Mara winced as Tanner rammed his shoulder into the door. No good. The wood was as solid as the lock. She attempted to calm Britta who was whining, ears flapping as she tried to understand what was upsetting her master. She stroked the dog’s thick neck, feeling every muscle in the sleek body as tense as her own. Howard had locked them in and sold them out to Eli. For money? Out of fear? Didn’t matter much.
Tanner tried again, aiming his boot at the spot below the door handle. His force was tremendous, but again, there was no sign it was helping. They were trapped inside like fish waiting to be harpooned.
Mara thought Tanner was going to kick at the door once more but instead he ran to the back of the room and tossed aside some stacked boxes. She’d overlooked the edge of an exit peeking above the towering pile, but he hadn’t. Her pulse raced. A second door, another chance.
She bolted to help him, still trying to make their situation real in her mind. She’d known there was something off about Howard, but they’d been so cold, so desperate, there had been no other choice but to accept his help. The cartons fell into untidy piles around them as they burrowed their way to the door.
Tanner tried the handle. Mara held her breath.
It turned and he shoved hard to open it. Elation filled her body for a couple of seconds until she realized there was another barrier. Freezing air blasted them both through a barred security panel fixed over the exit door. They both pushed at it, shoving hard at the iron rods.
Tanner pressed his face to the cold metal and thrust his hand through, groping around. “It’s padlocked from the outside with a chain. Good old Harold probably figured it’d be safe from vandals until he could get back here.” The chain clanged as he tugged at it with no success.
Mara felt like screaming. Instead she ran back to the other door and pressed her ear close. “I can hear talking, more than one person but I can’t be sure.” Her heart trip hammered. “They’re coming closer.”
Tanner’s gaze raked the room, and he unsnapped his holster. “Gonna have to make a stand here.” The light caught his eyes, the shimmer of caramel, the glimmer of an apology. “I’m sorry, Mara. This isn’t much of a rescue.”
“You don’t have anything to be sorry about.” But she did. He’d come for her, sent by her half brother, Asher, because she’d not trusted the process, figured she’d be better off without her team. Brought him and Britta into a death trap to rescue her. Tanner Ford and his exceptional dog did not deserve to die because of her choices.
It was suddenly hard to swallow. Her brain refused to stop looking for a way out, but now she could hear the faint sound of approaching footsteps. “They’re coming.”
He upended the table and urged her behind it.
She stood her ground. “No. It’s going to take us both to have any chance.”
His eyes narrowed. “There will be shooting, Mara. I’ll try to draw them away as much as I can. If you get a chance, run out the door.” He pushed his backpack at her. “Take this and hide. There’s food for Britta too.”
She shook her head. “No heroics. Two have a better chance than one, especially if Vinny is with Eli.”
His jaw tensed. “This isn’t heroism—it’s my job. I’m a cop. I’m going to do what I’m trained to.”
Her chin went up. “And I’ve been surviving these two clowns for seven months so I’m going to do what I’ve been training for.” She crouched next to the table and grabbed up a chair, wielding it like a lion tamer. “When they come close enough, whammo.” If the bullets didn’t get her first.
The sliver of a smile crossed his mouth. With one hand he reached down to caress Britta’s ears. The gesture said it all. Tanner loved his dog every bit as deeply as Britta loved him back. The animal would likely not survive either. Her eyes went watery. This couldn’t be happening. It was not possible it would all end here.
He pointed behind the table. “Britta, wait.”
Pain rippled Tanner’s face. Pain and fear ricocheted in her chest as the dog sidled around her and edged behind the table. The voices were louder now, the back and forth rhythm indicating an argument.
Tanner stepped to the side of the door and drew his revolver.
Her fingers were clammy on the chair legs, breath coming in spurts. Would Eli and Vince enter firing? Send Howard in first to create a distraction? Maybe Howard would be armed too. Three of them with one goal. Murder. Blood pounded in her throat.
Britta stood on her rear paws, popped her head over the edge of the table and barked a moment before the chain on the rear door rattled. She gasped. Trying to understand. Someone was at the back exit? Eli must’ve sent Vinny around.
The noise jerked Tanner’s attention and he swiveled his revolver to the exit. A face showed between the security bars, a wisp of long gray hair framing wrinkled cheeks.
Now she was completely confused. Who in the world...?
A pair of bolt cutters intruded on the space.
“Hurry,” a female voice urged. With a clack, the chain was cut loose, the barred door opening to reveal a short woman bundled in a ski jacket, hat and muffler. “Come quick. We only have a few minutes.”
Tanner looked at Mara, gun still aimed at the newcomer. He knew what she did. Stranger or not, this was their one and only chance of escape. “Follow,” he told Britta who scrambled from behind the table and jogged after the woman who was hurrying into the swirling snowflakes. Tanner grabbed his pack and Mara hers and they ran after the lady who didn’t bother to lock the door. Their rescuer hurried away from the gas station proper toward a storage shed behind the property. Mara couldn’t hear anything from the building they’d just vacated so she had no idea if Eli had discovered they’d escaped.
And what about Vinny? Had they split up? Was he tracking them even now? The wind was blowing so hard it drove horizontally into her, stinging like the lash of a whip. The woman tossed the bolt cutters on the ground. There was no choice but to follow her across the piled snow and into the shed. She wrestled the door closed and turned to face them.
“I’m Alice. Married to Howard.”
Mara tried to hide her fear. Was this part of some other plan Howard was involved in?
“My husband isn’t a bad man.”
“He told Eli Ballard where to find us,” Tanner said. “And Eli is a murderer. That makes your husband a criminal too.”
Her mouth tightened. “No. Howard made a bad decision that he regrets. He’s been knocked down by life too many times and it washed away some of his grit, that’s all. When those two thugs came and offered him money to rat you two out, he took it. I didn’t find out about it until he finally admitted as much when I showed up a few minutes ago to find out why he hadn’t arrived home. I’m here to get him out of his mess by helping you two get away.”
She moved to the corner of the shed and shoved aside a trapdoor in the floor. It opened with a toe-curling squeal. From her pocket she pulled a key attached to a small chain. “This shaft will take you underground to a utility tunnel. After that, follow the fire trail a mile south and you’ll come to a trailer. Belonged to my uncle. He died and I was going to put it up for sale. I was working on packing things up when the weather turned bad. Use whatever you need.”
Tanner took the key and finally interrupted. “Ma’am, if all this is true, you’re putting yourself in danger by helping us. I can’t leave you and your husband...”
She waved him off. “I hope it’s going to look like you two found the bolt cutters in the break room and managed to escape by yourselves. I’m going to sneak out of here and double back and act as if I just drove up so they won’t know about my involvement. Snow’s falling and the wind’s vicious so our tracks will be harder to spot. If everything works out, we’ll be gone in my truck before they figure it out.”
“They’re dangerous men,” Mara said. “They might hurt your husband when they find us gone.”
She shook her head. “By all appearances, he cooperated. He’s more likely to pay the price if you two get us involved in a gun battle on the premises.”
“I...” Tanner started.
She snatched a rusty kerosene lantern and a box of matches from the shelf and thrust them at Mara. “I don’t have time to argue the point. Go. Please. I’ll call the police and tell them your location as soon as I can get a line out.”
Tanner nodded. “All right.” He holstered his gun and offered his palm. “You saved our lives, ma’am.”
She shook and grinned. “Retired army. ‘This we’ll defend’ is our motto. Right now I’m choosing to defend you and my husband as best I can. Get going, so it wasn’t all for nothing.”
Mara caught the woman’s eye. “Thank you.”
She shrugged. “My Howard’s a good man, deep down. Just remember that, okay? And honestly you two are going to have an uphill battle, my help aside. Those men aren’t going to stop and even if I get through to the cops, you’ll be on your own until the storm system passes. It’s horrible weather unlike anything I can remember.” She snatched a thick moving blanket from the pile. “Take this too. It’ll be freezing down there.”
A shout came from the direction of the gas station. “Please,” she urged. “We’re out of time. I’ll move some boxes over the trapdoor to add to the ruse before I sneak out and lock the shed from the outside, but you gotta go now.”
Tanner picked Britta up and draped her over his shoulders. Britta took the opportunity to slop a tongue over his ear. Mara turned around, tossed the blanket down and then descended the first few steps of the worn wooden ladder. Alice gave her a thumbs-up. The woman’s determined expression reminded her of Willow, her only friend on the PNK9 team. Recrimination left a bitter taste in her mouth. Why hadn’t she worked harder to get to know the others? Why was there always the thinnest layer of glass between her and the people around? But not with Willow. God had somehow prompted her to make a connection with her gutsy, honest and compassionate friend. Mara wondered if she’d ever see her again.
The wooden ladder creaked. And her half brother, Asher? All she’d wanted for years was to form a bond with him, her only sibling. She had a chance, now that he knew for certain she was innocent of murder. A bubble of resentment formed in her stomach. He should have believed her from the first, trusted her. But why would he when they hardly knew each other and their father had hurt Asher so deeply? Abandoned Asher and his mom to start a new family? A wound like that ran deep.
Would she live long enough to start fresh with her brother?
Only if Alice’s brave ruse worked.
With each rung the cold intensified. Swallowing hard, she forced herself to descend into the darkness.
Tanner followed Mara down. Britta’s weight on his shoulders was somehow comforting, bringing him to earth mentally as she always did no matter what the circumstances. Even when he wasn’t sure what he was feeling, Britta seemed to know. Right now his body was still coursing with adrenalin, head spinning at Howard’s betrayal and their unexpected rescue. Two more civilians had stepped into the line of fire. He felt somewhat certain that Eli would not risk piling up bodies that might attract more attention, but there was no way to be certain. He whispered a prayer that Alice and Howard would escape unharmed.
Thank you, Alice. The woman had stuck her neck out to save two strangers. She was a strong woman, like the one who was currently easing her way down the ladder below him. He reached up and pulled the trapdoor closed. It banged down, sending a drift of dust settling into his ski cap and hair and snuffing out the light. The tunnel smelled of mold, with a slight tang of something muskier. Nothing feral, he hoped. Britta sneezed, spraying his cheek with dog slobber.
“You all right?” he called down to Mara.
“Yes. Almost to the bottom.”
His numbed hands felt flabby against the wood, but gloves would hamper his grip even more and he needed every bit of finger strength. The ladder creaked and groaned under him. Three more steps and his left boot went clear through an aged rung, almost flinging Britta loose. Mara cried out, but he clutched Britta with his free hand and she curled tightly around his neck to keep her balance. They’d practiced this very maneuver, but they’d not actually tried it out while climbing down a ladder. She licked the top of his head, encouraging him.
“That was scary.” Her voice sounded shaky.
“Yeah. I’ll try not to repeat the performance.”
He eased down the rungs more carefully. A light flared below. She’d reached the bottom and got the lantern working. The final twenty rungs seemed impossibly long. When his boots touched ground, he lowered Britta and she started to work her curious nose around the space. Mara held up the light. They were in a tunnel, earthen walls supported by old beams he hoped were more intact than the ladder.
He flicked on a flashlight to supplement the lantern. Mara’s face was gilded by the glow, dark hair blending with the gloom. Her teeth chattered, though she appeared to be gripping her jaw tight to prevent it.
“Wrap the blanket around yourself.”
“I thought maybe you or Britta might need it.”
He chuckled. Like he would use the blanket himself instead of insisting she take it. “No, ma’am. Wrap up and let’s get out of here before Eli catches on.” He could be figuring out their trick at that very moment.
The tunnel stretched out ahead of them, the floor littered in some places with small rocks. He was uncomfortably cold, but it was vastly better than suffering in the blasting maelstrom outside. Discomfort was something a person could learn to live with, he’d discovered. Alice’s plan was a clever one. It was possible Eli wouldn’t think to investigate the locked shed and if he did, he might not discover the hidden trapdoor.
Doubt winnowed into his thoughts. Eli was smart. He’d run a gun smuggling operation out of Stacey Stark’s lodges, after all, dated PNK9 cop Ruby Orton even, and his cohort was an experienced killer. Some of Mara, Tanner and Britta’s tracks from the gas station to the shed might have survived the snowstorm long enough to give them away. Or might he have forced Alice to tell the truth? Urged on by his nerves, he set a brisk pace.
Mara kept up at his side, stepping around rocks and over piles of animal droppings. The heavy blanket swaddled her from neck to knees. “Do you think Alice and Howard will be okay?”
“Best-case scenario is they’ll get away from here as quick as they can while Eli is out scouring the woods for us.”
She was silent. He knew she didn’t underestimate Eli either. She’d been his target long enough not to make that mistake. Good old Eli, a handsome genial friend to all, hiding his killer instincts underneath the charming facade.
Her hand was steady as she held the lantern, and he was happy to see she was warming up. The fringe of hair peeking from beneath her pom-pom hat gave her an elfin look, and he wished he could take a picture to capture the mixture of femininity and undeniable grit. He found her exciting, interesting. Knock it off. The spark he’d felt for her since the day they’d met at PKN9 headquarters was just fondness, like he felt for his younger sister Livvy or another close pal.
Who was he kidding? He hadn’t had a close pal since Allie died, and he strove to keep it that way. For some reason, as he trucked along the tunnel with Mara, their age difference didn’t even feel like a blip on the radar. He wanted to watch her, listen to her talk, hear her thoughts on anything and everything. His heart beat with unusual quickness. It struck fear into his psyche, that spark he felt. Not again, not ever again.
Just keep the conversation moving. Easy and charming and don’t make it anything more than it is. Not a problem, he was a master at surface level relationships. “How did you do it, Mara? Survive on your own for so long? It’s one thing to go off grid, but another when an entire law enforcement unit is chasing you down.”
“And two killers, don’t forget.” He liked the hint of pride in her voice. Her exhale turned to visible steam in the lantern light. “Sheer determination, I think. My father taught me how to play chess. I can still hear him saying, ‘Marbles, chess is a battle played out on a board.’” She rolled her eyes. “You know, I used to detest that nickname when I was a teen, but now, I’d give my right arm to hear him call me that.” He heard her swallow.
He knew from Asher that their father was losing himself to Alzheimer’s in what had to be a long and agonizing goodbye for Mara. His instinct was to offer comfort. Her demeanor told him otherwise.
She tightened the blanket around her shoulders. “Anyway, I decided I was going to do whatever I had to do to keep Eli from winning, and wage that battle in my own way. I was going to protect Asher and Dad and find evidence against Eli.” She grinned. “But thanks for doing that last part for me...even though it took you all seven months.”
Again the cheeky bravado. He laughed. “You’ve done incredibly well to outwit him and us, for that matter. We never even came close to tracking you.” He hoped he hadn’t sounded too admiring. Casual and light, remember?
She shrugged. “To be fair, I didn’t make much progress at all digging up proof. I was too busy trying to survive.”
“What did you do for money? The unit tracked your credit cards and ATM, of course, but there was no activity after that first withdrawal.”
She quirked a smile at him. “Tricky, right? I went to an out-of-the-way ATM wearing a hat and glasses and withdrew as much cash as I could before I left Olympia. When it ran low, I worked some shifts at out-of-the-way diners as I moved from town to town, and let me tell you I learned how to bus a table in a heartbeat. I even earned some money shoveling snow a time or two. Talk about backbreaking. I think I still have the blisters.”
“How’d you move around?”
“I knew you could track my cell, so I took the battery out. Walked or hitchhiked, to avoid the public cameras everywhere. I kept my hair covered by a cap all the time. Tossed the blue jacket and bought this one at a thrift shop the first possible moment. I figured the best way to win the battle was to keep moving all night and during the day I stayed in cheap hotels mostly until Eli got close or my money ran low. Sunday was my favorite day.”
“Why’s that?”
Her smile was dreamy or maybe it was merely a trick of the lantern light. “I found a few churches with coffee and snacks.”
She drew out the word snacks as if she was discussing a profound revelation. “Bagels and cream cheese, homemade cookies and sometimes donuts, if you can believe it. I would sit way in the back and listen to the sermons, warm up, keep my eyes on the door in case Eli tracked me and scoot out before the end of the service. Most congregations never even realized I was there.”
He chuckled.
“The food was a blessing, but more than that, I heard a lot of different preachers and they all reminded me that no matter what happened, God had the final word. It kept me going.” She gave him the side-eye. “Are you a churchgoer, Tanner?”
God has the final word. Wait on the Lord and He will give you courage and healing. How often had he heard the same messages? And he believed it, yet he’d stopped going to church after Allie died. He’d grown tired of waiting, suffering, summoning up the courage to face people. “I...was.”
“But you gave it up?”
He shrugged. “I guess I did.”
She didn’t ask, but he knew she was waiting for him to explain. “I uh, lost someone I cared about, and everyone wanted to console me. I didn’t want to accept comfort from any of them. It hurt too much.”
Gently she touched his forearm. “I understand.” She sighed. “I guess what’s come home to me lately is that I walked, no flat out ran, from people who God had positioned to help me. He must have just smacked His head at my denseness.”
He suddenly remembered what his mother used to say when he retreated into his customary silent manner as a teen. “We’re commanded to love one another and when you don’t allow people to do that, you rob them of a blessing.”
He’d sure tried to bless Allie with everything in him and after her death he’d become unable to receive love in return. Funny how he’d never really considered that blessings were a boon to the giver as well as the receiver. But this wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have...not with Mara. “Anyway, you should win the fugitive of the year award.” He got what he wanted. Her hand fell away from his arm and the distance between them reinstated their relationship, chums, colleagues, joined together on a mission. A whisper of regret circled through him.
Mara continued her story. “Eli got close a few times so I knew I needed to head farther afield, away from Olympia, vanish into a more rural area. There’s a campground near Mount Rainier where my dad used to take me. Always loved it as a kid, like being on a different planet away from civilization. That’s where I hinted to Asher I’d be.” She groaned. “It’s way more fun when you’re on vacation instead of running for your life. I made it there, but I only stayed for a few hours. Eli caught up, and I had to bolt. I’ve been bouncing from campground to campground until I stumbled on that empty cabin where you and Britta found me.”
He chuckled and pulled a mitten from his pocket. “Britta did the finding. We used this as a scent article. You dropped it.”
She laughed, the sound bouncing off the tunnel walls. “You can totally outwit people, but you can’t fool a dog.”
“That’s for sure, but it was slow going when the blizzard landed. It would have been way easier in the summer.”
She rolled her eyes. “Tell me about it. That totally made things ten times harder. The storm systems arrived about the same time I did. I might have changed my mind and called to turn myself in, but I had no way to contact anyone. I called Asher from a payphone and when I checked in with Willow, it was because I begged a lady in the grocery store to allow me to borrow her phone.”
He could only marvel at her ingenuity. Clever woman.
The lamplight revealed a door twenty feet ahead of them. Britta bounded ahead to give it a once-over.
“Looks like we made it to the exit.” He was glad to end the line of conversation they’d had going. He’d begun to enjoy the sound of her voice way more than he should have, the way it rose and fell like the breeze coming over the mountains.
She held the light so he could see the rusted panel. The wind outside pummeled the door like fists. Again his mind started churning up thoughts. Mara picked up on his hesitation.
“You’re thinking this might not be an escape after all. Eli could be waiting. He could have decided trapping us here was a perfect way to kill us. Far away from a building. Alice and Howard not around to be witnesses.”
He tried not to let his concern show, but she’d gotten every point that had been worrying him. She was a fellow investigator, after all, though her business was crime scenes, not law enforcement. Her job, dusting for fingerprints, searching for evidence and collecting samples all required thinking out of the box so she wouldn’t miss anything.
Was the metal door an escape or a shield? Normally Britta could detect Eli’s presence with the blizzard howling around them...
“Seems like we have two choices here. Go out or return via the tunnel to the shed. Either way Eli could be there waiting, or Vinny or both of them.”
She chewed her lip in thought. “There’s a third choice. Stay here for a while.”
He had to hold back an uncomfortable squirm. “Like being a bug trapped in a bottle.”
“I agree.” She gazed into the darkness in the direction of the ladder and then looked straight at him. “I trust Alice. She put her life on the line to help us. If she thinks we can get to the trailer, I say we go for it.”
“Confident, are you?”
“God didn’t bring me this far for it all to end here.”
He wanted to feel that same surety, but God had ended things for Allie after he’d been so certain, so completely confident that she would live. But this wasn’t then. Mara was willing to risk going forward and he intended to be right there with her until the moment he delivered her safely back to Olympia. He’d promised Asher, and himself.
He pulled his knit cap lower on his forehead and put one palm on the door. “Flank,” he said to Britta, who took up a position at his side. She showed no sign that she’d picked up the scent of danger.
Mara tucked the blanket under her arm, the lantern in one hand, the other palm held up as if she was expecting a blow.
Here goes nothing, he thought as he eased the door open.