“Ms. Travers, I’m truly sorry, but I don’t think you have a choice.”
That stopped her, her eyes widening as she tried to decide if the threat he’d implied came from him or from the men who were following him.
“They’re not going to stop and listen to explanations,” he went on. “Not yours. Not mine. They’ve made up their minds that…”
“That we’re involved,” she finished when he hesitated and watched the tight nod of response. “And they think you’ll give yourself up if they have me?”
Again he nodded, his eyes gauging her reaction.
“And if you do? What do they want from you? What will they do if they catch you?”
He hesitated again, and in the waiting stillness was aware of the morning sounds and the sunlight filtering through the pine needles over their heads. He watched a flicker of light gleam blue-black in the richness of her hair. He looked down at her hand, slender fingers still spread against the darker brown of his forearm. Her nails were short and unpolished. He closed his eyes, allowing himself to savor, just for a moment, the softness of her palm against the bare, hair-roughened skin of his arm.
“Deke?” she asked.
It was the first time she’d used his name, and the sound of it was unfamiliar. It had been a long time since anyone had called him by his given name. And even longer since he’d heard the softness of a woman’s voice wrapped around that single syllable.
He knew that he had to tell her. It was the only way he could make her do the one thing that might keep her safe—to get into the car with him and run, to trust herself to a stranger. The only possibility was to tell her the truth. No matter how brutal.
“They’ll put the muzzle of a rifle to the back of my head and pull the trigger,” he said. He looked up in time to watch shock invade her eyes.
The picture he had suggested developed in Becki’s head like some documentary of wartime atrocities. Black and white and more horrifying for the lack of response in the faces of those watching, those silent figures in the background of the newsreel. That same lack of response was in the eyes of the man who leaned against the opened doorway of the car.
She took a breath, breaking the spell of horror he’d created. He didn’t mean that. He was only trying to make her do what he wanted. He was just trying to frighten her. But even as she offered those softening explanations, the truth was in his eyes, calmly meeting hers.
Unable to speak, she simply nodded. He moved aside and allowed her to climb into the passenger seat of the car, closing the door with as little noise as possible. He walked around to the other side, and through the dusty windshield she watched that short journey. He never looked at her again, but he glanced once over his shoulder into the forest. When he opened the driver’s side door and slipped into the bucket seat, she didn’t look up, didn’t make eye contact. Instead she focused on his hand, turning the single key he’d dug out of his pocket. The engine caught the first time, smoothly purring, almost noiseless. He eased the stick into reverse and began to back the car out of its hiding place, then down the rutted dirt road, and eventually out onto the smooth black asphalt of the Alabama highway.
They traveled a few miles in silence. Deke knew she needed time to think through everything he’d told her. Time to accept before they had to move on to what came next. To the next realization.
“I have to have some clothes,” she said finally.
He cut his eyes toward the passenger seat. She was looking out the windshield rather than at him. He wondered if he should be reassured by the prosaic quality of that comment.
“And I have to call my mother.”
That wasn’t on his agenda. He had learned to break all contact to whatever life he had been leading and move on. But then he never allowed himself to form any ties, emotional or physical. Those were his rules and they had served him well; however, he knew they would have to be adjusted for the woman sitting beside him—a woman who came with a lot of ties.
“We can’t afford to give anyone a clue as to—”
“Do you want the police looking for us, too?” she interrupted calmly, turning her head to meet his eyes.
He returned his attention to the road, trying to think.
“Because if I just disappear,” she went on, “my family will certainly notify them, and my picture will be on every television newscast.”
He was forced to acknowledge the probability of that and the fact that it would only make it easier for their pursuers to track them. “What will you tell her?”
“That I’ve decided to get away for a few days. While Josh is gone. Go to the Gulf, maybe.”
“Will she believe it?”
“For a few days, I think. Maybe a week. Unless she decides to go to the house.”
“Your house?”
“She’s got a key. If it’s even locked now,” she said, remembering how she had left things—the den light on and the lock on the front door probably forced to allow the invaders’ entry. “My purse is there. And Wimsey. My God,” she said, realizing that she’d never even thought about the stray cat she’d tried to adopt, “what about Wimsey?”
There was a slight sound of amusement from the man behind the wheel. Laughter? Becki wondered, trying to identify the noise. If it was, it seemed, like his smile, to be rusty from lack of use.
“I think…Wimsey can take care of himself. I think he’s had experience.”
She knew he was right. The cat had a bowl of dry food on the deck and when that was gone he’d slip back into his old ways, procuring his own supper from the woods. She knew from the frequent trophies he left at her back door how capable a hunter he was.
“What do you call him?” she asked, recognizing his obvious amusement with the name she had given the tom.
Again his eyes flicked toward her.
“Butch,” he said, and then he redirected his attention to the road ahead. Fascinated, she watched the small movement at the one corner of his mouth she could see. Almost a smile. Unlike the other time he’d smiled at her—in the forest—this appeared to be less a grimace and more a relaxation, a true expression of amusement.
“Butch?” she repeated, and then she laughed. It was such a contrast to the aristocratic Lord Peter Wimsey she’d bestowed and, of course, far more appropriate. “Butch,” she said again, still smiling.
Deke didn’t look at her, but he was relieved by her laughter. Despite all that had been thrown at her, including the horrors he’d suggested, she was still hanging in there. Still holding it together. Good girl, he found himself thinking again. He wondered how many people confronted with this situation, something so sudden and terrifyingly alien to their way of life, would cope as well as she seemed to be.
They were going to make it, he thought. If he could just shake the pursuit and then locate Josh. He knew he’d have to work his way around to that, finding out where her brother was camping. That would decide which direction they’d go when they reached the interstate. She was probably right. It would be better to get some clothes for her and to let her make her phone call before they left. Surface one last time in an area the Movement knew they were in, do the necessary things here and then disappear. Get to Josh and disappear again.
And then he would keep them both safe until he could figure out what to do next. Who to trust. He knew that would be the hardest thing he would have to do. Convince himself that there was someone out there he could trust to keep them safe. Someone who would be willing to die to keep the two of them safe. Someone besides Deke Summers.
HE LET HER MAKE HER phone call at the small filling station he’d used before. He had chosen the place because the outdoor phone was a safe distance from the building itself. It was almost out of sight of any passing cars, and he parked the Trans Am as close to the old-fashioned enclosed booth as he could get it. She slipped out of the car, barefoot and still in the nightshirt. He eased out to stand behind her, his back to hers, as she made the call.
It was a little more dangero
us this way—not to be in the car, ready to go if anyone pulled in, but he felt safer when he considered the woods that surrounded the building. He didn’t really believe they were that close, and he didn’t understand how they could already know the car he was in, but he’d learned not to underestimate the quality of their information. Just a sighting was all it took, and then the hounds would be in full bay.
Deke listened with only half his mind to the one-sided conversation behind him. They had discussed what could be said and what shouldn’t be, and he trusted her to do what she was told. She wouldn’t want anything to happen to Josh. She wouldn’t take any chances.
The stop was uneventful. He didn’t even ask about her mother’s reaction. It didn’t make any difference to his plans even if she didn’t buy the story.
He chose a Wal-Mart store not far from the juncture with the interstate. He waited a minute after he’d pulled the car into the closest parking place he could find, his eyes tracking the movements of the cars that came into the lot behind him. There was nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing that sparked that prescience of danger that he took for granted now.
He had always been a man who trusted his instincts, and years on the run had done nothing to change that. Most of the time when he was being stalked, he knew. The slight rising of the hair on the back of his neck. A coldness. Something intangible, but he always knew.
He had felt it that morning in the dawn stillness when he’d kissed her, but he’d denied his instincts, put them down to drunken overreaction. He should have run then, but it was getting harder each time to destroy whatever identity he’d created. It felt as if he were destroying little pieces of himself until one day, he knew, there would be nothing left to destroy. And he hadn’t wanted to run this time because of her.
When he had wakened during the hot summer nights, it had not been the familiar nightmares that had pulled him out of sleep. Her skin had been under his mouth, the fragrance and the smoothness, its texture tantalizing. His body had responded to those dreams. A hard, painful response. And in the silent darkness of his lonely existence, it had taken him a long time to go back to sleep. Although he had denied himself any other physical contact with her, knowing the dangers, he still remembered the kiss and the images of the dream.
He shattered those memories by opening the car door. He had already stepped out when her voice stopped him.
“A bra,” she said.
He hadn’t asked about sizes other than for the shoes, intending to grab knit shorts and a T-shirt, mediums, shapeless and formless, and some athletic shoes. Whatever he found first. Automatically, over the top of the low-slung car his eyes scanned the people entering the store, deliberately not looking at her.
“32-C,” she said, her voice disembodied, coming from below his range of vision.
He closed the car door and walked toward the front entrance, the electric-eye doors sliding smoothly open before him. He refused the buggy the elderly man offered, but returned his greeting.
He made his selections, and then waited for the girl to ring them up. She was being very careful with her long artificial nails, and he felt his impatience building. He knew they’d been here too long. Not in the store, but in the area. First the journey across the woods and then the phone call. And now this. Too long, his instincts screamed, but he allowed no outward indication of his unease.
The girl, whose name tag read Joy, smiled at him, fingering the lace bra.
“Buyin’ your wife a present?” she asked coyly, glancing down to find the bare ring finger of his left hand. He fought the urge to remove his hand from the counter between them. “Or maybe your girlfriend?” she asked, raising green eyes, their lashes heavily darkened with mascara. Flirting with him. His eyes didn’t respond, but he answered her. If he didn’t, that would call attention to himself. Make her remember him more than she would otherwise.
“My daughter,” he said.
She evaluated the answer, her eyes tracing over his features, and then she smiled, deliberately hiding her teeth which were not her best feature. The smile was probably supposed to be provocative, but the effect was not quite what she intended.
“My, my,” she said, shaking her head, the too-red hair brushing her shoulders. “You must’ve got started real early.”
Although she hadn’t finished ringing up the transaction, he took a fifty out of the pocket of his pants and put it on the unmoving belt of the counter. He met her eyes, no response to her suggestion in his.
She glanced down at the bill and then turned back to the register. She carefully pushed buttons, never endangering her nails, until the total appeared.
“That’ll be $29.47,” she said, her hand reaching for the fifty. She made change, placing it on his outstretched palm, and then turned to put his purchases in a big bag that seemed to take her forever to shake open.
Again Deke deliberately reined in his impatience, his eyes moving to the glass front of the store. He watched a small red pickup drive slowly up the central lane of the parking lot, turn left at the entrance and then head down the row in which he’d parked the car. Looking for a parking place, he thought, but as he watched the driver move past two empty spaces something triggered warning signals.
“Here you go,” the girl said, handing him the bag into which she’d stuffed the shoes and clothing. “You have a nice day, now.”
Deke ignored the brush of her hand against his as he took the sack. “Thanks,” he said, turning his attention back to the circling truck. It was headed up the adjoining row, still obviously in no hurry.
He walked past the lady checking packages at the exit. He moved out into the morning sunlight, his eyes narrowing against its glare as they searched the lot. The pickup was still there, stopped, or almost stopped, a couple of rows over.
He felt the adrenaline kick in, his mind automatically sifting through the possibilities. They probably wouldn’t shoot at him here in the lot. There were too many people around. Too many people who could get hurt and too many witnesses. Neither of those was what they wanted. Only him.
He walked down the front of the row where he’d parked the Pontiac. When he reached it, he kept going, never glancing toward the car and the waiting woman, hoping Becki Travers was watching, that she’d realize something was going on, although he didn’t have anything to base that hope on.
A horn blew behind him, one time, a quick, short signal. She must think he’d lost the car. He walked on, almost down the end of the row now. Moving toward the last of the parked cars. Before him lay the outer section of the parking lot, deserted this early. Too much empty space, he thought. Too wide an area to cross without anything to offer protection. There was nothing to hide behind.
He dove between the last two cars in the row, inching carefully to the front bumper of the next to the last to look back in the direction he’d come. The red truck turned the corner in front of the store, moving slowly again down the central avenue of the parking lot—in the opposite direction it had taken when entering. There were two men in the cab, close enough now that he could see the one on the passenger side point to the end of the row where he’d disappeared. The driver gunned the engine a little, picking up speed.
Deke heard again the soft beep of the horn, but this time it came from behind him. Glancing over his right shoulder, he found the Trans Am, positioned exactly between the cars he was hiding behind, motor idling, driver’s side door opened invitingly. He felt an urge to motion her to drive on, to try to make her leave him here, but then, he realized, if he did manage to get away from the two who had found them, she’d have no idea what to do next, how to protect herself. This wasn’t her life.
And he acknowledged that he wasn’t ready to surrender himself to the men who were hunting him. Maybe it was only an instinct for self-preservation, but he’d been in worse fixes than this and escaped. There was always a chance, and as long as there was, he knew he’d take it. Especially…
He stopped the thought before it could form. He couldn
’t allow himself to think about the possibility of being with this woman other than to make sure she was safe, to protect her from his enemies.
The decision he reached took maybe a second. He didn’t check the progress of the pickup again. He had tried to lead them away from her, but she had taken a hand in the game. He slid into the driver’s seat through the open doorway, throwing the sack into her lap, and fought the urge to put his foot down on the accelerator and just get them the hell out of here. Instead he eased into the center road that divided the two sides of the massive parking lot and out into the main road, all the time watching the red pickup gather speed also, until finally it was directly behind him, so close that if he slammed on the brakes, a rear-end collision would be inevitable.
Now what, hotshot, he thought, disgusted with himself for allowing the delay that had put them in this situation. What the hell was he going to do now?
Chapter Five
“They’re following us, aren’t they?” Becki asked.
He didn’t look at her, his eyes traveling instead back and forth between the image in his rearview mirror and the road ahead.
“It looks that way,” he acknowledged. He could see them clearly now, as closely as they were following. Kids, he realized. Teenagers. He wondered for a moment if their motivation might be something else, harassment or car-jacking, but as he thought it, he remembered what he was driving. The beat-up old sports car might run like a scalded dog, but it wasn’t going to attract anybody’s interest in stealing it.
He was relieved that it appeared they had no mobile phone. They wouldn’t be able to alert anyone else to help in the chase, and apparently they didn’t care. He could almost feel their excitement, like a couple of coonhound puppies scenting a quarry they’d never hunted before. The most dangerous game, he thought ironically, remembering the old short story.
He slowed down to turn onto the entrance to the interstate, and then pressed the accelerator, the car smoothly climbing the concrete ramp to sail out onto the highway, already pushing seventy. He was pleased by the Trans Am’s responsiveness. Ready to run, he thought, like a horse that had been pastured too long. It had been built for the exercise he was about to put it through, designed purely for speed, long before the regulations on horsepower demanded by the need for fuel conservation.
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