Alex!
On the edge of collapse, I reached up and flailed at three buttons on the front of a metal box attached to the wall. I missed, groped, stabbed at them again, and felt them click one by one.
Nothing happened, and for a single, disbelieving moment, I thought there was no hope. That I was—
Gear engaged. Electric winch motors turned. And one, two, and then three of the overhead garage doors began to rise.
I ducked under the one closest to me and felt a strong cold breeze hit me in the face as I stumbled and went to my knees outside in the melting snow and mud.
I coughed and swooned but then scooped up a handful of snow and cold mud and splashed it in my face. I had to go back. I had to get them out.
I crawled back and saw Pratt lying motionless on top of his gas mask. Taking a big breath, I scrambled to him, rolled him over, and put the mask on.
After opening the door I’d come through, and the window, and feeling the air moving, I found the ropes attached to the cables holding the women and cut them all down.
One by one, I grabbed them and, still crawling, dragged them out into the snow. They were all outside and breathing when I heard the chug of a helicopter, looked back toward the bluff, and saw a Life Flight chopper coming in for a landing.
CHAPTER
111
SHORTLY AFTER FOUR that afternoon, Eliza Lindel broke down sobbing in Bree’s arms. I leaned over on my crutches and rubbed her back.
“Please,” she cried softly to me when she drew away from Bree. “You’ll have to come with me to tell Alden.”
I glanced at Bree, who nodded.
“Of course,” I said.
Gretchen Lindel’s mother wiped at her tears, then reached up and kissed my face. “I want you to know that you’re a good man, Dr. Cross.”
My eyes started to water. “Thank you.”
Bree held her hand. I followed them through the door at the far end of the kitchen into Alden Lindel’s small world. The shriveled man in the bed took his eyes off the latest Game of Thrones episode.
Eliza Lindel came around me and shut it off. “Dr. Cross has news, Alden.”
His eyes went to the tablet. The synthetic voice said, “Gretch?”
I smiled. “She’s safe, Mr. Lindel. They’re all safe. She’s on her way here. We tried to convince her to stay in the hospital, but she wouldn’t hear of it.”
Lindel shut his eyes tight, and then he looked to his tablet. “Thank God,” his mechanical voice said. “Thank God.”
Tinker, the Jack Russell terrier, started barking and yipping with excitement in the kitchen.
“Mom? Dad?” Gretchen cried weakly.
An EMT was pushing her in a wheelchair. She’d been washed clean of pig’s blood and wore a pair of hospital scrubs. An IV in her arm was connected to a bag mounted on a pole attached to the chair.
Her mother ran to her and hugged her, and they sobbed with joy, the little dog dancing on her hind legs and barking madly. They all went to Alden’s side. The dog jumped on his bed. Gretchen got up on wobbly legs, threw her arms around her dad, and kissed him.
“I never gave up, Dad,” she said, weeping. “They tried to reach inside and destroy me, but they couldn’t. Because of you, and what you taught me, they couldn’t.”
He broke down, made choking sounds of love, which Bree and I took as our cue to slip out, our job done. Outside, we smiled like happy idiots. It was a crisp late-fall afternoon, and I felt damn lucky to be alive.
“That Find My iPhone app is something, isn’t it?” I said, putting the crutches in the backseat and then hopping to the front, grimacing as I gingerly drew my splinted lower leg inside. “It can track the phone even if the phone’s not signed in.”
“Definitely helped find you faster,” Bree said, starting the engine. “That and Batra and the Life Flight pilot hearing your radio call.”