Lethal Ransom

by Laurie Alice Eakes

  Her outdoor excursions were all regulated after that—scheduled strolls through nature preserves, guided tours through conservatories, catered picnics in suburban parks. Even after she attended college—locally—and moved into the condo her parents bought for her, she hadn’t taken advantage of the freedom of adulthood and independence. Regulated outings had been too engrained into her system for her to think about simply wandering through the woods.

  “I could have picked a better time and place to start.” She laughed at herself.

  Though that was a mere whispered chuckle, it sounded like a shout.

  She stopped, afraid she had gotten too far from the road and was meandering into the type of area one saw on the evening news, the sort where they found the person a week later half-dead from starvation, thirst and exposure. If she had gotten off course, she didn’t know which way to turn to get back on it again.

  The stillness was profound. She shivered, though the temperature couldn’t be much lower than the midsixties. No matter how long she stood there, she heard nothing but, eventually, faint rustling in the underbrush and the distant hoot of an owl.

  She had moved too far away from the road.

  “Do. Not. Panic.”

  Too late. Her breathing rasped in her throat. Her heart beat out of control. She dropped to the ground and hugged her knees to her chest, gasping, shaking, hugging her legs against herself to protect her body. She sobbed in frustration, in anger with herself. Someone was going to find her making all this racket. Someone was going to be able to walk right up to her and carry her off to a safe house for her own good for who knew how long, or to another hideout in another forest to compel her to divulge the whereabouts of a young lady who was trying to live as normal a life as possible and get an education.

  She didn’t know how long she huddled on the ground. Time ceased when these attacks crashed upon her. Eventually the shaking stopped, her breathing slowed, her heart resumed its normal rhythm. She was able to pull herself upright with the help of a tree. She leaned against it, waiting for the dizziness to end. Once her vision cleared and her ears returned to hearing the nearly nonexistent noises of the woods instead of blood roaring through her ears, she started walking, veering right. Certain the road lay in that direction if any.

  Or as certain as she could be.

  To herself, she sounded like an elephant tramping through the trees. No matter how lightly she trod, twigs snapped and crackled beneath her feet. Leaves rustled like a high wind passed through them, though she didn’t feel so much as a breath of a breeze. Afraid she was announcing her presence to anyone who came within a quarter mile of her position, she stopped every few minutes to listen for the betraying snaps and swishes of another person in the woods. Each time, she sighed with relief at hearing nothing. The next time she paused, she heard an engine, something powerful like a semi. That meant the highway must be nearby. She had gone in the right direction.

  That gave her courage to continue. If the highway was to the east of David and Becky’s cottage and Kristen kept that highway on her right, she was going north. The town she wanted lay north. So, she hoped, did some sort of place she could stop for the night. Her strength was flagging. Her eyes burned with fatigue. Her feet caused her pain with each step. She had to force her aching legs to take one more stride, one more—

  Her next step met empty air. She tried to throw herself backward and only succeeded in throwing herself off balance. Her other foot slipped in mud and she fell, sliding, then rolling down an embankment and into a body of water.

  Water no more than two feet deep, a lazy creek or culvert flowing so slowly she hadn’t heard it gurgle, so overhung with trees she hadn’t seen a gleam of moonlight on the water.

  She landed with a gasp and a cry, then sat in the water stunned, mortified, and listening to heavy footfalls rushing toward her.

  * * *

  Nick heard the crash, splash and cry and knew he had found Kristen. Risking the flashlight being seen from the road, he flicked the switch and charged toward the source of the sounds. The instant he spotted her already rising from the water, he switched off the light.

  “Kristen, it’s me,” he said in a low tone. “Don’t run.”

  “Don’t run when Kirkpatrick’s men are after me?” Her voice held an edge sharp enough to chop down a tree. “And your agency that wants to lock me up like I’m the criminal?”

  Nick sighed, unable to deny the truth of her claim. “I’m no longer a deputy US marshal.”

  “Just for helping me. That seems unfair.”

  “Me helping you was just the excuse Callahan has been looking for to get rid of me.”

  “Sure it is.” She started up the bank.

  Nick held out his hands. “Let me help you up.”

  “Won’t you get into more trouble?” Despite her words, she took his hands and allowed him to help her climb the steep, muddy side of the creek.

  “I might. But if I can prove Kirkpatrick is behind the kidnapping of your mother and the attacks on you, I will get back into enough people’s good graces that Callahan’s opinion of me won’t matter.” He still held her hands. Her fingers were freezing and he drew them together between both of his palms and rubbed them to warm her.

  She didn’t object. “How do you propose you do that?”

  “I figure if I follow you around, Kirkpatrick will catch up with you and I can capture him.”

  “That’s—that’s—you aren’t serious.” The words emerged on a quiver as though she were about to laugh or have hysterics.

  “Not entirely.” He released her hand and touched her cheek. “Completely seriously. Kristen, did you think I was going to leave you to be on your own?”

  “I didn’t know. You seemed suspicious of your own agency and you stayed behind.”

  “I stayed behind so I could get a weapon to help defend you or free you, if necessary.”

  “Did you?”

  “Thanks to Dillon.”

  “So he’s a good guy?” She sounded hopeful.

  “I think so. Jennifer Belk I’m not entirely sure of. Yet. But they don’t matter if we steer clear of them.”

  “I’ve managed so far.” She drew in an audible breath as though about to make a confession. “I also got ahold of my father. He’s wiring me money to the nearest bank. I’ll pick it up in the morning and...go to Canada or Europe or something until Kirkpatrick is caught.”

  Nick startled as though she had shoved a pointed stick into his middle. “Isn’t that ruining your life as much as having the Marshals Service put you in custody?”

  “Not at all the same. I’ll be able to go off on my own, to eat when and what I like, to...well, feel in charge of my life for once.” She snorted. “I doubt you can understand that. You’ve probably had charge of your life since you were born.”

  Nick started to agree, and then he thought about Monday night dinners with one sister, Wednesday night meals with one brother and family meals on Fridays. Every week the same, de rigueur. Command performances. He thought about how Callahan assigned him to the worst, the most boring duties and criticized every move he made. Even joining the marshals hadn’t been one hundred percent his choice. Someone from every generation of his family served in law enforcement of some sort. None of his older siblings had gone in that direction, so the career path was chosen for him.

  “Not entirely,” he said at last. Then he smiled. “In fact, I’d say right now you’re dictating what I do.”

  She started to turn away. “I didn’t make you come after me.”

  “I said I would. I never had any intention of letting you remain on your own if I could help it, not with Kirkpatrick after you.” And not wanting to be away from her for more than an hour, his heart reminded him. “I haven’t seen nor heard a peep out of anyone except you, so I’m thinking the marshals gave up and are waiting for daylight or more men
to look for you. Maybe Kirkpatrick’s men did the same.”

  “May we rest, too?”

  “When we find shelter.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “By trial and error.”

  “With me as the trial?”

  Nick laughed and wished he could kiss her again. He shouldn’t have done so earlier that day, a lifetime ago, or so it felt like. But she was funny and kind and so very pretty she drew him like a soaring seagull to breadcrumbs. No, breadcrumbs were too plain. More like a cat to something shiny.

  They had to get moving before he did something stupid.

  “Any way you look at things,” he said, “we’ve been standing here too long.”

  “Especially after all the racket I made when I fell.” She squeezed his hand.

  “Which is just one reason why I think the others have given up for the night. You were too easy to find.”

  “Only when I fell.”

  “True. But no one’s come along since I got here.”

  “Then let’s get out of here.”

  They got going, Nick in the lead, guiding them along the creek away from the road in the hope of finding a deer or man-made trail leading to the water. They risked others finding the same trail, but they would hear anyone coming early enough to hide. They could also move more quickly on smoother land and were more likely to find someplace to shelter like the porch of a cabin empty for the week.

  Nick found the trail. Along the bank of the creek, the brush and grass lay trampled from small herds of deer drinking there. Compared to the darkness between the trees, the clearing seemed spotlighted, bright enough for them to notice the narrow trail that led back toward Becky and David’s cottage, or continued north on the other side of the creek.

  “Can you cross it?” Nick asked.

  “I’ve already gone swimming in it. Wading is nothing.”

  Nick made his way down the bank, not as steep here, then helped Kristen. His borrowed sneakers worked much better than her secondhand flip-flops. The water reached their knees and was ice-cold. One of Kristen’s flip-flops stuck in the muddy bottom and they spent five minutes fishing it out. It was a necessary delay. They couldn’t continue without her footgear, however flimsy.

  Once on the other side of the creek, they continued at a faster pace. Several times, Nick paused to ensure Kristen was doing all right. Other than breathing hard, she said she was. He didn’t believe her. His feet hurt. Hers had to be in agony. Nonetheless, she kept up with him.

  Sometimes he paused to listen for signs of other people in the woods. Aside from the distant rumble of an engine now and then reminding him they weren’t far from the highway, neither of them caught the telltale noises people made—crackling leaves, snapping twigs, a cough, a sneeze. Nothing. Just those cars on the highway.

  They walked without speaking until the wind kicked up and the sky grew darker, stars and moon blotted out. This wasn’t predawn. This was a storm coming. They not only needed to get out of the bad weather, mud would show the direction of their footprints. Yet they had come across nowhere Nick considered shelter, not even the sort of large pine tree under which they could crouch for protection, especially not protection if thunder accompanied the storm.

  “Start praying we find someplace soon,” Nick said. “This feels like it could be a rough one.”

  As though emphasizing his impression, lightning flashed above the trees. Nick started to count. “One thousand and one, one thousand and two...” He wasn’t quite to five when the thunder rolled across the sky.

  “What was that about?” Kristen asked.

  Her hand trembled in Nick’s.

  He squeezed her fingers to reassure her. “The storm is about a mile away. Sound travels at about eleven hundred feet per second, so five seconds are about one mile if you count between seeing lightning and hearing thunder. Did you never learn that?”

  “No.”

  “Now you know. Let’s go. We need to get out of these trees before this gets any closer.”

  They were nearly running when they stumbled into the clearing. One moment trees surrounded them, the next they stood in the open with lightning illuminating the scene before them like strobes—revealing the tiniest house or cabin Nick had ever seen.

  It wasn’t much more than a toolshed, yet appeared like a perfect house, a child’s playhouse.

  “It’s a tiny house,” Kristen said.

  “You’re telling me it’s tiny.”

  “No, I mean it’s a tiny house like the tiny house movement.”

  “You mean people really build those?”

  “They really do. Look. It’s adorable.”

  “It’s...ridiculous.”

  But he loved her enthusiasm for the miniature structure. He also loved the fact that, tiny house in the middle of nowhere or not, it had a porch. Not a large one, but not quite as tiny in proportion to the house as one might expect, and it sported a roof.

  “I don’t think anyone is there,” Kristen murmured. “It’s dark.”

  “It would be. It’s the middle of the night. But let’s see if we wake anyone up by going onto the porch.”

  The first drops of rain began to fall as they climbed the two shallow steps to the concrete slab that acted as a porch base. A wooden railing ran around it and a swing hung from the ceiling. The concrete made their footfalls quieter than wood would have. They sat on the swing. It creaked. Nick pushed them back and forth a few times, allowing the creaking to continue, and listened for signs of life inside the house.

  If anyone was there, they slept too heavily for the swing to wake them.

  “Dare we talk?” Kristen asked.

  “I think this house may be empty, but I doubt anyone will begrudge us taking shelter on their porch.”

  “What if Kirkpatrick’s men track us here? Or whoever lives here calls the sheriff and alerts the marshals? You’ll be in serious trouble.”

  “I’m already in serious trouble. A little more won’t hurt.”

  Much.

  Despite asking if they could talk, Kristen sat in silence for several minutes. They watched the storm approach—the light show flashing over the trees, the concert of thunder and gushing rain. Somehow, they still held hands, and Nick felt closer to her than he had anyone in too long a time.

  Then Kristen turned to him and asked, “Why does Callahan dislike you so much?”

  Nick cringed, though he knew the question was inevitable.

  “You don’t have to answer if it’s none of my business,” Kristen hastened to add.

  “Everyone else knows. So you may as well.” Nick sighed and leaned against the back of the swing. “I was engaged to his daughter.”

  Kristen startled. “You were?”

  “I was. We dated for two years and got engaged on Valentine’s Day of last year.”

  He waited for her to ask what had happened or say something about Valentine’s Day being romantic or cliché. She said nothing. Surprised, he looked at her before he remembered she was a trained listener.

  And he needed to talk to someone who hadn’t known Michele or him or both forever.

  “Michele was pretty and fun-loving and smart, but she’d taken a while to figure out what she wanted to be when she grew up.” Nick pictured the petite brunette who had been the love of his life for two years, and he could barely remember her face. “Her father spoiled her and never made her do anything she didn’t want. But when we met at a party at her parents’ house, she started to change. She decided she needed to get her act together and do something with her life. She just didn’t know how. She was...needy. Someone always took care of anything hard in her life.” Nick paused.

  Kristen nodded in silent understanding.

  “I kind of fell into the same pattern of running to her rescue—when her car wouldn’t start because she didn’t want to
pump gas in the cold and had run out, or when she didn’t want to eat lunch alone on campus.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “I guess I was starting a bad precedent for our future, but she was so grateful, and I am the baby in my family, so no one has ever needed me.” He stared at the lightning flashing like cameras. “She needed me too much.”

  Kristen drew the back of his hand to her cheek and waited for him to continue.

  Comforted, he found the words that had always come so hard in the past year flowing from his lips as easily as the rain fell from the clouds. “She wanted to be a nurse and was taking classes at Loyola. After class one day, she was coming downtown and we were supposed to go out to dinner. But her car got a flat tire. She didn’t know how to change one and didn’t want to hang out waiting for roadside assistance. She wanted me to come get her.

  “But I was taking over the duties of someone who had to leave for an emergency and suggested she catch the ‘L.’ Instead, because I wouldn’t be free for dinner after all, she went to check up on a nearby woman she had helped while doing some volunteer work. She shouldn’t have gone to that part of the city after dark. She shouldn’t have taken her purse and computer with her. But she thought she was safe because she had helped so many women and children in the area. And she was right. Most people respected her enough to leave her alone. But some thought she was interfering in their families. They robbed her and...they shot her. If I hadn’t taken the extra shift, if I’d gone to help her with her flat tire, she’d still be alive.”

  “And thus Callahan blames you for his daughter’s death,” Kristen concluded.

  “That’s right.”

  “And you blame yourself, so you take his...criticism.”

  “That’s about the size of it.” He took a deep breath. “And, for a long time, I blamed God for not taking care of her. But she was given to me, and I failed her.”

  “Oh, Nick.” She lowered his hand so it rested on the cushion of the swing, but did not release it. “Nick, am I to blame for what Kirkpatrick is doing?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Why not? I took his daughter on as a client knowing who her father was.”