And since he didn’t look out, reassured by her voice that she was still where he’d last seen her, she sat back down and went to work on the rope again. She might not have been a cowgirl, but she’d been around horses and tack most of her life; she’d seen a knot or two.
“Talk,” he ordered when she stayed silent for a few seconds, focused on her task.
“It would work out better for you if you let me go, too,” she said.
“You don’t say.”
Another floorboard flew out, then Akeem’s duffel bag. Jake stepped out after it and upended it on the ground, kicked the contents around in the moonlight and swore at the tent and sleeping bag. “I don’t see any money.” He fixed her with a murderous glare.
“Keep looking.”
“I thought I told you to stand.” He kicked an empty canteen her way and it bounced off her shin.
“I’ve been walking almost nonstop for days. My feet are killing me.” She offered an innocent excuse, but obeyed him. “You have nothing to gain by shooting me,” she continued talking when he marched back in. “Everyone already knows you took Christopher. They figured that out as soon as you turned up missing the same day. Everyone knows that you’re involved, but nobody knows about the others.”
Silence in the shack.
“When this is over and I’m questioned, I’ll be giving their descriptions. The cops’ attention will be divided. They’ll be looking for the others while you get away.”
“They’ll be looking for me, too.”
“Your buddies will be a priority. If they kill Akeem like you say they will, a couple of murderers…” She let her voice trail off. “And I’ll be telling the police that you let Christopher and me go in the end.”
Jake appeared in the door again, carrying Akeem’s second supply bag.
“A couple of murderers will take priority over a kidnapper who already gave the kid back.” He seemed to consider that.
“Right.” Taylor held her breath. Please, please, please don’t think too much, just go with it.
Jake upended the bag and rummaged through this one, too. “I still don’t have the money,” he said in a voice that had murder in it, crushing her hopes.
“It’s in there, I swear. I saw Akeem carry the briefcases in.”
Jake fixed her with a hard look, and hesitated for a moment. “If you’re playing for time—” He kicked the empty bag viciously but then went back in.
She inched closer to the mess on the ground—all of Akeem’s supplies—looking for anything she could use to cut her ropes or as a weapon. Food, flashlight, first-aid kit, extra blankets—not exactly a treasure trove of possibilities.
Then her gaze went to the dead guy who stared blankly into the night, his body twisted at an unnatural angle. She pressed her lips tight.
Akeem had taken his gun, but he still had Akeem’s knife sticking out of his throat. She needed to overcome her revulsion and grab that somehow, because in seconds Jake would have the briefcases and would be deciding whether or not to let her live. She wasn’t too optimistic about her prospects.
She shuffled toward the body, bent and reached for the knife’s handle, froze when Jake whooped in the shack, held her breath and threw herself over the dead guy as Jake was coming out.
“What in hell are you doing to him?”
“I tripped.” She flailed. “Yuck. Oh, God. Please get me up. Get me up!”
Jake laughed at her as he hurried by and put the briefcases in the pickup.
She had seconds only. She groaned with frustration when the knife wouldn’t come easily. Her hand brushed against the man’s front pocket. He had something in there. An empty pack of cigarettes and a lighter. She pocketed the latter. Maybe she could weaken her ropes with a flame if Jake got distracted by something long enough.
She moved back to the knife while pretending that she was trying to push herself up and away. Jake’s boots crunched on the small rocks. He was coming back to her.
“All things considered, what you’d tell the cops and whatever, I think I prefer you dead.” His voice was cold and hard. “One less witness if this ever comes to trial.”
Her fingers wrapped around the knife’s handle and it moved at last. But by the time she turned around, Jake already had the gun pointed at her head. He took in the knife with a surprised look.
“Too late, but it could have been a good move.” He cocked the gun.
She lurched forward blindly, her feet still tied. This was the end. She had seconds. Akeem hadn’t made it back. But she couldn’t give up the fight, not even as she braced for death. She stabbed, kicked and screamed, but no longer saw Jake. She brought Christopher’s sweet face up in her mind instead, wanted that to be the last thing she thought of before she died. Then the shot did go off finally, and she went down, hitting the ground like a sack of horse feed, gasping for air.
Jake’s weight was crushing her lungs.
A second passed before she got her bearings and shoved him off, only to see Akeem running toward her in the moonlight.
She cut herself free from the ropes at last and stood as Akeem reached them, his gun still trained on Jake.
“Are you all right?” He rolled Jake over with the tip of his boot, made sure he was truly dead before letting his gaze move to her, then drawing her into his arms.
She took only a second to scan him, to make sure he didn’t have any major injuries. He walked and talked, she reassured herself. “Christopher is out there.” She was pulling away already.
She reached for the flashlight that was among Akeem’s scattered supplies on the ground, disappointment slicing into her when she realized Jake had broken it when he’d kicked it around.
“Let’s go and find him. Which way?” Akeem was collecting Jake’s gun and searching his pockets, his movements stiff. He might not have life-threatening injuries, but he was
