by Sharon Sala
The well-oiled lock slid back with little more than a tick as Honor pulled the glass door open just enough to squeeze through. She quietly but quickly pushed it back in place, swallowed the sob of fear that threatened to choke her, and ignored the steps on the other side of the deck. She would have to walk across the deck in plain view to reach them. There was only one other choice. She would have to jump down from the elevated structure. It was high, but it was safer and quicker.
“God help me!” Honor muttered prayerfully. She jumped, fell to her hands and knees, and then with no thought for the hide off her hands that she’d left behind, dashed toward the welcoming cover of the forest.
Hastings heard nothing of Honor’s exit and wasted precious time carefully searching the entire two-story house before he realized that she’d somehow eluded him. And if she was gone, that meant she knew there was a reason to run. And that meant she’d somehow discovered his presence.
“Dammit! Dammit!” he yelled loudly, shoving furniture about with wild abandon. This wasn’t how he’d planned it. He rubbed gently at his forehead as the ache behind his eye ballooned into a pounding throb of pain.
It was only when he backtracked through the house that he discovered the unlocked patio door. As he pushed it roughly aside, more of the cold, damp mountain air came sweeping into the house. But Hastings could have cared less. He leaned over the side of the deck and smiled. Footprints shining in the muddy yard like breadcrumbs in the forest were going to lead him right to little Miss O’Brien. He lowered himself carefully over the side and headed into the woods, his one good eye on the ground below.
* * *
J. J. Malone paced the floor in his library, staring blindly at the bookshelves and once in a while at the smiling portrait of his Meggie. But there was no joy in looking at her face today. He was more concerned with the fact that Trace hadn’t called.
Rusty Dawson’s message had been frightening. When J. J. had discovered that Honor’s life seemed to still be in danger, he’d called the police and then hastened the audit himself. Trace had been so insistent and so certain that it would give them some badly needed answers. From all the preliminary reports that J. J. had received, it seemed Trace had been right. Hastings Lawrence had been dipping into a slush fund and playing around with J. J.’s properties and securities as if they were his own. It seems he’d bet a lot more than time on the possibility of being married into the family. Hastings had been borrowing money on properties that didn’t belong to him, investing the money, and when and if the investments paid off, pocketing the profits before he paid back the embezzled amounts. The problem was, he’d neglected to pay back as much as he’d borrowed, and his scheme was about to cave in on him. All because of the arrival of J. J.’s long-lost granddaughter.
And there were other more urgent reasons for J. J.’s concern. Rusty Dawson had assured him that Trace would be calling as soon as they’d arrived in Colorado. He knew where Trace was taking Honor. Rusty had informed him of every step of the plan he and Trace had made before they’d ever left Texas. But there’d been no call, no contact whatsoever. There was simply no answer at Trace’s home.
J. J. frowned as he recalled Erin’s hysterics as she’d burst into his office yesterday. It hadn’t taken him long to ferret out the fact that Hastings Lawrence was behind her concern, and when he’d listened closely, he echoed her panic. This had already gone way beyond corporate crime. This was personal. Hastings Lawrence had attempted murder, twice, and was nowhere to be found. That’s when he’d called the authorities, again. And that’s when he’d been told that Hastings Lawrence had disappeared.
Trudy Sinclair walked into the library with a tray of steaming-hot coffee and a look of determination.
“I don’t know just exactly what’s wrong,” she snapped, as she placed the tray on his desk. “But I suspect it concerns your granddaughter. I’ve heard bits and pieces of what’s been happening, both while I was gone and after I returned. And it’s been nothing but bad. Bad, I tell you!” She glared at her boss, just daring him to dispute her right to speak her piece. “She doesn’t deserve what’s been happening. And,” she said dramatically, as she pointed to Meggie’s portrait, “she’d have a fit if she saw you doing nothing but twiddling your thumbs.”
Satisfied that she’d made her point, she bustled out, uncaring if J. J. Malone fired her or not. She’d come to think a great deal of the young woman in the short time she’d been with them and couldn’t bear to think of any more harm coming to her through this family.
J. J. wanted to shout. He wanted to call her back and accuse her of being a meddling busybody. But his conscience wouldn’t allow him the luxury. She was right. He had already alerted the authorities about Hastings Lawrence. But it wasn’t enough for J. J. Malone. He needed to be involved. He called the police, asking them to go to Trace’s home in the mountains and check on their safety, and then made another call for himself.
“Andrew!” he ordered, as he heard his son’s voice answer on the third ring. “We’ve got trouble, boy. Come and get me. And this time you need to bring more than your car. You better bring a world’s worth of prayers.”
* * *
It was cold, so cold. And the pain! When he tried to claw his way out of the persistent tendrils of darkness, the pain would rocket through his body and send him spiraling back into unconsciousness. But something kept pushing, something kept him from letting go. If he could just remember what, maybe he could pull himself back to the real world. Stormy eyes, gray as the rainy sky, kept urging him forward, beckoning first with sleepy passion and then pleading with tearful persistence. Someone needed him. He had to fight the need to sleep, to sleep forever.
Voices! He could hear voices! Trace struggled valiantly to call out, let them know he was here. He needed to help…someone…help… Dear God! Memory came flooding back with the pain. Honor! She was in danger.
* * *
“Father, this doesn’t look good,” Andrew said, as he and J. J. Malone entered Trace’s house.
The patio door was standing wide open, furniture lying broken and in wild disarray and no one in sight. He muttered a quick prayer and headed for the telephone, leaving his father to stand in stunned silence.
J. J. couldn’t face the implications. He knew he was too old for all that had taken place in the past month. A lesser man would probably have had a stroke. At the moment he felt angry enough to precipitate one.
“The authorities are already on their way,” Father Andrew said, watching his elderly father for signs of distress.
“Quit staring, dammit,” J. J. growled. “I’m not going to fade out on you yet. I’m too mad to die. Come on, Son. Let’s check this place out.”
He led the way through the house, careful not to disturb what might turn into a crime scene, yet missing nothing that could tell him what might have happened to his granddaughter and the man he regarded as another son.
They began upstairs, searching frantically for a sign of Honor or Trace. Nothing!
“You take the east side, I’ll take the west,” Father Andrew said, as they began a sweep of the downstairs rooms.
And it was Father Andrew who got the fright of his life when he entered the kitchen at the same time Trace opened the basement door and fell into the room.
“Merciful God in heaven!” he whispered, made the sign of the cross, then yelled loudly for his father. “Here! In the kitchen. Come quickly, Father. I’ve found one of them!”
J. J. took one sick look at Trace’s condition, ordered Andrew to make another phone call, and this time for the ambulance. Trace was covered in blood.
J. J. knelt at Trace’s side, his hands shaking as he began searching for other injuries besides the gash in his head.
“Honor…” Trace muttered, weakly pushing against the hands that pulled at his clothing. He’d managed the stairs by determination alone. There was no strength left for anything but an argument now.
“Lie still, boy,” J. J. ordered gruffly.
“It’s J. J., and Andrew is with me. Help is on the way, Son. Don’t move. You’ve got a bad cut on your head.”
“Honor…” Trace repeated, relief flooding his body as he recognized his boss’s voice. Someone had to find Honor.
“She’s not here, Son,” J. J. said, hesitated, and then continued. This was no time for delicacy. Honor’s life might be in danger. “Do you know where she is?”
“No.” Then Trace mumbled out a name that made J. J. sick. “Hastings. He was here. Heard him…” Trace’s voice faded away with consciousness.
“The police…they’re here,” Father Andrew shouted, and ran toward the door to let them in.
He prayed that the ambulance wouldn’t be far behind, then added another prayer that Trace Logan would be the only one needing its services. Please God, they find his niece alive and well. He didn’t think his father could take any more.
* * *
Honor ran until her heart hurt and her breath came in deep, ugly gasps. She looked back, searching the thick, wooded area for signs of pursuit. She could see nothing but trees and rocks, and more trees and more rocks. Then her stomach did a flip-flop as she looked around in panic for a familiar landmark. There was none. She was lost! She didn’t even know which way to go to get help. Was she going up the mountain, or down? There were so many trees. And no path! There was nothing for a girl from west Texas to use for bearings. She’d never been in such dense woods and had no idea how to orient herself.
“Oh, God!’ she muttered, sank limply onto an enormous dead tree lying in horizontal grandeur on the forest floor, and put her head in her hands. “Momma, if I live through this I may never forgive you for sending that damn letter.”
The mention of her mother’s name sent a sense of peace flooding through Honor’s panicked mind. She shivered, and looked up startled, half expecting to see her mother standing before her.
“Okay,” Honor muttered again. “I get the message. Quit feeling sorry for yourself, Honor. Think, dammit!”
And suddenly, she knew. Last night’s storm had been torrential. The rain that had fallen would have run downhill. All she had to do was look for signs of runoff. And it wasn’t long before she found a channel cut into the hillside between two large boulders. Water was still trickling through the narrow gash in the earth with persistence.
“Yes!” Honor cried, then looked around fearfully, afraid that she might have been overheard. She still could see no signs of anyone, but that didn’t mean a thing. The trees were so dense that she and Hastings could walk up on each other and never know until it was too late…for Honor.
She started downhill, unable to run as swiftly as she had before. Now there was the possibility that she would run headlong into Hastings Lawrence’s lap. Yet she could do nothing else. Every thought in her heart was for Trace and the fear that even if she succeeded in eluding Hastings, and even if she was able to summon help, it would be too late.
Hastings saw her before she saw him. It was the red sweatsuit. Honor may as well have announced her whereabouts with a loudspeaker. Hastings smiled to himself, wincing as the movement of facial muscles pulled at his swollen eye, and slipped behind a large boulder. He frowned as his shoes sank into mud over his ankles and then shrugged. He drew his gun, held his breath, and aimed. It was his decision to lean forward just the tiniest bit that saved Honor’s life.
When Hastings leaned, everything leaned but his feet. They were stuck! He couldn’t stop his momentum as gravity sent him falling flat on his face into the mire. Hastings bit his lip, sucked mud, and to make matters worse, the gun went off. It was all the warning Honor needed.
Her pulse raced into overdrive as she dived for the nearest cover. Oh, God! Oh, God! He was right on top of me and I didn’t even see him. Where the hell do I go from here?
Honor looked around, saw Hastings’s predicament as he struggled wildly to his feet, his facial features entirely obscured by the mountain mud that was sticking with gooey persistence.
But she didn’t need to see him to know he was mad. She could hear every furious curse he was using on himself, the gun, and Honor O’Brien. And she’d just had an idea. She pulled off the top of her red sweatsuit while Hastings was trying to rub the mud from his face, and stuffed it into some thick undergrowth, making it seem as if Honor herself were hiding within. Then she grabbed a couple of softball-size rocks from beneath the same bushes and backed away, betting her life on the fact that Hastings would be hasty, key in on the red shirt, and come rushing forward.
Hastings struggled wildly to his feet, digging mud from his good eye and spitting mud from his mouth so that his curses had somewhere to go besides back down into his churning gut. When he was finally able to see through a veil of muddy tears, he got the shock of his life. He’d expected Honor O’Brien to be long gone when his gun had discharged. But he could still see a bit of that red sweatshirt through the dense undergrowth. Maybe his luck was finally turning. It was just possible that the shot had found its mark after all. He dashed forward, expecting to find a cowering woman, if not a wounded one. But he never reached the bushes.
He saw it coming from the corner of his eye, but he reacted too late. The first rock caught him up beside the head on his good eye and he staggered backward in pained surprise, grabbing at the spot above his left eyebrow that felt like it was falling off his face. He screamed in pained fury and turned his gun toward the direction the missile had come from. But he was too late. And once again his reactions were far too slow and way off course.
This time when Honor let fly, she aimed for more tender territory. She drew back, squinted her eyes, and aimed for just below his belt buckle. The rock went hurtling toward its target and then connected with stunning force into Hastings Lawrence, eliminating the threat of any future heirs. She watched in satisfaction as he froze in agonized shock and turned a beautiful shade of red beneath the mud on his face. The red quickly faded into stark white as he dropped the gun and grabbed at his quickly swelling anatomy.
“Noooooo,” he moaned, doubled over, and once again fell face forward into the mud.
Only this time he didn’t taste anything but the bile that boiled up his throat and spewed onto the ground. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t talk, and worst of all, he couldn’t walk. And he knew from the look on the face of that damned Amazon who was coming toward him with her shirt in one hand and a stick in her other that she wasn’t through with him yet.
The last thought he had before Honor bopped him on the head was that he probably should have taken his chances and just gone to prison. It would have been a lot less painful. He just wasn’t cut out for this.
Honor had no qualms about rendering Hastings unconscious. If she’d followed her instincts, she’d have cracked his evil head in two. But she resisted, allowing herself the one blow. She nudged him with the stick. When he didn’t respond, she bent over, quickly slipped his belt from the loops, and with moves she’d learned from an old boyfriend, tied Hastings Lawrence like a bulldogged calf in a rodeo. She yanked her shirt back over her head and shivered. She was chilled to the bone. She picked up the gun and began to run. She had to get to Trace!
* * *
The county sheriff had arrived, taken a quick assessment of the situation, and called for backup. This looked like a tough one. They were going to have to hurry if they hoped to find J. J. Malone’s granddaughter before this Lawrence fellow did. The Malones were old family in Colorado Springs. Besides that, it was the principle of the thing. The police had been unable to find the granddaughter the first time she’d disappeared. It was a matter of pride that they didn’t let it happen again.
He swiveled in his tracks as he heard sirens coming up the driveway and knew it was probably the ambulance, and none too soon. Trace Logan had lost a lot of blood.
“Sheriff!” one of his deputies called, pointing toward the back of the house. “Someone coming…on the run.”
The men assembled in the yard turned en masse and saw a tall, leggy young woman t
aking the steep slope off the mountain as if the hounds of hell were at her heels. Then the sheriff blinked in stunned surprise and breathed a sigh of relief. If he was any guesser, his job just got a lot easier. It looked as if J. J. Malone’s granddaughter had just found them.
* * *
Honor couldn’t believe her eyes. She wasn’t lost any longer. She’d seen the top of Trace’s house and keyed on the shingled roof with fierce determination, although her stamina was almost gone. Her legs were burning, her lungs about to burst. She’d long ago given up trying to swallow. There was no spit left to worry about. She came off the slope, and a swift surge of relief swept over her at the distinctive emblems on the doors of the cars below. Police! They were saved!
She would have called out, but her legs gave way and she sprawled face forward in the wet grass.
“Are you hurt? Did he harm you in any way?” the sheriff asked, as he helped Honor to her feet.
“Trace?” Honor managed to gasp. “What happened to Trace?”
“Where’s Lawrence? Did you see him? How did you elude him, lady? From the shape Logan was in we didn’t expect to see you walking, let alone running.”
His statement gave breath to Honor’s lungs as she heard him mention Trace’s name. “What shape? Is Trace hurt? Where is he?”
“Inside. But I suspect when he sees your face, mud and all, he’s going to be just fine. You tell me about Lawrence and that’s the last question you’ll hear from me today. Everything else can wait. Where did you see him last?”