“Still have my rifle,” I offer. The rifle I could have easily taken when she was off balance in my arms.
She nods, her look distant. She takes my rifle off her shoulder and holds it, not quitepointing it at me. “I’ve spent too much of the last few days handcuffed and shackled. So I know how awful that can be. I won’t tie you up again, but you have to stay ahead of me. Understood?”
“Yes, ma’am. My truck is this way," I tell her, pointing through the trees. I start walking ahead of her as instructed.
“Where was the van taking you?” I ask.
I stay ahead, but risk taking looks back at her. Her eyes are on her feet as she finds her footing in the soggy terrain. “I don’t know.”
"How did you get away?"
"Prison transport crashed," she says after a pause. "We were heading through the mountains. The driver must have taken a curve too fast in the rain. Van rolled. The other guard and the driver didn't make it. I got out, found the keys, and unlocked my restraints."
"You just walked away from a crash? No pursuit?"
"I didn't say that. I'm sure they're after me now."
Something doesn't add up. A prison transport with only two guards, taking a dangerous mountain road in a storm? That's not standard procedure. Not for a high-value prisoner. And a crash that kills everyone but leaves her able to walk away?
She's not making this up. I can tell. But she's not telling me everything either. Or maybe she doesn't know how strange that is. Either way, it's convenient.
“Where were you coming from?”
She looks up at me, and the hesitation is back. But she says, “Terre Haute.”
“Indiana? Ain’t that a men’s jail?”
“I was in ad-seg. Solitary confinement.”
A female prisoner so dangerous that they housed her in a men’s max security prison?
“What are you charged with?” Better than asking her whatshe did. Odds are she’d deny it. If prisons only housed people who said they were guilty, they’d be empty.
She shakes her head. “The less you know, the safer you are."
Well, that’s strange. That’s the first time the woman pointing the gun at me and threatening to kill me is concerned with my safety.
“You’re law enforcement.” I make it a statement, not a question. People put their guard up when asked questions. My statement makes what I say an opinion. And people can’t help but correct or confirm other people’s views.
I hear her stop moving and I risk turning around. Her face has returned to that hard, distrusting place where she doesn’t believe that I’m just a hunter in the Montana woods. I’m not, but I need to understand why she doesn’t.
“Why do you say that?”
“The way you handled your weapon. The fact that you called it a weapon instead of a gun. You clocked how I moved. I clocked how you did.”
Her jaw clenches while she shakes her head subtly. “No.”
“You’re not military, though.”
“No.” She’s still shaking her head slowly. “CIA.”
Now that is interesting.“Are you trying to escape? Sounds like it was an accident. Why not turn yourself in?”
“Why do you want to know?” An accusation is hidden in her question. But I’m past the point of trying to prove to her that I’m not part of whatever she fears I might be. I need to know what that is.
“You’re saying you’re going to take my truck once we get there. I need to know if I’m going to be left alive when you do.”
“Of course.”
