“I take it you two are Jill and Sadie?” He examined the grate.
“Unless there’s two other women lost on the trails this morning, I think you’re right.”
“You okay in there? Are you hurt? We have an ambulance down at the trail site. I can call someone up.” The other man peered into the cave toward us.
“Just get us out of here.” I hugged Sadie. “My friend has a Bible study to get to tonight.”
A few minutes later, Toby and Greg burst through the bush and stopped short when they saw the grate locking us into the cave. Greg came close and studied me. “You’re something else, you know that?”
“Can you get us out of here?” So far, the men had just been studying the situation. “Sadie and I tried to get it to move, but we didn’t have much luck.” I was beginning to feel a bit like the lions at the zoo, closed in with time to pace.
“I don’t know.” He looked back at Toby. “At least with you in there, I know you’re safe.”
Looking at the rain puddling around us, I shrugged. “Until the cave fills up with water. What a day for the drought to end.”
“One rainstorm doesn’t end a drought, but it’s a good beginning.” Greg squeezed my fingers. “Hold on, slugger, we’ll get you out of there.”
The men gathered around the mouth of the cave, and after a few test runs, lifted the grate up far enough for Sadie and me to squeeze through. Greg handed me a bottle of water, but I shook it off.
“Sadie had us well-stocked.” I held up the water jug that I’d strapped over my shoulder that morning. “So, if you found us, you probably found Taylor, as well?”
Greg and Toby exchanged a glance.
“Don’t tell me you let him go. The guy is crazy. He locked us in here.”
“And he killed Kacey and vandalized the food truck to make it look like Austin had done it.” Sadie paused. “But I guess I should thank him for returning my recipes. The man’s not all bad.”
“The only reason he returned them was to make Austin look guilty.” I couldn’t believe my friend. She was always seeing the best of people, even the ones who left her for dead in a cave.
“Hold on, he’s not gone. Tim has him in the back of the patrol car cooling his jets. I can hold him for your kidnapping and attempted murder, but I got nothing tying him to Kacey’s murder except your word.” Greg held up a hand before I could speak. “I didn’t say it wouldn’t sway a judge, but he might be able to play a jury.”
“Believe me, he killed Kacey.” I started shaking in the rain, and Greg put his arm around me.
“Let’s not worry about that right now. Let’s get you down the mountain and into a warm vehicle.” Greg took my arm and motioned to Toby to help Sadie down the trail.
“How did you find us so fast? I figured we wouldn’t be missed until Sadie didn’t show up at the church tonight.” I leaned my body into Greg’s to try to feel some of his warmth. The guy was like a furnace.
“I don’t know if I want to tell you.”
That made me stop dead in my tracks. “You were following me?”
Greg laughed and, with his hand, gently pushed at the small of my back to get me walking again. “Not exactly.”
“How is it, ‘exactly’?” Now I was on the edge of mad. If he was following me around or worse, having Tim or Toby follow me, I was going to give him a royal piece of my mind. Even though he found you before the cave filled up with water? Sometimes I hated my logical side.
“Well, Toby set the tracker app on your phone after you told him about the GPS coordinates that Ginny gave you. So when he saw you leave in the Jeep, we just tracked your phone. Once we knew you were heading here, we figured we wouldn’t be the only ones here.” Greg looked at me. “Don’t tell me you didn’t see Taylor watching Ginny give you the paper. Come on, even I saw that.”
I hadn’t. I’d been too involved in trying to figure out what Taylor knew, he’d played me like a little violin. I shrugged, not wanting to admit my mistake.
“Then when Ginny was found, she’d said more than just your name. She told us that Taylor was going to get you, too.” Greg stopped near my Jeep. He threw Toby his truck keys. “Take Sadie home. I’m going to drive Jill back.”
When we got into the car and turned up the heat, Greg passed the basket of muffins that was in the backseat. “You want one of these?”
I took a couple. Greg chuckled, took one, and then pulled up next to the patrol car. “Hand out the rest of these to the volunteers and make sure the basket gets back to Sadie.” He handed the basket to Tim, who grinned. “Oh, and take Mr. Archer to the station. I’ve got some questions for him before I decide what charges I’m going to ask John to file.”