Page 19 of Taming Her Bears

I reeled back against a wall to steady myself. I’d been on a few hard cases, but this was ice cold. This was the impassionate display of a calculating man who used any means to justify an end goal, including horror. A man who placed absolutely no value on human life.

“Denisovich is a coward,” said Lee, taking my hands. “He murders people when they are defenseless.”

He started to steer me away, then stopped. “Do you hear that?”

I gave him a bitter smile. “I don’t think my senses are as good as yours.”

“I heard something. Captain, I heard something at the back of the hangar.”

Josh was still studying the four bodies and the faint blood trail that led to the door. Darkhorse was taking photos. He pointed out some footprints for Darkhorse to photograph, then turned to Lee long enough to say, “Check it out.”

If Josh didn’t have confidence in me, he certainly had it in his men. It seemed unfair. It wasn’t my fault I couldn’t morph into eighteen hundred pounds of man-eating jaws.

Lee began trotting off purposefully, so I followed. If there was a new development in this case, I wasn’t going to be the last to know. It still chafed me a little that they’d withheld information to the Sitka harbor master. Maybe erring on the side of caution was the best thing to do this close to the border, but I felt if departments had been more candid with each other from the beginning, maybe things wouldn’t have gotten so out of hand.

I could tell he was depending on his heightened senses to track the sound. “Is it dangerous?” I asked, holding my carbine ready.

He sniffed the air. “No. It’s young—a young girl.”

The hangar was lit only by the daylight shining weakly through the doors. The far corners remained in shadow. I advanced toward the dark end, weapon to the shoulder, and just made out a dark form pressed against the wall. As I moved closer and adjusted my eyes to the lighting, it slowly acquired definition. I first made out an old army cot without a mattress flush with the corner of one wall. There was something on the bed, but the odd shape made it difficult to tell what it was. I crept over, easing my weapon down. There was no need for it. The shape was a woman lying flat on the bare springs, her hands tied to the headposts, her legs spread, her ankles lashed to the bottom posts of the cot. Other than a gag around her mouth, she was completely naked.

She was so pale and still, I thought at first she might be dead, until she whimpered and struggled weakly. Throwing all caution to the wind, I set the carbine on the floor and rushed to her side, then whipped out my knife and began cutting away the ropes. Lee hovered over me, blocking what little light reached in from the hangar doors. “Don’t just stand there,” I told him crossly. “Do something.”

“Blankets,” he said, blinking and snapping to attention. The two enlisted men had followed us a few feet behind. Throwing back his shoulders and straightening his shirt, he instructed them to run back to the house and bring clothing and covers for the victim. In the meantime, I had removed her gag, cut her wrists loose, and was slowly drawing her arms to her sides. She panted and cried hoarsely in pain as the blood rushed back into her limbs and I massaged them gently. She grabbed the front of my blouse, her teeth grinding together as noiseless sobs filled her throat. She wouldn’t let go. I folded her into my arms, covering her as best I could. “Cut her ankles loose,” I told Lee.

When he did, the girl—for that was what she was, not a woman—couldn’t even move her legs at first. Gently, I drew her knees together. Dragging them up, she curled in my lap like a child. Lee whipped off his field jacket and spread it over her. “I gave an order,” he said proudly, sitting next to me on the bed.

Over the top of the jacket, I was rubbing her back soothingly while I rocked the shivering girl back and forth. “You’re supposed to give orders,” I scoffed. “You’re a petty officer.”

He was being silly for the sake of the girl. Her mouth was red and swollen, her lips cracked from the gag and the gag itself wet with saliva. It must have been in her mouth at least twenty-four hours. Her wrists also showed the signs of long-term restraint. They were raw and badly scraped from struggling. She had squeezed her eyes shut when she’d climbed up on my lap, but she opened them to study him briefly. Something approaching a smile crossed her face.

Lee was still pleased with himself. “But I don’t usually have a chance. The captain’s always around.”

“The captain is investigating. Let him investigate.”

I unsnapped the water bottle from my waist and trickled a little liquid on her tongue. She licked at it and I gave her a few drops more. “They raped me,” she forced through her lips, her body shuddering. “The eyes. The eyes watched while they raped.”

Lee glanced toward the dead men. All the heads had been turned toward the back of the hangar, their blank eyes staring, mouths gaping in horror. Lee rumbled, his chest hair thickening. “Outside with it,” I warned.

He decided he could control himself, especially since the enlisted men had returned with blankets. I wrapped the girl up like a baby in bunting, murmuring soothing words to her, although the real thoughts in my head would have made a sailor cringe. She couldn’t have been more than seventeen. She had the high-boned, blushing cheeks of the Haida. If we’d lost her, she would have been just one more missing indigenous person. She deserved more. She deserved much more. I rocked her gently, listening to the terrible soundlessness heaving up from her chest.

I felt almost reluctant to turn her over to Lee. I understood what she had been through, and she needed reassurance. She needed someone to hold onto, and right now, she was clinging to me. With his magnificent shoulders and powerhouse arms, however, Lee was far better equipped than I was to carry her down to the dock and the waiting boat.

Josh had done all the investigating he felt needed doing, especially after learning we had just picked up another miracle witness. Denisovich was making a habit of leaving girls behind like breadcrumbs, never once imagining they would be found alive. If Captain Josh had not been on patrol the night they’d burned down the cabin, neither of us would have been found in time. He ordered the team back onboard, sent copies of the photos along with coordinates for the ship to the admiralty, and went to the ready room to brood. Roy and Darkhorse joined him but Lee remained in the first aid room with me while the on-board medic supplied fresh clothing and blankets for our young victim, and carefully cleaned some of her wounds.

The town of Ketchikan was only twenty minutes away. Pete made an emergency call to the hospital so the medics would be at the docks the minute our feet touched land. Lee and I followed and stayed in the waiting room while they examined the girl and put her on life support. The attendant who came out, several hours later, was also Haida. She was nearly as tall as I was, with gray streaks in her ponytail and a pair of glasses that didn’t quite fit properly on her nose. “Are you a relative?” she asked.

“No. I…” I stammered. “I’m a friend.”

She turned to Lee. “But you’re family.”

“We have the same totem.”

She gave him a penetrating stare, then made a check on her clipboard. “That’ll work.” She scribbled a few notes before looking back up at us. “She’s badly dehydrated. We have her on life support now simply to restore her fluids. She was kept in one position for at least forty-eight hours. She has bruises over eighty percent of her body, three broken ribs, and a dislocated jaw. One more day and she wouldn’t be alive.”

The horror of what that girl had endured was beginning to sink in. It felt like an overflowing septic tank, giving me the same almost insurmountable desire to retch. “Is there anything else we should know?” I asked, swallowing.

“You’re not family.” She turned and tapped Lee on the elbow with her clipboard. “And the Athabascan and the Haida are not the same tribe.”

---