Chapter Seventeen #2
Summer hit Nathan so hard he went down like a ton of bricks, and she heard the thud as his head smashed into the side of the door.
She struck the pair of them at such an angle that Nathan fell on top of Paige, pinning her underneath him.
Paige screamed, trying to push his heavy weight off her.
But out of the corner of her eye, Summer could see Nathan was as floppy as a rag doll.
Hopefully, she’d knocked him unconscious.
Summer leaped over the prostrate pair and ducked through the doorway, ready to sprint away to freedom. But something small and black lying on the gravel out front stopped in her tracks.
It was Nathan’s phone.
She must’ve knocked it out his hand when she hit him and it’d gone flying. Bending down, she scooped it up, pushing it down the front of her Lycra suit.
Then, without waiting to stop and get her bearings, Summer took off, running straight into the field a grass she seen through the doorway.
It was thigh-high, which slowed her down a little, but it’d also slow down anyone who might follow her.
She was an athlete. This was the one thing she knew how to do.
The cycling shoes weren’t helping, but at least she wasn’t barefoot.
And she kept going, legs pumping, chest heaving, running for her life.
There was a roar of rage from behind, and Summer knew without looking that Nathan must’ve regained consciousness. The roar of rage became words flung at her back. “Come back here you bitch. If you don’t stop right now, when I catch you I’m going to cut you.”
She had a good couple of hundred meters head start on him, and she was faster than him, so she just kept running.
All she had to do was to stay on her feet and not trip over, so she focused on lifting her legs high, making sure there were no hidden logs or boulders that might put an end to her escape run, the thought of Nathan wielding that large knife pumping extra adrenaline around her body.
Had she been stupid to take such a risk?
But there was no turning back now, she had to keep going.
Risking a quick glance backward, she determined it was only Nathan who was running after her.
Paige stood in the doorway next to the shed, shading her eyes and watching Nathan chase her.
Paige’s strength was in her stamina, her ability to climb up steep inclines like a mountain goat, and just keep going forever.
Her short legs would never keep up, and she obviously knew it.
Nathan, however, was the opposite. He could well have been a runner too, the way he was pumping his arms and legs, still screaming obscenities at her.
He kept up with her for longer than she expected; she’d been right about that wiry physique.
But a couple of hundred meters later, Nathan gave up.
Yelling curses as he put his hands to his knees to suck in air.
Summer kept springing like a gazelle through the field.
Thankfully, it was huge, at least two kilometers long.
But she didn’t celebrate; she wasn’t safe yet and needed to get out of sight soon.
Try and find her bearings, and see if she could get out of this godforsaken place.
Changing direction, she angled toward the edge of the pine forest. Had Paige been correct when she told Summer they were so isolated she could keep walking for several weeks and still not strike civilization? She bloody hoped not.
The hard, cold metal the cell phone pressed against the skin of her breast where she’d shoved it down into her sports bra.
It was the one thing that gave her hope.
And if Nathan had been talking on it, that meant there was reception out here.
Which also gave her hope that perhaps Paige had been bluffing about where they were.
It was dark and cool in amongst the tall tree trunks, after the heat and openness of running through the field.
Her heart was pounding out of her chest, her breathing coming in great gasps.
She stopped and turned around to make sure no one was following, needing to catch her breath, to take stock of where she was, what to do next.
She could just make out the field and the shed where she’d been held captive through the tangle of tree trunks.
Positioning herself behind one of the larger pine trees, the bark rough and sticky with resin beneath her palm, she peered back the way she’d come.
The shed was now just a speck partially hidden but the long, swaying grass.
There was no sign of movement. Neither Paige nor Nathan was visible.
Where have they gone? Surely Nathan wouldn’t have given up already?
Summer thought she could make out more buildings behind the shed, but they were a long distance away and she couldn’t tell if they were a house, or just more sheds.
Had her abductors retreated to one of the other buildings?
Were they on some kind of farm? The extensive field she’d just run through could perhaps once have been pasture for an animal.
Cows maybe? And it’d been left to be taken over by wildflowers.
The shed had certainly been old, and probably unused for a long time. An abandoned farm perhaps?
Now that she’d recovered some of her breath, she turned and continued walking quickly into the forest, having to clamber over fallen tree trunks and fight her way through thick underbrush.
There was no path that Summer could find.
She retrieved the phone and studied it while she kept walking at a steady pace, careful not to lose her footing and making a fair bit of noise as she pushed aside branches and kicked through the thick leaf litter covering the ground.
It was a cheap Sony model she wasn’t familiar with.
Probably a burner phone, if she had to guess.
Nathan’s call to Tyrone must’ve ended when she knocked the phone flying.
It was a wonder he hadn’t called back, but then again, perhaps this wasn’t the first time Nathan had called to complain about Paige.
The only person she wanted to talk to the moment was M?rten, but she couldn’t remember his cell number.
“Blast,” she muttered under her breath. Why hadn’t she memorized his number.
Bloody technology that stored everything for you so you didn’t have to think any more.
M?rten had made her memorize the Swedish emergency number, however.
Would they be able to patch her through directly to M?rten?
There was only one way to find out. She dialed 112 and waited. The operator answered in Swedish. Shit!
“Can you speak English?” she shouted into the phone.
“Of course,” came back the measured reply, the operator switching seamlessly into perfect English. “What is the manner of your emergency?”
“My name is Summer Perez. I need to speak to Police Inspector M?rten Viskten.” God, she hoped she’d pronounced that correctly.
“He works at the Lule? police headquarters. I’m a visiting American, and I’m under his protection.
Two people have abducted me. I’m not sure where I am, but M?rten will be able to find me. ” God, she hoped those words were true.
“Please hold the line.” The phone went silent, and Summer fervently wished that the woman on the other end of the line believed her and was now trying to track down M?rten.
She knew her story might sound far-fetched, and that the operator could just as easily put her on hold and left her hanging.
Summer continued to pick her way through the forest with the phone pressed to her ear.
It was clear this forest was old, untouched for many decades, with long strands of lichen hanging from the branches, bright green moss growing on the trunks, and much dead wood and fallen trunks littering the ground.
Finally, there was a voice at the end of the phone. “I’m transferring you now.” There were a couple of clicks and then silence.
“Hello,” she said hesitantly.
“Hello.” The voice was deep, rich and oh so familiar, and she almost danced a little jig of joy.
“M?rten, thank God. It’s me,” she yelled, not sure how long the connection would last, suddenly scared that she wouldn’t be able to get her message across.
“They got me. Paige and her eco-terrorist friend, Nathan.” She had no time for niceties.
“I escaped and stole one of their phones. But I don’t know where I am.
Can you trace this phone?” she asked urgently.
There was a second’s hesitation before M?rten’s explosive reply nearly had her holding the phone away from her ear.
“Jesus Christ, Summer. I’ve been so worried.
” Then he seemed to collect himself; she could almost imagine his handsome face going from expressive to impassive as his cop brain kicked in.
“If I were at work, then yes, I could track you. But I’m at home right now.
” This time his tone was less agitated, more commanding, even as her heart sank at the news.
She’d been counting on him tracing her. “Can you tell me if you can see anything distinctive, anything out of the ordinary nearby? A large building or a road sign. Something that might help me figure out where you are?”
“No.” Summer stopped walking and turned in a large circle.
“I was being held in a small shed. I might’ve been on an abandoned farm, but I’m not really sure.
Now all I can see are just lots of trees and the open field I ran through to escape.
There’s nothing. It all looks the same.” She began to panic all over again.
How was M?rten ever going to find her? She could be anywhere within a two-hundred-mile radius, secreted in the forest where no one would find her.
Paige had been right; there was no escape from this isolated place.
“Hang on. What’s that noise?” M?rten’s voice was sharp and urgent.
For a second, Summer didn’t know what he was talking about.
She’d been so fixated on the sound of his voice she barely heard anything around her.
Then she looked up, spotting a shape in the sky through the tangle of branches.
“Yes, I see something. It’s a big white bird, lots of them, actually.
They’re circling overhead.” She squinted through the trees, looking in the direction that the birds were flying.
There was a sparkle, like sunshine glinting off water.
“I can just see a lake in the distance. It looks like they might be heading there.”
“Good, that’s good,” M?rten said. “They sound like they could be a whooping swan. The bird has quite a distinctive call, and they often have nesting sites on inland lakes around Lule?. I need you to head toward the lake. I’ll—”
The phone went flying as Summer was knocked to the ground, the air leaving her lungs in a loud whoosh.
“You fucking bitch. You’re going to die for that.
” She felt the cold bite of a knife blade against her throat and she froze.
“Now you’re going to do exactly as I say, or you’ll die, and no one will find your body.
Do you understand?” The blade was so tight against her neck, Summer dare not move her head to nod in agreement.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Nathan removed the knife and dragged her to her feet. “Walk, bitch,” he commanded, and she did as she was told. Had M?rten got enough information from her phone call to find her? She might not live long enough to find out the answer.