Wellspring (Paskagankee, Book 3) (13 page)

He
wondered whether he would to survive the day.

He
continued to work at the electrical cord, knowing the bulk of his body was shielding
his efforts from view of his captor. For now.

***

Jackson was hungry. He was also upset
and confused and a little afraid of the man he had trussed up in the chair, who
seemed to be talking gibberish: a buggy with no horse? But more than anything else,
he was hungry.

When he
had opened his eyes and seen daylight streaming through the ceiling of his
underground death trap, Jackson had been momentarily disoriented. His clothing
had somehow disappeared – where it had gone was anyone’s guess –
and the steady rain soaking his naked body had chilled him to the point where
he felt colder than he ever had in his life. The skies were slate-grey and
threatening, but to Jackson Healy it was the most welcome sight he had ever
witnessed.

He had
examined his surroundings cautiously despite the freezing cold because he was unsure
of what in God’s name was happening. Then he had seen a man. The man’s back was
turned to Jackson and he was walking away from a massive yellow iron machine,
which was sitting on the ground next to the ceiling of the underground room.

And
Jackson had panicked. He leapt to his feet, nearly crying out in fear but somehow
forcing himself to stay quiet. He maintained the presence of mind to pick his
Colt revolver out of the mud, and then he rushed to the closest wall of the
suddenly liberated prison cell. He scrabbled up the muddy side, using exposed
tree roots as handholds, and when he reached the top he flung himself out of
the hole, flopping face-first onto the ground. Wet grass had never felt so
good.

The man
Jackson had seen upon waking was still looking in the other direction. He was
leaning against a building located exactly where the Paskagankee Tavern had
been, although the structure looked nothing like what he remembered. The man
was hunched over against the driving rain, holding his hand to his ear and
talking quietly.

The man
was alone. He was clearly crazy.

Jackson
bolted. He sprang to his feet and sprinted around the hole, past the
strange-looking yellow machine, and ran full-speed into the comforting cover of
the forest. He continued on as fast as he could, no destination in mind, just
moving, too confused and frightened to think. He skirted boulders and climbed
over fallen trees, trying to remember where he had left his horse, but nothing
looked familiar. He kept moving.

Eventually
he had burst through a small clearing and seen a cabin. By this time, Jackson
had regained enough composure to realize he needed to find clothing immediately.
It was his top priority, even above figuring out what the hell was happening.
He was now shivering uncontrollably and his teeth chattered like someone was
shaking a bag full of dice.

And he
was hungry. Unbelievably, stomch-crampingly hungry.

He had glanced
once again toward the small cabin in the middle of the clearing and shrank back
behind the cover of trees just as the strange-looking carriage rolled up. A
moment later a man, presumably the shack’s owner, had climbed out. Jackson
thought for one brief moment about calling out to the man for help, but he abandoned
the idea immediately as sheer folly. He was completely unclothed and holding a
pistol he only now realized was corroded to the point of uselessness.

Appealing
for help would be foolish, so Jackson had taken the man by surprise, attacking
and immobilizing him, and gaining access to his cabin.

And now
the man had finally regained consciousness, which was wonderful, because Jackson
was famished. He realized now that he had made a mistake while addressing the
cabin-owner. He had been asking about the odd-looking buggy in front of the
cabin, when that was not the critical question, at least not at the moment. He
had more pressing concerns.

“I need
food,” he said as his victim blinked rapidly in an obvious effort to reorient
himself following the blow to the head.

The man
squinted at him. “Take whatever you want. I’ve been gone for a while, so you
won’t find much in the fridge, but I’ve got some canned stuff in the pantry.
You’re welcome to it. Pile it all in the Jeep and take it with you.”

Jackson
narrowed his eyes at the man. He was talking gibberish again. “Fridge?”

“Yeah,
you know, the fridge. The refrigerator. In the kitchen.” The man nodded in the
direction of the only room in the tiny cabin Jackson hadn’t yet had a chance to
explore. “Like I said, there’s not much in it, but go check it out. Take
whatever you want.”

Jackson
followed the man’s eyes and decided he had nothing to lose. If this “fridge”
was where the food was, then the “fridge” was where he needed to be. He could
not believe how hungry he was, the sensation was building and building, rapidly
approaching the point where he could think of nothing else. He shot one last
suspicious glance in his prisoner’s direction, then turned and trudged into the
kitchen.

***

The minute his captor turned his
back and began walking toward the kitchen, Bronson was up and out of his chair
and moving across the room. He had unfastened the stiff electrical wire binding
his wrists with little effort and now moved as quietly but as quickly as
possible. It was critical he take advantage of the surprise factor to regain
control of his home, because Bronson was growing more and more certain the man
now dressed in his clothing was suffering from severe schizophrenia.

That his
captor had attacked him while naked was strange enough, but their brief
conversation, just concluded, was even more bizarre. Ranting and raving about extreme
hunger while not seeming to understand what a refrigerator was? And what were
all those weird questions about his Jeep?

This
was bad. At the rate things were going, Bronson Choate felt there was every
reason to believe the man might simply kill him and continue living for the
foreseeable future in Bronson’s isolated cabin.

And
there was a more pressing concern. His girlfriend was on her way here.

They
hadn’t seen each other for six weeks, the entire time Bronson had spent at sea,
and Jodie Miller had refused to accept the notion of waiting one minute longer
than absolutely necessary for their reunion. She in her car right now and was
due to arrive from her home in Bangor at any moment.

Bronson
had to take advantage of the window of opportunity his attacker had opened by
tying his hands in such a shoddy manner, or the situation would soon go from
bad to much, much worse.

He
crept to the kitchen entryway and flattened his body against the wall. Took a
deep breath. Eased his head slowly around the doorframe.

The
man’s back was to him. He stood unmoving, staring at the refrigerator. He
reminded Bronson of a cow watching a car drive past. For a guy who was
supposedly “famished,” he didn’t seem in any hurry to examine the contents of
the fridge.

Finally
the strange intruder eased a hand forward and grabbed the handle. He pulled the
refrigerator door open and recoiled, seemingly surprised by the yellow light
spilling out of the appliance’s interior.

Again,
Bronson was struck by a feeling of unreality. Something was not right about
this guy, but he didn’t have time to mull over what that something might be. He
took a step into the kitchen, grateful for the cabin’s solid construction. He
had built most of it himself and knew his location wouldn’t be given away by a
creaky floorboard.

He
eased slowly forward. The man seemed utterly captivated by the interior of the
fridge. He bent at the waist with his head stuck halfway into the open door.
Another three feet and Bronson would be able to take him down. The fucking home
invader would never know what hit him.

Bronson
raised his arms above his head. His plan was to lower the boom on the son of a bitch,
to clasp his hands together and bring them down on the back of the guy’s neck.
Whether he could actually break the man’s neck using that technique Bronson had
no idea, but he had no doubt the blow would incapacitate him, and the fight
would be over before it started. The son of a bitch had some serious payback
coming.

A foot and
a half now. The guy’s back was still turned, and there was almost no way he
could avoid taking a beating now, unless—

--Outside,
a car horn honked, a series of excited staccato bursts that indicated Jodie had
arrived, and just like that, everything went to shit.

Bronson
froze, hands in the air, caught completely off-guard. He watched in shocked
disbelief as the stranger whirled, moving much more quickly than Bronson would
have expected. The man burst out of his crouch and hammered a fist into
Bronson’s gut. The air
whooshed
from
his lungs and he dropped to the floor with a teeth-rattling crash.

The
stranger advanced. Bronson kicked at his knee, aiming to shatter a kneecap, but
his rushed blow went high. Instead of connecting with bone, he drove his foot
into the meat of the man’s thigh.

The
home invader cursed and staggered backward, and Bronson struggled to his feet,
retching and wheezing. Instead of advancing on his attacker, he staggered through
the living room, thinking only of Jodie, knowing he had to warn her away. If
she entered the cabin she would die, Bronson was certain of it.

He weaved
into the living room and stumbled into an end table. A glass table lamp wobbled
and then fell to the floor, where it shattered with what sounded like a mini-explosion
.
He ignored it and crunched on the
glass shards to the door, yanking it open, the sound of pounding footfalls
telling him the attacker was right behind him.

On the
front landing stood Jodie Miller, blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, her face
radiant. She opened her mouth in a joyful greeting, and then her excited smile
faltered and turned to confusion. “What’s the matter, what…”

“Get
out,” Bronson managed, still struggling to breathe. The words came out barely
louder than a whisper. “Get out of here and bring the police.”

Jodie’s
eyes darted up and over his right shoulder. Her confused expression turned to
alarm, and Bronson knew she had caught sight of the stranger. She took one
hesitant step backward on the landing and then Bronson felt a crushing blow to
the back of his skull, and as consciousness faded, Bronson Choate prayed to a
God he had not thought about in years that Jodie had understood his warning and
was even now escaping before she too fell victim to the murderous stranger.

8

Mike took one look at Sharon as
the meeting broke up at the Ridge Runner and decided to drive back to the
station and meet her there. Her shift had officially ended long before they
left the crime scene – or whatever the hell it was – and she looked
so exhausted he didn’t want her driving home by herself. He would pick her up
in his own vehicle and they could share a ride to her home on the outskirts of
Paskagankee.

Rainwater
dripped steadily off Mike’s soaked clothing onto the lobby floor as he waited
for Sharon. He was daydreaming about a hot shower and change of clothes when a
distraught young woman burst through the double glass front doors, sobbing and
wild-eyed. Paskagankee was a small town and over the course of his two-year stint
as chief of police, Mike had gotten to know every resident, at least by sight. He
had never seen this girl before.

She
advanced across the big, open lobby, not quite running, and pulled up sharply
when she caught sight of Mike. “Help me,” she said. “I need someone to help
me!”

Mike
reached for her elbow and led her to a metal bench, where she sat reluctantly. He
could see dispatcher Gordie Rheaume peering curiously through the big
plate-glass window separating the lobby from the offices within. “What’s your
name, Miss?” he asked quietly.

“Jodie
Miller,” she said between sobs. Her eyes were bloodshot and red-rimmed.

“Hi,
Jodie, I’m Mike McMahon, former police chief here in Paskagankee. What seems to
be the problem?”

“My boyfriend…it’s
my boyfriend.”

“What
happened to your boyfriend?”

“He was
attacked inside his house. He…I think he’s hurt bad,” she said, dissolving into
a fit of tears. By now Sharon had entered the lobby from the interior of the
station and she watched the exchange curiously, saying nothing. Mike noticed
with a hint of jealousy she had changed into dry jeans and a University of
Maine Black Bears sweatshirt.

“Who
attacked your boyfriend, Jodie?”

“I
don’t know who he was! I walked up to the house and before I could use my key,
Bronson opened the front door.”

“Bronson
is your boyfriend?”

She
nodded distractedly. “He was all out of breath, like he had just run the Boston
Marathon or something, and his clothes were torn and his hair a mess. He told
me to get out and bring back the police, and then…and then…”

The
young woman broke down crying again, and Mike said softly to Sharon, “Go get
Pete.” She nodded and used her ID to buzz through the locked doors,
disappearing the way she had just come. Gordie continued watching from the
dispatcher’s office, his eyes wide and curious.