Wilderness Pursuit

by Michelle Karl

  “Firearms permits should be the least of your concerns right now. Not that you’ll ever actually have a chance to be concerned with it. I’d apologize, but I’m not sorry.” Mike snorted and waved the armed men closer to the cart as he spoke to Sam and Kara. “You two slide to the edge here with your legs stretched out. We’ll cut the ties around your legs so that you can walk yourselves inside, but you try anything stupid and you’ll find yourself missing a kneecap.”

  “Seems counterproductive,” Sam said, “if you want us to walk on our own.”

  Mike ignored the jab, but Sam didn’t miss the muscle tic at the corner of the man’s mouth. Intriguing. Was the threat actually a bluff? Now was not the time to test it, however. Sam needed a better handle on their surroundings and what they were walking into first—literally. He scooted forward, and Kara followed suit. Mike took the gun from one of his goons, and the scruffier of the two guys came forward to cut the zip ties around their legs, then yanked them out of the cart one at a time, starting with Sam. Rather than release Kara, however, the man kept his hand firmly clamped on her shoulder.

  “Stop touching me,” she growled, and the sound made Sam want to take a flying leap at their captors, despite knowing full well that Kara could take care of herself.

  “The Mountie won’t run without you.” Mike smirked, and Sam hated that he was right. “So, no. Jay will hang onto you for now.” The foreman swung his attention to Sam, palms raised to the sky. “Consider it a compliment, lawman. I know you’re well trained and probably very good at your job, so I’m not willing to take any chances.”

  Kara twisted in her captor’s grasp, and Sam saw how the man’s fingers dug into her shoulder. “Ease up, at least,” Kara pleaded. The scruffy guy looked at the foreman, who shrugged almost imperceptibly. The instant the goon’s grip eased—and almost faster than Sam’s eyes could track—Kara dropped into a crouch to break the man’s hold on her upper body, then pivoted and brought her knee up hard. The man screamed in pain, dropped the weapon he’d been carrying in his other hand and stumbled backward clutching at his groin. A second shove from Kara’s heel tipped the man over, straight into the second goon, who’d been following too closely behind them. That man went down as Kara spun to face Sam—and collided right into the barrel of the foreman’s handgun. It pressed against her temple, digging into the skin.

  Sam’s blood froze in his veins as Kara stilled, her lips settling into a firm line.

  “I told him,” she said, her voice soft and calm, “to stop touching me.”

  The foreman barked a laugh. “And that’s the second time you’ve tried that move. More successful this time, I see. Guess the Mountie isn’t the only one who’s well trained. Fine. We won’t take chances with you, either.”

  Sam’s stomach sank as the goon behind Kara climbed to his feet and thrust his gun against her spine. Maybe the escape attempt hadn’t been the smartest move on her part, but her reasons were clear. She was sick of being underestimated—and if she’d been a hair faster in her reaction time, she might have successfully distracted the foreman long enough for Sam to have knocked the gun away. If only Sam had known what she was about to do—had he missed her signal? Had he just messed up their only chance to escape by being distracted?

  Her eyes swung to find his, and he read the apology there. She had nothing to apologize for, as far as he was concerned.

  “Get moving,” the foreman snapped, marching to the head of their line. “And the next person to try something gets hot lead in a limb of my choosing.”

  “How far are we from the river?” Sam asked, a last-ditch idea sparking. If they weren’t far, maybe he could signal Kara to try again. They could dive into the woods and book it to the river. Even if he wasn’t familiar with their current surroundings, he felt certain he could lead them back to the edge of town by following the major river that crossed the northeastern half of the province.

  Mike made a rude gesture over his shoulder before answering. “You think I’m stupid? I’m not supposed to tell you anything.”

  Sam glanced at Kara, wondering if she’d caught the man’s words. Supposed to. Which meant that Mike was playing by someone else’s rules and not calling the shots. Perhaps there was a way to work that to their advantage.

  The party surged forward, and Sam finally saw what they faced next. They were at the edge of a small clearing, surrounded by the deep woods—but they hadn’t traveled as far as he’d feared. The air hadn’t changed or cooled, and the trees were as thick as they’d been back at the site. Farther north, the land shifted to a sparser spread of vegetation, especially closer to the border shared with the Yukon.

  At the back of the clearing sat a decrepit-looking trailer home, a likely remnant of vacationers to the area back in the seventies or eighties. The white paint on the outer shutters now had a murky yellow cast, and the blue siding was faded, patchy and falling off in random spots. Filmy curtains hung in the windows, and to the right of the trailer was a halfhearted attempt at an attached garage-like shelter. The roof had been connected to the trailer by galvanized steel sheeting, and the wooden supports looked unlikely to survive another winter, let alone another major storm.

  Sam watched in horror as a fourth man led Brenik and Zephyr toward the makeshift shelter. Relief that the horses were unharmed wasn’t enough to offset the incredulity of stabling them in that thing. “Do you have blankets? Water? You can’t keep them in there overnight without heat and hydration. It’s too cold.”

  “Don’t worry about them, they’ll get star treatment. You, on the other hand?” Mike waved his hand, and one of the goons shoved Sam in the back, sending him stumbling up the trailer steps. He and Kara were herded through the front door, pushed down a short hallway and tossed into a small, nearly empty room. It happened so fast that Sam couldn’t take good stock of the trailer’s interior, which irked him almost as much as being shoved into an isolated space without food or water. Predictably, a lock clicked into place on the other side of the door.

  “At least we can stand up this time,” Kara muttered.

  That was the only upside. The room lacked a window and was bare of furnishings, save for two pieces of shoddy furniture: an aluminum frame bed pushed up against the back wall, and a cloth folding chair with torn, yellowed fabric sitting next to the entrance. Neither item seemed useful, but the chair drew Sam’s attention back to the only exit. He leaned against the door, testing its give. The thin wood seemed flimsy and easily broken—he had a feeling that one swift kick would take the whole thing down—but that didn’t help when men with guns waited on the other side.

  The truth was that they were trapped in a windowless box in the middle of nowhere with no plausible means of escape. And as far as Sam could figure, it’d be hours before anyone realized they were missing—and by then, it would be too late.

  FIVE

  The moment the door closed, leaving her and Sam alone and semi-incapacitated inside the small room in the trailer, Kara saw it on his face—uncertainty mixed with fear. Sam had no idea what to do. She observed him as frustration, anger and resignation battled for dominance. With their hands tied behind their backs, they had even fewer options. On the plus side, she felt an odd sense of gratitude that of all people, she’d ended up trapped in the room with Sam. As an RCMP officer, he’d surely have the necessary training to get out of tricky situations, not to mention people who’d notice if he went missing for any duration of time. Surely his brothers would start to ask questions when they didn’t hear from him—then again, she’d overheard him say that today was originally supposed to be his day off, so Aaron and Leo might assume he’d gone off the grid to enjoy some alone time after their trip out to the dig site. It could take the whole day or longer before her and Sam’s absence was noticed by family members or colleagues.

  But just like her impulsive breakaway attempt outside, she couldn’t very well sit around and do nothing. It was he
r fault they’d gotten into this mess—she had a hard time disagreeing with the foreman there. If she’d just followed the schedule like she was supposed to instead of coming up to the site a week early, there wouldn’t have been an issue. Well, there’d have still been an issue, but she might have avoided this mess...and yet then Gaida Industries would have hidden the evidence and possibly gotten away with its deception. Which made it a good thing that she’d come up early—but was it worth their lives? She groaned and slid to the floor, resting her head between her knees.

  “Hey, Kara, hey.” Sam hurried over to crouch beside her. He bumped her shoulder with his own, and she flinched involuntarily. He drew back with an apologetic half smile, as though he thought he’d done something wrong. He hadn’t, but he spoke before she could get out her own apology. “I can tell that you’re blaming yourself for this, don’t try to convince me you’re not. This isn’t your fault. These guys are clearly determined to get their way, and they’d have taken advantage of you one way or another. We’re going to get out of here, I promise.”

  She almost laughed. “How can you promise that? I know you, Sam. I know that look you had a moment ago—the one that says you have no idea what to do next.” His gaze flicked to the door and back to her, confirming her suspicions. “If I’m not allowed to blame myself for this, you can’t get upset for being out of ideas.”

  “Fine. I don’t suppose you have any ideas? That was a brave stunt you pulled outside. I wish I’d been quicker to react.”

  She looked sharply at him, but he wasn’t making fun of her. “Thanks. I’m sick of people thinking I’m weak or incompetent because I’m a woman, or because I’m short and have a slight build.”

  “If it helps, I’ve never thought any of those things, but your physical strength surprises me.”

  She shrugged, feeling warmth in her cheeks. “Field archaeology requires a ton of strength and stamina. And it wasn’t brave. I should have thought it through and worked harder to signal you instead of assuming you’d catch on.”

  He offered a lopsided smile. “We’ll get it right next time. Speaking of which... I’d love a way to get that door open without anyone noticing, but this trailer is small and sound carries. The men’s voices are muffled, but we can hear that they’re talking. If we try to break down this door, I guarantee we’ll be in trouble.”

  “Because we’re not already?”

  He pursed his lips and nodded sharply. “Point taken. The men are probably in the kitchen figuring out how to get rid of us as we speak. I suspect we have until dusk to come up with a plan. Not to scare you, but guys like these aren’t going to want to deal with prisoners overnight. We’ll just complicate their long-range plans.”

  Kara swallowed hard on the lump in her throat. “It’s got to still be midmorning, right?” Sam nodded in agreement. “All right. We have time. No need to panic for at least a few hours. Do you think they’d let us go to the washroom? We could scope out the rest of the trailer and they’d have to untie our hands.”

  “It’s a good start, but then what? They’ll retie our hands as soon as we’re out of the washroom and we’ll be back to square one. Though I guess we could always search the washroom for nail clippers or something else with a sharp edge and hide it in a pocket. Not that I have a clue what we’d do once our hands were freed, but it’d be a start. We’re going to have to take this one step at a time.”

  She tried to envision the exterior of the trailer. She’d noticed a few windows and the poor upkeep of the property. The trailer looked like it had been sitting out in the wilderness for several decades without proper maintenance, which meant weakened seals around areas like doors and windows. Could they push out a window screen? “If there’s a window, you can open or remove it, push out the screen, then climb down and go for help. Steal back your horse.”

  He frowned. “I’m not leaving you here alone. There’s no telling what would happen to you if they discovered I was missing.”

  “And I can’t very well go for help. I don’t know this area at all, and I’d probably end up more lost than we are right now.” She groaned and shifted her weight to lean against the bed frame instead of the wall. Maybe staring at the door would provide some ideas, some clue—but as she moved, the floor underneath her seemed to bow inward. She brushed her fingers against it. The surface felt sort of springy. Spongy, even.

  Did they use porous flooring in old trailers? No, that doesn’t make sense...

  A lightbulb went off inside her archaeologist brain, and she turned wide eyes on Sam. “This trailer is from what, the nineteen seventies? Eighties?”

  He looked around, taking in the space. “I’m not sure, but that’s entirely likely. There’s nothing new about it, that’s for sure. I imagine there are a handful of trailers and cabins like this throughout the area, some in even worse shape. Why does that matter? What are you thinking?”

  She tilted her head to the side. “Come over here and slide your feet under the bed and press down.”

  “Against the floor?”

  “Yes. Don’t look at me like that. You’ll see what I mean.” She waited for him to scoot over, his legs disappearing into the dark space. “Now pretend the floor is a puddle after the first frost and gently push into it.”

  In less than five seconds, Sam turned to her with his mouth hanging open. He kept his voice low. “Did I just...it feels like the floor fell away under my feet!”

  Hope blossomed in Kara’s chest, and she flopped onto her side to look under the bed. The space smelled dank and musty, and she tried not to think about the mold spores they were both inhaling. More important was that under Sam’s feet, they could see a beam of light from the outdoors. “That’s because it did. That’s moldy plywood that’s been disintegrating through years of neglect.” Silently, she sat up and slid her own feet underneath. “We should be able to punch a hole big enough to slide through. There might even be a sharp piece of rebar under the trailer that we can use to cut through these zip ties.”

  “Wood rot. Wow.” Sam shook his head and stared at her with incredulity. Heat rushed to her cheeks at the sudden, focused attention—and she became very aware of how close to her he sat. There was no denying he’d matured a great deal in eighteen years, but that was a very, very long time to go without seeing or speaking to each other. All she really knew about this version of Sam was that he’d followed in his father’s footsteps, despite having insisted all throughout high school that he would never, ever follow that path. Had he become a pushover? Or been forced into this career? She thought not, if the past twenty hours or so had been any indication.

  Sam cleared his throat and she shook herself out of her thoughts, realizing with a flush of dismay that she’d been staring at his mouth.

  “We’ll have to be quiet,” he said. “I don’t know how often they’ll be coming down the hall to check on us.” Sam tilted his head at the door. “But I think both of us could probably squeeze under this frame if we need to. We could try to move it by standing with our backs to the frame and lifting with our hands behind us, but that’d be a risk and more difficult to keep quiet. Less motor control.”

  “Agreed. Let’s go under.”

  In total silence, they pressed their heels through the moldy floor, the weight on Kara’s heart growing lighter every time she felt her foot slip into the open space below the trailer. After several minutes, footsteps approached in the hall outside the room, paused and then grew distant again, though no one knocked or actually bothered to check in. Occasionally, the silence inside the room was punctuated by raised, angry voices from the main living area of the trailer, but this made Kara feel better rather than worse. The longer the Gaida Industries team bickered among themselves, the longer the focus remained off her and Sam.

  We just might make it out of here alive, after all. She leaned sideways and gasped. They’d punched a considerable hole in the floor, definitely big enough for
her and Sam to slip through one at a time. All they had to do was make it through without detection and find someplace to cut their bonds.

  “You go first,” Sam murmured. “If someone comes through the door before we’re both out, I’ll have a better chance of fighting them off and jumping through the gap.”

  This was neither the time nor place to get into an argument, but his assumption still stung. “Didn’t we just have this conversation, Sam? I already told you that it requires more than a little bit of strength and stamina to spend weeks doing archaeological fieldwork. And if that’s not enough reasoning for you, I also studied hapkido in college.”

  He shrugged, and the goodwill she’d felt toward him since he’d rescued her the night before began to evaporate. “I’m sure fieldwork does require a lot of physicality, but—”

  She immediately tuned him out and focused on the task at hand. Hadn’t he just claimed he’d never underestimated her? Words and practice were two different things, though, and the Sam she knew had never managed to make that connection. He might have become more responsible in the past two decades, sure, but that didn’t necessarily extend to any other part of his life—especially not to giving her proper respect for the choices she’d made and for her abilities.

  She broke eye contact and took a deep breath. “Let’s get out of here.”

  * * *

  Had he said something wrong? Yes, her evasive maneuvers outside the trailer had been impressive, but his RCMP training had specifically taught him how to dispatch and incapacitate active assailants, and he’d been about to explain that—but Kara’s rigid jaw and tense shoulders suggested he’d personally insulted her. Truth be told, he’d never heard of hapkido before, so maybe he had insulted her. He’d have to ask her about it later.

  He focused on listening for steps in the hallway as Kara slid under the bed frame and inched her way through the hole, feetfirst. Part of him could hardly believe they’d found a way out of the room, but they weren’t out of the woods yet—literally or figuratively. They were a far cry from civilization, let alone from escaping their captors without further injury.