[Katerina Carter 01.0] Exit Strategy

by Colleen Cross

“Never mind. Just keep your friggin’ mouth shut.” Gus glared at Mitch as they completely ignored Kat and passed by the front counter. Instead they headed for the corner where Nick was tied up. The afternoon light was quickly fading, and Mitch turned on a flashlight and pointed the beam in Nick’s direction. The light caught something else. Kat saw a glint of steel in Gus’s hand.

  “I still get to do this guy, right, boss?”

  “Yeah. Just keep it simple, okay? Not like last time. No fancy stuff.”

  Did Gus mean Takahashi? Were they going to kill Nick? Who did they work for? Questions raced through Kat’s mind as she struggled to hear the conversation around the corner.

  “Okay by me.”

  “Thank god. You’ve come to your senses. Untie my hands first. I’ve got to—”

  “Asshole! I said—shut the fuck up.”

  “Ouch! Hey, that hurts!”

  Kat stayed on the ground but inched closer to peer around the corner. Gus was in front of Nick, blocking Kat’s view. He had a gun in his right hand, pointed at Nick. Whatever Mitch was doing to Nick was painful, judging by Nick’s screams.

  Suddenly the front door slammed. Kat’s heart pounded in her chest as she stole a glance behind her. Then she relaxed. Cindy appeared, miraculously out of nowhere.

  “What a relief! You have no idea—”

  Cindy interrupted Kat with a hard swift kick to her backside. Kat yelped and curled into a fetal position on the floor as the pain shot through her back.

  “Shut up, bitch!”

  Spasms of pain coursed down Kat’s spine as she struggled to stay silent. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she gasped for breath. Cindy’s kick felt like it had broken her back in two. She moaned involuntarily as she tried to move away.

  “I said, SHUT UP!”

  Kat’s mouth dropped open. Cindy towered over her as she lay on the floor. She was dressed in leather from her jacket right down to her pain inflicting stiletto boots. She drew on her cigarette and inhaled deeply as she snarled at Kat.

  “You don’t listen very well. You want to end up like Nick here?”

  Cindy didn’t wait for an answer from Kat. She tapped her cigarette, dropping the ashes on Kat’s face.

  Kat sneezed as she inhaled the ash up her nose.

  “Keep quiet, bitch. Understand?”

  “Y—yes.” Cindy wasn’t going to save her. She planned to kill her instead. Cindy was one of them, a crooked cop. Had Clara bought her? Now it all made sense. It explained how they were always one step ahead, how Gus had known where she would be running that day. Everything, even down to Platt pegging her as a suspect in Takahashi’s murder.

  “Let’s go, guys.”

  Cindy dropped her cigarette on Kat’s thigh. Kat felt it singe through her running tights, melting them to her leg. Cindy stubbed out the butt with her boot.

  Mitch pushed a stumbling Nick forward, jabbing him in the back. Nick’s hands had been re-tied behind his back, but his legs were now free. Gus followed behind Mitch, both seemingly subservient to Cindy’s commands.

  “Good. Now shut up and stay in the corner like you’re told. We’ll be back for you later.” Cindy stomped off in her boots and Gus and Mitch followed, slamming the door behind them. Kat could hear muffled yelling outside as they relocked the chain on the door.

  Within a minute she heard two gunshots from right outside. Then the engine restarted. It idled for what seemed like half an hour before finally moving away. She lay on the floor where Cindy had left her, still afraid to move. She listened for anything else, a cry or a yell. But all she heard was silence.

  Kat’s earlier panic now turned to dread at the inevitable. They had shot Nick. It was only a matter of time before they came back and killed her.

  43

  The morning light finally penetrated the dirty windows enough for Kat to see. She rifled through the kitchen once again, opening cupboards and drawers, hoping she had missed something yesterday. She hadn’t. The cupboards were still empty. There was nothing to cut the tie on her wrist, not even a plastic knife.

  The shareholder vote was today. Her two-day reprieve hadn’t changed a thing. Cindy had seen to that, trapping her here. The vote would go ahead, the only difference being that management would vote Nick’s shares. That would be Clara, since her suspension would end if Kat couldn’t come up with proof of her deception.

  A sense of doom settled in her stomach as she checked her watch. It was already eight a.m.; Cindy and company were sure to be back soon. She slumped against the fridge, dejected. She scanned the room, her gaze stopping at the counter across from her. She hadn’t noticed the box of Saran Wrap before. The serrated edge might be sharp enough to cut the tie.

  Butting the box end against her stomach to steady it, she moved her wrists back and forth across the cutting edge. After a minute of steady sawing she was rewarded for her efforts. The blade made a slight indentation into the tie as it slowly shaved the plastic into a coarse powder.

  The groove deepened as she moved faster. In her haste to cut through the tie, she slipped. The metal edge sliced through her watchband, then sawed into her skin.

  “Ouch!” She yelped in pain as the jagged edge caught, feeling like a thousand paper cuts all at once. Her watch fell to the floor as she jumped. The ragged sliver across her wrist quickly turned red as it seeped blood. Her cry echoed in the empty kitchen. But the plastic tie was now only hanging by a thin sliver.

  She took a deep breath, fighting the nausea rising in her stomach. She twisted her wrists and snapped them apart in a rapid motion. The tie broke, and a sense of relief flooded through her.

  Rivulets of blood dripped down her arm. Had she severed something? Panic welled inside her. Why hadn’t she paid better attention in first aid class? She had to somehow bandage it, but with what?

  Kat found a stack of napkins in a cupboard and grabbed a handful, pressing down on her arm to staunch the bleeding. The napkins quickly turned crimson, the blood soaking through as she watched in morbid fascination. She dropped the soaked ones on the floor and pressed a second stack against the wound. This time the bleeding slowed. She scanned the kitchen for something to hold the napkins on, something to tie to her wrist. How ironic was that? She eyed the Saran Wrap. That would do just fine. She pulled off a two-foot piece and carefully wrapped it around her wrist and the napkins, knotting it in place.

  She ran out of the kitchen, still pressing on her arm to stop the bleeding. Every minute spent in the restaurant meant less time until Cindy and her thugs returned to kill her.

  She pushed open the kitchen door and headed to the front of the restaurant. She pulled on the front door, but Cindy must have refastened the chain after leaving last night. She needed to find another way out. There was a window to the right of the door. She searched for something to break it with and spotted a metal napkin dispenser on one of the tables. She hurled the napkin dispenser as hard as she could against the window. It bounced off and landed on the floor, but not before making a very small crack. She hit it again and again, aiming for the crack.

  After a half-dozen tries the glass finally broke. She could climb through, but would need to remove the broken glass first. How could there be so many hazards in a restaurant made almost entirely of plastic? She needed a brush of some sort, but couldn’t remember seeing that or any other tools when ransacking the kitchen. But she had an idea. She took off her running shoe.

  Using her shoe as a glove, she whisked the remaining shards off the window frame and peered outside.

  Although she had no preconceptions, it still came as a shock.

  A stiff wind assaulted her face, whipping her hair in front of her eyes and taking her breath away. She grasped the window frame and leaned out as far as she dared. Instead of asphalt and cement, she saw water. It was cresting below her in small whitecaps. The restaurant was on a barge, floating in what had to be Burrard Inlet, judging by the proximity of the North Shore Mountains, slightly to her left. That explained the strange sens
ation of the floor moving under her feet.

  To her right was the closest land, a rocky outcrop of shoreline, heavily wooded with no sign of activity. It was at least a half mile away; too far to swim. Directly in front of her lay water, and she guessed she was at least five miles east of Vancouver. What the hell was a floating restaurant doing in Burrard Inlet?

  The door on the left had a small deck underneath surrounded by a hip-high railing, but the landing didn’t extend to the window. To escape, she needed to climb out, grab onto the railing, and heave herself up onto the platform. She felt a sense of dread. What if she missed?

  She strained her ears to listen for boat traffic as she put her shoe back on. There was nothing around her but the sound of lapping water. Despite windows on all four sides, they were far too grimy to see out of. She debated breaking another window on the opposite side. Maybe there was another deck, allowing her to be seen and rescued. A second open window, though, would make it even windier and colder inside the barge.

  It took only a second to dismiss that thought. Being cold was better than waiting to be killed. Cindy and her gang would be back for her once they had got rid of Nick’s body. The truth sank in Kat’s gut like a rock. How could her best friend betray her like this?

  This was no time to feel sorry for herself. She strode over to the other side and, using the napkin dispenser once more, broke a second window. This time it crashed through on her first try, leaving a small hole that she hammered out with the dispenser. Suddenly she heard faint voices. She leaned out the window and spotted a couple of kayakers rolling in the waves in the distance.

  “Hey!”

  The kayakers kept talking, oblivious to her shouts.

  “Help!”

  The two kayaks shrunk into little dots, low in the water. Soon they would be gone. She couldn’t hear them anymore. She yelled for ten minutes more, hoping someone else was nearby. No response.

  No one could see her from inside the boat. She had to get outside. There was no deck underneath this window either, and none nearby that she could see.

  That meant her only hope was to make it onto the platform under the door. She walked back there and peered out the window. Memories of gym class flooded back to her. She’d never been any good at pushups, chin-ups, or climbing of any sort. There was a good chance she might not make it, and if she ended up in the water, she would be in a lot of trouble. On the other hand, what could be worse than her current situation? She was dead either way. At least someone might spot her out on the deck.

  The sky darkened overhead and the wind picked up, gusts whistling inside the restaurant through the broken window. It would be even colder out on the platform. She had maybe an hour at most before hypothermia set in. One slip and she would be in the water, with no one to save her, no one to see her drown.

  Despite the cold, her palms were sweating. She wiped them on her tights and took a deep breath. She stepped up into the window frame and steadied herself against the steady rocking of the boat. She stretched her arm out to gauge the distance. The railing was about a foot beyond her reach. The only way to grab it was to jump while stretching her hand in the direction of the railing. She would have to seize the rail from the window and pull herself up onto the platform. If she missed, she would be in the water. But it was only twelve inches. Surely she could grab and pull.

  Would she have enough strength to pull herself up?

  She shivered as she readied herself. Another deep breath and she sprang off the window frame, trying to get as much bounce as possible to propel towards the railing. She grasped for the railing, her fingers stretching forward.

  But her hands came up empty. Instead of the railing, there was only air. She clawed frantically as she felt herself going down.

  44

  Her fingers closed around the cold wet metal, feeling the surface, pitted from the sea air. Her arms pulled from their sockets as they absorbed the shock of her body weight braking against the railing. A wave of relief came over her as she caught her breath. She had missed the top rail and the two below it, but managed to grab the bottom bar. She was hanging on, eye level with the deck.

  Her ankles dipped into the water as the boat bobbed up and down in the choppy water. She had to pull herself up. She tentatively brought her right leg up and pressed the sole of her shoe on the side of the boat, remembering her only attempt at rock climbing two years ago. The idea was to use your legs, not your arms.

  She reached for the higher rung with one hand and pushed off with her leg, then repeated on the other side. Now she was out, and had a firmer grip on the rail.

  Her confidence returned and she climbed until her hands reached the top rung. The distance between that rung and the one below was wide enough for her to slip her feet through, with her body following. She collapsed in a heap on the platform, feeling a sense of pride in her accomplishment.

  As she stared back at the window, she realized there was no way to pull herself back into the ship. No handholds or grips on the outside of the barge. She was stuck out on the platform, no way to get back to the shelter of the restaurant. With wet feet, she had probably a half hour at best before hypothermia set in.

  She scanned the horizon. Same as before. No boat traffic and nothing on shore. She leaned her back against the door, trying to shield as much of her body from the cold as possible. Her teeth were already chattering. She was hungry too.

  The sound of a motor interrupted her thoughts. As she pushed herself up, her heart raced. What if it was Cindy or her thugs? But it wasn’t, or at least it didn’t sound like it. It was a tugboat, the motor much louder than the one she had heard last night. Diesel fumes wafted towards her as she stood up and yelled.

  “Help!”

  The tug kept going, only now it was veering off towards the shore.

  She waved her arms furiously as she kept yelling.

  “Hey—over here! Help!”

  The tug slowed and paused for a moment before turning. Her heart skipped a beat as she realized she had been spotted. The boat turned and pulled up alongside. A ruddy-faced man in high-vis raingear emerged from the wheelhouse, eyeing her suspiciously.

  “Lady? What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I was kidnapped. Can you get me off this thing?”

  “Kidnapped?” He eyed her skeptically. “I’ll call the cops. They’ll come and get you.”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone.

  “No! You can’t call them. At least, not yet. Then they’ll know where I am.”

  “Isn’t that what you’d want if you’ve been kidnapped?” He paused to let out a smoker’s cough. “Anyone else in there?”

  He was more suspicious than sympathetic.

  Kat realized how she appeared through his eyes—dirty, disheveled, and wearing tights covered in cigarette burns.

  “No. They killed a man and said they would come back for me later. Can we just get moving?”

  “Only if I can call the cops first. At least they’ll be on their way if your kidnappers come back.” He said kidnappers with added emphasis, as if he still didn’t believe her.

  “They won’t. Just get me off this boat right now. Please?”

  He cast a dubious look at her.

  “I don’t get you. If you were legit, you would want me to call them.”

  “I know it’s weird, but I’ve got a good reason. The more time we spend talking, the more dangerous things get. I’ll explain once I’m off this thing. Doesn’t this fall under the seafarers’ code of honor or something? Don’t you have to rescue me?”

  His eyes moved up and down her, apparently sizing up how much trouble she could be. Finally he decided she was harmless after all.

  “Fine. I’ll take you. But you’re going to have to jump down here.” The tug was about ten feet lower than the barge. That wasn’t the bad part. There was a three-foot gap between the tug and Kat’s floating prison. Not a tough jump normally. But the cold air and lack of food had sapped her
energy. Missing meant falling into the frigid water between the tug and the boat.

  “Ready? Here, grab this.” It was a rope.

  “Why do I need a rope?”

  “In case you miss. Then I can pull you over.”

  But she didn’t miss. She landed on the deck. Her knees absorbed most of the impact with a jolt. Her cartilage screamed, but after a minute the pain subsided. She tumbled onto her side and lay there, completely spent. She was finally off that damn boat.

  The tug operator’s thick hands grabbed hers and pulled her upright. He pointed towards the wheelhouse.

  “Name’s Rory. Now, in through the door there. There’s a blanket inside. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Kat did as she was told and settled into the warmth of the cabin, wrapping a musty woolen blanket around her. She shivered as she glanced back at the floating restaurant. It was an eighties hulk of glass and steel, floating on a raised platform about fifteen feet above the water. Its once-white steel exterior was rusted badly, and it listed in the water.

  Rory came back inside and busied himself at the controls as he accelerated.

  “I’ll take you to the marina. But first, you’re going to explain yourself. What the heck are you doing on the McBarge?”

  “McBarge?”

  He frowned as he studied her face.

  “You don’t know?”

  “Know what?”

  “It’s an old McDonald’s restaurant. You from around here?”

  Kat nodded.

  “Well then. Surely you remember it. Expo ’86?”

  Memories of Vancouver’s World’s Fair flooded back to Kat. Harry and Elsie had brought her there every chance they could in the summer of 1986. She had eaten at the floating McDonald’s many times. Back then she only cared about the food, not the décor, so she hadn’t recognized it. She stared at the rusting hulk floating in the water, amazed that it had been here all this time.

  “I guess I remember it a bit. I had no idea it’s been here all these years.”