Cutting Edge

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Duke had sent J.T. all the information about Last Chance Road and the property that was owned by Derek Jackson or Tommy/Thomas Templeton. The SWAT team was headed up to the small Colfax airport where they’d stage the manhunt for Maggie O’Dell. They’d transport Nora when she landed and cover her. Duke drove in his sports car with Hooper. They were ahead of the SWAT team.

He had to make sure Nora was safe, and right now he had an edge. J.T. would find the property and they could go in dark and rescue Quin. If Maggie was there, they’d take her into custody before Nora’s plane landed. If Maggie wasn’t, at least the hostage would be safe. If Nora knew that Quin was safe, she would have the upper hand. But if Maggie took Quin with her to Last Chance Road … or set a trap, Duke would need to get to Nora fast. Maggie wasn’t logical-anything could happen, which terrified Duke. Suddenly Duke felt claustrophobic. He rolled down his window as they merged onto Interstate 80.

Twenty years old, younger than Sean, Maggie O’Dell had killed at least six people. How could she be so hardened so young?

“Let’s get there in one piece,” Hooper said. “Cut it to about fifteen miles over the speed limit and I think we’ll be fine.”

“We don’t have time,” Duke said, but eased up a fraction on the gas, going from close to ninety to eighty-two.

“What did Sean say?” Hooper asked.

“He’s planning on landing at Colfax Airport. It’s a small private strip a mile off the freeway. It’s a good place. But that’s still twenty to thirty minutes from the meeting spot on Last Chance Road. He’s not going to make it, and I sure as hell don’t want him hotdogging it. The Corvalis goes nearly three hundred miles an hour, but even going maximum speed with a good tailwind is going to put them here in just under ninety minutes.”

“Is there any other place he can land closer?”

“I don’t know,” Duke said, but he didn’t want to think about Sean risking a landing in the middle of the mountains. Their parents had died in the Cascades when their dad attempted to land in a valley during a mechanical emergency. Any other place and he might have made it. But the mountains had far more dangers with unexpected terrain and winds.

Sean had better not risk his life, or Nora’s. They had time. Just barely, but enough.

J.T phoned. “I got a parcel that used to be owned by Derek Jackson that fits. It’s one hundred ten acres with a Weimar Zip Code, but it’s way the hell in the mountains. It doesn’t border Last Chance Road, but from the satellites there appears to be an old logging road that cuts through the south portion of the property.”

“Used to be owned? Who owns it now?”

“The county foreclosed on it a year ago for back taxes.”

“Where’s the cabin?”

“I’m still looking for it. Don’t go down Last Chance Road, take Weimar Road to Old Bet Road, and by then I hope to have the exact location.”

“Why there?”

“I just emailed you the satellite photos and maps. If you look at Last Chance Road, there’s no way to get from it to the property by car. If the information you gave me is accurate, you’ll be stuck and have to backtrack.”

“She told Nora to pick up her next instructions at the end of Last Chance Road.”

“That doesn’t change the facts, Duke. Civilians first.”

He didn’t need to be reminded, but he was unhappy about the turn of events.

“You’re going to get spotty cell reception up there.”

“I’m fine as long as I’m near my car.” He had a digital booster in his dashboard.

“I’ll send you the coordinates when I find the exact location.”

“Thanks, J.T”

J.T added, “I know what it’s like to have someone you care about in danger. Follow your instincts, not your heart.”

Nora watched the video stream Maggie had emailed to her phone. Quin would die if Duke couldn’t find her. Nora felt so damn helpless, trapped in a plane, unable to stop Maggie O’Dell from hurting her sister. Hadn’t she and Quin gone through Hell already? Forced to grow up too fast, doing things no child should have to do, homeless, often hungry, listening to conversations they didn’t understand. No medical care, no dentists, no education … they might as well have been growing up in a third world country for all Lorraine had cared.

And now … this. Dammit, Nora wanted peace in her life. Quin safe. A home. A home with people she loved.

Her sister. And Duke.

“We haven’t much time, Sean.”

“I heard,” he said, grim. “I’m working on it.”

She forwarded the link Maggie had sent her to Hooper and Duke and also to Hans Vigo in Quantico for impartial analysis. She was too close to the situation to be useful in that respect; it was her sister in jeopardy She had to get perspective.

She focused on flying. Sean was a good instructor, and she wasn’t doing anything complicated. When they hit turbulence, he simply said, “Hold the wheel with both hands and pull it slightly up. Not too hard, but enough to keep that line right there”-he tapped a gauge on the panel-“level. Watch the line, not the sky.”

She did, finding the process calming.

Until Hans Vigo called her. “You sent me a bad link.”

“It goes to a video of Maggie and Quin. She injected her with heparin. We don’t have much time.”

“There’s nothing at that URL.”

Hooper called her a minute later with the same response.

“How did she know I viewed it?” she asked.

It was Sean who answered. “Easy. She’s watching from her computer. As soon as you hit the link, she timed how long it took to buffer the video and then took it down off the server.”

“Why would she do that?”

“She doesn’t want you to trace her.”

“Could I? If it was streaming?”

“Yes, but not instantaneously. It takes time.”

Hooper asked, “Did she say anything incriminating?”

“Yes-and she hurt Quin and threatened her.” Her voice broke.

“Don’t mess with your phone, we can pull the buffer from your memory. Don’t turn it off, don’t delete anything.”

“I won’t. Where are you?” she asked.

“We’re passing through Auburn.”

She turned to Sean. “Where are we?”

“Stockton is coming up to the west.”

“How long?”

“Depends where you want to land. I think I have a place that will get us real close.” He tapped the map. “It’s right next to the reservoir, and at least ten minutes closer than Colfax to your final destination, plus we gain five minutes’ flight time.”

“I’ll take it. Hooper, Sean found a landing spot. He’ll give you the coordinates. I need someone to meet me there.”

“Negative,” he said. “SWAT is headed to Colfax Airport.”

“But we may miss our window of time. You didn’t see that video! Maggie injected Quin with heparin and will cut her in less than an hour. I need this time.”

“We have a little time, Nora.”

“No we don’t!” She squeezed her eyes closed. “Hooper, the woman is on edge. I can’t trust her, and the more time we have the better. Please understand that. I need to get to Last Chance Road earlier than she thinks I can make it. We need every advantage we can get at this point.”

“Let me talk to Hooper,” Sean said to her.

She handed Sean the phone.

“Hooper, tell Duke I’m not landing anywhere I’m not one hundred percent confident that I can get both in and out without trouble.” He listened, then read off the coordinates of the landing spot. “Yes, and enough for takeoff as well … Thanks, see you there.”

He handed Nora back the phone. “Hooper cleared it.”

“Your brother just worries about you, like I do Quin.”

“It’s a little more than that.” He paused. “Our parents died in a small-plane crash.”

Nora looked at Sean, her heart breaking. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Duke didn’t like it when I started taking flying lessons from J.T., and I just made my hours to fly solo. But I assure you I know what I’m doing,” he added quickly.

“I have complete confidence in you, Sean.”

“It’s time, Quin.” Maggie took out her knife and cut Quin on one biceps.

Quin bit her lip to keep from crying out. Her head felt fuzzy, and she wondered if Maggie had put something else in the heparin. Or maybe this was a side effect of the drug.

She turned her head and watched as her blood seeped from the long, shallow cut. She was going to die.

“I wish we could have really been sisters.” Maggie cut her other arm along the mark she’d made earlier.

Quin wished she’d listened to Nora. She wished she hadn’t fought with her. She wished she could tell her she was sorry.

Maggie cut the small mark on her right forearm to match the one that was still bandaged on her left. Maggie didn’t seem to notice or care about the bandage. She was focused intently on running the blade lightly along her skin, cutting the skin and barely slicing the layer of muscle underneath. Under any other circumstances, the cuts wouldn’t be fatal. But today, they would be.

Maggie kissed her on the cheek. “I’m sorry.”

She sounded sincere; then Quin saw the sick joy in her eyes as she cut along her chest.

It was the most painful cut of all, and Quin cried.

Maggie whispered in her ear. “Just a little advice-the more you move, the more you panic, the faster your heart pumps, and the faster you die. Maybe that is for the best-get it over quick. But it won’t be as much fun for me if Nora can’t watch, so I’d rather you calm down.” She kissed her again. “I’ll see you soon.” She grabbed a backpack and left.

Quin willed her heart to slow down, she tried not to panic. But Maggie’s words had been meant to terrify her, to make her heart pump, and it took every ounce of strength to control her breathing. To control her thoughts. To keep her eyes closed and not watch the blood seeping out of the cuts on her arms.

She felt the warm blood drip down her cold skin. It was pooling under her buttocks, dripping off her fingertips. Her head was heavy, and she just wanted to lie down. To lie down and sleep forever.

Duke had turned off on Weimar Road when J.T called him with information about the cabin. “I sent you detailed maps. They’re fresh, you should be good.”

“You found the cabin?”

“Yes. You’re ten minutes away, plus or minus. You’ll have to park a quarter mile away, and there’s a chance she will hear you.”

“Noted. I need a footpath from the cabin to Last Chance Road.”

“Give me a couple minutes.”

Hooper said, “What makes you think there’s a footpath?”

Duke said, “I think she plans on taking Nora out as soon as she reaches the end of Last Chance Road. Think about it-if she planned on sending Nora from place to place, she wouldn’t tell her to meet this close to where she’s hiding. There’s no easy road, so there has to be some sort of trail.”

“True,” Hooper said. “But it’s still a risk. She could hunker down in the cabin, draw out the time.”

“So we go in smart. We were both Marines, we assess and act. On foot she can disappear. If she has any survival skills, which we have to assume she has, she can run parallel to us if she spots us, or simply get away. I’ll bet we don’t see her car. It’ll be well hidden.”

Duke drove as fast as he dared on the winding mountain road. He smelled something and first thought his car was burning transmission fluid, but immediately realized that wasn’t it.

“Hooper, do you smell that?”

Hooper said, “Yes. A fireplace? We’re close.” He frowned. “No-it’s not.”

“It sure as hell isn’t a fireplace. We have a forest fire on our hands.”

“Damn weird coincidence. I’ll call it in.”

“It’s no coincidence,” Duke said. “Tell your SWAT team to step on it and get their ass to the airstrip. Sean and Nora are five minutes out, and if that fire is anywhere near the road, they could be trapped.”

Sean said, “Nora, look over there-to the west. That’s a fire. And there-there-I see three.”

“Five,” she said, and frowned. “Five fires? They’re pretty small, but two are right next to the road.”

“That woman is fucking crazy,” Sean said as he pulled back and prepared to land on the old abandoned airstrip.

“Why would she set fires? It makes no sense-she’d be preventing me from-”

“Hold on tight.” Mouth set grim, Sean fought to control the plane on the short, rocky runway. Nora held on as the tail swerved when they braked too fast. Sean eased up, then down again, and stopped with plenty of room to spare.

“I hope I didn’t damage the plane too much,” Sean said.

“You did great, Sean.” She got out of the plane and looked around. “Brian and his team aren’t here.”

“Maybe that’s why she set the fires,” Sean said, taking off his headgear and walking around the plane for inspection. “To stop you from having backup.”

“But the fire could have stopped me from making it as well.”

Sean shook his head. “If you were on time, you would make it. Your backup might have as well, unless she set one closer to the highway.”

“But it’s September-the forest is dry. This could set off a huge forest fire, thousands of acres. The waste-” Nora was distraught. She couldn’t help but feel partly responsible. “Or she set them to trap us all. She doesn’t care who dies as long as she gets what she wants.”

No. She wasn’t responsible in any way for Maggie O’Dell and her behavior.

She called Duke. “It’s Nora. Sean and I just landed. We saw five small fires close to Last Chance Road while we were descending. But they’re going to spread quickly.”

“Hooper and I smell them. Is your backup there?”

“No.”

“Shit. Hold on.”

Nora looked around the mountainside. The smoke was beginning to rise, she saw billows heading straight up. But a wind was beginning to kick up, and that would be the worst thing for the forest. And them.

Duke got back on the phone. “SWAT couldn’t get through. There’s a fire on the road. Deliberately set bonfire. The fire department is on their way, but it’ll be at least thirty minutes before they can get it cleared.”

“I have to go.”

“Drag it out with her, if possible, Nora. Hooper and I are almost to the cabin.”

“Okay.”

“Nora, please-I can’t lose you or Sean.”

“And I have no intention of getting either of us in trouble. But there’s no way in hell I’m leaving anyone alone on this airstrip with that woman running around setting fires, and until I know that you have Quin, I have to head to the meeting place.”

“I understand, but-just be careful.”

“I promise.” She wanted to say more, but what else could she say? She hung up and motioned to Sean.

“We’re on our own, Sean. But if she sees you, I don’t know what she’ll do.”

“I’m pretty good in the mountains. I made myself a map-” He held it up. She couldn’t read it, but he didn’t seem to have that problem.

“You’re a city boy.”

“Looks can be deceiving,” he said with a wink, reminding her of his older brother. He tossed her a walkie-talkie. “You go, I’ll follow, and I won’t let you out of my sight-even if you can’t see me. And you can buzz me on the walkie-talkie any time.”

“Let’s go.”