Chapter 9 - The Trail Across the Ice
The wind whipping off Blackwood Lake had turned arctic.
The melting crust of the snow had hardened into jagged sheets of ice that snapped beneath Nora’s boots as she sprinted beside Jax along the dense timber trail. Her lungs burned with every breath, the sub-freezing air searing her throat, but the physical pain was completely drowned by the image of Abby’s small, terrified face.
Every fifty yards, fresh evidence marked the trail: heavy, dragging footprints where a man’s left leg trailed behind his body, punctuated by small, frantic sneaker impressions that were constantly being yanked forward.
Caleb was limping badly. But he was moving with frantic, desperate speed.
"He's heading toward Miller’s Marina," Jax said between ragged breaths, his eyes tracking the red droplets of fresh blood spotting the crust of the snow. "He’s opening his surgical stitches. He won't make it another mile on foot."
"He doesn't need a mile," Nora gasped, clutching the heavy revolver inside her coat pocket. "If he gets her onto a boat, he can vanish across the state line into the reservation before anyone can intercept him."
They broke through the tree line onto the rocky shore of the northern cove.
Ahead of them, sitting on rotting timber pilings over the partially thawed lake, stood the abandoned boathouse. The corrugated tin roof rattled violently in the gale, its green paint peeling in long, ugly strips.
Parked beside the weathered wooden dock was an old aluminum flat-bottom fishing boat, its rusted pull-cord outboard motor sputtering to life with an erratic, oily cough.
Standing on the rickety dock, clutching seven-year-old Abby by the arm, was a figure that looked like a reanimated corpse.
Caleb.
He was gaunt, his once-imposing muscular frame withered away until his clothes hung like rags on a scarecrow. A thick, white surgical patch covered his left eye, and a deep, jagged scar ran from his temple down past his lips, twisting his mouth into a permanent, monstrous snarl.
Abby was fighting him fiercely, kicking her small legs against his shins, screaming at the top of her lungs: "Let me go! My mommy is coming! Jax will kill you!"
Caleb raised his right hand, holding a heavy tire iron, preparing to strike the child to silence her.
"Caleb!" Nora’s voice tore across the frozen cove, carrying all the raw, terrifying power of a mother defending her young.
Caleb froze. Slowly, painfully, he turned his head, his single wild eye fixing on Nora as she emerged from the pines onto the rocky shore.
A horrific, jagged smile spread across his scarred face.
"Look at you, Nora," Caleb rasped, his voice sounding like two grinding stones. "You finally brought my daughter to see her daddy."
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He hoisted Abby off the dock, holding the little girl dangling over the dark, freezing waters of the lake where the ice shelf had broken into deadly, swirling floes.
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