Don’t shine your flashlight, thought Jake. Everything is fine. All is well.
For now, wishful thinking was all he had. When he’d formulated this plan, he hadn’t known his life would depend upon it.
He kept his eyes closed and continued to offer up deep, steady breaths. It was still too early to think his ruse had succeeded, but Screech no longer seemed to be trying to hide his movements. He was whispering to himself again. “I’m here to make sure he don’t suffer none, Jeezus. I’m here to pray for his soul. Ain’t no one else going to be witness to him. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.”
The whispering stopped, and Jake had the sensation of Screech looking at him in the darkness. He remained still, not even daring to breathe. It was likely Screech had upped the potency of his injection. He would have wanted to make sure that Jake didn’t awake before the coup de grâce was administered.
Screech’s whispering started up again, and Jake heard him walking toward where the shoveling was going on. When Jake had been planning his escape, he’d only taken into account having to deal with Screech. Now there was a second person to contend with.
He offered up a silent prayer. His best opportunity to get away would occur only if the second man continued shoveling while Screech came back and unlocked the cage. Jake would have to act as soon as the lock was removed. Surprise would certainly be on his side, but it had been more than an hour since he’d moved. His body would be stiff and might not be able to react as quickly as he’d like. If so, that would eliminate the element of surprise. Screech might even have time enough to get out and relock the cage.
And what if Screech returned with the second man? If that occurred, Jake would have no choice but to try and fight his way to freedom. Given his physical condition, he knew the odds of his surviving wouldn’t be great.
I’ll go out fighting, though, he vowed.
He waited, the passing minutes seeming impossibly long. In the distance he could hear Screech and the other man talking as the sound of shoveling continued. The forest soil would have a lot of roots, or at least that’s what Jake hoped. That would make the digging go more slowly. Anything that bought him more time was welcome.
The approach of footsteps curbed Jake’s thoughts and fears. He was relieved to hear the sound of shoveling continuing. Screech was returning on his own.
That’s when Jake heard another voice, a familiar voice. “Don’t worry, Jake,” Blake said. “I got your back, brother.”
In his mind, Jake answered, “I got your back, brother.”
Feeling that Blake was there with him brought a peace to Jake that he hadn’t felt since his abduction. The calm couldn’t have come at a better time. Nearby he heard a key turning in a lock, and the chain around the cage door coming free. The chain clanked as it struck the ground. Then Jake heard the door open.
“Hey, you!” Screech shouted.
Jake didn’t stir. The sensation of Blake being with him was the only thing that saved him from reacting to Screech’s sudden shout. Though his eyes were closed, Jake was able to make out a light shining on his face. Screech was using a flashlight to study him.
That wasn’t enough. “Whatcha doin’?” yelled Screech.
Jake continued his steady breathing.
Satisfied that his prisoner was passed out, Screech made his way into the cage.
In his head, Jake heard Blake say, “Not yet.”
Screech was getting closer. “Like Mary Magdalene done your feet, Jeezus, I be seein’ to the anointin’. My hands got no part in this here killin.’”
“Wait,” Blake advised.
Screech’s breath was ragged. It sounded like he was crawling now. The two of them would be on the same level.
“Get ready,” said Blake.
In his mind’s eye, Jake imagined Screech reaching for him. He would be bent over in the confines of the cage, trying to figure the best way to drag him out.
“Now,” said Blake.
Jake felt a hand make contact with his ankle. His leg was bent at an angle, just waiting for the opportunity to react. Jake kicked out, his foot catching Screech’s neck and snapping his head back against the metal cage. The surprise attack left Screech gasping for air. “Run!” said Blake.
Jake began crawling over Screech, who struggled to breathe. His captor wasn’t totally incapacitated, though. He grabbed at Jake’s leg as he passed by. With a backward kick, Jake struck out again, smashing his foot into Screech’s rib cage.
Because most of his wind had been knocked out of him, Screech’s scream was muted. Jake got to his feet and quickly shuffled out of the cage. He closed the door, chained it shut, and listened for the sound of the other man approaching. Luck was with him. The second man was still busy shoveling.
Jake tried to straighten up but found himself unable to. His captivity had left him bent over. Still, he had to put distance between himself and the man digging his grave. The darkness was Jake’s friend. The man with the shovel was about fifty yards away and had his back to him.
Without thinking about it, Jake grabbed the gas can and began running. He was only able to get a few steps before Screech regained his wind and began shouting. Jake raced toward the woods, hoping the night and the trees would offer enough cover for him to escape. He could hear someone crashing through the ground cover behind him.
The woods were five steps away. Four. Jake was running as fast as he could, but his imprisonment had taken its toll. There was no way he could outrun them. He was just too weak.
“I got your back, brother.”
Blake was talking to him again.
“It’s time to play hide and go seek,” said Blake. “There’s a good tree now.”
Jake saw the tree. It was larger than most of the surrounding trees. The trunk was thick enough that he could hide his frame behind it. Jake gave his all in a final sprint, and then slammed his back against the tree. Had he made it there undetected? Jake wasn’t sure. He sucked in a lungful of air and tried to quiet his heavy breathing.
He didn’t have to wait long. The crunch of leaves announced the man’s approach. Jake heard the clang of metal on a rock and realized the man had brought the shovel with him.
The footsteps slowed. The man was listening, trying to pick up any sounds of Jake’s escape. The stillness made him more cautious. He made a careful approach. Jake tracked the sounds, inching his body around the tree, away from his pursuer. The shadows of the forest canopy cloaked him.
“You got this, little bro,” said Blake. “Warm,” he said, “warmer, hot . . .”
The glint of raised metal showed itself. The shovel was held out, ready to be swung. Jake stepped toward the inside of the shovel, and with a backhand swing smashed the gas can into the man’s face. There was the crack of breaking bones, and the metal can split.
Screaming, the man dropped to the ground. The gasoline spilled out onto his face, burning the man’s eyes. Jake tossed the can down and made his way into the night.
31
TAKE A KNEE
Adrenaline pushed Jake at a good pace, its effects giving him a boost for at least a mile. But the rush that had accompanied his escape abandoned him and left him feeling shaky. He wished he’d downed more of the doctored bug juice before escaping. He tried to ignore the feeling of cramps, even though with each step he became aware of an increased gravity. An opioid user would describe his symptoms as jonesing.
As Jake walked, he began trembling, but he couldn’t blame the cold. It was the frigid touch of drug withdrawal.
He tried to be methodical in his movements. He traveled in the direction he believed would take him to a road, and civilization, but even with the light of the moon, it wasn’t easy navigating the terrain. He found himself following a game trail, although he couldn’t find anything to suggest it was ever traveled by those with two legs. He began to pause more frequently, and he took to marking trees to make sure he wasn’t wandering around in circles.
The woods started to thin out, allowing
him to see more easily, but no road presented itself, nor did he spot any distant lights. Judging from a few things Screech had said, Jake suspected he was in the southeastern part of the state near the Kentucky border. It was
244
a sparsely populated part of West Virginia, an area he didn’t know very well. The sound of slow-running water drew him to a creek, and he drank deeply. Normally he would have feared contracting giardia, or some other waterborne illness, but he couldn’t afford to get dehydrated. Already his stomach felt hollow, as if it were missing something. Before the cramping grew too bad and he became too debilitated to move, he needed to find help.
He followed the stream as it wended downstream. He’d heard that if you were lost, following a source of water was usually a good way to locate civilization. He hoped that would prove true.
His confinement in the cage, along with being drugged, had left him weak. Hours after his escape, he still found it difficult to stand up straight. The vertiginous feeling impeded his walking, and despite trying to move forward carefully, he kept stumbling. The branches and stones along the creek bed seemed positioned just so as to trip him up. Although he’d so far avoided falling, his plodding pace made him impatient.
There had to be a damn house around here. And where was that road? Every few minutes he would stop and listen, hoping to hear something. It was possible a road was close by, but because of the hour, no one was out driving.
The fear of making his situation worse finally brought Jake to a stop. Once daylight arrived, people would be up and about. He’d have a much better chance of finding someone. Besides, he was tired of stumbling around.
Once more he filled his stomach with water from the creek. His hope was to stave off the cramping he was beginning to feel, but it didn’t seem to help. He curled up on the ground.
Dawn felt as if it would never arrive. His roiling stomach and pounding head seemed to slow time, filling him with only the
246 / L A W A N D A D D I C T I O N awareness of his ailing body. Finally, though, the day broke, and Jake continued with his marathon. He felt like one of those runners who had hit the wall. Of course, in his case that wasn’t it exactly. He was dealing with opioid deprivation, not low blood sugar and a buildup of lactic acid. Still, like one of those runners, he’d reached the crossover point where he was fatigued and disoriented. There was a part of him that wasn’t there.
He could die, he realized, and it might be a long time before his body was even found.
Got to keep moving. Got to stay alive.
Step by step he followed the creek. One foot and then another. That was all he could do.
When the path along the stream widened, Jake didn’t notice at first. It was all he could do to keep moving. He almost walked by the dirt pullout before it registered with him. Raising his head, he saw that beyond the pullout was the broken asphalt of a country road.
He made his way to the road. Tears began to fall from his eyes.
Early in his escape, Jake had been unsure of what he’d do when he found a road. He’d been afraid that Screech and his friends might be driving the roads searching for him. Now, that didn’t matter. What he needed most was his fix of opioids. Jake dropped to a knee.
“Take a knee, boys,” he remembered Coach Rockwell, his high school football coach, saying. Everyone had called him Coach Rock.
The coach had said those words on those rare occasions during practice when he’d allowed the players to rest. Even then, though, the coach had used that quiet time to explain something. Somehow, like magnets that attracted one to the other, Jake and Blake had always taken a knee right next to each other.
From one knee, Jake was waiting for whatever Coach Rock had to say. But it wasn’t Coach Rock who was speaking. Jake looked up to see a pickup truck coming his way.
He managed to raise a hand and wave.
32
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE
Anna looked at the name and number displayed on her cell phone screen. Caller ID showed the call was coming from Williamson Memorial Hospital. In the time Jake had been gone, Anna had received calls from a lot of individuals she would have preferred not talking to. She was fairly sure she didn’t know anyone in Williamson, and for a moment considered letting the call go to voice mail, but that was something she still found herself unable to do. Maybe it’s Jake on the other line, she thought. It was the same thing she thought every time an unusual number came up, even though she’d been disappointed time and again.
This time, though, her hope was justified. When she heard Jake’s familiar voice on the other line, Anna asked, “Is it really you?”
And then she found herself wiping away tears, repeating “Thank God” over and over, and talking to the man she loved.
Four members of the media, three men and one woman, were situated on the steps below the landing at Williamson Memorial Hospital. A microphone stand had been positioned above them so that everyone could hear what the Good Samaritan had to say. Earlier in the morning, Ethan Carter had been traveling on a country road in eastern Mingo County when missing lawyer Jake Rutledge had flagged him down.
Cameras were trained on Carter, who seemed to enjoy being the center of attention. He came across as a good ol’ boy. He was fortyish, had a two-day beard, and was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. A pack of smokes could be seen in his shirt pocket. According to Carter, he worked as a “jack of all trades.”
“When I first seen him,” he said, “I thought he was a ghost.” Then he added, “A dirty ghost.”
The media laughed.
“When did you realize your passenger was Jake Rutledge?” asked one of the reporters.
“It was a few minutes,” said Ethan. “At first all he kept saying was that he was sickly.”
“Sickly?” called a woman. “Did he elaborate?”
“Not right off,” he said. “But I surely believed what he was telling me. He smelled something awful. I even thought about having him ride in the cargo bed.”
Another reporter spoke up. “Did he ask you to take him to this hospital?”
“What he told me was that he needed to get to the nearest emergency room,” said Ethan.
“Did he say what ailed him?” asked the reporter.
“Yes, he did,” said Carter. “He told me he was going through withdrawals.”
At those words, the four reporters all straightened up. They had their lead.
With Bennie driving, Deke and Carol were both able to work their phones. Deke sat in the back seat with Anna, and between calls tried to comfort her with reassuring smiles and a few supportive pats on her hands. According to what Anna had told them, Jake was
248 in a bad way. He’d said his captors had turned him into an addict. Despite Anna assuring him that all would be well now that he was free, Jake believed that he had somehow let her down, as well as his friends.
While Carol was working with law enforcement trying to locate where Jake had been held as prisoner, Deke was on the phone with the hospital, making arrangements on Jake’s behalf. He was able to get Jake a private suite, and he persuaded the hospital administration to agree to his bringing in specialists to treat Jake. Deke made it clear that he would accept nothing less than the best when it came to Jake’s treatment.
Even though Team Jake had gotten a head start on the media announcement, news of the lawyer’s return was now circulating around the state. To keep the media, as well as other unwanted visitors, from bothering Jake during his recovery, Deke hired a security team to control access to Jake.
Between making her own calls, Carol was also monitoring the radio news, flipping between the stations.
“The news seems to be following a familiar script,” she said. “After they announce when and where Jake turned up, the next thing they mention is that he was hospitalized as a consequence of his drug addiction.”
“What they should be saying,” said Anna, “is that he was hospitalized to deal with the aftereffects of barbaric captivity. Anyon
e confined in a pen for a month would have been hospitalized, even if they hadn’t become drug dependent during their ordeal.”
“We’ll be addressing that,” Deke promised. “We’ll also be putting out a more complete narrative. We won’t question the state of his return, but we will stress our delight at his making it out alive. And we’ll be very vocal about the need to find those who abducted him.”
“We should also talk about how he escaped,” said Anna. “He’d still be locked up in a pen if he hadn’t figured a way out. He’s a hero, not a villain.”
“That’s the way I see it as well,” said Deke. “And that’s what we’ll be telling the world.”
Anna nodded. Her cheeks were red. It was understandable that she wasn’t thrilled about the character assassination of her boyfriend.
“We need to get the word out that his captors made Jake an addict,” she said. “Jake told me his only source of water was infused with opioids. His choice was either to die of thirst or to become an addict.”
“In a month’s time he became an addict?” asked Bennie.
“That’s all it takes,” said Deke. “The Big Three claim they didn’t know how addictive opioids are, but we’ve uncovered documents that show they did. Regardless, they advised doctors to prescribe three months of pills for pain, which was typically ninety pills. As it turned out, patients taking opioids can become addicted in just one month.”
“This is so unfair,” said Anna. “Jake was deliberately poisoned by someone.”
“Don’t worry,” said Deke. “We’re going to help Jake, and we’re going to get the true story out there. For now, though, you have to be strong for him. A few years ago, I was accused of murder. At the time it seemed as if I was deemed guilty by virtually everyone in Florida. I was able to get through that terrible time because of my wife, Teri. She provided me unconditional love, along with the supportive safe haven I desperately needed.”
“I’ll do the same for Jake,” Anna said. “And that’s a promise.”
If there still was a heart of coal country in West Virginia, it could be found in Mingo County. Fewer than five hours after Jake had been picked up on a backwoods road, Bennie pulled into the parking lot at Williamson Hospital.
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