‘Wait a minute. Wait a minute.’ Wade’s voice came in tight little bursts. Garrett could hear his keystrokes against the computer keyboard. ‘It’s a vintage car, a one-off. I can’t imagine there not being a transponder, in case it ever got stolen. Surely Barnet would have given Kendra those details. Hold on, I’ve got her iPhone here for safe keeping. If it’s there, I’ll find it.’
‘I’ll look on her laptop.’ Garrett was already trying to navigate Kendra’s computer for the information. On both ends of the phone connection, there was complete silence except for the dual tapping of the keyboards.
It seemed like an eternity went by before Wade yelled into the phone, ‘I’ve got it. I’ve got it! And the Mustang’s on the move. I’m transmitting the details to the police.’
‘Tell me where they are, Wade,’ Garrett yelled. ‘I can’t be very far behind them.’
‘You’re not, Wade replied. ‘They’re off the freeway. It looks like he’s taking the slow route, probably to try out the Mustang on the winding roads. I can get you there faster, Garrett. I’m about to become your sat nav. Are you ready?’
Garrett grabbed up both BlackBerries and charged out the door. He didn’t wait for the elevator. He bolted down the stairs, the photo still clenched in one hand.
Edge was rattling on and on about how he had suffered without her, how badly she had hurt him, how hard the year had been for him, scheming and planning how he would be with her again. But Kendra was only half listening.
She was thinking of Garrett. She had the rudiments of a plan forming in her mind now, but it was a plan she probably wouldn’t survive. That was all right. It had been a good life, and the last few days with Garrett Thorne had been the best ever. He had been the bright spot; he had almost convinced her she could have her happy ever after, and that she could have it with him. If she kept him in her head, if she focused on memories of him, of being in his arms, of laughing with him, of dancing with him, of making love with him, then she could stay safe from the terror with which Edge surrounded her. She could stay focused on what she had to do, and she would have the courage to do it.
She loved him, she loved Garrett Thorne! Suddenly, the darkness that threatened to close around her was run through with the brilliance of that one thought. She loved Garrett Thorne. She loved him with all of her heart, and loving him, being with him, made her more herself than she had ever been in her whole life. She could die knowing that. She could die knowing that he was right, that she could love, that love was as much for her as it was him, or Jessie and Amanda in Texas Fire, or Dee and Ellis. Her only regret was that she hadn’t allowed herself to realize it while she was still with him, that she hadn’t told him. God how she wished she had told him!
She couldn’t bear the thought of how he would suffer because of what she was about to do, but she saw no way out. Without the BlackBerry Wade had given her, there was no way they would ever find her in time, and she wasn’t brave enough to endure Edge’s torture passively and wait, hoping against hope that Garrett would find her before Edge drove her insane. Garrett had people who loved him. He had people who understood how amazing he was, even if he didn’t. They would help him heal. And she wanted that for him. She wanted him to heal. God, she wished she could tell him, and now she didn’t even have that option left to her. The ache of loss was pushed aside by rage, rage that Edge believed it was his right to take this from her. He might take away her chance to tell Garrett how she felt, he might take away her chance to try for her happy ending, but her rage he couldn’t take from her! And, in the end, it would be enough to help her do what she had to, to deny the bastard what he most wanted.
She pressed down a little harder on the accelerator. She’d been doing it gradually since they’d left the apartment so he wouldn’t notice. She had the advantage of growing up near here. It meant she knew the place like the back of her hand. She knew where they were and had a pretty good idea of where they were heading. That meant she knew exactly what to do and where. Dee and Harris and she used to put Harris’s old beater of a pick-up through its paces out here. The place was hilly, pocked with scrub evergreens struggling on the edge of survival. The main road was paved, but narrow and old, but from it muddied gouges of trails used by motorbikes and four-wheelers snaked off over the rutted hills in all directions. It was also bisected by several disused logging roads. Not far up the road, there was one spot that had just what she needed for her plan to work. She pressed just a little harder on the gas, and Edge whooped.
‘Goodness, Bird Woman, you really do know how to fly, don’t you?’
‘You said you wanted to see what she could do,’ Kendra said. ‘I’ve had her long enough to know. Best gift I ever received.’ And at the moment, she meant that with all her heart.
‘This route should put you out ahead of them,’ Wade yelled into Garrett’s BlackBerry, which lay on his seat with the speakerphone on. ‘But just barely, so you’ll have to haul ass. You in the Jeep?’
‘I am,’ Garrett said. ‘Just get me there.’
‘You need to make a right just ahead. It’s an old logging road, and not much of one, but it’ll do the trick.’
‘I see it,’ Garrett said, sliding into the sharp corner and banking hard to make the turn, barely managing it without turning the Jeep over. The rain had let up for the moment, so it didn’t affect the visibility. He sped down the road, bouncing and jostling against the seatbelt ‘How am I doing?’ he shouted at the device.
‘You’re fine. You’re all right, just don’t slow down.’
The words were barely out of Wade’s mouth before he hit the first major mud puddle. Water splashed in waves all around him. He cursed and turned on the wipers. ‘Christ, Wade, it’s a muddy mess up here.’ The Jeep slid dangerously to one side, and he felt the back wheel on the driver’s side sink.
‘Can you drive off the road, on the side?’ Wade yelled.
But the wheel dropped with a sickening lurch, and the tire spun.
‘No! Goddamn it, no!’ Garrett cursed and downshifted. The engine groaned and the wheel spun, slinging mud out in a high arc behind the vehicle.
‘Garrett, you’ve got to go. Now!’ Wade yelled. The sound of his voice was drowned out by the revving of the engine as Garrett threw the Jeep into reverse and eased off the gas, struggling like hell to control the panic rising in his chest.
But the Jeep wouldn’t budge.
Ignoring Wade’s rising panic on the speaker phone, Garrett undid the safety belt and practically threw himself from the driver’s seat, frantically looking around in the scrub and deadfall until he found what he needed. He made a mad squelch and lurch of a dash for several limbs about the size of his arm, blow-down from the wind that had accompanied the rain in the early hours. There were plenty of needles still on the branches. Slipping and sliding in the mud, he lunged for them, tugged them with all his strength until they were free from the undergrowth. Then he nearly lost his balance as he slid back to the rear of the Jeep, shoving and stuffing and cramming the branches down into the hole that the spinning of the tire had created, angling just right to create traction. Dear God, it had to work! It just had to! Back in the seat, he belted in and ignored Wade, who was still yelling, along with everyone else in the dungeon. Then he carefully reversed only slightly. It took every ounce of patience to go slow and easy, just enough for the limbs to settle into the hole. Then, even though every nerve in his body was screaming for him to hurry, he eased the Jeep back in gear and carefully, gently pressed on the accelerator. The Jeep jerked hard and sank dishearteningly into the mud with the tire spinning. But, just when Garrett was ready to jump out of the Jeep and run for it, it inched forward, spun, and then juddered and jostled up out of the rut.
‘I’m out! I’m out,’ he yelled above the roar of the engine. But hope was short-lived as he looked up at the road in front of him to see nothing but a sea of mud. ‘Wade, we’ve got to go cross country. The road’s a mud bath.’
‘All right.’ Wade’
s voice was tight, his words clipped. Garrett could hear him frantically typing on the keyboard. ‘I’ve got the contour map. It’s not too steep or rocky. If you can get through the woods, you can get there, and still join the road just ahead of the Mustang.’
‘I can do it.’ Garrett made a sharp left off the muddy track and barreled into the woods, bouncing and jolting and dodging trees and roots as best he could.
‘The police are on their way,’ Wade yelled. ‘They’re not far behind, but they’ll have to take the main road.’
‘Just get me there, Wade.’ Garrett downshifted and tromped the gas. ‘Just get me there before the Mustang.’
She saw the stand of trees, and she nearly wept that they hadn’t been cut down as the natural landscape slowly lost the battle to the growing industrial site. They were exactly like she remembered them, if a bit more scraggly. It would be over soon. She could feel his gaze locked on her face, and she did her best to look terrified, stressed – not that hard to do under the circumstances. But hiding her rage was more difficult. She felt her bottom lip tremble and she fought back the tears. He didn’t know they were as much tears of rage as they were tears for what she was about to lose, as much as they were tears of fear. He didn’t know, and that was good.
‘There, there, sweetheart, don’t cry. It won’t do you any good. I’m not swayed by your tears or your pleading. There was a time I might have been, but don’t expect sympathy when you still stink of Garrett Thorne. Don’t expect leniency when you deserve everything I can dish out to you and then some.’
Let him lecture, she thought. Let him think what he wanted. She picked out the tree, the perfect tree, and stomped on the accelerator as hard as she could. She hoped it didn’t hurt too much. Then she focused everything in her on thoughts of Garrett in her arms.
‘What the –?’ Those were the last words Edge got out of his mouth before she stepped hard on the gas. She screamed her rage like a banshee as the Mustang ploughed into the tree, and the unbelted Edge went flying through the windshield. With the sickening crunch of metal, the Mustang’s front end crumpled into the tree and the engine spluttered and died. The hard jerk of the safety belt forced the breath from her lungs and felt like it would cut her in two. The world went out of focus and wavered, threatened to go dark, and then cleared. Along with the clearing of her vision came the full understanding that she wasn’t dead, that her timing had been even more perfect than she could have hoped. She couldn’t see how Edge could have possibly survived smashing his way through the windshield into the woods. Surely that alone must have broken his neck. She struggled to get out of the seat belt and out of the car, then slipped on the wet ground, and fell to her knees, squinting to see as the rain set in again. She had just managed to get her feet when a muddied Jeep roared out of the woods and screeched to a stop right in front of her.
For a second, she didn’t recognize the man who shoved his way out of the driver’s seat covered with almost as much mud as the Jeep was. But then he spoke. ‘Kendra! Dear God, Kendra, are you OK?’
She broke into a run toward Garrett, afraid to say his name, afraid to say anything for fear it was all just a dream.
She was never quite sure of what happened next. There were police cars coming up the road. She could hear the sirens like background noise as Garrett pulled her fiercely to him. ‘Jesus, woman, I love you. I can’t lose you. Don’t you know that? I love you! I love you, Kendra Davis. Do you hear me? I love you!’
She was just about to tell him she loved him too, just about to tell him she wanted to be with him more than anything when out of the corner of her eye she saw movement, movement that registered with a cold prickle up the back of her neck. There was a flash of silver through the air, then Garrett yelled like a wildcat and shoved her hard. She landed on the ground with a jolt and rolled, confused, stunned. It was then she saw Garrett lurching, falling to his knees, and there was blood. There was so much blood where the knife lodged in his side. And suddenly Edge stood over him, covered from head to toe in pine straw and mud.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
For Kendra, everything downshifted to slow motion. She knew only two things, that Garrett Thorne loved her, and that she would not let this monster take that away from her. Ever!
As Edge drew back to kick Garrett in the stomach, somehow Garrett caught Edge’s leg with an arm and unbalanced him. That was all it took. Kendra saw the world through a rage like nothing she’d ever experienced before.
Garrett pulled the knife out of his side with an angry snarl and struggled to pull himself to his feet and take advantage, but she was faster, and she wasn’t injured. She launched herself at Edge, screaming at the top of her lungs. ‘You sonovabitch! I’m not yours! I’ll never be yours!’
She landed a jarring kick in the man’s groin, and before he could utter more than a harsh grunt, she followed it with a hard right cross to his jaw. The impact of Kendra’s unexpected attack sent him flailing backward, his feet slipping and sliding on the muddy ground before his went down on his back. There was another sharp grunt as the breath left his lungs, then a cry of utter surprise. His eyes teared and his right hand jerked spastically to his chest.
Kendra skidded on the wet pine straw and nearly fell backward, but just as she gathered her balance for another attack she noticed the front of Edge’s white T-shirt bloomed bright red, and in the confusion that gripped her, it took her a second to see the jagged, sharpened stake that was the remains of a nearby tree branch broken off by last night’s wind and storm. It ran through Edge’s chest just below his sternum. He uttered another startled grunt, convulsed once, then his eyes glazed and he didn’t move again.
She watched his life’s blood drain away with a strange indifference that later might be the stuff of nightmares, but for now she just wanted to be sure he wouldn’t come back for more. Then she turned and practically fell onto her knees next to Garrett.
‘Call an ambulance!’ she shouted as the first police shoved their way out of their cars, guns drawn. ‘Damn it, call an ambulance now!’ She struggled out of her jacket, barely noticing the cold or the hammering rain. ‘You shouldn’t have pulled the knife out of the wound,’ she heard herself shouting at Garrett, as she pressed the jacket tight against his side to stop the bleeding. ‘Damn it, Garrett, you’ve only got so much blood you, know?’ Her words came out as a sob and she struggled to see through the tears.
Garrett winced and grabbed her other hand with a grip that belied the amount of blood he’d lost. ‘Jesus, woman, you’re bossy to the end, aren’t you?’
‘No, Garrett,’ she sobbed. ‘No! This is not the end! I’m gonna be bossy for a long time to come, so you’d better get used to it. Now shut up and stop bleeding!’
His eyelids fluttered and he winced again. His lips were pale and pressed tight in pain but he forced a smile. ‘I suppose I could get used to that,’ he managed. ‘The bossy bit, I mean.’ He nodded to the crumpled Mustang. ‘How did you do that?’
‘Stunt driving course. Gift from another satisfied client.’
‘Pity about the Mustang,’ he managed.
‘It’s just a car, Garrett. It’s just a car.’
She placed a finger against his lips and her heart nearly broke at his effort to kiss it. ‘I love you, Garrett Thorne, and you were right. You were right about me, I do deserve romance, and I want it from you, so stop bleeding, all right, just please stop bleeding, damn it!’
He uttered a little sigh that was some cross between pain and, she hoped, something much happier. ‘I’ll do my best,’ he managed, squeezing her hand hard.
From out of nowhere, Ellis and Dee arrived with Harris and Stacie right behind them, all piling out of Ellis’s Jeep. She barely noticed them crowding around. Ellis gently placed his jacket over Kendra’s trembling shoulders and Harris knelt next to her with a first aid kit.
‘Let me see,’ he said, gently easing Kendra aside, just enough that he could tend Garrett’s wound. Another one of Harris’s outdoor t
alents was that he was well-trained in first aid.’
Garrett eyed Harris suspiciously. ‘You’re not going to put the knife back in, are you?’
Harris grunted and bit his lip in concentration. ‘I might if you ever do anything to hurt my best friend.’
Garrett forced himself into a half sitting position, leaning heavily against Kendra. ‘Your best friend happens to be the woman I love, Walker. I would never hurt her. In fact –’ he gave another squeeze of her hand ‘– I plan to do my best to make her very happy, if she’ll let me.’
‘See that you do,’ Harris said. ‘Or this will seem like a little scratch when I get through with you.’
Garrett lost consciousness just as the ambulance arrived and, in spite of Harris assuring her that the wound wasn’t as bad as it looked, Kendra couldn’t believe it, wouldn’t believe it until the emergency room doctor at the hospital had reassured her.
Garrett was lucky, the doctor said. The knife missed both the heart and the lungs. They had kept him in the hospital for observation, and he had been pretty heavily sedated, but not so much that he hadn’t called for Kendra in the night, and not so much that he hadn’t been aware she was there, in spite of hospital regulations, curled up on the bed next to him. She wasn’t about to let him out of her sight again. Dee had brought her fresh clothes, and she had cleaned up as best she could in the bathroom of Garrett’s hospital room. In spite of exhaustion, she slept very little, and when she did, she was lulled to sleep by the slow, even in and out of Garrett’s breathing, by the steady, powerful beat, beat, beat of his heart, beneath her hand resting gently on his chest.
If anything, the crowd of reporters on the front lawn had swollen. But then the story that Carla Flannery broke about the chase and the ultimate death of Fredrick “Edge” Parks, the stalker of Tess Delaney and other women in the past, had captured everyone’s imagination. And what was about to happen next would be even more of a surprise.
Kendra and Garrett stepped out of the limo into rain-washed sunshine. There was a low mumbling among the press and they parted for the couple as they walked up to the porch through the strobe and click of flashing cameras and the myopic focus of television lenses. Don was waiting for them. He gave Kendra a kiss on the cheek and Garrett a gentle pat on the back.
Identity Crisis Page 30