At Risk (2 page)

Damn him.

Why had they taken me, anyway? Why hadn't
they simply left me in the arena? Something to do with my truck.
Did that mean they knew me well enough to know that I drove a
truck, or had they just seen me pull in off the road? I had no
idea.

One thing was certain, they hadn't kidnapped
me to collect a ransom. Though my father had a ton of money, few
people knew I was the son of Robert J. Cline, MD, cardiovascular
surgeon extraordinare. One of Johns Hopkins' elite superstars. If
that had been their plan, they wouldn't have bothered with the
horses. And they couldn't have known I would show up at the farm in
the middle of the night. But if they wanted to kill me, why not
just do it while I lay helpless on the arena floor?

I decided I didn't want to hang around and
find out. I yanked at whatever was binding my wrists. The horse
across from me lowered his head and pawed the floor, and Steel, who
was high-strung to begin with, pulled against his chains. They
wouldn't hold him if he lost it, and a horse, panic-stricken and
loose in the trailer, I did not need.

I reconsidered my options. What was knotted
around my wrists felt like nothing more than baling twine, which I
knew I could break under normal circumstances. But this was
anything but normal. Between the twine and the cold, I had already
lost feeling in my fingers. I jammed my fingertips into the
half-inch space between the rubber matting that covered the floor
and the metal post, hoping to find a way to dismantle the
partition. I couldn't find a bolt to unfasten or a lever or
mechanism of any sort.

I wanted out of that trailer more than I had
wanted anything in my life. I drew my feet beneath me, braced my
back against the post, and pushed with my legs. My side felt like
it was splitting open. I clenched my teeth, gripped the post with
both hands to steady myself, and made it to my feet.

I stood there shaking and sweating,
swallowing against a wave of nausea. After a minute or two, I
braced my legs, and when I thought I wouldn't be thrown off balance
by the trailer's movement, I twisted around and examined the
partition. It was made to be dismantled, but not by someone tied up
in the dark with hands stiff from the cold.

The trailer lurched around a bend, and I went
down on my knees. The truck slowed to a stop. I held my breath and
listened. No doors opened. No one came to see if I was awake, and
in a moment, the truck pulled off, swept into a wide turn, and
picked up speed. I exhaled slowly as the vibrations in the
floorboards increased, and the metal shell of the trailer rattled
so loudly, it was hard to think. We had left the highway.

I spread my wrists and got to work on the
twine.

Ten minutes into it, one of the fibers gave
way and then another, so that when they finally separated, I
overbalanced and crashed against the horse tied in the aisle. I
patted his shoulder, then ducked under his neck and squeezed around
to the other side. Most older trailers have emergency exits, and
this one was no exception. I gripped the lever that latched the
door into place and pushed upwards. It was jammed, frozen with rust
and disuse. I crouched down, put all my weight behind it, and tried
again.

Without warning, the lever snapped off.

I dropped it on the floor, leaned against the
cold metal wall, and felt the vibrations go right through me. If I
didn't get out, I was dead. I pushed myself upright and studied the
door. It had been damaged in the past and no longer hung flush with
the opening. Through a crack, I saw that the hinges were simply
bolts slid into grooves on the trailer's frame. With a tool of some
sort, I could push the bolts up and out. But what tool? I looked at
the lever lying at my feet.

I wedged it into the gap and pushed upward.
The bolt moved a quarter of an inch. Half an inch. I pushed harder.
The lever slipped and the door slid back into its original
position. I repositioned the lever and tried again with the same
result. After a third unsuccessful try, I looked for another way
out. All the exits were locked on the outside, and metal bars had
been welded across the windows.

As I passed the side door used for loading
the horses, the toe of my boot knocked against something. It rolled
across the rubber mat and wedged in the angle where the wall meets
the floor. I slid my fingers into the narrow groove and felt the
rounded metal. Picking it up, I held it to the light and thought I
had a chance after all.

The old bolt, with part of its anchoring
chain still attached, had once been part of a stall partition. It
was rough and discolored with rust, but it was narrow enough to do
the job. I used it along with the broken lever and, after a few
false starts, worked the door up and out of its hinges. Before I
could get hold of it, the door swung away from the trailer.

"Oh, shit."

Even thought it was still dark, if they were
paying any attention at all, they would see the escape door, which
now hung at an odd angle over the speeding roadway. I reached out
and grabbed the lower edge, but the weight of the door caused the
whole thing to break off and crash onto the road.

The driver hit the brakes. The trailer
shuddered and bounced, and the horses were almost thrown off their
feet with me right along with them. I grabbed the metal frame,
pulled myself upright, and watched as the trailer slowed.

Before it came to a stop, I jumped out. I
instinctively rolled when I hit the ground and, by some miracle,
landed on my feet. Behind me, voices shouted and doors slammed. I
ran past the back bumper and didn't risk a look back. Didn't
dare.

A loud noise cracked through the air, and it
took me half a second to realize it was a gunshot. The second
bullet whined above my head. I darted to the right and stumbled
across the shoulder of the road. The ground dropped off into a wide
drainage ditch, and as I picked up speed, I realized too late that
there wasn't any cover until I made it to the woods on the far
side. I'd almost reached the bottom of the ravine, when my foot
caught on something hidden in the long grass. I crashed onto my
shoulder, and a layer of ice shattered like glass under my
weight.

I scrambled through the water, struggled up
the far bank, and lunged into the woods. Another crack. This time
the bullet splintered a tree limb to my left. I stumbled uphill,
crashing blindly through tree limbs and heavy undergrowth,
conscious of the noise I was making and could do nothing about. I
had gone about fifty yards up the steep incline, when I came to a
fallen tree blocking my path. I clambered over the rough bark and
dropped to the ground, then cautiously looked back toward the
road.

They were closer than I'd imagined. Too close
for any margin of safety. Two of them stood alongside the trailer's
back fender, and as I watched, the third jumped down from the cab
and ran back to meet them. When he flicked on a flashlight and
pointed it toward the woods, the largest of the three snatched it
out of his hand. He played the beam across the hillside,
concentrating on the area to my left.

I sank farther down behind the log and tried
to control my breathing. As long as I stayed still and didn't make
any noise, they wouldn't find me. Just as that thought crossed my
mind, the beam caught me full in the face. I stopped breathing.

The light moved off to my left, and for a
moment, its afterimage was all I could see. I squeezed my eyes shut
and tried to clear my sight. When I opened my eyes, the men had
moved past the trailer's bumper. The glow from the taillights
bathed them in red. They were no longer wearing masks. The one with
the flashlight gestured aggressively, barking commands I couldn't
hear. When the other two wheeled around and took off down the road,
the skin on the back of my neck tingled. Though I doubted they knew
where I was, the image of them sneaking up behind me was
overpowering.

I scrunched deeper into the leaves, pressed
my shoulder against the log, and waited. When I next heard voices,
I lifted my head and squinted toward the road. The two men had
returned with the escape door and were loading it through the
opening.

Light flashed in the woods to my left.

He was part way up the hill with his damn
flashlight, shining the beam across the wooded slope behind me and
to my left. If he moved much farther uphill and swung the light to
his left, he'd see me. I watched as he ducked under a tangle of
tree limbs and came closer. Another thirty feet, and he'd be level
with my hiding place. He moved off to the right, toward a downed
tree. As he crept around the base of the stump, light glinted off
his gun.

If I ran, he'd see me, and he was too close
to miss. But if he checked behind my log, I was as good as
dead.

The cone of light cut across the ground just
beyond my head. I waited for it to refocus on me. Waited for the
shouts. When neither happened, I cautiously lifted my head. The
flashlight was out, and as I listened, I realized why. A car was
approaching. The engine's whine dropped a notch or two as it slowed
to pass the trailer. After the car moved off, he switched on the
flashlight, studied the hillside above my head, then turned and
started back down the slope.

I kept my head down until I heard noises by
the trailer. The one with the flashlight swept the beam in broad
tracts across the asphalt, and I wondered what he was up to. Twice,
he reached down and picked something up.

"Son of a bitch," I whispered.

Evidence. He was making sure they didn't
leave anything behind. He found the third shell casing along the
shoulder of the road. A pickup sped past as they climbed into the
cab. Doors slammed, the truck dropped into gear, and they drove
off. They probably figured they didn't have much to worry about,
and they were right. I couldn't identify them. Even without the
masks, it had been too dark.

As I watched the taillights fade into the
distance, the thought of what I had narrowly escaped made my
stomach do a quick one-eighty. I began to shake and not just from
the cold. I stared at the vacant road, and pain I hadn't noticed
since I was free of the trailer reawakened with a vengeance. Ribs,
face, head.

I pushed off the log and stood up. My jeans
were stiff and unyielding. They had begun to freeze. I'd be next if
I didn't hurry. I turned my coat collar up with fingers that felt
as if they belonged to someone else and stumbled down the slope.
The drainage ditch was too wide to jump, so I waded through the icy
water and climbed the embankment. I started walking.

A vehicle rounded the bend in the road ahead
and accelerated toward me. I stood, frozen in the bright
headlights. I hadn't noticed whether it was a car or a pickup or a
dualie pulling a horse trailer. I staggered into the woods and
dropped to the ground.

It whizzed by. A car . . . only a car.

I hung my head and listened to my pulse pound
in my ears. After a minute or two, I stepped onto the pavement and
tucked my hands under my armpits. My fingers felt like blocks of
ice, and my teeth were chattering so hard, my jaw hurt. The idea of
curling up in the leaves and going to sleep seemed attractive, and
the fact that I was even considering it scared me. I had to get
somewhere warm, and fast. Given the right circumstances, cold could
kill as effectively as bullets.

I kept walking.

By the time I reached safety, in the form of
an all-night convenience store, the sky had lightened into a dull
gray. The police arrived, as they typically do, followed by the
medics and later, at the hospital, a detective--all of them asking
questions, most of which I couldn't remember afterwards. At first,
like the convenience store clerk, the cops thought I was drunk and
had upended my car in a ditch somewhere. But the ER doctor told
them that hypothermia did that. That they shouldn't be surprised
that my speech was slurred, reactions nonexistent, memory
faulty.

Chapter 2

Sunday afternoon, my doctor signed my release
papers.

"You're not allergic to any medications,
right?"

"Far as I know."

"You're employed?" I nodded, and he said,
"Take off for a day or two, and when you go back, take it easy for
a couple weeks." He pulled a prescription pad from a pocket in his
lab coat and began to scribble. "Occupation?"

"Barn manager . . . at a horse farm."

He looked up, his pen hovering over his
paperwork. "Better take off a full week, then start back slow. Give
the ribs a chance to heal."

I didn't tell him I couldn't afford to, that
there was just too much to be done, not to mention the fact that I
needed every penny I earned.

He saw what I was thinking, tore up the
prescription, and wrote a new one. "This will give you more relief.
If you have any questions or problems, get in touch with your
family physician." He tried to suppress a yawn as he initialed the
chart. "You do have a family doctor?"

"Err, no, actually."

He shook his head. "Well, find one, will
you?" He straightened and tucked the pen back into his breast
pocket. "Have the police finished with their interviews?"

"Last night."

"Thought so. You weren't very coherent when
they brought you in."

The entire police thing had been more tedious
and involved than I ever would have imagined and something I would
just as soon forget. Besides requiring a more detailed statement,
they had taken my fingerprints--for elimination purposes, they'd
said. And they had photographed my injuries. Need to have proof an
assault happened, you know? The only thing they still needed, and
were unlikely to get, were suspects.

He dropped the prescription on the bedside
table. "Good luck." He grinned. "And stay out of trouble."