If A Man Answers

by Merline Lovelace

  “He could be president,” she murmured.

  “Unless Kaplan comes up with some hard evidence, he will be.”

  The prospect made her feel ill. Rolling the beeper around and around in her palm, she let the past hour play and replay in her mind.

  “He recognized me tonight, Sam. The moment he saw me with you, and you talking to Lieutenant Donovitch, he made the connection.”

  “Which makes your attempt to force his hand even more idiotic and dangerous.”

  Sam’s knuckles whitened. He still hadn’t worked out the tight knot that had formed in his gut when he saw Walters’s glance whip from Pat Donovitch to Molly. Any doubt he might have harbored about the congressman’s guilt vanished in that instant.

  “I’m beginning to agree with you,” Molly replied morosely. “I was tired of sitting back and waiting. I wanted to do something, to end this nerve-wracking, wait-and-see-what-happens game. Instead, I may have dug myself in deeper.”

  She let out a long, frustrated sigh and slumped down in the bucket seat.

  “I pulled you into the hole with me, too, Sam. I’m sorry for that. If Walters gets away with murder, he’s not going to forget that you were there with me tonight, or that you talked to Donovitch.”

  “Do I look worried?”

  “Well...yes.”

  Deliberately, Sam unclenched his fists and forced himself to relax. He wouldn’t help matters with any more reminders that Molly had upped the ante considerably tonight. He’d just make damn sure she didn’t take a step without that beeper. He’d also make sure she didn’t spend an hour alone in the foreseeable future. Davinia could help with that. Antonio, too. They could take the day shift. Sam would handle the nights.

  He was debating how best to break it to Molly that she’d be on a short leash for the next few days when the Mustang’s headlights picked up the sign for their exit. They left the interstate a moment later. Dark, silent houses and dimly lit shopping centers sped by, then the more developed areas fell behind. The road curved at an angle before cutting through an intersection and straightening for a long, deserted stretch.

  It wouldn’t remain deserted for long, Sam knew. Not at the rate civilization was eating up the desert. The huge, round concrete culverts waiting beside the road gave mute testimony to that. Earth movers had already chewed up trenches to swallow them. Then...

  “Sam! Look out!”

  He saw the slash of headlights coming at them from the right at the same instant Molly did. Recklessly, the driver had run the stop sign and now plowed through the intersection.

  “He’s not stopping!” Molly screeched, bracing both hands on the dash.

  Sam wrenched the wheel. Tires screamed in protest. The Mustang skidded sideways. A dark sedan barreled right for them. At that moment, Sam had two alternatives. He could send the Mustang into a full spin and crash it into one of the cement culverts or let the passenger side take the impact of a collision with the oncoming car.

  It wasn’t a choice.

  With the lightning reflexes of a test pilot, he floored the accelerator and spun the wheel full circle.

  They almost made it.

  The sedan shot by in a blaze of light and squealing brakes. The Mustang skidded in a full circle once, twice, with dizzying speed. Sam barely had time to throw himself sideways as far as his seat belt would allow, straining to protect Molly with his body, before metal slammed into concrete. He heard a sickening crunch. Felt his head slam back against the windshield. Saw the world go white, then black.

  After the shattering crash, the sound of silence hit Molly with the force of a blow. She shook her head, dazed, disoriented, barely able to breathe from the weight pinning her to the bucket seat. Her neck ached. Her shoulder screamed where the seat belt had cut into it. When she shifted, slivers of broken glass dropped like confetti from her hair.

  With her first, shuddering breath, the world finally stopped spinning. She pushed upright, grabbing at the body crushing down on hers.

  “Sam! Oh, God, Sam!”

  Sobbing, she scrabbled for a grip. More glass dropped, tinkling when it hit metal.

  “Sam, are you all right? Sam!”

  She levered him up enough to free one arm. Frantic, she flattened her fingers against the side of his neck and felt for a pulse. She wanted to weep with joy when she found it, beating strong and sure.

  With a fervent prayer of thanks, she tried again to shift him. The prayer died on her lips when her hand came away wet with blood.

  Fear shot through her once more, paralyzing her for a second or two. Then she groped for the release on the seat belt. It finally gave under her desperate pushing. As gently as she could, Molly scrambled out from under Sam’s weight.

  “Hang on,” she said fiercely. “I can’t reach your seat belt from here. The side’s all crumpled in and mashed up against the concrete. I’ll get you free, though. I promise. Hold on, okay? Just hold on.”

  Pleading, demanding, cajoling, she scrambled into the back seat and snaked her hand through twisted metal. Sharp edges sliced her skin. A ragged strip stabbed at her palm. It was then that she smelled gasoline. The fumes seeped up through the crumpled floorboards to sear her nostrils. Her heart stopped. All it would take was one spark, one scrape of metal on metal, to incinerate the Mustang and Sam with it. She had to get him out!

  Panic choked her. Heedless of the sharp edges, she shoved her hand deeper. When she finally found the belt release, her fingers were so slick with blood that it took a half dozen tries to work it.

  “Hang on, Sam. Please, please, hang on.”

  She scrambled out of the Mustang on the passenger side on all fours. Broken glass crunched under her. Her knee came down on a hard, square object. The pain didn’t penetrate her mounting terror, but the shape of the object did. Grabbing it up with bloodied, trembling hands, Molly punched the button Kaplan had demonstrated what seemed like an eternity ago.

  Praying that it worked, that Kaplan would send the closest patrol car speeding toward her development, Molly dropped the beeper and wrapped both hands around Sam’s arm. She put everything she had into the pull. Her high-heeled sandals slipped in the slick, spreading gasoline. She landed on one hip. Glass and gas scored her skin. Flammable liquid soaked her dress. Disregarding both, she unbuckled the sandals and kicked them aside.

  She was reaching for Sam’s arm again when light stabbed the darkness. Molly sobbed with relief. The driver of the other car had come back!

  A door thudded. Footsteps crunched on the roadway. Blinded by the bright headlights, Molly saw only a black silhouette.

  “Help me!” she screamed. “He’s too heavy! I can’t move him.”

  She tugged on Sam’s arm, expecting another pair of hands to appear beside hers. When they didn’t, she threw a frantic plea at the still figure.

  “Please! Help me! We’ve got to get him out!”

  Through the frenzy of her panic for Sam, Molly heard the voice she could identify from the grave.

  “On the contrary, Ms. Duncan. I think we’ll leave him right where he is.”

  Chapter 14

  Molly’s nails dug into Sam’s arm. Her throat clogged with horror. Crouching in the light of the other car’s beams, she watched Josh Walters take two deliberate steps forward.

  For a moment, his face formed a blur above the stark white of his shirtfront, pale and indistinct.

  “You surprised me tonight, Ms. Duncan. I thought I was safe.”

  “I...I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she bluffed desperately. “And I don’t care. Just help me get Sam out. Please!”

  In answer, he lifted his hand, and Molly saw the gun for the first time. It glinted evilly in the blinding beams, its barrel made hideously long and fat by the silencer.

  “You can’t shoot us, you bastard!” she cried, abandoning all attempt at pretense. “You can’t get away with murder again!”

  “I don’t have to shoot you,” he ground out, his face flat with a terrible determinat
ion. “All I need to do is strike a spark, and both you and Sam will perish in the inferno caused by this tragic accident.”

  In the midst of her roiling panic, Molly felt Sam stir under her hands. She wanted to sob with relief, and scream with the fear that was spreading like the noxious fuel seeping all around her.

  Then Walters raised the gun, and she knew with blinding certainty that she had only an instant to act. She had to get him away from Sam and the spreading fuel, and she had to do it now!

  Releasing Sam, she surged up and around, twisting away from the beams thrown by the headlights, lunging for the entrance to the giant culvert only a few feet away. She heard Walters swear viciously, then the sound of his footsteps as he pounded after her.

  Like a child in an oversize playground, Molly darted around and through the huge, concrete tubes, one after another, in a dizzying, zigzagging pattern. Her breath tore at her throat. The concrete shredded what was left of her stockings and scraped her elbows.

  She plunged out of one dark tunnel and ran for the next. She heard a grunt behind her, another vicious curse. Suddenly, a flash of fire spit through the darkness. A bullet splatted into the concrete a few inches from her hand. Sharp concrete needles flew in all directions, slicing into her arm, her bare shoulder. With a sob of sheer terror, Molly flung herself out of the culvert and made for the desert beyond.

  It was darker here, away from the tilting headlights. The moon had disappeared behind scudding clouds. Tall saguaros threw black shadows across the rough, uneven terrain. There was an arroyo to the left, she knew, a gash in the earth that snaked its way toward the distant city. If she could find that in the darkness, she’d have the protection of the jutting angles. Walters couldn’t risk letting her get away. He’d have to come after her, take her down, bring her back to incinerate beside Sam.

  She’d lead him through half the desert first, Molly swore savagely, and straight into hell if she could.

  She found the arroyo a second later, or it found her. Her foot came down on thin air. The rest of her followed. With a rattle of loose stones, she tumbled headlong to the rocky bottom. Molly sprawled there, stunned, while the moon slid out from behind the black clouds. She’d rolled to one side and had shoved herself up on one knee when she heard the pound of running feet. Instinctively, she flung herself to one side, hoping, praying the shadows would conceal her.

  They didn’t.

  The footsteps slowed. Walters prowled the rim, silhouetted against the moon, listening, searching. Molly could tell the moment he spotted her. He froze, peered into the shallow depths. The gun leveled on Molly. She cringed back, curling into a small, tight ball.

  “I didn’t want this,” he rasped. “I thought... I was sure...”

  “You were sure you’d get away with murder.”

  “I didn’t know you were a linguist,” he bit out. “I missed that bit of information when I went through your house to find out just who I’d spoken to that night. You’re the only link... The only one...”

  The gun wavered. For a moment, Molly thought she had a hope. She played every card in her hand.

  “If you kill Sam and me, the police will know it was you,” she cried. “They were there tonight, at the club, watching you.”

  “I saw them,” he snarled. “I’ve been keeping tabs on Al Kaplan and his so-called investigation since the night of...the night of the fund-raiser.”

  “You can’t say it, can you? You can do it, but you can’t say it. The night of the murder, Congressman. The night of the murder.”

  Desperately, she tried to buy time for Sam, for herself, for the police, praying for the sound of a siren in the distance, terrified Walters would hear it, too.

  “How did you do it? How did you duck out of the gala and kill Joey Bennett?”

  “I didn’t duck out. My wife, the governor, half of Las Vegas will swear I was there the whole time.”

  “But you weren’t.”

  “I was...except for the few minutes I went to take that phone call from the Speaker of the House.”

  “A phone call that lasted more than a few minutes,” Molly whispered. “It lasted just long enough for you to slip away, kill Joey Bennett, and slip back.”

  “No one in that mass of humanity would ever be able to say for sure.”

  “The police can trace the call!”

  He smiled then, a thin stretch of his lips that made Molly want to scream.

  “It came right on schedule from the Speaker’s office, Ms. Duncan. You don’t think I’d leave something like that to chance, do you?”

  “Why? Why did you kill him?”

  The smile faltered. Something that might have been pain flashed across his face.

  “I had to,” he said with terrifying simplicity. “As I have to kill you and Sam.”

  The gun rose another few centimeters, centering on Molly. She wanted to uncoil, to gather her muscles for a final, desperate flight, but she knew it was hopeless even before Walters cocked the hammer back.

  “I’m sor...”

  A shadow lunged out of the darkness. Collided with Walters. The gun spit a ribbon of fire. Molly flung herself sideways just as dirt spouted from the arroyo wall mere inches from her face.

  By the time she scrabbled out of the arroyo, Sam and Walters were rolling over and over, locked in a death grip. Even in the darkness, she could see the blood staining Sam’s neck and shirtfront.

  The gun spit again, a wild shot fired at the sky as the two men grappled for the weapon. Frantically, Molly searched the rim of the arroyo until she found a heavy, flat rock. Gasping, snarling, feral in her need to help Sam, she brought it smashing down on Congressman Josh Walters’s head.

  “Sam!” She dropped to her knees between the still figures. “Oh, God! Are you all right?”

  With her help, he pushed himself up on one knee, his face a mask of blood and agony.

  “Get his...gun, Molly. I...can’t see...”

  She scrabbled in the dirt, her hands so shaky she almost couldn’t pry the weapon from Walters’s clenched fist.

  “If he...moves, shoot...him.”

  “I will, Sam. I will.”

  “Kaplan... Wait for Kapl...”

  His knee wavered, and Molly scrambled to break his fall as he toppled over. Sobbing, she dragged his head and shoulders into her lap. Holding the gun with one hand, she yanked Sam’s shirttails out of his cummerbund with the other. With the wadded material pressed hard against his head to staunch the bleeding, she waited for Kaplan.

  Molly had almost decided that she couldn’t wait any longer, that she’d have to find something to tie Walters’s hands and feet with and go in search of help, when she heard the cry of distant sirens. Relief speared through her, and she was sure she’d never seen anything or anyone as beautiful as the scowling, heavy-jowled detective who came running out of the night in answer to her cries for help.

  After the eternity of waiting, it seemed like a matter of only a few more moments until an ambulance arrived. Waving off the EMT who tried to treat her bloodied hands and a cut on her face, Molly climbed in beside the still unconscious Sam.

  The ambulance took them to the Nellis hospital, either because of Sam’s uniform or because Kaplan told them to. Molly didn’t know and didn’t care. All that mattered to her was the smooth, practiced professionalism of the Emergency Room personnel when the ambulance pulled into the dock and the way the Air Force gathered to take care of one of its own.

  She was sitting in the ER waiting room, her hands and face bandaged, when Rock and his wife appeared. The tall, lanky major had changed out of his dress uniform into jeans and a navy sweatshirt with the logo that Molly remembered from the yellow T-shirt Sam had loaned her.

  “We just heard about the accident!”

  Gracefully awkward with her pregnancy, Peggy dropped into the chair beside Molly and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

  “Rock said the command post reported that Sam’s Mustang was totaled. Thank God you were able to walk
away.”

  “I didn’t walk,” Molly got out shakily. “I ran.”

  Before the startled couple could follow up on that one, she turned to Rock.

  “The ER physician came out a while ago and told me the preliminary X rays showed Sam fractured his skull, that he might require surgery.”

  He answered her unspoken plea with a tight nod. “I’ll check out his status.”

  When he returned long moments later, his face was grim. “Evidently the back of Sam’s head hit the windshield with enough force to crack both. He’s being prepped now and will go into surgery as soon as the team’s assembled.”

  Molly drew in a sharp, stabbing breath.

  “We’ve got good docs here,” Peg said, squeezing her shoulders. “Some of the best.”

  “This is the same team that treated Sam after he crashed through that malfunctioning canopy,” Rock assured her. “None of us thought he’d pull through that accident, but he did. Drac Man’s got a harder head than anyone I know, Molly. He’ll pull through this one, too.”

  She wanted to believe him. She did believe him. But the thought that Sam might have to live with even worse pain than he’d endured for the past six months made her eyes burn with tears.

  The next hours passed in a blur for Molly. Someone draped a hospital bathrobe over her shoulders, Rock she thought. She gathered it around herself gratefully. She’d washed as much of the blood from her face and arms and legs as possible and discarded her shredded panty hose, but large, rust-colored spots still stained her black dress. The medics had treated the cuts on her feet caused by the broken glass and her desperate flight across the desert. The green hospital slippers they’d given her matched the robe she now wore.

  When Sam went into surgery, Molly, Rock and Peggy moved from the ER to a surgical waiting room done in soft, soothing desert colors. Peggy took advantage of the comfortable chairs to ease the strain on her back, but Rock paced and Molly stood at the windows, her arms wrapped tight around her, and watched as night flowed into dawn.

  Reds, then golds, backlit the mountains to the east.