Mindhunters 4 - Deadly Intent (21 page)

Which hadn’t meant she’d been happy about it.

He gave a quick grin, recalling her succinct remarks about the turn of events before they’d gone out the door, her last words sounding after them. He preferred to believe the “blooming wanker” remark she’d muttered had been directed at Whitman, and not at him.

“This is no situation for a woman,” the agent said.

Kell cast a disbelieving look at the other man. He looked as foreign as Kell probably did himself, wearing the tactical headgear and heavy-plated load-bearing vest. “If you’re going to say that to Macy’s face, I’d advise you to keep your gear on. And protect your balls.”

“I’m not being chauvinistic. There are just some circumstances better suited for men.”

“You should share your thoughts with her,” Kell advised blandly. “I know she’d appreciate hearing them.” And he’d enjoy hearing her take the man off at the knees when he did so.

The back of the tactical truck opened then, and his muscles tensed. A swarm of gear-clad men clambered out, and Kell opened the car door.

“Wait,” hissed Travis.

“Game’s on.” He fitted the night vision goggles over his eyes, adrenaline doing a fast sprint up his spine. If the mastermind of Ellie Mulder’s kidnapping was sleeping blissfully inside the small clapboard house the team was rushing toward, they might be only minutes away from discovering the girl’s whereabouts.

She was almost certain he was asleep.

Ellie strained her ears, but she could hear nothing. He’d turned the TV off hours ago. In the sudden silence she’d stilled her movements and feigned sleep before the footsteps headed toward her.

She’d had lots of practice pretending to be asleep.

He hadn’t spent much time checking on her. The footsteps had stopped beside her cot for less than a minute. But just thinking of those blank tan eyes of his staring down at her had made her stomach twist.

Then he’d moved away. She’d heard him heading across the space to his cot, tucked in a corner. There were no walls or doors inside the area. Which meant she was going to have to be very, very quiet.

She was good at that, too.

The cot she was lying on was just a flat piece of canvas secured to the metal frame by a series of springs. But every time he’d left the place to relieve himself or to talk on the phone, Ellie had scooted her stool over to the cot. She’d brought both feet up and slammed them down on the canvas close to a spring halfway up the frame. Although the cot looked new, it hadn’t taken that long for the spring to break away from the fabric.

And the edge of that metal spring was far sharper than that spoon that he’d found and taken away from her would have been.

She’d been maneuvering for hours. Ever since she’d gone to bed. Under the lone blanket she’d worked her bound wrists back and forth over the sharp end of the spring.

Her wrists were slippery with blood. It was taking forever. She had to work by touch alone and had gouged and scraped her bare skin. It was hard to keep the spring in place.

But the tape was shredding, too. And that was enough to have her continuing.

Ellie knew she was going to die in this little room if she didn’t do something. No matter how much she’d prayed, no one had found her at Art Cooper’s house. No one would find her here, wherever
here
was. It was up to her to get away.

And if she died trying, it couldn’t be as bad as waiting for the man to use that knife on her.

She jumped when her movements resulted in a quick flash of pain. It took a moment to figure out the wire was slicing bare skin. The tape had been torn away.

The realization had her going limp for a moment, her eyelids sliding shut. Her heart began to hammer hard in her chest. Easy to plan how she was going to do it while the tape still held tight. But now it was time to act. And for a few moments, courage deserted her.

Maybe someone would come. An inner voice jeered, but she grasped at the hope. Maybe those men her dad hired—the ones she wasn’t supposed to know about—would figure this out and follow their trail up here. She wouldn’t have to go out in the cold and dark and try to find her way to safety.

And maybe—probably—her kidnapper would use that knife on her before anyone came to the rescue. Or even the gun she’d seen under his shirt, tucked into the waistband of his pants.

To summon her flagging courage, she imagined his eyes again, staring at her. Lifeless and considering. And knew she had no choice.

Rolling from the bed as quietly as possible, she stood, rubbing the circulation back into her wrists. The day the man had gotten a phone call, she’d looked out the back window. So she knew there were no houses nearby. Maybe not even for miles. They were somewhere high. If not exactly in the Rockies, at least in the foothills. But they were surrounded by evergreens. And she knew the only chance she had was if she could hide herself among them as she worked her way toward a road. Any road.

She’d had to have some way to pass the time to avoid going crazy since he’d bought her here. So she’d plotted how she’d get away. Tried to recall everything her dad had taught her on their winter camping trips. She’d hated them at the time. Hated the cold and the snow. But now she tried to remember every detail of them. She tiptoed noiselessly toward the door.

The space wasn’t totally dark. There was a faint glimmer coming through the weird windows in the wall. All he’d have to do is open his eyes at that moment to see her highlighted in the light cast by the woodstove as she crossed in front of it.

Holding her breath, she moved as fast as she dared. When she reached the front of the stove, she couldn’t help glancing toward his cot. She could see the shadowy shape of it. The outline of his body lying there.

Ellie moved more quickly. She was good at moving quietly. Last year, after Dad had bought Lucky for her, she’d started sneaking out to the stables at night when she couldn’t sleep. Thinking of her horse now brought a quick hitch to her chest. Sometimes when she couldn’t breathe anymore, when everything seemed too close and heavy, just putting her arms around her horse’s neck made it all melt away.

Her dad had found out, of course. The men who watched the cameras, the ones he thought she didn’t know about, would have told him. He’d sat her down and explained why she couldn’t sneak out alone anymore. He hadn’t been mad. He’d even said she could wake him up anytime and he’d go to the stables with her.

She hadn’t, of course. What would have been the point? So she had stopped sneaking out at night. But it had been good practice for her escape tonight.

When she reached the front door, she stopped again to listen. It was silent except for the faint crackle of logs in the stove. She picked up the heavy winter coat he’d put on when he’d gone outside to talk on the phone, discovered snow pants beneath it. Ellie hesitated. She had no outdoor clothes to put on. There was only that heavy insulated bag thing wadded up next to the coat that he must have brought her here in. Wrinkling her nose with distaste, she pulled his snow pants on. They were much too big, as were the boots she shoved her feet into. She hesitated when she saw the snowshoes. On the winter camping trips she’d tried snowshoeing with her mom and dad, but she’d never been able to get the hang of the stupid things. These would be worse because they were so big.

There was a slight noise then, and she froze, panic racing up her spine. Slowly, she turned her head, expecting to see him standing there. Watching her. The knife’s blade glistening in his hand.

But he was still on his cot. And as hard as she strained her ears, the only sounds she could hear was the hiss and crackle of the wood burning in the stove.

A feeling of urgency filled her. She’d put the snowshoes on outside where he wouldn’t see her. They could always be gotten rid of if they slowed her down. She grabbed the coat and jammed her arms into it, encountering a pair of gloves in one sleeve, a face mask in the other. Ellie put those on, too. The too-big clothes would slow her down, but she couldn’t leave in only pajamas and a blanket. She’d freeze before she got a mile.

Unless he’d brought more winter clothes with him, taking his things would make it more difficult for him to follow. And she’d planned that, too.

Not daring to zip the oversized coat for fear of the noise, she turned her attention to the door. There was no way to turn the dead bolt silently. The sound it would make opening would be a small one, but she had to figure that it might wake him.

Which meant once she got out on the porch, she was going to have to run like the wind, for as long as she could stand it. And then longer.

She picked up the snowshoes and tucked them under one arm. Then reached out a hand, found the lock. Her fingers were still numb from the binds and didn’t want to work right. Ellie pressed the bunched-up fabric of the coat sleeve against the lock, hoping it would muffle the sound a bit as she worked it.

The slight sound it made when she turned it had her heart pounding like Lucky’s after a hard gallop. Turning the knob, she eased open the door.

The frigid air kissed her face as she slipped outside and closed the door behind her, as quietly as possible. Clouds blocked out the moon and stars, leaving her shrouded in absolute darkness. She dropped the snowshoes. Guided her feet into them by touch alone and secured the straps before rising again.

For a moment there was a rush to her head, a weakness to her knees. The sense of freedom was dizzying. Something inside her screamed for her to run, fast, straight down in front of the small house where surely there was a driveway buried beneath the snow. But instead she turned to the left. Toward the trees that crowded together, a dense unwelcoming wall of shadows. And toward whatever might lurk within them.

She ran clumsily in the oversized boots and snowshoes, getting only a few yards before hitting a drift nearly to her chest. Ellie imagined the man coming awake. Going to her cot, finding only the wadded-up blanket. Chasing to the door and discovering his clothes missing.

Fear fueled her escape as she fought through the snow, the icy air like blades in her lungs.

Even the unknown ahead was better than certain death behind.

It had been after three when she went to bed, so Macy hadn’t set her alarm. She figured she’d hear Kell and the CBI agents coming back in. But in the end, it was Raiker who woke her.

The insistent ring of her cell had her rolling over, searching for the phone while struggling to drag open her eyelids. “H’lo?”

There was a moment’s silence, then her boss’s familiar impatient tone. “What the hell’s going on out there? Neither Burke nor Whitman are answering their phones. You sound like you’re still in bed. Is anyone actually working the damn case?”

With effort, she sat up and peered at the clock. “Adam, it’s six A.M.”

“And your point is?”

Mentally, she conceded. Sleep was a luxury where her boss was concerned. “I was running data analysis until three. Kell joined the tactical response team Whitman put together. They narrowed down the location the ransom note was e-mailed from and the warrant came through. They left just after midnight.”

“The ransom demand came in nearly seven hours earlier.”

“Things don’t exactly progress at a lightning pace here,” she said around a yawn. “Maybe you should come back and work your magic. I thought Kell and Whitman were going to come to blows when he insisted on being part of the raid.”

Raiker grunted. “Good for him. Whitman’s mood isn’t going to improve any time soon. I’ve got a lab arriving sometime today, and all the trace evidence gathered so far is being transferred from the state crime lab as we speak.”

Despite herself, Macy was impressed. Superseding the CBI was a feat, even for Adam. “You had to pull a few strings to accomplish that.”

“I had to extend markers it’ll take me two lifetimes to repay. But the backlog at the state crime labs there did most of the work for me. What have you come up with on those samples you analyzed?”

The reminder of her night’s work quickly deflated her. “None of them matched authorship of the note. I double-checked them twice to be sure.”

“Who’d you have samples from?”