“She’s probably just going home to take a bath and feed the cat,” Jack said.
“Go!” Ben said. “There she goes. Keep your distance, but don’t lose her!”
“Relax,” Sarah said. “I’ve had defensive-driving training.”
“Then let’s see some of it!” Ben said. “She’s turning the corner!”
Sarah followed her up a narrow country road. “Where is she going?” she wondered aloud, relaxing a little as they reached the state highway headed east. Darkness still seemed to absorb the frail light from the side of the road and the highway lights posted at distant intervals.
“Not a clue,” Jack replied. “Maybe she’s got a boyfriend.”
Ben made a scornful sound. “I’ll bet he’s up to his eyeballs in frayed nerves.”
That was probably true, Jack thought, but all he could remember was the screaming little girl who’d been ripped away from him all those years ago. “She was such a cute little kid,” he said.
“She’s a beautiful young woman,” Ben conceded, “but she looks like trouble, Jack. And she’s obviously up to something if she didn’t want you to know who she is.”
“We all have things to hide.”
“No, we don’t. Just promise me you’re not going to do anything stupid.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Hard to say when we don’t know what’s going on. But I know you. Hero through and through. I’ve got a bad feeling.”
“That’s the tamale you bought at the bodega. Look, her blinker’s on. Looks like we’re going north on 77, Sarah.”
“I know, Jack,” she said patiently. “It’s not like I’m driving with my eyes closed. What’s up there? Check the map.”
Jack held the map under a dash light. “Ah...Raymondville, Kingsville and, just off this road, Corpus Christi. But that’s a couple of hours away.”
“What time is it?”
“Almost eleven.”
Sarah allowed a BMW to get between them and Corie’s truck. She relaxed and prepared herself for a long drive.
A couple of hours later, when Corie turned off onto Interstate 37, Jack had a feeling they were headed for Corpus Christi.
Sarah followed Corie silently, staying back, making sure they didn’t lose sight of her.
“You getting tired?” Jack asked. “I can take over.”
“Thanks, but I’m fine.”
Corie made several turns, then followed a sign that promised only two miles to Corpus Christi.
“I wonder what’s here for her,” Sarah said.
“We’ll see soon enough.”
And they did. Corie went through the brightly lit downtown to Ocean Drive and an area of elegant, upscale homes.
“Okay, Jack,” Ben said, an edgy tone to his voice as he leaned forward. “What’s she doing here?”
“I don’t know. Stay with her, Sarah.”
“Sit back and let me drive,” Sarah said.
“When did you get so bossy? You were never like that with me. Jack’s been a bad influence on you.” He punched Jack in the shoulder, still leaning forward.
Toward the end of Ocean Drive, Corie slowed, turned off her headlights and drove at a crawl up a narrow, tree-lined lane that led to a plantation-style home. There were lights on in the veranda and the shrubbery that surrounded it.
Sarah turned off their headlights. She waited until Corie had reached the house before following, and then went only halfway up. “If I get any closer,” she said quietly to Jack, “she’ll see us.”
“Right.” He opened his door. “You two stay in the car.”
“Jack—”
* * *
JACK DIDN’T STAY to listen to whatever caution Ben or Sarah had to offer. This was his little sister.
Binoculars in his pocket, he ran at a crouch through the trees on the side of the lane until he could see her truck. She’d gotten out of it and, a small bag slung over her shoulder, did what he was doing—stayed in the shelter of the trees until she got to the garage.
Afraid to let his brain reach the obvious conclusion, he simply watched her creep along the garage wall, then around the corner. The moment she was out of sight, he followed, moving as silently as possible.
At the edge of the garage, he peered around it and saw her on the back porch working on the entry door with a tool, a small flashlight in her mouth pointed at her work. She did it with remarkable ease, as though this wasn’t the first time.
Now the conclusion reached him. She was a thief. Oh, good. His sister was a crook.
He had just made the decision to take her by surprise and stop her from entering the house when she let herself in. Though he hurried to the door, he was momentarily distracted by wires dangling in his face. Apparently the little girl who’d once eviscerated one of his GoBots could disarm a security system. With a silent groan, he pushed the door open the rest of the way, but she was nowhere in sight.
He was in a very large kitchen. It was hard to tell in the shadows, but it appeared to be all white and stainless steel with no place at all to have cake and coffee.
He heard a floorboard creak above his head and noticed what had once probably been the servants’ stairway at the back of the kitchen. He moved toward it, listening. He was guessing no one was home, but the garage doors had been closed, so it was impossible to know for sure.
Some minutes later the floorboard creaked again and then he heard the scrape of a chair being pushed back and heavier footsteps. A deep male voice said, “Who’s there?”
His heart in his throat, sure he was going to have to save Corie from being shot, Jack put one foot on the steps, about to run up them, when he heard a whoosh of movement at the top, and from the moonlight through a side window saw Corie come flying down—straight into his arms.
This time, fear in her eyes, her mouth open in an O of astonishment, she threw her arms around his neck and held. “Jack!” she whispered against him. She was shaking.
Heavy footsteps started down the stairs accompanied by a loud string of invectives. Jack turned quickly, yanking Corie after him. He shoved her ahead of him onto the back porch, whispering “Run!” and stopping just long enough to turn the lock and pull the door closed after him. He heard her racing away and chased her into the night.
As floodlights went on all over the property and the owner stepped out onto the porch, angry curses spilling from his mouth, Jack ran for the trees. He was almost there when he was tackled from the side and went down on his stomach beside a knee-high bush, the air knocked out of him.
Thinking the angry owner had friends, he elbowed backward, prepared to struggle. Then he heard Ben’s grunt and a whispered plea. “It’s me, genius! Stay down! You, too, you little crook!”
A soft hand touched his face. “You okay, Jack?” Sarah whispered.
“You were supposed to wait in the car!”
“Yeah. That’s what you thought.”
Jack heard a struggle going on right behind him. It sounded like slaps and punches and grunts. Then Ben gasped in pain. “Hey! I’ve been shot in that arm. Stay down or I’ll hand you over to this guy!”
“How’d you like me to punch that arm again? Who made you king, anyway?”
“Corie!” Jack looked over his shoulder. “Stay down and shut up!”
Sarah said, “It’s okay, Corie. Ben just wants to help. Nobody’s going to let this guy have you.”
The owner walked down the steps, still swearing, a shotgun at the ready as he scanned the yard.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Ben said under his voice. “He’s coming this way.”
“Take Sarah and Corie to Corie’s truck,” Jack ordered Ben. “I’m going to distract the guy. Drive the truck to the road and wait by our car. I’ll meet you there.”
>
“Jack...” Ben began to caution, but Jack didn’t listen. He ran silently through the trees, aware of the big guy scanning a grid pattern through the garden, looking behind the tall, ornamental pots. Jack made it to the alarm Corie had disabled. He reconnected it and was immediately deafened by the blare of noise.
Flattened against the side of the house, he saw the guy turn and race back in his direction. He threw a pot of geraniums at the garage wall, then ducked behind the house as the guy turned back in his direction. Jack ran around the house to the other side and stayed in the trees until he reached the road.
He saw the rented Navigator about ten yards away, Corie’s truck idling beside it, and he rushed toward them. He opened the passenger door of the truck and pulled Corie out. “Can you follow me in the truck?” he asked Ben. “Is your arm up to it?”
“Yeah,” Ben snapped. “No thanks to your sister.” Sarah, however, had already jumped out of the middle and into the driver’s seat, giving Ben a shove.
“Move over. I’m driving.”
“No, I—”
“This is no time to argue!”
“All right, let’s go.”
“Jack, I can’t go with you!” Corie said. Her voice was high, breathless. “I—”
“We’ll talk about it when we can stop. Get in the car.”
He pushed her toward the Navigator. When she resisted, he said, “You’d rather get caught?”
With a despondent shake of her head, she got in the car. He climbed into the other side and drove off doing seventy, Sarah and Ben in the truck right behind him.
They were on 77 heading south before Jack felt safe enough, calm enough, to speak. As far as he could tell, they weren’t being followed, except by Ben. He shot a glance at his sister, the excitement that had lived in him throughout the trip not even fractionally diminished by the knowledge that she was a criminal. He’d just seen her disable an alarm and break into an elegant home in an upscale neighborhood. He hated that, but he still loved that he’d found her.
“Do you want to tell me what you were doing in that house?” he asked. He pointed to the glove box. “There’s a bag of peanuts in there if you’re hungry.”
He felt her turn to him and took his eyes off a clear patch of road for just an instant to glance her way. It was dark inside the car, but he saw the anger in her eyes. Under it, though, was shock and worry. And something else he couldn’t identify. She was beautiful and looked a lot like their mother, except that she had dark hair and eyes. She’d ripped her hat off a few miles back, combed through her hair with her fingers, then knotted it up like he’d seen Sarah do with hers—with a carelessness that looked messy, yet somehow attractive.
She turned away. “No, on the telling you what I was doing in the house, and no thank you on the peanuts.” She had a surprisingly raspy voice. “You want to tell me where we’re going? How on God’s earth you found me? And why?”
“No, on the telling you where we’re going, and no on the how I found you,” he replied. “If I get nothing, you get nothing. Except the why. It’s because I’ve wanted to find you and Cassie since the day they took you away. I’ve imagined it, dreamed of it, almost gave up, hoping you’d be looking for me. But you weren’t, so I had to keep trying. Because you’re my little sister and though you made me crazy when we were kids, I loved you. I love you now. And it seems you’re still going to make me crazy.”
Without warning, she burst into tears. The car filled with the sound and Jack said her name evenly, hoping to calm her. But the sobbing only increased, seeming to come from deep inside. He put a hand out to her and she caught it, grinding her fingernails into his palm. “Jack!” she wept. “Jack. I can’t believe you’re here.”
He spotted a rest area sign and turned on his right turn signal. He checked his rearview mirror to make sure Sarah saw him. She, too, signaled a right turn and followed Jack off the road into a small park surrounded by trees. Streetlights brightened the darkness but left a picnic table in the middle in shadow.
Jack led Corie to the table and sat her on the bench, then straddled it and wrapped his arms around her. She held him as the sobs continued to rip out of her.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sarah and Ben approaching, then stopping, obviously reluctant to intrude on this intense moment between Corie and him.
At last Corie stopped crying enough to say, “For years I hoped you’d find me—” her eyes still swam with tears “—but then I gave up. I mean, really gave up.” She looked down at the bench, fresh tears flowing. “My father died. Life was awful. I’d lost touch with Cassie—”
“You’ve heard from Cassie?”
“A long time ago. I was twelve when I got the last letter. She went away, I think. Europe or somewhere.” She pressed herself closer to Jack. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
So she did care. She hadn’t forgotten.
She straightened abruptly and dragged the sleeve of her jacket across her eyes. “But I can’t go with you. Whatever you’re thinking about us...you know, being family again, I can’t do it. I’ve got my own life now. I...I have plans. Things I have to do.”
Jack gestured Sarah closer. She came to sit beside Corie. “This is Sarah. We’re getting married. I’d really like you to get to know her.”
Corie looked Sarah over, suspicion in her tearful gaze. After a moment she said, “Hi, Sarah. I’d like to get to know you, too, but I have a lot to do right now.”
Ben appeared beside them and offered Corie a thermos cup filled with water. “Like break into another house?” he asked.
“Ben,” Sarah scolded.
“Okay,” he said. “I got the thermos from your truck, Corie. Thought you needed some water.”
Corie took the cup and drank from it, then handed it back to Ben. “I have my own life now,” she said.
This was the very thing Jack had feared. She had her own life and he would be a reminder of her unhappy past. But there was more at work here. He’d witnessed her big-brother adoration. Was she somehow protecting him rather than herself?
“Are you married?” he asked.
“No.”
“Do you have children?”
“No.”
“Then it’s a life that could use a little livening up. I’m taking you home to Oregon with us. My mother, my adopted mother, wants you to have Thanksgiving with us. Maybe together we can find Cassie.”
He saw longing in her eyes for the scenario he’d painted. Then she shook her head. “I can’t right now.”
“Why not?”
She looked up at him stubbornly. “I just can’t.” Then she added in a high, frail voice, “But I love that you came for me.”
Ben leaned over her. He pointed to a small fabric bag strung across her chest. “Can I have a look at that?” he asked.
She stiffened and wiped at her eyes again. “Can’t you see it from there?”
He acknowledged her deliberately obtuse response with a phony smile. “I’d like to see inside it.”
She turned away. “Well, you can’t.”
“What is it you don’t want us to see?” Ben persisted.
She studied him for a minute and Jack remembered the little girl who’d told him she hadn’t eaten his Twinkies when she had cream all over her lips.
“The mysteries of my makeup routine,” she replied, returning his phony smile. She gestured toward her face, mascara and lipstick smeared. “Can’t have everyone copying this CoverGirl look.”
Without warning, Ben caught the strap in his fingers and tore it off her.
“Hey!” she complained at the same moment that Jack and Sarah shouted simultaneously, “Ben!”
She grabbed for the purse. Ben held her away with his good arm and handed the contents to Jack with his swollen fingers. Overturning the bag onto t
he table, Jack swore. He hoped his eyes were deceived by the shadows where they sat, but the jewels that spilled out gleamed like the real thing. There were several necklaces that appeared to be diamonds in various sizes, a large pendant that was probably gold, and a cluster of brilliant green stones. Emeralds.
“Omigod,” Sarah whispered.
When Jack looked up, he could see that Ben was beyond exasperated. “If we go to jail for this, Jack, you’re going to be sorry,” Ben said. He looked at Corie, his expression turning severe. “You tell us right now what’s going on. Your brother just spent half his adult life in Iraq and Afghanistan and came home wanting nothing more than to find you and your sister. If he ends up doing time in the State of Texas because his little sister is a common thief, I will make you miserable, young lady.”
“You’re already doing that!” she shouted at him. Then she turned to Jack and demanded, “Who is he?”
Jack had to smile. “Don’t you remember Ben Palmer?”
She frowned as she turned reluctantly to study Ben.
“He was my friend.” Jack tried to encourage the memory. “You and Cassie and I used to play ball with him and Marty Brogan at the park. We spent a couple of days with him and his parents before the state sent you and Cassie back to your dads.”
He saw the pain move in her eyes; the same thing that always happened to him when he thought about that time.
Ben offered her the cup of water again. “You used to love to walk on that old brick path in front of Mrs. Brogan’s house, and I used to hold your hand to keep you steady while Jack carried Cassidy.”
Her eyes lit up for an instant and she looked into his face. Then something dark seemed to crowd out the memory.
“He’s my brother,” Jack said, trying to pull her out of whatever bad thoughts she was having. “My dad was dead, so I had no one to go to. Ben’s parents adopted me.”
She nodded grimly. “Wow. Lucky.”
“I was,” he said. “I am. I’d like you to meet them and to share them with you.”
Her smile saddened. “I had a fairy-tale life, too, in the beginning. My father died when I was twelve. His wife never really liked me. She had two daughters, just like Cinderella’s stepmother.” Corie laughed, the sound hollow. “She sort of sold me to a friend who turned me into a housekeeper-slave and usually forgot to feed me. One day I met Teresa. She was at the bodega, buying fruit, and she caught me stealing a banana from her bag. She took me home with her.”
In My Dreams Page 19