey, I can’t come to the phone right now. If this is an emergency, try my cell phone—”

Tracy scrambled for something to write with. She’d remembered Lindsey’s number all right—but that of her home phone, not her cell. There was actually a pen in the pocket of her jacket, so she uncapped it and quickly scribbled the number on a flyer for a lost dog that was taped to the side of the phone’s so-called wind barrier. She’d only been out here for a few minutes, but God, her ears were already frozen. And she seemed to have lost one of her mittens.

“…or leave a message at the beep.” Lindsey’s recorded voice finished.

“Yeah, hi, it’s me, Tracy.” She didn’t want to hang up, not with stoned-man still watching her like that. Better to let him think she was talking to someone. Like her police-trooper, former-Marine boyfriend, whose jacket she was obviously wearing. “I’m calling from some pay phone on the freaking North Pole. I just got your cell number, so I’ll call you right back in a sec. See, there’s this guy who’s kind of hot, but kind of not—think if Ralph Fiennes sniffed glue—and he’s…Shoot, he’s getting out of his car. I feel like I should give you the license plate number, in case I drop off the face of the earth. Except it’s dark and…I think there’s a nine…That’s all I can see. There’s mud or pig poop on it, or whatever animal they farm up here. It’s got New Hampshire plates. Except, okay. He’s just refilling his windshield wiper fluid. Silly me. I’ll call you back on your cell.”

She hung up, which was stupid, because she could have just pushed one of the numbers—was it the eight?—and dialed Lindsey’s cell. Now, though, she had to go through the whole long calling card thing again.

Drug guy closed his hood. The sound made her look over at him, which was a mistake, because he took that as an invitation to communicate.

“I need you to hang up now,” he said, as he strolled toward her.

Okay, it was probably time to get inside the store, but she only had a few more numbers to dial. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you needed to use the phone.” Tracy forced a smile. “I’ll be quick. I just need to finish telling my boyfriend about my latest outbreak of herpes.”

He reached over and pushed the hang-up button, taking the phone out of her hands and replacing it in the cradle. “Get into the car.”