by Leona Karr
“What do you mean—brought him down?” Mark asked, wondering if he was really up to hearing the truth about his brother.
“Dirk and Stu used him to rent a condo for their gambling scams. He thought the place was for me, and I was afraid to let him know the truth. They threatened to hurt him if I didn’t play along.” Her eyes filled with tears. “And then he got himself killed in that car wreck, and I never knew for sure if it was really an accident.”
“Why didn’t you go to the police and tell them everything?” Kerri asked softly.
“I couldn’t. God knows, I wanted out of the whole stinking mess, but it would be just my word against theirs, and nobody would believe Buddy Browski’s wife—not when she’d been a part of his gambling scams. I’m positive Dirk killed Buddy because he wanted to take over, but he threw the suspicion all on me. I think that’s why they wanted to keep me around, I was a good one to take the heat if things went wrong.”
“So Dirk and Stu decided to move their con game to Colorado, and they made you come with them?”
She nodded. “They knew I could lure addicted high rollers into their gambling trap, and they used the children as the leverage to force me to do what they wanted.” She looked at Mark with pleading eyes. “Dirk’s been keeping an eye on them, but I knew they’d be safe with you, and I had no other place to leave them.”
“Did you come back to Denver to check on them?” Kerri asked.
“Yes, but Dirk got to Mark’s place before I did and checked it out. He said it was empty. I didn’t believe him and was going to check on it myself.”
Someone had been in the loft that day. “I saw you in the lobby, didn’t I? And Dirk hit me on the head when I came out of the building.”
“Yes, he was afraid you might recognize him. He saw you with Timmy at the ballpark. He wanted to make sure he could still get to the kids if I refused to cooperate.”
All of it was beginning to make sense, Kerri thought as Ardie verified a lot of things they had already suspected. She’d tried to protect the kids by leaving them with Mark, and her warning not to try to find her had really been for their benefit.
The three of them had been so engrossed in their whispered conversation that they hadn’t noticed the door had slowly opened. They jerked around when they heard an ugly laugh. A dark-haired man with a ponytail and sideburns stood there, listening.
“What a cozy little gathering,” he said. “I’m ashamed of you, Ardie, keeping company all to yourself. And telling such lies. You really ought to watch your tongue.”
Mark stood up. “And you ought to watch yours, Dirk.”
The man’s dark eyes flickered over Mark, “And who are you to be giving me orders?”
“I think you knew my brother, Jason Richards.” Mark’s glare dared him to deny it.
“Oh, yes, of course. Very sad, your brother’s death. Leaving Ardie a widow before her time. Those California highways are death traps, aren’t they?” Dirk’s smile was blatantly smug.
Kerri remembered Jeff Elders saying someone had called for Jason just after he’d left work on the day he died.
“I promise you, the police will be looking into his accident more closely. You won’t mind answering a few questions about where you were that night, will you?” Mark’s voice and expression were grim.
“Your car,” Ardie gasped. “That’s why it needed a new paint job. You said that you scratched it sideswiping a post. Oh, my God,” she whimpered. “Jason…Jason…”
“Shut up! You’re off your rocker if you think I had anything to do with that. And you—” He shook his fist at Mark. “You get yourself and your girlfriend out of this house while you’re still on two legs.”
“We’re going,” Kerri said quickly, stepping between the two men. This was no time for male heroics. The advantage was all on the other side—Dirk knew they had no real evidence against him, and if he was letting them go, they’d better walk while they could. Enough words had been exchanged to light a bonfire. But they couldn’t leave Ardie to disappear with Dirk. “We’re taking Ardie with us, if she wants to come.”
“The hell you are. She stays here.”
“But that would amount to a kidnapping charge, wouldn’t it? If you keep her here against her will?”
“And who’s going to bring the charge? You? By the time the law gets here, she’d swear on a stack of Bibles that she wanted to stay. Wouldn’t you, baby?”
Ardie covered her face with her hands and her shoulders shook. Whatever strength she’d mustered to keep going under such dire circumstances was all gone.
Glaring at Dirk, Kerri said, “You can’t blackmail her with the kids any more. We have them in protective custody.” Kerri said, stretching the truth a bit.
Mark had helped Ardie to her feet. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
“Don’t be a fool, Ardie,” snapped Dirk. “Two more poker hands and this whole place will be ours. This is the payoff. Tanner is down to his last pot tonight, and fading fast.”
Ardie’s head came up and surprised everyone by lashing out at him, “I told you not to go through with this. I tried to find Thomas and warn him that you were taking him down tonight, but you already had him sucked into a game.”
“A game you helped set up, sweetheart, don’t forget that, but if you want to pull out, fine. Go.” He gave a dramatic sweep of his hand toward the door. “All the more for the rest of us, but remember, sweetheart, this was just a friendly little poker game, with the luck running against Tanner.” His glare was threatening. “You’re not stupid enough to put a noose around your own neck by spreading a bunch of lies about your old friends, now, are you?”
With Kerri on one side and Mark on the other, Ardie cowered against them as they walked out of the study.
At that moment all hell broke loose.
The sharp report of a gunshot came from a room at the back of the house, and in the next instant a man staggered out into the hall, blood spurting through the hands he held to his chest. He spun on his heels and then crashed to the floor.
“Stu!” Dirk shouted, reaching for his own gun tucked in the back of his belt, but Thomas Tanner came through the door and had Dirk in his sights before he could raise it to fire.
“Drop it, you cheating bastard.” Tanner shouted.
“Hey, take it easy,” Dirk soothed, as he lowered his arm to his side, the gun still in his hand. “What’s going on, man?”
“You dirty, cheating bastards! The game was rigged. You were going to take me for everything. Everything.”
“Thomas, listen,” Ardie begged.
“No, I’m done listening. Oh, the three of you were smooth, real smooth, but nobody makes a fool of me and gets away with it.” He aimed his gun at Ardie.
Mark flung himself at Tanner, grabbing him around his fat legs in a flying tackle, and bringing him to the floor.
Dirk swung his gun toward Ardie and fired. Kerri screamed as Ardie grabbed her chest and slumped to the floor.
Grabbing Tanner’s revolver, Mark ordered, “Drop your gun, Dirk, or I’ll shoot.”
With lightning speed, Dirk grabbed Kerri, pressed his gun against her neck, and held her as a shield in front of him. “Come on, baby, you’re my passport out of here.”
“Let her go!” Mark shouted as Dirk yanked her backward toward the front door.
“Stay back!” Dirk growled.
“Do as he says,” Kerri told Mark. She was afraid that he might rush them and get himself shot.
Dirk jerked opened the front door and pulled Kerri out of the house and down the steps.
“Call an ambulance and 911, now!” Mark shouted down at Tanner, still sprawled on the floor. As the man stared up at Mark pugnaciously, instant fury made Mark want to kick him. He settled for pointing the gun threateningly. “Do it! Now!”
Mark made toward the front door, just as gunshots sounded in rapid succession outside. Forgetting all about caution, he burst out onto the porch.
“What the—?�
�
He couldn’t see either Dirk or Kerri.
Where were they?
He bounded down the steps just as a dark car parked at the corner of the house burst into life. With engine roaring and tires spitting gravel, the car raced by. The glimpse he had into the front seat stunned Mark as if someone had hit him in the stomach with a doubled fist.
Kerri was driving.
Mark was stunned and horrified. He sprinted toward his car, and then stopped short when he saw rubber fragments on the ground. That’s what the gunfire had been. Dirk had shot out the tires on the remaining cars so no one could follow him and Kerri.
The taillights on Dirk’s car faded out of sight as the automobile disappeared over the crest of the hill.
LEANING OVER the steering wheel, Kerri was relieved, on some detached level, to get the gunman away from the house and away from Mark, even though her own safety was in jeopardy.
The gun poking into her side had prevented any argument on her part when Dirk had ordered her to drive. “Burn rubber if you want to live,” he had growled. “Don’t forget I can blow you to bits, and dump you out of this car any time I want.”
Kerri swallowed back the sickening bile rising in her throat. She knew that Dirk had already killed Buddy and Jason, and maybe Ardie. What would one more victim mean to him? Once her usefulness as a hostage was over, he could easily dispose of her in these rocky hills, and it could be weeks, even months, or years before anyone found her body. Colorado’s crime reports were full of such murders. A pricking shiver trailed up her spine.
“You won’t get away, Dirk,” she said with more bravado than she felt. “You’re just making things worse by running.”
“Shut up and drive.”
“The police will be waiting for us when we reach the highway at Blackhawk,” she warned, trying to ignore the gun in her side.
He shot her a triumphant sneer. “We’re not going to Blackhawk. When we get to the bottom of this hill, turn right.”
“But the highway is the other direction.”
“Hell, I know where it is,” he snapped. “I’ve been all over these hills. There’s another paved road that comes up to Blackhawk from Boulder, and we’ll hit it in a couple of miles. Always pays to have an exit plan if something goes wrong.”
“What went wrong?” Even in these dire circumstances she couldn’t contain her curiosity.
He swore. “I don’t know what in blazes tipped Tanner off. We were taking a break from the game. Dammit, we had the guy where we wanted him. Stu must have done something stupid.”
“And now he’s dead,” she reminded him. “And you’re going to be on the run the rest of your life.”
He jabbed the gun barrel so viciously into her side that she winced with pain. “Save the sob stuff! And shut up!”
He kept looking out the back window, but she knew from the reflection in the rearview mirror that there were no car lights following them. Once they reached the paved highway, he could be out of these hills in twenty minutes, and then he wouldn’t need a hostage to get him out of the state. If she was going to save her life, she couldn’t wait until they reached the paved road.
“Turn here,” he barked as they came to a junction of two dirt roads.
With her mind racing ahead, she gave the steering wheel an abrupt turn and scraped the side of the car with some scrub oak bushes as she took the corner too close.
Dirk swore. “Where in the hell did you learn to drive?”
“Not in the mountains,” she lied, hoping he wouldn’t know she’d been raised at the foot of the Rockies, and had chalked up plenty of hours of mountain driving, summer and winter. She gunned the car, and swerved it dangerously close to the edge of the road.
“I can’t see,” she wailed.
“Watch it!” he yelled, looking out the window at a drop-off of several hundred feet. He grabbed the steering wheel and turned it back toward the center of the road, and as he did, she braced herself, and slammed on the brakes.
He lunged forward. Off balance, his fingers slipped off the gun as he tried to catch himself with both hands. In that instant, she grabbed the revolver.
Before he could straighten up, she brought the butt of the gun up in one swift movement and crashed it down upon his head.
As he slumped unconscious in the seat beside her, she remembered the blow he’d given her on her head. “Now we’re even,” she said, with childish satisfaction.
Chapter Twelve
Kerri had no idea if the highway Dirk had talked about was straight ahead or if she’d have to make the right twists and turns to reach it. Getting hopelessly lost while Dirk regained consciousness did not seem worth the gamble, so she turned the car around and headed back toward Tanner’s house.
She kept hoping that she would meet someone else on the narrow dirt road, but she didn’t. Dirk’s breathing was heavy, but steady, and she had no idea how long he’d be unconscious. Not long, if her own experience of getting hit in the head was any indication. Even though he might be weakened and fuzzy when he regained consciousness, he was still big enough to make two of her.
As far as she could remember, she’d only made one turn, and that was at the bottom of the hill where the sign pointing to the Tanner house had been. She prayed she wouldn’t miss it corning from this direction.
Keeping her eye on Dirk and the nighttime view out the side window, she drove as fast as she could. The gunman remained slumped forward with his head resting on the dashboard, his arms dangling listlessly at his sides. His body bounced slightly as she hit washboard stretches in the road.
Please, God, don’t let him wake up before I get there.
As Kerri hunched over the wheel, she tried desperately to see the side of the road. Her back and neck muscles were rigid with tension. Where in heaven’s name was the turnoff? An eternity of time went by, and still she didn’t see the sign pointing to the side road that led to the Tanner house. With Dirk urging speed, she must have driven a lot farther than she thought—or she’d passed the turnoff already, she thought with rising despair. Yes, she was almost certain now that she’d driven too far.
When she saw Dirk’s arm move, instant panic nearly paralyzed her. He must be coming back to consciousness. In a few minutes he might be alert enough to wrestle her for his gun. What should she do? She couldn’t bring herself to hit him again while he slumped forward. Maybe she should open the door and push him out, and hope that he wouldn’t be able to get very far away before they caught up to him?
At that moment, a squeal of brakes and the slashing beam of headlights just ahead stopped all further thought. She skidded to a stop as an ambulance roared by her. Immediately, another pair of headlights hit her. A police car following the ambulance pulled up along side of the Subaru, and a uniformed cop got out. He shone a flashlight in Kerri’s face, and ordered. “Get out of the car.”
She’d never heard such blessed words in all her life.
A WEEK LATER Kerri stood at her office window late in the afternoon, looking at the Denver skyline. Her mood was pensive as she remembered the day Mark Richards had walked into her life and heart. Even though she’d known at the beginning that it wasn’t going to be an ordinary case, she’d never expected it to change every facet of her life.
A file on her desk was stamped Case Closed. The missing person had been found, and it would seem that Finders, Inc. had successfully brought everything to a satisfying end, but nothing was further from the truth. Too many important aspects remained unfinished, and Kerri felt a heaviness in spirit that denied any sense of victory.
Three children were still without a mother, and the woman who held their future was in the hospital recovering from a nearly fatal gunshot wound. Dirk was in jail, charged with gambling fraud and attempted murder. And Thomas Tanner was facing manslaughter charges.
On a personal level, her romantic relationship with Mark was at a standstill. The recent events had been an emotional drain on them both. Mark had gone to California, dete
rmined to bring pressure on the authorities to find enough evidence to connect Dirk with Jason’s fatal accident.
The police were holding off charging Ardie, and Kerri knew that her next challenge would be visiting her at the hospital. Even though Mark seemed to have softened his attitude toward the children, he hadn’t indicated any intention of being personally involved in their upbringing. Something had to be done about their future. Kerri couldn’t expect her family to care for them indefinitely.
“You look awfully thoughtful,” Debbie said coming into the office. “Lonesome?”
“Yeah.” What was the use of denying it? Everyone knew what was going on between her and Mark. At least, they thought they did. She wasn’t all that certain herself what was happening. Now that the search was over, and they were back to their normal routines, she wondered if the bond between them would hold. The passion between them was genuine enough, she readily admitted, but a lasting relationship demanded more. She wasn’t sure how much compromising they would have to do to create a satisfying life together. Could two people with such different backgrounds marry and be happy? Maybe she was old-fashioned about love, but she wasn’t willing to settle for anything less than a lifetime commitment.
“When is Mr. Richards coming back?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe in a day or two.” Kerri pulled her thoughts away from the empty ache his absence had created. “I’m going to have a talk with Ardie this afternoon. I’m not sure when they’ll release her, but we need to have some things settled about the children.”
“You mean, ship them off to somebody else? From what you’ve told me, Ardie left them with Mr. Richards because there wasn’t anybody else in the family to take them.”
“I’m not sure what the situation is. I know that Mark will be willing to support the kids financially, but he’s not the type to take on a ready-made family.”