by Lisa Gardner
“P-p-please,” she begged weakly. Her body began to tremble, and her eyes squeezed shut; she had no pride. She was very scared and she would do anything if this man would just let her go. “D-d-don’t hurt me. . . .”
“Look at me.”
She had no choice. She opened her eyes to find his face looming over hers, bright green eyes hooded by thick blond brows. This close, she could see the sweat beading his forehead and upper lip. His cheeks held the faded gold stamp of old sun and the fresh pallor of a man who hadn’t been outside in a long while. His jaw appeared to have been carved from a mountain. His neck was so strong, she could see corded lines of muscle from the tense way he held his shoulders.
He didn’t look like a man who believed in compromise. And those lips were only an inch from hers, the closest any man’s lips had been in a long time.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said quietly.
She giggled hysterically; she couldn’t help herself. In response, he jammed the gun against her side so sharply that she hiccuped.
“Any minute now,” he continued, voice all business, “a half-naked guard is going to come running out of that courthouse. You don’t want that to happen, because if that happens, you’re my insurance. It’s going to be you standing between a convicted murderer who needs to escape and a corrections officer who doesn’t want a black mark on his record. Understand?”
“Convicted murderer?”
Slowly, he nodded. “After killing the first person, the second is easy.”
She flinched, once more shutting her eyes. Faint, Maggie. Just faint and then you’ll be no good to him and he’ll leave you alone.
“Tell me where your car is.”
Her face crumpled further, the hysteria rising up in a sickening mixture of giggles and hiccups. Oh God, she was incapable of fainting. Whoever would’ve known? It wasn’t as if she was a particularly strong person. Nor was she an adventuresome, temperamental wild woman like her mother. She lived alone in the suburbs with two cats. These days, buying a new brand of panty hose constituted a major event in her life. Really, she thought she ought to be able to faint.
“Are you listening to me?”
“I don’t have a car. Want a bus pass instead?” She tried for a hopeful smile.
“Damn!” His voice was suddenly urgent in her ear. “Start walking. Fast!”
Her eyes popped open. Behind her she could hear a commotion. The real prison guard, she thought. He was coming out. And then she remembered what her captor had told her about her future opportunities when the real prison guard appeared. She started walking fast, her captor’s hand still clenched tightly around her arm.
“Car,” he commanded again. “We need a car. I’m not lying.”
“I don’t have one,” she whispered back just as intently. “Honest! I took the bus! Don’t you know what traffic is like on the Sunset Highway these days?”
“Oh sure. In prison we listen to the traffic reports all the time. It would be such a shame to be caught in rush-hour traffic on our way over the wall.”
He dragged her down the street, pushing bodily through the morning pedestrian traffic. His hand was so tight around her arm, there was no way they looked like lovers casually strolling. But no one gave them a second glance as he pulled her past rapidly filling office buildings, then Starbucks, overflowing with well-dressed caffeine junkies desperate for a fix.
That was big-city life for you, she thought resentfully. Where was a hero when you needed one?
He yanked her into a public parking garage. “Do you have any money in your purse?”
“What?”
“Do you have money?”
“A . . . a little.”
“Good. You can pay for our parking.”
“But we don’t have a car.”
“We do now.” He gestured to the expanse of a second-floor parking garage filled with shiny, gleaming automobiles. She stared at him with horrified shock until he arched a single blond brow. “Did you really think I was a Boy Scout?”
“But . . . but stealing is wrong.”
“Uh-huh,” Attila the Hun said dryly. “We’ll take that van. Let’s go.”
He pulled her forward. She wanted to resist. She’d taken self-defense classes; she knew you should never let them get you into a vehicle. Once in the car, there would be no way to run, no way to break away. She’d be trapped as effectively as a moth pinned to a tray.
He outweighed her by a good hundred pounds. He looked to be in tremendous shape. Those arms . . . Heavens, he could probably pull a tractor out of the mud single-handedly. Or wrestle an ox or pin a steer. Her footsteps slowed. She tried to dig in her sensible pumps; she yanked back her arm.
He didn’t even look at her. His fingers tightened, he murmured, “Don’t be an idiot,” and dragged her forward without ever missing a beat.
He was definitely going to get her into a vehicle.
My God, Maggie, what are you going to do?
• • •
Cain selected an old, beat-up blue Dodge trade van from the late seventies. Unlocked and easy to hot-wire. He’d driven something like this way back when in Idaho. He popped open the door and peered in quickly, still clutching his insurance.
Two front seats and a gutted back that doubled as a bachelor pad. Some kid had built in a bed along one side while old milk crates lined the other, some filled with clothes, some with books. An apartment on wheels. Just the right accessory for the convict on the run.
“I’ll take it,” he murmured.
He turned back to his captive. She was the scrawniest woman he’d ever seen, composed of ninety percent flaming red hair and ten percent skin and bones. Looking across the hallway, he’d known she was the one. She wore a plaid wool skirt from the eighties, a ruffled pink silk blouse that was even older than that and low-slung beige shoes like his grandma once wore. She didn’t even wear much jewelry, just a plain heart-shaped locket around her neck that looked old, varnished and worse for the wear. Mousy court clerk, he determined with a single glance. A woman with the spine of an invertebrate. The perfect accommodating hostage, if she’d stop trembling like a leaf.
“Get in.”
Her blue eyes opened wide, peering out from the thick jungle of fiery hair. Her gaze went to the van to him to the van. He tapped his foot impatiently. He didn’t want any trouble—that was why he’d selected her. He just needed her to do what she was told. Twenty-four hours and it would all be over. He’d waited six years for this day. He’d taken a big gamble. The only way to make it work was to be willing to play it out all the way.
A man made choices. A man paid for those decisions. Cain had always believed that and he was willing to live with the consequences of his actions.
“Get in,” he repeated sharply, and this time his lips thinned dangerously. He didn’t want to hurt her, but he was willing to be forceful.
Mousy Court Clerk cringed at the edge in his voice. Then, rather than obeying, she peered up at him miserably through the veil of her hair.
“We can’t take this,” she whispered, then promptly hunched her shoulders.
He gazed at the spineless wonder once more. Sirens cut through the air.
“What did you say?”
Her whole body went into a shivering fit. His eyes narrowed and she shook even more. But somehow, her shoulders had set in a resilient line that did not bode well.
“We . . . we can’t,” she stated again, her voice soft, but dangerously firm.
The sirens sounded closer.
“Get in the van,” he ordered, and followed the words with an urgent push of his arm.
Sweat was beginning to trickle down his cheek. More than the moment when he’d actually knocked out his guard in the isolated corner of the fourth-floor Multnomah Law Library, more than the moment when he’d quickly pulled on the guard’s uniform before anyone else arrived, he understood that he was committed now. He might have considered himself a victim once; he might have considered himself wron
gly accused. But he’d just knocked a man unconscious. Then he’d taken a hostage. He’d crossed that line between passive victim and aggressive avenger, and if they caught him now, that was it.
The time for self-doubt and moral quandaries was over.
“But this is just some poor kid’s van,” his captive waif was exclaiming in a rush, her free hand clasping her heart-shaped locket. “I mean . . . look at it. It’s probably his home, his life. I bet it’s not even insured. Does it look insured to you? You steal this and you’ve . . . you’ve taken someone’s whole life—his clothes, his books, everything. You can’t do that—it’s just . . . just . . .”
“Cruel?” he supplied expressionlessly.
She looked at him with huge blue eyes, then slowly nodded. “Can’t you . . . can’t you steal a nice insured car? Please?”
He stared at her. She was obviously near hysteria—for God’s sake, they could probably hear her knees knocking together in China—but she didn’t look away. And she didn’t get into the van.
This woman had just been taken hostage by an armed, escaped felon, and she was worried about some kid’s future? Great, Cain. You just managed to kidnap the one woman in the courthouse who’s mentally unbalanced. Good job.
The sirens came to a squealing halt just three blocks away. That decided the matter.
“Get into the van or I’ll shoot you. Those are your options.”
She scrambled into the van, climbing awkwardly over the seats and landing with an uncoordinated plop on the passenger’s side. He hefted himself in easily, looking at the gun, then at the ignition he needed to hot-wire. He would need two hands. He would need to move fast.
The police were so close. Keep calm, Cain. Keep moving. Life is nothing more than a game of chess.
He glanced in the rearview mirror, rapidly contemplating his next steps. He saw the parking garage, which was still empty. Then his gaze shifted to the makeshift bed and the crates filled with books and clothes in the back of the van.
He’d lived out of a truck once. When he’d first come from Idaho to Oregon, driving into Portland and so determined to make something out of himself. He’d had nothing. Just his old truck and the makeshift bed in the back. He used to eat raw frankfurters for dinner; they were all he could afford. But he hadn’t minded; he’d lived his whole life up till then in a plywood shack, so he had no expectations of luxury. And the truck meant he was free, that he’d gotten out of the hills, that he had a chance to see the cities his mother used to tell him about, softly, when his father wasn’t in the cabin.
If someone had stolen his truck then, what would it have done to him? How much would it have convinced him that maybe his father was right and the whole world was out to get him? How much would it have convinced him that there was nothing worth fighting for after all?
Damn. Damn damn damn.
“Get out of the van,” he ordered crisply, and was already climbing down.
His hostage looked at him with unabashed relief. “Maybe there’s hope yet,” she murmured, then immediately clamped her lips shut when she realized the words had been spoken out loud.
He dragged her from the van, more than a little bit on edge. He could hear other sirens approaching in the distance. He was playing Good Samaritan and the entire city was being cordoned off. Smart, Cain, smart.
He pulled her bodily to a newer, sleek pickup truck. He’d grown up with trucks and he valued their off-road abilities. If the going got tough, this baby looked like it could take him down the Grand Canyon and back up the other side. Probably insured. He peered in at the gas gauge. Almost full. Perfect.
He popped open the unlocked door. In Portland, people were still trusting. He didn’t want to dwell on that or what it made him. Prison did change a man, even when he swore it wouldn’t.
“Get in,” he told his captive for the fifth time. She hesitated and he whirled on her abruptly, thrusting the gun beneath her chin as she froze like a pillar of salt. Her eyes widened; her breath sounded loud and labored in the concrete drum of the garage. He could feel her terror like a palpable presence. He could see the blue pulse point at the base of her neck pound furiously. Sweat beaded up on her pale oval face and slowly trickled down.
Don’t push her too hard, he thought, but he didn’t relent.
“Listen to those sirens,” he whispered against her cheek. “They’re not playing ‘Where’s Waldo?’ I want you to get into that truck. I want you to do everything I say. If you cooperate, I won’t hurt you. You have my word. The decision is yours.”
He stepped back, but his eyes remained hard.
“All right,” she whispered immediately. Her gaze remained locked on him warily as she turned her body toward the high truck. She tried valiantly to lift her skirt-hampered leg up to the looming step. It wasn’t going to happen. She was too short and it was too high. With a burst of impatience, Cain planted his hand firmly on her butt, ignored her squeak of indignation and tossed her up onto the bench seat. She went sprawling, landing with a lewd spread of creamy white thighs. He disregarded the flashing white limbs and climbed in after her, filling the truck doorway.
With another yelp, she scrambled to the opposite side, crossing her legs and pressing her skirt around herself like a mortified nun.
“Don’t worry,” he said tersely. “I’m trying to escape from jail, not molest a child.”
“I’m not a child!” she said, and for a moment sounded wounded.
“Uh-huh.” He turned his attention to hot-wiring the truck.
But there was no way he could do that and hold a gun on her. Worse, the sirens continued to wail with increasing fervor just a few blocks away. For one moment, he felt the dark spiraling panic of a man watching events twist out of his control. He squelched the feeling instantly, his fingers drumming on the steering wheel as his mind frantically sought solutions.
He’d never escaped from jail before. He’d never taken a hostage before. He didn’t know what he was doing. . . .
Stop it! No panic, no fear. Life is a chess game, and if there was one thing you were very good at, Cain, it was chess.
His hands steadied. The worst that could happen was that he would fail—that his brother would find him and that his brother would kill him. He was willing to take that risk; he was willing to pay that price. There were very few things he believed in anymore. Freedom of choice was one. The absolute value of truth was the second.
You waited six years for this, Cain. Either do it or bow your head and return to your cell.
There was no way he was willingly returning to prison. Besides, it was only a matter of time before the Aryan Brotherhood finally succeeded in having him decommissioned. If he was going to die, he wanted to die as a man, not as prisoner number 542769.
He set the gun between himself and the driver’s-side door. Then, while the court clerk stared up at him with widening eyes, he pulled out the handcuffs.
“What’s your name?”
“M-Maggie. What are you doing?”
“I’m handcuffing us together, Maggie.”
“No!” She clutched her hand to her side. “You can’t keep doing this. You can’t take me hostage. I . . . I have dependents!”
He actually froze for a minute. “Kids?” he asked slowly. He didn’t want to know this. He really didn’t want to know this.
“Cats,” she whispered.
“What?”
“I have cats,” she continued in a rush. “Two cats and I live all alone and there’s no one to feed them. One of them has been sick lately. And . . . and Friday has only three legs—”
“What?”
“She has only three legs. She was born that way—it makes her very high-strung. If you don’t feed her at exactly the same time every day, she throws these fits. I really wor—”
He reached over, clasped her wrist and slapped the handcuff around it. While looking at her steadily, he slipped the cuff around his wrist. “Maggie, you’re now a hostage, not a pet owner.”
She
stared at him miserably, her eyes welling up.
“Don’t!” he said immediately. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?” Her chin began to tremble.
“No! No crying. I forbid it!”
“Okay,” she whispered, and a single tear streaked down her cheek. Then another and another. Big, silent tears that tangled in her long red hair.
He stared at her as she wept soundlessly, turning her head away from him. “Crying is bad,” she muttered. “Don’t cry, don’t cry.” Her hand abruptly closed around the old locket around her neck, her fingers shaking.
Cain’s mouth opened. Something twisted deep in his gut. She looked small, defenseless. There was something about her, an innocence, he supposed. It had been a long time since he’d encountered innocence; he didn’t know how to treat it anymore.
He should let her go. This was a bad idea.
Except there was no way he was going to make it out of the city without being caught, and if he was caught a hostage was his only bargaining chip. If he let her go, he might as well return to prison now. And if he returned to prison, no one would ever learn the truth about that dark, bloody night six years ago.
A man did what a man had to do. Twenty-four hours from now, he’d let her go and she’d never have to see him again. This event would become a dull memory. She would survive. Her odds, at least, were better than his.
“Move,” he said abruptly, and popped the truck door open. He started sliding out, and since he outweighed her by eighty pounds, she had no choice but to follow.
“Where are we going?” She’d composed herself. Her tears were gone; just a faint hoarse edge remained in her voice.
“Back to the van.”
“But I thought you weren’t going to steal the van.”
“Relax. I want his clothes.”
He slid back the side door forcefully, hopped in and dragged her with him. She stumbled, of course, tilting them both dangerously. He righted them, then turned his attention to the clothes. Not much time.
He flipped over a milk crate and rapidly perused his options. Shirts, jeans, socks, a pair of worn-out tennis shoes. A black baseball cap with “Oregon State University” scrawled across the front in orange. Size was feasible, too. A little too large but that was preferable to too small. Good.
