He glanced over his shoulder. “The walls might be solid. But the floor isn’t. Those baseboards came out easily for you because the whole floor in this section has been eaten up with termites.” He waved toward a foot-long, four-inch-wide hole he’d made in the floor. “That’s dirt down there. The crawl space under the cabin. This is how we’re going to get out.”
She was shaking her head before he finished. “No, Bryson. That’s not the sound I heard. There was something else, out front.”
He lurched to his feet, then limped as fast as he could into the main room. She ran after him and they both stumbled to a halt when they saw the headlights bouncing crazily across the trees. A vehicle was coming up the gravel road toward the shack.
They were out of time.
Chapter Seventeen
Teagan watched the lights bouncing across the trees. The road faced those trees but ran perpendicular to the front of the shack. They wouldn’t be able to see the truck until it made the last turn and pulled up. But there was no reason for anyone else to come down this road. The killer was back. And when he came inside and saw they were out of their handcuffs, he’d cuff them again. Then he’d make a circuit of the shack and find the small hole that Bryson had started. He’d decide Bryson was too big a liability to keep around. He’d kill him for sure.
And then he’d come for her.
“Kill me, Bryson.” She grabbed his arm. “Please. I can’t do this again. Choke me. Hit me over the head. Something. It will be a mercy killing. Please.”
He shook her hand off his arm. “This isn’t over. You hear me? Don’t you dare give up.” He pointed to the couch. “We have to block the door. As small as this room is, we should be able to jam one end against the wall and the other against the door. He won’t be able to get inside.”
She looked from the lights outside to the couch and back again. “We’d just be delaying the inevitable. What’s the point? I have a better idea. I’ll make him so angry he has to shoot me. Then at least I won’t have to bear his touch again.”
He yanked her around to face him as the sound of gravel crunching beneath tires echoed outside. “All we have to do is break three or four more boards in that closet and we’re out of here. But we have to buy some time. Help me get this couch intoplace.” He grabbed her arm and tugged her away from the door as the headlights turned toward the shack.
“Grab that other end,” he yelled. “We’ll have to slide it past the hallway to turn it. Hurry.”
She ran to the other end and together they slid the couch across the floor.
“It’s clear,” he said. “Now, turn it, turn it. This end toward the door.”
They slid the couch sideways, one end facing the door, the other the hallway.
“He’s here! He’s here,” she yelled. The truck had parked in front of the cabin.
“Slide it back. We have to wedge it between the wall and the door. Hurry!”
She pushed her end but couldn’t get it against the wall. “It’s too long. It won’t fit. He’ll be able to push the door and the couch will slide down the hall.”
The engine cut off outside. A loud creak sounded. The truck door opening?
She started to shake. “Oh, God. He’s here.”
Bryson leaped over the back of the couch, stumbling and nearly falling before catching himself. Then he limped to her end. He bent down and somehow lifted the couch in spite of his bad hip, his face turning red as he shoved the couch up in the air. Then he dropped it against the wall just past the hallway opening. It fell down, but stuck with another foot to go. She didn’t see how it would hold. When the killer pushed the door, if he pushed hard enough, the couch would slide up the wall and he’d still be able to get inside.
Bryson must have thought the same thing because he climbed onto the end of the couch that was against the wall and hopped up and down, one-legged, favoring his hip. He jumped again,and again. The couch springs squeaked in protest. Then it dropped down into place, wedged tight.
Keys rattled outside. “Hey, what are you doing in there?”
Bryson grabbed her arm and tugged her toward the hallway. “Go, go, go.”
“Open the door!” The gunman pounded against it, his voice thick with rage.
Once they were inside the bedroom, Bryson released her and limped into the closet. Jamming his bad hip against the wall to keep his balance, he slammed his right heel down on the boards beside the hole, over and over. Wood crunched beneath his boot, dropping below. But the hole wasn’t large enough for them to get through. Not even close.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Teagan jerked around as bullets burst through the wall from the front of the shack and plowed through the opposite wall, throwing splinters up in front of her face.
“Down, get down!” Bryson tackled her to the mattress on the floor behind her.
More shots exploded through the wall, right where she’d been standing. She buried her head against his neck as he covered her with his body.
