Backwoods by sara12356 Read Free Book Online

last guy they caught trespassing,” she
said solemnly. Then she laughed. “I’m kidding. They must be out
doing artillery drills, that’s all.”
    She tipped her head back, downing the rest of
her drink. He thought of how her breath had smelled like alcohol
the night before and wondered if there was more than water in her
glass.
    “See you around, Romeo. Parting is such sweet
sorrow and all that.” She dropped him a wink, then turned, walking
back inside the apartment.

CHAPTER SIX
    Seventeen hundred sharp, Andrew
thought after he’d finished showering. That was when O’Malley had
told him that supper was served in the dining hall—or dee-fack, as the case may be—and sitting on the side of what
would be his bed while stuck at the Army barracks, he counted in
his mind, trying to convert standard time to military hours. That’d be…what? Five o’clock?
    He glanced at his bedside clock. Ten minutes
to go. He hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast and his stomach was
growling again. About a half hour earlier, Corporal O’Malley had
stopped by his room, delivering the clothes he’d been wearing at
the time of his crash—his shirt, jeans, socks—all freshly
laundered, still warm from the dryer.
    “Thanks,” Andrew had said, surprised, as he’d
accepted them.
    “Don’t thank me,” O’Malley had replied. “Dr.
Montgomery took care of it.”
    Which had surprised him all the more.
    He hadn’t heard any more gunfire that
afternoon. Suzette hadn’t seemed particularly concerned about the
sounds, as if they were common enough occurrences. That didn’t make
them any less unsettling to Andrew, however. Sound in the mountains
carried fast and far and he wondered if McGillis and Allcott had
returned to the woods to look for him, had heard the shots and
grown alarmed.
    As he toweled his hair dry, he heard a knock
at the door. “Hang on a minute,” he called, because he was still
wearing only a towel around his waist. Thinking O’Malley might be
bringing him another pleasant surprise—maybe an operational
satellite phone or the keys to a helicopter waiting in the
courtyard—he hurried to grab his jeans. “I’m not dressed. Hold
on.”
    He heard a quick series of beeps, someone
punching in on the key pad, and had a split second to realize the
corresponding click was the door unlocking before it swung
open, quickly and wide, sending him stumbling back from the
threshold in surprise. “Hey!”
    His startled cry of protest cut abruptly
short as Edward Moore stepped into the room, then swung the door
smartly shut behind him. He raised his right arm, pointing at
Andrew, and after a bewildered moment, Andrew realized it wasn’t
the man’s finger he was aiming at his head.
    Shit, he thought, blinking down the
barrel of what appeared to be a semi-automatic pistol.
    “Dr. Moore,” he hiccupped, eyes round, nearly
crossed as he gawked at that cold, black hole bored into the
muzzle. “What are you doing?”
    Surely the guy couldn’t be that pissed off
over a right hook to the gut. Could he? Andrew thought, very
much alarmed, because whatever the reason, Dr. Moore was pissed
about something. That much was plain. The man’s face had flushed
bright red, glossed with a sheen of anxious perspiration, and his
brows were furrowed so deeply, his eyes were all but obscured by
the resulting shadows.
    “Look,” Andrew said, backing up until he hit
the nearest wall and thus could go no further. Helpless, he held up
his hands. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he dimly hoped like
all hell that the towel around his waist didn’t loosen and fall,
because he figured being found with a bullet in his skull, buck
naked on the floor would be a far shade worse than just the former.
“About upstairs, what happened this morning, I was only…”
    “Shut up.” Moore made a show of conspicuously
thumbing off the safety on the pistol. “Who are you? How did you
find me here?”
    At a loss, Andrew shook his head. “I told
you.