Chapter fourteen
When she looked up at the window, Dani was surprised that night hadn't fallen yet. Her jaws and knees ached from the long time she'd spent balancing on her knees and chewing through the tape on Jenny's hands, which hadn't been quite as easy as she'd hoped. At long last, she had managed it though. Jenny had then returned the favor, though of course she got to use her fingernails for the task instead of her teeth. Now they were both working on getting their ankles free too. Hours must have passed since she'd first woken up on the single bed on the other side of the room, but still the house was completely quiet. Outside birds were chirping, but Dani couldn't hear any city or traffic noises. She hoped that meant that it would take Troy or whatever accomplice of his a long time to get back here, giving them plenty of time to escape…
Finally, Dani could pull her ankles free from the tape. A triumphant smile came on her face. Ignoring the various hurts and aches in her body, she immediatley got up and walked across the room to try the door. Locked. Well, she hadn't really expected Troy to be that stupid, but it would have been nice if he'd forgotten to turn the key, right? She rattled the door a few times, just for good measure, then walked over to the window.
Jenny sat back up with a groan, finally free from the chair. "Wow, glad I don't have to do that every day," the girl stated, massaging her lower back. Then she stood up and stretched. "God, feels good to be free."
"Well, we're not there yet," Dani replied while she opened one of the curtains. Outside, she saw trees. A lot of them. Behind the trees, she thought she could make out the shimmer of water. Maybe a stream or a lake. No signs of any people being nearby though. Good, that meant they could try to escape without worrying about producing too much noise. But a little troublesome too, because it also meant that they probably wouldn't get any help while doing so. Dani tried to open the window, but it was painted shut. Of course. "Jenny, could you bring that chair over here?"
"Wait, you're gonna break the window? You really think that's a good idea? I mean, it makes a lot of noise, so…" Jenny shrugged as her voice trailed off.
"Don't worry, I don't think there's anybody here."
Jenny gave her a hesistant look. "Yeah, but maybe…" Again, she shrugged.
"Maybe what, honey?" Dani asked.
"Well, maybe they'll come back. They've been gone for a long time already." They?
"There was more than one person here earlier?"
"Two. The guy that brought you in and another one, who has been bringing me food. The guy that brought you I've only seen the one time, the other one was here all the time. But today they both left before dawn."
Could the other man be the one that hurt Lindsay? Or were there even more players involved in this than Dani and Nico had suspected? Nico… For a moment Dani allowed herself to stare at her mental image of him, pulling strength out of it. Then she squared her shoulders and focused on the here and now again. She knew that he was doing everything he could to find her, but she couldn't waste time sitting around here and waiting for him to come rescue her. "Well, all the more reason to get out of here as soon as we can," she replied to Jenny. "I really don't wanna be here when either of them comes back."
Jenny seemed to consider that, then nodded and brought the chair over to where Dani stood. Dani took it from her and was just about to lift it and smash it into the window, when she suddenly heard a car engine approach. Troy or the other guy? Or just someone driving by? For long moments, Dani and Jenny stood frozen by the window, holding their breaths as they waited. The car came closer, then pulled to a stop right outside the house. The engine noise was cut off and a few seconds after that, a car door slammed shut. As Dani lowered the chair, she saw Jenny's eyes widen in fear as downstairs a key was inserted into the front door of the cabin and someone came in.
Troy had used the drive back to the cabin to get a grip on his anger and think things through. He now realized that it would be… unwise to get rid of Santino and little miss Bruce right away. They might still come in handy. If he'd guessed correctly, Careles and the feds would already be out looking for him, and he harboured no illusions that they wouldn't find this place sooner or later. Probably sooner. He had thought before that he wouldn't be able to talk his way out of this mess, but maybe he could trade his way out of it? The more Troy had thought about it, the more it had made sense to him. He already had plans in place to flee the country, he would just take the women with him to ensure that no one would stop him from getting to his destination. He'd briefly entertained the idea of trying to get dear Abby and the Santino kids to pony up a nice ransom, but time was probably already running out. Shame, it would have been nice to have a little pocket money with him while traveling to the other side of the globe. Oh well, he thought as he walked into the cabin, there were always other ways of making money when one had two more or less attractive women at ones disposal, right?
Bennett's "right way" of handling things apparently involved a helicopter – and a SWAT team coming in from Albany. Nico had to admit that flying for thirty minutes sounded a hell of a lot better than driving for three hours. Of course it had taken nearly an hour for Bennett to coordinate and get clearance on the operation, but even with that time added Nico knew he would get to Dani a lot sooner this way than if he'd stuck to his original plan. So he'd waited as patiently as he could.
But now his patience had worn extremely thin. As Nico was about to board the chopper, Bennett put a hand on his shoulder to hold him back. "What?" Nico growled.
"Just so we're clear – when we get there, you will stay with the chopper until we give you the all-clear. Understood?" Bennett replied with a scowl.
The hell I will! "Listen, Bennett, I was trained to…" Nico started, trying to sound as patient as he could.
"No, you listen. I don't give a rat's ass what you were trained for. You are a civilian, not an agent. You need to stay back and let us handle this. It's either that or you stay here."
Bennett's scowl didn't waver for a moment. Nico realized that arguing would be no use and would only take up precious time, so he just shook off Bennett's hand and climbed into the chopper without saying anything. The agent climbed in after him, giving him a look that Nico chose to ignore. Let the man think he'd won the discussion for now.
Dani stood beside the door to what she figured must be the upstairs hallway, her back against the wall and the chair in her hands lifted above her head, ready to smash it into Troy Cutler's skull the moment he came in – or into the skull of whoever else came through the door. She only hoped there weren't two of them. Jenny stood a few feet further down the wall, looking as anxious as Dani felt. Straining her ears, she heard him walking around downstairs, but it didn't sound like he was coming up the stairs yet… "Come on," Dani muttered under her breath. The chair hadn't seemed that heavy at first, but the longer she was holding it up in the air, the heavier it seemed to become. Also, the chair was awkward to hold. Plus her hands were getting sweaty… And where was a baseball bat when you needed one? Dani sighed, trying to ignore all those negative thoughts and to visualize herself hitting Troy or his accomplice firmly in the head with the damn chair. Then, finally, she heard footsteps coming up the stairs and down the hallway. She tightened her grip on the chair and tried to breathe quietly and evenly… And then a freaking helicopter had to pick that exact moment to fly low over the cabin, drowning out whatever sounds there were. The door opened, Troy Cutler walked in, a gun in his hand, and Dani swung the chair in his direction. He must have seen her moving from the corner of his eye, because as the chair came down he twisted away and brought up his arm. Instead of hitting him in the head, the chair caught him in the shoulder. The effect was much the same though – Troy went down.
For a fraction of a second, Dani couldn't believe it had actually worked. She just stood there, trying to process. Then Jenny ran by and out the open bedroom door. Dani dropped the chair and started to follow her, but Troy grabbed her by the ankle. She grabbed on to the door post to keep from falling. "Go!" she shouted at Jenny, who was now standing by the stairs and looking back wide-eyed with fear as Dani tried to struggle free from Troy's grip.
"Oh no… you don't…" he grunted.
Dani kicked backwards at him with her other foot, but didn't hit anything. "Let go, dammit!" She stomped down on the wrist holding her ankle and Troy let go with a groan. Dani propelled herself forward into the hallway and ran towards the stairs. And Troy's gun went off with a deafening bang.
The helicopter had landed in a meadow about seven hundred feet away from the coordinates Nico had gotten from Stanzi Palmer. The SWAT team didn't appear to have arrived yet. As Nico and Bennett got out of the chopper, the agent immediately got on the phone to find out what the holdup was. Nico saw his opportunity and took off in the direction of the trees behind which the cabin was located. He heard Bennett calling after him, but he tuned the agent out the way he would have done with a fly buzzing around his head. He was rapidly falling back into the all too familiar experience of approaching hostile territory, registering everything around him with sharp clarity but focusing only on those things that mattered to his mission.
Nico moved through the woods quietly, like Onyx sneaking up on a mouse. Quickly crossing a narrow stream, he heard what sounded like a gunshot echoing from the direction of the cabin. He immediately had a vision of Dani lying in a pool of her own blood, but he resolutely pushed it to the back of his mind. He knew he couldn't let his fear for Dani's life or even his anger at Troy Cutler rule his actions now. When the log cabin came into view, Nico crouched behind some bushes facing the front porch and did a quick scan of the area. The only thing of interest outside the cabin was a black car that was parked out front. He could hear the ticking that signaled the car was still cooling down. Other than that, he heard nothing – even the birds had gone quiet, probably because of the gunshot he'd heard earlier. He couldn't see inside the house, as the front door and all the curtains were closed.
Nico was just about to start approaching the cabin when the front door opened and a young brunette came running out. Her face was pale, her eyes were wide, but she didn't seem injured. She ran straight towards the bushes he was hiding behind. He intercepted her, putting a hand over her mouth when she opened it to start screaming. She looked up at him with wide blue eyes brimming with tears. "Shhh, Jenny, you're safe now. Jenny – that is your name, right? Jenny Bruce?" He watched her take in his words. She closed her eyes for a moment and relaxed slightly. Carefully Nico lifted his hand, ready to put it back over her mouth in case she wanted to start screaming after all. He opened his mouth to ask her how many people where in the cabin, but then he heard noises coming from behind.
Nico put a finger on his lips and turned around, keeping his body between Jenny and the person approaching. Then he sighed as he saw agent Bennett emerge from the woods. The fed caught sight of them and came jogging over, his eyes going wide when he noticed Jenny. Nico turned his attention back to Jenny when he felt her tense up again, wanting to reassure her that she had nothing to worry about, that it was only an FBI agent. But then he realized that she wasn't even looking at Bennett and he followed her stare in the direction of the cabin.
Something roared inside his head at the sight of Dani carefully stepping out of the front door, the side of her pale face covered in bruises that were almost the same color as the robe she wore. She had her hand clasped over a spot on her left upper arm, near the shoulder. But her hand wasn't nearly big enough to cover the crimson that stained the blue satin. Troy Cutler's arm was around her throath, his gun pressed to her temple.
Troy made sure he kept Santino flush against him as he looked around for the Bruce girl. She was nowhere in sight, which meant he only had one hostage left. Well, one ought to be enough, right? "We're gonna get into the car now. And I'm warning you…" he said to Santino. As he talked, he kept looking around for anything out of the ordinary. That helicopter that had flown over the cabin could of course have been Ranger Service, but it had made him too nervous to take any chances. There, what was that? Had he seen something moving from the corner of his eye?
Troy quickly turned his head in that direction and cursed. It was that damn fed, peeking at him from behind a tree, and holding a gun. The gun was pointing towards the sky, no doubt because the fed was afraid he'd hit Santino if he took a shot. Troy, however, didn't have to worry about things like that – and so he just pointed his own gun in the direction of the tree and pulled the trigger.
A/N: Sorry, once again I couldn't resist a cliff hanger... Thanks for reading and reviewing, I will try to update again asap!