“Personally,” he eagerly confessed, firing a Tom Selleck eyebrow wave at her.
Jewels’ heart spasmed. Sharon’s warning, Don’t trust the old times penetrated her mind like a bullet. Sharon wasn’t saying old times, she was saying Theo Hines. Sharon was warning her not to trust Theo Hines!
“Theo, please stop the car,” she said as calmly as possible, pivoting her body to lean back in the seat as her fingers secretly fumbled to release the shoulder harness. Given the SUV was randomly jarring her body back and forth and up and down while she was attempting to unlatch the seat belt without Theo knowing, the typically simple task had transformed into a challenging feat.
Shooting her an obscene sidelong glance, he mashed the gas pedal to the floorboard. The Escalade lurched into overdrive.
Grabbing the dash with both hands to steady herself, she turned her head toward him, “Theodore Hines, I want you to stop this car right now,” she demanded, her voice firm, authoritative, like a mother’s reprimand.
Tilting his head back, he cackled, “What, no please?”
Voice and face were stern, “Do it Theo. Now.”
Sighing dreamily, “That’s how Momma used to say it when she wanted me between her legs.”
Jewels drew back, repulsed. He had sex with his mother?
Eyeing her, “I knew you wouldn’t be like the others.”
Others? What others? Curiosity nudged her to ask about the others, but survival instincts trumped her inquiring mind, refocusing her efforts on freeing herself of the passive harness.
The Escalade devoured the rugged road like a two-ton bulimic monster on a feeding frenzy at an all-you-can-eat buffet.
CLICK! The seat belt buckle finally opened.
Peering out the window into the muted light, she strained to survey the countryside as far ahead as she could.
No cliffs. Ground slightly banked and covered in overgrown bushes and weeds with thick tree trunks and granite boulders randomly scattered throughout. Nature’s version of a wipeout obstacle course.
Slowly hiking up the skirt of the gown to knee level, she gripped the door latch with her right hand, closed her eyes and inhaled a deep breath. “Please God, let me survive this,” she whispered. Opening her eyes, she yanked on the door handle.
CLUNK! Nothing happened. The door was locked.
“No you don’t,” Hines yelled, latching his hand around her left forearm and yanking her toward him.
Hitting the console with her shoulder, she quickly rebounded into an upright seated position, tightening her arm muscles and clenching her fist. “Let go,” she ordered, ripping her arm free of his grasp.
The Escalade swerved. Theo quickly regained control of the Cadillac ... and Jewels’ left arm.
With her free hand she frantically dug at the smooth little knob near the window. Popped it up. Pulled on the door handle.
The door cracked open. DING-DING-DING! The Escalade’s safety system warned of the open door.
“Nooooooooooo,” he blared like an angry siren, violently wrenching her arm toward him, causing her body to crash partially on the console and partially on him.
Taking advantage of the close quarters position, Jewels repeatedly pummeled her right fist at Theo, wildly punching his face, shoulders, arms ... anywhere and everywhere her fist could make contact with flesh.
DING-DING-DING! The vehicle continued to wail.
Forced to use his forearms as defensive shields, he relinquished his grip on Jewels’ left forearm as well as the steering wheel, losing control of the speeding Escalade. It zigzagged back and forth across the dirt road like a flag whipping in the gales of a hurricane.
The passenger door flew open wide, then slammed shut. The automatic door lock reengaged, hushing the annoying DING-DING-DING.
Hines hammered the brakes. The Escalade skidded. Rocketed off the road. The passenger side of the vehicle’s front end collided with a Smart-car-sized granite boulder.
The impact hurled Jewels forward. The explosion of the air bags prevented her from soaring through the windshield, though it knocked her unconscious.
The safety harness whiplashed Hines back in the seat, snapping his head hard enough to induce a blackout.
The Escalade’s engine shuddered. Stalled into silence.
Chapter Forty-One
HAVING SHED THE BODY ARMOR, Watters’ bare chest looked like an abstract painting, swirling blotches in all shapes and sizes with hues of mixed and matched colors, mostly black, red, blue, and purple, on a bronzed canvas of rippled muscle.
As bad as his chest looked, it felt worse.
Examining his bleeding arm, “Not a big deal, just grazed me,” he diagnosed, tearing a strip off the bottom of his T-shirt and wrapping it around the oozing area of his arm.
Once bandaged, Marshall opened Cooman’s desk drawer, pulled out the short wave radio, twisted the dials to the desired frequency. “Roaming Buffalo to Herd, come in,” he called into the hand-held microphone.
“Herd welcomes Roaming Buffalo,” a male voice almost instantly responded.
“Arrow’s hit Bull’s-Eye on Open Range. Repeat, Arrow’s hit Bull’s-Eye on Open Range,” Marshall reported, urgency in his voice, his conversation in code. Marshall Watters was known as Roaming Buffalo, Julia Andrasy as Bull’s-Eye, Agent Hines as Arrow, and the SPOF compound as the Open Range.
“We copy that. What’s the status of Arrow?”
“Strayed, I think. Need rustlers...,” he paused, rubbed his chest, eyed his wounded arm, “need veterinarian, too.”
“We copy that. Rustlers and vet en route. What’s the status of Bull’s-Eye?”
“On Arrow’s tip. Not torn last I knew.”
“We copy that. What’s the status of Open Range?”
“Four or five strayed hours earlier. Those remaining, neutralized.”
“We copy that. Herder wants Roaming Buffalo to remain on Open Range until—”
“Negative! Gonna track Arrow.”
“We copy that. Good luck, Roaming Buffalo. Over and out.”
The voice on the radio went mute. Marshall hung the mic on its hook and shoved the radio back in the drawer. Help was on the way, but right now he was Jewels’ only chance. Had to rescue her from Hines and knew right where to go: the cabin just a few miles up the road.
Chapter Forty-Two
GRADUALLY AWAKENING, Jewels found herself in a crumpled mess on the front seat. Body draped over the console. Head and shoulders in Hines’ lap. Slowly pushing herself off Agent Hines and the hard vehicle console, dizziness immediately overcame her, sending her body flopping backward into the passenger seat. Groaning softly, she rotated her head side to side while massaging her neck. Still feeling woozy, she opened and closed her eyes slowly a few times, focusing on the eerie green glow of the clock shimmering 8:08.
Rubbing her pulsating head with her fingertips, she searched her mind’s memory reels for recollection of what had happened. Blank tape. Fuzzy. A hail of gun fire. Hines draping his FBI jacket over her shoulders....
Glimpsing at her shoulders: still wearing his jacket. Pressed play on her memory. Fuzzy. Blank tape, then no tape at all. Where was she? How did she get in the car? What caused the wreck?
Hines groaned. Jewels inched to his side. “Agent Hines? Wake up, Theodore,” she said, gently tapping his cheek with her fingertips.
Like tightly wound window shades fly up, Hines’ eyelids shot open, a crazed look on his face. Immediately he grabbed Jewels’ forearms, squeezed hard.
Wincing from his severe hold, “Theodore. It’s okay. It’s me, Julia Andrasy. We were in a car wreck or something. I-I can’t remember.”
Gazing at her wild-eyed, Jewels could tell it would take a moment for her words to penetrate his dazed mind. Smiling sweetly at him, she glanced down at the killer hold he had on her arms, “I’m no danger to you, I promise. You can let me go.”
Nodding, he released his hold, sat up, arched his back and stretched his arms out in front of his body, li
ke he had just awakened from a good night’s rest.
Patting his thigh reassuringly, she scrutinized his face. “I don’t see any blood. Do you feel okay?”
“What happened?” he asked, blinking his eyes, a naive look on his face.
Shaking her head, “I-I don’t know. My mind is a total blank,” she confessed, tossing her hands in the air. “Last thing I remember is you putting this jacket around my shoulders inside that dreadful compound. I don’t even remember getting in this...,” her voice trailed off as she surveyed the interior in search of a clue regarding the make and model of the vehicle. Her eyes focused on the word CADILLAC embossed on the steering wheel. “Escalade? I don’t know, Agent Hines. Do you remember what happened?”
“Damnedest thing,” he said in a-matter-of-fact tone. “There was a big bear in the road, I jammed on the brakes, then—”
“Maybe it was that man-eating bear,” Jewels blurted out. After saying that, she felt silly. How could she possibly suggest such a thing? Sure, the bear had claimed his victims in the Uinta Mountains, but the Uintas ranged from northeastern Utah into southern Wyoming. The blood-thirsty grizzly could be anywhere within the extending mountain range ... and, for that fact, so could she.
Hines’ face lit up. “You’re probably right,” he shrieked enthusiastically, as if she had just solved a century-old mystery.
Jewels frowned. “You were hit on the head, Agent Hines. I don’t even know where we are, except if Sharon’s map was correct, SPOF was located somewhere in the Uinta Mountains. So I assume we’re still in the Uintas as well. I bet the bear doesn’t even live around here.”
Eyes wide, “No, Jewels. This is exactly where he’s been feeding.”
Jewels smiled wryly. Feeding, in her opinion, wasn’t the best choice of words.
“Are you okay?”
Giving herself the once-over she straightened her gown and closed the FBI jacket around over chest. “Yeah, I think so, except for my head,” she said, tapping her temple with her right pointer finger. “I’ve got a pounding headache and I can’t remember the accident.”
“You’ve probably sustained a mild concussion. Headache and temporary short-term memory loss are common,” he said, smiling while rubbing his hand up and down the length of her thigh, inching ever closer to her crotch.
Nervously shifting her body to distance herself from Agent Hines’ roaming hand, “I hope your diagnosis is correct,” she said, forcing a smile.
“Buckle up,” he said removing his hand from her thigh to turn the engine key. The Escalade growled to life.
“Shouldn’t we check the car for damage?” Jewels quizzed.
Ignoring her, “Let’s get you to the cabin.”
“Cabin?” Jewels echoed with surprise.
“Yeah. I’ll to drop you off at my cabin where it’s safe, then I’ll to go back to the compound and help my guys wrap up things. I’ll send a helicopter to pick you up later.”
Massaging her banging head, she pressed her memory for an inkling of why he was taking her to his cabin in the middle of nowhere instead of a hospital or police station, or her home. “Okay, but I’m confused,” she confessed, uneasiness in her voice. “You have to go back to the SPOF compound ... now? Please take me home first.”
“All in good time,” he said with a charming grin. Adjusting the deflated air bag, he wheeled the SUV onto the mountain road and sped off into the darkness with only one working headlight.
Chapter Forty-Three
HOWARD DYSON PACED nervously in Jewels’ office, cell phone in hand, glancing down at it every few moments as if looking at it would make it ring more quickly.
Belinda had returned to the office from the meeting in the parking lot of Kate’s Diner as well. Busied herself dusting and fussing over items on her desk as she, too, waited. Strolling into Jewels’ office and acting exhausted, she plopped onto the couch and propped her feet up. “You’re gonna wear a hole in the carpet,” she said, forcing a smile, her face haggard with worry.
He didn’t respond. Continued to pace. Stared at the phone.
Belinda glanced at her watch. “It’s been nearly eight hours since you made the call. Are you sure these guys can help?” she quizzed, skepticism and impatience in her tone.
Eyeing her, “Of course they can and will help,” he said, annoyance in his voice.
Finally Howard’s cell phone buzzed.
Belinda sat up. Alert.
Howard glanced at the number, immediately turned his back to her, jogged into Jewels’ private bath and closed the door before answering. “So, Bradshaw, did you get me in?”
Laughing, “You never did mince words. And, the answer is affirmative.”
“What’s the plan?”
“Rescue’s underway. Where are you now?”
“New Greensburgh Press.”
“Is there ample space to land a helo?”
“Affirmative.”
“Good. We’re on our way. Should be there around twenty-one hundred hours, give or take five.”
“I’ll be ready and assume you’ll brief me in flight.”
“One more thing,” Bradshaw said.
“Yeah?”
“You’re not in charge of this op. Your presence is strictly as an advisor with no authority. Pretty much just a courtesy. Understood?”
Rolling his eyes and sighing, “Yes, Sir,” Dyson replied, disconnecting the call then exiting the bathroom.
Belinda jumped to her feet. “So is that info Lilly gave you going to help find Jewels?” she asked, hope in her voice.
Smiling, “Yes. Thank you,” he said, hurriedly marching toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Can you make sure the south parking lot is clear? A helicopter is going to pick me up in about twenty minutes and I need to change my clothes.”
Chapter Forty-Four
FBI SPECIAL AGENT In Charge Theodore Hines maneuvered the smashed front-end of the Escalade between the massive log pillars of the lean-to carport. The rasp of gravel crunching beneath the weight of the SUV’s knobby tires drowned out the otherwise never-ending chant of nature’s twilight creatures.
The Escalade’s single working headlight illuminated the front of the tiny cabin. Petrified sap wept permanent tears on the exterior of the log walls. The points of dozens of huge spikes protruded outward from boards nailed across the window and on the door itself.
Hines silenced the engine, leaving the headlight on. His scarlet necktie dangled to and fro around his collar as he swaggered around the front of the Escalade to open the passenger door for Jewels. Offered his hand.
Accepting his grasp with her right hand, she gathered the skirt of the gown in her left as she stepped out. As they approached the cabin she caught his sinewed arm for balance, taking calculated steps to ensure her unprotected feet were not bitten too hard by the gravel.
Eyeing her careful gait, “Wait. Let me carry you.”
Laughing and proceeding with calculated steps, “Oh, goodness no, but thank you.” Rapidly changing the subject and pointing at the spikes on the cabin window, “Interesting.”
“Klondike boards.”
“Isn’t that an ice cream?”
Hines erupted with belly laughter, his spaniel brown eyes crinkling mirthfully. “Those are Klondike bars.”
Embarrassment ignited her face; a Barbie doll with fire engine red features.
“Folks in Alaska use Klondike boards to keep away hungry polar bears.”
“Now I get it. You put up Klondike boards to keep out that man-eating grizzly, right?”
“Excellent, Sweet Cheeks.”
Sweet Cheeks? General Cooman had called her that, too. Did men naturally conclude women responded to Sweet Cheeks like stray cats to kitty, kitty?
Hines unlocked the door, pushed it open. “Be right back,” he said, disappearing into the dark cabin.
Turning her back to the cabin, she gazed into the murky forest. The evening air caressed her body like the fingers
of a frigid old man. Reactively, she rubbed her arms for warmth and bunched her shoeless feet into fists. Closing her eyes, she tuned in to nature’s nocturnal symphony, indulging in the smell of the fermenting aspen leaves and pine needles to rejuvenate her inner soul like a high priced aroma therapy session.
A hand grasped her shoulder from behind.
Gasping, she flinched, reflexively clutching her chest with both hands.
“Didn’t mean to scare you,” Hines whispered.
His breath was hot on her neck, sending a jolt of uneasiness through her body like a mild shock of electricity.
Bowing, he gestured like a butler. “Please come in.”
Negatively shaking her head, “Thank you, but can’t you please just take me—”
“All in good time,” he interrupted, again gesturing with his hand for her to enter.
Having no other choice, reluctantly, Jewels stepped in, immediately grimacing at the odor: a dusty antique store smell. The floor’s wooden planks felt cold, rough, and gritty through the thin spandex material covering her otherwise bare feet.
A single lantern illuminated the one-room cabin like a one-hundred-fifty watt light bulb in a shadeless lamp.
To Jewels’ left a long wall, twenty feet or more, constructed of exposed logs. To her right, a red sandstone fireplace towered cold in the center of the wall, flanked by a slender pair of unpainted plywood doors. On the same wall as the fireplace but near the rear of the cabin, a queen-sized bed. The headboard and footboard were thick lodge pine poles laced into an abstract pattern. A lovely multicolored patchwork quilt blanketed the mattress. An old, well-used wooden nightstand was nestled between the bed and the back wall which was naked except for a variety of heavy-duty eye hooks randomly anchored about.
Across from the bed, a tiny kitchen nook. Several rows of cheap particle board cabinets, like the kind used in garages, adorned the walls. The counter top was plywood. No sink. No stove. No table. No chairs.
Mistaken Trust (The Jewels Trust Series) Page 33