Chapter 5 - THE SHERIFF WAS HUNTING US
Daniel's words carried up the creek like a sentence.
"They're alive."
I had spent my entire childhood trusting Sheriff Owen Mercer because my father trusted him.
He had worn his uniform to my high school graduation.
He had driven me home once when I wrecked my first car.
He had brought soup to our house after my mother's funeral.
Now he stood beside my brother with his pistol drawn, studying the mud where my daughter and I had crawled out of a mine my family had tried to turn into our grave.
I put my mouth against Sophie's ear.
"When I move, stay behind me."
She nodded.
The boulder covered us from the road, but not from the creek.
If Daniel crossed the water, he would see us.
Mercer raised his radio.
"Unit three, hold the south intersection. No civilians past the barricade."
A voice answered with static.
"Copy. What's the status on Melissa and the child?"
Mercer looked at Daniel before replying.
"Still missing."
The lie was effortless.
Daniel stepped into the creek.
Water splashed around his boots.
He followed our prints upstream one by one.
I searched for a way out.
Behind us, the hillside rose steeply through dense pine.
To our left, the creek curved around a wall of exposed rock.
To our right, Mercer stood at the truck.
The only path that did not lead directly toward them was up.
My ribs protested before I even moved.
I took Sophie's hand and crawled backward into the brush.
A dead branch cracked under my knee.
Daniel stopped.
I stopped breathing.
"Melissa?"
He said my name softly, almost affectionately.
"If you can hear me, Dad is sorry."
Sophie looked at me with disbelief.
Daniel kept walking.
"He panicked."
Another step.
"We all did."
Another.
"Sophie doesn't need to be part of this."
I could see the toe of his boot through the brush.
"Send her down to me and we'll get her to a doctor."
The rage that moved through me was so intense that for one dangerous second it erased fear.
He had put both hands on my shoulders.
He had watched his niece fall after me.
Now he was offering medical care as though he had stumbled upon us after an accident.
Sophie squeezed my fingers.
I remembered where we were.
I remembered the gun on Mercer's hip.
We crawled higher.
The brush thickened.
Daniel moved past the boulder and swore.
"Fresh blood."
He had found the scrape from my arm.
Mercer called from the road.
"How fresh?"
"Very."
"Then they're close."
I pushed Sophie toward a fallen pine trunk and climbed after her.
Every breath felt shallow and unfinished.
We gained maybe thirty yards of elevation before the hillside opened into a patch of bare shale.
Crossing it would expose us completely.
Below, Daniel climbed through the brush.
Mercer remained near the road, speaking into his radio.
"Richard, we found tracks."
The answer was too faint to hear.
Mercer lowered the radio.
"No, not yet."
Another pause.
"I said not yet."
Something about his tone caught my attention.
It was irritated, not obedient.
Daniel emerged near the boulder.
"What did Dad say?"
"He wants the road locked down."
"Then lock it down."
Mercer looked at him.
"Don't give me orders."
Daniel's face tightened.
For the first time I wondered whether Mercer was fully inside the conspiracy or merely dirty enough to help with the cover-up after the fact.
It did not matter while he was carrying a gun and lying to his own deputies.
Sophie pointed uphill.
A narrow animal trail cut through the shale toward a cluster of aspens.
We crossed one at a time.
Halfway over, loose stone slid under my shoe.
I fell to one knee.
The rockfall rattled down the slope.
Daniel looked up.
Our eyes met.
For a heartbeat neither of us moved.
Then he shouted.
"There!"
I grabbed Sophie.
We ran.
Mercer yelled something behind us.
Daniel crashed through the brush.
A gunshot split the air.
Sophie ducked.
I threw us behind an aspen.
Another shot did not come.
"Owen!" Daniel screamed.
"What the hell are you doing?"
Mercer's answer came hard.
"Warning shot."
"You almost hit them!"
"You wanted them stopped."
"Not the kid out here where somebody can find a body!"
Sophie stared at me.
I hated that she heard every word.
I hated more that Daniel's concern was not for her life but for where her body might be discovered.
We climbed until the trees hid us again.
My legs shook.
I could hear Daniel gaining.
Sophie suddenly pulled me off the trail.
"Mom, here."
An old storm drain crossed under a logging berm.
The concrete pipe was maybe three feet wide.
I would never have noticed it.
We crawled inside.
Cold mud soaked my jeans.
Sophie went deeper until the outside light became a small rectangle behind us.
Daniel ran past less than a minute later.
"Melissa!"
His footsteps faded uphill.
I covered Sophie's hand with mine.
"Good eyes."
She managed a tiny smile.
"You said look for places adults don't look."
I had said that during hide-and-seek when she was six.
I never imagined she would use it to hide from my brother.
We waited until the forest went quiet.
Then I checked the papers inside my jacket.
The trust schedule was damp around the edges but readable.
My mother's letter was safe inside the plastic sleeve from the document box.
The cassette tape was still sealed.
I had evidence.
What I did not have was a trustworthy way to deliver it.
We crawled out the opposite side of the drain.
The hill dropped toward another road.
An old wooden sign read SILVER CREEK HISTORIC DISTRICT - 1.2 MILES.
The tourist town.
People.
Cameras.
Phones.
Witnesses.
We started downhill.
Fifteen minutes later, the sound of an engine made us hide again.
This time a faded red pickup approached slowly.
A woman in her sixties was driving alone.
The truck bed was full of folding chairs and boxes labeled MUSEUM FUNDRAISER.
I recognized her after a moment.
Ruth Alvarez.
She had been the volunteer curator at the Silver Creek Mining Museum since I was a teenager.
My father called her a nuisance because she kept opposing commercial redevelopment of the historic district.
That recommendation suddenly made her the safest person in Colorado.
I stepped into the road.
Ruth slammed on the brakes.
Her eyes widened.
"Melissa?"
I opened my mouth, but my voice cracked.
"Please don't call my father."
She took one look at Sophie, one look at my bloodstained jacket, and unlocked the passenger door.
"Get in."
No questions.
No hesitation.
I helped Sophie climb into the back seat and slid in beside her.
Ruth turned the truck around.
"Hospital?"
"Not the county hospital."
She glanced at me in the mirror.
"Why?"
"Sheriff Mercer is helping them."
Her jaw went tight.
"Helping who?"
"My father and Daniel."
I held up the trust papers.
"They pushed us into the north vent."
Ruth's face lost color.
"The blast?"
"Was supposed to bury us."
She drove faster.
"Jesus."
Sophie whispered from beside me.
"Uncle Daniel said nobody would know where we went."
Ruth looked at her once, then back at the road.
"Honey, people are going to know."
She reached under the dashboard and pulled out an old handheld radio.
"Silver Creek museum keeps this for fire season. State frequency is programmed in."
She handed it to me.
"Do not call county dispatch."
I pressed the transmit button.
"Colorado State Patrol, this is Melissa Hale requesting immediate assistance."
Static answered.
Then a voice.
"Caller, identify your location."
Relief nearly made me drop the radio.
I gave the mile marker and described Ruth's truck.
I said the words again.
"My father Richard Hale and my brother Daniel Hale intentionally pushed me and my eight-year-old daughter into an abandoned mine shaft. Sheriff Owen Mercer is assisting them."
The dispatcher made me repeat Mercer's name.
Then she told us to continue east toward Highway 24 where state units would intercept.
Ruth nodded.
"Ten minutes."
Sophie rested her head against my shoulder.
For the first time I let myself believe we might reach safety.
Then Ruth's radio crackled.
A different voice broke onto the county emergency channel.
Sheriff Mercer.
"All units, be advised, missing adult female Melissa Hale has been located in the historic district and may be experiencing a psychiatric crisis."
I stared at the radio.
"She is believed to have taken her minor daughter from a family member after a domestic disturbance."
Ruth cursed.
Mercer continued.
"Use caution. Female may be injured, confused, and in possession of stolen property from the Hale family estate."
Sophie lifted her head.
"He's saying you stole Grandma's papers."
"Yes."
Then Mercer's voice added the part that made Ruth hit the brakes.
"State units are requested to detain Melissa Hale pending protective custody evaluation."
Ahead of us, two Colorado State Patrol vehicles turned onto the road.
Their lights came on.
May you like
Ruth looked at me.
"If Mercer got to them first, this is about to get ugly."
