by B. J Daniels
She felt anxious and assured herself that if Cassie didn’t give her the answers she needed, there were people in Seattle who might know something. Like Lucas’s second ex-wife, Mercedes. Or Lucas’s partner in Whiz Kidz.
All she had to do was get there. As she cruised down Highway 2, she wished there were another highway. Unfortunately, this was the only one that ran across the top of the state, stretching a little more than fifty miles south of the Canadian border and almost straight as a stick. The problem was that Highway 2 would also be the kidnappers’ choice.
Except, she would be dropping down soon, heading for Butte. Would the kidnappers anticipate that she might make a stop by her office?
She felt boxed in, and knew some of that feeling was due to being confined in the Bronco with Will Sheridan. He seemed to fill whatever space he inhabited with that incredible force field of his. She drove at the new state speed limit, seventy-five, and tried to ignore him as he’d suggested—all the while keeping on the lookout for the green Olds. She didn’t think the kidnappers would go to the trouble of changing rental cars, but then again, she’d never thought they’d keep trying to take Zack, either.
“Wanna play a game?” Will asked Zack.
“What kinda game?”
“When I was a boy, we traveled a lot,” Will said. “It was before CDs and computer games. So we played road games.”
She glanced in the rearview mirror to see Zack mug a face. He probably couldn’t imagine a time before computer games.
“Sounds lame,” the boy said, but sat up a little straighter, as Will began to spell out the rules.
“This game’s for babies,” Zack complained when Will had finished. But he looked out the window as if already looking for the items he must find to win. “I see the first barn!” he cried excitedly.
She listened to the two play. Will was great with Zack—even had him laughing. She wondered about Will’s own childhood. We traveled a lot. After seeing how his sister lived, she could just imagine his childhood, so different from her own. While her parents and siblings vacationed on camping trips to Yellowstone and Glacier parks, Will was probably touring Europe.
Everything about them was so different, she reminded herself.
Maybe that’s why they say opposites attract.
Attraction isn’t the problem.
So what is the problem?
We’re like oil and water, and everyone knows they don’t mix.
But oil and vinegar do, and quite nicely.
If you want to make a salad.
“Sam? Sam!” Zack called from the back seat. “You have to play, too.”
She smiled back at him. “You’re too good for me.”
The boy began to explain the rules to her. She joined in, soon remembering she used to play games like this with her family. It made her feel almost nostalgic about her large extended family and the summers spent camping with aunts, uncles and cousins galore.
After a while, the sun filled the Bronco with warmth, the game ended and Zack fell asleep. She liked Will’s easy way with Zack. He must be a natural, she thought, knowing from her research that he had no nieces or nephews or any children of his own.
He seemed relaxed, as if this were nothing more than a road trip. Maybe for him it was. She wondered why he’d come along. Was it only because he felt she and Zack needed protecting? Or was it possible—
“Want to tell me about it?” he asked, startling her from her thoughts.
“About what?” She felt her cheeks flush.
“You and Lucas.”
Startled, she sucked in air and avoided his gaze. Was she that transparent? Or was Will that perceptive?
“Here’s the way I figure it,” he continued as she struggled for words. “You believe Lucas staged the so-called kidnapping just to get himself and Zack out of Seattle and away from whomever is supposedly after him. Lucas then planned to pick up Zack at Grandma’s rest home. He got Cassie into the plan to get you to Wolf Point. How am I doing so far? Am I close?”
Dead-on. She could feel his gaze on her. “He might have been desperate enough if the police were looking for him and he couldn’t chance picking up Zack himself.” She sounded defensive, even to her own ears.
“Wouldn’t the kidnappers have told Zack that they were taking him to his father?”
She’d thought of that. “Maybe they did. Maybe that’s why Zack is acting so protective.”
Will was silent for a moment. “If that were true, then wouldn’t Zack be upset with you for keeping him from his father?”
Good point. Zack had almost acted as if he’d expected her.
“Also, if you believed that Zack really hadn’t been kidnapped, then why intervene? Why not just let Lucas pick up Zack at Grandma’s? After all, Lucas is wanted for questioning by the police. Why get involved?”
Got you there, doesn’t he?
“But Lucas didn’t show,” she countered. “Even after two days.”
He said nothing, as if waiting for her to dig herself in deeper.
“On top of that, Cassie hired me to make sure Zack was safe. And anyway, this is what I do for a living.” She felt defensive as hell and not sure why. She didn’t have to explain herself to this man. Who’d asked him along? If he thought he knew so much—
“Are you still in love with Lucas?”
The question came out of nowhere and hit her like a baseball bat. She gulped air as she swung her head around to look at him again.
His denim-blue eyes were somber behind his glasses. He waited as if he really expected her to answer.
She opened her mouth, a denial already on her lips. How did she feel about Lucas? Not the way she used to, that was for sure. “It’s a long story.”
He nodded and leaned back as if to say he had plenty of free time right now.
She chewed at the inside of her cheek, surprised that part of her actually wanted to tell him about it. Needed to tell him. Or at least someone. The only other person who knew the whole story was her cousin Charley, and that was because they’d been going to college at the same time. Everyone else just knew that she and Lucas had broken up. That she’d had a car wreck. But that she wasn’t hurt badly. Not even Lucas knew everything.
How much did she want to tell Will, a man she’d never laid eyes on until a few days ago?
She glanced over at him. Her heart did a little flutter-step at the compassion she saw in his expression. Her eyes stung. It was as if he already knew. Well, at least some of it.
“You don’t have to tell me if it’s too painful,” he said quickly, looking apologetic.
She shook her head. “I want to tell you.” She desperately wanted to tell someone, and as Will had pointed out, they had the time. Also, she knew she wouldn’t be seeing Will Sheridan again after they got to Seattle.
She blinked away the tears and bit the bullet. “Lucas and I met in college.” Concentrating on the road ahead, she waded in slowly. “We dated.”
“I see.”
She feared he did see. That he saw a lot more than she wanted him to.
“Cassie was my roommate. I introduced her to Lucas. She was dating a different guy every night in those days.” Not that it mattered. She took a breath. This was harder than she’d thought it would be. “Lucas and I had a disagreement one night over when we should get married.”
“It had gone that far?” Will said.
She nodded. “Lucas wanted to wait until he had a job and could give me the kind of life he thought his wife should have. He was ambitious and worried that a wife would hold him back. I just wanted us to be together.” Had she really been that naive that she thought love could conquer all?
“We argued. Lucas left. Cassie went after him to talk some sense into him, she said.” She took a breath. “Lucas was upset and had been drinking when she found him. Cassie had a few drinks with him and they talked and—” She sneaked a look at Will.
He had an I-think-I-know-where-this-is-headed look on his face.
&
nbsp; She nodded and sighed. “They ended up sleeping together, although Lucas swore he couldn’t remember any of it. Cassie got pregnant. Lucas was over-come with guilt. He did the honorable thing. He married her. End of story.”
She waited for him to be sympathetic, to say the things people always say. Sorry. How awful for you. It probably wouldn’t have worked out, anyway.
“You really loved him.”
“Yes,” she said, surprised how quickly she could admit it to Will. But she suspected he’d somehow already guessed the truth.
“Your first love?”
Her only love so far. She nodded.
“But they divorced.”
“Yes, right after Zack was born. After the dust settled, Cassie didn’t want Zack any more than she did Lucas.” She cringed at the bitterness in her voice.
“But you still did. Still do.”
Her gaze flicked over to his. She swallowed. Did she still want Lucas? And Zack? “I—I—” Isn’t that why she’d hardly dated over the past five years? Hadn’t she just been waiting for Lucas to come back to her and bring Zack, the son she should have had with him?
“I understand now why you took the case.”
She thought of Lucas’s call on the night of the party. It hadn’t been a message to meet him in Wolf Point. He’d only said he was in trouble, needed her help, needed her to look after—Something for him. Zack? No message of undying love. No remorse. No call begging her to forgive him.
You could have grown old waiting for that call.
He loved me. I know he did.
Was taking the case really about Lucas? Or about what happened the night she learned of Cassie’s pregnancy and Lucas’s upcoming marriage to the wrong woman—the car wreck and the debt she felt she now owed?
She pushed away the painful memories. It was definitely too complicated to explain to Will. She didn’t even understand it herself.
“I did it because of Zack,” she said simply, hearing a ring of truth in that, and was grateful when Will dropped the subject.
He settled back in his seat and turned his gaze on the passing scenery. Zack, still asleep, had his cheek pressed to his backpack. She drove, lost in the past, slowing only for the small towns they passed through as the sun traveled with them west and storm clouds gathered on the horizon.
Just outside Great Falls, the first flakes of snow sifted down from a pewter-gray sky.
“I’m hungry!” came a cry from the back seat.
Big surprise. “We’ll stop at the town just ahead,” she told him. But no more cafés. Luckily, Zack would be happy with burgers and fries and another shake. And Will—Well, he’d asked for this.
With the Bronco smelling of burgers and fries, she left Great Falls with Will digging into the bag o’ burgers. She hadn’t seen a dark green Olds. Hadn’t seen much traffic at all—not unusual for this time of year. Most of the tourists had all packed up and left, and it was a little early for hunters.
They filled themselves with food, washing it down with a gallon of cola. Then Will got Zack involved in another game, and Sam put some miles behind them.
The flat open land gave way to rocky bluffs, mountains and ponderosa forests, as the day bled into afternoon and the shadows grew long and dark, the light snow continuing to fall.
She couldn’t wait to see Cassie, and yet she also couldn’t shake a sense of foreboding. Or the feeling that Cassie knew something important about Lucas’s disappearance and that it wasn’t good.
But it was more than that. Cassie was that link with the past and Lucas. And that link brought back a lot of suffering.
It began to snow hard at Wolf Creek, icy flakes blowing sideways across the highway. Visibility dropped to a few yards in front of the car, and she had to slow to a crawl.
It continued to snow all the way into the “Mining City.” It was after eight when she finally pulled into the parking lot at the Butte mall and saw the clock over the main entrance. The mall would be closing in less than twenty-five minutes. She just hoped Cassie had waited.
She glanced over at Will. “What is it?” she asked, when she saw the worried expression on his face.
“Look, you’re obviously better at this than I am and you know the people involved. It’s just that—” He shook his head, frowning.
“No, what were you going to say?”
He rubbed his stubbled jaw with the flat of his palm for a moment. “It just seems to me that this disappearance and kidnapping might be a ploy.”
“A ploy?” She felt her heart rate pick up as she looked past him, through the falling snow to the nearly deserted mall.
“I probably read too many murder mysteries, but it feels like you’ve been lured here. I’m just worried that you might be walking into a trap.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Will couldn’t put his finger on what had him so anxious. Maybe the fact that Samantha would be a fool to trust someone like Cassie. Look what had happened the last time she’d trusted the woman. Or Lucas.
But he knew it was more than that. There was something Samantha wasn’t telling him. He could sense it—something deep and dark and painful. And he would just bet money it had to do with Lucas.
He watched her stare out through the snowfall at the mall. The dated building was a long nondescript rectangular one. The lights illuminated the falling snowflakes and the few snow-covered cars still in the lot, ghostlike under the cloak of darkness and snow.
“I appreciate your concern,” Samantha said as she shut off the Bronco. “It’s one of the reasons I agreed to meet here at the mall. It’s public. And I have a plan.”
She actually had a plan! That perked him up a little.
It was obvious she still had feelings for Lucas. It shouldn’t have bothered Will. Shouldn’t have given him a pang of jealousy. Or made him dislike the guy all the more. Shouldn’t have—but did.
“I have to meet someone in the food court.”
She glanced at him and seemed to wait for him to say something. Was she wondering how much he’d overheard on the phone this morning? Obviously she didn’t want to talk about Cassie in front of the boy.
“I thought we could all go in, and you and Zack could window-shop. That way I’ll be able to see you from the food court,” she said.
He liked the idea of being able to keep an eye on her, as well. “You got it.” He turned to Zack for his okay. The boy was sitting up staring at the building through the snowy darkness, looking worried. “Hey, kid, I’ll bet Samantha will bring us a couple of corn dogs when she’s done.”
Zack seemed to brighten a little. “With mustard and ketchup?”
“Sure, and don’t worry, Will is going to be with you, and I won’t let either of you out of my sight.”
Will carried Zack across the deserted lot to the mall entrance through air thick with snowflakes, Samantha pensive beside him.
“When was the last time you saw her?” he asked quietly.
She glanced over at him but didn’t ask whom he meant, no doubt realizing now that he’d overheard her phone conversation.
“Almost six years. Not since she told me about her…wedding plans.”
No wonder Samantha seemed a little nervous.
He wondered if she had a gun in her purse. As much as he disliked the idea of her with a loaded weapon, he hoped she did. He just wanted her safe. Whatever it took.
Once inside, he and Zack wandered toward the other end of the mall, while Samantha walked toward the smell of tacos and egg rolls and cinnamon buns and popcorn.
But Will didn’t go far. He had no intention of letting Samantha or Zack out of his sight. “Let’s stop here for a moment,” he told the boy.
The food court was small, only a half-dozen tables surrounded by a bunch of orange plastic chairs halfway down the mall. A couple sat at one of the tables, eating and talking. A woman with her two rowdy young children sat at another. He could hear the woman trying to get the kids to stop fighting and eat.
A man sat alone at a
nother table, sipping from a plastic cup. He seemed to watch Samantha approach, but Will knew that didn’t mean anything. Any red-blooded male would have to be blind not to notice a woman like her.
“I used to have one of those—” Zack said. The boy was pointing at a bike in the store window.
“Where is it now?”
Zack shrugged. “It was red. I think I outgrew it. Dad was going to get me a bike. But we had to wait.”
For a moment, Will thought the boy might go on. But it was obvious he felt he’d said enough. Wait for what? Will wondered. Had Lucas really been planning to skip the country? Was Samantha right about Lucas setting up Zack’s abduction? Then why hadn’t Lucas shown up in Wolf Point?
“Well, I think it’s high time you had another bike,” Will heard himself say. “Once we get to Seattle—”
“Really?” Zack’s eyes glittered with excitement. “A big one like that one?”
“Absolutely.” What was he doing making promises like that? By tomorrow the boy might be taken away by the authorities, and Will might never see him again. The thought bothered him a lot more than he wanted it to. “Of course, we’ll have to find a place for you to ride it.”
Zack ducked his head. “It’s okay if I don’t get it,” he said, as if he’d been promised things before and had already learned promises often weren’t kept.
“Hey,” Will said, squatting in front of the boy and taking the thin shoulders in his hands. He waited for Zack’s gaze to meet his and saw the tears. “You will get one of those bikes. You have my word on it. And I don’t give my word lightly. You believe me?”
Zack studied him for a moment, then nodded slowly.
Will smiled. “Good. You just let me know what color.”
The boy grinned, eyes bright. “Red. It has to be red.”
Glancing down the mall, he saw Samantha go over to the taco joint and order something. He wondered what she was going to say about the bike. He hoped she didn’t see it as interfering. He’d done enough of that.