My blood chilled. With the temperature so low, Katie could die out in that shanty, especially if he had shot her full of Rohypnol. I turned to leave the house, then froze.
“What is it? Why are we stopping?”
“Listen.”
The low hum of a pump bringing up water from a well filled the air.
“What is it?”
“He’s got a pump house. We need to find it.”
I thought about it. I hadn’t seen any cellar stairs on the outside of the house. The stairs must be accessible from the inside. I went to the staircase, but all the doors nearby were closets. No.
“It’s winter. It would have to be heated or the pump would freeze,” I explained. “If she’s there, it’ll be warm. Where is the damn thing?”
“In every house I’ve shown, the pump is usually in the basement under the kitchen. Or the crawl space,” Alan informed me urgently. “It’s where most of the plumbing is.”
“Makes sense.” I checked my watch.
“It’s been ten minutes!” Alan squealed in horror.
I ran to the kitchen. “You want me to stop looking?” I demanded crossly. I searched, my eyes darting into the corners. “No stairs,” I noted.
“We have to hurry!”
I flung open every door I came across. No stairs. Frantic, I ran back to the kitchen, wanting to scream in frustration.
“Wait!” Alan shouted.
“What?” I snapped back.
“Doesn’t the table look out of place to you?”
He was right. Instead of being in the nook where it belonged, the table was pulled to the center of the room and was resting on a rectangular rug. I lifted the corner of the small carpet and saw the seam in the shiny laminate. Trapdoor.
“Good work, Alan.”
I shoved the table away and yanked the rug aside, popping open the door. A ladder led down to a dark room, and I descended quickly, nearly falling in my haste. I found a light bulb and pulled a string and gasped.
There was a mattress on the floor underneath the small shiny pump, which looked like a squat torpedo with a motor on top. Katie lay on the mattress, her hands and feet bound with duct tape, which also covered her mouth. She was unconscious.
“Katie. Honey,” I whispered. I shook her gently, and her head lolled. Her eyes flickered when I ripped the tape off her mouth, but they did not open.
“I want to kill him,” Alan raged. “Let’s get a, a knife, let’s—”
“Alan!” I barked. “Stop it. We can’t risk that he has a gun. He shoots me, he’ll be free to do whatever he wants to Katie.” I looked at the steep ladder and measured the difficulty of getting an unconscious woman up it. “Okay. We need a phone.” I scrambled up the ladder and looked around the kitchen. No phone. Master bedroom. No phone.
“The office!” Alan urged.
I raced upstairs. No phone.
“Who doesn’t have a phone?” Alan demanded.
“Some people just use cells now,” I said. “It doesn’t matter.”
“We have to hurry.”
“Okay. Wait. I have an idea.”
I ran through the mud room and out the door into the cold. The wind had kicked up, and the snow was coming down harder. I ran to the repo truck, yanked open the door, got under the dash, and stuck the connector back into the GPS. Then I hit the red switch, the emergency “Call Kermit” switch.
“Now”—I panted as I ran back toward the house—“I’ve got to get her out of there and into the truck. It won’t be easy.” I pictured wading in the snow and hated how long it would take with a woman slung over my shoulders. Then I got inspired. I stumbled over to the woodpile. Like a lot of people up north, Rogan had a wood sled—basically just a metal toboggan with a U-shaped handle at one end. You load the sled with wood and drag it to your front door, saving yourself dozens of trips.
“What are we doing?”
Rogan had stacked a dozen logs on the thing. I impatiently flipped the sled over, dumping them into the snow.
“Once I get Katie on this, it will be a lot easier to get her into the truck.” I pulled the sled after me to the mud room door and went back inside.
“How long have we been here?”
I looked at my watch. “Twenty-five minutes.” I dropped down through the door in the floor and went to my fiancée.
It broke my heart to see her in her professional clothes. Her first call for a listing. She’d been so excited, Jimmy had said.
It was my fault. I’d personally handed Rogan her business card. He didn’t need to ambush her on the way to the ladies’ room. She’d driven right to him.
It wasn’t easy, getting her balanced on my shoulders. Gripping her with my right hand, I grabbed for the rungs with my left, powering upward as quickly as I could. Despite the cold, sweat ran down my forehead and into my eyes. Each step made me gasp with effort.
“Hurry,” Alan urged.
There were fifteen rungs, altogether, and by the end of them, my thigh muscles were trembling and I was panting for air. I laid her gently on the floor, catching my breath.
“We need to move, Ruddy!” Alan hissed.
“Right. Okay.” I used the rug as a toboggan and dragged Katie across the smooth floor until we got to the mud room. Then I put my hands under her arms and walked backward, pulling her, her heels sliding. Both of her shoes came off—she had worn impractical, business-looking footwear. Her boots were probably in her car.
I got her outside and, without too much difficulty, laid her out on the wood sled, wrapping her in a blanket. To keep her from getting frostbite, I went back into the mud room, found some fur-lined boots, and jammed them on her feet. “Okay,” I said. “We did it.”
Then my head snapped up. Someone was coming down the highway, his lights flickering in the trees.
“Just someone passing by,” I said quietly to Alan.
The lights slowed and then, with a long lazy sweep, turned down Rogan’s driveway.
We had run out of time.
Within fifteen seconds his headlights had found my truck. Rogan stopped dead in his driveway, idling there. What was he thinking? His vehicle was a Hummer, one of those gigantic military transports. In the dark it looked like a massive evil beast, the steel bars welded to the front of an open fanged mouth. I turned away from it, staying to the shadows, not looking back even when Rogan stepped on the gas and surged ahead. By the time he halted at his front door, I was already down at the lake, pulling the sled, headed out onto the ice.
Out toward Shantytown.
* * *
Rogan had tied a stout cord to the right and left sides of the sled’s handle, and I soon figured out why—with that loop of rope around my waist, I didn’t have to twist back to grip the handle. I couldn’t afford to drag it walking backward—I needed to keep my eye on the one shanty out there that had a light on in a small window. All the rest of them were dark, like sleeping pachyderms.
We were making slow but good progress. I was reminded of hitting the tackle sled at football practice—then, as now, it was about getting my legs under me and driving forward.
“He’s probably found the mess we made of his kitchen by now,” Alan worried.
“Oh, you can count on that. He’s trying to figure out what to do next. He knows we’re gone, but he doesn’t know where—though the ice is the only place anyone would look, unless he thinks we’re hiding in the woods.”
“Is that what he will do next? Come search for us?”
“My opinion? No. He’ll run. He’s got to have thought about it, that one day this could happen, that he could be discovered. He’s figured this out. He’s not Blanchard; he’s got a plan.”
“Good. Let him run.”
“That’s how I feel.”
I stopped to catch my breath. The shanty with the light on looked as if it were fading away from me. I was headed straight into the wind, and the snow swirling around was making visibility almost impossible. “Whoever it is in that shanty, they probably
have a cell phone.” I thought of something. “Oh Jesus.”
“What?”
“I don’t know how Kermit’s going to react when he gets my signal. What if he comes straight down Rogan’s driveway?”
“Wouldn’t he call the cops?”
“He doesn’t know what’s going on.”
“We have to hurry,” Alan said simply, for what seemed like the tenth time that night.
I put more into it, my eyes on that little square of yellow glowing at the top edge of the shanty. We were a hundred yards away, the length of a football field. A familiar distance.
Suddenly there was light behind me, brightening the swirling snow. I glanced back.
Rogan had driven his enormous vehicle out onto the ice.
He was coming for us.
* * *
I made a decision. If I kept going straight, Rogan and I would get to the illuminated shanty at the same time. I jinked left, where three huts were grouped in close proximity. I doubted Rogan could see me—the storm would be reflected right back in his eyes. I could see him, though, and hear the roar of his engine as he came streaking across the ice.
Of the three shanties, I picked the one in the middle, which had a door secured with a loop of string. I flung it open and carried Katie inside, setting her down gently and tucking the blanket tight around her. The interior was tiny, barely large enough for her to stretch out. “Okay. You’ll be safe, I promise,” I whispered to her. Then I got the wood sled and shoved it into the small hut as well, closing it back up.
“What are you doing?”
“I can’t outrun him and drag her, Alan. Now I can move, draw him away.” I started running again, heading straight out onto the ice, going for the shanties in the distance.
“She’ll freeze in there! She’ll die!”
“If Rogan catches us, we’ll all die.”
I looked over my shoulder. Rogan was bearing down on the shanty I’d been aiming for, the one with the lights on. I felt the impact as the heavy truck slammed into the flimsy hut, turning it into matchsticks. Horrified, I saw a man tumbling away from the wreckage, sprawling on the ice, a dark figure against the white.
Rogan hit the brakes and skidded a good twenty yards, drifting sideways. His Hummer rocked on its shocks when it halted, the snow pouring down in the headlights. He put the thing in neutral and revved the engine, his lights pointing back toward the hut he had just destroyed. I saw the motionless man lying in the snow.
I gauged how much distance I would have to cover to get to the poor guy and drag him to safety. Rogan would certainly see me as I emerged from the darkness. I charged forward anyway.
“Oh my God,” Alan breathed as Rogan put his foot on the accelerator. All four of his tires spun, snow flying off the tread, but he gained speed and was moving at least thirty when he ran over the body a second time, crushing it.
There was nothing more I could do. I turned back and fled blindly into the snowstorm. When the lights suddenly lit me from behind, I knew he could see me.
* * *
I was out in the open, the sheds so spread out that dashing from one to another would leave me hideously exposed. The nearest hut was twenty yards away. I had to get it between me and Rogan. I sprinted as fast as I could, heading for the shadows pooling behind it. This was one of the flimsy ones, canvas and wood. “Hey, is anyone here? Can anyone hear me?” I shouted as I ducked down behind it. The wind whipped my words away.
The light was growing more intense as the Hummer came straight at the shanty I was hiding behind. Rogan had seen my flight across the open ice.
“We can’t stay here!” Alan screamed at me.
“Wait … wait … Now!” I replied. I ran straight to my left, and the Hummer hit the shanty and obliterated it. The tent material fell across his windshield, temporarily blinding Rogan, and I used the opportunity to double back, running in the direction from which he’d just come, and then heading to my right. I knew where we were; this was near where the mayor lived.
Rogan leaned out of his Hummer and removed the tarp blocking his view. Then he got back in, spun around, and crashed hard into another shanty. One of his headlights went out.
“We’re nowhere near that one. Why did he do that?”
“He’s having fun. It’s Whac-a-Mole. He’s just going to keep crashing into them until he’s wiped them all out.”
“What about the one Katie’s in?”
“I know,” I said grimly. “We can’t let that happen. I’m going to have to keep him focused on me.”
Rogan had all the advantages—his four-wheel drive could get him moving quickly, and with his high beams on, he could light up the lake. He spun his wheel, turning a 360, and the headlights raked the ice like spotlights. I dove down as they swept by me, but then they stopped and came back, probing, and I knew he had glimpsed me. I got up and ran, throwing myself behind the nearest shanty.
“Did he see us?”
“I don’t know,” I answered, gasping for air. I looked around, not sure if Rogan was facing his lights directly at me or not. “I was inside this one,” I told Alan. “The guy who sells kerosene in glass jugs.” I slammed my fist on the wall. “Hey!” I shouted. “If you’re in there, get out! Get out!”
Rogan’s engine roared. I gauged the headlights on the other side of the shanty as they got brighter, wondering if he knew where I was.
Yes, I realized. Yes, he did. He was coming straight at me.
32
If I Don’t Keep Moving I Will Die
I waited as long as I could before I bolted away from my hiding place. It was the only advantage I had—I was more maneuverable, able to dodge, when he was close.
I was hoping that the kerosene shanty would be built more solidly than the others and would cause his Hummer significant damage, but the building collapsed like a house of cards, the debris bouncing off Rogan’s hood and roof. He slid sideways.
I ran back the way I had come.
“Hey, McCann! Which one is she in?” Rogan shouted, the wind playing tricks with his voice. “Huh? Where is she?”
I turned and looked at him. He was waving a hand out his open window, and in the hand he clutched a lethal-looking pistol. I couldn’t see his face inside the dark interior of the vehicle.
“Why does he have his wipers on?” Alan asked.
I made it to a metal shanty and peered around the corner. He was, indeed, using his wipers.
“Kerosene,” I said. “He just drove through fifty gallons of the stuff. It’s probably soaked into the snow on his roof and hood, too.”
Rogan surged forward, heading for the metal shanty. Surely, the more formidable structure would put a stop to this.
Wait. Kerosene.
“What is it?” Alan asked, sensing something.
Rogan was coming. I ran around to the back of the metal hut, putting it between him and me, but instead of staying put, this time I headed out onto the ice, keeping in the shadows.
He didn’t slam into this one. Instead he pulled up next to it.
“What’s he doing?”
Rogan stayed in his vehicle, firing several shots into the shanty’s body, puncturing the metal sides. The percussions sounded much weaker than the one that had sent a bullet past my head. “Is she in there?” he called mockingly, his voice barely audible above the storm.
I turned and headed for the mayor’s place, heedless of the fact that I might be visible now.
Rogan fired more shots—anyone in there would be dead, the thin sheet metal no match for bullets. Then he sat there for a moment, and I could make out what he was doing in the reflection of his headlights off the sides of the metal hut.
Reloading.
I charged up the steps to the mayor’s shanty and ran to the cupboard. I pulled frantically at the doors, hurling them open. Out spilled emergency equipment—bandages, food, a flashlight. I flipped on the flashlight and played it desperately around the hut. “Where the hell is it?” I cried. “It was right here!” br />
“What are you looking for?”
Finally I spotted the flare gun. I lost more precious time searching for shells, but then I had one, which I slipped into my pocket.
“He’ll be able to see the flashlight through the window!” Alan warned.
I turned off the flashlight and turned back toward the door.
The shanty exploded, and I was thrown against the wall. Splintered wood rained down on me. Disoriented, I dropped to the floor, which seemed to be moving sideways. When I could, I crawled back to the door. Rogan had slammed into the back end and ripped the shed in half. I fell out into the snow onto my butt, gasping, then rolled.
“Run,” Alan urged. I got to my feet. The mayor’s hut had finally administered some punishment to the Hummer: The engine was making a rattling sound. Still, it ran, and Rogan steered it toward my fleeing shadow.
I stopped and popped open the flare gun, slipping in a shell. “Okay,” I said, raising the weapon. I pointed it straight at the kerosene-soaked vehicle as it bore down on me, and pulled the trigger.
The flare shell sparked and shot out of the barrel, going straight and true into the Hummer’s blunt grill, where it ignited, a blinding spot of burning light.
“Boom,” I said.
* * *
There was no boom. Rogan stopped, the front end of his massive truck so bright from the flare, it turned the storm into a blinding curtain. I stood transfixed in the single headlight, barely thirty yards away, and saw the dark shadow of his arm out his window just moments before he pulled the trigger. For the second time that night, a bullet shrieked past me so closely, I felt the crack of the shock wave. I dove into the snow, which had accumulated a good two inches, rolled to my feet, and dashed back toward the wreckage of the mayor’s shanty.
“Why the hell didn’t that work?” I panted. Rogan floored it, ignoring me for the moment and racing across the ice and flying into another tarp-covered frame, flattening it.
“Where is she, Ruddy?” he taunted into the wind. As he skidded to a stop, I could see the flare still burning an impotent bright red in his grill, etching a dancing dot in my vision when I closed my eyes.
“He’s in no hurry,” I told Alan. “As long as he doesn’t let me get too far away, he can keep herding me back toward the shanties, which he’s destroying one at a time. I need a new plan. Nothing is working.”