by Sharon Dunn
He separated the cheese slices while Natasha placed two more pieces of bread in the toaster and brought him the first two. He pulled down plates and laid the bread open on one of them.
Natasha paced through the kitchen, checking the front window. She was still nervous about the hitman coming at her again. The blizzard was in full force, making it hard to see anything but gusting snow being blown around.
“He has to contend with the storm just like we do, Natasha,” Landon said as he pulled the bologna out of the pan and placed it on a napkin to absorb the grease. “We don’t know if he’s even out there.”
“I know.” She stepped away from the window but continued her patrol through the house, checking the window in the living room, as well.
He assembled the sandwiches and brought the plates over to her. “Tell you what. Why don’t we eat and then I’ll do a perimeter check?” He knew he wouldn’t be able to go far from the house. Too much risk of disorientation because of the reduced visibility. He’d been on calls where he’d a found frozen body only feet from the doorstep.
She found a seat by the woodstove and sat. “You don’t have to do that. I don’t want you to turn into a Popsicle just to make me feel safer.” She took a bite of her sandwich. “Maybe that car wasn’t even him following us. Could have been anyone, right?”
He nodded wishing that he could make her feel less on edge. “How’s your sandwich?”
She took a bite. “It’s really good.”
The lights flickered. Natasha rose, still holding the sandwich, but the plate it had been on fell off her lap and onto the floor.
The room went black.
Her frightened voice seemed to echo in the dark. “What’s going on?”
“Natasha, just stay where you are. The storm probably just took out the electricity. It happens.” Landon put his hand out in front of him as he made his way toward the kitchen where he kept his flashlight. His fingers found the wall.
An unspoken thought hung between them. Maybe it wasn’t the storm that had caused the electricity to go out.
He reached out, finding the counter. “Are you doing okay?”
“Yes,” Natasha said.
He felt along the counter and then let his fingers run over the drawers. The first one he opened wasn’t the one with the flashlight. His fingers touched the cold metal of silverware. The dark was disorienting. He felt along the side of the cupboards until his finger found another drawer handle. He slid it open, brushing over its contents until he found the flashlight.
In the living room, something crashed against something else. Natasha was moving around.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting away from the window. I thought I saw lights flash outside.” She was still moving around. From the sound of it, rather clumsily.
“Are you sure?” Landon pressed the button on the flashlight, which created a bubble of illumination around him. He could see about five feet in front of him, with the rest of the room growing gradually dimmer.
He turned and aimed the flashlight toward the living room as he walked. Natasha was crouching behind a chair.
She shielded her eyes from the light when he aimed it at her. “I’m not sure about what I saw. There was a sort of quick orange glow. I know I’m jumpy. I could be wrong, but I think someone is outside.”
He hurried over to her. “There is a road not too far from the back of my house through the trees. It could be the reflection of headlights of someone driving.”
“Out in this weather?”
“Some people have no choice. Could be a snowplow.”
He reached her and knelt beside her. Before he even touched her shoulder, he could sense her fear. “Come with me. The first thing we will do is check the breaker box. Let’s stay together. We don’t know anything yet.”
He stood, glancing out the window but seeing only darkness and blowing snow. “Stay close to me. Let’s go over and get the guns.”
She stood, as well, and followed him. They both picked up their respective handguns.
“You doing okay?”
She nodded. “It’s the dark that makes me so afraid. Sorry I lost it there.”
“No problem. The breaker box is just down the hall. Follow me.”
They moved slowly down the hallway, past the first bedroom that had served as Maggie’s craft/painting room. He shone the light toward the window in the bedroom, checking to see what might be outside. He was suddenly aware of how much dust covered everything in the room. Funny how having another person in the house made him realize how it was more like a tomb that he hid in, almost as if he was pretending that Maggie was coming back.
“My wife spent a great deal of time here. I should clean it out.”
“You do that sort of thing when you feel ready.”
Her response was so filled with compassion, he wondered if she had lost someone important in her life. “It’s been two years.” He turned his attention along the hallway. “The breaker box is just down here.”
Once they were at the end of the hallway, he flipped open the breaker box and shone the light on it. None of the breakers was blown.
“It could be something outside the house. A power line that broke beneath the weight of the snow and wind,” he said, though he suspected that that was not Natasha’s theory about why they were in the dark.
She didn’t say anything.
“We don’t have a lot of choices here, Natasha. The woodstove will keep us warm and I’ve got a seventy-two-hour emergency kit, plus plenty of canned goods.”
“I just wish I could have gotten out of town when I had the chance.”
His guess was that she didn’t like feeling this powerless. “Let’s get settled in the living room where it’s warm. I got sleeping bags and blankets. We’ll take shifts keeping watch. Maybe this storm will break by sunrise.”
She nodded and followed him back to the living room. He found another flashlight for her to use and then brought in sleeping bags and blankets. “I’ll sleep on the floor. You can have the couch.”
She settled on the couch and drew a blanket around her shoulders. “But we’re taking shifts staying awake, right?”
What could he do to make her feel safer?
If the hitman had disconnected the electricity, if he was out there, for sure he wouldn’t stay outside in the elements. Either he would seek shelter in his car, which wouldn’t guarantee survival, or he would try to get into the house...or the shop. The guy had come here to kill Natasha. Sooner or later, he’d make his move.
He rose. “Look, I said I would do a perimeter check. We need to be proactive about this. If he is out there, maybe we can catch him.” He retrieved some parachute cord from the seventy-two-hour kit that he kept in a lower kitchen cupboard.
She got up from the couch. “What are you doing with that?”
“Using it to find my way back to the house in case I get disoriented.” He reached for his winter coat.
“I’ll get suited up, too. I can stand on your porch with the flashlight to help you find your way back.”
“Sounds good. You can hold one end of the cord. If I tug on it, that means I’m disoriented and I need you to pull me in.” It looked like he had roughly ten yards of cording, which meant he have to come in and go through the back door to check the back of the house where Natasha thought she’d seen lights, but he could make it to the shop and back.
They both got suited up. He placed his handgun in his shoulder holster. Natasha, as well, placed her gun in her waistband. He found her a pair of gloves which she put on.
They stepped outside into the whirling snow. Visibility was close to zero. He handed her one end of the parachute cord. “Tie it around the post, but hold on to it, too. If I tug twice, it means he’s not in the shop and I need you to pull me back in.”
She gazed up at h
im. “Be careful.”
He nodded and stepped off the porch. The snow stabbed his exposed skin. He pulled his balaclava up to his nose. Though he could not see the shop, he had momentary views of the ground. Keeping his head down, he walked slowly.
When he figured he should be close, he looked up. His breath was hot beneath the fabric covering his face. The wind gusted and he had a view of the shop for just a moment. The sun must be up by now, it was the storm that made everything so dark. With the cording wrapped around his wrist, he stepped with more confidence, reaching the door to his shop. Aware that he might be bracing for a fight, he placed the flashlight in his pocket and then pressed his body against the wall and pulled his weapon. With his free hand, he reached out for the doorknob and eased the door open.
Landon slipped inside the shop, his gun raised. The only noise was the shrill gusting of the storm outside. Leaving the door slightly ajar, he retrieved the flashlight and aimed it into the corners of his shop. He checked around the snowmobile and inside the car he had intended to loan Natasha.
Satisfied that no one was hiding in the shop, he moved back toward the slightly ajar door. The line of cording that would help him get back to the house went slack.
His heart squeezed tight as he gave it a tug. There was no response on the other end of the line. He pulled several feet of cord toward his chest and a rising sense of panic invaded his mind. The cord had been cut from the post. He tugged one more time.
His breath caught when there was still no response. Natasha had let go of the line. Something had happened to her.
Without the cording, he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to make it back to the house without becoming disoriented and freezing to death.
EIGHT
While Natasha waited on the porch, holding the parachute cord, a gloved hand smashed against her mouth. She twisted, trying to break free. Her hands reached up to try to pry the hand off her mouth. In her struggle, she dropped the cording, Landon’s lifeline to find his way back to the house. The flashlight, as well, fell from her fingers. She heard it hit the wooden planks of the porch floor and roll.
She reached to pull the gun out of her waistband. The thickness of her gloves made it hard to grasp. Her hand wrapped around the butt of the gun and she yanked it out. It would be impossible to get her finger inside the trigger guard with the gloves on.
Her assailant had readjusted his grip on her, so his arm held her neck in a lock. She opted to use the gun as a blunt weapon rather than what it was designed for. She pounded his forearm once, but the thickness of his winter clothing rendered her attack ineffective.
The man grabbed the wrist that held the gun and smashed it against something hard. Pain reverberated up her arm as she let go of the weapon.
Natasha’s instinctual response was to try to get away, but running into the storm would be suicide. She turned, reaching out to find the door that led inside the house. The man grabbed her again. She angled and twisted her body, kicking her assailant in the legs as he lifted her off the wooden planks of the porch floor.
Her head banged against a porch post, sending pain across her face and down the nerves in her neck. The blow caused her to stop struggling for just a moment, which allowed the man to get her into a hold, one arm wrapped around her waist and the other putting pressure on her neck from the back. She could see nothing but the whiteness of the blinding snow. The man seemed to be dragging her toward the house though he was probably as disoriented as she was.
She lifted her legs so that she would be heavier and harder to carry. The man grunted and let go of her, forcing her to put her feet down or fall. He grabbed her by the hood of her coat and dragged her back. She lifted her hand to her neck where her coat choked her. When she turned her head sideways trying to ease the strain on her neck, she caught a glimpse of the flashlight glowing where it had fallen on the porch.
She couldn’t see the piece of cord at all. Landon might be stranded in the shop. Would he dare try to get back to the house?
The man held on to her while he banged around and fumbled. He must be trying to find the door. The overhang of the porch provided a degree of shelter from the storm, but there was no porch or interior lights.
She heard the door swing open and bang against the wall. He yanked on her coat hood, dragging her across the threshold and then let go of her.
Wind and cold faded as she found herself inside the dark house. Before she could get a breath, blunt force pushed on her chest, causing her to stumble backward. She hit the edge of the kitchen counter with such force that pain shot up her spine. Her eyes searched but she could detect no movement, only the sense the attacker was close.
The outside door slammed shut. Now it seemed even darker, as if that were possible. Her assailant must have pushed her inside with such force to prevent her from trying to escape through the open door.
The only advantage she had was that she knew the layout of the house better than him. She felt for the edge of the counter with her gloved hand. The blackness was so enveloping that she could not even see her hand let alone the man who intended to kill her. His footsteps pounded toward her. She dropped to the floor and crawled on all fours through the kitchen and down the hallway where she and Landon had checked the breaker box.
She heard the man fumbling behind her and then a flashlight came on just as she reached the end of the hallway. She remembered an open door by the breaker box that had a stairway and crawled toward it. Once she was on the stairway, she closed the door at the bottom of the stairs, praying that it would lock. She pushed in the knob, and it froze in place.
Before she could even make it up the stairs, the man was wiggling the knob. By the time she made it to the top, he was banging his body against the door. He must not have a handgun or he would have used it by now. Maybe he’d lost it in the struggle, like she had hers.
Natasha could make out only shadows and silhouettes of objects. She pulled off her other glove and stashed it in her pocket. When she felt around, her hand brushed over textured fabric, an old love seat. The banging continued downstairs. Was there another way out of this room?
She ran her hand over several other objects, a workout bench and weights. She found the wall and felt along it, hoping to find a second door that she could exit through.
She found a window, which probably meant she would be crouching on the overhang of the porch or falling to the ground, back into the storm. Not an option.
The tone of the banging had changed. He must have found an object to use as a battering ram. Judging from the sound, he was in the process of splintering the door. She gathered up all the hand weights she could and moved to the top of the stairway.
When the man finally broke through the door, her eyes had begun to adjust to the darkness. He was a moving shadow, at least. She picked up the first weight and fired it down the stairs.
The groan told her she had hit her target. In rapid-fire succession, she tossed the weights down the stairs until she was out of them. The noises told her that some of them had hit her target and others had rolled down the stairs.
The house grew eerily silent.
The sound of her own breathing seemed to intensify.
Had she knocked the man unconscious, or was he waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs? Waiting for her to make a noise so he could pinpoint her location.
The seconds ticked by as she tuned her ears to every sound. The old house creaked as the wind buffeted against the windows.
When she peered down the stairs, she saw only blackness. Her heart pounded as she remained frozen.
She heard a different kind of noise. A footstep perhaps. And then more creaking. He was coming up the stairs to get her. She whirled around and grabbed for where she thought the weight bench was. Her hands found the object she sought. She dragged the bench toward the top of the stairway and gave it a hefty shove.
Her assailant
stumbled and groaned. He must be trying to climb over the bench on the narrow stairway. She patted her hands across the floor, finding the exercise bike, which she also shoved down the stairs.
Down below, the man struggled and swore. Finally, she pushed the love seat so it blocked the top of the stairs. Scraping and bumping noises told her that he was moving the exercise bike out of the way.
The tactics had only bought her a little time. While the man struggled to reach her, she moved across the floor on all fours, reaching out for the wall with the window.
She had no other options. Eventually, he would get up the stairs. She flung open the window. Snow, wind and cold assaulted her. She felt below the window. There was an overhang that she could crawl out upon. She knew she could not stay outside for long and, if she dropped from the overhang, the disorientation might make it hard for her to find the porch and the door back into the house.
She crawled through the window and worked her way to the edge of the overhang. The sun was probably up by now, but she saw nothing but whiteness. Only the howling wind greeted her ears as it chilled her exposed skin on her face and hands. She’d taken her gloves off to pick up the weights. She fumbled for her glove but dropped it. The wind was so intense, it blew it away before she could pick it up. She managed to get the other glove on.
Her plan had so many holes in it. Could she drop from the roof without injury? Staying outside in the elements for too long meant she risked freezing to death. Even if she did manage to get back into the house and find a hiding place, the assailant would be hunting for her eventually.
Her exposed hand was already starting to feel numb as she worked her way across the overhang. She reached the edge and crawled over, hanging on to the edge of the porch roof. She let go and dropped to the ground.
* * *
Though the shop provided a degree of shelter, Landon knew it was not an option to stay there. Natasha would not have let go of the parachute cord unless she had been attacked. If she was in danger, he needed to get to her before it was too late.