by Lisa Jackson
“Of course I’ll testify.”
“It won’t be easy. He’ll be sitting at the defense table, staring at you, hearing every word.”
“I know how it works,” she retorted, then softened her tone as they passed through a small timber town where only a few lights were winking from the houses scattered near the road and a sawmill stood idle, elevators and sheds ghostlike and hulking around a gravel parking lot and a pile of sawdust several stories high. “But the truth is the truth,” Randi continued, “no matter who’s listening. Believe me, I’m over Sam Donahue. I would have taken all of the evidence I’d gathered against him to the rodeo commission and the authorities if I hadn’t been sidetracked and sent to the hospital.” She leaned back against the seat as the miles sped beneath the truck’s tires. “I had worried about it. Wondered how I would face Joshua’s father. But that’s over. Now I’m sure I can face him. The way I look at it, Sam Donahue was the sperm donor that created my son. It takes a lot more to be a real father.”
The baby started coughing and Randi turned to him. Kurt glanced back as well. Joshua’s little face was bright red, his eyes glassy. “How much longer until we get to Grand Hope?”
“Probably eight or nine hours.”
“I’m worried about the baby.”
“I am, too,” Kurt admitted as he glared at the road ahead.
Joshua, as if he knew they were talking about him, gave off a soft little whimper.
“Give me the cell phone,” Randi said. She couldn’t stand it another minute. Joshua wasn’t getting any better; in fact, he was worsening, and her worries were going into overdrive. Kurt handed her the phone, and she, trying to calm her case of nerves, dialed the ranch house as she plugged in the adapter to the cigarette lighter.
“Hello. Flying M Ranch,” Juanita said, her accent barely detectible.
Randi nearly melted with relief at the sound of the housekeeper’s voice. “Juanita, this is Randi.”
“Oh, Miss Randi! ¡Dios!, where are you? And the niño. How is he?”
“That’s why I’m calling. We’re on our way back to the ranch, but Joshua’s feverish and I’m worried. Is Nicole there?”
“Oh, no. She is with your brother and they are at their new house, talking with the builder.”
“Do you have her pager number?”
“¡Sí!” Quickly, Juanita rattled off not only the telephone number for Nicole’s pager, but Thorne’s cell phone as well. “Call them now, and you keep that baby warm.” Juanita muttered something in Spanish that Randi interpreted as a prayer before hanging up. Immediately Randi dialed Thorne’s cell and once he answered, she insisted on talking to his wife. Nicole had admitted Randi into the hospital after the accident, and with the aid of Dr. Arnold, a pediatrician on the staff of St. James, had taken care of Joshua during the first tenuous hours of his young life.
Now, she said, “Keep fluids in him, watch his temperature, keep him warm, and I’ll put a call into Gus Arnold. He’s still your pediatrician, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’re in good hands. Gus is the best. I’ll make sure that either he or one of his partners meets us at the hospital. When do you think you’ll get here?”
“Kurt’s saying about eight or nine hours. I’ll call when we’re closer.”
“I’ll be there,” Nicole assured her, and Randi was thankful for her sister-in-law’s reassurances. “Now, how are you doing?”
“Fine,” Randi said, though that was a bit of a stretch. “Eager to get home, though.”
“I’ll bet—oh! What…?” Her voice faded a bit as if she’d turned her head, and Randi heard only part of a conversation before Nicole said, “Look, your brother is dying to talk to you. Humor him, would you?”
“Sure.”
“Randi?” Thorne’s voice boomed over the phone and Randi felt the unlikely urge to break down and cry. “What the hell’s going on?” Thorne demanded. “Kelly seems to think that Patsy Donahue is the one behind all this trouble.”
“It looks that way.”
“And now Patsy’s gone missing? Why the hell hasn’t Striker found her?”
“Because he’s been babysitting me,” Randi said, suddenly defensive. No one could fault Kurt; not even her brothers. From the corner of her eye Randi noticed Kurt wince, his hands gripping the steering wheel even harder. “He’s got someone on it.”
“Hell’s bells, so does Bob Espinoza, but no one seems to be able to find her. It’s time to call in the FBI and the CIA and the state police and the damn federal marshals!”
“She’ll be found,” Randi assured him, though she, herself, doubted her words. “It’s just a matter of time.”
“It can’t happen soon enough to suit me.” He paused, then, “Tell me about J.R. How is he?”
“Joshua’s running a temperature and has a cold. I’m meeting Nicole at St. James Hospital.”
“I’ll be there, too.”
“You? A big corporate executive? Don’t you have better things to do?” she teased, and he laughed.
“Yeah, right now I’m discussing the kind of toilet to go into the new house. Believe me, it’s a major decision. Nicole’s leaning toward the low-flow, water-conservation model, but I think we should go standard.”
“I think I’ve heard enough,” Randi said, giggling. Some of her tension ebbed a bit.
“You and me both. We haven’t even started with colors yet. I’m leaning toward white.”
“Big surprise, oh conservative one.”
He chuckled. “Well, it’s too damn dark and cold to make many more decisions tonight. That’s what happens when you’re married to a doctor who works sixty or seventy hours a week and then gets detained at the hospital.”
“Poor baby,” Randi mocked.
“Uh-oh, they need me,” he said, but his voice was fading, the connection breaking up. “I think…going to check into…sinks and…see you in a few hours…”
“Thorne? Are you there?”
Only crackle.
“I’m losing you!”
“Randi?” Thorne’s voice was suddenly strong.
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad you’re coming home.”
“Me, too,” she said, and her throat caught as she envisioned her oldest half brother with his black hair and intense gray eyes. She imagined the concern etched on his strong features. “Give my love to…” but the connection was lost, as they were deep in the mountains. Reluctantly, she clicked the cell phone off.
“He wants to know why I haven’t tracked Patsy down yet,” Striker surmised, his lips blade thin.
“He wants to know why no one’s tracked Patsy down. Your name came up, yes, but so did Detective Espinoza’s, along with every government agency known to man. You have to understand one thing about Thorne. He gives an order and he expects immediate, and I mean i-med-i-ate, results. Which, of course, is impossible.”
“I’m with him, though,” Kurt said. “The sooner we nail Patsy Donahue, the better.”
Randi wanted to agree with him, but there was a part of her that balked, for she knew that the minute Patsy was located and locked away, Kurt would be gone. Out of her life forever. Her heart twisted and she wondered how she’d ever let him go. It was silly really. She’d only known him for a month or so and only intensely for a week.
And yet she would miss him.
More than she’d ever thought possible.
This entire midnight run to Montana seemed doomed. Joshua’s fever was worsening, there was talk of a blizzard ahead, and somewhere in the night, Patsy Donahue was planning another attack. Randi could feel it in her bones. She shivered.
“Cold?” Kurt adjusted the heater.
“I’m fine.” But it was a lie. They both knew it. Every time a vehicle approached, Randi tensed, half expecting the driver to crank on the wheel and sideswipe Striker’s truck. Silently she prayed that they’d reach Grand Hope without any incident, that her baby would recover quickly and that Kurt Striker would be a
part of her life forever. It was a hard fact to face, one she’d denied for a long time, but no protests to herself or anyone else could overcome the God’s honest truth: Randi McCafferty had fallen in love with Kurt Striker.
Patsy drummed gloved fingers on the wheel of her stolen rig, an older-model SUV that had been parked for hours at a bar on the interstate in Idaho. No one would be able to connect her to the theft. She’d ditched her van on an abandoned road near Dalles, Oregon, gotten on a bus and traveled east until the truck stop, where she’d located the rig and switched license plates with some she’d lifted while in Seattle. By the time anyone pieced together what she’d done, it would be too late. She was behind Striker’s pickup, probably by an hour or so, but she figured she could make up the distance. It would take time, but eventually she’d be able to catch the bitch.
And then there would be hell to pay.
Her speedometer hovered near seventy, but she pushed on the accelerator and pumped up the volume on the radio. An old Rolling Stones tune reverberated through the speakers. Mick Jagger was screaming about getting no satisfaction. Usually Patsy identified with the song. But not tonight. Tonight she intended to get all the satisfaction she’d been lacking in recent years.
The SUV flew down the freeway. Patsy didn’t let up for a second. She’d driven in dry snow all her life and felt no fear.
By daybreak her mission would be accomplished.
Randi McCafferty and anyone stupid enough to be with the bitch would be dead.
Thirteen
The baby wouldn’t stop crying.
Nothing Randi did stopped the wails coming from the back seat and Striker felt helpless. He drove as fast as he dared while Randi twisted in her seat, trying to feed Joshua or comfort him, but the baby was having none of it.
Striker gritted his teeth and hoped that the baby’s fever hadn’t climbed higher. He thought of the pain of losing a child and knew he had to do something, anything to prevent the little guy’s life from slipping away.
He gunned the pickup ever faster, but the terrain had become rough, with sharp turns and steep grades as they drove deep into the foothills of the Montana mountains.
“He’s still very warm,” Randi said, touching her son’s cheek.
“We’ll be there in less than an hour,” Striker assured her. “Hang in there.”
“If he will,” Randi whispered hoarsely, and it tore his heart to hear her desperation.
“I think it’s better that he’s crying rather than listless,” Striker offered, knowing it was little consolation.
“I guess. Maybe we should get off and try to find a clinic.”
“In the rinky-dink towns around here? At three in the morning? St. James is the nearest hospital. Just call Nicole and tell her we’ll be there in forty-five minutes.”
“All right.” She reached for the phone just as Striker glanced in the rearview mirror. Headlights were bearing down on them and fast, even though he was doing near sixty on the straight parts of this curving, treacherous section of interstate. At the corners he’d had to slow to near thirty and he’d spotted the vehicle behind him gaining, taking the corners wide. “Hang on,” he said.
“What?”
“I’ve got someone on my tail and closing fast. It would be best if I let them go around me.” He saw a wide spot in the road, slowed down, and the other vehicle shot past, a blur of dark paint and shiny wheels.
“We’ll probably catch up to him rolled over in the ditch ahead.”
“Great,” she whispered.
He took a turn a little fast and the wheels slid, so he slowed a bit. As he passed by an old logging road, he thought he saw a dark vehicle. Idling. No headlights or taillights visible, but exhaust fogging the cold night air. The same fool who’d passed them? The hairs on the back of his neck lifted.
It was too dark to be certain and he told himself that he was just being paranoid. No one in his right mind would be sitting in their rig in the dark. His gut clenched. Of course no one in his right mind would be there. But what about a woman no longer in control of her faculties, a woman hell-bent for revenge, a woman like Patsy Donahue?
No way, Striker. You’re tired and jumping at shadows. That’s all.
Pull yourself together.
He peered into the rearview mirror and saw nothing in the darkness. No headlights beyond the snow flurries…or did he? Was there a vehicle barreling after him, one with no headlights, one using his taillights to guide it? His mouth was suddenly desert dry. The image took shape then faded. His mind playing tricks on him. Nothing more. God, he hoped so.
“What?” Randi asked, sensing his apprehension. The baby was still crying, but more softly now. The road was steep and winding and he cut his speed in order to keep the truck on the asphalt.
“Look behind us. See anything?”
Again Randi twisted in her seat and peered through the window over the back of the king cab. She squinted hard. “No. Why?”
He scowled, saw his own reflection in the mirror. “I thought I saw something. A shadow.”
“A shadow?”
“Of a car. I though someone might be following us with his lights out.”
“In this terrain? In the dark?” she asked, and then sucked in her breath and stared hard through the window. “I don’t see anything.”
“Good.” He felt a second’s relief. This would be the worst place to encounter danger. The road was barely two lanes with steep mountains on one side and a slim guardrail on the other. Beyond the barrier was a sheer cliff where only the tops of trees were visible in the glare of his headlights as he swept around the corners.
Randi didn’t stop looking through the window, searching the darkness, and he could tell by the way she held on to the back of the seat, her white-knuckled grasp a death grip, that, she, too, was concerned. His hands began to sweat on the wheel, but he told himself they were all right, they would make it, they only had a few more miles. He thought of how, in the past few weeks, he’d fallen for Randi McCafferty hook, line and proverbial sinker. With a glance in her direction, his heart filled. He couldn’t imagine life without her or without little Joshua. As much as he’d sworn after Heather’s death never to get close to a woman or a child again, he’d broken his own pact with himself. And it was too late to change his mind. His stubborn heart just wouldn’t let him. Maybe it was time to tell her. To be honest. Let her know how he felt.
Why?
Come on, Striker, are you so full of yourself to imagine she loves you? And what about the kid? Didn’t you swear off fatherhood for good? What are you doing considering becoming a father again? Why would you set yourself up for that kind of heartache all over again? Remember Heather? Do you really think you have it in you to be a parent?
The arguments tore through his mind. Nonetheless, he had to tell her. “Randi?”
“What?” She was still staring out the back window.
“About the last few nights—”
“Please,” she said, refusing to look his way. “You don’t have to explain. Neither of us planned what happened.”
“But you should know how I feel.”
He noticed her tense. She swallowed hard. “Maybe I don’t want to,” she whispered before she gasped. “Oh, God, no!”
“What?”
“I think…I think there is someone back there. Every once in a while I see an image and then it fades into the background. You don’t think…”
Kurt stared into the rearview mirror. “Hell.” He saw it too. The outline of a dark vehicle without its lights on, driving blind, bearing down, swerving carelessly from one side of the road to the other and then melding with the night. He pressed hard on the accelerator. “Keep your eye on it and call the police.”
She reached for the phone. Dialed 911.
Nothing.
“Damn.”
She tried again and was rewarded by a beeping of the cell. “No signal,” she said, staring through the window as the baby cried.
“Keep
trying.” Kurt took a corner too fast, the wheels spun and they swung wide, into the oncoming lane. “Damn it.”
“It’s getting closer!”
Kurt saw the vehicle now, looming behind them, dangerously close as they screeched around corners. “Hell.”
“Do you think it’s Patsy?”
“Unless there’s some other nutcase running loose.”
“Oh, God…” Randi sounded frantic. “What’s she going to do?”
“I don’t know.” But he had only to think of the accident where Randi was forced off the road to come up with a horrific scenario.
Randi punched out the number of the police again. “The call’s going through! Where are we? I’ll have to give our location…oh, no…lost the signal again.”
“Hit redial!” Kurt ordered. A sign at the edge of the road warned of a steep downgrade.
“Maybe you should just slow down,” Randi said. “Force her to slow.”
“What if she’s got a gun. A rifle?”
“A gun?”
The vehicle switched on its lights suddenly and seemed to leap forward.
Kurt swung to the inside, toward the mountain.
The SUV bore down on them.
A sharp corner loomed. A sign said that maximum speed for the corner was thirty-five. The needle of his speedometer was pushing sixty. He shifted down. Pumped the brakes. Squealed around the corner, fishtailing.
The SUV didn’t give up. “She’s getting closer,” Randi cried as she kept redialing. “Oh, God!”
Bam!
The nose of the trailing vehicle struck hard as Kurt hit a pothole. The truck shuddered, snaking to the guardrail, wheels bouncing over a washboard of asphalt and gravel. Kurt rode out the slide, easing into it, only changing direction at the last minute. His heart was pounding, his body sweating. He couldn’t lose Randi and the baby!