Lethal Ransom

by Laurie Alice Eakes

  The idea of cold, clear water seemed great, something refreshing and soothing in which to soak their sore feet. They needed medical care if they didn’t want to suffer infections.

  They weren’t going to get anything but caught again if they didn’t locate an escape route.

  Nick kept them moving through the trees, avoiding trails though using them would have been faster. He didn’t want to risk what had happened on the other path. Trails were too open, too exposed.

  Going through the trees meant more brush, broken branches and sharp pine needles underfoot. It meant branches whipping into their faces and mouths full of leaves, as though the trees wished to gag them. But it also meant more places to hide, made them harder to locate, thus harder to pursue.

  He stopped every few minutes to listen. At the moment, he heard no one nearby. The woods were quiet save for the normal nighttime noises of insects, a distant owl and frogs.

  Frogs!

  Frogs lived near water. In this part of the world, people usually lived near water as well.

  “What is that sound?” Kristen asked.

  “Bullfrog. You’ve never heard one?”

  “Never.” She hesitated a moment, then added, “When I went on vacations with my parents, we went to cities, to museums and the theater.”

  Nick couldn’t imagine growing up swimming in hotel pools instead of freshwater lakes, walking concrete sidewalks instead of dirt paths. If—when—they got out of this mess, he would introduce Kristen to the joys of hiking through the woods during the day or building a sand castle on the beach.

  And what was he doing thinking about a future spending time with Kristen? He must be too stressed and tired to think straight for those sorts of thoughts to enter his head. He didn’t want to spend time with other women in case he fell in love with them.

  He couldn’t risk that again. Couldn’t risk anyone’s life again.

  Nick kept them moving, Kristen’s too cold fingers curled into his. “Frogs mean water somewhere close, and people usually build cabins on the water.”

  “Will anyone be there on a weeknight?”

  “We can hope and pray someone is.”

  She sighed, then sighed again, and Nick realized she was breathing deeply, holding her fear, her panic, in check. He wanted to hold more than her hand, wrap his arms around her and reassure her all would be well. Except he didn’t know if all would be well. The man behind the abductions wanted information about his daughter. Kristen probably possessed that information. Could she—would she—give it up? If she did, what were the consequences to Raven Kirkpatrick? Or Kristen herself?

  He made himself focus on following the croaking of the bullfrogs. Closer. Closer. The trees grew thinner, farther apart. The scent of water increased. Jug. Jug. Jug, the frogs chorused.

  They broke through the trees to a clearing washed in moonlight. A half-moon reflected in a lake, brightening the sight of a tidy cottage with a deck built over the water.

  An empty-looking cottage. The windows were shuttered and the deck empty of furniture. Though a broad stretch of water spread before them, the side of the lake on which Kristen and Nick stood held no other houses.

  “What do we do?” Kristen’s voice held a desperate note.

  Nick knew how she felt. He had pinned too many hopes on someone being in the first house they found.

  “We’ll look for a boat.”

  “Steal it?”

  “Borrow it.”

  “But won’t the men hear the motor?”

  “I’m thinking a canoe or rowboat.” Nick led the way around the cottage. A mound covered with a tarpaulin looked promising.

  “I don’t know how to operate a rowboat or canoe,” Kristen admitted.

  “I figured as much.”

  If he found a canoe under that tarp, she would get a quick lesson in paddling. A rowboat would be better. He could handle the oars, though not as well as he could if he was rested and had eaten. Still, either would be transportation.

  He moved the rocks holding down the tarp and pulled the cover back. An aluminum canoe lay upside down on two sawhorses with the paddles tucked beneath.

  “I’ll need your help getting this into the water.”

  “Of course.”

  Together they managed to flip the canoe and carry it down the beach to the water. Nick told Kristen to hold the boat in place, then ran back to get the paddles. He set them in the boat and told Kristen to climb in.

  She did so with so little speed her movement resembled a slow-motion film. The boat rocked, and she slumped down, gripping the sides.

  “Just sit there and I’ll go to the other end.” Nick splashed into the water.

  The cold lake and soft sand felt good on the parts of his feet exposed from holes torn in his socks. He dug his toes into the bottom to give himself purchase and pulled the canoe into water deep enough for it to float. Then he clambered over the edge and picked up a paddle.

  “Hold it like this.” He waited for Kristen to lift the other paddle and position her hands like his. “Great. Now dip it into the water at a right angle and draw straight back. Keep it straight or we’ll go parallel to the shore instead of away from it.”

  “Where are we going?” Kristen asked.

  “Across the lake. I’m hoping we’ll find more cottages there and people this time.”

  He hoped to be away from their pursuers, to find a phone—or radio, if no cell service was available out here—and call the police.

  He dipped his paddle and drew hard on the water. A glance over his shoulder warned him Kristen wasn’t going to be a great deal of help. Her blade was too shallow, her strokes too short. Paddling a canoe took practice and built-up strength. She wasn’t a weak lady, but neither was she used to this kind of strenuous workout. So their progress was slow. Twenty feet from shore. Fifty. Other than the splash of their oars, the lake and beach were quiet.

  But from the edge of the woods Nick heard a shout followed by another.

  “Oh, no,” Kristen cried.

  Nick turned his head to see light, then a flash followed by the report of a gun.

  NINE

  Kristen choked on the scream she tried to swallow. The men had caught up with them too quickly, too easily. She and Nick weren’t anywhere near far enough from the shore. They weren’t anywhere near enough to the other side of the lake.

  “What do we do?” she cried.

  No sense in being quiet. The men knew where they were.

  “Paddle faster,” Nick said.

  He dipped his paddle deeply into the water.

  Kristen tried to imitate the movement. Her shoulders felt like they were wrenching from their sockets with the effort. She thought she was strong. Paddling a canoe through a lake with men and guns behind them on the shore made her feel as weak as an infant.

  To emphasize their power, those men fired their guns again. Across the water, the sound magnified, echoing around the open space. Surely someone would hear. Surely someone would investigate.

  Or maybe not in the Wisconsin woods. Maybe firing guns in the middle of the night was normal. Kristen didn’t know. The closest she got to woods was walking beneath the trees in parks. No one shot guns in parks.

  She glanced over her shoulder to see how much progress the canoe had made. Not much. To her, they seemed to be sitting still in the water.

  The men weren’t sitting still. They had climbed to the deck of the empty cottage. Two flashlights gleamed like staring eyes trying to pierce the darkness beyond the range of their beams.

  Kristen and Nick were outside the flashlights’ range, but the silver aluminum of the canoe glowed in the moonlight. Her hair must be glowing too. The part of her she considered her best feature, her prettiest feature, was now her downfall. First the strand on the branch had alerted the man on the trail where to look for them. Now s
he shined in the dark like her own beacon.

  Another gun fired. Not a pistol. Pistol bounds weren’t all that great. But this was a rifle. Kristen might not know about firearms usage in the woods, but she knew the firearms themselves. Her boss had taken her to a firing range so she could understand the power of the weapons that too often harmed her clients.

  They would have to paddle much faster to outrun a bullet from a rifle.

  One round splashed into the lake mere inches from the canoe.

  “Duck,” Nick called.

  “I can’t paddle if I duck.”

  “Never mind. Just duck.”

  Never mind because her paddling was useless.

  But Kristen didn’t argue. She curled up on the bottom of the boat and clenched her teeth so they wouldn’t chatter. Each breath was an effort.

  A ping echoed off the seat where she’d been sitting. If she’d still been there—

  A whimper like a lonely puppy’s burst from her before she could stop it.

  Another bullet hit the canoe without Kristen having any power to stop it. The round fell short of the seat and cut through the hull half a foot from Kristen’s toes.

  This time, she couldn’t hold back the scream.

  “Are you hit?” Nick’s voice was taut.

  “No, but there’s water gushing in.”

  “Better than you being hit.” Nick lifted his oar from the water. “Can you swim?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then we’re going into the water. Grab your paddle and stand. I want to tip the canoe over.”

  “I will if I can stand up.”

  She wasn’t sure she could. The boat was unstable, worse with water oozing through the hole in the bottom.

  Nick held out his hand. “Take my hand.”

  Gladly. He had broad, firm hands with long, strong fingers. He gripped her hand and hauled her to her feet. She clutched the paddle in her other hand. He gripped the other paddle in his. Together, they leaped into the lake. As the icy water closed over Kristen’s head, she heard more gunfire.

  The paddles drew them back to the surface with their buoyancy. Not a great deal of support, but enough to help keep them afloat so they could kick and kick and kick, heedless of the splashing or the wake of their passing. They simply wanted to get out of firing range as fast as possible.

  To Kristen, the water began to feel as thick as gelatin, her legs as heavy as lead pipes. Though she knew doing so was probably foolish, she toed off her sneakers and allowed them to sink to the bottom of the lake. The absence of the soaked shoes lightened her legs, making kicking easier.

  She longed for a raft she could simply lie on and float, for sunshine to warm her instead of the too-cool night breezes chilling her.

  But she wouldn’t mind Nick’s hand to hold again.

  She shouldn’t think such a thing. He was all wrong for her. He had missed dinner with his sister. What if he were married and that was his child’s recital he missed?

  Crises happened in most jobs, incidents that compelled one to work late, but not as often as in law enforcement, not as important either, things that couldn’t be put off for the next day to take time out for family.

  Law enforcement and the law like her parents.

  At least the denial of her moments of attraction to Nick distracted her. They had swum a hundred yards from shore. The shooting had ceased. Beams of light from the beach suggested the men walked around it, perhaps seeking another form of water transport.

  Nick paused and pumped his legs to keep in place. “We need to get ashore. I don’t think either of us can swim all the way across the lake.”

  “I’m sure I can’t.” Kristen could barely move her legs anymore. She could scarcely feel them. “I didn’t know the water was still this cold in June.”

  “It was a late spring this year. It’ll be cold all summer if this lake is deep.”

  “So which way do we go?”

  Nick glanced around, though the moon had ducked behind clouds and the predawn hours were nearly light-free. “North.”

  “Which way is north?”

  “To our left.”

  “How in the world do you know that?”

  Nick touched her cheek, warming it, though she knew his fingers must be cold from the water. “I know how to read the sky for directions. Now let’s go.”

  They turned. They swam. They encountered an islet, little more than a sandbar, and paused to rest. Kristen wanted to stretch out and sleep on the twenty square feet or so of sand and rocks and some scrubby bushes. But they needed to keep running from the man who wanted her to give him information about Raven Kirkpatrick. The woman’s father.

  The memory of the young woman made her feel as though the lake had invaded her veins, replacing her warm blood with the chilly water. She couldn’t give him any information. She couldn’t risk the girl’s life that way.

  Was any client worth dying for?

  She didn’t want to find out how she would answer that question, or if she and Nick would die. They needed to get away now, report Robert Kirkpatrick as the man who had engineered the abduction, a man out on bond while awaiting trial, and move Raven to another safe place, one about which Kristen knew nothing to tell.

  Which was why she was sure, and guessed Nick also recognized, the men would kill them—because they knew too much. No return of her person had ever been planned. The men intended to take Kristen, extract information, then kill her.

  On her feet before she realized what she was doing, Kristen raced to the far side of the islet and into the lake. “Let’s go.”

  “Careful.” Nick caught up with her.

  They waded into the water until it grew deep enough for swimming. Then they struck out for the north shore of the lake a million miles away. Or maybe only a quarter mile away but seemed like a million or two. Kristen’s arms and legs had ceased feeling like lead pipes and now resembled rubber bands—floppy and useless. She needed all her concentration to push through the water. Right. Left. Right.

  Her foot struck bottom. She dug her toes into the oozing sand and lowered her other leg. The bottom. Shallower water. She could walk, difficult through water, but easier than swimming.

  Beside her, Nick did the same. He gripped her hand again and they trudged to shore where a tree-lined ledge met the water instead of beach. Kristen released Nick and tried to haul herself onto dry land, but her arms gave way and she splashed into the water.

  “If I may?” Nick climbed onto the ledge, then held out his hands.

  “Please.”

  He lifted her out of the water high enough she could kneel on the ground. “I hope there isn’t any poison ivy around here.”

  “Me too.” Nick kneeled before her. “I hate to tell you this, but I don’t think there are any cottages or cabins around here for sure.”

  “Shocking.” Kristen yawned. “A lake that hasn’t had its shoreline developed to death with houses.”

  “I think it’s too small for much development.”

  “Does that mean we can sleep somewhere without people finding us?”

  Nick hesitated a moment, then said, “That might not be a bad idea. Let me see what I can come up with for shelter. Wait here.”

  He moved deeper into the woods. For a moment, Kristen’s breath caught in her throat, the familiar beginnings of panic at being left alone. “He’s coming back. He’s coming back.” She repeated the words to herself again and again.

  They didn’t help. Before she knew what she intended, she had curled into a fetal position on the ground, hugging her knees to her chest and gasping for air.

  “Kristen? Kristen, you’re all right.” A gentle hand stroked her wet hair from her face, then rested on her cheek, lightly caressing. “You’re all right. I’m here.”

  The touch, the voice, the words soothed her. Her bre
athing slowed. Her heart ceased racing as though it needed to escape her rib cage. But she started to cry.

  “Shh.” Nick kneeled on the ground in front of her and cradled her head against his shoulder, letting her weep out her fear and worry and guilt. He murmured gentle words of encouragement like “Let it out” and “We’ll be all right.”

  She appreciated the former. She didn’t believe the latter. She needed to cry to ease the emotions bottled inside her. The rest, however, neither of them could know for certain. She didn’t know if anyone was all right. Her mother, her father, even Nick’s family could be in danger. And she knew that she and Nick were far from out of the woods—literally and figuratively.

  The little joke replaced the next sob with a chuckle, and the tears began to dry.

  “What’s funny?” Nick asked.

  “I was thinking we’re not out of the woods yet.”

  “Nice one.” Nick groaned. “But we’re probably fortunate for that. The woods give us plenty of places to hide.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Come. I found a place where you can get a little sleep.” Nick took her hands in his and hauled her to her feet.

  Kristen followed him along a narrow, twisting trail that had probably been used by more deer than humans, and showed her a woodland bower beneath the spreading branches of a pine. Those branches drooped to the ground, forming a “room” beneath.

  “Your boudoir, madam.” Nick lifted several of the fragrant limbs.

  Kristen crawled through the gap in foliage and welcomed the soft carpet of fallen needles. “I doubt I’ll sleep, but it’ll be nice not to be walking or swimming. But what about you?”

  “I’ve got my own shelter a few yards away. I’ll be close enough to hear you if you have trouble, but far enough away to give you privacy.”