A Cry in the Night by Linda Castillo
Chapter 1
K elly Malone knew better than to panic. Even as she felt its razor claws dig into her, she fought its powerful grasp. Panic made smart people do stupid things. Stupid things that ultimately led to mistakes. She couldn’t afford to make a mistake. Not when her child’s life was on the line.
Gripping the steering wheel with white-knuckled hands, she stared through the windshield into the black abyss ahead and pressed the accelerator to the floor.
She’d grown up less than twenty miles from the eastern edge of this beautiful, unforgiving land. White River National Forest had been her home for thirty-one years. Her father had been a smoke jumper; her mother a park ranger. Kelly knew the area like the back of her hand, respected its capricious nature. She knew and loved the people who lived here. Over the years she’d known of a dozen lost children. She’d even helped look for a few of them herself. She knew most of those children were found safe and sound.
None of them had ever been her child.
The thought sent a spike of fear straight through her heart to coil in her gut like a reptile whipping its spindly tail. “He’s going to be all right,” she whispered fiercely. “He’s going to be okay.”
Kelly knew the value of remaining calm and rational—even if the situation had already spiraled out of control. But the side of her that was a mother first scoffed at the idea.
Her child was missing.
It was her fault.
And there was only one man in the world she trusted to find him and bring him back. A man she’d once loved with all her heart. A man she’d hurt terribly. A man whose life she was about to change forever.
A fresh wave of terror slashed her, choking her, bleeding the last vestiges of calm from her veins. Adrenaline sparked like fire and zipped along her nerve endings like a lit fuse. Hysteria beckoned, but she knew once she entered that shadowy place, she’d never climb out.
The headlights sliced through the blackest night she’d ever seen, but Kelly didn’t slow down. Driven by the primal instinct to protect what was precious, she drove like a madwoman through the inky darkness, her single-minded determination slapping down any notion of her own safety. Though the night was mild—even in July, temperatures in the Colorado Rockies could vary wildly—she felt cold, chilled from the inside out, as if her blood had been replaced with ice.
She would never forgive herself if something terrible happened to her little boy.
The wind tore at her car, shoving it from side to side like a child’s toy, but she didn’t slow down. Her tires protested with a squeal as she skidded around a dangerous curve she knew better than to take at such a high rate of speed. To the west, lightning split the sky, shattering it like crystal, illuminating bony trees and rocks the size of dinosaurs.
Kelly withheld a sob at the thought of her child huddled and alone on a night like this. Eddie had never been afraid of the dark, but thunder had always scared him. It tore her up inside knowing he was out there, alone and frightened and cold. The thought reached into her, a fist breaking through her ribs, gripping her heart and squeezing it so brutally she couldn’t breathe.
She nearly missed the narrow lane cut into the forest. Her foot punched down hard on the brake. The car fishtailed, but she cut the steering wheel hard to the right and forced it back under control. Gravel spewed high in the air as she pointed the vehicle toward the cabin and gunned the engine.
She wasn’t even sure if this was the right place. It had been almost five years since she’d been here. She’d heard from the friend of a friend that he’d taken the old cabin and fixed it up. Five years ago, it had been uninhabitable.
The porch light loomed into view like a buoy in a raging sea. The place looked different, but she recognized the old SUV. A sound of relief escaped her, a strange and animal-like sound in the silence of her car. She brought the vehicle to a sliding stop a few yards from the front porch and jammed it into Park. Flinging open the door, she hit the ground running.
Above her the sky exploded, lightning spreading like white capillaries. She smelled rain, but the sky wasn’t relinquishing the water the forest had been crying out for since spring. The wind kicked dust into her eyes as she ran toward the cabin.
Please, God, let him be home.
The frantic thought pounded her brain. She crossed the porch in two strides, then slapped her palms hard against the wooden door. Once. Twice. “Buzz! Help me! Buzz, please!” She barely recognized her own voice.
A light flicked on at the rear of the cabin. Kelly waited eternal seconds, her heart hammering against her ribs so hard she thought it would explode.