High-Caliber Cowboy

Emma only glimpsed the woman slumped in the wheelchair with her head lolling to one side. She wore a long coat, slacks and penny loafers. Her chin-length dyed auburn hair hid most of her face. She clearly wasn’t from around this area.

The wheelchair squeaked down the hall to the echo of the men’s footsteps. Emma waited until she heard them turn the corner and start down the hall toward her office before she moved.

Her first instinct was to run down the corridor, out the back door. Except all the doors in the building locked automatically and had to be opened from the inside with a key, a precaution from when patients roamed these halls.

And she’d left her keys on her desk, not needing them to scare away a few kids through the window at the back door.

She would have to hide in the building.

Unless she could get to her keys.

She stole down the corridor, trying not to make a sound. At the corner, she sneaked a look down the hallway toward her office.

The two men had stopped with the wheelchair at the locked section that had once been reserved for the criminally insane.

The chain and lock on the doors rattled. She watched as Dr. French inserted a key. The chain fell away with a clatter that reverberated through the building. Afraid to move, she watched the doctor hold the door open for the wheelchair.

He had a key? Even she didn’t have a key to that area and had been told it was only a long corridor of padded, soundproof rooms best left locked up.

Emma waited until the men disappeared through the doors, the burly one wheeling the woman into the second door on the right. The number on the door read 9B. What was it she’d heard about 9B, something terrible. Oh God. She had to get out of here.

If she moved fast, she could get to her office, get the keys to the front door—and her car. The doctor had seen it parked out front. He knew she was here. She had no choice. But if she could reach her car and get away…

She hadn’t gotten but a few yards when she heard the squeak of the wheelchair; a slightly different sound echoed. They were already coming back!

Panic immobilized her. Down the dim hallway, she saw the burly man back out of the room with the empty wheelchair. She had to move fast. They would be looking for her, wondering where she was, what she’d witnessed. After all, she wasn’t supposed to be working tonight.

But where could she go? Not the patient rooms. If they caught her hiding in the dark in one of them, they’d know she’d heard their conversation.

Where?

She caught sight of the ladies’ room just a few doors up the hall in the same direction as the men. Run! Except she couldn’t run. She couldn’t even walk fast because of her feet and years of inactivity. But she managed a lunging shuffle, her heart thundering in her chest—a clumsy, terrifying run for her life.

As the doctor came out of the room and closed 9B’s door, Emma shoved open the ladies’ room door and stumbled into the windowless blackness. Frantically, she felt her way to one of the four stalls.

Stumbling into the cold metal stall, she closed the door, locked it and, quaking with fear, sat down on the toilet.

All she could hear was the pounding of her pulse in her ears and the echo of panting. She had to quit gasping for breath. They would hear her. The place was old and empty. Every sound echoed through it. If she could hear them, they could hear her. She had to get control, had to think.

She held her breath for a moment and listened. The snick of a lock followed the rattle of the chain on the doors to the closed wing. She let out the breath she’d been holding. It came out as a sob. She clutched her hand over her mouth, breathing fast through her nose.

From where she sat, she could see through the crack along the edge of the stall to the lighter gap under the bathroom door.

The empty wheelchair squeaked down the hall along with the sound of the men’s footfalls. She held her breath as a shadow darkened the gap under the ladies’ room door. They were directly outside. Had they seen her? Did they know she was in here?

“Looks like Karl’s here somewhere,” said the burly one. “We interrupted his dinner.”

Her sandwich! She’d left it half-eaten on her desk when she’d fallen asleep. She’d also left the light on in her office, the TV on, the volume turned low.

“Karl carries a purse?” Dr. French asked in a tone heavy with sarcasm.

Her heart stopped. She’d left her purse on the desk. Her purse!

“Dammit, Davidson, I thought you said Karl was definitely working tonight,” Dr. French snapped.

“He said he was.”

The older man made a disgusted sound.

Emma couldn’t hold her breath much longer. Tears burned her eyes. They knew she was in the building. They would look for her. She had to think of something. Some way out of here.

Closing her eyes tightly, she waited. Over the pounding of her pulse, she heard the squeak of the wheelchair growing fainter and fainter as it moved down the corridor away from her.

She waited until she heard the back door close before she moved. Opening her eyes, she forced herself to leave the stall. A dim light filled the gap under the door. No shadows. She pushed open the door.

They were gone.

She leaned back against the wall, weak with relief.

The hallway was empty.

She heard the sound of the back door opening and closing. A car engine revved, the sound growing dimmer.

Her legs were like water and she feared she might be sick as she shuffled back to her office, trying not to hurry in case anyone was watching her. She didn’t look behind her down the hall. Nor did she glance toward the locked wing where the men had taken the woman.

At her partially closed office door, she braced herself and pushed. The door swung noiselessly open. Her heart lodged in her throat as she looked to her chair.

Dr. French wasn’t sitting in it, as she’d expected he would be.

The office was empty.

The movie was over on the small TV. Her half-eaten sandwich was still on the edge of the desk along with her Big Gulp-size diet cola and her purse.

She began to cry from relief as she hurriedly closed and locked the door behind her. Stumbling to her chair, she dropped into it, her muscles no longer able to hold her up.

She was safe.

They were gone.

She could pretend she’d never seen them.

But could she pretend she didn’t know there was a woman locked in one of the padded, soundproof rooms down the hall? And wouldn’t the men return for her?

Emma reached for the remote and shut off the TV. She should call someone. The sheriff. But then she would have to stay here alone until he arrived.

Not if she called from home. She didn’t live far from here. Just a few miles down the river toward Wyoming.

She picked up her purse and reached for her kitten key chain with the keys to the doors out of here.