Return To Falcon Ridge

Fourteen-year-old Elsie Timmons shivered as the lock turned on the door, sealing the girls into their dismal cavern. The orphanage was haunted.

At night, the cries and screams taunted her. But they were her punishment.

And this was where she belonged. In the town of the damned where wildcats as big as tigers roamed the woods. Where the unwanted were hidden away forever. Where children disappeared into the forest, possibly eaten by the monsters.

Because they were all evil.

Elsie had known she was ever since she was four. Ever since she’d told her mama that the man next door was hurting her friend Hailey. Then Hailey and her family had been butchered, and her daddy had dragged her off, claiming they’d come for her next. Either the killer or the law.

Because she had brought the evil upon Hailey and her family.

Tears filled her eyes and dribbled down her cheeks. She wanted to change, but then she’d failed, and Daddy had left her here, alone, trapped in the tangled lies of Wildcat Manor.

Her hand went to her stomach. The images of the dark basement where she’d been taken last week still tormented her dreams. The sounds of her own cries. The sounds of others. The gripping pain that she had barely survived.

The emptiness that now consumed her.

Trees rattled and shook their winter fury against the thin, fog-coated glass panes, shrouding any light from the outside. Heavy footsteps shuffled down the corridor outside her room, and she hunched over in the shadows of the wall behind her bed, hoping to be invisible.

Little Torrie huddled beneath the faded quilts covering her cot, a low whimper of fear drifting toward her. Elsie was big and could take care of herself. She had been doing it for ages.

Torrie was nothing but a child, only eleven, with long blond hair and the eyes of an angel. Surely, he wouldn’t hurt her….

Suddenly a key rattled in the door, and the ancient stone walls throbbed with the sound of the door screeching open. Elsie held her breath as he entered. The vile smell of whiskey floated into the musty space, and evil kissed her neck as he shuffled forward in the darkness. Every muscle in her body clenched with terror. He slanted her a sinister smile that made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.

She braced herself for his nasty fingers to close around her, but he turned and snatched Torrie from beneath the covers. She kicked and screamed, a haunting sound that echoed off the walls and sent a spasm of nausea to Elsie’s stomach. Without a word, he dragged her through the darkness into the hall, then his husky voice thundered with anger, and a slap resounded through the air.

Elsie sobbed and stood on wobbling legs. She couldn’t let him hurt Torrie. She was too little, too sweet, too innocent.

Elsie had never been innocent.

She gathered her courage, then tiptoed down the hall, ducking into the corners when he paused. Surely she was wrong. Maybe they’d found a home for Torrie. Maybe someone had come to adopt her.

After all, Hattie Mae had promised them all hope when they’d been left on her doorstep.

Trying to pad softly, she continued to follow him until he reached the basement. There, her palms grew sweaty and her heart pounded. He flung open the door and threw Torrie over his shoulder. Torrie wasn’t moving now, and Elsie realized he had knocked her unconsciousness.

Dear God, what was he going to do to her?

Fear piercing her, she descended the stairs in his shadow, searching the dimly lit basement, and trying to banish the image of the night she had spent in the chamber of horrors. Seconds later, he knelt in front of Torrie. “We’re going to play a little game, Torrie. Do you like games?”

“She’s too young,” Elsie screamed. “Leave her alone, you monster!”

He pounced toward her, his eyes flashing with anger. Elsie grabbed the lantern and flung it toward him. The glass shattered, oil spilling onto the concrete floor, then it burst into flames. He bellowed with rage and sprinted toward her, but the fire shot into a mountainous blaze that caught his shirtsleeve and rippled upward. His loud horrified scream wrenched the air. Elsie jolted sideways, and ran for Torrie. She moaned, but Elsie shook her.

“Come on, Torrie, we have to get out of here!”

Torrie’s eyes flickered open, then terror filled them as she saw the fire. He screamed and slapped at the flames eating his clothes and skin. Elsie grabbed Torrie’s hand, and they darted away from his reach. Fire rippled along the floor, and snapped at the wooden table near the bed. The sheets and bedding exploded into flames. Smoke hurled through the air, wood popping and splintering.

He threw himself on the floor, rolling to put out the fire while Elsie pulled Torrie through the flames to escape. But fire blocked the stairwell, their only exit. “We’re going to die!” Torrie cried.

Panic clawed at Elsie. Torrie was right.

There was no way out.

Chapter One

Ten years later

“Please, Deke, you have to find Mrs. Timmons’s daughter, Elsie.”

Deke Falcon grimaced at his older brother, Rex, and Rex’s new wife Hailey. Their lives had been in an upheaval for twenty years, ever since his father had been convicted of murdering Hailey’s parents. Rex had fought tooth and nail this last year to free their father, and finally, uncovered the truth about the brutal slaying of the Lyle family.

Now Hailey wanted his help. How could he deny his brother’s wife after all the pain she had endured? After the way she’d blamed herself for their father’s lost years when she’d suffered herself. And Rex loved her senseless so now she was family, too.

Mrs. Timmons’s hand trembled as she reached for his. Anger had been his friend for the past few years, but the subtle gentleness in her touch made him want to let go of the emotion. Trouble was, he didn’t know how.

“This is the last picture I have of her,” Mrs. Timmons said softly. “She was only four years old when she went missing.”

He studied the faded, worn-out picture, knew Mrs. Timmons had looked at it constantly the same way he had the photo of his father that he’d carried in his wallet for two decades.

Elsie Timmons, at four, was a cute kid with a gap-toothed smile, a freckled pale face and long dark curly hair pulled back in a ponytail. Her big brown eyes were almost haunting.

Where was the little girl? Had her father kidnapped her, or had something more sinister happened? Was she lost forever?

“I thought my husband took her to hurt me,” she said, “but when they found that grave in the woods, I w-was certain she was dead.”

“Those bones were too old to be Elsie’s,” Rex said.

“Which means she might still be alive and out there.” Hailey’s face brightened with hope. Hailey and Elsie had been childhood friends, and she had bonded with Elsie’s mother.

Tears shimmered in Mrs. Timmons’s worried eyes. “I…don’t know if she’ll want to see me,” she said. “Or what her father told her about me, but I can’t leave this world without trying to find her one more time.”

“Hush that talk.” Hailey squeezed the older woman’s hands. “You’re going to live forever, and Elsie is coming back to us. I just know it.”

Anxiety wormed inside Deke’s chest. What if he failed? What if he found Elsie and she wanted nothing to do with her mother? Or what if something awful had happened to her and he had to bring back bad news?

Could Deanna Timmons survive it?

Loyalty to her won out. She was the only person in town who’d stood beside Deke’s mother when his father had been arrested. And he knew the pain of having someone ripped from his arms. His hope had dwindled with every year his father had been imprisoned just as Mrs. Timmons’s hope had.

“All right. Do you have any information that might help?”

Mrs. Timmons smiled although her lower lip trembled. “I have the files the private investigator kept when he searched for her twenty years ago. At one time, he traced my ex south. I believe it was Alabama or maybe Tennessee.”

She handed him a folder. “Thank you so much, Mr. Falcon. I can’t tell you what it would mean to see my daughter again.”

Deke swallowed hard. She didn’t have to tell him. He’d felt the same way when his father had been reunited with the family.