The steering wheel spun wildly and her car left the road. In horror she had a flash of trees just ahead and knew she was going to hit them.
The last thing she heard before impact was Joshua screaming her name over the cell phone.
Then nothing.
Joshua heard the splintering sound of an impact. He shouted her name several more times and when she didn’t answer he hung up and called Sheriff Ramsey.
As he quickly told Ramsey where Savannah was and that she was in trouble, he raced to his truck. Within moments he roared away from the West property and headed for Big K’s Truck Stop.
His heart beat so hard, so fast it felt as if it might explode from his chest at any moment. He’d heard the sound of crunching metal, the sound of breaking glass and he knew she’d hit something.
Right now she could be bleeding to death on the side of a road where it might be minutes, or an hour before another car passed her. Fear sizzled through him, making him feel sick with impotence, sick with torment.
He tightened his grip on the steering wheel, a cold chill seeping through him. She’d seen headlights behind her. Some jerk with his bright lights on. That’s what she’d said.
He tromped his foot on the gas pedal, wishing he had wings to fly to her. Damn her for going off on her own to meet Sheila, but double damn whoever might have caused her harm.
As he drove he punched in her cell phone number, hoping, praying she’d answer, but it went directly to her voice mail. The fact that she wouldn’t or couldn’t answer sent a new chill coursing through him.
When he reached old Highway 10 he slowed down, his gaze shooting left and right of the two-lane road, seeking any sign of her car.
It was about a twenty-mile stretch between where he was now and Big K’s Truck Stop. He had no idea where Savannah had been on this road when she’d made the phone call to him.
Emotion clawed up his throat, tasting like grief, but he told himself there was nothing to grieve about. She was okay. She had to be okay. Somehow she’d had a fender bender and now her phone wasn’t working. He just had to find her and she’d be all right.
The stretch of highway was so dark, with no streetlights, no light of the moon cascading down from the cloudy night sky. “Where are you, Savannah?” he muttered, his gaze flying first to the left, then to the right of the road.
He felt ill, more ill than he’d ever felt in his life. As he tried to find her along the dark, lonely road his mind filled with visions of her.
Her charming freckles, her beautiful smile, the warmth of her curves in his arms, each was a haunting memory that ripped at his heart.
As he gazed into his rearview mirror he saw a flash of cherry red lights illuminating the dark and knew that Ramsey was coming up fast behind him. Ramsey must have jumped in his car the moment Joshua had called. Thank God for that. Surely with two of them searching they’d find her more quickly.
When he looked back at the road he saw her car. It was on the right side, about a hundred feet off the road. The front end was smashed against a tree trunk, the interior light on as the driver door hung open.
Joshua yanked his truck to the side of the road, slammed it into Park and left the cab at a run. He was vaguely conscious of Ramsey pulling to a stop just behind his truck as he raced to the wrecked vehicle.
“Savannah!” Her name tore from his throat as he reached her car. It took only a moment’s glance to realize she wasn’t in the driver’s seat. The windshield had shattered, raining glass on the dash, and the airbag had deployed, but there was no sign of Savannah in the car.
“She’s not here,” Joshua said to Ramsey as the sheriff hurried toward him. The fear that had sizzled through him before now exploded into unmitigated terror.
“Maybe she tried to walk to get help?” Ramsey suggested.
Joshua looked around wildly. “Savannah!” He yelled her name with all the power in his lungs. Was she wandering around in the dark? Stunned or injured?
His chest tightened as a frantic sob threatened to erupt. Headlights in the distance appproached at a quick pace, but Joshua paid little attention as he yelled her name again and again. The grass beside the driver door was matted down, as if something had either fallen or been dragged.
The car that had approached pulled up behind the Sheriff’s, and Bill Cleaver, a rancher from nearby stalked over to where Ramsey stood next to the wrecked car.
“Somebody hurt here?” he asked.
“We don’t know, but it looks like it,” Ramsey replied.
“Sheriff, that damn fool Larry Davidson just now practically ran me off the road,” he exclaimed, then pointed to Savannah’s car. “As reckless as he was driving, he probably made this happen, too. He had to have been either drunk or high. I don’t give a damn if he works for the mayor or not, he’s a menace on the road.”
Joshua stared at Bill. Larry Davidson. Wasn’t that the cowboy who had stopped them before they’d gone into City Hall? The man who’d asked Savannah out to dinner?
Had he wanted dinner, or had he simply wanted to get Savannah alone? Was he part of the conspiracy going on in town?
The idea of Savannah wandering around in the dark dazed and hurt was bad enough, but the possibility that she had been forcefully taken from the car was terrifying. The matted grass next to the driver door suddenly took on an ominous tone.
“How long ago did he pass you?” Joshua asked tersely.
“About ten miles down the road, was driving like a bat out of hell in that big blue pickup of his.”
The words were barely out of Bill’s mouth before Joshua was on the run to his truck. Somehow in his heart, in every fiber of his being, he knew that Savannah was in that blue pickup. Now, all he had to do was find her.
Chapter 14
Pain splintered through her head, a pain so intense she felt like throwing up. Her face hurt, too. As if she’d been burned. With her eyes still closed, Savannah started to raise a hand to her throbbing forehead, only to realize her hand wouldn’t move.
She frowned, confusion filtering through the pain. What was happening? Where was she? She opened her eyes and stared down at her hands in her lap. Silver duct tape wrapped around her wrists. What? Why was there duct tape there? It didn’t make sense.
As the fog of pain momentarily lifted she realized she was in a vehicle, and she turned her head to the left to see Larry Davidson behind the wheel.
She quickly closed her eyes again, feigning unconsciousness as her brain worked to figure out what had happened, how she’d come to be in a truck with Larry, with her wrists bound.
She’d been at Winnie’s and the phone had rung. Sheila. She’d had a meeting with Sheila, then she’d been driving home. She gasped as she remembered the bright lights behind her, the crash into the back end of her car and the out-of-control veer off the road.
“Ah, you’re awake,” Larry said. He’d obviously heard her gasp as her memory had returned.
She thought about pretending to still be out of it but knew there was no point. Instead she opened her eyes once again and looked at him, trying to work past the pain in her head. “Larry, what’s going on? Why did you duct-tape my wrists?”
He glanced at her, then back at the dark road ahead. “Ah, Savannah, this all would have been so much easier if you’d just stayed unconscious. I like you, I like you a lot. I tried to warn you off, tried to get you to stop snooping around.”
Savannah frowned, the pain in her head making it difficult for her to think, to process what he was saying. “What do you mean? You tried to warn me off?”
“That birdshot that night at the newspaper office? That was me. I thought maybe I could scare you, but you didn’t scare easy.”
“Was it you who got into my bedroom and beat me up?” Savannah worked her wrists, trying to get the tape to loosen up.
“Yeah, that was me. I hated to do it, but you were running your mouth to too many people and making somebody uncomfortable. I was told to shut you up. I was hoping that woul
d do it, but you’re one stubborn woman, Savannah.”
At the moment she wasn’t stubborn as much as she was afraid. Fear whispered just under the surface and she tried to maintain control of it, knowing that to give it free rein would make it impossible for her to think. And she had to figure out a way out of this.
“We knew that stupid Sheila might be a weak link so I followed her tonight,” he continued. “What did she tell you with that big mouth of hers?”
“I was interviewing her for my column, that’s all.”
He backhanded her. The blow was completely unexpected and caught her on the side of her jaw. “Don’t lie to me. I might be nothing but a cowhand, but I’m not stupid.”
Tears sprang to her eyes and she realized she was in trouble…big trouble. Her fear unleashed itself, whipping through her.
“I imagine she told you about the plans for those high-dollar condos and townhouses. Cotter Creek is going to become the place for the wealthy, a playground in the middle of the country for the beautiful people.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied.
He snorted. “Too late to pretend, Savannah. This is the best thing that could ever happen to Cotter Creek. Whether you know it or not, that town is dying. This deal with MoTwin will put money in everyone’s pockets. New businesses will come in and the economy will boom.”
“Who’s in charge in Cotter Creek? Who is your boss?” she asked, working her hands more frantically in an effort to get free. He was talking to her too freely, and that didn’t bode well for her.
“Don’t know and don’t care. I get a phone call telling me to do a job. I do it and I get a nice cash payment deposited in a Swiss account.”
“What kind of jobs?” Savannah asked. Keep him talking, that was her goal. Keep him talking until she could get her hands free or come up with a plan to get away from him.
She’d been on the phone with Joshua when her car had struck that tree. If she could just keep Larry talking long enough maybe Joshua would find her.
“All those accidents you’ve been investigating, they were my work.” As he began to tell her about how he’d committed each “accident,” Savannah realized there was no way he was going to let her live.
He was confessing to the murders of half a dozen men, pride deepening his voice as he explained how he had set each one up to look like an accident.
Savannah closed her eyes against the burn of tears, a horrible resignation sweeping through her. Her head still ached with nauseating intensity, she couldn’t get her hands free no matter how hard she tried, and she knew Larry was driving her to her grave.
“You won’t get away with this, Larry. Sheriff Ramsey will figure it out,” she said.
He laughed. “Ramsey is a buffoon, too stupid to know what’s going on in his own town.”
“So, he’s not in on it?”
He laughed again. “Ramsey would be the last person they’d bring into this.”
They were out in the middle of nowhere and as he turned off the highway and crossed a cattle guard into a large pasture, she knew that it was possible her body would never even be found.
“Old Charlie, he was a tough one,” Larry continued. “We knew no matter how much money he was offered he’d never sell. He cursed me with his last breath.”
Savannah’s chest ached as she thought of Charlie, as she thought of Joshua and everything that was lost to her. She would never know what it felt like to be loved wonderfully, desperately by a man. She would never know what it felt like to look into a man’s eyes and see her own soul reflected back to her.
According to her mother, she hadn’t been worth much in life and she certainly wouldn’t be worth much in death. Suddenly she was angry. Her mother’s words had been poison, making Savannah accept less all her life because she hadn’t believed she was worth more. She’d always gotten what she’d expected, because she’d never expected more for herself.
Even though she’d always told herself her mother’s criticism had fallen on deaf ears, she recognized now the depths that the cuts of those words had made to her soul.
Damn her mother for teaching her not to expect anything from life, and damn herself for taking those perverse lessons to heart.
The weary resignation that had momentarily gripped her was shoved aside by a rage, the likes of which she’d never known.
Dammit, she was worth something, worth far more than she’d gotten from life so far. She wasn’t about to just allow this murdering cowhand to take her off somewhere and destroy not only her life but also any dreams she might have harbored for her future.
She couldn’t let that happen. Frantically she worked her hands, rubbing them against each other, pulling in an effort to break the tape. She couldn’t wait for Joshua, who might never find her. She couldn’t wait for anyone to ride to her rescue.
She wanted to survive and promised herself that if she did she would expect more, demand more from life because she was worth it all.
When there was no give to the duct tape, and she knew there was no way she was going to break the bonds, she realized there was only one thing she could do.
Although he was moving across the pasture at a high rate of speed, she knew she had only one chance. Twisting her body, she gripped the door handle, yanked it open and bailed out.
“Hey!”
She heard Larry’s outcry just before her body made contact with the ground. She bounced and skidded, pain ripping through her as the air left her lungs and she finally slammed one last time onto the hard earth.
For a brief moment she lay on the ground, trying to find her breath, knowing that if she didn’t move she’d be dead. She hurt. Oh God, she hurt so badly. Every bone in her body, every muscle screamed with the abuse they had just received.
As Larry pulled his truck to a stop in the distance, she rose unsteadily to her hands and knees, fighting past the pain. She had to get away. She had to move! She crawled forward, her movements awkward with the duct tape still on her wrists. Sobs ripped through her.
His truck was parked in the opposite direction, the lights beaming away from her. As she moved across the pasture, she prayed the cloudy night would work to her benefit and Larry wouldn’t see her.
“You might as well give it up, Savannah.” His boots rang against the hard ground. “As much as I like you, I can’t let you leave here alive. I got my orders.”
She heard the unmistakable click of a bullet being chambered. She swallowed her sobs, afraid the sound would draw him to her. She didn’t know whether to lie flat and hope the grass might hide her or keep crawling, knowing that a moving target was harder to hit than a still one.
It was a game of hide and seek in the dark, a game with deadly consequences. If he found her she would die. There was absolutely no way she could talk him into sparing her, no way he’d allow her to live.
She brought her hands up to her mouth and frantically tore at the duct tape with her teeth. Crazy hope filled her as she ripped and gnawed at the tape, finally getting it off her wrists.
At that moment the clouds parted and a shimmering shaft of moonlight drifted down, giving her a perfect view of Larry. And Larry a perfect view of her.
The light glimmered off the gun that he raised, pointing it right at her. A wrenching sob escaped her as she said a quick prayer.
The roar of an engine filled the air and twin headlights bounced into view. Larry spun around and pointed the gun at the approaching vehicle. He fired and glass shattered. He only got off one shot before the truck struck him.
There was a sickening smack, then his body flew into the air. The truck engine stopped at the same time Larry’s body hit the ground.
Silence.
Savannah stared at the silent, familiar black pickup. Joshua. With every ounce of strength she had left she struggled to her feet at the same time the driver door opened and Joshua stepped out.
“Savannah! Thank God.” He ran to her and wrapped her in his arms. She felt the tre
mble of his body against hers and the sobs she’d held back in an effort to save her own life exploded out of her.
“Shh, it’s all right now. You’re all right,” he soothed her. He was still holding her when Sheriff Ramsey arrived moments later.
Joshua insisted he take her to the hospital, that any questions Ramsey had for them could wait until Savannah got medical treatment.
But, Savannah refused to leave until she’d told Sheriff Ramsey everything that she’d learned from Sheila and everything Larry had told her. She needed to tell them all of it, while it was still so fresh, so horrifying in her mind.
She held herself together for the telling, although more than once as she shared the details the press of tears burned hot at her eyes.
By the time she’d finished talking to the sheriff one of his deputies had arrived and it was he who drove Savannah to the hospital while Joshua remained behind to answer questions about Larry Davidson’s death.
It was only when she was safe in the deputy’s car that the full horror of what had just happened descended on her once again.
She wept silent tears, tears for Charlie and for all the other ranchers who had fallen victim to Larry and the crazy land scheme. She cried for Joshua, who had killed a man to save her life.
Finally she cried for herself, because somehow in those moments of facing death she knew she’d been forever changed, and she didn’t know whether to weep for what she’d lost or celebrate what she’d gained.
It was just after three in the morning when Savannah sat in the emergency room exam room waiting to be released. She’d been checked over head to toe and had suffered a mild concussion, some facial abrasions from the air bag deployment and a variety of bumps and bruises, but thankfully nothing more serious.
Even though her injuries were minor, her entire body ached from the jolt it had taken when she’d jumped out of Larry’s pickup. She was beyond exhaustion and just wanted to go home.
She looked up as the curtain moved aside and Joshua came into the small examining cubicle. He looked as exhausted as she felt with his eyes dark and hollow.
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