Watching Their Steps

by Alana Terry

  “I got the best? What did I do that rated me the best?”

  “You got in the wrong place at the wrong time and got a price put on your head.” Karen began packing her things in her duffel bag as she spoke. “It’s part of the process.”

  “Wow.”

  “Look,” Karen began in a much more business-like tone. “I don’t expect you to understand this or even to like it, but the fact is, you’re here and you’re not going anywhere until we know you’re safe, so you can be miserable about it or you can try to relax and commune with nature or something—anything. Just don’t make his job any harder than it already is.”

  “IF I CAME BACK, WHY the locked door, the gun, shackles, and stuff? Why can’t we just exist without the prisoner-slash-guard scenario?” She slapped down a card and drew from the discard pile.

  “Sorry, Erika. It’s just how things are done. People could easily pretend to cooperate. That puts everyone in danger. We just follow protocol, and everyone is safe—” he grimaced, “if not completely comfortable.”

  “So even your comedian had to be locked up? A little old man?”

  Keith took her discard and dumped one of his own. “Yep. And this ‘little old man’ had biceps that most American men would kill for.”

  “Not you.”

  He froze mid play. “What?”

  “Not you. Your biceps have biceps.”

  Unsuccessful at stifling his snicker, Keith played his last cards. “Add up the points.” Smiling to himself, Keith added, “Thanks.”

  “It was an observation, not a compliment.”

  “In this case, it works out to the same thing.”

  “So, I take it Mr. Hilarity was a lot easier to handle than me, eh?” She knew her voice betrayed insecurity, but Erika couldn’t help but ask.

  “In some ways, yes. I mean, he was fit for an old guy, but he was still old. I had to be careful of his medications, and the elderly just don’t have the stamina of a younger person, so in those respects, you’re much easier.”

  “I have the whole blood sugar thing, but I’m reasonably fit.”

  Laughing, Keith collected the cards and began shuffling. “I’d say you’re fit. You gave me a decent workout on Saturday.”

  “What’s the worst part of me?” At the exaggerated look of horror on his face, Erika laughed. “No, really. I want to know.”

  “You’re a woman.”

  “Gee, I didn’t know that was a crime.”

  His attempt to smile failed. “Seriously, it’s an issue. At least Mr. Bruner was a man—an elderly one at that. I knew he wasn’t on the other side of the wall, terrified of the horrible things I might do to him.”

  For a moment, she softened. Despite her mistrust of Keith, she had become confident that he wouldn’t attack her. She started to say so, but knew it was too early. She needed to remain outwardly antagonistic whenever she could—just in case. “Yeah, well, I don’t have that luxury.”

  The second her words were spoken, she regretted them. Despite his attempt to hide it, Keith’s eyes registered shock and then pain. “You’ll have to take my word for it, Erika. I couldn’t—” He sighed. “I just couldn’t.”

  His cell phone rang before Erika could respond. His hello was cut off by a firm order, “Get out of there. Now.”

  Erika could hear Karen’s voice from across the room. Her eyes grew wide with panic as Keith shoved the phone back in his pocket and raced for her room. All curiosity as to why he kept their clothes in the duffel bags evaporated as he threw the few things left around the room and bathroom in her bag and zipped it shut, racing to the car with it. In the space of time it took her to process that Karen’s call meant danger—to them or her she wasn’t sure—Keith dumped his clothes, the first aid kit, his Bible, and a huge sweep of food into the trunk of the car.

  “Need the bathroom?”

  “No, just went.” Erika grew fearful. Keith knew every move she made. She’d joked to herself that he probably knew when she needed to relieve herself before she did.

  “Right. Okay. I’ve got to put those cuffs on you for a minute.”

  The words didn’t scare her nearly as much as the hesitation. Her normally confident captor seemed flustered and uncertain, making her wonder what kind of danger he—she— they might be in. “Are we okay?”

  He snapped the cuffs on her and sat her in the chair. She’d expected roughness, but in his haste, he was just as gentle as ever. “I’m so sorry, Erika. I’m going to have to drug you.”

  “Drug me! What kind of drug?”

  The stern Keith returned. “Heroin.”

  “What!”

  “I need to be able to have a reason that there is a woman passed out on my seat. I have to have a reason you might tell an officer that I kidnapped you.”

  Bile filled her throat, and she shook as he brought a syringe near her arm. “I hate needles. Please! I won’t tell. I promise.”

  “TRUST ME; I DON’T WANT to do this.” Even as he spoke, Keith held her arm immobile with one hand and injected the heroin with the other. In an unprecedented move, he smoothed her hair away from her face, wiped her expectorate from his face, and waited for the drug to take effect.

  In less than a minute, her skin grew slightly flushed, and he saw the glassy look of euphoria cover her eyes. Feeling like a failure, he unlocked the handcuffs and led her to the car, tossing a pillow in before he urged her into the back seat. “Let’s go, Erika. I’ve got to get you out of here.”

  She didn’t respond. He could see the terror intensified in her eyes. Fear, confusion, and growing cotton-brained effects of heroin mocked him from her eyes, and it tore at his heart. Keith hated this part of his job. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, he inevitably felt like a failure. His job was to protect his people, not create more fear in them than they already felt.

  Without a second glance at the cabin, he bounced through the trees as fast as he dared push the car and breathed easy again once he saw the highway. He only needed ten miles to feel confident. A glance at the back seat in the rearview mirror told him he’d made the right choice.

  He’d have to admit to Allison that she’d been right. You did need to know the intricate details of a person’s life—even every drug she’d ever taken—in order to effectively protect her. According to her file, all morphine products made Erika Polowski excessively drowsy and incoherent. A perfect choice, “If I do say so myself,” he added under his breath.

  For thirty minutes, he drove back toward the gas station he’d used the last trip and grumbled at the lack of darkness. Why couldn’t Karen have phoned after dark? The station was busy, but no one seemed to notice Erika snoozing in the back of the Prelude.

  With a full tank of gas, he turned around and drove back in the direction of the cabin. This was the genius plan of the head of the nerd trio. If you have to leave, retrace steps and then backtrack. You look like you’re going in the direction of where you should be fleeing. Who would expect it?

  Twenty-two miles from the gas station and five from the old cabin, Keith pulled off the road and let the car crawl its way a few yards into the brush before he turned off the motor. A glance at Erika told him she was still out, so he hurried back to the entrance, brushing over tire tracks and broken shrubbery until no one would guess anyone had driven in there for weeks. For three miles into the woods, he stopped the car every few yards and hid what traces of their driving that he could. A true tracker wouldn’t be fooled for a moment, but the average Joe might glance, and seeing nothing blatant, allow his eyes to move along, missing the glaring clues of their presence.

  Just before he arrived at the mini clearing around the second cabin, Erika flung herself from the car and stumbled wildly through the trees. What Keith would have considered as a diversionary challenge the previous day, was nothing less than irritating today. He didn’t have time for this kind of cat and injured, hardly crawling, mouse game.

  It took less than a minute to catch her—the delay being that he
didn’t feel like running. He simply walked to where she stumbled back and forth between the trees muttering about kidnapping, ransom, and the NSA, turned her around, and led her to the cabin. The door wasn’t locked, but considering no one could know the place was there without extensive exploring in just the right place, Keith didn’t expect to find anything off. Filthy, oh the place would be filthy, but not amiss. He’d miss the electricity most.

  While Erika slept off the rest of her drug-induced somnolence, Keith went to work. He hid her car, brought the food into the cabin, gathered as much water as he could, and jury-rigged a new shackle for her out of the handcuffs. That solved, he went to work on fighting the filth of an abandoned cabin.

  As he swept the single bedroom, he called Karen, hoping for news. Just as she told him the old cabin had been torched, he heard the screams of sirens as they wound their way up the hill. He hated this part. Keeping close to where you escaped always seemed scarier when the danger brushed past on its way home.

  “Will you be dropping anything?” Karen assured him that a food and supply drop would arrive as soon as they could appropriate a fire helicopter, which prompted him to add, “Make sure you add an air mattress. There’s only one bed. Oh, and new sheets. I don’t have time to wash these before she wakes up.”

  “We’re sending cheese, beef jerky, a solar battery, kerosene, and personal items for her. They’ll be in pink saran wrap.”

  “Oh great. It’s that time again.”

  “Just about.”

  He knew better than to ask, but Keith couldn’t help but hope. “Are we any closer to nailing these guys?”

  “If we were, would I be sitting here exchanging pleasantries? I won’t be coming back for a few weeks, though. Until we know how they found you, we’re not coming close.” She covered the phone and then seconds later, said goodbye. “Chopper’s moving out. I’m going to make sure they get the right place. See you in a few weeks.”

  “Call me.”

  “Keep your phone charged. Don’t waste that battery on curling irons for Miss Priss.”

  “I can’t let her have a curling iron and you know it.”

  The noise of the helicopter made it difficult to hear, but Karen’s last words sent a new wave of dismay over him. “... and don’t let her call again. If somehow that’s how they found her—”

  The line went dead. He knew she was right, but he didn’t want to think about telling Erika. He also didn’t want to think of the long trek he’d have getting a letter from Erika to the nearest mailbox in the middle of the night. He also didn’t like the realization that it’d mean restraints while Erika slept.

  She stirred on the couch. He felt guilty for putting her on the filthy thing and made a mental note to request dustsheets for all unused safe houses. If she had been asthmatic, they’d have been in trouble. As if taunting him with concerns that didn’t even apply, the smoke in the air thickened somewhat.

  In what felt like minutes but almost an hour later, helicopter blades cut through the air. A glance at his watch showed that time had uncharacteristically flown. He glanced at her and decided to risk it. Once fully awake, she’d still have lingering effects. He’d be able to catch her even if she did run. He hurried outside and watched as the helicopter hovered a few feet from the ground before Karen pushed the pack from the edge and gave the signal to go.

  From his peripheral vision, he saw Erika’s movement and waited, forcing himself to remain relaxed, until she decided to pounce. Would she choose to try to hit him over the head? The thought caused him to shift slightly as he waved— better to be safe than sorry. He stifled a snicker as she rushed at him with every ounce of her one hundred twenty-two pounds. The split-second question was, step aside and let her rush the air or catch her and swing her around like a child and save her from an almost certain fall?

  As tempted as he was to catch her, he knew the swing could encourage vomiting. Just in time, he stepped aside as Erika rushed to tackle him. She stumbled, fell to her knees, and scraped her chin. “Great, another injury to clean and keep from infection.” Guilt tried to take root in his heart, but he couldn’t help the twitch of amusement at the corner of his mouth.

  “You knew I was coming!” Erika’s accusation merely stated the obvious.

  “I did.”

  Chapter 8

  FURY EXPLODED IN HER heart until Erika was sure she’d kill him. “I can’t believe you let—” She grabbed her head, spun in a disoriented circle, and vomited.

  With a grumpy face that contradicted the gentleness and tenderness he displayed, Keith helped her into the house and grabbed a bottle of water. While she retched into a dishpan, Keith rubbed her back, handed her water, and wiped her face and mouth with a wet washcloth—none of which endeared her to him. More irritable than ever, Erika lashed out at him, but to no avail. He seemed immune to her tirades.

  “Drugs! Do you know how addictive drugs are? I can’t believe you did that to me! I said I wouldn’t be a problem! I begged!”

  “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just what we have to do.” She slapped his hand away as he tried to wipe her mouth after another bout of vomiting, but it didn’t seem to faze him.

  “Feel so weird.”

  “It’s the side effects. Drink some more.”

  “I don’t want to drink more! I’m puking here!”

  “You’d rather puke with something to come up than have dry heaves. Besides, dehydration means we have to sedate you and give you an IV. That’s really not what you want to happen.” He pushed the water bottle into her hand and then wiped his face with his sleeve when she used the “sport top” to squirt him with it. “That’s not helping.”

  “But I feel better.” As if unable to ignore the opportunity for irony, her stomach heaved again. “Ugh, why do people think this is so wonderful?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know, Erika. Drink up.”

  “I don’t want to ‘drink up.’”

  Before she could squirt more water at him, her body rejected the last infusion of liquids and spewed it all over his feet. He unwound a few paper towels from the roll Karen had dropped and mopped up his shoes. “I’ll wash them later. Come on, Erika. Take a drink. Squirt me if you think it’ll make you feel better, but get some more liquids in you. If you get dehydrated, you’ll vomit from that too, and it’ll just make it worse.”

  She broke away from him, furious that he acted so nonchalant about having drugged her and the misery it produced, but at the door, he stopped her. “You can’t leave the cabin right now, Erika. I’m sorry.”

  “You are not! What a hypocrite! So, I don’t like your method of keeping me quiet, and now you’re going to lock me up even tighter? What kind of—?”

  “We were just evicted from our cabin because they found us. Do you get that? Erika, they found us! That cabin is on fire right now. They burned it, probably assuming—or at least hoping—we were still in it. Dead. If we hadn’t left, we’d be dead. Do you hear me? Dead.”

  “But you still drugged me!”

  “Yes, I did, and if we had to leave right now, I’d give you a half dose and do it again, so don’t think that me being sorry I had to do it means I am sorry that I did do it. There’s a difference.”

  “You—” Another wave of nausea crashed over her. Dizzy, she stumbled in a semi-circle and then sank to the floor holding her head. “Oh, man...”

  “Come on, Erika,” Keith encouraged, trying to get her to stand. “Let’s get you back to the couch.”

  “I can’t move. Leave me alone. I want my dishpan.”

  At the sink, Keith pumped the lever on the hand pump at the sink, rinsing the dishpan. Erika started to complain, but seeing him working to give her a clean pan made her hesitate. When he returned, he lifted her in his arms and carried her back to the couch. When she eyed the dishpan once more, he handed it back to her and apologized. “I didn’t use the soap. It’s in the bundle, so I can if you want me to, but I thought—”

  “You thought I could clean
up my own puke. First you make me sick, and now you want me to clean it up. What a guy.”

  “I thought you might need it,” he restated as if she hadn’t just ungraciously attacked him for trying to be nice. “Want me to wash it out to kill the smell?”

  “Yeah. Might want to clean the rest of this place while you’re at it.” She tried not to look at the door as she spoke, but it was as if her eyes refused to obey her brain. Even still, he didn’t seem to notice.

  As he stood at the sink scrubbing, she crept toward the door, trying not to make any sudden movements that he might notice. She had to get away. These people were crazy. Drugging her? What kind of “protector” drugs the person he’s responsible for? The same word that seemed to define the entire experience blasted her brain again. Insanity.

  Just as she reached the door, he spoke from the sink, and she bolted before the words registered. “I wouldn’t run—” Still unsteady from the effects of the heroin, Erika fell flat on her face before he could finish his warning.

  “Aaah! What the—” She stared at her feet as if they’d betrayed her. Handcuffs combined with a towing chain that was locked to a ring in the floor were hooked around one ankle. “When did you? I know I made it—”

  “It just took a second when I put you back on the couch. I’m sorry, but you can’t be seen in the yard right now. The car is hidden, but if someone sees us out here, it could get back to A—all the people who are looking for you.”

  With every ounce of mental strength she possessed, Erika forced herself to think about his words repeatedly, until she fell asleep. He’d started to say something with a short “A” sound. Whatever that meant, she didn’t know, but it was a start. She couldn’t let the drugs take that away from her. A. How hard could it be to remember the first letter of the alphabet?

  AS SHE SANK TO THE floor, Keith realized that she’d need help. It’d be impossible to curl up next to that dishpan unless it was empty. Stuffing down the impulse to gag, Keith dumped the contents down the toilet and pumped a bucketful of water to pour into the tank. This no electricity thing would get old quickly. As he handed her the rinsed dishpan, he slipped the handcuff around her ankle, hoping she was too upset to notice. As miraculous as it seemed, it worked. Now, if she’d just stop puking so he could give her detox capsules for her liver.