Page 106 of Deathmarch
In case it was a trick, in case he was waiting for her, testing her, Allie sat where she was for another twenty minutes or so before she refastened her brace back, then tugged on her shoe. She carried her makeshift blade with her once again as she inched toward the half-open back door on her hands and knees.
She stuck her head out of the truck first, making sure she was alone. Then she climbed out and hobbled to the garage door. If she could push it up a foot, she could crawl out. The switch by the door that led to the house wasn’t an option. The kidnapper would hear the rattling and would be out there before she made it halfway across the garage.
“Open. Open, open, open, please,” she whispered breathlessly as she strained.
The damn door proved to be too heavy, however, especially with being unable to put her full weight on her bad ankle, with her hands having been beaten bloody while she’d been banging on the side paneling on their way here. The door wouldn’t budge, no matter what she tried. Maybe it was locked somehow. Maybe the kidnapper had the whole place secured.
There must be another way.
She limped around the truck to the opposite end of the garage, stopping under the narrow window on the back wall. She wiped away the mesh of spiderwebs with distaste, then felt around the opening mechanism.
She couldn’t budge that either. The metal had rusted shut.
The glass was wired security glass, thick and impossible to break. She certainly couldn’t break it quickly and quietly. If she tried, he’d hear her and come running.
She scraped around the rusty lock on top with the sharpened edge of the paint-can lid, but it was the wrong shape. She couldn’t get at the problem. She needed a sharp knife, a much narrower blade.
She tried again anyway.
“Come on, come on, come on.” She whispered the words like a prayer.
The stupid window wouldn’t give. She rattled, shoved, pulled. Nothing. As if the frame had been welded shut on the outside.
The thought that that might very well be the case nearly made her cry. Maybe the damn kidnapper had been that thorough. Maybe he’d anticipated her jailbreak.
She shook her head, angry now.She refused to give in to despair. She tried again, and again, and again.
She wanted to scream with frustration, but she didn’t give in to that either. She gritted her teeth instead.Make as little noise as possible.
She did all right, just some scraping sounds here and there.
Until the metal lid popped out and snapped back, hitting her on the bridge of her nose. The pain was sharp, unexpected, but she didn’t yell. Although she might as well have.
The piece of metal fell to the floor at her feet with a loud clatter that echoed in the garage.
Footsteps reverberated inside the house, heading toward the door. She fought the lock frantically, biting back a curse when she ripped off a fingernail.
No pain was going to stop her now. She fought that damned window with all the strength she had.
Dammit, dammit, dammit. Open, you rotten piece of possum shit!
* * *
When Mike picked up the phone at the B and B, Harper asked, “Is my mother there, by any chance?”
“Came over ten minutes ago. She’s been in the kitchen with Shannon, doing something calledstress baking.I was about to call you. Kidnapper just made contact. He wants to switch Allie for Lamm’s gold at the old Portly Paco’s at four a.m. Just you and the gold. If he sees anyone else, Allie is dead. Usual prime-time crime-drama speech. Must have time to watch a lot of TV. But it’s something, right?”
“It’s something.” Relief shot through Harper.Contact. Finally.“Not a bad location. He’s not too dumb. We shouldn’t underestimate him.”
Portly Paco’s had once been a busy roadside stand selling Mexican food on Route 1. The wooden structure had burned down the year before, and Paco decided not to rebuild. He bought a brick-and-mortar restaurant in town instead, upsized, and was thriving. Harper ate there at least once a week.
What had been the original Portly Paco’s was now an empty parking lot near the junction of the highway and Wilmington Boulevard, another major route slicing Broslin in half. The spot was surrounded by nothing but fields—nowhere to hide police cars—an easy getaway for the kidnapper who could go in any of four directions.
“Has the guy’s cell phone been traced yet?” Harper asked.
“Techs are still working on it. It’s a burner.”
Of course it was. Hollywood gave people too many ideas.
