by Nora Roberts
Then again, she supposed he had plenty of time for working out, or riding his horses, or whatever form of exercise he preferred, between visions.
She began to wonder what it might be like to own her own horse.
It wasn’t until she realized he was swinging onto the eastbound ramp of 156 that she came to attention.
“Hey!” She rapped her fingers on his helmet. “Hey, Daniel Boone, the trail’s back that way.”
He heard her clearly enough, but shook his head. “What? Did you say something?”
“Yeah, I said something.” But she did precisely as he’d hoped she would. She wiggled closer on the seat and leaned against him. He felt every curve. “I said you’re going the wrong way. My place is back there, about ten miles back there.”
“I know where you live.”
She huffed and kept her voice lifted over the purr of the engine. “Then what are we doing out here?”
“Nice night for a drive.”
Yeah, maybe it was, but nobody had asked her. “I don’t want to go for a drive.”
“You’ll want to go on this one.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, where are we going?”
Sebastian zipped around a sedan and punched it up to sixty.
“Utah.”
It was a good ten miles before Mel managed to close her mouth.
* * *
Three o’clock in the morning, in the ghastly light of the parking lot of a combination convenience store and gas station. Mel’s bottom felt as though it had been shot full of novocaine.
But her mind wasn’t numb. She might have been tired, cranky and sore after riding on the back of a bike for four hours, but her mind was functioning just fine.
Right now she was using it to develop ways of murdering Sebastian Donovan and making it the perfect crime.
It was a damn shame she hadn’t brought her gun. Then she could just shoot him. Clean and quick. On some of the roads they’d been traveling, she could dump the body into a gully where it might not be found for weeks. Possibly years.
Still, it would be more satisfying to beat him to death. He had her by a few inches, and maybe fifty pounds, but she thought she could take him.
Then she could ditch the bike, hop a bus, and be back in her office bright and early the next morning.
Mel stretched her legs by pacing the parking lot. Occasionally a semi rattled by, using the back roads to avoid weighing stations. Apart from that, it was dark and quiet. Once she heard something that sounded suspiciously like a coyote, but she dismissed it.
Even out here in the boonies, she assured herself, people had dogs.
Oh, he’d been clever, she thought now, kicking an empty soda can out of her way. He hadn’t stopped the bike until they’d been past Fresno. Not exactly walking distance back to Monterey.
And when she’d hopped off, punched him, and let loose with a string of curses that should have turned his ears blue, he’d simply waited her out. Waited her out, and then gone on to explain that he’d wanted to follow James T. Parkland’s trail.
He’d needed to see the motel where David had stayed with the first woman he’d been passed to.
As if there were a motel. Mel kicked the hapless can again. Did he really expect her to believe they would drive up to some dumb motel with a dinosaur out front?
Right.
So, here she was, tired, hungry, and numb from the waist down, stuck on some back road with a crazy psychic. She was two hundred and fifty miles from home, and she had eleven dollars and eighty-six cents on her person.
“Sutherland.”
Mel whirled and caught the candy bar he tossed her. She would have cursed him then, but she had to snag the soft drink can that came looping after it.
“Look, Donovan …” Since he was busy with the gas pump, she stalked over, ripping the wrapper off the candy bar as she went. “I’ve got a business to run. I have clients. I can’t be running around half the night with you chasing wild geese.”
“You ever done any camping?”
“What? No.”
“I’ve done some up in the Sierra Nevadas. Not far from here. Very peaceful.”
“If you don’t turn this bike around and take me back, you’re going to have an eternity of peace. Starting now.”
When he looked at her, really looked, she saw that he didn’t appear tired at all. Oh, no. Rather than suffering from four hours of traveling, he looked as if he’d just spent a week at some exclusive spa.
Under the relaxation, the calm, was a drumming excitement that took hold of her pulse and set it hopping. Resenting every minute of it, Mel took a healthy bite of chocolate.
“You’re crazy. Certifiable. We can’t go to Utah. Do you know how far it is to Utah?”
He realized the temperature had dropped considerably. Sebastian peeled off his jacket and handed it to her. “To the place we want, from Monterey? About five hundred miles.” He clicked off the pump, replaced the nozzle. “Cheer up, Sutherland, we’re more than halfway there.”
She gave up. “There must be a bus depot around here,” she muttered, tugging on his jacket as she headed toward the harshly lit store.
“This is where he stopped off with David.” Sebastian spoke quietly, and she stopped in her tracks. “Where they made the first switch. He didn’t make the kind of time we did, what with traffic, nerves, and watching the rearview mirror for cops. The meet was set for eight.”
“This is bull,” Mel said, but her throat was tight.
“The night man recognized him from the sketch. He noticed him because Jimmy parked all the way across the lot, even though there were spaces just out front. And he was nervous, so the night man kept an eye on him, thinking he might try to shoplift. But Jimmy paid.”
Mel watched Sebastian carefully as he spoke. When he was finished, she held out a hand. “Give me the sketch.”
With his eyes on hers, Sebastian reached in the top pocket of the jacket. Through the lining, his hand brushed lightly over her breast, lingering for a heartbeat before he lifted the folded sketch out.
She knew she was breathing too fast. She knew she was feeling more than that brief, meaningless contact warranted. To compensate, she snatched the paper out of his hand and strode toward the store.
As she went inside to verify what he had just told her, Sebastian secured his gas cap and rolled the bike away from the pumps.
It took her less than five minutes. She was pale when she returned, her eyes burning dark in her face. But her hand was steady when she tucked the sketch away again. She didn’t want to think, not yet. Sometimes it was better to act.
“All right,” she told him. “Let’s go.”
* * *
She didn’t doze. That could be suicide on a bike. But she did find her mind wandering, with old images passing over new. It was all so familiar, this middle-of-the-night traveling. Never being quite sure where you were going or what you would do when you got there.
Her mother had always been so happy driving down nameless roads with the radio blaring. Mel could remember the comfort of stretching out on the front seat, her head in her mother’s lap, and the simplicity of trusting that somehow they would find a home again.
Heavy with fatigue, her head dropped to Sebastian’s back. She jerked up, forcing her eyes wide.
“Want to stop for a while?” he called to her. “Take a break?”
“No. Keep going.”
Toward dawn he did stop, refueling himself with coffee. Mel opted for a caffeine-laden soft drink and wolfed down a sugar-spiked pastry.
“I feel I owe you a decent meal,” Sebastian commented while they took a five-minute breather somewhere near Devil’s Playground.
“This is my idea of a decent meal.” Content, she licked sugar and frosting off her fingers. “You can keep the pheasant under glass.”
Her eyes were shadowed. He was sorry for that, but he’d acted on instinct—an instinct he’d known was right. When he slipped an arm around her, she stiffened, but only
for a moment. Perhaps she recognized that the gesture was one of friendly support and nothing more.
“We’ll be there soon,” he told her. “Another hour.”
She nodded. She had no choice but to trust him now. To trust him, and the feeling inside her. What Mel would have called a gut hunch. “I just want to know it’s worth it. That it’s going to make a difference.”
“We’ll have that answer, too.”
“I hope so. I hope the answer’s yes.” She turned her face into him, her lips brushing over his throat. There was a flare of warmth, of flavor, before her gritty eyes widened. “I’m sorry. I’m punchy.” She would have moved away, far away, but his arm merely tightened around her.
“Relax, Mel. Look. Sun’s coming up.”
They watched the dawn bloom together, his arm around her and her head resting lightly against his shoulder. Over the desert, the colors rose up from the horizon, bleeding into the sky and tinting the low-hanging clouds. Dull sand blushed pink, then deepened to rose before it slowly became gilded. In another hour, the baking sun would leech the color out of the landscape. But for now, for just this single hushed moment, it was as lovely as any painting.
She felt something here, watching this ageless transition with his arm around her. A communion. The first gentle fingers of a bond that needed no words for understanding.
This time, when he kissed her, his mouth soft and seeking, she didn’t resist and she didn’t question. The moment itself justified it. She was too tired to fight whatever was growing inside her. She was too dazed by the magic of dawn over the desert to refuse what he asked of her.
He wanted to ask for more—knew that at this moment, in this place, he could ask. But he could sense her fatigue, her confusion, and her nagging fears for a friend’s child. So he kept the kiss easy, a comfort to both of them. When he released her, he understood that what they had begun would not be broken.
Without a word, they mounted the bike again and headed east, toward the sun.
* * *
In southern Utah, not far from the Arizona border—and near enough to Vegas for an easy trip to lose a paycheck—was a hot little huddle of storefronts. The town, such as it was, had a gas station, a tiny café that offered corn tortillas, and a twenty-five-unit motel with a plaster brontosaurus in the center of the gravel lot.
“Oh,” Mel whispered as she stared at the sadly chipped dinosaur. “Oh, sweet Lord.” As she eased off the bike, her legs were trembling from more than travel fatigue.
“Let’s go see if anyone’s awake.” Sebastian took her arm to pull her toward the check-in desk.
“You did see it, didn’t you?”
“It seems that way, doesn’t it?” When she swayed, he wrapped a supporting arm around her waist. Odd that she would suddenly seem so fragile. “We’ll get you a bed while we’re at it.”
“I’m all right.” She’d go into shock later, Mel promised herself. Right now she needed to keep moving. Together they walked through the door and into the fan-cooled lobby.
Sebastian rang the bell on the desk. Moments later, they heard the shuffle of slippered feet behind a faded flowered curtain.
A man in a white athletic shirt and baggy jeans wandered out, his eyes puffy with sleep, his face unshaven.
“Help you?”
“Yes.” Sebastian reached for his wallet. “We need a room. Unit 15.” He laid down crisp green cash.
“Happens it’s empty.” The clerk reached for a key from the pegboard behind him. “Twenty-eight a night. Café down the road there serves breakfast twenty-four hours. You want to sign here?”
After he had, Sebastian laid another twenty on the counter, with David’s picture on top of it. “Have you seen this boy? It would have been three months ago.”
The clerk looked longingly at the twenty. David’s picture might have been a sheet of glass. “Can’t remember everybody who comes through.”
“He was with a woman. Attractive, early thirties. A redhead, driving a midsize Chevy.”
“Maybe they was through. I mind my business and nobody else’s.”
Mel nudged Sebastian aside. “You look like a pretty sharp guy to me. I’d think if a good-looking lady like that came through here, with a cute little baby, you’d notice. Maybe you’d tell her where she could buy spare diapers, or get fresh milk.”
He shrugged his shoulders and scratched. “I don’t look into anybody else’s trouble.”
“You’ll look to your own, though.” Mel’s voice had toughened, enough for the clerk to look up warily. “Now, when Agent Donovan—I mean Mr. Donovan.” The clerk’s eyes widened. “When he asked you if you’d seen that little boy, I think you were going to think it over. Weren’t you?”
The clerk licked his lips. “You cops? FBI or something?”
Mel only smiled. “We’ll say ‘or something’ and keep everything mellow.”
“I run a quiet place here.”
“I can see that. That’s why I know if that woman stopped off here with the kid, you’d remember. I don’t guess you get all that much traffic.”
“Look, she only spent one night. She paid cash in advance, kept the kid pretty quiet through the night, and went on her way first thing in the morning.”
Mel fought back the ragged edge of hope and kept her voice cool. “Give me a name, pal.”
“Hell’s bells, how’m I supposed to remember names?”
“You keep records.” Mel put a fingertip on the twenty and inched it across the counter. “Records of registered guests, and any phone calls they might make from their rooms. Why don’t you dig it up for us? My partner might even give you a bonus.”
Muttering oaths, the clerk pulled a cardboard box from behind the desk. “Got phone records here. You can look through the register yourself.”
Mel reached for the registration book, then put her hands behind her back and let Sebastian do it. She was ready to admit he’d find what they were looking for quicker than she would.
Sebastian homed in on the name. “Susan White? I don’t suppose she showed you any ID?”
“Paid cash,” the clerk mumbled. “Jeezie peezie, you expect me to frisk her or something? One long-distance call,” he announced. “Went through the operator.”
Mel dug in her purse for her notepad. “Date and time.” She scribbled them down. “Now listen, friend, and this is the bonus question—no jive. Would you state under oath that this child … and look carefully”—she held up David’s picture—“this child was brought into this motel last May?”
The clerk shifted uncomfortably. “If I had to, I would. I don’t want to go to court or nothing, but she brought him. I remember he had that dimple there and that funny reddish hair.”
“Good job.” She wasn’t going to cry—oh, no, she wasn’t. But she walked outside while Sebastian replaced the photo and passed the clerk another twenty.
“Okay?” he asked when he joined her.
“Sure. Fine.”
“I need to see the room, Mel.”
“Right.”
“You can wait out here if you want.”
“No. Let’s go.”
She didn’t speak again, not when they walked down the broken sidewalk, not when he unlocked the door and stepped inside its stuffy walls. She sat on the bed, clearing her mind while Sebastian used his for what he did best.
He could see the baby, sleeping on a pallet on the floor, whimpering a bit in his confusing dreams.
She’d left the light on in the bathroom so that she could see easily if the child woke and began to cry. She’d watched a little television, made her call.
But her name wasn’t Susan White. She’d used so many over the years that it was difficult for Sebastian to pick up on the true one. He thought it was Linda, but it wasn’t Linda now, and it wasn’t Susan, either.
And it hadn’t been more than a few weeks before that when she had transported still another baby.
He would have to tell Mel about that once she’d rested.
“I don’t want to know right now how you did it. I might sometime, but not now. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“She had him here in this room.”
“Yes.”
“And he isn’t hurt?”
“No.”
Mel wet her lips. “Where did she take him?”
“Texas, but she doesn’t know where he was taken from there. She’s only one leg of the trip.”
Mel took two deep, careful breaths. “Georgia. Are you sure it’s Georgia?”
“Yes.”
Her hands fisted on her lap. “Where? Do you know where?”
He was tired, more tired than he wanted to admit. And it would drain him even more to look now. But she needed him to. Not in here, he thought. There was too much interference in here, too many sad stories in this sad little room.
“I have to go outside. Leave me alone for a minute.”
She just nodded, and he left her. Time passed, and she was relieved to find that the need to cry went with it.
Mel didn’t see tears as weak, particularly. She saw them as useless.
So her eyes were dry when Sebastian came back into the room.
She thought he looked pale, and suddenly tired. Odd that she hadn’t noticed the fatigue around his eyes a few moments ago.
Then again, she reminded herself, she hadn’t been looking at him very carefully.
She did so now, and because she did she felt compelled to rise and go to him. Perhaps the lack of roots and family had made her a person wary of outward displays of affection. She’d never been a toucher, but she reached out now, taking both his hands in hers.
“You look like you need the bed more than I do. Why don’t you sack out for an hour? Then we’ll figure out what to do next.”
He didn’t answer, only turned her hands over and stared at her palms. Would she believe how many things he could see there?
“Tough shells aren’t necessarily thick ones,” he said quietly, lifting his gaze to hers. “You’ve got a soft center, Mel. It’s very attractive.”
Then he did something that left her both shaken and speechless. He lifted her hands to his lips. No one had ever done that before, and she discovered that what she’d assumed was a silly affectation was both moving and seductive.
“He’s in a place called Forest Park, a suburb a little south of Atlanta.”
Her fingers tightened on his, then relaxed. If she had never taken anything in her life on faith before, she would take this.
“Stretch out on the bed.” Her voice was brisk, her hands firm, as she nudged him over to it. “I’m going to call the FBI and the nearest airport.”
