"Fate. I believe in fate, Jane. I always have and always will. If Slade had been able to take us to the bus station that morning I wouldn't have been driving. If I hadn't been driving I wouldn't have been so shook up that I had to sit awhile after I put Ellen on the bus back to Amarillo. That's the reason I was sitting there to begin with and you got off that bus and sat down beside me. At first I thought I was seeing a damn ghost," Nellie said.
"Then she called me when she talked you into going home with her," Ellen said, "and I came back as soon as I could. Myra and Jeannie had been out of pocket so we couldn't play poker like we usually do on Friday nights, so we didn't tell them, but they figured it out on their own last Friday night."
"Poker?" Slade looked stunned.
"Keep your eye on the big picture, son," Nellie said.
Jane still didn't understand.
"Here," Nellie pulled a photograph from a drawer and handed it to Jane.
"Who are these people and what has it got to do with… oh, my, that's my grandmother isn't it? And there is Ellen and Nellie and… she's number five. You are JoNell. Grandmother talked about her friend, JoNell. And Ellie and Jean and Myra. But I always thought she was saying Mara."
"We just want to know, what you are running from?" Jeannie said.
Jane nodded. It was time to 'fess up, so she began, "There's two of them posing as FBI. John was my fiancé. He pretended Ramona was his sister, but she's not. My stepfather put out a contract on me. If I'm dead before I'm twenty-five, Ranger Oil goes to him. When the assassin saw me, he decided to put a play of his own into effect. He insured me for a million dollars. After we were married he'd kill me, collect the insurance and the contract fee. My stepdad would be the grief-stricken father who'd lost his last link with his dead wife; I'm not so sure he didn't have something to do with her death and my father's. My fiancé would be the poor widower who'd lost his wife on their honeymoon."
"Good God," Slade exclaimed.
"He is that," Jeannie said. "He sent you to us to protect. And by damn we're going to do it. Didn't you know your grandmother was from these parts?"
"No ma'am. I just knew she was born in Texas and moved to El Dorado when she married. My mother and I were both born there. Then we moved to Greenville when I was a little girl to run the oil company office there."
"Slade, pack a bag. You are taking a much-needed vacation and you are leaving your truck here. You'll be driving my Caddy."
"I'm not going anywhere." He crossed his arms over his chest. He'd been right. By golly, he had been right when he said there was something not kosher about that girl. Just look at the mess she'd drug his family into. No sir, he wasn't going to step foot outside the door with her.
"That's where you are wrong, son," Nellie said.
"I'm so sorry I've brought this to you all. If you'll take me to a bus station I'll go somewhere else," she said.
"You'll do no such thing. Slade is taking you and protecting you for the next two weeks. Slade, you go open the safe and load up a briefcase with some cash. Credit cards leave a paper trail. Get one of those little cell phones that you can use once and throw away or better yet, mail it to Alaska so if they can trace it like they do on CSI, they'll be following a cold trail. Call me every other night and get rid of the thing. We'll keep them here as long as we can. They'll be showing up on my doorstep probably tomorrow morning but I reckon I can spin a few lies," Nellie said.
"And if she falls down on the job, I swear I can blow the damn bottom out of that commandment about not tellin' lies," Ellen assured them.
"Granny, this is ridiculous. Just call the sheriff and tell him to come on out here. We'll explain it all and the government will crucify them for posing as FBI," Slade said.
Nellie ignored him. "A rolling stone is a hard target. You'll be staying in a place no more than one night. Always check in the hotels under a different name than you used the last time. Luckadeau is a name they'd spot a mile away. You surprise me, Slade. I figured you'd have enough of your father in you to want to be the knight in shining armor."
"Jane is not a damsel in distress, Granny."
All four women turned their eyes on him.
"I'm not caving in. I'm staying right here. Give her your Caddy if you are so sure she's telling the truth. Maybe she really is a deranged crazy who only appears sane at odd times."
"She's Ellacyn Jane Hayes, one of my best friend's kin and in Texas, that ain't no jokin' matter," Nellie said.
Slade wasn't being railroaded into two weeks in the confines of a twenty-year-old Cadillac with Jane Day or Hayes or whatever her name was. The whole sordid tale she'd told sounded like something an institution escapee would tell. When the ladies thought about it for a while they'd realize they were caught up in the moment of playing detective. He wouldn't call the FBI number on the flier and that's as much leeway as he intended to give.
"Good night ladies. Good-bye, Jane. I'll see you at breakfast in the morning, Granny."
When he was out of hearing range, Nellie told Jane to pack her duffle bag. "We'll figure something out."
"Don't blame Slade. If I heard that story I wouldn't believe it, either," she said.
Tears of frustration, fear, and pure old sadness streaked down Jane's face as she put her meager belongings into her worn bag. She'd made it this far, so she had no doubt she could outrun them for another two weeks. She'd head to Miami and work her way up the eastern coast and across the northern part of the United States. Nellie's advice about not being able to find a rolling stone made sense. Nellie would loan her enough money for the trip and she'd repay her as soon as she was back in Greenville and officially twenty-five years old.
Slade dialed the Montague County Sheriff's office and asked to be patched through to Charlie. It would satisfy his curiosity at best and he'd sleep easier knowing he was right.
"Hi Slade. Why are you calling me at this time of night?"
"I need a favor and it's a big one. You got a number for the FBI?"
"Not in my back pocket. I was putting my hyper kids to bed. They'll see fireworks in their dreams. But I could call the office and get it for you. You going to be right there for five minutes?"
"I will, and thanks, Charlie."
"Want to tell me why you need it?"
"Not right now. Maybe later, if I'm right."
Exactly four minutes later Charlie called back with the number. Slade felt more than a little stupid when he dialed it and almost hung up when the automated voice came on telling him to press one if, press two if, and three because. He went through the procedure, finally talked to a real person, and explained the situation.
"I'm sorry sir, but I can't divulge any information. I'm not an actual agent, just a secretary."
"Are you free to tell me if this number is actually for FBI agents working on a case? Can you at least tell me that much?"
"No, sir, I can't tell you anything," she said. "I can give this to my superior and he can check it for you and give you a call in a couple of days if it's something to be concerned about."
"Please do that," Slade said. He picked up the flier and studied it, then dialed the number.
A female voice answered.
"Hello, this is Slade Luckadeau. I've got the woman you are interested in."
"That is wonderful. Would you please hold her until we can drive over there and pick her up?"
"How do you know where I am?"
"Your phone call is coming from Ringgold, Texas. Is that right? And you live at the Double L Ranch. It's our job to know where Ellacyn was last seen."
"I'll see to it that she's hidden so far you'll never find her if you set foot on my ranch. My grandmother is elderly and I don't want that kind of grief. Jane or Ellacyn or what ever her name is wants to run so I'm taking her anywhere she wants to go. I want to be two days out away from this place before I hand her over to you. I'll be in touch with my grandmother daily, so she'll tell me if you snoop around the ranch. If that happens, you just remember tha
t this is a big world and there's lots of places to hide."
"Two days is fine. Do I call you or will you call me?"
"I'll call you. Is there a reward?"
"Oh, yes, a thousand dollars."
"I didn't catch your name. It wasn't on the flier you flooded Terral with."
"Ramona. My name is Ramona and my partner's name is John."
"Thank you, Agent Ramona," Slade said.
"What? Oh, yes, thank you, Mr. Luckadeau."
He snapped the phone shut and drug a dusty suitcase from the back of his closet. With a moan he began to pack. It would be the longest two days of his life and he didn't look forward to a single minute of it. However, he would be the knight in shining armor his grandmother mentioned. Only he wouldn't be protecting the fair maiden in distress. He'd be riding his white horse away from four old poker-playing ladies who thought this whole episode was an hour of CSI on television.
They'd never know that he'd kept them from being harassed at the least. Or killed at the most, if Jane was telling the truth and Agent Ramona wasn't FBI at all. He shuddered when he thought about what a hired assassin might do to Granny. But then he reassured himself that if the tall tale was bona fide gospel truth, they wouldn't be after Granny and hurting her would only blow their cover. They'd never be hired to do another job if their faces and names got run in every major newspaper in the world. He picked up a laptop computer. There would be time in the evenings to do some research. Did the FBI even get involved in runaway cases?
He frowned. Maybe she wasn't telling the truth at all. Had she been put in an asylum as part of a witness protec tion program until she could testify about some corporate crime? Was she terrified that she'd be killed anyway even if she did testify? The questions spun like a kid's merry go-round in his head, but they had no answers.
Chapter 9
SLADE HAD DRIVEN FIVE HOURS AND SAID NO MORE THAN three words to Jane the whole two hundred and fifty miles. She had said her piece in Ringgold and had nothing more to say. Nellie had handed her a throw pillow from the sofa as they walked out the door and commanded her to sleep as much as possible. That was very little. Every time she dozed, she saw that horrid picture of her on the flier.
In Sherman, Texas, he said, "Hungry?"
She shook her head.
In Paris he pulled off Highway 82 into a Love's store. "Need gas."
She said nothing but did go into the store and used the ladies' room.
When he stopped at a Day's Inn in Texarkana, he went inside and returned with two room keys. He tossed one to her and hauled his suitcase out of the backseat of the truck, leaving her to fend for herself. The truck was the one stipulation he made when he changed his mind about going with her. He refused to drive a bright red 1952 Cadillac all over the country. He declared that it would be like putting a Mallard duck on a pond and telling all the bird hunters not to take a shot. Jane had to agree with him, though it came nigh onto giving her the vapors to do so.
She lugged her duffel bag up to the second floor and opened the door to find him standing in the doorway connecting the two rooms with his arms folded across his broad expanse of chest.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because if I'm to be your bodyguard, then I need fast access to you in an emergency."
"No. I don't care if there's a door between our rooms. I'd even trust you to sleep in this other bed." She pointed to the extra queen-sized bed in her room. "I want to know why you changed your mind."
"Who says I did? Tomorrow we decide whether to go on east, drop down south, or go straight up."
"Do I get in on the decision or is it yours?"
"I'll sleep on it and let you know. Checkout is at eleven. Breakfast is in a room off the lobby from six to ten. Don't go alone. Good night, Jane."
"Whatever your reasons are, thank you."
"I bet that hurt like hell to say, didn't it?"
"You will never know the pain of it. Now that the shock is over you can always go on back home. Loan me some money, which I will repay in triple in two weeks, put me on a plane or a bus, and I can make it on my own," she said.
"I'm not loaning you shit, Jane Day or Ellacyn Hayes, or whoever the hell you are," he said.
"Okay then, but don't bitch and whine like a little girl because you have to spend the time with me," she snapped back.
"Good, we got that out of the way. I'm not here because of some underlying gene inherited from my father that says I have to protect the damsel in distress. Truth is I'm here because if you aren't at the ranch, then those FBI agents will be out lookin' for you and not harassing Granny," he said. He was physically exhausted and emotionally wired.
So was Jane. "I'm going to bed. Tomorrow I'll decide whether I'm staying with you or kicking you out on the curb."
Slade let her have the last word. He went to the bath room and ran a hot shower. It was after two a.m. on a Saturday morning. If all went well, he could be back on the ranch by Tuesday. If not… well, it was going to be one hell of a long two weeks.
It was three o'clock when Jane came out of the shower and turned back the covers on the bed away from the door. She stared at the ceiling a few minutes, but her mind was as numb as her body. She fell into a deep sleep with no haunting dreams.
Slade awoke with a start at ten o'clock, jumped out of bed, and opened the door between the two rooms. He half expected her to be gone and had himself prepared and even hopeful that she would be. He could deal with her disappearance far better than if she was lying to him.
"No such luck," he moaned.
He kicked the edge of her bed. "Hey, rise and shine. Checkout in an hour. We missed breakfast, so we'll get something on the way."
She stretched like she'd done that night he watched her from his window—a catlike movement that mesmer ized him. "Did the boogerman find us? Which way are we going? I'm hungry."
She sounded so childlike that he bit the inside of his lip to keep from smiling and reminded himself that the devil reappeared in all kinds of forms. No one said he had to be sporting a forked tail and horns. That morning old Lucifer himself could be a woman in a faded cotton nightshirt with blonde hair and sleep still in her pecan colored eyes.
"No, we're still a step ahead of the boogerman. I haven't decided which way we are going yet. And we check out in one hour. After that we'll find breakfast."
She jumped to her feet, clicked her bare heels and saluted sharply. "Yes, sir."
"Drop to your face and give me twenty push-ups for sleeping too late," he said before he thought.
It was a serious situation and he had no intentions of teasing or being teased. The whole matter wasn't funny, and he wasn't out on a lark. He was protecting his grand mother, his aunt, and their two friends. So where in the hell did that bit about push-ups come from, anyway?
"Kiss my naturally born white ass," she said and headed toward the bathroom. He'd made fun of her attempt to lighten the mood so he could drop graveyard dead in a pile of fresh cow shit for all she cared.
"Get ready or I'll leave that naturally born white ass right here in this motel," he snapped.
She turned so fast that all he saw was a blur and came back to tiptoe so she could get even closer to his face. "Just do it. Leave me here, Slade. Go on home and consider your good deed finished. I don't need you. I can fly anywhere in the world and I just bet the front desk will call me a taxi that will take me to the nearest airport."
"What are you going to use for money, Miss Independence?"
"I've got a purse full of credit cards. Even though I've been scared to death to use one of them, they are there. I can stay a step ahead of them for two weeks, surely. What do you think? Thailand or Mexico City? Think I could get lost for a few days in one of those places?"
"Why didn't you do that to begin with instead of riding the busses from Mississippi to Wichita Falls?"
"Shock. Acute fear. Then plans made in a hurry hoping to throw them off course. Of course it was all in vain because he'd put a tracke
r in my cell phone. Now that I know I wasn't hearing things that night and I've had time to think about the whole mess, I can outrun them."
"We'll check out and have breakfast and then discuss which way we are going."
"Don't threaten me again," she said.
"Don't offer me kisses that you don't intend to provide," he answered.
"What?"
He winked. "Something about kissing your naturally born white ass?"
She blushed.
They breakfasted at McDonalds. With food spread out all over the table, they discussed which way to go. Jane had never been on a road trip. When she and her family traveled, it was by plane. She'd seen the major tourist attractions: Washington D.C., New York City, Disneyland and Disneyworld, the Grand Canyon, the Redwood Forest, and big cities galore on several continents.
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