The Great Escape

by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  The message was so over-the-top vile, it took her a moment to absorb what it said.

  NEVER TRUST ANYTHING THAT BLEEDS 5 DAYS A MONTH AND DOESN’T DIE.

  He slapped the flap shut and raked her with those half-lidded eyes. “Are you ready to call Mommy and Daddy yet?”

  Chapter Three

  THE SPACE BETWEEN THE TWO double beds was no wider than the battered nightstand that separated them. Lucy chose the bed closest to the door in case she needed to run screaming into the night.

  The room smelled of cigarette smoke and cheap pine air freshener. Panda plunked the six-pack on what passed for a desk. He had a bad habit of looking at her as if he could see through her clothes, and he did it now. No one ever looked at her like that. They had too much respect. But he was a primitive life-form. He scratched, belched, grunted. Focused on food when he was hungry, on beer when he wanted to drink. And when he wanted sex, he focused on her.

  She tried to watch him without his noticing. He grabbed a beer. She waited for him to snap off the bottle cap with his teeth, but he found an opener somewhere. His jeans fit a lot better than hers. If he weren’t gross, stupid, and scary, he’d be hot. What would it be like to have sex with someone like him? There’d be no finesse. No courtesy or consideration. No insecurities over whether she was as good in bed as her Texas beauty queen predecessors.

  She’d nearly forgotten what sex felt like. Three months ago, she’d told Ted she didn’t want them to sleep together again until their wedding night so it would be more special. Ted said he’d go along with them not sleeping together—as long as it didn’t interfere with their sex life. But in the end, he’d done as she’d asked with only a minimum of complaining. Now she wondered whether she’d put him off out of sentimentality or because her subconscious was sending her a message.

  She took her things from the duffel. Panda kicked off his boots, carried the beer to his bed, and picked up the remote. “I hope they’ve got some porn.”

  Her head shot up. “Tell me more about your life in prison.”

  “Why?”

  “Because … I’m interested,” she said in a rush. “I used to be a social worker.”

  “I did my time,” he said. “I don’t believe in looking back.”

  Surely he was lying. “Has … your prison record impeded your career goals?”

  “Not so as you’d notice.” He flicked through the channels. Fortunately, the motel didn’t seem to offer porn—the cross on the wall might explain why—and he settled for NASCAR.

  All day she’d been looking forward to a shower, but the idea of stripping naked behind that flimsy bathroom door with him on the other side wasn’t appealing. She grabbed her things anyway, carried them into the bathroom, and shot the flimsy lock.

  She’d never appreciated a shower so much, despite her uneasiness over sharing a room with him. She shampooed her hair and brushed her teeth, reveling in the sensation of being clean again. Since she hadn’t thought to buy pajamas, she dressed in her new T-shirt and shorts, both of which fit her better than the clothes he’d bought for her. As she came out Panda shoved something in his pocket. “TV here sucks.” He flipped to a show about monster trucks.

  I’m sure life without porn is challenging for a man with your vast intellect. “Sorry about that,” she said.

  He scratched his chest and nodded.

  He was exactly the kind of guy her biological mother would have gone for. Sandy had drunk too much, slept with too many men, and ended up dead when she was only a few years older than Lucy. They had the same green-flecked brown eyes, the same delicate features, and now the same irresponsibility.

  She needed to prove to herself that wasn’t entirely true. “Could I use your phone?”

  His eyes stayed glued to the monster truck rally as he leaned on one hip and pulled his phone out of the same pocket she’d seem him slip it into moments before. She took it from him. “Were you talking to someone?”

  His eyes didn’t leave the screen. “What do you care?”

  “Just wondering.”

  “Ted.”

  “You talked to Ted?”

  He glanced up at her. “Figured the poor son of a bitch deserved to know you’re still alive.” His attention returned to the trucks. “Sorry to break the bad news, but he didn’t say anything about wanting you back.”

  Her treacherous stomach did its customary death spiral at the thought of Ted, but if she started picturing what he was going through, she wouldn’t be able to function, not that she was functioning all that well now. And then another thought struck her. What if Panda was lying? What if he’d been calling the tabloids instead of Ted? Her story would bring him more money than he could make in a year. Years.

  She itched to check the call record on his phone, but she couldn’t do it with him watching. The moment he went into the bathroom, she’d check. In the meantime, she had to let Meg know she was still alive, but when she started to carry the phone outside, Panda growled at her. “Stay here. Unless you don’t care about making friends with some of those characters I saw hanging around in the parking lot.”

  “A problem decent hotels never seem to have,” she couldn’t help but point out.

  “Wouldn’t know about that.”

  She punched in Meg’s number and kept the call brief. “I’m fine.” “Not sure what I’m going to do.” “Rather not say.” “Tell my folks.” And finally, “I’ve got to go.”

  Over the years, she and Meg had talked about so many things, but she couldn’t do that now. Fortunately, Meg seemed preoccupied and didn’t press.

  It wasn’t even nine o’clock when she hung up. She had nothing to read. Nothing to do. When she’d returned from her honeymoon, she’d planned to start work on the writing project about Nealy that her father was spearheading, but she couldn’t concentrate on anything like that now, and she definitely couldn’t think about the lobbying work she intended to resume in the fall.

  She moved to the far side of the unoccupied bed and pushed the pillows against the wobbly headboard. The truck show finally ended. She jumped as the springs squeaked next to her. Panda grabbed some of his things and disappeared into the bathroom. She got up to look for his phone but couldn’t find it. It must still be in his pocket.

  The shower went on. She hadn’t noticed him buying pajamas either. Viper, the biker girl she wished she could be, would take something like that in stride, but the idea of a naked Panda made Lucy nervous.

  Sleep offered an escape from her enforced confinement. She rearranged the covers and sandwiched her head between the pillows. As she told herself to go to sleep, she heard the bathroom door open. Once again, she thought about how much Sandy would have loved Panda. He was swarthy, surly, and dense. Guys like Panda explained how her mother had ended up with two daughters by different fathers.

  Sandy’s vague memories of Lucy’s sperm donor had included the words “stoned frat boy.” Tracy’s jerk of a father had died in the same car accident that had killed Sandy.

  A hand curled around her shoulder. She shot up, the pillow falling off her head. “What?”

  He stood over her, wearing nothing but a splash of shower water and a clean pair of jeans. Her heart pounded. His bare chest was rock hard—too hard. He hadn’t bothered to fasten the snap on his jeans, and they barely clung to his hip bones. She saw a flat abdomen, a narrow arrow of dark hair, and a sizable bulge.

  He rubbed his thumb on her shoulder. “So … You want to get it on or what?”

  She jerked back. “No.”

  “You’ve been acting like you do.”

  “I have not!”

  He ran the flat of his hand over one pectoral and glanced toward the TV. “Just as well, I guess.”

  The crazy part of her wanted to know why it was “just as well.” She clenched her teeth.

  He returned his attention to her. “I like it rough, and you don’t seem the type.” He snapped her thigh with his thumb and second finger. “You sure you don’t want to change yo
ur mind?”

  She wrenched her leg away and rubbed the sting he’d inflicted. “Positive.”

  “How do you know you won’t like it?”

  He was still looming over her, and her heart was thudding. Nine years of Secret Service protection had allowed her to take her safety for granted, but there was no friendly agent stationed outside the motel room door now. She was on her own. “I just know, that’s all.”

  His thin lips twisted. “You’re fucking up my vacation. You understand that, right?”

  “I’m paying you.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve decided you’re not paying me enough. I was straight with you from the start. I told you I wanted to get laid.” He reached for the sheet she’d twisted around her body.

  She grabbed at it. “Stop right there! Back off.”

  Something disturbing flickered in his eyes. “You’ll like it. I’ll make you like it.”

  It sounded like a line from a bad movie, but he looked as though he’d thought it up all by himself. She couldn’t believe this was happening. She hauled herself up against the headboard, frightened and furious. “You’re not going to touch me, and you know why? Because if you do, the full power of the United States justice system is going to come crashing down on you.”

  “Your word against mine.” He curled his lip.

  “Exactly. An ex-con and the president’s daughter. You figure it out.”

  She’d finally penetrated that thick skull. With a dark mutter, he shot her a sneer and retreated to his cave.

  She stayed upright, her spine pressed to the headboard, her blood still racing. She clutched the sheet to her chest, as if that would protect her if he changed his mind.

  It was over. He’d made the choice for her. She couldn’t spend another day with him, not after this. First thing tomorrow, she’d call her family, find an airport, and fly home. Her adventures as Viper, the biker girl, were over.

  Fly back home to what? Her family’s disappointment? The job she’d started to hate?

  She tucked the sheet around her body, feeble armor. Why couldn’t he be a harmless drifter who’d let her hitch a ride without giving her any trouble? She pressed her head between the pillows again, trepidation and resentment churning inside her. Through the slit of light, she watched him across the narrow space that separated their beds. The walls were thin. She was afraid to shut her eyes. If he made another move, she’d scream. Surely even in this seedy motel, someone would hear her.

  He lay on his back with his ankles crossed, the remote propped on his chest, his hair inky against the pillow propped behind his head. He’d switched from monster trucks to bass fishing, and he looked perfectly relaxed, not at all like a man with rape on his mind.

  Perfectly, totally relaxed …

  Maybe it was a trick of the flickering light from the television, but she swore she saw the faintest smile of satisfaction lurking at the corners of those thin lips.

  She squinted. Shifted the pillows ever so slightly. It wasn’t her imagination. He looked smug, not sinister.

  He looked like a man who’d figured out the perfect way to get rid of an unwanted nuisance and come out a thousand dollars richer.

  SHE GOT DRESSED IN THE bathroom the next morning and didn’t speak to him until they’d been served at a pancake place wedged between a service station and a thrift shop. Some of the diners were women, but most were men wearing caps that ranged from the trucker variety to sports teams. They eyed Panda suspiciously, but no one paid any attention to either her or her pregnancy bump.

  He took a noisy slurp from his coffee mug, then dug into his pancakes, chewing without bothering to close his mouth. He noticed her staring at him and frowned. Her conviction that he’d been manipulating her last night wavered. She was almost certain he’d been deliberately trying to scare her off, but her instincts weren’t exactly foolproof these days.

  She studied him closely, paying particular attention to his eyes as she spoke. “So, have you raped a lot of women?”

  She saw it. A flicker of outrage camouflaged almost immediately by half-closed eyelids and a noisy slurp from his coffee mug. “Depends on what you mean by rape.”

  “You’d know it when you did it.” She took the plunge. “I have to admit last night was interesting.”

  His brows slammed together. “Interesting! You think that was interesting?”

  Not at the time she hadn’t. But now? Definitely. “Maybe if you were a better actor, you could have pulled it off.”

  He grew wary. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She ignored his scowl. “It’s obvious you want to get rid of me, but was that the best you could do?” Those sinister lips pulled tight, and his expression became so ominous she had to muster all the bravado she could find to set her elbows on the table and meet his gaze. “I’m not going anywhere, Panda. You’re stuck with me.” A small devil prodded her, and she pointed to the corner of her own mouth. “You have a little food right there.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Are you sure? A fastidious eater like yourself?”

  “If you don’t like it, you know what you can do.”

  “Yes. Fly home and send you a check for a thousand dollars, plus expenses.”

  “You’re damned right, plus expenses.” He swiped at his mouth with his napkin, more a reflexive motion than capitulation.

  She curled her fingers around her own coffee mug. He could have dropped her off on the side of the road anytime and disappeared, but he wanted the money, so he hadn’t done it. Now he intended to scare her off and still collect the cash. Too bad for him.

  She set down her mug. All this time she’d assumed he had the upper hand, but it was just the opposite. “You’re big and bad, Panda. I get that. And now that I get it, would you mind knocking it off?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “The leers. All those references to ‘getting laid.’”

  He pushed away his plate, leaving his pancakes half eaten, eyeing her with distaste. “Here’s the way I see it. Rich girl thinks she can add a little excitement to her life by slumming it with a guy like me. Am I wrong?”

  She reminded herself who had the upper hand. “Well, the experience is definitely making me rethink the importance of decent table manners.” She gave him the same dead-eye look she gave her sibs when they misbehaved. “Tell me where we’re going.”

  “I’m going to Caddo Lake. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll be going to the airport.”

  “Excuse me.” A sixtyish woman in a peach pantsuit approached their booth. The woman gestured toward a nearby table where a jowly man with a walrus mustache pretended to look in the opposite direction. “My husband, Conrad, said I should mind my own business, but I couldn’t help noticing …” She stared at Lucy. “Has anybody ever told you that you look like the president’s daughter? That Lucy character.”

  “She hears it all the time,” Panda said. He looked across the table at Lucy and said in fluent Spanish, “Ella es otra persona que piensa que te pareces a Lucy Jorik.” And then, to the woman, “Her English ain’t too good.”

  “It’s amazing,” the woman said. “’Course, now that I’m closer, I can see she’s a lot younger. Hope she doesn’t grow up to be like her.”

  Panda nodded. “Another spoiled brat who thinks the world owes her.”

  Lucy didn’t like that at all, but peach pantsuit lady was on a roll. “I used to admire the way President Jorik raised her kids, but obviously she missed something with that Lucy. Running out on the Beaudine boy. I see his mama’s television show all the time. And Conrad’s a big golfer. He never misses watching any tournament where Dallas Beaudine’s playing.”

  “I guess some women don’t know what’s good for them,” Panda agreed.

  “Confidentially, neither does Conrad.” She smiled at Lucy. “Well, y’all have a nice day. Sorry to have bothered you.”

  “No bother,” he said, as courteous as a small-town pre
acher. But the moment she disappeared, he crumpled his napkin. “Let’s get the hell out of here before more of your fan club shows up. I don’t need this crap.”

  “Snarl all you want,” she told him. “You’re the one who invited me on this joy ride, and I’m not calling it off.”

  He tossed some bills on the table a lot harder than he needed to. “Your funeral.”

  Chapter Four

  THE SMALL RENTAL HOUSE SAT on one of Caddo Lake’s hidden bayous. A pair of aging window air conditioners protruded from the faded mustard-colored siding, and a square of artificial turf covered the front stoop. They’d spent the previous night at a motel near Nacogdoches, where Panda had made a point of ignoring her. Early this morning, they’d headed northeast toward the lake, which sat on the Texas-Louisiana border and, according to the pamphlet she’d picked up when they stopped for gas, was the largest freshwater lake in the South—and surely the spookiest, with its primordial swamps rising out of brown water.

  The house was shabby but clean, with a small living room, two even smaller bedrooms, and an old-fashioned kitchen. Lucy chose the room with twin beds. The orange plaid wallpaper curled at the seams and clashed with the cheap purple and green floral quilted bedspread, but she was too grateful to have a wall between her bed and Panda’s to care.

  She changed into her shorts and made her way to the kitchen. It was outfitted with metal cabinets, worn countertops, and a gray vinyl floor. The window above the sink looked out over the bayou, and a nearby door led to a small wooden deck that held a molded plastic table, webbed lawn chairs, a propane grill, and some fishing gear.

  She found Panda gazing out at the palmetto banking the bayou, his feet propped on the deck railing, a Coke can curled in his palm. At least he hadn’t hunkered down with another six-pack. He didn’t acknowledge her as she checked out the grill, then examined a fishing pole. His silences were unnerving. “It’s hot out here,” she finally said.