Escape Out of Darkness

by Anne Stuart

  Their big white rental car was still sitting outside beneath the streetlamp. From her vantage point Maggie could see that at least two of its tires were slashed and very flat indeed. And on either side, like dark, evil sentries, sat anonymous black sedans, hemming in their only means of escape.

  The sedans were empty, and there was no one in sight, but Maggie knew they couldn’t have gone very far. These people were frighteningly professional. She couldn’t imagine how they had found the two of them, but find them they had, and she was going to have to be even more inventive. She could see something running underneath the picture window and she couldn’t tell if it was a string that could be cut or a wire.

  “What’s up?” Mack’s voice was a whisper of sound in her ear, and she jerked upright, slamming her head against his chin.

  He didn’t say a word, though she could see it cost him a great deal of effort. “Someone’s here,” she mouthed back at him, barely a sound escaping her lips.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Look for yourself. But don’t open the door. I can’t be certain, but I think they’ve got a wire or a string leading from our door to wherever they’re hiding out. Probably in the room next door. All we have to do is open that door and they’ll be on us like fleas on a dog.”

  “String sounds pretty basic to me. Aren’t the people we’re running from a little more into technology?”

  “It’s basic but effective. Besides, maybe it’s a wire-tripped bomb. Would that satisfy your sense of propriety a little better?”

  “What makes you think it isn’t?”

  “They’ve got cars hemming ours in. All three cars would go up if that string trips a bomb, and I don’t think they’d be into needless waste. Not to mention all the noise it would make. I wouldn’t think our friends, whoever they are, would want to call attention to themselves. Even the Mafia frowns on too much publicity.”

  “Unless it’s the CIA. They’ve got the power to cover up our explosion with a logical explanation and they wouldn’t give a damn how many cars they blew up. After all, our taxes would pay for it, and the government doesn’t give a damn how much things cost.”

  “Don’t you think this is a ridiculous time to discuss government overspending?” she hissed.

  Mack shrugged. “What else are we going to do? It doesn’t look as if we dare open that door.”

  “We go out another way, of course.”

  “What other way?”

  “There’s a small window in the bathroom that’ll prove a tight squeeze. You might put some clothes on,” she added dryly, casting a seemingly disinterested glance at his body, clad only in a pair of navy-blue Jockey shorts. “But we won’t be able to take anything with us. Only what you can put in your pockets.”

  “What do we do once we get out the window?” he drawled, and there was a slight edge to his voice. “Not that I don’t have complete faith in you, Maggie May, but I hate to go into anything blind.”

  “Don’t bother me with details. I’m making this up as I go along.”

  She dressed more quickly than he did, pulling a pair of jeans over her running shorts and topping it with a cotton sweater against the early morning chill. She didn’t bother with her purse, simply taking out the credit cards and money. Slipping into her Nikes, she was busy with the latch on the narrow window when he came up behind her.

  “You really think we’re going to fit through that?” He eyed it dubiously.

  “If I can, you can,” she muttered, pushing the rusty hinge open with what seemed a scream of metal to her sensitive ears. She stood motionless, waiting. No sound came from anywhere around them, and Maggie could guess that in a sleazy old motel such as the Lone Star Bide-a-Wee the soundproofing was almost nonexistent. Either they hadn’t alerted their watchers or their enemies were as circumspect as they were. Whichever it was, Maggie didn’t care to wait around to find out. “Follow me, Pulaski,” she said, climbing up on the shaky toilet seat and scrambling out the window, landing on the ground with more silence than grace.

  Mack landed with more of a thud, but he hit the ground running, and within moments they were a block and a half away, racing down the deserted sidewalks of the sleazy little border town. They didn’t stop until they were winded, until Maggie fell against the side of a building, gasping for breath, holding the stitch in her side. And then she grinned up at him, immensely pleased with herself.

  “Damn, we’re good,” she said, with almost a sense of wonder.

  Mack took a little longer before he was able to speak. “You like this, don’t you?” he wheezed.

  “I haven’t decided yet.” Her breathing was slowing to normal. “But it sure is exhilarating.”

  “If you say so. I’ll ask you again—what next?”

  “I was thinking we might sneak back, reconnoiter a bit, and see if we can learn anything. If we’re very careful—”

  “Lady,” Mack interrupted her in awesome tones, “you just dragged me at a dead run halfway across this miserable little town. Are you seriously suggesting we go back again, putting our lives in danger?”

  “Who says our lives were in danger?” she shot back, stung. “They may have been just watching us. I want to see—” Whatever she wanted to see was lost in the sudden bright flash of light to the west of them, followed by a crack of thunder and a minor earthquake. Maggie was flung back against the building, but Mack maintained his balance, staring at the billowing black smoke that was filling the predawn sky.

  “I guess the black sedans were expendable,” he said grimly.

  Maggie followed his gaze. There wouldn’t be much left of the motel in an explosion of that size, and she ran a nervous tongue over suddenly parched lips. “As I was saying, the first thing we do is get the hell out of here,” she said, her voice almost as raw and strained as Mack’s permanently wrecked one. “We need transportation. I’m counting on you for that. Come on.” She headed off at a brisk trot, and he followed.

  “What the hell do you mean, you’re counting on me?” he demanded, jogging beside her.

  “You’re the one who used to run with teenage gangs,” she pointed out coolly. “Surely you remember how to steal a car.”

  “I should be offended.”

  “You should be flattered. I’m sure I could manage to steal a car if I had to, but I’m trusting your expertise. Is our best bet a private car or something on a car lot?”

  Mack gave up arguing. “I always preferred car lots. That way you get your choice.”

  Maggie nodded. In the distance they could hear sirens, fire engines and, no doubt, police. “Be ready to duck if they come our way.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said with spurious docility. “Anything you say.”

  She cast an apologetic glance back over her shoulder. “Sorry. I forget that you’re more than capable of holding up your end of this situation. I think there were car dealerships somewhere in this area of town.”

  “Used car would be better.”

  “Used cars if we can find them,” she agreed.

  Her memory, thank heavens, hadn’t failed her. As sirens screamed by on parallel streets she and Mack moved farther and farther away. Until they finally turned onto what passed for the local strip, the golden arches of McDonald’s dim in the slowly lightening sky, the used-car lots lit by strings of brightly colored lights.

  “How does O’Malley’s Used Cars sound, Pulaski?” she asked.

  “Sounds terrific as long as Mr. O’Malley doesn’t have a night watchman or an unfriendly Doberman.”

  Maggie smiled at him sweetly. “I can’t tell from here. We’ll just have to live dangerously.”

  He just stared at her for a long moment, a bemused expression on his face. “I’m warning you, I’m out of practice. And I never was one of the experts. Fast Dougal was as good as they come, stealing a car in under a minute. The closest I came was three and a half minutes, and that was when I was in practice.”

  “I have faith in you. Take your pick.”

 
He surveyed the unpromising landscape around them. “American cars are easier than foreign cars,” he mused, half to himself. “But VW Bugs are the ones I had the most experience on. Why don’t we go for that one?” He pointed out a bright orange monstrosity that had seen better years. Tattered yellow daisy decals dotted the hood, and a matching, wilted-looking plastic flower hung from the sagging antenna.

  Maggie made a face. “Why couldn’t you have been adept in Mercedes?” she moaned. “Go ahead, Pulaski.”

  For all his doubts, he made fast work of the car. The door wasn’t locked, probably due to the fact that the driver’s window was missing. Maggie watched with mingled amazement and respect as he deftly hot-wired the little vehicle, jumped in the driver’s seat, and grinned up at her. “You ready, Maggie? Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  She climbed in beside him, yanking the loosely hinged door shut behind her. Staring at the cramped, definitely smelly confines of the little car, she sighed. “Hit the road, Jack.”

  It hadn’t been her best night’s sleep, and no sooner had they put the little town behind them and headed back out on Route 10 than Maggie dozed in her seat. The old VW was surprisingly comfortable, and the cool breeze blowing in the missing driver’s window was even better than air-conditioning. It was getting on toward midday when she finally awoke, the AM radio penetrating her determined sleep.

  She turned to look at Mack. He was relaxed, an arm resting on the empty window frame as the little bug chugged along the wide highway. He had the beginnings of a beard again, and the chambray shirt he’d grabbed before their midnight dash was open to the midday heat. It was a nice chest, Maggie thought sleepily. In another place, another time, there would be nothing she’d like better than to reach out her hand and slide it inside that open shirt. …

  But that wasn’t exactly her style, even in the best possible of places and times. And besides, hadn’t she just given up on ever finding a happy-ending kind of love? Still and all, Mack Pulaski, a.k.a. Snake, certainly looked as if he could provide a substantial temporary distraction, even if forever after wasn’t in the cards.

  “What’re you looking at Maggie May?” His raw voice startled her. He kept his eyes straight ahead, but he must have been aware of her perusal the entire time. She had to remember not to underestimate him.

  She yawned, sitting upright and running a hand through her tangled blond hair. “Your luscious body, Pulaski,” she said. “Did you manage to bring a comb when we checked out?”

  “Nope.”

  “Damn,” she said genially. “By the way, does this car have license plates?”

  “It’s a little late to think of that, isn’t it? I checked before I made my choice. We would have been stopped hours ago with no plates.”

  “Do you think Mr. O’Malley’s discovered it’s stolen yet?”

  “I have my doubts. It was about the worst car on the lot. He’s much more likely to have noticed if one of his Cadillacs had disappeared.”

  “Which reminds me,” Maggie said, braiding her thick, tangled hair and wrapping a rubber band around the end. “Why in the world would you steal VWs in the first place? They wouldn’t be worth much in resale—I thought car thieves usually went for the big-ticket items.”

  “That’s why I was only a third-class car thief. I stole VWs because they were the easiest to steal. I didn’t make a practice of it, you know. It was more a test of manhood in the gangs, not a major source of income.”

  “I don’t think I want to know what the major source of income was,” she said faintly.

  “I don’t think you do.” He cast an enigmatic glance over at her disheveled figure. “There’s Tab and peanut-butter cookies in the backseat if you want breakfast. It was the best I could do at the gas station, but with someone of your sophisticated palate I figured it would hit the spot.”

  “God, I didn’t even realize you stopped.”

  “You were pretty tired.” Still that distant expression, both on his face and in his voice. Maggie dived over the back, retrieved the goodies, and settled back down in the front seat for a feast.

  “Okay, Pulaski,” she said, taking her first swig of the soft drink. “What’s bugging you?”

  He didn’t even bother to deny it. “How many people do you think were in that motel this morning?”

  She put the cookie back down. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said in a gentle voice.

  “How many?”

  “Three other rooms were occupied when we went to bed last night. Probably six other people at the most. I don’t think anyone registered late. I would have heard them.”

  “You didn’t hear whoever set the bomb.”

  “No, I didn’t,” she agreed, waiting for his condemnation. He was suffering a near-terminal attack of guilt, and the only way to get rid of it was to heap some on her head. She expected it, didn’t even mind it. She was used to dealing with guilt.

  But once again Mack surprised her. “There were three people killed in New York,” he said. “When they bombed my apartment building.”

  “Yes,” she said, still not knowing what he wanted from her.

  “And it’s possible that you could get killed delivering me to Peter Wallace.” He didn’t look at her, his posture behind the small wheel of the bug was relaxed, but Maggie wasn’t fooled. She could see a nerve jerking in his cheek, and his usually warm eyes looked bleak as they surveyed the Texas landscape ahead of them.

  “It’s possible,” she allowed. “But not very likely. I’m good at what I do. Not good enough, or no one would have gotten killed at the motel, but good enough to protect both of us.”

  “I wasn’t blaming you, Maggie,” he said, and to her amazement she realized that he wasn’t. “But I’ve got to figure out if my life is worth—what is it, nine lives already? And God knows how many more before they’re through.”

  “What did you have in mind? Walking into their welcoming arms next time they sneak up on us? I didn’t know you had a martyr complex.”

  She was hoping to sting him. Instead, he just smiled. “I don’t want to be the indirect or direct cause of anybody else getting blown away, Maggie. Particularly not you.”

  “Very noble. But even if you made the ultimate sacrifice, they’d probably do their damnedest to get to me, just in case I saw anything or you told me anything that might be incriminating. The people who are after you make a habit of killing innocent people. You included. And once they took care of you they’d be after someone else. There’s no way you can win, you can only do what feels right.” She knew she was preaching, but she couldn’t help it.

  “And what if I told you that letting them get me is what feels right?”

  “Then I’d tell you you’re full of shit. And you’ll do it over my dead body.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m trying to avoid.”

  “Do me a favor then,” she said. “Don’t give me any more problems with these sudden noble impulses. I’ve got all I can handle with the Mafia, the CIA, and the rebels after you.”

  “Don’t forget the state police. We’ve stolen a car.”

  The tension had broken. “Heavens, let’s not forget the state police,” she said, popping a peanut-butter cookie in her mouth. “If anybody gets you, I’ll have to take the rap alone for this little felony. You can’t give up now, Pulaski. I need you.”

  He turned to look at her then. His hazel eyes were warm once more, his sexy mouth curled in a smile, and for the first time in days Maggie remembered his earlier incarnation as Snake, the sex god of the sixties. “Do you, Maggie May? I’ll keep that in mind.” And he turned his attention back to the highway.

  six

  “Okay, Maggie,” Mack said, pushing the mirrored sunglasses down on his nose to peer at her. “We’re approaching Houston, it’s three-thirty in the afternoon, and you still haven’t told me where the hell we’re going.”

  Maggie shifted for the thousandth time in the cramped front seat of the noisy little VW. Beetles weren’t made for any
one nearly six feet tall—she did far better in big American cars, she thought with a nostalgic sigh. It was lucky she had Third World Causes behind her, because she’d have a hard time explaining to Avis just what happened to her rental car. “We’re meeting Peter Wallace,” she said finally.

  “You’ve already told me that much. You just haven’t told me where or when. Or why, for that matter.”

  “We’re meeting him at his offices at the Travers Hotel in downtown Houston. I don’t know when—my orders were to check in sometime on Friday and he’d be in touch.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s supposed to have come up with some answers. Jeffrey Van Zandt might be there too. He always knows more than he should.” Her neutral voice would have fooled most people, and she leaned back in the uncomfortable seat, pushing a hand through the wisps of blond hair that were escaping her braid.

  “You don’t like Van Zandt.”

  It was a statement, not a question, but Maggie answered nonetheless. “I don’t like Van Zandt.”

  “You want to tell me why not?”

  She considered it for a moment; discretion was second nature with her. But she had learned during the past three days that she could rely on Mack Pulaski more than she’d relied on anyone in years. “I don’t trust him,” she said finally. “He’s a little too charming, a little too friendly, a little too knowledgeable.”

  “A little too handsome?” Mack suggested, and she looked at him in surprise.

  “I suppose so. I don’t find him particularly good-looking. I guess I see through that artificial smile to the snake inside.”

  “Watch who you’re calling a snake.”

  “Sorry. There’s really no comparison. The Why’s Snake was an erotic fantasy of delicious temptation. Jeffrey Van Zandt is an oily sleazoid who’s all the more disturbing because he fools so many people.” She stopped for breath, disturbed by how vehement she’d become.

  “You think Wallace is wrong to trust him?”

  She shook her head. “I wouldn’t go that far. We’ve been involved in a number of joint ventures in the three years I’ve worked for Third World Causes, and he’s always been helpful. I just have a bad feeling about him, so I keep my distance whenever I can.”