Intimate Strangers

by Rebecca York

  A groaning noise from the front door told her there was no choice. The chain couldn’t hold long.

  Gritting her teeth, she climbed over the railing and reached for the rope. She had lowered herself a couple of feet when the front door burst open and two men crashed into the apartment’s entryway. Both of them were hiding behind bandanas, and both held guns pointed toward the living area.

  If Molly hadn’t been gripped by fear, the ensuing scene might have been funny. Like a couple of actors in a bad chase movie, the men went sprawling on the oil-slick tile. Their feet went out from under them, and they landed on their butts on the foyer floor.

  Oil splashed on the walls. But oil wasn’t the only menace covering the flat surface. The glass was more dangerous.

  When the men started yelping in pain, she knew they’d been cut.

  “Go!” Mark growled.

  She had no choice. She started slowly down the rope, grateful to discover that Mark had knotted the hemp every foot or so, which gave her a much better grip.

  As she lowered herself, she could hear cursing and groaning from the apartment.

  When she looked up, she saw that Mark wasn’t waiting for the rope. He climbed over the balcony, threw the carryall over the side, then lowered himself with his feet dangling and let go. He whizzed past her, and her heart leaped into her throat. It was all she could do to keep her grip on the rope.

  “Jump. Come on. I’ll catch you. We have to get the hell out of here. They’re mad as hornets up there,” Mark hissed.

  She was only halfway down, and fear clogged her throat. But she understood that he was right. So she forced her stiff fingers to unhook themselves from the rope.

  She came down heavily, landing against Mark’s chest, and for a terrifying moment it felt as though she couldn’t breathe. He held her to him for pounding heartbeats.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes.”

  He bent to pick up the bag, then locked his hand with hers, leading her along the edge of the building, keeping close to the balconies.

  “Where the hell are they?” a frantic voice from above rang out.

  “Don’t know,” came the clipped answer.

  Apparently the men had been too busy to spot them on the balcony, Molly thought. At least she hoped so as they dashed across the parking lot to Mark’s car. He handed her the keys and the carryall.

  “Get in the driver’s seat,” he said. “If there’s any trouble, clear out.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll be back in five minutes. If I’m not, I’ll meet you…” He paused. “Where’s a good place?”

  She thought for several moments. Not her house. Or the real estate office. Or the East Point Lodge. “The parking lot behind Mario’s,” she finally said, naming an Italian restaurant on the edge of town.

  “Got it.”

  He was already sprinting away as she started the engine. She watched him heading for a car parked across from their building.

  He ducked inside, and she waited with her heart in her mouth, praying that he would get back to her in time.

  Suddenly an explosion sounded and a shot whizzed past the car Mark was in.

  She wanted to scream his name, but she kept her lips pressed together as he leaped from the car and took off around the side of the building.

  Lord, now what?

  Around her, lights were blinking on and she could hear some of the residents of the condo complex talking.

  “What was that?”

  “A car backfiring.”

  Yeah, right, she thought. But under the circumstances, she wouldn’t have wanted to consider that someone might be firing a gun.

  She hunched over the wheel in anxiety, aching to follow Mark. But she had to wait here, since this was where he expected to find her. It seemed like several decades later before Mark appeared, running toward the car.

  Before he reached it, a man sprang from the shadows and leaped on him.

  She wheeled the car around, heading toward Mark, even as she saw the man take him down to the grass beside the building.

  They were in the shadows, but she heard them trading blows. It was Mark who stood up several moments later, the gun in his hand. He scrabbled over the ground, picked up whatever he’d been carrying and ran toward her.

  The moment he was in the car, she gunned the engine and roared off.

  “Good going,” he muttered. He’d turned to the back seat and was putting something in the bag.

  “They’ll be after us.”

  “Not likely. I pulled some wires out of their electrical system.”

  She breathed out a small sigh. “Are you all right?”

  He sat forward again. “Yeah.”

  “What should I do?”

  “I’m thinking.” She saw his face rigid with concentration. “We got away, but they know my car. And yours. And if we steal one, we’ll have Hammer on our tail.”

  “One of the real estate agents is on vacation. She left her car at the office. I think the keys are in her desk.”

  “Too dangerous. Doris will spot us.”

  They had come out onto the highway. Molly headed for town, feeling exposed and vulnerable, even when she knew that the bad guys couldn’t be following in the disabled car.

  “Turn in here,” Mark said suddenly.

  She did as he asked, pulling off the highway into an older, working-class neighborhood where the lots were large and weedy and most of the houses were in need of paint.

  Mark scanned the properties, then pointed to one that looked particularly disreputable. Trash littered the yard, and several older cars were pulled along the side of the driveway and behind a freestanding garage.

  “Maybe one of those,” he muttered.

  “You want me to stop here?”

  “Yes.”

  She pulled into the driveway and waited nervously while he headed for one of the cars parked on the far side of the garage from the house. When he tried the handle, the door opened.

  Mark climbed inside, and she leaned forward, trying to see what he was doing. But all her attention didn’t stay focused on him. She kept turning her head in all directions, trying to see if anybody was aware of what was going on. When she saw Mark sprint down the street, she went rigid.

  In a moment he was back at the old car, and she heard the engine turn over. He maneuvered the car beside her and rolled down the window.

  “Follow me.”

  His memory of the area was good. He led her to a spot where the roads were little more than tracks through the sand.

  He got her to pull in behind a dune and leave his vehicle. Then she climbed into the car he’d liberated. The body was rusted and the upholstery was torn. Hopefully, nobody would be too upset about its disappearance.

  Minutes later, after he’d stowed the carryall in the back seat, they were on their way again.

  “Where did you learn to hot-wire a car?” she asked.

  “From my prison buddies.”

  She nodded. “And I listened to the discussions about license plates, too. I switched them with a car down the road.”

  She made a small, distressed noise.

  “You don’t approve?”

  “I guess I don’t have a choice.”

  “We do what we have to,” he answered, then twisted in his seat to look at her. “That was a pretty good trick with the bottle of olive oil. How did you think of that?”

  “I don’t know. I just saw the bottle and thought it might be a good idea.”

  “It was. You gave us the extra time we needed.”

  “Thanks.”

  For several minutes they rode in silence. Then she turned toward him and saw the set expression on his face. “What is it, Mark?”

  “You’re in danger because of me. I never meant that to happen.” He nearly spit the words out. “If you’re thinking of splitting, forget it. It’s my responsibility to protect you now.”

  “I’m not.” She sighed then. In a low voice she
began speaking again, because when she’d been alone in the second bedroom, she’d been brutally honest with herself and now she knew she had to fill in the rest of the picture for him. “Maybe the danger reaches a little farther back. I’ve been going over a lot of stuff in my mind, trying to think about what was happening when Veronica was killed. I keep thinking Phil could have been involved.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Mark said slowly. He eased to the side of the road, then reached in the back seat and pulled up the carryall.

  When he brought out the puzzle box, her eyes widened. “How… Where did that come from?”

  He looked smug. “From the bad guy’s car.”

  “You knew it was there?”

  “No. But I told you I saw these goons arrive in the parking lot. The lot was lighted, and as soon as they pulled in I thought I recognized their car. I realized I had seen it in your neighborhood yesterday when that guy attacked you. I didn’t think anything about it then. It was just one of the vehicles on the street. But when the same car showed up again, I figured it wasn’t a coincidence so I checked out the vehicle.”

  She reached for the box and turned it in her hand. “So you’re saying that the guy who attacked and robbed me was one of the men who just came after us? And he still had the box with him.”

  “Did you recognize either of them?” Mark asked without answering her question.

  “No. But then, they had on those masks.” She heaved a sigh. “I guess I didn’t hurt him with the scissors as badly as I thought.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up about that. You held him off until I could get there.”

  She nodded.

  “Well, either they’re freelancers or they’re hired help. It could be that the one who attacked you earlier was supposed to turn the booty over to someone and didn’t do it. Or he hadn’t done it yet. Or it could be that they planned to force you to open the puzzle box.”

  She turned the wooden box in her hand pressing on various places. “But I haven’t a clue how to get inside it.”

  “They don’t know that.” He waved his hand toward the box. “Why don’t we just smash the damn thing and see if anything’s inside.”

  Her hands tightened on the polished wood. “Are you crazy? It’s a priceless antique. I can sell this thing for a lot of money. I may need to sell it if I’m short on cash.”

  “I have plenty of dough,” he growled.

  “I’m not taking your money!”

  “Why not?”

  She made a small exasperated sound. “You know why.”

  She thought he might argue with her. Instead, he started the car and drove off.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Part of me is thinking that it would be a good idea to get out of Perry’s Cove. And part of me thinks we’re very close to figuring out what’s going on here.”

  She agreed with him.

  “Where should we hide out?” he asked.

  She considered their options. “There are plenty of vacant properties around here.”

  “Yeah, we were using one. But they found us.”

  “They can’t check every place that’s unoccupied. Doris must—” She stopped. “I think Doris is in this up to her ears.”

  “She is—if Garrison is. She’ll be able to figure out anything that goes through the real estate office.”

  “I know about a property that’s vacant but not on the market. It belongs to a woman named Gloria Yeager who goes to the same beauty shop that I do. She had to leave suddenly because her husband took a new job. She’s planning to have her sister move in soon, so she left the utilities on. But the sister has been delayed.”

  “Okay, maybe that’s safe. Where is it?”

  Molly gave him the address. It was on the other side of town, and she gathered he didn’t love the idea of driving through Perry’s Cove. But she couldn’t think of any alternative.

  She could see he was thinking hard about something. Finally, he pulled onto a side road, then took the case with the mask out of the carryall.

  “They’re looking for two people who went away from that condo, one of whom is Mark Ramsey. Not Mike Randall.” He gave her a quick glance, removed the disguise from the box and held it up in front of him. Then he opened a tube of glue and started dabbing it on his face. Using the rearview mirror to work, he began fixing the mask to his face.

  Her breath clogged in her throat as she watched him. When the transformation was complete, she could only stare numbly at him. A man named Mark Ramsey had been sitting beside her. Now he was Mike Randall. But not exactly the Mike Randall from the old days.

  “How does it look?” he asked when he’d finished.

  She tried to speak and heard her voice go high and strained. “There’s a place where it’s not stuck down.”

  “Could you fix it for me?”

  She should say no, but the word wouldn’t come. Her hand wasn’t quite steady as she reached for his right cheek and pressed the rubber against his flesh. The mask didn’t feel like skin. It felt alien under her fingers. Yet it looked real.

  “Thanks,” he said, his voice almost as strained as hers.

  “You…you need to do something about your hairline.”

  She reached up again, pressing at the edge of the mask and bringing a lock of his dark hair down over the line. “I think that will do,” she murmured.

  He caught her hand and held it. “Thank you for helping me. I know that seeing me like this has to be a shock.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s a shock to me, too.”

  She managed a small laugh.

  “Molly—”

  “Mark, I’m dealing with a lot of stuff right now.”

  “Yeah.” He sighed. “We need to get off the streets. And you need to get out of sight.” He looked toward her, then the back seat. “Would you mind lying down back there?”

  “All right.” She climbed out of the car and got in the back, brushing the dust off the plastic seat cover.

  “Sorry,” he said. “This Rent-A-Wreck could be cleaner.”

  She didn’t bother to point out that they hadn’t exactly rented the vehicle.

  Mark started the engine, pulled away from the curb and headed toward town. She lay on her side, watching through the window. She couldn’t see much, just the tops of trees and occasionally the tops of buildings that she recognized.

  When she felt Mark’s foot jump on the gas pedal, she tensed.

  “What?” she whispered.

  “One of Hammer’s deputies spotted me. That guy named Cory Daniels who was with him when he caught us at my house. I don’t remember him from the old days.”

  “He’s been here about four years.”

  “So maybe he doesn’t recognize Mike Randall,” he said.

  She might have tried to keep the conversation going, but all thought had fled from her mind as he kept driving at a moderate pace. Time seemed to stretch out like a reel of movie film unwinding. What were they going to do if the officer stopped them? She was sure that Mark didn’t have a registration for the car. And what about his driver’s license? It didn’t exactly match the face he was wearing.

  And, oh, Lord, he’d gotten a gun from one of the thugs. Obviously that wasn’t registered to him.

  When she pictured him being led off in handcuffs, she felt her throat close. He’d been locked up in a prison cell once before, and she could only imagine how horrible that had been. What would he do if he was taken into custody again?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Molly lay on the back seat, hardly able to breathe, feeling the car move smoothly down the street. If she were the one driving, she would probably be pressing on the gas pedal and trying to get away, even when she knew full well that the response was irrational.

  Her nails dug into the edge of the plastic seat cover. She felt trapped, closed in, and she understood a little of what Mark must have been feeling since he’d arrived in Perry’s Cove.

  She’d been so a
ngry with him. She’d felt betrayed when he’d told her his real identity. It was clear he hadn’t trusted her at first, and that had hurt. But suddenly it was a little easier to understand his motivation.

  He’d been accused of his wife’s murder and convicted. As far as the law was concerned, he’d been guilty. They’d thrown him in prison with a bunch of hardened criminals and treated him like pond scum.

  She didn’t want to think what terrible things had been done to him, things that would change anyone. And now he was sitting in a stolen car with a cop following down the street in back of him.

  He must feel as if a trap was closing around him, yet he kept moving at a normal pace.

  She opened her mouth, then closed it again. She wanted to say something reassuring, but there was nothing she could say that would make any difference.

  Aeons seemed to pass as she lay there in the darkened car. Then from the front, she heard him breathe out a quick sigh.

  “What?” she asked.

  “He turned down a side street.”

  “Thank God.” She couldn’t stay lying down any longer. Sitting up, she focused on the back of Mark’s head. She wanted to tell him what she was feeling, yet she knew this wasn’t the right time and certainly not the right place.

  “You think Hammer’s involved?” she asked. “Or Daniels?”

  “I don’t know whether Hammer is in it,” he answered. “I don’t know whether he sent Daniels after me. But at this point I can’t take a chance on trusting anyone in town.”

  Her stomach clenched.

  “Except you,” he added in a gritty voice.

  “Oh!”

  Before she could catch her breath, his tone turned businesslike. “Give me that address again.”

  She told him where the house was, then forced herself to lean back against the seat. She wasn’t sure what to say to him now. One thing she knew for sure—she didn’t want it to be the wrong thing.

  A few minutes later he cruised slowly down Gloria’s street. It was almost midnight now, and they didn’t pass any other cars as they headed for her friend’s house. She lived in an upscale area, where the well-tended lots were large and the houses were fairly far apart.