Hunter's Pursuit

by Kim Baldwin

  She handed them to Frank, whose eyes widened in surprise. He shoved them into his pockets.

  “You’re gonna take care of Hunter’s friend.” She moved to stand in front of Kenny.

  Kenny tried to remain calm. He didn’t want her to see how afraid he was. But his heart was pounding in his chest.

  “Babysit him. If he moves, stop him. Like this.” Scout raised her gun and brought it down against the side of Kenny’s face.

  Kenny tried to duck, but she connected with enough force to make his vision swim. He groaned. Blood trickled from a cut on his cheekbone. Grimacing against the pain, he averted his eyes.

  “Convince him it would be extremely foolish to try to get away,” she continued, smiling down at Kenny. “You can hit him as hard as you like. Just make sure he’s still able to talk.”

  “And Frank,” she added, finally turning away from Kenny to look at the big man, “if you try to help him or get away yourself, I’ll make your death most unpleasant.” She said it so matter-of-factly that Frank’s palms began to sweat.

  “I understand.”

  “If you do as you’re told,” she promised, “you’ll get more cash, one of the snowmobiles...and you get to leave here alive.”

  Frank nodded.

  “Okay, let’s see what you can do.” She nodded toward Kenny as she stepped back.

  Frank looked at her, momentarily confused. Then her intent became clear. A cruel test. One he had to pass convincingly. Frank stepped in front of Kenny and put his back to Scout. As he did, Kenny’s eyes rose to meet his.

  Frank tried to convey apology in his expression as he brought his hand back and balled it into a fist. He slammed it into Kenny’s midsection with enough force to knock the wind out of him and cause one hell of an impressive bruise later. But Frank had pulled the punch enough not to break any ribs or damage any internal organs. One thing he knew was how to hit someone.

  Kenny slumped over and gasped for air.

  Frank glanced at Scout as he brought back his fist again. “Want me to hit him some more?” he asked with a half smile.

  Scout laughed. “Maybe later,” she said. “I get my turn first.”

  *

  Kat strained to hear what was happening on the other side of the door. She was faced with an impossible choice. She would gladly have sacrificed herself for Kenny if that were the only decision she had to make. But to reveal their hiding place would probably do nothing to save her friend. She was pretty sure Scout would kill him anyway to leave no witnesses.

  No, she couldn’t come out. To do so would put Riley in Scout’s hands as well. She couldn’t watch both of them die.

  Her hands clenched into fists as she imagined what Scout might do to Kenny. When Kat pictured him, she still saw the face of the boy he’d once been. Though they e-mailed each other frequently, they had not seen each other in several years. He’d come all the way out here, put himself at risk because of their friendship. Could she listen to him being tortured and do nothing?

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Kenny fought to catch his breath. He knew Frank could have hit him much harder. He had seen the look of regret in Frank’s eyes, and he felt a glimmer of hope at the realization. His cheek still throbbed from Scout’s brutal assault, but he was determined to endure whatever the woman had planned for him. He didn’t want Hunter to risk her life to save him.

  *

  Kat’s frustration boiled. She could hear nothing of what was happening in the other room. She glanced at the MP5 slung over her shoulder. If she had to leave their hiding place, it would not be the right weapon. Scout would be using Kenny as a shield.

  She returned the submachine gun to its safe.

  She took out a small buck knife and slid it into her left boot. Next she removed a case containing three throwing stars, each with four razor-sharp points. She slipped one into each back pocket and the third into the top of her right boot.

  She also withdrew a .38 from the safe and loaded it. She handed it to Riley. “It’s loaded. Safety’s off. Don’t use it unless you have to.”

  Riley nodded and took the weapon.

  Kat returned to the panel to listen.

  *

  Scout stood facing Kenny, cruel intent written in the smile on her face. Her gun was in her left hand, switchblade in her right. She kept glancing around the room as if expecting Hunter to appear at any moment.

  Scout put the knife to Kenny’s throat and caressed him with the razor-sharp edge, forcing his head up to look at her. Her voice was soft. “Call out for your friend, Kenny. I know she’ll want to come out and play when she hears you’re here.”

  Kenny remained silent. He tried to free his hands.

  “Need a little encouragement, eh?” she purred. “I kind of hoped you would.”

  She drew back with the knife and slashed his forehead—a cut three inches long, and deep.

  Kenny cried out. Blood poured into his eyes. He struggled harder to free his hands.

  “Stop that!” she snapped.

  Kenny froze.

  Scout got behind him. Kenny’s wrists were red and raw from trying to get out of the cuffs.

  “Go get those chains and padlocks she used on you and Otter,” Scout ordered Frank, waving him toward the generator room.

  Frank nodded and headed for the door. As he reached it, he glanced back.

  Scout circled Kenny, trailing the point of her knife in a path along his body. It went around his neck, paused at his ear, and followed his arm to his fingers. “I’m through playing around,” she snarled. “You’re going to start losing body parts unless you call out to her. Now!”

  Her words echoed in Frank’s head as he ran to the generator room.

  *

  Kat heard Kenny’s muffled cry of pain. She fought the overwhelming urge to burst out of the hidden door to confront Scout and rescue her friend. She held her Sig Sauer so tightly in her right hand her knuckles were white. Her left hand gripped the latch that would unlock the door.

  She thought she heard Scout say something, but she couldn’t make it out.

  Then Kenny’s voice. “Hunter,” he shouted hoarsely. “It’s Kenny.”

  The lights blinked out again.

  *

  None of them expected it.

  So when the lights went out, there was at first a moment of shocked silence.

  Then everything happened all at once.

  Kenny’s chair skittered across the floor.

  Scout shrieked in frustration and lunged out after him just as Kat slipped into the room, fifteen feet away.

  Kenny careened into the desk. He howled in pain as his hands were pinched between the chair and desk. He kicked off hard with his feet again to keep moving. His chair hit some books on the floor and stopped abruptly. He kicked again and rolled into the wall near the bedroom door. He froze there and listened.

  Scout followed the noise of the chair. When it stopped, she headed in that direction.

  Kat slipped her gun into her pants at the small of her back. She couldn’t use it now. She risked hitting Kenny. And if she shot at Scout and missed, the flash from her gun would give away her location.

  She reached for her buck knife and held it loosely in her right hand while her other hand rested against the wall of bookshelves to her left.

  It took her only a few moments to pick up Kenny. His heavy breathing was in front of her and to her right. She crept forward.

  Kat opened her mouth and inhaled, tasting the air. She faintly smelled Kenny’s sweat. Then the coppery tang of fresh blood. She gritted her teeth. She could hear nothing, smell nothing, of Scout.

  There were obstacles in her path. Books. She inched forward, nudging them aside with her feet as quietly as she could.

  Kat imagined she was only six feet or so from Kenny when she heard a scuffle. Kenny grunted. Then the chair skittered across the floor again. It hit the wall, and through her fingertips Kat felt a slight vibration from the impact.

  Kat tuned out
Kenny’s sounds as she crept closer to him. Finally she could detect a new sound—Scout’s slightly accelerated breathing, near where she had heard the scuffle.

  Kat focused on that sound with her eyes closed as she sheathed her knife and reached for one of her throwing stars.

  The stainless steel was cool in her hand, the weight and the feel of it familiar, though it had been at least a year since she’d thrown one. Her fingertip caressed the throwing edge as her mind went through its checklist: the grip, the pressure on the blades, the flick of her wrist that would give it just the right spin at the moment of release. She let it fly.

  The star struck Scout in her left shoulder and penetrated deep into the muscle. She screamed and her gun clattered to the floor.

  Kat shot forward, her hands outstretched, seeking Kenny. Her left one found his head.

  Kenny cried out.

  Kat clamped one hand over his mouth. The other grabbed the back of the chair and yanked hard, pulling Kenny toward the bookshelves and farther from Scout, who was gasping loudly in pain.

  The chair rolled several feet before a pile of books halted its progress. Kat leaned down until her lips were against Kenny’s ear. “It’s me,” she whispered, taking her hand from his mouth. She felt for his bindings. She discovered he wasn’t tied to the chair. He was just unable to raise his hands over the high back to free himself.

  She sliced through the rope around his feet. Then she put her arms under his armpits and lifted him.

  Kenny struggled to his feet, his hands still cuffed behind him.

  Kat put her hand to his mouth again. She could no longer make out Scout’s labored breathing.

  She put Kenny behind her, reached down, and picked up several books. She threw them rapid-fire in a scatter pattern toward Scout’s last location until she heard a startled grunt of impact. She reached for another star and hurled it hard at the sound, gratified by the cry of pain that followed.

  Kat reached up and skimmed along the bookshelves with one hand while her other remained on Kenny’s shoulder. She found the latch and pressed it. The click of the door lock seemed unusually loud.

  She pushed the panel open and shoved Kenny through it, then closed it again. She listened. She picked up a few more books and threw them in Scout’s direction. Nothing.

  Scout was on the move.

  *

  Frank cursed himself for not picking up a flashlight before he’d cut off the generator. He got to his hands and knees and groped around on the floor beside Otter, searching for the one he’d had earlier. Finally he found it and clicked it on.

  Frank remained still for several seconds, considering his next move. He was tempted to just get the hell out of there while he could. The emergency exit beckoned him. But then what? Wander around out there until you freeze to death?

  He went into the tunnel and took a hammer from Hunter’s toolbox. Then he continued on to the door to the living room, but didn’t open it. He pressed his back against the wall and clicked off the flashlight. A good place to wait, he decided, comforted by the heavy heft of the hammer in his hand.

  *

  The second throwing star cut deeply into Scout’s left arm. It could have been much worse. It struck where her head had been a second earlier. But Scout was alert to Kat’s presence now, and she had instinctively dodged to the side after the book had hit her, marking her location.

  The adrenaline pouring through her body helped her ignore the pain. Scout gripped her switchblade in her right hand as she crept toward the center of the room. She heard a click in the direction of the bookshelves.

  *

  Riley heard the click of the panel door, then the shuffling of feet. Thank God, Kat’s back. Her relief was short-lived, however, when she next picked up soft grunting sounds. Someone struggling, or in pain. They had a distinctively male sound to them, Riley decided. Her heartbeat accelerated at the realization. She pointed the .38 in the direction of the sounds.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Kat and Scout were ten feet apart.

  Scout stood in the center of the living room, listening. Nothing. But she knew Katarzyna was there. Near the bookshelves. She began to inch her way behind the couch to flank Kat’s position.

  Kat had no idea where Scout was. She crouched down, feeling around her. More books. To disturb them would risk exposing her position. The only way out of the makeshift obstacle course was the way she’d gone to rescue Kenny. Toward the bedroom. She crept in that direction.

  The two women moved farther and farther apart. Fifteen feet separated them. Then twenty.

  Kat encountered fewer and fewer obstacles the farther she got from the bookshelves. Every few steps she paused to listen, but she could still not tell where Scout was.

  Scout closed in on the bookshelves, knowing she had to be close to where she’d heard the noise. She worried Kenny and Katarzyna had escaped into the secret hiding place. She picked up several books and threw them toward the shelves. They clattered off the walls. Nothing. Scout gritted her teeth. You won’t get away from me, her mind chanted. She reached for more books.

  Kat listened to the books hitting the wall and narrowed her keen hearing until she could make out two different types of sounds. Just prior to each thud against the wall, there was a faint whoosh, a fluttering of pages as the book sailed through the air. It gave her a general idea of where Scout was. Still in a crouch, she crept toward that location.

  Another flurry of books was launched, this time right at Kat. The first sailed to her left. Then her right. She dodged the third by mere centimeters, catching the faint rustling of pages at the last moment as it flew directly at her face.

  But Scout was tossing the books one after the other at close range, and Kat couldn’t react quickly enough to successfully evade the next one. It hit her square in her chest and dropped noisily to the floor.

  Kat dove to her left, but she was not fast enough to evade Scout’s switchblade. It sank into the flesh of her right arm, halfway between her shoulder and elbow. She could not suppress a wail of pain as her own knife clattered to the floor.

  *

  Blood dripped into Kenny’s eyes from the slash on his forehead. He was having no luck trying to free himself from the handcuffs. His wrists were raw.

  He explored the area around him with his feet, hoping to come upon something he could use to get the blasted things off. His left boot found something solid. He put his back to it and explored with his fingers. Metal. Big. He felt the dial on the door of the safe and recognized it for what it was. He continued on, taking shuffling steps. Another safe, the door open.

  Kenny felt awkwardly behind him until his hands found a canvas strap. He followed it to a submachine gun, hung on a rack. Below it hung a rifle. He couldn’t reach high enough to tell if there was anything above them.

  He crouched to examine the floor of the safe. With his fingers, he identified a pair of binoculars. A rifle scope. A canister of some sort. A box. He shook it. It rattled. He pried it open. Bullets. Continued on. Three more boxes of bullets. His hand closed around a pistol. Not what Kenny was looking for, but he stuck it into his back pocket. Convinced he had explored the contents of the safe as best as he could, Kenny stood and resumed his shuffling search.

  He had gone a few feet when he heard a gun cock. It came from very close by and near to the floor. It took him several seconds to reach for his own pistol.

  Unable to aim the weapon, he cocked it, hoping the sound would be enough to dissuade the other person from shooting him. The sound echoed in the small space.

  *

  Riley tried not to make a sound. Her heart was pounding. She held her breath.

  She listened to the intruder noisily search the gun safe. She imagined that one of the two men who had been chained up had discovered the secret room.

  She gripped the .38 in her hand and pressed herself into the corner, hoping the man would get what he was after and leave.

  But his shuffling steps came nearer until she was
sure he would be upon her any second.

  She cocked the gun, alarmed by how loud the sound was. Stupid.

  Her fear was confirmed when she heard the answering call of the intruder’s gun being cocked.

  *

  Kenny couldn’t believe Hunter would have gotten him away from the blond psychopath only to place him in more danger. So despite his shock at discovering someone else in here with a gun, he knew he had to find out for sure what the hell was going on.

  He kept his voice to the slightest whisper, afraid that the room he was in wasn’t soundproof.

  “Don’t shoot. I don’t want to hurt anybody, and I hope you don’t either.” He paused, hoping for a response. Silence. “Are you a friend of Hunter’s too?”

  After a long pause, a feminine voice whispered back. “Hunter? Who’s Hunter?”

  Kenny frowned. “Tall, beautiful, mysterious? Owner of this fine establishment?” He hoped a little humor might prompt the woman to put away the gun that was trained on him.

  “Kat,” Riley whispered. “Her name is Kat. Why do you call her Hunter if you’re her friend?”

  “Well, I am her friend,” Kenny insisted. “And she’s been Hunter as long as I’ve known her.”

  “How long is that?”

  “Seven years or so, I guess,” he whispered, “Since she saved my life.”

  “She has a habit of saving people, it seems. She saved my life too. More than once,” Riley said.

  “Can I suggest we agree not to kill each other, then?” Kenny asked. “Probably would really piss her off.”

  Riley had to smile despite the situation. “Okay,” she answered, carefully releasing the hammer of the gun. “What’s your name?”

  “Kenny. You?”

  “Riley. What’s happening out there? How did you get in here?”