by Linda Turner
“We’ll show them as much mercy as they’ve shown us,” Buck added grimly. “In the meantime, stay safe. Okay?”
“I will,” she promised, blinking back tears. Why was she only now realizing how homesick she was for her family? “Tell Katherine and Elizabeth I miss you all, and I’ll see you soon.” Too choked up to say another word, she handed the phone to Donovan and turned away.
“I’m doing everything I can to keep her safe,” he told Buck quietly. “And we haven’t had any problems for a couple of days.”
“Then I call and mess everything up,” Buck said in disgust. “I’m sorry, man. Now you’re going to have to move again.”
“It’s okay,” Donovan assured him. “I don’t like to stay in one place too long, anyway.”
“I won’t ask where you’re going—I don’t want to know. Just keep Cilla safe and show up here at the end of the month.”
“I’ll do that,” Donovan said. “How are things at the ranch?” When Buck hesitated, he frowned. “That bad?”
“It’s no more than we expected,” he replied. “We’re hanging tough. And staying at home,” he added. “So far, we’ve all been here every night.”
It was going to get worse before it got better, but Donovan knew he didn’t have to tell Buck that. He, like Priscilla and her sisters, lived with the pressure of meeting the terms of Hilda’s will every day. “If things get worse and you need us to come in, call,” he said gruffly. “We’ll be there as quickly as we can.”
“If it looks like we’re going to miss a night, I’ll call you immediately,” he promised. “Now go pack. You’ve got to move.”
He didn’t have to tell Donovan twice. Already plotting where they would go, he hung up and turned to find Priscilla hurriedly getting dressed. The tears he’d seen in her eyes earlier were gone, and in their place was outrage.
“You’re mad,” he told her as he pulled on jeans and a clean shirt. “Good. You need to be. That’s what’s going to get you through this.”
“They’re not going to beat us,” she vowed, jerking a clean sweater over her head. “I don’t care how much money or power they have or what kind of strings they can pull. Whoever is terrorizing us is wasting their time. They’re not going to win this fight.”
“Trust me—they’re beginning to realize that,” he replied. “That’s why they’re turning up the heat.” Stepping into his boots, he tossed their suitcases onto the bed and began throwing clothes into them.
“We’re tougher than they gave us credit for.”
“But they have desperation on their side,” he warned. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’ve got this thing in the bag because you’ve been able to outsmart them so far. This war is far from over.”
In the process of collecting shampoo, toothpaste and deodorant from the bathroom, she gave him a sharp look as she dumped it into the suitcases. “What are you saying? That they’re going to get nastier? How can they? They’ve thrown everything but the kitchen sink at us already, and we’ve still managed to keep the ranch and evade them. What else can they do?”
“Don’t ask,” he retorted. “What’s the ranch worth?”
She frowned. “I don’t know. It’s thousands of acres. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Humor me,” he said. “So you own—or will at the end of the month—thousands of acres of prime Colorado ranch land. Sight unseen, I would guess it has to be worth a couple of million, at the very least. Wouldn’t you say?”
She shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe more—I don’t know. This isn’t about the money.”
“It’s always about the money,” he said dryly. “Trust me. If it was only worth a grand or two, no one would be fighting you and your family for the ranch. You’re talking about millions, sweetheart. There are people who would sell their soul for something worth that kind of money.”
She paled at that. “Do you really think they would go so far as to kill us?”
He didn’t want to scare her, but she had to know what they were up against. “I don’t know,” he said grimly. “Someone has gone to a hell of a lot of trouble to drive the four of you away from the ranch, and they’re running out of time. If they’re desperate enough—and convinced that they really are the unnamed heir in Hilda’s will—yes, I think they would find a way to justify homicide. Especially,” he added, “since they’ve managed to repeatedly attack all of you and the ranch without getting caught. What have they got to be afraid of? No one has a clue who they are.”
Shaken, Priscilla threw the last of their things in the suitcases and zipped them shut. “Let’s get out of here.”
It wasn’t until they hurried out to the car, however, that Priscilla saw the lights on in the diner across the street and realized they were supposed to show up for work in less than fifteen minutes. “Oh, my God. Harry! We can’t drive off without at least giving him some kind of explanation.”
“The hell we can’t,” Donovan snapped as he threw the suitcases in the trunk. “He’ll understand—”
“How can he when he won’t have a clue why we didn’t show up?” she argued. “We should at least tell him there’s been an emergency or something and we have to leave. It won’t take two seconds,” she added quickly before he could disagree. “We can just slip in the back door, tell him goodbye, and leave.”
After everything she’d been through, Donovan had to admit that she didn’t ask for much. “All right.” He sighed. “But you’ve got five seconds. That’s it. Understood?”
He knew grown men who quaked in their shoes when he used that tone of voice. She only grinned and kissed him on the cheek.
“What do you mean…you’re quitting?” Harry demanded. “Now?!”
“Something’s come up,” Priscilla said quickly. “We have to go—”
“You’re running from something, aren’t you? Someone’s after you.”
It wasn’t a question but a flat statement of fact. Horrified that he had guessed, Priscilla stuttered, “N-no, of c-course not.”
“I got a job offer in Seattle,” Donovan lied. “It starts tomorrow, so we’re going to have to haul ass if we’re going to make it.”
Priscilla had to give Donovan credit—he was totally believable. But Harry wasn’t born yesterday and obviously knew a line of bull when he heard one. “If you don’t want to tell me the truth, I understand,” he said gruffly. “But you have nothing to fear from me. As far as I’m concerned, I never met anyone matching your descriptions, and I certainly don’t know anyone with your names—”
“Or any other names,” Donovan said pointedly.
Harry didn’t even blink. “My cook, Justin, and my waitress, Mary Lou, had worked for me for two years and they just decided to run off and get married. Last I heard, they got jobs in Vegas and decided not to come back.”
Donovan grinned. “Justin and Mary Lou, huh? We’ll keep an eye out for them.”
“You just keep Mary Lou safe,” he said sternly.
Tears misting her eyes, Priscilla gave him a quick hug. “Under all that gruffness, you’re a real softie.”
Color singed his cheeks, and for just a second, his lips twitched and threatened to stretch into a smile. He scowled, but could do nothing about the twinkle in his eye. “Don’t spread that around, okay?”
“We won’t tell a soul,” she promised.
Stepping over to the cash register, he quickly counted out their pay for the days they’d worked. “If you ever need a job, I’m here. Now get out of here before whoever’s after you finds you.”
He didn’t have to tell them twice. Hurrying out to the car, they were the one of only three cars on the street at that hour of the morning, and the other cars were headed in the opposite direction. Keeping a watchful eye on the rearview mirror, Donovan turned right at the next corner and headed west.
“It looks like we’re safe so far,” Priscilla said quietly, glancing over her shoulder at the empty road behind them. “How long do you think we have before we have t
o worry about trouble showing up?”
He’d been wondering that himself. “If we’re lucky, whoever’s tapping the phones won’t find out about Buck’s call until much later this morning. By then, we’ll be at least a hundred fifty miles or more from Los Angeles and no one will have a clue where to look for us.”
He didn’t tell Priscilla, but he would have felt a lot safer if there’d been more traffic at that hour of the morning. They weren’t being followed—yet—but they stuck out like a sore thumb on the empty street. The faster they got away from the area, the better.
Normally he stuck to back roads when he was trying to evade someone, but not this time. Interstate 5 was less than a mile away and offered a quick escape. They’d head north toward Hollywood and then just pick an exit and disappear. Maybe they’d go further north and go all the way up to Carmel. It was a beautiful drive along the coast, and he’d show Priscilla—
A half mile down the road, the flashing lights of several patrol cars caught his attention. They appeared to stretch across the road and block traffic on all sides. “What the hell!”
Following his gaze, Priscilla gasped. “Oh, my God! Is it an accident? But no one’s on the road!”
Never taking his eyes from the flashing lights in the predawn darkness, Donovan swore. “That’s not an accident. It’s a roadblock.”
“A roadblock? What? You mean like a license check?”
“No, it’s a hell of a lot more serious than that. My guess is they’re looking for someone.”
Stunned, Priscilla frowned. “Who?”
“Us.”
Chapter 11
“Hang on, sweetheart. We’re going for a ride,” he warned, and took a sharp right at the next corner. Not surprised when he heard sirens almost immediately, Donovan raced around another corner before their pursuers even turned down the first side street they’d taken.
Beside him, Priscilla was as white as a sheet as the sound of the sirens grew closer. “Why are they after us? We haven’t done anything.”
“That’s a damn good question,” he said grimly. Flattening the accelerator all the way to the floor, he raced through the darkened residential streets as fast as he dared. “How the hell could whoever’s after the ranch persuade the Los Angeles police to set up a roadblock for us?”
“Someone couldn’t just call and lie and say we were bank robbers or something?”
“Whoever arranged this definitely lied, but it’s not that simple,” he replied. “Only a law enforcement agency can issue an APB—and they’re not going to do that just because someone comes crying to them with a bunch of lies. They’d have to have a reason—”
“Unless someone in law enforcement or a position of authority is the one lying,” she pointed out.
The truth hit them both like a slap in the face. “It’s someone in the police department—”
“Or a judge,” he cut in, cursing. “Dammit, I should have seen it the second I realized the phones were tapped. It takes a court order to tap a phone. And if a judge went to the police and requested an APB, especially in a small town like Willow Bend where everyone knows everyone else, the police probably aren’t going to ask too many questions.”
“Especially if they’re all part of the conspiracy to drive us away from the ranch,” she added, horrified. “We’ve got to call Buck. He has to know what’s going on, that he can’t trust anyone, not even the cops or the judges.”
“Not yet,” Donovan said. “The call will be traced the second you make it, so let’s get to the other side of town first and make a few preparations.”
“What kind of preparations?”
“You’ll see,” he promised, and once again made a series of quick turns that took them farther from the roadblock and their pursuers. Forced to go the speed limit, he wound through residential streets, onto main thoroughfares and back to residential streets, heading north, then east, always keeping his eyes peeled for the police as he waited for the morning rush hour to start.
He didn’t have long to wait. By the time he zipped onto the Santa Ana Freeway, dawn was still an hour away, but thousands of drivers were already on the road. Blending in with the other vehicles, Donovan didn’t even blink when they passed a patrol car. Earlier, when he’d evaded the roadblock, the police hadn’t been able to see what kind of car he and Priscilla were in. And they obviously still didn’t know. The policeman they passed didn’t even look twice at them.
When he took a random exit on the north side of Los Angeles and pulled into a Wal-Mart parking lot, Priscilla looked at him in surprise. “Why are we stopping here? I thought we were going to get out of town.”
“We are. But first we’re going to buy a tape recorder. Then we’re going to call Buck.”
“Without it being traced?”
“No, but that’s okay,” he assured her. “This is one call we want to be traced.”
Forty minutes later, Donovan called Buck’s number, then quickly laid his cell phone on the tape recorder he’d placed under some landscape bushes in the parking lot of one of Los Angeles’s largest shopping malls. Just as he heard Buck answer, he hit the Play button on the tape recorder, then hurried over to where Priscilla waited in the running car fifty feet away.
“I know we’d agreed to no contact,” his recorded message said, “but just listen. Okay? Something happened this morning you need to know about. Less than an hour after we spoke this morning, we were nearly caught in a police roadblock. We’re fine and still on the run, but you and the girls need to realize that the authorities are involved in this. I’m talking judges, police, anyone with any authority in Willow Bend. Do not trust anyone! Whoever called in an APB on us is either in the police department or working with someone who is. And a judge had to order the wiretap. He could have been acting on false information given to him or done this on his own. Either way, the three of you can’t trust anyone but each other. Understood? Please be careful. We won’t be calling anymore. It’s just too dangerous. If there’s anything we need to know, send me an e-mail. I’ll try to check it somewhere along the way. Priscilla’s fine. She’s just worried about you.”
That was a huge understatement. Priscilla was, in fact, nearly sick with worry as Donovan sent the car racing onto the entrance ramp of the freeway that bordered one side of the mall, leaving his cell phone and the tape recorder far behind. “Are you sure he got the message?” she asked worriedly. “What if he hung up before the message started to play?”
“I heard him answer,” Donovan told her. “And even if there was a slight delay between the time he answered and the start of the message, he knew the call was from me. He wouldn’t have hung up.”
Suddenly chilled, she asked. “How long do you think it will take the police to show up at the mall?”
He shrugged. “An hour? Maybe less. It doesn’t really matter. They don’t know what we’re driving or where we’re headed.”
“Where are we headed?”
“Colorado.”
“What?! Why?”
Donovan hadn’t intended to tell her, at least not yet, but she had a right to know just what kind of danger her family was in. “Whoever’s tapping Buck’s phone heard the message we left, sweetheart. They know that Buck is aware of the fact that whoever is orchestrating all this is a hell of a lot more well connected than any of you dreamed.”
She paled. “And you think they’ll come after him before he can tell anyone?”
“It’s a possibility,” he said grimly. “They’re not going to take a chance on him or anyone else in the family going to the FBI. They’ll throw everything they’ve got at the ranch, which is why we’re heading for Colorado. If your family needs us, we’ll be close by.”
Alarmed, Priscilla said, “Can’t you go faster?”
“Not without speeding.” Reaching across the console, he took her hand and linked her fingers with his. “We’ll get there as fast as we can, sweetheart, but we can’t take a chance on getting stopped by a state trooper. There’s no t
elling what kind of story has been put out there about us. The last thing we want is to get arrested.”
She hadn’t even thought of that. “But we haven’t done anything! And we’re using aliases.”
“Trust me—pictures went out with those APBs. And,” he added bluntly, “a dirty cop doesn’t need us to do anything wrong to make it look like we did. Whatever charges he sent out with the APBs were nothing but lies. These bastards write their own rules, sweetheart, so don’t expect anyone to play fair. It’s not going to happen.”
She knew he was only giving her the worst case scenario just in case things went south. It didn’t, unfortunately, help. More afraid than ever for her family, she did the only thing she could. She prayed.
They drove all day and into the night. Priscilla offered to drive when they stopped to get some coffee, but Donovan wasn’t willing to risk it. “You haven’t had enough driving experience in the U.S.,” he retorted. “This isn’t the time to get it.”
“But you’ve got to be exhausted,” she protested.
“I’m fine,” he assured her. “The coffee helps.”
“Yeah, right,” she sniffed. “That’s why your eyes are burning.”
Surprised, he looked at her in the darkness. “How did you know my eyes were burning?” When she just looked at him, he sighed. “Okay, you’re right. Satisfied? I’m still not letting you drive.”
“Be that way,” she said with a shrug. “I guess I’ll just have to keep you awake with stories about my childhood.”
“Oh, God,” he groaned. “Anything but that!”
“I’ll have you know I was a cute kid,” she retorted, fighting a smile.
“I’ll bet you were a sissy. You took dance lessons, didn’t you? You probably had a pink ballerina outfit and danced around on your toes all the time?”
“Me?” She laughed. “Not hardly. I was a tomboy.”
“Yeah, right,” he snorted. “That’s a whopper if I ever heard it.”