On Her Trail

by Marcelle Dubé

  Terror switched on her adrenaline and cleared her mind. Instead of pulling away from him, she stepped into him, jabbing his instep as hard as she could with the heel of her running shoe and slamming her head back. She connected with his nose.

  “You bitch!” screamed her assailant, and she whirled out of his slackened grip. She caught a glimpse of a bald, shining head and blood gushing out of a nose, and then she was running.

  Her mind screamed at her to zigzag, but her body ran in a straight line as hard and as fast as she could. Something tugged at her sleeve, but she couldn’t spare any attention to it.

  Main Street was only four blocks away. Already she could see people on the side streets. A couple stood under the streetlight of one side street, laughing. A car drove by on another.

  She wanted to scream, but needed all her breath for running. The man behind her was running faster mad than she was scared. At this rate he would catch her before she could reach the main drag.

  Surely someone could see her? Had Whitehorse become so big that a woman running from a bleeding thug raised no eyebrows?

  Two blocks to go. Her pounding feet hit the street just as a battered orange pickup pulled up to her in a screech of brakes.

  “Get in!” yelled Mack, leaning over to open the door for her.

  She dove into the passenger side and he pulled away. Sitting up, she hung out the doorway and pulled the door shut. Only then did she look out the back window.

  The bald, bleeding man stood in the middle of the road, taking aim at the truck with an amazingly long pistol.

  “Duck!” she screamed.

  The back window shattered in an explosion of safety glass.

  “You son of a bitch!” yelled Mack. He turned onto a side street and sped away before the man could get another shot off.

  Laura twisted to look out the back window. Cold air rushed inside the cab, freezing her cheeks, making her shiver. There was no sign of the shooter. There was no sign of anybody. Then Mack turned onto well-lit Fourth Avenue, heading for the highway.

  “No,” she said, then repeated it louder to be heard over the sounds of the truck engine and the wind rushing in. “We have to find Jason!”

  Mack glanced in the rearview mirror. The lines around his mouth were etched deep. His hands clamped tightly on the steering wheel, as if he was afraid to lose control of the truck. “Who the hell is Jason?”

  “My friend.” When Mack kept driving, she put a hand on his arm to make him understand. “Mack! He’s running from them, too, and it’s my fault. We can’t leave him.”

  She shivered again. She was very cold now.

  “All right! Where is he?”

  Laura looked out the windshield. Where was Jason?

  “Where is he, Laura?” asked Mack again.

  “I…I’m not sure,” she finally admitted. Her body was beginning to shake from the cold. “He wouldn’t tell me where he was going, just in case.”

  Somewhere along the way she had managed to get her sleeve wet, maybe from a puddle on a roof, and now the cold air was freezing it to her arm. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to warm up, and winced at a twinge in her shoulder.

  “So what do you propose we do?” asked Mack angrily. “Drive around the streets looking for him? How do you figure we avoid the guy with the gun?”

  Two guys, actually, thought Laura fuzzily. The cold was starting to get to her. She couldn’t seem to think straight anymore.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Mack with sudden concern. The noise level dropped as the truck slowed down and Mack turned to take a good look at her. “Oh, Jesus,” he said. “You’ve been shot.”

  Astonished, Laura looked down at herself. Her left sleeve was soaked, not with water, but with blood.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Fay was dreaming. She knew she was dreaming because she was happy. Sawyer was sitting on the porch of the old cabin, one step up from her, combing out her long hair. Her arms rested on his knees as he gently pulled apart knots until her hair was shiny and smooth. They were laughing.

  Fay gradually became aware that she was still sitting in the straight-back chair by the woodstove. She had fallen asleep with her hands clasped over her belly, like an old woman.

  Still warm and happy from the dream, she opened her eyes. Sawyer stood before her, smiling tenderly.

  “Oh, beloved,” she whispered.

  The sound of a truck coming down the driveway intruded and she glanced toward the door. When she looked back, Sawyer was gone.

  With a deep sigh Fay reached down and picked up the 12-gauge Remington from the floor. She flipped off the safety catch, then switched off the lamp and stood up.

  Maybe she was seeing ghosts because she was about to die.

  The door at the far end of the basement opened, letting in a gust of cold night air.

  “Fay?” called Mack. “I need help here.”

  She flipped the safety back on the shotgun, set it down and turned the light on. Mack stood framed in the doorway, his arm around her daughter.

  “What happened?” demanded Fay, hurrying over as he led Laura inside.

  Laura’s face was too pale.

  “I’m okay,” said Laura. “It looks worse than it is.”

  Then Fay saw the bloodstained rag around her daughter’s left shoulder. “Dear God,” she whispered, and promptly put aside her emotions to let the nurse in her take over.

  They sat Laura down at the kitchen table, then Fay gently untied the makeshift bandage and pulled Laura’s oversized sweatshirt off. The T-shirt beneath it was soaked with blood all down one side. Laura hissed when Fay peeled the sleeve away from her seeping wound, but didn’t say a word.

  “The people who did this,” said Fay to the room in general, “are they likely to come here?”

  “We weren’t followed,” said Mack, rummaging around the piled equipment in the corner of the basement.

  “What about Hicklin?” asked Laura.

  “Who’s Hicklin?” said Mack.

  Laura kept her gaze firmly on Mack as Fay tried to get a better look at the wound. “Blond ponytail at the gas station.”

  Mack grinned over his shoulder at her. “I hope he filled up, ’cause I sent him to Carcross.”

  Laura grinned too, but it was a weak one. Carcross was three hours south of Whitehorse, on the way to Alaska. It would be a while before he made it back.

  Mack returned with a large rubber container that held everything from disinfectant to splints. Fay stared at him.

  He shrugged. “I like to be prepared.”

  “Go heat some water.” Fay’s words came out as an order when she had meant to request, but Mack didn’t seem to mind. He nodded and filled a kettle from the laundry sink.

  She found a pair of scissors in the container and cut away the sleeve and shoulder seam of Laura’s T-shirt. “Who’s Hicklin?” she asked, repeating Mack’s question.

  “Johnny T.’s man.” Laura cleared her throat. “I recognized him when we stopped to get gas.”

  Mack turned away from the tap to look at them. “This place is hard to find in broad daylight, let alone in the middle of the night,” he said. “We’re safe, but I’ll stand watch anyway.”

  Fay nodded, as if his saying they were safe made it so. This Johnny T. had found her daughter. She looked at Laura’s shoulder and her stomach did a slow flip. To her relief, Laura was right. The wound wasn’t as bad as it first seemed. A deep scratch in the meaty part of her shoulder had bled profusely. Fay hadn’t seen one since her nursing days in Vancouver, but she still knew a bullet graze when she saw one.

  “How did you get this bullet wound?”

  Laura glanced at Mack before looking at Fay.

  They’ve formed a bond, Fay realized, and the thought warmed her.

  They told her what had happened in town and the warmth evaporated. She was going to have to convince Laura to go to the police.

  She checked the expiration date on the disinfectant and poured it liberal
ly on the three-inch groove.

  Laura jumped and yelped. “Jesus!” She yanked her arm away. “That hurts!”

  “Good,” snapped Fay. “Next time don’t get shot.” She dabbed the wound dry and laced it with an antibiotic ointment. Then she placed a sterile pad over it and wrapped a gauze strip securely around Laura’s arm and shoulder. “You’ll have a nice scar to show my grandchildren if you don’t get yourself killed first. Don’t move it too much or it’ll start bleeding again.”

  “Your concern is touching,” said Laura tartly.

  Mack plunked the teapot down in the middle of the table. “Will you two please stop?” he asked tightly. “Don’t you have any idea how lucky you are to have each other?” He gave them a reproachful look and went out, closing the door firmly behind him.

  Fay and Laura stared at the closed door.

  “What’s the matter with him?” demanded Laura. “I’m the one who got shot.”

  The blood caking Laura’s T-shirt looked black in the dim light of the overhead bulb. Fay wondered if Mack could spare a shirt. They weren’t likely to get back to the house any time soon. “He has no family. Both his parents died when he was fourteen. He lived with foster families until he was old enough to go out on his own.”

  “Oh.” Laura couldn’t seem to find anything else to say.

  Fay took a deep breath. Mack was right. Laura was all she had left. The bullet wound proved one thing—she could have lost her daughter tonight. She brushed at the dried blood on her hands, trying not to let the realization unravel her.

  “Laura, I’m very sorry I said those things this morning.”

  Laura looked startled, and blushed. Her next words sent hope soaring through Fay.

  “I’m sorry too,” she said. “I hope you know it’s not true.” She looked directly at Fay. “I never once felt that the wrong parent had died.”

  Fay looked down at the tabletop, surprised by the sudden tears in her eyes. Laura’s words relieved an ache that had lain within her since James died. “You loved your dad very much. It would be perfectly understandable.”

  “Fay,” said Laura, with a hint of her familiar asperity. “Dad died, and I miss him. That doesn’t mean I wanted you dead instead of him.”

  Fay tamped down her usual irritation at Laura’s tone. “Thank you,” she said gravely.

  It was a good start, and she was content with it. They were both tired, physically and emotionally, and Laura needed to recover from the shock of being shot. Tomorrow they could pursue this fragile new relationship they were building.

  But Laura had other ideas.

  “Since we’re on the subject, and I don’t mean to criticize or anything, but I need to know—were you jealous of me and Dad?”

  Fay breathed deeply, trying to keep her blood pressure under control. Laura had never been tactful, and didn’t understand the concept of leaving well enough alone. Perhaps that flaw made her a good reporter. It certainly made her an uncomfortable child to love.

  She couldn’t remember ever having a heart-to-heart talk with Laura. Now that the moment had arrived, she was amazed at how unpleasant it felt.

  Keeping her voice steady, she replied. “I suppose I was jealous of you and your father at times. You were very close, and I sometimes felt excluded.”

  Laura’s chin tilted and Fay almost winced. Wrong word.

  “Excluded!” said Laura. “We always invited you! You hardly ever came. We didn’t exclude you—you shut us out! Don’t you think I would have liked to have my mother take an interest in my life?”

  Heat rose in Fay’s face and for a moment she wanted to shake her daughter.

  “Did it never occur to you to wonder why?” Her throat felt too tight, her voice too sharp. “Your father tried very hard to distance you from me. He usurped all the fun things to do with you and left me with the discipline. He was always your accomplice. How many little secrets did the two of you share? Why did he plan special outings at times when I couldn’t go? I was a nurse. I worked shifts. My days off rarely coincided with yours, and when they did, the two of you wanted to go climbing. He knew I was afraid of heights. Perhaps I wasn’t the best mother for you, but your father didn’t help.”

  She took a long shuddery breath, trying to regain control, and continued more quietly. “I’m not saying he did it on purpose, or even that he was aware of it, but your father was going to make sure you were on his side, no matter what happened between him and me.”

  A long, tense silence followed Fay’s outburst. Laura stared at her, mouth slightly open.

  Fay went to the counter where she found three cups. She returned to the table, poured tea into two of them and sat down. She ladled sugar into Laura’s and pushed the cup at her daughter.

  “Drink,” she said.

  ***

  Laura lay fully clothed next to Mack on the thick foam pad he used for a bed, staring into the darkness of the unfinished basement. He had lent her a clean sweatshirt that was much too big, but it was warm. In spite of the painkillers, her shoulder throbbed in time to her heartbeat. At least it was her left arm that was hurt.

  Fay had taken first watch, striding out into the dark with the Remington and a flashlight. Laura suspected her mother had welcomed the chance to be alone.

  Next to her, Mack slept, his breathing deep and regular. Laura was amazed at his ability to just blink out of awareness, in spite of everything that had happened. Even more amazing was that she was lying next to him, completely indifferent, when only hours ago he had filled her with longing.

  But that was before someone shot at her, and before her version of the past went flying out the window.

  Her mind skittered around Fay’s revelations like a drop of water on a hot griddle. Which was worse—that her mother had felt left out of the family, or that Laura hadn’t noticed? Had her father manipulated his only child’s affections as insurance against loneliness?

  Hadn’t her parents loved each other?

  Don’t think about it now, she decided. First survive, and then you can figure out how you could have been so blind all these years.

  Instead, her mind turned to Jason. Was he all right? Had he made it? If she didn’t hear from him tomorrow, she would take her chances with the police. By then people would know about Johnny Tucker’s crime network, even if the article didn’t get through to the news service. The reporter in Vancouver would have her copy, and so would the attorney general. Tucker couldn’t have his hooks in everybody!

  Please be all right, Jase. Please be safe.

  She had mishandled the whole affair, dragging Fay, Mack and Jason into a dangerous situation not of their making. All for what—a scoop? A professional coup? Her arrogance had endangered friends and family, and almost gotten her killed.

  She relived her harrowing escape from the newspaper office, trying to control her shaking. If Mack hadn’t been there…

  He had hitchhiked into town after getting rid of Hicklin. It wasn’t that the man had seemed threatening, but he had asked directions for Wild Rose Lane. That was when Mack had signaled her to take off. He sent Hicklin in the wrong direction, found someone going to town and ended up within six blocks of the newspaper office.

  He found his truck in the alley. Then he saw two men picking the lock of the door in the alley. He tried to follow them in, but the door locked behind them.

  He considered breaking the window to warn her—if she was there—but as he was looking for a rock, the lights went out inside the building. He immediately fished the spare key from its magnetic holder inside the front bumper and drove around to the front of the building, hoping Laura would see him and come out. When nothing happened, he drove slowly around the block, wondering if she was still inside, if he should call the police or try to break in. Just as he was passing an alley, he glimpsed a woman running past the far end. Instinct made him floor the gas pedal and he reached her moments before the killer did.

  Only grace and good fortune had kept her from being killed. Grace, go
od fortune and Mack. Her trembling increased and tears pricked her eyelids. She hoped Jason had been lucky, too. What was she doing? She had drawn Fay, Mack and now Jason into this deadly little game. This was too big for her. Too big for any one person. She was going to have to take a chance on the police.

  She turned onto her good side, away from Mack, stifling a groan as the movement jarred her shoulder. The tears spilled out onto the pillow and she opened her mouth to breathe more quietly.

  In a rustle of movement, Mack slid an arm under her neck. He nestled her back against his chest and wrapped his other arm gently around her belly, careful not to jostle her arm. She rested her head against his shoulder, comforted by his warm breath on her hair. Silent and warm, he held her as she wept until she finally fell asleep.

  ***

  Laura stared up at the sky, shivering in the ghostly half-light of dawn. One by one, the stars paled and winked out of existence.

  She felt on the verge of winking out of existence herself. Her mouth was dry and gummy, her nose was plugged, and she had a headache. No wonder she hated crying.

  She also hated outhouses, especially on cold mornings when a rim of frost circled the seat. She rubbed her bum with her good hand, trying to restore circulation. Mack and Fay had let her sleep the rest of the night. She wished she felt better for it.

  She rotated her shoulder gingerly and was rewarded with an increased range of movement. It still hurt, but it was bearable. The rest had done some good, apparently.

  It was a clear morning, and her cheeks tingled with the cold. She took a deep breath, trying to clear the cobwebs from her head.

  Hugging her injured arm to her body, she wandered back to the unfinished house. Her feet crunched through wild grass made brittle by the frost. A week ago, nothing but Paris would have satisfied her. Now all she wanted was a bath, clean clothes and warmth. She could just imagine how Mack and Fay felt. It was time to end this nightmare—as soon as Mack and Fay showed up, they would go to the police.

  Where were they? She had awakened to an empty basement and even her trip to the outhouse hadn’t roused them. She had assumed they were walking around the grounds, but surely…