Buch lesen: «Going Gone»

One

The climax slammed into Laura Doyle so fast that she lost her mind. She heard Cameron groan as he let go and went with her, riding the bliss of pure lust. She threw her head back and laughed as the last shudder rolled through her. Making love to him was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to her, and she didn’t ever want it to stop.

“That, my love, was amazing,” she said as she locked her fingers around his neck.

“Am I really your love?”

“Yes, yes, a thousand times yes...forever and ever,” she said as she pulled him down for one last kiss.

* * *

It was the scream of someone shouting Laura’s name that woke her, but within seconds she’d gone from the afterglow of a sexy dream to heart-pounding fear as she scrambled to tighten her seat belt. The private jet she’d boarded in Los Angeles was in trouble. An alarm was sounding inside the cockpit, and the pilot, Ken Price, was shouting at everyone to buckle up.

God in heaven, they were going down!

Marcy, her friend and coworker, who was sitting across the aisle, was crying as she tried to text someone on her cell phone. Laura thought of her sister, Sarah, and then of Cameron, but there was no time for goodbyes. She could hear someone praying, and the nose of the plane was no longer level with the horizon.

Marcy gave her a frantic look and tossed her a folded blanket. Laura caught it in midair and put it in her lap only seconds before she assumed the crash position. Her last conscious thought was that the blanket smelled like mouthwash, and then—impact!

* * *

It was pain, rolling, stabbing, unbelievable misery like nothing Laura ever felt, that woke her next. Something wet was running down the side of her face, and she couldn’t figure out why the house was so dark. She reached for the bedside table to turn on the light, felt hair and then the side of someone’s face, and imagined an intruder had broken into her house, and screamed until the back of her throat closed up from the panic.

The moan that followed was not her own, and that was when she remembered the plane crash. The fact that she was not about to be murdered in bed was a relief, but that she might die in this wreckage after living through the crash was not. The scent of an electrical short was strong, although she couldn’t see any flames. She heard another moan, followed by a short, choking gasp.

“Marcy, is that you? Dan? Ken? Anyone?”

No one answered.

“Please, God, don’t let this be happening,” she whispered, and then realized she was shaking, but not from shock.

It was cold-to-the-bone freezing inside the cabin. She didn’t know where they’d crashed, but it was February, and if they had gone down in the Rockies, her troubles had just grown exponentially.

She began fumbling at her waist, trying to undo her seat belt and find the blanket that had been in her lap. In moments she discovered she was flat on her back on the floor between the seats, which meant it was probably Marcy on the floor beside her. She shook her friend’s shoulder, trying to get her to wake up.

“Marcy! Where are the blankets? We need the blankets. Can you find yours?”

Marcy didn’t say anything, and Laura felt the first symptoms of hypothermia setting in.

“I did not survive this plane crash just to freeze to death,” she mumbled, and tried to get up, but her leg was caught, and it was too dark to see how to free herself. Moments later something shifted above her, and she threw her arms up in defensive mode just as a duffel bag fell out of an overhead compartment and onto her chest. The sudden impact sent a pain through her body that was so strong she passed out. When she woke up again, the bag was still on her chest and she was struggling to breathe. If her ribs hadn’t been injured in the crash, they were now. Every breath she took hurt, and she was getting light-headed from the pain. She had to find something to keep her warm, or next time she passed out, she might never wake up.

After a few moments of fumbling, she managed to unzip the bag and then began digging among the items until she found what seemed to be a heavy bath towel. When she felt an insignia embroidered in the terry cloth, she guessed this was the complimentary bathrobe that had been on the hook inside each hotel bathroom. This must be Dan’s bag. He was notorious for taking things from hotels and then wondering why his credit card bill was higher than everyone else’s.

Her hands were trembling as she covered herself with the robe. After that she began piling the rest of the garments from inside the bag on top of the robe, layer after layer. The scent of Dan’s aftershave was the last thing she smelled as she passed out again.

The next time she woke up it was morning, and Marcy had rolled away and was lying on her side just out of Laura’s reach.

“Marcy! Marcy! Can you hear me?”

Marcy didn’t answer.

Laura pushed aside the covers to look at herself and then gasped. Her arms and hands were covered in dried blood, and her fingers were trembling as she began a self-examination.

Her chest hurt—a lot. The blood on her forehead was dried, and her leg was still trapped and aching terribly. When she heard something scratching at the outside of the plane her heart soared. Surely that was their rescuers, already on scene.

“Help! Help! We’re in here!” she cried, but no one answered, and the scratching stopped.

When she realized it wasn’t people making that noise and they were not being rescued, she broke down in tears, sobbing from pain and disappointment. It took her a few minutes to get her emotions under control and focus on getting free. Now that it was daylight, she could see how to remove the debris under which she’d been trapped.

She sat up slowly, moaning as pain rolled through her midsection, then, one at a time, began moving things aside until she was finally free.

Her leg was throbbing with every heartbeat. She reached down to pull up her pant leg and check it out, then nearly passed out from the pain and stopped. Okay, bending over was a bad idea, but at least when she stood up, her aching leg held her weight.

But her relief was short-lived when she heard a snarl, and then a low, throaty growl from outside the plane and remembered the scratching from before. At that point she panicked again. The thought of falling victim to wild animals was horrifying, but a quick glance about the cabin told her it was still intact.

The good news was that no animals could get to her. The bad news was that Marcy was apparently dead. She began to cry as she set about looking for Dan, and quickly found his body crumpled up in a corner near the door to the pilot’s cabin. Her fingers were trembling as she felt for a pulse at the base of his neck. His skin was as cold as the air around them, and there were no signs of life. They had been more than coworkers with the Red Cross. They were her friends, and they were dead. Then she remembered the pilot, Ken Price. He had to be alive. She couldn’t do this by herself.

The door leading into the cockpit was ajar. She stepped inside, then slapped a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. Ken’s eyes were wide-open in a death stare that gave her the chills. All the rest of his facial features had been completely obliterated by the impact.

All of a sudden the walls began to spin around her. She staggered out of the cockpit and slid down the wall into a sitting position, quickly putting her head between her knees to keep from passing out. As the wave of nausea passed, she began to think what to do next, and talking aloud seemed to help her focus.

“I need my coat, and I need to radio for help.”

But that meant going back into the cockpit. She forced herself to go, and sobbed all the way through the ordeal of trying to make Ken’s radio work, but to no avail.

She didn’t know if private jets like this one were equipped with locator beacons, but she was determined not to lose hope. After one brief moment of panic, thinking she might never see Sarah or Cameron again, she had to believe she’d lived through this for a reason. It was time to get practical. She moved back into the cabin, putting on as many pieces of Dan’s clothing as she could wear. When she finally found her coat, she threw it over her arm and began searching through the debris for cell phones.

* * *

Cameron Winger was on his way out of the Federal Building, buttoning up his coat as he went. He ducked his head against the blast of winter wind as the door swung shut behind him. Tiny flakes of snow lit on his hair like bits of white lace on black satin. He was a tall man with features more refined than his attitude. He didn’t like the word no and had no tolerance for ineptitude. He squinted when he was deliberating a decision until his green eyes were barely visible, and there was just the tiniest hint of a dimple in his right cheek. He’d been with the FBI since college and never once regretted the decision.

He was on his way to his car when his cell phone rang. He glanced at caller ID and frowned. Why was Laura’s sister, Sarah, calling him?

“Hello?”

“Cameron! Thank God you answered!”

His gut knotted when he heard the panic in her voice.

“What’s wrong?”

“Laura’s plane never landed. It went off radar late yesterday evening.”

The world stopped. Cameron felt the bitter bite of winter on his face as he turned away and closed his eyes. This couldn’t be happening. Laura was everything to him. Then he took a deep breath and made himself focus.

“She was coming back from that convention in L.A., right?”

“Yes.”

“Do they know where it went down?”

“All I know is they’re setting up search and rescue somewhere around Denver. Can you go? I’m in Canada. Someone needs to be there for her, and I can’t get there fast enough to do any good.”

“Absolutely.”

“Keep me informed?” she begged.

“Of course,” he said, and made a U-turn on the sidewalk, resisting the urge to run as he headed back into the Federal Building.

* * *

It took over an hour, but Laura finally found all four cell phones, then, one by one, her hopes were dashed as she failed to get a signal.

“Can you believe it?” she muttered, talking to Marcy as if she could still hear. “Four phones and not a single signal from any of them.”

Marcy had nothing to say.

At least during the search for the phones she’d found a first-aid kit, some snacks and two bottles of water. She put the food and water in the farthest corner of the plane, away from the bodies, then made her way to the tiny bathroom. There was no getting around bodily functions, but she had to leave the door open for light so she could see.

When she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, she stifled a horrified gasp. When she sat down on the commode, she groaned from the pain, and when she got up, she groaned again.

The cut in her hairline had bled into her scalp while she was passed out, leaving her white-blond hair with garish streaks of red. Now it was freeze-dried to her skin and nothing short of multiple scrubbings was going to take it out.

Her face was normally heart-shaped but was swollen on one side more than the other, and her lower lip was puffy and bruised. Her eyes, normally blue, reflected the pain she was suffering to the point that they were almost gray. She was dressed like a scarecrow with all the layers of clothing, but considering the danger of her circumstances, her appearance wasn’t worth further consideration.

She stumbled as she came out of the bathroom, grabbed at a seat to keep from falling and then winced from the pain of the added jolt. After a thorough search through the first-aid kit, she found a few butterfly bandages and used them on the cut in her scalp. She chewed and swallowed three extremely bitter aspirin, hoping they were enough to offset the steady throb between her eyes. Used one wet wipe to clean some of the blood from her face and hands, then managed to open one of the bottles of water and took a drink.

It hurt terribly to inhale, and she was guessing her ribs were either broken or severely bruised. She dug farther into the kit and found a couple of ACE bandages. Reluctantly, she removed enough clothing to wrap up her rib cage. It hurt like hell in the process and as soon as she was done, she dressed hastily, shivering from the encroaching cold.

Her next problem was finding a way to get warm. There were three other suitcases that had been tossed about the cabin, and she went through them one by one, digging out the contents and tossing anything usable toward the tail section. Once the suitcases were empty, she began arranging the clothing until she had made a nest for herself within the pile.

Exhausted and reeling from so many aches she could hardly breathe, she crawled into the middle of all that fabric, then pulled the coats and the blankets she’d found around her. Secure within her makeshift bed, she tried the phones again, praying to get a signal. Tears welled as she finally accepted it was a lost cause.

It was quiet outside now, and she thought about the animals, hoping they were gone. The wind rose in an eerie wail that mirrored her despair. She was staring at one of the tiny windows, telling herself that any moment the face of a rescuer would appear and look inside, and she would be saved.

When it began to snow, it added another dimension to the danger she was in. This would slow down search planes, and if the snow was too heavy, the planes would never be able to find the wreckage of a white, snow-covered plane from the air.

Sometime later the animals came back, once again scratching at the outside of the fuselage. Listening to them snarling and yipping as they tried to dig their way inside, she guessed they were wolves. Despite the fact that the extreme cold had all but stopped decomposition of the bodies, she was sure the pack could smell them.

Wanting to see what she was facing, she got up, moving quietly through the cabin toward the cockpit to look out. Just as she reached the doorway, two huge wolves suddenly leaped up onto the nose of the plane and begin digging at the cracked windshield, trying to get to the pilot’s body. The sight was so startling that she screamed.

The unexpected sound took the wolves by surprise, and they spun about and leaped out of sight. Though she knew they would be back, it was the first visual she had of how truly trapped she was. Even if she wanted to try to walk out, she would never be able to outrun them.

In a panic, she slammed the cockpit door shut. She couldn’t make the wolves go away, but she didn’t have to see them again. As she turned to walk away, she heard a click and turned around just as the door swung open on its own. Once again she was faced with a new fear.

Logically, she didn’t think they could break through the windshield, but just in case, she needed to know there was a boundary between them and her that they couldn’t breach. She tried to push some of the loose debris in front of the door to hold it shut, but it wasn’t substantial enough, and the seats, which were heavy enough, were bolted to the floor.

When the two wolves jumped back up on the nose of the plane and began digging at the windshield again, she screamed and slammed the door, then used her body weight to keep it closed.

“Oh, God, oh, God, please! Don’t let this be the way I die,” she cried, sobbing hysterically.

Her fingers were so cold she could barely feel them as she buried her face in her hands. Her sister slid through her mind as she choked on a sob. What if she never saw Sarah again?

And Cameron—there was no way she could describe what he meant to her. She’d been enchanted with him almost from their first meeting, and as the months went by, she’d begun dreaming of a happily ever after with him. Now she didn’t know if she would see tomorrow.

She could hear the wolves still outside the cockpit and more that were surrounding the plane, digging and yipping and whining. She grabbed a piece of metal and began beating it against the inside wall.

“Stop! Get away! Get lost! Leave me alone!” she screamed.

The noise silenced them again, but she knew it wouldn’t last. She was looking around for an answer to her latest dilemma when her gaze fell on Dan’s body.

He was a big man and less than three feet away from the door. He, or at least his body, could hold the door shut. At first she hesitated, uncertain how to go about it and leave him any dignity, then realized that couldn’t matter, not when her life depended on it. Without looking at his face, she grabbed him by the arms and began dragging his body backward toward the door. Pain racked her chest and legs as she strained against his weight, while the wolves continued to circle the plane, howling and growling.

Finally it was done.

Exhausted and so shaky she thought she would faint, she turned around and went for Marcy, dragging her body up beside Dan’s. When she was done, she fell to her knees beside them. Her chest was on fire, and there wasn’t a place on her body that didn’t hurt, but the deed was done. The door was shut and wasn’t about to come open.

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” she sobbed, as she patted Marcy’s arm, then picked up Dan’s hand and laid it across his chest. “Please, forgive me. Just know that your last physical act on this earth will be protecting me, and for that I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

She scuttled backward like a crab, and as she did, she realized the wind was rising. Just as she stood, a gust buffeted the plane, strong enough to actually rock it.

She grabbed hold of a seat to steady herself while it dawned on her that in fact she had no concept of how precarious her situation really was. If they hadn’t landed in a fairly level area, and if the wind got too strong, it could dislodge the plane, which would slide off the mountain with her trapped inside.

The notion gave her pause, and for the first time, she realized it might be to her advantage to limit her movements. She gave her coworkers one last look and then made her way to the back of the plane to the minuscule bathroom.

When she came out, she cleaned her hands on another wet wipe, ate half an energy bar, washed it down with two small sips of water, crawled back into her nest, pulled up her makeshift covers and cried herself to sleep.

* * *

Moonlight came through the cabin windows, bathing the bare skin of the two lovers caught up in the simple act of love. That the joining of one body to another could cause such an intense, physical reaction was understood, but at the same time, for them it was a new and wonderful thing. When Laura began to climax, the satisfaction on Cameron’s face was nothing short of bliss. She was still riding the high of her own pleasure when she slid her hands between their bodies. Moments later he was spiraling out of control. Her heart was still hammering from the aftershocks when he brushed his mouth across her lips.

“I love you most, Laura Doyle...so, so much.”

* * *

Laura woke up with a gasp, then grabbed her chest and tried to stop the shock wave of pain that ripped through her. It was getting dark inside the cabin. Had she been asleep that long? She glanced toward the windows. They were nearly covered with snow.

Oh, dear Lord, not that, too. “Stop the snow. Please, stop the snow.”

She crawled out of her makeshift bed, but her leg buckled when she tried to stand. Something was very wrong. The more time passed, the stiffer her whole body became, but the pain in her leg was different. She leaned against a seat and slowly pulled up her pant leg, then moaned when she saw the size of the gash.

It was about a half inch deep, running from just below her knee to her ankle, and the only reason she hadn’t found it sooner was that the extreme cold had been as successful as cauterization, and what blood there was had soaked into her black slacks unnoticed, and then into her shoe.

She fumbled around in the first-aid kit for the bottle of disinfectant and poured it into the gash. The burn was intense, but it was better than getting infection and having gangrene set in. Once the burn began to fade, she got a couple more pain pills and chewed them up, then washed them down with another sip of water.

Her belly growled, but putting food in her mouth was more than she could handle. She crawled back into her bed and began to pray. She didn’t want to die, but unless a miracle occurred, it would happen.

When she closed her eyes, she thought of Cameron. He belonged to the FBI. They found bad guys who murdered people, and good people who were kidnapped. Surely they could find this plane.

“Please, find me,” she whispered as she started to shake.

She pulled the covers up over her head.

The wolves were still circling. She could hear their whining and digging, and every so often the sounds of a quarrel as one trespassed on another’s space. The first time she heard one on top of the fuselage, she realized they were getting braver. Would this nightmare never end?

* * *

Once Cameron had given the director a quick explanation of what had happened, he headed home. After packing for cold weather, he caught a ride on a government jet flying a team of forensic specialists to the West Coast after the pilot agreed to drop him in Denver on the way. After takeoff, there was nothing to distract him from the fact that the woman he loved might be dead. The passengers he was traveling with were otherwise occupied, which suited him fine. He wasn’t in the mood for conversation.

It was late afternoon and only hours away from nightfall when they landed. He had a text from the assistant director giving him the location of where search and rescue had set up, and after renting a car, he wasted no time getting there.

The search-and-rescue station was in a small community center in a suburb on the outskirts of Denver. When he pulled up and began looking for a place to park, a local police officer flagged him down.

“I’m sorry, sir. This area is closed to the public.”

Cameron flashed his badge. “Special Agent Winger, FBI. Who’s in charge here?”

The officer immediately relaxed.

“That would be Lieutenant Clark. You can park in that lot just ahead. The lieutenant should be in that long building behind it.”

“Thank you,” Cameron said, and a few moments later he parked and killed the engine.

The sudden silence inside the vehicle made him shudder. Then his phone rang. It was his friend and fellow agent Tate Benton.

“Hello.”

“Cameron...I just heard about Laura. Do you know anything yet? Have they located the plane?”

“I don’t know. I just arrived at the main search-and-rescue site.”

“Is there anything the rest of us can do?” Tate asked.

It was the sympathy in his friend’s voice that did him in. Breath caught in the back of Cameron’s throat as he swallowed a couple of times to keep from crying.

“I’ve got to go,” he said quickly. “If I learn anything, I’ll let you know.”

“Will do,” Tate said.

Cameron pocketed his phone and got out. He had a large duffel bag over one shoulder and a hiker’s backpack on the other as he headed for the building.

Inside, the place was a hive of activity. Maps of the mountainous area around Denver were taped to the walls and marked up with search grids. Radio communication was at the other end of the room, and, from the static and squawks of intermittent traffic, it was obvious that they were already in search mode.

He stopped a young woman hurrying past him.

“Is Lieutenant Clark in here?”

She pointed at a tall, stoop-shouldered man with graying hair near the com center.

“That’s him on the phone.”

“Thank you,” Cameron said, dropped his gear against a wall and quickly moved in that direction. Once the lieutenant hung up the phone, Cameron flashed his badge as he introduced himself.

Clark frowned. “What interest does the FBI have in this?”

Cameron pocketed his badge. “It’s strictly personal, sir. I’m involved with Laura Doyle, one of the passengers.”

Clark’s expression cleared. “Ah. Sorry.”

“Is there any news?” Cameron asked.

Clark’s shoulders slumped a little more, as if weighed down by his responsibilities.

“Not really. We have a general idea of where the plane most likely went down, but it’s snowing heavily up in the mountains today, so the search planes are grounded.”

Cameron’s heart sank. “I want to help. Assign me to a search team. I have all the necessary training.”

“I don’t—”

“Please,” Cameron added. “I can’t just sit by and wait when I have the skills to help.”

Clark eyed Cameron, who knew what the lieutenant was seeing: a big man, twenty-eight or twenty-nine, and obviously fit. He wasn’t the type to slow anybody down.

“I brought clothes and equipment,” Cameron added.

Clark relented. “Very well. We have cots set up in the adjoining room and a temporary kitchen beyond that. Find a place to bunk. You can go out in the morning.”

Cameron groaned inwardly. So close and still he had to wait.

“Yes, sir, thank you,” Cameron said, grabbing his gear.