Cease Fire

by Janie Crouch

  Roman had grown up in Colorado. He was no stranger to blizzards and whiteouts. And this was a bad one. Driving back here had been difficult for him and he had a truck with chains, and fifteen years’ experience driving in this sort of weather.

  Even the most experienced driver with the best equipment could still be in an accident in weather like this. And it wouldn’t take long for the elements to kill you if you were trapped in a car in the middle of a blizzard. Not to mention the snowdrifts could rise and cause you not to be able to open your doors.

  If Keira had been in an accident, he wasn’t sure if she would stay in her car or if she would try to get out and get help.

  Honestly, survival rates, based on a number of factors, wasn’t good either way.

  “We could try to use the phone-finding app,” Heather said hesitantly. She looked like she expected Roman to scream at her for the suggestion. “Keira had all of us put it on our phones in case of...other situations.”

  Roman assumed “other situations” meant someone from these women’s pasts coming after them. And it wasn’t an impossibility. Damn it, Keira needed more law enforcement help in the shelter situation. He’d be talking to her about that, too.

  Just as soon as he found her and got her out of this storm.

  “Actually, that’s a great idea.” Roman pulled out his own phone. “But I’m going to do you one better than that. I had a tracker put on Keira’s phone earlier today and one on her car.”

  Heather and Annabel both looked a little concerned at that.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “Keira agreed to it. There are some issues going on that I’m sure she’ll tell you about as soon as she can. But right now, we need to use those trackers to find her.”

  Roman punched in the numbers to activate the tracking device on his computer. Thank God she’d agreed to the tracker before this happened. He’d never dreamed he would need it for this situation.

  Once the tracker was activated, he had the application up and was able to pinpoint exactly where Keira was.

  Roman’s curse under his breath was pretty vile. Her car was on the outskirts of town, way past the supermarket.

  “Is that where she is?” Annabel asked. “That’s not where she should be, right? It’s nowhere near the grocery store.”

  “No, that’s very definitely not where she should be.” Roman stood up from the table. “I need you two to call this location in to emergency services. With the storm like this there’s going to be people stranded all over the place, so I expect it’s going to be a madhouse for them. I’m not going to wait for them to get to her, I’m going to go there myself. But if they happen to be nearby, that’s even better.”

  The women didn’t argue and Roman wouldn’t have listened even if they did. Emergency services might not get out there in time for Keira to survive. He wasn’t taking that chance.

  “The generator is set up and you have all you need here. When I find her, I’ll contact you, so make sure you keep your phones handy. And if for any reason that dot—” he pointed to the tracker “—starts to move, you need to call me right away.” He wrote down his phone number for them.

  He saw them nod before he took off running down the stairs and out the door to his truck. The good news was the weather hadn’t gotten any worse than when he’d arrived twenty minutes ago. The bad news was the weather was bad enough to kill a woman alone in a car, especially if she was unconscious or hurt.

  And pregnant.

  Roman couldn’t even let himself think about that. Again. He got in the truck and forced himself to drive slowly down the road toward Keira’s location, knuckles white on the steering wheel. Running himself into a ditch wasn’t going to help either of them.

  He squinted as he tried to see through the swirling snow. He knew exactly where he was going from the map he’d studied with the tracking device, but couldn’t figure out why the hell Keira had been that far out of town. She would’ve had to take a completely wrong turn to end up where she was.

  Of course, in a whiteout it was easy to completely lose your bearings. Keira wouldn’t have been the first person it happened to.

  It took him nearly an hour to drive the less than six miles to where Keira’s car was located. When he got there, his worst fears were confirmed. She wasn’t just stopped on the road; her car had fallen off the side and down into the ditch.

  Taking a long rope, tying one end to the door of his truck and the other to his waist so that he didn’t get lost in the storm, Roman walked the few yards to where the tracker had pinpointed Keira’s car to be. He was almost all the way down the slope before he saw it.

  His breath caught in his throat as he saw the way the car leaned up against the tree. It was a miracle the entire thing hadn’t flipped when it rolled down the incline.

  Roman forced the passenger door open, already a little bit difficult because of the rising snowdrift. He held his breath as he looked inside, praying he wouldn’t see the worst.

  Keira wasn’t there.

  Although relieved she wasn’t hurt, he found that knowing she was out in the storm was just as terrifying. Not wasting any time, he kept hold of the rope and moved around to the driver’s side of the car. Although the terrain was mostly covered with snow, he could make out where she had stood by both the front and back doors of the car, probably getting something out of the back seat. The barest of trails could be seen going around the back of the car and up toward the road.

  That was much better than if she had gone toward the woods behind her, but being on the road wouldn’t help much in the storm. It was perhaps possible that she had gotten a ride from someone who drove by, but if she had, she would’ve called.

  Roman made his way back to his truck, thankful for the rope. He got inside and turned the heater on full blast, then tore off his gloves and called Annabel and Heather.

  “Roman?” Annabel asked, picking up almost instantly. “Have you found her?”

  That pretty much answered his question about whether Keira had called.

  “No.” Roman grimaced. “I found her car and it had gone down the side of a ditch, but she wasn’t in it. I was hoping maybe someone had seen it go down and had picked her up.”

  “But she would’ve called, right?” Heather asked, once Annabel put them both on speaker.

  “Yes, I think the first thing Keira would do is contact you if she had any way of doing that.”

  Roman knew he needed to put a call into Omega Sector. They would be able to access hospital reports to see if Keira or any Jane Does had been brought in.

  “I’m going to make some calls and see if I can find out any information,” Roman told them. “You need to stay by your phones in case she does contact you. She might not be in a situation where she has access to a phone immediately.”

  “We will,” Annabel said, her normally jovial tone quite subdued. “And we will let you know right away if we hear anything.”

  “I’ll do the same.”

  Roman hung up with the women and called in to Steve Drackett’s office at Omega Sector. As a member of SWAT, Roman wasn’t usually calling hospitals about victims and wasn’t exactly sure how to proceed.

  If he could use his skills and sharpshooting, repelling and hostage rescue to get Keira out of this, he damn well would.

  “Steve Drackett’s office. This is Cynthia.”

  “Cynthia, this is Roman Weber. I have a situation and I’m hoping you can help me.”

  One of the best things about Steve’s four assistants was that they were each brilliant in their own right and didn’t waste time.

  “Sure, Roman. What’s going on?”

  “I’m out in the storm searching for Keira Spencer. She’s a potential target of Damien Freihof. I found her car abandoned on the side of Highway 17 on the south side of town, and I just need to know if there are any hospital reports listing h
er or maybe even any Jane Does that have come in in the last hour or two.”

  “Roger that, Roman. Hold for just a minute while I check the hospital entrance records.”

  The minutes waiting for Cynthia to get back to him were agonizing. If Keira was hurt badly enough that she couldn’t make a phone call, then she would be in pretty bad shape.

  “Roman, there’s been no reports of a woman matching Keira Spencer’s description coming into any of the hospitals. And no one by that name, either. With an abandoned car in the storm, I’m not sure if that’s good news or bad news.”

  Roman scrubbed a hand across his face. He wasn’t sure if it was good news or bad news himself.

  “I just pulled up her tracker,” Cynthia said. “Are you still at her vehicle?”

  “Yes. It looks like she got something out of the back seat before she began to walk.”

  “Maybe she was getting some supplies?”

  “That’s what I was thinking.”

  “There’s an abandoned church right across the street from where you are. Is it possible she tried to make it there? It’s the only building around that she could make it to in the storm. It’s what I would try to do if my options were that limited.”

  “That’s a good idea. I’m going to make my way over there and see if there’s any sign of her.”

  “Roger that. I’ll be sure to notify you if anything comes through at any of the hospitals.”

  Roman disconnected the call and got his gloves back on before stepping out of the truck.

  The snow had deepened even in the few minutes Roman had been on the phone. He was going to have to walk to the church because driving anywhere in his truck was impossible now. The drifts were too high.

  He wouldn’t be able to stretch the rope all the way from the truck to the church, so he would have to leave that behind. He grabbed his go-bag from the back, which had some food, supplies and a sleeping bag, as well as an emergency first aid kit, and headed off toward the church.

  He prayed he would find Keira inside. If not, he knew he had to begin to brace himself for the worst.

  That he had lost her before he ever really found her again.

  Chapter Twelve

  Roman made it to the abandoned church, just barely. He thought he’d been heading toward the very center of the building, but had narrowly caught the corner of it. If he’d been off by another two feet he would’ve walked by it entirely and probably died out there in the storm, wandering blindly.

  The inside of the church wasn’t much warmer than outdoors, but at least in here there wasn’t the visually paralyzing whiteness.

  His body shuddered from the cold. He couldn’t stand to think about what it would be like for Keira, who had much less body mass than he did, and had walked farther.

  And if she had been disoriented in her car, driving and relatively protected, would she have been able to find this building once outside in the elements?

  The door to the church had been propped partially open, which gave him the slightest bit of hope that Keira had made it inside. But that also could’ve been from the wind.

  “Keira! Are you here?”

  It was difficult to hear anything in the vast room with the tall ceilings that seemed to magnify the echo of the winds. Plus one edge of the building had burned completely, leaving that area open to the elements, which was likely why it had been abandoned in the first place. It had been less expensive for the congregation to rebuild closer to the center of town, Roman was sure, than to rebuild this old structure.

  He took a few steps farther inside. “Keira?”

  She had to be here. If she wasn’t there was nowhere left for her to be except out in the storm.

  With his eyes now adjusted, Roman made his way forward. It looked like there were some rooms attached to the back that might offer more shelter.

  As he cleared the pews toward the front of the church he saw her lying there on the ground, facedown. His heart caught in his chest as he ran to her.

  “Keira.” He slipped his arm under her shoulders and rolled her over so she was facing him. The pallor in her face terrified him. He ripped off one glove with his teeth and felt under her scarf for a pulse.

  His breath shuddered out in relief when he found one. He brushed her hair away from her forehead.

  “Keira? Can you open your eyes, sweetheart? Can you wake up?”

  Keira moaned just a little bit. “Cold,” she said softly.

  “I know, sweetheart.”

  He ripped his sleeping bag out of his backpack and wrapped it around her. He needed to get her body temperature up, and quickly, but this vast room wasn’t the place to try.

  He picked her up, sleeping bag and all, and carried her slight weight into one of the back rooms. It was an office or small classroom or something. There wasn’t much furniture left in it, but there was an old stove in the corner.

  Thank God for an older church with administrators who had understood the pitfalls of a Colorado winter.

  Roman didn’t waste any time. He needed to get Keira warmed right away. He noticed she wasn’t shivering, which was a bad sign. She was in an even deeper stage of hypothermia.

  He laid her by the stove, wrapping the sleeping bag more fully around her, then grabbed the waterproof matches out of his bag and opened the stove. Some critters had decided to make a nest in there, but they were gone now. The leaves and twigs they’d left behind would be perfect to start a fire.

  Roman got the fire going and went back out into the main area of the church to bring in small pieces of wooden furniture and whatever he could find lying around. At least he didn’t have to worry about the kindling being wet, or that they would run out of wood.

  He made multiple trips to bring it into the room. When he had brought in enough for hours’ worth of fire, he closed the door. They needed to trap the heat inside this room as much as possible. The small area would work to their advantage.

  As soon as the fire was blazing as hotly as he could get it in the small stove, Roman took the sleeping bag off Keira and began unbuttoning her coat and outer layers. He needed to get her out of the icy clothes so he could get her core temperature up.

  “No, cold,” Keira said fitfully, as he began to peel the clothes off her. Roman made short work of his own clothes also, knowing body heat would transfer most quickly.

  “I know, sweetheart. But we’re going to get you warmed up, okay? Don’t go to sleep. Stay with me.”

  He arranged her so her back was to the stove and he could lay his body, now stripped down to just his underwear, next to hers. He gritted his teeth as he put her icy fingers between his biceps and his ribs to try to give them as much warmth as possible. He did the same thing to her naked feet, putting them between his calves.

  He pulled the sleeping bag around both of them, wrapped his arms around her, pulled her as close as possible and just held on.

  A few minutes later, Roman gave a sigh of relief when she began shivering uncontrollably. It wasn’t comfortable for either of them, but at least it meant that her body was responding and making an attempt to warm itself back up.

  He knew enough about emergency medical treatment to know the shivering was an indicator that she would be fine.

  Roman held onto her as violent shudders overtook her. Finally, they subsided and she was able to relax.

  He estimated they’d been lying there on the floor for almost an hour when Keira finally spoke.

  “I could really go for a hot bath right now.”

  Roman chuckled, glad to hear her say something so sassy. It went a long way toward reassuring him.

  “You can have as many hot baths as you want as soon as we get home. Speaking of, I need to text Annabel and Heather and let them know you are okay.”

  Keira tried to sit up. “Oh my gosh, Roman, I’ve got to get back to the house.
I’ve got the baby formula Heather needs.”

  “Don’t worry, I got your message and got formula for Heather.”

  “That damn phone. It told me my message was undelivered. I would’ve never gone to the supercenter if I had known you could get the formula. And then the map app got me totally lost, which is how I ended up here on the ass end of town.”

  Roman chuckled as he texted both Annabel and then Omega Sector, letting them know he had found Keira and that they were relatively safe in the abandoned church.

  “I wondered about that. I thought you had just gotten totally disoriented. It happens.”

  She shook her head. “No. I should’ve followed my gut. I knew that stupid phone was taking me the wrong way.”

  “I’m just glad you made it to this church. I almost missed it walking from my truck, which is by your car.”

  “Honestly, I didn’t know whether to stay in the car or to come here. But since the engine wouldn’t start, I figured inside a building would be better than trapped in my vehicle. Especially after that moron ran me off the road.”

  “He probably didn’t mean it. Visibility out there is, like, two inches.”

  He felt her slight shrug. “Thank you for coming for me, Roman. I was in trouble.”

  He pulled her more fully against him. So many things could’ve gone wrong, things that would have meant he wouldn’t have found her in time.

  Cynthia at Omega Sector texted back, asking if he needed emergency medical help.

  “Let me see your fingers.” He eased back slightly from Keira so that he could bring her fingers up to see them. He didn’t want to call in emergency medical transportation if it wasn’t needed. God knew they were required other places, for critical situations. But if Keira had any indication of frostbite, Roman wouldn’t hesitate to have them sent here.

  She wiggled her fingers in front of his eyes and he could see right away that frostbite wouldn’t be a problem, thank goodness. When he checked her toes, he found the same.

  He texted back to Cynthia that they were not in bad shape medically. She responded almost immediately. Roman broke the news to Keira.