Harlan scrambled to his feet, straightening his respirator mask with one hand. He aimed the gun at Morgan, then at Gayle, swinging the black barrel back and forth. Morgan considered making a move when the gun aimed at empty space, but her head was too cloudy.
“Drop it.” His voice rasped through the respirator.
Morgan released the lamp. It fell, the incandescent bulb shattering on the wood floor. Harlan reached for Gayle, dragging the unconscious girl across the room. He waved the gun at Morgan.
“Come on.”
Morgan followed. He threw open the door. Fresh air. Morgan tried to draw a deep breath, but coughed instead, her lungs attempting to expel the chemical fumes. She fell to her hands and knees, her head spinning and her stomach roiling.
“Get up. Hurry!”
Halfway down the stairs, Harlan yanked off his respirator mask and tossed it aside. As they reached the bottom floor, Morgan heard pounding on the back door. Harlan waved the gun at her.
“You say one word, and I’ll shoot you both,” he whispered.
Morgan might have pointed out that whoever was at the door would call the police if they heard shots, but Harlan had a mad dog look in his turquoise-colored eyes. He was past reasoning.
Harlan turned the deadbolt and jerked the door open a crack. Morgan could only imagine what his jowly face looked like, pale and sweating, peering through the gap.
“What do you want?”
Bernie’s voice stammered. “I—I was looking for—There’s a kid. A runaway. I heard she might be at the gallery.”
“You heard wrong.”
Harlan slammed the door. Bernie’s fist hammered on the thick wood.
“Hey! Open the door!”
Harlan ignored her, dragging Gayle into the workshop. Morgan froze, torn between staying with Gayle or escaping. Then she remembered that she didn’t need the door. She and Bernie had broken the workshop window. She could overpower Harlan, take his gun away, and crawl out the window.
Just like an action-adventure movie heroine. One a couple of decades younger than Morgan, and in great physical condition. Morgan shuddered. The chemical fumes must have caused brain damage if she dreamed her escape scenario would work. Her pounding heart sent throbbing waves of pain through her head. She drew rapid shallow breaths. Each exhalation felt like fishhooks being dragged through her lungs.
Calm down, Morgan told herself. Stall for time.
Help was on the way. Had to be. If Bernie realized what was happening. Morgan drew a breath, preparing to shout, hoping Bernie was listening at the window. She choked on a cough instead, doubling over, tears running from her eyes.
“Knock it off.” Harlan’s voice was a husky whisper.
From far away she heard Bernie’s muffled voice.
“Morgan? Are you in there?”
Pain sliced through her head. Morgan watched, helpless, as the floor rose to meet her. White sparks engulfed her tear-blurred vision just before everything went dark.
Morgan felt sick, but she feared the gag in her mouth would make throwing up fatal. She swallowed several times. That only made it worse. The cloth tasted bitter, the chemical taste burning her tongue. Morgan struggled to bring her hands up to remove the gag, but her arms were tied behind her back. Consciousness made her aware of her cramped position, and the pain in every joint from being curled into a tight ball.
She tried to orient herself. From the intense fumes, Morgan guessed she was back in the upstairs storage room. Then the floor seemed to drop out from under her, and she was falling, momentarily weightless, until she landed. Her face scraped across the floor. But instead of gritty, hundred-year-old pine, this smelled like fresh sawdust.
The workshop. Shipping crates. She was inside a wooden box. Like a pine casket, only she wasn’t dead. Not yet.
Morgan bounced again, landing hard. Then again. She heard an engine. She was in a vehicle. On a rough road. Her head banged against the wood. She tried to tuck her head in, envisioning a turtle, but it was no use.
She floated in and out of semi-consciousness until the bone-rattling motion stopped. An engine shut off. A vehicle door slammed. Footsteps crunched across gravel. Then her container moved, screeching across a metal surface.
Morgan felt weightless for an instant, then the container slammed hard to the ground. Her teeth snapped on the smelly rag, and with it, part of her inner cheek and tongue. The gag muffled her cry of pain. Then she was moving again, and she heard grunting and gasping from whoever dragged her container.
She tumbled, slamming from one side of her prison to the other until she stopped, upside down. Her neck felt like it would snap. Morgan tried throwing her weight the opposite direction, but her cage wouldn’t budge. She heard another crate tumble down the slope next to her.
Morgan struggled to breathe, then not to breathe, as inhaling only drew burning fumes up her nostrils and deep into her lungs. She inched her way into an upright position, taking the weight of her body off her neck and shoulders. Cold seeped into the crate. And silence.
Morgan kicked her bound feet, thumping the inside of the crate. Somewhere near, there was a thump in response. Gayle was alive. Morgan uncurled as far as the confining crate allowed, stretching and pushing against the wood. A nail shrieked as it wrenched out of the crate. A thin line of pale moonlit sky shone through the crack. Morgan gathered her strength, then pushed again.
She kicked the crate, bucked and slammed into the sides. Morgan was past fear and well into rage. Harlan Cooper was insane. How could he imagine the people of Golden Springs wouldn’t put things together? Dozens of people were already searching for Gayle. Morgan had called 9-1-1. Bernie had undoubtedly called the police, too. She would have seen Harlan leave the shop with the crates. In moments, the police would arrive and arrest him. With a sinking feeling, Morgan realized help would come to the gallery. Unless Bernie had followed them, no one knew where she and Gayle were now.
Footsteps crunched across the dirt. They dropped onto the ground near her crate. Morgan lay still.
Let him think you’re dead, she told herself.
The steps moved away. She heard what sounded like a shovel scooping into the dirt, then dirt pelting the crate, sounding like hail on a metal roof. Probably covering up his tracks. The truck engine started. The sound disappeared into the night. Morgan allowed herself a moment to sob in despair.
Pull yourself together.
Crying wouldn’t get her out of the pine box she’d been buried in. She tried to work the zip ties off her wrists and ankles, but the plastic only dug into her flesh. Morgan renewed her previous strategy, kicking and pushing until her feet were numb and her head ringing from banging against the wood. Finally, the side of the crate broke loose.
Dirt poured inside. In the darkness, she could only feel and hear the endless shushing of dirt. No one could hear her gag-muffled screams, but that didn’t stop them from coming. The dirt stopped.
Morgan pressed her back against the crate, scared that any movement might send the dirt cascading inside again, burying her alive. Maybe she should stay still and wait for help to come. But one of the scenarios playing through her imagination left her and Gayle trapped in the crates, under the dirt, for days. Weeks. Forever.
She stretched her bound feet out, pushing against the crate. A shower of dirt rained down for a moment, then the moonlight shone though the crack again. Morgan choked on a sob of joy. She renewed her struggle, kicking and pushing, working her way toward the widening crack until her head emerged, then her shoulders.
Morgan threw all her weight against the crate wall, forcing it to open wide enough to worm her way out. A nail ripped the sleeve of her fleece jacket as she thrust her way through. She flopped onto the ground, then rolled onto her back. She was in a pit. Cooper had shoved dirt over one side. The crates weren’t buried so much as hidden from the casual passerby.
Morgan backed up to her former prison and raked the zip ties on her wrists across a nail. She poked and scratched herse
lf before the plastic finally snapped. Then she ripped the gag off her mouth, inhaling deep cold breaths of night air until she was dizzy from hyperventilating. Morgan reached into her front jeans pocket and pulled out her keychain. On it dangled a tiny pink pocketknife, a flashlight suitable for finding a keyhole, and several keys. She cut off the zip ties around her ankles.
Exhausted, but still riding the adrenaline that had kept her alive so far, she scrambled over the hill of fresh dirt, feeling for Gayle’s crate. She shone the flashlight across the mound, but it offered little in the way of illumination. Then the feeble light glinted off the head of a nail. Morgan dropped her keychain into her jacket pocket and dug with her hands. The tattered bandage on her left hand tore off. Dirt stung her old wound, and the fresh scratches from the nails.
“Gayle, are you okay? Make some noise!”
When she had cleared away enough dirt, Morgan looked around for something to pry the crate open. A foot-long piece of rebar was too thick to fit into the narrow gap between boards. She found a stake, but the weathered wood snapped off when she tried to use it as a lever. Groping in the dark pit for anything reflecting moonlight, her fingers hit metal. The business end of a shovel, with the handle snapped off. Only a jagged bit of wood protruded from the blade.
Morgan pushed the shovel blade in the narrow crack between crate walls. After a few attempts, the end of the crate wrenched off. Morgan landed on her backside in the dirt. She rose to her feet and stumbled to the crate.
“Gayle?”
Fumes rolled out of Gayle’s crate, choking Morgan. The girl had received a stronger dose of paint thinner than Morgan. She pressed the protruding nails over carefully with her sneaker before dragging Gayle out of the crate. Then she sawed at the zip ties binding Gayle’s hands with her little knife. The blade had already dulled with abuse. When the plastic broke apart, Gayle’s arms flopped to her sides. She didn’t reach up to tear her gag off, and when Morgan tugged it away from her mouth, she didn’t draw in gasping breaths of night air. Morgan brushed long golden hair away from Gayle’s face.
“Gayle, you can breathe now.” Morgan cradled the teen in her arms. “Please breathe!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
* * *
The moon cast dim blue light into the pit. Morgan couldn’t hear whether Gayle was breathing over her own ragged breaths and pounding heart. No phone. No help. Panic threatened to overwhelm Morgan, until she focused on the steps she’d learned in CPR class.
She rolled Gayle onto her back, then watched the teenager’s chest for any rise and fall indicating breathing. There was no movement. In her current state of panic, would she notice something as subtle as respiration? She thumped Gayle’s shoulder.
“Gayle, can you hear me? It’s Morgan. I’m going to start CPR.”
She tilted Gayle’s head back to open her air passages. Suddenly the girl broke away from her, rolling on her side to cough.
“Thank God!” Tears of relief blurred Morgan’s vision.
Gayle rose to her hands and knees, coughing, choking, and gagging. Morgan knew the pain she felt as the fresh, chilly night air worked its way into her poisoned lungs. At last, Gayle sat in the dirt, her legs splayed in front of her and her hands pressed into the dirt behind her. She closed her eyes and seemed to concentrate on drawing shallow, rapid breaths.
Gayle spoke slowly, as though each word took an effort to find, then push past her lips. “Where are we?”
“Good question,” Morgan said. “Sit tight. I’m not going anywhere. I just want to see if I can tell where we are.”
She crawled on top of a crate, sending avalanches of dirt into the pit. As she scrambled for ground level, her lungs felt raw with every gasping breath. Finally she stood, turning in a circle, and saw a moonlit field and stands of aspen and pine.
“I see lights. Maybe a ranch house. It doesn’t look too far.”
“Why did he do this to us?” Gayle whimpered in a raspy voice. “I don’t understand.”
“I don’t either, Gayle. But we have to get out of here. He could come back. Do you think you can climb up here with me?”
Gayle shook her head, her golden hair appearing blue in the moonlight. “I can’t.” Stuttering sobs hiccupped from her, in between rattling coughs.
“We have to,” Morgan said. “We don’t have a phone, and Cooper could come back.”
Morgan climbed back into the pit and helped Gayle to her feet. She had lost one shoe kicking at Cooper in the gallery. The other one was gone now, too. Morgan prodded the teen up the unstable mound of dirt. The girl’s bare feet dug into the soil. When they reached the top, and she and Gayle both stopped wheezing, Morgan spoke.
“I think we’re on the Dalton ranch.”
The irrigated field in the distance, the barbed wire fence lined with pines and aspens, could have been any foothills pasture. A prospector’s pit in the middle of a cow pasture had to be unique. Vernon had found one on his place, at the same time the ATVers shot at Rolf.
“Let’s head toward that light.” Morgan pointed. “That must be the Daltons’ house.”
Gayle shivered. Her long-sleeved, pink shirt had barely been adequate earlier in the day, when it was much warmer. Now she was barefoot, too, and her blue jeans weren’t much thicker than pantyhose. Del would have an opinion about the survival capability of modern fashions.
“Here.”
Morgan peeled out of her fleece jacket and handed it to Gayle. Her sweatshirt was warm enough, and she had socks and shoes. The teenager pulled on the jacket, zipping the front and shoving her clenched fists into the pockets.
The tiny pink knife, dull now, and the feeble light of a flashlight not intended to illuminate a distance farther than a few inches were Morgan’s only survival resources. She had lost her purse during the fight at the gallery. Anything helpful, like a real flashlight or waterproof matches, were in her purse or her car’s trunk.
“I want to go home!” Gayle burst into rasping sobs.
Morgan yanked the reluctant girl into a hug, more to warm her than to give comfort. At first Gayle tensed. Then she went boneless, soaking Morgan’s shoulder with tears.
“Come on,” Morgan said. “We need to get going.”
They stumbled across the uneven, pathless field. The Dalton cattle had surely beaten a regular route to their watering trough and hayracks by the barn, but Morgan couldn’t detect one in the dark. She swept her flashlight back and forth. It offered little help. Gayle yelped and fell to her knees. Morgan gave her a hand up.
“I stepped on something. My foot hurts.”
“Gayle,” Morgan said, trying to distract the girl. “Why did you go to the gallery today?”
“Chase texted me. He was going to teach me more about glasswork.”
“Oh. A text message.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t think you’d go there to see Chase’s father. I didn’t see Chase anywhere in the building, and I was all over the place.”
“That creepy old guy answered the back door.” Fresh tears flowed. Gayle wiped them away with a fist. “Why would Chase want me to go to the gallery if he wasn’t there?”
“Think about it, Gayle. He sent a text message.”
“But it was from Chase’s phone.” Understanding flashed across Gayle’s face. “Oh. The old guy could have taken Chase’s phone, just like he took ours.” She stopped. “But where is Chase? Do you think he’s okay? Maybe he’s in that pit.”
Gayle turned as though she was ready to head back to the prospector’s pit.
“I’m sure he’s okay. He probably doesn’t even realize his phone is gone. You know how artists are when they’re creating.”
“You think so?” Gayle asked.
“Absolutely.”
Gayle studied Morgan. The teen seemed to buy her story. Morgan had her doubts about Chase, and his role in their kidnapping. Now was not the time to share that with Gayle. She had enough trouble without throwing betrayal into her emotional stew.
They stumbled across the pasture in silence for a few minutes, until Gayle stopped and crouched down.
“Something’s out there,” she whispered.
Morgan strained to see. A shape moved along the fence line. She tugged Gayle behind the spindly branches of a bush that had yet to leaf out. The form was too bulky to be Harlan Cooper, but traveling too fast for a drowsy grazing heifer.
“What is it?” Gayle asked.
“I’m not sure.” Morgan put a protective arm around the teen, and this time the girl didn’t flinch away. “I can’t make out anything in—”
“Heeaaawwwww!” A familiar braying shattered the quiet pasture. “Hee aaww hee aw hee aw!”
Gayle screamed, and clutched Morgan so tightly, she couldn’t breathe. She pried the girl’s arms loose.
“It’s my donkey,” Morgan said. “We must be close to the rock shop.”
She thrashed through branches and ran toward Houdini.
“What are you doing out here?”
Morgan grasped the donkey’s halter like it was a lifeline. Gayle ran to join her, wrapping her arms around Houdini’s neck even though they hadn’t yet been introduced.
“Warm,” Gayle muttered.
“Houdini has been sneaking over to the Dalton ranch on an almost daily basis. I thought we’d patched every escape route, but I’m glad we didn’t.”
“Will he take us home?” Gayle asked. “Can I ride him?”
“He pulls a wagon. I don’t think anyone has ever tried to ride him.” Morgan glanced at Gayle, shivering with cold and shock, her breath still coming in asthmatic wheezes. “Let’s try.”
Morgan kept her grip on the nylon web halter while giving Gayle a leg up. Houdini seemed startled, his big ears aiming back toward the strange human. Morgan stroked his neck, hoping to soothe away his instinctive aversion to allowing a predator to remain on his back.
Stone Cold Case (A Rock Shop Mystery) Page 31