Page 19 of Mountain Captive

“Lie still, okay? You’re still bleeding a little. Do you know who hit you?”

He was starting to think more clearly, and the memory of what had happened before he was hit came flooding back. “Chris!” He tried to sit up again, though the EMTs held him down. “Is Chris all right? I have to go to her.”

“Is Chris the person who called for an ambulance?” Lee asked someone out of Rand’s field of vision. He was still holding Rand down. Rand lay back, gathering strength for another attempt to rise.

“No. Someone named Susan, in the apartment across the alley,” a female voice answered. “She said she heard a shout and looked out the window to see someone fall to the ground and someone else run away. She called 911, and they dispatched us.” A woman with strawberry blond hair and freckles leaned over Rand. “A sheriff’s deputy is on the way. I hear the siren now.”

Rand heard it too—a high-pitched wailing that grew louder and louder. He sat up again. This time no one stopped him. The woman probed at the back of his head while Lee unwrapped a blood pressure cuff from around Rand’s left arm.

“Your vitals are good,” Lee said. “How are you feeling?”

The dizziness and nausea had subsided. His head throbbed, but he could live with that. “I’m better,” he said. “I have to check on Chris. The person who hit me could have got to her.”

Lee’s forehead wrinkled. “This Chris person was with you when you were attacked?”

“No. She lives upstairs, over the art gallery. I was just leaving her apartment. Whoever hit me must have been waiting in the alley.”

“If she’s upstairs, she should be all—” A loud crash interrupted him. He turned to look toward the sound behind him, and Rand staggered to his feet.

“Sir, you need to be still—”

Rand ignored the words and started for the building. He was certain now that his attacker had been waiting to disable him so he could go after Chris. But he had taken only a few steps when a sheriff’s department SUV turned into the alley. The wail of the siren bounced off the buildings, and Rand instinctively put his hands to his ears. “Freeze, with your hands where I can see them!” a voice from the SUV ordered.

Rand did as he was asked and squinted in the glare of the spotlight centered on him. Then the light cut off, and a man stepped out from the car. “Rand, what are you doing here?”

Jake Gwynn moved toward Rand, converging on him at the same time the two EMTs caught up with him. “You need to check on Chris,” Rand said. “I had just left her apartment when someone attacked me, but I think their real target was her.”

“Chris called 911 and said someone was breaking into her apartment.” Jake looked at the outer door. “Gage is on his way.”

“We don’t have time to wait,” Rand said. “I’ll back you up.”

Jake’s gaze shifted to Rand’s head. “You’re bleeding.”

“I’ll be fine. We don’t have time to loo—”

A woman’s scream overhead launched him toward the door, with Jake right behind him. But the door was locked. Jake pounded on it. “Open up! Sheriff’s department!” he shouted.

But the only reply was scuffling noises overhead and another loud crash. “Is there a back way in?” Jake asked.

“I don’t know,” Rand said. He tried to remember anything about Chris’s apartment, but he hadn’t been paying attention, and he hadn’t been past the living room. “Maybe a fire escape?”

“Stay here. I’m going around back.”

As soon as Jake was gone, Rand turned his attention back to the door. It was a heavy metal door; he doubted he could bash it in. He couldn’t pick the lock either. Could he ram it with his car?

A second siren’s wail filled the air. “That must be Gage,” Lee said.

Rand moved to the middle of the alley and stared up at what he thought was Chris’s window. “Chris!” he shouted. But no answer came.

A second black-and-white SUV entered the alley, and Sergeant Gage Walker stepped out almost before it had come to a complete stop. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“Chris is upstairs,” Rand said. “She called 911, saying someone was breaking into her apartment. I had just left her, and someone must have been waiting for me. They attacked me and knocked me out. I came to when the paramedics arrived.”

“Dispatch sent us over in response to a call from a neighbor about a man being attacked in the alley,” Lee said.

Gage pulled out his phone. “I’ll call the building owner and see if we can get a key.”

Rand shook his head and started around the corner of the building. Jake met him at the corner. “Where are you going?” he asked, his hands on Rand’s shoulders.

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