May 28, 4:32
THE FBI CHICK WAS alive. Carli checked for a pulse, and it was there. It was weak and ragged, but, for the moment at least, it was there, and she was hanging on. Not that Carli cared one way or the other. This woman, this supposed law-enforcement professional, this traitor, had tried to kill her dad, had shot him twice, and had planned on turning the gun on Carli next, so sympathy for the woman’s predicament was in short supply.
She grabbed the I-90 Killer’s gun, which had fallen on the floor next to the unconscious woman, and then reached into the agent’s leather shoulder holster to take out her service weapon and tuck it under her arm. Finally, she rolled Canfield onto her side and, grimacing with distaste, plucked her dad’s Browning from under the waistband of the woman’s slacks, where she had shoved it after taking it away from her murdered co-conspirator. She was a freaking one-woman armory!
Carli slid each of the weapons along the floor to the far side of the basement. She knew nothing about guns and hoped that one of them wouldn’t somehow go off and blow her brains out. Wouldn’t that be ironic—surviving the I-90 Killer only to shoot yourself by accident! But she had to get them away from the crazy woman, just in case she somehow came back to life like they always seemed to do in the movies.
For the first time since being kidnapped off the school bus yesterday, Carli was thinking clearly. She couldn’t imagine being more frightened, but her dad needed her, and after he had risked everything to save her, she was not going to let him down now. Her nerves thrummed, and her stomach lurched, and she felt as though she had drunk about seven cups of coffee—and was it possible that she had to pee again?—but her mind was clear.
She crawled over the bed to her dad—God, please let him be alive, please don’t take my daddy from me!—and before kneeling next to him to check for his pulse, she had a discomfiting thought. What if this Agent Canfield snuck up on her while her back was turned toward her dad and began strangling her or something?
Carli had seen enough horror movies to know that the bad guy was never truly out of the picture until the credits rolled, and even though the woman seemed barely alive, with blood oozing out of the two massive, gaping gashes in her throat, she didn’t dare discount her entirely. So Carli reluctantly stood up next to her father’s unmoving body—remember, God, I’m still begging you not to let him die!—and walked past the fallen agent’s body to a work bench in the far corner of the basement.
After spending hours trapped down here with nothing to do but saw those metal handcuffs back and forth against the cement wall behind her headboard, Carli had committed the entire basement and its contents to memory. She knew exactly what she wanted and where to find it.
She picked up a roll of electrical wire and a wire cutter and returned to the FBI traitor, who was still alive but prone on the floor, very much unconscious. Bending down next to her, Carli tied the agent’s wrists and ankles together with the stiff wiring, twisting the strands around and around to form her own set of impromptu handcuffs. Then, she tossed the roll back onto the workbench, finally confident she could check on her dad without worrying about being taken by surprise from behind.
Her dad’s pulse was much stronger than the woman’s. In fact, his eyelids blinked, and he moaned and almost seemed to be trying to wake up as she knelt over him. He had a pair of bullet wounds that were sluggishly oozing blood—one in his right arm and one in his left thigh—and it was obvious he needed medical attention, but Carli guessed he wasn’t in any immediate danger; at least not danger of the life-threatening kind. He had probably been knocked out when his head hit the wall and was going to have a massive headache when he woke up. Maybe he had even suffered a concussion.
She realized she had been holding her breath as she checked out her dad’s injuries, and she let out a ragged chuckle. Thanks, God, she thought to herself, I owe you one. Then she warily passed the woman’s unmoving body and climbed the stairs to look for a telephone. The FBI chick probably had a cell phone somewhere on her body, but Carli couldn’t bring herself to touch her to check for one. There had to be a phone in the house, probably in the kitchen, and that would be just fine with Carli.
As she climbed the stairs, she wondered how she was managing to keep herself together and when she would start crying—she could tell it would be soon—and if she would ever stop once she started. Then, she spotted the telephone and got to work.
CHAPTER 60
May 28, 4:51 p.m.
AT FIRST, SPECIAL AGENT Mike Miller thought the call was some kind of joke. Some yokel claiming to be Sergeant Carter from the Town of Mason Police Department had told Mike that his partner, Special Agent Angela Canfield, was currently hovering near death in the basement of a crumbling home located out in the boonies at the westernmost edge of his town.
“It’s a bloodbath here,” the cop told Miller, “and I think you’re going to want to see this. There are two witnesses to what went down, and they’re both claiming your agent was involved in the I-90 Killer kidnappings.”
Miller responded with one word: “Impossible.”