Trial by Fire

by Terri Blackstock

  She scanned the crowd looking for people who might be whispering about her, when she saw two young faces milling in the crowd. She had seen them before. They had been there when she treated Benton’s leg the other night. Her heart tripped into race mode, and she sprang up and started toward them. They must have seen her coming, for they put their backs to her and started to walk away. She broke into a trot, but they went faster, threading through cars and getting far away from the crowd. Finally, she caught up to them. “Hey, you!”

  The boys turned around. “Yeah?” They were both wearing jeans and wrinkled T-shirts, and she knew they hadn’t been in the service or she would have noticed.

  “You were at the Benton house last night. You know my nephew. Where is he? Where’s Jake Mattreaux?”

  “I don’t know any Jake Mattreaux,” one of them said.

  “You’re lying,” she told them. “I know you’re lying. Where is he?”

  They both stared at her, their faces suddenly serious. A chill went through her, and she realized she shouldn’t have gotten so far from the crowd, not when their group had tried to kill her just days ago.

  “I’m warning you,” she said, stepping into her paramedic personality and approaching them as she would if she were in uniform. “I want you to listen to me. If anything happens to my nephew, so help me, I will spend the rest of my life searching for you and making you pay. Do you understand me?”

  They didn’t seem amused at her bravado, yet she knew they had not taken it seriously. But without another word, they both turned and walked away. Quickly, she searched the parked cars for the truck she’d been driving and ran to get into it. She could follow them. She could follow them and let them lead her to Jake.

  She pulled the truck out of its place, then made the block and saw the two boys in a white Ford Escort. They were pulled over to the side of the road a couple of blocks from the church, and two other kids were getting in.

  Where had they all been? Why had they been at the church? What were they up to?

  She hung back, staying out of their sight, until they were on their way. Then she followed them, hoping they would lead her to Jake.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  The arsenal of guns that Cruz and the group were bringing in clued Jake that they were planning something even worse than the church burnings. As he and Benton sat in a corner of the moldy warehouse while Cruz plotted in another room, he began to wonder if there was something he could do. “Somebody needs to turn these idiots in,” Jake told Benton. “How many more people are gonna die?”

  “At least two, if we try to turn them in,” Benton said.

  “Well, maybe we’re both just cowards.”

  “Maybe we are.”

  He watched Benton devour a bologna sandwich as if he hadn’t eaten in a week. “How’s your leg, man?”

  “Sore,” Benton said. “Really sore. But I’m not feeling so weak anymore. Antibiotics…good stuff.”

  Jake tried to see through the glass door to the room where Cruz and the group sat. “All those cameras they had, and the Polaroids they brought back…what are they taking pictures of?”

  “Who knows?”

  He looked at his friend again. “Benton, you know we gotta do something, don’t you? We can’t let them kill any more people. Not if we ever plan to look ourselves in the mirror again.”

  Benton dropped the last bite of his sandwich, as if the words had stolen his appetite. “Hey, I can’t look myself in the mirror now, after what I did.”

  “Then undo some of the damage by helping me figure out what they’re up to, so we can stop them.”

  The door to the office room came open, and Cruz, Jennifer, and the others came out. Benton got to his feet. “I’ll see what I can find out.”

  Issie followed the car at as much distance as she could, trying not to be seen as they rounded curves and turned corners, heading into the warehouse district of Newpointe. They led her to one old warehouse set back from the street, with garbage filling a ditch out front, and about six cars and pickups in front of it.

  Was this where Jake was?

  She watched them all go in, then left her truck some distance down the street and got out to walk the rest of the way. She went to the window of the building and peered in and saw the pile of guns in the middle of the floor, and Jake’s dangerous friends encircled around them. But she didn’t see Jake.

  He was in there somewhere, and something told her he was in trouble. Maybe he was in a back room, hurt. Maybe he needed her.

  She went to another window and looked in, trying to determine if there was some way to get in and look for him. There was an open window on the side, and it opened into a dark room that was separate from the room where they seemed to congregate. She managed to lift herself into it, and dropped down into the room.

  She looked around. There was a table, and it was covered with papers and snapshots. She went closer to study them. They were pictures of this morning’s worship service, she realized, pictures of the congregation sitting in Aunt Aggie’s yard. They looked as if they had been taken from the street down—into the bowl-shaped yard. Had there been more of them there, hidden on the hills surrounding Aunt Aggie’s property, standing back in the trees where no one could see them?

  She wondered why anyone would have taken pictures like this, then she realized that it had to have been the two boys she had spotted and followed. Was that why they had come?

  She looked through the small window in the door, and saw them still huddled around a pile of firearms. They were planning something, and it involved Nick’s church…and lots of guns.

  She went back to the table and picked up one of the papers under the snapshots. It was a diagram of the grounds at Aunt Aggie’s, the house and trees surrounding where they had placed the chairs, and on the hills surrounding the worship area, she saw stick figures with guns pointed threateningly at the crowd.

  Her heart jolted. Quickly, she folded up the paper and stuck it into her purse. She had to get out of here. She had to take this to the police and warn them. She slipped back up to the windowsill, but as she did, her foot caught on a hubcap leaned against the wall, and it toppled and fell with a clatter.

  She dove out the window and bolted toward her truck, praying that no one had heard. But behind her she heard someone yell, “It’s that woman again!”

  She saw Cruz explode out of the warehouse, and she ran with all her might to reach her truck.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Jake shot out behind Cruz, trying to stop him long enough for Issie to get away. But Cruz was gaining on her like a linebacker foiling the winning touchdown. He caught Issie and knocked her down.

  “Let her go, Cruz!” Jake shouted. “Let her go!” He threw himself on top of Cruz, but three others descended on him and wrestled him off.

  He tried to knock them loose, flailing his arms and kicking at them, but Cruz clamped his arms around Issie, and she kicked and bucked and tried to shake him free. “Jake, help me!”

  Cruz wrestled her to a rusty blue Subaru. “Open the trunk!” he shouted, and Jennifer popped it open.

  Jake fought to get away, but someone pulled him into a choke hold, immobilizing him. The harder he fought, the tighter the arm clamped against his throat. He drove his fingernails into the arm squeezing the life out of him, but couldn’t break free.

  He heard Issie scream, and Cruz lifted her and stuffed her into the trunk. She kicked and fought to get out, but Cruz hit her across the face, and it knocked her back into the depths of the trunk. Before she could fight her way back up, he had slammed the trunk shut.

  Jake could hear her fighting inside, banging and screaming, but Cruz backed away, and turned, red-faced, to Jake. Jake kicked behind him, his heel tearing into the knee of the person holding him, and his captor cursed and let him go. Jake ducked out of his grasp.

  He had to get help. He had to get out of here and somehow get to a phone. He started running, and heard feet behind him on the gravel.
Cruz yelled, and he heard Benton telling Jake to run.

  Jake headed for the woods and leaped over a log, tore through a cluster of bushes, and slid down a hill covered with dead leaves.

  He heard a gunshot, and someone just behind him yelped and fell. He looked back and saw Decareaux in a heap at the top of the hill he’d slid down, and Benton standing with a shotgun in his hand. “Go, Jake! Keep running!”

  Jake crossed a stream, then ran up the other bank, clambering to get out of sight. Another shot rang out, and he swung around and saw Benton standing hand to chest, a look of shock on his face. He stood there for a moment. His eyes met Jake’s, and he mouthed the word, “Run.” Then his friend dropped and slid limply down the hill. Jake turned and ran.

  Somehow, Benton had thrown them off, and he heard them running in another part of the woods, footsteps and cursing and gunshots shooting without aim. He kept running in the opposite direction, pounding the dirt and the dead leaves and leaping over logs and branches.

  When he thought he was far enough away, he hoisted himself into a tree and rested on a branch, waiting to make sure he was clear before he tried to help Issie.

  The car began to move, and Issie lay trapped in the black compartment. She banged on the trunk door and screamed until her throat was raw. They drove for several minutes on the road, and then she felt them pulling off. She heard gravel beneath the tires and was jerked from side to side as Cruz drove the car into a place where she knew no one could find her. Would he kill her when he got her there? Was this how it would all end?

  She screamed and banged against the trunk, using all the strength she had to make noise. Someone along the way might hear, maybe at a stoplight, and call the police. But all her efforts seemed futile.

  Finally, she heard the engine cut off, heard the door close, heard other car doors slamming, then an engine driving away.

  Silence. They were leaving her here, trapped in the trunk of a car in a place where no one would ever look.

  Then she heard a car door again, voices, and the Subaru engine starting. She felt the car moving. She screamed and kicked again, to no avail.

  They drove for twenty minutes or so, when finally she felt them crunching back through gravel, heard the scraping and scratching of trees. Then the car stopped, and she heard them getting out, heard another car behind them…doors closing. The other car left.

  The silence screamed out her hopelessness.

  Meanwhile, Jake’s friends were planning to ambush Nick Foster’s church the next time they met together. People would be killed. Perhaps even Nick.

  She wailed again and screamed, banging with her shoulder and elbow and trying to get out, but there was little hope.

  Jake waited for over an hour before he dropped out of the tree. They weren’t after him anymore, he felt sure, but panic still raged in his heart. What had they done with Issie? And was Benton dead?

  He had to go back. He had to see if the blue Subaru was still there, or if Benton had been taken care of.

  He tried to retrace his steps back through the woods, careful not to be heard. He had done a lot of hunting with his father and knew how to remember landmarks. He passed the log he’d almost tripped over earlier, the dead oak, the wasp’s nest…

  Then he came to the spring and ran along it, looking for the place where Benton had fallen. He went carefully, stopping and listening every few feet, waiting to see if it was a trick. But there were no sounds except those of the mockingbirds in the trees, the woodpeckers drilling out their holes, the crickets and frogs and wind.

  Then he saw his friend still lying at the bottom of the embankment, as twisted and broken as when he’d first fallen. Jake’s throat constricted as he raced toward him and fell at his side. “Benton!” he whispered. “Benton!”

  There was no response, so he shook him hard. He saw the bullet hole through his back, and as terror rose up in his throat, he turned him over. The exit wound had taken most of Benton’s chest.

  “Benton, come on, man. Come on, get up!” He reached for his arm and tried to find a pulse, but there was none.

  He sat there on his knees and tried to muffle the sob screaming out his throat. He had brought Benton into the group. He had led him into this trouble, and Benton had died trying to keep Jake from being caught.

  “I’ll kill them myself,” he said through his teeth. “Don’t worry, Benton, I won’t let them get away with this.” He left his friend on the dirt, then climbed up the embankment, intent on making someone pay. He slowed as he got to the top and looked carefully toward the warehouse. All of the cars were gone.

  They had bugged out, just like a military unit whose security had been compromised. The blue Subaru was gone, and Issie was in trouble.

  They were taking her away, locked in a trunk, and he didn’t know where he could send anyone to help her. Still, he had to get help. He would have to forge ahead in the woods, hoping to come out somewhere on the other side, or find a hunter or someone else who could help him, and rescue Issie.

  He got up and stumbled into the brush as fast as he could, knowing that death could catch up to him at any moment.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Nick was worried about Issie. He didn’t know why she’d taken off the way she had, but an hour later, she still hadn’t returned. He was getting nervous.

  When Steve Winder, Issie’s partner, called around three, he had even more reason to worry. Issie hadn’t shown up for work.

  “I was wondering if you’d seen her,” Steve said. “I know you two have been together a lot lately.”

  He decided not to comment on that. “Well, no, I haven’t seen her, not since our picnic this afternoon. She left in a big hurry. She hasn’t come back.”

  “Well, she was supposed to be on duty at three,” Steve said. “She didn’t show up. It’s not like her.”

  Nick frowned. “She didn’t call or anything?”

  “No,” Steve said, “and I’ve been trying to call her apartment and nobody’s home. I even called over at her brother’s and he said he hasn’t seen her.”

  “Has this ever happened before?” Nick asked.

  “No way,” Steve said. “I’ve been her partner for a couple of years now. She’s never even been late.”

  Nick felt sick. Something had happened to her. “Look, I’ll see if I can catch up with her. I’ll get back to you.”

  “Thanks.”

  Nick hung up the phone and sat staring at the wall for a moment, trying to separate panic from concern. Where would she have gone so quickly? Who might she have seen? He grabbed his cell phone off the counter and rushed outside. He got into his car and set out to find her before it was too late.

  Jake managed to keep running through the woods, desperate to get help. He was lost and it was getting dark and he didn’t know how far he had to go to get out on the other side. All he knew was that he couldn’t give up now. He had to get to someone who could help Issie before she wound up like Benton.

  He reached the bayou and stood for a moment, panting and sweating and trying to figure out which way he needed to go to get out of the woods.

  He took off running along the bank, hoping that he was right in determining that it would come out next to the place where the new post office sat. Then he could get to a phone and call the police. Maybe it wasn’t too late to save Issie.

  He’d never been so thankful in his life as when he heard cars up ahead and knew he was getting near civilization. He ran faster, harder, thickets and thornbushes tearing at his pants legs and his arms.

  He crossed the street and went to the drugstore where a pay phone sat at the corner of the parking lot. He dug through his pants pockets, got out the money for the phone, then stood there a moment, trying to decide whom to call first.

  He put the change in and started to dial his parents but realized that might be a mistake. They would want to come get him, but home was the first place Cruz would look for him, and he couldn’t risk having them find him there.

>   No, he thought. He needed to call the police. They were the only ones who could help Issie. He didn’t know the number so he dialed 911 and waited for the dispatcher to answer.

  “Nine-one-one, may I help you?”

  “Uh, yeah,” he said. “Uh, I’m calling to report a crime.” His voice was shaking and hoarse. He could hardly get it out.

  “What crime?” the dispatcher asked.

  “Uh, kidnapping, sort of. Issie Mattreaux. You may know her. The paramedic.”

  “Yeah, I know Issie,” the dispatcher said.

  “Well, she’s sort of been kidnapped. A guy named Cruz has her. I saw him put her into the trunk of a car, and he drove away with her. I don’t know where they are, but you might still catch them in the blue Subaru.”

  “Can I have your name please?” she asked.

  His mind started reeling, and he thought she wouldn’t send help until he gave her what she wanted. “Keith,” he lied, “Keith Jones.” That seemed to satisfy her, and she got off the subject.

  “Keith, can you tell us where they were headed?”

  “No,” he said, “I have no idea.”

  “Was there some kind of fight, some kind of argument?”

  “Sort of,” he said. “She had kind of stumbled on some evidence and ratted on them. They want revenge.”

  “What kind of evidence?”

  “About the church burnings and the murders. Also, a guy got shot over by the old Mayflower Furniture warehouse. He’s in the woods, down an embankment. I’m pretty sure he’s dead.”

  There was silence for a moment. He pictured her frantically trying to get a message to the cars she was dispatching. He started to realize that his call could be traced. At any moment now police cars could descend on him, and in moments he’d have handcuffs snapped on and be on his way to jail.