The Great Escape: A Vintage Contemporary Romance

by Thea Harrison

  Back in the motel room she crossed over to the newly made bed and sank down on to it, her eyes following Mike as he walked over to his suitcase and fingered a shirt aimlessly, his expression never lightening. “What is it?” she asked at last. “What’s bothering you?”

  “I could be wrong,” he murmured, putting a hand to his neck to massage it while he stared at the ceiling. “It’s fantastic. I could be very, very wrong and probably am…let’s forget it for now, all right? Maybe I’ll tell you later. I need some time to think.”

  “Is—is it about me?”

  His head turned at that and he looked at her gently, amusedly. “Honey, I’ve thought of precious little except you for the past nine months or so.” And it wasn’t the words that he said somehow, but the way that he said them that made her go warm all over, a slow suffusion of happiness that melted into her bones and made her blue eyes gradually take on a shining response.

  But the expression died away and she asked in a low voice, “What do we do now? Where do we go from here? It’s funny, but in all the time that I spent running, I—this is the first time I’ve ever actually felt lost. How long does the truce last, Mike?” Something in her eyes shimmered and she looked quickly down at her hands, lying loosely clasped on her lap.

  Footsteps, slow and measured, and then a big warm hand coming lightly to the side of her bent face, running down her neck, under her hair, and then carefully back to cup her tender cheek. She quivered. “Shall we forget the truce and call it a friendship now?” he asked softly. “I don’t know what to do either, sweetheart, but maybe we can figure something out together. Nothing’s quite so hard, if you have someone to share it with. You’ve been too alone, Dee. Let me shoulder some of the weight for you for a while. I’ve strong shoulders and a wide back, and I’ll respect whatever you ultimately decide. You don’t have to run away! I’ll help you find what to work towards, instead of forcing you to pick up and run. Can you trust me, just a little bit?”

  She turned her face into his hand and whispered, “I want to!” and felt him bend down to place a kiss on her forehead. Then he stepped back and his hand fell away. He sat on his bed and regarded her wryly, with a quizzical twist to his lips.

  “Well then. Instead of a truce with neither of us knowing what to do, now we have a friendship, and neither of us knows what to do!” The statement forced a smile out of her, and her eyes fell away to wander the room idly. They landed on her neat pile of clothes by the suitcase, dirty and bloody.

  “You say that you need to think,” she said abruptly. “I could use some space, too—why don’t we just take the time right here? I’d like to find a Laundromat where I could wash some things,” and she nodded to the corner, making him look. “I’ll bet you have a few things that could stand to be washed too. Let’s put off a major decision until this evening or tomorrow, shall we?”

  Mike cocked his head at her. “Such a long time as that!” he mocked, laughing at her flush.

  “I make up my mind quickly,” she told him with dignity, “and lord knows I’ve had to in the past! I just need a little time to review my options and possible consequences, that’s all.”

  “Very well.” He stood up. “Let’s do the laundry, then!”

  They found a small Laundromat a few miles west, just after driving through a small cluster of blocks with business buildings in a tight group. Dee twisted around in her seat and laughed as she surveyed the street that they had just driven down. “I’ll bet the people here are trying to pass that off as a town!” she giggled, and pointed to the short business district.

  Mike pulled into a parking space and turned off the engine, then twisted around to look where she was pointing, a slight smile cocking the corner of his mouth. “I’ll bet you’ve never lived in a small town before,” he guessed shrewdly, and she shook her head, still laughing. “Well, I did, and I don’t want to hear any more ridicule about the state of small things! In fact, my home town was very like this.”

  Dee turned to look at him contemplatively, a smile lurking in the depths of her eyes. “Typical middle class family,” she guessed. “With a nice back yard and two dogs. Your father’s retired, and you were with your parents every Christmas, right?”

  His smile turned into a wider grin as he laughed at her. “You almost got it right. A dog and a cat, and I sometimes go home for Thanksgiving, too.”

  “It sounds marvellous. Long summer nights on the back porch swing—”

  “—Front porch, but close enough—”

  “—and your mother makes nothing but homemade lemonade, right?”

  “The best in the country.”

  “Where do they live?”

  “California—northern, that is. It’s a long way away, but I went to college in the mid-West and just seemed to have a natural love of the East. I know where home is, though, and I drop in once in a while, for the occasional dose of serenity. It’s good enough for me.” His smile held a wealth of remembered love and happiness in it, and Dee suddenly felt saddened and didn’t know why.

  “Well!” she said, suddenly brisk. “We’d better get our clothes started, hadn’t we?” And she opened her car door, only to be stopped by Mike’s hand, heavy and detaining on her slim arm.

  As she looked an enquiry, he said, “Dee, promise me something, please. Don’t go anywhere by yourself, all right? Stick close to me today.”

  Her eyes widened with hurt and surprise. “But why? You still don’t trust me, do you? You still think I’ll try to get away.” There was pain in her voice and midriff as bewilderment clouded her mind at his strangely urgent request.

  “No!” he said sharply, shaking her arm a little. “No, Dee. Please—I’ll explain later, if I may, but just don’t go off by yourself. We can’t talk here and it’s too complicated, and I don’t even know if I’m right or wrong. I’m—worried about you. Just try to trust me a little, too, okay?” His hand left her arm and without physically touching her, he still held her with his eyes.

  She had to close hers. “I don’t understand,” she whispered, “but I’ll do it.” Then she opened her eyes and stared at him hard. “But I think you’ll have a lot of explaining to do later.”

  He seemed to relax, and he nodded at her. “I will.” And his words had a certain promising ring to them that she just had to believe. They went into the Laundromat, both engulfed in their own thoughts.

  Dee slowly deposited the clothes into the washing machine, her mind awhirl with chaotic thoughts. So much had happened in the past few days! She knew her life would never be the same again, and it was all because of Mike. Despite every logical reason for her to doubt him and be wary, every instinct and intuition in her tugged towards trusting him. It was a war of intellect and intuition that was being waged within her, and she felt torn apart.

  She didn’t feel she could gracefully and happily go back to Kentucky, and she had expressly given her promise to Mike that she wouldn’t run away again without consulting him. So what were her options, really? She had to confess to an almost overwhelming desire to go back to Kentucky, in spite of all the heartache she knew she would encounter there, and she was honest enough to know that the reason was Mike. He lived in Kentucky, probably quite close to where her home was. It seemed that anything she decided contrary to going home would mean that she would probably never see him again, for all his protestations of friendship. She didn’t know if she thought beginning in a new location would be worth it.

  She didn’t know what to do.

  Her troubled face lifted at a quick touch to her shoulder. Mike had gone to the counter to buy soap and get change, and he handed it to her silently, his eyes questioning. Dee smiled and shook her head, dumping the soap into the machine and stepping back so that he could put coins into the slot. The machine churned to life, and he turned to the row of chairs available, only to look back as she didn’t join him.

  She grinned. “I’m going to find the little girls’ room,” she told him, and made her way to the back hall as he
found a seat. The hall was behind the counter with the bored lady attendant leafing through magazines, and Dee nodded to her as she passed. There was an exit door in the back marked “Fire Exit Only”, standard for public buildings, and she noticed that it was standing wide open. That was not quite so usual, and she called back to the lady at the counter, “Hey! Did you know your fire exit is standing wide open?” There was no answer, at least none that she could hear, and she started to walk back down the tiny hall to call again. “Hey! Did you know—”

  And someone grabbed her roughly from behind, interrupting her call and making her scream, more from surprise and outrage than any particular fear. Then things started to happen very fast. She heard Mike’s shout and the sound of running feet, and she started to struggle wildly, but the person behind her knew what he was doing and held her arms to her sides. She noticed a bandage on his left hand, and realisation struck her, so terrifyingly and suddenly that she didn’t seem to have any breath at all. Then she found her voice and screamed again, piercingly, and someone slapped her so hard she felt blood burst from her lip. Through pain-glazed eyes she saw the other man with a small black thing in his right hand—a gun! He seemed to be waiting, and she heard Mike’s deep, concerned shout.

  “Dee! Dee, are you all right…?”

  “Mike!” she screamed, “don’t come back here, they have a gun—”

  Then the man hit her again and she grunted as her world exploded into white-hot sparks, and just as she faded into blackness she heard another shout and the sharp, deadly report from that ugly black gun. Mike, her mind cried out, anguished—oh, God!

  Chapter Six

  A red, moving darkness. A red, moving, purring darkness, and Dee stirred, sighed and opened her eyes. But she saw nothing but the red woolen blanket that was pulled over her, making her world dark. Something painful jutted into her hip. She was on the floor of a moving car, lying right across the exhaust hump, bouncing with every bump in the road. The car jolted and she winced with the pain. She was going to be very bruised on her left hip. She moved tentatively and found that her hands and feet were bound tightly. She couldn’t feel her hands, and that made brief, frustrated tears blur her vision for a moment.

  A sudden strange, male voice just in front of her said, “D’you think she’s awake yet?”

  Another strange voice answered, “Dunno. I’ll look.” And she made her face and body go completely, utterly limp, effective out of sheer desperation and fear. The blanket was lifted and there was silence for a moment, then the blanket fell on her. “She’s out cold. You hit her pretty hard.”

  “Yeah—well, she was screeching like a banshee. I had to do something to make her stop since you were too afraid to put your hand over her mouth.” There was a sneer in the voice.

  The second man answered indignantly, “Could you really blame me? The little bitch sank her teeth into me that last time so hard I had to have stitches! Besides, I didn’t see you handle that guy with any degree of efficiency. Did you have to shoot him, for God’s sake? I’ll bet what happened today will be all over the newspapers tomorrow. So much for being quiet about the whole thing!”

  “Shut up!” It was a quiet snarl that sent chills down Dee’s spine. The other man subsided, muttering, and they went on for a while in silence.

  Mike! she cried silently, and then the tears came, large and wet, splashing on to the floor and soaking into the carpet. She couldn’t comprehend what was happening. She couldn’t comprehend Mike dead. She got a sudden, horrifying vision of his big, vital body lying in a growing puddle of his life’s blood, and had to swallow down a growing wave of nausea and grief. Then with short, silent shallow pants she forced herself to get under a grim control. She would cry for Mike later and then try to understand why his death made her feel so utterly desolate, but right now she had to concentrate on the present moment, and survival.

  She was in such a dazed state of shock and grief that at first she didn’t pay attention to what was being said. Gradually, though, she realised that the men in front were speaking again, and she forced herself to listen to the conversation.

  “…almost there,” the first one was speaking.

  “It’s the next turn left. No hope of making it look like an accident, not with those marks on her face and neck,” the second man said.

  Shock coursed through her so violently she felt her heart jump in her chest. Those two men were talking about killing her as easily as if they were discussing the next Sunday picnic! Why was this happening to her? What did they want? Horrible visions flitted through her mind, chasing each other like nasty little ogres, of what could happen to a young and defenseless girl. Panic welled up in her, crowding at the back of her throat like a pent-up scream, beating at her temples. She fought it, but tears continued to drip down her nose, falling wetly off the tip. Oh, Mike, where are you? I need you—

  The car’s motion slowed, then slewed left, and she snapped back to the danger so imminent. Scrubbing her face into her shoulder to try to dry her face, she listened as the first man said, “You haul her out while I open the door. You’re sure this place is empty?”

  “Yeah, the family’s on vacation. It was a stroke of luck hearing that in the doctor’s office. The house is nicely secluded, too. Nobody around to hear.”

  Nobody around to hear… The car stopped and doors slammed and opened, and Dee felt her senses whirl as she was hoisted on to a rough shoulder. She went as limp as a piece of string, breathing shallowly, eyes closed. She was jolted around for a bit and then it seemed that she was carried up a flight of stairs and thrown down on something soft. The footsteps receded and a door closed. She heard the scrape of a lock.

  Cautiously she opened her eyes and looked around her. She was alone. With a little more bravery, she lifted her head and surveyed the bedroom she had been deposited in. The bed was a single one, and the room fairly small. She noted the stuffed animals on the waist-high dressing table and guessed it must be a child’s room. Tremblingly, she attempted to sit up, but fell back, so she tried again and this time managed to make it up. With a heavy heart and absolutely no will to do much of anything, she stared at the tape wound around her slim ankles and her chin quivered. Mike.

  Then her gaze sharpened. Tape? Sure, it could hold someone well enough if plenty were used, but there wasn’t anything easier to cut through. Looking around with more interest, she started to think of what she could use on the tape when something scraped outside the door. She threw herself back down, but didn’t have to worry, since no one came into the room. The men were doing something, bumping around and making noise, and she heard sounds of an argument. Then someone walked by the room, and she heard him call out, “…get the job done, then, and get the hell out of here…” The other called back something, but was too far away for her to hear well enough, and the gist was lost to her.

  The sounds of someone moving around faded, and she lifted up her head to search the room for reachable sharp things, her intention to try and get loose from her bonds. She soon had to give up. The room was too solidly childproofed. She turned her face into the bedspread to keep the yellow afternoon sun from blinding her and, amazingly, slept.

  Drowsy. She turned her head and winced awake as the soreness of her neck muscles twanged painfully. She looked to the window and found the sky greying into late afternoon. How long had she slept? Then she twisted around and stared at her bluish, numbed, useless hands. They were lifeless, but her feet weren’t so lucky. Knife-like needles from abused nerve endings made her squirm. She thought back over what the one man had said. They had some kind of job to do. What was it? A faint drifting smell of smoke made her nose twitch and she shook her head. Another, stronger whiff of smoke assailed her quivering nostrils. She wondered briefly at the stupid person who was burning rubbish on a dry day like today—then she froze into utter immobility. The window was tightly closed. The smoke was not coming from outside. The smoke was coming from within.

  The house was on fire.

&n
bsp; She was in the house, trapped as efficiently as could be, with no possible hope of escaping this one. After the first shock of knowledge, she subsided tiredly. What difference did it make? Chances were good that it wouldn’t hurt. Most people died from smoke inhalation, not from actually burning to death. She was just too discouraged and tired to fight any more. What did it matter? Mike was dead.

  She turned her face into the soft bedspread that was decorated with grinning cartoon figures and waited patiently.

  She never could really remember that much about the time she waited for the smoke to get too bad for breathing. She knew that she looked sometimes out the window at the darkening sky, and sometimes she looked at the small crack of space between the door and the floor, watching for the deadly white curls of nothingness that would snuff out her life.

  It came amazingly quickly. She stared at the first thin tendrils, thinking that the two men must have laid the fire very well for it to catch so soon. Then the smoke was coming in thicker and thicker and she started to cough, the acrid smell burning her throat and making her eyes water copiously—or was she crying for Mike and for herself, and for the life that she never would properly finish?

  Then she could hear the noise, the roaring, ferocious noise of the mindless monster that crept relentlessly to the sky, eating wood and home and girl as it went. She wondered fuzzily if her teeth would tell anyone who she really was, or if she would be buried in an anonymous grave, all shrivelled and charred and brittle. She shivered convulsively, unable to imagine the total nonexistence of that personality the world called Dee…

  “…Dee!…are you, for God’s sake?…Deirdre? Dee, Dammit, are you here?…Where are you, girl?”

  She turned her head a little on the bedspread, coughed, and wondered if she was hallucinating the sound of Mike’s voice hoarsely, desperately calling her name over and over. She must be mad.

  “Dee, for God’s sake, tell me where you are!”