by Alice Sharpe
“That would be the day after tomorrow,” Hannah said. “We have to go to the police.”
He stared at her. “We have two days. Will the local cops listen, especially to me? Will they call in the Feds immediately? Will they take our word this tape is legit?”
Or would Jack be hauled off to jail as a person of interest in a murder or maybe two…?
“Santi Correa,” she said.
“What about him?”
“He has all the connections. He can stop the celebrations with one phone call. God, the governor will be here and a senator or two. Why would the they want to hurt anyone here? What good would it do for some bogus group a half a world away?”
“I have no idea,” he said. “Maybe there’ll be another ransom.”
“Santi is coming tomorrow afternoon for Sunday’s open house but that’s too late. We could call him….”
“You can’t tell a man his son is destroying his life’s work over a telephone. How long would it take to drive to his house?”
“Three hours, maybe four.”
“I’ll go,” he said.
“I’ll go with you.”
“But Aubrielle—”
“It’s too dangerous to take her.”
“Please stay with her,” Jack said, gripping her hands. “I can imagine how you feel knowing David chose to make money off this mess instead of blowing the whistle. It’s a hell of a legacy for him to pin on little Abby, and trust me, I know a thing or two about fathers who do terrible things and leave their kids to live with the consequences. My own father pulled one of those. Let me make this right for her. You stay safe.”
Tears burned behind Hannah’s nose as she looked into Jack’s eyes. Aubrielle’s real father was a man of honor and bravery, not a scheming coward like David—she’d never wanted more to tell Jack the truth.
“Trust me,” he said.
“I do trust you,” she assured him but that was a lie. She might trust him with her life but she didn’t trust him with her daughter—his daughter, too. “It’s not just about me and Aubrielle anymore, Jack. It never was but I refused to believe it. Santi might not listen to you or even agree to see you, but he will see me. It’s the only way.”
“Then she comes with us,” he said.
“I don’t know, Jack.”
“I’m her bodyguard. Bad things happen when we split up. We all go or I go alone.”
Despite the fact his truck was in pieces down at the beach—something she was directly responsible for—and she had the only drivable car around, his ultimatum made its point. He was right. Bad things happened when they were apart.
But sometimes bad things happened when they were together, too.
Chapter Fourteen
The first thing to do was to establish that Santi Correa was actually at his home. There was a good chance he might have left early to attend the festivities, especially seeing as his employee, Fran Baker, was killed the day before. If he was growing frail, he might have given himself a little extra time for the trip.
Had the police asked him questions about Fran? Had Hugo said anything to his father to cover his guilt? Hannah didn’t know what to expect.
But Santi made no mention on the phone of the extraordinary events of the past couple of days and sounded as reasonable as ever, as though he’d had no communication with anyone about what had been going on. That begged the question—would he really be able to help?
What other choice was there?
“I’ll be most pleased to see you whenever you arrive,” Santi assured her in his formal way.
They picked up Aubrielle a short while later. Thanks to Jill, the baby was fed and washed but she wasn’t quite ready to go to sleep. Jack took the wheel so Hannah could keep an eye on her daughter and that meant numerous attempts to distract her with rattles and pacifiers and songs. Hannah was reaching between the two seats as often as she was facing forward. The fact the baby’s back was to her didn’t help, nor did the dark.
“David knew,” she said at one point, turning to sit down and face forward. Her stomach lurched, a combination of nerves, looking backward in a moving vehicle and shock. “He knew they were going to kill people and he did nothing. I can’t believe it.”
“But he did do something,” Jack said. “He told Correa he knew what was going on and Correa paid him the hush money David subsequently gave to you. That must be how it happened.”
“And then Hugo got former employee Mitch to kill David and make it look like an accident.”
“And somehow Fran knew or guessed,” Jack said. “At least, that’s kind of the way it looks.”
“Fran’s new car, even her decision to move to a fancier house all kind of point to an influx of cash, as though she’d continued blackmailing Hugo,” Hannah said. “If she and David were having an affair, he might have told her the truth of what he heard and what he’d done. Maybe Fran’s been trying to find the money, maybe she broke into my apartment.”
“Or maybe she wanted to find the tape if David admitted to her there was one.”
“Fran and David were both willing to overlook mass murder,” Hannah said. “I haven’t exactly been a good judge of character lately, have I?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, sparing her a glance. “Jill seemed like a nice lady and of course, there’s me to consider.”
She smiled into the dark but it was a bittersweet smile. Just that morning, after they’d made love half the night, he’d reminded her he’d be gone when this was over. He wasn’t the permanent type; he’d warned of that many times.
“Take the next left,” she said, directing Jack to the cutoff for the road connecting the coast road to the less twisty Highway 101 several miles inland. From Willets, it was a straight shot to the posh community north of San Francisco called Highland Hills where Santi had retired several months before.
The rain finally let up as they crossed a bridge over a swollen stream. Their headlights picked out images of tumultuous water edging the bank. The current appeared voracious and matched the mood in the car, as did the high clouds racing across the sky, covering the moon and then revealing it like a lofty version of cat and mouse.
They passed a sign announcing thirty more miles before they would intersect the highway. Traffic was relatively light. Hannah’s eyelids began involuntarily closing as the car ate up the miles and Jack concentrated on driving. A growling stomach kept her awake for a while, but soon even hunger couldn’t dull the fatigue that scratched at her eyelids.
She awoke with a jerk, awake instantly, heart thumping wildly in her chest like a pinball machine gone berserk. “What is it?” she said, looking over at Jack.
Dashboard lights revealed his strong profile. He spared her a very quick glance. “There’s a black van behind us. It’s coming right up on our tailpipe and then backing down. Hold on.”
That’s what she’d felt, the jerkiness of his driving. They were traveling fast, the twists of the road following those of the river, forcing braking and wide turns. As she turned to look back, the headlamps behind them grew larger, flooding the car with light.
A black van. It finally sank in. “The van from the car park? Hugo?”
“Who else would do this?” he said, and this time the van came right up and touched the back bumper. The car lurched.
“Is your seat belt fastened?” Jack asked, his voice tight as once again the back bumper took a hit.
Hannah’s mouth was too dry to speak. As if from an overhead viewpoint, she pictured the huge van bearing down on her tiny car like an agile, strong cheetah chasing down a half-grown gazelle. The fact was her belt wasn’t fastened; she’d taken it off to tend to the baby and fallen asleep without redoing it. Now she felt around frantically for the loose end, but then she thought of Aubrielle’s seat. Was it as tight as it could be? She leaned over the back, feeling around in the dark for the strap to cinch it. The van shot past them.
Jack yelled a warning just as the van careened into their lane, crashin
g Jack’s side of the car, pushing Hannah’s small vehicle off the pavement. They rushed at a thirty-degree angle into the trees on the side of the road. Branches whipped Hannah’s side of the car as Jack fought the steering wheel. Hannah turned in time to catch a glimpse of the water beyond the trees, bathed in moonlight, silver on gray.
The car began sliding sideways down the steep bank toward the water, which slowed its forward motion.
Aubrielle. If the car went into the water, the baby wouldn’t survive the cold and dark. Hannah screamed at Jack, who was still struggling with steering. Hannah’s door sprung open and she grabbed the seat back. Aubrielle began crying as the noise of metal pressing against rock and splintered trees surrounded them.
At last the car came to a tilted, rolling stop. Hannah slipped toward her open door. Jack reached forward and grabbed her hand. “Hold on to me,” he yelled as the car, groaning, slid some more. At least the engine was off. Hannah’s legs flew free of the car. The river rushed over the rocks right below her. The car moved again and she slipped farther, Jack still holding on to her with a fierce grip.
“You have to get Aubrielle out the other side, Jack,” she yelled.
“I won’t let go of you—”
“You have to. It’s her only chance.”
“Hold on.”
The car slipped a little more. Hannah’s foot caught the water and it started dragging her. It was so black inside the car she couldn’t see anything but the whites of Jack’s eyes and the flash of his teeth.
“I’ll—” Jack began, but she cut him off.
“Listen to me. You have to save Aubrielle. You have to get her out the high side of this car before it slides into the water. If the car goes in, we’ll never get her out in time.”
“You’re all she has,” he said firmly. “I can get you both—”
“No, you can’t.” The water dragged her more, her fingers slipped in his hand. “I’m not all she has,” she gasped as a sob welled deep in her gut. “I’m not all, Jack. She has her father. She has you.”
Her announcement was met with total silence as though both the man and the baby stopped breathing, stopped everything. Groaning, the car slipped yet again and so did Hannah’s fingers from Jack’s grasp. She tried to catch the door frame but the current was too strong. The river swept her away, water closing over her head, cold creeping steadily inward as she struggled to find the surface.
FOR ONE INTERMINABLE MOMENT, Jack stared at the dark water rushing by the car and the void where Hannah had been just seconds before.
And then he heard a cry from the backseat and everything came into focus. He moved carefully, willing the damn car to stay on the bank another few minutes. Reaching back, he felt around until he found the straps of the car seat and managed to release the clip that held the seat in place. Then he pulled the seat across the back until he could more or less scoop the crying infant out and get her across the back of the seat and into his arms. The diaper bag was caught on the shift knob and he pulled it free. At the last second, he remembered to pop the Beethoven tape out of the player and stick it in the diaper bag.
The car groaned and shifted. Water rushed by close enough to touch it. Water that had washed Hannah from his grip—no, he couldn’t think about Hannah, he just had to get her baby out of this car. Her baby. His baby. He’d always known it. Somewhere deep inside, in his heart. Now he also understood why he’d continued to feel Hannah was hiding something from him. She’d had no intention of telling him about being a father until things got so desperate she had to. She didn’t trust him.
He held his crying daughter as tight as he could up high against his shoulder while he held his breath and pushed on the door that had been crunched when the van sideswiped him. Expecting his movements would send them into the water at any moment, he finally managed to inch the protesting metal ajar. Next he worked on getting one leg outside, one foot on the riverbank. Shifting his weight to that leg, he used his body to wedge himself free of the car, doing his best to protect Abby’s fragile head. Finally free, he stumbled up the bank in an effort to put as much distance between himself and the car as possible.
With a metallic thump or two, the car continued its slide toward the river, its headlights illuminating the watery grave it would soon enter.
“Hey!” someone shouted from above. “Hey down there.”
Jack was torn between relief and alarm. Had Hugo Correa come back for the kill? He looked down the river for some sign of Hannah, knowing it was unlikely he could see her even if she’d managed to escape the current as she was dressed in black.
“Is that a baby?” a woman’s voice called.
A woman. Jack began scrambling up the bank as lights from above lit the ground before him. The minute he got to the top, he found himself facing an older couple. Their giant RV bus was pulled off the road behind them. They both held flashlights.
“Oh, my goodness,” the woman cried. “It is a baby. I thought it was. Is she all right?”
“She’s fine but I need help,” Jack said quickly.
“My name is Jim Franklin. This is the wife, Caroline. What do you need?”
“The baby’s mother is in the water. Take the baby, keep her warm, give me a flashlight.”
“Sure, of course,” the man said, as his wife exchanged her flashlight for Abby and the diaper bag.
“We don’t have a phone that works out here but I’ll come with you,” Mr. Franklin said.
“No. You stay here with your wife,” Jack insisted. He was already moving off. He didn’t want Abby and the woman alone if Hugo came back.
Turning away, he slipped and slid his way down the riverbank, his light playing out in front of him as he struggled to make his way through the brush. “Hannah,” he called until his voice turned raspy. “Hannah, please, Hannah.”
A few times he thought he saw her dark shape on the bank and he ran, slipping in the mud, but it was never her, it was always a rock or a piece of waterlogged wood. He climbed boulders to avoid having to travel away from the river’s edge, pushing branches out of his way with increasingly scratched hands, calling her name again and again. When he couldn’t avoid it, he waded through the water itself, unwilling to leave any patch of riverbank unchecked.
His light illuminated some large rocks poking out into the river, which would mean a steep climb, and his heart sank. Until now, the shore had been more or less navigable in the dark and had paralleled the road overhead, but here it appeared to turn one hundred and eighty degrees. He needed help.
Help meant law enforcement. Law enforcement meant possible incarceration. It meant time delays no one could afford, it meant losing Abby if the worst happened and Hannah was dead. He was trapped between a rock and a hard place and all he could think of was that if Hannah was to get a chance at all, what happened to him didn’t matter. She mattered.
He shined the light on the bank in front of the rock formation and saw another patch of black. That’s when he realized the twisting river might create a change in the current, might give someone struggling to get to the shore an opportunity to do so. Heart racing again, he yelled, “Hannah,” and ran toward the dark shape.
His light picked up blondish hair and a surge of emotion seemed to fuel his limbs. The next thing he knew, he was falling to his knees with no knowledge of how he’d covered the remaining ground, falling to his knees beside Hannah.
“Cariño,” he whispered as he turned her over, afraid he was too late….
Her skin was pale and cold to the touch. He felt her throat for a pulse and as he did so, she began coughing. He helped her turn to her stomach, where she was able to throw up the water that she’d swallowed until eventually she held her head in her hands.
“Are you all right?” he asked, taking off his coat and putting it around her shoulders.
“Aubrielle?” she mumbled.
“She’s okay, she’s safe.” He kissed her cold lips and rubbed her hands between his. “Are you really all right?”
“When I thought I’d lost you—” he began but stopped. There was a lot that needed to be said, but blurting things out after the scare they’d both just had and on the heels of her revelation seemed unwise. He didn’t want to go making promises he couldn’t keep to a woman who had waited until the last second to tell him something so vital.
A crashing sound on the bank above them caused them both to jump. “Stay still,” Jack urged as he switched off the light. Once again he pictured Hugo, gun drawn, somehow hunting them down. Hannah was still shaky, she couldn’t run and he wouldn’t leave her. They were sitting ducks. He tried to shield her.
“Did you find her?” a man called and with infinite relief, Jack recognized Jim Franklin’s voice. The older guy appeared on the ledge above them, his blinding light momentarily playing over them. “Is she okay?”
“Yes,” Jack rasped.
“Caroline and I have been following your light along the river. The RV is right up the hill.”
“Who in the world is that?” Hannah mumbled through trembling lips as Jack helped her to her feet.
“Guardian angels,” he said. “Let’s go.”
HANNAH, DRESSED IN JEANS AND a bulky sweater loaned to her by Caroline Franklin, held her baby tight in her arms. There was no better therapy for what she’d been through than to sit close to Jack and hold Aubrielle.
She’d almost lost everything tonight. Only the last little bit of fight left in her body had set off an alarm when the currents began to change and she’d paddled weak as a kitten to shore, crawling up on the rocks, not knowing if she was really alive or lying on the bank of eternity.
Not until Jack lifted her in his arms.
“So when we got rained out on the coast, we decided to drive inland to go visit our son and his family,” Caroline said. “They live in San Rafael.”
The bus was just entering Willets, Jim behind the wheel. “Sign says police up ahead,” he shouted. “That’s where I’ll take you unless you want to go directly to the hospital.”