They were paralleling the rutted path leading up to the cabin. A couple of newly cut trees and neatly stacked wood were indications a local Boy Scout troop maintained the path as a hiking trail.
Kenzie tripped as they went down into a ravine. Crow caught her, his hand gripping her arm. They came up the other side, walked about fifty feet more, and then the sheriff motioned for them to stop. He pointed forward. There, through a thick stand of cedars, they could see the cabin.
Scott wordlessly motioned them to move to where they could see what appeared to be the front porch. The cabin, old as it was, still looked sturdy. Four steps led up to the covered porch. Another porch ran along the back. The two-story structure had windows on both levels. A car and one motorcycle sat parked out front.
“I don’t see any electricity or phone lines, or any other utilities,” Kenzie whispered.
“That’s right,” said the sheriff. “If you come up here, you’ve got to port your own water and use the woods as a latrine.”
“That car is the same make and model as Grayson’s mother’s car,” Crow said quietly.
“Let’s move around,” Scott said, motioning toward the back of the house.
The four of them crept through the woods, careful to keep a screen of vegetation between them and the cabin. Crouched back in the forest, binoculars trained on the house, they finally got their break.
“There he is,” the sheriff whispered. A large man stood silhouetted in the kitchen window. “That’s Billy.”
Kenzie froze. All the stress and dashed expectations of the last couple of days coalesced into a charge of adrenaline so potent she trembled. They’d found them. Was Zoe alive?
When the figure moved away, Scott motioned to them to back off. Time to call for reinforcements. They moved back toward the rutted path with Scott in the lead. Kenzie was following him, and the sheriff and Crow trailed slightly behind. He was leading them back to a place they could regroup and make a plan. They’d call in the SWAT team and figure out the best way to extricate Zoe.
Kenzie’s neck was slick with sweat and she felt slightly light-headed from the heat and the tension. She focused on the yellow-orange “FBI” on the back of Scott’s ballistic vest. A bee buzzed around her head and she swatted it away.
Suddenly, Scott stopped. “FBI!” he yelled. He whipped his gun out of his holster and crouched into a shooting position. “Put down your gun! Put it down!”
31
An electric shock of adrenaline ran through Kenzie’s body, a blue-white heat like a lightning bolt. She grabbed her gun, moved to Scott’s right, and took cover behind a tree, aiming in the direction of his focus. Down the trail, a twenty-something man with scruffy brown hair and dressed in jeans and a T-shirt stood smoking a cigarette, holding a shotgun casually at his side.
“Put it down!” Scott yelled, and the man looked up. For a moment, Kenzie thought he would comply. But then, almost with a shrug, the man pulled the gun up and fired twice.
Automatically, Scott and Kenzie fired back. Bam-bam-bam-bam! A staccato burst of bullets exploded from their guns. Her ears rang, her head spun and her eyes could see nothing besides her gun and the man on the trail.
She saw the man collapse. She saw his gun fall to the ground. She saw dust fly up as his body hit the ground. She saw his body jerk twice.
Scott continued standing in the middle of the trail. Why hadn’t he taken cover? Kenzie expected him to go forward, to cuff the guy. She braced herself to cover him. But he didn’t take a step. He didn’t move at all. She glanced at him. He was holding his gun in his right hand but his hand was shaking, hard. Something seemed wrong. Scott’s mouth dropped open slightly. And then suddenly, he dropped to his knees and his head sagged forward.
“Scott! Scott!” Kenzie yelled. She ran to him, holstering her own gun. The sheriff emerged from the woods and raced past her. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw him next to the downed suspect. When she looked at Scott, she gasped.
His left arm had shattered into a mass of white bone and bloody flesh from his elbow to his wrist. Blood poured onto the ground, forming red splotches in the dirt, splotches which had already begun to trickle off in small streams.
Within seconds, Crow was next to her. “I’ve got him,” he said, and he crouched down and began examining Scott.
Kenzie glanced over her shoulder. The sheriff had cuffed the suspect, who still lay on the ground, and was trotting back, the man’s shotgun in his hand. When she looked back, Scott raised his head and looked at her with glazed eyes.
“Go get Zoe,” he said, his voice fissured by pain.
“We need a Medevac,” Crow said. He began pulling medical supplies from his backpack. “You’re going to be all right, Scott. Just hold on.” He eased Scott off his knees and into a seated position.
“What can I do?” Kenzie asked.
“Get the sheriff to call in a Medevac,” Crow repeated. He pulled his GPS device from his belt. “Here’s the lat and lon. Tell them to get in as close as they can.” Then he snapped on gloves.
Kenzie stood up. “He’s dead,” the sheriff said, nodding his head toward the gunman. His eyes traveled beyond Kenzie to Scott.
“We need a Medevac,” she said, her heart drumming. “I have the location on the GPS. Can you call it in?”
The sheriff nodded and began making the call as Kenzie stood by, forcing her mind to stay calm. To her right, Crow was tying a tourniquet around Scott’s upper arm. She turned to Sheriff Hughes. “Get our SWAT team and your emergency response team up here, too,” she said, and he nodded in response.
“Kenzie, I need you,” Crow said. “Can you help me?”
“Yes.” She crouched down and put on the gloves he handed her.
“Press down here.”
She put her hand on Scott’s arm, just below the elbow, as Crow took his hand away. She fought nausea at the sight of the blood and the protruding bones and the sound of Scott’s labored breathing. She looked into his eyes, saw the pain, and looked quickly away. She began praying silently. God save him. God don’t let him die. God help him.
Crow pulled out more supplies from his backpack. “I’ve got to stabilize this arm,” he said to Kenzie. “Come over on this side,” he motioned his head toward the left, “and hang on to him. This is going to be more than a sting.”
She moved around, jerked her gloves off, and grabbed Scott’s right hand. His face looked white. He turned toward her, sweat glistening on his upper lip. “Go get Zoe,” he whispered. “Go get her . . .”
“We’re going to help you. Then we’ll go.”
“Hang on!” Crow said.
She turned Scott’s head so he was looking at her. She kept her hand on his jaw, to keep him from seeing what Crow was about to do.
To her right, Crow probed the wounded arm with both hands, feeling for the shattered bones. “You hold on to me, Scott Hansbrough,” she said. “You hold as tight as you want. We’re going to get you through this, OK? You just hold on.”
If you lie down to die, you will die. Had he had a premonition?
“Look at me, Scott,” she said out loud. “You’re going to be OK.”
“Here goes,” Crow said, and suddenly Scott arched his back and threw his head back. He grimaced and stifled his screams, but his grip on Kenzie’s hand remained hard.
“Oh, God!” he said, gasping for breath, his eyes watery.
“Hold on, Scott. Hold on!” She grabbed his shirt with her other hand to keep him upright. He looked like he would pass out.
“How long until your ERT gets here, Sheriff?” Crow demanded.
“They’re on the way. Twenty minutes. Maybe a bit more.”
“And the Medevac?”
“Fifteen. They’ll find a landing spot as close as they can. An ambulance is on the way, too.”
“Stay with us, Scott,” Crow said. He glanced at Kenzie. “What’s Billy going to do? He had to have heard those shots.”
“I don’t know.”
Crow continued dressing Scott’s arm.
“He’s gonna run,” Scott said, his voice breathy. “He’s going to grab Zoe and run.”
Kenzie looked at the sheriff. “Go watch the house, will you?”
“Sure.”
Crow had pulled a windbreaker out of his pack. “I’m going to use this as a sling. I may try to walk him out to meet the ambulance.”
“OK,” Kenzie said.
“Go,” Scott whispered. His teeth were chattering.
The sheriff came back, breathless. “Zoe is on the porch roof! She must have climbed out of the second-floor window. I think she’s trying to get away. I could hear Billy yelling, cursing. He knows she’s gone.”
“Go! For God’s sake, go!” Scott said. He struggled as if he were going to get up.
Crow held him down. “Stay still, man!” He glanced at Kenzie. “I’ll stabilize him and start fluids and then go get Zoe. You stay here with him until the medics get here. All you need to do is . . .”
“No. You stay!” she responded. “You’re the medic.”
“No!”
“Both of you go,” Scott grabbed Crow’s shirt. “Go!” but as he said it, he grimaced in pain and his eyes began rolling back in his head.
“Scott! Scott!” Crow said something in Navajo that sounded to Kenzie like a curse. He patted Scott’s cheeks to try to rouse him. Sweat glistened on Crow’s face.
“I’m going! I’ll be all right.” Kenzie rose, touched his shoulder, and started toward the cabin.
“Take the high ground. Watch first. And be sure your radio is on A-One!” Crow yelled.
Kenzie and the sheriff approached the cabin, staying slightly uphill, and using the mountain laurel and wild hollies to shield them from view. She could see Zoe up on the rear porch roof. The little girl, dressed in blue denim shorts and a red shirt, was barefoot.
The clouds were starting to move in, dimming the bright sunshine. Kenzie thought she heard a chopper, then realized it was just thunder, off in the distance. “I can climb up there,” Kenzie whispered to the sheriff, sweat running off her face. The cabin had been constructed of logs that crossed at the corners, like old Lincoln Logs, forming Xs she figured she could scale.
“Wait,” he said, touching her arm. The back door of the cabin opened and Billy walked out onto the porch. He held a shotgun.
“We can’t confront him, not with her there,” Kenzie whispered. “If she slides off, she’ll be right in the line of fire.”
Sheriff Hughes nodded.
Billy cursed loudly and went inside, slamming the back door.
Kenzie would need to run down the wooded hill, cross a thirty-foot clearing, get up on the porch railing, then climb up on the roof to get to Zoe.
The sheriff said, “I’ll create a diversion out front. Then you go. I’ll meet you back here when you have her.”
Kenzie nodded. “That’ll work.”
“Give me three minutes.”
She looked at her watch. Sheriff Hughes began skirting around the edge of the forest. Zoe crouched on the roof, right next to the house, obviously trying to figure out what to do next. Thunder rumbled in the distance. The storm announced its approach.
Three minutes. Kenzie heard a noise in the front of the cabin, like a small tree falling. Then another. Then she heard the sheriff shouting. She made her move. She ran across the clearing, and quietly pulled herself up to the porch railing, biting her lip as pain streaked down the back of her skull and into her neck. Then she used the cross-laid logs at the corner of the cabin to climb up to the porch roof. Within seconds, she and Zoe were eye to eye. As soon as she was within reach, Zoe grabbed onto her. “I’ve got you now, Zoe,” she whispered. “You’re safe now.”
But then she heard the back door open and footsteps on the porch below. Kenzie froze, the prospect of a firefight with Zoe in her arms an unthinkable option. The only place to hide was back inside. She grabbed the window ledge and, holding tightly to Zoe, quietly stepped back into the house.
She heard Billy yell, “Where the . . .”
The little girl looked up at her, her eyes full of fear.
Kenzie silently kissed her forehead. “Be quiet,” she whispered. She looked around. The bedroom looked small, dark, and totally empty. Her eyes adjusted. Off to one side, under the eaves, was a small door. Outside, thunder rolled again.
“Billy! Billy!” She heard the sheriff’s voice, coming from in front of the house. He must have seen Billy go to the back and was trying to draw him off of her location.
“Billy! Come on out. It’s Sheriff Hughes. Let’s talk, Billy.”
She heard Billy’s muffled voice. Then more shouting. And cursing. Someone was bashing something around. She didn’t dare go out of the window again, but she wasn’t feeling secure in the room, either.
Kenzie moved to the eave and opened the small door. She pulled a small flashlight off her belt and shined it into the storage area. The space had a good floor, and it was empty. Except for spider webs.
Lots of spider webs.
If she tried crawling out of the window, she chanced Billy coming back to the porch again and the strong possibility she’d get into a gun battle with him. But she could wait in the crawl space until the SWAT team came. She just had to deal with the spiders. And the close quarters. Could she do it? “Oh, God, please help me,” she whispered.
Just as she was trying to figure out her next move, she heard footsteps on the stairs.
Her heart jumping, Kenzie clicked off her light and crawled inside the small space, clutching Zoe tightly. As she quietly shut the door, she heard two shots, two huge explosions. Had to be a shotgun, she thought, followed by a series of retorts from a handgun. Who was shooting? Where was the sheriff? Her heart pounded.
Kenzie sat in total darkness with her back braced against a roof truss. She held her gun in her right hand, ready to blow away anyone who tried to get in. Zoe lay curled up in her lap, sucking her thumb. “I’m a friend of your daddy’s,” Kenzie whispered. “I’m going to get you out of here. But we have to be very quiet.” Within seconds, Kenzie felt the little girl relax in her arms. She kissed the top of her head. She touched her hair. Suddenly, the memories came flooding back. Her angry mother. The small closet. The dark. Spiders.
She forced herself to stay calm. I am not a child, she thought, I can do this. But a wave of fear began sweeping over her. She saw images of Scott, bleeding, his arm mangled, images of her mother, her face twisted in rage, her father, lying on the floor.
Kenzie tried to focus on something else, tried counting and recalling the lyrics of a song but the fear seemed predatory, creeping over her like a malignancy. She thought she felt something on her hand, and shook it off. Then she imagined something crawling up her pants leg. She flicked her light on momentarily. Nothing.
Kenzie shivered. She could hear muffled voices downstairs, angry voices, scared voices, and heavy footsteps. Then she heard something breaking, furniture maybe, and screams. She trembled. Her mouth was like cotton. She held on to Zoe.
Where was Sheriff Hughes? Where was Crow? Panic began to swirl around inside her. For a moment, she wanted to jump up and run. But what did that verse say? The one Scott gave her? “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.” Are you with me now, God? she thought.
What had Scott said? God was omnipresent. He was everywhere. God was here. Nothing could touch her without his permission. That’s what Scott said. God is sovereign. And Crow had said Navajos believe every effect has a cause. And his grandfather said, God is the first cause, sovereign over everything. Everything. Even this. Even now.
Kenzie stroked Zoe’s arm. The little girl snuggled against her chest. Her hair smelled like baby shampoo. God, she breathed, I wish I had Scott’s faith. All I have is a little tiny bit of Sunday school-type faith, from a long time ago. He’s right: I’ve been holding out on you. I’m scared of giving up control to you. But I know now I’ve got to. Because I’m in over my head. I need you. Please, G
od, help me save Zoe. Keep me calm. Help me!
A song came into her head: “Jesus Loves Me.” She hadn’t heard it in twenty years. Hadn’t thought about it for decades. Jesus loves me. She began singing it in her head to calm herself down. Little ones to Him belong . . .
She heard more crashing. More screaming. And another noise, a rhythmic beating, a chopper overhead. Not thunder. Definitely a chopper. Billy began yelling and then she heard three loud booms. Was he shooting at the chopper?
Once more, she considered making a run for it. But she just couldn’t tell where he was and what he was going to do. All the gunfire told her he was behaving very erratically.
The minutes ticked by. Kenzie tried adjusting her position. She put her gun down momentarily and flexed her hand, trying to keep it from cramping up. It felt so hot. She pulled out her water bottle and took a drink. Zoe opened her eyes, looked up at Kenzie, and reached for the bottle. Kenzie gave it to her, and she drained it. “Do you know how to pray?” Kenzie whispered.
The little girl nodded.
“OK, let’s ask God to help us.”
Obediently, Zoe folded her hands and bowed her head. Someone had taught her something about God. Kenzie wondered if it was her nanny. “Dear God,” Kenzie whispered, “please help us get out of here. Keep us safe. We ask in Jesus’ name.”
“Amen,” Zoe added.
Kenzie opened her eyes and picked up her gun again.
Finally, she heard what she’d been waiting for: A bullhorn. SWAT had arrived. Or the sheriff’s ERT. Either way, help had come. She couldn’t quite make out the words but she could imagine what they were saying. Billy Foster. Come out with your hands up. Let’s talk, Billy. Let’s end this thing now.
His response was gunfire, two more rounds from a shotgun.
Her earbud came alive. “Kenzie, where are you?” Crow! Her heart jumped. Thank you, God.
Words of Conviction Page 27