Forsaken An American Sasquatch Tale - By Christine Conder Page 0,48
retch behind the gag, and shook her head.
“Good, shut up.” He elbowed her cheek as he straightened, then he turned and spoke to Sage. “I have you to thank, little girl. If I wouldn’t have seen you on the tape, I might never have found her.” Russ moved behind Liberty and kneaded her shoulders. She saw stars from the blow to her face.
Sage descended the rest of the stairs and came into view. Liberty stared at the pure, pulsating aura. Smelt the familiar scent. What she’d smelled at the farmhouse, a splash of honeysuckle. Saw her hair. She’d colored it in streaks. Like Liberty’s. Sage blurred and Liberty blinked away the tears.
Sage didn’t make eye contact with her, instead wore a look of indifference and said, “The tape?”
Victor dragged the body across the floor in front of Liberty. Between the vision of her daughter alive, and her husband’s dead body, she didn’t know where to focus her eyes. Or heart. It split in two.
“Uh huh,” Russ said. “Since Victor and I moved here, we’ve done some scouting, put up cameras on nearly a hundred lots. Hoped to get lucky, he shook Liberty’s shoulders. “And we did.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the blanket had slid off to the side, showed the bare skin of the corpse. Sage’s eyes flashed when she saw it. Liberty focused down at it and furrowed her brow.
It wasn’t Nathaniel.
A white, ragged scar ran up the outer calf, above the knee, and then hooked toward the inner thigh.
Gabriel. He’d gotten it at the Clear Lake cavern as a teenager, after a nasty spill. He’d been a little too adventurous with his playmates.
Gabriel was dead. Not Nathaniel.
Even as she grieved for Gabriel, her hope skyrocketed. She’d caught Nathaniel’s scent when she’d arrived. He’d been there as well. Maybe he was biding his time, waiting for an opportunity to rescue her. And Sage.
“A couple of days ago, when I was reviewing some footage from the northern corner of Fairfield, guess who I saw?”
Sage shrugged.
“You. I had to look at it several times, the quality wasn’t that great, but not many leggy girls ‘round here with striped hair, are there?” He smoothed Liberty’s hair as he spoke.
Sage slowly crossed her arms and sidestepped as Victor moved past her. “So what?”
Russ laughed, tugged Liberty’s hair and she jerked in the chair. “I didn’t just see you, I saw you climb into a hole in the ground wearing a flat backpack and come back up with something inside it. What was in there?”
Sage tossed her head. Defiant. “Who cares? It’s a place my Grandpa showed me once. Like a bear den or something. I wanted to see if I remembered where it was at. Big deal. It was just an old blanket.”
That’s what happened to the clothes, Liberty realized, and she willed Sage to look at her, to see how much love Liberty had for her. Her wish went unanswered. Why wouldn’t she make eye contact?
Victor yanked Gabriel’s body through the door behind Sage and into the underground garage. Liberty saw part of a burgundy colored car, boxes stacked haphazardly, and more mounts. Stuffed bodies and antlers pointed this way and that, a macabre zoo.
“Hold up, Vic, I’ll come with,” Sage said and turned to leave.
“No. You won’t,” Russ said. “Besides, he’s taking the four wheeler and he’ll already have a passenger.
“Knock off the waterworks, Sasquatch, they won’t save you,” Russ growled into her ear.
Liberty hadn’t realized she was crying out loud. She stiffened. She wasn’t sad, she was afraid for their lives. She thought she saw Sage flinch.
He stood up, walked toward Sage, then past her. “You know what I think? I think you know our lady friend here.”
“How would I? You said you’re a bounty hunter. You bring in bad people for private citizens they’ve wronged.”
Wronged? Who could she have wronged?
He pulled the door shut behind Victor and turned the lock. An audible click. “Yup. But see, the person who hired me gave me a little background on my target.”
“So what?” Sage gestured toward Liberty, still wouldn’t meet her eyes. “What she’d do anyway? Not like I really care.”
It stung, but Liberty had to admit it was a good ruse. Her daughter was intelligent. She would find her way out of this mess.
Russ reached for Sage’s hand.
She jerked away from him.
“Calm down, I’m going to tell you.” He took Sage above the elbow and ushered her reluctant body to the workbench. He rifled through a few