Suddenly, the body shifted. I heard a low groan, then, “Char?”
I knew that voice. “Max, you’re alive!”
“Sleeping,” he mumbled. “Guess I’m still dreaming.”
I felt his head bob under my hand. “No, Max! This is real. Wake up!” He always had been an infuriatingly sound sleeper.
There was a scrabbling sound and my hand fell as he stood. “Char, is that you?”
“Yes.”
“What in blazes are you doing here? Don’t tell me that creep got you, too.” A string of curses made me shy away, but only for a second. I wrapped my arms around him and hugged until he pushed me away. “Cut it out, Char.”
“I can’t help it. I’ve been so worried about you—and searching for you, and—oh, I just wish I could see you.” I opened my eyes as wide as possible, but there was no adjusting to this literal black hole. I thought about how when lights go out in cartoon shows, eyes shine in the dark. But it wasn’t like that at all. I couldn’t see a thing.
“Here, maybe this will help.” The voice startled me. I heard a click. A light came on, and I glanced over my shoulder. I’d forgotten about Clay. He stood behind me, holding a thin, small flashlight. “It was in my coat pocket,” he explained, almost apologetically, his breath coming out in a visible mist.
Max’s scruffy face hardened. His shadowed eyes narrowed as he pulled me protectively to his side and scrutinized Clay. “Who are you?” he demanded, making a threatening fist.
“Whoa, buddy.” Light bounced off the uneven walls as Clay moved his hands in front of him defensively. “I’m not looking for a fight. I’m down here same as you—not by choice.”
My body tensed. He had obviously avoided mentioning the fact that he was the kidnapper’s brother.
“Char?” Max’s voice came out strong, but huskier than it should have. He broke into a hacking cough, and my worries heightened.
“You don’t look good, Max. We’ve got to get out of here. There must be some way—”
“Done it, tried it. Hopeless. Tell me how you ended up here. I’m guessing Grandfather didn’t pay the ransom?”
I rubbed my forehead. “Not at first. He thought this was a joke, some kind of stunt you were pulling for money and attention.”
Max growled. “Stupid old man.”
I hastened to explain, as briefly as possible, how I had trailed Abner, who ran me off the road and chased me into the woods. I finished with an indication toward Clay. “He found me in the woods and brought me to this cabin—we didn’t know it belonged to a kidnapper.” I also avoided mentioning the fact that Clay was related to our captor. Why did I feel the need to protect him? I must have felt indebted by his earlier attempt to save me. “Abner forced us down here at rifle-point. Now tell me your story.”
Max grimaced. “It’s a lame one.” His nostril’s flared. “I still can’t believe he got me that way. I was at the ski hill—just finished an awesome day of snowboarding—and I went to use the restroom. While I was in there, a janitor came in. I didn’t think anything of it, but the next thing I knew, I was waking up in a reeking garbage can, bouncing around in the back of a locked truck bed. The guy must have used chloroform to knock me out, then smuggled me out of the restroom like garbage. Too easy,” he said resentfully.
“So we get to this isolated cabin, and when he opens the truck bed, I jump him.” Max worked his jaw. “I’m still feeling it, but I’d fight him again. It’s our only chance.”
I glanced at Clay, who averted his eyes. Coward came to mind before I refocused on Max. He looked different, so grim and tired. I was almost sorry I woke him. “You look like you need to rest.”
He gave a bitter laugh. “All I do down here is ‘rest.’ I’d rather stay awake and at least know I’m alive.”
He observed my crestfallen look and softened his tone. “Sorry, Char. You know I’m not angry at you. I’m just going crazy thinking about that maniac—what he did to me, what he did to you . . . what he might do next.”
We became silent. I noticed that Clay still held the flashlight as if he didn’t know what to do with it. Like me and Max, he wore a coat, but unlike us, he didn’t have a hat or gloves. I walked over to him. “Here, let me take that light. You can warm your hands in your pockets.”
He responded with a slight nod before surrendering the metallic blue flashlight.
“And thanks for trying to help me earlier, by the way,” I added.
Again, a barely detectable nod, as if ashamed of his efforts and knowing that “trying” meant not succeeding. “This is messed up, big time,” he muttered. “I can’t believe Abner’s doing this.”
“Believe it,” I said shortly. “He’s a monster.”
Clay’s lips parted, as if about to speak, perhaps even protest, when a sound came from above that made me look up. On impulse, I switched off the light. The metal door swung open, and Abner’s ugly face appeared, mottled with shadows. “Clay? Get up here.”
Wow, it sure didn’t take him long to miss his brother.
Clay hurried to the ladder like an obedient dog answering his master’s call.
“Why do you think the creep wants him?” Max asked once Clay was gone and the door closed.
“Because—” I caught myself. “Who knows?” Looking at Max, I tried to gauge how worried he was. As his twin, I could usually read him, but not now. The mere days we’d spent apart suddenly felt like months, months that had created a chasm between us. “At least we have the flashlight.” I began shining it around our prison for a better look.
The dugout room was a rough rectangle of approximately ten feet long and eight feet wide. I wonder how long this took to make. Abner must have been planning this for a long time. This disturbed me much more than thinking that the kidnapping had been impromptu, because this enhanced the fact that we were facing not just a criminal, but an evil mind that calculated fiendish long-term plans. Shining my light upward, I was surprised to see our dirt roof stretched no more than ten feet from the floor. The climb down here had felt so much longer.
I clicked off the light when I heard the door opening once more. I didn’t want Abner to discover, and thus confiscate, the flashlight. He stuck in his head and I wondered briefly where Clay was. “Get up here, boy,” Abner yelled down, obviously referring to Max.
Max glowered, but he stalked forward, confiding in me, “The only reason I’m going is because I want to. ‘Up there’ is one step closer to freedom.” He touched my shoulder. “Stay strong. I’ll be back for you.”
I fought against the tremble in my jaw. I only just found you, and now you’re leaving me. What if I never see you again? What if Abner’s summoning us up, one by one, to be executed?
Left alone, doubts and fears assaulted me. I didn’t even hear the door open the next time.
“Your turn, girl.”
Turn for what? I lifted my eyes to Abner’s grim face, and shuddered. My insides churned as I climbed. This makes no sense. He only just locked me down here.
I emerged from the dryer to face the expected rifle barrel. Abner pressed the metal into my back and directed me to the cabin’s main room, where I saw three aluminum folding chairs lined up facing the wood-burning stove. Clay sat in the first, Max in the second.
Their arms were drawn back behind them, and white nylon rope stretched tight across their chests, pinning their arms. The same rope wound tight around their legs and ankles. No gags plugged their mouths, but they didn’t speak. Their lips were set in firm lines, their eyes angry slits. I wondered briefly, pointlessly, if they realized how similar their expressions were.
The third chair was empty.
“Have a seat, girl,” Abner ordered.
My eyes roamed the room, desperately searching for a way out. I spotted the ransom backpack sitting on the table.
“When I tell you something, you listen the first time.” Abner shoved me onto the chair and dropped a lasso around me, tightening the rope before winding it countless times around my c
hest and arms. He set his rifle on the table so he could bind my wrists. He tied my legs next, then my ankles, and when he was finished, I had no circulation.
He planted his large self in front of the wood stove. “I’m sure you’re wondering why I brought you all up here,” he began formally, as if this were a school presentation instead of a torture session. He reached over, grabbed the backpack from the table, and held the lumpy sack by one strap. “This is why.” He pushed the bag in my face, then unzipped it so I was facing a pile of green bills. “Looks like a lot of money, hey?”
I nodded, not knowing how else to respond.
“Well, it’s not!” He grabbed a fist of bills, opened the wood stove, and chucked them into the fire. The paper caught instantly, flaming high. “It’s worthless! Fake! Counterfeit! Useless paper.” He leaned close to my face, his own face blotchy red. “Did you know that all along?”
My eyes burned in the smoky air and widened at the sight of his bloodshot eyeballs. “No,” I breathed. “That can’t be right. They are real—I checked them myself right before putting the bag in the locker.” I blinked rapidly as I ran back through the day, searching for an explanation. “Rob,” I said, the truth dawning. “He followed me. I didn’t realize it, but he must have switched the money.” When I was talking to Cindy.
But then why had there been a note to Max in the real money? In case Rob didn’t get it switched in time? And how had he managed it? Grandfather probably makes sure his henchmen know how to pick locks.
My head spun in confusion. Where had Rob stashed the real stuff? He hadn’t had a bag of any kind. I groaned, recalling his big coat. He hadn’t needed a bag, not with a roomy, many-pocketed coat.
“Who’s Rob?” Abner demanded. I cringed as he clasped my chin with his coarse-skinned fingers. “Tell me the truth or I’ll tear out your tongue.”
“He works for my grandfather.” I clenched my teeth briefly. “Grandfather must have come up with the plan and told Rob to follow me and swap the money out after I delivered it.”
Anger sparked in Abner’s eyes, but I felt it spark in my own eyes as well. Because of Grandfather’s lack of trust in me and Max, we were going to suffer. More than we already had.
“That so? How very unfortunate for you.” Abner squeezed my chin with barbaric intensity. “Because he’s not the only one with a plan.”
“You don’t understand.” I forced my diaphragm to work. “My grandfather isn’t defying you. He just doesn’t believe this is a real kidnapping—”
“He will soon enough. That’s why you’re up here.” Abner released my chin and cracked his thick knuckles. “It’s time to give the fool some proof. Undeniable, visible, serious proof.” He chuckled briefly. His eyes roamed from me to Max, back and forth for what felt like eternity, before finally settling on Max.
Max returned Abner’s stare with cold stillness. Only a muscle near his jaw twitched.
Abner glanced back at me. “Don’t feel left out. If this proof doesn’t convince the old man, it’ll be your turn next.”
“Abner,” Clay spoke up, “you have to stop—”
“Did I ask for your input?”
Clay shook his head.
“Then don’t give it. Your job is to watch, listen, and learn. Got it?”
“No, I don’t get it!” Clay strained against his ropes. “This is crazy. How can you treat them like this? And me? You’re not a monster, Abner, I know you’re not. You’re my brother, you—”
“I’m going to have to gag you if you don’t shut up.”
Clay closed his mouth.
Abner moved into the kitchen for a moment, opened a drawer, and returned with a pair of sharp steel cutters. The curved rusty blades looked strong enough to snap through thick tree branches.
I drew in a loud breath. Suddenly all I heard was breathing: Clay breathing shallowly, Max breathing quickly, and Abner breathing deeply, wetly, like a salivating animal anticipating a kill.
He set the pruning tool on the floor, in plain sight as if to mock us, then crouched to remove Max’s boot. It took some time to maneuver the boot out from the snug ropes and pull it from Max’s foot, but when Abner accomplished that, he stripped off Max’s sock.
The obviousness of what was coming next hit me, and I started pleading and crying like a child. “No! Please, don’t hurt my brother. It’s not his fault our grandfather messed up. Please, think of another way. We could call him, or write to him—we’ll say anything you want—or you could send him something. I mean something like—like—my watch, or my hair. My hair! That would work as proof, I promise. Please, please!”
“Stop it, Char,” Max snapped, his face set like stone. “Don’t give him the satisfaction.”
Abner chuckled and spoke to Max. “Think you’re pretty tough, huh? You’ll change your mind by the time I’m through.”
With that, he lifted the cutters. He snipped the air contemplatively a few times, as if practicing, and the blades made a whisk, whisk, sound. Then he took a firm hold of Max’s ankle and pointed the blades from toe to toe, chanting, “Eenie meenie miney moe.” He stopped at the toe next to the little one.
Even though Max tried whipping his foot away and wiggling his toes crazily, he couldn’t avoid the cutters.
The sharp blades closed around his toe, and I closed my eyes.
Chapter Ten
Max’s howl of pain was so excruciating, so loud, I prayed that someone, somewhere, would hear it and send help. I barely realized that I’d joined in, with screams so intense they lacerated my throat.
A crash startled me, and when I opened my eyes, I peered through a bleary film of tears. It was just as well. There was nothing I wanted to see. Abner stood calmly wiping the cutter blades on his shirt, leaving a streak of blood across the blue checkered flannel. Max writhed in pain—as much as his bonds allowed—but on the floor now. He must have toppled the chair by struggling so violently, and thus caused the crash I’d heard.
Abner proceeded to ignore the loud, painful scene, and methodically packed the “evidence” for Grandfather in a small box lined with cotton balls. Clay watched it all mutely, his face white. Max had moved on from screaming to cursing.
I agreed with every curse I heard. God had abandoned us. What was there left to do but curse?
“I think I managed to break you,” Abner said, sounding very satisfied as he stood over Max, whose prone form was no longer writhing, but wilted, as if all energy had drained from him. He couldn’t right himself from his awkward, chair-bound position, and I saw with horror that his cheek was pressed in a pool of his own blood. My gaze flicked quickly to his foot. Blood still flowed.
“You have to wrap his foot,” I sobbed. “Can’t you see how much blood he’s losing? You got what you wanted, now help him, please!”
Abner rubbed his goatee. “Guess I don’t need him dying on me just yet.” He cut Max’s ropes, then approached me with the cutters. “Since you love him so much, I’ll let you do the honors.” He snipped me free from my bonds and gave me a roll of bandage, and I leapt to Max’s side, peeling off my gloves. My bare hands became bloody in an instant, and I didn’t care. All that mattered was ceasing the constant red current.
After tying off the bandage, I moved Max’s head from the pooling blood and wiped his face as best I could. “He passed out,” I whispered, and felt his neck for a pulse, fearing the worst. The artery still pumped strongly, despite the ashen shade of his face. “We need to get him to a bed and prop his foot up.”
Abner laughed. “What do you think this is, a hospital? You’re not putting him on any bed.”
“Fine,” I countered, lifting Max’s foot and holding it up, “a couch then.” But I quickly remembered that there was no couch in the cabin.
“I’ll tell you what will be good for him,” Abner said smugly. “The cold. Nothing constricts blood vessels like the cold, so you can just head on back down to your hole.”
Panic fluttered in my breast. “But he’s unconscious. He can’
t climb down.”
“We can always drop him.”
I swallowed a retort and suggested, “You could carry him down,” but even as I spoke, I knew it would never happen. How I wished I was a man with muscles to easily handle Max’s one-hundred-sixty pounds.
“I’ll do it,” spoke a voice, and I turned to see Clay, whose eyes neither looked at me nor Abner, but focused on some point beyond us, some distant speck on the logs.
Abner laughed. “You think you’re that strong? Fine, give it a try. There’s nothing to lose. But first,” his tone grew serious, “you’ve got to answer one thing for me, boy, and you’d better answer right.” The cutters still in hand, he fingered a blade as his eyes drilled Clay’s. “You with me, or against me?”
“You can’t expect—”
“I can, and I do.” Abner pressed the steel points to Clay’s chest. “You’re bound to me, whether you like it or not, by flesh and blood. There’s honor in that. You stick with me, and I can promise you plenty. Money, for one thing. Your life, for another. Make your choice.”
Clay’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. Perhaps he felt my eyes on him, because he shifted his gaze my way.
“No, boy.” Abner let the blades creep up to Clay’s throat. “Don’t go looking for guidance from her. She’s nothing. She’d as soon see you stabbed to death.”
I shook my head, but Clay’s eyes were no longer on me; they were on the blades prodding his throat. My arms ached from holding Max’s leg up. I wished Clay would spit in Abner’s face.
“This is your chance to be a man,” Abner continued, “wielding the power, calling the shots. So what’s it gonna be?”
Still no answer.
“I’m losing patience,” Abner hissed.
Frozen Footprints Page 10
