Page 112 of Silent Threat
Or did Dan think that Annie was holed up somewhere nearby and he wanted to flush her out?
The second shot sounded louder than the first. He was coming in her direction. And she was trapped, unable to get away from him. When he got here, it’d be—literally—like shooting fish in a barrel.
She switched tactics and tried to pull herself up by the fallen tree’s roots, but she couldn’t hold on. Everything was way too slippery with mud and rain.
“Annie!”
Cole?
“I’m here!” He wouldn’t hear her, but she couldn’t stop screaming. “Cole! I’m here!”
She ripped off her sweatshirt. White. Maybe Cole would see it. The wet fabric wasn’t keeping her warm anyway. She tossed the shirt on the root ball then spread it out as much as she could, like a white flag. She would have taken off her flannel shirt too, but it was dark green.
She slipped back in, slipped under. God, she was cold. And so incredibly tired. She clawed her way to the surface anyway. This time, it took forever. She kept slipping back.
Then Cole was there, barreling forward.
“I’m here.” He fell to his knees next to the hole and grabbed her with his left hand, yanked her out like a kid yanking a frog from a puddle. He didn’t let her go, his arms tightening around her. His voice was rough and gravelly in her ear. “Taking the tree-root meditation a little too far, aren’t you?”
She was gasping for air, her whole body trembling.
“Are you all right?” He lay her gently on the ground to examine her and brushed her soggy, matted hair out of her face. “Nod your head.”
She nodded, but she stayed flat on her back. She didn’t think she could get up if the fate of all the rain forests in the world depended on it.
Until lightning lit up the sky, and she saw the blood on Cole’s shoulder.
She sat up and reached out. How bad was the injury? No way for her to ask in the sudden dark. But she’d seen enough to know that he needed immediate help. She struggled to her feet and reached for him.
She glanced in the direction of the earlier gunshots. Where was Ambrose? He had to be incapacitated, or Cole wouldn’t have shouted for her. He wouldn’t have risked drawing Ambrose’s attention.
Then Cole turned, and Annie saw Ambrose’s gun tucked into the back of his waistband. So Ambrose and Cole had had a confrontation, and Cole had won. For now, Annie didn’t need to know more than that. She’d worry about the details later.
Now her only goal was to get Cole to help before he collapsed.
Which way?
As if he heard her silent question, he grabbed her hand and pulled her forward without hesitation. She went with him.
A whole hour passed before they reached the edge of the woods.
Annie couldn’t believe Cole was still upright. He simply kept going, refusing to let her wedge herself into his armpit and take some of his weight. He just kept asking if she was all right.
The lights from the facilities lit up the night. Annie and Cole staggered in through the back door.
Libby was the first person Annie saw, at the end of the long hallway.
The reflexologist ran toward them. “Are you all right? What happened?”
“We need a first-aid kit and 911.”
Libby was dialing her phone even as she spun around and took off running for the kit.
Cole leaned against the wall, his face pale.
He had a belt cinched around his shoulder. She hadn’t seen that before. She tested it. Tight, although blood was still seeping out. The question was, how much blood had he lost before he’d gotten that belt in place?
“Sit,” she told him. “Help is almost here.”
