by Linda Turner
He looked different from the last time she’d seen him—the black beard that had looked so incongruous with his coloring was gone, and without a hat, it was obvious he’d shaved his head fairly recently. Pale reddish blond hair, cropped short and standing in spikes, poked through his scalp. In spite of the changes, she knew he was the same man who’d sat right here in her café and questioned her about her psychic abilities, then warned her she was in danger. The same man she was sure who’d choked Mrs. Elliot and shot Mr. Stubbings. The same man who’d tried to burn her place to the ground.
He wanted her dead. She could feel his hatred. Like a physical thing, it slapped her right in the face and seemed to suck the very air from her lungs.
Don’t let him see your fear, a voice whispered in her head. It’s your only hope. He’s the kind of monster who thrives on taking advantage of anyone weaker than he is.
Stiffening, she said contemptuously, “If you’re here to rob the place, you’re too early. We haven’t been open for two weeks, and the only money we’ve got is fifty dollars in change in the cash register. Take it and get out.”
“Oh, no, lady,” he said softly. “I’ve been waiting a long time to get my hands on you. I’m not going anywhere without you.”
Outraged, Molly gasped. “The hell you’re not! If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get out of here before her boyfriend comes back. He’s a cop and he won’t mess around with trash like you.”
“Her boyfriend,” he sneered, unimpressed, “is long gone. I saw him leave, and he looked madder than hell. I don’t think he’ll be coming back.” Pulling a black scarf from his pocket, he tossed it at Jennifer. “Tie the old battle-ax up and be quick about it. We’re running out of time.”
Fear chilling her blood, Jennifer searched his soulless eyes and knew she didn’t have any choice but to do as he said. If she gave him the slightest bit of trouble, he’d shoot them both and be done with it. Reluctantly she turned to Molly. “I’m sorry, Moll.”
“Don’t be,” she said gruffly. “You just be careful.”
“Quit your yammering!” he growled, “and get on with it!”
His eyes shifting to the clock, then to the front door, he was too busy watching for the first customer to notice that Jennifer not only bound Molly’s hands in front of her, she twined the scarf around her wrists and tied it in a slip knot that any four-year-old could have gotten out of.
“All right, she’s tied,” she told him, then immediately distracted him before he could check her handiwork too closely. “If you’re planning on getting out of here before anyone sees you, you’d better hustle. Mr. Libberman is always here at six-thirty sharp, and it’s already six-twenty-two.”
His eyes widened in panic, and then he was hustling them both toward the rear of the kitchen. “What’s in here?” he demanded, and pulled open the door of the pantry to see. It was a small windowless room, and without even looking at Molly’s bindings, he shoved her inside. “In you go, Grandma.”
Ignoring her sputterings, he slammed the door in her face, then saw, too late, that there was no lock. He spit an oath, then grabbed a chair and shoved it under the doorknob. Her heart pounding, Jennifer turned to run, but she’d only taken two steps when he reached out and snared her hair.
“No!” she screamed.
“Oh, yes,” he snarled, and hauled her back to him by her hair until he could lock an iron arm around her and shove the gun into her side. “I’ve got you, lady. You can make this as hard or as easy on yourself as you want—it makes no difference to me. But you even think about getting away from me again, and you’re dead on the spot. You hear me?”
“Y-yes. I hear you.”
“Good. Then get your ass outside.”
His fingers biting into her arm, he dragged her after him out the back door and over to a battered orange van. The sliding door on the passenger side was already open, waiting. His mouth twisting into a cruel mockery of a smile, he chuckled when she balked and planted her feet.
“You want to end it all right here?” he taunted.
“You wouldn’t!”
“Do you really want to take that chance?”
He had her there and he knew it. She had to buy whatever time she could until Alice could get free and call Sam. It was the only chance she had.
Without a word she stepped into the van and never saw him lift the gun. A split second later, he slammed it down on the back of her head. A blinding flash of white light exploded behind her eyes. Without a sound she crumpled to the floor.
Chapter 13
“Sam? Thank God you’re home! You have to come. He’s got her. I tried to stop him, but...”
His conversation with Jennifer still spinning annoyingly in his head, it took Sam a second to recognize Molly’s voice. And even then, her words were so jumbled, so frantic, he could hardly understand her. Alarmed, he said, “Slow down, Molly. What’s wrong? Who’s got whom? Where’s Jennifer?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you!” she sobbed. “She’s been kidnapped!”
“What? When? Dammit, she couldn’t have been! I just left her!”
“Right after you’d gone, he came in here, big as life, and took off with her. He made her tie me up, but she didn’t. Not really. I got out of the pantry just as they drove away.”
A muscle twitching in his jaw, Sam snatched a pen and paper from the counter in his kitchen. “Did you see the vehicle? Get a license number?”
“You’re damn right I did!” Quickly rattling off the information, she said furiously, “They headed west on Commerce. You catch him, Sam. And when you do, I want a piece of him. He’s going to kill her.”
“The hell he is,” he growled in a voice that would have chilled the devil himself. “He so much as harms a single hair on her head, and I’ll make him wish he’d never been born.”
Without another word, he slammed down the phone and immediately picked it up again to call the police dispatcher to issue an all-points bulletin. Seconds later he grabbed his gun and ran out the door.
The streets were still relatively deserted that early in the morning, and by the time he hit Commerce, he was flying low. Grim-faced, his siren blaring, he dared anyone to get in his way. No one did. There was, however, no sign of the orange van.
Where the hell was the bastard? What if he didn’t catch up to him in time?
Fear knotted his gut. No, dammit! he thought angrily. He couldn’t afford to think that way or he’d go out of his mind. Jennifer had to know he was coming for her. She was counting on him, and by God, he’d find her. Even if he had to tear the city apart. And when he did, he was never letting her out of his sight again!
“Calling all units in the vicinity of North Flores and I-35,” the emotionless voice on his police radio droned. “An orange Ford van, license plate number 213 KJY, has been spotted in the two hundred block of North Flores heading north...”
Sam didn’t wait to hear more. Snatching up the mike to his radio, he called in to report that he was on his way. “Have you got an ID to go with that plate number?”
“Affirmative. The vehicle is registered to a Paul Masterson at 635 North Flores.”
He was going home. The idiot was winding his way through downtown and leading them straight to his house! Ordering all available units to Masterson’s house, Sam turned right at the next corner and hit the gas. If he got on the freeway, he might just be able to beat him there.
He hit the entrance ramp going sixty. After that he didn’t even look at the speedometer. The world passed in a blur, but it seemed like he was hardly moving. Then the North Flores exit was rushing at him, and he was forced to slow down to keep all four wheels on the ground as he shot off the freeway.
Backup was on the way, but when he saw a rusty orange van pull into a driveway two blocks ahead, Sam knew there was no way in hell he was waiting for anyone before going in after Jennifer. His jaw granite hard, he floored the accelerator. Thirty seconds later, tires screaming, he slammed to a stop beh
ind the van just as the driver jumped out.
In the time it took to kick open his door, Sam was out of his car and taking cover behind the front fender. His gun steady as a rock in his hand, he yelled, “Freeze!”
Three black-and-white units came roaring down the street with sirens blaring, but Sam never spared them a glance. One second he had Paul Masterson in his sights, and the next the son of a bitch had jerked Jennifer out of the van, pulled her in front of him and pressed a gun against her chest. Sam stiffened, his heart stopping in mid-beat at the sight of her. She was as pale as a ghost, her eyes dazed as she visibly swayed on her feet. What had the bastard done to her?
“Jennifer? Are you all right?”
“He hit me—”
“Shut up!” Masterson barked, “or I’ll do more than that to you. And you back off,” he told Sam shrilly. “I mean it! This little revolver here has a hair trigger, and my fingers get real clumsy when I’m upset. You back off or you can start planning the bitch’s funeral. It’s your choice.”
In all his years on the force, Sam had never once lost control on the job. He’d never even come close. But at that moment, seeing Jennifer’s terrified eyes as Masterson ground the barrel of the gun into her breast, he could have easily killed the lowlife scumbag with his bare hands. “Let her go, Masterson,” he said coldly. “Look around you, man. We’ve got you surrounded. Let her go and nobody gets hurt.”
“Yeah, right,” he jeered. “Like I’m gonna walk out of here alive. Who do you think you’re dealing with, Kelly? A moron? Get back!” he screamed when one of the uniformed officers edged closer. “All of you back off, or I swear I’ll kill her right here!”
He was just jittery enough to do it, Sam thought grimly. If his gun had the hair trigger he claimed it had, all he had to do was jerk when he thought someone was getting too close, and he’d shoot Jennifer right in the heart. She’d be dead before she hit the ground.
But he couldn’t back off, dammit! He couldn’t just stand there and let the son of a bitch haul her into his house. Here, surrounded by cops, she had a chance. If Masterson got her alone with him inside, in a hostage situation, the odds on her surviving were slim to none.
“You’re not that stupid,” Sam said with a calm he was far from feeling. “So far, all you have against you is a kidnapping charge. You don’t want to add murder to that.
Think, man! We can end this thing peacefully. Let’s just talk about it.”
She was going to die.
Pressed tightly back against the monster who held her, her head throbbing viciously from the blow she’d taken, Jennifer felt the tension in his big body, the rage he directed solely at her, and knew she was doomed. He didn’t care that he was surrounded, that one bullet from a police sharpshooter would blow the top of his head off. In his twisted mind she was the cause of all his problems, and if he could just eliminate her, he wouldn’t have a care in the world.
She had to do something. Think! she told herself fiercely, trying to clear her pain-clouded brain. A small army of cops encircled them. Sam even had her kidnapper in his sights, but he couldn’t chance doing anything without endangering her. So it was up to her. She could literally feel the waning seconds of her life ticking away. If she didn’t come up with some course of action soon, it was going to be too late.
She never made a conscious decision, but one second she stood stiffly in the grip of the man who wanted her dead, and the next she went boneless.
“What the hell! Stand up, you stupid bitch!” Caught off guard, her captor instinctively shifted his hold to grab her and shore her limp body up in front of him. In the process he tightened his grip on his gun.
The bullet slammed into her with the force of a speeding freight train and knocked her off her feet. On the edge of her awareness, she heard Sam’s bellow of rage, then the sound of another shot being fired. A split second later, her kidnapper grunted in pain and his gun when flying. Before he hit the ground, the cops were swarming them.
Stunned, her shoulder on fire, Jennifer lifted a trembling hand to the wound and felt blood spurt between her fingers. Only then did she realize she’d been shot. “Oh, God!”
“Jennifer? Sweetheart?” Suddenly Sam was there, down on his knees beside her, his rugged face gray with worry as he bent over her. “Somebody call an ambulance. And get a first-aid kit over here stat!” he yelled as he tugged a handkerchief from his pocket and hastily pressed it to her shoulder. “You’re going to be okay, baby,” he told her huskily when he brought his eyes back to hers and found her watching him dazedly. “Just lie still.”
“I had to do something,” she said thickly. “He was going to kill me.”
“I know, honey. I saw it in his eyes. You did fine.” A uniformed officer came running up with the first-aid kit, and in record time, Sam had a thick pad of gauze pressed to her shoulder. But in spite of his best efforts, the wound still oozed blood, soaking the pad in a matter of moments.
Alarmed, he reached for her with his free hand and crushed her fingers in his. “I can hear the ambulance now, sweetheart,” he said. “You hang on, you hear me? The hospital is less than fifteen minutes away. Don’t you dare check out on me!”
Her smile feeble, she couldn’t seem to keep her eyes open. “There you go bossing me again,” she said weakly. “Are you sure you weren’t a general in another life?”
“Oh, God,” he groaned. “Don’t tell me you believe in reincarnation, too!”
“Of course. Doesn’t everyone?”
She was so blasé about it he almost laughed. Then he felt her fingers go slack in his and his heart stopped cold.
“Jennifer? Honey? Dammit!” he cried. “Where the hell’s that ambulance?”
She was in surgery for two hours. It was the longest two hours of Sam’s life. He made regular calls to Molly, who would have been there in a heartbeat if there’d been anyone else at the café to cook for the crowd of customers who’d shown up as soon as Jennifer was kidnapped, but there wasn’t much he could tell her. He didn’t know anything about her condition except that it was serious and was driving him crazy. He paced and swore and paced some more. And always, he watched the clock. He could have sworn it never moved.
What the hell was taking so long? he fumed. The shot was a clean one. It might have been a little low, but dammit, it wasn’t anywhere near her heart! It couldn’t have been. She would have been bleeding a lot more...
Images of her blood soaking the bandage he’d pressed to her shoulder flashed before his eyes, haunting him. He could still feel that same blood seeping through his fingers.
God, he loved her! How could he have been so blind? He’d known he was in trouble the night he’d found her in the ballroom of the Lone Star, and then again the next morning when she’d bravely admitted she loved him. She’d been so sure she’d scared him spitless, and he’d been running from the truth ever since. He’d clung to Patricia’s betrayal like a shield that could protect him, but by then, it had already been too late. It was too late the first time he touched her.
But like a jackass, he’d tried to convince himself she was another Patricia just because she was young and romantic and seemed to have her head in the clouds. He couldn’t have been more wrong. It wasn’t lack of age or experience that made a woman betray her husband—it was lack of character. And Jennifer had plenty of character. She was loyal to her friends and people she cared about, and she stood up for what she believed in even when it wasn’t always the smart thing to do. And she loved him as much as he loved her. If he knew nothing else about her, he knew that. And nothing else mattered. The rest was just details.
“Detective Kelly?”
Caught up in his thoughts, he didn’t see the surgeon, still dressed in his scrubs, until he called his name. Whirling, he strode quickly toward him. “Dr. Rhodes! Thank God! How is she? She’s going to be all right, isn’t she? She lost so much blood....”
“Because the bullet nicked an artery,” the doctor explained. “We were able to re
pair the damage, and she came through the surgery just fine. She’s in recovery now and should be taken up to her room in an hour or so.”
Until that moment, when relief took all the starch from his knees, Sam didn’t realize just how scared he’d been of losing her. “Can I see her?” he asked hoarsely.
The doctor hesitated, but one look at the determined set of Sam’s jaw, and he gave in to the inevitable. “Just for a couple of minutes. She’s still under the anesthetic,” he warned. “She won’t even know you’re there.”
If they’d been talking about any other woman, Sam would have agreed. But not Jennifer. Smiling, he said, “Oh, yes, she will. Jennifer’s got a sixth sense about this kind of thing. Where’s recovery?”
“To the left at the end of the hall. You can’t miss it. And remember,” he called after him when Sam moved off. “Only two minutes.”
He didn’t, Sam thought, need that long to tell her he loved her. But when a nurse showed him to her bedside and he saw how still she was, how pale, he knew he was going to take every second of that two minutes and more if he could manage it. Then, when she was back on her feet and out of here, he was taking a lifetime.
Ignoring the nurses and the machines that beeped and gurgled all around them, he took her right hand and enclosed it in his, only to feel his heart twist when her fingers remained unmoving. “You’re going to be all right, sweetheart,” he whispered gruffly. “The doctor said I can’t stay long, but I wanted you to know I’m here. I’ll always be here, honey. You hear me? I’ve never loved anyone as much as I love you, and I’ll always be here for you.”
A nurse came up on soft-soled shoes to check the machines Jennifer was hooked up to, but Sam hardly noticed her. His voice pitched low and deep, he told Jennifer how stupid he’d been, how she should have given him a good swift kick where it would do the most good, how sometimes a man had to get hit with a sledgehammer before he could see what was right there in front of his eyes. He poured out his heart to her, and when he looked at the clock again, ten minutes had passed.