Deadly Vows

by Shirlee McCoy

  Words weren’t enough, she’d said. What she’d wanted was time.

  Ford hadn’t thought he could give it to her.

  And then he’d almost died and everything had changed.

  Time rather than money had become the thing on which his dreams and hopes were resting. Time to make amends to Olivia, to rebuild their relationship, to live a life that was worth more than what he had in his bank account.

  He shook his head, staring out into pre-dawn. The tree he’d heard brushing against the glass the previous night, hid the yard from view. Thick-limbed and strong it had probably been there longer than the house. Ford imagined kids opening the window and climbing into the branches, reveling in their childhood in a way Ford had never been able to. That’s what he wanted for his child. Not a life spent worrying about where the next meal would come from or whether or not his parents were coming home after a long night of partying.

  He opened the window, leaned out to inhale fresh spring air. The tree had bloomed with fresh growth, the bright green leaves rustling in the breeze. The world still slumbered, and the quiet neighborhood seemed a place of safety.

  But something seemed to lurk beneath the silence, something ugly and dangerous. Ford stilled, cocking his head to the side and listening. The morning was still and filled with an air of restless anticipation. As if something were about to happen. Something that Ford didn’t think he was going to like.

  He frowned, searching the side yard below the window. What little he could see was empty of life.

  “Get over yourself. There’s nothing out there,” Ford muttered, but he leaned farther out the window anyway. He couldn’t see the front or backyard, but the neighbor’s yard was empty. A fence separated the two properties, and Ford wondered if it had been there before the feds decided to use the property as a safe house. It was at least six feet tall and made of what looked to be galvanized wood. It would be hard to climb, but not impossible. Had one of the Martino family’s henchmen already figured that out?

  He frowned again. He hadn’t survived in the business world by ignoring his intuition, and his intuition was shouting that something was wrong.

  He moved away from the window and stepped back into the sitting area. Marshal Green glanced his way and offered a quick nod. “Everything okay?”

  “Just wondering who’s guarding the house.”

  “Agent Parker and I are inside. We’ve got two men outside and one patrolling the street.”

  “And that’s enough manpower?”

  “Should be plenty. Why do you ask?”

  “Just a feeling.”

  “What kind of feeling?”

  “That it’s too quiet outside.”

  “It’s natural to be jumpy in situations like this, Mr. Jensen, but we’ve got plenty of manpower and plenty of protection for you and Ms. Jarrod.”

  “How about you just call outside and make sure?”

  “How about you not tell me how to do my job?” The marshal asked with a smile that was anything but pleasant.

  “Look, I’m not trying to cause problems, but the Martinos already found Olivia once. There’s no reason to think they won’t find her again.”

  “Sure there is. This time, we’ve got a specialized task force guarding her whereabouts.”

  “I’d still feel better if you’d checked with the people outside,” he said, gritting his teeth in frustration.

  “Tell you what. I’ll go downstairs and check in with Agent Parker. We’ll have our men do a perimeter check, but I can assure you that everything is exactly how it should be.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

  “No problem. I was getting bored sitting here anyway,” the marshal said, standing and stretching before disappearing down the steps.

  Maybe Ford should wait for his report, but he’d never been good at waiting while other people acted. Especially not when something important was at stake. He knocked on Olivia’s door.

  “Liv?”

  “Go away, Ford. I’m not in the mood for chatting.”

  “I don’t want to chat.”

  “Then what do you want?” she asked, pulling open the door. Her eyes were shadowed, her skin almost translucent with fatigue.

  Ford wanted to pull her into his arms and tell her everything would be okay.

  Of course, if he did that, she’d shove him away and slam the door in his face, so he cut to the chase. “I was thinking maybe you should move your stuff to my room.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I’ve got a feeling something isn’t quite right around here. It’s too quiet.”

  “It’s not quite dawn. Of course it’s quiet.”

  “It’s a different kind of quiet than that, Olivia. Look, there’s a tree outside the window of my room. If we’ve got to get out quickly, it may be a means of escape.”

  “A tree? I’ve never climbed a tree in my li—”

  Somewhere below, glass shattered, cutting off Olivia’s words. She froze, her eyes wide with fear, and Ford grabbed her hand, dragging her into his room and slamming the door.

  “What was that?” Olivia cried, clutching his hand.

  “I don’t know, but I don’t think it was anything good.” He locked the door, pressed his ear to the wood and waited.

  “Do you hear anything?”

  “No.” And that worried him. Shouldn’t a marshal or Agent Parker be checking in to let them know that everything was okay?

  “Maybe someone dropped a glass.”

  “It sounded like a lot more was shattering than a glass,” he responded. It had sounded like a window, but the only thing Ford could think of that would shatter double pane glass was a bullet. He hadn’t heard one fired.

  Then again, men like the ones after Olivia might use silencers.

  The thought filled him with cold dread, and he tugged Olivia toward the window. “We need to get out of here.”

  “Maybe we should go see what happened. Or wait here until someone comes to let us know what’s going on.”

  “You mean wait here to die.”

  “No, I mean that I can’t believe we’ve been found again. Micah said—”

  “What he said was that they’d do everything they could to keep us safe. That if the assassins got to us it would be because the marshals had given everything to keep it from happening and failed.”

  Olivia’s face went pale at his words, and she glanced at the door, her eyes wide with fear. “Do you really think that’s what’s happening?”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t think we should wait around to find out. Once we—”

  He never finished.

  Something slammed into the door with enough force to shake it in its hinges.

  “Move!” Ford hissed. “Out into the tree. Don’t go down. Go across to the yard next door. We’ll go down there.”

  She didn’t argue, just slipped out the window, scrambling into the sheltering branches of the tree. Ford followed, balancing on a thick limb, watching as Olivia moved from branch to branch. Graceful. Strong. Confident despite the terror she must be feeling.

  Behind him, something slammed into the bedroom door again. It wouldn’t take long for the door to be forced from its hinges; for their assassin to rush in. Assassins. There had to be more than one if they’d taken down the marshals and agent stationed inside.

  Please God, help me get Olivia out of this safely. Please, keep her alive. Keep the baby alive.

  The prayer echoed in his mind as he maneuvered across thick branches. He wanted to believe that God heard. That He would step in and offer help, but faith wasn’t easy for Ford. He was used to planning and doing. Not waiting and hoping. Until Olivia had walked out of their Chicago penthouse, he’d seen no need to be anything different.

  Then she’d left, and everything had changed.

  The empty penthouse seemed to mock his busy schedule and careful plans. Each time he walked into it, he was reminded of what he’d lost and why he’d lost it.

  Maybe that’
s why he’d gone to church. To find out what it was that had drawn Olivia there. To see if the faith that she’d spoken of with such confidence was something he could as easily attain.

  But faith wasn’t the same as belief. It meant giving up and letting go. It meant trusting in the invisible to deal with the visible. It meant releasing control, and that was something Ford had never been good at.

  But he’d get good at it if it meant Olivia would live.

  A few feet in front, she began her descent, her feet searching for purchase as she slowly moved toward the ground. Behind him the sound of pounding continued, the sharp crack of wood telling Ford that he and Olivia were running out of time.

  He scrambled after her, wood scraping his hands, heart pounding, the prayer still chanting through his mind, faith an elusive dream he wasn’t sure he could reach, but that he knew he had no choice but to keep trying for.

  TWELVE

  The first bullet hit the dirt inches from Olivia’s feet. She screamed, falling backward as Ford dropped to the ground beside her.

  “Run!” he yelled, grabbing her hand and pulling her with him as he zigzagged across the lush green grass of the neighboring yard.

  Something snagged Olivia’s shoulder, and she stumbled, going down onto her knees and jumping up again, Ford’s hand still hard around hers.

  Would they die together?

  Ford, the baby and Olivia?

  She refused to let that happen. The thought spurred her on, giving wings to her feet.

  Ford yanked her sideways and around the corner of the neighboring house as a bullet whizzed past her ear.

  She tried to scream, but the sound stuck in her throat, frozen there by terror and her gasping breath.

  It was her worst nightmare come to life. Terror behind. A fence in front. Fear lodged in the hollow of her throat.

  “Into the neighbor’s yard. Quick.” Ford lifted her by the waist, and she grabbed the top of the fence, tugging herself over. Not thinking about anything but escape.

  Ford followed quickly, grabbing her hand again, yanking her through the next yard and the next. Then cutting through the backyard of the third. Past a large Victorian.

  Was anyone following?

  Olivia didn’t dare look, afraid of what she’d see. Afraid of freezing in her tracks if someone was behind them.

  Beyond the Victorian, dozens of pine trees stretched up to the vivid blue sky, and Ford led Olivia there. The copse of trees butted against a steep incline and they charged up it, Olivia’s lungs and legs burning with the effort, her body shaking with fear and fatigue. Gasping, gagging, she pulled her hand from Ford’s, stopping when he would have continued.

  The world spun, and she bent forward, resting her hands on her thighs as she tried to catch her breath.

  They were going to die because of her. They were going to be shot under the wide expanse of the Montana sky and they were going to die.

  “Are you okay?” Ford asked, his voice tight with worry.

  “Fine,” she managed to gasp, straightening, starting forward again.

  “You’re hurt.” Ford pulled her to a stop again.

  “No. I’m out of shape and pregnant.”

  “You’re hurt,” Ford repeated, pulling the fabric of her dress away from her shoulder. “Look. Blood.”

  He was right. The fabric of her dress was ripped, revealing pale skin and a long furrow that seeped blood in sluggish rivulets. “It’s nothing. Come on. We’ve got to get out of here before they find us.”

  “We lost them back at the house. They didn’t have enough manpower to station someone outside, or they simply didn’t bother. Either way, we win.” But Ford didn’t sound like they’d won. He sounded anxious, worried and as ready to bolt as Olivia was.

  “Just because we can’t see them doesn’t mean they’re not back there.”

  “We’d better pray they’re not, because I’m taking you back down that hill, I’m knocking on the first door I see, and I’m getting an ambulance to take you to the hospital.” He tried to tug her back the way they’d come, but Olivia had no intention of leaving the relative safety of the woods. Not yet anyway.

  “You’re not thinking straight, Ford. If we go to the hospital, they’ll find us there. And kill us.”

  “We don’t have a choice.”

  “Sure we do. It’s not like I’m bleeding to death. I’ve got a scratch, and it doesn’t even hurt.” Or it didn’t. Now that they’d stopped running, the wound had begun to burn, but she wasn’t going to tell Ford that.

  “It’s not just you we have to think about. What about the baby? What if this affects him?”

  “If you’re using that angle to guilt me into doing what you want, forget it. A wound in the arm isn’t going to hurt the baby.”

  “Is that really what you think I was doing?” He asked, frowning, his eyes flashing with anger.

  “I have no idea. You’re good at manipulating people to get what you want. And we both know that the last thing you’d be concerned about is my baby.” She sounded bitter, knew it and was unable to stop the words. They flowed out of all the disappointment and heartache of her marriage. Came from all the sadness that brought.

  But they were still wrong, and Olivia wanted to take them back.

  She opened her mouth to apologize, but Ford held up his hand. Shook his head. “Liv, this isn’t the time to discuss how you feel or how I feel. It isn’t the time to discuss anything but how we’re going to get out of town without being caught. Once we put more distance between ourselves and danger, I’ll be happy to discuss how I feel about our baby with you.”

  She didn’t miss the subtle emphasis, but didn’t comment on it. Ford was right. They had to escape Billings. If they didn’t, there was no sense in discussing anything.

  “There’s a bus station near the diner where I worked while I was in Billings. Maybe we could catch a bus out of town.”

  “First we’ve got to get to the diner, and if I’m right about where we are, I think that’s across town.”

  “If you’ve got your cell phone, I could call the diner. Someone there will be willing to help.”

  “That would be fine if the U.S. Marshals didn’t know you’d worked there, but they do. Once they realize we escaped the safe house, it will be the first place they’ll look. I don’t know about you, but I’m done trusting them to keep you safe.”

  “I feel the same,” she admitted, wondering if they’d spend the rest of the day and night wandering through the sparsely treed hills that edged Billings, trying to come up with a plan of escape.

  “I think we should walk to a store, use a pay phone in case the FBI has got my cell phone tapped. There’s got to be a car rental company in the area. We’ll have a taxi take us to it.”

  “If you rent a car in your name—”

  “Eventually, someone will find out I’ve rented the car, but we’ll be long gone by then.”

  “But—”

  “I know there are a million holes in the plan, Liv, but it’s all we’ve got. We can’t wait here for the next three weeks. We can’t go to the diner, and if we get to the bus station, there’s no guarantee someone won’t be waiting for us there.”

  “I know. I just…”

  “What?” He asked, studying her face, his gaze sincere and focused and so much more intent than it had ever been when they were married. It was as if he were seeing her, really seeing her, for the first time in years, and that filled Olivia with a hope that she didn’t want to acknowledge.

  “I’m scared.”

  “Don’t be. God has kept you safe this far. He isn’t going to abandon you now.”

  The words surprised Olivia.

  Ford had never been one to discuss religion. Though he’d often said he believed in God, he’d never discussed that belief with Olivia. In the end, that had been one of the things that had driven Olivia from their marriage. If they’d shared the same faith, shared the same values, she might have been able to hold on to her dreams of happily e
ver after. But they hadn’t, and the chasm between them had seemed much too wide to ever cross.

  She didn’t say any of that to Ford, just nodded. “I know you’re right, but I’ve been running for months. And I’m tired. I just want to get through the trial and start my new life.”

  “You will, Livy. We will.” He pulled her into a brief hug, then stepped back and looked around the wooded area where they stood. The Victorian house they’d passed was just visible below them. To their left, another hill rose toward what looked like a busy community. “How about we head up the hill? See what’s there. Maybe we’ll get lucky and walk right out into a shopping mall.”

  “If we do, luck won’t have anything to do with it,” Olivia said, falling into step beside Ford as he headed away from the Victorian and the safe house they’d fled.

  The safe house where Jessie was.

  Where Levi was.

  And at least two other marshals.

  The reality filled her with dread.

  “They’re all back there. And they can’t be okay. If they were, they’d have been right behind us, urging us out the window,” she mumbled out loud, and Ford squeezed her hand.

  “I’ve been thinking the same, but we can still hope. We can still pray. There’s a possibility they survived, Livy.”

  A possibility.

  But not a big one.

  The thought of cheerful Jessie lying dead in a pool of her own blood, of new father Levi, lying beside her, made Olivia sick with sorrow.

  Please, God, don’t let them be dead.

  She wanted to cry, but didn’t dare. There was too much at stake. She couldn’t spare the time and energy needed to mourn the lives that had been lost.

  Later, when they were safe, she could cry.

  For now, all Olivia could do was pray for strength and peace for the families of those who had died.

  “Everything will be okay, Olivia. You’ve got to keep believing that,” Ford said, gently squeezing her hand again. He hadn’t shaved that morning, and Olivia could see the shadow of a beard on his jaw. A shade darker than his hair, it gave him a scruffy look that added to the dangerous edge Olivia had noticed in Pine Bluff and again at the safe house. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he wasn’t the same man she’d left in Chicago, wasn’t still the high-powered real estate broker with a passion for nothing more than making his next deal.