"Well, maybe." She frowned and chewed at the corner of her mouth. She could go downtown, turn the whole thing over to Police Chief Hardin. No, she'd promised Sam an hour. But she wouldn't hesitate if he was still there when that time was up.
Besides, Mike Hardin would be too smugly satisfied that she was finally "cracking" under the pressure of filling her father's shoes. Hardin was the worst chauvinist in town— which was probably why his nice little wife was always doped up on Valium.
Jonna propped herself against the counter and waited while Brian took the latest customer's money for gas and snacks.
"Actually, you probably can help me, Brian." The bell over the door clanged as the stranger left and the store was empty again. "I was going to borrow Moss's gun. Do you know where it is?"
"Sure." Brian eyed her skeptically. "He keeps it in the bottom drawer of his desk in the office, but—"
"Do you think he'd mind?" she asked politely, knowing she'd take it whatever Brian said.
Brian's thin blond hair flopped down over his eyes as he squinted with doubt. "Well—" he strung the word out "—I don't think he would but..."
Jonna started for the office and Brian came from behind the counter, practically hopping with curiosity. "Got some sort of varmint messing with your cattle?" he asked.
"You could say that," she said under her breath, not slowing a bit.
"Yeah, I heard about a bobcat some of the cattlemen had been having trouble with, but that was a couple of months ago. I thought someone had probably killed it by now."
"I think this is a different one," Jonna said, opening Moss's bottom drawer and gingerly reaching for the small handgun lying near the back of it. Jonna lifted the weapon carefully.
"Well, that .38 ain't going to be much good for hunting a cat."
The gun was heavier than it looked. "Why?"
"That’s pretty much a people gun. You need a rifle to go after a cat," Brian said matter-of-factly. "Don't you have one? I thought big John had a whole collection."
"I hated them," she said regretfully. "I sold all of Dad's guns at the auction last fall. Having them around made me nervous. Is this loaded?"
"Nah." Brian pulled out the middle drawer. "Moss says that’d be like keeping a time bomb on hand. Here's some bullets."
The bell in the main part of the store went off again. "Just a minute," Brian said, plopping the small box in her empty hand. "I'll be right back."
Jonna had watched her father load and clean his guns a million times. She fiddled with the weapon and the cylinder swung out into her hand. She tentatively slid a few shells into the empty slots, then upended it and let them fall back into her hand. By the time Brian returned, she had the bullets back in the box and was tucking the box into the larger of the two pockets of her purse.
"Gonna take it with you?" Brian leaned over the desk and watched as she tugged at various pockets on her clothes, looking for a place to stash the gun.
"I can't wander out of here just carrying this," she murmured.
"Here," he suggested, pulling at the waist on his own jeans. "Stick it in your belt."
"Don't have one. This will work." She slid the barrel beneath her waistband and pulled her knit shirt and the thin jacket she wore into place over them. The gun felt cold and deadly against her skin. She squirmed uncomfortably.
"Tell Moss I borrowed it, okay?" Rearranging her purse strap over her shoulder, she walked determinedly toward the door. She felt weighted on that side, very lopsided.
"Sure," Brian said, following behind and closing the door of the office.
She paused beside the outer door. "You won't feel unprotected without it?"
Brian settled himself behind the cash register inside the U-shaped counter. "Sure." He laughed as if she'd cracked a huge joke. "You taking that gun is the closest thing we've had to a robbery in the three years I've worked here, and Moss has laid down so many rules about when and if we could use it, by the time any of us decided whether the rules applied to a particular situation, the criminal would be in Missouri. I don't think anyone will mind."
She sighed. "Thanks, Brian."
Jonna took the gun out of her pants as soon as she was in the truck. She hefted it again and knew she was being ridiculous but slid it under the edge of her seat. She was certain Sam Barton would be gone when she returned.
I'm not leaving, Jonna. He'd be gone. Her spirit felt heavy. She felt tears welling up again but squelched than. He wasn't worth crying over.
She stuffed the box of bullets into the overflowing glove compartment, then glanced at her watch. She'd given him an hour.
She hadn't counted from the time she'd said the words. She didn't even start the countdown when she left the farm. She had allowed him ten extra minutes to get back to the house and twenty-eight minutes had passed since.
With the little he had with him, an hour should be more than enough time to get his things together and be on his way.
She should have left him money. He surely wouldn't use that as an excuse for waiting for her. She couldn't very well blame him if he did—he had done some work—but she hoped with all her heart he didn't. She was so frightened and confused right now, she wasn't sure what she'd do if they had another confrontation. She reached down, touched the gun under the edge of the seat and wondered what it would take for her to be able to use it. Let him be gone, she prayed, realizing that more emotions were involved now than terror.
Brian came to the door of the store and looked at her strangely. When he put his hand on the handle, she started the pickup and quickly put it into reverse.
What should she do with herself? Still too upset to talk to anyone, she drove slowly through town, in the opposite direction from home. She braked once when she saw the arrow sign pointing the way to the County office building. She didn't have to talk to Hardin, she realized. Crime committed outside the city limits was in Rodney Madden's jurisdiction. Talking to Sheriff Madden sounded infinitely more appealing but she had promised Sam an hour. She owed him that.
She was halfway to the next town, where the hills began to flatten into wheat fields before she decided it was safe to start back. He'd better be gone when she got there.
He was.
Jonna drove completely behind the old house just to be sure his car was gone.
Candy was back in the corral. The fact that he'd taken time to take care of her horse seemed to contradict the hard, cold, warning that had been in his words. All his talk had been a bluff, she decided, detesting her efforts at trying to find something good about him.
She reminded herself of his threats. All bluster. As insubstantial as the breeze.
Jonna's sigh of relief locked in her lungs though. He'd shown himself a terrific candidate for some extensive therapy, but she'd hovered on the brink of falling for him. Wouldn't a therapist have just as good a time with that?
She drove slowly up the hill to her own house, lost in wistful speculation. Would he go back to the college and resume his life there? She wondered what he'd been like before his sister's death had tipped him over the edge. What a tragedy.
She could probably even find him eventually, send him the money he was due. And when or if he recovered from whatever demons possessed him...
She was beginning to feel every bit as obsessed as he was and as foolish as she'd been over Jeffrey. But the glimpses of the man she had assumed he was, the one he could be, those glimpses had been very appealing.
She realized she'd been sitting in her garage, her fingers pressed against her cold mouth, for—she wasn't sure how long. She walked wearily toward the house, totally drained by the huge gamut of emotions she'd used up.
The second she opened the door, Magic jumped her, meowing frantically. She'd never felt so grateful to see a warm comforting body. She was going to cry again and Magic always understood. Jonna bent to pick her up, then stopped halfway.
A pile of debris cluttered the door between the foyer and the main part of the
house. Jonna rose slowly from her partial squat and opened the door wide.
The trash filling the doorway was only the beginning, and the lump in Jonna's throat turned to horror again. She wanted to cry for him. "Oh, God. He's even sicker than I thought."
The kitchen cabinets stood open. At least two hung by one hinge, as if someone had opened them, clawed everything out, then swung on the doors until the top hinges gave way.
Jonna picked her way through the mess at her feet, stepped through the chaos of the kitchen and looked into the living room. Sam was gone, all right, but he'd certainly left his mark.
The living room looked almost as bad. Giant slashes made the upholstered furniture seem to have exploded. He had missed one cushion on the loveseat, making it, not the others, seem mismatched and discordant. Books tumbled everywhere. One of the bookcases stood upside down in the middle of the room.
The small cocktail tables were upended, the lamps destroyed almost beyond recognition.
But there, untouched in the midst of the mess, sat the fragile glass castle her best friend from college had given her the day they graduated.
She slumped to her knees and picked it up, examining it and trying to figure out how it had avoided the destruction. Magic rubbed up against her thigh, purring comfortingly as Jonna's hand absently stroked the pet.
Had the upstairs escaped the attack? One glance toward the loft confirmed that it hadn't. Papers littered everything and her drafting table wasn't there. She could always see it from this vantage point.
"Oh, Magic," she whispered and looked around for the phone.
The peach-colored cord led to a pile of books, and the phone jangled as she unburied it from the bottom of the stack.
A rustling noise sounded behind her and Jonna bolted to her feet.
Sam stood in the doorway, white-faced.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, curling the castle to her chest with one hand, the telephone receiver protectively to her with the other.
Sam's eyes scanned the disaster, then clashed with hers. She stepped warily backward, coming up short as her calf contacted one of the end tables.
"Jonna, I'm sorry. I should have been here. I could have stopped this. Stopped him," he added with an extra layer of venom.
Him? Jonna searched frantically for a way around Sam. If he would keep playing games like this, if he was crazy, he would—
The gun. Damn. She'd left it in the pickup.
"What a con artist," she said, sarcasm disguising her fright. "Do you expect me to believe you didn't do this?"
"I didn't, Jonna. I swear on my life." He took a step in her direction, then froze at her yelped scream.
"Jonna, please. Listen to me."
She felt an unwelcome stab of sympathy at his tortured expression, but reminded herself he was one heck of an actor. And dangerous and deranged besides. She had to get that through her head and base every reaction on that fact and that fact alone. Dangerous. Deranged.
"Get out of my house. I told you I'd call the police." She looked at the phone and reached to dial 911.
"Don't you get it?"
"Get what? That you are crazy and... and... ?"
"That someone wants to kill you," he said, enunciating each word carefully.
"Me?"
"I'm here to stop him."
"Who?"
"I don't know." He bowed his head. His jaw did that tightening thing that made the muscle there flex.
"The man who wants to kill you murdered my sister," he said. "He also killed a woman in Colorado. Probably another. There may have been others—I'm not sure," he said. "But I know you're next."
"Why? Why would anyone want to kill me?" Her heart was beginning to ache from pounding so hard. Why was Sam doing this?
"The award."
Don't you remember the award? The dark, neurotic voice on the telephone? The memory stole the firm, solid ground beneath her feet and she began to shake uncontrollably. "That's ridiculous."
"You know that." Sam lifted one eyebrow. "The police know that. Everyone knows that—but someone forgot to tell him. He wants to kill you. Your thinking that the idea is ridiculous won't keep him from doing it."
He believed it. Somewhere that truth clicked in her head. "Oh, Sam. Let me get you some help."
"I have proof that everything I've told you is true."
"Everything?"
"Everything I told you this morning," he amended, fluidly closing in on her, his movements so graceful that she almost didn't notice. A crushed lamp and a chaotic stack of miscellany were all that separated them. Another step and he would be within grabbing distance.
"Look at these." Sam lifted a sheaf of papers she hadn't noticed in his hand. For a second, they claimed his attention, and Jonna seized the chance she might not have again.
She dropped the phone and dodged right—opposite the direction of the door.
He lunged, just as she'd anticipated, but her flight the other way from what he expected left him off-balance for a second. A whimper of hope escaped her as his fingertips brushed, but didn't get a grip on her jacket. If she could keep him disoriented, she might have a prayer of a chance.
Leaping a pile of clutter, she gave him a wide berth and circled the counter, running back toward the still-open door. Cold wind hit her face as his warm hand brushed her waist.
She shrieked, twisted. Alarm rendered her senseless as she rushed outdoors. She must get to the gun.
He caught her halfway to the garage.
Both hands clamped around her midsection. She struggled silently. Squirming, kicking. Her hand formed a claw, ready to swipe at his face, and she tried to turn. He jerked her backward, holding her firmly against him. She whimpered again and realized it was almost a permanent state. She wasn't sure if she'd ever be able to stop. Her brain felt like a quivering mass of matter. She fought mindlessly.
"Jonna." His breath fanned her ear, yet the sound seemed to come from far, far away. "Jonna. Calm down. Listen to me. Please. Jonna."
The words pounded her, like waves relentlessly lapping away at a sandy shore. Gradually, the gentle hold, the soft concern in his voice pricked her consciousness. She started hearing him coherently.
"Jonna," he said urgently as her struggle slowly died, "you've got to listen to me."
His strong arms, his taut body, swaddled her and wrapped her in a tight cocoon. She felt the rise and fall of his chest. His heart thudded heavily in a counter-beat to hers. Both rhythms gradually slowed as if seeking to establish a shared pace.
She guessed she should be grateful her heart was still beating. She was positive it had stopped completely for a few minutes.
"Now, listen to me," he commanded. The words vibrated through her.
She squirmed again, then nodded and his grip loosened, but he didn't let go. "Let's go back inside."
Sam shoved Jonna gently in front of him and negotiated her through the disaster.
Chairs were overturned, and a whirlwind of paper layered the stairs. Sam prodded her forward to the only un-maimed cushion on the sofa and pushed her down there. Standing room only, he thought inanely as he rejected the volcano of fluff on the cushion beside her and crouched down in front.
Safer anyway, he told himself, looking at those wide stunned eyes. She was obviously in shock. Each shard of green, gold and brown in the hazel circle was overly bright. Her pupils were dilated. When she emerged from that state, she might try to run again.
"Jonna?" He spoke as if he were speaking to a child. She looked past him and he felt a reluctant anger.
"Jonna, will you stay put if I get the papers I asked a friend to fax me so I could show them to you?" He waved vaguely toward where he'd dropped them to chase her.
She didn't react, and he didn't take his eyes off her until he couldn't avoid stumbling over the debris any other way.
By the time he got back to her and settled on his haunches again, her trembling had subsided a little, but her breathing was st
ill shallow. He offered her the stack of papers. Anger stabbed him as she drew away, farther back into the cushions. Anger at her for believing him capable of this. Anger at whoever had done it. Oh, God, he hadn't wanted to feel. He couldn't spare the luxury of feeling right now. He hardened his heart.
She was registering some reaction again at least, be thought. That was positive.
And little comfort. He'd screwed this up and the worst was yet to come. He'd cluttered all his plans with delusions last night, and they clouded his perceptions today. The facts. He had to stick with the facts.
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