Chapter 40 Maggie
Maggie
There has to be a way out of this, thought Maggie.
Twisting against the manacles, she strained to free her hands, but succeeded only in scraping more skin from her already-raw wrists.
She slumped back against the post. Hannah was not a careless woman, and she’d left her hostage with no possibility of escape.
She’d left no tools, no cell phone within reach, and that picture window was too far away for Maggie to shatter with a kick.
Unless Hannah returned to free her, Maggie would stay attached to this post.
And if Hannah did not return, this was where Maggie would probably die.
It would be a slow and agonizing death that would take days, as thirst drove her insane, as dehydration shut down her organs.
She wondered how long it took for a body to mummify.
She thought of Declan, frantically searching for her, only to learn in the spring, with the discovery of her body, that she had died just a few miles from Maggie’s farm.
The only reason she was alive now was because she still had value. A dead hostage was a useless commodity.
Her joints ached from sitting too long on the floor, so she struggled to her feet.
Again, she strained against the manacles, scraping her already-abraded wrists.
The post was wooden, only four by four inches, but it was solid enough to defeat her.
Samson might have been powerful enough to bring down the columns of the Philistine temple, but she was only a sixty-one-year-old woman with a sore hip and a throbbing headache.
Think, Maggie. There has to be a way to survive this.
She thought back to her training during those months at the Farm, and all the scenarios thrown at the fresh recruits.
How to withstand interrogations. How to engage your captor in conversation and make them believe you’ve become pliant, all while looking for a chance to escape.
None of those strategies would work with Hannah Murray, because she knew them all.
She slid to the floor, and her head tipped back in exhaustion.
A time would come when she’d have no choice but to acknowledge defeat and surrender to the inevitable, but she wasn’t ready for that yet.
She thought of Declan and how little time they’d had together, and so late in their lives.
They’d believed they had years ahead of them, but these few, sweet months might be all they had . . .
Beyond the window, a light flickered.
She snapped straight and stared at the darkness outside. Had she imagined it? The window looked out over the lake, and perhaps she’d seen only the reflection of starlight on rippling water.
Or it could be Hannah, coming back to finish her off. But why would she return by water?
Then a second light appeared. And a third. They moved like floating orbs, weaving among the trees. Ghostly. Hypnotic. Are they real?
The door crashed open and slammed against the wall.
Three men burst in, moving so fast they were little more than a blur of bodies dressed in tactical gear. Footsteps pounded in different directions as they dispersed to other rooms. She heard shouts:
“Clear!”
“Clear!”
And finally: “All clear!”
Only then did one of the invaders come toward her, but he moved cautiously, as if approaching a minefield. She stared up at a face smeared with camouflage paint. A face she did not know.
“Where is Hannah Murray?” he asked.