Page 16 of Colton in the Wild
She had the strangest feeling there was more depth to that seemingly teasing answer than he was letting show. Maybe it was the way he was looking her straight in the eye. But this was no time to get lost again in her meandering wonderings about Spence Colton.
They worked their way down to where the plane was beached. She stopped dead the moment it was in sight.
“It’s further out,” she said.
“Yeah,” Spence agreed, and he didn’t sound happy. “And I know I tied it off securely.”
When they got close enough, she could see the mooring line must have come undone, allowing the plane to drift offshore a few yards, the line trailing through the water.
Her brow furrowed. She knew Spence was right. He’d never not make certain things were absolutely secure, so it had to have been untied, maybe even pushed free of the beach.
He didn’t hesitate, even though he had to get wet again. Although, only knee-deep this time, just far enough to retrieve the rope and pull the plane back in. She ran to help, knowing a little extra weight on the line couldn’t hurt. When the plane was beached again, and he was tying it off, she scrambled onto the float and then up into the cockpit, while Spence grabbed his emergency pack out of the bin in the back. Once she was in the pilot’s seat, it took a moment for her to process what she was seeing.
Every reachable wire in the cockpit had either been yanked free or cut. Panels had been pulled free to expose more wiring, also cut. Most of the screens and dials had been smashed and every knob appeared broken off. She had little doubt, but tried the radio anyway. And got what she’d expected and feared. Nothing.
“What the hell?” Spence’s words as he leaned into the cockpit were short, sharp and vehement. He almost immediately pulled back and looked around, scanning the water and landscape around them.
Hetty snapped out of her stunned state and realized he was looking for any trace of who had done this. The idea that the vandal might still be lurking around—and that there may be someoneadditionaltargeting them other than the shooter—terrified her. She wasn’t normally so slow, but the impossible question of who would do this had rendered her normally sharp mind sluggish.
Was it the same person? Was the hand that had done this damage now holding the weapon that was firing at them? But why?
“Damn,” Spence muttered. “That’s what I heard.”
“What?”
He didn’t look at her when he answered, but kept scanning the area around them. “Back when I was stacking the crates in the shed, I heard…something. From down here. But I couldn’t tell what it was, and it didn’t repeat, so I figured it was probably a fishing boat in the area, or an elk or some other animal.” His jaw tightened. “That’ll teach me to assume.”
“Do you think it’s the same person who’s shooting?”
“Out here this far, let’s say the chance of it being two different people, one shooting at us, another destroying our means of communication, is pretty low.”
“Unless they’re working together.”
His head snapped around to look at her. He grimaced and let out a compressed breath. “There is that,” he muttered.
“But…why?”
“That’s the big question, isn’t it? There’s nobody that—”
The lower right corner of the windshield shattered into a starburst. Spence dived sideways and down. He took her with him and they slid toward the floor. She gasped audibly. Had he been hit? For an instant, she froze at the idea. Then she erupted into motion. She squirmed around in the cramped space. Her heart slammed in her chest when she saw blood trickling down the side of his face.
“Stay down,” he hissed.
She breathed again. He was alive. “How bad are you hurt?”
“I’m fine. We’ve got to move.”
“But you’re bleeding!”
As she said it, the blood reached his right eye and he swiped at it. He winced, but it seemed more in annoyance than pain.
“We’ve got to move,” he repeated. “He knows we’re here, and it sounds like he’s using high-velocity rounds, so this isn’t going to be a shelter after all.”
He was clearly coherent and aware, so she shelved her immediate panic. “Move to where?”
He was silent for a moment, clearly thinking.
Hetty tried not to move, which was difficult. What was more difficult was ignoring the feel of Spence’s body pressing down on her.
