Chapter Thirty-Nine

Kat came awake to the sound of Jake’s voice. Not Jake. Riley, she remembered. Her head throbbed.

"Can you hear me? Kat? Please wake up and talk to me. Kat?" Riley pleaded in a loud whisper.

Kat opened her eyes. To darkness. Not quite total darkness. Her eyes were beginning to adjust. She could just make out a small bit of light around the closed door she lay opposite. It was enough to allow her to discern her friend’s outline. Riley was on the floor several feet away.

They were in the pantry. The smell of the fish sauce had thankfully faded and was now annoying but tolerable.

"Please, Kat. Please wake up and tell me you’re all right. It’s Jake." Riley said.

"Thought your name was Riley," Kat replied in a low whisper.

"Thank God," Riley said. "I wasn’t sure you’d remember. I was kind of hoping you might want to wake up to Jake. Are you all right?"

"My head is killing me." Kat tried to move. Her hands were handcuffed behind her and her feet were tied together. A short length of rope connected her hands and feet. She could tell from the dim light that Riley was similarly hog-tied, though her knees weren’t bent back at such a sharp angle. "Think I’m all right other than that. What about you?"

"She didn’t knock me out," Riley whispered. "Just brought me in here and tied me up. Then dragged you in here. My knee doesn’t like this, but I’ll live. I was worried about you. Your head was bleeding a lot."

"I’ll be all right. How long was I out?"

"About ten minutes."

"Did she say anything?"

"She... well, she tried to screw with my mind," Riley said vaguely. "Unsuccessfully. I was too worried about you to think about much else."

"What did she say to you?" Kat asked, her temper rising.

"She... gloated," Riley said. "Over my husband’s murder." Her voice was full of pain. "Said she might not have had to kill him if I hadn’t interrupted her. Tried to make me feel guilty for running away. Told me she’d... get me back... for all the inconvenience I caused her."

"How much do you remember?" Kat asked.

"Everything. It all came back when I saw her. She killed Sam. My husband. I went to the airstrip. He’s--he was," she amended sadly, "a helicopter pilot." She took a deep breath. "She had a knife to his throat. He was tied up on the floor, like we are now."

Her voice took on a slight tremor, as if it suddenly occurred to her that the same fate might be in store for both of them. "He had cuts all over his body," Riley went on. "His shirt and pants were bloody and he had cuts on his face."

Kat knew how painful this recollection was, but she had to let her continue. She had to learn everything she could about Scout to best prepare for whatever lay ahead.

"He started screaming as soon as he saw me. ’No, Riley! Run!’" Tears spilled down her cheeks. "She killed him as soon as the words were out of his mouth. She...she slit his throat." Her voice was full of anguish. "I didn’t really have time to think. I did what he said. I ran. I took her car. She nearly caught me. She was chasing me, shooting at the car. I took off in the only direction I could. I don’t remember going off the road, but I was really upset."

"How did you end up in her car?" Kat asked. Throughout Riley’s recollections, Kat had been working at her bindings, trying to loosen them, so far without success.

"I parked my truck in back, next to Sam’s. His wasn’t running, and I had told him he could use mine while I was out of town if he’d give me a lift to the airport in Marquette. I was supposed to go to Vancouver that night for a job. When I walked around the building, I noticed the car parked in front. I glanced inside because I didn’t recognize it, and I saw the keys were in it."

There was a long pause. "Sam and I had been separated a long time," Riley explained. "I was gone a lot, and he was always having affairs while I was on the road. It wasn’t a bad breakup--we were still friends. But I guess I was just in the habit of noticing things--like who he was spending time with. Anyway, when I ran out of there, I just headed for that car because it was a lot closer than my truck."

Riley was silent another long moment. "I wonder if Sam might be alive if I’d done something differently. It just all happened so fast."

"Listen," Kat said. "There’s nothing you could have done. This woman is a cold-blooded killer." She tried not to think about the fact that the description she’d just used fit her as well. "Riley, I’m very sorry about your husband." The next confession was hard. "I think he died because of me."

"Because of you?"

"Scout is after me," Kat said. "I knew Sam. Not well. I mean...I never knew he was married. I used his helicopter a lot when I was building the bunker and when I needed to resupply. I think Scout somehow figured out I knew him, and she was trying to get Sam to tell her where I was when you interrupted them."

Riley absorbed that news. "You’re not to blame, Kat," she said finally.

"And neither are you," Kat said. "Scout’s a nutcase. Any idea what she’s doing now?"

"She said she wanted to find out all she could about you," Riley said. "Do you know what that means?"

"Maybe," Kat said. Can Scout find the weapons room? She thought it unlikely. No, but she might be able to hack into the computer if she got into the bunker. She thought about her e-mail correspondence with Kenny. That could be trouble.

"Jake? I mean, Riley, sorry--" Kat began.

"I don’t mind if you call me Jake, you know," Riley said.

"Good, because I might slip now and then," Kat said. "Can you scoot over here closer to me?"

Riley had attempted several times when Kat was unconscious to move toward her. But each time she did, the pain in her knee was so excruciating she nearly blacked out. "I can’t, Kat. I tried to, but my knee is just too--"

"It’s okay. I know you would if you could."

"I’m sorry," Riley said. "I’m sorry I didn’t kill her when I had the chance. I know you wanted me to. I just couldn’t take the chance she’d shoot you."

"It’s all right, Riley," Kat said. "You’re not a killer." There was a catch in her voice and Riley knew why.

"Kat," Riley reassured her, "Nothing’s changed. Yes, I’m Riley, not Jake. A writer, as it turns out, and not a bounty hunter. But I still want to be with you. Just as soon as you get us out of this."

Otter was worried. He was so cold he could no longer feel his hands. He’d been flexing them to try to keep the circulation going. He’d even lain on them, hoping to warm them up that way. But it wasn’t working. The little heater was ineffective against the open door. The wind outside had picked up, and frigid air was blowing in. His face was freezing. His cheeks and his nose stung, and his eyes watered.

"We’ve got to get out of here before we freeze to death," he told Frank.

Frank hadn’t spoken in several minutes, but Otter had heard his chattering teeth and knew he was suffering too.

"Hunter is not going to help you, Frank. That woman got her, or Hunter would have come out to check on us."

"If she got Hunter," Frank said, shivering, "then why didn’t she come back out here?"

"Who the hell knows? Maybe she went out through the other exit. Maybe she’s in there torturing Hunter. Maybe they killed each other. Whatever the hell happened, nobody’s gonna come help us. We got to help ourselves."

Frank had never thought he’d find himself hoping that Hunter prevailed, but he did. He hoped she’d get out of whatever was happening in there, because he didn’t think he would survive otherwise. He thought there was no way they could get out of their bonds. But perhaps, he admitted, it’s time to really try. Just to make sure. "Got any ideas?"

Scout hunched over Kat’s computer. Trying to find the right password, she typed in several different numerical combinations, every number she knew that had been significant to her long-sought quarry. Phone numbers, addresses, birthdays. Then she tried words. Place names and family names and every false identity she knew that Kat had used.

Scout had been gathering information on Hunter for eight years in preparation for this day. It had been her obsession since she was released from a Belfast jail after serving two months for passing bad checks.

She’d awakened in a cold sweat in her cell that night, gripped in a nightmare she couldn’t remember. The same night that Hunter broke into a remote cottage in Northern Ireland and killed four members of a particularly violent offshoot of the Irish Republican Army. Scout was the absent fifth member of the group. Her brother Ian, among the dead, was its leader.

She’ll remember that day. With a little encouragement, she’ll remember.

The presence of the pilot’s wife makes all this a lot more interesting, Scout thought. Especially since she and Katarzyna undoubtedly have the hots for each other. Scout hadn’t thought it possible that Hunter had a heart. Yet she seemed very selflessly protective of the injured Riley.

Katarzyna had been Scout’s obsession. She knew more about her than anyone alive, and she’d never found evidence that Hunter was intimate with anyone, male or female. So what she’d witnessed changed her game plan a little. She was still working it out in her mind, how she might use the relationship between the two women to her advantage. She’d heard that her adversary had a very high tolerance for pain and could not easily be persuaded to give up information. Perhaps she might be more easily convinced if her friend is the one being tortured.

It took Scout another hour to hack into Kat’s computer files. She was patient. While she tried various possibilities, she spared a moment’s thought to the two men. Must be getting pretty cold out there about now. Maybe she’d go shut the door for them after she’d gotten into the computer files. Maybe. First she had to think of a reason they might be useful and worth the effort.

When she finally got into the computer, Scout went to Kat’s e-mail program and read the exchanges between Kenny and Hunter. So Katarzyna does have a friend. Someone she trusts enough to give the access number of her Swiss bank account and the location of this place. She read their entire correspondence. This Kenny was a good source of information as well as a good friend. He had warned Katarzyna about her, as well as someone named Otter.

I bet Otter is one of the guys in the garage, she reasoned. She was very interested to learn that Otter had dealt with Katarzyna before somewhere and knew Kenny. Otter might be worth keeping alive after all. At least until I find out everything he knows.

Scout composed her own e-mail to Kenny, asking him to personally deliver the cash and transportation he was arranging. She told him it was imperative that he speed up the process and get to the bunker as soon as possible. He was to e-mail back when he knew precisely when he’d arrive. She signed it "Hunter" and sent it off. I have to make sure I take care of everyone important to you, Katarzyna. Just like you did for me.

She turned her attention to Kat’s Swiss bank account. She accessed the bank’s online customer service page and set to work arranging an electronic transfer of all remaining funds from the account into her own account in the Cayman Islands.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-30