Walking After Midnight

by Karen Robards

  But he had to get all right. This wasn’t the time to lie down and die, to howl at the moon and beg God and Heaven for mercy. This was the time to fight, damn it. To fight as he had never fought in his life, for Corey and Summer and himself.

  In the last few days his life had been given back to him. No matter how little he deserved the gift, if he could help it he wasn’t going to let anyone snatch it away again.

  There had to be some way to win.

  Winner take all, babe: The phrase popped straight out of nowhere into his head. It was a favorite refrain of Mitch’s. Steve could remember Mitch saying it on many, many occasions throughout their life. The two of them had played each other at chess, cards, football, golf. Mitch had always known how to be ruthless, to do what he had to do to win. Steve, on the other hand, had played by the rules. When he had won, it had been an honorable victory, well deserved. That had always mattered to him, though Mitch had sneered.

  The guys who held Corey captive would not play by the rules. Playing with them would be like playing with Mitch all over again. Only this time, whatever it took, Steve meant to play to win.

  He couldn’t bear to contemplate any other possibility.

  “I’m all right,” he said again, and bent his head to plant a quick, hard kiss on Summer’s mouth. “Come on, let’s go find a phone.”

  They found one, some forty-five minutes later, at a tiny mom-and-pop gas station-grocery store combination on the west side of Clingmans Dome. Summer, who had been holding Muffy, passed the dog to him as she went in to get change to operate the pay phone. Renfro’s forty dollars would pay for quite a few long-distance calls.

  There were tourists in the store, tourists arriving and leaving the parking lot by car and van and camper, but Steve thought, hoped, that the helmets and motorcycle would serve as effective disguises. It was no part of his plan to be arrested now. To do so would be to endanger Corey as well as Summer and himself.

  To that end, knowing that Summer wouldn’t like it when she discovered what he had done, he removed the quilt from the gym bag and thrust Muffy inside instead. With the bag partially unzipped so that the dog could breathe, it made a perfectly adequate carrying case.

  At least, in his own estimation. Muffy kept trying to poke her head out. Every time those silky brown ears and that idiotic hair bow appeared, he thrust them back down again. He started to feel like a kid playing with a jack-in-the-box. If the situation hadn’t been so deadly serious, it would have been ludicrous. When the pink satin ribbon came off in his fingers he stared down at it for a moment, wondering why he hadn’t thought of removing it before. At least the animal wouldn’t be quite so idiotically conspicuous without her bow.

  Although the dog looked ridiculous enough without any adornment at all.

  When Summer at last emerged from the quaint wooden store, she carried a brown paper sack in one hand. He glanced up as the screen door swung shut behind her, lifting one hand to shield his eyes from the glare of the bright afternoon sun.

  Looking at her in her loose black T-shirt and shorts, with the too big high-tops laced tightly around her ankles and her face innocent of all makeup, Steve thought he had never seen a woman who better suited his notion of what one should look like. She had a natural beauty, a very feminine, unfussy beauty even in a motorcycle helmet and some kid basketball player’s clothes, that suited him right down to his toenails.

  Her breasts jiggled and her hips swayed as she descended the pair of rough plank steps and walked toward him across the gravel parking lot. Steve knew that she was probably unaware of that. Still, it gave him pleasure to watch her, distracted him momentarily from the terrible anxiety that threatened to eat him alive.

  “I got sandwiches,” she announced as she approached, shooting a quick glance at a middle-aged couple in khaki Bermudas who had just exited their car and were walking toward the store. “Ham and cheese on rye. And apples. And Cokes.”

  The couple passed by without sparing them a second glance.

  “Did you get change?” Steve couldn’t help it. His voice was tense, and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.

  “Yes.” She reached into the sack and withdrew a handful of bills. “We’ve got twenty-five dollars left. Put it in your pocket.”

  “You did get quarters?” he asked, knowing that she had, knowing that he was being impatient but unable to stop himself. He had to find out what had happened to Corey, had to make that call right away or he would go out of his mind. He stuffed the bills in his pocket as she had directed and held out his hand for the coins.

  “I got eight dollars’ worth. That should be enough, don’t you think?” Fishing in the sack, she came up with a handful of quarters.

  “Keep your eye on the mutt.” He took the quarters from her hand, pocketed them and a second handful, thrust the gym bag with its reluctant occupant at her, and headed for the phone. It was in a silver and blue kiosk attached to the side of the building, near the air hose and the rest rooms. A woman was emerging from the ladies’ room even as he walked toward it.

  She was sixtyish, frumpy, and looked at him without interest. He barely even noticed her.

  He had to take off his helmet to make the calls. He was so agitated that he didn’t even care that without it he was more vulnerable to being recognized.

  Dropping quarters in the slot, he dialed the well-remembered number: 615-555-2101. He should know it: it had been his number for almost a decade.

  A computerized voice in his ear advised him that the call required two dollars and ninety-five cents. He dropped three dollars’ worth of quarters into the slot, stuck the rest into his pocket, and held his breath.

  “Hello?”

  At first, because of the tension that roughened it, he didn’t recognize the low voice on the other end of the wire as his ex-wife’s.

  “Who is this?” he asked sharply.

  “Steve? Steve, is that you?” Relief made her sound shrill. He had forgotten the way her voice tended to break and squeak when she got excited or under stress.

  “Yeah, it’s me. Corey …”

  “Oh, Steve, they took her! They came and took her! Oh, my God, Steve, I never thought it would come to this! I …”

  There was what sounded like a scuffle, a man’s curse, a woman’s cry and a blow. Steve had long since quit feeling anything much for Elaine, but at the thought that some thug was hurting her because of him, his gut tightened.

  “Calhoun?” The voice that came over the wire next was low, guttural—a man’s.

  “Who is this?”

  “Doesn’t matter, does it? What matters is, we got your little girl.”

  “If you hurt her, I’ll …” Steve could feel blood drumming in his ears. He felt murderous—and helpless. He wanted to threaten and beg at the same time. But neither approach would help Corey. He checked himself with an effort.

  “You won’t do shit.” The man chuckled.

  “I’ll kill you.” Steve couldn’t help it. Conviction made the words cut like a knife.

  “Take a chill pill, man. We ain’t gonna hurt your kid—if you cooperate. Where’s the van?”

  In the time between when he had seen the banner and found a phone, Steve had worked out the fundamental elements of a plan. Basically, he aimed to get every law enforcement officer he had ever known, plus a sprinkling of the media for insurance, in the same place as Corey and the thugs. Which would require some careful coordination on his part. Fortunately, local interest in him was still keen, as he had discovered when he first came back home to Nashville. His fifteen minutes of fame hadn’t quite worn off yet. The reporters he needed undoubtedly would be thrilled to be in on another chapter in the deathless saga of disgraced cop Steve Calhoun, and he felt fairly confident they would show up where he told them, one armed with a notebook and photographer and the other with a camera crew. Appetite whetted by the thought of being in on a huge, career-enhancing drug bust, his old boss Les Carter of the state police would be there, too, unless of
course Les was dirty. In which case he might still show, but as a hired gun for the wrong side. Ditto with Homer Tremaine of the FBI and Larry Kendrick of the DEA. It wasn’t a great plan, there was a lot that could go wrong with it, but at least it gave them a chance. Any chance was better than none.

  If he told the thug on the phone where the van was, Corey and Elaine would have no chance at all.

  “I ain’t stupid, man,” he said, talking the goon-lingo he had learned during his years as a cop. For some reason, goons responded better to their own kind of street talk. They seemed to lose a small measure of their suspicion of anyone who spoke the way they did.

  “I think you’re plenty stupid, man,” the voice responded. “Anybody who would steal from us is stupider than a block of wood. Don’t be even more stupid by holding out on us. Remember, we got your kid.”

  Like he was going to forget. Steve took a deep breath, tried to keep his murderous rage within bounds, and spoke into the receiver. “We can do a trade: my kid for the van.”

  “That’s the idea,” the voice said, sounding a. shade friendlier. “Just tell us where it is, and we’ll bring your girl home to Mama.”

  Yeah, right. And Santa Claus would come at Christmas.

  Steve shook his head, then realized the thug at the other end of the phone couldn’t see. “Here’s the deal, man. You bring my kid to a spot I’m gonna tell you about. I’ll meet you there. You let her go, and I’ll stay and take you to the van. How about that?”

  There was a moment’s silence. “What spot?” the man asked.

  Steve heaved a silent sigh of relief. They were going to go for it. Maybe, just maybe, they would all get out of this alive yet.

  Hope joined deadly fear in an adrenaline-based surge of pure energy through his veins.

  He put his hand over the mouthpiece and took a deep, steadying breath, glancing down at Summer, who had come up beside him while he was still fumbling to get the quarters into the slot. Her eyes were huge beneath the rim of her yellow helmet as she watched him, the gym bag with its restless cargo held gingerly in her arms. Muffy’s chocolate bug-eyes peered over the blue nylon zipper at him.

  Summer smiled encouragingly.

  Steve removed his hand from the mouthpiece, and gave the thug a location, putting into motion the plan that was either going to free them all—or be the death of them.

  “The van ain’t there. We checked.”

  “You just bring my kid there, and we’ll talk some more. If she’s not there, you can forget about finding that van.”

  “She’ll be there.”

  “You bring my ex-wife, too. I want both of them there, unharmed. You got no call to hurt either of them.”

  “You plannin’ on havin’ a fuckin’ party?” The man sounded disgruntled.

  “My kid and my ex-wife for the van. If either of ’em aren’t there, you can go to hell.”

  “They’ll be there.” It was grudging, but it was agreement.

  Steve breathed a little easier. “If you want that van, they better be. It’ll probably take me about three, three and a half hours to get there. If you get there before me, you wait.”

  “Oh, we will.” The man chuckled. “Calhoun, if you love your little girl, don’t be too late.”

  He hung up. Steve slowly removed the receiver from his ear and stared at it.

  “But once they have you, they’ll never let Corey go,” Summer objected urgently. “They’ll kill you both. And Elaine too. And me.”

  Steve put the receiver back on its cradle, stared at it for a minute, then reached in his pocket for more quarters.

  Before he dropped them into the slot, he turned to plant a quick hard kiss on the softest lips he had ever known.

  “Rosencrans, you’re just gonna have to trust me for a few minutes more. Then I’ll tell you what I’ve got in mind.”

  36

  They were parked at a picnic area about five miles farther down Clingmans Dome. All of them, including Muffy under the table, wolfed ham and cheese sandwiches. The humans guzzled Cokes. Muffy drank water from a puddle. The food tasted so good that not even Steve’s recital of his plan could completely spoil Summer’s appetite. Nor could her guilt over having set in motion a Plan B of her own. While Steve had been in the men’s room, she had called Sammy. Not that she meant to tell Steve.

  “So you called the DEA—and the FBI—and the newspapers …”

  “And my old boss at the state police. Don’t forget him.” Steve took another enormous bite of his sandwich. “And WTES-TV, too.”

  “A TV station?” Summer cocked an eyebrow at him.

  “I want everything that happens to be as public as possible. The more witnesses, the safer we’re going to be. Everybody I called, I know personally. Just on my say-so, they’re coming. One or more of them might be dirty, but I don’t think so. We’re just going to have to take that chance. This is a drug deal, I’m willing to bet my ass, a big money drug deal gone seriously wrong when we stole that van. That brings the DEA on board. The bastards kidnapped my daughter. That brings in the FBI. Les Carter, my former boss, is on board because he authorized the original investigation and, despite the fact that he’s a tough S.O.B., I trust him. Rudd Guttelman of the Nashville Sentinel practically supported himself for a year writing about me and Deedee. He oughta be on hand for the aftermath. And Janis Welsh of WTES won a prize for local reporting about me. She’s got a reason to want to be there, too.”

  Steve took another bite of his sandwich. Summer had had to argue quite fiercely to persuade him that they needed to eat before they did anything else—their last meal had been the breath mints around noon—but now that they had stopped by the road he was eating hungrily.

  Watching him devour his sandwich brought a pang to her heart. Poor man, if ever she got the chance she was going to take a great deal of pleasure in making sure he got three square meals a day.

  A memory of how she had cooked for and fussed over Lem in the early days of their marriage crept from her subconscious, reminding her that she had vowed never to provide such services for a man again. But she was in love, and she couldn’t help it. Summer decided wryly that she just must be a little Suzy Homemaker at heart.

  “What if one of the people you called is involved in this?” she asked to distract herself. Sammy wasn’t, she reassured herself fiercely. If they had to trust somebody—and the time had come when they did—Sammy was the one she would choose every time. But still she didn’t tell Steve what she had done.

  “I was in the Marines with Kendrick of the DEA. He’s solid as a rock.”

  “He’s not the only one, is he?” Summer wished she had never brought up the possibility that their prospective rescuers might be bad guys, too. It was making her queasy.

  Steve ran a hand over his face. “Hell, I think they’re all solid. They are all what I would call people of integrity. It’s impossible for me to imagine any of them being corrupted by drug money. But you never know. Anything’s possible. People go wrong every day. Cops go wrong. We’ve already identified Carmichael as a cop, and I’m ninety-nine percent certain that your pal Charlie and the other goon from your basement will turn out to be cops, too. There are gonna be others. Higher-ups. That’s why I called people I know personally. Friends, or former friends. And the media, too. For insurance.”

  “But why tell them—everybody—to meet at Harmon Brothers, of all places? Why not just have everybody converge on the boat warehouse and be done with it?”

  “I chose Harmon Brothers because it’s easy to find. God forbid that anybody should get lost. And because there’s a lot of empty acreage there, without a lot of civilians around. And because the van isn’t there. Remember, once the bad guys find out where that van is, they don’t need us. Corey, being of no more use to them and being able to identify them and testify, if it ever comes to that, will be killed. So will Elaine. We’ll be hunted down. If I sent the goons to the boat warehouse, and they beat us there, or something went wrong and our posse didn�
�t show, we would have played our last card. They would have the van, and we would have zilch. As it is, by keeping the location of the van back, I have an ace in reserve. If things go right, when we show up in Harmon Brothers’ parking lot, the thugs should be there with Corey and Elaine—and suddenly we should find ourselves swimming in assorted cops, feds, and reporters.”

  “And if things go wrong, they still don’t know where the van is,” Summer added softly.

  “You got it.”

  “Plan B?” she asked.

  He grinned. “Always. I always, always, have a Plan B.”

  “You’re brilliant,” she said, smiling at him as she finished the last of her sandwich. Not so much because she thought so—which she did—but because she could tell he was worried. And that he didn’t want her to realize it. So she would pretend to be totally confident in his scheme just to give him peace of mind.

  Just in case, though, there was always Sammy. God, she hoped she wasn’t wrong about Sammy.

  “You’re besotted.” His smile was lopsided as, meal finished, he stood up and came around to where she sat on the opposite side of the picnic table to drop a kiss on her mouth.

  “Probably,” Summer admitted, following him with her eyes as he straightened and crossed the grassy picnic area to toss his trash in a tall mesh wastebasket. He still looked like he had come out the loser in a barroom brawl. His skin around his eyes remained defiantly purple; the gash on his cheek was healing, but it was indubitably there. The left side of his face sported more colors than a rainbow. The right side wasn’t much less showy.

  His broad shoulders and muscled arms sported a wash of sunburn to add interest to their own bruises. He still limped slightly on his left leg.

  He was dirty, unshaven, a little smelly—and her heart swelled with love every time she looked at him.

  If anything happened to him, she would want to die.

  She said a little prayer for him, for herself, for all of them as she gathered up the remains of her own meal and followed him to the trash can.

  “Summer.” He was standing beside the motorcycle as she walked up to him. His helmet was on the seat waiting for him to put it on. Hers was in his hands. There was a certain agitation evident in the way he passed the thing back and forth between his hands.