She reached for the door, then felt Cord’s hand grab hers. The door was open about an inch and the wood around the lock was splintered. Then she saw it—the out- line of a black shoe-print against the dusty white wood- work. Sarah’s heart almost stopped when she saw the look in Cord’s eyes and saw him reach for the gun he carried beneath his jacket. She gave a soft cry of protest, unable to believe what was happening. It was almost like a slow- motion dream…like the accident that took her hus- band’s life.
Cord had to hold her back out of the way, as he nudged open the front door with his foot, then stood aside, gun held upward.
“Hagan?” he called.
Sarah stood on the porch with her back against the house.
“Please,” she whispered to herself. “Please let him be all right.”
“Stay here,” Cord said as he stepped inside the house and flattened himself against a wall in the hallway.
“Hag?” he yelled, louder this time. “You here?”
Sarah was trembling. She clasped her hands together against her mouth to keep from crying out. If something happened to Hagan while they were gone, she’d never be able to forgive herself. And she knew from the despera- tion in Cord’s voice that he felt the same way.
“Keep your eyes open out there, Sarah,” she heard Cord say. “Let me check this out.”
It seemed like an eternity before he came back.
“He’s not here,” he said, his eyes narrowing as they scanned the trees around the house.
Sarah’s sigh of relief was also tinged with fear. She stepped inside the hallway and gasped. What she saw made her knees tremble so badly that she had to hold on to Cord to keep from falling.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered.
Slowly her gaze moved around the house. There didn’t seem to be one spot that hadn’t been disturbed, or one piece of furniture that wasn’t overturned.
She grasped Cord’s shirtsleeve.
“They’ve found him,” she said. “They figured out he was here and they’ve taken him. Oh, Cord,” she whis- pered, her eyes stricken. “They’ll kill him this time. They won’t take a chance on him getting away again.”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “If they’d found him, why would they have torn up the house this way? Besides, I know Hagan better than I know anyone. He has a sixth sense about danger and unless I miss my guess he proba- bly saw this coming. Looking at the window in the shop out back, I think he went out that way…maybe into the woods.”
“Show me,” she said, moving toward the kitchen and the back door.
Cord grabbed her arm.
“Sarah, wait. We have to get out of here. They could be watching the house even now.”
“I’m not leaving until you show me what you mean,” she said, pulling away from him. “Those are not just woods out there, Cord, it’s swampland. Do you know how much danger he could be in if he’s lost in the swamp?” She shivered. “He won’t be much better off there. It will only take longer.” Her voice trembled and her eyes were filled with terror.
It was that pleading look in her eyes that made Cord follow.
The screen door from the breezeway to the yard was still latched from the inside. But the workshop had been ran- sacked. Sarah’s easel was shattered and her canvases lay strewn around on the floor.
Sarah knelt and turned over one of the canvases, one of the many idealized portraits she’d painted of herself with Joe and their little girl. An imagined portrait of a child she never knew. The hope of a family that would never be.
She gritted her teeth and stood up, angry now. The freezer door stood open.
Sarah went to close it as Cord pointed to a back win- dow. The window was closed, but upon closer inspection she could see what he meant. The screen had been cut carefully, then pushed back into place to make it appear whole.
“See this little mark on the windowsill?” he asked.
“It looks like an H,” Sarah said.
“Hag and I used to have a code,” Cord said. “Back when we were rookies and both working undercover, if we were ever separated, we’d always try to leave our initials, somewhere, somehow, to show the other which way we went.”
“But he doesn’t remember any of that,” she said.
“Maybe he does now. It can happen that way, can’t it? When everything comes back at once?”
“Well…yes. But the wood on the window is so old and scratched…” Sarah felt her heart leap, even though she was telling herself to be cautious. “How can you tell if—”
“I guess it’s more a hunch than anything,” Cord said.
Sarah heard a sound outside and when she peeked out, she saw Tom. He was pacing back and forth beneath the window and he seemed highly agitated.
Without telling Cord what she intended, she ran back to the breezeway and outside and knelt beside the cat. His feet were wet and his coat was gnarled and covered with net- tles and burrs.
“He’s been in the swamp,” she whispered. Her gaze moved out toward the moss-draped trees that stood like ghostly sentinels guarding the swamp.
The cat trotted away from her, then stopped and looked back.
“He knows where Hagan is,” she said, her voice hushed with awe and disbelief.
“Sarah, that’s crazy,” Cord said indulgently. “Cats aren’t like dogs. They don’t lead us to people the way Rin Tin Tin did or—“
“Call it a hunch, like yours,” she said, staring into his eyes. “But I know Tom knows where Hagan is. And I’m going to find him before it’s too late.”
“Oh, hell, no,” Cord said. He glanced around cau- tiously. “There’s no way I’m going to let you go off into that swamp by yourself.”
Ignoring his protests, Sarah went back into the work- shop. She found a knapsack and began stuffing items in- side—bottled water, a flashlight and matches, canned food—things she kept in one place in case of an emer- gency.
“I grew up here. I know the swamp like I know the back of my hand.”
“I don’t care if you do,” Cord growled. “This is crazy.”
“I’m going. You can come with me, or not.”
“Sarah, listen to me. I have to report this to the agency,” he said. “This has gone too far and it’s gotten too big for me to continue handling it on my own.”
“Fine,” she said. She sprayed her legs and clothes with insect repellent and stuffed it in one of the bag’s pockets. “You do that. At least after I’ve found Hagan they can take him out of here.”
“Sarah, there’s no way I’m going to let you go. We have no reason to believe Hagan’s out there, except for this stupid cat.”
“Tom is not stupid.”
“If I have to hog-tie you to keep you from doing this, I will.”
As they stared stubbornly into each other’s eyes, there was a loud explosion out near the road. Cord jumped and pushed Sarah back against the wall.
“Don’t move,” he said.
She was scared. She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t. But she knew this was her chance. And she also knew, scared or not, that for Hagan’s sake, she had to take it.
As soon as Cord left she hurried outside where Tom was still waiting. Then, keeping low and staying behind bushes and trees, she ran toward the swamp. Out near the main highway she heard the sputtering sound of an old log truck, and then a backfire and she smiled, relieved that Cord was safe at least.
“But he’s going to be furious,” she muttered as she ran.
Tom bounded through the tall grass, sometimes ahead of her, sometimes behind. Once he stopped and glanced back toward the house and Sarah knelt down in the tall grass. Then, seeing nothing through the swaying sawgrass, she hurried on toward the woods.
She pushed her way through Spanish moss and spider- webs, scanning the ground for footprints. But if Hagan had come this way, he had been very careful. And the soft beds of pine needles were very good at masking foot- prints.
Still, Hagan was from the city, hardly used to this kind
of life. And certainly not used to the danger of the swamp.
She was deep into the forest now and the ground was changing, turning into the soft quagmire, the “grassy wa- ters” as the Indians once called it. Here, water glimmered everywhere, in small pools beneath trees, in the swaying grasses. It moved quietly beneath the grass, like a huge snake, shifting and turning, moving the grasses and lily pads as it passed.
Sarah had always loved the mystery of the swamp, but now she shivered, hoping she remembered the crooks and turns. Hoping that Hagan hadn’t run headlong into this without thinking. Going into this area without direction could be deadly.
Tom didn’t like it. He tiptoed around the water, shim- mied up trees and arched his back every time he heard a noise. But he kept going.
Sarah’s entire body was covered with sweat. The air was so still and hot that she felt as if she were in a sauna. It was getting late when finally she decided to stop and rest. She had to think.
She took crackers and a can of apple juice out of the knapsack and opened a tin of sausages for Tom. The juice was hot, but sweet and refreshing, and she drank it all.
She was just about to push herself up from the moss- covered ground when she heard a limb crack somewhere nearby. As she squinted through the shadowy trees, she noticed that Tom was looking in the same direction. When she stood up to get a better look, she saw him…coining through the underbrush.
“Hagan,” she whispered. With a quiet, choked cry, she ran toward him, throwing herself against him and hearing his grunt of pleasure and surprise as she began to rain kisses against his hot skin.
“Good God, darlin,” he said, laughing.
“Oh, Hagan, I thought you were lost. I thought we’d never find you.”
“We?” he asked, looking skeptically down at the cat as it rubbed against their legs.
“Tom led me here.”
“No, I don’t think so,” he drawled.
“He did leave the house with you though, didn’t he?”
“Well, yes, but I managed to make him go back.”
“I knew it. That’s why he knew where you were. Be- lieve it or not, Hagan, he did lead me to you.”
“Tom, the bloodhound,” he said. Still, despite his sar- casm, Hagan bent down and rubbed Tom’s fur. “You’re a mess, cat. I have a feeling swamps are not your cup of tea, either.”
Sarah couldn’t seem to stop grinning.
“What makes you think that?” she asked.
“Old Tom and I, we’re soul mates…remember?”
Her eyes sparkled as they looked into his. He was hot and sweaty and unshaven. His hair was tousled and wet, yet he looked vibrant, his eyes glittering with life.
“You…you look great, considering it’s been less than a week since someone tried to kill you and only a few days since you were flat on your back, sick with a fever,” she said, letting her surprised gaze wander over him.
“I am great,” he said. “At least I’m doing something, even if it is running for my life. The question is, what in hell are you doing out here?”
“I came to find you.”
“You mean you came to save me.” He was deadly seri- ous even though his eyes teased her.
“I…well…yes, I guess. I mean, you’ve never been in the swamps…you had nothing to eat and you—”
Hagan reached into his shirt pocket and produced a handful of blackberries. From his jeans pocket, he with- drew wild hickory nuts.
“Well…you certainly seem to have caught on in a hurry.”
“Survival training. Deals with all kinds of terrain. But I am getting thirsty. Out here, I couldn’t be sure what was rainwater and what wasn’t.”
“Here,” she said, withdrawing her pack. She took out bottled water and handed it to him.
“God, you’re a wonder,” he said. As he drank the wa- ter, he kept his eyes on her. He reached out to touch her cheek and brush her damp hair back from her face.
“You all right?” he asked.
“I’m all right…now that I’ve found you,” she added. “But I ran away from Cord. He’s going to be very angry with me.”
“Don’t worry, about Cord,” he said. “Cord can take care of himself.”
“That’s exactly what he said about you.”
“He did, did he?”
“We came home and found the house had been wrecked and I was scared out of my wits.”
“I know, baby. I’m sorry about your house.” He reached out and pulled her to him, holding her close for a moment, before looking down into her eyes.
“Hagan,” she said, her voice hushed. “You’ve remem- bered your past, haven’t you?”
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Most of it. Everything ex- cept what happened to Cindy the night the undercover went bad. Why…how did you know?”
“Just the way you talk about Cord. You sound more familiar when you say his name. And he thought he saw your initial on the windowsill in the workshop.”
“So, he found it. Look, I’ll tell you all about it later. Right now we need to move. Maybe find a little higher ground if you know anyplace like that. The men who broke into your house are not city boys like me. They’ll know their way around this quagmire and once they de- cide to come looking here, we could have a problem keep- ing out of their way.”
“I can do better than that,” she said. “There’s an old fishing cabin about a mile from here, although I can’t vouch for the condition it’s in.”
“We’ll worry about that when we get there,” he said.
Sarah led the way. She could hear Hagan muttering quietly behind her as they moved through areas heavy with brush and briars. Tom was still with them and she could hear him grumbling, too. She glanced behind her, noting how the cat picked its way gingerly through the water and brush.
“You two are just alike,” she said, smiling.
The darkness was slowing them down as Sarah took out her flashlight and waved it over trees and various land- marks. She was praying that she would be able to find the old shack in the darkness when she saw a shadow looming just ahead of them.
“There it is,” she whispered.
“Turn off your light,” Hagan said.
She did as he said and they waited for long minutes. They could hear the sound of egrets and herons as they settled in for the night, and somewhere in the distance came the roar of a bull alligator.
No matter how many times Sarah heard it, the sound still sent chills through her body. Native or not, she wasn’t exactly crazy about being out in the swamp at night her- self.
She felt Hagan’s hand on her shoulder, squeezing reas- suredly before nudging her forward again.
The shack was partially covered by trumpet vines and night creeper. And as Sarah stood letting the light move over the structure, she shivered.
“You’re not cold?” Hagan said.
“I don’t like this place,” she said. “I never did.”
“It looks pretty good to me. Anyplace out of the water and away from the mosquitoes. Why don’t you like it?”
“Snakes,” she said, shivering again.
“You don’t like snakes?”
She could hear the teasing in his voice.
“My pretty little bayou queen doesn’t like snakes?”
“Don’t joke about this…I’m serious. I can’t stand snakes. And don’t pretend you like them any better than I do.”
“Actually, I think they’re pretty neat. Snakes are the least of our worries at the moment.”
“You might not think they were so neat if you’d ever been out at night and had one slither over your bare foot.” Sarah shuddered.
Hagan laughed softly.
“Come on, let’s go in.”
“Not until I’ve checked every inch of this roof and made sure one of those vines isn’t a snake trying to fool me,” she said.
Hagan laughed again and put his arm around her. He pulled her close against him and placed a kiss against her brow.
“I should b
e angry with you for doing this, you know,” he said.
“I thought you needed me,” she said. “How was I to know you’d turn out to be an Eagle Scout?”
“I do need you,” he whispered.
Inside the shack, Sarah checked every inch of the place with her light before shrugging off her backpack onto a table that stood in the middle of the room.
“Oh, that feels good,” she said, rubbing her neck and shoulders. She glanced at Hagan and smiled, then pulled some candles out of the bag.
“Please don’t tell me we can’t have light,” she said, seeing the look in his eyes.
Hagan frowned. Every instinct in him wanted to say no, they couldn’t risk lights. But seeing the fear on her face, he hadn’t the heart.
“If we can cover the windows well enough,” he said, searching around the one-room shack.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
“Starving,” he said, grinning at her over his shoulder. “You fix dinner, Jane, while Tarzan fix windows.”
She couldn’t help laughing when he grunted and slapped the palm of his hand against his chest.
Here they were hiding out in the swamp, possibly in danger of their lives. Having to spend the night in a squalid, bug-infested cabin where neither of them would be able to sleep a wink. And yet she thought his teasing and the sound of his voice was the most reassuring thing she’d ever heard. She didn’t know how she could feel so happy, but she did.
Later, after a dinner of canned food and stale crackers, they sat on the floor on a rough army blanket, the same as the ones covering the windows. Even Tom had agreed to come inside for once and now he lay at their feet, curled into a ball, dry and purring with contentment.
Hagan had found a footstool and placed musty pillows against it, then covered them with blankets for a backrest. He pulled Sarah against him and they sat watching the flickering candles and listening to Tom’s quiet breathing.
“Comfortable?” he asked.
“More than I’d have thought possible,” she said, her eyes scanning the cabin suspiciously.
Hagan bent and kissed her mouth softly, then pulled away and gazed down into her sparkling eyes.
“When you and Cord left this morning, I found myself looking forward to one thing,”
You Must Remember This Page 17