by Linda Howard
Price dragged Clinton’s arms behind his back and held them with one hand, then took the pistol out of his waistband, jamming the barrel against the base of Clinton’s skull. “Move one inch,” he said in a low, guttural tone, “and I’ll blow your fucking head off. Hope.” He didn’t look at her. “Do you have any thin rope? Scarves will do, if you don’t.”
“I have some scarves.”
“Get them.”
She went upstairs and searched through her dresser until she found three scarves. Her knees were trembling, her heart thudding wildly against her ribs. She felt faintly nauseated.
She held on to the railing as she shakily made her way back down the stairs. The two men didn’t look as if they had moved, Clinton lying on his belly, Price straddling him. The carnage of wrecked furniture and food surrounded them. Tink was standing at Clinton’s head, his muzzle down very close to the man’s face, growling.
Price took one of the scarves, twisted it lengthwise, and wound it around Clinton’s wrists. He jerked the fabric tight and tied it in a hard knot. Then he jabbed the pistol into his waistband once more, took Clinton’s pistol from under his knee, and levered himself to his feet. Leaning down, he grabbed the collar of Clinton’s coveralls and hauled him to his feet, then slammed him down into the only chair left standing upright. He crouched and secured Clinton’s feet to the legs of the chair, using a scarf for each ankle.
Clinton’s head lolled back. He was breathing hard, one eye swollen shut, blood leaking from both corners of his mouth. He looked at Hope, standing there pale and stricken, still holding the rifle as if she had forgotten she had it.
“Shoot him,” he croaked. “For God’s sake … shoot him. He’s an escaped murderer. I’m a deputy sheriff … He took my uniform … Damn it, shoot the bastard!”
“Nice try, Clinton,” Price said, straightening.
“Ma’am, I’m telling the truth,” Clinton said. “Listen to me, please.”
With one smooth movement Price reached out and tugged the rifle from Hope’s nerveless hands. She let it go without a protest, because now that Clinton was tied up, there was no one she could intimidate with the empty weapon.
“Shit,” Clinton said, closing his good eye in despair. He sagged against the chair, still breathing hard.
Hope stared at him, fighting off the dizziness that assailed her. He was almost Price’s height, but not as muscular. If she was any judge of men’s clothing—and after doing all the clothes shopping for first Dylan and now her dad, she had had plenty of experience—Clinton would wear a size fifteen and a half shirt.
Price wasn’t unscathed. A lump was forming on his right cheekbone, his left eyebrow was clotted with blood, and his lips were cut in three separate places. He wiped the blood out of his eye and looked at Hope. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she said, though her shoulder hurt like blue blazes where the cabinet edge had dug in, and she still wasn’t at all certain she wasn’t going to faint. “You don’t look it. Sit down.” He looked around, spotted an unbroken chair, and set it upright. His hand on Hope’s shoulder, he pressed her down onto the chair. “Adrenaline,” he said briefly. “You always feel weak as hell when the scare’s over.”
“You broke into one of the cabins, didn’t you?” Price asked Clinton. “Built a fire in the fireplace, stayed nice and warm. With the blizzard going on, we wouldn’t be able to see the smoke from the chimney. When the weather cleared, though, you had to let the fire go out. Got damn cold, didn’t it? But you couldn’t head off into the mountains without heavier clothes and some food, so you knew you had to break into the house.”
“Good scenario, Tanner,” Clinton said. “Is that what you would’ve done if you hadn’t stolen my uniform?” He opened his eye and flicked a look around. “Where’s the old man? Did you kill him too?”
Hope felt Price looking at her, assessing her reaction to Clinton’s tale, but she merely stared at the captured man without a change in her expression. Maintaining her composure wasn’t difficult; she felt numb, absolutely drained. How did Clinton know about her father? Was he from the area? She was not, she thought, cut out to be an action hero.
“Hey.” Price squatted in front of her, touching her cheek, folding her hands in his. She blinked, focusing her gaze on him. His brows were drawn together in a small frown, his blue eyes searching as he examined her. “Don’t let him play mind games with you, honey. Everything’s going to be all right; just relax and trust me.”
“Don’t listen to him, ma’am,” Clinton said.
“You look pretty shaky,” Price told her, ignoring Clinton. “Maybe you should lie down for a minute. Come on, let me help you to the couch.” He urged her to her feet, his hand under her elbow. As she turned, he uttered a savage curse and hauled her to a halt.
“What?” she said, shaken by the abrupt change in him.
“You said you weren’t hurt.”
“I’m not.”
“Your back is bleeding.” His face grim, he force-marched her into her dad’s bedroom. He paused to replace the rifle in the rack, then ushered her into the bathroom. After jerking open the curtains so he would have sufficient light, he began unbuttoning her shirt.
“Oh, that. I scraped it on the cabinet edge when I fell.” She tried to grab his hands, but he brushed her hands aside and pulled off her shirt, whirling her around so he could examine her back. She shivered, her nipples puckering as the cold air washed over her bare breasts.
He dampened a washcloth and dabbed it on her back, just below her shoulder blade. Hope flinched at the pain.
“You’ve got a gouge in your back, and from the looks of it, a monster bruise is forming.” Gently he continued washing the wound. “You need an ice pack on it, but first I’m going to disinfect that gouge and put a gauze pad over it. Where are your first aid supplies?”
“In the cabinet door over the refrigerator.”
“Lie down on the bed. I’ll be right back.”
He guided her to the bed, and Hope willingly collapsed facedown. She was cold without her shirt, though, and tugged the cover around her.
Price returned in just a moment with the first aid box. Blood was dripping in his eye again, and he paused a minute to wash his own face. Blood immediately trickled down again, and with an impatient curse he tore open an adhesive bandage and plastered it over his eyebrow.
Then, holding the box on his lap, he sat beside Hope and gently dabbed the wound with an antibiotic ointment. As gentle as he was, even the lightest touch was painful. She bore it, refusing to flinch again. He placed a gauze pad over the wound, then covered her with one of her dad’s Tshirts.
“Just lie still,” he ordered. “I’ll get an ice pack.”
He improvised an ice pack by filling a Ziploc plastic bag with ice cubes. Hope jumped when he gently laid it on her back. “That’s too cold!”
“Okay, maybe the T-shirt’s too thin. Let me get a towel.”
He got a towel from the bathroom, and draped it over her in place of the T-shirt. The ice pack was tolerable then, barely.
He pulled the cover up over her, because the room was chilly. “Are you too cold?” he asked, smoothing her hair. “Do you want me to carry you upstairs?”
“No, I’m fine, with the cover over me,” she murmured. “I’m sleepy, though.”
“Reaction,” he said, leaning over and brushing a kiss on her temple. “Take a nap, then. You’ll feel fine when you wake up.”
“I feel like a wuss right now,” she admitted.
“Never been in a fight before?”
“Nope, that was my first one. I didn’t like it. I acted like a girl, didn’t I?”
He chuckled, his fingers gentle on her hair. “How does a girl act?”
“You know, the way they always do in the movies, screaming and getting in the way.”
“Did you scream?”
“Yes. When he kicked in the door. It startled me.”
“Fancy that. Did you get in the way?”
“You didn’t, honey,” he said reassuringly. “You kept your head, got the rifle, and held it on him.” He kissed her once more, his lips warm on her cool skin. “I’d choose you for my side in any fight. Go to sleep, now, and don’t worry about the mess in the kitchen. Tink and I will clean it up. He’s already taken care of the beef stew.”
She smiled, as he had meant her to, and he eased up from the bed. She closed her eyes, and in a few seconds she heard the quiet click of the door closing.
Hope opened her eyes.
She lay quietly, because the ice pack was easing the soreness in her shoulder. Fifteen minutes on, fifteen minutes off—if she remembered accurately how ice therapy worked. She might need all the flexibility in the shoulder she could muster, and she estimated Price wouldn’t check on her for at least an hour. She had a little time to take care of herself.
She heard him moving around in the kitchen. Broken glass tinkled as he swept it up, and she heard the crackle of shattered wood when he picked up the smashed remains of some of her chairs. She didn’t hear the captured Clinton utter a sound.
The flour had made quite a mess. Cleaning it up would require vacuuming and mopping, and washing it off everything else would take a lot of time.
Hope threw back the covers and eased off the bed. Silently she opened the closet door and took down one of her dad’s sweatshirts, gingerly pulling it on over her head and wincing as her abused shoulder and back muscles protested the movement.
Then she began searching for the bullets.
Half an hour later, she found the box, in the pocket of one of her dad’s jackets.
8
Hope had several of her dad’s old, no-longer-used neckties dangling from the waistband of her sweatpants when she left the bedroom. The rifle was in her hands.
Clinton was sitting silently, exactly as she had last seen him, not that he had much choice. He opened his good eye when he heard her, the single orb widening as he saw the rifle. He gave a faint, satisfied smile and nodded at her.
Price was standing at the sink, wringing out a dishcloth. He had most of the mess cleaned up, though she was woefully short of furniture now and there were still a few surfaces dusted with flour. He looked up, and whatever he had been about to say died on his lips when she raised the rifle.
“Keep your right hand where I can see it,” she said calmly. “Use your left hand to get the pistol out of your waistband. Put it on the cabinet and slide it toward me.”
He didn’t move. His blue eyes turned hard and glacial. “What in hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Taking over,” she replied. “Do what I said.”
He didn’t even glance at the rifle. His mouth set in a grim line, he started toward her.
“I found the bullets,” Hope said quickly, before he got close enough to grab the rifle. “In a coat pocket,” she added, just so he would know she really had found them.
He stopped. The fury that darkened his face would have terrified her if she hadn’t had the rifle.
“The pistol,” she prompted.
Slowly, keeping his right hand resting on the sink, he reached behind his back and drew out the pistol. Placing it on the cabinet, he shoved it toward her.
“Don’t forget mine,” Clinton said from behind her, the words slightly slurred; his damaged mouth and jaw were swelling and turning dark.
“The other one too,” Hope said, not flinching from the sulfurous look Price gave her. Silently he obeyed.
“Now step back.”
He did. She picked up her pistol and laid down the rifle, because the pistol was more convenient. “Okay, sit down in the chair and put your hands behind you.”
“Don’t do this, Hope,” he said between clenched teeth. “He’s a murderer. Don’t listen to him. Why would you believe him, for God’s sake? Look at him! He’s wearing prison coveralls.”
“Only because you stole my uniform,” Clinton snarled.
“Sit down,” Hope told Price again.
“Damn it, why won’t you listen to me?” he said furiously.
“Because I heard on the radio about a bus wreck. Two deputies were killed, and five prisoners escaped.” Hope didn’t take her eyes off his face. She saw his pupils dilate, his jaw harden. “Because your uniform shirt is too small for you. Because you didn’t have a wallet, and even though your uniform pants were torn and bloody, you weren’t injured anywhere.”
“Then what about the service revolver? If I took a deputy’s clothes, why wouldn’t I have also taken his weapon?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Maybe you were knocked out during the wreck, and when you regained consciousness, the other prisoners had already escaped and taken the weapons with them. I don’t know all the details. All I know is I have a lot of questions, and your answers don’t add up. Why did you unload the rifle and hide the bullets?”
He didn’t blink. “For safety reasons.”
She didn’t either. “Bull. Sit down.”
He sat. He didn’t like it, but her finger was on the trigger and her gaze didn’t waver.
“Hands behind your back.”
He put them behind his back. Steam was all but coming out of his ears. Staying out of his reach, in case he should whirl suddenly and try to knock the gun out of her hand, she pulled one of the neckties from her waistband and fashioned two loose loops with it. Moving in quickly then, she slipped the loops over his hands and jerked the ends tight. He was already moving, shifting his weight, but he froze in place as the fabric tightened around his wrists.
“Neat trick,” he said emotionlessly. “What did you do?”
“Loops, like roping a calf. All I had to do was pull.” She wrapped the loose ends between his wrists, tying off each of the loops, and then knotted the tie in place. “Okay, now your feet.”
He sat without moving, letting her tie his feet to the chair legs. “Listen to me,” he said urgently. “I really am a deputy sheriff. I haven’t worked in this county very long and not many people know me.”
“Yeah, sure,” Clinton snarled. “You killed those two deputies, and you would probably have killed her before you left. Untie me, ma’am, my hands are numb.”
“Don’t! Listen to me, Hope. You’ve heard about this guy. He’s from around here. That’s how he knew you lived with your father. Clinton”—he jerked his head toward the other man—“kidnapped the daughter of a wealthy rancher from this area and asked for a million in ransom. They paid him the money, but he didn’t keep his part of the bargain. The girl wasn’t where he said he had left her. He was caught when he tried to spend the money, and he’s never told where he hid the girl’s body. It was all over the news. He was being transferred to a more secure jail, and we thought it was worth a try to put me in with him, maybe get him to talk about it. He can be convicted of murder on circumstantial evidence, but the parents want their child’s body found. They’ve accepted that she’s dead, but they want to give her a decent burial. She was seventeen, a pretty little girl he’s got buried up in the mountains somewhere, or dumped in an abandoned mine.”
“You know a lot of possibilities,” Clinton charged, his tone savage. “Keep talking; tell me where you hid her body.”
Hope walked into the great room and added more wood to the fire. Then she paused by the telephone, lifting the receiver to check for a dial tone. Nothing.
“What are you doing?” Clinton demanded. “Untie me.”
“No,” Hope said.
“What?” He sounded as if he couldn’t believe what he had heard.
“No. Until the phone service is restored and I can call the sheriff to straighten this out, I figure the best thing to do is keep both of you just the way you are.”
There was a stunned moment of silence; then Price threw back his head on a shout of laughter. Clinton stared at her, mouth agape; then his face flushed dark red and he yelled, “You stupid fucking bitch!”
“That’s my girl,” Price chortle
d, still laughing. “God, I love you! I’ll even forgive you for this, though the guys are going to ride my ass for years about letting a sweet little brown-eyed blonde get the drop on me.”
Hope looked at those laughing blue eyes, shiny with tears of mirth, and she couldn’t help smiling. “I probably love you too, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to untie you.”
Clinton recovered himself enough to say, “He’s playing you for a fool, ma’am.”
“ ‘Ma’am’?” she repeated. “That isn’t what you called me a second ago.”
“I’m sorry. I lost my temper.” He inhaled raggedly. “It galls me to see you falling for that sweet shit he deals out to every woman.”
“I’m sure it does.”
“What do I have to do to convince you he’s lying?”
“You can’t do anything, so you might as well save your breath,” she said politely.
Half an hour later Clinton said, “I have to use the bathroom.”
“Go in your pants,” Hope replied. She hadn’t thought about that complication, but she wasn’t going to change her mind and untie either one of them. She gave Price an apologetic look, and he winked at her.
“I’m okay for right now. If the phone service isn’t restored by nightfall, though, I’ll probably be begging you for a fruit jar.”
She would bring him one too, she thought. She wouldn’t mind performing that service for him at all. She glanced at Clinton. No way; she wouldn’t touch his with a pair of tongs.
She checked the phone every half hour, watching as the afternoon sun sank behind the mountains. Clinton squirmed, and she had no doubt he was in misery. Price had to be uncomfortable too, but he didn’t let it show. He grinned at her every time he caught her eye, though with his bruised face the grin looked more like a grimace.
Just at twilight, when she lifted the receiver, she heard a dial tone. “Bingo!” she said triumphantly, picking up the phone book to look up the number of the sheriff’s department.