Flee, Spree, Three (Codename: Chandler Trilogy - Three Complete Novels) Page 35

  It hadn’t seen or smelled Tequila yet, so he stayed perfectly still. He normally didn’t mind dogs, but those bred to kill held a special dark place in Tequila’s heart. He’d dealt with bad dogs before, and he didn’t want to tangle with them again.

  Attached to the kennel was a camera, aiming at the sandpile.

  Was that the entrance to the prison? Did that explain the guard dogs?

  Tequila looked around for other cameras but didn’t spot any. He studied the kennel, and noted that the gate on the side had a gearbox attached. No doubt it opened automatically.

  Tequila didn’t want it to open while he was there. But he needed to check that enclave. Which meant that the dogs had to be dealt with.

  Blowing out a sharp breath, Tequila reached into his shoulder holster.

  Chandler

  “Pain is temporary,” the Instructor said. “It either fades, or you die.”

  The hike to Lund’s house didn’t take long, and we ran into no undesirables on the way. It was a good sign that they didn’t have the software to track me. But Hammett did, and I couldn’t imagine my psychotic sister giving up. That left me with no choice. The GPS chip in my belly had to be removed.

  My hunky, calendar-worthy firefighter lived in a comfortable two-bedroom cabin in the woods, which seemed like the best situation for sex I’d come across in a while. Unfortunately, with Fleming suffering who-knew-what at her captors’ hands, Tequila set to contact me at any time, and the unpleasant task at hand, I had neither the time nor the focus to bring to Lund’s bedroom.

  And where there were in-laws there was usually a wife, and even as horny as my death-defying past few days had made me, I did not do married men, even though I had no qualms about killing them.

  Lund grabbed a first-aid kit the size of Harry’s entire duffel and ushered me to a red pickup.

  “How far away is the farm?” I asked.

  “Ten minutes.”

  I checked my phone. No texts from Tequila. “Then we’d better get going.”

  The drive took seven. I kept an eye out for tails all the way, but there were no vehicles on the roads, let alone following us. Lund turned into a circular driveway and stopped in front of a white two-story farmhouse and an honest-to-goodness red gambrel-roofed barn. “This place is yours?”

  Lund shrugged one shoulder, as if not happy about the idea. “It belonged to my father-in-law.”

  It wasn’t my business, but I wanted to know. Hell, I had to know. “Does a wife come with that father-in-law?”

  “My wife died.”

  One shouldn’t be happy about a thing like that, so I changed the subject. “Does anyone live here?”

  “Nope. It’s been on the market for almost a year. Want to make an offer?”

  I sized the place up. Remote. A good view of the road. Not far from my ultimate destination. “Maybe for the day.”

  He gave me a questioning look, but before the words could reach his lips, I grabbed the first-aid case and my gym bag and climbed out of the truck.

  The air smelled of old hay and cow manure spread on the nearby field, mixed with a touch of fuel oil exhaust from an old furnace. Our boots ground against the driveway’s gravel. Overhead, a flock of Canadian geese honked on an early flight south.

  He tromped up the steps to the porch, fished a key from his pocket, and opened the door. The inside floor plan was typical farmhouse; small spaces, narrow hallways, one bathroom. The decor was typical, too. A flowered sofa with a plastic slipcover, shag carpet in the living room. Harvest gold in the kitchen. A wheelchair waiting at the base of the steps, as if its owner had just been carried up to bed.

  Lund opened a small closet next to the door and pulled out what looked like a small suitcase. We brought it and the first-aid duffel to the living room, where a wide bay window peered out at the road in front.

  “So your in-laws weren’t into redecorating, huh? Not since the seventies?”

  Lund didn’t answer, looking out the window as if he didn’t want to focus on what was inside these walls.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be insensitive.”

  He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter to me. I’ve always hated this place. Bad memories.”

  Fairly certain I didn’t want to go there, I nodded to the case he was holding. “So how do we set this up?”

  He placed it on the coffee table and opened it. “I don’t know. I don’t think it’s ever been used.”

  The device itself looked like a hard-shelled shoulder bag, complete with strap. Lund plugged a cord attached to a cylindrical probe into one outlet in the device, and a pair of goggles into another. I opened the first-aid kit and sorted through the supplies, pulling out isopropyl alcohol, local anesthetic, gauze, and bandages. I also located a folding lockback knife, utility scissors, a set of forceps, and tweezers.

  I still had several syringes of Demerol in my gym bag, but I’d have to watch how much of it I used. Too much, and I wouldn’t be able to function; not enough, and the pain would overwhelm me. As a general rule, I preferred erring slightly to the side of not enough.

  I’d rejected the idea of venturing up to the bedrooms on the second floor. Although the ones to the front of the house would provide a good view of the road, escape would entail jumping out a window. I was better off on the first level. I collected some old towels to soak up the blood and, with Lund’s permission, piled them on top of the couch’s plastic slipcover.

  “I’ll clean and lock up when I’m done. You won’t even know I was here.”

  He eyed my collection of supplies. “What are you going to do?”

  “None of your concern.”

  “You’re using my house, my ultrasound machine, and my supplies. And I’m not the type to stand around and watch while someone does something crazy.”

  “That’s the point. I don’t want you standing around. You can go. It’ll be fine.”

  “I’m really not the type to leave someone who looks like she needs help.” He planted his feet, underlying the message that he didn’t intend to move.

  I didn’t like the prospect of having him around while I was vulnerable. I was fairly certain he was who he said—even the few photographs scattered around the farmhouse showed him with a young woman, probably his dead wife—but in my line of work, the only people who lived to see tomorrow were the ones who didn’t resort to trust.

  “I’d really rather be alone.”

  “Then tell me what you’re going to do. Reassure me that it’s not something insane, and I’ll leave.”

  “Somehow I doubt you’re going to think this is sane.”

  “Try me.”

  I took a deep breath, then shucked my jacket and pulled my sweater over my head, realizing a second too late that I was still not wearing a bra.

  “My God, what happened to you?”

  “What?” I asked, suddenly self-conscious. That wasn’t the reaction I normally got from men when I disrobed.

  He knelt down beside me. “You’re covered in bruises.”

  Of course he was right. Bruises ranging from fresh red to purple to fading yellow covered my torso. Abrasions marred the skin on my elbows, hands, and knees. Over the past days, I’d gotten so used to being a human punching bag it hadn’t occurred to me that seeing the evidence might freak out a regular person.

  And I had to admit, I was a little disappointed that he’d focused more on the bruises than on my bare breasts. “I told you, it’s been a tough week.”

  “You need to go to the hospital.”

  “It’s OK. I just got out.” I held up my hand before he could say anything. “It’s the truth. They couldn’t wait to get rid of me.”

  I shoved my jeans down, relieved to at least be wearing panties, and felt him looking at the injuries covering my legs. Slipping the goggle-looking device on my head, I positioned the ultrasound next to me on the couch.

  The goggles sat right above my eyebrows, so I had only to glance up to see the image. The wand was about ten inche
s long and built to be inserted in a cow’s rectum. Lucky for me, Lund was right about it never being used, and the rubber casing was clean and white. It took some effort to get the thing to work, but finally the sound waves registered on the screen above my eyebrows in the form of blurry gray shadows.

  I laid the wand against my belly, cold against my skin. The shadows contorted and changed as I moved the wand, trying to figure out which internal organs were which.

  Intestines, too low. A rib, too high. My stomach, just right.

  A dark spot registered on my duodenum.

  Lund inched toward me, his face close enough to kiss, and stared up at the monitor. “What in the hell is that?”

  “A tracking chip.”

  “You’re being tracked? Why?”

  “By my employers. Or my former employers.” Fleming and I seemed to be on our own now. “I have to take it out.”

  For a few seconds he stared at me, as if trying to make sense of what I was telling him. “You’re going to do surgery on yourself?”

  “More or less. If they made it easy to remove, I wouldn’t have left it in this long.”

  “How long have you had it?”

  “Years. But I didn’t find out about it until recently. Been kind of busy since.”

  “This seems a little…uh…extreme.”

  Of course it seemed extreme to him. He was a regular guy who lived a regular life and followed a much more clear-cut moral code. The only thing he knew about people like me was what he read in books or watched in the movie theater.

  “The black site, my sister, I wasn’t kidding about any of that. They’re going to kill her, probably after torturing her for a good long time. I can’t get her out if they can see me coming.”

  The look on Lund’s face was somewhere between disbelief, disgust, and awe.

  I sterilized the skin around my belly button and readied one of the syringes of Lund’s local anesthetic. Taking a deep breath, I plunged the needle into the muscle.

  It hurt like hell.

  Lund grimaced right along with me. “I have something stronger. Or better, you could go to a hospital.”

  I shook my head. “I need to keep my head clear for this. Maybe later on the something stronger.”

  I gave myself two more shots and waited for the drug to numb me. Once my belly felt like someone else’s flesh, I picked up a wrapped scalpel.

  Lund grabbed my wrist.

  “Let go,” I said.

  “You can’t cut yourself open.” His grip tightened, as if he was contemplating prying the instrument from my fingers. He glanced at me, then the image on the screen.

  “Lund, back off. Don’t make me hurt you.”

  He released my hand and held out his palm. “Let me help.”

  “I can’t. I’m sorry.” I wasn’t sure why I felt it necessary to apologize. This was my life, my body, and I’d only met this guy an hour ago. But the crease between his eyebrows and tension in his jaw told me how tough it was for him to stand by.

  “Then what do you want me to do? Watch?”

  “I want you to go home.”

  “If something goes wrong…”

  “Go home, Lund. Thanks for your help so far, but I have a lot to deal with here. I don’t need to add holding your hand to the list.”

  “You aren’t even wearing gloves, Chandler. Haven’t you ever heard of the germ theory of disease? Even if you survive this, the infection will kill you.”

  He was right, of course, and the fact I wasn’t processing it was testament to how exhausted I was. I got off the couch and went to the kitchen sink, turning up the water as hot as it would get, then started scrubbing my hands with soap. Lund joined me, putting his hands under the stream like we were an old married couple doing dishes.

  “I’m doing this myself, Lund.”

  “If I need to assist, you want my hands to be clean or dirty?”

  I sighed, annoyed at his persistence. My irritation relaxed a notch when I cast a glance his way and saw he was—finally—staring at my breasts.

  “It’s OK,” he said, catching the amusement in my eyes. “I’m a professional firefighter. We’ve seen everything.”

  “Really?”

  “It’s true.”

  “Rescue a lot of topless women, do you?”

  “Several times a week. It’s a regular thing.”

  I allowed myself a tiny smile. “Maybe it hurts me that I’m just one of the crowd.”

  “Trust me,” Lund said, his eyes crinkling. “You are not one of the crowd.”

  “You’re still not getting inside me.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Cutting me open, Lund. Get your mind out of the gutter.”

  He cleared his throat, hunching over just enough that I could sense he was getting turned on. I let it go. This wasn’t the right time for flirting, and I knew I was just doing it to delay the inevitable self-surgery.

  At least, I told myself that was the reason.

  Lund produced two pairs of latex gloves from his pack, and we snapped them on and washed our hands again. Then he gave them each a liberal squirt of iodine.

  We went back into the living room, and I assumed the position on the couch. I eyed the monitor and unwrapped the scalpel. Tequila would be texting me any minute. I needed to get on with this.

  “This is a really bad idea,” Lund said.

  I pressed the blade to my skin.

  “I should help. I’ve done some triage work.”

  “You touch me without permission, and I’ll use this scalpel on you.”

  I looked up at the image and positioned my knife right below my navel. Gritting my teeth, I made the first cut, a very small slice through the skin and subcutaneous fat layer.

  Cold chased the blade, the pain starting a beat later. Not too bad, thanks to the numbing, but still a sound resembling a growl surged from my throat.

  If I could avoid severing muscle, I wouldn’t be nearly as disabled, and healing would come faster.

  My hand shook. Pulling in a breath, I pressed my fingertips into the first incision I’d made.

  Sweat bloomed on my skin. Tears streamed down my face, and I was helpless to stop them. I blinked, trying to make sense of the watery image on the screen.

  David Lund suddenly closed his fingers around mine, slipping the knife from my hand. He positioned the ultrasound at my belly button, and the image of the chip reappeared on the screen.

  “If you can hold the skin open, I think I can reach it.”

  I didn’t protest. There was no point. He was right; I did need help. As determined as I was, I couldn’t keep my head clear and fingers steady in the face of this much pain.

  He took the viewing visor from my head and put it on his own. “Ready.”

  I dug my fingertips into the wound. A whimper stuck in my throat, a pitiful sound like a suffering animal. One more breath, and I stretched the sides apart.

  I’d been shot before. Stabbed. Punctured, burned, abraded, and bruised. But I hadn’t done any of that to myself. My own fingers, in my own wound, was a sensation so intensely violating that I had to concentrate with all of my power not to pull them out.

  The ultrasound in one hand, Lund probed inside me with the tweezers.

  I wanted to see, needed to know what was going on, but with tears streaming down my cheeks and stars narrowing my field of vision, all I could focus on was his face, both intense and concerned.

  “Please,” I said through clenched teeth. “Please hurry.”

  I could feel him moving inside me, first the tweezers, then his fingers. Something shifted, and a scream broke through my lips.

  “I got it,” he said. “I got it.”

  Darkness edged my vision. I closed my eyes, no longer able to see. “Now I need some of that something stronger,” I whimpered, then blackness swallowed me whole, and I no longer needed a thing.

  Fleming

  “Captivity can take away identity and destroy hope,” the Instructor said. “Recogniz
e the techniques they are using to crush you for what they are. Find something to hold on to. Once your hope is dead, your body will soon follow.”

  “Stop it! Please…please stop! I told you what you want! That’s all I know!”

  Fleming couldn’t escape the sound of the woman’s—Chandler’s?—screams. They wound through her mind, pulsed behind her closed lids. She could taste their desperation, feel them cling to her skin like the stench of blood.

  She wanted to run. She wanted to fight. She could do neither. She closed her eyes, but the light followed her, drilling into her mind. No darkness. No place to hide. No relief.

  She clamped her teeth down on her bottom lip. She couldn’t let herself break. She couldn’t give them what they wanted. She had to find a way.

  “No…no…please…no…”

  Fleming held her hands over her ears the best she could with the splints on her fingers. Hours must have passed since she’d been thrown in the cell. She had no way to measure time, no outside light to distinguish night from day. It felt like she’d always been trapped here, and always would be, the woman’s pleas endlessly thrashing against her resolve.

  Malcolm hadn’t come, and part of her wondered if he ever would. Maybe this was her punishment for the damage to his hand. She had to listen to the shrieks forever—cold, naked—and fear the voice was Chandler’s.

  “Stop…please, stop…I’ll tell you whatever you want to know…just no more.”

  As brutal as her training had been as times, it wasn’t real life. She’d never felt this vulnerable. Never felt she was a second away from death, or worse, a second away from losing everything that mattered.

  It wasn’t just her legs, the gunshot injuries, the ever-present pain that weakened her. That pain alone couldn’t break her, quash what hope she had left, leave her with nothing. But listening to this shattered woman who might be her sister, feeling so helpless…it wasn’t long before it all mixed together in her mind, until she couldn’t sort one thing from the other.

  “Oh God…no. I’ve told you all of it. I swear…just…please…don’t…”