by Christa Wick
Her tetanus shots were also up to date. That didn’t mean the bite wouldn’t make her sick. There was plenty of other everyday bacteria that could enter the wound from the fox’s saliva or from her injured cheek being plastered to the filthy ground after she passed out.
Once calm, she tested the rope that still bound her wrists. Her earlier struggling had loosened the knots. With a little more straining and twisting, Ashley freed her hands, her movements slow and tense to avoid drawing the rabid fox’s attention and ire.
Maintaining the same careful movements, she felt around the area behind her. Her fingers brushed an empty crate. Securing a strong grip on it, she eased into a sitting position.
The fox eyed Ashley but didn't move.
Resting her back against the wall, she eased the crate in front of her to fend the fox off if necessary. Keeping one hand on the crate, she used the other to strip the rest of the torn burlap bag from her head.
As the last of the bag came loose, a scab ripped free of her scalp, taking with it hair torn from the roots where the blood had clotted around the burlap.
Head, cheek, leg—it all combined to make her feel sick again. Ashley slowly breathed through the next few minutes until she was able to push against the crate and stand up. She clung to the wall for support, carefully working her way to the door, unseen nail heads and brads scratching at her hands.
Ashley pressed her ear against the door, only the radio audible. She rattled the handle then listened again. No response beyond the reaction of the foxes in the room. She examined the doorframe, her chest constricting with a fresh wave of despair. She had practiced door breaches, even performed one in the field as part of a team. The first thing in assessing the door itself for a breach action was whether it was a “push” or a “pull.”
A single healthy adult, unarmed, with a practiced kick, could execute most push breaches. Without a shotgun, some other kind of charge or a two-man battering ram, a pull breach was a non-event.
Surrounded by the foxes, the hinges on the other side of the door, Ashley was looking at a pull, not a push. Testing the door’s integrity, she leaned all her weight against it. The wood groaned but the door held fast.
Standing on her good leg, she slammed her shoulder against the solid surface. The rattle of a padlock on the other side and bile rising up in her throat were the only outcomes.
She had to try a kick. The handle was on the same side as her injured leg. She could still kick with her right, turning at an angle. She just didn’t think her left would support her all the way through delivering the kick.
“Damn,” she breathed out, leaning against the door as her stomach churned from too much time already on her feet.
Hold right, kick left. That was her only option and she needed to execute the maneuver soon. Her energy was flagging. Judging by the damp nature of her outfit, she had been sweating while she was passed out. The first stages of dehydration were already evident.
Grimacing with each step, she moved into position. Taking slow, deep breaths, she visualized the breach, measuring where her foot with its bad ankle would strike and how high she would lift the leg before kicking out.
Drawing one final fortifying breath, Ashley unleashed. The flat of her foot hit exactly where she needed it to go.
The door held.
Ashley folded, vomit erupting from her as her hands slammed against the ground to break her fall. Two more eruptions dressed in Ashley’s screams followed. Collapsing to the side, she blacked out.
Untold minutes later, Ashley dragged herself to the wall and sat up. Brute force wasn’t getting her out of the locked room, so she had to think her way out.
She hadn’t seen her kidnappers, but they knew her identity and her job. That she was in a room filled with foxes suggested an illegal quarry. But the kind of payday the man had raged over—a quarter million dollars—was too large for the kind of cut a guide, or even most organizers, would receive.
Still, if it was a fox quarry, the men would need to come back for the animals. Even if they had kidnapped her with the idea of releasing her, once the police alerts went out and her face was all over the news, they would start to get nervous.
Once they got nervous, she was as good as dead.
“Let them try,” Ashley growled as she clawed her way into a standing position. Keeping her cast turned toward the rabid fox, she explored the room in search of anything useful. A crowbar would have been excellent, but her options were limited to plastic milk crates, dirty hay, and an unlit bulb that hung from an electrical cord in the middle of the ceiling.
Don’t forget the foxes, she snorted. Of course, unless she figured out how to safely catapult them at whoever walked through the door next, the animals couldn’t be weaponized.
What could she weaponize?
She scanned the room once more. Across from the door, located high on the wall, two small rectangular windows gave the space its only light. The glass had been broken long ago, but the rotting frame still clutched at a few shards.
Gathering the unoccupied crates, Ashley constructed a staircase high enough she could climb up to the windows. They looked out on an open field. She couldn't be sure, but it looked like there was a dirt road cut between where one field ended and the next one began.
From the position of the sun, she figured she had only a few hours of daylight to work with—provided her captors didn’t return before then.
Pushing back the pain, she added more crates to stabilize the makeshift platform and increase its height. Grabbing one last crate, she climbed up, worked the two biggest shards loose and set them aside before using the crate to smash out the remaining jagged pieces of glass from one of the window frames.
While she would never be able to climb out of the window, she could, with careful twisting, get her head through the opening without slashing her jugular. What she couldn’t do was get a better view of the surrounding environment. The one-hundred-eighty degree panorama before her was nothing more than fields and the wall of the lonely outbuilding in which she was confined.
Ashley took a seat and used one of the glass shards to rip at the voluminous skirt of her costume until she had removed enough to serve as a distress flag. Climbing back up, she draped the fabric out the window.
It didn’t look like a distress flag, but she needed to work every angle of rescue and self-defense available to her.
Next she wrapped the end of the shards, turning them into makeshift knives she could wield without slicing into her own flesh. As an added layer of protection, she wound strips of fabric around her palms. Then she cut a few more strips in case she got the upper hand and needed to tie anyone up.
Or strangle them until they passed out and then bind them.
Ashley looked around for the next item of business. There was a light above her head, but no light switch. Either the pull string had long ago vanished or the switch was on the other side of the door and thus in her captor’s control.
She needed to remove that control.
Panting through the pain, she took apart her staircase and made a sliding, precarious platform in the middle of the room that was high enough for her to unscrew the bulb. She pulled on the electrical cord disappearing into the ceiling, hoping and finding that there was excess cord tucked up inside.
With the base that the bulb screwed into wider than the handle cut-outs on the plastic crates, she worked her way around the room until she found one with a chipped handle. Finding the opening just big enough to fit the base through, she tied the cord off against itself.
Sweat from the pain, heavy costume and stale room poured down her face. Ashley took another break, her gaze calculating the changes in the light coming through the windows. Dusk would settle soon. The men would likely return when it did.
Regaining her feet, she moved the crates just beyond the arc of the door to create a trip hazard if the men waited until nightfall. Testing the swing of the electrical cord, Ashley determined she would be able to launch it
s attached crate straight into the face of the next person to walk into the room.
With no more traps to set, only the waiting remained.
Ashley built a final platform of crates about as high as a barstool. The height allowed her to rest her back against the wall and keep the weight off the injured leg without getting on the floor. That eliminated the painful process of standing up before she could launch her attack.
She rested like that, holding her makeshift weapons as daylight faded to night and she was left alone in the dark with the foxes.
She thought of Walker as she waited. Conjuring up his smile and the comfort of his green gaze made the pain more bearable. The endorphins kicked in when she moved on to thinking of his touch and, most of all, his desire to protect her. Knowing that he was out there looking for her—that his entire family would be helping with the search one way or another—Ashley felt hope.
Fatigue overwhelmed her. Again and again, she jerked awake from sleep that lasted only minutes or mere seconds. Each sudden involuntary movement brought with it fresh pain that seared her flesh and dug its daggers deep into her shinbone.
Hearing the door rattle long after the light had faded from the sky, she snapped to attention. Her hands tightened reflexively around the weapons. She’d lost hold of the cord, but felt its weight against her leg and snatched it up.
In the room beyond, someone yelled, the words lost to the still blaring radio. A sharp crack of metal on metal rocked the door and then it flew open. Running into the room, a man stumbled over one of the milk crates. He didn’t go down. Whipping the electrical cord with all the strength she had, Ashley sent the suspended milk crate on a collision course with his head.
The hard plastic connected, the effect instant as the man collapsed.
A hulking male rushed into the room shouting.
With instinct and fear flooding her muscles, she stepped into his path, both glass shards raised and ready to slash at the second intruder’s face and neck.
He grabbed her wrists, jerked her arms wide.
“Ash, no!"
“Walker?” Nothing more than the spill of headlights through the garage door lit the small room, but her eyes finally adjusted enough that Ashley could make out the man’s shadowy features.
“Walker!”
Dropping the weapons to the floor, Ashley folded into him. She cried his name, couldn’t stop crying it. Grabbing her tightly, Walker held her to his chest, bringing fresh tears to her eyes as he unwittingly pressed against the wound on the back of her head.
"You're safe now. I've got you."
Still holding her, he looked around. "Where's Emerson?”
“Em…er…son?” Ashley asked, her brain incapable of processing information.
A groan rose up from the ground.
“Who hit me?"
Ashley started crying again, her apology a wet jumble of words.
"Oh, Emerson, I'm so sorry."
"'S 'at you, Ash? You 'kay?"
"Y-yes, I'm o-okay."
“Good,” he said. "I'm just gonna lie here for…a time.”
Steering Ashley onto a barrel in the outer room, Walker snatched up the radio hooked to his brother’s belt.
“Agent Emerson is hurt. Get some men out to the garage,” he shouted into the device. "And a medical bag!”
"Hey," Emerson asked from the floor. “Are these foxes real?”
Most of the animals had pressed themselves flat against the walls of the small room during the fight. Despite the open door, they continued to cower as the rabid fox guarded its new territory. Inches from Emerson’s face, the diseased creature crouched low and snarled, its head darting forward as if measuring the distance to attack.
"I think it's rabid," Ashley whispered.
"Stay still,” Walker warned his brother.
Slipping out of his jacket, he held it in front of him, slowly advancing on the fox. The rabid animal turned toward him, its growl deepening. Walker inched another foot closer—and pounced. The jacket blanketed the animal, its body trapped as Walker scooped it up.
Emerson backed away on his knees, Walker following. When both men were out of the room, Ashley shut the door. Walker took the lid off the barrel and tossed the fox inside, slamming the lid shut and placing a car battery on top as the animal went wild trying to claw its way up and out.
He turned off the heavy metal music still blaring, then yelled into the two-way. "Where's that medical bag!"
A young man ran into the garage, his uniform identifying him as a deputy from the county next to Willow Gap, the same county as the museum and park.
"Got it right here, Mr. Turk.”
"Good! Find a light!"
Fumbling along the wall, the man found the switch to the garage's overhead light and turned it on.
Walker looked from Ashley to his brother. "I don't know which one of you to tend first."
She didn't want to imagine what Walker saw when he looked at her. Dried blood matted her hair in at least two spots. Her cheek felt like a large scabby mess, which was definitely swollen and probably bruised, too. The dress Lindy had fitted to her body was destroyed between the ragged cutting Ashley had done to create the flag and all the straw, dirt and animal waste on the floor.
Emerson weakly gestured in her direction. "Take care of Ash. I'm just gonna have myself a little nap."
He slumped onto the floor as the last word left his mouth. Walker hurried over and raised his eyelids. Pulling a small penlight from the bag, he flashed it at Emerson’s pupils then gently ran his fingertips over his brother’s scalp.
Still standing, Ashley concentrated on watching Walker as he worked. He wouldn't stay still. Neither would the floor, or Emerson or the barrel that held the fox.
"He's badly concussed. We need to call an ambulance." Meeting Ashley’s unfocused gaze, Walker added, "For both of them."
"Right away, sir." The deputy grabbed his radio and yelled for dispatch to order an ambulance stat.
Walker sat Ashley on the floor then gently tipped her head forward.
"Spread your knees."
Breaking a chemical cold pack from the medical kit, he handed it to the deputy kneeling next to Emerson.
Uniformed men poured into the garage.
"Gentle pressure," Walker told the deputy.
Ashley croaked out a request for water.
"Just a second, baby.” Walker lifted her head and flashed the small penlight in her eyes. From there, he checked her ears and scalp. "I need to make sure it's safe for you to drink anything."
At last, he seemed satisfied she wasn't going into shock or suffering from a concussion. Pulling a deputy over to Ashley, he told the man to give her a little water and then turned his attention back to Emerson.
As the sound of sirens came into focus, she heard Walker breathe a ragged sigh of relief.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Emerson was admitted for the night at the county hospital. Walker insisted that a doctor clear Ashley to go home after she tried to check herself out. By the time she was released from the emergency room, Siobhan had arrived with fresh clothes and crutches.
“I booked a hotel for your mom and me,” she told Walker. “She wants to be here when Emerson is released.”
Hearing the exchange, Ashley waited until she was alone with Walker.
“Your mom needs you,” she said. “I’m going to find a ride—”
“No.” He took her face in his hands, the grip unyielding. He shook his head, silently repeating the command. “I’m taking you home.”
Ashley stared at him, body slightly rocking side to side, her gaze pleading for clarity.
“Which home?”
He caressed her cheek. Stepping closer, Walker wrapped his arms around her. Pressing a kiss against her temple, he answered.
“My house.”
Breathing in his scent, she buried her face against Walker’s chest and whispered.
“I’d like that.”
He held her a few m
ore seconds then had her sit down while he pulled the truck up. He came around to the passenger side and eased Ashley into the cab.
She leaned back, the perilous day and half a pain pill dragging her toward sleep. Fighting to stay awake, she reached across the seat and rested her palm across Walker’s muscular thigh.
“You haven’t told me yet,” she said, her voice scratchy.
“Told you what?”
Ashley heard the new note of caution in his voice but she was too tired to pull on that particular thread.
She gave his leg a light squeeze.
“How you found me.”
He took his hand from the steering wheel long enough to swipe at his jaw.
“Well, first we worried that it was a complete stranger abduction—some monster saw a beautiful woman alone and on crutches.”
“You think I’m beautiful?”
The question escaped with a low, incredulous laugh. She had cleaned up in the hospital bathroom as best she could. And her clothes were fresh. But the cast was a mess and the hair she had pulled into a bun might as well have rats crawling through it.
Bringing her hand to his lips, Walker kissed it.
“Always, Ash.”
He was being kind. She knew how bad she looked. But she didn’t have the energy or desire to push back.
“So how’d you decide they were specifically targeting me?”
“Didn’t,” he answered. “But Madison argued that the location and timing of the kidnapping was extremely high risk. And there was evidence—inconclusive—that there were two kidnappers, which would be unusual, Madigan said, for a predator abduction. So we worked both possibilities, starting with news alerts.”
“But you didn’t know the vehicle, no ID of the men, and they made sure no one saw me before they dumped me in that room.”
“We used the video you took at the museum and the picture from the fake Michael Abbot’s driver’s license.” He exhaled, his hands trembling for a moment against the steering wheel. “We were still getting nowhere until I read through your logbook and saw the conversation you recorded with Frank Messeger’s daughter.”