by K M Gaffney
After following a narrow serpentine road throughout the State Park, it seemed an eternity until Olivia finally spied the reflective blue signs indicating the nearby lake. Slowly, she drifted onto the shoulder of the road, pulling in just beyond a stone lane which she desperately hoped would lead her toward the hunting cabins and her father.
I’ll leave my car here and try to sneak up on him, she thought as she removed the information Johnson coveted, along with the metal base ball bat.
Then ever so gently, she shut the door to the SUV.
Every sound she made seemed louder, exaggerated by the deathly still silence.
The predawn hours fostered a suffocating darkness, but she didn’t dare return to the SUV for the glove compartment flashlight. The hard crust of snow on the ground crunched loudly underfoot as she began walking down the lane, straining her frayed nerves and attuning her senses to the shadowy hidden world around her.
In the distance, she saw one of the cabins had a light on within. So Olivia chose to move off the lane and follow the perimeter of it toward the small cluster of cabins, trying to remain unseen. Off the well traveled path, she stumbled over a rock and attempted to muffle a cry of surprise as she landed hard upon her hands and knees.
The cold temperature made the impact with the jagged snowy ground sting, painfully. Mad at herself, for creating extra noise, she slid her leg around to rub a bruised knee cap. When her foot collided with the menacing rock a second time, she deliberately ran her hands over the icy ground to find it. Then wedging her fingers underneath, she wiggled the rock out of the frozen snow and dirt and shoved it deep inside her coat pocket. Pleased with her new found weapon, she bent down again to collect the baseball bat and scattered insurance policies.
Johnny Johnson was kicked back in a rickety chair with his boots propped up on a pitiful excuse for a kitchen table, casually sipping on whiskey as he waited for his guest to arrive.
He cocked his head once when he thought he heard something moving around outside the cabin. Then his face split into a terrifying grin, when he knew for sure that he’d heard the distinct sound of frozen snow crackling underfoot. Still grinning, he cast open a dark paneled door which led to the small room where Walter was imprisoned.
As a narrow beam of light washed over the slumped unconscious form bound to a chair, Johnny drawled cheerfully, “Company’s arrived.”
“Gavin, I need to call this in now!” Ron was annoyed because he’d already allowed his partner too much time to brood over the potentially explosive situation. He placed a call to dispatch, asking them to forward a message to their contact with the FBI.
Grumbling over the hell they were going to catch for the way this was handled; he made a dramatic performance of ending the call and then noticed the speedometer.
“Seriously Gavin, you’re not going to do Olivia any good if you kill us on the way there,” Ron griped, emitting an audible sigh of relief as Gavin reluctantly reduced his speed. Still disgusted by the whole turn of events, Ron barely glanced over at his friend as he asked, “Are you carrying your weapon?”
Understanding his partner’s malevolence, Gavin issued a slight nod before returning to his own thoughts.
Nearing the lighted cabin, Olivia’s fingers were so cold she didn’t know if she could possibly hold onto the objects she was carrying much longer. Nervously inching up to a small grungy window, she peered through it with the hopes of locating her father.
There was a main room, sparsely furnished with a timeworn table, two rustic chairs and rudimentary kitchen, but it was empty. Angling her head, trying to see past the filth on the warped glass, she could make out a door which she assumed must lead to another room within the cabin. Johnny Johnson was nowhere in sight.
Suddenly sensing she wasn’t alone, Olivia cautiously backed away from the window. She cried out as an icy, cold hand tightly gripped onto one of her shoulders and threw her head first into the hard wood of the cabin wall. Flashing white stars were still dancing in front of her eyes as she was dragged back up to her feet. Once she was finally able to focus again, all she could see was Johnny Johnson’s leering smile. Grabbing a fistful of her hair, he forcibly led her inside the damp, musty cabin.
The blinding shock of light forced her eyes closed, even as she tried to assess her surroundings. Gingerly, she placed tentative fingers to her throbbing forehead, hastily pulling them away after discovering they were sticky with her own blood.
Still gripping her hair, Johnny kicked the cabin door shut behind him.
In his other hand, he carried the incriminating insurance policies and metal base ball bat. Throwing them all onto the table, he quickly perused the documents. Then with a wicked smile, he turned to Olivia.
“I’m so glad you finally complied with my wishes. I knew you only needed the right motivation.” With narrowed black eyes, Johnny continued watching her as he spoke. “You know, everyone cooperates with the right motivation, Mrs. Jones. Your husband, Tom, certainly did. It was a piece of cake to enlist him. He was always so worried about providing for you and your pack of brats. It made him an easy sell. It was perfect, easy money, at least until he decided he wanted out. Then he betrayed me.”
Olivia’s eyes widened. “He wanted out?”
Johnny smirked.
“He’d tried contacting the FBI, or at least was planning too. He was going to make them a deal.”
His beady eyes took on a deadly glint as they locked with hers.
“I sure as hell wasn’t going to jail while Tom got a slap on the wrist and went on home to his pretty wife. So I took care of him. The night he died, I’d cut the brake line on his car. It was a fiery twist of fate the way he rear ended that tractor trailer. He’d burned me and then I burned him, so to speak.”
Shocked speechless, Olivia stared at him as she recalled the desperate grief and despair she’d experienced over the last two years. Not to mention the heartbreaking tears of her children as they had cried out, night after night, grieving for their father.
Wild disbelief coursed through her, followed by a vicious bloodthirsty rage. Her adrenaline was racing as she lunged towards him with nails curved into talons.
“You killed him,” she screamed. “You killed my husband to save your own skin. You selfish son of a …”
Laughing, as she was no match for him, Johnny responded by violently shoving her onto the bare rough floor. Scrambling back onto her feet, Olivia stood up in the middle of the cabin and wrapped her arms around her own body, as a means to protect herself.
She cast a hopefully discreet glance toward the closed interior door, but Johnny didn’t miss the direction of her questioning gaze.
“The old man was still alive the last time I checked,” he sneered with a slow smile as he began walking toward her. “I believe we have a little unfinished business of our own.”
Reaching out, he grabbed another fistful of hair and yanked her face up to his.
“I will enjoy you before I kill you,” he growled.
Then he licked his lips and planted his thick vile mouth on hers.
With the accelerator depressed to the floor, the police cruiser swerved onto the main road and raced through the darkness. Olivia’s note had given Gavin a fairly accurate idea of where Johnson was hiding out.
The danger Olivia was in, was making Gavin second guess himself, something he rarely ever did. Knowing she was in the clutches of Johnny Johnson left him feeling murderous, so he knew he wasn’t thinking straight. But there was no room for even the slightest margin of error or she and her father would end up dead.
That thought alone made Gavin want to throw up.
Slowing down as he rounded a sharp curve in the road, he saw the tail lights on her SUV reflect off the headlights of the police cruiser.
Ron gave him an uneasy glance when he heard Gavin’s guttural snarl.
Immediately cutting the lights, he haphazardly whipped off onto the side of the road and then he and Ron rushed out of the car, rushing ove
r to inspect her vehicle. The memory of finding Olivia’s SUV along the side of the road once before flashed through Gavin’s mind and he realized he’d have given anything to see her face pop up from behind the SUV again.
“She must’ve already made her way down to the cabins,” Ron muttered as he turned to assess the distance in the predawn light. Narrowing his eyes against the moonless darkness, he watched the tall dark form of his partner disappear into the frigid shadows of the night.
“Gavin?”
Ron raced after him at a full sprint, in the direction of the wooden structures.
Gripping the lapels of her coat, Johnny ripped it off her shoulders and tossed it to the floor where it landed with a light thud. The unexpected impact caught Olivia’s attention. The rock, I forgot about the rock in my coat pocket.
An unconcealed glaze of lust sharpened Johnny’s beady eyes as he reached out to secure her with an iron clad grip before groping her body with his free hand.
Struggling against him, she managed to raise a hand up to the side of his face and rake her nails down deep through the thick ruddy skin of his cheek.
Roaring in pain, he backhanded her. As Olivia slid across the rough wood floor, she could feel splinters taking root within the palms of her hands. Ignoring the pain, she landed within a few feet of her discarded coat.
Stretching and pulling her way toward the hidden rock, she fell short of the bulging pocket by about four inches before she was hauled up by her hair again.
Gavin and Ron approached the only cabin with a light on inside, with weapons drawn. After motioning to Ron in silent communication, Gavin crept along the longest wall toward the window facing the main road while Ron disappeared around the opposite side of the cabin, hoping to find an alternative route inside. Carefully, Gavin maneuvered his body to view the interior, without being detected. Narrowing his eyes, he focused his icy gaze on the activity within the main room. What he saw made his blood run cold.
Olivia contorted her body, twisting and turning, as she tried to free herself from Johnny’s painful grip.
But it was no use.
Rage distorted the features on his pocked face as he angrily knocked her backwards across the kitchen table. She lay sprawled on her back, gasping for air from having the wind knocked out of her. He held her down by pressing his hands and all his weight against her shoulders.
Grinning, he bent forward, knowing he had her where he wanted her, and tried shoving his tongue into her mouth. Kicking and writhing against him, Olivia soon realized Johnny was much stronger than he appeared to be. She flinched as one strong hand placed a crushing noose around her throat while his other hand began to sliding up under her shirt. Taking full advantage of her newly freed hands, she began pummeling her fists against his back.
Clearly enjoying himself, Johnny gave her a lurid smile before planting his mouth back down on hers. Olivia reared up and viciously caught him on his lower lip with sharp teeth. Her bite was painful.
In shock, Johnny released her neck to place a hand to his bleeding mouth. Seizing the opportunity, she hit him as hard a she could across the face. A painful roar exploded from him as he closed his fist and punched her, making her head reel against the hard surface of the wooden table. Then tugging her arms above her head, he locked both her wrists within one of his hands.
Anger made him crazed. Brutally, he reached down and tore her shirt partially open and thrust his hand inside to dig fingernails into the tender flesh of her breasts. As he tormented her, he began wedging his body between her legs. She squeezed her eyes shut as his hand started sliding from inside her shirt, downward, to the button of her jeans. Valiantly, she tried kicking him again but he kept repeatedly slamming her arms down against the table, as she did so. Horrified, Olivia realized too late her cries of pain only brought a fresh surge of lust into his eyes.
After he finally managed to unbutton her jeans, he grinned luridly and reached down to unbutton his own pants. Olivia braced herself, both physically and mentally, for the inevitable violation that was to come.
Then suddenly, Johnny Johnson was airborne. His short flight ending on the other side of the room, where his body slammed against the wall with a thunderous crash,
Slowly opening her eyes, Olivia watched in disbelief as Gavin reached down to help her to her feet. His cold blue eyes furiously noted the bloody gash on her head, her ripped shirt and the open button of her jeans. Then within seconds, he charged Johnny Johnson like a mad man.
Johnny had scarcely dragged himself onto unsteady feet and wasn’t prepared for the huge man who was rushing him like a linebacker, with the look of death in his eyes. With murderous fury Gavin plowed his fist into the greasy pock marked face, he’d weeks ago, burned into his memory.
Blood poured from Johnny’s broken nose even as Gavin took him by the hair and rammed his bloodied face into the cabin wall.
As Ron barged in the back door, Johnny Johnson was still standing, but barely.
Olivia hurried toward Ron as she cried out, “He’s going to kill him! Gavin will kill him! Please, make him stop!”
Ron’s eyes hastily scanned Olivia, from head to toe. He rapidly assessed the obvious signs of her struggle and figured Gavin should have another moment alone with the man who’d terrorized her.
Realizing that Ron was not going to intervene, Olivia decided to take matters into her own hands. She reached out and attempted to grab Gavin’s arm as he kept repeatedly landing blows on Johnny Johnson’s wracked body.
“Stop it, Gavin! You’re going to kill him,” she screamed, terrified.
His deadly gaze hardly acknowledged her presence as he ground out, “I intend to kill him.”
Ron chose that moment to step forward.
“Let him go,” he stated. “He’s not worth it, man.”
Gavin slowly backed away from Johnny’s crumpled body, his hands still fisted at his sides as he tried to reign in his temper. When his gaze finally settled on Olivia, she was staring at him as though she didn’t even recognize him.
Then without uttering a single word, she quickly bolted for the door that adjoined the only two rooms in the cabin. Throwing it open, she rushed into the small musty room, no larger than a closet, and began crying when she saw her father.
“Daddy,” she murmured.
Concerned for his well being, Olivia ran her hands over his face, noting a large crusty head wound covered in dried blood. His skin was pale, cold and clammy to the touch. That alone terrified her.
“He needs emergency treatment,” she declared.
Ron spoke in a low calm tone of voice as he carefully tried to work the duct tape off of Walters face.
“I’ve already requested ambulances. They should be arriving soon,” he said, glancing up at Gavin.
He stood at a distance, wearing a grim expression, watching Olivia who was obviously quite distressed over her father. But instead of offering her comfort or assuring words, Gavin swiftly turned around and strode out into to the main room to handcuff an unconscious Johnny Johnson.
Within minutes the first ambulance arrived, along with the other officers Ron had requested for back up. Olivia squatted down beside the emergency medical technician that was working on her father.
“He’s a brittle diabetic,” she told him, fighting back tears.
She watched them secure an oxygen mask over his pale deathly still face and then stepped out of the way so they could lift his limp body onto a stretcher to carry him out to the awaiting ambulance.
“May I ride along with him?” Olivia asked Ron as they walked out of the cabin together.
“Certainly, Liv. You need to be checked out too. It looks like your head may need stitches.”
As she anxiously awaited the EMT’s summons to climb into the back of the ambulance with her father, she glanced back toward the cabin and noticed Gavin.
He was standing just inside the doorway of the cabin, watching her.
“He’s really mad at me,” she mumbled as Ron off
ered her his hand to help her climb into the ambulance. He looked up at her and nodded.
“Yeah, he is. Look, we’ll be in to talk to you after we process Johnson. After he’s discharged from the hospital, he’ll be handed over to the FBI. So we’re going to need a formal statement from you, today.”
Then Ron closed the heavy ambulance door and Olivia sat down to hold her Dad’s hand as they traveled to the hospital.
Chapter Eighteen
Maddy arrived at the hospital as the first rays of sunlight dawned on New Year’s Day. Ron Barton had called earlier to inform her of the dramatic events which had taken place during the wee hours of the morning. She’d remained speechless throughout the detailed explanation of Johnny Johnson kidnapping her father, of Olivia single handedly setting out to obtain his freedom, and how they’d both been transported to Liberty Hospital. Much to her dismay all this had occurred as she’d slept off her post New Year’s Eve party festivities, courtesy of her coworker, Thad Wolfe.
Sheesh, there I was getting it on, while my sister and Dad were fighting for their lives. I’m going to throttle her, Maddy fumed angrily as she barged through the hospital’s emergency entrance.
After checking with a receptionist, she was ushered through a set of ominous looking, heavy double doors which led into a large overly crowded room that was partitioned off for patients with heavy vinyl pea green curtains. Olivia was seated between two of these hideous curtains, lying flat on her back with her eyes closed, listening to a nurse.
Maddy took one look at her sister’s bruised face and bloodied forehead and her own hands began to tremble uncontrollably. Jamming them into her pockets, she silently stood by waiting until the nurse finished. As soon as the nurse swept past her, Maddy made her presence known by completely entering the partitioned area and wrapping her arms around Olivia, needing a moment to hold her.
