Touch & Go

by Lisa Gardner

  Surrounded by six hundred acres of mountains, marshes and deep wilderness. Closest town twenty miles away. Nearest PD even slightly beyond that. A facility so remote it was set up to house its own security team, except given that the prison was never funded, those barracks remained empty.

  Help wasn’t anywhere close. Looking at fifteen to twenty minutes ETA for first responders.

  While the police radio crackled to life with fresh reports. Sound of shots fired coming over Justin Denbe’s cell phone. Sound of female screaming. Call now dropped, unable to reconnect with the Denbe family.

  “Drive faster,” Tessa ordered Wyatt.

  “Now see, this is why you should hang out with sheriffs. We not only know how to drive faster, but we can also drive smarter.”

  Abruptly, Wyatt swung the vehicle left. They careened onto a dirt path Tessa would’ve sworn was a deer trail. She grabbed the oh shit handle just as he hit the gas.

  The cruiser launched, then settled into a bone-crunching gallop.

  “In the state of New Hampshire, the shortest distance between two points is rarely paved. But if you know where to look, you can almost find a dirt road. Ten minutes,” he announced. “Ten more minutes, then we’ll have the prison in our sight.”

  “THE DOOR,” Justin was yelling. “The door, the door, the door!”

  At first, I didn’t understand what he meant. Justin had gone down, the first shot from Mick’s gun dropping him like a rock, red blooming across his shoulder. Ashlyn had screamed, then instinctively dove behind me, leaving me standing alone, on one side of the vast control desk, Mick, still grinning madly, on the other.

  He turned his gun toward me. I ducked, then heard a grunt and watched him rock to the side; Justin, down but not out, had kicked him in the side of the kneecap.

  “Door!” my husband yelled again.

  Then I got it. We were trapped. In a space this small, Mick would mow us down in a matter of seconds. Escape back into the prison, where we could get out or at least spread out, was our only chance at survival.

  I bobbed up, ducking my head as I frantically stabbed at the touch screen, willing myself to stumble upon the door controls. We’d been in the security menu. I’d seen a door lock override. Where, where, where…

  Another shot. Two, three, four. My shoulders hunched reflexively and I practically felt the whistle of the last bullet as it whizzed by my ear.

  Then my daughter was suddenly standing, her eyes wild, her long hair a tangled mass as she heaved up a rolling desk chair and threw it at Mick with all her strength.

  “I hate you!” she screamed. “I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I fucking hate you.”

  A second desk chair went flying and now Mick was ducking for cover, swearing as he tangled briefly in one set of rolling chair legs, went down, tried to recover, got nailed by Justin again in the kneecaps and landed hard.

  There! Override. I jabbed at the bright red button. “Are you sure?” a dialogue box squawked at me. Override releases all inner and outer doors…

  Override, override, override! Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!

  Ashlyn had found the walkie-talkies. A dozen had sat in a neat row of charging stations around the outer perimeter. Now she turned them into missiles, humming them one after another at the top of Mick’s head. He cursed again, pinned behind the control desk by her relentless assault.

  The control room door swung open just as Ashlyn hurled the last walkie-talkie. I couldn’t see Justin, but I heard his voice, commanding clearly:

  “Run, goddammit. Get her out of here!”

  I didn’t need to be told twice. We had our deal, parent to parent. Either one of us was expendable. It was Ashlyn who mattered.

  I grabbed my daughter’s hand and pulled her from the control room.

  While behind us, Mick once again opened fire.

  WYATT HIT THE CREST OF THE HILL HARD. Briefly, the cruiser was airborne, and in that moment, Tessa spotted it. A vast compound at least ten miles away, perched up on a knoll, dominated by a large, obviously institutional building, and surrounded by miles and miles of razor-wire fencing.

  The cruiser landed. They both grunted on impact. Then Wyatt was fishtailing back down the dirt road, hurtling them out of the woods, onto pavement. A hard right, and they were headed north, flying up a newly paved road as trees blurred into a long green tunnel around them.

  “That’s huge!” Tessa exclaimed. “How will we find them?”

  “Follow the sound of gunshots. You wearing a vest?”

  “Yes.”

  The whole team had donned them at two thirty. Expecting that the call might lead to action, and while you hoped for the best, a good cop always planned for the worst.

  Tessa couldn’t help but think of Sophie, her daughter, who’d already lost a parent. And then, her daughter’s own prophecy, Look for them in a cold, dark place. What could be colder and darker than a mothballed prison?

  As Sophie had said, Ashlyn needed her. The whole family needed her.

  “I want the shotgun,” Tessa said.

  Wyatt flattened the accelerator to the floor, and once again, they shot forward.

  WE CLEARED THE CONTROL ROOM into the main corridor.

  “Dad,” Ashlyn gasped, her hand still clasped in mine.

  “Out, out, we need out.”

  “Dad!” My daughter actually dug in her heels, tried to halt our progress.

  I whirled on her, my expression so fierce, or maybe just so insane, my daughter gasped. “You forget him, Ashlyn Denbe. You forget me, too, if it comes to that. You get out of here. This is your last order, the one instruction I want you to remember. You survive. Your parents demand it of you.”

  “Mom—”

  “Shut up, child. He’s coming. Now run!”

  She did, straight down the hall toward the outer doors. I’d like to say Ashlyn was motivated by my speech, but far more likely, she was spooked by Mick’s inhuman roar as he finally cleared the control room, staggered into the hallway and turned toward us.

  I had a brief image. A huge pumped-up bear of a man with blood streaming down one half of his face where some of Ashlyn’s missiles had found their mark. He was clad all in black, covered in some kind of vest that virtually sprouted guns and ammo. And a knife. Strapped to his outer thigh. A huge, gleaming hunting knife that I could already tell he’d love nothing better than to use to gut me.

  He leveled the gun first. Aimed it straight at me while I stood, still rooted in place. He pulled the trigger. Forty feet back, an easy distance for a man of his training and marksmanship. The gun clicked empty.

  I couldn’t help myself. I smiled at the irony.

  Then, Mick threw the gun to the side and charged.

  I ran, following my daughter’s lead to the front doors. If we could just get outside, so many places for cover. And the police had to know. They’d been on the phone, they had to have seen something, heard everything. They’d be coming.

  If we could just get outside.

  Ashlyn hit the double-glass doors first. She was running so hard, the doors parted like water before a diver. I spotted a thin seam of brighter daylight, then she was through.

  Mick’s heavy-booted footsteps, growing louder and louder behind me.

  I tried to pour on the speed, a forty-five-year-old woman, suffering from withdrawal, nearly completely broken down, trying to reclaim some of her lost youth.

  I wasn’t going to make it. Mick was fit and well trained. And I was just me, a middle-aged woman whose heart was already pounding too hard in her chest. I felt simultaneously light-headed and nauseated, trying to find that inner gear, realizing there was nothing left. This is your body on drugs, I thought inanely. Apparently, a four-month diet of prescription painkillers did not do a body good.

  The glass doors, so close, if I could just get through…

  Then, daylight magically appeared before me. The door opening all on its own.

  Z stood directly in front of me, face impassive as I ra
ced straight for him. He had Ashlyn’s arm in a tight grip, twisting it behind her back as she grimaced in pain. Beyond him, Radar waited in the idling van, side door open.

  Of course, I’d seen them pull up. How stupid of me. We’d run right toward them, straight into the waiting arms of our captors.

  I couldn’t help myself. I screamed. In rage, frustration and sheer exhaustion.

  Then, because I had nothing left to lose, I hurled myself at Z, the man who held my daughter, and went for his eyeballs.

  “WHERE IS IT, where is it?” Tessa demanded to know. They had hit the first sign advising motorists not to stop for hitchhikers. Then, a sign notifying them they were on state property. Next should come the perimeter fencing, topped with rolls of razor wire, to be followed finally by a guardhouse marking the turn into the six-hundred-acre compound.

  But so far, nothing.

  Sky remained quiet overhead. No sign of the FBI chopper, which had probably launched from Concord. No roar of other sirens, though the local PD had to also be en route, not to mention the activation of the state’s SWAT team.

  Then, up ahead, the first glimmer of the sixteen-foot-tall, razor-wire-topped, fully electrified double-lined fence.

  “Rifle,” Wyatt ordered.

  She went to work removing it from its rack, as he shot past the fence, made a squealing right-hand turn and finally entered the prison grounds.

  Z WENT DOWN. I’m not sure what he’d expected. That I’d surrender, give up, fall apart. But certainly, not that I’d attack.

  Ashlyn stumbled to the side, then I was on him, raking my ragged nails across his face, trying to dig my thumbs into his eye sockets. The fanged cobra around his left eye hissed at me, but I ignored it, intent on my mission. Maim. Hurt. Make him bleed.

  Then I was unceremoniously plucked from Z’s body. Mick had me in his massive arms, lifting me up. I heard the fragile fabric of my fine wrap top tear; so much for Boston clothes. Then, Mick tossed me through the air. I landed hard on the asphalt drive, gasping as the breath was knocked from my body.

  Z leapt to his feet, clutching his left eye with one hand, while Mick yanked his knife from his leg holster and squared off against me and my daughter.

  I’d been right earlier. The blade was huge and serrated. And Mick was looking forward to using it. Very much. He wiped the last of the blood from the gash on his forehead, and grinned at us.

  My daughter was still on the ground beside me. She hiccupped slightly and I could see the fear on her face as she scrambled to her feet.

  Mick tossed his knife from his right hand to his left, then back again. Putting on a little show.

  Z, on the other hand, walked slowly backward to the waiting van, hand still covering his eye. Clearly, he thought Mick could handle us.

  “When I tell you to go,” I murmured to my daughter, “I want you to head back into the prison. Disappear. Hide anywhere you can. The police are coming, you just need to buy time.”

  Ashlyn didn’t speak. I could tell she understood the decision I’d made. And maybe she would’ve protested or hedged, but that knife, that giant, stainless steel blade, flashing from hand to hand…

  I wish Mick hadn’t run out of ammo. I would’ve much rather faced a bullet. But a knife attack was up close and personal. He was going to have to approach, then assault, and the ensuing struggle would buy the time for Ashlyn to escape. Justin had done his part in the control room. Now I would do mine.

  But I wondered, just for a second, if Mick had any other guns tucked into that vest. If I could just put my hands on a trigger. A single, up-close shot…

  I’d just started to take inventory when Mick charged.

  No roar this time.

  Just a swift, silent lunge that caught me flat-footed and completely unprepared. I saw the knife arc out, heard Ashlyn’s startled scream, then suddenly my vision was filled with two hundred pounds of snarling menace.

  Was my daughter running? I hoped she was running.

  I did the only thing I thought I might get away with, a brief memory of some article I’d read on a website, or maybe a story once relayed at Justin’s gun club, but when facing a larger opponent in hand-to-hand combat, close the gap between you. Actually move inside the kill zone, where your opponent can no longer hit you with the full force of his windup.

  In this case, I stumbled toward Mick. He was forced to stop short, his forward momentum and wildly swinging arc twisting him off balance. In that split second, I was beneath his arm, knocking against his chest. It must’ve looked like I was locking him in a lover’s embrace, but really I was frantically running my hands down his weapons vest, searching out anything that might help me.

  I was an experienced shooter. If I could just get my hands on a firearm, anything at this point-blank range…

  Mick grabbed my shoulders and savagely ripped me away from him. I stumbled, tried to counter with my own body weight, but at a mere hundred and ten pounds…

  He threw me across the covered causeway and I felt the instant burn of a hundred tiny rocks ripping the skin from the palms of my hands. I was still trying to climb to my feet when Mick once more assumed the position, legs crouched, blade flashing brightly as he tossed it expertly to his right hand.

  I didn’t have any more tricks up my sleeve. I simply raised my head and watched death come for me.

  The glass doors of the prison burst open.

  Justin lurched into the open space, bright red blood drenching his favorite blue dress shirt, his lips peeled back into an inhuman grimace. Twisting right, spotting me. Twisting left, spotting Mick.

  Then lunging head-on at the knife-wielding brute who’d attacked his family.

  “Noooo!”

  Justin’s scream. My own. Eighteen years of our lives so entangled, including this one final moment.

  Mick brought up his blade, half surprise, half defense.

  Justin continued charging. And Mick stabbed my husband straight into his chest.

  A gasp. A fresh scream. Ashlyn’s this time, from the doorway of the prison, where she’d reappeared, a fifteen-year-old girl still certain her father could slay monsters.

  Then, a new sound, faint, but closing the gap.

  Sirens. The cavalry, arriving at last.

  Too late for Justin.

  But maybe…

  I glanced up sharply. Saw it clearly in Z’s eyes from where he was crouched in the waiting van. Regret. Not for killing my husband, I was certain. But because they had run out of time to kill us, too.

  Justin had collapsed on top of Mick, one arm entangled in the other man’s vest, his body large enough to pin both of them in place. Now Z leapt out of the van. Given the approaching sirens, he seemed to reach some sort of internal decision. Rather than take the time to untangle Justin from Mick’s vest, he helped Mick heave Justin’s flopping corpse into the vehicle, Mick rolling in after him. Then, Z resumed his position.

  The van door slid shut.

  Radar gunned the engine.

  And they roared away. Just like that. Nine million dollars richer. Cold-blooded murderers of my husband. Making their getaway.

  My daughter wasn’t screaming anymore. Or crying.

  She just stood there, completely shell-shocked.

  After another moment, I crossed to her and put my arms around her trembling shoulders. We stood together, listening to the sirens come closer, and wondering if we’d ever again feel safe.

  Chapter 39

  TESSA SPOTTED LIBBY AND ASHLYN DENBE FIRST. They stood under a covered carport outside the main prison entrance. Libby’s clothing appeared torn to shreds and streaked with blood. In comparison, Ashlyn appeared in relatively better shape, but with a blank expression on her face. Shock, trauma, stress.

  Wyatt braked hard twenty feet back, and they threw open the doors, hands on their weapons.

  “Libby and Ashlyn?” Wyatt called out, still tucked behind the protective cover formed by his open door.

  The woman answered first. Her voice hoars
e but surprisingly steady. “Yes.”

  “How many remaining on the property?”

  “They’re gone. It’s just us. The commandos…all gone. My husband. Gone…” Libby’s voice broke. She folded her arms around her daughter’s still-frozen form, but whether she was seeking comfort or giving comfort remained unclear.

  Wyatt and Tessa exchanged glances. In a crisis situation, first order of business was to secure the scene, next tend to the victims, then give pursuit.

  They got to work.

  In Tessa’s days as a state trooper, she’d carried enough supplies to outfit a small village. Wyatt clearly thought the same. From his trunk, he produced blankets, water and energy bars. Without a word, Tessa went straight to the women, while Wyatt, weapon drawn, conducted a rapid inventory of the building.

  “My name is Tessa Leoni,” she introduced herself as she approached, voice calm, movements brisk. “I was hired by Denbe Construction to assist with finding you.”

  Libby and Ashlyn both stared at her. Up close, Tessa could see that the girl was unnaturally pale. She was also starting to shake. Small shivers now, but her condition would grow to full-on tremors if not dealt with quickly. Tessa threw two dark wool blankets around the girl’s shoulders, handed her a bottle of water and instructed her to drink.

  Libby Denbe was already rubbing her daughter’s shoulders. Her hands appeared lacerated and there were already bruises forming around her face and neck. And yet she still seemed in better shape than her daughter.

  “Ashlyn?” Tessa prodded more gently. “Ashlyn, honey, I need you to look at me. You’re going into shock. If we don’t do something about that, you’re going to feel a lot worse in a very short amount of time. I need you to drink some water, maybe have a bite to eat…”

  The girl simply stared at her, Libby rubbing, rubbing, rubbing her daughter’s bundled-up form.

  Tessa made a second attempt: “Ashlyn. Can you tell me how old you are?”