Mountain Investigation. Jessica Andersen

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СКАЧАТЬ froze, holding her breath. The door opened a crack.

      “Not yet,” Brisbane said sharply from the other room. “They won’t be here for another hour or so.”

      Lee’s voice spoke from the doorway. “But I was just going to—”

      “I know what you were going to do, and you’re not doing it. You had your chance to question her, and it didn’t work. Leave her be. We need her for another few hours. After al-Jihad’s done with her, you can do whatever you want.”

      Mariah barely heard Lee’s soft curse over the hammering of the pulse in her ears. But the door shut once again, and the footsteps moved away. She was saved—for the moment, anyway.

      But time was running out.

      Hurrying, nearly sobbing with terror, she fought against her bonds, yanking at the loosening ropes around her wrists and twisting against the tie connecting her hands and feet together. Slowly, ever so slowly, she worked her hands free from underneath the first layer of rope, then the second. The nylon strands cut into her skin and blood slicked her wrists, but she kept going, kept fighting, refusing to give up.

      She’d given up before, accepting her marriage for what it was. Maybe she hadn’t completely given up, but she’d certainly given in for too long, letting herself be blinded to the truth about her husband.

      Not again, she vowed inwardly. Not this time.

      On that thought, she gave a sharp jerk. Her left hand came free with a slash of pain as the nylon fibers tore into her skin. But she didn’t care about the injury. She was free!

      Working faster now, sobbing with fear, relief and excitement, she undid her other hand, then her feet. Rolling off the bed, she stood, barefoot and wobbly, wearing only the fleece sweatshirt and yoga pants Brisbane had tossed at her after her last shower. Within seconds, the crisp air inside the cabin cut through the single layer of material and chilled her skin, waking her further.

      Trying not to think of how much colder it was going to be outside in the cool Colorado springtime, especially come nightfall, she headed for the door, keeping herself from passing out through sheer force of will. Two years ago she’d been too weak to deal with the downward spiral of her life. Now, hardened by time and Lee’s betrayal, she was stronger. But was she strong enough?

      “You’re going to have to be,” she whispered, saying the words aloud because the volume gave her growing resolution form and substance.

      Brave words weren’t going to get her out of the cabin, though. Not with the bedroom window nailed shut and two armed men in the front room, not to mention the motion detectors she’d so carefully wired in the woods around her home. They’d been meant to keep her safe. Now they would warn Lee and Brisbane if she managed to sneak out the back door. She didn’t have her shotgun, didn’t have the remote control to the security system, didn’t have anything going for her except the knowledge that the men wanted her alive for another hour or two. They needed some sort of information from her, something important enough that they’d kept her alive and untouched for however many days it had been.

      They might shoot at her, but they’d be aiming to wound, not kill. And everything she’d learned about firearms since this whole mess began suggested that it was very difficult to purposefully wound a fleeing target. During the trial it had come out that Lee had serious skill in bombmaking, but he’d claimed not to have any experience with guns. If she were lucky, Brisbane wouldn’t be a sharpshooter, either. Even if he were, what was the difference, really?

      Better to die trying to escape than let the terrorists use her to kill more innocents.

      Mariah paused just shy of the doorway, feeling very small and alone. Raised by parents who’d met as rock band roadies and liked to keep moving, she’d lived in ten different places before her tenth birthday. Even after her parents had finally settled down in Bear Claw and her father had gone into engineering, landing a good job at the American Mall Group, Mariah had remained a private person, a loner who had to make a real effort when it came to meeting people. Her few forays into couplehood—including her disaster of a marriage—had only proved that she was the sort of person who was better off alone. Problem was, she wasn’t always strong enough, smart enough, or just plain enough to do the things that needed to be done.

      You have no choice, she told herself, clamping her lips together and fighting to be as silent as possible as she reached for the doorknob. Putting her ear to the panel, she listened intently but heard nothing, not even the radio. Did that mean both men were outside, maybe preparing for the arrival of the others? Or were they somewhere inside the cabin, just being quiet?

      She didn’t know, but she wasn’t going to figure it out by listening at the door, either.

      Blowing out a shallow, frightened breath, she eased the panel open and paused, tense and listening. Still no sound. She slipped through, unsteady on her numb legs, her heart beating so loud in her ears she was sure Lee and Brisbane would hear it all the way out front and come running.

      But there was no shout of discovery as she slipped around the corner to the other back room, where she’d installed a rear door several months earlier. The room had served as her office; now it was overstuffed with the furniture Lee and Brisbane had pulled out of her bedroom, along with her usual office clutter. She glanced at her bureau, but it was facing the wall, which meant there was no way she could pull out clothes or shoes with any sort of stealth.

      Crossing the room, barely breathing, she unlatched the dead bolt, wincing when the loud click cut through the silence. Then she opened the door and paused on the threshold, stalled by the sight of the fifty feet of rawedged stumps between her and the relative safety of the forest.

      Her heart thumped in her ears. She couldn’t stay in the cabin. But crossing the clear-cut zone would trigger the alarms.

      They don’t want me dead, she reminded herself, although that was little solace as she drew a deep breath, plucked up her thin courage and plunged through the door.

      She hit the ground running. Splinters and woodchips from the clear-cutting bit into her feet, but she kept going. Seconds later, the alarms went off, emitting a mechanized buzz that sliced through the air and straight through to her soul.

      She wanted to scream but held the sound in, hoping to delay discovery as long as possible. Maybe they weren’t even home. Maybe they’d gone to meet—

      “She’s out. Get her!” Lee’s shout warned that she wasn’t that lucky.

      Moments later, a shotgun blasted behind her, and a full pellet load blew out the top of a nearby stump as she ran past it. The next shot hit the ground behind her, stinging the backs of her calves with dirt spray.

      The pain worried Mariah that she’d miscalculated, badly. Apparently, they’d rather have her dead than free.

      She screamed once in fear, but then clamped her lips on further cries. She wouldn’t give up! Sobbing, she flung herself the rest of the way across the clear-cut zone and hurdled the low electric line with ill grace.

      She landed hard, stumbled and went to her knees, her legs burning with injury and exertion. As she fell, the shotgun roared, and tree bark exploded right where her head had just been.

      Blubbering, she rolled and scrambled back up, then ran for her life as Lee and Brisbane bolted across the clearing and plunged into the forest after her. The alarms cut out abruptly. СКАЧАТЬ