She moved out into the next room after shutting the door behind her and locking it. Then she quietly made her way across the room and up the stairs, and reached the top landing. The door was partially open. She did a turkey peek that revealed nothing. She did a second look and saw a man sitting at a table looking at his phone with his earbuds in. He was the other guy who had snatched her. She stuck her head out and surveyed the rest of the room.
Empty. But that was not good enough. There was no room for error here; she only had one shot to do this right.
She took out the battery with her left hand and hurled it at the window behind the guy. As soon as it struck the glass, the man jumped up from the table, dropping his phone on the floor, and cried out, “What the hell!”
Pine waited three seconds to see if the tossed battery drew anyone else out into the open. When it was clear the man was alone, she stepped through the doorway and pointed the gun at him.
“On your knees, hands behind your head, then lie down face-first, legs spread. Do it now or I will shoot you.”
The man saw the gun, fell to the floor, and put his hands behind his head.
Pine quickly moved forward and used the butt of the gun to inflict two hard taps on his skull, knocking him out. He got the same trussed-up treatment as his partner downstairs, with a cord of thick twine she found in a cabinet.
She snagged his phone and called 911, told the dispatcher who she was and what had happened, and asked her to notify Tate Callum of her circumstances.
“Do you know where you are?” the dispatcher asked.
“Give me a sec.”
She ran outside and looked around at the thick woods surrounding the house in which she’d been held captive. “In the middle of nowhere. Seems to be a lot of that around here.”
“Okay, we can trace you by your phone. Just leave it on.”
She looked down at the phone. “The battery is really low. It might die on me, and I’m not hanging around here, because some other people might show up. I’m going to walk out to the main road. That might give me a better idea where I am. Hold on.”
Pine ran down the long, twisty drive, finally reached the main street, and found a mailbox with a number address on it and then a street sign farther down. She gave this information to the dispatcher.
The dispatcher said, “I’ll have officers there as fast as possible. Be careful, Agent Pine.”
Next, Pine was about to call Blum when—
“Shit.” She looked down at the screen as the iPhone’s juice ran out and it went dark.
The last thing she wanted to do was go back to the house and search for a phone charger. A moment later, an ancient, rattling Ford pickup truck with a license plate designating it as an antique appeared around a curve and headed her way. Pine stood in the middle of the street with her shield held up high. When the driver slowed and stopped, Pine rushed forward. Behind the wheel was a white-haired woman in her eighties, wearing faded bib overalls, a straw hat, and a wry smile.
“I’m an FBI agent,” Pine said, showing her the shield. The woman squinted at it and then pulled up her glasses, which dangled on a chain, to see it better.
“My, my, that’s very impressive, young lady.”
“I need you to drive me to a hotel in downtown Asheville.” She told the woman the address, then added, “It’s an emergency.”
“Sure, honey. I know where that is. Get in.”
Pine jumped into the passenger seat and the woman said, “Do I get to break the speed limit since it’s an emergency?”
Pine said, “Do whatever you need to do to get me there as fast as possible. Any cops stop us, I’ll deal with it. Do you have a cell phone I can use?”