Dead End

by Lisa Phillips

  The smear on her face drew his attention. He glanced down at her hands, stained a dark color. Wyatt hauled his heavy body through the hole he’d made in what he now realized really was a coffin. He could barely process what had happened.

  He’d seriously been trapped in a coffin.

  So Steve Adams intended him to be dead, then? And evidently Nina also, given that she was here with him.

  Wyatt’s legs didn’t quite cooperate, and he collapsed onto the floor. “Where is he?”

  She blinked. “I don’t know. I woke up alone, and I was until you came out of there.”

  “Thank you for that.” He shifted closer to her. “I wouldn’t have gotten out if you hadn’t broken the tape.” He held out his hands. “Show me.”

  She hesitated, but lifted her hands and placed them in his. Wyatt swallowed down the nausea and unbuttoned his shirt so he was only in his jeans and his undershirt. He wrapped his button-down around her hands. “It’s not clean, but it’s the best I can do right now. Hold it tight so it helps slow the bleeding.”

  She nodded, and he reached for his pockets, emptying everything he carried on the floor. Everything he usually carried, except for his cell phone, his weapon and the backup he wore in an ankle holster.

  He rummaged through his wallet, but found what he was looking for. Wyatt used the handcuff key to release her. Nina exhaled. “Now we just have to get out of this container.”

  She nodded, but there was no hope in her eyes. There was only a quiet despair. She thought Steve Adams had won.

  “Nina, we’re both here. We’re together, and we’re going to figure out how to get out of here. He isn’t going to win. I don’t care what he said or did, he isn’t the one in control here.”

  Her brow flickered.

  “While I was in there—” he pointed at the coffin he didn’t really want to dwell on too much “—I was thinking. And I prayed. God brought you here so I could get out. So I could then help you get out. It was Him, not Steve Adams.” He touched the cheek that wasn’t smeared with his hand. “Who is in control?”

  Her voice was quiet, but she said, “God.”

  “Not that madman. Okay?”

  She nodded.

  “I thought I was buried alive. I thought I would run out of air.” He sucked in a breath trying to tamp down the remnants of the fear he’d felt coursing through him as surely as she felt it now. “But I wasn’t, and now I get to be with you.”

  He leaned closer to her face and rested his head alongside hers so he could just feel her there with him and breathe. Life was so precious, but if she wasn’t here with him then it was barely worth living.

  How had she come to mean this much to him in so short a time? Wyatt could hardly believe it. And while she might not exactly feel the way he felt, he figured he could show her enough how valuable she was to him. How much he loved her. Maybe eventually she would trust his feelings for her enough to begin to love him back.

  God, I know I’m asking for a lot today. But maybe You could help me out. She’s here with me for a reason. Maybe this is it?

  “What if we can’t get out? What if no one finds us?”

  Wyatt stroked her cheek with his thumb. “You’re going to lose faith in me now?”

  Nina’s lips curled up into a small smile. One that disappeared almost as fast as it came. “It’s hard.”

  “I know. But I thought I was going to die, and you got me out. Now you only need to trust me, okay?”

  Nina bit her lip, but nodded.

  “Good.” Wyatt went back to the coffin and reached around. He didn’t need the oxygen tank, but he shut it off. No sense in wasting it if he might need it later. His fingers made contact with the phone, and he pulled it out. “Maybe there’s enough juice in this thing we can call for help. Maybe there will be enough signal we can send a message. That’s a lot of maybes.”

  Nina smiled at his ridiculous attempt at lightening the situation. He was so enamored with that smile he leaned in and gave her a quick kiss on the lips. She blinked, but he was already leaning back. Wyatt got up and paced the length of the container, looking for a possible way out. He liked that he had surprised her, the fact that he had that element of surprise on his side. If he could keep her off balance long enough to charm her, she would see that he was someone she should keep around her. That he could make her life better the way she was making his better.

  Okay, so not right at this moment, since they were stuck in a container. But more generally, she had shown him his worth in a relationship that he’d never seen before. She’d let him be himself, to show her his flaws and still embrace him even though she knew the worst of it.

  Wyatt pulled on the handle and tried to push the door open. Nothing. It didn’t even budge one inch. He went to the vents and tried to haul himself up high enough to see out, but all he could catch a glimpse of was a cloudy night sky and street lamps.

  He turned the phone on. There was a little battery, but it was blinking low and about to run out altogether. If they were going to use it, they’d have to do it quickly.

  He waited a minute, but no bars popped up. He turned back to Nina. “Nothing. No signal. We have no way to call for help.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Hope sparked inside Nina despite the pain now reverberating through her hands. “They can trace the phone, can’t they? If it’s on, then they can track it.” She told him about the signal they’d traced to the warehouse that had exploded.

  “If Parker’s okay, he’ll be running down any lead trying to find us.” But he didn’t say what she was thinking...that to find them, Parker needed to be able to track their phone’s proximity to the closest cell tower. Which required a signal.

  “I stole his truck.”

  Wyatt smiled like it was no big deal. Maybe even funny.

  “I left him and Jonah, and they could be really hurt.”

  “You said you saw Parker after the blast. I’m trusting that they’re fine.”

  Nina looked away. “He wanted me to go with him. He said he was going to hurt Sienna and the baby.” She shuddered. He’d been so close to her. So determined that she go with him. Until she’d told him that she belonged to Wyatt.

  Now Steve Adams had dumped her in here with him. Were they supposed to just sit here until they died of starvation? She glanced around. They were trapped, but for what purpose? It didn’t seem like that effective a way to dispatch them if he really wanted them dead. Unless Steve Adams would rather they suffered for days before they died. That seemed likely.

  Wyatt came over, the phone in his hand. Their only way to contact the outside world, but he’d turned it off. God, we need a signal to call for help. Or did He want them to get out on their own? Maybe they were supposed to figure this out like a riddle. But the cuts on her hands were bleeding, and she didn’t think Wyatt was as fine as he was pretending. There was a sluggishness to his movement, a carefulness to every step that said he wasn’t convinced he might not collapse at any moment.

  They had to get out of there.

  “I have no idea where we are. All there is outside are yellow floodlights. I can’t get high enough to see the ground, and even if I could I doubt it would help.” He sighed. “We can’t get out of here without someone opening the thing from the outside.”

  “And no one knows where we are.”

  Wyatt settled onto the floor beside her. “We’re okay for now, right?” When Nina shrugged, he said, “So we wait a little while, keep checking for a phone signal. Next time I turn it on I’m going to hold it up by the vent, see if I can get something from up there.”

  “He probably has some kind of signal blocker in place. Maybe we’ll never be able to call for help.” We’ll die here. She didn’t say it out loud, but the words still hung in the air between them. Nina was losing faith. She was losing hop
e. It was too hard not to think that Steve Adams had won.

  Nina glanced up at the vent as though she might see him lurking there to watch their suffering. As though Steve Adams had put them in here like some kind of twisted science experiment so that he could watch the life drain from her.

  “I thought he was turning himself in to us. I thought he wanted to be caught, that he was done. But it was still just a game.” She took a quick breath. A gasp. All she could do as she fought the overwhelming surge of emotion that threatened to break her. “It was always about getting to me, and we managed to best him a couple of times. To ruin his plans. But he still won. He was one step ahead of us even at the end, and now it’s gotten us nowhere. We’re going to die in here just like he wanted, and it’s for nothing.”

  Nina couldn’t think straight. Tears tracked down her face.

  “I know it’s hard, Nina. But you have to let all this out.”

  “He’ll know he’s won.”

  “He isn’t here.”

  Nina shook her head against his shoulder. “He always knows. I’ve never done anything he didn’t know about. He’s been watching me, following me for years. I know it. Even when he was away, killing those other women, he always came back and found me. I know it.”

  “Things are different now.” Wyatt leaned back so he could take her puffy, damp face in his hands. “He hasn’t won. We’re not dead, are we? We’re just in a jam.”

  Nina shook her head.

  “Don’t argue with me. I’m right. I know I am. This is a sticky situation, and it doesn’t look like there are many options to get out of here. But we have time to figure it out, don’t we? He isn’t here. There’s no immediate threat to our lives. Right?”

  “I can’t believe you’re pretending this is fine. We’re going to die in here.” She knew she was basically shouting in his face, but she couldn’t help it. He was crazy if he thought they were fine. This was the end and she knew it. There was no way out. They were out of gas at a dead end with a hurricane coming that would sweep them away. Only Wyatt was pretending not to see it.

  She shook her head. “He’s going to get away with all of these murders and it’ll be because we weren’t good enough to stop him. Who knows how many more he’ll kill? I’ll have to answer for their deaths as well. I won’t ever be able to escape him, not even in death. And I’ll have to accept it.”

  She swallowed. “Maybe that’s what God wants. Maybe it was prideful to think I could bring Steve Adams down. All these years chasing him, believing I could do it, believing I had right on my side. Maybe I was kidding myself. Maybe God thought I needed to learn to be humble, and that things don’t always go my way.”

  “Not at the expense of people’s lives.”

  “I know that, but they’re still on my conscience.” She paused. “But what if I’m not supposed to bring him in? What if I’m only supposed to lay down my desire to see him get justice? It might not be the path I have set before me. It might be someone else’s job to bring him in because I’m too close to it.”

  Wyatt studied her face.

  “Maybe I thought too much of my own ability to get the evidence. To finish this. What if it wasn’t what God asked from me?”

  “Would He do that?” Wyatt said. “Would God ask you to do something like that, to watch your life’s aim be taken away and given to someone else?”

  Nina shrugged. “What if He wants to know that I’m going to trust Him even if that is the outcome? Maybe that’s the point and I’ve just missed it all along. God teaches us every day, but we miss it because we’re not listening. What if I’ve spent years missing it because I wasn’t listening?”

  * * *

  Wyatt’s jaw worked back and forth. “Are you listening now?”

  He knew next to nothing about faith or being a Christian, but he wanted to learn. Nina was showing him something big, something hard for her to grasp even though she’d been a Christian for years. As painful as it was for her, he was excited. One day he would have the kind of relationship with God where he would hear the Father’s voice like that. To know what He wanted instead of seeing him as he did now—as a benevolent Creator, but not yet a Father.

  Nina nodded. “Yes. I’m listening now.” She smiled. “I guess you could say He’s gotten my attention.”

  “Maybe that is the point of all this. I certainly am.”

  Nina’s brow crinkled. “I’m listening.” She glanced around the container. When she got up, Wyatt moved back and watched her do a circuit of the container. Was she praying? He could see how she’d need a little peace to be able to talk to the Lord for a minute about all the concerns she had. Nina had had a very long, very difficult week. And while it hadn’t been peachy for him either, she was emotionally exhausted and close to breaking entirely. Only her faith—and hopefully his being there—were allowing her to hold on.

  He was trusting God now. Parker and Sienna had trusted God when they were in danger, and Nina’s relationship was such a benefit to her he could see it. Why not do the same? He needed to learn more about how it worked for sure, but if God really was God, then Wyatt could trust a being that powerful to be stronger than Steve Adams’s plans.

  “Here.”

  “Huh?” Wyatt glanced at her.

  Nina stood on tiptoes and peered up at the corner of the container. Wyatt went to stand beside her. He reached up to where she pointed with her hand still wrapped in his shirt, which was now stained with blood. She wouldn’t last much longer with the blood loss without going into shock. He needed to keep an eye on that.

  His finger hit something smooth, plastic maybe. He tugged at it and it came out, attached with a wire. A hole had been drilled in the corner, at the highest point, and this had been poked through. Wyatt pulled on it until the thing dangled down. “A camera.”

  “He can see us.”

  Wyatt pointed to where it hung against the wall. “He can see the floor now.”

  “Do you think he can hear what we’re saying?”

  He shook his head. “It’s not that type of camera. Video only—I wouldn’t guess he has audio. Just enough to see that his plan has come to fruition.”

  “What plan? Freaking us out to death?”

  Wyatt didn’t exactly know what was going on in the container either. What purpose was there in locking them in this place and watching? He had to be close by, with a camera like that. Or using some kind of internet connection. Wyatt paced down the container and back.

  What was Steve Adams waiting for?

  It wasn’t a foolproof plan if he couldn’t be certain they wouldn’t get out or be rescued before they died.

  Wyatt looked at the coffin, then at the door. He strode over and grabbed the air tank. It wasn’t full, so lacked the weight he probably needed, but he didn’t care. He was done waiting around for someone to find them, or for Adams to kill them.

  He lifted the tank and brought it down on the handle as hard as he could. The vibration of the metal nearly made him drop it, the sound deafening. He looked back to see Nina trying as best she could to cover her ears.

  He hit it again and again, bending the metal, but it wasn’t enough. No matter how many times he hit the door handle, it didn’t budge. He threw the air tank aside and pushed against the door. With all his strength, Wyatt cried out as he tried to open the door.

  His body sagged and he sank to the floor.

  Pulled out the phone.

  Whispering a prayer, Wyatt turned it on.

  A grinding sound, like metal on metal, begun outside the container. The noise grew from quiet to a loud noise that filled the whole place.

  Wyatt raced to the vent, but couldn’t see out. He handed Nina the phone and dragged the coffin to the window. He stood on the top as carefully as possible and peered out. A crane circled toward them. There was a loud clang of
metal on metal again, and then an engine revved.

  He could see the ground, but it wasn’t dirt or concrete. The whole area was nothing but mounds of gravel. Different kinds of stones, rocks. A quarry? Someplace that sold chippings for driveways, or to landscapers? He racked his brain to try to think where in town that was. It was a long shot that the place he was thinking was actually where they were. But how did it help?

  It was the middle of the night, the early hours. Someone was here to operate the crane, but he didn’t think it was likely an employee. A security guard might be around. But if Steve Adams was here, watching them, intending to kill them somehow, the security guard was likely dead.

  Nina gasped. “There’s a signal!”

  Wyatt raced to her and caught up the phone. The intermittent signal was back. Praying hard, he punched in Parker’s number. The phone beeped low battery, and he had to dismiss that indicator with a click of Okay. It felt like an eternity before his partner answered. “Please be Wyatt.”

  “Alvarez gravel.”

  “Thank you, Lord.” The phone beeped again. Parker’s voice cut out for a second. “...our way. Hold tight.”

  The phone died.

  “Yes!” Wyatt nearly jumped up and down. “They know where we are. They’re coming.” He lifted Nina, careful of her hands, and kissed her thoroughly. “We’re getting out of here.”

  “I hope so. I hope they get here in time.”

  The crane started up again. There was a clink like the links of a chain. The sound moved all the way above them like a line that ran up a tower all snapping tight. The container shifted. He lost his grip on Nina as the floor moved and they began to sway.

  She slid down the floor. Wyatt followed and they slammed into the back wall. The container swayed. “Wyatt!”

  He couldn’t grab her hand or he’d hurt her. If he held her they would bump into each other. Instead Wyatt moved farther away and climbed over the coffin so the wood was between them. The container swung as though suspended in midair.