Killer Summer

59

The whirring of an electric drill, followed by the crunch and crack of a screw biting into wood, prompted Kevin to call out.

“No!” he shouted, banging on the closet door.

They were sealing him inside.

As the drill cried out, screws splintered the doorjambs, first one, then the other.

Kevin pounded.

“LET ME OUT!”

Nothing, not a word. Just the grinding whir of the drill, now affixing the doors to the floor.

Kevin had the knife from the Learjet, something they didn’t know about, as well as the flashlight. If only he could get them to open the door, he could fight his way out. But that wasn’t going to happen.

The minutes passed, and there was even more drilling nearby, the window perhaps, or the door to the room, or both. They were sealing him up in a tomb.

“Listen to me, kid,” now came a man’s voice from the other side. The copilot spoke in a hushed, confiding tone.

Kevin took a step back, hit the wall, and sank into a squat, his heart racing. The man’s voice also had an unmistakable note of finality about it.

“We’re doing you a favor here,” the man said. “This doesn’t involve you or Sam Elliott here, and let’s keep it that way. By morning, you’re out of here, alive and well, got that? So give it a rest. Don’t be stupid, don’t fight it, you’re safe. Stupid will get you hurt, hurt bad. Be smart, sleep it off. By tomorrow, this’ll be just a nightmare you had.”

Why hadn’t the man mentioned Summer?

Kevin thought this through from several angles.

Because they already have her.

Footfalls receding.

“This doesn’t involve you and Sam Elliott here…”

For Kevin, the operating word was here. Did here mean that the cowboy was tied up in the study? That gave him some sense of hope. Isolation scared him more than claustrophobia.

His eyes lighted on the closet’s old-fashioned plank ceiling. The rough lumber probably had been taken from the property. The ceiling, casement, and walls were all constructed of one-by-six pine boards. None of the joints fit together perfectly, having withstood decades of deep winter snow and the unforgiving climate. The gaps between the boards were about the thickness of… a steak-knife blade.

Kevin stood, slipped the flashlight out of his pocket, and switched it on. A pair of metal filing boxes were stacked in the corner. He gingerly climbed atop them to inspect the ceiling. He slipped the tip of his knife into a gap between the boards and gently began to pry them apart.