Escape to Morning Read online

  WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT

  SUSAN MAY WARREN

  “I’m proud of Susie; my friend gets better with every book.”

  DEE HENDERSON, author of The Marriage Wish

  “Susan May Warren is an extremely gifted storyteller, always keeping her readers in suspense to the end. … Susan’s books are guaranteed to entertain, thrill, and inspire. Without question, they fall in the Can’t-Put-Down category!”

  D.M., Amazon.com reader

  “This author needs to write more books! I love her style.”

  C.T., Amazon.com reader

  “Susan Warren is a writer to watch! … Susan’s characters are so real you can almost hear them breathe.”

  Amazon.com reader

  Visit Tyndale’s exciting Web site at www.tyndale.com

  TYNDALE and Tyndale’s quill logo are registered trademarks of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

  Escape to Morning

  Copyright © 2005 by Susan May Warren. All rights reserved.

  Cover photograph of man copyright © 2005 by Brian MacDonald. All rights reserved.

  Cover photograph of woman copyright © 2005 by PicturePress/Photonica. All rights reserved.

  Background cover images © by Digital Vision and Photodisc. All rights reserved.

  Designed by Cathy Bergstrom

  Edited by Lorie Popp

  Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

  Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version.

  his novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or publisher.

  * * *

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Warren, Susan, date.

  Escape to morning / Susan May Warren.

  p. cm. — (Team hope ; 2)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4143-0087-0 (sc)

  ISBN-10: 1-4143-0087-5 (sc)

  1. Missing children—Fiction. 2. Search and rescue operations—Fiction. 3. Government investigators—Fiction. 4. Terrorism—Prevention—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3623.A865E83 2005

  813’.6—dc22 2005008029

  Printed in the United States of America

  11 10 09 08 07

  8 7 6 5 4 3

  FOR YOUR GLORY, LORD

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  A Note from the Author

  About the Author

  Expect the Sunrise

  Acknowledgments

  God is my portion and sustainer. And as usual, as I wrote Escape to Morning, He gave me talented people to encourage this project. My deepest gratitude goes to:

  My Pinkie Promise Pals (You know who you are.)—I am so deeply grateful for your iron-on-iron friendships that keep me accountable, humble, and encourage me to walk deeper. You’re all such gifts in my life.

  The Twinklings—Jane, Michele, and Sharron. How I thank the Lord for giving me friends who are like-minded, passionate about God, and who make me feel like I’m not alone! God again answered my prayers when He gave me our group, and I can’t wait to see what He’s going to do.

  Anne Goldsmith—Thank you for knowing how to help me take Escape deeper and for believing in Team Hope. You’re truly gifted in what you do. Thank you.

  Lorie Popp—For your gentle touch, your insights, and for catching all those errors I just want to cringe at. Your talents are a great blessing to me.

  Curt and MaryAnn Lund—For enduring the Warren Family Canoe Trip with us and for your “Pots.” Your support and encouragement are huge to me.

  Dannette Lund—For letting me name a character after you and then chop off half that name to Dani and loving me anyway.

  David Warren—Thank you for letting me read aloud to you and laughing in all the right places.

  Sarah Warren—You delight my heart with your smile. Thank you for liking Dani and Will and for your constant encouragement. My heart swells every time you say, “My mom rocks!”

  Peter Warren—For your happy dance. No wonder all the girls like you.

  Noah Warren—For learning how to make your own peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches. I don’t care what they say—you’re much better than Ollie Herdman.

  Andrew Warren—You’re a daily reminder that God loves me. Thank you for walking this life with me.

  The faithful love of the LORD never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, “The LORD is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him!”

  LAMENTATIONS 3:22-24

  Prologue

  Dearest Bonnie,

  If you are receiving this letter, then you know that I’m already worshiping at the throne of Jesus. And that’s how I want you to think of me. Finally with my Savior. I know this is hard to accept, sweetheart, but we talked about it so many times and I need you to be strong. For the girls. Because of the hope we have that we’ll be together again.

  I want you to move back to Cotter. It’s a good town, and the Strong family will look out for you. I know it is what you really want also. You’ve been a wonderful wife, and I know life with me, a soldier, hasn’t been easy—the moves, the absences, raising our daughters as if you were single. A man couldn’t ask for a better wife. Or a better friend. Because, Bon, you are my best friend. Ever since seventh grade.

  I pray you find someone to keep you safe and cherish you as I have. You deserve it. And know that you gave me the happiest years of my life. From the moment I bumped into you in English class and scattered your books onto the floor (yes, that was on purpose, I now admit), I was lost in your smile. Being your husband made doing my job worth it.

  I’ve asked Will to watch out for you. Mostly because I know he’ll need some task to hang on to. He doesn’t have our faith, and he’ll be lost. He’s so close to salvation; I just know that one of these days he’s going to be swept into the arms of Jesus. And when that happens, he’ll need a friend, someone who can support him. God has been good to give me a buddy like Will. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have made it out of Iraq. Remember that when he shows up at your door, smelling like tequila or the back forty. Underneath that swagger and wild smile is a good man who has the potential to be used by God.

  The days away from you are getting harder. Or maybe it’s because the tension here feels as thick as a South Dakota windstorm. People in camp are on edge—rumors of attacks and fears about the future weigh conversations. I feel it and even though we’re here to maintain peace, I sense trouble. Or maybe this is just my natural reaction after 9/11. It seems the whole world is anxious … waiting. Holding their breath for the next attack. Even here, among the nations who fight for peace, there is fear. Mistrust. I sometimes wonder if the terrorists planned it this way—for us to suspect each other and weaken us f
rom within while they plot to destroy us from without.

  I look back to my childhood and know I was blessed. Will our children feel the same? Will they know endless, carefree summer nights, cozy winters in a sleigh? I don’t know. I do know that whatever the world looks like on the outside, our faith in God is the only thing we can depend on. Only He knows a person’s— even a leader’s—heart. Only He can heal our world. I have depended on my faith … and because of that, you can trust I am happy. Safe. Because, Bonnie, God is my portion.

  I pray He is also yours, sweetheart. Please tell the girls I love them.

  Your best friend and husband—always,

  Lew

  Chapter 1

  TODAY, MORE THAN any other, reporter Will Masterson prayed that his lies would save lives. Starting with his partner’s, Homeland Security Agent Simon Rouss, aka Hafiz Tarkan.

  Please, God, be on my side today. Will raced on foot down the two-lane, rutted, forest-service road, cursing his stupidity as well as a few new souvenir bruises. He smelled rain in the air as the wind shivered the trees with a late-season breeze. His nose felt thick and caked with clots. He should have known his sympathetic commentaries in the Moose Bend Journal toward the recent immigrants flooding over the Canadian border would draw blood with the locals. Blood that would hopefully protect Simon while he embedded deeper into the terrorist cell in the hills.

  Because Will knew the men who’d hijacked him and hauled him into the forest to beat the tar out of him over his recent op-ed piece weren’t actually disgruntled rednecks but rather international terrorists.

  The lie that had just saved Will Masterson’s hide, the lie perpetuated by the boys toting 30.06s and wearing work boots, was the only thing keeping Simon from being brutally murdered. Which would only be the first in a hundred—maybe a thousand—murders by the Hayata terrorist cell hiding in the northern Minnesota woods.

  If only Will hadn’t been ambushed by the double-edged sword called failure sitting in his PO box. A letter from Bonnie. He’d opened it, and the words knifed him through the chest: Bonnie Strong and Paul Moore invite you to a celebration of life and love in our Lord Jesus Christ.

  He should have dropped the invitation to his floorboard and crushed it under his foot. Instead, he’d let the memories, the grief, the failure rush over him and blind him to the three men lying in wait like a nest of rattlers. He should have done better by Lew’s wife, protected her, made sure she was safe. Who was this Paul?

  A year of undercover work, of slinking around this hick town, praying for a way to destroy the Hayata cell, and it all had to come to a head the same day his mistakes rose from the past to haunt him.

  Sorry, Lew.

  “Tell Bonnie and the girls I love them.” Lew’s words, hovering in the back of Will’s mind could still turn his throat raw after three years. If Simon bought it, Will would be sending yet another letter home to a wife and loved ones.

  Soldiers had no business getting married.

  Will’s breath felt like a razor inside his lungs. A branch clipped him, and blood pooled inside his mouth. Ruts and stone bit into his cowboy boots as he ran, and sweat lined his spine. The sky mirrored his despair in the pallor of gray, the clouds heavy with tears. How long had he been unconscious after they’d thrown him off the four-wheeler?

  Better question—how much did they guess about his alliance with Simon? Obviously, the good ol’ boys who snatched him as he’d sat in his truck, waiting for his contact, knew Will’s habits. Simon’s habits. They’d found them, despite the fact that he and Simon had picked the backwoods gravel pit for its remoteness. But please, please let them believe my lies … which would mean maybe Simon’s cover hadn’t been blown.

  Maybe there wouldn’t be another unnamed star embedded in the wall of honor at Langley … like Lew’s.

  Thunder rolled overhead when Will burst from the road onto the gravel pit. Yes, thank you, the thugs/terrorists/angry readers hadn’t damaged his wheels. Probably, however, they thought his 1984 Chevy wasn’t worth their time.

  What they didn’t know was that reporter Will Masterson didn’t just spend his time penning controversial editorials and writing the crime beat for the local weekly. Under the hood of this baby, he had a 350 Hemi with a high-lift cam and a four-barrel Edelbrock Thunder carb.

  They didn’t call him Wild Will for nothing. Okay, he’d earned that nickname for different reasons, during a different life. But sometimes the moniker still meant something. Like now as he hopped in and slammed all three hundred and fifty horses to the floor, spitting gravel behind him as he raced to the Howlin’ Wolf.

  Plan B.

  Please, Simon, be there. Or, if he’d been forced to make a fast exit, let him have taped his latest intel under Will’s favorite table.

  After a year of undercover work, he and Simon had one chance—one click in time—to get it right. One opportunity to avenge the thousands of victims who died at the hands of terrorists around the globe. Victims like Lew.

  Please, Simon, be there.

  The late-afternoon drizzle seemed a fitting backdrop to the painful truth that Search and Rescue (SAR) canine handler Dannette Lundeen had to voice to the crowd of damp search-and-rescue personnel combing Lookout Mountain near the fields behind the High Pines Rest Center.

  June Hanson—dementia patient, age eighty-six, grand-mother of seven, great-grandmother of fourteen, and recent escapee from the nursing home—would probably be returned to her family in a body bag.

  Please, Lord, don’t let her die alone. Dannette crouched beside Missy, her German shepherd/golden retriever mix, and scratched the dog’s floppy ear. Missy’s respirations came one on top of another, her stacked breathing a natural alert for the smell of something near or already dead. Trained in search and rescue, Missy and Dannette had recovered more than their share of casualties, and Dannette read the diminishing potential for success in her animal’s demeanor.

  Twilight threaded gray fingers around the trees, through the brambled forest, and around shaggy pines and spindly poplars. A crisp breeze, dredged up from the still-soggy earth, whistled against Dannette’s hood. She felt chapped, hungry, and worn birch-bark thin. And, with night encroaching, hope had dwindled with the sunshine to a meager shadow.

  From her backpack she drew out a water bottle, set down a collapsible bowl, and filled it. Missy lapped greedily.

  Fifty feet away, she heard the echo of Kelly’s call to her dog, Kirby. The younger SAR shepherd, out on his first real trial, probably hadn’t yet picked up the scent cone or Kelly would be radioing Dannette for advice.

  The overpowering smell of death scared most dogs. Then again, it didn’t exactly warm Dannette’s insides with a happy feeling.

  Dannette stood and let Missy finish her water. Maybe Missy was wrong. She wasn’t Super Dog, although Dannette had to admit that following Missy’s instincts often led them to hideouts unthinkable even to the most keen SAR personnel. And Missy was an air-scent dog, which meant she followed the smells left by the scraping of skin on rocks, trees, and bushes. Sadly, Missy’s abilities decreased as the day worsened.

  If only it hadn’t taken the nursing-home staff an hour after June turned up missing at morning breakfast to call the sheriff ’s office, then two more hours and the urging of the mayor— June’s desperate son—to finally call Kelly, their local, nearly certified K-9 handler. Not only had a late-morning shower diffused the scent cone left by Mrs. Hanson by then, but the variable winds and temperatures had scattered the scent and confused Missy. They’d walked the perimeter in a hasty search for two more hours before Missy caught the scent and alerted them to Mrs. Hanson’s trail.

  Dannette found that, as usual, the dementia patient didn’t stick to the deer trails or clearings. Mrs. Hanson had pushed through honeysuckle and raspberry bushes, climbed over downed birches, crossed a stream, and ascended a hill that should have put her in traction. Even dementia patients who struggled to move in ordinary circumstances proved they still had gumption w
hen some errant impulse revved up their synapses. But Mrs. Hanson had lived a stout life, had run a farm until her husband’s death a few years ago, and would probably still be milking her Jersey if her mind hadn’t betrayed her. The woman could easily be a mile from here or sitting atop Lookout Mountain.

  Or injured.

  Or—if Dannette read her dog correctly—dead.

  Missy sat on her haunches and licked her lips. Water dripped off her jowls.

  Dannette picked up the empty bowl and shoved it back into her backpack. “Okay, ready?”

  Missy tilted her head.

  “I know, sweetheart. But if it makes you feel any better, I’m glad you’re here. You handle death so much better than Sherlock. He’d have his hackles up and be cowering under that white pine.” She stepped away from Missy, changed her tone. “Find.”

  They’d been working on a free search all afternoon, after Missy’s first alert. With Kelly and Kirby twenty-five feet to the west, Dannette let Missy run twenty-five feet or more ahead, quartering the wind for scent debris. Dannette checked her GPS with her map, pinpointed her position, and radioed the incident commander.

  “10-4, Search One,” replied Sheriff Fadden.

  Dannette pictured the guy as she’d last seen him, wearing a black, lined Windbreaker, his stomach rebelling against the snaps, using a bullhorn to direct traffic at the nursing home. Just what June Hanson’s loved ones needed as they watched the chaos.

  To add to their pain, Dannette had seen two news reporters from the local rags already lurking, smelling blood. The leeches.

  “Just heard from Search Two,” Fadden continued. “Kirby alerted to scent and Kelly is tracking north toward Lookout Cliff.”

  He had a flattened Midwestern accent, although nothing else about him could be labeled flat. Including his ego. One month of working with or around him with the local SAR crew told her that she’d have better luck trying to reason with a bull moose. Dannette had no doubt that if Fadden could get away with it, he’d drop-kick her and her SAR dog back to her home state.