31. Rowan
ROWAN
The stairwell ends at a laundry dock, and I stay behind the fire door long enough to understand what's on the other side before I move.
The alarm continues upstairs, muted by concrete and another level of building between me and the room I escaped.
Industrial dryers run behind the wall to my left, adding a constant mechanical rumble.
Carts cross the loading area on hard wheels, while two men near the dock argue about something I can't make out over the equipment.
Neither of them is looking toward the stairwell.
Through the narrow window in the fire door, I can see a white transport van backed against the dock with both rear doors open.
Three rolling carts stand between me and the vehicle, each loaded with sealed bags of medical linens stacked high enough to hide most of me if I stay close.
The guard upstairs has had time to recover, and the alarm means everyone else has had time to understand that I'm missing.
I don't have enough of a lead to search for a better exit.
I swipe the stolen keycard and wait until a worker turns toward the dryers before I push into the loading area.
Nobody reacts during the first few seconds, which gives me enough time to move behind the closest cart.
The metal support from the bedframe runs along my forearm inside my sleeve, awkward but hidden.
I keep one hand on the cart and walk with it when a worker begins pushing another load toward the van. He never looks at me.
The rear of the van is less than twenty feet away.
A forklift reverses somewhere beyond the dock, beeping loudly enough to cover the scrape when I move around the final cart.
I reach the open doors and look inside. Shelves line one wall, while floor anchors and two folded restraint straps run along the other side, the sort of equipment that could belong to legitimate medical transport until somebody decides it doesn't. Sealed linen bags fill the back third of the cargo area. That is enough.
I climb in, drag one bag aside, and wedge myself beneath the stack.
The plastic holds heat from the dryers and smells like detergent, starch, and cotton.
One bag presses against my cheek while another sits over my shoulder, forcing me to lie partly on my left side so I don't put pressure on the bruised right one.
Less than a minute later, somebody throws another bag onto the pile.
The extra weight pushes the air out around me, but I stay where I am and count.
The rear doors close with a metal slam that turns the cargo area dark except for a thin line of daylight along the bottom seal. Someone latches a cart outside, then the driver's door opens at the front. The suspension shifts under his weight before the engine starts, and the van moves.
I count seconds because I have nothing else reliable.
Forty-two pass before we stop again, which has to be the estate gate.
A man speaks to the driver outside. I can hear the shape of the conversation through the walls but not enough words to help me.
The driver says something short, another voice responds, and the van begins rolling again.
Smooth pavement gives way to patched road.
Every repair travels through the cargo floor and into my hip while the van takes two turns, accelerates, then settles into a steadier speed.
Five minutes pass, then seven. At nine, I start shifting the bag nearest my face before stopping myself.
Moving early is how I turn eleven minutes of progress into another locked room, so I make myself wait.
The van has been moving at what feels like highway speed for several minutes before I reach eleven.
Only then do I ease one bag aside and create enough space to sit up.
There are no rear windows. A metal partition separates the cargo space from the cab, but a rectangular service opening near the floor gives me a partial view of the driver's seat.
I can see one right shoe move between the accelerator and brake. Nobody sits beside him.
I slide the rest of the way out from beneath the bags and retrieve the bedframe support.
My shoulder hurts more than it did upstairs, and the back of my head throbs whenever the van hits a rough patch.
Neither problem is new enough to matter.
The babies are still the first thing I check.
I have no cramping, bleeding, or new abdominal pain.
I press my palm lightly over my stomach for one second before letting go.
Fourteen weeks means there is nothing useful I can monitor from out here except my own body, so that's what I do.
The van takes a long curve while I crawl toward the rear doors and test the inside latch.
It has a simple release with no secondary lock.
Medical transport needs people to get out quickly in an emergency, apparently even when the vehicle is being used by criminals.
Getting out at highway speed would be stupid.
Getting control of the van is harder, but survivable.
I move toward the partition and study the opening again. The driver keeps one hand high on the wheel. His phone sits in a dash mount, a paper cup fills one holder, and a clipboard rests against the passenger seat. He hasn't checked the cargo area once.
I shift the steel support in my grip and wait for the road noise to change. Several minutes later, the engine drops as the van slows through what feels like a turn or intersection. The driver looks left, then right, and I unlatch the rear door.
The warning chime from the dashboard gives me away before the door opens more than two inches. The driver checks the mirror, and his face changes when he sees me. I'm already moving.
I push through the gap beside the partition and swing the steel support into the side of his head.
He jerks away from the wheel, sending the van toward the shoulder, and I hit him again before he can recover.
The right tires leave pavement. I grab the wheel through the service opening and pull while branches scrape the side panel and the driver fights me with one arm.
The van drops into a shallow ditch and stops hard enough to throw me against the partition.
For several seconds, the only sound is the engine idling unevenly and my pulse in my ears.
I wait for abdominal pain, but nothing starts.
My shoulder is worse, my knee hurts where it struck metal, and my face still aches from yesterday.
None of it feels like an emergency. The driver slumps over the wheel, unconscious but breathing.
I crawl toward the passenger side because opening his door would put me too close to him if he wakes.
The passenger door sticks against brush until I throw my weight into it, then cold air hits me when it opens.
I lower myself into wet grass and stay there long enough to make sure my legs will hold before moving around the front of the van.
The road is empty. Trees line both sides, with no houses visible, while low cloud turns the sky into one gray sheet with no useful position of the sun. I open the driver's door carefully, but he doesn't react.
His jacket hangs over the back of the seat. I take it because socks, a dirty sweater, and fourteen-week pregnancy are not a practical wardrobe for disappearing through rural Connecticut. The sleeves hang past my wrists, but it closes. His watch has a compass function, so I take that too.
The center console opens after one pull. Inside are a flashlight, a charging cable, and a compact pistol. Erik's voice from the range comes back with annoying clarity. I don't trust a weapon because somebody else stored it as if it were ready, so I remove the magazine first.
Empty.
I pull the slide and check the chamber. That is empty too.
For one second, disappointment almost makes me laugh.
Of course the men transporting hostages don't leave a loaded firearm sitting in an unlocked console where the hostage can reach it.
I put the empty magazine back in the pistol anyway.
It can still look loaded, and that may be worth four seconds later.
The driver's phone is locked. I take it, walk far enough from the van to check for signal, and get nothing.
No bars and no emergency connection. I turn the device off, put it in the jacket pocket, and leave the steel bedframe support in the ditch.
It has gotten me farther than I had any right to expect, but carrying twenty inches of obvious improvised weaponry down a public road will create problems if I find anyone before Orell finds me.
The watch compass points east, so I start walking.
The first ten minutes are almost easy because adrenaline is still doing more work than I deserve from it.
The road climbs gradually through wooded country, with drainage ditches on both sides and no shoulder wide enough to feel safe.
I move against traffic even though there hasn't been any.
At thirteen minutes, the first vehicle passes. It is a delivery truck, and I step behind a guardrail before it reaches me because I have no idea whether Orell uses ordinary commercial vehicles. The driver never slows.
At twenty-one minutes, I find a faded state-maintenance sign telling me a numbered route lies four miles east. Four miles is possible. The thought is so ordinary that I nearly cry, but I keep walking instead.
By thirty minutes, my socks are wet through. Gravel has worked into one heel, and the borrowed jacket is large enough to slap against my thighs whenever the wind comes up. My stomach still doesn't hurt, though I check every few minutes anyway.