1115.

“ENTER NUMBER.”

Yes! Fantastic! I tore out a sheet of the notebook paper, grabbed a pen, and quickly scribbled: “ Trapped 30 miles out of Fairbanks. Many people have been kidnapped. Kidnappers are armed and extremely dangerous. Please send help to a huge brown mansion, surrounded by fence, with a large metal building behind it. Owned by Daniel Rankin. This is not a joke!!! Andrew Mayhem. ”

I put the paper into the fax machine, punched in 911, and pressed the “send” button. The paper went through the feeder without crumpling up, like so many faxes had at my temp job.

The machine beeped to show that it was ready to send the fax. Then another message showed on the display. “NO DIAL TONE.”

I hit “cancel,” then tried again.

“NO DIAL TONE.”

I tried Pudgy Pierre.

“NO DIAL TONE.”

I picked up the paper, crumpled it up, and shoved it into my pocket. The fax machine was officially useless.

I RETURNED everything to the way it had been before I’d entered the office, and snuck back into the hallway. It was possible that some part of the mansion had phone service connected, but I needed to put that idea behind me and see if I could find the prisoners.

I quietly made my way through the corridors, finally reaching the staircase leading down to the main foyer. I felt extremely vulnerable walking down these stairs into such a wide-open area, but I didn’t have a choice.

As I walked down, I couldn’t help but glance at the front door. My pass card probably worked on it. I could get out of this place, go for help, and bring back the cavalry to rescue everyone.

It sounded nice and simple. If I had the keys to either of the vans. If I could get the electrified gates open. If I had any clue where to drive. If there wasn’t a good chance of a mass prisoner extermination after I was discovered missing.

Without the van, I could possibly find a way to get through the gates. Maybe the part that opened and closed wasn’t electrified, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know much about electric fences. But running around in sub-zero temperatures in the dark this far away from civilization in the least-densely populated state in the union (I don’t know where I remembered that factoid from) didn’t seem likely to get me anywhere. And how hard would it be for them to follow my tracks in the snow?

Nope, exiting through the front door was a lost cause.

This line of thinking did make me wonder what exactly I planned to do with the prisoners if I was able to free them…but I’d worry about that later.

I crossed the foyer and walked down a short hallway, stopping at the sound of music. Country music that might have been halfway decent on its own, but was currently being sabotaged by the non-melodic voice of Mortimer.

It was coming from the dining room.

Though it was impossible to be certain, the way this place was set up, I was pretty sure I had to pass the dining room to get to the other building. Even if I didn’t, I was getting really nervous about the amount of time I’d spent away from my room already. I had to get moving.

Very, very slowly I tiptoed over to the dining room entrance. Mortimer’s singing got louder and worse.

“ Oooooh, why you done left me, I just don’t know, but when y’all come back, your head off I’ll blow…”

Being as careful as humanly possible (for a loser like me), I peeked into the dining room. Mortimer sat at the table, back to me. In one hand he held an enormous turkey leg, in the other a Fudgsicle. Even from behind, it was not a pretty sight. I quickly darted past the doorway and continued on.

I followed some more winding corridors, not completely sure if I was going the right way but at least not feeling hopelessly lost. And then I reached the doorway to the other building.

I felt an incredible sense of relief, while at the same time my sense of terror cranked up a few notches. I waved the pass card, opened the door, and stepped out into the cold.

It was absolutely freezing, as well as snowing heavily. Though the short path to the other building had been recently shoveled, I had to keep swiping my foot back and forth behind me to remove my tracks. I waved the pass card in front of the reader, shivering.

Nothing happened.

I waved it again.

Still nothing.

Wonderful. My whole expedition had been a waste.

I tested the door handle, but unfortunately nobody had been brain-dead enough to leave it unlocked. Perhaps extra keys were stored someplace, but the mansion was just too big to search for them. I felt sick to my stomach as I turned around and returned to the other door.

My pass card didn’t work on this one, either.

I tried it again with the same result.

Now this was really, really bad.

I folded my arms and blew out a cloudy breath. With all the potential for dying inside, I was going to end up freezing to death out here. Maybe I could find a window to break or something. Of course, even if nobody heard that, they’d see my tracks and know something was up.

Perhaps I should just walk around to the front and ring the doorbell. Maybe they’d be nice and shoot me instead of putting me through whatever else they had planned.

My best course of action would be to stand by the door and wait to ambush somebody as they came out. Except that I didn’t think anybody was planning to come out for a few hours, and I wouldn’t be able to move my hands in a few minutes. The best fight I’d be able to put up would be to topple over and let my frozen body shatter on them.

I tried the card once more. No good.

I wanted to just sit down and cry.

Chapter 13

I STOOD there for a couple of minutes, just feeling sorry for myself. Roger and the others had it worse, undoubtedly, but after all I’d been through I deserved a bit of self-pity.

Then there was a sudden light to my right. I spun around and saw a flare on the far end, by the fence. The figure was much too far away to identify, but it was waving both hands over its head.

Who the hell…?

I was still concerned about leaving footprints, but it wasn’t worth worrying about at this point. I began to run toward the figure, as well as I could through two feet of snow.

As I got closer, I saw that it was Thomas.

He was wearing a parka and earmuffs, but as I ran up to the fence I could see that he had a huge gash over one eye, and his face was bright red. He’d been out here a while.

“Andrew! I can’t believe it!”

“How did you find me?” I asked, but I knew the answer before I even finished saying it. It wasn’t at all surprising that somebody so concerned about being bugged would have the resources to do it himself.

“I bugged both of you,” he said, slurring his words just a bit, no doubt because his face was numb. “On your shoes. Where’s Roger, is he all right?”

“Yeah. At least I think so. They would’ve told me if they did anything to him. They think I’m the Headhunter.”

“You’re kidding!”

“No.” I gave him a thirty-second condensed version of the story.

“That’s incredible. I’ve been staking out this place for the past two hours. I could hardly believe it when I noticed you coming outside through my binoculars.”

“Yeah, well, seeing you was a nice surprise, too. But please tell me you’ve contacted the police. They know you’re here, right?”

Thomas shifted a bit, looking somewhat uncomfortable.

“You told somebody, right?”

“There wasn’t time.”

“Oh, that is bullshit!” If there weren’t an electrified fence between us, I would’ve punched him. “So tell me, did you intend for things to work out the way they did? You meant for them to take Roger and I away so you could follow us, didn’t you? Where did you go after you got stabbed?”