by Juno Rushdan
“Striker!” called a woman from outside.
Chloe.
“It’s her,” Emma said. “We took too long. She’s back.”
“I know you’re in there,” Chloe said. “I’m not letting you leave here with Emma. Come out with your hands in the air.”
If Madeline went out and exposed herself, she’d be easy pickings. “I don’t think so.” Better to stay put and wait for Chloe to try to get in.
“Come out now!” Chloe said. “Or I set the cabin on fire.”
Emma wrapped her arms around Madeline’s waist and clung to her. “I’m scared.”
“Shh. It’s going to be okay.” Madeline stroked her hair, trying to think. “Chloe! I don’t think you’re going to do that. I know you care about Emma. You don’t want anything bad to happen to her. So, why don’t you put down any weapons you have and we can talk about this.”
“You’re right. I don’t want to hurt Emma. But if you force me, push me to do it, then I will. Come out, hands up, or you’ll regret testing me.”
For a strained heartbeat, Madeline closed her eyes, thinking of a solution. A way out of this predicament. But nothing came to her.
“You’ve got thirty seconds to decide,” Chloe said. “Once the fire starts, I won’t be able to stop it.”
The car was useless. Without cell reception calling for help was impossible. Madeline couldn’t run, not with Emma. It would only expose the child to more danger. The best place for her, the safest place for a little longer, was unfortunately here.
Madeline lifted the hatch to the bunker. “I need you to go back down.”
“No!” Emma cried. “Please don’t make me. I want to stay with you.”
The girl’s words tugged at her heart. Kneeling, Madeline brought herself to eye level with the child and rubbed her arms up and down. “I know you do, sweetheart. But it’s not safe for you out there. Lots of terrible things that could hurt you. I have to do what she says. It’s the only way to keep anything bad from happening to you. Okay?”
Tears rolled down Emma’s cheeks, but she nodded. “You’ll come back for me, won’t you?”
“Time is almost up!” Chloe said.
Madeline wanted to reassure Emma without lying to her. “Help will come. You’re not spending another night in that bunker. I promise.”
The little girl threw her arms around Madeline’s neck and squeezed in a tight hug. “Okay.”
Madeline helped her climb back down the ladder.
At the bottom, Emma picked up the doll and clutched it to her chest.
“Don’t worry. I always keep my promises.” Madeline lowered the door to the bunker and pushed the bed on top of the door. The idea of leaving the girl made her sick and the prospect of Emma escaping, only to get hurt in the woods, was just as horrible.
“Time’s up,” Chloe said.
“I’m coming out.” Madeline opened the cabin door and stepped out slowly with her palms raised. She searched the tree line for Chloe.
The disturbed woman was there. Close. Hiding.
“You are not going to ruin this for me,” Chloe said. “I’ve earned the right to see this through. With my patience. All my planning. There were lots of times in the past two years where I was close enough to Jackson to stick a knife in his throat, poison him or strangle him. I thought about lots of different ways to kill him. But I watched. I listened. Bided my time while learning about his hopes and fears, what he cared about most. Waited for the perfect opportunity to make him pay. And now everything has fallen perfectly into place and no one is going to stop me.”
Madeline followed the direction of Chloe’s voice and pinpointed the general area the woman was hiding in, but she couldn’t spot her. Was she flat on the ground behind a bush? Up in the trees? Her voice carried so much that Madeline couldn’t be sure.
“Jackson has paid dearly,” Madeline said.
“Not nearly enough. The only thing I regret is not cutting the strings on his piano to take away that bit of solace. But it would’ve shown my hand, tipped him off to me too fast. And he only would’ve ordered a new one. Well, he can’t order a new CEO position, or stealth technology, or a new daughter.”
“Yes, you’ve hurt him deeply. More than I think you realize. You can stop this now before anyone gets hurt. He has suffered every single minute that Emma has been gone. He’s sick with worry and guilt.”
Chloe gave a bitter laugh. “Don’t lie to me. You can’t fool me, Agent Striker. I have cameras hidden in the smoke detectors in his house, watching his every move. I saw the two of you last night. Together. In his bed.”
Fury bubbled and spilled over into shock. Then the magnitude of it sunk in, the violation of being watched during a moment of raw intimacy. Madeline swallowed hard against the nausea rising in her throat that made her dizzy.
Sheer force of will alone kept her steady on her feet.
“He didn’t look like he was suffering when he was inside you,” Chloe said. The derision in her voice cut like a blade.
Clearing her throat, Madeline ignored the sweat chilling her forehead. “It’s not too late to stop this.”
“But it is. Even if it weren’t, why would I stop?”
The bush dead ahead, forty feet away, shook. Madeline itched to draw her weapon, aim and take the shot. End this.
A rabbit darted out from the bush and hopped away.
Damn it. Where was Chloe?
“You’re the first woman he’s looked at, much less touched, in years,” Chloe said. “So, I think it fitting that I use you as practice. For when I bait him to come out here later tonight. You can experience what he’s going to feel as I make him run the gauntlet of the Survivalist Zone. I’ll make certain that he comes across your dead body and sees you bloody and broken before he draws his last breath.”
The one weakness Chloe had in this was her feelings for Emma. Yes, the child was a piece on a chess board to her, but not one she wanted to sacrifice. Somewhere along the way she started to care for her. Madeline had to use that against her.
“What about Emma?” Madeline asked, redirecting the conversation. “If you take away her father, you’ll make her an orphan. She’ll be all alone. Like you are. You don’t want that for her. I know you don’t.”
“She’ll have me. I’ll raise her,” Chloe said. “Teach her. Love her. She’ll barely remember Jackson after a while.”
“Chloe, step out where I can see you.” Where Madeline could get a solid shot off. “Face to face, we can talk this through. You don’t have to do this.”
A flicker of movement up in the trees near the entrance drew Madeline’s gaze. She spotted Chloe, dark hair pulled back, and wearing some kind of camouflage to help her blend in with the woods.
Madeline caught the flash of an arrow cutting through the air too late.
The arrow struck her left thigh. Madeline screamed in pain, clutching her leg.
“But I do have to do this,” Chloe said. “For Theon. For myself. Everything I’ve planned for so long is working out and I need to finish it. I won’t rest until Jackson Rhodes has suffered and lost everything. Including his life. Just like my brother. I’m going to play nice with you, Agent Striker. Give you a sixty-second head start before I hunt you down. Your time begins now.”
Was Chloe serious?
Madeline only contemplated it for a second. She took off into the woods in the opposite direction.
Hobbling along with her wounded leg, she bit back a groan of pain.
Chloe had deliberately positioned herself near the entrance to force Madeline deeper into the Survivalist Zone. Not that she would’ve gotten far down the main road either, not with an arrow in her leg.
If only her cell phone had reception, she could call someone. Tell them. But she was all alone. No one in sight. No one around for miles to help her.
Satellites played no rol
e in cell phone reception, so getting closer to the sky, or getting a clear shot at it, wouldn’t necessarily result in a connection. Cellular reception largely depended on how close you were to a cell tower, what man-made obstructions and geographical obstructions stood in between. Like the mountains surrounding her. But a higher elevation might put her in line of sight with a cell tower and help her get that one crucial bar of coverage.
Her only chance, no matter how slim the odds, was to make her way to higher ground and hope for a cell connection.
There was a hill not too far off that might work. She looked around, scouting the best route to the top.
Spears sticking out of a bush on the right had Madeline going left. She picked up her pace, despite the agony lancing through her, knowing that Chloe was close behind.
Her ankle snagged on something. She was about to look down to see what it was when she heard an earsplitting whoosh.
Without thinking, Madeline dropped to the ground as a heavy log swung out with tremendous force, slicing through the air where she had just been standing.
If she hadn’t dropped, she could’ve been killed instantly, or suffered such traumatic internal injuries that she would’ve died slowly. But the pain that wrenched through her leg stole her breath.
With her eyes tearing up and heart throbbing, Madeline rolled onto her back and snapped the shaft of the arrow in half. She reached out, grabbing hold of a stick that was long enough to use as a cane and scrambled up from the ground.
She stumbled forward, pulling her gun from the holster in case Chloe popped up unexpectedly. It was only a matter of time before she did.
Determined to move faster, she dug in with the stick and hopped up the hill, doing what she could not to put too much weight on her bleeding leg.
Madeline funneled her anger and pain and used it to fuel her onward. To push uphill with everything that she had. She limped faster, breathing hard. Tuned out the pain from her wound and the ache from her muscles. Breath sawed in and out of her lungs. She was nearly to the top.
Dropping the stick, she pulled out her phone, keeping her gun in her other hand.
Almost there. Almost.
Madeline kept going, climbing up the hill. She just needed to reach the top, get a signal and call for help. Tell them where Emma was and make sure this area was surrounded before Liane or Chloe or whatever the hell her name was could get away.
Certain her assailant was on her tail, she darted in between trees. Stayed low.
Looking down at the phone, she checked it for bars. Nothing. Not yet. She cut between pine trees, darting behind them and crawling over fallen logs, scrambling ever higher up the hill.
Her phone chimed.
Madeline stopped and looked at her cell. Two bars.
The message she had typed earlier went through. She went to press the call icon when an arrow whizzed past her head, hitting the trunk of the pine beside her.
She looked downhill. Spotted Chloe moving like a shadow between the trees. A ghillie suit helped to conceal her.
Madeline fired twice at the woman, forcing her to duck. Then she hurried higher.
But she had to keep track of Chloe. Risking a glance back, Madeline twisted her ankle on a rock. A new type of pain ricocheted along her shin. Oh, God. She tried to find her footing and landed wrong, tripping on a tree limb, throwing her forward as her knees buckled.
The ground gave way beneath her feet.
Her arms flailed. She desperately sought to grab hold of something. Anything to keep from falling. The phone and gun dropped from her hands as she snatched onto thick vines at the edge of the pit, breaking her fall.
* * *
THE KIDNAPPER WAS inside Jackson’s head, playing a sick, twisted game of manipulation.
Behind the wheel of his Tesla, he ran through the what-ifs. What if he did as the note instructed, yet again? Ditched the FBI and went rogue? Why would the outcome be any different this time? What if the person never had any intention of giving Emma back? What if this was another power move designed to hurt him, physically this time?
The more he thought about it and calculated the risks, there was only one thing he could do. Discuss it with Madeline. She had been right about so many other things. The smart, tough agent would help him figure out what to do.
In the meantime, he needed to make sure she got back safely.
Jackson drove down the 405, headed for the Survivalist Zone site. Madeline had no idea how dangerous the place was. From intricate booby traps to the rugged terrain that could flatten a tire. Not to mention there might be wildlife on the property.
She didn’t fully understand what she was walking into, and he did.
Jackson glanced at the gun case on the passenger seat. Mountain lions and snakes posed as much of a threat as any of the man-made hazards.
His phone chimed. A new message.
Cold dread fisted in his chest. If it was another text from the kidnapper, tormenting him, taunting him, pushing up the deadline to meet, he didn’t know what he’d do.
He took out his phone. It was from Madeline, not an unknown number.
Sucking in a breath, he swiped the screen and looked at the message.
Found Emma in the bunker at the SZ site. She’s unharmed. Chloe Lasiter is Liane Strothe.
His mouth dried as relief tangled with disbelief.
Thank, God. Emma was alive and all right.
His thoughts circled back to Liane. Chloe Lasiter was Liane. A woman he had trusted, who he had let into his home.
All this time, she’d been watching him, spying on him, plotting how to best hurt him. For two damn years!
Tension bled through him, tightening every muscle in his body. Pressure built in his chest so fast and hard, for a second he thought he was having a heart attack.
Jackson dialed Madeline, but the call didn’t connect. And Liane, what about her? What if she was still in the area, out at the site?
A million terrible possibilities spun in his mind.
Getting into the Survivalist Zone site was one thing. Getting out could be an entirely different situation, especially if Liane—Chloe—one of the masterminds behind the design, was out there.
Rage replaced everything else and it was like acid burning in his veins. Jackson pressed harder on the accelerator, changing lanes to veer away from a slow-moving minivan. He dialed the BAU office. It rang and rang.
Come on. Someone pick up.
“Liam McDare. How can I help you?”
Weaving around traffic, he cut off a sedan and took the exit ramp off the 405 and gunned it. “This is Jackson Rhodes. I heard from Madeline. She found Emma at an old ETC site that had been used by Theon Lasiter.” He relayed how to get there. “I haven’t been able to reach Madeline, but I’m on my way out there now.”
Chapter Sixteen
Had a vine not been handy, Madeline would’ve fallen into the pit. Her heart pounded in her throat as she held on for dear life. She looked down. Wooden spikes pointed up from the ground. Her phone and gun had both fallen and were three feet below her. Dropping down to get them wasn’t a viable possibility. Her feet or a limb would land on a spike. There were too many to avoid.
Even if she somehow managed to drop down safely to get her phone and gun, she’d be trapped. A sitting duck for Chloe.
She tugged on the vines, and using all her upper-body strength, pulled herself up. One hand over the other. She pushed up from the ground, and forced herself to bend her injured leg, swallowed a scream.
Breathing through the hot vise of pain gripping her leg, Madeline glanced around. No sign of Chloe. But she couldn’t sit there waiting for her.
Level ground was best for her leg. She had to get off the hill.
Birds flew out of a tree twenty feet away as though something had spooked them.
Every sense she had went in
to overdrive as the need to survive took over.
Run!
Madeline scrambled in the opposite direction. Headed back downhill.
Keep moving. Don’t stop.
Run as fast as you can!
Another arrow whistled through the air, landing in bark inches from her head.
Oh, God.
Madeline ducked low, but didn’t stop. She gasped for air, her mind racing like a mouse caught in a maze. There had to be a way to save herself and Emma. To make sure Chloe never had a chance to drive Jackson through this gauntlet of hell and misery.
Chloe was closing in on her. She could feel it. There wasn’t much time.
In a physical struggle with Chloe while injured, she wouldn’t win. Since she’d lost her gun, she had no weapon aside from what she might be able to find. A tree branch maybe.
She had to outwit Chloe. Somehow. Keep moving. Hope her text message had gotten through and Jackson had notified the BAU team. She doubled back toward the cabin instead of finding out what was in store deeper in the zone.
Heart throbbing as if it would burst, she slogged forward to God only knew where. Chloe had been over every inch of this land, knew it, had it memorized.
Despite the pain searing through her body, Madeline ran onward. Hard. Limping and bleeding.
She found herself near the area where she had started.
Her gaze snagged on the spears sticking out of the bush. Seeing the bush before had driven her away from it in the opposite direction, toward a trap. Maybe that’s why it was visible. But maybe she could use this to her advantage.
She hobbled to the bush. Grabbing onto one of the spears, she wiggled it and pried it loose. Now that she had a weapon, she needed to find someplace to hide.
Crossing a stream, she passed a tight cluster of trees and came to thick underbrush. She bent down, gritting her teeth when she wanted to scream, and crawled into a bush.
She’d have to be cautious. Listen for even the snap of a twig around her. She could do this. Had to. She was out of other options. This was the best one.
Better to try anything than let that psychopath kill her.
