Killer Summer (Walt Fleming)

by Ridley Pearson

  Cantell futilely sprayed the garden hose on the burning pile of wood while McGuiness shoveled dirt on it. Salvo was trying to flatten the pile and spread out the logs with a rake. For all their efforts, the fire continued raging, throwing sparks and smoke high in the sky. Leaning against the rocks behind them were a loaded rifle and a loaded twelve-gauge over-under shotgun. Cantell had no desire to use the guns but understood the authority they represented.

  Other thoughts competed in his head. The fire had been deliberately set as a signal. The girl’s doing. She had a brain and a lot of nerve—information useful to him, but unwelcome.

  “Matt, take over here!”

  Cantell passed the useless hose to Salvo and took off for the front of the lodge. Throwing the door open and looking directly toward the study, he could see that its door remained screwed shut.

  He hurried outside behind the lodge and double-checked the window to the study. Plywood was screwed down tight.

  Back inside, he stood in the middle of the living room listening to the boy banging around in the closet like he’d been doing for the past ten minutes. It was driving Cantell nuts, but he had no way to quiet the kid, to warn him.

  Cantell didn’t see the girl, but she could be hiding anywhere.

  He pushed the front door shut.

  “First and last chance, Ms. Sumner,” he called out.

  The kid’s banging stopped.

  “If you give yourself up,” Cantell said, “we’ll treat you okay. If not, you’ll be dealt with . . . well . . . it won’t be pretty. Your call . . . I need your answer right now!”

  He waited.

  It was only when his eyes alighted on the destroyed radio that his head cleared. The radio reminded him of the jet.

  The girl has a key.

  Preoccupied with trying to copilot McGuiness’s emergency landing, he hadn’t considered how his stowaway had gotten on the plane. But now . . .

  He’d had to deal with Sam Elliott and the boy, ad-libbing as he went. But now . . .

  He ran to the fire, shouting as he went. Salvo and McGuiness had gotten some control over it.

  “The girl has a key,” he announced. “Watch the inside of the house!” he called to Salvo. “You’re with me,” he ordered McGuiness.

  69

  Kevin had heard someone shout “Fire!” and then people stampeding out of the lodge. This was followed by silence.

  He sniffed the air, didn’t smell anything. But he wasn’t about to stick around to find out if the place was going up in flames. He pulled the boards free from the ceiling as fast as he could. Two split and broke, three others came out cleanly. He now had a hole big enough for his head.

  He shone the flashlight into dead space between the ceiling and the roof. Pulling free several more boards, he pushed the flashlight through. He climbed up into the attic.

  Again, he smelled for smoke. He got dust and an overwhelming putrid odor.

  He now shone the light in both directions. He could see the full length of the building.

  The cowboy was tied up in the study below. He was a big guy, an adult. He knew the ranch. He’d be a good ally. Kevin needed him as an ally.

  The attic floor was covered with a mix of sand and what looked like shredded newspaper, a decades-old attempt at insulation. It took Kevin a few tries to get the knack of placing his knees successfully on the crossbeams. Protruding from the sand-newspaper insulation was the occasional electrical wire. Following one, he dug down until he reached a junction box.

  If he could get to the study and untie the cowboy, it would be two against three—decent odds. Once he got Summer out of the garage, it would be three against three—even better odds. He kicked the study ceiling hard but the boards held.

  He thought he heard a man’s voice so he stopped and listened. It was coming from the general direction of the living room.

  A few agonizing moments passed. Had they found the closet empty? The sound of someone leaving the lodge allowed him to breathe again. He waited. There was no more shouting.

  Kevin drove his heel down on the junction box and it gave way, opening a small gap between it and the ceiling boards. He put his eye to the hole and could see the cowboy lying on the floor on his side. He was gagged. His hands were tied behind his back, his ankles tied with what looked like electrical cord with the leg of the desk between them. His blue eyes were staring back at Kevin.

  Kevin knew he wasn’t getting through the ceiling without a chainsaw. The thought he might have to go it alone overwhelmed him. He wondered if the hijackers had found Summer or had the fire been Summer’s doing? That thought charged him with purpose.

  Leaving the cowboy wasn’t right. If the lodge was on fire, he had no choice. And he needed him.

  He aimed the flashlight around the attic, hoping to see another way down. Dust filled the beam. He lit on a paper wasp nest in the far corner, some sagging spiderwebs. Then he lit on a row of upside-down bats. Stifling a reaction, he now knew the source of the putrid smell.

  He wanted out of there—now! He lifted his knees from the crossbeam and squatted on his feet, ready to move. Nothing he could do about the cowboy . . .

  His knife poked him, nearly cutting him. His only weapon, maybe the only way he had to defend himself, it was crucial to his survival. He reached down and adjusted it.

  But the cowboy was down there staring up at him.

  Holding the knife, Kevin forced his arm through the gap. He trained his eye through the same hole. The cowboy nodded at him and bounced his way off to one side of the desk, out of the way.

  Kevin sniffed the air again. Still no smoke.

  What if he dropped the knife and the cowboy couldn’t reach it? But he had to try. It’d be cruel not to.

  With the cowboy’s legs bound to the desk, it was doubtful he could reach the knife if Kevin just let it fall. He had to throw it.

  Swinging his arm, Kevin signaled his plan. The cowboy nodded. Kevin hoped like hell they were speaking the same language.

  As Kevin leaned lower to tell the cowboy to look out, there was a bang to the right.

  Someone had entered the lodge.

  “Boy? You hear me, kid?”

  It was Matt, the one Kevin had hit with the fire extinguisher.

  Kevin let the knife drop. It landed quietly on the rug, which was good, but well out of the cowboy’s reach, which was bad.

  “Be that way!” Matt shouted from the living room.

  Even if the cowboy managed to reach the knife, he was still locked in the room. Kevin began crawling quietly toward the opposite end of the long attic.

  70

  The hijackers had closed up the Learjet and camouflaged it well. Summer used her key. The Lear was dark inside, suggesting it was empty, but she stood there a moment before climbing the stairs and then shut herself inside.

  She hadn’t thought through any of this. Everything for her was minute to minute, and she feared her lack of planning would backfire. Her mother would have worked it out logically step by step. Her father, on the other hand, would have tried to talk his way out. She was some hybrid of the two, a stranger in her own strange family.

  The jet’s soundproofing made the drumming in her ears all the louder. This was the first chance she’d gotten to stop and think and she couldn’t think. She felt removed. She felt numb.

  She headed straight for the battery switch. The batteries had to be engaged in order to use the CD, the TVs, or any of the outlets. Next, she headed for her father’s seat. She slid back the wood panel and nearly squealed with glee when she saw the red LED on the Airphone flashing. It had powered up.

  “Come on!” she encouraged the red to change to green, signaling a connection to the satellite.

  She counted backward from ten.

  Had the antenna broken off? Had they covered it with pine boughs?

  On the count of four, it changed to green.

  She snatched up the receiver and dialed.

  For a moment, there was nothing on
the other end. Then came static and soft pops that went on far longer than she thought appropriate.

  Finally, the phone purred in her ear. It was ringing.

  “Hello?” her father’s voice said.

  She’d meant to speak, to say something—anything—but the sound of him choked her, and she couldn’t get a word out.

  “Dad . . .” she gasped, but far too softly.

  She could see him clearly: his face, his smile. She had a mental picture of him in the hotel suite. She thoroughly regretted every ounce of grief she’d ever given him, felt so badly for making him pay for her mother’s death when he’d only tried to help her understand it. She loved him so much but never expressed it, always taunting him to fill the void, an impossibility. Her accusing tone, her reckless blaming him for her problems, the bitterness with which she dealt with him: it all washed over her in a wave of self-loathing.

  “Sum . . . ?”

  Her vision blurred.

  Just the sound of his voice . . .

  “Yeah . . .” she choked out. “It’s me. I’m on the plane.”

  A very long pause. “Oh, thank God!”

  She thought he might be crying as well.

  “We landed . . . kind of . . . crashed into something. There’s a river. There’s three of them . . .”

  She rambled through a quick, disjointed explanation, laced with apology and begging for forgiveness.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she finally said.

  “You . . . Jesus . . . Listen, they won’t hurt you.”

  “You don’t know that! They’ve got Kevin, I think . . . I’m pretty sure . . .”

  “I won’t let them hurt you,” he said.

  It wasn’t so much what her father said as the way he said it that gave her pause. She knew better than to interrupt. She needed him to talk, and to just keep on talking.

  “I want you to . . . You’ve no idea where you are . . . none?”

  “No. The woods, a big river. Kevin said it was the Middle Fork, but he doesn’t know that for sure. There’s a log cabin on top of the mountain with a huge cliff. We took off the same direction we landed the other day, so that’s toward Sun Valley, right? I don’t know, we could be anywhere. I lit a fire . . . a big fire. Someone should be able to see it. But it won’t last long. Can you get someone to look for it?”

  “A fire! Of course I can. You lit a fire? That was good thinking, Sum.”

  “What do I do, Dad? What am I supposed to do?”

  Static on the line interrupted them.

  “Isn’t there some kind of locator or something on the plane?” she then asked.

  There was no answer. She pulled the phone away from her ear, making sure the light was still green.

  “Dad?”

  “I’m here. I need to talk to them, Sum. I need to start a dialogue.”

  “Forget it! I am not going there. Doesn’t the GPS know where we are?”

  “The GPS?” He sounded distracted. “Yes, of course. Are you on the Airphone? Is the panel lit? There’s a color map in the middle of the panel with a readout for latitude/longitude. Can you see it?”

  “I don’t want to let go of the phone.”

  “Put the phone down, Summer, write down the coordinates, and read them to me. It’s important.” He added that last bit in the same condescending tone he used to use to let her know how stupid she was. She resisted her immediate reaction of turning against him.

  “I can’t,” she whined.

  “Summer . . . please . . .”

  She pulled the receiver away from her ear, but even a few inches made her feel alone. She smacked it back against her ear and stretched the wire instead. Making it to the aisle, she squinted at the illuminated instruments panel.

  “You’ve got to do this for me,” he said.

  “I’m trying.”

  “And don’t forget the bag in the closet. There’s a GPS in there as well, a portable. And a radio, handheld, an aviation radio. Planes continually monitor the frequency. They’ll be able to hear you. Get me the coordinates and read them into that radio. Listen, go get that bag right now and then give me the coordinates over the phone.”

  “I can’t!”

  “You have to, Sum. You need that bag, I need the coordinates. It’s easy, you can do this. Stay in the plane, turn off the batteries to conserve power, and use the handheld to broadcast. Everything you need is in the plane: food, water, blankets. You’re there alone, right?”

  “Yes. Can I lock the door? I couldn’t figure out how to lock it.”

  “No, it doesn’t lock from the inside. You could probably hold the handle, which would keep the key from turning. The thing is . . . Now, listen to me . . . I need those coordinates, okay? You’ve got to do this for me.”

  She looked to the front of the jet. It seemed impossibly far away.

  “I want to go home,” she said. “I’m so sorry, Dad. I am so, so sorry.”

  “Summer Sumner, you listen to me. You’ve done incredibly well. There is nothing to be sorry about. We’ll come get you and your friend. This is going to work out okay. But I need to speak to the men who flew the plane. I need to speak to the guy in charge, the guy with the dark hair. You’ve got to figure out a way to get him on this phone. In the jet. I can call back.”

  “Forget it,” she said.

  “They’ll listen to me, Sum. We’ve got to make this happen.”

  “They’ve got Kevin! They’re not listening to anybody. For all I know, they killed the cowboy.”

  “What cowboy?”

  “Wait a second . . .” Her heart raced even faster, as if that were even possible.

  “You didn’t say anything about any cowboy,” he said. “What cowboy?”

  She tried to focus, but her thoughts were like a scratched CD: they kept jumping back, playing a riff, then leaping forward again.

  “I need to speak to the guy in charge, the guy with the dark hair,” she was repeating in her head.

  “Summer? Are you there?”

  She’d frozen. She couldn’t speak. The copilot had seemed so familiar—especially his voice—and now she could place it: he was who’d called her father’s BlackBerry.

  “SUMMER! I NEED YOUR COORDINATES! PUT DOWN THE PHONE AND GET ME THOSE COORDINATES!”

  Pause.

  “Summer? Sum . . . ?”

  “I need to speak to the guy in charge, the guy with the dark hair,” repeated again in her head.

  She dropped the phone, spun a full circle, and marched, trance-like, into the cockpit. She looked to the right, saw a logbook with a pen shoved in its spiral spine. She tore out a sheet of paper, wrote down the string of numbers, double-checking them against the navigation screen.

  She returned to the Airphone.

  “Sum? You there? Sum . . . ?”

  “I’m here.”

  That shut him up.

  “Do you have them?”

  “I’ve got them.”

  “Read them to me.”

  “What did you mean, ‘the guy with the dark hair?’ ” she asked.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “No, Dad, I’m the one asking you what you’re talking about? Who said anything about dark hair?”

  “You’re imagining things. I didn’t say anything of the sort.”

  “You just said it!”

  “Read me the coordinates.”

  “What’s going on, Dad? He called you, right? In the hotel. Your BlackBerry. The call I answered. I know him . . . Who is he?”

  She had it, then. She slumped in his chair.

  She recalled him sitting there on the phone as they were about to land. He’d said, “Listen, I would if I could, but this is my last trip on it.”

  How could he have known that? He’d said nothing to her about giving up the Lear. He had a trip to New York planned, another to Toronto. He’d talked to her about going with him on the jet.

  “I need the coordinates, if I’m going to help,” he said. “That, and I need to s
peak to whoever’s in charge.”

  “The man with the dark hair.”

  “If he’s the one in charge, sure.”

  “You said he was.”

  “Summer, you’re in shock. You’re not thinking clearly. Come on, sweetheart—kiddo—you’ve done amazingly well. Phenomenal. Keep it up. Just read me the coordinates, would you please? Sweetheart . . . ?”

  The torn piece of paper trembled in her fingers.

  “What have you done?” she gasped into the receiver.

  The static hissed and popped. There was a snake in her ear, the devil’s tongue.

  “Now, you listen to me, Summer, you’re in shock. It’s completely understandable, expected. You’re inventing things. It happens. But you’ve got to clear your head, okay? I want to help you.”

  “You . . . asshole!”

  “Now, you listen to me, young lady . . .”

  She pushed the END button. Tears began flowing as she stared at the receiver in her hand. It represented him. It represented everything wrong with him. She beat it against the seat’s console and threw it against the fuselage. Pieces of plastic broke loose.

  She stood and moved toward the closet, but in a drunken, disconnected way. These weren’t her feet, her hands; this wasn’t her. She stumbled, fell into another seat, and buried her face in her hands.

  She didn’t remember coming to her feet again. She found herself facing the closet. She fumbled in the dark for the case and found it. It opened by twisting two metal tabs. She rummaged through the case and withdrew two devices. She couldn’t see well enough to know what they were, but both were small and electronic.

  A loud noise came from the front. The door was opening.

  The jet was so well insulated, she hadn’t heard anyone approaching. Only now, as the key activated the opening mechanism, did she know.

  She hurried down the aisle, only to slip and fall. She banged her head against an armrest and dropped both devices. Leaving them, she crawled ahead on hands and knees and reached for the door handle just as it was raising up and the stairs were lowering.

  She threw her body on the handle, forcing it back down.

  From the other side, a mumble of men’s voices.

  Seconds later came a rustling from the jet’s right wing. She kept her shoulder against the lever, preventing it from moving. She squatted down to get a better look out the right side. She couldn’t see anything, but someone was out there crawling around the fuselage. Then she heard two loud snaps, one directly beneath her, the other directly overhead.