by Sandra Brown
“Rescue teams searched for weeks, but winter came early that year,” he said, picking up the story. “The girl—”
“Stop calling her ‘the girl,’ ” she said testily. “Her name is Torrie Lambert.”
“Torrie Lambert vanished as though the ground had opened up and swallowed her. Not a trace of her has been found.”
“Except for a blue velvet ribbon,” Lilly said. “It was discovered in some underbrush. Across the state line in Tennessee.”
“That’s what led the authorities to believe that she’d been kidnapped. To get to the spot where the ribbon was found, she would have had to walk ten miles over some of the most rugged terrain east of the Mississippi,” he said.
“Her mother identified the ribbon as the one Torrie had been wearing in her hair that day.” She stared into near space for a moment, then said quietly, “Mrs. Lambert must have gone through pure hell when she saw that ribbon. Torrie has very long hair, almost to her waist. Lovely hair. That morning, she wore it in a single braid and had plaited the ribbon into it.”
Shifting her gaze back to Tierney, she said, “So, whatever else you did to her, you took the time to unbind her hair and remove the ribbon.”
“Blue did.”
“I wonder,” she continued as though he hadn’t contradicted her. “Were you careless, or did you leave the ribbon behind deliberately?”
“Why would it deliberately be left behind?”
“To throw off the search parties. Mislead them. If so, it worked. After the ribbon was found, trained track dogs were brought in. They quickly lost the scent.” She ruminated for a moment. “I question why you didn’t take the ribbon as a trophy.”
“Blue had his trophy. He had Torrie Lambert.”
His tone made Lilly shiver. “So the ribbon is only a symbol of success.”
Tierney took a last quick sip of coffee. “I’m done. Thanks.”
She took the mug from his hands and passed him two of the crackers, one for each hand. He demolished the first in one bite. When he bent his head to eat the second, she noticed the bandage. “Does the head wound hurt?”
“It’s tolerable.”
“It doesn’t appear to be bleeding.” She extended him another cracker. But instead of taking it, he snatched her wrist, tightly closing his fingers around it. “I’ll survive, Lilly. I’m more worried about your survival.”
She tried to pull her hand free, but he held on. “Let go of my hand.”
“Unlock the cuffs.”
“No.” She struggled futilely.
“I’ll go to your car and get your medication.”
“Flee, you mean.”
“Flee?” He gave a short laugh. “You’ve been outside. You know what it’s like. How far do you think I’d get if I wanted to flee? I want to save your life.”
“I’ll live.”
“Your face is gray. I could hear every breath you took when you were in the living room. You’re struggling.”
“I’m struggling with you.”
This time when she tugged on her hand, he released it. She took several wheezing breaths. “Do you want this?” she asked, extending the last cracker toward him.
“Please.”
Rather than holding it within reach of his hands, she held it a few inches from his mouth. “Don’t bite me.”
Frowning as though she had again insulted him, he inclined his head forward and caught the cracker between his teeth, being careful not to touch her fingers. She snatched her hand back. He worked the cracker into his mouth. She picked up the empty plate and mug and headed for the living room.
“If you won’t let me go, at least move me in there, where I’ll be able to keep an eye on you.”
“No.”
“If I’m in there, you’ll be able to watch me closer.”
“I said no.”
“Lilly.”
“No!”
“You never did tell me Dutch’s theory about the ribbon. What does it represent to Blue?”
After a moment’s hesitation, she said, “Dutch says he’s using it as a symbol of his success to taunt the authorities.”
“I agree. And that’s probably the only time Dutch and I will ever agree on anything. The man’s a fool for a lot of reasons, one being that he left you alone on this mountain yesterday with an ice storm moving in. What was he thinking?”
“It wasn’t entirely his fault. I encouraged him to leave ahead of me.”
“Why?”
“I’m not going to talk to you about Dutch and me.”
He looked at her for a long moment, then said, “I respect you for that. Honestly, I do. I wouldn’t want you talking to him about us, either.”
“There is no us, Tierney.”
“That’s not true. Not at all. And you know it. Before you decided that I’m a deviate, we were well on our way to becoming an us.”
“Don’t read too much into one kiss.”
“Ordinarily I wouldn’t,” he said. “But that kiss wasn’t ordinary.”
She knew she should separate herself from him without delay. Close her ears. Avoid looking into his eyes. Yet they held her in place as though they’d cast a spell over her.
“Deny it all you want, Lilly, but you know that what I’m saying is the truth. It didn’t start for us last night. It’s been going on from the moment you stepped aboard that bus. Every second of every day since then, I’ve wanted to put my hands on you.”
She dismissed the quickening in her lower body. “Is that how you do it?”
“What?”
“Do you sweet-talk those women into going with you without a whimper?”
“You think this is sweet talk?”
“Yes.”
“A line to woo you?”
“Yes.”
“So you’ll unlock the cuffs and I’ll be free to ravage you?”
“Something like that.”
“Then explain why I stopped with one kiss last night.”
His eyes searched hers while he waited for an answer that never came.
Eventually he said, “I stopped because I wouldn’t take advantage of the situation. We were in dangerous circumstances. Cut off from the rest of the human race. We’d been talking about Amy. You were emotionally fragile, vulnerable, in need of comfort and tenderness.
“We were also hungry for each other. If we had continued kissing, I knew where it would lead. I also knew that, later, you might either regret it or question my motives. I didn’t want you to have any misgivings afterward, Lilly. That’s the only reason I didn’t join you on the mattress.”
He sounded earnest. God, did he ever. “That was quite a sacrifice. Saint Tierney.”
“No.” His eyes speared into hers like twin pinpoints of light. “If you had asked me to fuck you, I would have in a heartbeat.”
Her sudden intake of air caused her lungs to wheeze. “You’re very good, Tierney.” Her voice was a mere croak, not entirely from asthma. “Sweet one minute, erotic the next. You say all the right things.”
“Unlock the cuffs, Lilly,” he whispered.
“Go to hell.”
Last night her survival had depended on trusting him.
Today it depended on mistrust.
CHAPTER
18
WHAT THE HELL, WES?”
“Before you blow a gasket, stop and think about this.”
Wes joined Dutch where he was standing in front of an electric space heater. It did minimal good inside the cavernous garage, but the glowing red coils gave the impression that, by standing near it, he was staving off the penetrating cold. It was only an impression. The cement floor conducted the cold up through the thick soles of Dutch’s boots and woolen socks, straight into his feet and legs.
He stamped his feet to keep the blood circulating. He also stamped with impatience. Cal Hawkins had been in the men’s room since they arrived. The last time Dutch had checked on him, he was still heaving into a nasty toilet.
“They were going to f
ollow you anyway,” Wes said of the two FBI agents who had trailed him to the garage in their own car. They’d remained inside the sedan with the motor running. The tailpipe was emitting a cloud of exhaust, which to Dutch looked like the breath of a beast on his tail.
“This Begley character wants to get to Tierney just like you do,” Wes continued. “So instead of tearing up the mountainside on your own, why not let them shoulder some of the responsibility?”
As much as Dutch hated to admit it, Wes made sense. If something bad happened up there—for instance, if Tierney sustained a fatal gunshot wound while trying to escape—there would be inquiries, and review boards, and paperwork out the wazoo. Why not let the feebs bite off a chunk of that?
“If this doesn’t work,” Wes said, nodding toward Hawkins, who had emerged from the restroom looking like a walking cadaver, “the feds have choppers, trained rescue teams, high-tech tracking equipment, all that.”
“But if I use them, I answer to them,” Dutch argued. “That galls. Big time. Besides, when I get to Tierney—”
“I hear you, and I’m with you one hundred percent on that issue, buddy,” Wes said in a low voice. “Especially if he’s our woman snatcher. All I’m saying is—”
“Use the FBI up to a point.”
Wes slapped him on the back and gave him the grin he used to give him in the huddle when they’d agreed on the play that would leave the other team bumfuzzled and beaten. “Let’s get this show on the road.” But as they walked toward the sanding truck, he frowned. “Is he all right, you think?”
Hawkins was in the driver’s seat, but his arms were draped over the steering wheel, hugging it like a life preserver. “He’d better be. If he fucks this up, I’m going to kill him, and then I’m going to keep him in jail for the rest of his natural life.” Dutch opened the passenger door and climbed in.
“I’m right behind you if you need me,” Wes told him.
When Wes closed the passenger door, Hawkins flinched. “No need to slam it,” he grumbled.
“Start her up, Hawkins,” Dutch said.
He cranked the ignition key. “I’ll start her, but it ain’t gonna do no good. I’ve said it a thousand times, and I’ll say it again. This is nucking futs.”
Dutch eyed him suspiciously. “Do I smell liquor on your breath?”
“Last night’s. Recycled,” he replied as he checked his side mirrors.
Dutch looked into the mirror on the passenger door and watched Special Agent Wise back up the sedan. Then Wes backed his car into the street, leaving Hawkins a clear route.
No more than ten seconds out of the garage, the windshield became blanketed in snow. Hawkins’s glance toward Dutch said, I told you so. Muttering to himself, he turned on the windshield wipers and shifted gears. With a great deal of reluctance—or so it seemed to Dutch—the rig chugged forward.
The plow attached to the truck’s front grille cleaved a temporary path for the cars following them. Hawkins also laid down the mix of sand and salt. It helped, but each time Dutch looked into the side mirror, Wise and Wes were searching for traction. So he stopped looking.
He had set his cell phone to vibrate rather than ring. Knowing it hadn’t, he checked it anyway to see if he had a voice mail. He didn’t. He dialed Lilly’s cell number, hoping that on a fluke he would find a signal. He got the expected No Service indicator.
She would call if she could, he told himself. Her cell phone was as useless as his. Otherwise she would contact him.
He leaned into the windshield and craned his neck to look toward the crest of Cleary Peak. He could see no farther than a few feet above the roof of the truck. It was total whiteout beyond the point where individual snowflakes were distinguishable as they kamikazed into the windshield.
If it was this bad down here, it would be far worse at the top of the mountain. Not wanting to spook his driver, he didn’t say that out loud, but Hawkins read his mind.
“Higher we go, the worse it’s gonna get,” he said.
“We’ll take it a foot at a time.”
“More like an inch.” After a moment, he said, “What I’m wonderin’ . . .”
Dutch looked over at him. “What?”
“Does your old lady want to be rescued?”
• • •
“What do you think, Hoot?”
“About what, sir? Specifically.” Hoot was focused on the center of the car’s hood, trying to keep it in the middle of the chute that the sanding truck had opened for them.
“Dutch Burton. What’s your read on him?”
“Extremely sensitive to criticism. Even when it’s only implied, he immediately gets his back up.”
“The common reaction of one who perpetually fails and/or has low self-esteem. What else, Hoot?”
“He wants to get his former wife away from Ben Tierney, more from rank jealousy than a conviction that Tierney is Blue. He’s reacting like a man, not an officer of the law.”
Begley beamed at him as though he were a prodigy who’d given the correct answer to a trick question. “What did Perkins unearth about the lady?”
While waiting for Chief Burton to arrive at Ritt’s store, Hoot had used the pay phone to call the Charlotte office. He had his laptop with him, of course, but the computers in the office had faster and better access to more extensive information networks. He’d asked Perkins to see what he could find on Burton’s ex and had warned his counterpart that Begley was in a hurry to get the information.
Perkins had said, “Damn. Okay. Give me ten.” He’d called back in under five.
“She’s editor in chief of a magazine called Smart,” Hoot told Begley now.
“You’re shitting me,” he exclaimed.
“No, sir.”
“Mrs. Begley swears by that magazine. I’ve seen her spend a weekend with an issue. She redecorated our living room to match one she saw in it. Are you married, Hoot?”
The sudden question gave him a start. “Sir? Oh. No, sir.”
“Why not?”
He wasn’t opposed to the idea. In fact, he favored it. The problem was finding a woman who wouldn’t become bored with him and his ordered life. That had been the pattern with him and women. There would be a few dates, some of them overnighters, before he and the woman drifted apart for lack of enthusiasm.
Recently he’d begun exchanging e-mail with a woman he’d met on the Internet. She lived in Lexington and was pleasant to “talk” to. She didn’t know he worked for the FBI. Women were often more infatuated with the macho image of the bureau than with him. All Karen—that was her name—knew of his work was that it involved computers. Miraculously, she was still interested.
Their last chat had lasted an hour and thirty-eight minutes. She actually had him sitting at his computer in his immaculate home office laughing out loud over an anecdote involving her one and only attempt to save money by coloring her own hair. She assured him that the disastrous result had been remedied in a salon and had been worth every penny spent on it. It had got him to thinking that maybe he needed a little zaniness in his life.
More than once she had mentioned to him how pretty Kentucky was in the spring. If that lead-in resulted in an invitation for him to come and see the splendor of a Kentucky spring for himself, he would seriously consider going. He got nervous thinking about meeting her face-to-face, but it was a good kind of nervousness.
Hoping that Begley couldn’t see the flush he felt in his cheeks, he said stiffly, “My focus the last few years has been the pursuit of my career, sir.”
“Fine, well, and good, Hoot. But that’s your job, not your life. Work on that.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mrs. Begley keeps me sane and happy. Don’t know what I’d do without her. I’d like you to meet her sometime.”
“Thank you, sir. It would be an honor.”
“Lilly Martin. It’s safe to assume that she’s a savvy lady?”
Hoot’s brain tried to shift tracks with the agility of Begley’s. “Yes, sir.
She holds dual degrees in art and journalism. Started out as a gofer at another magazine and came up through the ranks to her current position. Perkins passed along some websites we can look at later. He said photos show her to be quite attractive.”
He cast a glance at Begley before continuing. “And there was something else, sir. About Ben Tierney. Perkins said that on one of his credit card statements there was a charge to a catalog that sells paramilitary gear. He purchased a transponder and a pair of handcuffs.”
“Jesus Christ. How long ago?”
“The charge was on his August statement.”
Begley thoughtfully tugged on his lower lip. “Mr. Elmer told us that Tierney had met Lilly Martin last summer.”
“And that he was attracted to her.”
“What we don’t know is whether or not the attraction was mutual,” Begley said. “Maybe they’ve been seeing each other since last summer. As the ex, Dutch Burton wouldn’t necessarily know about it.”
“Correct.”
“On the other hand . . . ,” Begley began.
“If Ms. Martin was not attracted to Tierney, and if he is Blue . . .”
“Yeah.” Begley sighed. “He wouldn’t like being rebuffed.” He lapsed into a glum silence for several minutes, then thumped his fist against his thigh with aggravation. “Son of a bitch! This just doesn’t gel, Hoot. According to Ritt, and Wes Hamer agreed, women are naturally attracted to Tierney. So tell me why he would kidnap them. Huh, Hoot? Any ideas?”
Although Begley was impatiently waiting for an answer, Hoot carefully thought it through first. “When I was in law school—”
“Speaking of that,” Begley interrupted. “I learned only a short while ago that you had a law degree. Why didn’t you become a lawyer?”
“I wanted to be an FBI agent,” he said without hesitation. “For as long as I can remember, that’s all I ever wanted to be.” His ambition had been ridiculed by the tough guys in school. Even his parents had suggested that he have an alternative in mind should his first choice of career not pan out. He hadn’t let the skepticism of others dissuade him.