Steven James - The Knight

“Don’t move!” the man hollered.

I knew that voice.

“Jake, it’s me. It’s Pat.”

Jake Vanderveld stepped into the room, and although I never thought I’d hear myself say it, I added, “It’s good to see you.”

“You too, Pat. What do we know?”

We were in the bedroom and Cheyenne and I had just finished filling Jake in. “For now,” she concluded, “it looks like Calvin is doing OK.”

“Do we know if Amy Lynn was even here?” Jake asked.

“Her purse is here, but not her keys. And her car is gone,” I said, then pointed toward the closet door. “Drag marks from the bedroom door to the closet, but not away from it. John had her in there, but then he led or carried her away.”

“Any idea where?”

I shook my head. “Her car doesn’t have GPS, and her Blackberry is still in her purse.” Then a thought. “Cheyenne, let’s get an APB on her and send some patrol cars to Daniels’s ranch, just in case-”

I was interrupted when Jake’s phone came to life. He answered it and then stared at me in surprise. “He’s standing right here,” he said, then he offered me the cell. “For you.”

“Who is it?”

“Police headquarters.”

I took the phone. “Special Agent Bowers.”

“Agent Bowers?” A woman’s voice, and she sounded even more surprised than Jake had been. “We’ve been unable to reach your pilot or your cell number. We thought Agent Vanderveld might be able to-”

“My pilot? What are you talking about?”

A slight pause. “Sir, your helicopter took off three minutes ago without-”

Oh, not good. “I didn’t request a helicopter.”

“You didn’t-”

“Who boarded the chopper?”

Another pause.

“Who!”

“I’m not sure, sir. But we need a flight plan and-”

“Listen to me.” I realized I was yelling into the phone, but at that point I didn’t care. “The second chopper, is it there?”

“Yes, sir.”

“A pilot, is there a pilot available?”

“Sir, I don’t understand; you’re telling me you’re not in the heli-”

“A pilot! Is Cliff there?”

“Colonel Freeman is in the helicopter that you-or that someone.. .” She couldn’t seem to collect her thoughts. “Cody Howard’s here.”

Cody was Cheyenne’s ex-husband, the pilot she refused to fly with, but I could deal with that in a minute. “Get him to the heli-pad and have him fire up the chopper. I’ll be there in five minutes. And tell air traffic control at Denver International Airport to get the transponder codes for the chopper that just took off. We need to know where it is. Do it.”

The longest pause yet. “Yes, sir.” End call.

I tossed the phone to Jake. “John’s got a chopper, but he’s only a few minutes out. We’ve got him. Cheyenne, you’re with me.”

Jake nodded toward Calvin. “I’ll stay here with him until the paramedics arrive.”

“Good.”

“Be careful,” Jake said.

That’s not exactly my specialty, but I decided not to bring that up. “I will.”

Cheyenne and I bolted to the car.

Through his headphones, Giovanni heard that Agent Bowers had requested the second chopper. Perfect. Things were going to work out after all.

Five minutes earlier, when Giovanni had appeared on the helipad with the razor blade against Amy Lynn’s throat, Cliff Freeman had just stared at him in shock, but he’d finally climbed into the cockpit when Giovanni removed the woman’s gag and she pleaded for her life.

Now, they were roaring over the Rockies, just a few minutes from Bearcroft Mine.

Giovanni sat in the backseat beside the woman. Her hands were still bound behind her back.

He snapped the straight razor open and held it close to her face to make sure that he had her undivided attention. “Do you remember at the house when I told you I wasn’t going to kill you, that you were going to kill yourself instead?”

She shrank back against the seat.

“Well, that time has come.”

“Leave her alone,” Cliff yelled from the cockpit, “you son of a-”

Giovanni swiped the blade against the man’s right forearm deep enough to make him cry out but not deep enough to disable him. “Please,” Giovanni said. “Do not interrupt us again.”

Then, he turned to Amy Lynn and began to unbutton the top of her shirt.

Amy Lynn tried to lean away from him, but there wasn’t any place to go. “Please, no,” she begged.

He unbuttoned the second, then the third buttons. “I told you before, I’m not going to touch you. Now, please, sit still.”

“No, don’t-” But she was too terrified to finish her sentence. He was picking up the cloth bag he’d brought with him, the one he’d taken briefly to the other helicopter on the helipad before making her get into this one.

The thick, coiled contents of the bag stirred.

“Officially,” Giovanni said, “you’re supposed to jump from a window, but I don’t think we’ll attempt that at this point. I can always toss your body out later, so-”

Suddenly, the chopper pitched to the right as Colonel Freeman let go of the control stick. He reached back and tried to wrench the razor from Giovanni’s hand, but Giovanni sliced the man’s wrist. A deep cut. Blood spurt across the cockpit.

“Get the stick or I’ll slit her throat!” He noticed that the colonel had-thankfully-leaned his leg against the control stick to keep the helicopter from crashing.

Freeman shook his head. “No! Put down-”

Giovanni held the blade to Amy Lynn’s neck. “Do it or she dies.”

He hesitated for a moment, then finally faced forward, blood spurting from his wrist, leveled off the helicopter, cursed, and threatened Giovanni, but Giovanni didn’t mind.

“And press your knee against that cut or you’ll bleed out.”

Giovanni waited until Freeman obeyed, then he untied the string that was cinched around the bag’s opening. He would bandage the man’s wrist in a minute, but first he needed to take care of Amy Lynn.

He lifted the sack toward the top of her shirt.

“No!” she cried.

“Remember, I’m not going to kill you. In this story you have to kill yourself. Rattlesnakes are attracted to movement. So, if you don’t want to die, you’ll want to sit very still.”

He nudged the fabric of her shirt away from her skin so there’d be enough room, then he tipped the three-foot-long rattlesnake down the front of Amy Lynn’s shirt.

She screamed.

And as she felt the dry, muscular body of the rattlesnake flex against her bare stomach and glide across her abdomen, Amy Lynn Greer did not stay still.

Not at all.

Air traffic control told us the location of the other chopper, and when I heard the coordinates in my headphones I told Cody, “I think he’s going to Bearcroft Mine. I know where it is. Head toward the southern edge of Clear Creek County.”

“Roger that.”

He tilted the chopper to the southwest, and we flew into the dying sunlight.

Cheyenne and Cody still hadn’t spoken to each other. Even though I had no idea how messy their divorce had been, from the tense silence I got the impression it’d been tough on both of them.

For a moment, I was reminded of my own troubles with Lien-hua, but before I could give those much thought, I saw movement on the floor next to the first aid kit And I realized what it was.

“Be still!” I yelled.

The rattlesnake glided across Cheyenne’s shoe and began to entwine her ankle.

She froze.

I would have grabbed something to attract the snake’s attention, but it cocked its head back, and I was afraid it might strike, so I flashed my hand toward its face so it would bite me instead of her. It bared its fangs and rattled, but with my other hand I was able to grab it just below the head before it decided to strike.