Steve smiled reminiscently, then yelped as Summer gave a punishing yank to a captured twirl of his chest hair.
“Jesus, you’re vicious.” He slanted a glance down at her, grinned, and continued. “I couldn’t even remember what day it was. So I asked her, and she said Christmas Eve. That made me feel kind of sick. So I got up, got dressed, and went back to the hotel I’d been staying in. It was a cheap hotel, twenty-five bucks a night. They changed the sheets maybe once a week.” He took a deep breath. “So I started thinking about Christmas, and I picked up the phone and called my daughter. I hadn’t talked to her for a while, because every time I called Elaine said she didn’t want to talk to me. But this time my daughter answered. I said I loved her, Merry Christmas. She said, ‘I hate you, Daddy,’ and hung up the phone.”
The pain in Steve’s voice was as tangible as his heartbeat beneath Summer’s palm. She ached for him, snuggling closer, kissing the side of his neck in silent sympathy.
“Children always say that to their parents. I know my nephews and nieces do.” It was poor comfort, Summer knew, but the best she could offer.
“I know.” He sounded tired. “But it was like she’d slapped my face. It shocked me into taking stock of myself. I saw the sorry thing I’d become—a dirty drunk sleeping with whores—and knew I had to make some changes. I took a shower, cleaned up, shaved. Then I went to church—it was a little Methodist church, sitting up on a hill in the middle of that podunk town—and I—well, hell, I prayed. Then the whole congregation started coming in. It was Christmas Eve, remember. There was a candlelight service. I stayed for that, too. When it was over, I knew I had to do my best to put things right in my life.”
Summer listened, spellbound, to the deep rumble of his voice. His heartbeat was slow and steady beneath her hand.
He went on: “I quit drinking, there and then, cold turkey. With God’s help, I haven’t had a drink from that day to this. I got tested for AIDS. I was clean, you don’t have to worry. Then I headed home, meaning to do my best to earn my daughter’s forgiveness. On the way back, I started to think things through. Right after Deedee died, I was too shocked to see real clearly, but since I had quit drinking the fog was beginning to lift. I had a hard time believing that Deedee had committed suicide—you would have had to know Deedee to understand—but I hadn’t questioned it, before. Now I started to. She’d left behind that videotape, remember. Besides the, uh, sex, it also had her saying that she was going to kill herself because I was breaking off with her to go back to my wife. Hell, I never said that. I never left my wife, and I broke off with Deedee mainly because of Mitch. She knew that, had a screaming fit about it in fact. So what she said on the tape just didn’t fit.” He hesitated for a minute, frowning up at the ceiling. “And then there was the key.”
“What key?”
“The key to my office. It was a temporary office in Nashville, one I was using just while I worked on the investigation I was telling you about. I’d only been in it about a month. Because of the sensitive nature of the case, I had the locks changed on that office when I moved into it, and I locked it every single night, no exceptions. I locked it the night Deedee died in there. So how did she get in? She didn’t have a key. There was only one, and it was either in my pocket or locked in my desk drawer at home every single minute of every single day. She and Elaine had never much liked each other—maybe Elaine sensed that I’d always had a soft spot for Deedee, I don’t know—so Deedee was hardly ever at my house. She couldn’t possibly have sneaked the key out of my desk drawer while I was asleep or anything like that. She hadn’t been inside my house at all since we started sleeping together, I know. My office was locked, and she didn’t have a key. So what did she do? Break in? Deedee weighed about ninety pounds, and she was anything but mechanical, and anyway there were no signs of a break-in. So how did she get into my office to hang herself? And why would she do it there, and leave behind that videotape, anyway? She was gonna be dead by the time it was found, so the only one it would hurt was me. Deedee was mad, but I don’t think for a minute that the last act of her life would have been to deliberately cause trouble for me.”
“So what are you saying? That you don’t think she killed herself?”
“I don’t see how she could have. But if she didn’t, who killed her, and why? The only possible reason to take her out the way they did was to do harm to me, but why, if somebody’s aim was to harm me, didn’t they just kill me and have done with it? Shooting me would have been a hell of a lot easier than going through the whole elaborate setup somebody had to go through if Deedee was murdered. I can’t make sense out of it. I couldn’t when I first started trying to work it out, and I can’t now. There’s a piece of the puzzle missing, and I can’t find it. So I decided the only thing to do was go back over the investigation I was working on when she died. Inch by inch, lead by lead, fact by fact, looking for something, anything, that I might have missed the first time around. That’s what I was doing outside that funeral home that night, and that’s how we ended up here.”
“Because of Deedee,” Summer said thoughtfully. “I’m starting to feel like I know her.”
“She would have liked you.” He grinned down at her suddenly. “She was an ornery, feisty little fighter, and she liked those qualities in other women. She always said Elaine was a wimp. I don’t think she thought Elaine was good enough for me.”
“It sounds like she was right.” Summer realized that she was talking about Deedee like she was an old friend. In fact, she was almost beginning to feel that way. Steve talked about her with affection and nostalgia—but not love, she was beginning to understand. Or at least, not the kind of love he offered her. Maybe she’d been wrong. Maybe Deedee was not a threat. Maybe she never had been.
They were silent for a few minutes. Then Summer said softly, “Do you really think we have much chance of getting out of this alive?”
Steve slanted a glance down at her. “Baby, we are gonna get out of this alive. Trust me.”
She did, but, but … but she couldn’t think about anything at all when he was rolling over with her and kissing her like that. And maybe, she thought with her last dim glimmer of intelligence, that was precisely what he had in mind. Then she gave herself up to his hands and mouth and body, and didn’t think again for a very long time.
Dawn broke early. The rain had stopped sometime during the night, and the sunrise was beautiful—a fat orange sun painting the sky gorgeous shades of pinks and purples, so that the mountains were wreathed in lavender clouds and the tips of the piney forests were touched with rose. Puddles lay everywhere, and vapor drifted across the ground to rise toward the sky as if an invisible bride were climbing heavenward, trailing behind her yards of gossamer wedding veil.
Summer saw all this because the spot where she and Steve had spent the night was beside a true scenic overlook, with only a low stone wall between them and an unfettered view encompassing miles of mountain and valley and sky. Perched on the rim of the mountain, they crawled out of their shelter and came face-to-face with a breathtaking panorama of beauty. A vast wooded valley lay below, punctuated by a small bright lake. The sheer grandeur of the scene spread out before them should have imbued them with awe, or at the very least a little appreciation. Steve gave their brave new world a single cursory glance and headed straight for the motorcycle, which he fussed over as tenderly as if it were his bride and this was the morning after their wedding. Dirty, rumpled, and disgruntled, Summer watched his ministrations to his machine with a darkling eye.
Heaven would have to send her a knight who lavished more care on his steed than his beloved.
Steve had kissed her awake as soon as the first creeping tendril of light found them in their shelter. Summer had returned his kiss sleepily, but her body had been warm and willing, primed by the passion that had blazed between them through the night. She had wrapped her arms around his neck, offering herself up to his hands with a voluptuous sigh.
Then, instead of
starting the morning in the lusty fashion she fully expected after the night they had spent, he had squeezed her breast, smacked her bottom, and told her to get dressed: he wanted to get an early start.
So much for romance.
Thus, Summer admired the dawn while perched on top of a picnic table near the stone wall, while Steve labored over the stupid motorcycle. She and Muffy sat there alone, on what appeared to be the edge of the world, sharing the last of the peanut butter crackers. Not far away, Steve whistled with cheerful tunelessness while he wiped spark plugs on the end of his shirt and replaced them in their sockets. For his breakfast, he had chosen to polish off the marshmallows as he worked. Apparently, Summer reflected dourly, the excessive sweetness had gone to his brain.
When the spark plugs were connected and the seat was dried and the gym bag was packed and secured to his satisfaction, Steve at last turned his attention to his female companions. His eyes widened as he caught the expression on Summer’s face.
“Are you always this grumpy early in the morning, or is this my lucky day?” he asked with a maddening grin.
“Are you always this cheerful early in the morning?” she responded with a poisonously sweet smile. “If you are, we may want to rethink this whole relationship.”
“That’s my little ray of sunshine,” he said, laughing, and came over to drop a kiss on her mouth. His mouth was warm, his beard scratchy. Summer responded simply because she loved the fool. Then she realized he was stroking her lips so sensuously with his tongue because he was seeking cracker crumbs, and she pushed him away.
“Hey,” he protested. “Last night you liked kissing me.”
“Last night is history, pal.”
“Is that your way of saying that the honeymoon is over?” He grinned. “Not on your life, Rosencrans.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.” He moved close again, his hands finding her waist and pulling her over to the edge of the picnic table, where he positioned himself between her knees. “Kiss me, beautiful.”
Her hands were on his shoulders. He had pulled her to the very edge of the picnic table, and her spread thighs gripped his hips while her feet in their giant sneakers dangled into space. Their position was suggestive in the extreme, and Summer wasn’t sure she was in the mood for what it was suggesting. She was tired, hungry, dirty, scared, and out of charity with him just at that moment—so of course he had to start thinking about getting laid.
Men!
She looked at him with her head cocked a little to one side as his eyes glinted at her with something that was not quite a smile in their depths. The swelling had left his face, though the bruising and a pair of beautiful shiners remained, and she was able to see without distortion the rugged features of the man she loved. His cheekbones were high and flat, his jaw square, his lips on the thin side. His skin was pitted in places. His nose was a harsh blade. His was a hard face, a tough face, a give-no-quarter face—and she was entranced by every square inch of it.
He was big, dark, dangerous—and hers. No matter how out of sorts she felt, just looking at him gave her a thrill.
She scowled at him. He repaid the compliment by sliding his hand suggestively up her thigh. His fingers toyed with the elastic around the leg of her panties, then slipped inside.
She batted his hand away.
“I thought you were in a hurry to get on the road,” she reminded him, although the heat from his hand had communicated itself to her and she was in no great rush herself.
“Ah, well,” he said, smiling faintly. “I think there may be a slight change in plan.”
The sun was well up in the sky before they finally got under way.
The night had done nothing to cure her saddle-soreness, Summer discovered as they headed back in the direction from which they had come. As soon as the vibration started up again, her bottom began to ache. By the time an hour had passed, her feet were asleep, her back felt like it was breaking, and there was a nagging pain in her calves. She rested her head between Steve’s shoulder blades and tried to forget about her discomfort.
Finally she realized that that was impossible. She realized something else, too: Concentrating on how bad she felt at least kept her from feeling afraid.
They were headed right back into the lions’ den, and Summer wasn’t sure that was a really good idea.
She was so worn out, she couldn’t make up her mind what she thought they should do. At last she gave it up. Trust me, Steve had said. For better or worse, that was what she was going to do.
She leaned back, flexing her neck, hoping to at least ease the ache at the base of her skull. Muffy lay across her lap beneath her T-shirt like a rag doll. The poor dog, innured to misery by this time, confined her protests at this uncomfortable mode of transportation to an occasional low moan. The day was growing increasingly hotter, the helmet was giving Summer a blinding headache, and she felt like moaning herself.
The only thing that kept her from it was the conviction that the situation was only going to get worse. She might as well save her moans for later, she decided, when they might be truly needed.
It was terrifying to consider that she—and Steve-might die today. So she concentrated on her aches and pains, and refused to think at all.
It must have been about three p.m. when Summer saw it: A small biplane, tracing lazy patterns through the soft blue sky, trailing a long white advertising banner behind it. She had often seen such planes with their messages about all-you-can-eat specials and two-for-one drinks from the beaches of Florida. She was vaguely surprised to find one soaring above the thickly wooded Smoky Mountains. It looked out of place, incongruous somehow, and she watched it curiously.
Finally it drew close enough so that she could just make out the message on the banner:
Steve. Where’s Corey? Call 555-2101.
Summer gasped, staring, and read the message a second time. Then she poked Steve hard in the ribs.
35
“Corey’s my daughter,” Steve said, his voice hoarse. He was standing by the edge of the road staring after the plane, which was disappearing behind a cloud-bedecked peak. Summer’s arms were around his waist. He didn’t have to spare her a glance to know that her eyes, fixed on his face, were wide with concern.
After Summer had directed his attention to the plane and its banner, he had nearly run off the road as he read the message once and then again.
There was absolutely no doubt that that message was aimed at him.
Corey. They had taken Corey. He thought of his daughter, a little plump, a little shy, with soft brown bangs that were always falling into her eyes and unbecoming plaid pleated skirts required by the parochial school she attended, and then remembered: The picture of her that he had held so long in his heart was Corey at age ten. She was thirteen now, a teenager, God help him. She would have changed.
They would hurt Corey, torture Corey, kill Corey, to get at him.
Adrenaline pumped through Steve’s veins, bile rose into his throat, and his heart gave a sickening leap.
Oh, God, why had he never considered that they might go after Corey?
In his agitation, he nearly drove them over a cliff. Only Summer’s horrified screech recalled him to the present in time.
Shaken to the core, he pulled to the side of the road, parked, and dismounted. Summer dismounted, too, holding him while he watched the plane vanish into the distance. With all his heart he longed for an M-16, to shoot the thing down; for an arm as long as a giant’s, to pull it out of the sky.
Where is she? he wanted to scream, but did not, because it would do no good. The plane was beyond hearing, beyond his reach. He could not throttle whoever was in it into revealing Corey’s whereabouts, into giving her back. He could not destroy them for daring to touch her. He could not do anything. He was helpless, stranded on the side of a damned mountain, while the daughter he had endangered suffered and perhaps died.
Stop it, he told himself fiercely. They would not kill her until they
got what they wanted: the van and him. At the moment, Corey was their ace in the hole. She might be scared—all right, she had to be scared to death—but she was okay.
He had to keep telling himself that. If he didn’t, he would go to pieces. And he couldn’t go to pieces. He had to think. He couldn’t outgun them, couldn’t outfight them. He was one man, against their many. And the vicious bastards had his daughter.
He had to outthink them.
“I memorized the number,” Summer said softly. “Do you think we should go find a phone?”
“I know the number. It’s my ex-wife’s. Yeah, we need to get to a phone.” He glanced down at her then. She still wore the yellow helmet—Steve only just then realized that he still wore a helmet himself—and beneath it, her eyes were very wide and very worried. Her arms around his waist were soft with comfort. Her face was as white as he felt.
He looked down at the best thing that had happened to him in a long, long time and thought he should have known. Life, for all its uncertainties, had started looking too damned good again as of the previous night. Happiness had been handed to him like a gift, all wrapped up in a woman with a body that made him pant and an inner strength that earned his respect and a heart as soft as her skin.
He should have known it was too good to last. Heaven wasn’t through punishing him yet.
Just not with Corey. Please, God, not with Corey. The fault was his, and his alone. Please, please, he prayed, don’t take it out on the kid.
“I’m all right,” he said, doing his best to reassure Summer though he knew it wasn’t true. He wasn’t all right. He felt as if he had received a blow to his solar plexus and was still disoriented as a result.
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