Maggie Black - Rescue At Cedar Lake

“Whatever,” Howler said. “Do whatever you want to do. Just after I get my money.”

The closet door slammed shut. Darkness fell. She heard a chair being scraped against the door.

“Brick!” Castor snapped. “Sit here. Watch the door. Shoot her if she tries to escape. But don’t kill her. I might need her later.”

There was a muffled argument and some more swearing that ended when Castor snapped that Brick would get an extra cut of payment at the end if he stayed behind to watch her, and a shotgun slug in the head if he didn’t. Then there was the thud of a body landing in a chair against the door. Castor and Howler’s voices faded away.

Theresa pulled herself into a seated position, slid a metal bucket behind her and scraped the duct tape binding her hands against the spout. It loosened slowly. Her socks were so wet and cold her feet stung. Theresa prayed hard, begging God to save her life and to protect Mandy, Zoe and Alex from danger. Then she took a deep breath and focused her mind on the criminals, pulling together the scraps of what she knew as if this was a file that she’d gotten through Victim Services.

These men were thieves. That much she knew. Castor and his lackeys were looking to steal some kind of trunk that he seemed to think she’d know about. But why? What could it hold that was worth ransacking a cottage over? Whatever it was, the henchmen were worried about running out of time and not getting their cut of the bounty. Castor had mentioned Mandy by name and knew about Zoe. So she couldn’t rule out that it had something to do with Mandy’s anxiety. But Theresa couldn’t be sure. Both Mandy’s older brothers were successful enough to have enemies.

Howler had called her a “finicky little princess.”

She closed her eyes and worked her duct-taped hands faster against the pail as the words pricked at painful memories buried so deep in the recesses of her mind that she had to ease them out slowly, bit by bit, like getting burrs out of her hair. She’d almost managed to forget that some of the kids at Cedar Lake had called her “princess.” They’d called her “useless,” too, and other things implying they thought she was too pampered and nonathletic to ever be one of them. She didn’t know who’d started it. But it’d definitely gotten worse after they’d seen her sailboat capsize in a sudden summer storm. She’d gotten tangled in the rigging and might’ve drowned if Alex hadn’t come to her rescue.

Back then, her parents owned a large seasonal equipment store on the highway north of Toronto. It sold boats, personal watercraft, sporting goods, barbecues and cottage furniture, along with whole rooms of decorative country kitsch. As a family, they’d always had the newest and nicest toys on the lake—sample models to trial, mostly. At the end of every summer, one of the other families on the lake, the Wrights, would host a huge team scavenger hunt. Afterward, Theresa’s mother would invite all the families on the lake over for barbecue.

That annual barbecue was also going be her wedding reception the summer she’d been twenty.

So, maybe there’d been some jealousy. Or the misconception that her family had more money than they did. But just before she’d turned twenty a warehouse fire had wiped out most of their inventory. The family then lost a long, hard court battle, in which, because the security cameras apparently hadn’t been working, the insurance company had accused her dad of setting the fire to cover some bad debts. So less than a month before her wedding, her parents realized they were probably going to go bankrupt and started making quiet plans to sell their business, cottage and home in a last-ditch effort to pay off their debts.

She could still remember the anxiety filling her heart as she’d gone to tell Alex. She’d been looking for a shoulder to cry on. Instead, he’d met her with the news that he’d dropped out of yet another university program, just tossing away a full scholarship and paid internship, as if real-world responsibilities didn’t even matter.

But that was just the way Alex was. He was spontaneous. But that day he’d been so full of blather that her sadness had turned to frustration. She’d said maybe they should postpone the wedding until he grew up enough. They’d fought. He took the cruel taunt that the other kids made about how she seemed to think she was royalty and aimed it at her heart with an added sting: should’ve known better than to fall for such a finicky little princess like you.

She’d handed the ring back, feeling too hurt to even cry. And that had been that.

“I’m done waiting.” Brick’s voice snapped through the closed door. “I’m cold. This is stupid. I want my money. I’m going to go find the thing myself. But I don’t know my way around this stupid lake and Castor thinks you know something. So you’re going to help me, whether you want to or not.”

The cupboard door flew open. With one desperate tug she yanked her hands free. Duct tape tore. The bucket clattered behind her. She launched herself headfirst into Brick, knocking him back so hard he slipped and hit the floor. He’d taken off his ski mask, showing a square face with fat cheeks, thin lips and deep-set eyes. She pushed past him and ran down the narrow hallway leading to the cottage’s smaller back door. If she could just grab her boots and her gloves and make it out the back door she might be able to escape through the trees and find somewhere to hide.

A sawed-off shotgun blast sounded behind her. Splinters exploded in the wall ahead as a hunting slug struck the wood.

“You keep running, I’ll shoot you,” Brick said. “Castor’s made me put up with too much nonsense to stick me on babysitting duty. I need that trunk. I want my money. So, you’re gonna help me find it. Even if you’re bleeding and in pieces.”

Her stocking feet froze beneath her as her brain struggled to think. Even if she cooperated, he was likely to kill her eventually, unless she just went along with him until she found a way to escape. But if she tried to keep running, she had no doubt he’d shoot her on the spot. There was a thud on the roof above them, like a sudden clump of snow falling off a tree branch. The hot barrel of a weapon brushed against the back of her head.

“I don’t know anything about a trunk.” Her hands rose slowly. “But I’ll help you leave Cedar Lake if you promise not to hurt anyone else.”

“Nice try.” He snorted. “But I’m the boss now. We can do this the easy way or the hard way, but, either way, I’m not leaving this lake without what I came for. Castor said he was willing to pay me good to find this trunk. He’ll probably pay me double if I find it first. And if he gets mad at me for hurting you, I’ll just tell him it’s your fault for running away.” He spun her around and marched her back into the remains of the living room. “Now, you’re going to start cooperating. Because if ya don’t, I’m going to hurt you so bad you’re gonna wish I’d just shot ya.”

An ugly grin spread across his flat face. She closed her eyes and prayed.

A crash sounded from the low roof above. Brick swore. She opened her eyes in time to see a snow-covered form in jeans, a brown leather jacket and snowmobile helmet swing down through the open doorway. Brick grabbed her hard around her neck and yanked her back in a headlock, pressing her body back tight against his like a hostage. The tip of the sawed-off shotgun pressed into the soft flesh at the base of her skull just behind her ear.

“Look man, whoever you are, I’m just a guy looking for the same thing you are!” Brick shouted. “The trunk’s not here. We don’t have it and we don’t know where it is! So there’s no need for any problems. Just turn around and pretend you never saw us.”