Love Inspired Suspense June 2015 - Box Set 2 of 2: Exit StrategyPaybackCovert Justice

by Shirlee McCoy

  “Blake?”

  He knew that voice. He tried to respond. “Hei—”

  “Thank You, God. Thank You.” A weight pressed against his chest. Her head? His arms were slow to obey, but they found their way to the curls spilling all over his shirt. He blinked several times, but everything remained pitch-black. Was he blind?

  “I…I can’t…I can’t see you,” he said.

  Her hands caressed his face. “It’s okay,” she said. “I can’t see you, either. There’s a light socket in the middle of the room but no bulb. I found switches, but they don’t turn anything on or off. I caught a flash of light when Katarina brought you in, but as soon as she closed the door, nothing.”

  The events of the past few hours were pinging around in his mind. “Maggie?”

  “Asleep,” Heidi said. “She’s amazing. So brave. She’s done everything I asked her to do, although I have a sneaking suspicion Katarina laced her food with a sleeping pill because she fell asleep fast and has stayed that way.”

  “What happened?”

  Heidi told him everything, from her conversation with Maggie to the moment she’d lost consciousness. “I was out for at least two hours. Maggie said she rolled me in here in a wheelbarrow and dumped me on the floor.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Yeah, well she didn’t even bother to dump you,” she said. A metallic sound reverberated through the space. “She wheeled you in and left before I had an opportunity to do anything to get us out of here.”

  Frustration etched her words. “I’ve made a thorough search,” she said. “The walls are paneling. I managed to pull a piece away, but there’s cement block behind it. No windows. As best as I can tell, the ceiling is Sheetrock with one light socket.”

  “Sounds like you’ve been busy.” He tried to sit up. “I don’t understand why we’re here.”

  Heidi didn’t answer.

  “Do you know?”

  “I have a guess.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “You first,” she said. “Tell me what happened after we were taken.”

  Blake filled her in, choosing his words with care in case Katarina was listening. He didn’t mention the switch. He’d rather have Heidi believe he’d set off an anthrax scare than have Katarina run back to the plant and flip the switch.

  Heidi slid her hand into his. “Then that confirms it,” she said.

  He already knew, but he couldn’t stop himself from asking. “Confirms what?”

  “She plans to kill us.”

  “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

  They sat in silence for a while. Blake’s mind continued to clear and he flexed his arms and legs. Maggie lay beside him and he planted light kisses on her face, thankful she was alive and oddly relieved that she was sleeping through the ordeal.

  “Might help work the drug out of your system if you walk around,” Heidi said. “Run your hands along the walls. And be sure to dodge the wheelbarrow.”

  He measured off the room with his steps. He’d guess it was twelve by twelve feet. The ceiling was low. Maybe eight feet. If he jumped, he could touch it.

  He found Heidi and Maggie again and sat beside them. “Do you have a plan?”

  “I’ve got several. They’re all terrible.” She laughed and he appreciated her attempt at humor.

  “Will they come looking for you?” he asked, whispering in her ear.

  “Yes,” she said. “If my original plan had worked, they would have tracked us by now.”

  “How?”

  “Maggie’s bow.”

  “Her what?”

  “You gave me permission to track her,” she said. “Months ago.”

  “I know, but I didn’t know you’d put a tracker in her hair bow.”

  “We put one in every single hair accessory she has,” Heidi said. “Well, I didn’t. One of the agents did.”

  “So where’s the cavalry?”

  “The bow she’s wearing is new. Her grandmother bought it for her this morning.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. And since you haven’t heard from Max, that means no one was looking for me yet when Katarina contacted you.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “If Max couldn’t reach me, you would be the next person he would call.”

  Blake reached for his phone but his pocket was empty.

  “Don’t bother. I already checked. She must have taken your phone after you passed out.”

  “When will Max get worried?”

  Heidi cleared her throat. “Probably not for a while. Not tonight anyway.”

  “What’s special about tonight?”

  Heidi didn’t answer right away. “Max has been trying to give us some time alone. He told me he was going to make himself scarce,” she said in a low voice. Blake knew that if he could see her face, it would glow with embarrassment.

  “I have a standing checkin at 10:00 p.m. No matter where I am or what I’m doing. I send three text messages. One to him, one to Uncle Frank, one to Sara. If everything is okay, I send them a group text with nothing more than good-night. If everything is not okay but I still have my phone, I tell them I love them. If I don’t text at all, I get phone calls. If I don’t answer, Max will track my phone. Which he will discover is either in the creek where Katarina made me drop it, or offline if it didn’t survive the water.”

  “Then what?”

  “They’ll try to track us. They’ll go to the house first, then the plant. They’ll find your car, but then it gets tricky. I don’t want to give you false hope. I don’t know where we are. Maggie doesn’t know where we are. All I know is we aren’t far from the plant. Fifteen to thirty minutes at the most, and Maggie said the road was bumpy and windy, so I’m guessing we are in a cabin off an old logging road.”

  “There’s only about a hundred of those around.”

  “When they find your car, they’ll know something is wrong, and—” she dropped her voice to a whisper “—I think we can be confident that plant operations will be suspended until we are found.”

  “But you aren’t confident they will find us in time.”

  “No. I’m sorry, but I’m not.”

  Katarina’s voice reached them through the thick walls. She was yelling at someone. Blake strained to hear her. Heidi stood and repositioned the wheelbarrow in front of them like a shield.

  The yelling grew louder and then ended.

  “I’d like to hear your horrible plans, if it’s all the same to you,” he whispered to Heidi.

  “I’ve got a tiny knife she didn’t discover when she searched me,” she said. “You’re tall enough to stand on the wheelbarrow and try to cut through the ceiling where the light fixture is. As far as I can tell, it’s the only weak spot in this place. If we could get a big enough hole in the ceiling, I could get up there and catch her by surprise.”

  “You’re right. That’s a horrible plan.”

  “It’s the best I’ve got. Do you have a better one?”

  He loved how she asked. No rancor or animosity. No challenge. She actually thought he might have a better idea.

  He wished he did.

  “I’ve got nothing, but then, my brain is still scrambled. What did she do to me?”

  “Probably the same thing she did to me. It’s a paralytic absorbed through the skin. It’s powerful but not long-lasting. Keep moving around. It will help. Water would be a good idea and she brought some in here, but after Maggie fell asleep, I was afraid to touch it or any of the food.”

  The door rattled and Blake stepped in front of Heidi and Maggie. “I’m afraid this is where I leave you,” Katarina said. “I need you to know, this isn’t how I wanted things to end.”

  A door slammed.

  The silence that followed was broken when Heidi pounded on the door. The knob rattled as she tried to yank it from the door. “Let me help,” he said. Together, they pulled and twisted. They kicked at the door, rammed their shoulders into it. It wouldn’t budge.
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br />   Heidi used her knife on the screws. It took forever in the dark, but eventually, she got the knob loose enough that they were able to pull it from the door. Blake looked through the opening. A faint light flickered in through a window he could see about fifteen feet away, but it didn’t illuminate the room they were in at all.

  “She must have braced the door somehow,” he said.

  “I think you’re right.”

  He turned to her, pulling her close, running his hands through her hair, then kissing her face. “I love you,” he said. “I know it’s a little late to be mentioning it, but it’s true. I love you and I want to be with you forever. I’ll sell my share of the business and move to DC if that’s what you want. I know you’re probably thinking it’s easy for me to say that since we are about to die, but I mean it. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I don’t ever want to be apart from you.”

  Heidi’s hand covered his lips. “I love you, too,” she said and pressed her lips to his. “When we get out of this, we can talk about it more. There’s an FBI resident agency in Asheville. I’ve heard they’re hiring…”

  He kissed her again. “You think we can figure this out?”

  “I know we can,” she said. “First, we have to figure out how to get out of here.”

  “Then hand me your knife and point me toward this light fixture.”

  Blake pulled the wheelbarrow over and stood on it. Heidi’s hand wrapped around his and she placed the rubber handle of the knife in his palm.

  Blake found the housing for the light and began cutting away at the Sheetrock. Once he got a decent opening, he returned the knife to Heidi and pulled at the Sheetrock with his hands. Dust flew in his eyes.

  “Hang on,” Heidi said as a piece fell to the floor. “Let me slide Maggie over.”

  With Maggie out of the way, he continued to rip at the Sheetrock, using the knife when necessary.

  His arms shook with exertion, but he had managed to open up a space a few feet wide. The problem was he couldn’t tell if there was any open space above or if there was another floor.

  “Put me on your shoulders and let me see what I can feel,” Heidi said. She scrambled up and they both had to duck to keep her from hitting her head on the ceiling. Once back under the hole, her body shifted as she inspected the opening.

  “It’s…almost…big enough,” she said, straining with each word. “I can’t see anything, but it feels cooler. My guess is that I’d be in the rafters. If I can get up here, maybe I’ll be able to see some stars or something that will give us a little light.”

  She climbed back down and he went to work on the hole with new vigor. He’d been at it two or three minutes when Heidi’s hand on his leg made him pause.

  “What is it?”

  “Do you smell that?”

  He sniffed the air. Maybe? He sniffed again.

  Heidi’s grip on his leg tightened. “Smoke. I smell smoke,” she said. Fear permeated her words. He sniffed again.

  Yes. Smoke.

  He peaked through the doorknob. The room was awash with flame. Katarina Kovac was going to burn them alive.

  TWENTY

  When Blake stepped aside, Heidi peered through the knob. No! The room on the other side of their prison gleamed with firelight. With the cement walls surrounding them, they would probably die of smoke inhalation before the flames came through the ceiling to claim their bodies. It was a very small comfort.

  Heidi fought the tremors coursing through her. Proximity to open fire always triggered a panic attack. Help me, she prayed. She could not panic. Not now.

  “Blake, get me up there,” she said.

  Blake put his arms around her. “No. I’ll do it,” he said.

  “The hole isn’t big enough and I won’t be able to lift you up there,” she said. “I’ve got to do it.”

  “But the fire! Heidi, the ceiling could crash in at any time. I don’t know if I can let you—”

  “We have to try,” she said. “I’ll go through the ceiling and down into the other room and see if I can get the door open. You’ll have to be ready to run with Maggie.”

  The flames in the other room allowed light to seep into their prison from the hole in the ceiling and through the door. Not much light, but enough that she could see through his expressions the battle raging in Blake’s mind.

  “You have to let me do this, Blake.”

  She saw the moment when he accepted it was the only way. He pulled her into a fierce embrace. One quick kiss. One whispered “Hurry.” Then she clambered onto his shoulders and into the tight space between the rafters.

  The heat smacked her face and her body trembled. Every cell in her being wanted to escape the flames, but she forced herself to keep moving forward. The rafters had warmed, but weren’t too hot to touch yet. She crawled, one hand on one rafter, one knee on another, and made her way past the cement walls. Once through, she sat on the rafter and kicked at the ceiling, over and over. Smoke had filled the attic space making each breath a commodity with a rapidly dwindling supply.

  Finally, her foot broke through. “Yes!”

  The heat engulfing her foot caused her to yank it back into the attic. Flames followed. Frantic, she went back to kicking the edges of the opening. Pieces fell to the floor below and more smoke billowed around her.

  With one final heave, a huge piece of Sheetrock crashed. Heidi reached for the rafter with her hands, intending to use it to swing herself below. Her hands jerked back of their own accord as flames licked the freshly exposed fuel.

  Father, help me, she prayed again and again. She had to get down there. Into the flames. Or they were all dead. But jumping into that inferno would probably kill her. Images of Blake and Maggie filled her mind. She focused on the memories of their smiles and their laughter and their love. With one final prayer that God would help them move on, she jumped.

  She landed hard, but managed to avoid catching on fire. If she could get them out…

  “Heidi! Heidi! Are you okay?” Blake’s calls helped her find the way to the barricaded door.

  Katarina hadn’t been playing around. Three four-by-four blocks fit snugly at various points along the doorframe. Four-by-four blocks that smoked as they threatened to burst into flame. She knocked them away, one by one.

  Would flames engulf them the moment the door opened and gave the fire a fresh supply of oxygen?

  “Blake, get Maggie. Hold her as low to the ground as you can. When I open the door, run straight ahead. I’ll try to get to the door ahead of you.”

  “Okay,” Blake said. “I’m ready.”

  Heidi yanked the door open, then turned and ran for the door to the house. A wall of flame blocked it. She forced herself to run into it and threw the door open as Blake approached. He dove through and hit the porch, rolling Maggie and himself over and over on the ground. Heidi jumped to follow as a piece of ceiling crashed to the floor, burying her in its flames.

  *

  The pain woke her. Even before her eyes responded to her repeated command to open, the sounds and smells prepared her for what she would see. A hospital bed. An IV pole. An oxygen mask.

  Panic fluttered on the edge of her mind.

  Her eyes flew open and she tried to sit up.

  “Hey,” Blake said. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  The panic dissipated. He was here. They’d made it out. She tried to smile, but her face didn’t cooperate.

  “You have a busted lip from where the ceiling collapsed, babe.”

  Babe. Heidi didn’t try to move again for a while. He’d called her babe. He was here. Alive. “Maggie?”

  “Completely fine. Singed her eyebrows off, but no permanent damage.”

  “Where is she? You should be with her. She’s going to need—”

  “Honey, she’s in a bed asleep on the other side of that curtain.” He pointed behind his head. “And I know she’ll need a lot of help processing what’s happened. I’m going to rely on you to help me with that.” />
  Could she help? Maybe as a case study for how not to handle trauma. “I don’t want her to be like me,” she said.

  Blake pursed his lips. “I hope she’s exactly like you. I hope she’s tough and strong and courageous.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I don’t want her to live afraid. Or angry.”

  “She won’t, honey. Not with you to help her understand and process everything. Sara came to talk to her yesterday. She thinks she’ll make a quick and full recovery.”

  “Sara’s been here? What day is it?”

  “Monday, um, no, Tuesday morning. A little after midnight. I’ve got a special FBI pass that says I can stay with you. The nurse isn’t impressed.”

  She’d been out twenty-four hours. How badly was she injured?

  “Hey.” Blake leaned closer. “It’s okay. You have three broken ribs and a concussion. They flew you out in a chopper. The biggest worry was the smoke inhalation, but you’ve been breathing on your own with no problems. You’ve got a few first-degree burns on your back and legs and arms. Your hands have some second-degree burns, but the doctor says they will heal nicely. You’ve woken up a few times, but my guess is you don’t remember.”

  No, she didn’t.

  “How did I get out?”

  The last thing she remembered was the ceiling crashing and the heat.

  He gulped and took a deep breath. “I got Maggie away and went back in after you.”

  “You came after me?”

  “Of course,” he said.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. A few minor burns, smoke inhalation. No big deal.”

  No big deal. This man had walked through fire for her. There was no bigger deal.

  She wanted to keep looking at him, keep talking to him, keep convincing herself they’d made it out alive. But the longer she tried to stay awake, the worse she felt. This wretched combination of painkillers and pain was one she knew far too well. “What do they have me on?” She lifted the IV tubing.

  “Morphine.”

  She tried to find a way to turn off the flow.

  “Hey!” Blake reached for her hand. “Stop it. You’ll be in agony.”

  “I need to be able to think.”

  “Honey,” Blake said. “You need to be able to heal. There’s no rush.”