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“Bring you some dinner in forty-five?” Trevor asked. “Chili and cornbread tonight.”
Charlie’s stomach rumbled, and for the first time in hours, she laughed.
“Sounds perfect,” she said.
At last, Trevor cracked a smile.
“I’ll be back,” he said.
Charlie still couldn’t really shower with the bandages on her back, but she gave herself a sponge bath and even washed her hair in the sink. When she got back to her room, as clean as she was going to be, she felt like a new person.
Amazing how different washing your hair makes you feel, she thought.
I’ll just find Olivia, free her, call in the FBI, and in a month I’ll be on a plane back here, she thought.
It’ll be a long month, but it’s doable.
A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door. When she opened it, Trevor was standing there, a tray full of steaming food in his hands, and he walked into the room and sat it on the room’s small table.
“It looks amazing,” Charlie said, her stomach making its presence known yet again.
Trevor paused.
“Buck asked me to request that you not leave this building,” he said. “Don’t go to the other dorm, to the main house, and definitely don’t go to the outbuilding past the barn,” he said.
Then he nodded once.
“Enjoy your dinner,” he said.
That was weird, thought Charlie, but she didn’t give it much thought. For the past couple days, everything had been weird, so she ate the chili in meditative silence.
Then she picked up the cornbread and stopped.
Underneath it was a key.
Reflexively, she looked at the door, which was shut. It was placed so perfectly underneath the cornbread that there was no way it was an accident, but she had no idea what it unlocked.
She shoved the key into her pocket, then ate the rest of the chili and tried to think, her tired brain resisting every step of the process.
Finally, it dawned on her.
The outbuilding past the barn, dummy, she thought.
Jeez, I’m slow today.
Charlie finished the rest of her dinner quickly, then brushed her teeth with the toothbrush from her pack.
Before she went to bed, she dug out the emergency beacon and stuck it in her pocket, then laid down and waited for the ranch to get quiet.
* * *
When Charlie gotout of bed, it was completely dark, the dorm was quiet, and the moon was completely up. She slipped into her clothes, made sure that she had the key and the emergency beacon, and slipped out.
She didn’t know why Trevor was helping her, but it sure did make things easier. Searching through the entire ranch could have taken forever, but instead she went straight to the outbuilding, doing her best to keep to the shadows.
The door was unlocked, and she pushed it open just enough to slip through.
It looked like it had been some sort of milking barn at one time, she thought. It was full of stalls and had high, long windows that let the moonlight stream through, the bright white light in the darkness almost made the interior of the barn look like it was in black and white.
