“Nice to see you, too.”
Jori’s reply was pure reflex. Nothing close to the got-my-act-together quip it seemed to be. Her voice was hoarse from the cold. She was soaked and shaking. Her thighs trembled from exertion. Her shoulder and left hand ached from the fall she’d taken. She hadn’t any expectations beyond hoping to find Law alive.
Was he even glad to see her?
Law blinked, as if he didn’t trust what he was looking at. Then his expression turned grim. “As long as you’re here you can be useful. First, move this doodle off me.” His voice was curt but calm.
Still reeling from his lack of welcome, she crawled in far enough to reach out and grab the edge of Sam’s service vest. She tugged. “Come on, Sam.”
Sam wiggled back, ready to stand her ground. She could probably smell Law’s injuries and wanted to protect him.
“It’s okay. You’re a good girl. Yes, you found him.” Jori’s hand went to her pocket where she kept treats. It was an automatic move made dozens of times in a day, yet she was surprised to find a few nuggets. She held out one. “Good Sam. Get your treat.”
Sam nosed the nugget in Jori’s palm but then looked back at Law.
Law spoke up. “Yes. Good Sam. You get a treat.”
For the first time since she’d known him, he’d used the high-energy excited voice of a K-9 trainer to motivate Sam. It worked.
Sam crawled forward and took the treat. As she reached for several more, Jori noticed that Law wasn’t looking at her. In fact, he seemed oddly still. He didn’t try to shove Sam or even pet her. His body was at an awkward angle, his hands out of sight. Just how injured was he?
Frowning, Jori tugged on Sam’s vest harder. “Come on, girl. Move over here.”
This time Sam did move. Six inches. Then she looked back over her shoulder with twitching nose and ears on full alert.
Jori looked at Law. “How badly hurt are you?”
Instead of answering, he half rolled onto his stomach so that Jori could see his hands were bound by flex cuffs. “Find something to cut these with. I need to get to Becker before he bleeds out.”
For the first time since crawling into the cab, Jori let her gaze move from Law’s face. The first thing she saw was that she was kneeling not in just rainwater but in mud mixed with blood. Something awful had happened. Law was cuffed. A prisoner.
A strong reaction spasmed her stomach. For one wild second she thought she might be ill.
“Jori. Jori, look at me. It’s not my blood.”
She opened her eyes to focus again on Law. Rolled back onto his bound hands, he stared at her with a steady penetrating gaze.
“Go to the truck bed. Open my toolbox. Find pliers, wire cutters. Something with a sharp edge.”
Jori crawled backward, sparing only a quick glance at the man strung upside down in his shoulder harness and seat belt. There was blood dripping from his shoulder but it came from higher up. His eyes were open but he didn’t seem to know she was there. A dozen questions about why he had done this to Law flashed through her mind, but it wasn’t time to get answers to any of them.
One more quick glance at Law’s grim face and she was backing out into the cold.
The rain had shifted over to sleet. BB-sized bits of ice on the push of the wind whipped and stung her face. The ground around her was growing white. As she moved toward the bed of the overturned truck, steadying herself on the damaged metal side, she realized her right hand was bare. She hadn’t noticed when or how she’d lost her glove. It didn’t matter. Nothing else mattered. Not even Law’s less-than-happy-to-see-you greeting mattered at the moment. She had a job to do. Find a tool that could free him.
She had to drop to her knees to get in under the bed to locate the toolbox. The lid was bent, and when she pulled on the latch nothing happened. She tugged twice more, her cold fingers beginning to cramp.
“Crap.” She shimmied back on her knees and looked around for something she could use as a lever to pry it open. A few feet away she saw what looked like a jack handle. She stood up and took a few hurried steps. And fell.
“Shit!”
“Jori?” She heard worry in Law’s tone but she didn’t have time to reassure him.
She came to her feet, trying to dig her heels into the freezing ground with each step. Get the jack handle. It became her entire focus. Five steps and she had it.
She made it back without falling again, and ducked under the side of the truck bed. She jammed one end of the tool into the latch of the toolbox and jerked. Nothing. She jerked several more times. It wouldn’t give.
“Screw this. Open up!” This time she half stood and as she jerked she added the full weight of her body to the jack handle.