Authors: Julia Spencer-Fleming
Tags: #RETAIL
The thought of the truck reaffirmed his plan. He unhitched his rifle and slogged back uphill toward the road back to the garage. Russ figured he could break his pickup—or Roy’s SUV—out of the garage, get it going, and be down the road at the rendezvous point without the cabin’s inhabitants knowing. He needed backup. The two men weren’t the problem, exactly. It was the presence of Mikayla Johnson that was the unknown quantity. Was she there? Did they know where she was? Either way, he wanted enough manpower to shut the house down utterly when they moved in, without a shot being fired.
The garage door was just like the one at their cabin—with the very same lousy lock built into the handle. Russ leaned against the door, centered his boot over the top of the handle, then stomped hard. The cheap metal snapped off. He bent down and hooked his gloved fingers in the circular opening left by his vandalism. He yanked the door up.
Yes!
His truck was parked nose-in, snug against the SUV.
Another rifle shot cracked, metallic and unforgiving. Russ dropped to the road, flinging his arms over his head against splinters from the garage door. Then Oscar, barking and barking. Another shot. This time, he could hear its echo, which was too far away to be from the front of the house, and realized with cold certainty that he wasn’t the target. Which meant—
Clare.
He scrambled up. He sprinted down the road, skidding and flailing to keep on his feet. When he reached the thicket of trees standing between Roy’s house and the darkened cabin next door, he plunged downslope, heedless of the branches whipping across his face and torso. He heard another shot, differently pitched—a sidearm?—and a sharp canine yelp.
He almost missed the glint of the flashlight. He stopped his headlong flight by thudding whole-body into a birch, the shock radiating along his bones.
Clare.
Thank God. He could make out her silhouette, along with two men, one of them carrying … Russ raised his rifle and scoped again. The light was lousy, but he was pretty sure one of them was carrying a little girl. He began to squeeze the trigger, then released it. No. He was a good marksman, but he wasn’t going to risk this shot, not with the rain and the darkness and his wife right there between the two of them.
He tamped down the part of him that wanted to tear across the open land and knock the bastards down. If he was going to help Clare, he needed to think, not react. He could use his truck radio to call for assistance, but given the weather emergency, God knew how many hours it would be before help arrived. Roll DeJean’s SUV down the hill and hope it smashed into the house? Draw them away from Clare and the house somehow?
Yeah. Make him the one they should worry about, not a pregnant woman. He could call down to them, claim he’d broken his leg, offer to turn himself in. Use his truck as cover and pick them off when they popped over the top of the stairs and stepped onto the road. He was already headed back upslope, churning through the trail he had broken minutes before, as the plan took shape in his head. It wasn’t, he admitted, a very good plan. But he had run out of good yesterday. Maybe the day before. Now all his options were crap and crappier.
“Van Alstyne!” A shout he could easily hear over the freezing rain. “We know you’re out there! We got your wife!”
Russ shivered involuntarily but kept going. Forget the truck. No time. His only hope of luring them close would be if they thought he had no chance and no cover. Sprawled out on the frozen road with a “broken leg” fit the bill.
“Did you hear me, Van Alstyne? We’ve got your wife! Come on over and check it out! You can see her from the road!”
Clare. Hold on, darlin’. Hold on.
He focused on reaching the road. Only on reaching the road. If he gave in to the fear urging him to break cover and charge, they could both die.
“Van Alstyne!” Russ topped the hill and skidded onto the icy surface of the road. Careful now. He didn’t want to bust a bone for real. “You out there, Van Alstyne?”
Russ half ran, half slid back up the road. Scanning for the spot to lay his trap. Back by the garage, as far away from the light at the top of the stairs as possible.
“You better show yourself, Van Alstyne! My buddy here’s fixing to fuck your wife!”
Russ’s brain whited out. He whirled and staggered to the lip of the hill. They were framed by the door lights, Clare bound and struggling, one man tight behind her with a gun at her temple, another man yanking—
He raised his rifle. At the last split second a sliver of rationality pierced his mind-wiping rage.
You can’t reach the other guy. If you shoot his partner, he’ll shoot Clare.
He swung the bore away and blasted the door lights, one, two, exploding in a shower of sparks and glass. He galloped down the hill, ignoring the ice-covered stairs, slipping, falling, rolling back onto his feet. He reached the front of the house while the men were still shouting at each other. He raised his rifle again.
“Police!” he roared. “Drop your weapons and step away from the woman!” In the faint ambient light from the side windows, Russ could see Clare’s would-be rapist raise his hands and shuffle backward.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” His partner sounded disgusted. “He’s not going to shoot us while we have her.”
Russ fired at the other man. The bullet thudded into the side of the house, showering him with splinters. The man yipped.
“Van Alstyne.” Behind Clare, her captor shifted. “This is your wife, right? So I’m guessing this is your kid in here.” He removed the automatic from Clare’s temple. Pressed it against the side of her straining abdomen. “I could shoot her right through here. Wouldn’t kill her right away. Might even survive if she got to the hospital in time.”
“Please.” Clare’s voice was a gasp. “Please, don’t hurt my baby. Please.”
“Put the rifle down, Daddy.”
“Listen—”
“I’m not negotiating with you. Put the rifle down or she has a very messy abortion.”
Russ squatted and laid the rifle on the snow.
“Kick it away.”
He kicked the stock. The rifle slid across the ice-crusted snow.
“Travis, get his gun.”
The other man crossed behind Russ and picked the rifle up. He heard the crunch of the guy’s boots. His pause. The swish of something swinging through the rain. Russ only had time to register the stunning pain before he pitched forward into blackness.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 13
1.
Russ was underwater. It was cold, a deep surrounding cold that left no space to be warm, and he could hear the pulsing of a motorboat engine as it throttled its way across the surface of the lake, far overhead.
Thrum. Thrum. Thrum. Thrum.
Every pulse sent an answering throb of pain through his head. He wanted to sink to the bottom of the lake, curl up, and go back to sleep, but he had to get out of here. Had to swim up, up, up as flashes of memory and emotion slid past him, closer, the motorboat so much closer now, and then he broke the surface and opened his eyes.
He was lying on a wooden floor with his head in Clare’s lap. It was dark, and there was a heavy, rough blanket over him. For a moment, he saw the faint glow of the electric oven and thought,
I fell asleep. We need to leave this place to get past Roy’s before morning.
Then the glow resolved itself into a thread of light beneath a closed door. The motor roar was louder than ever, and his head was pounding. He groaned.
“Russ?” Her voice was low. “Oh, thank God.”
“You”—his voice was rusty—“okay?”
“Yeah.” She sounded shaky.
The last minutes before he had been clubbed into unconsciousness reassembled themselves in his brain. “Are you … did they—”
“No. No. He didn’t.” She paused. “Although I may have competition with my helicopter nightmares from now on.”
“Sorry. So sorry, love. Shouldn’t have…” He trailed off. The list of shouldn’t-haves was too long to enumerate. He realized his head was pillowed against her belly. “Baby? Okay?”
“Yes, thank God.”
“Where … we?” He winced. He could form the sentences perfectly in his pounding head, but they weren’t coming out right. “Concussed,” he said raggedly.
“I think you’re right. You’ve been unconscious for hours. I was so—oh, God, I wish I could put my arms around you.” She took a breath, and when she spoke again, her voice was firmer. “We’re in a kind of attached storage shed.” He could feel a slight movement—Clare looking around. “There’s a canoe, life vests, lawn chairs. That sort of stuff.”
“Noise…”
“It’s the generator. The power went out about an hour or so after you … after you were hurt. That’s when they stuffed us in here.” He could hear a grim satisfaction in her voice. “When the lights went out, I head-butted Travis into the next room and took off. Didn’t get any farther than the front door. But I thought it was worth a try.”
“That’s … girl.” He flexed his shoulders. His arms were stretched behind his back, something unyielding around his wrists.
“It’s duct tape. I didn’t find anything sharp enough to cut through in here.”
“How long…”
“I don’t know. I’ve dozed on and off. I stopped hearing people moving around some time ago. I’m pretty sure everyone’s in bed.”
Well, he and Clare hadn’t been shot outright. That was good. “How many?”
“The little girl is here. I tried to get her away. That’s how they…” She breathed in. “There are two men, Travis Roy is the one with the beard. The other is Mikayla’s father.”
“Hector … DeJean.”
“Listen. I’ve been thinking. The whole place is being heated by electric heaters right now. Travis and Hector set them up after the power went out.”
Russ made a go-on noise.
“If we could sabotage the generator, this house would become unlivable pretty quickly. They’d have to pack their things and pull up stakes. Maybe bring us with them.”
“How … help us?”
“I’m not sure. But my SERE instructor used to say, ‘Sow confusion, reap opportunity.’ Anyway, I figured that would sow confusion. To be honest, we may be reaping the opportunity to freeze to death. If they leave with us still locked in here.”
“Without them … hear … escape.”
“Without them around to hear us, we can escape?” He heard the smile in her voice. “You have a lot of confidence for a man with his brains scrambled.”
“Still … smarter … them. Let me look … generator. Let me look … it.” He curled his knees toward his chest and rolled until he was kneeling with his head bowed against Clare’s legs. It felt like someone was playing tympani inside his skull. He took a deep breath and knelt upright, the blanket crumpling around him.
“Here. Let’s see if I can help.” Clare, he saw, had been leaning against a wall. Now she braced her shoulders and wiggled her way up to standing.
“Impressed.” He followed her lead, walking on his knees to the wall and tumbling himself into a seated position. His flannel shirt snagged over the rough timber as he slid to his feet. Uninsulated walls. The heat from the house bleeding through the door and the warmth thrown off by the generator were the only things keeping them from slipping below freezing.
He turned around slowly, careful to keep his head from falling off. The storage shed was maybe eight by ten. A collection of oars and mildewed life vests hung against the wall opposite them, along with a few deflated floaties and a badminton set wrapped in netting. Two canoes rested on the overhead rafters. There were vents installed along the eaves, which was why they weren’t choking in fumes right now.
The generator itself sat on cinder blocks near the rear corner. Russ took a shaky step closer and saw that the break in the back wall was a door.
“I tried it. It’s locked from the outside.”
That explained the snow shovel, broom, ice melt, and sand leaning against the rear wall. No tracking messy stuff through the house. He walked to the door and threw himself against it. Then again. The third time, he staggered back, almost retching from the pain in his head.
“I
told
you it was locked, you idiot.” Clare pressed against him, letting him rest his head on her shoulder. She leaned her cheek against his hair, stroking him without hands. “Why don’t you sit back down?”
He forced himself upright. His ears were ringing. “Generator.”
“Tell me how it works.”
“Internal combustion. Needs gas.” In the corner, past the bags of ice melt and sand, he saw two five-gallon canisters of gasoline and a container of oil. Now
that
could sow confusion. Unfortunately, they’d both be fried in the process.
“Is that all? I thought it was some complicated electrical thing.” She pointed to the bag of sand with her chin. “If you can help me move that, I think we can pour some into the fuel tank.”
It was awkward and painful, but they managed to squat down back-to-back and grasp the open bag with their bound hands. They heaved it up and rested it atop the oval five-gallon fuel tank. Clare’s fingers were a lot more agile than his, so she butted up against the edge and slowly unscrewed the cap. Then he tipped the bag over. The sand spilled, of course—on the fuel tank, on the generator, over the floor—but it also ran into the opening.
“I think that’s good.” Clare pinched the lip of the now-lightened bag and brought it upright. “Can you put it back while I get the cap on?”
Russ shuffled the bag over to its spot beside the ice melt and managed to wrap his hands around the broom handle. “My mom … job’s not done … clean up.”
Clare’s smile didn’t conceal her worry. “Okay. I’ll blow, you sweep.” They got most of the incriminating evidence off the fuel tank and under the generator. Hopefully, Roy and his buddy wouldn’t spend too much time trying to pinpoint what went wrong with the machine. When he backed up to replace the broom next to the shovel, he saw Clare head-butting life vests off their nails. She got two on the floor and kicked them over to where his blanket lay. “It’s gonna be a long night. We should try to rest,” she said. She hunkered down and let herself fall into a seated position.
Russ grunted assent and joined her. They kneed and kicked the blanket over themselves and laid their heads on the life vests. The nostalgic smell of mildew and lake water mingled with wool made him feel, against all reason, safe. Clare’s belly was a warm bulwark between them. He looked at her face, blurred and beloved in the shadowy dimness.
You’re the most courageous person I’ve ever known,
he wanted to say. Clare lived like a banner on a battlefield, never looking back, refusing to be set aside or left behind. People thought he was brave because he strapped on a gun when he went to work every day, but he didn’t have half her guts.