Carry Me Home (Paradise, Idaho)

by Rosalind James

  Her face. White with shock and fear, her mouth and eyes stretched wide, three black holes, one hand shoving desperately down on the center of the wheel to continue the earsplitting noise, the other raised high, fist clenched. Her hand leaving the horn now, reaching for her shoulder belt, stabbing for the release button, again and again.

  She was safe. The knowledge, and the sudden silence after the unbearable noise—it was infinite relief, and it was a hammer blow.

  “Zoe!” He shouted it so she could hear through the glass, turned the light on himself. “It’s me. Cal. Open the door. Please, baby. Open the door. Let me get you out.”

  She was trying to punch the lock, but she was missing it.

  He crouched beside the car. “It’s okay,” he shouted. “Just hit the button.”

  He heard the click, was wrenching the door open, reaching for her.

  Injuries, he reminded himself at the last moment, and pulled his hands back. “You hurt?” he demanded. “Your neck? Your back?”

  “N-n-no,” she got out through chattering teeth. “I don’t th-th-think so.”

  He got hold of her, picked her up, pulled her out, set her on her feet, but kept his arm around her. “Up and over,” he urged her. “Come on, now. Just a few steps and we’re out of here.”

  She was shaking, holding his arm, and he supported her down the steep culvert, up over the berm, onto the shoulder of the road. “Can you walk?” he asked. “Can you make it to my truck?”

  “Of . . . of course,” she said, but he could feel her trembling, kept his arm around her, got her to his rig and up inside it.

  “My purse,” she managed when she was there, and he sighed with relief that her brain had switched on again. “My laptop bag. My phone.”

  “Going back for them right now,” he promised, shoving the extinguisher back under the seat again. “Keys?” He looked at her hand, still grabbing whatever it was.

  She looked blank. “They must still be . . . in the car.”

  “What’s that you’ve got?”

  She looked at her hand as if unaware she was holding anything, then opened her fingers. “Limestone.”

  “Limestone,” he repeated blankly.

  “To hit him.”

  “Ah.” To hit who? He didn’t get it. “Think you could drop it now? You don’t need to hit me, I promise. Use your words.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Yeah.” She bent over, set it down on the floor.

  He wanted to ask, but he couldn’t sit here. Too dangerous a spot. “I’m going back for your stuff. Hang on.”

  “Be careful.”

  “Aw, sweetheart,” he said, “I’m always careful.” He grinned at her, because she needed it. “Be right back. You sit tight.”

  His flares were still burning, and her car was off the road anyway. The only real danger was somebody hitting his truck, but that had him hustling to get her things and get back to her.

  He managed it, climbed in beside her again. He switched on the engine, turned the dial to blast the heat, because she was still shaking. Cold, and shock.

  “My . . . my car,” she said.

  “We’ll call for a tow,” he promised as he pulled out. “Soon as we’re out of this. Not while we’re on the highway.”

  “I can’t just . . . leave it. What if somebody . . .”

  He put the pedal down, got up to speed, because he didn’t need to be rear-ended in the storm. “That thing’s not going anywhere. Nobody’s stealing it, nobody without some serious towing capacity. You’re all good.”

  “No,” she said. “I’m not. I’m not all good.”

  “You hit the ditch again, that’s all. That’s just Idaho. They practically won’t give you your license until you hit the ditch a few times.”

  “You don’t understand,” she said. “He was chasing me. I know he was.”

  “What? Who?”

  “The . . . the car behind me. He was chasing me. Coming so close, dropping back. For miles.”

  “The truck,” he said slowly. “The truck behind you. He left after I stopped.”

  “Because when I crashed, he was there,” she said. “He was waiting.”

  “Most people would stop if somebody crashed, though.”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t think so. He was there after I went off the road. I saw his lights behind me. I was trying to figure out what to do. That’s why the rock, because that’s what I had. When you came . . .” She stopped a moment, then went on resolutely. “I thought you were him. I thought that was it. And then when you took me out of the car—I realized he’d left, that I’d heard him go, and that must have been why. He left because you came.”

  He wanted to tell her she’d been imagining the whole thing. Somebody chasing her? It seemed so unlikely. He wanted to think so, but he remembered that truck peeling out. If it was him . . . if it was . . .

  He took his foot off the accelerator as he approached the speed limit sign signaling the Fulton city limits—all two blocks of them. He took the turn at the intersection, and she seemed to notice where they were for the first time.

  “Wait,” she said. “This is the wrong way.”

  “I thought . . .” he said. “I thought, take you someplace we can call for a tow. Someplace you can warm up, calm down.”

  “No.” She sounded like she was shaking again, and she was punching for her shoulder belt. “No.”

  “Zoe. Wait,” he said urgently. “I don’t mean my house. I meant my parents. I meant my mom.” He made a quick decision, pulled into the deserted post office parking lot, careful of the trailer behind him, and stopped. “My parents’ house, which is just a couple blocks away. I’ll call the garage, and you can call the police, tell them what happened. My mom will make you a cup of . . . tea, or something, and you can . . .” He cast around for what a woman would want to do, what would help. “Have a bath. Have dinner with my folks.”

  She laughed. Barely, but a laugh. “Have a bath?”

  “Yeah. Well.” He looked at her sheepishly. “I don’t know why, but when women have a bad day, when something bad happens, they always seem to want to take a bath. Isn’t that the deal? I mean, personally, I just want to have a beer, but whatever. A beer’s fine by me, too, though. Hell, have two beers. My folks won’t mind.”

  She was laughing a little more, some of the tension easing, and that was so much better. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, please, then. I don’t think I’ll have a bath, but . . . please. It is a different house, right?” she asked, a thought clearly striking her. “I mean, you don’t . . . live with your parents?”

  He laughed himself at that. “Nope. Sure don’t. I haven’t been living in my parents’ basement for, oh, a good year or two now. Not since I went full-time at Pizza Hut.”

  “Oh. That’s right.” She looked embarrassed, and he smiled at her and pulled out of the parking lot. “I mean,” she said, “NFL quarterback. Duh.”

  “Farmer,” he reminded her. “Living in a farmhouse.”

  PHASE ONE

  The man drove into the storm, his hands clenching and unclenching on the steering wheel. He felt the muscle bunching in his jaw, forced himself to relax it. Not that anybody was here to see, but he couldn’t afford to let his face give him away. He never had yet, because he was cool. Because he was good.

  That couldn’t have gone much worse, not unless he’d been recognized. He hadn’t been recognized, though, he was sure of it. Cal had been too busy putting out his flares, being a helpful little citizen, to pay much attention to him. And then he’d been too busy diving out of the way like a scared little bunny.

  Zoe had been a scared bunny, too. A very scared bunny. He felt better for a minute, remembering, before frustration had him gripping the wheel again. Who’d have expected the stupid bitch to go off the road? It had barely been icy. Who’d given her a driver’s license? />
  He’d wasted a whole late afternoon following her, had risked ducking out of work, making up a story that could be checked, which was always dangerous. For nothing. First she hadn’t noticed him at all, not for the entire forty-minute drive to Union City. Too focused on herself to see anything else, even somebody as dangerous as he was. To notice his lights on her pretty little tail the whole way down the grade, through every turn on the city streets, all the way to the courthouse. Who was that oblivious?

  He hadn’t been able to risk following her in there. No way. He’d figured, when she’d left the university early on Friday afternoon and he’d realized where she was headed, that she was ducking out to go shopping at one of the malls. A normal woman thing, and that would’ve been perfect. He could have paced her as she walked through the dark lot, as she glanced back at his truck and tried to tell herself it was all right, when her body was telling her it wasn’t. Instead, he’d had to sit outside, freezing his ass off, not daring to run the engine, to draw attention to himself, for almost an hour. For nothing.

  She’d noticed him on the way back. Finally. Only when he’d gotten so close that anybody but a total moron would’ve had to notice.

  It had been fun after that, though. He’d made it extra fun, just to punish her for the time he’d wasted, for her obliviousness. He’d made it a little too fun, in the end, had gotten too carried away with his cat-and-mouse game, because he could almost smell the sweet scent of her fear. She’d been scared anyway just from driving in the snow, he could tell. She liked to pretend she was so tough, but scratch that surface and she was weak. Weak all the way through. From now on, she’d be even more scared, and that was good. All part of the plan. And then she’d find out just how weak she really was.

  It had all been good, in fact, right up until the stupid bitch had landed in the ditch, and his plan had gone straight to hell.

  He’d pulled over. He hadn’t been able to resist, not after she’d gotten him off-balance like that. The same way she had this whole time, messing with everything he’d done. So, yeah, he’d pulled over, because if he wanted her scared, there was surely nothing better than wrecking her car, knowing he was there, and that she was helpless. That she was about as stuck as a person could be—until she got even more stuck.

  He wondered if she would have run in the end, once she’d figured out that honking the horn wasn’t going to work, because there was nobody to hear. Nobody but him.

  She probably would have. He’d have smashed the window, reached down for the lock, and she’d have dived out the other side, run straight up the highway. In the snow, in her little heels. Yeah, that would’ve worked out real well for her. And then . . . he’d have pulled her up into his truck, hit her a couple times, given her a little attitude adjustment to get her in the right frame of mind, gotten her wrists secured, and driven away with her. Piece of cake.

  Pull off the road, and that’s when the party would start. Do it, let her think it was over, tell her he’d let her go. Then drive her someplace else, someplace more remote, and do it again. Do it worse. Let her hope, then kill her hope, until she’d promise anything, do anything, just to live. Just to hope to survive.

  Until he kicked her out of the truck, once he was done with her. Naked, barefoot in the snow, with her wrists still fastened behind her. Man, it made him laugh to think about her trying to flag somebody down like that in the dark. No hands, so she’d have to get right out there in the road. If a guy picked her up in his headlights? Hell, yeah, he’d stop. And then, who knows? That was fun to think about, too.

  He wouldn’t kill her, because he wasn’t a killer. If she froze, though? If somebody ran her over, or if things got even worse for her? He wouldn’t be real sad. And there would be nothing to lead anyone back to him. All he’d have to do was dump her clothes and he’d be golden.

  It was her own fault anyway. She could have left it alone, and she’d never have occurred to him, because she was too old. Although he was rethinking that, too. The tougher they thought they were, the harder the fall was. That part was good. He couldn’t believe he’d never thought of that before.

  It had real possibilities. Real possibilities. Except that it wasn’t time. Not now. Not yet. Too risky. Not in the plan.

  Phase One, he repeated to himself, relaxing his grip on the wheel again. All right, she’d screwed it up, had almost pushed him right into Phase Three. Had almost made him abandon his plan, and he never abandoned his plan. That’s why he was so good at this. Because he was disciplined.

  So never mind what she did. It was still Phase One. And everything that had happened so far, everything that would happen next? It would only make Phase Three that much better.

  For now, he was headed back to Paradise. He had a house to visit.

  THE DECISIVE PEOPLE

  It was only a couple blocks, just as Cal had said. But then, the whole town of Fulton didn’t seem to be much bigger than that—what Zoe could see of it in the dark, at least.

  Cal pulled the truck and trailer into a long driveway. “Hang on,” he told her as he hopped down. He was hustling around the front of the truck, pulling her door open. “Careful,” he said. “Snow, and you’re not dressed for it.” He took her hand to help her down, then reached inside for her laptop bag, slung it over his shoulder. “Okay. Watch your step.”

  He led her across the plowed driveway, up concrete steps that had been shoveled once, were dusted again now by the still-falling snow, to the front door of a neat one-story ranch-style home, illuminated by a porch light that cast a yellow glow over a semicircle of brick siding. He knocked his snowy boots against the wall, gave them a scrape across the mat, then opened the front door and called out, “Hey, Mom!”

  Zoe followed him into a tiny entryway. “Here,” he said, shutting the door behind them. “Give me your coat.”

  She was pulling off the puffy jacket and handing it to him when a slim, dark-haired woman came into the hall.

  She stopped at the sight of them. “Well, hi,” she said with a smile.

  “Hey, Mom,” Cal said, hanging Zoe’s coat on a black iron hook, setting her laptop case and purse on the floor next to it. “I brought you a damsel in distress. This is Zoe Santangelo. Her car’s high-centered in the ditch. Zoe, this is my mom, Raylene.”

  “Oh, no,” his mother said. “Poor you. What was it? An accident, or just skidded off in the storm? Is everybody all right?”

  “Well,” Cal said, looking a little grim, “that’s what we need to figure out. Whether it was an accident.”

  “My goodness,” Raylene said. “What does that mean?”

  “Tell you later,” Cal said. “Zoe’s a little shook up. I’ve got the new Bobcat on the trailer, need to take it on back to my place before the snow gets any deeper. Got to feed Junior, too. I thought you could take care of Zoe for me for a little while, maybe give us dinner.”

  “I couldn’t . . .” Zoe was totally off-balance now. “I don’t want to impose. Maybe you could just give me a ride home, Cal. But my car . . .”

  “Yeah,” Cal said. “Your car, the sheriff, all that. Don’t worry, we’ll get it done. Give me twenty minutes.”

  “It’s no imposition,” Raylene told her. “It’s just chicken pot pie. I’ll stick a couple more potatoes in the oven and we’ll be all set. You can’t go home by yourself, not after being in an accident. Come on in. You need a cup of tea, I’m sure, and maybe a hot bath, too. Dinner’s not for an hour. Plenty of time.”

  Zoe caught Cal’s expressive glance and almost smiled. “A cup of tea would be great,” she said. “Please.”

  “Twenty minutes,” Cal promised. “I’ll be back, and we’ll get all this figured out.”

  He was out the door again just as a man who looked to be in his sixties came in from the back of the house, saw Zoe, and stopped.

  “Well, hi,” he said, exactly as his wife had.

  �
�My husband, Stan,” Raylene said. “This is Zoe, Stan. Cal brought her home to us.”

  “Oh?” He lifted gray eyebrows.

  Surely this was how Cal would look in thirty-five years or so. Tall and broad-shouldered, which she was beginning to recognize as a family trait. It was more than that, though. It was the way he stood, so upright. The way he took up space. And his face. The face of a man who’d spent his life outdoors, in all the elements. He was a little battered, a little weathered, but still nothing but strong. A little intimidating, and a lot tough. Yep. Exactly what she would have imagined.

  “She’s been in an accident,” Raylene said. “Come on into the kitchen, Zoe. Much nicer than standing around here. Stan, would you go get me four baking potatoes from the root cellar while I make Zoe a cup of tea? You can give them a scrub for me, too, if you don’t mind.”

  “I could do that,” Zoe said, trailing after the two of them into a compact kitchen, its yellow walls and cherry-patterned curtains cheerful after the stormy darkness outside. “I don’t know where the root cellar is, but I could scrub and . . . whatever.”

  “No. You sit,” Raylene commanded, and Zoe sat.

  “And everybody thinks Cal gets that nature of his from me,” Stan said. “Shows what they know.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Raylene said with a laugh. “Potatoes?”

  “We live to serve.” He gave Zoe a smile, headed through a door at the far end of the room, and came back in a minute with four baking potatoes, dumped them into the sink and began to scrub.

  “So,” he said again, twisting around to look at Zoe, who was accepting a cup of tea from Raylene. “What’s this accident about? Anybody else hurt?”

  “No,” Zoe said, swishing her tea bag in her mug. “It was just me. My car’s in the ditch.”

  “Ah,” Stan said. “Well, it happens. Cal pulled somebody else out just a month or so ago, I heard. Couldn’t get you out with that Bobcat on the trailer, I guess.”