Maybe the man really was after them for trespassing. He just had an odd way of going about it, and he also happened to know exactly who they were…no. Even as he tried to play that scenario out, Ethan discarded it. He couldn’t make it work. They were well and truly fucked.
The man took a few steps back as though realizing Ethan might make a rush for him. It worked—the step back definitely made any kind of inside move harder to implement.
Ethan played a gamble. As of yet, he hadn’t seen anyone else in the periphery of his vision. Risa had made no motions, but that didn’t mean she didn’t see someone. Still, he had to try.
“Tell me about Berry Smith,” Ethan tossed out. Again, his stomach dropped when the man didn’t flinch. The case was well over a century old, but this man looked like he knew her name. Ethan could only hope it was because he understood the body had been found on his property. But it was getting harder and harder to sell those lies to himself.
The man shook his head. “I won’t tell you anything.”
“Tell me,” Ethan demanded even though he was clearly not the one in charge. He was trying. His cell phone had no service. He knew that because he’d been taking pictures with it a moment before they were interrupted. They hadn’t had service for a while, so until he could get a good distance away, he wouldn’t be able to call this in or even signal someone. He pushed again, “Tell me what happened to Ester Holtzclaw.”
The man frowned, and Ethan realized his mistake right as he heard the shotgun blast. He stumbled backward, the pain radiating through him as Risa screamed.
Chapter Forty
Risa watched as Ethan fell backwards, the gunshot blast aimed right at him. Though she tried, she couldn’t hold back her scream.
She wasn’t sure if screaming was a good idea. On the upside, it would alert everyone around them. On the downside, it would alert everyone around them. And she had no idea who that might be. It was probably not anyone who would help.
She wanted to yell at the man, “What the fuck did you do?”
But that wouldn’t help Ethan.
She was trained, so rather than putting her hands to her face and losing it, she acted. Perhaps her actions startled the man with the gun a little bit—a man whose name she still didn’t know, whose place in this whole shit-show she still didn’t understand.
She crossed the three steps to hover over him before she even thought about it. Only as she put her hands on him, touching him, testing the bloody spots, did she realize that she, too, could be shot for doing this, and she found she didn’t care. Even as she probed his wounds gently, she must have touched something wrong.
Ethan popped up, sucking in a gasping breath, and muttered, “Buckshot?”
“Probably rock salt,” she answered. Luckily, the man had not fired a slug. It was only small pellets. Now that Risa knew what she was looking for, she tried to count the spots. It looked as if about fifteen of them had hit Ethan. So, the man hadn’t been aiming to kill Ethan. He’d had salt, and he’d moved far enough back that it wouldn’t kill. Risa took that bit of knowledge and tucked it away for the time being.
Now that she knew he’d survive, Risa was able to make a more thorough assessment. She took her own deep breath. Ethan wasn’t dying, but he did have tiny spots of red blooming at various places on his skin and along his shirt. Nothing seemed to have penetrated anything vital. As she put her hand on his chest and asked him to breathe, it became apparent his problems were likely more from slipping backward and having the wind knocked out of him than from the wounds.
His leg was what bothered her most, and she was reaching down, looking at the cluster of tiny tears in his skin when she felt the barrel of the shotgun hot against her shoulder.
She jerked back. The sharp movement knocked her off balance, and she tumbled onto her butt. As Ethan pushed himself upright, his face and angry words indicated that he was angrier the man had touched Risa than he was at being shot.
“You do not touch her!” he commanded. It wasn’t a yell. But even on the ground, on the receiving end of a gun, Ethan Eames was a force to be reckoned with.
She wanted to tell him she was okay. But the shotgun came into her vision again. As she turned, she realized she was looking right down the barrel, and the man behind it. He had already displayed his willingness to pull the trigger on another human being. It hadn’t seemed to bother him that he’d actually shot an FBI agent, either. So Risa tried out her “bored face” and propped her knees up, slung her elbows over the tops, and folded her hands together.
Ethan hadn’t died. He was basically okay. Now they just needed to stay alive. She stared at the man. “What do you want? I can’t take care of him? You shot him.”
“He’ll be fine,” the man repeated, “Now you, on the other hand...” Risa watched, knowing she wasn’t quick enough to get out of the way as the gun swung hard and connected with her head.
Chapter Forty-One
Risa woke to a loud moan that turned out to be her own. She lifted her hand to check the side of her head where it hurt. The groan seemed to be coming from the pain she felt there.
As the heel of her hand made contact with the skin just above and behind her temple, she groaned again, instantly regretting the action.
“Thank God you’re awake.” A voice came through. Ethan.
She breathed a sigh of relief even though she couldn’t feel him touch her and she hadn’t yet opened her eyes. She was curled somewhere cold and hard, and Ethan sounded far away. She was lying on her side, one arm wrapped around her waist, the other held to her head. She groaned again, not quite ready to face the world. Still not sure what was going on or where she was, she knew she was cold. Her clothing didn’t cover her enough to fight the chill in the air.
As she slowly opened her eyes, she discovered it was dark.
Metal rattled near her, startling her into a movement she shouldn’t have made. As she moaned and lay back down, she clunked her head and muttered, “What the fuck?”
“Oh my God, Risa. I’m so sorry. Don’t move. Just stay there for a minute until you feel better.”
She was processing his words better now. That was good, she thought. She assessed the situation, this time listening for specific things. Home or industrial noises. Human noises. Nature noises. Once again, she heard nothing but Ethan. No industry. Only a bit of nature, but it sounded muffled.
Slowly she opened her eyes again, though it made no difference at all. The room was too dark. Over the next few minutes, her eyes adjusted, and so did her memory. She was cold because she was in her running gear. She had gone out hiking with Ethan. She reached to her shoulders and felt that there were no backpack straps.
Ethan, who seemed to be able to see when she couldn’t, said, “They took the backpacks. They took everything.”
They? Risa thought. But she wasn’t quite in any position to say it. Slowly, her eyes adjusted to the dark. She saw Ethan on the other side of metal bars. She was in a cage, and so was he. Right next to each other. At least she could sit up and put her hands out and touch him. He laced their fingers together tightly, almost enough to hurt, but it was comforting.
She took a deep breath, which somehow made the throbbing in her head worse, as had sitting up. But now was not the time to be concerned with the pain. Clearly, they were in a lot of trouble.
“You’re going to be okay,” he said. “I’ll make sure of it.”
This time she whispered back, “You?” She remembered he’d been shot. Rock salt only, but he had tiny cuts everywhere. He’d been bleeding.
He nodded. She saw that he wasn’t wearing his shirt. Then she noticed bandages he hadn’t had before. He must have taken the shirt off and ripped it up and wrapped it around his ankles and legs. Even his shoelaces were gone. Risa looked down to discover that hers were, too.
“I thought they only took your shoelaces if they were afraid you were going to hang yourself,” Risa muttered.
Ethan smiled. She could see it in the very,
very dim light in the room they were in. It felt good to see him smile. Then she looked around. They were in a shed or something. It looked to be made of concrete, maybe cinder block. Fuck.
Ethan’s voice stayed low, but he said, “Well, they must be worried we could do something with our shoelaces because they took them.”
“Where are we?”
“An outbuilding,” he said with an impressive level of certainty.
“Did they knock you out, too?”
He nodded. “But my skull seems to be thicker than yours, because I came to while they were carrying us off.”
“They?” she asked, aloud this time.
In the dim light, she saw Ethan nod. “Five men, one woman.”
“Holy shit,” Risa muttered. “Did they just appear out of the woods?”
“Basically. As soon as he knocked you out, they all emerged, shotguns in hand. They patted me down. They took the backpacks. They took everything.”
“Found your gun and badge, huh?” she asked, hoping he’d say no.
Unfortunately, Ethan nodded one more time.
Oh well. It wasn’t like these people didn’t already know he was an FBI agent, so no surprises there.
“How well-fortified is this place? Looks like cinder block and cement foundation. Not like we’re going to be able to dig ourselves out. Or,” she looked up, “maybe we can bust through the roof?”
She knew that wasn’t the way normal people thought. Firefighters, however, were intimately familiar with structure. Though they’d been following her, she could only hope that these people didn’t know that.
Ethan said, “I’ve been thinking about it, waiting for you to wake up, and hoping you’d be healthy enough to make an escape. Problem is we’re locked into these cages. Padlocks.”
He said the last word as though it were a curse.
She checked the locks and noticed they were the key versions, no codes needed. Risa then looked up and saw that the bars were part of two separate cages—one for her and one for him—inside the structure. Maybe they’d even been constructed inside this shed, which was pretty damn concerning, Risa thought. “Each of these cages is bigger than that doorway, and it’s the only entry I see.”
“I know. I thought about that, too,” he said. Luckily, the space wasn’t big, and therefore, the cages had to be stored side by side. Risa could touch Ethan because the bars were touching. Had they been built into the shed, they probably would have shared a central set of bars down the middle.
“While I agree with you,” Ethan said, “that the roof is probably our best chance of exit. The problem is the cages have tops. So, we have to break out of the cages and then out of the shed.”
“What do you think is the likelihood they didn’t lock the shed door?” She said.
“Pretty low,” he answered. “I’m pretty sure I heard them bolt it and put another lock on the outside as they left. Right now, I’m trying to figure out the likelihood that the place is bugged.”
“Shit,” she muttered under her breath. While she had been looking at various possible places to breach the construction, he had been thinking about tech. They made a good team, she thought. Except for the part where they were in separate cages in a cinder block shed. She realized she couldn’t tell day from night. She asked him, “How long have we been in here?”
“A couple of hours, I think. I mean it was still daylight when they were carrying us back. I don’t think I was out very long at all. Honestly, I’m really concerned about your head. Can you come over here?” He asked.
She scooted closer and endured his probing fingers feeling the side of her head for the goose egg there.
Risa was going to tell him to stop, that it was hurting and she was okay. But her gaze snapped to his. He’d heard it, too.
Footsteps just beyond the door.
Chapter Forty-Two
Ethan didn’t move.
Without a word, he and Risa had both quietly laid back down and pretended to be asleep…or still knocked out. He listened as the lock on the outside of the shed door rattled. Definitely a padlock. Then came the squeak of the latch swinging open followed by the creak of the door.
Thinking their captors probably wouldn’t buy that they were both still out cold, Ethan moaned a little and added a little slur to his voice. “Who is it?”
He was answered with a boot to the cage. Next to him, Risa startled. He was glad to see she was smart enough to act like she was just coming around, too. Ethan was simmering by the time the voice answered. “Any noise out of you two tonight, and we’ll just shoot you. Understand?”
Ethan nodded, until the boot again bashed the cage, making a ghastly noise. He spoke out loud, trying to cover his rage. “Yes.”
Then he waited while the three men left.
It felt like an eternity until the door was closed and the lock clicked shut. He waited longer, until the voices faded beyond the shed and far enough away that Ethan could be relatively comfortable they weren’t coming back.
Ethan had no idea what their plan was. He only knew there was a group and they were willing to shoot at a federal officer and put people in cages. That did not bode well.
The man they’d met didn’t appear to be stupid. He didn’t appear to be hiding anything like a meth lab or an illegal operation on his farm, not one worth killing a federal officer over.
“Risa,” he whispered, “They made us promise to stay quiet tonight. So you can get some sleep if you need. I don’t think they’ll be back tonight.” He didn’t add that he thought that meant the men intended to let them live through the night. He did think that, but he didn’t want to get Risa thinking about what that might mean about their chances of living through the next morning.
There was also the ominous issue that they had not been offered food, water, or any kind of facilities. He didn’t share that, either.
The sum of all his observations sped up his timeframe. They had to get out of here, and fast. There wasn’t time to wait and strategize. Despite desperately needing a plan, he didn’t have one.
He was swearing in his head, but he also reminded himself: with an impossible situation, start with what was possible. He scanned the whole building again, searching for weaknesses.
It was now past dark. No light had come in with the men who’d checked on them. Next, Ethan scanned the floor and found what he was looking for—a discoloration. Following his suspicions upward, he found a tiny gap in the roofline. It dripped. Hence the spot.
The tiniest bit of moonlight peeked through, the only reason he’d been able to find the gap at all.
Hopefully, these people would go to bed thinking Risa and Ethan were safely tucked in their little cages, unable to get out. Unfortunately, from where he sat, they were correct. He couldn’t quite stand to his full height in the cage, and Risa wouldn’t be able to, either.
However, if they could get to the tiny gap in the roof, he thought it was plausible that they could break through and climb out.
Now, whether they could do it quietly enough to not alert their captors was another problem. Even getting the cages open would be a major coup. They’d still be stuck in the shed, but they could close the cage doors, and when someone came near, he and Risa could swing the un-padlocked doors as a weapon and maybe catch their captors unaware. That might get them an advantage. Surely the shed door would be unlocked when someone else came in.
It was dark inside, and the doorway was slightly recessed, making it hard to see. The inside of the door appeared to only have a push plate, no handle. Nothing he could get a grip on. It didn’t even look like it had a bolt. So their likelihood of being able to get out of the shed through the one entryway was very low.
He was breathing softly now, and Risa, while initially straight-backed and stiff as they heard the voices, had finally relaxed a little. As he looked her over, Ethan realized he was close to shivering. Not a pleasant thought. The night would only get colder. He wondered if his captors were hoping the two would free
ze to death out here. He wasn’t sure it would get quite that cold, but in their separate cages they wouldn’t even be able to huddle up and share their warmth. That at least would be something they could do if they could get the cage doors open.
As he watched, Risa began to move. Slowly, she flexed her feet, moved her knees, stretched her arms, and reached up. She stood slowly and told him, “I’m not going to sleep, Ethan. Let’s get out of here.”
He liked her attitude. He watched as she reached upward and grabbed onto the overhead bars, testing them, pulling her weight up. They rattled just a little, and he held his finger to his mouth, not sure yet what she was doing. Though, if someone was sitting outside, surely the guard would expect the two of them to rattle their cages at least a little.
Once Risa had tested all the sides of her cage, she sat back down in the middle, cross-legged. But then she picked up one foot, pulled her laceless shoe off and began peeling her sock.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Ankle brace,” she whispered, her tone relatively chipper.
Ethan frowned. She undid the Velcro, the ripping noise seeming dangerously loud in the night. Though that was a positive of the cinder block, he thought; it would muffle their noise.
She pulled the ankle brace off and then immediately replaced the knee-high sock and put her foot back in the shoe. To anyone walking in, it would look no different than before. Ethan began to understand. She yanked at the plastic of the brace. It had two molded sides connected to a webbing strap attached with metal rivets. Flipping it one way and then another, Risa examined it. Then she began rubbing one of the edges onto the floor.
After about three minutes of that, she became frustrated and went to the wall.
“Cinder block,” she said by way of explanation and began rubbing it again.
Dark Echoes: (Dark Falls, CO Romantic Thriller Book 7) Page 16
