He wished he’d been able to bring her inside the station, but he was pretty sure Hardin would anticipate that move. Thor had decided against giving the bastard another crack at the two of them. But that had meant exposing Samantha to the cold for much longer. She was so still, so pale, her skin cold.
He pressed a finger to her carotid, let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, almost weak with relief. Her pulse was faint, but she was alive.
Now the hard work began.
His body sluggish, he willed himself to stand, and walked behind the bar, searching in the dark for things that could help him. Bar rags. A coffee maker. Hot cocoa mix. Teabags. Ground coffee. Powdered milk. Biscotti. Lots of bottled water.
There was also a large plastic box beneath the counter.He opened it and could have shouted for joy.A flashlight.Matches. Emergency candles. Several cold-weather first-aid kits.
He grabbed all of them, carried them to Samantha, and dug inside, taking out what he’d need. Hand warmers. Body warmers. Foot warmers. Several Mylar emergency blankets. A trauma kit for his shoulder. When he had everything arranged, he stripped Samantha out of her clothes. The radio he’d given her spilled out of her jeans pocket.
He would test it later. For now, she was his priority.
Using the flashlight, he checked her for frostbite. The skin on her cheeks, nose, forehead, and fingertips was white, but her ears, which had gotten some protection from her hair, and her toes seemed fine.
He stumbled to his feet once more, went to the bar, and grabbed several clean bar rags, making his way back to Samantha’s side. He couldn’t put the body warmers on her skin without risking burns, so he wrapped each one in a rag as he activated it and set them on her chest, abdomen, and throat, even tucking one beneath her head. Then he covered her with a Mylar blanket and walked to the nearest table with the trauma kit to treat his shoulder, which had begun to bleed heavily.
He groaned between gritted teeth as he pulled off his shirt, the pain in his shoulder radiating down his arm and into his chest. There was no exit wound, so the bullet was still inside him. Well, it was going to be there for a while.
He cleaned the area with an antiseptic cloth, then ripped open a QuikClot dressing and pressed it against the wound before fixing it in place with a pressure bandage. Next, he peeled off his snow pants and jeans and cleaned the graze wound on his thigh, sucking in a breath at the burn of the antiseptic.
When he had triaged the graze, he checked on Samantha, then went to the bar and made a pot of coffee. Warm drinks would go a long way toward helping with the cold. While the coffee brewed, he moved one of the tables so that it sat over Samantha and then draped another Mylar blanket over the table, creating a sort of tent to hold in the radiator’s heat—and hide the light from the flashlight.
He drank a cup of coffee as quickly as he could but didn’t pour one for Samantha. She needed to be conscious to drink. Now, there was one last thing he needed to do before he could get beneath the blanket beside her.
He walked to the entrance with a chair to bar the door. As it turned out, the door also had an old-fashioned bolt. He slid it into place and tucked a chair beneath the doorknob. Then, at last, he crawled into the Mylar tent, got beneath the emergency blanket with Samantha, and held her close, doing his best to warm her.
“I’m right here,skat.”
19
Steve had no idea how many bullets remained in Isaksen’s pistol—hopefully enough to kill the bastard. He must not have hit him in any critical organs. Somehow, Isaksen had gotten to Sam, untied her, and disappeared.
Well, he couldn’t have gotten far.
Steve dressed for the cold, tucked the pistol in his pocket, then grabbed a flashlight, unlocked the rear fire escape, and headed out into the dark. The wind had picked up, creating whiteout conditions. But this wouldn’t take long. The Dane was probably lying dead outside one of the doors, Sam beside him.
But if they weren’t dead, it would be an act of mercy to finish them.
Steve headed down the stairs, gritting his teeth against the bitter cold. The wind had scoured Isaksen’s blood away. There was no sign of footprints, either.
Damn it!
Beneath the station, which functioned like a fucking wind tunnel, the ropes were gone, too, probably blown into a drift somewhere.
He shined the flashlight around. He didn’t see any bodies, but visibility was limited, the light reflecting off the flying snow. He walked out from beneath the station and made his way from one entrance to another. They weren’t at the main entrance. They weren’t at any of the fire exits. They weren’t at the B1 power plant exit.
They weren’t anywhere.
Chills that had nothing to do with the cold shivered down his spine.
No, this couldn’t be. They couldn’t have disappeared. There was no one to help them. Sam had been drugged, Isaksen wounded. No, the bastard was dead, and so was Sam. They were probably buried in blowing snow somewhere.
He must have missed them.
Steve walked around the station a second time, looking for telltale mounds of snow, a bit of fabric, anything to show him where their bodies were. The wind cut through his parka, his gloves, his snow pants, his boots, cold seeping into his bones.
Nothing.