The Vanishing by Jana DeLeon

Author:Jana DeLeon
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Suspense
Publisher: Harlequin Intrigue
Published: 2012-11-02T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Max stepped out of the last cabin in the row he was searching and immediately checked the sky. The light had dimmed even more and the accumulation of dark, swirling clouds was the answer. It was time for them to leave even though they hadn’t found the answers they were looking for.

He walked around the corner and down the row of shacks that Colette was searching. “Colette?” he called as he walked.

Only silence greeted him.

A spike of panic hit him full force. Something was wrong. He ran down the row of shacks, ducking in and out of every doorway, but found nothing.

“Colette!”

She wouldn’t have wandered off, of that he was certain. He walked the line of shacks again, this time studying the dirt path that ran down the middle. At a shack close to the edge of the clearing, he saw two lines in the dirt that ran straight into the swamp. Like the lines the heels of rubber boots would make if they were being dragged.

He pulled out his pistol and hurried into the swamp where the line trailed off. Brush was flattened by the passage of something large. Tracking as fast as he could, he hoped he wasn’t already too late.

And that’s when he heard a faint cry.

It took him only a second to zero in on the direction of the sound and he was off like a shot, running directly through the brush, not even bothering to try to follow the trail. It had to be Colette, which meant she was still alive.

He burst through a clump of bushes and almost tripped over Colette before sliding to a stop just inches from her body. A patch of blood glistened in her hair above her ear and he felt his heart skip a beat as he felt for a pulse.

A wave of relief washed over him as he placed his fingers on her wrist to check her pulse. He scanned the swamp surrounding him for sign of her attacker and heard the crack of gunfire. He dropped to his knees and pulled Colette behind the bushes he’d charged through earlier. Then he peered through the foliage, trying to locate the shooter.

The shot sounded as if it came from the right, but sound direction wasn’t always easy to interpret in the swamp. Still, right was a better guess than nothing. Aiming his pistol toward a thick grouping of brush to the right of him, he squeezed off a couple of rounds.

A yelp sounded from some distance away, and Max knew he’d gotten off a good shot. A second later, he heard someone running through the brush, the sound growing fainter with every passing second.

Max scooped Colette up and hurried back to the village. There was no way he could risk carrying her to the boat with the shooter in the swamp. And for all he knew, the shooter may have found the boat and set it adrift. The village was hardly secure, but it offered a lot more safety than the swamp.

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