by Arlene James
“I don’t like that,” he said sleepily. “Tell her not to do it again.”
Adam smiled crookedly. He would tell her. Somehow, he would find her and he would tell her. He would make her understand that no matter what or whom she feared, she could not leave them again. She could never leave them.
Adam stood with arms akimbo before his father. “The police won’t do anything until she’s been missing twenty-four hours. They won’t even take a report. Officer Cooper says that she was definitely ill, but I think she was frightened. I think she was frightened of that man who chased her through the intersection. I think she’s been hiding from him, and when he tracked her down, she bolted to protect me and the kids. I think he’s a danger to her. She wouldn’t have gone for any other reason.”
Jake nodded thoughtfully. “I understand your reasoning, but are you sure you should go after her? If the danger’s real, it’s real for you and the children, too. If it’s not what you think…well…”
Adam sighed. It was two o’clock in the morning, and he was utterly exhausted physically. Mentally, there was no way he could rest. He took a deep breath and sat down in the chair at his father’s left. He leaned forward, elbows on knees. “She loves me, Dad. I know she loves me and my children. And I know she’s in trouble. You can’t expect me to just sit with my head in my hands worrying.”
Jake shook his head. “No. No, of course not. What do you want to do?”
“Officer Cooper and I agree that if she’s running from someone, she’d try to get lost in a crowd. I think she’s gone to the city. Right now, at least, she’d have to be hiding in some out-of-the-way motel or something. I’m afraid that if we wait, she’ll bolt again, or move into an apartment, where it would be infinitely more difficult to find her—or worse. We have to find her now.”
Jake cocked his head. “It’ll take an army to find her as it is.”
“If the Fortunes can’t raise an army, no one can,” Adam pointed out. “If the Fortunes can’t exert enough influence to get the police moving, then the police can’t be moved.”
Jake’s smile was a touch ironic. “Is this my son asking to wield the Fortune power at last?”
Adam swallowed. Tears rose in his eyes. “I’ve never been so glad to be a Fortune in my life! I’ll never deride this family again. This is what Kate and Grandpa Ben worked for. This is what you’ve given your life to. I see that now. I understand, finally, why the power is dear, why we need it. And Laura gave that understanding to me. Please, Dad, you’ve got to help me find her.”
Jake got up and squared his shoulders. Strength emanated suddenly from his tired eyes and his rigid stance. He dropped a hand on Adam’s shoulder. “We’ll find her, son, and whoever that creep is who’s after her, we’ll crush him like a bug. There’s just one thing.”
“Yes?”
“Get her married after this, will you? She’ll be easier to protect once we’ve brought her into the fold. She’ll be part of us then, family, and what we have, she’ll have. We owe her that. I owe her that.” His hand tightened on Adam’s shoulder. “Hell, I owe her more than I can say, and I won’t ever forget that, on my word as a Fortune.”
Adam got to his feet and clapped his arm around his father’s broad shoulders. “I’ll get her married. Don’t worry about that. You find her for me, and I’ll make her your daughter-in-law. My word as a Fortune.”
Jake grinned and swung his arm around his son’s back. They went out, side by side, Fortunes both of them, and for the first time, both understood just what that meant.
Fifteen
It was a search as finely coordinated as the invasion of Normandy. A team of private investigators armed with descriptions and cold, hard cash fanned out across the area. Taxi services were called. Motels were searched. Adam himself accompanied the investigator who rousted Laura’s former employer and co-workers from their beds. Meanwhile, a computer search began. Before noon the next day, they had begun piecing together a story and had in their hands a copy of Laura’s Colorado driver’s license, which was current, adding weight to Adam’s fear that her trouble was serious. He could think of only one reason Laura would lie about having an expired license: She didn’t want that license run through anyone’s computer. She was hiding from someone, someone with the power to hurt her. A team of investigators were already en route to Denver in an effort to find out who that someone might be. And yet, Adam could not dispel the sense that time was running short. He slugged back coffee, paced, and pushed everyone who came within earshot for answers. He could only pray that it would be enough.
Laura had wet her pillow through with tears, and long before morning she had given up hope. What was the point? Without Adam and the kids, her life was meaningless, anyway. She didn’t have the emotional energy to run anymore. If she had, she’d have thought better of taking a single taxi to this run-down motel. She’d have used some name besides Laura Fortune—as if that would fool anyone for very long. She’d have put herself on a plane headed for Tahiti or New York or Miami, anywhere but here, where the very cold reminded her that she wouldn’t have Adam to warm her anymore. And yet she’d be damned if she’d just let Doyal Moody snuff out her life and walk away without a price.
She got up from her shabby, tearstained bed and scrounged up a yellowed envelope from the wobbly desk in front of the window. She tore the blank pages from the front and back of the aged Gideon Bible in the bedside table and dug a pen from her purse. Thus armed, she sat down at the desk and began to write with painstakingly small, readable letters every incriminating bit of information she had gathered on Doyal Moody and his drug operation. Tears marked the pages at places, but she set it all down doggedly, ending with a message of love and gratitude to Adam and his children. His children. She felt she had the right to think of them as hers. No mother could love them more. No mother could do more for them. She put the folded pages into the envelope and wrote Officer Raymond Cooper’s name on the front. Then she gathered her purse and coat and slipped out of the room.
She bought a stamp from a machine at a convenience store on the corner, then hurried to a pay phone across the street. She dialed information for St. Cloud and waited. The operator could give her no mailing address for the St. Cloud police force, but she did give her a number for information. It seemed at first that the person who answered the phone in St. Cloud wouldn’t be of much more service, but when Laura requested a specific business address for Raymond Cooper, she at last was given a post office box, then was grilled about her identity and location. She hung up without preamble, wrote the address on the envelope, then took a long, nervous walk to a mailbox. When the letter safely disappeared into the slot, she breathed a sigh of relief and walked through lonely predawn streets to her room.
She actually slept after that. The room smelled of stale cigarette smoke and old mold. The bed was lumpy. The walls were dingy and depressing. She suspected that the sheets were not clean, but she lay down atop them in her coat, closed her eyes and actually slept.
She jerked awake hours later. Light glared around the perimeter of the cheap plastic-backed draperies that shielded the one window in the small room. A movement on the periphery of her vision sent her gaze to the corner, and she looked into the smug, smiling face of Doyal Moody.
Adam clenched his fist as the investigator rattled on.
“The guy’s name is Moody. Cops in Denver say he fits the profile of a drug dealer, but they don’t have enough evidence to charge him. Seems that everyone who could tie him to the trade winds up dead in odd places.”
Adam swallowed hard. “Go on.”
“They dated a few months, then she moved in with him. Her friends all say that she expected him to marry her, but they apparently had their doubts. No one said anything. They didn’t really seem all that close to her, but they all agree that she wasn’t very experienced. Moody was her first serious relationship. She can be excused for being taken in. What doesn’t figure is why she disappeared without a word to anyone who knew
her. They all suspected foul play. Moody himself turned in the missing-persons report. The reporting officer says he seemed all broke up about it, but it didn’t quite add up. According to Moody, they were deliriously happy. So why’d she run? Friends say she suspected him of cheating on her. Cops say a woman fitting her description was seen getting on a bus heading for New Mexico. She seemed nervous, but she was alone.”
Alone. Adam rubbed a hand over his face and head. “When was that?”
The investigator checked his notes. “Some ten-plus months ago. Moody has checked in from time to time to see if the cops have any more information on her. They haven’t, though they did flag her license in case she got stopped somewhere.”
That was exactly what Adam had expected, and what she had expected, evidently. Adam nodded and buzzed his father’s secretary, ordering her to give the investigator a cup of coffee and show him where the sandwiches were. When the man was gone, Adam leaned back in the desk chair and closed his eyes, then popped upright again and swiveled to plant his elbows on the desk blotter, staring down at the copy of Laura’s driver’s license. She looked like a grinning, ponytailed teenager in her photo. Hell, she had been a grinning, ponytailed teenager back then. And she had been alone. No family, no one to protect or guide her. Kate would have understood that. Kate would have admired her pluck.
Adam closed his eyes. “God, Laura, where are you?” It was just another unanswered question, one of many. Had she been disappointed in love? What did she know about Doyal Moody that had made her run? What did she know that had put her in danger? He was beginning to doubt that he could find her in time. Even the Fortunes had their limits. Tears gathered in his eyes.
Just then the door burst open and Jake strode into the room. “We’ve got her! I’ve ordered a car brought around, and I’ve sent an investigator and a lawyer to the local law enforcement. We should meet them on the way.”
Adam got up and snatched his coat off the back of his chair. It was too soon for relief, but strength surged through him at the prospect. “Let’s head for the street,” he said. “And get me Raymond Cooper!”
“You’re too late,” Laura said, leaning up on her elbows.
Doyal shook his head, his long black hair clubbed at the nape. His bright blue eyes shone with an almost demonic gleam. His straight white teeth flashed in a smile. Laura wondered how anyone who looked so handsome could be so evil.
“I don’t think so. You wouldn’t be here if you’d ratted on me already.”
“I wrote a letter,” she said quietly, “and sent it to a friend.”
Suddenly he lunged toward the bed. She put her hands up to fend him off, but he grabbed a handful of her hair and yanked her head around, bringing his face next to hers. “What friend? Tell me!” He clapped a hand under her chin. “Tell me or I’ll break your pretty neck!”
She almost laughed. As if he weren’t going to do that anyway. As if she’d been running all this time because he wanted to sit and talk to her. He must have seen the laughter in her eyes, for his hand loosened and slid down her throat. Her stomach churned.
“Tell me who it is, Laura,” he said silkily. “Tell me who you sent the letter to, and we’ll go get it. Then I’ll take you home to Denver, and we’ll pick up where we left off. All right? You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Remember how it was with us, Laura? Remember this?” He slid his hand down to her breast and squeezed it.
Bile rose in her throat.
He slanted his head to kiss her, but she jerked her face away, ignoring the burn in her scalp where her hair pulled. He growled an obscenity and yanked her hair tighter. His hand tightened on her breast, so painfully that she gasped.
“Tell me who it is,” he rumbled in her ear, “or I’ll make you hurt so bad you’ll beg to die.”
The car slid to a stop. Adam jumped out before the dust had settled and glared at the flashing lights on the vehicles blocking the road.
“What is this? We’re supposed to have an escort, not a roadblock!”
The investigator behind the steering wheel let down his window and craned a look up at Adam. “We’re maybe six minutes away now. I’ve got a man on-site. I’d appreciate it if you’d see to it that the police don’t mistake him for our bad guy.”
Adam bent and pointed to Raymond Cooper, who immediately left the car and walked toward the nearest police vehicle. Adam paced, panic and anger barely leashed, as he watched Cooper operate. Flashing his shield, the big cop bent to speak into the driver’s side window. After a few seconds, he stepped back and strode toward Adam’s car, while the police car executed a three-point turn and started off in the other direction. It seemed to creep by the others, the driver clearly bent on taking the lead. Adam tamped down his impatience, denying the urge to snap at Cooper. Raymond was a good man. He was as concerned for Laura as Adam was, not that he’d ever allow anything to come of it. Laura was his. Period. If he found her in time. He looked at the investigator’s eyes in the rearview mirror as he swung down into the back seat of the car once again.
“Make it four minutes,” he said flatly, and closed the door.
Laura attempted to draw air into her lungs, her head drawn back at an awkward angle as the pain in her breast spread throughout her chest. Doyal leaned his weight onto the forearm slashing across her sternum. She managed a satisfied smile. “His name is Raymond Cooper,” she said breathlessly. “Officer Raymond Cooper, in care of the St. Cloud Police Department.”
Enraged, Doyal took his hand from her breast and backhanded her. She fought him then. Hands balled into fists, she struck out wildly at his face and shoulders, forcing him to let go of her hair in order to defend himself. She felt a surge of elation, but then he threw a leg over her body and slid his weight onto her hips. She fought harder, but he finally managed to catch both her wrists in one strong hand. She turned her head and bit him. He yelped, yanked her hands over her head and slapped her.
“I ought to finish you now,” he hissed, “but a quick killing’s too good for a spying snitch like you. I trusted you, Laura. You were my lady, and now you’ve betrayed me. You owe me.”
On the edge of panic now, she surged upward, hoping to buck him off, but he was much too heavy, and the movement only made him laugh.
“Now you’ve done it,” he said huskily. “Now you’ve got me all hot.” He smirked down at her. “Nothing’s so sexy as a helpless woman.”
Desperately she bucked and twisted and kicked, but he sat back on her legs and reached into his coat pocket, whipping out an oblong silver object that she knew to be a knife. He flicked a lever and a long, wicked blade snapped out. Laura froze, her eyes glued to that blade as it moved toward her and settled at her throat. She closed her eyes and began to pray.
Adam shrugged away the shiver that moved across his shoulders, then felt the hair lift on the back of his neck. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Laura needed him now, right this minute. She was terrified. He didn’t stop to question how he knew, he just accepted that he did. Hold on, baby, he told her silently. I’m on my way.
Hurry. Hurry.
He leaned forward and dropped a hand on the shoulder of the driver. With a nod of his head, he indicated the police car in front of them, its lights flashing. “Pass him,” he said.
The driver shot a glance at Raymond Cooper, who occupied the front seat next to him. Cooper hesitated a split second, then dipped his head in agreement. The driver hit his flashers, whipped out into the oncoming lane and stomped on the accelerator.
Adam sat back, fear tightening his facial muscles, and silently prayed.
Doyal tilted the knife against her throat, sniggering when a thin thread of blood appeared, and slipped it beneath the neck of her sweater. He drove it down and up, slicing through the heavy knit. The blade came back to her throat, dipped again and cut the front of her nylon camisole. Laura trembled as cool air touched skin heated by exertion. Doyal grinned and leaned down, bringing his face close to hers, the knife lying against her belly, between them.
“Please me really good, beautiful Laura,” he whispered, “and I’ll kill you quick. I won’t make you suffer like you deserve.”
She laughed soundlessly. As if pleasing him would not be a fate much less attractive than any other he offered her.
He slid the knife blade beneath the waistband of her leggings, the point aimed, appropriately, at his own groin.
Resolve hardened in Laura. He liked helpless women, did he? Too bad. For him. A mental stillness filled her. She basked in it, gathering strength even as her muscles relaxed to buttery softness. He chuckled, believing he’d won, and lust glittered like shards of ice in his too-beautiful gaze. Laura spit right in his blue eye and surged upward with all her strength, arching her back and locking her legs, hips bucking hard. She felt the knife lift and heard his howl of rage and pain. Something warm and thick spilled onto her skin. She’d cut him. She hoped she’d cut him where it hurt most. She was still smiling, gloating, when the knife flashed upward. She knew that the instant it crested he would drive it down again. Straight into her heart. She thought of Adam, winging her thoughts of love to him, and her smile broadened.
I’ll always love you.
The words ran through his mind with awful finality. He sat bolt upright on the edge of his seat. The car wrenched into a turn and skidded to a halt in a gravel parking lot. A man appeared at the window of the car, his arm lifted to point at a row of fifties-vintage motel rooms. He said a room number, but Adam didn’t wait to hear it. He bailed out of the car, hitting the ground at a run.
“He’s in there with her!” somebody called out.
Adam homed in on a door. He didn’t question how he knew it was the right door. He just did. And he didn’t bother to try the knob, just angled his shoulder at it and went at it at a run.