Beholden

by Pat Warren

  “I understand. I’ll check with men in the area to see if anyone’s spotted Nick or Ozzie. Of course, they may not be together.” Bob paused, thinking. “Is there a private airfield there where she could have chartered a plane?”

  He’d asked that same question of the desk clerk on one of his several sessions with the taciturn man. “Nothing until San Jose. She doesn’t have enough money to charter a plane.”

  “An attractive woman can sometimes talk her way into free passage.”

  “That’s true, but I think Terry’s too frightened to speak to very many people.”

  “She wasn’t too frightened to set out with only sixty dollars. She’s feeling desperate, apparently. She won’t be acting in character.” Jones wondered if he should bring up a possibility he’d been toying with, then decided to plunge in. “Did the two of you quarrel? Is there something more to your relationship than you’ve told me?”

  Luke swore under his breath. “Damn it, Bob, I’ve kept this strictly business.” Except for that one mind-blowing kissing session, but he’d had the good sense to back off. “I tell you she took off because she can’t face another operation right now. I sensed that and I didn’t think I should bring it up to her. But I did. It was a mistake.”

  Jones could sense Luke’s temper about to boil over. He was blaming himself, which Bob would have done, too. Bob was also remembering the time another woman Luke had been protecting had run away. Altogether different circumstances, but Bob knew that the memory stung. “All right.”

  “I’m going to check some bed-and-breakfasts around here. Maybe she just holed up, needing some time to think. And the bus station, the car rentals.”

  “She has no credit card so she couldn’t rent a vehicle,” Bob reminded him.

  “Unless she told a good enough story. Like she lost her wallet, remembered her VISA number, had them check out her driver’s license with DMV in Arizona. Could be done, and she’s clever.”

  “You have a point. Think she might hitch a ride?”

  “Possibly, though that can be dangerous and she’s skittish. I checked an all-night truck stop outside of town, thinking big rig drivers might appear safer to her, but no luck.” Luke stared out the hotel window at the dark main drag down below. Not a soul out, the streetlights still on. He could see a faint light inside the diner not yet open and the marquee of the darkened movie theater. He thought of something else. “Can you get a police artist to alter Terry’s file picture? You know, remove the blond hair and replace it with a short, curly auburn wig, change the color of her eyes from blue to green and thin her face down a bit? If you could fax a copy to me here at the hotel, I could show it around and maybe someone would remember seeing her.”

  “You’d have to be really selective. If Nick Russo or one of his men saw one…”

  “I’m aware of that. Oh, and Bob, don’t go through the Phoenix police. Let one of our guys do the sketch work. I don’t trust anyone in that Central Division until we get this cleared up.”

  “Nor do I. All right, you get going and keep me informed. Let me know if you change your base.”

  “Right.” Luke hung up. He hadn’t quite apologized to the chief for screwing up. He couldn’t come up with the words.

  Her legs slipped off the arm of the theater chair, causing Terry to be startled awake. It took a moment for her to orient herself. Heart pounding, she rubbed circulation back into her knees as she listened intently. No other sounds. Gingerly, she stood, moving carefully until feeling came back to her numb limbs.

  Peeking around the front doors of the theater, she saw that the gray light of dawn was lightening the sky. After freshening up in the bathroom, groping around in the dark, she went back to the refreshment counter. Her stomach growled, reminding her she hadn’t eaten in a long while, but there was nothing but stale popcorn and candy bars. Unfortunately, this theater didn’t sell coffee. Maybe a little sugar would jump-start her.

  She selected two candy bars, then thoughtfully stuffed two dollars into the drawer in payment. She’d already stolen from Luke and didn’t want more thievery on her conscience. She shoved one bar into her jacket pocket and unwrapped the other, taking a bite as she wandered the lobby, mindful of the glass doors.

  On a chair off to the side, she discovered a knit cap in pale blue with a white tassel, either lost or discarded. Moving to the mirrored side wall, she tried it on over her wig. Not bad. It would make her even more anonymous, she hoped. Yes, it would do, although her scalp was screaming for air. Plenty of time for that when she got to a safe place.

  Luke. Her mind kept returning to Luke. Where was he? Was he still in town or had he left, possibly searching for her elsewhere? Had he called in the cavalry and were reinforcements from the marshals office already preparing to flood the area with agents, all carrying her picture? There was a pay phone at the far end of the lobby. Maybe she should phone the inn and see if he was still in town. No, if he hadn’t checked out, the desk clerk would likely catch him going in or out and tell him there’d been a call from an unknown woman asking about him. People tended to cooperate with the law. That would surely raise Luke’s suspicions, for what other woman would be inquiring about him? It wasn’t worth the risk of having him learn she was still nearby.

  Chewing her unconventional candy breakfast, she studied the posters on the wall, one advertising a new Kevin Costner film. Terry cocked her head, gazing up at the nearly lifesize photo. With his hair cropped close, a stern, unyielding expression, and a combative stance, Kevin resembled Luke more than a little. Before he’d grown the beard. She could just imagine what Luke would say if she pointed that out to him.

  If he would ever talk to her again after all this, that is. Somehow, during the restive night, she’d come to a rather unsatisfactory but necessary conclusion. She’d have to go into hiding, go underground, change her identity. Go to another city, do different work than she usually did, live among strangers. All the things she’d been resisting in the marshals’ program. But, just until she could think things through, she could do it. Her first priority had to be to feel safe.

  She couldn’t risk calling her family, though she longed to with a pain that was almost her undoing. Perhaps the marshals office could find another way to nail the men responsible. If not, they’d just have to let them go. If no one found her, they’d all assume she’d died somehow. Then the Russos would call off the search for her and the authorities would have to give up, too. Later, when she got her head straightened out and she was stronger mentally and physically, she’d go back and testify. If she was lucky, they’d all forget about her.

  Except maybe Luke. Or would he give up, too? It didn’t seem his nature. But then, did she really know him? She knew he didn’t care about her nearly as much as she’d come to care for him. She hadn’t let him know, of course. She wasn’t even certain if her feelings were that of a woman for a particular man, or merely for the secure way he’d made her feel when they were together. She guessed that he’d probably be angry with her by now for tricking him. And frustrated when he couldn’t locate her and had to admit it to his superiors.

  Then again, he may have simply flown back to Phoenix, let others take over while he’d gone home to his ranch in Sedona. No one would bug him there, or thwart his plans or confront him about his feelings. He was perfectly suited to the solitary life. And he was well rid of her.

  Only she’d thought he was getting better lately. The last two weeks, he’d chosen to spend more time with her rather than being outside with the dog or chopping wood. He’d opened up a bit more, too, not turning away from conversations, even starting a few. A temporary respite, most likely. Luke Tanner seemed to pride himself on needing no one.

  Too bad because she really needed him right now. Finishing her candy, Terry blinked back a rush of self-pitying tears. She couldn’t afford to think along those lines. Yet if only he’d indicated that he’d stand up with her against Jones and the marshals office about refusing the surgery, she never would have
left him. But he hadn’t. And there was no use crying over it.

  Another wall poster caught Terry’s eye and she stepped back for a better look. A serene drawing pictured Safe Harbor, a shelter for women and children in San Jose. The location and phone number were printed below, along with a list of organizations that helped sponsor the shelter and the fact that they were always looking for donations of food, clothing, small appliances, used furniture.

  Why hadn’t she thought of that before? But how would she get to San Jose before Luke or someone else found her? Was this small town on the Greyhound bus line? She didn’t know, but she knew how to find out.

  Excited now, Terry went to the wall phone and picked up the telephone book dangling on a chain. She found the number and checked her watch. Seven in the morning. She hoped someone was in the Greyhound offices as she used one of her quarters to call.

  Moments later, she hung up with her first smile in a while. The Greyhound bus stopped alongside the corner drugstore which, the phone agent had told her, was just two blocks up from the Seafarer Inn. The bus to San Jose left at eight-ten and the fare was twenty-eight dollars. Now all she’d have to do was to make sure no one looking for her would spot her before she got on that bus.

  Don Simon had done a series of articles on shelters for battered women in the Phoenix area last spring. Terry had read them and remembered that they refused no one in need and asked few questions. They even helped women find jobs. Exactly what she needed.

  It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was the best she could come up with under the circumstances.

  Luke bolted down the rest of his milk shake, the burger he’d hurriedly eaten lying like an undigested lump in his stomach. Couldn’t be helped since he couldn’t spare more time for lunch. But he’d had to stop at the inn’s coffee shop for something since it was two in the afternoon and his breakfast had consisted of a large takeout coffee.

  He’d spent hours walking the streets, checking in stores and restaurants and questioning people at the carnival being set up in the town square. He’d talked to truckers and taxi drivers and waitresses. He’d spent way too much time at a small family-owned bed-and-breakfast run by a loquacious little woman named Sadie who’d told him a young woman resembling Terry’s description had rented a room from her last night, then gone for a walk. When he’d finally tracked her down, the woman had turned out to be a good head taller than Terry, thirty pounds heavier and years older.

  His head hurt, his eyes stung, and his stomach churned. All that and he was no closer to finding Terry than last night. Luke paid his check and stepped outside into bright afternoon sunshine. He glanced up and down the street, wondering where else to check. Someone had to know something.

  As he stood considering, a Greyhound bus lumbered around the corner and stopped alongside the drugstore. Luke walked over.

  The bus discharged a thin older man and no one else. Through lightly tinted windows, he could see half a dozen passengers waiting patiently to get back on the road. The driver went inside to check with the druggist, who was the only one working the counter. Luke followed along.

  “No passengers for me this afternoon, Curt?” the bearded driver asked.

  “Sorry, Bud.” The short, overweight druggist straightened his rimless glasses on his broad nose. “Slow day, I guess.”

  Bud placed some loose change on the counter and picked a bottle of fruit punch from the cooler. “Okay, see you later.”

  Luke approached. “Have you been on duty all day?” he asked.

  Curt frowned, his breathing somewhat wheezy. “Yes, why?”

  “Have any other Greyhounds left from here today?”

  “There’s an eight-ten morning run stops here.”

  Luke flipped out his ID. “Did you happen to notice if a young woman with reddish brown hair wearing a navy jacket and jeans got on this morning?”

  Curt puckered his thick lips as he studied Luke’s ID, then looked up. “What’s she done?”

  Funny how that was always the first question. “Nothing. I need to talk with her. Did you see her?”

  “Might have been her. Young woman was sitting out on the bench waiting for me when I opened this morning. Little thing wearing a knit cap and looking kind of nervous.”

  Luke tried not to let his excitement over this possible new lead show. “She got on the eight-ten?”

  “Guess so. She bought a ticket to San Jose.”

  From his pocket, he removed a copy of the fax that Jones had sent to the hotel and held out the artist’s picture of Terry for Curt to see. “Did she look like this?”

  The druggist peered through his bifocals. “Sure looks like her. Seemed nice. I thought she was a runaway. I offered her a donut, but she wouldn’t take it. Finally took a Styrofoam cup of black coffee, but she insisted on paying me. Hope she’s not in any trouble.”

  Luke hoped she wasn’t, too. “Thanks for your help.”

  San Jose. About twenty-five miles north on Highway 101. What was Terry planning to do in San Jose? Luke wondered as he rushed to the inn to check out.

  ***

  Risa was a large woman with warm brown eyes and an overbite that should have been corrected years ago. She had a face that inspired trust, Terry thought as she approached her desk in the reception room of Safe Harbor Shelter for Women & Children on a side street near downtown San Jose.

  “What can I do for you?” Risa asked, pinning her name badge on the lapel of her gold blouse. Darn thing kept falling off.

  “I need a place to stay,” Terry said. The room smelled heavily of lilacs, as if a deodorizer had been sprayed to mask the smell of disinfectant and fried onions. She felt a queasiness in her stomach, already jumpy with nerves.

  The older woman’s smile was warm and welcoming. “How long will you be staying with us?”

  “I’m not sure. I just need to get on my feet.” Through the arch, the sound of a baby crying could be heard. What if they were full up? Where could she go from here?

  Risa’s shrewd eyes appraised the young woman. She was obviously wearing a wig in what she probably thought was a good disguise. Her features were fine, almost patrician, but there were dark smudges beneath her green eyes and two scars on her cheeks. Probably a battery case runaway. No matter. There was always room for one more in need. “We have a bed available.”

  Terry relaxed fractionally. “Just until I get a job.”

  “Maybe we can help you find work. What kind of experience do you have?”

  Terry thought quickly. She could hardly go to work for the local paper. “Waitressing.” She’d worked summers at Garcia’s Mexican Restaurant in Phoenix while in college. It hadn’t been all that long ago.

  “Plenty of those available this time of year. What’s your name? We use only first names here.”

  “Emily.” Her mother’s name was the first that had popped into her mind.

  Risa rose to her full five-eight and came around the desk. “All right, Emily, let me show you to your cubicle. You got any more things?”

  “No… no, I don’t have a bag.”

  Poor kid, probably had to leave in a hurry. Running from some damn man, no doubt. Bastards, all of them. “We have some donated items in the back if you want to look through to see if anything fits.” She moved through the archway, limping heavily, a permanent souvenir from her second husband.

  The large room was partitioned off with curtains hung between the beds to afford the occupants a small measure of privacy. Terry saw that there were six cubicles on each side and a larger arch led into another room where more beds could be seen. As she followed Risa, she saw a painfully thin woman curled up on a cot asleep, another younger woman changing a wiggling baby, and a third one with scraggly hair and a black eye sitting in a rocker reading the newspaper and marking ads.

  Risa stopped at the last partition. “This be all right?”

  It was a single cot with a pillow, pink sheets, and a blue blanket, plus a hardback chair. It was a far cry from home, but it was
clean and safe. “Yes, just fine. I don’t have much money, but once I get a job…”

  “You don’t have to worry about that for now. Margaret Mary’s in the kitchen fixing lunch. Should be ready soon. You get some rest. You look all in.”

  Tears sprang to Terry’s eyes at the woman’s kindness. “Thank you.”

  “One thing more I need to know,” Risa said, pausing. “Is there a man after you?”

  She wouldn’t mention Luke, for if he found her, he’d never harm her. But the other two posed a very real threat. “Yes,” she admitted, her voice low and suddenly wary. “Two men.”

  “I thought so. Don’t worry. They won’t get past the front door, honey.” With that, Risa limped on toward the kitchen.

  How ironic that she should wind up in a shelter for battered women, Terry thought. She’d almost been one once, but she’d had the good sense to walk away from Chuck at the very first hint of violence. The women she’d passed on the way in looked as if they hadn’t been that fortunate.

  It was not yet noon, but she lay down gratefully and closed her eyes. She couldn’t remember ever being so tired.

  It was four by the time Luke checked in at a Best Western Motel on the outskirts of San Jose, then set out to find the Greyhound bus station. Most weren’t in the best sections of town, he knew. Of course, it would have been broad daylight when Terry arrived. But still, she was so small and defenseless, and she looked about seventeen in jeans and sneakers. She’d be easy prey for the type of men who often lurked around bus stations.

  His mouth a hard line, he parked in the lot alongside the station and hurried inside.

  Ten minutes later and no wiser for information gathered, he set out on foot. No one had seen any young girl arrive today from any location. Right. No one had paid attention was the problem. He supposed he couldn’t blame the ticket agents and washroom attendants. It wasn’t their job to monitor arrivals.

  Terry undoubtedly would have been walking, scared and tired, he decided. Where would she have gone from the bus station? Did she have a destination in mind, or was she just hoping to find something? It was sunny and cool with the sun lowering in a pale blue sky. Not much to recommend this area of town, Luke thought. A seedy-looking hotel, an Indian restaurant, a boarded-up building. Across the street, a burger joint, a check-cashing establishment, a sleazy bookstore. Good God, he hoped she hadn’t lingered long around here.