by Lee Magner
Seeing the panic on her husband’s assistant’s face, and in light of Mariana’s persuasive arguments, Lyn regretfully agreed that it was her only option.
“But you keep the doors locked and hurry straight into the courthouse, and if anyone comes near you, scream like Pickett’s Charge.”
Mariana raised her palm in solemn oath. “I swear I will.”
Lyn hopped out of the car and ran up the steps. She spoke to the assistant, trying to get him to go to Mariana, but he shook his head, indicating he was needed in court, too. He literally dragged Lyn Hemphill by the arm into the building, while she looked worriedly over her shoulder at Mariana driving off slowly in the Hemphills’ car.
Not far down the street, a dark sedan pulled out of a parking spot. Mariana, hardly able to believe her good luck, quickly drove up and parallel parked in it. She’d just gotten out of the car and locked it when she noticed that the sedan hadn’t driven more than a few lengths away. Now it was backing up, stopping parallel to the Hemphills’ car. The driver got out, leaving the door open and the engine running.
Mariana had already started through the space between the front of her car and the back of the car parked ahead of hers. The driver was now blocking her exit. She looked up. And froze.
Louie Roualt was smiling at her. She had never seen such a chilling expression, nor such icy fury in a man’s eyes.
She started backing away and looking around frantically for someone to yell out to. No one was nearby. And before she could take more than two steps, he’d reached out and grabbed her arm, yanking her into his body.
“Don’t run away, my dear. That isn’t the way to greet your husband. You know that.”
Chapter 16
Roualt grabbed her wrist, twisted her around in front of him and shoved her roughly into the front seat of his car. He pushed her to the passenger’s side and swiftly climbed into the driver’s seat, slamming his door shut after him. Then he stepped on the gas.
She grabbed her door handle, intending to jump out of the car.
Roualt pressed down the driver’s master switch, locking all the doors. “You’re not going anywhere,” he said angrily.
She was trapped. Locked in. Her heart pounded faster. She turned and beat her hands on the window, screaming as loud as she could, “Help!”
The courthouse was fading in the distance behind them, but she was still close enough to recognize the man who came out of the building and stood on the steps, looking around. It was Owen.
“Owen!” she screamed, trying to lower the window. It dropped a couple of inches, and she thought he must have heard her because he suddenly looked straight at the car.
Roualt yanked her away from the window as she shouted Owen’s name again, yelling for help like a desperate banshee.
“Shut your mouth or I’ll shut it for you right now,” he snarled. He used his master switch to raise her window. Unfortunately, having to control the locks and windows and Mariana made turning down the short and oddly angled old streets difficult.
He nearly sideswiped one parked car. Then he overcompensated and barely avoided hitting a pedestrian in a crosswalk.
Mariana reached for the wheel and pulled it hard, making the tires squeal and forcing Roualt to brake quickly to avoid wrapping the front end around an old-fashioned stoplight planted smack in the middle of an intersection.
He backhanded her face hard, snapping her head back and stinging her lips as they were cut against her teeth. She felt dizzy and tasted the rusty, salty flavor of blood on her tongue. God, how had Maryanice ever fallen prey to this monster?
“You really outdid yourself this time,” he said, as if it were so profoundly offensive that it was unbelievable that she had actually done it. “Until last night, I was angry because you haven’t been keeping me informed of your comings and goings. I told myself that you’re beautiful, but you gamble and drink, sometimes going for days without really sobering up. When I had the time to travel with you, it was entertaining. But I’m too busy with expanding business opportunities...”
His voice drifted off. He never explained the businesses he dabbled in. Never.
“As long as you’re beautiful and faithful...well, I’ve looked the other way. But now...now you’ve crossed me, Maryanice.”
He shook his head slowly. He was looking straight ahead, weaving his way through the crisscrossing streets. He glanced at her as if measuring her for her funeral casket.
“I warned you...” he said, his baritone soft like a hissing snake. “But here I fly back to my loving wife after many weeks of business travel over three continents, and she’s not only gone with no forwarding address, but I find her face in half the major newspapers...and stories about a man in her life.” His voice had become quite hard. “That’s a serious no-no, my love. I’m going to have to do something about it. I warned you.”
Mariana, gingerly touching her bleeding lip and trying to wipe away the blood, had never heard such detached, cold comments made by such a seductively even voice. He was a devil, she thought bitterly. He’d mastered the art of seducing women and giving them the masculine attention and possessiveness that so many craved. Unfortunately, it was a very shallow version of the real thing. Beneath that handsome, hypnotic veneer lay a man without any genuine depth of feeling, who knew all the right things to say, and how to say them and when. But none of them held any true meaning for him. Everything was an award-winning performance, but the stage he played on was real life, and the other players didn’t imagine themselves to be in some psychopathic theater performance. They thought they were living their lives.
They were leaving the thinning outskirts of the town. Roualt would be able to pick up speed. He could turn off onto a country road. And then she would be isolated. Alone.
She reached for the keys and turned off the engine. Roualt instantly grabbed her hand in a bruising grip and yanked her free. He’d kept his foot on the accelerator, however, and when he tried to turn on the engine again, it had flooded. As the car coasted, and he repeatedly tried to restart the engine, he cursed Maryanice viciously. It was awkward to try to hit her again, however, since he needed the hand nearest her to turn the keys in the ignition.
Mariana leaned on the door and unlocked it at the same moment. The door flew open, and she sailed out on the hard dirt shoulder of the two-lane paved road. Pain smashed into the bones and joints of her shoulder and hip.
She heard Roualt skid the car to a halt and crank the engine again. While it turned over, she scrambled painfully to her feet and stumbled back in the direction they’d come. Ignoring the piercing fire shooting through her injuries with every jarring step, she ran as fast as she could.
Behind her, she heard Roualt’s car engine take hold. Tires squealed. She knew he was turning around or backing up. He was coming closer to her every second. Her lungs hurt as she desperately dug for more speed. Would he just run her down on the road? she wondered, terrified. The outlying houses and businesses were within sight. But was anyone watching them? Probably not.
Then she heard an approaching car. Coming fast, the engine screaming. It was Owen. In his car. Mariana didn’t waste energy or add wind resistance by waving her arms. He obviously was coming for her and had probably seen her about the same moment she saw him.
Unfortunately, the sounds behind her were horrifyingly close. She didn’t dare turn around to look. She needed all the forward motion she could squeeze out of the next few seconds.
Then she felt the heat of the approaching metal and she leaped as hard to her left as she could, diving into the heavy grass and sloping runoff at the side of the road.
He caught her lower leg and foot, spinning her into a half nip. She landed on the same side she had just moments ago. This time the pain was blinding, and she screamed, but the breath whooshing out of her left her with nothing to make sound.
And then she heard the sickening crash of metal against metal. She shoved herself off the ground, tears coming to her eyes from the hurt,
and looked fearfully toward the source of the sounds.
All the blood left her face, leaving her paper white with shock.
Owen had plowed his car straight into Roualt’s before Roualt had been able to evade him or turn himself around to attack Mariana a second time.
The cars weren’t moving anymore. Owen’s was smashed in and quarter-turned in the road. Roualt’s had flipped and skidded after the collision. Dark smoke was beginning to billow from somewhere inside it. There was no sign of either man.
Mariana limped toward Owen’s car, fearing to see what had happened to him, desperate to help him if he was hurt. She prayed someone had heard all the noise and called for emergency help.
That prayer had already been answered. Wailing sirens were approaching fast.
Mariana reached Owen’s car just as the fire engine came roaring into view. The windshield sported a dense display of spider cracks. The front end was snubbed two feet shorter than it had been. There was steam rising from under the hood, and the air bag had deployed on the driver’s side.
Owen was slumped under the bag.
Mariana tried to open the passenger’s-side door, the one closest to her approach. It protested with a metallic creak, but yielded to her and fell open.
Mariana crawled up on the seat and felt for Owen’s hand and arm. Found them. Slid her fingertips down to his wrist.
“Come on, Owen,” she murmured, choking back tears of fear and anger and painful exhaustion. She felt a pulse. Her breath slid out of her lungs, and she laid her other hand ever so lightly on the back of his head.
“Owen? Can you hear me?” she murmured.
The rescue squad, fire truck and police car all careened to squealing stops around the two vehicles.
“Here!” she cried out to them. “He’s not responding.... Help!” She laced her fingers between his, holding on to him and murmuring, “They’ll get you out of this and to a hospital, Owen. Hold on, Owen. Owen...” she murmured, her voice cracking in anguish. “Owen, hold on....”
His fingers tightened, and his eyes flickered open.
For a moment, she was certain she saw the old flame of recognition that was in his eyes only when he looked at her. Joy leaped in her heart. His eyes slid closed, as if it had taken a great effort to keep them open even that short amount of time.
“You’re going to be all right,” she said fiercely, as if no force in the universe would be so cruel as to take him from her. As if she would not permit it.
She swallowed hard. “Oh, Owen, I’m so sorry. I’ve caused you so much pain.”
She felt the hot tears sliding down her cheeks, but she couldn’t seem to stop them now. She leaned her face close to his and gently kissed his cheek. His fingers tightened on her hand, and he said something, but it was so faint, she couldn’t make it out at first.
“What?” she said softly, speaking close to his ear.
“You...okay?” he whispered hoarsely, his voice raspy and just barely audible.
“Fine. Thanks to you,” her voice caught on a sob. She gently stroked his cheek with her fingertip. “This is the second time you’ve saved my life, Owen Blackhart.”
She thought his lips were curving into the faintest memory of a smile. He managed to open his eyes a crack.
Before they could say anything else, the rescue personnel descended on the cars. One paramedic firmly steered Mariana away from the car and examined her from head to toe. While her bones were being checked for fractures and her body for evidence of internal injuries, the police began questioning her. Since she was the only fully conscious person at the scene, they relied on her to supply an initial description of what had transpired.
Mariana kept leaning and stretching to see what they were doing with Owen, much to the annoyance of her paramedic and the policeman who kept repeating questions for her.
From the cluster of emergency medical techs swarming around Louie Roualt, she assumed he must be in bad shape. It wasn’t long before the sound of helicopter rotors announced that he needed to be flown to a shock-trauma center. Mariana swallowed hard. She felt awful about being involved in such a serious accident, but she found it very hard to feel any real empathy for that conscienceless man who had misused her poor sister for so many years.
Louie’s car also had an air bag, but unlike Owen, he hadn’t bothered to fasten his seat belt in his haste to kidnap Mariana. As a result, Louie had gone halfway through the side window when he ran into Owen’s car.
Mariana watched the emergency medical techs carefully settle Louie on a stretcher. It was a relief to know he wouldn’t be trying to hunt any of them down for a while, she suddenly realized. If he didn’t survive the crash, they’d be free of him forever. Mariana couldn’t help but feel a little guilty for being so cheered at the prospect of Roualt’s death. Such an unworthy thought made her feel very small. Before she could feel too sinful, however, she was surrounded by people inquiring after her health, asking for a description of what had happened and taking snapshots.
Mariana wanted to stay by Owen’s side, but the technicians kept hanging on to her, insisting they needed to examine her and promising her she could see Owen back at the hospital later, where both of them were most likely going to be getting X rays to look for smaller, harder-to-diagnose fractures.
Mariana was feeling stiffer by the moment, too, which slowed her down considerably when Owen’s stretcher was raised to its normal height and wheeled to the waiting ambulance.
She thought his eyes were open and his head turned, trying to see her. She ached to run to his side, but the ankle and leg that Roualt had hit with the car were beginning to feel more seriously hurt than she’d believed at first. She looked down and was startled to see the amount of swelling.
“It isn’t broken,” she said, looking at the nearest emergency techs. They weren’t so sure. “It can’t be!” she exclaimed, thinking of all the things she needed to do in the next few days and weeks.
One of the techs shrugged and said, “You get what you get. It’s the luck of the draw.”
Mariana rolled her eyes and sat down on a stretcher brought for her. She was beginning to feel pretty woozy, now that she was starting to relax and could leave the crisis management to the paid professionals.
“Wake me when we get to Owen’s hospital,” Mariana murmured. She didn’t even feel her eyes close before she passed out.
The following evening, Mariana and Owen were discharged from the hospital and driven back to Owen’s house by Averson Hemphill. With all the hustle and bustle at the hospital, there had been little time for them to talk. In the medical center, it had been hard even to find one another’s room and make sure the other was healing and nothing serious had suddenly raised a threatening head.
It seemed someone was always in the room with them. A nurse. A doctor. A medical technician. Friends. Family. A virtual stream of reporters generating a constant demand for access and interviews. Someone delivering a meal. Someone selling get-well balloons and cards, or newsstand-quality reading material.
Staying in the hospital was quite exhausting.
Owen had finally confronted his doctor and said he was leaving—with or without medical permission. The doctor looked over the chart and shrugged. “If you want to nurse the aches and pains alone at home, Owen, go right ahead.” He’d glanced over his reading glasses and with some effort maintained a poker face. “I could arrange for someone to stay with you twenty-four hours a day for a few days, just to keep an eye on you....”
Owen shot him a look that could have boiled water.
“Pardon me,” the doctor murmured in sly amusement. “I assume that nasty look means you don’t want any company, er, paid company.”
“Get a life, Doc,” Owen warned him without subtlety. “I certainly intend to.”
As soon as he could sit Mariana down and talk to her.
Maryanice and Cryssa had arrived at the hospital, and Mariana had embraced both of them with great joy. Maryanice was quickly submerged be
neath Louie’s problems, however. As his wife, she had to authorize procedures and fill out forms. That required her returning to their home in Maryland and their bank to get information. And the police wanted to interview Maryanice as part of their ongoing investigation into Fred Lowe’s death. That had really hit Maryanice hard, since he had been a close friend at a time in her life when she had truly needed one.
The police were working on the theory that Louie was responsible for Fred’s death. It would take them awhile to make the case, since a man with Louie’s underworld connections could get false passports, hire personal jets or boats, and enter and leave the country without being detected, if he put his mind to it. Being abroad was a great alibi. However, he’d had people watching his wife, and reporting to him. So the authorities hadn’t ruled out the possibility that Louie had simply ordered one of his thugs to murder Fred Lowe.
Maryanice was determined to do everything she could to help solve that mystery. She felt in her bones that Louie had done it himself. For him, it would have been personal. She might have died at his hands, too, if she’d been there when he’d cornered Fred in a furious, obsessive rage.
In spite of all that happened, Mariana couldn’t quite get over how well Maryanice looked. Her skin had a healthier glow. She no longer looked like a concentration-camp victim. And her hair was lustrous. She was going to be okay, Mariana realized, with a huge sense of relief. They’d hugged and sworn to see more of each other, once they all got past the present confusion.
While it should have been quieter returning to Owen’s home, it made Mariana immediately more nervous. She could go home now. There was no longer an excuse for her to stay here. And Owen was free to move on with his life. The judge had been close to apoplectic when Owen had literally raced out of the courtroom when Mariana hadn’t arrived with the others. However, when Averson explained the circumstances, the judge had permitted the case to be considered while Owen was still under twenty-four-hour observation in the hospital, and by the end of the second day, the judge saw no merit in the complainant’s case. It was dismissed and Owen was no longer facing a protracted legal battle. He’d won.