by ML Gamble
All he knew was that when he woke up he was intent on finding Molly and getting the hell out of the motel and to Fred Brooker’s secluded lodge, where they would have a better chance of planning their next move.
Alec wiped the rain out of his eyes with the back of a wet hand and watched as the stranger disappeared into the room. Running as quickly as he could, he crossed the lot and stopped in front of room 19. Raising his knuckles to rap against the door, he found to his surprise that it was unlocked and open.
Wide open.
Alec stepped inside. The bathroom light spilled over the vacant sleeping area. Molly was nowhere to be seen, but the satchel she had carried off with her while he slept was now on the floor beside the bed, and a small pile of money was on the table next to a bottle half-full of soda.
Which meant she had returned from dinner, but where the devil was she now?
The carpeting was soaked a foot inside the doorway. Alec pictured Molly opening the door and going out. But then what? he asked himself. The motel office was closed. With his pulse pounding in his ears, blocking out the sound of the storm, Alec braced himself against the open doorway. He scanned the parking lot and surrounding walkways for a sight of her. The only thing he saw was the car he had been locked inside, the front passenger door still open as he had inadvertently left it.
“Molly,” he called hoarsely. The rain fell. Somewhere in the distance, he heard a foghorn, but no voice answered his call.
* * *
HUDDLED INSIDE THE CLOSET inside the stranger’s room, Molly thought she heard Alec’s voice. She held her breath, wondering what the man in the room would do if Alec pounded on the door and asked about her.
With every muscle in her body tensed in terror, she peeked through the crack at him. He was a slim, well-groomed young man. Short blond hair and a neatly trimmed mustache. His arms were sinewy and strong-looking. She couldn’t get a clear look at his face, but she thought he looked very familiar.
As she watched, he bent down and loaded the gun. After closing the bullet box, he took from his back pocket what looked to Molly like a piece of panty hose and a pair of rubber gloves. He slipped something over his head and, with his back still to Molly, bent over and picked up the gun lying on the carpet.
Why hadn’t she thought of that? Scolding herself silently, Molly watched nervously as the young man stood up and faced the door. He must have heard someone outside, she realized. Someone like Alec? she thought. “No,” she whispered, covering her mouth in a panic that she had let a sound escape.
A moment later, Molly’s worst fear was confirmed. There was a knock, then Alec’s familiar voice called out, “Excuse me, sir. I need to ask you a question.”
The man clicked off the light. Molly blinked her eyes, frantic to see, unable to make out anything but black and bulky shapes. She heard the metallic click of the chamber turning in the gun, and she realized the man was loading more bullets.
From somewhere deep within her, Molly found the strength to throw her safety lessons and procedures and cautious nature aside. She hurled herself out of the closet, shouting at the top of her lungs, “Watch out, Alec. There’s a man in here with a gun!”
The next few seconds were madness. The man fired the gun at her. She felt the bullet buzz by her head at the same instant the shattering noise of the gun exploded through her senses.
Another crash in the darkness told her Alec had kicked open the door.
“Molly, where are you?” he yelled.
“Here,” she screamed, just as a bony hand grabbed her in the dark.
“I’ll kill you,” the man shouted, his face now grotesque and unrecognizable, as he pushed her up against the wall. When her eyes adjusted to the half light, she realized the man had pulled a stocking mask over his face, which horribly disfigured his features.
He raised the gun in his left hand.
Before she could move, Alec rammed the stranger from behind. The gun flew out of the man’s hand and discharged so close to Molly’s face that she was deafened by the sound and burned by the acrid smoke of gunpowder.
The three of them fell to the ground as a bolt of lightning flashed through the door, followed in a millisecond by a shattering clap of thunder.
In a daze, Molly huddled against the wall and watched as the masked man kicked viciously at Alec. Alec managed to grab the man’s leg and knock him down, but before he could grab him again, the smaller man broke free and ran out into the rain.
“Molly, Molly, you okay, love?” Alec quizzed, crawling back to where she had pressed against the cold plaster wall.
“I think so,” she said uncertainly.
He grabbed her hand, which was impotently brushing at the dark powder speckling her face. He feared she was in shock but could not allow her time to compose herself. “Come on, get up. We’ve got to get our things and leave.”
He pulled her to a standing position, but she sagged against him. “We have to go to the police, Alec. There are too many of them for us to run away. They’re going to kill us!”
“We can’t. We don’t know who to trust, Molly.” Though he knew it was a risk to tell her more bad news in her shaky condition, he recounted what he had seen on television. “That’s four men dead, plus the guys on the freeway, Molly, and they’re trying to hang it all on us. Every law enforcement officer in the state is ready to shoot first and ask about the details later. We’ve got to hide. Now.”
Like a zombie, Molly let Alec pull her out of the stranger’s room and into theirs. He put dry clothes on her, his hands gentle but impersonal. She watched without comment or complaint as he made a slit in the well-worn bedspread and tossed it over her head as a makeshift poncho.
Pulling her by the arm, Alec locked their room as well as the one next door, leaving the gun where it had landed but grabbing the stranger’s leather jacket. The rain had stopped. They crept quickly out of the rear of the parking lot and along a short alley. Then they jumped a stone wall and hurried into the rolling, slick, muddy brushland, miles from anywhere.
* * *
FREDERICK BROOKER’S LODGE was not easy to find. Alec had had the foresight to pick up a map of Catalina Island when he’d checked into the Devil Fish, but as he stood reading it in the weak daylight at 6:00 a.m., he had to admit to Molly that he didn’t know exactly where they were.
From the position of the mainland shoreline he could see that they had traveled approximately twelve miles. He looked over at Molly. She was literally asleep on her feet, legs slightly spread-eagled as she leaned against a tree, her eyes closed while she breathed the deep rhythm of exhausted sleep.
A stab of remorse reverberated through his aching body. Molly was lovely, even after a night of tromping through hell. She had said little as they walked, but he knew she was scared, confused and more than a little angry at finding herself a fugitive, falsely accused, chased by the law and an unknown group of assassins for God only knew what reason. It cheered neither of them that he felt the same way.
Alec removed the cowboy hat and shaded his eyes. The morning’s sunrise was beyond describing as beautiful. It looked to him, with its opulent golds and pinks, as it must have the day the earth was created. The sky was now a restful shade of blue, and there were no clouds.
The rainstorm had left the air cooler and clearer than any he remembered breathing on land. The grandeur of the scenery made Alec feel all over again that, despite the mess, there was going to be a way to find the person responsible for all the misery of the past few days. They would then be able to clear themselves of all the crimes they had been tied to.
With a last glance at the ocean, Alec made himself a promise that he would bring Molly back to Avalon when their problems were over, and show her the glorious natural view unhampered by the human dilemmas with which one evil person could poison the lives of others.
Shading his eyes against the glare off the ocean, Alec scanned the mountainside below him and located the narrow maintenance road he had seen on the map. It m
eandered downward, a few hundred feet from where he stood, until it disappeared from view. He could make out a work shed just beyond the bend in the road, beside which were parked two tan pickup trucks.
Striding to the tree where Molly slept, his boots squishing with water that had gotten in them when he stepped into a stream an hour ago, he took her in his arms and shifted her into a sitting position. She collapsed like a pup tent and briefly opened her eyes.
“Rest here,” Alec told her, throwing the stranger’s leather jacket across her arms, which she had folded over her chest. She blinked, nodded her head and fell asleep again in an instant.
Alec placed the satchels next to her to keep her from falling over sideways and headed down the incline to the road. Five minutes later, he cautiously approached the trucks. They both carried the emblem of the Catalina Island Conservancy on their doors. Both were locked up tight, as was the shed. Alec strained to see inside the dusty window of the aluminum-sided storage building. The best he could make out was a desk and a file cabinet and what looked like a small refrigerator with a hot plate on top.
Were the keys to the trucks inside? he wondered. Without a moment’s hesitation, he picked up one of the hundreds of sea-smoothed rocks ringing the foundation of the building and hurled it through the bottom square of the six-paned window.
He was gratified when it went clear through, leaving a big enough hole for him to reach in, unlatch the window and crawl inside.
After a ten-minute search, he did not find any keys, but he did find a coffeepot and, wonder of wonders, a portable phone of some kind. It was in a black leather case the size of a lunch box in the bottom desk drawer. He fiddled with the buttons and dials but couldn’t get a dial tone. Then he remembered Molly’s field of expertise and grinned. If anyone could figure this contraption out, surely she could. Whistling with high spirits over this tiny piece of good fortune, Alec wrote out an I.O.U. for two hundred dollars. He left it unsigned, but promised to mail a check within the month to pay for the broken glass and missing items.
He then took the phone, a six-pack of bottled water he found in the refrigerator, a jar of powdered creamer and the blue-and-white-speckled enameled coffeepot.
First he would take a break and get something to eat and then come back and see about hot-wiring one of the trucks. He had never done such a thing before, but he had worked on more balky boat engines in his life than he cared to remember, and figured a car’s ignition system couldn’t be that different.
Heading back up the deserted hill to Molly, Alec found himself fighting to take each step. He felt hot. Sweaty and clammy. He wouldn’t give in, though. To combat the light-headedness, he began whistling “Peggy Day.” He couldn’t fix his Peggy Day breakfast in bed, but he could at least make her some coffee and make some arrangements with Alicia Chen.
He glanced at his watch, which read 6:55. He hadn’t slept, except for the two and a half hours yesterday in the motel. Despite the whistling, he had to admit that he might be getting sick. He would have to rest. As soon as they got to Brooker’s.
The thought of lying down in a bed for ten or twelve hours—with Molly—brought a smile to his face and gave him the strength to make it back up the hill.
* * *
MOLLY WAS DREAMING of breakfast. Belgian waffles and strawberries, bacon and eggs and hash browns, bagels and cream cheese. And coffee, freshly ground, with real cream and a half spoonful of sugar. Served in a china cup with hand-painted red and yellow roses.
She opened her eyes and the dream disappeared, but thankfully, the smell of coffee did not. It wasn’t freshly ground, and they had no fresh cream, but it was the best-tasting thing she had ever put in her mouth.
“I’m not even going to ask you where that came from,” Molly said, nodding her head toward the tan pickup parked a few yards away from where she sat, “until you give me another cup of this coffee.”
Alec poured another few ounces into the chipped mug he had taken from the Devil Fish Motel last night. He had left an I.O.U. for that, also. When this mess was over, he was going to have to book a lengthy charter just to cover his expenses of the past few days.
“How’d you sleep?”
“Like the dead,” she replied, then drank another mouthful of coffee, scalding her throat but not caring.
Alec handed her a sandwich he had constructed out of some of the contents of the second satchel. Molly had filled it with some of the supplies she had purchased for the Geisha Empress trip. From the stores of the galley, she had added peanut butter, jelly, salt and pepper, a can opener, matches, a small pan, napkins and a pack of plastic utensils.
Molly devoured her food, despite the fact that Alec had been so generous with the peanut butter she could hardly move her mouth. As she swallowed the last bite, he handed her a peeled orange, which she also gulped down. With a sigh, she sat back and wiped her mouth with a napkin. “Okay. So where did you get the truck?”
“We’re borrowing it from the rangers. I’ve located the lodge on the map. It’s ten miles the other side of the airfield, which is about another five miles from where we’re sitting. I thought we could drive to the airport and ditch the truck, wait for Alicia, then drive to the lodge with something she can rent for us.”
Molly raised her eyebrows. “You need to call her at nine, right?” She glanced at her watch, which showed ten minutes to. “Did you steal a phone, too?”
“As a matter of fact,” Alec said, standing and brushing the crumbs off his pants, “I did.” He walked to the truck and retrieved the black case, presenting it to Molly with a flourish. “How’s this for roughing it?”
She snapped open the lid of the leather case and stared at the contraption inside. It was unlike any telephone she had seen during her eleven years with Pacific Communications. “What is this thing?”
“You don’t know?” Alec asked. “I thought it was a bloody telephone!”
“No, it’s not any kind of phone I’ve ever seen.” She cranked a small wheel with a handle, then frowned. “It might be some kind of field intercom.” She flipped it over and found an empty compartment where some kind of battery pack might fit. “But it doesn’t work now.”
“Well, can’t you make it work? It’s got a dial, a handset and an antenna. Isn’t that a pretty fair description of a telephone?”
Molly looked down, unable to keep a tiny smile from her face. “Well, yes, just like a pretty fair description of that truck would be a hunk of steel on wheels. But there are no wires to a central office to send or receive a dial tone, and no radio transmitter or cellular battery to transmit or receive frequencies.” She opened her eyes wide and shook her head. “It’s kind of like a truck with no engine.”
Alec’s face was turning a dark red. “Well, I’m sure no bloody telephone company expert! I sail boats for a living. And one thing about boats is if it looks like a boat and tastes like a boat, it is a boat!”
“Tastes like a boat?” she questioned with a grin.
“You know what I mean,” Alec shouted. “All I’m saying is that I don’t know how a damn telephone works! Is that a crime? Forgive me for stealing you the wrong thing!”
“You’re forgiven,” Molly whispered, unable to control the muscles in her face. She knew it was inappropriate, but she was beginning to feel giddy over Alec’s totally misplaced anger. She also knew his behavior was stress and fatigue-induced. If she started laughing, she was afraid she would get hysterical.
The whole thing was so utterly ridiculous. Here she was, on the lam from the law with a man she barely knew, who had kidnapped her at gunpoint thirty-six hours before, eating peanut butter sandwiches beside a stolen truck. Alec himself, accused of murder and mayhem, tortured and brainwashed and kidnapped, was choosing this moment to come unglued, not because of the cops, not because of Frederick Brooker, but because he had stolen a telephone that wouldn’t work.
A giggle bubbled up her throat, and she covered her mouth and looked at Alec. He was glaring at her, long legs sti
ff, arms crossed defiantly over his big chest, leaning against the truck.
When he realized she was trying not to laugh at him, he stared at her as if she were losing her mind.
This sent Molly over the edge. She began to laugh so hard that she had to clutch her sides. Her laugh filled the morning air around them, bounced off the trees and rocks with its melody, and finally broke through Alec’s frustration. He, too, gave in to the release only humor can sometimes provide in the midst of a very grim situation.
After several minutes of being helplessly overcome by emotions, they managed to compose themselves. Molly stood and walked over to Alec and gave him a quick hug. He held her close to him and kissed her softly on the top of her head, a last chuckle rumbling in his throat. “We’d best drive on over to the airport, then, love. We’ll find a phone that works there. And brush our teeth.”
“Let’s do it,” Molly agreed. “But first, tell me what happened to you last night. Why didn’t you come back until so late?”
“This is getting to be a rather worn-out excuse, but I was abducted.”
“By who? The guy with the gun?”
“Sorry to say, but I don’t know. I was standing in front of our room. I never saw them, except when they were walking away. They left me tied up in a car in the motel parking lot.”
“So that was you! I went outside when I saw someone in the car.”
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Alec chided.
“Yeah, and you shouldn’t have been abducted again. But instead of arguing the point, tell me what they did.”
“Knocked me out. I don’t know,” he snapped, fighting a wave of weakness that nearly knocked him off his feet. “It doesn’t make any sense to me, either, Molly. But it seems we’ve got more than one group of people after us. Maybe more than two groups, come to think of it.”