by E J Kindred
I stayed where I was until I was sure he was gone. Only then did I relax and take a deep breath. I was relieved that Mo’s crying had subsided.
“Mo, are you okay? I’m so sorry I scared you.”
She didn’t answer right away, but when she did, her voice trembled. “Why did you do that?” She sounded as if she might start sobbing again. “He could have killed you. He still could.”
“Yes, but I was pretty sure he wouldn’t.”
“How could you be sure?”
“I wasn’t, but his entire ego is wrapped up in being a doctor, a surgeon. When I insulted his intelligence and called his medical skills into question, he lost his temper, which is what I counted on.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Angry people make mistakes.” I went to the door, chain trailing me, to check my theory and was gratified and relieved to see that I was right.
“He’s likely to be a lot angrier with us now.”
“I’m sure he will be.” I slid my door open wide and stepped into the passageway. I went to the front of Mo’s cell. “But he can be angry in prison.”
Mo’s shriek of delight resounded through the barn. She tried to reach me, but the chain shackled to her ankle was, like mine, too short. Also like mine, her chain led to the frame of her bed, but she was too weak to move it.
Her appearance was shocking, and an involuntary gasp escaped before I could stop it. She was dressed in what might originally have been flannel pajamas, but were now nothing but tatters of thin, filthy cloth. Her hair was matted to her head. Her skin was grimy, and where it was visible, bones jutted out. The look on her thin face was so hopeful it almost broke my heart, but despite her excitement, she swayed where she stood. I feared she might fall.
I’d counseled Mo against killing Carl, but in that moment, if he’d reappeared, I’d have strangled him with my bare hands out of rage at what he’d done to my friend.
“Get me out of here, Annie,” she said tearfully. “I can’t be here when he gets back.”
I went back to my bed and pulled the leg free. Back at Mo’s door, I tried wedging it between the latch and the wood of the door.
“Let me see if I get this loose.”
But try as I might, I couldn’t get my L-shaped piece of metal behind the latch. I dug at the wood with one corner and managed to chip away some splinters, hoping to make a big enough space to let me pry the latch loose.
After what felt like four hours and was probably closer to one, all I had was a two-inch hollowed-out space by the latch, but it was too shallow. The edges of the metal leg, which had been rounded off, weren’t sharp enough to cut through the wood fibers. My hands were sore and bleeding. I had a headache from Carl’s blow. And my spirit was exhausted and angry.
I searched the barn for any kind of implement I could wedge behind the latch and came up empty. For a desperate moment, I wondered if Carl kept the padlock keys in the barn, but that search, too, proved fruitless. Damn him for being an intelligent kidnapper.
I went back to Mo’s door and leaned my forehead against the bars. She’d resumed sitting on her bed, patiently waiting for me to liberate her. I hated to disappoint her.
“I don’t know what to do, Mo,” I said, almost whispering. “I can’t get it loose.” Exhaustion and frustration combined to wear me down, and I started crying, sobbing, wracking my chest with pain. “I can’t get the lock loose.”
“There’s only one thing to do.”
I was surprised at the strength in her voice.
“You have to run.” She spoke with certainty. “Get out of here and get help for me.”
“But we don’t know where we are. It could be miles.” I sniffled and wiped tears away. Here my friend looked like a concentration camp survivor, and she was being the strong one.
“Yes, it could, so you need to go now. If Mister Colossal Prick keeps to his schedule, we have a day, maybe a day and a half, to get out of here. It’s getting dark now, so it’s only early evening. You have time. Can you do it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You can.” Her voice was insistent. “I believe you can do way more than you think you can. You’re a strong person, one of the strongest I’ve ever met. You lost your dad—”
“You know about that?”
“Yes, I do. I’ve always known.”
“How?”
“Tell you what, let’s talk about it after we’re out of here and Carl the Asshole is locked up.”
Our circumstances were dire, and she was still strong enough to think up creative names for our captor. I suppose it went along with concocting ways to torture him. Sounded good to me.
“But,” Mo went on, “my point is that I trust that you can do this, that you can find help and get me out of here before he comes back.”
“What if I can’t?” Tears ran down my face again at the thought of what Carl could do if he returned and I was gone, with Mo still chained to her bed.
“Then it wasn’t meant to be” was all she said.
Back in my cell, I folded my filthy blanket in half, tied the corners together, and fashioned a sort of sling. Inside, I put two water bottles and the bars Carl had left and looped it over my shoulder and around my neck, keeping my hands free. I threaded the chain that was still connected to the shackle through part of the sling, trying to leave enough slack so I could walk somewhat freely.
I gave the rest of my water and the cans of soup to Mo. When she protested that I’d left her too much, I told her they were too cumbersome for me to carry if I wanted to move quickly, which was true enough. I also wanted her to have as much food as possible, just in case. I tossed them through the bars so she could reach them.
As reluctant as I was to leave her behind, I had to go.
“Be safe,” she said softly. “Run fast. I’m counting on you.”
We looked into each other’s eyes for a long moment. And then I turned away before I lost my resolve.
Stepping out into the night air was a revelation. I’d never considered the pricelessness of freedom until it was taken from me. Surveying the sky, I marveled at the moonlight shining through the cloud cover and the few stars peeking through.
Fortunately, the moonlight enabled me to follow the gravel roadway leading away from the barn. I saw no homes or other buildings nearby, and no lights shone in the darkness. The barn was a hulking blackness behind me.
After a short time, I came to a paved road. I didn’t have any way to gauge the time, but in what felt like ten minutes since I’d left the barn, I hadn’t heard any traffic. I hoped that didn’t mean we were so remote that I wouldn’t be able to find help before Carl’s next visit.
Taking a deep breath, I looked both ways up and down the road, hoping to find a landmark, something to help me pick a direction. The dim moonlight showed only trees and the worn white markings on the road.
I tossed a mental coin and turned left.
At first, I jogged, but the chain pulled at my left ankle and the water bottles jostled too much. After I had to stop twice to retrieve a bottle that fell out of my improvised backpack, I settled for a fast walk. The shackle scraped my skin, but I ignored it. As stressed as I was, as worried as I felt for Mo’s safety, I was also able to breathe the night air and enjoy the croaking of frogs. The freshness and sounds of a normal night were marvelous.
Over the next hour, the cloud cover increased, erasing what little moonlight there had been. A breeze strengthened, which felt good at first. On top of my exhaustion and lack of decent nutrition, I was working harder than I had in a long time. The cool air bathing my skin helped rejuvenate me, but I was still bone weary.
After what I estimated to be about four miles, I saw a rectangular shape in the distance. At the thought that help might be closer than I’d dared hope, I jogged again, the chain clinking in the quiet night.
I stopped.
I was looking at one of the stone pillars flanking the gate to the Wentworth property.
“He
ll and damnation!”
I stepped off the road, into the shadows of the trees, and opened a bottle of water. Obviously, I couldn't ask for help at the Wentworth house. This was a bad news-good news situation. The good news was I knew where we were. Carl had put us into the old barn I’d admired on many a bike ride. The bad news was that help was at least ten miles in the other direction, in Charbonneau. More bad news was that I had to be especially wary of cars on the road, in case someone from the Wentworth house saw me.
“I never want to see another damn Wentworth as long as I live,” I muttered. I resumed my walk, this time back the way I’d come.
I kept up a decent pace and passed the barn in due time. I wanted to report in, but I knew if Mo saw me she’d think I’d given up, or worse, that I’d brought help that then didn’t appear. The last thing she needed was another blow to the fragile hope she’d gained since I escaped my cell. Besides, there was always the chance that our captor might return unexpectedly, and I couldn’t allow myself to be recaptured.
I kept going.
The clouds thickened overhead, and the breeze picked up. I’d lived in Oregon long enough to know what that meant. Sure enough, rain started falling. I was dressed only in the jeans and shirt I’d worn the last time I spied on Elise, and the early spring rain took no time at all to soak me to the skin. Rainwater ran off my hair and into my eyes. I’d been warm from walking and jogging, but now I felt the cold creeping toward my core.
I wanted to pick up my pace to warm up, but the heavy cloud cover and rain made the night even darker. Every so often, I inadvertently stepped off the pavement and into a puddle or mud simply because I couldn’t see where I was going. Once I tripped and fell to my knees. The pain was so bad, it brought tears to my eyes. My ankle felt raw from the shackle, but as I rose and started off again, I tried not to think about the pain.
I’d gone perhaps three miles past the barn when I heard a car coming from behind. My fight or flight adrenalin told me to hide, so I bolted into a nearby stand of trees and crouched down. The car passed without slowing.
I breathed a sigh of relief and resumed walking, warmed by the fear I’d felt. If the driver had been Elise, or worse, Carl—well, I couldn’t bear to think of it.
The rain fell harder, which made it more difficult for me to see where I was going. I plodded along, head down, determined to save Mo and see Carl punished. Before I’d left the barn, Mo made a joke.
“When you come back,” she’d said, “bring me a car battery and some wires, would you?”
Sounded good to me. I’d happily chain Carl the Third to the nearest prison, permanently.
In the next couple of miles, two more cars passed and twice more, I hid as best I could. One time, when there were no trees to use as cover, I lay down alongside a pasture fence, but in the rain and the dark, the driver didn’t see me. Mud covered my clothes.
Each time a car passed by, I wondered if I should flag it down and ask the driver for help. Each time, I worried I’d be condemning Mo to death if I did.
I kept going, munching a bar and drinking water, trying to stay strong.
When I thought I might be nearing Charbonneau, I heard another car. Yet again, I bolted toward a nearby stand of trees, but I hadn’t moved fast enough.
The car slowed and then stopped. “Hey, are you okay? Do you need a ride?”
Motivated by fear, I ignored the voice and ran as fast I could toward the trees. I heard footsteps behind me and ran faster.
“Stop! Where are you going?”
The person chasing me was getting closer. Panicked, I threw off my makeshift backpack and promptly fell face first onto the ground. A sharp pain radiated from my left ankle up to my hip.
I’d tripped on the chain.
I got up on one knee and tried to stand, but the pain was too great. It didn’t matter, though, because my pursuer grabbed the back of my shirt.
“Stop, goddamn it. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Let go of me,” I said, panting. I struggled in vain to free myself.
“Why are you out here? I almost ran over you back there.”
Dimly, through my fear and pain, I realized that the person who’d chased me sounded concerned.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I’m Jesús Alvarado,” he said, using the Spanish pronunciation of his first name. “Who are you? And why do you have a chain on your leg?”
“You’re not from the Wentworths?” I had to ask, though I feared the answer.
“I don’t know who that is. I live in Eugene. I’m driving to Charbonneau to visit my brother and his wife. They had a baby girl last week. But you’re hurt. Let me take you to the hospital.”
I couldn’t help it. I started weeping, shoulder-wracking sobs that emanated from my soul. I nodded without speaking, and my rescuer helped me stand.
“Do you have a phone with you?” I winced with pain when I tried to stand on both feet. My ankle was either broken or badly sprained. Jesús let me lean on him as we made our way slowly to the road.
“In the car. Why?”
“I just escaped from a murderer. He still has my friend. We have to call the police.”
He helped me into the car and handed me his cell phone. He went to the trunk and returned with a blanket. It was musty, but after my time in captivity, it smelled like freedom.
Despite the growing warmth of the blanket, my hands shook so hard I couldn’t press the phone buttons. After Jesús settled into the driver’s seat, I gave the phone back to him.
“Can you call, please? My hands are too cold.”
I recited Dean’s cell phone number. Once the call was connected, he handed the phone back to me and started driving fast toward town.
When I head Dean’s voice, I started sobbing. “Dean? It’s Annie.”
“Annie!” His voice was sharp. “Where are you? Where have you been?”
I heard rustling and the sounds of running footsteps in the background.
“I got away, but the doc’s son has Mo chained up in the old barn up the road from the doc’s house.” I was crying so hard I could scarcely breathe. “Hurry, please, before he comes back.”
The next morning, I awoke in a hospital bed. An IV line ran from a bag of fluid down to my arm. I was dressed, if scantily so, in a hideous lavender-flowered hospital gown, but the best part was that I was cleaner than I had been in two weeks. I was sure I owed a nurse’s aide or two a great deal of appreciation.
The rain from the night before had intensified and was lashing against the windows, but as far as I was concerned, it was a perfect spring day. Mo and I were safe.
I remembered everything—up to a point. Jesús had handed me his phone after helping me into his car. He sped toward town while I spoke with Dean, imploring him to send officers and an ambulance the old barn immediately. I vaguely recalled using the term “a matter of life and death.” Did people say that in real life? When we arrived at the Charbonneau Hospital, Dean was already there, for once not exasperated with me. He thanked my rescuer and asked him to talk with the Charbonneau police officer who stood nearby.
The rest of the night was a blur. I must have passed out from exhaustion or been sedated.
Now I lay in my bed, watching the rain and feeling grateful. An aide took my pulse and blood pressure and brought me some tea. I asked her about Mo, but she didn’t know anything. I dozed off and on, feeling groggy and not quite able to rouse myself from it.
About midway through the morning, a doctor came in. I learned I had a broken left ankle and cuts and bruises. The skin beneath the shackle was seriously abraded, but he said it would heal. They’d had to cut the shackle off, of course. I had a cast instead, and I was fine with that. I was also no longer dehydrated, thanks to the IV fluids. And despite a laceration and a massive bruise that covered the side of my head, I didn’t have a concussion. My fingertips were still tender from my struggles to disassemble the bed frame and I was stiff and sore, but that was no matter.
I slipped off into oblivion after he left.
“You couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?” Dean Jarrett loomed over me with a wide grin on his face.
“Of course I could,” I mumbled. I cleared my throat and spoke with more authority. “But nothing about this was well enough.”
“Okay, you win.” He pulled a chair to the side of my bed and sat. “Want to tell me how you got into this mess?”
“Not really.”
“Spill it.”
So I did. I told him about the GPS tracker on Elise’s car and ignored when he rolled his eyes.
“I should have known you’d do something stupid like that. How else would you have found her at the hotel?”
“Maybe I’m a gifted detective.” And then I smiled. Even I couldn’t believe that one. “Anyway, Carl must have spotted me, because he grabbed me right off a park bench. He drugged me somehow, and I ended up in the barn with Mo.”
“Chained to a bed and in a padlocked stall. And you managed to escape.” He looked impressed.
“How’s Mo doing? They got to her in time, right?”
“Yes, they did, but she’s in bad shape, Annie. They took her right to Portland, lights and siren the whole way. She’s in the ICU.”
My eyes filled with tears. “Oh, no. Will she be okay?”
“The docs aren’t sure yet. Three months in those conditions is a long time. I’m amazed she lasted so long.”
“That murdering bastard’s still out there, isn’t he?”
Dean grimaced. Though he didn’t answer I knew what his expression indicated.
“Please tell me there’s security at the hospital Mo is in,” I said, trying not to let any tears fall. “He’s a doctor. He’ll know how to manipulate hospital personnel. He’ll figure out how to get to her.”
“It’s okay, Annie. I asked to have a security guard at the entrance to the ICU at all times. They have his photo and all the information. She’s as safe as she can be.”