by Lund, S.
Still, as Brandon drove off, he wondered if he would ever see Anna again, hoping against hope that the answer was yes.
Chapter Four
Anna arrived at the cabin, in a stand of trees next to Long Lake, just as the wind really picked up, and she was glad to get inside. She locked the doors and shuttered the windows, hoping none of the trees around the house would be blown down in the windstorm that was coming. Finally, she lit the fireplace and snuggled down into the sofa, pulling one of the old crocheted blankets over her. She took out a book from the pile on the coffee table and began to read, enjoying the solitude of being tucked away.
Throughout the evening, the wind grew worse and the sound of the trees blowing all around the cabin became louder so that it was almost unbearable. For a while, she thought perhaps she’d made a big mistake staying in the cabin. Instead of sleeping in the bedroom like she planned, she decided to sleep on the sofa, watching the fire, and hoped the gale-force winds wouldn't rip the shingles—or roof—off the cabin. Before she settled down for the night, she made sure that the flashlight on hand, as well as candles and waterproof matches. Her father had been a survivalist of sorts and had taught her well.
She woke in the early light of morning to the low howl of the wind roaring above the roof.
Something loud had woken her, and she sat up in a sweat, her heart racing. As she caught her breath, she glanced around. The only light came from the embers in the fireplace. When she craned her neck to see into the kitchen, the stove's clock was dead—as expected, the power was out.
Damn…
The power had gone out fast, so the freezing rain must have been intense. Depending on the extent of the outage, it could take until the next morning or even later before the power was restored. The cabins in the more remote parts of the coast were always last to get lights back.
Anna wondered what had woken her. She rose from the sofa, shining the flashlight around the room to make sure the roof and windows were still intact. It was then she saw a bright orange-yellow glow coming from behind the drapes at the window. The light was out of place—the power was out and there were no streetlights on the road outside the cabin. She pulled aside the drapes and saw flames on the road a few dozen feet from the cabin's driveway.
Something was on fire. Had lightning struck a tree? She had a hard time making it out but when the snow let up a bit, she saw a truck upside down in the ditch.
She grabbed her parka and pulled up the hood, then slid on her boots. Flashlight in hand, she ran down the steps to the walkway, sliding and almost falling on the paving stones, which were covered by thick ice hidden under a thin layer of snow. She managed to get down the driveway to the road without falling, struggling against the storm's force.
When she arrived, she saw the truck had crashed into the ditch beside the road, slamming into the embankment, and was on its roof. The engine had been on fire, but because of the snow, it had sputtered and was now only smoke and steam. Rainwater partially filled the ditch. Whoever was in the vehicle was in danger, so she went to the door, the water overtopping her boots.
She pointed the flashlight inside where a figure hung from the seat, the seatbelt the only thing keeping him from falling face-first into the water only inches from his head. His arms hung lifelessly in the water.
She shone the flashlight on his face and saw, to her shock, that it was Brandon. He was clearly either dead or unconscious. A big gash on the side of his head dripped blood into the water below.
The truck was old and there were no airbags. Only the seatbelt and shoulder harness held him in. What was he doing on the road to her father's cabin? Whatever the case, he needed medical attention—and with the power out, Anna wasn't sure he would get it anytime soon. She’d have to try to drive into town because he needed immediate care—care that she certainly couldn't give.
She reached to feel his neck for a pulse to see if he was still alive. How was she going to get him out of the overturned truck and into the car so she could take him into town?
She reached around and tried to unbuckle his seat belt, but couldn't manage it. She worried that once she did get him loose, he'd fall into the pool of water only inches below his face. She’d have to work fast to get him out or he'd drown.
She went back to the cabin, taking the incline slowly because of the ice, and found her father's toolbox. Inside was one of those all-purpose Swiss Army Knives with different tools. She could use the blade to cut through the seatbelt. She went back, her hair now covered in snow, the wind whipping it into her face. She leaned into the truck's passenger compartment, cutting the shoulder belt and then the seatbelt around his hips. As she feared, he fell into the water, his face submerged. She had to quickly pull him up and out of the cab before he inhaled any of the water.
She tugged with all her strength and managed to get her arms under one of his, then used her legs to press against the door, pulling him out of the cab and out onto the embankment away from the water. By the time she got him lying flat on the side of the road, she was exhausted. There was no easy way to get him into the house using just her own strength. He was at least fifty pounds heavier than her, and a deadweight. She felt for a pulse again. He was still alive, but he was unconscious despite all the tugging and dragging and a face full of freezing water.
That wasn't good.
She ran back to the cabin and found a wheelbarrow out back near the shed. That would have to do. Gingerly, avoiding the icy sidewalk, she rolled it across the snow-covered front lawn back to the road where he lay, the snow falling onto him, covering his clothes, his hair wet and plastered against his forehead and cheeks. She struggled to lift him into the wheelbarrow, but it fell over each time, and she grew more frustrated by the moment. Around them, the wind whipped the snow in sheets and lightning flashed. Thunder snow—one of the worst kinds of storms. The roar of the wind filled her with fear. She had to get him out of this weather and into the car. He had to get medical care. Despite everything—the storm, the lightning, the snow—she’d have to try to drive into town.
Finally, she managed to wedge his shoulders onto one side of the barrow and lifted it—and him—up so that he was inside. He was heavy, probably two hundred pounds, but the wheelbarrow made it possible to get him up the driveway and to the car. She almost fell twice on the way up the slope. The driveway was icy, and her boots couldn't grip well enough. She succeed in lifting him into the rear passenger side of the Civic then crawled into the back seat and dragged him in from the other side so that he was lying flat on the back seat. Then she went around and bent his knees up, so he fit into the cramped space. She went back inside the cabin and grabbed her bag, then locked the door and went out to the Civic. The driveway sloped down to the main road. The vehicle was rear-wheel drive and she hoped the tires would grip well enough to make it into town.
She started the Civic up and backed down, but on the way, the wheels lost traction because of the ice and the vehicle slid sideways all the way. She feared they’d end up in the ditch right beside the truck. Frantic, she turned the wheel the other way and applied the brakes, but of course, that only made things worse and she slid down backwards into the ditch. She came to rest about two feet from the truck and sat there, cursing herself.
When she tried to drive off, the tires spun uselessly. The more gas she applied, the deeper the tires dug into the wet ground.
She was stuck.
Chapter Five
Anna could have cried at that point, but she had to do something. If she couldn't get him into town, she had to get him into the cabin and see if she could tend to his injuries, whatever they were. There had been a lot of blood in the cabin of his truck—more than she thought should be there from the head wound alone.
She went back to the cabin and retrieved the wheelbarrow, carting it down to the ditch once more. Then she tugged and pulled and angled and finally lifted him into the wheelbarrow. Exhausted, she sat on the ground beside the car for a moment, catching her breath whil
e the wind whipped the snow all around them.
She began moving the barrow up the lawn to the front porch, the load wobbling as she pushed it up the hill, the front wheel sticking in the now-thick muck that was once a nice grassy path. All the while, a mix of freezing rain and snow fell in torrents, lashing across her face from the wind.
Her next problem was getting him up and onto the porch and in the house. She tried to back up the stairs, pulling the wheelbarrow after her, but he threatened to tip out and onto his face in the snowy muck. Finally, exhausted from the effort, she pulled him out and slipped her arms under his, dragging him up one stair at a time, his butt taking most of the beating. She got him onto the porch and out of the worst of the weather, but the force of the wind blew snow under the porch roof, falling on them both.
She opened the front door and managed to finally drag him inside, where she laid him on the floor in the entryway. Water dripped off him, soaking the old Persian carpet that had been in the cabin forever. Without any electricity, she had to rely on her father's battery-powered lanterns, so she lit several, placing them in the living room so she could see what she was doing.
His clothes were soaking wet, making him even heavier, so she removed his black overcoat and boots. Underneath the coat was a leather holster and a Heckler & Koch .45 sidearm. She removed the holster and weapon and placed them on a table by the front entry. She needed to move him somewhere that she could treat him, but her arms were already weak from exertion. She went to the closet in the hallway leading to the bedrooms and grabbed a blanket. Returning to where he lay, she rolled him onto the blanket and pulled it, with him on top, to the sofa. Finally, she lifted him up onto the cushions, shoulders first, followed by his hips and then his long legs.
When he was finally on the sofa, she slumped onto the floor beside him for a moment to catch her breath. She didn't have time to waste, though. She had to figure out what was wrong with him. She knelt by his side and felt for the pulse in his neck, counting the beats. His heart rate was fast and felt thin under her touch. That probably meant he'd lost some blood, but the cut on his forehead didn't seem like it could account for much blood loss.
She took out her cell but there was still no service, so his life was completely in her hands. It made her sick that he could live or die based on her skill in fixing him up well enough until real help could arrive, but there was nothing else to do about it. Luckily, her father had enrolled both Theo and Anna in a first aid course when they were teens, so she knew the basics—but nothing more.
He didn't seem to have any broken bones, although she couldn't tell if his ribs were broken or his pelvis cracked. As she checked his torso, she noticed a hole in his sweater. She pulled his shirt up to check and realized he'd been shot. A bullet wound was visible just above the arc of his left hip, raw and red, oozing blood out of the hole. She grimaced when she saw it, not certain she knew what to do. She gingerly lifted him up as far as she could to check his back, and sure enough, it looked like the bullet had gone clear through. It didn't feel like the hip bone itself had been shattered so she guessed the bullet had gone through soft tissue only.
At least she wouldn't have to dig into his body to remove any bullet fragment.
She gingerly checked the rest of his body, her hands running down his arms and legs to search for other bullet wounds or broken bones. She’d read before of fractures slicing through veins and arteries and accident victims bleeding to death internally. If that was the case, there would be nothing she could do. She knew some first aid, but she couldn't do surgery.
Most important, she had to clean and bandage the wound to stem the flow of blood. She couldn't know if the bullet severed an important vein or nicked an artery. Only time would tell if that had happened—if he died over the next hour or so, she’d know it had.
She found a small emergency medical kit in the stock room where her father had kept his supplies, and brought it to the sofa, along with a basin of warm water and a washcloth. Inside the kit were the items she’d need—some alcohol swabs, sterile bandages, and cotton. She pulled his t-shirt off his body, noting an ornate and colorful tattoo covering his shoulder and his arm—a stylized dragon like she’d seen in Japanese art, wrapping its body and long tail around his bicep, the tail reaching down almost to his wrist.
She slipped on a pair of latex gloves that she found in the kit and began cleaning the area around the gunshot wound with the alcohol swabs. Blood welled up each time she pressed the skin around the entry wound. She hoped beyond hope that the bullet hadn't damaged any critical organs or nicked his intestine. If it had, he'd be at risk of bleeding to death or, if he survived, a raging internal infection.
Next, she applied sterile cotton batting against the wound on the front of his body, hoping to stop the bleeding long enough for blood clots to form. Finally, she covered the wound with the bandages, and turned him completely over so she could clean and bandage the exit wound.
When she got him turned over sufficiently, she saw his back and gasped out loud.
Huge welts crisscrossed his back. They were old scars, healed over, now white with age, but they meant he'd been whipped with something that had left an indelible mark.
It made her sick to think of it. Had he been a prisoner of war? Who would whip someone like that?
She tended the exit wound and then wrapped gauze around his hip in the hopes it would keep the bandages in place. It was difficult to move him given his bulk, but she managed to wrap the gauze around him a half-dozen times before the gauze strip ran out. Hopefully, it would help stop the bleeding.
If not, he'd die, and she’d be helpless to do anything about it.
Once his gunshot wound was bandaged, she turned him onto his back and cleaned the cut on his head, bandaged it, and then wiped the blood off his neck and upper chest. When she finished doing what little she could for him, she sat back and stared at him for a moment, surprised that she hadn't panicked. The training she’d received as a teenager had kicked in.
When he shivered, she realized she’d have to remove his wet jeans as well, so she pulled them off him, struggling because the fabric was soaking and clung to his skin. It was impossible not to notice how impressive he was—strong, his muscles all well-developed and defined.
She stopped to examine his face a bit closer. He was handsome, his features even, his jaw square and strong. Long dark eyelashes almost touched his cheek. Full lips under a well-trimmed beard.
he felt like a silly girl admiring him, so finally she stopped and continued her efforts to dry him off and make him more comfortable. Once he was sufficiently dry, she wrapped a blanket around him, tucking it in tight so he'd be warm. The last thing she did was build up the fire to ward off the cold.
That was it. That was all she could do for him—her defender at Mike's earlier the previous evening. She checked his pants and jacket pockets for his ID, wondering who she could contact once cellular service was restored, but there was none. All he had were a few business cards in his shirt pocket, like the one he had given her earlier.
Why was he on this street, his truck crashing into the ditch next to her father's cabin? Had he been following her? Theirs was the last cabin at the end of the road. The only thing beyond the cabin was a side road leading to the lake and a small jetty where her father launched his boat.
She decided to go back out to the wreck and check if there was anything inside with some ID. Certain that he was as safe as he could be, she pulled on her jacket and boots and ventured back out into the blackness of the night, flashlight in hand. The storm had intensified and was blowing so hard that she struggled at times to stand up straight. She leaned into the open cab door and fished around in the water, searching for anything that might belong to him—a suitcase, a briefcase, anything. All she found was a long black case with a hard-plastic exterior, which she took back to the cabin. She dried off and sat on the chair across from him, then opened it up.
Inside was a rifle, the scope detached and
tucked neatly into a foam compartment. A baffled foam pad kept the rifle in its own form-fitted space. The label on the rifle read Knight's Armament SR-25.
A sniper rifle.
Chapter Six
Anna recognized the rifle because Theo had been a sniper when he was in the military. He had eagerly shown her a page on the internet that described all the different sniper rifles used by various branches of the military.
Had Brandon been a sniper as well? He’d had a Heckler & Koch .45 strapped to his body when she undressed him. That was standard for Navy special operations, like he said he'd been. But this sniper rifle suggested that he was more than a PI. She knew he didn't carry it around for protection. A sniper rifle wasn't the kind of weapon used to protect yourself. It was meant for one thing—to kill at a distance.
As far as she knew, PIs didn't carry around sniper rifles with scopes when conducting investigations.
Who was he?
She ran her fingers along the rifle's stock. Brandon had admitted he was former Navy, DEVGRU, as she’d first suspected when she saw him back at Mike's. She had the feeling he was here looking for her brother, Theo. If he was, why wouldn't he tell her? But given his background, why else would he be in Davis Cove? His cover story about hunting and fishing sites seemed bogus now that she’d found his rifle. Besides, Davis Cove? Why there? There were literally dozens of lakes and towns along the coast that were known for fishing. It seemed entirely too coincidental that he had shown up and crashed his vehicle outside her father's cabin.
Had Brandon come for Theo, expecting to find him there? If so, why hadn't he just told Anna once he knew her name?
Unless and until he woke up and could speak, she wouldn't know.