Shirlee McCoy - Exit Strategy

Of course.

Cyrus seemed like that kind of guy. The guy who never made a mistake, who didn’t hesitate, who knew exactly what needed to be done and how to do it.

He opened a desk drawer, rifled through it. Opened another one.

“What are you looking for?”

“Keys. Elijah’s car is parked just outside the gate. We might be able to use it.”

“Only if we can get out of the gate without being shot,” she responded. Elijah was the only member of the group allowed to have a car. The other vehicles were kept in a large garage built two decades ago. Her in-laws kept an old Cadillac there. Her car was there, too, the old Ford Mustang parked close to the garage doors, the key handed over to her father-in-law when she entered the compound. No way did she plan to go back to her in-laws’ place to look for it. She wasn’t going back for her notebook either. Maybe she should. She’d written notes in it, kept track of every delivery to the compound and every shipment that left it. That had to be the key to understanding Joshua’s death, and until she understood it, she couldn’t move forward, couldn’t move on.

“No keys anyway,” Cyrus said, closing the last drawer. “No phone. There’s no external internet connection on the computer. It’s networked with the ones in the security barracks, but there’s no access to the outside world.”

“Are you sure?”

“I snuck in here a few nights ago to check.”

“There’s a phone in Elijah’s house.”

“We’re not going to risk going there.”

John moaned, turned onto his back, his eyes open but unfocused.

“We could take him with us,” she suggested. “He could probably get us a ride out of here.”

“Get us killed you mean. We’ve got two guns and two people. The security team is ten times as strong. And I can tell you from bunking with them for a few nights, they couldn’t care less about their fearless leader.” He logged on to the computer, typed a password in. “If Elijah gives orders to take us down, they’re not going to care if John goes down with us.”

She hadn’t thought about that, but he was right. Elijah led the pack. John followed his orders. “We could break into one of the storage units. All the hunting rifles and ammunition are kept there.” Along with whatever had recently been delivered. She wouldn’t mind getting a peek at that while they were there.

“Too risky.”

“Without risk there can be no great reward.”

“You sound like Essex,” he muttered, his fingers flying over the keys. She didn’t know what he was doing, but a code seemed to be forming on the computer screen.

“Thank you.”

“Did I say that was a compliment?”

“Doesn’t matter if you did or not. I like Essex. He’s a great guy.” She took the knife from the sheath that hung from John’s gun belt, used it to pry open the file cabinet.

There wasn’t much in it. Just alphabetized birth and wedding certificates.

She closed the drawer, glanced around the room.

“You’re not going to find what you want here,” Cyrus said.

“What do you know about what I want?”

“You want to shut Clayton down.”

“True.”

“You want to prove he had your husband killed. Or that he pulled the trigger.”

“Also true.”

“You should have gone to the police. Asked for professional help.”

“I did. They needed evidence that a crime was committed. Something more than just my gut instincts.”

“You came back to find it?”

“I came back because my in-laws asked me to visit.” Looking for evidence had been a side product of that.

“Right.” He continued to type rapidly, his attention seeming to be completely focused on what he was doing.

“It’s true. They sent a couple of letters at the end of the school year, asked if I had any photographs of Joshua that they could have.”

“I thought this place frowned on cameras and photographs and all those modern type things.”

“It does, but Elijah made an exception because my mother-in-law, Maria, was grieving so much. I made some copies of our wedding photos and brought them with me.”

“You’re more naive than Essex thinks if you believe your in-laws wanted you back here for photographs.”

“I had my own reasons for coming back.” And she had believed her in-laws. At first. Later, when there’d been excuse after excuse for keeping her at the compound, when she hadn’t been allowed access to computers, cars, the outside world, she’d realized she was a prisoner. She hadn’t tried to escape. She’d been too focused on her goal to worry, too sure she’d be able to find the evidence she needed to be very concerned.

That was its own kind of naïveté.

Or maybe stupidity.

Fortunately, it hadn’t gotten her killed.

Yet.

“You do realize that we’re trapped in a compound with a dozen armed men who aren’t going to want to let us escape, right?” she asked, stepping to the door and looking out into the hall. The church was still silent, the hallway and the sanctuary beyond it dark. That didn’t mean they were safe. In Amos Way, nothing was ever what it was supposed to be. Even her in-laws weren’t what they’d claimed. They’d told her she was a daughter to them, that they loved her as much as they’d loved their own children. She doubted they’d have let one of their kids rot in a trailer for five days.

“I am very aware of our situation,” he responded calmly.

“Then, maybe you could hurry?”

“If I hurry and type in the wrong thing, we’re sunk.”

“We’re sunk anyway,” she muttered.

“Essex didn’t tell me you were a pessimist.”

“I’m a realist.” And realistically, she couldn’t see any way out of the mess she’d gotten herself into.

Faith. That’s what Joshua would have said. Faith and God could move mountains.

She’d tried to hold on to that after he’d died. Mostly she had. There were days when she struggled, when she wondered why God’s plan included pain and heartache. On days like that, she had to remind herself of the good times and the blessings.

“Got it!” Cyrus pushed away from the desk, grabbed her hand and dragged her out into the hall.

He moved so fast, they were out the back door and in the old cemetery before she could think about the danger. Moonlight shone on crumbling headstones, casting long shadows across overgrown grass and weeds. The fence was a few hundred yards ahead. She’d climbed it before, in the first heady months of marriage when she and Joshua had been giddy with happiness, when they’d thought they’d live in Amos Way for a few years, teach school there, repay Joshua’s college debt to the compound and then move on with their lives.

They’d had it all planned out. Once upon a time.

She tripped over gnarled weeds, nearly landed face-first in the fence. She grabbed the chain link, started scrambling up it without any prodding from Cyrus. They were on limited time. Eventually someone would realize the cameras were down, sound the alarm and the compound would spring to life, all Elijah’s security force rushing to find the reason why.

She reached the top of the fence, realized she didn’t have a jacket or coat to throw over the barbed wire.

“Here.” Cyrus tossed his coat over the jagged barbs.

She scrambled over the top, the barbs poking through the coat, the alarm finally sounding, screaming its warning through the still night.

* * *

Cyrus should have found a way to take out the alarm, but he hadn’t wanted to take the time to do it. Lark had been right about the number of armed men and their chances of surviving. They needed to move quickly, stay a step ahead of the men who would be tracking them. On his own, he could have done it easily. He wasn’t so sure about managing it with Lark. She was moving well, up and over the fence without a problem, but adrenaline would wear off eventually. When it did, she’d be done.