Bylines & Deadlines

by Kimberly Vinje

  “Here, I’ll share with you,” she said and kicked at the blankets so he could get under them. He smiled at her.

  “It’s a start,” he replied.

  Chapter Nine

  She wasn’t sure what jolted her awake first - the loud bang or the weight of something heavy falling on her. Struggling to move under the pressure - of what she wasn’t quite sure yet, she tried to focus her eyes and gain some consciousness. It was a body! She struggled harder. Jack appeared, grabbed the dead weight by the back of a black skiing coat and pulled it off of her.

  “Are you okay,” he asked as he checked the man for a pulse. She scurried to the other side of the bed and tried to figure out where she was and how she had gotten there.

  “Wha…what happened?” she stammered. “Who is that?”

  “I don’t know,” Jack said. “I found him standing over you.”

  “So you take the ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ approach to law enforcement?” she practically screamed hysterically.

  “He had a gun,” Jack said and disappeared from the room. Her heart sank. What if these men weren’t after him? What if they were there for her? She jumped out of bed, still in the oversized clothes and walked to the living room. Her head hurt, and her hand throbbed. “We have to go,” he said. “Your clothes are dry - they’ve been by the fire. Change, and I’ll pack the bags.” He was scurrying around the room throwing things into the backpacks. This time, she didn’t ask questions. She moved as quickly as she could with her injured hand. She was scared. She had thought she had been scared for the last two years - maybe she was and this was terror. Whatever it was, it was boiling in her. Jack called to her, “Come on Kristine. We have to go now!” She stopped dead in her tracks. Her heart sank farther, and her stomach leaped into her throat. Jack came to the door. “Come on.”

  “You know,” she whispered with tears in her eyes.

  “Know what? Come on. We have to go now,” he said.

  “You called me Kristine.”

  “No I didn’t,” he said with an anguished expression. “Why would I do that? Your name is Megan,” he added unconvincingly. She shook her head. “Come on. I don’t know if there was anyone with this guy.” She swallowed hard, fought the tears and moved toward him. She took her backpack and followed him to the door. “Here. Take this,” he said holding out a gun in his hand. She took it and put it into her coat. Her mind raced with questions, but her priority had to be getting out of the cabin and away from anyone who may have been with the dead man in the bedroom. “Stay out of sight.”

  Jack cautiously looked out the back window and then the front door, which was now open. Bolt cutters were lying in the snow next to the door, and a snowmobile was parked about five feet away. “I’m going to start the snowmobile. I’m not sure how far into the woods we’ll get on the thing, but it’s still faster than walking. Stay here. If you hear so much as a duck quack, go out the back and run like hell for the woods in a weaving pattern,” he said. Still reeling from waking with a dead man on top of her and being called by her old name, she dumbly nodded without exactly knowing to what she had just agreed. “Hey,” he nudged her. “I need you to snap out of it and concentrate on getting to the woods,” he said. She nodded again. “Wait here, remember?” Not sure she could find her voice, she nodded again. He slowly walked out into the open area with his gun drawn and aimed at the woods. He moved in circles.

  She studied the wooded surroundings. If there was anyone in the woods waiting for them, the person had a clean shot at him and would have taken it by now. She turned her attention to him and watched as he looked over the motorized sled. She heard the engine turn and rev once. She walked out onto the small concrete porch, which wasn’t much bigger than a doormat. Jack drove up to the porch and held out a helmet, “Put it on,” he said. She took the helmet and put it on. She climbed on the back of the vehicle and wrapped her arms around his waist. He started out slow and moved into the wooded area careful to dodge the low branches.

  About 200 feet into the trees something hit the side of the snowmobile causing it to start smoking. Megan squeezed into Jack and heard him yell, “Hold on!” He pushed forward gaining speed. Megan, as if being hit with icy water, realized someone was shooting at them. She glanced from side to side hoping to see where the shot came from. She hadn’t heard the first one, and she wondered if there were more. It was obvious even to her the snowmobile wouldn’t hold out much longer. Jack tried to get as much out of it as he could. Megan couldn’t see around Jack. He called to her, “Get ready to jump. Go to the right. On three. One, two, three.”

  The machine became airborne as their bodies parted from it and fell to the right. Their snowmobile crashed into some trees and stopped running with a couple of sputters. They rolled when they landed. He drew the gun and scurried up the ledge of a snowdrift or hill. The rumble of another snowmobile came from behind them. Jack slid on his back down the hill and aimed the gun to the sky. The roar grew louder, and as the snow left the bottom of the stranger’s vehicle, they caught sight of the man for the first time. Jack began to fire on the man, and the body separated from the machine. That snow mobile crashed near theirs in a thunderous bang. Megan laid on her back motionless, breathing heavy and aching. Jack slid to her and started to check her, “Can you move?” She nodded. “Are you hurt?” he asked touching her shoulder.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I think I’m in shock. Give me a minute,” she added trying to regain strength and composure. He helped her sit up. “I think I’m okay.” Her face said otherwise.

  “You’re hurt,” he replied.

  “I’m fine,” she said irritated. She stood up and felt the cold air hit her wet backside, and it slapped her awake. She took a few steps forward. “I can’t imagine why I’d be hurt. Let’s see, so far I’ve fallen off the side of a mountain in a speeding van, been shot at and thrown off an air born snowmobile. I’m afraid to see what’s next. You don’t see any plane rides in our future, do you?” He stood up and watched her as she turned back toward him.

  “Let’s keep moving,” he said and went to strip the body of its identification, money and whatever else he could find on it. This time she went with him. She found a cell phone lying by the body which she quickly picked up, turned off and put in her pocket without him noticing. She wasn’t sure it worked, but between that and the gun she had with her, she felt a little safer. She watched him take the man’s wallet and pat him down. “The gun must be around here somewhere,” he said and squinted as he looked for the dark object in the white snow by the mound where they had landed. “Do you see it?”

  She helped him look. She went to the wreckage of the man’s snowmobile and kicked at the rubble. She found the gun and put it in her jacket with the phone. She wasn’t sure why she didn’t want Jack to know she had a spare gun on her, but she didn’t. What he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her, right? After all, he did call her Kristine. What else wasn’t he telling her? “Do you think there are more?” she asked as she walked toward him. He looked up.

  “Yeah, probably,” he said and scanned the area around them.

  “Then do you mind if we get going? I’m not in the mood to see anyone else die, especially us,” she said and sighed in a sarcasm he must have found amusing by his smile. She was slightly taken aback by the sound of her tone and her words. Suddenly, she was sounding less and less like Megan and more and more like her old self. It felt like a release.

  “Yeah, let’s keep moving. We’ll be safer if we stay in the wooded areas. We’ll try to stay on the edge and find someplace to stay tonight,” he took one more look around before they started picking their way through the woods again.

  They walked for a few miles before she had enough courage to speak to him. “Jack?”

  “Yeah,” he said without breaking stride or looking at her.

  “What happened back at the cabin?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let’s start with why a dead guy fell on m
e. How did that happen?”

  “Oh that,” he said and slowed his pace slightly. “I went out to look around the woods and figure out where we were. While I was gone, I heard something coming from the direction of the cabin so I got back there as fast as I could. I saw the snowmobile and knew something wasn’t right. Then when I saw him standing over you… Well, let’s just say, I wasn’t taking any chances.”

  She was still quiet while she tried to picture him - tried to get an idea of what thoughts ran through his head. “Have you killed many people before him?” He was quiet for a moment.

  “Occupational hazard,” he said quietly. “I don’t think you ever get used to it.”

  “It doesn’t seem to bother you, though,” she said. “Not that I’m not grateful you showed up when you did,” she added. He didn’t reply. “What about the other thing?”

  “The other thing?”

  “You called me Kristine,” she said. “Why was that?” He slowed down even more and finally stopped. She studied his face as he stared off into the forest. He took a deep breath and pulled off the backpack. He dug around in it and found two granola bars and a bottle of water, which he opened.

  “I guess you should know it all,” he said and motioned for her to sit down. He handed her a bar and the water. “My name really is Jack. I work for the FBI and was assigned to your case about a month ago.” Her eyes dropped down to the ground. She wasn’t sure why she was embarrassed, but she was. Maybe it was the intense sense of exposure she felt. She folded her arms as if to conceal herself just a little.

  “Assigned to me… Go on,” she said quietly.

  “We have reason to believe the Rawlings family knows you’re alive,” he said. Her heart sputtered, and her eyes filled with tears. She nodded.

  “So all this is about me.” He nodded in return.

  “Yeah,” he confirmed. He put a hand out to touch her shoulder, but she turned away from him. She leaned against the base of a tree for support. “I tried to get you to tell me about your past on your own in the lodge.”

  “Damn,” she murmured and stared at the bar.

  “Listen, Megan…Kristine… Uh, I’m not sure what you want to be called,” he said from behind her.

  “Kristine died two years ago.”

  “You know, I think I’ve seen glimpses of her.” Megan’s head sprang up to face him.

  “You don’t know anything about me except what you’ve read in some file,” she said so mad the tears spilled out of her eyes. “I’m a case number to you people. I’m someone you blame for getting myself into this mess and getting some agents killed. Don’t pretend to give a crap about me.” She leaned back against the tree and slid down it until she was sitting on the ground. “I’m not Kristine. Kristine didn’t live her life looking over her shoulder, missing everyone she loved. I’m not Kristine, and now, if I get out of this alive, I probably won’t even be Megan anymore. How is that fair? I go to prison and they walk around hunting me? Am I just supposed to keep peeling away layers of myself until there’s nothing left?”

  “I know it’s not fair,” he said trying to comfort her. “That’s why I’m here to help you.”

  “Fair? It’s so far beyond not fair,” she laughed sarcastically. “I’m not free to walk down a street, live the life I wanted, fall in love, get married, have a baby. I’ll never see my name on a Pulitzer Prize or a best sellers’ list. What I do is not living - it’s existing. You know what a real punishment would be? If I had to live in this hell for another 50 years,” she said meaning every word. He watched her. “I can’t do this anymore,” she shook her head as she said the words.

  “So you let them win?” he replied.

  “Win? I can’t fight a war with someone when the battle ground is this uneven,” she said.

  “Look,” he said sitting beside her. “You’re right about me not being able to know you from your file.” She rolled her eyes. “It didn’t tell me how feisty you are or how smart you are.”

  She thought about how this sounded like a lame pep-talk. If he broke out into the story of the little engine that could or an ant moving a rubber tree plant, she was going to smack him over the head with a tree branch.

  “It also didn’t discuss how much this had ruined your life. We don’t tend to recognize that stuff. We think we’re doing someone a huge favor by taking them out of their old life and giving them a new one,” he said. “We pat ourselves on the back like we’re heroes, because it would be too hard to admit the reason why we had to do it is the bad guys are still out there.” She nodded subtly. “Oh man,” he sighed. “There’s something else you should really know.” She raised her eyes.

  “They didn’t hurt anyone else? Is my family okay? What about Will?”

  “Everyone else is fine,” he said. “Okay. You have to listen to all of this - don’t shut down.” She agreed. “My last name isn’t Hamilton. It’s Rawlings.”

  “What!” she yelled nearly jumping to her feet.

  “It’s not what you think,” he said following her. Her breathing was hard and fast. “My mom gave me to my aunt and uncle to be raised - that part of what I told you was true. By the time she got pregnant with me, she realized my father was a ruthless criminal. She could see my father’s intentions of grooming my brother into being his clone. I joined the FBI to put my brother and father in jail, so my mother would be safe from them.” He stopped and began again in a less panicked voice. “I was too late. I think he killed her.”

  Megan let this news sink into her brain. She remembered sitting in Will’s apartment reading Carolyn Rawlings’ obituary and thinking the same thing. She also remembered the note Carolyn had written to her. She wanted to protect her son - maybe the son was Jack. “I don’t understand how a man like your father lets his son be raised by someone else. He seems too controlling for that.”

  “You’re right. When my mother found out she was pregnant again, she stuck around as long as she could hide it. She told my father her sister was pregnant and confined to bed rest. She said she had to go help her until after the baby was born. Once my mom had me, she stayed for a few weeks and left. From what I know, my father had a lot of girlfriends so my mother’s absence wasn’t too much of a hardship for him. She came to see me a lot. When I was old enough to understand - well as much as a kid can understand this - my aunt, uncle and mom told me she was my mom. I didn’t find out the rest of the story about how horrible my father is until I was much older - old enough to have started med school. My father didn’t know about me until a mix-up happened after my mother died. A lawyer accidentally sent Ralston some paperwork meant for me.” Megan rubbed her head. This was a lot to digest and something she expected from a daytime drama - not from her own life.

  “Wow,” she said. “You’re the son.”

  “What?”

  “Your mom mentioned keeping a son and his family safe. I thought it was Ralston, but it didn’t make sense. She was talking about keeping you and your aunt and uncle safe - unless you’re married and/or have kids.” Jack sat quietly looking as though he couldn’t speak.

  “I’m not married, and I don’t have kids,” he finally said. “She was protecting me until the day she died.”

  They sat in silence for a couple of minutes.

  “So, how did you end up with me? Couldn’t it be a conflict of interest or something?” she finally spoke. This snapped Jack out of whatever memory or thought he was having.

  “My father wasn’t too happy when he found out he had another son. Imagine his reaction when he found out I had decided to join the FBI for the soul purpose of putting him in jail for the rest of his life.”

  “So no father/son fishing trips? Sorry,” she said silently cursing the timing of her sarcastic remark.

  “Not exactly. When he finally made contact, I was still mourning the loss of my mother. I swore I’d either put him away for the rest of his life for killing her or kill him myself.”

  “I probably shouldn’t bring this up, but don’t y
ou think killing comes a little too easily to you Rawlings?”

  “I didn’t mean it literally… Well, maybe I did. I don’t know. I was just so pissed off.”

  “That still doesn’t tell me how you ended up with my case,” she said settled enough to take a bite of her breakfast.

  “I was going through the evidence against my family. I saw your testimony to the original agents that my mother had been in contact with you. I went to the director and asked for you. I guess I thought if I couldn’t save her from them, I could save you.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” she said. “So now what?”

  “Now we get off this mountain and get you stashed away again,” he said.

  “Oh no. I’m not doing another relocation. If I get off this mountain, I’m going back to my old life. Screw this hiding thing,” she said.

  “You might as well walk around with a bull’s eye on your back,” he said. “You’re a survivor. Don’t let them get you.”

  “I don’t want to just survive. I want to breathe again,” she said.

  “You won’t be able to do it from your grave. We have to get moving,” he said. She looked up at him with her green eyes so tired and soft.

  “If it happens, at least I would have peace,” she said swallowing hard and feeling the lump in her throat again.

  “Let’s go. We’ll find peace later. Right now, I’d settle for a way off this mountain,” he said. “Come on. We can do this. We stay here, and we’re both going to die. And I’m not ready for that. This would make a great story, but you’re going to have to live to write it.”

  “Before we go, let’s get something straight,” she said mustering her courage and putting the wrapper of the bar in her coat pocket. “I’m not sure whether I believe you. If you’re truly from the FBI, why are you alone? Why isn’t this mountain crawling with agents - or at least one or two more? From what I’ve seen, the FBI never does anything this simplified. Unfortunately, I think I have a better chance of getting off this mountain with you than without you. So for now, we’re sticking together.”