The van drove away. They were locked in and alone.
Kristen concentrated on breathing slowly. She must not panic now. They had three hours or less until someone came to see them. What he wanted, or what he would do to them after he told them, she could only guess. She didn’t want to guess. Her imagination proved too vivid in the darkness.
“We have to get out of here before the boss comes, don’t we?” Kristen spoke to dispel the images flashing across the inside of her eyelids.
“It is a good idea.” Nick’s voice was low, calm, soothing. “I expect there’s at least one guard outside, though, so we need to be quiet about whatever we do.”
“Do you think he can hear us talking?”
They were at least ten feet apart and the woods were quiet save for the sigh of wind in the leaves.
“Depends on where he’s waiting.”
Kristen held her breath, listening for the betraying sounds of anyone outside. At first, she heard only the pervasive silence, and then she caught the swish of fabric against the wall of the shack followed by the crunch of a footfall on gravel.
“He’s in the driveway or road or whatever we came in on.” She shifted on the sofa and a spring poked her leg. “Ouch.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Broken spring.” She tried to move away from the protrusion through the sofa’s worn upholstery and fell sideways against the wooden arm with a soft cry.
Nick’s chair scraped against the floor. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” He sounded anxious.
He mustn’t be anxious on her part. She had dragged him into this mess, endangered his life through her own impulsiveness, her need to prove she wasn’t a disappointment and useless.
No, she was worse than that—she was a menace to others. If Mom wasn’t freed, this would all be for nothing.
“I just tipped over trying to move away from that spring and the arm is wood.”
She couldn’t sit upright with her hands bound behind her. She needed more time at the gym doing core strengthening exercises.
If she got out of this.
“Did you get away from the spring?” Nick asked.
“No, it’s still poking me.”
“Hmm.” With that enigmatic sound, Nick fell silent.
Footfalls moved close to the cabin again. Light flashed across the structure’s only window. The guard held a flashlight, a powerful one.
In that moment of illumination, Kristen saw Nick with his head bent as though he were defeated, or maybe praying, his hair dry now but tousled, and she experienced the oddest wish to smooth down the dark waves, learn if it was as soft as it looked.
Whoa. Where had that come from? She might like Nick, but she didn’t like-like him, as she and her girlfriends had said in school. He was not at all what she wanted in a man other than his kindness, his courage, his intelligence...
She moved again, and the spring dug right through her jeans to her skin. “Ouch. This thing is really sharp. I can’t get free to help you—” She stopped, realization dawning on her. “If I could slide down—”
“Shh.” The caution was quick and sharp from Nick.
Kristen saw the line of light around the door then and understood—the guard was right outside, within hearing distance. She must not let him know what she might be able to do.
Might was the operative word. She had to slide off the sofa so her bound hands were on the seat and near the protruding broken spring. She might be able to manage it if she went slowly. If she descended too quickly, she might fall over onto the floor and be stuck there.
But she had to do it. No way could Nick get himself free duct-taped to the chair as he was.
The guard moved on, circling the cabin, flashing his light across the window to give them those precious moments of brightness.
“Hold the arm of the sofa if you can,” Nick said. “It’ll slow your descent.”
“If I turn sideways, I can grab it.” She twisted her body to the side so she could wrap her fingers, numb from being pulled behind her, around the wooden arm of the couch. Gripping as tightly as she could, she used her feet to pull herself forward. Inch by inch she crept to the edge of the sofa. Then the sagging springs did the rest for her, dumping her onto the floorboards with a thud that shook the shack and wrenched her shoulders.
“What’s going on in there?” The guard was at the door, banging and shouting.
“I fell,” Kristen said.
The guard laughed and walked away.
“Did you hurt yourself?” Nick asked.
“Not much.”
She had only rearranged every vertebrae and her shoulders. Tomorrow she would hurt. Tonight she had to ignore the pain.
Once certain she wasn’t going to topple sideways, she released the sofa’s arm and began to hunt for the spring. Moments earlier, the sharp metal piece felt the size of a butcher knife. Now it eluded her groping wrists. Each sweeping movement she made threatened to tilt her off balance, not to mention the ache in her shoulders. She gritted her teeth against moaning and worrying Nick, and kept looking...looking...
“Got it.” The rope tying her wrists caught on the broken spring. Tears stinging her eyes from the pain, she began to saw her arms back and forth, back and forth, trying to fray the rope. The spring caught the tender skin on the inside of her wrists. Wetness warned her she was bleeding. No matter. Some scratches now were better than a bullet or worse later. Far better than Nick getting hurt because of her.
And the wetness helped. Along with fraying, the rope grew slippery, more pliable. In what felt like an hour, time in which the guard made three more circuits of the cabin, the tightness around her wrists eased, and with a yank, her right hand slipped free.
“It’s done.” If her ankles hadn’t been tied, she would have danced a jig—if she knew how to dance a jig.
Now she needed to get those ankles free. Unlike her wrists, they were duct-taped, as the men had more time in the cabin to bind her and Nick. If she could find and grasp the edge of the tape, she could pull it free.
She drew her knees to her chest and tried to find where the tape started. Her fingers tingled as life flowed back to them. Her shoulders protested. With her hands free, she wanted to drag herself back to the sofa and lie down and sleep. She was so tired. She was so sore.
She was so not going to be defeated.
She kept looking, stroking the smooth silver tape again and again until—yes. She felt the seam. With what fingernails she had left, she scratched at that edge until she pulled up enough to grasp. Then she began to tug.
The ripping sound of the strong adhesive pulling apart sounded like a waterfall in the quiet.
“Can the guard hear this?” she whispered.
“Maybe. Go slower.” Nick’s voice, though low, held a note of excitement.
Her own enthusiasm pumped through her. Inch by inch, maintaining as much quiet as possible, she pulled the tape from her ankles layer by layer. She ripped it from her skin with a hiss of pain through her teeth, but remained motionless, breathing hard as though she’d been running, waiting for her pulse to slow, waiting to hear something besides blood pumping through her ears.
“Kristen?” Nick’s voice cut through the roar in her head. “Don’t leave me now.”
“Leave you? Of course I wouldn’t leave you.” She wiggled her toes inside her sneakers.
Unlike the rope on her wrist, the tape hadn’t cut off circulation. She could walk. She could get Nick free.
She hauled herself to her feet, ducking as the guard passed the window. “I need something sharp to cut you loose.”
The flashlight from outside had given her a view of the single room. It didn’t contain much, but shelves holding a few dishes and canned goods gave her hope maybe the cabin’s owner kept rudimentary cooking implements there. Things like a knife. Even a little one would help. Even the blade of a can opener would be better than nothing.
So she didn’t show herself through the window, she crawled across the floor, wincing at splinters and dirt and worse. Nothing had lived there for months, maybe even years, except for mice. She shuddered, yearning for hand sanitizer.
After she freed Nick.
She reached the row of shelves. Plastic plates and bowls, nothing to break for a sharp edge. Two ceramic mugs too thick to be useful if broken. A shoe box. She pulled off the lid and heard the rattle of plastic flatware. Spoons, forks and knives with serrated edges, but too fragile to be useful blades. Though she checked each shelf, she found nothing more useful, not even a can opener. All the canned goods had pull-off lids.
Pull-off lids with sharp edges.
She grabbed one at random and lifted the ring. But when she tugged, the pull tab broke off in her hand.
She closed her eyes, fighting the tears of frustration, struggling against the urge to throw the useless can against the wall. That action would likely bring the guard, who would notice she was free and tie her up again, maybe even to the other chair, and leave her as helpless as Nick.
She picked up another can. This time, she took more care with lifting the ring and pulling off the lid. The sweetness of peaches rose to her nostrils and she started to reach in to pull out some of the fruit. At the last moment, she remembered her filthy hands and lifted the can to her lips, drinking the juice she would have thought far too sweet under other circumstances. At that moment, it was nectar clearing her head.
She set the can on the shelf and turned to Nick. “I have a can lid and a butter knife.”
“A can lid? That’s amazing thinking.”
The praise warmed her. More than warmed her. She was blushing like he’d told her she was pretty.
She made herself shrug off the sensation. “It might be too flimsy to work, but it’s worth a try. And there’s a little bit of a serrated edge on the knife.”
She crossed the room to kneel behind Nick’s chair. The way his arms were bent and bound, he had to be grossly uncomfortable, yet he didn’t complain. Tough guy. Hid his feelings. He was too calm, too composed. Compared to how she too easily cried or panicked or even laughed, he was an oak to her...squirrel?
There, she wanted to laugh. This was no time for that. She might go off in hysterics if she started laughing.
She began to saw at the tape with the knife, then the can lid. The edge nicked her fingers more than it cut the tape. She made only the tiniest of tears and had to stop and dash back to the sofa when the guard’s light approached the window.
“How many times is that?” She posed the question without expecting an answer.
“Fifteen rounds, and he takes about five minutes per round.” Nick’s answer was immediate, confident.
“An hour and fifteen minutes. The boss could come any minute.”
“He could.” Nick was quiet for a moment, then said, “If you can’t free me before the next round, I think you should leave.”
“How? Out the window?”
“Maybe. Check if it opens far enough.”
Kristen went to the window. “It will open far enough—if I can get the nails out.”
“That will take too long and make too much noise. You’ll have to go out the door.”
“Even if I can manage that, where will I go?”
What will happen to you? she didn’t dare ask for fear of the answer.
“When you’re free, head for water. That’s either downhill or where the trees thin or both. I’ll be surprised if you don’t find other cabins or houses near the water.”
“But how do I get out?”
While she worked at his bindings again, he told her how he thought they could get out. It was risky. It was uncertain. She couldn’t think of a better idea. Trying Nick’s plan on her own seemed even riskier. It put an end to the idea that she could exchange herself for her mother.
But that was unlikely once she freed Nick. Considering how the men had tried to kill him in the river, they didn’t plan to let him live.
And her, too?
Either way, she had to ensure Nick’s freedom.
With new impetus to free him, she wrapped a little tape from her own bindings around the edge of the can lid and sawed with more vigor. Having a better grip gave her more traction. The tape began to part little by little, but not fast enough. The guard was making his rounds again before she finished her work. In frantic frustration, she grabbed the tape with her teeth and gnawed through the last inch like...a squirrel.
She scrambled back to the sofa in time to avoid the guard’s light. Once it passed, Nick bent to free his feet.
“We need a weapon.” Nick stood. “I thought maybe a chair, but they’re too heavy to swing effectively.”
“The lantern?”
“Not strong enough.”
Kristen thought, skimming her memory over what she had found in the cabin. Cans were too small and the plates too flimsy. But the shelves lifted from their brackets.
“One of the shelf boards.” She started for the wall. “If we just pull it free, it will create a racket when everything falls off, and that should bring the guard to us where we can get at him.”
“Let’s do it, then.” Nick joined her at the makeshift pantry. “You go stand behind the door. I’ll free this then join you.”
She crossed the room to stand behind the door. As the guard’s light approached the window, Nick yanked the shelf from its brackets. Cans thudded, plates clattered and the silverware rained down with a tinkle like untuned wind chimes. Kristen cried out to accompany the tumult.
Footfalls thudded outside. “What’s going on in there?” The guard pounded on the door. He wasn’t foolish enough to simply barge into the cabin.
Nick joined Kristen on the hinge side of the door. Neither of them answered.
“I asked what’s going on in there?” the guard shouted.
Kristen and Nick remained silent.
Muttering unpleasant comments about them, the guard removed the padlock and pushed open the door. “What the... Where are you?” He stepped beyond the edge of the door.
And Nick felled him with the shelf.
The entire shack shook on its foundation when the guard hit the floor. With no way to tie him, Kristen and Nick bolted outside, slammed the door, and fastened the padlock. When he regained consciousness, the man could work on getting the nails loose from the window frame and escape. Or wait for his boss to arrive. Either way, Kristen couldn’t worry about him. They had to get moving.
They had to get moving faster than they possibly could, for as they turned from the door of the cabin, they caught the distant rumble of an engine and the flash of headlights through the trees.
“Run.” Nick caught hold of Kristen’s hand and headed for the far side of the cabin.
The trees grew thick there, a blend of pine and deciduous. Needles and last year’s fallen leaves carpeted the ground, deadening their footfalls. Above them, the leaf-laden branches stretched in a canopy blocking the starlight and obliterating the moon.
They couldn’t run. One of them would smack into a trunk or branch and fall. But the men were close. Too close. Close enough Nick not only heard their voices, but caught a few words.
“Gone.”
“Not far.”
“No choice now.”
No choice for what? Nick feared they meant no choice but to kill them now.
He moved near Kristen so he could murmur in her ear. “Walk right behind me.”
She nodded, her ponytail tickling his face, then rested a hand on his shoulder, gripped it like a drowning woman clutching a lifeline.
He hoped her trust wasn’t misplaced. Keeping away from the men in pursuit wasn’t going to be easy in the dark woods when Nick had no idea where they were and only a vague idea of the direction in which they should travel.
He took his advice to Kristen—head for the water. He didn’t hear a stream, so they were probably near a lake. First they must shake their pursuers.
He began to walk in a zigzag pattern, trying to move forward and not circle, yet not remain in a straight line. Twigs poked through his socks. They scratched the soles of his feet, warning him not to step hard and break them with a snap that would give away their location.
Behind them, the men chasing them weren’t as quiet. They plowed forward, breaking branches and rustling leaves. They also moved their powerful flashlights through the trees, beacons that pinpointed their locations and lit their way so they could move faster.
Their pursuers held the advantage of numbers. The three of them fanned out, limiting the path Nick could choose.
Forward. He must keep them moving forward and away from the shack where they’d been held. They curved to the right, then stepped to the left. A branch broke beneath Nick’s foot before he could lift his weight. The snap sounded like a rifle. Behind them, someone shouted, “Northeast.” Directing the others right toward them.
They needed a new line of escape. Nick made an abrupt shift to the right and squeezed between two saplings. Kristen flinched, her fingers pressing into his shoulder.
“Are you all right?” Nick paused to make sure she hadn’t injured herself with something serious such as a twig poked into her eye.
“Just caught my hair on something.”
Nick faced forward again and realized he had made an error in the direction he chose. They emerged on a man-made trail with starlight brilliant above them and one of their pursuers a mere hundred feet away.
“Duck.” Nick drew Kristen down to hide beneath the drooping branches of a pine tree. Seconds later, the man’s light illumined the path, the saplings and a strand of long, blond hair dangling from a broken branch.
Kristen stiffened beside Nick.
On the path, the man shouted, “Gotcha.” He began to sweep his light from tree to tree, from crown to root.
In seconds, he would spot them.
Seeing no other choice, Nick waited for the man to point his light up, then lunged from beneath the pine tree and swung his leg around to sweep the man off his feet. He landed like a downed deadfall, his flashlight skittering away. Nick dropped atop the man’s back, held him down and covered his mouth so he couldn’t shout for his friends to help him, grabbing one wrist so he could twist the man’s arm behind his back.
“Can you get his belt so we can tie his hands?” Nick asked Kristen.
Dumb question. The man was thrashing and bucking and trying to yell through Nick’s hand. Of course she couldn’t get the belt with its buckle under the man.
“I’ll get one of his boot laces.” She collapsed more than sat on the man’s legs. Nick heard the thud behind him and felt the man’s grunt of pain.
The other hunters seemed to be farther away for the moment.
“These are long laces.” Kristen’s voice was shaky, but otherwise she seemed calm enough. “I can tie his ankles.”
“Start there, then.” Nick wished he carried something like a handkerchief so he could stuff it into the man’s mouth rather than holding his lips against his teeth so he could neither talk nor bite. At best, Nick’s position was awkward, one knee between the man’s shoulder blades, and one of Nick’s hands beneath the man’s jaw to hold his head back so the other hand could cover his mouth.
Work fast, he silently urged Kristen.
He didn’t say anything, not wanting to make her anxious. She was doing great so far, a true partner in confining this man from giving away their position to the others. She had thought about the boot laces while Nick was still wondering what would work besides a belt. The laces would work better, were less likely to stretch and slip apart if she knew how to tie good knots.
“Here’s the other one.” Kristen dangled a shoelace at least a yard long, in front of him.
“Thanks.” Nick gave her a rueful glance. “Can you tie his hands too? My hands are kinda full.”
“I’ll try.” She looked at the man’s free hand waving around with fist clenched, trying to hit something other than the trail.
“Grab it with both hands from behind.”
Kristen nodded and positioned herself beside Nick, shoulders touching in a way that made him feel they were a team, a partnership.
A couple.
No, nothing so drastic. They were fugitives from the same kidnappers and nothing more.
But they did work together well. Kristen managed to capture the man’s wrist. The man stiffened his muscles, tried to break free.
A whimper of effort emerged from Kristen. “I don’t think I’m strong enough.”
“Okay. He might yell, but we can have him trussed up and be out of here before his friends find him.”
He hoped the others weren’t quite sure which trail the man had taken and couldn’t locate him in an instant. Regardless, he had to risk it if they wanted to get the man tied up so he couldn’t follow them.
He released the man’s mouth and reached for his wrist. In seconds, he had his captive’s hand behind his back and Kristen was tying the second shoelace around both wrists. Through it all, the man tried to shout, but his position kept his face down and the moldering leaves on the path muffled his voice.
“Can you keep his head down while I go through his pockets?” Nick asked.
Kristen moved to hold the man’s head down without a word of question.
Nick searched the man with trained efficiency. The gun, Nick slipped into his pocket. In another of the man’s pocket he found a packet of tissues. Stuffed in his mouth, they would keep him quiet for a while. They didn’t have any way to secure his mouth shut. But a few moments would help them get farther away.
Other than the gun and tissues, the man’s pockets yielded nothing. No wallet or form of identification, no pocketknife, not even a cell phone. Caught, the man would have to give up his identification willingly for anyone to know who he was unless he was listed in the fingerprint database.
Nick did not have access to that. Nor did he want to stick around long enough to get the man’s name from him. He just wanted to try once for a little information.
“I’m going to lift you up against a tree now,” Nick told his captive. “If you shout for your friends, I’ll put you facedown again. Understand?”
“I think he nodded,” Kristen said.
“Let him go, then.”
Nick grasped the man’s shoulders, preparing to lift him to sit with his back against a tree or drop him facedown in last year’s leaves just as quickly if he tried to make a sound.
He remained silent, seemingly subdued other than breathing hard as though he were the one expelling the physical effort instead of Nick and Kristen.
“Let’s go.” Kristen’s tone sounded urgent even in a whisper.
“One moment.” Nick crouched in front of the man they had caught. “Why are you chasing Kristen?”
The man shrugged.
“You’re not going to tell me, or you don’t know?” Nick pressed.
The man shrugged again. “Why should I tell you?”
“So you can sit up until your friends find you instead of lying facedown in the dirt.”
“You aren’t going to get away,” the man declared.
“We have so far.” Nick smiled.
The man said something vulgar.
“You won’t shock either of us with that kind of talk,” Kristen said. “I’ve heard everything and am sure Deputy US Marshal Sandoval has too.”
Nick pulled the tissues from the plastic sleeve and began to separate them. “I may as well gag you, then, if you’re not going to talk.”
“You don’t have any way to secure them.” The man’s tone held a sneer.
“He can pull your T-shirt over your face,” Kristen said. “You’ll get it off eventually, but it won’t be pleasant until you do.”
Smart lady.
The man puffed out a long breath. “I only know the boss wants to know where his daughter is.”
“His daughter?” Kristen sounded as bewildered as Nick felt.
“Who’s his daughter?” Nick asked.
“Raven Kirkpatrick.”
Kristen gasped.
So the name meant something to her.
“Now let me go,” the man commanded.
“Sorry, pal, but we need to get out of here first.” Nick shoved the balled-up tissues into the man’s mouth as far back as he could.
They wouldn’t hold for long without tying his jaw closed, but the moments he would take to work them from his mouth and shout should be enough time for Nick and Kristen to get away, especially since they now had a flashlight.
A flashlight they dared only use for a while. Nick hoped the others would see the light and think it belonged to the man now sitting against a tree with his hands and feet tied.
Holding the flashlight in one hand and Kristen’s hand in the other, Nick started along the path then ducked into the trees so their captive wouldn’t be able to say in which direction they had gone. Somewhere was a lake or river. Somewhere a path led in that direction. Land usually sloped, however slightly, in the direction of the water.
Nick sought for that drop in the terrain. He listened for sounds of pursuit. A distant shout warned him the man had gotten the tissues out of his mouth. A more distant call followed. Kristen’s fingers tightened on Nick’s. She stumbled and he remembered her bruised and scratched feet. His own feet suffered from a lack of shoes. If he looked, he suspected he would find the soles of his socks shredded.
The idea of cold, clear water seemed great, something refreshing and soothing in which to soak their sore feet. They needed medical care if they didn’t want to suffer infections.
They weren’t going to get anything but caught again if they didn’t locate an escape route.
Nick kept them moving through the trees, avoiding trails though using them would have been faster. He didn’t want to risk what had happened on the other path. Trails were too open, too exposed.
Going through the trees meant more brush, broken branches and sharp pine needles underfoot. It meant branches whipping into their faces and mouths full of leaves, as though the trees wished to gag them. But it also meant more places to hide, made them harder to locate, thus harder to pursue.
He stopped every few minutes to listen. At the moment, he heard no one nearby. The woods were quiet save for the normal nighttime noises of insects, a distant owl and frogs.
Frogs!
Frogs lived near water. In this part of the world, people usually lived near water as well.
“What is that sound?” Kristen asked.
“Bullfrog. You’ve never heard one?”
“Never.” She hesitated a moment, then added, “When I went on vacations with my parents, we went to cities, to museums and the theater.”
Nick couldn’t imagine growing up swimming in hotel pools instead of freshwater lakes, walking concrete sidewalks instead of dirt paths. If—when—they got out of this mess, he would introduce Kristen to the joys of hiking through the woods during the day or building a sand castle on the beach.
And what was he doing thinking about a future spending time with Kristen? He must be too stressed and tired to think straight for those sorts of thoughts to enter his head. He didn’t want to spend time with other women in case he fell in love with them.
He couldn’t risk that again. Couldn’t risk anyone’s life again.
Nick kept them moving, Kristen’s too cold fingers curled into his. “Frogs mean water somewhere close, and people usually build cabins on the water.”
“Will anyone be there on a weeknight?”
“We can hope and pray someone is.”
She sighed, then sighed again, and Nick realized she was breathing deeply, holding her fear, her panic, in check. He wanted to hold more than her hand, wrap his arms around her and reassure her all would be well. Except he didn’t know if all would be well. The man behind the abductions wanted information about his daughter. Kristen probably possessed that information. Could she—would she—give it up? If she did, what were the consequences to Raven Kirkpatrick? Or Kristen herself?
He made himself focus on following the croaking of the bullfrogs. Closer. Closer. The trees grew thinner, farther apart. The scent of water increased. Jug. Jug. Jug, the frogs chorused.
They broke through the trees to a clearing washed in moonlight. A half-moon reflected in a lake, brightening the sight of a tidy cottage with a deck built over the water.
An empty-looking cottage. The windows were shuttered and the deck empty of furniture. Though a broad stretch of water spread before them, the side of the lake on which Kristen and Nick stood held no other houses.
“What do we do?” Kristen’s voice held a desperate note.
Nick knew how she felt. He had pinned too many hopes on someone being in the first house they found.
“We’ll look for a boat.”
“Steal it?”
“Borrow it.”
“But won’t the men hear the motor?”
“I’m thinking a canoe or rowboat.” Nick led the way around the cottage. A mound covered with a tarpaulin looked promising.
“I don’t know how to operate a rowboat or canoe,” Kristen admitted.
“I figured as much.”
If he found a canoe under that tarp, she would get a quick lesson in paddling. A rowboat would be better. He could handle the oars, though not as well as he could if he was rested and had eaten. Still, either would be transportation.
He moved the rocks holding down the tarp and pulled the cover back. An aluminum canoe lay upside down on two sawhorses with the paddles tucked beneath.
“I’ll need your help getting this into the water.”
“Of course.”
Together they managed to flip the canoe and carry it down the beach to the water. Nick told Kristen to hold the boat in place, then ran back to get the paddles. He set them in the boat and told Kristen to climb in.
She did so with so little speed her movement resembled a slow-motion film. The boat rocked, and she slumped down, gripping the sides.
“Just sit there and I’ll go to the other end.” Nick splashed into the water.
The cold lake and soft sand felt good on the parts of his feet exposed from holes torn in his socks. He dug his toes into the bottom to give himself purchase and pulled the canoe into water deep enough for it to float. Then he clambered over the edge and picked up a paddle.
“Hold it like this.” He waited for Kristen to lift the other paddle and position her hands like his. “Great. Now dip it into the water at a right angle and draw straight back. Keep it straight or we’ll go parallel to the shore instead of away from it.”
“Where are we going?” Kristen asked.
“Across the lake. I’m hoping we’ll find more cottages there and people this time.”
He hoped to be away from their pursuers, to find a phone—or radio, if no cell service was available out here—and call the police.
He dipped his paddle and drew hard on the water. A glance over his shoulder warned him Kristen wasn’t going to be a great deal of help. Her blade was too shallow, her strokes too short. Paddling a canoe took practice and built-up strength. She wasn’t a weak lady, but neither was she used to this kind of strenuous workout. So their progress was slow. Twenty feet from shore. Fifty. Other than the splash of their oars, the lake and beach were quiet.
But from the edge of the woods Nick heard a shout followed by another.
“Oh, no,” Kristen cried.
Nick turned his head to see light, then a flash followed by the report of a gun.