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His lips were cracked, and Jon searched for a water bottle.When he found nothing, he fished one out of his backpack and handed it to Annie. She helped Glenn take a few small sips, and he fell back against the cot and closed his eyes.
Annie touched his shoulder. “How did you get here, Glenn?”
His head lolled, and he didn’t answer.
“Let me examine him.” Jon touched Glenn’s carotid artery and found a faint, rapid pulse. Likely very dehydrated. His emaciated state made Jon wonder if he’d eaten much at all since he was spirited out of the hospital, where he’d been fed via anIV.
“He’s in rough shape,” he told Annie. “I need to get him to a hospital.”
Annie yanked out her satellite phone, punched several buttons, and shook her head. “It’s dead. I don’t think I charged it last night. I’ll have to hike out to where I can get a signal and call for help. You stay here with him. You’re the doctor.”
It made sense, though there was little Jon could do in the wilderness with no equipment. “Be careful. And hurry. I don’t like his pasty skin. He needs anIV immediately for one thing. It’s hard to know what all is wrong.”
“I’ll be right back,” she promised. “If I go south along the shore, there’s a small area with cell coverage. It shouldn’t take me more than fifteen minutes to reach it. I’ll call for a chopper. There’s enough room to land it on the beach.”
He watched her rush for the door with a vague sense of unease before he turned back to Glenn.
***
Annie’s chest burned and her legs ached from her hectic run along the uneven ground along the water. Darkness had fallencompletely, but moonlight lit her path along Lake Superior. Hoping she’d find cell coverage sooner than she expected, she paused several times to check her phone, but it wasn’t until she reached a familiar stand of conifer trees that she managed to get one bar on her phone.
She walked toward the trees and sat on a rock to rest while she called for help. Her phone was nearly dead, and she wished she’d thought to recharge it on the drive out here.
She called Mason’s number and started talking as soon as it connected. “Mason, I’ve found Glenn!” She told him how she stumbled onto the missing suspect and his condition. “We need an EMS chopper. He’s in a bad way. I left Jon with him, but he has nothing to treat him with, no meds, noIV. I think you can land on the beach.”
She gave him the coordinates, and he promised to send out a helicopter followed by law enforcement and forensics. When she ended the call, she pulled out a bottle of water and chugged it, then replaced the empty bottle in her backpack to carry out of the woods.
Out on the water she saw the flickering lights of a passing boat. There’d been no sign of Sarah, and Annie struggled with the rising guilt again. There was so much she should have done and said. Now it was too late. She’d never see Sarah again.
She stood to start the trek back to the cabin so she could be there to wave the chopper down to the right place. A twig snapped behind her and she turned as a figure came barreling out of the forest. Her first instinct was it was a bear, but she quickly placed it as a burly man with a ski mask over his head. Though her hand reached for her gun, the guy crashed into her and bore her onto the sand. His breath smelled of cigarettes and breath mints, and his jacket stank of animal.
The breath went out of her, and her head slammed into a rock. Stars swam across her vision, and her arms went weak as she flailed around to try to escape his grip. The encounter felt weird and off since he said nothing. His hard hands pressed her shoulders back against the ground, then he lifted her and slammed her down again. He did that repeatedly so her head banged onto the rock over and over.
She was barely clinging to consciousness when he flipped her over and bound her wrists together. “Let me go,” she whispered.
He still hadn’t said a word, and the silence seemed demonic and evil. It heightened her terror. What kind of monster clutched her in its grip? Barely conscious, she didn’t have much fight in her to resist his efficient binding of her hands. With her trussed up and helpless, he rolled her onto her back again, then yanked her into a sitting position. In seconds she was hauled up and flung over his shoulder. Instead of heading into the forest, he turned toward the water and Annie closed her eyes to the sound of a motor chugging closer.
When she opened her eyes again, she was in a small room with no windows. Her head pounded, and she forced back nausea with every beat of her heart. There was one small kerosene lamp that left most of the tiny room in shadows. The unpainted concrete floor radiated cold and damp, and when she touched the wall, it felt like concrete too.
Was she buried in a concrete box? She ran to the door, a small steel one, and pounded on it. “Let me out!” She kicked it with a boot, but all that did was make her head pound more.
With a final yank on the doorknob, she went back to the metal cot and sank onto the hard mattress. Who had taken her and why? Was she about to find out what was going on in her beloved UpperPeninsula by being a victim herself? Her hand went to her holster. Empty.
But she wasn’t without resources. If the hunters came after her, they would find out they faced a formidable adversary. She knew these miles of wilderness. It would be the worst fight of their lives. She would not let them win. There was too much to live for—Kylie and Jon. She would use every ounce of strength she possessed to fight.
There wasn’t enough space to pace the way she wanted, so she forced herself to conserve her strength, to lay back on the hard, flat pillow, and rest. She closed her eyes, and her headache began to ease. The determination coiling in her chest began to radiate strength to her arms and legs.
Whoever had taken her would not find her an easy target.
Thirty
Sarah was cold, so cold. She hadn’t fully dried from being drenched in the rain. This small concrete cubicle was too damp and chilly to let the moisture evaporate. She’d wrapped the thin blanket around her, but her teeth still chattered.
Fear likely added to that.
The men hadn’t spoken to her once they put her in the boat. They’d put a thick pillowcase over her head and had brought her to this dank cell. She had no idea if it was on the island, on another island, or somewhere on the mainland. With the light snuffed out during the ride, she lost all sense of direction and time. They could have traveled an hour or three. It was all the same to Sarah in her terror.
She’d been here for what seemed an eternity. The meal they’d brought her—soup and a peanut butter sandwich—was still untouched on a tray by the door. The faint aroma of chicken noodle soup left a stench in the room, and the thought of eating made bile rise in her throat. All she wanted was out of this dreadful concrete box.
