He sat up. An odd sound reached his ears, like a muffled rattle. It took him a second to realize it was the crappy flip phone, and another second to realize what that meant. He and Katie looked at each other. If I look as worried as she does, something must be up. Regardless, he grabbed it. “Yeah.”
“Change of plans,” he heard. It was not a voice he recognized. “We need to discuss something.”
“Like what?”
“Not on the phone. Tonight, after dark, at 9. Come out the main entrance, go right, then the first left, then about a mile. Just past the tree line. Got it?”
“Yeah, I got it.”
“Good. How’s the package?”
“All good.” Carson glanced at Katie, who couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation. “Being a pain in the ass, but I can handle it.” She pulled a look at him.
“It can be as much of a pain as it wants, as long as it don’t see or say anything and don’t go anywhere. Leave it there when you come out. Nine o’clock.” The line went dead. Carson snapped it shut and relayed the message to Katie.
“What do you think it means? What do they want?” she asked.
Carson shrugged. “I wish I knew.”
“Maybe it’s that we’re all done and you can let me go!”
“I doubt it,” Carson said. “They’re not going to wait almost seven hours to release you if the ransom has been paid, because that means someone had to pick up the money, which puts them at risk of being tailed or watched.”
“Right,” Katie said. They resumed their silent pondering, trying to come up with a valid reason for the early contact. Neither was making any progress until Katie sucked in a deep breath. “Oh, shit.”
“What is it?”
“When they took me, after they tied me up and were walking me out of the house, someone said, ‘get her phone’ and a second voice said, ‘got it.’ I didn’t even think about it until just now.”
Carson closed his eyes at her realization. “So they looked at it and saw the calls from me all over it.”
“Probably. I did save you as ‘Carson’ in my contacts.”
“So they know we have some sort of relationship. And I’ll bet they’re not happy about it.” He opened his eyes and looked squarely at Katie. “They know – or at least think – I’m going to try and help you. And that means they’re pulling me out to kill me and take you back.”
At Carson’s last sentence, Katie showed real dismay for the first time in this whole experience. “Oh god. What are we going to do?”
Carson looked at her, but he had no answer to give.
Chapter 10
Flight and Fight
Katie felt as panicked as she sounded. Throughout this whole situation, the specter of death had hovered at the edge of her mind. She had considered it, of course, but more as an abstract possibility. With her upbringing as a child of a wealthy family, the possibility of abduction had always been a little higher for her than it had been for children of normal families, but it had always been presented as a sort of business transaction. Perhaps that had been intentional, as young girls didn’t really need to know that some of the people who would snatch her from her family probably weren’t above killing her to make their getaway.
But now, with Carson telling her, in a no-nonsense tone, they probably intended to end his life, she realized this was not a business transaction of any sort. This was a contest of the highest stakes, and the other side was clearly ready to do anything in support of the chips it had placed in the pot.
“OK, we have to go. Right now! Just get the hell out of here.” Her voice shook with something close to terror.
Carson held his hand up while he stared at the wall for a moment. “No,” he said finally, the word coming out slowly, as if he was finishing his thought as he enunciated it. “If they’ve gone through the phone enough to see how many times we’ve talked, they know I don’t have a stomach for this kind of shit, so they are pretty sure I’ll try to protect you.”
Katie didn’t really know what point he was trying to make, but it was taking too long. “Carson, we’re wasting time. Let’s GO!”
Carson spoke more forcefully. “Wait. Let me think.” Another pause, this one longer. “They also know I’ll probably figure out something is wrong with them having me come out – there’s no point – so they expect me to grab you and run. And they’ll be waiting for us.” He looked pointedly at Katie, who was so hell-bent on leaving she hadn’t really tried to follow his meandering line of reasoning.
“Don’t you get it? They’ve thought this out and they’re expecting us to run, or think we might, just like you want to. And they’re probably sitting at the end of the driveway with a couple of scoped rifles just waiting for us to pop out. And then I’m history and you’re back in their possession.”
She got it then. She was just reacting, but Carson was – thankfully for them both – considering the issue carefully. At least now they knew what not to do. “Yeah, you’re right. But that doesn’t help us figure out what we’re going to do. If you don’t go meet them, they’ll come here, won’t they?”
“Most likely,” he said. “Honestly, the call might have been a decoy to distract me while they are coming right now.” As soon as he voiced the possibility, he immediately crouched down so he was below the window. He also looked at Katie, who was still
