Trust Me by Jeff Abbott Page B

gotten far,’ she said. Her tone was like an echo in a cave of wet stone.
    ‘Maybe someone came and collected him. Whoever grabbed him changed their mind, took him again.’
    ‘No, Mouser,’ he heard the woman say. ‘They would’ve just unlocked him or killed him on the bed. Luke pulled an escape trick.’ He heard a foot kick at the broken desk.
    Mouser? And this woman knew Luke’s name.
    Luke put his eye back to the cabin’s corner. It wouldn’t take them long to search the upstairs and the downstairs. Maybe just a couple of minutes. He’d have a few seconds alone with the keys, if they were still under the flowerpot. Then he could run like hell, vanish into the woods.
    The woman stepped out onto the front step. She was tall, thin, wearing jeans. From the light inside the cabin, he could see a crown of dyed white hair and a thin tracery of scar along her jawline. She held a gun in her hand and a flashlight in the other. She walked toward the woods. Away from him.
    Luke would wait for the trees to swallow the woman, and then he’d hurry and retrieve the keys to the chains if they were there. At least get his legs free. Then he could run.
    She stepped into the heavy darkness of the trees.
    He turtled toward the flowerpot, trying to move quietly enough where the crinkle of the chains sounded like the wind nuzzling the pines.
    Luke knelt by the flowerpot. He heard the man call out from deep inside the house, ‘There’s food in the fridge.’
    He tipped over the flowerpot. The keys to the shackles were gone.
    Behind him the woman called, ‘You’re not very smart, are you?’
    ‘I guess not.’ Luke stood and faced her.
    The woman wasn’t even bothering to point the gun at him. She walked close to him, and aimed the flashlight into his face. ‘Don’t take it the wrong way. I’m amazed you even got halfway free.’
    So close, he thought. He noticed she wasn’t aiming the gun at him and wondered if she even considered him a threat. In a flash he thought: you’ve studied these people but you’ve never faced them. This is different than reading a book or a loudmouth posting on the web. You can’t analyze them, you just have to fight them. Because you know what they’re like. Single-minded. Brutal. Reasoning hadn’t worked with Eric; it wouldn’t work with these two.
    Luke felt the quiet scholar in him easing backward, something new and primal emerging.
    ‘Mouser, he’s out here. Still in chains. Looks like he’s auditioning for A Christmas Carol .’ She laughed, a glassy sick giggle. ‘He looks like Jacob Marley. C’m’ere, schoolboy.’
    Luke jumped at her, hammering into her before she could lift the gun, shoving the flashlight so it smacked her in the face. He fell to the grass with her and lassoed a length of the chain around her neck. She swung the gun at him, nailing him in the head, but he was tall and strong and desperate. He got her in front of him, the chain a choker across her throat. He knocked her down, pried the gun from her fingers as he yanked her back to her feet.
    The man - Mouser - rushed into the doorway. He aimed his gun at Luke’s head. ‘Let her go.’
    ‘No. She comes with me.’ His voice broke, like a teenage boy’s. Luke put the gun on her head. The chain was a twisted braid in his left fist, the gun in his right hand. Don’t think, just do.
    Mouser lowered the gun and Luke saw the gesture for what the woman’s laughter was - a sign of contempt. This couple weren’t remotely afraid of him, not even with him having a gun.
    ‘So you stay there,’ Luke said to him. ‘All right?’
    ‘Luke Dantry,’ Mouser said. ‘We’re here from your stepdad. Here to help you, find out who took you.’
    ‘You’re not the police,’ Luke said.
    ‘No, we’re better. Don’t be a stupid kid. Let her go and we’ll call him.’
    But they were talking about bombing casinos and resorts. ‘I just want the keys to these shackles,’ Luke said.
     
    ‘You don’t know what a can of