Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
Wren had just sent her drone into the air when Chase’s phone buzzed. He looked at the screen.
“Hey, that’s the owner texting.”
“Is there a problem?” She watched the live footage from her drone on her phone.
“Only a small one. One of their sensors in the garage is out.” He finished texting a message back and looked up. “This might take some time. They don’t remember where the spare batteries are.”
“Oh, shoot.”
“Tell you what. I know you want to get back to Gina and Lach’s party and I don’t want to keep you, so how about you keep going with the drone and I’ll go battery hunting, and then if you get done before I do, come on in and you can get started on the interior shots.”
Wren looked up from the screen. “Sounds good. Good luck finding the batteries.”
“Thanks, I’ll need it.” Chase jogged across the lawn.
“And then we can both go to the party,” Wren called after him.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll think about it.”
“You need time off. A little fun.”
“Selling houses is fun. Just ask my bank account.” Chase reached the patio.
“You are coming to my wedding though.”
“Of course. If I don’t accidentally lose the invitation.” He opened the back patio door and went inside.
“You’d better not!” Wren grinned and shook her head. She turned her attention back to the controller. She’d already gotten some nice footage of the house and front and back yards. The house’s property extended far into the woods, all the way back to an old logging road, and she wanted to film the full extent of it, including the stream that ran through Ellie’s property and beyond.
She checked the battery. She had about ten minutes before it reached eight percent, which was when she liked to start bringing the drone in for a landing. Ten minutes would be enough time to fly the drone around the woods to the road and back without risking it dying and falling into the trees, getting hopelessly lost or broken.
Wren sent the drone up high, stabilized it, and rotated it slowly for a panoramic view of the mountain peaks first. She snapped some stills, then shifted the camera lens down and tried not to get herself in the picture, though she could always delete the frames later.
On the screen, she thought she saw movement in the trees behind her. She resisted turning around to look and zoomed the camera in instead. She panned for a few seconds. Whatever it was, she couldn’t find it now.
Probably deer. They’re so hard to catch, they just blend right into the foliage .
She didn’t have time to search if she wanted to get the drone to the logging road and back before the battery died. She sent the drone flying over the trees until the road came into view. Someone had parked their vehicle back there. Chase told her the owners said to watch for trespassers who sometimes sneaked onto their land to fish. Wren could attest that the brookies Bear caught out of their stretch of the creek were tasty. Still, trespassing to fish was technically stealing, so she zoomed in and got a nice, clear shot of the rear license plate just in case.
Her controller beeped a warning that the battery was nearing eight percent.
Time to bring her in .
Wren turned the drone and sent it higher to avoid a strong air current blowing just across the treetops in the opposite direction. The house and yard came into view and she watched them grow bigger. More beeps told her the battery was draining fast but it would be okay because the drone was close enough that she could see herself on the screen.
Someone broke cover from the trees behind her and was running straight at her.
Wren spun just in time to see her attacker’s face.
You? How?
He knocked the controller out of her hand and pressed a cloth over her nose and mouth before she could scream. A horrible smell clogged her nose. The world tunneled in as she threw her head back to try and get away from it.
“Stupid bitch,” he said as she struggled. “You and your precious photo essay.”
The last thing Wren saw before the tunnel closed in was her drone hovering high above them.
Wren rode in and out of consciousness—head pounding, stomach churning, wadded up cloth shoved into her mouth behind a gag, hands and feet bound, and slung across his shoulders like a deer carcass, as he moved with relative ease through the forest.
Right. He’s a hunter .
Wonder if he’s taking me to where he keeps all the dead baby ducks.
Dead duck. That’s me.
She tried getting away but the black took her under again.
The next time she woke was when her arms and her back slammed against the hard ground, knocking the wind out of her. She couldn’t breathe and at the same time, she had to fight from puking or else the gag in her mouth would cause her to choke on her own vomit. With her arms tied behind her back, she couldn’t pull the gag down. She wheezed and gagged and tried to stay conscious. She tried not to panic, which would get her dead. The treetops above blurred from her tears.
His shadow fell across her.
Gone was the awkward buffoon fawning over a woman who would never have him. Gone was the cheat, the blackmailer. The coward.
Face painted, dressed in camo, this was the hunter.
Don Weisser.
He knelt at her side, leaned down until his mouth was beside her right ear.
“You’re awake,” he breathed. “If you want to live, you need to be silent.”
She wheezed, trying desperately to draw in air.
“You’re too loud. I need you silent .”
Then you shouldn’t have thrown me down like a burning sack of flour she wanted to scream at him. But that would probably make her head pound harder.
Worth it .
“Get yourself under control now.” He shifted and she felt something cold and hard press against her jaw below her ear. “Or I shoot you in the head. Your choice.”
She could argue the faulty logic that if he wanted silence, firing something literally nicknamed a boom stick to punish her for wheezing too loud kind of defeated his purpose. But she couldn’t waste what little breath she had trying to cure his stupidity.
After what felt like ages, her chest loosened and she pulled a nice, long breath in through her nose. It cleared her head a little and helped with the nausea. Weisser pulled the gun away and straightened his spine. He still pointed the gun at her, even as he reconned the area.
Under the face paint, he looked worried.
He knows his way around the forest so he’s not worried about that. He wants me completely silent. We’ve stopped moving and are hunkered down in the undergrowth beside a fallen log.
I’d say we’re being followed .
A tiny spark of hope kindled in her heart.
Not followed. Tracked .
Hope roared to life, filling her heart.
By a Ranger. My Ranger .
Weisser had no chance.
“Not yet, not yet, not yet,” Weisser chanted quietly. He wiped sweat from his brow.
She tried to figure out how much time had passed since he’d taken her. Wren knew light, knew how it looked at any given time of day in any season. The trees made judging the light difficult, but not impossible. The sun was still up and lighting the highest branches. She estimated twenty minutes, half an hour tops. Carrying her on his back through the forest, Weisser couldn’t be covering too much ground too quickly, but she couldn’t gauge how far they’d gone. It wasn’t her specialty.
Elias, on the other hand, now he would know. He told me he was the best tracker growing up, that only Shane came close to his skill, and Elias only got better in Ranger school.
Despite the hope in her heart, she realized she was trying her best to find all the positives she could to fight off the panic that was telling her she was at the mercy of an unstable man. Who hated her guts. Who had at least one gun on him. Who had nothing to lose.
Panic would get her dead. Wren closed her eyes and concentrated on getting it under control.
Elias will bring his friends. Correction: our friends.
Elias with his tracking. Bear with his brawn. Gabe with his eagle eye. Ben with his tactics, Waylon with his daring. Shane with his ? —
Dog. Was that a dog? I think I just heard a dog .
She opened her eyes and braved a look at Weisser’s face to see if he’d heard it, too. His eyes darted, his head swiveled, his breaths picked up the pace.
There’s a dog loose in the woods. Bet I know where it came from .
Weisser turned his head in the direction of the sound, past the fallen log to Wren’s left, and listened.
Weisser smiled. His white teeth glowed against the dark green face paint.
He looked down at her, an evil Cheshire Cat. He realized the gun barrel had drifted during his inattention so he pointed it back at her face.
“I knew they’d bring dogs. I’d be a fool not to know that. But the bait worked. It’s drawing them off in the wrong direction. Away from us. If you make a sound, your blood will paint the trees. Doesn’t matter if you’re dead, you’re still my hostage.”
He looked up again toward the sound of the dog. Wren could make out a man’s footsteps, too.
Shane? Shane, is that you?
Then other footsteps following the man and his dog, impossible to know how many.
Guys! Over here!
Wren fought the insane urge to shout, to stomp, to thrash her body, anything to get their attention as the sounds moved farther away.
Panic. Will. Get. You. Dead .
She and Weisser both strained to hear the men and the dog now. Weisser kept the gun pointed at her with one hand while he brought the other to his mouth. For one irrational moment, she thought he was going to whistle for the dog. Instead, he flattened his hand sideways, shoved the side of his pointer finger into his mouth, and bit down. His body shook and Wren realized he was stifling a laugh.
Come on, you bastard. Laugh. Laugh hard. Think funny thoughts. I’m beaming them straight at your head .
Weisser was so focused on the dog, and Wren was so focused on Weisser that she almost missed the silent movement to her right, behind Weisser’s back. She didn’t dare turn her head or look sideways, didn’t dare break Weisser’s concentration—his distraction , she realized—so she stayed still and watched the figure out of the corner of her eye.
Elias.
She watched him study them both. She watched him raise his gun.
She saw the bright muzzle flash. The sound was not as loud as she anticipated.
Weisser’s head snapped forward. He crumpled.
Elias grabbed the back of his shirt, pulled his body off Wren, and shoved it aside. Waylon materialized out of the brush. “Clear!” he shouted.
Then Elias was beside her. He slid his arm under her head and lifted Wren. She realized her arms had gone numb from lying on them. As much as she’d wanted to thrash moments ago, now she could barely move.
Am I in shock?
Elias yanked the gag down and pulled the cloth out of her mouth.
“Baby, are you hurt?”
She heard the others running toward them. Heard Shane shout, “Willow, heel.”
“Talk to me, Wren.” Elias was looking her over while he did something behind her back. When her shoulders shifted, she realized he’d cut her bonds. Waylon was at her feet, doing the same thing to the zip ties securing her ankles.
Their friends and Willow sounded closer.
“I can’t feel my arms. Is that my voice? I’m a frog. Ribbit.”
Elias’ expression stayed serious as he pulled her shirt up and scanned her torso.
“Ribbit?”
All she wanted to do was make him laugh.
“No porcupine quills this time, but I did spot a deadly fire coming from a gun a minute ago,” she said.
That did it. The hot medic smiled.
Because of me .