Luther massaged his testicles with a sympathetic hand.
"How do you plan on doing that, Henry? She's already polished off nearly a whole bottle of Jack Daniels, and it ain't fazed her, 'cept to make her hornier."
Henry mulled it over. Ricki Sue summoned them again from the bedroom. "We'd better be gettin' back to her before she gets suspicious. I'll think of something. Whatever I say, just play along."
Ricki Sue was still sprawled across the bed. She was pouting.
"I was beginnin' to think y'all were partyin' without me."
Henry noticed that her speech was more slurred than before.
He gave Luther a surreptitious thumbs-up as he stretched out beside Ricki Sue. "New. We couldn't have no fun without our party girl, could we, Luther?"
"No sir. No fun at all. In fact, I believe it's time for another round of drinks."
He pretended to take a long swallow from the bottle before passing it to Ricki Sue. She divided a suspicious look between them. "Are you boys tryin' to get me drunk, or what?"
Before either could answer, she belted out a gutsy laugh and raised the bottle to her mouth. Henry winked at his brother across the mound of pale, freckled, female flesh.
"Swear to God, Ricki Sue, you're a drinker like nobody I've ever seen. Right, Luther?"
"Right."
"In fact, you impress me on all counts. For instance, the way you outsmarted those feds. Now that was something to see. Serves 'em right, too, for butting in to everybody's bitness the way they do."
She snorted with contempt. "That Pepperdyne thinks his shit don't stink. 'You know where Mrs. Burnwood is,'
he says. You know this, you know that," she mimicked.
"How does he know what I know, when only I know what I know?"
"Yeah," Luther said. "Where does he get off asking you personal questions about your best friend?"
Henry shot his brother a venomous look. Why couldn't Luther just keep his mouth shut? Mama was right. This twin was so ignorant, he was dangerous. With that single comment, he could have tipped off Ricki Sue that they weren't after her strictly for fun and games.
But she was too far gone to notice Luther's giveaway. "I wanna protect Kendall,"- she said sobbing. "She's my friend. Wouldn't tell Pepperdyne where she was, even if I knew, which I don't."
She took another drink and almost strangled on it when she began to laugh. Raising her finger to make her point, she said, "But I have a pretty good i-dea." She separated the syllables, pronouncing each one distinctly.
"Aw, you don't have to bluff us, Ricki Sue. We aren't laws, are we, Luther?"
"Hell no."
Henry began smooching her neck. "Forget that Pepperdyne character. Let's get back to partying."
Ricki Sue pushed him away. "I wasn't bluffin'.. I do know where she might be at. I'm the only one in the whole world who knows."
"Sure, sure, honey. We believe you. Don't we, Luther?"
He winked at his brother conspiratorially, but Luther wasn't following. The reverse psychology was lost on him.
"Uh . . . oh, yeah. That's right. What Henry said."
"It's the truth," Ricki Sue murmured as she made an effort to sit up. "I bet she's at the place where she used to go in the summers with her grandma."
"Okay, baby, okay." Henry gave her thigh a patronizing pat. "If you say so."
She thumped the mattress with her fist. "I know where she is. Well, not 'exactly. But it's somewhere near Morton. And there's a . . ."
"A what?"
"A waterfall."
"Waterfall?"
She tilted her head to a condescending angle and looked down her nose at Henry. "Isn't that what I just said?"
"Sure, honey. Didn't mean to make you mad."
"And there's a . . . big gun. Whaddaya call it? On wheels.
They used 'em in old-timey days."
"A cannon?"
She dug the nail of her index finger into Henry's chest.
"The's right! You win! You get first prize!" She spread her arms away from her body, offering it as the trophy. Then her eyes rolled back into her head, and she fell back on the bed, unconscious.
"Hot damn!" Henry cried. "It worked. We'll drive to Morton."
"Where's that?"
"Don't know. But it's gotta be on a map. Hurry up, Luther, get dressed."
"What about her?"
"You know what Mama said."
Gazing down at Ricki Sue, Luther smacked his lips with regret. "It's a damn shame, having to destroy such a novelty.
I ain't never had snatch that fiery red before."
"Excuse me?" Teeth grinding, Pepperdyne clutched the telephone receiver so tightly that his knuckles turned white.
"Would you kindly repeat what you just said?"
"We, oh, lost her, sir. She went into this bar, a dive, really.
She was sitting by herself in a booth, knocking back whiskeys like a seasoned drinker."
"Get on with it."
"Yes, sir. This guy"
"What guy?"
"Some guy. A tall, lanky man with straw-colored hair and weird-looking eyes. He joins her in the booth. He buys her a drink. They sit and chat."
"Did you ask anyone this man's name?"
"Of course, sir. Nobody in the place knew him."
"Car?"
"W e asked about that, too. Nobody remembered seeing him and his brother arrive, so we couldn't get a make on the car."
"Did you say 'brother'? He had a brother?"
"Yes, sir. A twin."
"Christ."
Pepperdyne tossed two aspirins into his mouth and washed them down with a swig of Maalox. Why must everything be so goddamn complicated? Not just a brother, which would have been difficult enough. But twins.
"Identical twins?"
"That's what we were told. That you couldn't tell one from the other."
"Naturally."
"We never saw the second one. He stayed in the billiards room in the back." The agent explained how Ricki Sue and her companions had given them the slip.
"How'd he pay for the drinks?"
"Cash."
"I figured as much," Pepperdyne muttered. "And no one there knew who these men were?"
"No, sir. No name. Nothing. Apparently they weren't locals."
Pepperdyne's subordinate paused, as though bracing for the dressing-down he knew was coming. When his boss said nothing, he offered an opinion: "What I think, sir, is that she met up with these guys and left with them."
"That's apparent, isn't it?"
"What I mean, sir, is that I don't think the twins are connected to the break-in this afternoon. They sure as hell weren't Matt and Gibb Burnwood. It looked like a random pickup to me. Witnesses said that Miss Robb got real chummy with these guys real fast, know what I mean?
"In fact, one of them volunteered to give us the lowdown on her. He said and several others corroborated that she's a well-known swinger. Hot to trot. It isn't unusual for her to leave a bar with a stranger, he said."
Pepperdyne's temper snapped. "Listen to me. I don't give a rat's ass if Miss Robb screws a hundred men at high noon in the town square every Saturday. She's a citizen, and even if she is withholding valuable information from us, it's our duty to protect her.
"You were ordered not to let her out of your sight, and you fucked up. So now she's missing. We don't know who she's with, or where she is, and there are two maniacs who think they're God's right-hand men out assassinating anybody who crosses them, and that includes Miss Robb because it's her best friend and confidante that they're ultimately after!" He stopped shouting and paused for breath. His softer voice conveyed even more of a threat. "Am I getting through to you?"
"Yes, sir. I think so, sir."
"Just so there's no misunderstanding, let me spell it out for you. If anything bad happens to Ricki Sue Robb, I'm gonna nail your balls to the floor, then set it on fire."
"Yes, sir."
"Get on it."
"Yes, sir."
&
nbsp; Pepperdyne slammed down the receiver. He dispatched more men to the tavern to try to pick up the trail of the unidentified twins. He gave them a thumbnail description.
"Tall, lanky, straw-colored hair. Something weird about their eyes. They're identical. The woman is a plump redhead. No body who's seen her could possibly forget her, so talk to everybody."
Pepperdyne sipped from the bottle of Maalox as he paced the office, thinking. Was it a coincidence that on the day Ricki Sue's house was ransacked by the Burnwoods, she was picked up in a honky-tonk by nameless twins?
How could the two incidents be related? Were these twins members of the Brotherhood, the Burnwoods' lieutenants carrying out orders? Or was it as the agent had speculated: One event had no bearing on the other?
Pepperdyne's gut instinct told him to assume the worst. If these twins were in cahoots with the Burnwoods or otherwise connected to the case, he now had four lives to worry about:
John; Mrs. Burnwood and her baby; and Ricki Sue Robb.
If the Burnwoods located any of them before his men did . . .
He couldn't let that happen. It was as simple as than Getting Ricki Sue from the motel bed to the Camaro was no easy feat, but they managed to do it without rousing her. They weren't as lucky when they tried hauling her out of the car.
The moment she came to, she began struggling to be re leased. "Hey, what's going on?" she asked querulously, trying to get her bearings. The car was parked on the edge of a ditch beside a dark, narrow road. "Where the hell are we? What are we doing out here? Where're my clothes?"
Luther's answer to her question was his standard slack-jawed stare.
Henry said, "We, uh, thought you might want to go swim. ., swimming.
Luther gaped at his brother, then turned to Ricki Sue, bobbing his head eagerly. "Skinny-dipping, ya know?"
"Swimming?" She gave the surroundings an apprehensive glance. "We're out in the middle of nowhere, aren't we?"
"We know where we're at," Henry boasted. "Me and Luther were here earlier today. There's a pretty little stream 'bout fifty yards there through the woods."
Ricki Sue followed his pointing finger, but wasn't heartened by what she saw, which was a deep, dark, scary-looking forest.
Traipsing around buck naked through the woods in the middle of the night wasn't her idea of a good time. She was all for adventure, but she preferred to conduct her escapades in places that had walls and ceilings.
She had never liked the great outdoors. The sun was a curse to her fair skin, which either freckled or blistered. She was allergic to poison ivy and mosquito bites, which resulted in ugly red bumps that usually festered and had to be treated with antibiotics. - On the other hand, she had developed a real lust for the twins' lean, rangy bodies. Being sandwiched between them had been a turn-on to end all turn-one. Naked, under water, they would be as sleek as eels, sliding up against full curves.
She shivered with anticipation. "Lead the way."
"Let's play Indian and go single file," Henry suggested.
"Luther, you lead. I'll bring up the rear," he said, sliding his hands beneath her bare buttocks and giving each cheek a squeeze.
Ricki Sue squealed in delight and took her place between them. Henry crowded up behind her. She hugged Luther around the waist as they marched through the forest.
When they reached the creek and she heard the gently flowing water, she sighed. "This is gonna be so romantic. Or am I just drunk?"
Henry had had the foresight to bring along a fresh bottle.
"You're not drunk. After that hike, I figure we could all use another drink."
The bottle went around once, each of them taking a drink.
But the liquor seemed to have little effect on the twins' jitters.
Ricki Sue began noticing that they seemed nervous, especially when she took each of them by the hand and pulled them toward the creek.
"What's the matter, boys? Having second thoughts? Think I'm too much woman to handle, even for both of you?"
"We, uh, we had a baby brother who drowned," Henry blurted. "We were just kids, but we remember it. So we're neither one crazy for the water."
If her head had been clearer, she would have wondered why they had suggested an orgy in the first place if they had an aversion to it. Instead, she reacted with compassion. "Oh, you poor babies. Come to Ricki Sue."
Henry had stumbled upon Ricki Sue's dearest desire, which she kept a secret, chiefly because the chances of its ever being fulfilled were nil. She longed to nurture, to be a source of comfort and solace, to a husband, a child, or even to a parent who regarded her with pride rather than scorn. She had a huge capacity for love, but her love had never been asked for. A surplus of it was stored in her heart.
So Henry's lie about the drowned brother evoked a deeply emotional response. Tears came to her eyes. She drew each of them to her and stroked their heads while murmuring condolences. "Lee me make it better. Don't think about your brother.
His little soul is in heaven."
Soon, however, their closeness began to have the programmed effect, it became erotic. She hugged them tighter.
"Don't worry, sweethearts," she whispered. "Before this night is over, you'll have a whole new outlook on water sports. Just leave everything to Ricki Sue."
She waded into the water, but when they slowed to follow, she held up a halting hand. "How come I'm the only one of this trio who's naked?"
Luther looked at Henry, who shrugged and began stripping, dropping his clothing on the muddy creek bank. Luther did likewise. Henry waded in first and joined Ricki Sue where she stood in water about knee deep.
"Sweet baby." She reached for him and fondled his sex, but it was unresponsive.
"Sorry," he said. "Guess you wore it plumb out back there at the motel. A little encouragement of a different sore would probably do the trick."
She laughed huskily and sank to her knees. "Say no more.
If that's what it takes . . ." The silt on the bottom of the creek was slippery and cool. The water felt delicious lapping against her skin. She smiled up at Henry and rubbed her breasts against his thighs.
She actually sensed the movement of air near her head and heard the sickening, melon-splitting sound before the pain reached her. Then it shot through her skull. She gasped. Whiskey surged up from her stomach and filled her mouth. It dribbled over her chin when she cried out. She fell heavily to her side, creating a splash.
before leaving the bedroom. "What made you decide to leave me the weapon?"
"I thought you might need it for protection.
"How kind of you." Propping himself on one crutch, he yanked a chair from beneath the table and shoved it toward her. "Sit down."
"John, if you'll only listen to"
"Sit down!" he thundered.
Watching him warily, she approached the chair and gingerly lowered herself into it. "Do you remember everything?"
"Everything," he said. "My life before I got amnesia, and everything that's happened since. John McGrath. Middle name, Leland, which happens to be my mother's maiden name.
Born the twenty-third of May, 1952, in Raleigh, North Carolina. Went to school there and graduated eighteen years later.
In 1979, I earned a doctorate in psychology."
"Psychology? You're a psychologist?"
For the meantime he bypassed that. "My dissertation was on Delayed Stress Syndrome, and I did a lot of clinical work at Bethesda. That's what brought me to the attention of the FBI, specifically Agent Jim Pepperdyne, who recruited me for his Hostage Rescue Team. We worked together frequently.
"Two years ago I left the Bureau and went to work for the U.S. Marshal's office." After a significant pause, he added, "I was kidnapped on the twelfth of July, 1994. But then you know that date, don't you?"
"John, I can explain."
"You sure as hell can, and you will. But you'd better take care of Kevin first."
The baby had begun to fret. John didn't want any distractions during th
is conversation. But even more than that, he didn't want the baby to be uncomfortable.
"He's wet. I'll go change him."
She stood and attempted to move past John, but he caught her arm. "Nice try, but no way. Change him here."
"On the kitchen table?"
"We won't be eating off it anymore. Change him here."
She spread Kevin's blanket on the table and removed the wet diaper. "The fresh ones are in the car."
"Go get them."
"Aren't you afraid I'll make a run for it?" she asked snidely.
"Not without Kevin. He stays with me. Hurry up." She glanced down at her child, then back at him. "Either you go get the diapers out of the car," he said, "or Kevin goes all nature!. I don't think it matters to him, and it sure as hell doesn't make any difference to me."
She let the kitchen door slam behind her this time.
He had been awake from the moment she'd left their bed.
He'd expected her to take off and implement stage two of her plan, whatever the hell that stage might be.
Her attempt to sneak out didn't surprise him. What did surprise him was the painful effect her clandestine leave-taking had on him. He was angry, but he also felt wounded.
Naturally, he wouldn't allow any personal considerations to cloud his judgment. The situation called for a pragmatic, unemotional, detached professionalism. That was his duty, and God knows he had shirked it over the last few weeks, beginning with taking an unreported detour and ending with making love to his prisoner no more than two hours ago.
Kendall returned with a bag of Huggies and rapidly put one on Kevin. Lifting him to her shoulder, she returned to the chair and sat down. "Well, Marshal McGrath, will I be confined to quarters and given only bread and water?"
"Don't smart-mouth me, Kendall. This isn't fun and games.
If you hadn't stolen my handcuffs, I'd use them to keep you in that chair. You must have taken the cuffs from me at the same time you relieved me of my weapon."
"I couldn't have you arriving at the hospital toting a pistol, could I?"
"No, I guess you couldn't. It would have prompted questions that you couldn't answer. So you kept the story simple?"
"I tried."
"When did you decide to tell them I was your husband? In the ambulance?"
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