Christmas Vendetta

by Valerie Hansen

  Her hands were clasped in her lap, her fingers growing icy inside the damp gloves. She was stuck with Clay and he felt stuck with her. Period.

  “So there you have it,” she muttered.

  Clay caught her eye in the rearview mirror. “Have what?”

  “A big honkin’ mess,” Sandy Lynn drawled, letting the sarcasm she felt color her speech.

  “Well put.” She couldn’t believe he was smiling.

  “Yeah, well, I do hang out with kids, so I’m bound to pick up their language usage.”

  “True.”

  She could tell they were nearing the police station. Clay slowed and pulled parallel to the curb before asking Abe if they were close enough to suit him.

  “Works for me, buddy,” the taller man said. Once he was out of the car, he leaned in the open door to offer advice. “Keep your eyes open and remember to duck.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  Sandy Lynn tapped Clay on the shoulder. “Wait a sec while I change seats. I feel like a reenactment of that movie, Driving Miss...”

  “Miss Sandy Lynn.” Clay patted the empty passenger seat. “My pleasure. Come on up.”

  Although she followed through with her request, she was already having second thoughts. Why did it bother her so much to sit next to him? It shouldn’t. He was just the driver and she merely his passenger. There was nothing wrong with that, was there? No. Of course not.

  Nevertheless, she could feel her cheeks warming, so she purposely averted her gaze and stared out the window while she fastened the seat belt. There were plenty of people gathered in small groups on the sidewalk on both sides of the street, and she guessed they were waiting for either court or the release of former prisoners since the jail was located in the same city block, right next door to the police station.

  Her eyes scanned the crowd casually, barely registering anyone special, until they settled on a long-haired man in a short biker jacket. It looked like he was talking to a couple of cops. She gasped. Grabbed the door handle with her right hand and reached out to Clay with her left. “Stop!”

  Thankfully, all he did was slow their merge into passing traffic. “What’s wrong?”

  “I saw a biker back there.”

  “So? They’re not all bad, you know. Some are vets and some ride to raise money for charities. They do a lot of good.”

  “I know, but...that one looked familiar.”

  “He isn’t your ex, is he?”

  “No, but he may be an old friend of his. It’s been a long time. Still, there was something about the man that definitely made me think of Charles.”

  “Okay, we’ll cruise around the block so you can get a better look.”

  “Really? Do you think that’s a good idea?”

  “We’ll be safe enough in this car, but you may be right. If he is connected to Hood and sees you in this car, we’ll lose our advantage.”

  Sandy Lynn wasn’t about to admit that her thought processes hadn’t gotten that far yet. “Let’s just go.”

  “Good plan.” Clay threaded the sedan into the slow-moving traffic while Sandy Lynn swiveled to watch behind them.

  Her breath caught. She couldn’t see the biker anymore, but she did spot a couple of familiar motorcycles parked in tandem at the curb. One was painted exactly the way she remembered Charles’s bike. It even had a slightly skewed taillight.

  “You’re pretty sure, aren’t you?”

  All she could do was nod and keep watching as the scene faded into the distance.

  Clay palmed one of the new cell phones.

  “Who are you calling?”

  “Abe. If that guy is an escaped prisoner, he can have him arrested.”

  Sandy Lynn kept straining to see until she lost the ability to pick out details. Feeling anxious and a bit queasy from riding backward, she settled into the passenger seat to look at Clay and listen to his report.

  “Abe, listen,” he began.

  As she watched, she saw disbelief, followed by anger and a touch of fright. “You can’t be serious... Well, why didn’t you check?”

  Apparently Abe had given an excuse that didn’t suit Clay because he ended the call and handed her the phone.

  “Take the batteries and SIM card out of this one, too. We’re ditching it.”

  “Why? They’re only after me, right?”

  “Wrong.” The muscles in his jaw were knotting, his forehead furrowed and his hands fisted on the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles whitened. “My enemies fixed it so that I’m a wanted man.”

  “How?”

  “Somebody falsified the release papers for this car and Abe fell for it. He walked right into their trap when he brought it to me.”

  “So, take it back and explain.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Of course you can. Just turn around and do it.”

  “With your enemies standing right across the street? No way.” Turning a corner so fast she was thrown against her seat belt, Clay floored the gas.

  “Maybe it’s not them. Maybe I was imagining things. You can’t let anybody think you were behind stealing back this car, even if it is your own.”

  “Don’t argue.”

  “Me? You’re the one being irrational. They can’t charge you with a crime if you make it right.”

  “Who says?” Clay kept shaking his head as if he was trying to see a way out. For both of them. Finally he added, “Think. What will happen to you if I get arrested and I’m not here to protect you?”

  Although she desperately wanted to deny needing him, needing anyone, the words stuck in her throat. She did need help. His help. Because, like it or not, there was nobody else she trusted as much as she did Clay Danforth. And that included her coworkers and every single other friend she had with the exception of Enid Bloom. Poor Enid. It was Sandy Lynn’s fault she had been hurt. That wasn’t going to happen again if she could help it, so it stood to reason that she needed to stick close to Clay and ride this one out to the end.

  She just hoped the end was going to be a temporary condition and not anyone’s final breath.

  FOURTEEN

  Clay entered the Kansas Expressway with his speedometer hovering just over the speed limit, enough to keep them moving fast yet not enough to attract the attention of a zealous trooper. “Did you get the phone apart?”

  “Yes.” She displayed the interior pieces. “What do you want me to do with these?”

  “Toss them. No. Wait. Give them to me.”

  It wasn’t his plan to involve an innocent party, but he saw no harm in dropping the parts of the dismantled cell phone into the back seat of a patrol car if they saw one. Chances of that were slim; however, the idea stuck with him long enough to make him smile.

  “What’s so funny? I have an odd sense of humor and I don’t see any joke.”

  “I was just thinking about putting those pieces into a police car. Not that we want to get that close, of course.”

  “Too risky,” Sandy shot back.

  He sobered. “Yeah, you’re right. I’ll settle for a dumpster. Keep an eye out for one.”

  “You’ll do better looking in the service area behind some strip mall,” Sandy Lynn said.

  “In a few more miles. I want plenty of distance between us and the station. Once they issue the order to be on the lookout for us, we’ll have to switch to back streets. I want to make the most of this faster route.”

  “Sensible. So, what are we going to do for communications? My phone is long gone and yours is now toast.”

  “We’ll keep using the burners Abe gave me. And pick up a few more, plus warm clothes, just in case.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of bills. “Count this so we know our limits. We can’t stop at ATMs or we’ll tip off our position.”

  “This whole operation is impossible. You r
ealize that, don’t you? We can’t run forever. And once they catch you, you’ll be in much worse trouble than if you’d stopped when I told you to.”

  “I won’t take a chance on losing you.” It would not have surprised him to have her snap back at him about leaving her when she was in foster care. Thankfully, she didn’t. At least not out loud.

  “I wish we could stop and pick up Enid,” Sandy Lynn said.

  “That would complicate matters even more. We’d have to look after her when we already have our hands full taking care of ourselves.”

  “Speak for yourself, mister. I’m doing fine.”

  “Sure, except for the knife-wielding thugs who put your bestie in the hospital and keep chasing you down.” Watching out of the corner of his eye, he noticed her smile fade and saw her start to slump against the seat.

  “Yeah, there is that. What I don’t get is how they know where I am. I mean, once we’d disabled my phone they should have been clueless, yet they kept turning up.”

  “Or somebody did. Just because a guy rides a heavy bike, that doesn’t mean he’s on the wrong side of the law. Some of my friends up in KC ride all the time.”

  “Can you call on some of them for help?”

  “They’re cops, Sandy, so, no. Now that the locals are looking for me I don’t dare involve old friends. They’d have to choose between helping me and doing their job. They took an oath.”

  “So did you, right?”

  “Yes. And I haven’t broken any laws. It may look bad for me, but I promise I’m not guilty of anything except being naive. When I first suspected there was theft going on in the station I confided in the wrong people—or Abe did. Or both.”

  “You trust him?”

  “With my life,” Clay said firmly.

  “What about with my life?” she asked.

  A quick glance told him she was not joking. “I don’t trust anybody other than myself to protect you. I’d have thought that would be clear to everybody by now.”

  “Maybe it is. Maybe that’s what’s really going on.”

  He understood what she was trying to say, and part of his mind agreed with her. The best way to undermine anybody was to attack someone dear to them and divert their attention. In his mind he knew that as well as he knew his own name. His heart, however, was far from ready to accept the premise. Backing off from Sandy Lynn at this juncture was too risky. Too foolish.

  Though she didn’t elaborate, he had to admit she could be right. They had a lot of details to sort out before he turned himself in, including whether or not those bikers were actually working with Charles Hood. Once the escaped criminal was recaptured and interrogated, Clay could make plans to surrender—as long as Sandy Lynn was truly out of danger.

  Swinging onto the interstate, Clay merged with the flow of traffic and felt his nerves begin to settle. They’d be much harder to spot amid the evening rush out of town, and now that the sun had set they’d have all night relatively free of worry.

  One thing he did think would help was a broader knowledge of his enemy, so he asked, “Why don’t you tell me more about your ex? His habits? His quirks? Anything that pops into your mind.”

  An expression of anguish flashed across her face and was gone so rapidly Clay wondered if he’d imagined it. Then she began to speak, and he knew his eyes hadn’t deceived him.

  “I hate him.”

  “And?”

  “That’s all there is to say. I thought my life before I met Charles was full of problems and disappointments, but I hadn’t seen anything until I married him. It was the biggest mistake I ever made or ever hope to make.”

  Sighing, Clay nodded at her. “I get that. It’s not what I’m asking. Tell me about his hobbies, favorite foods, sports teams he followed, that kind of thing. The more I know about him, the better our chances of winning this war.”

  “That’s what it is, isn’t it? A war. And poor Enid is a casualty in somebody else’s fight.”

  “If he truly is the one who hurt her, yes. I’m hoping Abe gets the lab results on that spot of blood I found in the closet soon. If it can’t be matched to Hood’s DNA profile, we’ll know you imagined him.”

  “I didn’t imagine anything. It was Charles. I’d know that voice anywhere. I heard it often enough.”

  “Memories can sometimes fool us. It has been years.”

  “No. I’m positive it was him at the apartment. I can’t be sure about the bikers because I didn’t hear them speak.”

  “His voice is that distinctive?”

  “It is when he’s lost his temper and is raging because he didn’t get his way. He likes to inflict pain. You can tell it by looking into his eyes when he’s got you cornered.” She shivered.

  “I’m so sorry he hurt you.”

  When Sandy Lynn looked over at him, there were unshed tears in her eyes and her lips trembled. “You have no idea.”

  * * *

  I will not cry. I will not cry, she kept telling herself as the agony of her failed marriage bubbled up in her memory. She had thought, at the time, that she’d loved Charles, perhaps not as much as she’d loved Clay but enough.

  “I shouldn’t have mentioned him. I am sorry,” Clay said.

  “Um, no. No. It’s all right. I—I just realized how badly I behaved toward him.”

  “No woman forces a man to hit her. That is what he did, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but...”

  “No buts. Beating up on a woman is unforgivable. He made that choice alone, not because of anything you did.”

  But... She knew in her head what he’d done to her was wrong. Physical violence against anyone, other than in self-defense, was inexcusable. Her heart wouldn’t let go, though, of how she’d wronged her husband by marrying while she was still in love with someone else. Someone sitting beside her at this very moment. She struggled with this mightily and had to constantly remind herself she’d done nothing to provoke Charles. Nothing. She was the victim. Charles was the perpetrator. Maybe if she thought it enough, she’d accept it. She knew other abuse victims who were facing similar struggles and accepting that they were not responsible for their abuse.

  Taking a deep, settling breath, she tried to explain without revealing anything too personal. “I know it wasn’t fair to marry anybody, especially not as a means to leave foster care. My foster parents were good people. They did their best. But at that time I couldn’t see anything except that I was desperately lonely. Running off with Charles was my way of coping. He obviously came to the conclusion that I’d used him. He lashed out. I may never forgive him for the pain he caused me.” She stopped before revealing the termination of her brief pregnancy and the loss of the ability to bear more children. Tears misted her vision.

  “I had no idea you were so miserable there,” Clay said. “Do you know why I felt I had to leave?”

  “No.” Shaking her head, she dashed away sparse tears.

  “My father was insisting I go to the college he’d chosen and major in business management. I couldn’t think of anything more boring. After all, I was just eighteen. The picture of myself, dressed in a three-piece suit and stuck behind a desk all day made me panic. By joining the air force, I was able to break away and take the time to decide what I wanted to do with my life.”

  “You should have told me.”

  Looking rueful, Clay nodded. “Yeah. There are a lot of things I should and shouldn’t have done.”

  “It’s okay.” Sandy Lynn sighed noisily. “We both made enough mistakes for a lifetime.”

  “You turned out okay,” Clay told her tenderly. “Being a teacher is a great profession. Judging by the way you talk about your students, you love them all.”

  “Almost all,” she said, smiling a little. “There are a few who seem unreachable in spite of all my efforts. I can only hope my influence carries through as they mature. Some case
s are very sad.”

  “Like your own, you mean?”

  “Yes. Not all come from broken homes, though. Take Charles, for instance. He grew up with both parents always fighting, and in his case that led to his later inability to return love. I can see that, now. A lot depends upon the child as well as their circumstances.”

  “Are you getting soft on him?”

  Sandy Lynn’s head snapped around and she swiveled her upper torso to follow. “Of course not. He did terrible things. He—”

  “Easy, honey,” Clay said. “You don’t have to tell me. I can have Abe look up Hood’s record and the transcripts of his trial if I need to know more.”

  With a lump in her throat and her pulse pounding in her temples, Sandy Lynn reached out, clasping his arm. “No. Please. Don’t do that. Promise me you won’t.”

  “Why not? Nothing will ever make me think badly of you.”

  It was so much more than that, and she could barely breathe. If he checked her testimony in Charles’s trial he’d know about losing the baby, about the prognosis she’d never be able to bear more children.

  A strange calm settled over her. Maybe that was for the best. Perhaps the Lord was answering her prayers for the strength to avoid romance by seeing to it that Clay knew how unsuitable she was for him. Not that God was limited to only one approach, of course. If He wanted to keep her away from Clay there were plenty of other ways to do it.

  Finally regaining control of her emotions, she said, “Whatever. It doesn’t matter.” That was almost true. If she once came to the place where she was able to stop loving Clay Danforth her declaration would become fully factual. Until that time, however, she knew it was vital to keep her innermost feelings to herself.

  She’d blurted out words of love long ago and been rebuffed. She was not going to make that mistake again.

  * * *

  Their route led to Route 65. Clay took it, heading south, then east. It mattered less where he took Sandy Lynn than it did to simply keep going. The farther away from Springfield, the better, up to a point.

  Traveling at night was the most sensible choice, he reasoned. A description of his car must already be out to local and state law enforcement, and they’d have his license plate number, too. Everything was harder to see after dark, giving Clay and Sandy Lynn a temporary advantage.