by Kim Baldwin
She’d hit the small clinic before it opened. Then the grocery, and on the way back out of town, the little airstrip where Sam kept his helicopter. She’d get him to pick her and Jake up in a few days near the bunker. She would give him a GPS position as a rendezvous point. She’d drop Sam off back at the airstrip and helicopter Jake to their next destination.
So the next big decision, then, is just exactly where is that destination to be?
*
Kat was in and out of the clinic in four minutes, two hours before it was to open. It was a typical small-town med station set up to treat routine injuries and complaints. It had simple locks and no alarm system. And she had scoped out the layout of the place and the location of the drug cabinet several months earlier when she was there on a legitimate visit.
It was something she always did—studied the details of the world around her. The architecture of buildings, the layout of the rooms inside, the routines of guards and workmen, the hours of operation. It was mostly habit and exercise for her keen instincts and curious, analytical mind. And you just never knew when such information might come in handy.
She’d had to break into more than a couple of clinics and hospitals to get supplies to self-treat her wounds. So she’d memorized the Tawa clinic when she’d gone in for a shot after having an unexpectedly severe allergic reaction to multiple wasp stings.
Next stop was the grocery store, which had just opened. There were a few cars in the newly plowed parking lot out front, but they belonged mostly to employees.
Kat grabbed a cart and began wending her way through the aisles. She replaced the lost staples and stopped in frozen foods for a stack of TV dinners for Frank and Otter, thankful it was well below freezing outside. She also selected several items so she could whip up more elaborate fare for herself and Jake. She rather liked exercising her culinary talents for such an appreciative audience.
Kat’s mind flashed back unbidden to the seductive look in Jake’s eyes just before they’d kissed. It made her hurry her steps through the store to the checkout. She spent a few minutes securing her unwieldy load of groceries onto the snowmobile, then started up the machine and drove north out of town toward the isolated airstrip.
A pair of eyes followed Kat’s every movement from the time she left the store until her snowmobile was out of sight. Several minutes later, a second snowmobile emerged from behind the grocery’s Dumpster and began following the track of the first.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Kat slowed the snowmobile to a stop twenty feet in front of the helicopter office. The sight of the familiar yellow crime scene tape sent all of her senses on high alert, but she doubted anyone was in the immediate vicinity at the moment. There were no cars, no tracks in the snow, and the place was dark inside.
She could see the helicopter still parked in its usual spot, and that was enough to propel her forward toward the office. She pulled her flashlight from her insulated suit as she approached the door, noticing immediately that the police seal that had been placed across it had already been broken. She picked the lock and went in, shining the light around the waiting area. Then she went to Sam’s office.
The bright halogen beam picked out the fading chalk outline of a body on the floor, and Kat frowned with disappointment. She’d liked the pilot, despite his incessant need to hit on her whenever they did business together. Sam had a certain charm, and he’d been an invaluable help in ferrying supplies to the bunker.
Otter did this, Kat concluded as she studied the large bloodstain on the floor where Sam had died. Otter was looking for me and figured I might be using a helicopter up here. Her anger resurfaced at the pilot’s needless death because of his association to her. She might have to reconsider her decision to let Otter live.
She rifled through the contents of the desk and scanned the office and waiting area, looking for the key to the helicopter, but came up empty. Next she searched the chopper. Still no key. She was frustrated she’d have to come up with a new plan to evacuate Jake. Airlifting her out of the bunker had seemed the perfect solution.
Kat returned to her snowmobile. It was still snowing. Her tracks from town had been nearly covered during her time inside the office. The wind had died down, however, so visibility was good. She’d take a more roundabout way back to the bunker. It would take longer, but there were vast open places along that route, and high vantage points that would enable her to tell if she was being followed.
She started up the machine and pulled out her GPS device for a quick reading. She roared off to the northwest at a fast clip.
She was watched through a pair of high-powered binoculars. But instead of following her this time, the second snowmobile started off in the opposite direction, back toward town.
*
It took Kat four hours to make the trip to town and back, much longer than she’d expected because of the extra stop at the airstrip and the long, circuitous return route she’d taken to avoid a tail. She had spent a full half hour at one point parked on a high ridge, snacking on cheese and crackers while she scanned with binoculars the open area she’d just traveled through. She waited there until she could no longer make out her snowmobile track. Only then did she resume her journey back to the bunker.
She left her snowmobile idling outside the main entrance while she opened the hidden door. She glanced at Frank and Otter. They were as far apart as they could be given the short chain between them, but they remained bound and subdued in the corner.
“Hi, boys,” she called out, projecting her voice over the sound of the snowmobile’s rumbling. “Being good, are we? That’s nice.”
She pulled the snowmobile into the generator room, inching it as close to the two rental machines as she could. It was still well out of reach of her captives. She shut off the engine and closed the outside door, then opened the one to the tunnel.
She carried the groceries into the kitchen, having to make a couple of trips. Once the snowmobile was unloaded, she paused before the two men.
“I’ll be back in a little while to take care of you,” she said in a rather ominous tone that made both men wonder exactly what she meant.
*
Otter tried to sit up. He looked at Frank. “Still think she’s going to let you go?” he asked with a sneer. In the hours that Hunter had been gone, Otter had struggled against the handcuffs until his wrists were raw and had memorized every inch of the room they were in, still seeing no way to escape. His frustration was boiling over. He absolutely hated being confined again after all those years in prison. And he still felt ready to puke from the stink that seemed to pervade the entire room. Frank had been no help whatsoever. He’d hardly said a word the whole time, and he didn’t seem to be working at all to free himself. Just great. I get captured with a guy who looks like the Incredible Hulk, and he turns out to be a chickenshit.
But Frank surprised him. He leaned into Otter until their faces were nearly nose to nose. “I’d watch your tone, friend,” Frank said unpleasantly, as if he’d read Otter’s mind. “Seeing as how I don’t think she would mind if I kicked your ass.”
Otter looked away and scooted to the full length of the chain that connected them. Real smart, he berated himself. He considered how he could make amends with the guy who might be his only help out of here.
*
Kat looked in on Jake after she had put the groceries away and was pleased to find her sleeping soundly. She changed out of her coveralls but kept her gun with her, tucking it into the back of her jeans.
She e-mailed Kenny, asking whether he had any more news about the contract on her life. She also wanted him to find out what he could about the murder at the Tawa airstrip.
She outlined what she knew about Sam, the pilot, but omitted her suspicions of Otter’s involvement. She waited by the computer for a few minutes, but when no immediate answer arrived, she concluded Kenny must be away from his computer and logged off.
She spent a good hour cleaning up the mess in the pantry,
salvaging what she could. By the time she was finished, she had decided to be merciful to Frank, if not to Otter, and let Otter change his clothes. It really was pretty inhuman, she decided, to force anyone to be subjected to that awful aroma in a confined space. She’d scrubbed the floor of the pantry repeatedly, but she could still smell it in the living room even with the door closed.
She took the insulated coveralls that Jake had been wearing, along with thick socks and a set of sweats, out to the generator room. She tossed them on the floor beside Otter.
As she reached down to unlock his handcuffs, Kat put her mouth near his ear. “I don’t have to remind you not to try anything stupid, now do I?” she crooned, as she turned the key and freed his wrists. She stepped away from him and casually reached for her Glock, holding it loosely in her right hand as she watched him rub his sore wrists.
Otter said nothing. He expected her to kill him, so he couldn’t understand what the change of clothes was for.
She gestured to the sweats with her gun. “Frank’s been a good boy. He shouldn’t have to pay for your clumsiness,” Kat said. “Change clothes.”
While Otter was happy to get out of his stinking suit, he didn’t like taking orders from Hunter, and he didn’t particularly relish having to strip in front of her at gunpoint. But he complied, peeling off his insulated outerwear and the layer beneath it until he was left standing in his ratty briefs. He reached for the clothes on the floor, but her voice stopped him.
“Everything goes. Everything stinks.”
Reluctantly, Otter removed his damp underwear, trying unsuccessfully to cover himself with one hand. It was bitter cold in the room. He glanced down, then at her.
She had a smirk on her face.
Otter fought against his rising anger, focusing on getting out of his Jockeys and into the clean clothes. Once that was accomplished, he looked at her again. She motioned with the gun for him to turn around, and he did, putting his back to her and offering his wrists behind him to be handcuffed again.
As she locked the cuffs, she noticed the raw abrasions that were evidence of Otter’s struggles to free himself. She chained him to Frank and checked Frank’s handcuffs closely. He hadn’t tried to escape. She leaned over and whispered into Frank’s ear. “Nice to see you’re being smart. You’ll be pleased with your reward,” she promised.
Kat opened the exterior door and carried Otter’s stinky clothes outside, disposing of them a short distance away under a large downed tree where they couldn’t be seen. By the time she returned to the generator room and closed the panel again, the small room had been sufficiently aired out, but the temperature inside had fallen dramatically.
She returned to the tunnel and gathered up the coats that she had wrapped around Jake. She set them on the floor beside Otter so he would have some insulation against the cold concrete.
He eyed her suspiciously but took advantage of her apparent kindness, rolling onto the coats.
After he did, Kat leaned over him and looked directly into his eyes. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, Otter,” she said, studying his face. “You didn’t make a little stop at the helicopter office in town, did you?” She knew immediately from his expression that he’d done precisely that.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Why did you kill him, Otter?” Kat inquired evenly, not missing a beat. She watched the expression on Otter’s face turn from surprise to confusion in rapid succession.
“I didn’t kill him,” Otter said, meeting her eyes. “He was dead long before I got there. I thought you did it. Cops are looking for a woman.”
He said it so quickly, and with such assurance, she was pretty sure he was telling the truth.
“Maybe it was the blonde,” Frank offered helpfully. “You know, that Scout chick.”
Kat turned to look at Frank. She tried to keep her face expressionless, but he thought he’d detected a hint of surprise at his suggestion, as if she hadn’t considered that possibility before.
“Perhaps,” she acknowledged. She gave him a small nod and a half smile that acknowledged his attempt at cooperation.
She rose and turned to leave. She looked back at Frank before she closed the door. “Dinner will be in a just a little while,” she said, ignoring Otter.
After she had gone, Otter turned to look at Frank. “What the hell happened to Scout, anyway?” he asked.
Frank debated not answering. But he’d been curious about the same thing himself. “Dead is what I think. Hunter wanted to know everything I knew about her, like she couldn’t ask her herself.” He paused, remembering. “At first I thought I was following Scout’s track from the crash site—that somehow she’d made it here and then Hunter caught her. But now I think maybe Hunter caused the car to crash and she brought Scout back here.”
“That doesn’t fit,” Otter said. “Hunter wouldn’t have left such a clear track between the road and this place.”
Frank shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe it was snowing and she thought the tracks would be covered up by the time anyone found the car. Or maybe she was in a hurry to get Scout here while she was still alive, to find out what she knew,” he speculated, “but she died before Hunter got a chance to question her.”
Otter pictured the hatch that had been left open—the hatch he had used to gain access to the bunker—and another scenario occurred to him. “I don’t think Scout was that badly hurt in the crash,” he told Frank. “I got inside through another entrance that had been left standing open. I think Scout used it to escape, and Hunter went after her.”
Otter thought back to the short glimpse he’d gotten of Hunter in the TV monitor, just after he’d gotten into the bunker. “I saw Hunter on one of her surveillance cameras bringing Scout’s body back here. She brought it through a door just like this.” He nodded toward the main entrance beside them.
“It was this door, I bet,” Frank said. “She brought something in she didn’t want me to see. Made me turn my face to the wall.”
“But if she killed Scout when she tried to escape,” Otter wondered, “why bring the body back here? Why not just leave it out in the snow?”
That didn’t make sense to Frank either. “Are you sure Scout was dead when you saw them? Maybe she’s still alive and Hunter’s got her in there somewhere.”
The thought gave Otter a chill. What the hell was Hunter planning to do with all of them?
*
Kat returned to her computer to see whether she’d gotten any response from Kenny. His e-mail was waiting for her.
Good to hear from you. I was getting a little worried. The contract on you is up to a million and a half. I’m pretty sure Garner is behind it. There are rumors three people who went after you all are missing. (You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?) I don’t know if that includes Otter and the woman. The woman is going by the name of Scout. Can’t pin down anything else on her. Let me know if you want me to keep looking. The helicopter pilot you asked me about had his throat cut a few days ago. No suspects, but police are looking for a woman client he was supposed to have met.
She e-mailed her thanks, saying she’d be in touch, and logged off. So Otter was telling the truth.
Kat could not picture Jake cutting Sam’s throat. She didn’t want to. But she knew that was probably what had happened. She felt none of the fury over Sam’s death that she had initially, when she thought Otter had done it. It was no less brutal a murder, and Kat still regretted that Sam probably had died because of his association to her. But Jake meant too much to her now, and the woman had no memory of killing anyone.
It had been hard enough for Kat to bring herself to tell Jake the truth about Jake’s past as a bounty hunter. She would spare her the vivid, violent details of what had apparently been one of her last acts before her amnesia. Kat wondered whether Jake had been fleeing the murder scene when her car had crashed. It kind of made sense. The airstrip was on the same lonely road where the wreck occurred.
It really didn’t matter now. She knew what
she had to do. The police were looking for Jake. That had to be considered in any plan to get them both to another destination. Kat didn’t want to move Jake far if she didn’t have to, but she had to at least get into another law-enforcement jurisdiction.
Kat was lost in thought, staring at the blank computer screen, when she heard a muffled cry through the closed bedroom door.
*
Jake thrashed around violently in the bed, crying out “No! No!” in a voice filled with anguish.
Kat flung open the door so hard it slammed against the wall. She was at the bedside in an instant, fumbling for the light. She put her hands on Jake’s arms and shoulders to pin her to the bed, to keep her from hurting herself further.
Gripped in her nightmare, Jake was feeling no pain from her injuries. “Let me go!” she screamed, struggling against the restraining hold Kat had on her.
“Jake, it’s me,” Kat said, trying to awaken her, but maintaining her firm grip. “Everything is okay, you’re safe. It’s Kat.” She rambled reassurances until Jake finally did calm and opened her eyes.
“Kat?” Jake asked. The nightmare was already fading.
“I’m here.” She took her weight off her hands, releasing her hold of Jake. But one hand remained on Jake’s shoulder, lightly caressing it.
“Blood,” Jake said in a strained voice. “There was a lot of blood.” Mercifully, the details of the dream had already evaporated. All that remained was a large splotch of red in Jake’s mind. She was still breathing fast, but the sense of panic was past.