Bylines & Deadlines

by Kimberly Vinje

  He nodded quietly.

  Chapter Ten

  They walked in silence. She was still feeling hungry and tired. Still, all those hours on the treadmill had made her legs stronger than his, and she could tell he was tiring faster than she was. Her mind jumped from scene to scene. If the Rawlings’ organization knew she was alive, did her family? Did Will? If not, could she call them now? She wondered what she would say to them - it’s not every day someone gets a call from a dead person. If she was able to reclaim her life, would she go back to work as a reporter? Excitement grew in the pit of her stomach. What if she could resume her old life as if none of this had happened? Would Will still want her? The image of him happy with someone else - maybe his wife and daughters - crept into her thoughts. Home Wrecker wasn’t exactly a label she wanted attached to her. If she could resume her life, it wouldn’t be as if her apartment was waiting for her. Her clothes were gone, her desk at the office was occupied by someone else - of course sitting somewhere away from Burt Newman had its appeal - she wasn’t sure if she could even locate everyone. This was seriously jumping ahead of herself. She wasn’t even assured of getting off the mountain alive much less being able to live in the open as Kristine Larkin again. Man, her hand hurt.

  “Hey, I have to go to the bathroom,” she said and stopped. He stopped and looked around.

  “Go ahead, I’ll wait here,” he sat down and leaned up against a tree. She moved to the left through some trees, and when she was what she considered a safe distance, she took out the phone and turned it on. She tried to remember Will’s phone number at the office. She looked at the numbers and began to dial. She stopped. What if they knew she called him? He was the one person in the world who she could trust, count on, and who may actually have the contacts to be able to help her, and she couldn’t call him. She turned the phone off and put it away. Leaning her head back so the tears wouldn’t fall down her cheeks, she told herself she wasn’t allowed to cry. She began to walk back toward Jack. An unfamiliar voice startled her. She ducked behind a tree and looked out in the direction of a scuffle. Jack was fighting with a man. She watched for a moment and then pulled out one of the guns she had stashed inside her coat. She moved swiftly but quietly between trees. Finally, the fighting stopped. Jack was standing with his hands in the air and was staring at a gun being pointed at him.

  “Where is she, Jack?” the other man demanded angrily.

  “She died in the van wreck,” Jack said.

  “You should know better than to lie to me,” the man hissed back. Megan tried to aim the gun. She had learned to use a gun before she was hidden away in her new life, but she hadn’t fired one in years. At this point, even a distraction would help. She blinked several times. Why was she worried about hitting Jack? She steadied her hand. He had just lied about whether she was alive. She didn’t think she had time to debate his motives so she took a deep breath and squeezed the trigger.

  The bullet lodged in the stranger’s side, and he fell to the ground. Jack pulled his gun from his jacket and fired repeatedly on the man. Jack looked up in the direction where she was standing. She emerged from her hiding place and stared at the dead man on the ground.

  “Did I kill him?” she asked in shock. She thought she had valued human life too much to ever take one unless she was in danger. Did this make her an animal on equal playing ground as a Rawlings?

  “No, I think you got him in the lung,” Jack said as he again stripped the body of its belongings. She looked at the gun in her hand. “There’s another guy out looking for you, come on.” As they began to go forward through the woods another gunshot rang out. He took her hand, and they began running. They leaped over fallen branches, got scratched by low limbs and scrambled through some thick brush. Flashes of green and white passed by her eyes, and all she could focus on was Jack’s back.

  They came to a slope and slid down it feet first. He looked up at the top of the slope. There was no one there…yet. They scrambled to their feet and headed for the thick brush, to their right. Once into the cover of the denser woods, he stopped. He pulled her behind a large evergreen and put his finger to his lips in a motion that let her know she should be quiet. They crouched, and he pushed her into the branches. He maneuvered onto his stomach and did what looked like an army crawl using only his arms to pull him under the lowest lying branches. She tried to control her breathing so she would not be heard. After what seemed like an eternity, a single shot was fired and the branches clawed at her as they moved. Jack was moving out of his position. His hand reached into the needles and pulled her out. She didn’t say a word as she watched him pick the body clean of its wallet and gun. Before either of them had caught their breath, they were off again. It would be much harder to track them through this area because the snow was unable to pile up on the ground as it had in the wide open or less dense areas. When the sun began to set, they stopped to take a break.

  “We have to find someplace to stay tonight,” Megan huffed. Her legs hurt, her head pounded, her hand throbbed. Had she been in less intense circumstances, she would have collapsed long ago.

  “We’ll be all right,” he said seemingly as much to reassure himself as he said it for her.

  “We’ll freeze. We can’t build a fire. We need someplace to stay,” she said.

  “You’re right. If we can’t sleep, we’ll have to keep moving,” he stood up. She could see the fatigue on his face. Neither of them would make it until morning without some rest. Still, they had nowhere to go. He pulled out a map from his jacket, which he had taken off the last man who made the mistake of tracking them. She looked up at him and watched his movements carefully. Trusting someone wasn’t an easy thing for her to do. Following her gut and listening to her head over her heart was easy. Unfortunately, nothing was sending her a clear signal, well except for an occasional hormone. Jack even looked handsome with pine needles in his hair, unshaven, dirt on his cheek and crusty scabs on his forehead. He was tough and serious. But when he looked at her, he seemed all soft and warm. She tried to clear her head. Puppies were soft and warm. Men claiming to be FBI agents and part of a family, whose purpose in life is to hunt you, are not. She watched him study the map.

  “That would help a lot more if it came with a ‘You are Here’ indicator on it,” she wise-cracked knowing he was just as lost as she was.

  “I can figure this out,” he looked around the sky. “We’re heading down the mountain. That has to mean something.” He looked back at the map and up again at the sky.

  “Good God, let me at least help you,” she said standing. She felt the blood rush to her head and felt faint. Her face went from flushed warmth to ghostly white. He stepped to her and took her arm.

  “Sit down,” he said. Crap, she thought. There was that puppy dog warmth she was trying to convince herself didn’t exist. He touched her uninjured hand and took her pulse. He moved his fingers around her wrist. “I’m having a problem getting a good spot. Let me check your neck.” Megan sat there motionless staring at him. He brushed her hair away from the neck of her coat and reached two fingers into her turtleneck. His hands were cold on her neck. She swallowed hard. She closed her eyes in an effort to block out his face and his touch. All that managed to do was send her thoughts flying into directions that made her eyelids pop open.

  “I’m fine,” she insisted and pulled his hand away from her bare neck. She stood - more slowly this time - and felt steady on her feet. She took the map out of his other hand. “Okay, we started out here,” she said and located the lodge on the map. “About here is where you drove us off the cliff,” she said and looked up to catch his crinkled brow and deep gaze as he focused on her. She smirked at him and looked back at the map. She was really trying not to show any interest in him. “If we traveled an average of two and a half miles an hour over the last two days during the daylight hours, we should be somewhere in here,” she said making a circle on the map with her finger.

  He grinned and said, “Well, you’ve just nar
rowed it down to a 20 mile radius.” He took the map from her and began his squinted look around the woods. He looked at the map again.

  “And you can do better, Columbus?” she asked snidely.

  “Columbus found America by mistake. Let’s go this way,” he said and pointed toward their left.

  “On what are you basing this decision?” she asked as he started walking. She followed him, because she didn’t have a better idea.

  “Call it male intuition,” he said moving ahead.

  “Comforting,” she said. He ignored the comment.

  It was getting darker. They walked for almost two hours as dusk turned into night. He glanced at the map and eventually had to pull out the flashlight from his bag. Just as Megan was beginning to think they would have to walk through the night, they came to the edge of the woods. Her first urge was to run out, find a cheeseburger and a bed, and sleep for three days straight. He put out his arm to stop her.

  “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll be back.” At this point, she was so tired she didn’t care if he left her there all night. She slumped against a tree and closed her eyes. “Hey,” he said as he gently shook her by the shoulders. “Don’t fall asleep. It’s too cold. You have to stay awake until I get back.” She nodded. He took a good look at her and carefully moved out of the woods.

  * * * * *

  The sound of breaking tree limbs and crunching snow shook Megan out of a light sleep. She wasn’t sure how she ended up on the ground, when it happened or how long she had been there.

  “Are you okay?” Jack asked as he knelt beside her.

  “Yeah,” she replied trying to stand. “Just resting my eyes. What did you find?”

  “There’s a motel down the street about a mile. I found a couple of kids leaving a room and convinced them to give me the key.” She hesitated.

  “How did you do that?” she asked not sure she really wanted to know.

  “Two hundred bucks,” he said as he started for the tree line. She sighed in relief. It was one thing when you shot someone who wanted to shoot you. It was a different story when you shot someone for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. “I’m not going to kill a couple kids for a not-so-slightly used motel room, Megan,” he said sounding disappointed in her.

  “I’m just not sure where you draw that line,” she said before she could think about her comment. He ignored it.

  “We’ll stay along the tree line until we get closer,” he said. The temperature had dropped, she thought. Although never being one for much spiritual speculation, she wondered about the coincidence of finding warm places two nights in a row. The cynic’s voice returned and reminded her of the living hell the last two years of her life had been. Still, what if everything happened for a reason, she thought? What if that which does not kill us really does make us stronger? Chasing the thoughts from her mind, she decided to revisit this debate if she survived this latest predicament.

  “Jack?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are we almost there?”

  “Just a little farther.”

  “Jack?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I think I’m going to fall down,” she had stopped and was swaying like a palm tree against a hurricane. He turned and grabbed her as her legs started to buckle under her. She tried not to lose consciousness. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

  “It’s okay,” he said. He tried to lift her.

  “No. You can’t carry me,” she said. “You’re about to fall over, too.”

  “I’m okay,” he said.

  “Just let me lean a little until we get there. Okay?” He put her arm around his neck and his arm around her waist to help support her.

  “We’re almost there,” he said. “You’ve lost too much blood.”

  “This is better,” she said and mustered strength to walk farther.

  “You fell asleep while I was gone, didn’t you?” he asked in a fatherly tone.

  “Can we debate my sleep patterns later? It’s taking all I have to move right now,” she said.

  Just as she was convinced she may collapse, the hotel came into sight. The light at the end of the tunnel, or tree line, gave her a mental and maybe even physical boost.

  “Can you make it,” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Jack helped Megan out of the woods, across a small patch of snow onto the parking lot, past a dumpster so frozen it forgot to smell and up a flight of stairs to the second level of the two story motel.

  “We’re here,” he said. He unlocked and opened the door and flipped on the light without letting go of Megan’s waist. The double bed was unmade and empty condom wrappers and beer cans littered the floor.

  “Looks like we missed the party,” she said. The warmth from the room hit her with such force she felt sick to her stomach for a moment.

  “Yeah. I have a feeling this place rents by the hour,” he replied helping her remove her backpack and sit in one of the two chairs separated by a round table in front of the window. He went to the bed and separated the flat sheet from the blanket. He removed the fitted sheet and replaced it with the flat sheet, tucking it between the mattress and box spring. “It’s probably not the most sanitary environment, but it’s going to have to do.”

  “I’m too exhausted to care,” she said trying to stand.

  “Let me help you,” he said. He helped her take off her coat. “Uh, I’ll wait in the bathroom while you get out of the wet clothes and under the covers.” She nodded.

  “Jack?” she said in a soft voice cloaked in pain and exhaustion. He came out of the bathroom. “I can’t do it,” she said. “My fingers are so cold and my left hand really hurts.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll help you,” he said.

  “I don’t want you to help me,” she began to cry. “I want to go home. I’m scared.” He walked to her and put his arms around her. After a moment, she pushed him away. “Just help me, please so I can get in bed and get warm.” He felt so good, but she still wasn’t sure about him. Was it him or was it just the last name that made her afraid to trust him completely? He helped her out of her shoes, pulled off her sweatshirt and jeans. She got into the bed as he folded the blanket in two so it was doubled over her.

  * * * * *

  Megan felt something nudge her gently on the shoulder. She sighed and slowly opened her eyes. “I’m so tired,” she whispered. Jack was sitting along side her on the bed.

  “I know. I didn’t want to wake you, but I really need to look at you. You took a hard fall from the snowmobile this morning. I got some stuff to fix you up, see?” he asked and looked toward the nightstand where there were bandages, peroxide, pain relievers and a glass of water. “The first thing we need to do is clean you up.” He stood up, and she struggled to the edge of the bed. “I’ll help you, here,” he said and offered her his hand. She took it, and he pulled her up. He put his arm around her waist and helped her into the bathroom. She leaned against the door frame. He turned on the water in the tub and asked her, “Shower or bath?”

  “Shower,” she said and started trying to tug at the long-john shirt she wore. He took the little bottle of shampoo and the tiny bar of soap from the counter top. He then took a wash cloth and placed them all within easy reach in the shower. She could feel him watching her to see if she needed more help. As much as she did, she wasn’t going to let him take off all of her clothes. “Can you just unhook my bra? I think it would take both my hands.” His now warm, chapped hands reached under her shirt, and she could swear she felt his breath on her neck. She closed her eyes and felt the release when the hooks were undone. “I’ve got it from here,” she said without turning. He stood still for a few seconds.

  “Are you sure? It sounds lame, but I was going to be a doctor. You don’t have anything I haven’t seen.”

  “Well, you weren’t going to be my doctor. I can finish undressing myself.”

  “Okay, I’ll be outside if you need me,” he said and headed toward the door.

>   “You can leave the door open a little, just in case.” She knew she was weak and wasn’t sure how long she could hold herself up.

  He left, and she removed the rest of her clothing, unwrapped her bandaged hand and pulled the stopper to turn on the shower head. She tried to carefully wash her left hand and saw the blood in the water below her. She washed her hair and the rest of her body as best she could one handed and turned off the shower. Losing that much blood was probably making her more tired and weaker than she should be, she thought.

  “Are you all right?” Jack called from the bedroom.

  “Yeah,” she said and stepped from the tub. She rinsed her delicates in the sink and hung them on the towel rack. It didn’t even occur to her that Jack may use the bathroom and see them. She gingerly picked up her clothes and yelled to Jack, “Do you have anything I can put on?” He went to his bag and pulled out a flannel shirt. He walked to the bathroom door, and she met him holding a towel in front of her. “Thanks,” she said and took the clothes.

  “There’s a coin laundry down the hall. If you give me your clothes, I’ll take them down and run them through the washer and dryer.”

  “I’ll bring them out,” she said and didn’t move from the door.

  “Sure,” he said and retreated back to the side of the bed. She combed her hair with the fingers on her right hand. Using the hair dryer on the wall, she dried her hair until it was only slightly damp. She took her clothes from the counter and left the bathroom.

  “Just put the clothes on the dresser, and I’ll take them down,” he said. “How do you feel?” he asked.

  “Better. My hand is pretty bad, though. It’s been bleeding off and on all day, and it started again in the shower.” She sat down on the bed where she had been sleeping. He pulled one of the yellow velour covered chairs over to the edge of the bed and sat down.