Woman on the Run (new version)

by Lisa Marie Rice

  Julia watched as Chuck handed out weapons and Glenn, Bernie, Sandy and Mac took up their stations. Cooper put some objects she didn’t recognize into a leather satchel and then, oddly enough, stuffed in two tea towels he’d taken from the kitchen.

  There seemed to be no question that Chuck would be going out with Cooper. Chuck was overweight and over fifty, but Julia knew better than to question his decision. She also knew that Cooper had deliberately left his best men with her.

  He’d be facing hired killers essentially alone.

  Julia’s throat tightened as she looked around. The women were busy clearing away dishes and shifting tables. The men checked their weapons. No one said anything to her.

  It was her problem and everyone could have simply looked after their own skins and let her fend for herself. Cooper would have defended her—after all, she was his woman. Chuck had to defend her—he was the law. But Glenn, Loren, Bernie, Sandy, Mac, Beth, Alice, Maisie—it wasn’t their fight, it was hers.

  Tears stung behind her eyelids. The people of Simpson were laying their lives on the line for her, without question. Julia felt a touch from behind and whirled to find herself in Cooper’s arms.

  She tightened her arms and breathed in Cooper’s scent, pine and leather and man, trying to hold him so hard she could imprint him on her skin. A heavy ball of tears and terror settled in her chest. “Cooper,” she whispered. “Be careful.”

  “Yeah.” Cooper peeled her away, holding her at arm’s length. “We’ll be okay.” He searched her face. “How about you?”

  Every gutsy movie heroine Julia had ever seen flashed across her mind and she did her best to give Cooper a Greer Garson-Katherine Hepburn-Vivien Leigh smile. “Yeah.” She forced the sound out from a tight throat. “Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

  “Get out your gun.”

  “Oh.” Crazily, Julia had forgotten all about it. She pulled out the deadly little snub-nosed weapon, hefting it in the palm of her hand. Wondering if she’d ever be able to use it.

  “Now you remember what I told you about trigger pull.”

  “Yes, Cooper.” Julia blinked back tears.

  “Present as small a target as you can. Lean your upper body forward. Pull don’t jerk. You have extra rounds?”

  Julia pressed her pouch and nodded.

  Cooper gave her a brief, fierce kiss and was walking out the door with Chuck before the first hot tear fell.

  “Dad?” Matt’s voice cracked on the word. Chuck stopped at the threshold and looked back.

  “Yeah, son?”

  “I’ll need a weapon, too.”

  Julia could see the struggle play itself across Chuck’s face. Surprise. Fear. Pride.

  Pride won.

  Chuck went to the side table where Bernie had stacked the weapons and picked out a rifle. He clutched it tightly, then walked over to his son.

  Julia couldn’t stand it. It was one thing to have Cooper and Chuck and his men defending her. But Matt was a child. “No, Chuck,” she pleaded. “This is my fight. I can’t have a boy getting shot because of—”

  Chuck quelled her with a look. “You’re one of us now, Julia, and we look after our own. Matt started learning to shoot when he was six. Taught him myself. I guess I didn’t realize it before, but he’s all grown up now.” Solemnly, Chuck held the weapon out to Matt, and just as solemnly Matt took it. “Look after the women, son,” Chuck said gravely.

  Julia didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Matt’s face looked suddenly grownup, the crazy haircut and earrings and nose rings a mere mask over features forged by generations of pioneers living in a country where the boys grew into men fast.

  “I will, Dad.” Matt’s voice was low and didn’t crack.

  Chuck nodded once, then followed Cooper out the door.

  The snow was falling in great gusting sheets of white. Already, a few inches covered the ground, softening footsteps, deadening sounds. Snow could be a deadly foe and Cooper knew he had to make the snow work for him and not against him. The temperature was a few degrees below zero and falling rapidly. He was glad that this wasn’t an outdoor job. He’d risked frostbite before and it wasn’t fun.

  Cooper crouched and made his silent way from door to door along Main, followed by an equally silent Chuck. Cooper’s mind was racing. The timeline. The timeline was all-important. Davis had obviously felt guilty as hell that one of his own had betrayed Julia. He had worked hard to give Cooper as accurate a timeline as possible. Cooper reviewed what he knew as he flattened himself against the side wall of Glenn’s hardware store.

  S. T. Akers had called on Santana after visiting hours at Furrows Island, citing a medical emergency. No phone calls had been allowed to prisoners on the island until seven this morning, when the records showed Santana placing a call to one of his minions in Boston.

  Davis had checked all the flights. Even assuming that a hit team had been assembled and ready to go, the very earliest the killers could have made it to Boise would have been by two this afternoon. All flights out of Logan had been delayed for four hours because of the weather. It was a three hour drive from the Boise airport to Simpson under fair conditions and assuming you knew the road. For men unfamiliar with the territory and in a snowstorm, it would take at least four hours.

  Cooper checked his wristwatch under a streetlamp. Five-thirty. He had about half an hour to set things up.

  Cooper jerked and cursed when his cell phone went off. Before the second ring, he had it open and had cupped his hand around the receiver. “Cooper.” His voice was low as his eyes scanned Main Street.

  “Davis here. What’s happening over there?”

  “I’ve secured Julia. She’s safe, barring a mortar hit on the building she’s in. Now the Sheriff and I proceeding to her house to prepare the welcoming committee.”

  “Well, good luck.” Davis’ voice sounded tinny. The snowstorm was dampening the sound. “Tell the bad guys they’d never have collected anyway.”

  A pickup turned slowly onto Main, the headlights cutting through the needles of sleeting snow and Cooper tensed until the pickup passed him and he recognized a man whose ranch bordered his. “What the hell does that mean?” he snarled into the phone.

  “Santana’s dead.”

  “What?” Cooper frowned. Had he heard right? He couldn’t afford to make the slightest mistake. Not with Julia’s life at stake. “Run that one by me again.”

  “Santana suffered a massive coronary around three.” Not even the heavy static could hide the rich satisfaction in Davis’ voice. “He was pronounced dead at 1:15 p.m. Eastern Standard. I just heard about it.”

  “Could he be faking it?”

  “Not unless he’s got a special arrangement with God. Santana’s guts are spread out on an autopsy table right now. The pathologist says he drank too much and his liver is a mess. So—if you catch these guys, it’s all over.”

  “Save a piece of Santana’s hide for me,” Cooper growled, “I want to nail it to my wall.” He cut the connection and put Davis’ news in a far corner of his mind. He had to focus his entire attention on the mission at hand.

  “Who was that?” Chuck’s voice was the merest breath in his ear.

  “Later.” Cooper’s voice was just as low. He pointed to Julia’s corner house and rotated his fist. We’re going in the back. Chuck nodded that he understood. They made their way silently around the house and Cooper let himself in with his key. He slipped into the house and closed the door after Chuck.

  Moving quietly, efficiently, Cooper pulled a flashbang and a tripwire from the satchel. He pulled out the towels he’d stuffed into his satchel and gave one to Chuck.

  “Dry off,” he whispered. “Can’t leave any tracks.” Chuck nodded and dried off while Cooper fixed the flashbangs to the front and back door handles.

  It took forty-five seconds to set it up. Cooper grunted with satisfaction and moved quickly into the bedroom.

  He was stuffing some of Julia’s clothes under the blanket to make it look
as if she were taking a nap in case someone checked through her windows when he felt Chuck’s hand on his shoulder. He nodded. He’d heard it, too. A car, coming down East Valley Road.

  Cooper checked out the window. The car was traveling without headlights. It came to a gliding stop about fifty yards away and two figures got out without the inside lights coming on. They closed the car doors quietly. It was impossible to see their features, but the stealthy way they moved showed Cooper that they were pros.

  Cooper pushed Chuck into the closet and pulled the door closed. That should protect them from the worst of the stun blast.

  Cooper checked his watch. The men were fifteen minutes early on Davis’ earliest estimate. These guys were fast and they were good.

  But he was better.

  Julia heard the explosion from three blocks away. The windowpanes of the “Out to Lunch” rattled briefly, then there was utter silence, echoed by the sudden void in her chest.

  Julia looked around and saw shocked faces, except for Sandy, Mac and Bernie. Their faces were grim, their weapons held at the shoulder and cocked.

  “No,” Julia whispered. Alice stared at the floor and Maisie moved forward to put her arms around Julia’s shoulders. Julia pushed her and her sympathy away with stiff arms. “No,” she said, louder.

  No one said anything.

  With numb fingers, Julia checked the tip up barrel of her gun for the thousandth time and snapped it back in place. She realized suddenly that if anything had happened to Cooper, she’d have the nerve to use it. She clicked the safety off and bolted out the door so quickly she got past Cooper’s men.

  “Hey!” she heard Bernie yell, “Coop said—”

  But by then she was out on the street. She didn’t want to hear from Bernie what Cooper had said. She wanted to hear it directly from Cooper. She wanted Cooper himself, in the flesh, to scold her and complain about her lack of obedience. She wanted Cooper to chew her out, tell her she’d put herself in danger, and that he wasn’t going to tolerate it. She wanted Cooper…she wanted Cooper.

  Alive.

  Julia ran towards her house, wiping tears and snow out of her eyes, slipping a little because she didn’t have the right shoes for bad weather. The snow reached almost to her ankles, but it could have reached her chest and she wouldn’t have noticed or cared. All she wanted was to get to Cooper.

  She slid the last few feet before her gate, stopping her slide by a hand to the gatepost, then tore up the rickety steps and slammed the door open, standing wildly panting and wide-eyed in her gunman’s crouch as she took in the scene.

  Two sullen handcuffed men were sitting on the floor with their backs to her living room wall and Chuck was reading them their rights in a monotone. Cooper walked in from the bathroom sucking his reddened knuckles, a heavy scowl on his face.

  Julia’s heart gave a great lurch and her voice tried to make its way through her throat. Shaking, she put the safety back on and put the Tomcat down on the coffee table. “Cooper—” Nothing came out and she tried again. “Cooper.” It was thready and weak, but he heard.

  He turned, still frowning, and frowned even more when he saw her. “What the—” he began, then looked past her. “Bernie, I thought I told you to keep her safe.”

  Bernie opened his mouth to answer, but he was out of breath. It didn’t make any difference anyway, because Julia had launched herself into Cooper’s arms with a cry of joy. “Oh God, Cooper, when I heard the explosion, I thought—I thought—”

  “I know.” Cooper hugged her tightly. “Listen, I thought I told you to stay put.”

  Julia couldn’t talk. She simply nodded into his shoulder.

  “I told you to stay put at the ‘Out to Lunch’, didn’t I? That wasn’t asking too much, was it? You were supposed to stay right where you were until I came back to get you.”

  Julia nodded, shook her head, nodded then laughed. She pulled her head back from his shoulder. “I’m glad to see you, too.”

  It was so wonderful to feel him, his strength, his solidness, even his scratchy jacket smelling of wet wool. She stilled and stared at the two men slumped against her wall. Disengaging herself from Cooper, she walked over and looked down.

  “What happened to their faces?” she asked.

  “Walked into a door,” Cooper said.

  “Resisted arrest,” Chuck said.

  Julia studied the battered faces of the enemy. One man was blondish, with a long, dirty ponytail and the other was dark, with a crewcut and three earrings. But no matter the superficial differences, they shared a look. The same look Santana had had. That kind of face was etched into her memory forever. Cold, cruel, brutal. She knew with a sickening certainty that they would have killed her without a second thought.

  And Santana still would.

  She turned, the thought rousing in a heartbeat all the sheer terror she’d felt over the past two months. “Cooper.” She put a hand to the wall to steady herself. “Cooper, Santana knows where I am now. He can send others—”

  “Santana’s not going to be sending anyone anywhere,” Cooper answered. “He’s dead, honey. He died a few hours ago. Heart attack. The nightmare’s over.”

  It took a second or two for the words to penetrate.

  The nightmare is over. She let the words roll around in her head. The nightmare is over. They hardly made sense.

  “Oh,” she said inanely. “Oh, that’s—that’s good.”

  Cooper looked at her, frowning. “Sit down, sweetheart.” When she shook her head, he walked her over to the armchair and exerted gentle pressure. “Sit down before you fall down.”

  She didn’t want to obey him. It was just that her knees buckled.

  Julia felt a deep tremor start from within and her fingers bit into the arms of the chair. Dots swam in front of her eyes and she tried to focus. Her mind was finding it hard to absorb what Cooper had just said.

  The nightmare is over.

  Weeks and weeks of agonizing fear, of a loneliness so deep she sometimes thought she would die of that alone. Weeks of isolation and exile. Of waking shuddering and sweating from sleep only to find that the waking terror was worse than the terror that stalked her in her dreams. Of teaching herself to live from minute to minute because she had no future.

  The nightmare is over.

  A great sob exploded from her chest, then another.

  “Oh, God,” she gasped, dazed. The enormity of it struck her all over again. She could hardly catch her breath, could hardly get her mind around the thought.

  Cooper took her trembling hands in his and she stared blindly at their linked fingers. “It’s over. I don’t have to stay here anymore. I can do what I want. I can go home. Oh dear God, I can go home again. I can’t wait. Oh, God, I can’t wait. I want to go home now.” Tears were leaking out of her eyes and her heart was thumping wildly in her chest. Julia barely noticed when Cooper released her.

  She raked her trembling hands through her hair. Her head was filled with one thought—home.

  The nightmare is over.

  She looked around and focused on Cooper, watching him retreat. Chuck was retreating, too. Bernie had turned his back and was standing stiffly by the door.

  All of a sudden, Julia remembered what she’d said and it struck her how Cooper would take it. He thought she meant that she wanted to go home and never come back. But she hadn’t meant that—not at all. What she’d really meant was—she’d meant…she didn’t know what she’d meant.

  Julia tried to gather her thoughts but it didn’t work. It only made her head hurt.

  She realized now how far she’d come in understanding Cooper, how well she had learned to read his face, because all of a sudden she couldn’t read anything at all. He stood before her, straight and tall and broad, his face an impenetrable mask.

  Chuck was herding the two shackled prisoners out the door. Bernie had already left. Cooper had one hand on the doorjamb.

  “You won’t be bothered again.” Cooper’s voice was as remote as hi
s face. “Davis said that he’ll call you in for a deposition but it won’t be anytime soon. I’ll book you a flight out tomorrow. One of my men will take you to the airport.”

  “No, I—” Julia stretched out a hand. She couldn’t stand to see that blank look on Cooper’s face. But the emotions were washing through her in great roiling waves, so enormous she couldn’t get a handle on any one. She bit her trembling lips and let her hand drop.

  There was so much she wanted to say to Cooper, but it looked like she wasn’t going to have the time because he was out the door and past her gate before she could get her leaden feet to stir.

  Maybe it was better this way.

  There was no way on this earth that she could explain anything to anyone, not tonight, certainly not right now.

  Julia sank bank onto her couch. The horrendous little couch with the broken springs.

  It struck her, for the first time, that she was going to miss that stupid couch. Her own couch in Boston was covered in an exquisite beige chintz but this couch, ugly as it was, had…character.

  There were a lot of things she was going to miss.

  She was going home. For the first time, Julia allowed herself to savor that thought. Home.

  Home.

  But what did she have there? What was home now? What was waiting for her? Her job? Even if she managed to get her job back, she’d been starting to get dissatisfied with it, toying with the idea of going freelance with Dora. Since the takeover, personnel were shuffled so often she never got a chance to deepen her ties with her colleagues or the authors. She was basically a faceless paper-pusher with a good degree.

  She would see Jean and Dora again.

  But Julia suddenly realized that all the time she’d been in Simpson, she hadn’t wondered how they were getting on. She and Jean and Dora had got along reasonably well together at the office, read the same books and met on Saturdays for coffee and gossip. That was all.

  It wasn’t like here, where she was intimately involved in the daily lives of her friends. She wanted to know what Alice was doing, if the “Out to Lunch” would be a success. She wanted to go on trying out Maisie’s wonderful recipes. She wanted to help Beth redecorate. Matt had mentioned that he had written a hundred twenty pages of a science fiction epic and she wanted to read it.