by Christa Wick
“Yeah, I saw her sitting on the tailgate, you were walking away with an ice chest.”
“She disappeared after my next load.”
My phone rang, Emerson’s number displaying.
“FBI,” I explained, taking the call.
“Okay,” I informed Emerson. “I have two guys on the exit. Still no sign of the cops.”
“Go back to your truck and make sure the area is secured. Not just the vehicle but a good twenty feet out in each direction. Is it paved?”
“Gravel,” I answered, sprinting toward the truck.
“Hurry up, then. People may be trampling over tire tracks and footprints.”
Emerson was right. Half a dozen people, instead of minding their own business or fanning out and searching for Ashley in case she was still in the area, stood near my truck gawking at the scene.
“Step back,” I growled. “Twenty feet back and retrace your steps. This is a federal agent missing and the FBI wants us to preserve all the ground evidence.”
“Very good, big brother,” Emerson soothed. “You’ve got a knack for this.”
“I don’t want a knack for it,” I rasped. “I want Ashley back.”
“We all do,” Emerson assured me. “She’s family. Not just because she’s law enforcement, but for what she means to you.”
“Good,” I said, my voice a raw wound. “Because Ash means everything to me.”
25
Ashley
Regaining consciousness, I stared past the torn edges of the burlap sack into the dark brown eyes of a fox, the area between its brows marked with a distinctive starburst of black. Crouched in an attack position, the fox bared its teeth and menaced me with another growl. Remaining still, I averted my gaze, all of my other muscles frozen until the animal prowled over to a corner.
Avoiding that area, I looked around the room. Dozens more red foxes cowered in and around milk crates turned on their sides. Their slightest movement provoked a frenzy of snarling, growling and tail puffing by the one with the starburst.
Despite all my years working for the service. I had never encountered a rabid animal. But I was certain that the fox had rabies. The others seemed harmless, but their terror made them unpredictable.
I had a moment of fresh panic remembering, from among all the body pains screaming for my attention, that the fox had bitten me. First came the fear that I would contract rabies, then the pessimistic realization that I might not live long enough to show any symptoms. Only after several minutes did the rational part of my brain regain control to offer a reminder that I had received a protective vaccination against the disease because of the work I did with animals.
My tetanus shots were also up to date. That didn’t mean the bite wouldn’t make me sick. Plenty of other everyday bacteria could enter the wound from the fox’s saliva or from my injured cheek being plastered to the filthy ground after I passed out.
Once calm, I tested the rope that still bound my wrists. My earlier struggling had loosened the knots. With a little more straining and twisting, I freed my hands, my movements slow and tense to avoid drawing the rabid fox’s attention and ire.
Maintaining the same careful movements, I felt around the area behind me. My fingers brushed an empty crate. Securing a strong grip on it, I eased into a sitting position.
The fox eyed me but didn't move.
Resting my back against the wall, I eased the crate in front of me to fend the fox off if necessary. Keeping one hand on the crate, I used the other to strip the rest of the torn burlap bag from my head.
As the last of the bag came loose, a scab ripped free of my scalp, taking with it hair torn from the roots where the blood had clotted around the burlap.
Head, cheek, leg—it all combined to make me feel sick again. I slowly breathed through the next few minutes until I was able to push against the crate and stand up. I clung to the wall for support, carefully working my way to the door, unseen nail heads and brads scratching at my hands.
I pressed an ear against the door, only the radio audible. I rattled the handle then listened again. No response beyond the reaction of the foxes in the room. I examined the doorframe, my chest constricting with a fresh wave of despair. I had practiced door breaches, even performed one in the field as part of a team. The first thing in assessing the door itself for a breach action was whether it was a “push” or a “pull.”
A single healthy adult, unarmed, with a practiced kick, could execute most push breaches. Without a shotgun, some other kind of charge or a two-man battering ram, a pull breach was a non-event.
Surrounded by the foxes, the hinges on the other side of the door, I was looking at a pull, not a push. Testing the door’s integrity, I leaned all my weight against it. The wood groaned but the door held fast.
Standing on my good leg, I slammed my shoulder against the solid surface. The rattle of a padlock on the other side and bile rising up in my throat were the only outcomes.
I had to try a kick. The handle was on the same side as my injured leg. I could still kick with my right, turning at an angle. I just didn’t think my left would support me all the way through delivering the kick.
“Damn,” I breathed out, leaning against the door as my stomach churned from too much time already on my feet.
Hold right, kick left. That was my only option and I needed to execute the maneuver soon. My energy was flagging. Judging by the damp nature of my outfit, I had been sweating while I was passed out. The first stages of dehydration were already evident.
Grimacing with each step, I moved into position. Taking slow, deep breaths, I visualized the breach, measuring where my foot with its bad ankle would strike and how high I would lift the leg before kicking out.
Drawing one final fortifying breath, I unleashed. The flat of my foot hit exactly where I needed it to go.
The door held.
I folded.
Vomit erupted from me as my hands slammed against the ground to break my fall. Two more eruptions dressed in my screams followed. Collapsing to the side, I blacked out.
Untold minutes later, I dragged myself to the wall and sat up. Brute force wasn’t getting me out of the locked room, so I had to think my way out.
I hadn’t seen the kidnappers, but they knew my identity and job. That I was in a room filled with foxes suggested an illegal quarry. But the kind of payday the man had raged over—a quarter million dollars—was too large for the kind of cut a guide, or even most organizers, would receive.
Still, if it was a fox quarry, the men would need to come back for the animals. Even if they had kidnapped me with the idea of releasing me, once the police alerts went out and my face was all over the news, they would start to get nervous.
Once they got nervous, I was as good as dead.
“Let them try,” I growled, clawing my way into a standing position. Keeping my cast turned toward the rabid fox, I explored the room in search of anything useful. A crowbar would have been excellent, but my options were limited to plastic and a few metal milk crates, dirty hay, and an unlit bulb that hung from an electrical cord in the middle of the ceiling.
Don’t forget the foxes, I snorted. But, unless I figured out how to safely catapult them at whoever walked through the door next, the animals couldn’t be weaponized.
What could I weaponize?
I scanned the room once more. Across from the door, located high on the wall, two small rectangular windows gave the space its only light. The glass had been broken long ago, but the rotting frame still clutched at a few shards.
Gathering the unoccupied crates, I constructed a staircase high enough I could climb up to the windows. They looked out on an open field. I couldn't be sure, but it looked like there was a dirt road cut between where one field ended and the next one began.
From the position of the sun, I figured I had only a few hours of daylight to work with—provided my captors didn’t return before then.
Pushing back the pain, I added more crates to stabilize the
makeshift platform and increase its height. Grabbing one last crate, I climbed up, worked the two biggest shards loose and set them aside before using the crate to smash out the remaining jagged pieces of glass from one of the window frames.
While I would never be able to climb out of the window, I could, with careful twisting, get my head through the opening without slashing my jugular. What I couldn’t do was get a better view of the surrounding environment. The one-hundred-eighty degree panorama before me was nothing more than fields and the wall of the lonely outbuilding in which I was confined. With the radio in the outer room still blasting heavy metal at full volume, I couldn't hear whether there was any human activity close to the building. Even if I could shout over the music, it would most likely be the wrong ears that heard me.
Taking a seat, I used one of the glass shards to rip at the voluminous skirt of my costume until I had removed enough to serve as a distress flag. Climbing back up, I draped the fabric out the window.
It didn’t look like a distress flag, but I needed to work every angle of rescue and self-defense available to me. And, if I had the bad luck of the kidnappers returning before I escaped or was rescued, it might be enough to scare the men off with the idea that some concerned citizen had already seen the signal and police were en route.
Next I wrapped the end of the shards, turning them into makeshift knives I could wield without slicing into my own flesh. As an added layer of protection, I wound strips of fabric around my palms. Then I cut a few more strips in case I got the upper hand and needed to tie anyone up.
Or strangle them until they passed out and then bind them.
I looked around for the next item of business. There was a light above my head, but no light switch. Either the pull string had long ago vanished or the switch was on the other side of the door and thus in my captor’s control.
I needed to remove that control.
Panting through the pain, I took apart my staircase and made a sliding, precarious platform in the middle of the room that was high enough for me to unscrew the bulb. I pulled on the electrical cord disappearing into the ceiling, hoping and finding that there was excess cord tucked up inside.
With the base that the bulb screwed into wider than the handle cut-outs on the crates, I worked my way around the room until I found a metal one with a bent handle. Finding the opening just big enough to fit the base through, I tied the cord off against itself.
Sweat from the pain, heavy costume and stale room poured down my face. I took another break, my gaze calculating the changes in the light coming through the windows. Dusk would settle soon. The men would likely return when it did, the impromptu distress flag no longer visible.
Regaining my feet, I moved the crates just beyond the arc of the door to create a trip hazard if the men waited until nightfall. Testing the swing of the electrical cord, I determined I would be able to launch its attached crate straight into the face of the next person to walk into the room.
With no more traps to set, only the waiting remained.
I built a final platform of crates about as high as a barstool. The height allowed me to rest my back against the wall and keep the weight off the injured leg without getting on the floor. That eliminated the painful process of standing up before I could launch an attack.
I rested like that, holding my makeshift weapons as daylight faded to night and I was left alone in the dark with the foxes. I thought of Walker as I waited. Conjuring up his smile and the comfort of his green gaze made the pain more bearable. The endorphins kicked in when I moved on to thinking of his touch and, most of all, his desire to protect me. Knowing that he was out there looking for me—that his entire family would be helping with the search one way or another—I felt hope.
Even filled with such hope, fatigue overwhelmed me. Again and again, I jerked awake from sleep that lasted only minutes or mere seconds. Each sudden involuntary movement brought with it fresh pain that seared my flesh and dug its daggers deep into my shinbone.
Hearing the door rattle long after the light had faded from the sky, I snapped to attention. My hands tightened reflexively around the weapons. I had lost hold of the cord, but felt its weight against my leg and snatched it up.
In the room beyond, someone yelled, the gender of the voice and shape of the words lost to the still blaring radio. A sharp crack of metal on metal rocked the door and then it flew open. Running into the room, a man stumbled over one of the milk crates. He didn’t go down. Whipping the electrical cord with all the strength I had, I sent the suspended metal crate on a collision course with his head.
The crate connected, the effect instant as the man collapsed.
A hulking male rushed into the room shouting.
With instinct and fear flooding my muscles, I stepped into his path, both glass shards raised and ready to slash at the second intruder’s face and neck.
He grabbed my wrists, jerked my arms wide.
“Ash, no!"
“Walker?” Nothing more than the spill of headlights through the garage door lit the small room, but my eyes finally adjusted enough that I could make out the man’s shadowy features.
“Walker!”
Dropping the weapons to the floor, I folded into him. I cried his name, couldn’t stop crying it. Grabbing me tightly, Walker held me to his chest, bringing fresh tears to my eyes as he unwittingly pressed against the wound on the back of my head.
"You're safe now. I've got you."
Still holding me, he looked around. "Where's Emerson?”
“Em…er…son?” I asked, my brain incapable of processing information.
A groan rose up from the ground.
“Who hit me?"
I started crying again, my apology a wet jumble of words.
"Oh, Emerson, I'm so sorry."
"'S 'at you, Ash? You 'kay?"
"Y-yes, I'm o-okay."
“Good,” he said. "I'm just gonna lie here for…a time.”
Steering me onto a barrel in the outer room, Walker snatched up the radio hooked to Emerson's belt.
“Agent Turk is hurt. Get some men out to the garage,” he shouted into the device. "And a medical bag!”
"Hey," Emerson asked from the floor. “Are these foxes real?”
Most of the animals had pressed themselves flat against the walls of the small room during the fight. Despite the open door, they continued to cower as the rabid fox guarded its new territory. Inches from Emerson’s face, the diseased creature crouched low and snarled, its head darting forward as if measuring the distance to attack.
"I think it's rabid," I whispered.
"Stay still,” Walker warned his brother.
Slipping out of his jacket, he held it in front of him, slowly advancing on the fox. The rabid animal turned toward him, its growl deepening. Walker inched another foot closer—and pounced. The jacket blanketed the animal, its body trapped as Walker scooped it up.
Emerson backed away on his knees, Walker following. When both men were out of the room, I shut the door. Walker took the lid off the barrel and tossed the fox inside, slamming the lid shut and placing a car battery on top as the animal went wild trying to claw its way up and out.
He turned off the heavy metal music still blaring, then yelled into the two-way. "Where's that medical bag!"
A young man ran into the garage, his uniform identifying him as a deputy from the same county where the museum and city park were located.
"Got it right here, Mr. Turk.”
"Good! Find a light!"
Fumbling along the wall, the man found the switch to the garage's overhead light and turned it on.
Walker looked from me to his brother. "I don't know which one of you to tend first."
I didn't want to imagine what Walker saw when he looked at me. Dried blood matted my hair in at least two spots. My cheek felt like a large scabby mess, which was definitely swollen and probably bruised, too. The dress Lindy had fitted to my body was destroyed between the ragged cutting I had done to crea
te the flag and all the straw, dirt and animal waste on the floor.
Emerson weakly gestured in my direction. "Take care of Ash. I'm just gonna have myself a little nap."
He slumped onto the floor as the last word left his mouth. Walker hurried over and raised Emerson's eyelids. Pulling a small penlight from the bag, he flashed it at his brother's pupils then gently ran his fingertips over Emerson's scalp.
Still standing, I concentrated on watching Walker as he worked. He wouldn't stay still. Neither would the floor, or Emerson or the barrel that held the fox.
"He's badly concussed. We need to call an ambulance." Meeting my unfocused gaze, Walker added, "For both of them."
"Right away, sir." The deputy grabbed his radio and yelled for dispatch to order an ambulance stat.
Walker sat me on the floor then gently tipped my head forward.
"Spread your knees."
Breaking a chemical cold pack from the medical kit, he handed it to the deputy kneeling next to Emerson.
Uniformed men poured into the garage.
"Gentle pressure," Walker told the deputy.
I croaked out a request for water.
"Just a second, baby.” Walker lifted my head and flashed the small penlight in my eyes. From there, he checked my ears and scalp. "I need to make sure it's safe for you to drink anything."
At last, he seemed satisfied I wasn't going into shock or suffering from a concussion. Pulling a deputy over to me, he told the man to give me a little water and then turned his attention back to Emerson.
As the sound of sirens came into focus, I heard Walker breathe a ragged sigh of relief.
26
Ashley
Emerson was admitted for the night at the county hospital. Walker insisted that a doctor clear me to go home after I tried to check myself out. By the time I was released from the emergency room, Siobhan had arrived with fresh clothes and crutches.
