Rescue at Cedar Lake

by Maggie K. Black

  “I’m the one in charge here!” Bravado and uncertainty pushed through Brick’s words in equal measure, and it wasn’t clear which one was going to win. “Me! Not you. Not Castor. Not anyone! I’m going to take her with me and find that trunk, and nobody’s going to stop me!”

  Alex shrugged, and as he did his whole body seemed to shift forward in one smooth motion. “You sure about that?”

  Panic crawled up Theresa’s throat. Alex was going to get them both killed. He meant well. He was a great guy. But was he really equipped to handle any of this?

  The headlock tightened until all she could feel was the pressure choking the oxygen from her lungs. “Look, man! I’m not playing! She’s gonna die. I’m gonna kill her. You got that?”

  “Loud and clear.” Alex leaped. In one quick motion he struck the weapon away from Theresa’s body and yanked Brick’s arm around behind him. Theresa fell free and stumbled forward. Brick yelped in pain. Alex wrenched Brick’s arm upward, using the pain and leverage to force him down onto the floor.

  “Theresa, are you okay?” Alex stood over Brick. Concern filled his eyes as he searched her face. “Did he hurt you?”

  She blinked. It had all happened so fast she’d barely been able to see it happening. But there Brick was, groaning on the floor, while Alex stood over him, keeping the huge thug down through pressure on his wrist alone. Her mind swam. This couldn’t be happening. She must be dreaming. Her former fiancé had always been an athlete, and Zoe said he excelled at his private security training, but she’d never expected...

  “Theresa!” Alex’s voice rose. “Look at me. You’re in shock right now. I need you to focus. Are you hurt? Can you move?”

  The word shock snapped her mind back like a jolt to the system. She spent a lot of her professional life explaining to clients that the surreal, frozen feeling people went through in a moment of crisis was perfectly normal. Not that knowing that had prepared her in the slightest for suddenly having her dashing ex come swinging in like an action hero.

  “I’m okay. Not hurt.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “Thank You, God.” A quick prayer slipped through his lips, then his eyes locked on her face again. “Check him for weapons. Then grab the shotgun. Point it at buddy here. And tell me everything you know about his friends, where they’ve gone, who this Castor he mentioned is and whatever trunk he thinks I was here to steal. Quickly.”

  “There were three of them.” Quickly she patted down Brick’s jacket and the legs. No weapons. Then she pulled the shotgun from a puddle of melting snow and trained it on Brick. Still Alex didn’t loosen his grip. “They’re looking for a trunk. Castor and Howler left while I was locked in the closet. I don’t know where they went. This guy’s named Brick. Castor asked me if I knew where Mandy and your sister were. He mentioned Mandy by name.”

  “Well, as long as Josh is serving overseas we can’t ask him what he thinks his second cousin might be mixed up in.” Alex’s mouth set in a grim line. “Josh’s grandfather was in the military, too. Maybe Mandy’s side of the family inherited some old war medals or weapons, or something valuable from his tour of duty. Because, for me, a military footlocker is the first thing that springs to my mind when somebody mentions a trunk. But Mandy’s brothers are pretty well-off. Maybe one of them was storing something at their parents’ cottage that was worth stealing.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “Castor seemed to think I should know something about it, but I don’t. You and Zoe know Josh’s family better than I ever did. I wondered if the intended target was Emmett or Kyle, too, not that an old trunk is the usual place a guy who’s almost thirty would keep his valuables.”

  “Did Mandy say anything at all that would shed some light on any of this?” Alex asked.

  Theresa shook her head. “No. Mandy was upset, but nothing to make me think she was afraid, let alone of something like this.”

  “Doesn’t mean she wasn’t.” Alex took a step back, but his grip on Brick’s wrist didn’t falter.

  “Do you have anything to add to this conversation?” he asked. “How about you tell me what you know about who this Castor is and why he hired you?”

  A gun blast shook the air.

  “Theresa, get down!” Alex shouted.

  She turned toward him. For a second the world froze as she saw the strength that shone in his eyes. Then time sped up again and suddenly it was as if everything was happening at once. Alex dropped Brick’s wrist and pulled Theresa to the floor, knocking the couch over in front of them like a shield. A second gun blast sounded, then a third and a fourth, shattering what remained of the windows and tearing up furniture. Brick leaped to his feet, yanked a small handgun from inside his boot and returned fire, momentarily seeming to forget about her and Alex. Only then did she realize she no longer had a grip on the shotgun.

  “We can’t look for it now,” Alex shouted. “Something secure. Somewhere low. Any thoughts?”

  “There’s a hatch under the floor.” She pointed.

  They crawled toward the hatch opening. Alex kicked it open. They tumbled through onto the brick floor below. The hatch snapped shut behind them. Darkness filled the space. Alex urged her up against the very corner of the wall. Then his body covered hers. His heart beat against her back. He pulled a rough tarp over them. Bullets and shotgun blasts rained in the cottage above them, roaring like a hailstorm. Then the noise stopped. Silence surrounded them, punctuated by nothing but the sound of their ragged breaths, their pounding hearts and whispered prayers mingling in the darkness. Her legs cramped beneath her. Her arms were pinned tight against her chest. She started to stretch.

  “Wait.” Alex’s breath filled her ear. “Not yet.”

  And then she heard the footsteps, one set, walking slowly through the cottage, stepping on the broken glass, kicking furniture aside. There was swearing in a muffled male voice.

  Then there was the slow creak of the hatch door opening above them.

  Light filtered down through the hole. Fear filled her chest. Panicked prayers filled her heart. Then the hatch clanged shut again, the footsteps moved on and eventually silence fell. After a long moment, Alex unfolded his body and crouched. “Stay here.”

  He forced the hatch open and looked out. And she heard him sigh heavily, then pray for God’s mercy under his breath.

  She crouched up beside him. “Everything okay?”

  “I think we’re alone. The cottage is a wreck.” He hauled his body up through the hole. Then he looked back down at her face. “Brick is dead.”

  * * *

  Alex searched the rest of the cottage quickly, while Theresa waited in the relative shelter of the storage hatch. He found nothing. Except for Brick’s corpse, they were alone. The cottage had been so totally destroyed it was hard to imagine the criminals having any motive other than causing damage. When he returned to the living room, Theresa had already hauled herself up and was sitting on the edge of the hatch with her legs still dangling in the hole.

  Okay, not quite where he’d asked her to wait. But no harm done.

  “They’re gone, whoever they were.” He reached for her hand, helped her up and then closed the hatch behind her. “I only saw one shooter and it was a fleeting glance at that. He was about six-three, I would guess, masked, with square shoulders.”

  “Sounds like Castor.” Her face paled as her gaze ran to where Brick’s body now lay. “But that doesn’t make sense. Castor knew I was here, too. He should’ve gone searching for me. But he barely checked the hatch.”

  “We were pressed right up against the wall in the shadows,” Alex said. “If it was Castor, he probably thinks you escaped somehow. Do you have any idea why he would come back just to kill one of his men?”

  “I have no idea.” She shook her head but she was still looking at Brick’s body. “But if it wasn’t him, it means
somebody else is running around Cedar Lake destroying cottages. This is my fault. I didn’t think to check inside his boots when I was looking for weapons, and then I dropped the shotgun. If he’d run instead of returning fire he might not have gotten shot.”

  Gently, he took her by the shoulders and turned her away from the body.

  “Hey, it’s not your fault,” he said. “You do know that, right? It was chaos. That gun was hidden pretty deep inside his boot. I might’ve missed it, too. You pointed out the hatch. If we hadn’t hidden in there, we might not still be alive, and we can thank God for that.”

  She nodded and looked down at the ground. Her lips quivered. He pulled her into his arms and hugged her. She hugged him back. Somehow standing there with their arms around each other felt as instinctively right as breathing.

  If someone had told him, even an hour ago, that he would ever hold Theresa in his arms again, he’d have laughed. But he’d loved her once, she’d been his friend and right now she needed him. Something inside him whispered that he wouldn’t be able to keep those old, lingering feelings at bay forever, but for right now, he needed to be stronger than his heartache.

  “How are you even here?” she asked. “There’s no way you could’ve made the drive that quickly.”

  “I took a snowmobile across the lake.”

  “That’s crazy.” She pulled back out of his embrace. “It’s been a really warm winter. Or, at least, it was until recently. The lake never froze properly. There’s no way the ice is consistently thick enough for that to be safe, especially in the middle. You could’ve fallen through.”

  He crossed his arms. She was right. It hadn’t been safe. It had been downright risky. But her life had been in danger. He’d taken a calculated risk in order to save her.

  “It was fine,” he said. “I kept an eye on the shifts in the colors of the ice patterns, followed the channel markers and watched out for the buoys. I know this lake.” He looked down. “You’ve got duct tape on your sleeves.”

  “Castor taped my wrists together behind my back.” She ran her hands over her arms self-consciously. “Fortunately, he did it over the sweatshirt and not on my skin.”

  Part of him wanted to ask if he was right in thinking the sweatshirt was his old one, and if so, why she was wearing it. But something inside stopped him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “How did you get free?”

  “I tore it loose on a metal bucket in the cupboard that they threw me in.” Her fingers picked at the duct tape. “I’m guessing you haven’t heard from Zoe and Mandy?”

  His jaw tightened. Surely it couldn’t be a coincidence that gunmen decided to ransack Mandy’s cottage the same weekend that Zoe brought her up for a quiet study break, could it?

  “No,” he said. “I tried Zoe’s cell phone again before I left the cottage but I couldn’t get a signal. I placed a really quick internet call to my boss, Daniel, on the laptop, though, and let him know what was happening. He said he’d keep trying to reach her and obviously that he’d also call the police and send them straight here. But considering the road and the distance, it’ll take the police a while to get here and we’ve got to get out of here, now.”

  His eyes glanced at the shattered glass of the broken windows.

  “Needless to say, we still have a lot we need to talk about,” he went on. “But not here. We’ve got to get somewhere safer and quickly. I don’t know who did this, but they could come back, especially if they think you’re connected to this secret trunk somehow. Grab your winter gear. I’m going to check out the body.”

  He could see the desire to argue forming in her eyes. But she pushed it down.

  “Okay, we’ll talk once we’re somewhere safe.” She ran for the back hallway.

  He crossed over to the body on the floor. He’d always appreciated how focused Theresa could be when necessary. But he desperately wished Zoe hadn’t brought Theresa into it. Knowing this whole mess had put her in danger made everything harder. He crouched beside the body on the floor. Brick’s winter jacket and gear were a popular, mass-produced brand available from countless stores and told him nothing. He used the camera on his cell phone to take a picture of Brick’s face. Then he took the man’s wallet from his pocket, flipped it open and pulled out his driver’s license.

  “Says his name is Kenneth Brick,” he called. “He’s from Port Hope, Ontario. Age twenty-three. Looks like he works as a cashier at a supermarket.”

  “Never heard of him, and I’ve never seen him before.”

  “Me neither.” Alex took a picture of the driver’s license, too, put it back in the wallet and set the wallet next to the body. “Should we?”

  “One of his buddies said something that made me question if he was familiar with Cedar Lake.” She hesitated. “He alluded to an old nickname of mine.”

  “Well, the kids around here had all sorts of stupid nicknames flying around, none of which were exactly original, so I wouldn’t take it personally. But they know who Mandy is, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some kind of connection to the lake. Let’s add that to the list of things we talk about later. Safety first. Talk second.”

  She didn’t look convinced, but they’d paused here long enough and there really wasn’t time to draw this conversation out any longer. He grabbed the remains of a blanket and draped it over the body. When he looked up again, Theresa was standing behind him with a backpack in her hand.

  He stood up. “What’s that?”

  “My emergency kit.” She slung it over both shoulders. “It’s got a first aid kit, a change of clothes, duct tape, a fire starter, a CB radio and some snacks. Everything’s in waterproof bags, so it’ll be fine in the snow.”

  He blinked—even though he knew better than to be surprised, considering it was Theresa. He waited as she slid a pair of snow pants on over her jeans and laced up a pair of winter boots. Then she pulled a heavy, hooded winter jacket on and zipped it up.

  They ran for the back door and pushed out into the snow. It was already up to their calves and growing deeper by the second. She followed him down the driveway and into a small, wooden storage shed.

  “The snow’s gotten bad.” Theresa shook the flakes from her hair.

  “It’s going to get a lot worse,” Alex said. What had fallen so far was only a small taste of the deluge the forecast was predicting. He took the spare helmet off the back of the snowmobile and gave it to her. “My truck is back at my cottage. So, the plan is we head to my cottage, I’ll call Daniel with my laptop, fill him in and we’ll figure out our next move. Hopefully the power will still be on when we get there and Zoe will be sitting there with Mandy, waiting for us.”

  He closed his eyes. Lord, I just pray that wherever Zoe is, she’s all right. She’s strong and she’s fierce. But she might be out in a snowstorm with a client I’m not sure I trust and killers on the loose.

  When he opened his eyes, Theresa was looking at him. Strands of dark hair had slipped from the furry hood of her ski jacket. Even now, in the gloomy light of the shed, with flakes swirling like a meteor shower behind her, he had to admit he’d never seen anything like her. It was hard to put into words, but in a world of unstable and transient things, Theresa had always been like a tree, a willow tree, maybe, with roots so long and deep he knew if he just stayed close enough to her he could ride out any storm.

  Until she’d cut him off, and left him rootless and drifting.

  “I know you’re worried about Zoe.” Theresa’s hand brushed his arm. “She’s going to be okay. She’s smart. If she made it to town and saw the weather forecast before the storm hit, she probably just found a coffee shop or restaurant to ride it out in.”

  “I hope so.” He waited as she put the helmet on then climbed on the snowmobile. Her long legs slid over the back of it behind him. She hesitated. Then her hands slid about his waist, in a gestur
e somehow both so familiar and foreign that he felt his brain almost short-circuit for a moment as he reached for the ignition. “Hold tight. This could get rough.”

  The engine turned over.

  A tall, broad-shouldered figure in a ski mask stepped into the open doorway, blocking their way to freedom. There was a small, automatic handgun in his hand. “You two aren’t going anywhere.”

  THREE

  Fear washed over Theresa’s body. Instinctively her arms tightened around Alex’s body.

  It was Castor. It had to be. His dark, masked form stood silhouetted against the snow. But the voice and stance were unmistakable. The head of the gang of kidnappers and killers who’d raided the cottage was back, filling the doorway and blocking their escape.

  “I said, get off the snowmobile!” He stretched his arm out to its full length and tilted the gun sideways, like some kind of television gangster. “Both of you. Now. With your hands up.”

  There was no way past him. They were stuck in a tiny little shed and he was about to shoot them at point-blank range. Her limbs began to shake. Her grip loosened on Alex’s body. Tears choked in the back of her throat and mingled with prayer.

  Alex gunned the engine.

  The snowmobile shot forward. Her body bounced back hard against the seat. The weapon fired. The snowmobile swerved hard to the right and she clung to Alex so tightly her arms ached. A second bullet split the air. Then she felt wind and snow smacking her body again. She opened her eyes. The snowmobile was flying through the woods. Bullets echoed behind them in the trees. Then the sound faded and all she could hear was the rush of the engine beneath her and the beating of her own heart in her chest. Trees grew thick around them, pressing in on all sides. Jagged rocks seemed to burst through the snow. Flakes filled her eyes like they were shooting through a galaxy of stars. She held on.

  What was he thinking driving straight at Castor like that? Yes, Alex had saved their lives. Again. But he’d done so by risking getting shot. Something about that made her feel almost indignant. Alex was the kind of guy who’d just free-fall through life, trusting things would work out okay. Sure, he was right most of the time. In fact, there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that she was safer on the back of Alex’s snowmobile than she would be with anyone else in the world driving at this kind of speed, through these woods, in the snow. But did that mean he had what it took to be anybody’s bodyguard? Who’d pick up the pieces if, the next time he launched himself into danger, he was wrong?