Outsider (The Ashport Mender Series Book 1)

by G. K. Lund

“Oh fuck,” Evans exclaimed as she came up beside me.

  As I saw the man start to place the limp woman in the trunk I turned and ran. The stairs groaned under my descent and I went for the back door, faster than running around the corners to the front door. I ran to the right, around the side of the house, not knowing if Evans was with me or not. I knew there was no time to wait. That car was meant to drive away from the farm now. They were moving her.

  I jumped over some round white stones placed by the corner of the house, gun raised and was hit smack in the ribs with such force I fell backward. My feet lifted off the ground as my body tried moving forward at the same time. That wasn’t the worst, though. The electric shock infused in that punch soared through my body. The jolt impacted more pain than my being slammed down into the gravel, breath knocked out of me. I remember seeing the bald man standing over me as in a haze, my body refusing to move. I could more sense the gun not being in my hand than actually feel it. No, what I felt were these currents of pain coursing through me, making me twitch. And in my helplessness, I heard the distinct sound of a car skidding on gravel and driving away.

  I had not been fast enough.

  The bald man bent toward me, hand outstretched, a nasty smile on his face. At that point, my body forced me to draw breath, painfully and necessary. The man grabbed me by my shirt, lifting me off the ground, as a damn staff swung over me and hit the bastard in the face so hard I saw blood spurting from his nose and mouth.

  I fell back into the small hard stones that pushed into my back, and saw Evans step over me attacking the man with a…quarter staff? I tried getting to my feet, seeing that no…it was a fucking rake. She had the iron prongs turned away from her thigh, keeping the long shaft between herself and the man who staggered a few steps backward at the initial blow.

  She didn’t wait for him to gather himself. She launched a vicious attack, the staff, or rather rake-handle, swinging and hitting him so fast he couldn’t catch it with his hands. Knees, crotch, and ears. All good places to hit someone. He buckled at the intensity of the blows, the pain forcing him to his knees. At this point, I’d managed to get to my feet, unsteady, but upright at least. My falling back at the same time as the stun gun touched me must have prevented the full charge from connecting. Otherwise, I would likely have still been on the ground twitching, probably pissing myself. Thank heaven for small mercies.

  And that was the only one we got as I noticed another kidnapper, trying to sneak up on us from the left. He was heading for Evans, likely thinking I was no use due to the stun gun. Which was halfway true. I had trouble with the finer movements, my motor skills not functioning properly. So, I ran straight at him, using myself as a battering ram, crashing into him shoulder first and knocking him over before he reached Evans. Somehow, I managed to fall only on my knees, grabbing at the man, recognizing him as the shooter in the alley; McAllen’s shooter. Blind anger overpowered me, and I managed to grab hold of him, hitting him hard in the face. Repeatedly. I had no attention for anything else, my fist connecting with the increasingly red and meaty face, no delicate motor skills needed.

  A gunshot reverberated through the courtyard, making us all freeze. I looked up, bloody fist ready to hit again, as I saw a tawny-haired man standing a few yards away, gun held high.

  “Stop,” he yelled. It was probably directed at everyone. I could see that the rake in Evans’ hands had broken in two, though she hadn’t given up. The bald man bent and picked up the other half.

  I glanced back at the man with the gun who now lowered it and pointed it at us. Two kidnappers attacking us, one driving away with Andrea, and now this one–the guy from the station.

  Damn it all, there were four kidnappers.

  Chapter 12

  The bald man pulled me by the collar of my jacket and I could do nothing as my hands were zip-tied behind my back. Its effectiveness surprised me, as no one would ever describe me as small-scale, but the man had eighty pounds on me, likely more. He dragged me across the gravel and flung me onto a narrow patch of grass over by the stone fence. Then he went back for Evans who was also being zip-tied by the man with the gun. The bald one dragged her toward me, the broken half of the rake in his hand. She gave a grunt as she landed on her side next to me, but the big man grabbed her shoulder, forcing her over on her stomach, raising the broken rake handle and smacking her over her ass with it. Not hard, as in revenge for her blows, no…he did it playfully, smiling. I saw her face and I had never seen it like that. Pale, eyes wide, and nostrils flared, her lips pressed tightly in a thin line. She was ready to murder him. I didn’t begrudge her that. She twisted strenuously over to her back, kicking out but hitting him only halfway on the outside of his thigh as he stepped back. The man only laughed and stepped closer again, to continue this, but a sharp voice from the man with the gun stopped him short. I had no idea what was said as I didn’t understand the language. It sounded Eastern European. Maybe Evans was right about the Ukrainians. The bald man went back to the man with the gun and we could hear them talking in low voices. No need really if we couldn’t understand them anyway.

  “You okay?” I asked Evans as I moved to sit up.

  “Why are you asking me? You’re the one who got electro-pummeled,” she said, straining to sit up as well.

  “No…no, no, no,” the bald man shouted, seeing this. He moved toward us raising his arms and moving his hands in a shooing motion like he wanted us to back up. The point was not lost on us, though. We laid back again, and he focused on the other man.

  I adjusted my position so I was half on my side, sparing the pain in my hands.

  “Seems your psychic friend Rob was right,” I said. “Talk about accurate. I mean…what are the chances?”

  “Usually about seventy-thirty,” Evans said, eyeing me with suspicion. “And he’s retro cognizant, by the way.”

  “What?”

  “He sees the past, not the future.”

  I shook my head at her words. Was she utterly delusional? Or was she in on it?

  At this point, the shooter from the alley came into our view. Half his face looked like ground meat, and I found some satisfaction in that at least. Rage emanated from his narrowed eyes before he joined his fellow kidnappers.

  “Oh…he doesn’t like you, Hansen,” Evans said.

  The following discussion seemed to be about us. I didn’t really like our prospects considering we were tied up. The name “Margarita” reached us, surprising Evans as her eyebrows shot up. It confirmed something I had suspected.

  “You don’t think they’re planning on getting tequila and lime, do you?” she asked.

  “Hasn’t it occurred to you yet?” I said as a twitch of electricity jolted down my left arm, making me wince.

  “Hasn’t what occurred to me yet?”

  “They weren’t after Andrea in that alley. They were after you.”

  They’d probably backed the car into that alley as they’d seen Evans go in there. But she had taken her time, waiting for Andrea. Two women of the same build, in their twenties, dark hair. If they didn’t know for sure what their victim looked like, then it was an easy mistake in the heat of the moment. “And with you knocked to the ground, Andrea had been the first one they laid eyes on.”

  Evans stared at me in disbelief, eyes wide. I could see in the sunlight that they weren’t as dark as I thought. There was a soft, almost coppery tint to them. She swallowed hard and looked over at the three men.

  “Have they been after you before?” I asked. She was so sure of who they were.

  She nodded. “Some years back. But they’re after many people. And so I really thought Andrea was their target.”

  “Why are they after you?” I asked, but didn’t get an answer as the three men separated, the bald man and the one with the gun disappearing to our left. Overgrown bushes obliterated our view toward the cars and barn. The kidnappers’ feet crunched on the gravel. The last one shouted something after them, making a gesture with his hand, thumb straight
up, index finger pointing straight ahead.

  “That means a bullet for me and a trunk for you,” I said, looking around.

  “Yeah,” Evans said. “We need to leave now.” She looked behind her. “The fence…” The stone fence was about two feet wide and four feet high, but we had no other choice. As the shouting went on, we forced ourselves up, not being able to use our hands, which made quick movements difficult. I heard the tone of the man’s voice change as he noticed us, but didn’t look back. Instead, I threw a leg over the fence, shimmying forward and getting the other leg with me. We must have looked like idiots, trying to keep our balance while climbing over something so small and simple. Evans, who was a head shorter than me, stumbled onto a knee as she made it over, but recovered fast as she spoke our next destination to me. I thought she was mad at first, but knew she was right. The forest was too far away. We ran all out down the road, hearing the shouting behind us that suddenly turned into gunshots. Shit. That was not good. I thought at least two of them were shooting, bullets making the dirt explode around us as they hit the road. I heard Evans give a cry of shock, but she kept moving, running off the road and into the cornfield. I was two steps behind her, the corn stalks whipping into my face as I burst in after her. We both bent down, running madly forward, gunshots following us, though not the bullets this time. The kidnappers were still by the fence.

  We reached a track, made some time ago by Kreutz’s tractor and we abruptly turned left, following the track a few yards before I told her to get down. She instantly did as I said and we both left the track, crouching amidst the corn, giving us ample cover.

  We could hear the three men shouting, but couldn’t look up to see if they followed. They would be able to see where we’d headed into the field, but by using the tractor tracks, they couldn’t know for sure where we were now.

  We were both winded, trying to stay our breathing, to be able to hear, and not be heard.

  One of the men shouted something, his voice loud and angry. Then they used the guns again. Shot blindly into the field. Trying to scare us up.

  We sat still, knowing it was death if we started running, at least for me. Probably worse for her. I started as a bullet hit the ground in front of me, spraying bits of corn and dirt all around. Another whizzed past my head, and I bent lower. I heard Evans draw breath through clenched teeth, but other than that she didn’t make a sound.

  “You hit?” I whispered.

  “Only a scratch.”

  A couple of more shots came, further to our right, and then it stopped.

  We sat still. It might be a trick to lure us out. Zip-tied hands versus guns were not good odds. I saw Evans’ look up from the corner of my eye. Head tilted, like she was listening to something. A sort of swishing sound reached me as well. It was more distinct than the soft sound of a weak breeze that moved the corn stalks in a soft undulating motion around us.

  Footsteps to my left. I could hear one of them running. They were desperate now, looking blindly, needing luck to find us. Or we needed luck not to be found.

  With my hands tied behind my back, I had no way of checking the time. But we sat there for what felt like ten minutes before we heard something new. Shouting again, but further off. Over at the farmhouse, I thought. Someone answered. The voice a little closer, but still some way off.

  Then a car door slammed shut. And another one. The engine turned and I heard them drive off.

  “Wrong direction,” Evans whispered to me. “The other car headed for town.”

  I, having been slammed to the ground at that point, had not seen that. She was right. It sounded like they headed away from Ashport, not toward it. That was odd.

  “A trap?” I whispered back.

  She shrugged, and by silent agreement, we kept still. It didn’t take long though before we heard the sounds of engines again. Coming the other way this time. I risked looking up, barely poking my head through the corn stalks, and saw the black pick-up I’d seen in the courtyard driving past the farmhouse toward Ashport. And then the gray sedan following close by.

  “What the hell?” I said with a level and measured voice despite my surprise. “My car.”

  Evans popped her head up, too, seeing both cars as they disappeared down the road, a cloud of dust rising behind them.

  Evans stood up then. I noticed blood on her right arm, and her left thigh. “Were you hit? I asked and looked closer. She seemed fine.

  “They nicked me,” she said and I believed her. The bullets had scraped her skin, the surprise had probably stung worse than the near hits. Damn, I’d thought I had been lucky with the near misses.

  “Come on,” she urged. “We don’t have much time.”

  “Time for what?” I asked, following her, ignoring my stiff legs from the prolonged kneeling on the ground.

  “Don’t you think one of the neighbors will have called the cops because of all the gunshots?”

  She was likely right. We didn’t see any houses from the Kreutz farm, but I remembered from looking at the map earlier that there were several neighboring farms. They would know the farm was abandoned, and the gunshots would seem suspicious. I didn’t see the problem, though, and said so. “We need them here.”

  “Really?” she said, turning toward me. “And what kind of assumptions do you think they’ll make when they find us here?” Her tone was not level. She’d been calm and focused ever since getting out of the car. She’d actually been possible to work with, but now as the kidnappers had left with Andrea, her usual attitude was returning.

  She stepped back toward me. Standing there in the middle of the field, hands tied behind our backs, we must have looked like we were contemplating something profound.

  “How did you get here? Why? Why didn’t you call for backup?” Her damn smirk came back at that one. “Why am I here?” she continued. “Why are there traces of the kidnapping here? Again–why are you here and how did you get the information?” She stopped and looked at me with expectation.

  God damn it, she was right. Telling them a psychic sent us? All they would find there was evidence of the kidnapping…and me and Evans. And I was the only witness to the kidnapping and shooting in the alley. Hell, even I’d be suspicious of me. Evans wasn’t the only common denominator now. I was, too.

  “That’s what I thought, Detective,” said Evans, seeing the realization on my face, no doubt. She started jogging through the barley, and I followed, teeth clenched at the thoughts churning around in my head. What the hell had I gotten myself into?

  Evans headed back toward the house, not worried one of the kidnappers had stayed behind. She headed straight for a small and rickety shed I hadn’t noticed earlier. It stood on the other side of the hedge we’d followed to the house.

  “We need to get these off,” she said matter-of-factly as she kicked the door open. It was dimly lit and, unlike the house, full of equipment. She must have found the rake in here. I located a pair of cutting pliers and we headed outside where we could see better and I could stand upright. Placing the pliers on the strips wasn’t easy, but we managed and were soon cut free. Evans, pliers in hand, bent down and picked up the cut plastic strips, before heading for the courtyard. There she picked up the pieces of the rake. I saw the white van still parked in the barn. Of course they’d ditched it. All the cops were looking for it. Evans looked around and nodded toward the wall near the corner of the house. My gun lay on the ground, forgotten by everyone in the chaos. I picked it up, realizing the kidnappers now had everything except the weapon. The car, my badge, cuffs, my keys, wallet, phone…this was not good.

  Evans headed for the back of the house, toward the back door. I realized she was going back through our actions with methodic ease. She pulled at her sleeve and wiped the door handle.

  “Did you touch anything else?”

  I thought about it but shook my head. I hadn’t touched anything as we went through the house. Neither had she, it seemed, as she then turned and walked out toward the road.

>   “You’re way too versed in this,” I said. “And why are you dragging all that crap along?”

  “Don’t want the wrong people to find it,” she said.

  “The police you mean?”

  She didn’t answer, but it was clear. The things she carried were full of prints…DNA. Things that could place us there. What had my life become after spending twenty-four hours with her? I was dangerously close to being connected to a kidnapping I had nothing to do with. I should have gone back for the phone. Then I’d have been ahead of the situation. Needless to say, I was in a bad mood as we began our long walk back to town. That, in turn, did not make her any more pleasant, and it was a silent and dreary affair.

  About fifteen minutes after we’d left the farm we heard the sirens approaching. Evans was right. Someone had called the police.

  “We can’t be seen,” she said and walked left, off the road into a wooded area. I had no choice but to follow, shortly thereafter seeing two cruisers passing us on the road. We weren’t close enough for me to see who was driving, but it didn’t matter at this point.

  “We should stick to the woods,” she said after they had passed, the sirens fading. “At least stay off the road. We shouldn’t be seen by anyone else, either.”

  I said nothing. Simply went along with her.

  About half an hour later we saw a new police car, a beige sedan. That was Bowman and Kaye. The officers on sight must have realized what place they had come to. Shortly after them came a black sedan. No sirens, not even speeding.

  “That would be Agent Larkin,” I said, mostly to myself, but Evans halted in her tracks a moment, worried about the guy. She should be if he was trying to kidnap her as well. She sure seemed to be popular for all the wrong reasons. Collier’s file on her indicated she’d had another identity up until five years ago. I couldn’t help speculating on what she’d been involved in then to have so many people trying to get her now. She wasn’t talkative on the issue, though. No matter how I phrased the questions.