Sleepwalker

by Karen Robards

  “What, you don’t like the idea of dying in a hail of bullets?”

  At the humor in his voice she shot him a withering look, but he didn’t see it: he was busy looking down again. Mick looked, too, and felt her stomach clench.

  “Agreed?” she asked.

  “Let’s see how it goes,” he temporized.

  “Are you by any chance suggesting we wing it?”

  “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that.”

  The impulse to clonk him upside the head was strong, but Mick didn’t have time even to reply.

  “You see anything?” asked one of the men below, and the words sounded so clear and close that Mick froze in place.

  “Trees. Snow,” the other replied.

  The snowmobile was so near now that she could see the two bulky figures on its back. Although she wasn’t able to identify either, she was left in no doubt that this was, indeed, Uncle Nicco’s crew.

  “They’re here somewhere. They have to be.”

  “Maybe they got a ride.”

  “Out here?”

  The thrum of the snowmobile’s motor pulsated through the air as the vehicle moved to within yards of their tree. Holding her breath, looking almost directly down on the two men now, she watched as the one in the rear slowly turned the searchlight, directing it in a controlled path that illuminated everything it touched. The beam curved through the forest toward them. It lit up trees thirty feet away … twenty feet away … ten feet away … throwing the gnarled bark and thick trunks of old oaks and elms and birches and the smoother, darker, more slender trunks of poplars and ash and the feathery green fullness of the fir trees into stark relief as it passed slowly over each in turn. “… out here all night.” Mick thought it was the passenger who was talking again, in a complaining tone now, but something, either his position or the volume of his voice had changed, so that she wasn’t able to hear every word as clearly as before.

  “We find ’em, it’s over. We …”

  The rest of the driver’s response was unintelligible. Maybe, Mick thought, she was hearing less because her pulse pounded so loudly in her ears. In every outward respect she was calm, but there was nothing she could do about the too-rapid beating of her heart, or the tightness in her stomach, or her dry mouth. She was so fixated on the approaching light that she briefly forgot to breathe. With mounting dread, she watched as the light played over the stand of walnuts to their left, and then swung at last toward the birch.

  Mick’s heart jackhammered as the light came within a yard of their tree before passing out of her sight. The fact that she could not see it any longer meant that it was shining on their tree directly below the deer stand, she knew. It would illuminate the birch’s trunk just as it had all the others, and the rungs would gleam and be spotted, and someone would look up and it would all be over.

  The thief turned away to stand over the trapdoor, his weapon at the ready. He signaled Mick to keep watch out the gun slot, and, heart racing, she complied.

  The snowmobile stayed below them, inching forward just as it had been doing all along, the two men aboard it visible as hunched, dark figures. Though she waited on tenterhooks, there was no outcry, no urgent gesture to indicate that their hiding place had been discovered.

  Then, just like that, the snowmobile slid forward and disappeared from view. For a moment Mick remained motionless, senses straining to catch the smallest hint of what was happening below. Four snowmobiles remained where she could see them, the two on the gravel road that were now returning from the lake and, farther away, the two that were searching in the opposite direction. But the one beneath their tree and its partner had both vanished from sight.

  Taking a deep, steadying breath in an effort to combat her galloping pulse, Mick turned away from the gun slot and took two quick strides to the opposite side of the deer stand, whispering, “I think they’ve moved on.” Still standing over the trapdoor, gun at the ready, he watched her as she gently eased open a new gun slot and peered out. A blast of frigid air laced with snow swirled inside. Looking cautiously out into the night, she barely even noticed.

  Sure enough, she could see both snowmobiles. They were sliding away from the birch, headlights pointing straight ahead, searchlights probing any possible hiding places. In front of them. While the birch was left behind.

  Mick went weak at the knees.

  “They’re going,” she whispered over her shoulder. “I don’t think they saw anything.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Stepping away from the trapdoor, he joined her at the gun slot. Weapons still at their respective sides, together they watched as the snowmobiles slowly moved on. “Sometimes you get lucky.”

  Although neither of them said it aloud, the knowledge that the situation could change in an instant hung in the air between them. Another snowmobile could always follow in the path of those two, and spot the deer stand. Or maybe it already had been spotted, and the pair on the snowmobile had elected to move on and send someone else back to check it out. Or—Well, anything was possible. The thing was, it was useless to speculate. But she thought they had escaped detection.

  Still, her stomach stayed clenched and her heart continued to pound.

  “You were right about them using where they stopped the boat to calculate where we got off.” She was proud of how cool her voice sounded. “Or else they’re searching the entire forest.”

  “Either way, looks like we’re not going anywhere for a while.” Having moved so that he was looking out the original gun slot, he glanced back at her.

  “You don’t think we should try to run for it? While they’re looking somewhere else?”

  “The problem with that is there’s no telling where they’ll turn up, or if there are other search parties or where they are. If we try to walk out of here and they catch us, we’ve got trouble.”

  Thinking about it, Mick realized with some reluctance that it was indeed safer to stay put. With the snowmobiles out patrolling the forest, and God only knew what other kind of searches going on, the only smart thing to do was hunker down where they were, in an area that had already been searched, in a place where they were protected from the weather. But going to ground went against her natural instinct, which was to run, and in the process put as many miles as possible between themselves and the people hunting them.

  “How long do you think they’ll keep looking for us?”

  “Until they find us or something stops them. But people get cold and they get tired. This group will probably keep searching the forest for a couple of hours more, then give up and go away. Maybe they’ll decide they miscalculated where we left the boat and turn their attention somewhere else. Of course, they’ll probably leave a car or two watching the road in and out of here just in case. You did say there was just one road in and out?”

  “Route 92,” Mick confirmed glumly. With another glance out the gun slot—only the two snowmobiles searching the forest in the opposite direction were still visible, and if it hadn’t been for their lights shining like beacons in the distance she would no longer have been able to see them—she checked her Glock again, then stowed it safely away in her pocket. The adrenaline was beginning to leave her system. In its place fatigue was once again setting in.

  “Then we keep off Route 92,” he said. As he moved away from the gun slot, Mick saw that he had put away his own weapon. Bending over the shadowy objects piled against the far wall, he rifled quickly through them. Mick recognized one as a folding chair, and another as a lantern, not that they dared use it. There were more items, but she couldn’t identify anything else from where she was: it was too dark.

  “Are you proposing we walk out of here? Because unless we come across that fishing store, it’s a long way to the nearest building, which I think is a gas station up by the interstate. And in case it’s escaped your notice, the weather isn’t all that good for being outdoors.” Suddenly conscious of the cold air pouring in through the gun slot, she closed it. Immediately the inside of the deer stand was darker th
an it had been, and slightly less cold and windy. It surprised her to discover that she was shivering. Probably, she thought, folding her arms over her chest as the only meager defense she could come up with against the cold, she’d been shivering all along, only she had been too preoccupied with the snowmobiles to notice. Now that she no longer had abject fear to get her blood racing, she was freezing cold again, as well as exhausted. Wind was blowing in through the last open gun slot, and she stepped over to close it.

  “Hey, leave that open for a minute, would you? I need to see, and I don’t want to use my headlamp.” As Mick shuddered at the thought, imagining the light shining through kinks in the wood and leading the searchers directly to them, he straightened away from the items against the wall with a slightly bulky, cylindrical object in his hands. While she frowned at it, trying to figure out what it was, he added, “Remember those cars I’m pretty sure they’re going to post out on the main road? What I’m proposing is that we sneak up on whoever is in one of them and take it. If we do it right, they won’t see us coming, and the whole thing should be a piece of cake.”

  “A piece of cake.” Her tone was skeptical. He’d been fiddling with the object he was holding, and now he unrolled it and shook it out.

  “Is that a sleeping bag?” she asked, momentarily distracted.

  “Like I said, sometimes you get lucky.”

  “Oh, wow.” Briefly dazzled by the potential warmth and comfort the sleeping bag offered, Mick regrouped and got back to the matter at hand. “You want us to try to carjack a vehicle that at a guess will have at least two armed men in it and you think that’ll be a piece of cake?”

  “If you’ve got a better suggestion, I’m all ears.” He was busy turning the sleeping bag inside out as he spoke. Which was a good thing, in Mick’s opinion, because if it had been stored in the deer stand for the weeks since deer season ended, it could easily have been playing host to a number of assorted bugs.“You want to come over here and get the mat that goes under this and lay it out?”

  “I suggest we call for help,” she said as he shook the sleeping bag again. Still, she went to retrieve the mat—rolled up into a cylinder about the size of an oxygen tank, but slick and spongy—from where he indicated. “You know, use your phone?”

  “No signal, remember.” He turned the bag right side out once more.

  “When there is a signal.” She pulled off a piece of cord that had been tied around the mat. A flexible rectangle of rubberized foam about the size of a full-body swim float, it unfurled on its own, and she put it on the floor.

  “When there is a signal, you can call for help. If we haven’t managed to find another way out of here first. You want to scoot back a little?” Taking a step out of the way, she watched him shake out the sleeping bag again, then spread it out on top of the mat. Unzipping the side a little, he straightened and looked around at her. “Okay, crawl in. Take off everything you’re wearing that’s even a little bit damp first, though. Probably you want to start with those pants.”

  Chapter

  12

  “What? No,” Mick replied, caught by surprise.

  He had already turned away from her to crouch beside something in the jumble at the end of the space, but her response made him cast her a look over his shoulder.

  “You want to stand there and freeze instead? I could feel you shivering like crazy while we were watching those snowmobiles. I doubt you’ve gotten any warmer.”

  So that answered one question: she had indeed been shivering earlier but hadn’t realized it. In answer to the other, about the sleeping bag, she was so cold, and so tired, and she knew there wasn’t even really any choice. She was just resistant to the idea of taking off any clothes in this weather. Especially her pants. Especially in front of him. And especially considering the fact that there were people out there looking for them, which meant they might be found at any moment. She definitely did not want to be half naked for that.

  “Maybe this isn’t the best time to be getting undressed. In case somebody spots the deer stand and finds us,” she said.

  “If somebody finds us, we’ll have bigger problems than being undressed. But you do what you want.”

  He had a point. “If I take off everything that’s damp, I’m not going to be left with much.”

  “See, that’s where the sleeping bag comes in. Once you’re inside it, it doesn’t matter.”

  “What about you?”

  “There’s only one sleeping bag. I’m coming in, too. We might as well try to grab a couple of hours sleep while we can.”

  It was common sense, she knew, but still, she eyed him a shade mistrustfully. “If you’re even thinking about …”

  “Hot sex on a cold night?” Voice dry, he finished her sentence for her when she broke off. “I’m not, okay? Jesus, you’ve got a dirty mind.”

  “I do not. I’m just being clear.” She wasn’t really worried that he would try to force himself on her or anything. First, she could take care of herself. And second, she thought she was a good enough judge of character to recognize a creep when she met one, and while he might have been a criminal, she was as sure as it was possible to be that he wasn’t a creep.

  “Anyway, you’re not my type,” he added, his attention returning to the objects against the wall. “I don’t do cops.”

  Mick shot him a withering look, which he missed since his back was turned. “That’s good, because I don’t do thieves.”

  “Then we’re golden. What are you waiting for?” He was on one knee now, fiddling with something in the far corner, and he looked back over his shoulder at her again as he spoke. “Take off your wet clothes, throw them over here, and get in the sleeping bag. I’ll hang them up so they can maybe dry a little while we sleep. There’s a camp stove here with a few pieces of charcoal left in it, a pile of sticks beside it and a lighter on top. It’s not much bigger than a loaf of bread so I’m not expecting much, but at least if it works it should take the edge off the cold.”

  “It’ll smoke. Somebody might see. Or smell it.” She had to say it, even though she was shivering so much that her muscles hurt and the idea of having heat made her feel almost greedy with longing. That longing, however, was pretty much canceled out by the fear of being found.

  “They’d have to be pretty damn close. Besides, the snow is falling so heavily it should cover anything this little mite puts out, and with the amount of fuel we have, the fire will be burned out before daylight, which is when I’d be afraid to risk it. At worst there won’t be much smoke, and the flip side of that is we’re going to need some heat if we want our clothes to have even a chance of drying before we put them on again. And if you want to start out walking by dawn’s early light in wet clothes, I sure don’t.”

  That reminder made Mick newly conscious of the soggy state of parts of her flannel pants.

  “Carbon monoxide,” she warned, although she was already succumbing to temptation and unbuttoning her coat.

  “It’s vented to the outside. We should be fine.”

  Mick took her Glock out of her pocket and placed it on the floor beside the sleeping bag where, she calculated, she could easily reach it once she was inside the bag—just in case. Then, with a quick look at her companion to make sure he wasn’t paying attention, she pulled the pictures of the Lightfoot crime scene out of her pants pocket and shoved the folded papers into an inside pocket of the coat, where she judged they had the greatest chance of staying hidden and safe. They were the evidence of murder Nate and the homicide division needed, and they were destined to be turned over to her department the first chance she got. Shrugging out of the coat, she was instantly colder than she could ever remember being in her life as what felt like a blast of arctic air swept over her bare arms and neck and penetrated the thin tank that was all she was wearing underneath. Goose bumps raced over her skin like falling dominoes.

  “Brrr,” she said and rubbed her arms briskly with her hands even as she kicked off her boots. Shivering, teeth cle
nched to keep them from chattering, she then yanked off her socks, which were damp, and pants, which were more than damp, in record time, to the accompaniment of metallic clanks, the snapping of sticks and the pfft -pfft -pfft of several attempts to light a disposable cigarette lighter. She knew precisely what those last sounds were and what kind of lighter it was, because as she snatched off her cap and dropped it on the pile with the rest of her clothes, a tiny flame burst into life in the corner, drawing her gaze. It limned his broad shoulders and averted profile in orange as he bent to touch the lighter to a pile of sticks inside a rectangular opening in the small, cast-iron-looking box that was the stove.

  “Toss ’em,” he said with a glance over his shoulder as the sticks caught. Ordinarily Mick would have insisted on hanging up her own wet clothes, but standing there in her tank top and red bikini underpants, she was just too cold. Besides, dark as it was inside the shelter, she nevertheless got the feeling that he was getting an eyeful. Rule of thumb for making such judgments was if she could see him, he could see her. Not the details, maybe, but the broad strokes. Like her long, bare legs. And the fact that she was down to her panties and tank.

  “Here.” Bundling her clothes together and tossing them toward him as instructed, she turned her back. By the time he caught the bundle she had already darted to the sleeping bag’s opening, dropped to her knees and started wriggling inside. The bag was thick and well made, but unfortunately the soft, fleecy inner lining was as cold as the air surrounding them.

  “Oh my God, it’s freezing!” she exclaimed as she burrowed for the center, then curled into a ball in an effort to scare up some body heat. She still found herself shaking, like she was having a seizure. “Shut the gun slot, would you?”

  “Just so you know, I really appreciate you getting in first and warming that thing up for me.” There was humor in his voice as, her clothes in hand, he stood for a moment surveying her, or, rather, the lump in the belly of the python she probably resembled.