Murder on the Horizon (23 page)

“Auntie Brianna yelled at me. I needed a teddy.” Her eyes moved to Gracie, still frozen in the doorway. “What's she doing here?”

Baxter glanced over his shoulder at Gracie, then back to the girl. “She's my friend.”

“Is she going to be a new mommy?”

“I don't know. Yes.” He reached out to take the girl's hand. “Come on. You need to go back to the house.”

Hugging the teddy bear, Heather turned away, avoiding his grasp. “I don't want to.”

“Come on. I'll go with you.”

“No!” The girl's bottom lip quivered with the possibility of a tantrum. “I want to stay here and play with the teddies.”

What sounded like a screen door slammed outside. “Heather?” a high male voice called. “You out here?”

Winston.

Panic grabbed Gracie by the throat. “Bax!” she hissed.

Baxter turned and pointed in the direction from which they had just run. “I'll stay here. It'll be okay. You go. The tunnel.”

Without argument, Gracie backed out of the room and closed the door. Then she ran back through the garage, down the ramp to the bunker, and from one room to the next.

Outside the door to the Inner Sanctum, she stopped.

The door was locked and Baxter had the key.

“Shit!”

She shined her flashlight beam on the knob.

The key was still in the lock.

She turned the knob and opened the door. Pulling out the key and putting it in the side pocket of her pants, she closed the door, testing the knob. Locked.

In two strides, she was across the room and pulled open the door to the tunnel.

She hesitated.

As opposed to the other door locks which were keyed, this door had a push-button combination lock.

She tested the knob.

Locked.

When she closed the door, it would lock behind her.

There would be no returning the way she had come.

She prayed that Baxter was right, that the tunnel led out into the open air, a hole in the side of the embankment, and that she wasn't sealing herself into a cement tomb.

Gracie stepped into the tunnel, eased the door closed, and plunged herself in absolute darkness.

Flicking her flashlight on, she trained the beam on the ground. Her breathing sounding abnormally loud, she trotted down the narrow corridor and around the first corner.

“Ah!” Something grabbed at her hair, her face. Sharp pain pierced a lower eyelid, eyebrows, an ear, her lip.

She jerked to a stop and threw up the hand holding the flashlight to sweep away whatever was afflicting her.

More pain. Sharp and needlelike. The tips of two fingers caught, held.

The flashlight dropped to the ground and rolled at her feet in an arc of light.

Gracie froze. “What the hell is that?” She inched her left hand up her body, slowly, carefully, sliding the fingertips past her chin, up her face to her eye, brushing filament, a tiny metal shaft.

Easing her eye closed and cupping her hand over the lid, she tipped her head back and looked up.

By the dim light of the flashlight, she could just make
out a rain shower of heavy-gauge monofilament suspended from the ceiling.

No fancy gadgetry.

No loud explosions.

Simple and terrifyingly effective.

By the lower lid of her right eye, the top of her left ear, both eyebrows, the upper corner of her lip, her hair, and the third and fourth fingers of her right hand, Gracie had been caught as easily as a trout in a caddis fly hatch, snared by a booby trap of fish hooks.

31

“S
HIT!”
Gracie fluttered her fingers across her eyelid, feeling where the point and the tiny barb of the fishhook had pushed through the soft skin directly below her eye. For the moment, at least, the point lay harmlessly in the space between her lid and the eyeball itself. As long as she didn't move, there was no danger of damaging her eye.

As long as she didn't move.

She walked her fingertips up to her left eyebrow. The hook there had barely penetrated. She pulled it loose and tossed it up so that it tangled in the other lines.

The third hook was a midge hook, catching the top of her ear, hook and barb embedded in the skin. If need be, she could rip that one free with what she figured would be a lot of pain, but minimal damage.

Her right hand, caught in the air above and behind her head, was already growing tired. Unless she acted fast, things were going to get really ugly.

If she could pull the line down far enough, she might be able to gnaw through it with a canine, like an animal in a trap.

Gracie tipped her head back slightly and looked up to where the lines of filament were attached to eyebolts in the ceiling.

She tugged down on the line connected to her ear. It stretched a millimeter, but held. She hauled on it until the filament cut into her fingers. Nothing.

Her mind flashed to the jackknife she had found the day before, the blade she had used to free the Rottweiler from its strangling collar.

Where was it?

With her left hand, she patted her breast pocket, then those on her pants. Left hip. Left back. Lifted her left leg. Felt the side pocket. Nothing but a pad of paper, a pencil, and the door key. She felt around to her right hip pocket. The right back. Lifted her right leg and felt a PayDay candy bar in the side pocket.

“Where the hell is it?” she whispered.

Then she remembered.

The jackknife was safely zipped inside the pocket of her Search and Rescue fleece jacket, left behind in the truck.

And the gun she so wisely and confidently had obtained for her own protection was completely useless to her. A bullet would probably ricochet back and forth off the walls and ceiling as if in a cartoon until it nailed her. Right between the eyes.

The fingers in her right hand were losing sensation. And with every passing minute, the chance increased that someone would discover her there.

She swallowed back the fear, gently tipped her head back again and examined the fingers of the snagged hand eight inches above and slightly behind her head.

From what she could see, the points of both hooks had pushed into the skin, but the ends of the barbs were still visible. If she could somehow back out each of the barbs, she could release the hooks and free her right hand.

Reaching up with her left hand, not daring to breathe,
she pulled the hook free of her third finger. Her hand moved to the second hook. She wobbled and overcorrected, put a hand on the wall to steady herself, yanked her right hand up reflexively, tugging on the hook, pushing the barb in the rest of the way and anchoring the hook in place.

“Dammit!”

There was a trick to backing out a barbed hook. But even if she could remember exactly how to do it, she would need two hands.

She was caught.

She pushed back the despair that threatened to well up inside of her.

Maybe Baxter would wonder if she had made it through the tunnel and come to look. She instantly felt better at the thought.

Except his key to the Inner Sanctum was in her pocket.

If anyone else came, they wouldn't be friendly.

She thought of the solo hiker who, when trapped by a boulder and faced with the choice between dying or freeing himself by cutting off his own arm, had sawed off the arm. The media had made a hero out of the man and the film industry a movie. Gracie and other rescuers had simply considered him irresponsible and reckless, his predicament self-inflicted.

Maybe when . . . maybe
if
the time came, in order to escape, she would find the will, the inner strength to rip the fish hooks free.

She just wasn't prepared to do that.

Yet.

Gracie stood in the tunnel, arm raised above her head.

On her watch, she kept track of the passing minutes.

Fifteen. Thirty. Thirty-one. Thirty-two.

She tried alternately resting her right arm on top of her head and letting her arm hang from the filaments, systematically changing position, putting weight on her left leg first, then the other, bending and straightening them.

An hour passed. Two hours. Two hours five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen.

Gracie's throat was parched, her tongue dry. It was hard to swallow.

She tried reaching around her back for her water bottle with her free hand, but was unable to actually withdraw it from its sling.

The battery in the flashlight drained down, its light dimming gradually from white to yellow to brown, finally fading out altogether.

Every second became excruciating. Every minute infinity.

Tears spilled from the corners of her eyes, trickling down her cheeks and onto her neck.

Her legs and the raised arm quivered with fatigue. She shivered with both shock and cold, jerking the lines which tugged at her skin.

Her neck had a kink in it. Her shoulders tightened, spasming.

Unbearable.

“I can't do it,” she said aloud, voice echoing in the tunnel. “I can't hold on. I can't last another minute. Another second.”

She held on.

A minute passed.

Then another.

And another.

A mind-numbing exercise in willpower.

Her mind blanked out.

Legs buckled.

Filament pulled taut.

Pain snapped her awake. She straightened her legs again, releasing the tug on the lid, ear, eyebrow, lip.

She closed her eyes again. Her mind floated. Darkened.

Her eyes flared open.

She had heard voices.

Behind her.

Men and women yelling. Angry. Cursing.

Wide-awake again, Gracie listened.

Someone was in the back room—the Inner Sanctum.

Winston, Lee, their wives, their buddies.

Getting dressed and ready to leave, they had found the lanyards with the Sheriff's IDs missing.

Now, surely, they couldn't follow through with the plan.

Surely, they wouldn't need to use the tunnel.

Surely, they wouldn't find her strung up like a landed marlin on display with the ID lanyards knotted at her waist.

The door of the tunnel opened.

Fresh, cool air whooshed up the tunnel, fluttering Gracie's hair.

Blue string lights strung along the ceiling flashed on, lighting the way.

Footsteps sounded in the tunnel.

Gracie hunched her shoulders and waited.

Someone rounded the corner, almost running into her. Lee Edwards's voice said, “What the f—?”

He slid past, then turned to face Gracie.

Orange shirt. Floppy hat. A backpack slung over one shoulder. An assault rifle over the other. “Who the hell are you?” Over her shoulder, he yelled, “There's a woman here.” His eyes took in the filament, the hooks. “Caught.”

“Keep going!” Winston yelled from back up the tunnel.

Lee's eyes ran down Gracie's body. “What the—?” He grabbed the bunch of lanyards hanging from her belt. “She's got the goddam IDs!”

“Take 'em!”

In one quick move, Lee slid a knife from a sheath at his thigh, slit Gracie's webbed belt, and gathered up the lanyards. Then he pressed the tip of his knife in the hollow of Gracie's neck, leaned up against her and said, “I should gut you like a mulie right here. Right now.”

Over the pounding in her ears, Gracie heard footsteps
approach from behind. Boojum's voice said, “What's goin' on, Lee?”

Lee's eyes flicked over Gracie's shoulder, then back to her face. He leaned even closer so that she inhaled his sour breath. “On down the line, darlin',” he said. “Yer gonna get yers.”

Then he turned and trotted out of sight down the tunnel.

Boojum ducked past Gracie, an assault rifle slung over one shoulder. He glanced back at her, eyes widening with recognition. But he gave no verbal indication he knew who she was.

He trotted down the tunnel.

Next, two women slid by, one of them snarling, “You bitch.”

The second woman said nothing, but reached up and yanked on one of the fishing lines, tearing the hook from Gracie's ear.

She yelled in pain.

The women disappeared down the tunnel.

Blood, warm and soft, trickled down to pool inside Gracie's ear.

Three more men passed by. Two more women. More backpacks. More assault weapons. All dressed in Search and Rescue uniforms, easily mistaken for volunteers from a neighboring team arriving at the Command Post to help patrol the valley streets, keep the neighborhoods safe.

But they were on their way to commit mass murder and there was nothing Gracie could do to stop them.

If she tore free now, they would shoot her where she stood. Or gut her like a deer.

Gracie felt someone slide past.

Without giving her a glance, he disappeared down the tunnel.

Jordan.

Last in line, Winston ducked past Gracie, his large body scraping hers.

Like his brother, he turned back and stood in front of her. He put his mouth two inches from hers. “I should have known,”
he said. Then, without warning, he backhanded her across the face so fast she didn't have time to flinch.

Her head jerked back. Filament pulled taut, barbs imbedded, hooks pulled, stretching the skin.

“I'll be back for you,” Winston said. “Count on it.” He turned and trotted after the others down the tunnel.

Gracie staggered to regain her stance, placed her feet under her, and stood motionless, sucking in air through clenched teeth. Streamers of blood trickled down her cheek, her chin, her neck.

She slowly straightened her back and legs. She licked her lips, tasting blood.

“You bastards!” she screamed. “You won't get away with it!”

The sound died away.

If she didn't free herself, if she didn't somehow get to a phone and call the SO, good and innocent men and women were going to die. Dozens of them. Maybe more.

Gracie backed out the hook embedded in her finger as far as it would go. Then she gritted her teeth, closed her eyes, and took in a slow, deep breath. As if the sound could drown out the pain, she screamed and yanked her right hand down. Hard.