“A precedent. Right,” He scoffed quietly. “I think I set a few of those myself that had to be repeated, or topped, every year.”
He grew silent, and she thought she heard him chewing, the slight smack of a tongue dealing with sticky peanut butter and no drink to wash it down. She took another bite of her own sandwich, her speculation turning in a new direction. Around the dry peanut butter and bread in her mouth she muttered, “Dave?”
“Hmm?”
“If she was so hard on you, so difficult to please...” Lilly felt the sandwich form a hard knot in her gut as the question she really wanted to ask slipped from her lips. “Why did you stay with her?”
He coughed as if he’d choked on his sandwich. “I—”
“I know. That sounded terrible. What I mean is—”
“Helen wasn’t always that way. You know that. She could be so great most of the time. Cheerful and generous and concerned for others. She was so passionate about her cooking and crafts. And, well, we had fun together. Usually. Interspersed with arguments.” He hesitated. “Sometimes I wondered why she stayed with me.”
The sadness in his tone shot a pang straight to her heart. Lilly shook her head even though she knew he couldn’t see it. “Dave, don’t say that.”
“It’s true.”
“It sounds to me like you were, if not the best boyfriend ever, at least—” she hesitated, choosing her words carefully “—doing the best you could with a...demanding girlfriend. I believe you when you say you tried to make her happy, and in the end, that’s what matters.”
Of course, Helen wouldn’t have been with Dave, wouldn’t have stayed with Dave, if he weren’t a good guy at his core. And everyone had faults. Maybe Helen had overblown Dave’s shortcomings. Hearing Dave’s side of things made her reevaluate everything Helen had told her. His tardiness meant he was dedicated to a hard job that had unpredictable hours sometimes. His forgetfulness of special occasions was often a disagreement over what constituted a special occasion. His apparent lack of commitment...
Her pulse stumbled. Considering Dave had a hard time saying he loved Helen, was his planned marriage proposal a concession to pressure from her sister or had he truly loved her enough to want family and a lifetime commitment with her?
And why was she even debating the issue now? Wasn’t it a moot point since Helen was gone?
He grunted. “Was it enough that I tried, though? If she wasn’t happy—”
“She was.” Lilly needed him to believe that. Letting him go on torturing himself would be cruel. “I know she complained to me, but she gushed sometimes, too. When I got my divorce, I remember her saying she hoped that one day I’d find a guy as great as you. But being the protective older sister, I guess I focused on her complaints. I wanted her life to be perfect. Especially since our childhood—” a knot of emotion clogged her throat, and she croaked “—wasn’t.”
Inhaling deeply, she silently prayed he didn’t press her to explain her comment.
After a moment, he said quietly, “Yeah, I get that.”
So he knew? How much had Helen told him? She pushed aside the unsettling memories and searched for a new topic. Things had grown far too maudlin, and they still had to figure out a plan of escape.
Chapter 8
Dave followed Lilly’s lead, and when she said no more about the ugliness of her and Helen’s childhood, he let the topic go, as well. For long minutes, he stared blankly at the ceiling. He had quite enough to think about, thank you, in light of all Lilly had already said regarding Helen’s temper and neediness. Josh and Zane McCall had said much the same about Helen a time or two when he mentioned their arguments. Dave had felt the need to defend Helen, which made him question whether he thought, on some level, Helen was right for wanting more from the relationship.
But Lilly had known Helen better than anyone. Had loved Helen better than anyone. And still Lilly was giving him credit for trying to make things works with her sister. The accusations and anger in Lilly’s tone at the bank replayed in his mind. How much of that bitterness was just her grief talking?
A warm furry head butted his cheek, distracting him. If his hands had been free, he’d have patted Lilly’s cat. “Hey, fuzz. What’s up?”
Her cat chirped a meow.
“Say, Maddie, you have a blade on you? Or maybe a really sharp claw I could borrow?”
The cat sniffed his mouth, and Dave chuckled when the feline’s long whiskers tickled his chin. “That’s right. I ate peanut butter. You smell it?”
“What?” Lilly’s groggy voice drifted from the top of the bed.
“Talking to Maddie. She seems more interested in sniffing my peanut butter breath than helping slice through the tape on my feet with her claws.”
Lilly snorted a short laugh. “Imagine that.”
But imaginary help from the cat or not, he did have to find a way to get his hands and feet free. He had to protect Lilly and get the revolver from Wayne. After a good bit of thought, the seeds of a strategy were taking root. And Lilly needed to be prepared for any opportunity that arose.
* * *
Lilly shifted on the bed, attempting to get more comfortable. At least her hands weren’t behind her anymore. Dave was the one who had to be aching. Besides the way he was bound, he had his bum leg to deal with and the smack to his head. Though he hadn’t yet shown any signs of concussion, she needed to stay alert to the possibility. As if she could do anything for him—
“Lilly,” Dave said, his tone more serious. So serious, in fact, it caused an uneasy scrape of worry to travel up her spine.
“Yeah?”
“Since it is clear you have a better standing with our captor than I do, you need to know what I’ve been thinking.”
“Okay.” Dread coiled inside her. Plans for escape boded ill, promised guns and violence, and the threat of injuries or death. At that moment she longed for the easy rapport and lighthearted teasing she’d shared with Dave earlier in the afternoon. Her nerves had appreciated the brief escape and chance to release some tension with a chuckle or two. She swallowed hard. “What have you been thinking?”
“First, if he lets you out of your restraints for any reason, you need to try to get the gun from him.”
Panic pinged in her gut, and she shook her head. “No, Dave, I... I’m a nurse. A healer. I don’t think I could ever kill someone.”
“I didn’t say shoot him.”
She exhaled her relief.
“But we don’t want him shooting us, either. Here’s the thing—if you get the gun from him, aim at the floor, well away from you or me, and fire it as many times as you can. I don’t know if he has backup ammunition or not, but he can’t shoot us if he’s out of rounds.”
She had to admit, his plan made sense. But that didn’t do anything for the dryness that filled her mouth at the thought of handling the lethal weapon.
“I’ve been replaying the scene at the bank in my head, counting shots. I think the gun he has is a Glock 17. That means seventeen rounds, assuming he’s using the factory magazine. Best I can remember, he fired seven rounds at the bank, one here, so he has nine left.”
She frowned. “How do you know this stuff about what gun it is and how many bullets it holds?”
“My uncle had a Glock 17 when I was younger. He and my dad let me shoot it and some rifles at the range as part of my gun-safety training before we’d go hunting together.”
“Oh.” Again, his explanation made sense, but it didn’t alleviate her anxiety about having to handle the weapon herself.
“Of course, he’ll try to get the gun back from you, so you have to be quick about it. Get it, aim away from yourself at the floor and fire. No hesitation. Got it? You don’t want to find yourself in a struggle with him over a loaded gun.”
The quiver in her gut grew, and she whispered an unladylike word.
“You can do it, Lilly.”
She was touched by his encouragement, but nothing he said would make her feel better about trying to snatch a loaded weapon from Wayne. She would, though, because Dave was right about the need to eliminate the threat. She swallowed hard. “Is that all?”
“No. That’s your first priority, if you get the chance. But if there is any way for you to get out of the house, into my truck, my phone is there. I left it on the seat. I’d been charging it. Get it.”
“Right.”
“I doubt it has much battery power left at this point, but if it does, call for help.”
“Okay.” That one was easier to promise. In fact, her pulse accelerated as she pictured Dave’s cell phone in his truck, just steps away...if she could sweet-talk her way out of the restraints Wayne had her in.
Now her mind began sorting through options, tricks, ploys to earn Wayne’s trust and win her release. The most obvious answer was to tell him she needed to check his wound, reclean it. But it was too soon for that excuse to be plausible. If they were still here in a few—
“Oof. Uh...oka-a-ay,” Dave said, cutting into her thoughts.
The loud rumble of a purr tipped her to the source of his distraction. She smiled. “Maddie?”
“Yeah. I’m now her bed. Center of my chest.” Then in a slightly higher-pitched voice, the sort everyone apparently used to talk to animals and babies, Dave added, “Don’t mind me. I’m just lying here tied up by a bank robber. Please, use me as your mattress.”
She heard a soft meep from her cat and grinned. Too bad the cat couldn’t be their spy or gopher. Lassie really would come in handy right about—
Or could she use the cat to her advantage? She wrinkled her nose as she mulled the idea. The last thing she wanted to do was expose Maddie to danger from Wayne. If he didn’t like cats or took a notion to be cruel to her via her beloved pet...
Pain jabbed her chest at the mere suggestion of anything happening to Maddie.
But if Wayne liked animals, could Maddie be a conduit to build a bridge with Wayne? Could she invent an excuse why Wayne would need to release her to care for Maddie? Feeding her or letting her get to her litter box or...
She heard Dave sputter and puff air.
“Hey, move your tail. I...ack. Cat, really? There. That’s better.”
“Everything okay down there?” she asked.
“Yeah, we’re fine now. Maddie was just getting a little too up close and personal.”
Her cat meowed loudly, as if telling a different story from Dave’s, then hopped up on the bed and crossed to her.
“Hey, sweetie.” She closed her eyes and savored the contact when Maddie rubbed her head on her chin. Her cat, a small bit of normality in her current surreal circumstances, settled her a little. “You’re a good girl, Miss Maddie.”
“Mrrp.”
“Yes, you are,” she cooed, then remembering Dave was listening to her baby talk, she winced and switched to clicking her tongue softly. Some might call her routine with her pet silly, but the interaction, goofy as it might seem to an outsider, was a balm to her after even the worst days. Say when she dealt with child abuse in her position at the ER. Or lost a patient she’d expected to survive. Or had to deal with inane hospital bureaucracy, petty coworkers and paperwork.
Or stumbled into a bank robbery and was taken hostage.
Maddie nosed Lilly’s bound hands, asking to be patted, Maddie’s favorite thing. Lilly complied as best she could, wiggling her fingers as Maddie rubbed her face on her taped hands.
The bed shook, drawing her out of her musings. “Dave? Whatcha doing?”
“I thought maybe if I wiggled my legs, I could loosen the tape, maybe stretch it.”
“Any luck?” She glanced toward her own feet. Worth a shot. She turned her feet and tried to create some slack in the layers of tape. Drawn by her wiggling, Maddie moved to rub against Lilly’s feet.
“Nothing yet, but it’s not like I have anything else to do at the moment. This is gonna be a game of inches, not miles. Baby steps count.”
“Right.” So it would take time. They had that, didn’t they? Time was all they had at this point. She angled her gaze to the belt Wayne had looped through the head rail and the strips of tape that joined her wrists. It was a basic belt with a standard buckle. Could she work the end back through the loop and unfasten the belt?
Scrunching as far up as she could to the head of the bed, she wrenched her wrists and twisted her arms to awkward angles, desperately trying to grasp the loose end of the belt. Her fingers finally brushed the dangling leather and, one millimeter at a time, she nudged the belt closer to her reach.
The wiggling bed told her Dave had not deserted his campaign of inches, either. Maddie, who’d snuggled against her legs for a nap, put her ears back, clearly annoyed by the jiggling bed.
“So you work in an ER?”
His question caught her off guard. “Yeah? Why?”
“Just making conversation. We could be here a while. Tell me about the ER. I bet you see some interesting stuff.”
The way he said interesting clearly indicated he meant bizarre.
She snorted, recalling some of the more unusual cases she’d worked in the past. “You have no idea. Everything they say about full moons and paydays is the truth.”
“Paydays?”
“Yeah.” Her fingertips batted at the belt, wiggling it the tiniest bit closer. “A little cash in the pocket means an opportunity to go blow off steam, get drunk or high. Drunk or high with some people translates to stupid and risky...and a trip to the emergency room.” She sighed when the tenuous hold she’d managed to get on the belt slipped, and she dropped it. Firming her mouth along with her resolve, she flexed and curled her fingers, preparing to try again. “It’s amazing to me the things people will try on a dare.”
Dave chortled. “Yeah. I’ve heard stories.”
“Fireworks and alcohol are a particularly bad mix, but—” She flicked the loose part of the belt and caught it between her index and ring fingers when it flopped back. “—some folks don’t need small explosives to get themselves in a world of hurt.”
Easy—easy, she coached herself mentally as she worked to gently shift the belt from her current tenuous grip toward her thumb and forefinger.
“Like eating laundry detergent pods?” Dave asked, his tone wry.
“Good example.” Pinching the leather with her weak fingers, she tried to roll the belt toward her stronger, more agile digits. And dropped the belt again. She muttered a curse.
“You okay?” Dave asked.
“Yeah. Just trying something up here, and it’s testing my patience and my fine motor skills.” Doggedly, she set to work again, deciding if she couldn’t fumble the belt over to her dominant fingers, perhaps she could reach the end with her mouth. Could she maneuver the strap of leather with her teeth and tongue?
“Weird stuff has got to be easier for you than—” He didn’t finish his sentence, as if realizing something that cut him off. “Well...never mind.”
“The tragedies?” She furrowed her brow. She tried not to dwell on the sad cases that were an inevitable part of her line of work. She wasn’t inhuman. Far from it. But she needed a certain detachment in order to do her job. “Mmm-hmm. Those are hard. Really hard. And they don’t get easier with time, but—” She’d managed to catch the belt again and nudged it toward her mouth. Dropped it again. Her heart sank. Closing her eyes, she drew a cleansing breath and started again.
“But?”
“But...for all the weird and heartbreaking stuff that comes in, you also see the best of humanity, too.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. The folks who risk their lives to help a stranger at an accident. People who show unbelievable courage to help pull someone from a fire or dive in freezing water to save a drowning child.”
“First responders,” he said.
“Yeah, them. But regular citizens, too.” Her fingers stilled in the middle of her ministrations when an image of Dave helping the fallen security guard popped into her head. Pulling the guard’s gun to return fire when Wayne seemed to panic...
Her heart thumped harder, and a tingle walked up her spine. Dave’s actions today had been heroic. She wouldn’t soon forget the way he’d rallied in the crisis and likely saved lives. Maybe not the security guard’s, but other people in the bank, had Wayne not been winged by Dave’s shot.
“Tell me.” Dave’s voice diverted her thoughts.
“What?” His comment seemed a non sequitur following her thoughts about him.
“About the best of humanity. I could use a dose of positivity about now.”
“Oh, right.” She refocused both on the good she’d encountered at the hospital and the belt. She had to get the damn thing off. Her life and Dave’s depended on it. She couldn’t count on Wayne’s favor toward her lasting forever. And when he saw her and Dave as an inconvenience or hindrance...
Huffing, she pushed aside that thought. Positivity...
“Well, there’s the people willing to donate blood to save a life. And not just for family members. For whoever needs it.”
Dave gave a quiet grunt of acknowledgment. She’d bet her month’s salary, based on what she was learning about Dave, that he was one of those people.
“Then there are the husbands and wives whose love is so deep, you can see it, feel it. And you’d know that it was their love that gave the patient the strength to fight against all odds and survive horrible injuries.” Those cases gave her hope. True love was out there, and maybe one day she’d find it.
Rancher's Hostage Rescue Page 8