The Runaway Bride

by Adrianne Lee

  He shook himself, easing up on the gas. Damn. He stepped on the brake. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  The pedal slammed flat against the floorboard. Jake’s heart jumped three beats. Dear God, no! “Hang on, Laura! The brakes are gone!”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Hold on!”

  Jake’s command stole Laura’s breath. She grasped her armrest and jammed her feet to the floorboard as though that would help, as though the Cherokee had a backup brake on the passenger side.

  The car accelerated, plunging past thirty to forty in the blink of an eye. Her stomach dropped to her toes. Her heart galloped. A scream climbed her throat, but she didn’t cry out She’d survived the horrors perpetrated on her this past year by keeping silent and disappearing. But she couldn’t run from this.

  “There’s a pull-off halfway down the drive. If I can get the car to slow before then—” He broke off, jerking the steering wheel left, then right.

  She slammed against the door. Pain punched her shoulder. Panic bloomed inside her like a poisonous plant digging tainted thorns through her skull. She was used to worrying about herself. About her own survival. But this terror threatened Jake. And she knew without seeing a shred of evidence that she had brought this on him by seeking refuge in his house.

  A metallic screech rent her thoughts. Widened her eyes. The Cherokee skidded sidelong against a concrete-hard wall of sand. She blinked and the wall vanished, giving way to sheer cliff again. Fear soured her tongue.

  The Cherokee’s rear end skidded toward the drop-off. Laura swallowed a yelp. Her muscles were so tensed they ached. Jake turned into the skid. The vehicle bounded back onto the road. Sweat beaded his face. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel. His gaze riveted the road. The speedometer read fifty and climbing.

  She forced her gaze from the drop-off to the twisting black ribbon they traveled at breakneck speed. It looked like one of those tubed water slides—except this seemed like a never-ending slide into hell. Cacti loomed every few feet, their arms raised as though they were waving. Waving goodbye? Was this the end?

  “It’s just around the next bend,” Jake said. “I’m going to hit the emergency brake.”

  The next curve fell away and she saw it, a turnout on the opposite side of the road, wide enough for two cars, and beyond it solid-rock embankment. Instead of being relieved, she grew more frightened. Knowing this vehicle came equipped with dual airbags did nothing to calm her.

  A crash was inevitable.

  Jake yanked on the brake. She felt the rear tires lock. The car bucked. She was jerked back in her seat The seat belt cut into her shoulder.

  He yelled, “Come on, compression. Kick in. That’s it—that’s it.”

  Her eyes steadied on the dropping speedometer gage. Forty. Thirty-five. Thirty. She braced for the crash, her feet all but implanted in the floorboard now.

  But Jake still had the Cherokee on the road. Why?

  She felt it then; the sharp grade had lessened, the descent suddenly half as steep as moments before.

  He drove past the turnout. “We aren’t out of the woods yet, but I think we can make it to the bottom without further harm.”

  Laura’s chest heaved once, then twice, then again, as though she had bucketsful of air trapped in her lungs. Seconds later, he pulled onto a long flat section of shoulder. The car bumped over tumbleweed and thick sand and gradually rolled to a stop.

  He turned off the motor, dipped his head back against the headrest, let out a huge breath of his own, then turned toward her. His eyebrows flickered and concern threaded his expression. “Are you okay?”

  “I—I—” But she couldn’t get out the words of reassurance. She felt chilled, bloodless. Inside she began to quiver, a gentle quaking that started in mini shock waves, building and building until her hands trembled, her body shook. She hugged herself.

  Jake unhooked his seat belt and scooted over to her, unhooked her seat belt and scooped her close. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. We’re safe.”

  Oh, how she wanted to believe that, but she knew they were safe only for the moment The killer would try again. And again. Until he finally succeeded. She buried her head against Jake’s chest, heard the steady, comforting beat of his heart and welcomed his solace. This time she wasn’t alone. This time she wouldn’t run. This time she would stand and face her pursuer head-on.

  Jake cupped the side of her head in one hand, his other splayed against her back. Little by little, her heartbeat steadied beneath his touch, and the tremors racking her body eased until they disappeared altogether. She drew a breath, leaned back and lifted her gaze to his.

  With the back of her hand, she brushed a strand of hair from her forehead. “This was no accident, Jake.”

  “I know.” He wanted to turn the Cherokee around, race back up the bluff to his house and give it a thorough goingover. He wanted to find out where and how the perp had gotten into his garage. Then call the local gendarmes and have the place dusted for fingerprints—though he doubted the killer had been careless enough to leave any.

  “Are you still sure he or she is patient?” Laura asked. “Isn’t it possible that this person has grown frustrated by all the failed attempts on my life?”

  “If he or she were impatient, we wouldn’t have been alive this morning to make the drive down the bluff.”

  She considered a moment “I guess you’re right. What now?”

  Jake flicked her chin gently and gave her a tight smile. “As much as I’d like to hold you like this all day, we have to get to Sunshine Vista and find Mom.”

  Laura nodded and sat straighter. “How do we do that with a sabotaged car?”

  “My mechanic is just down the road, and if we take it slow we won’t have a problem.”

  GARCIA’S GARAGE STARTED life as a mom-and-pop gas station and grocery store in the forties. The buildings had been remodeled somewhere along the way and now held three huge work bays and an office. No one had bothered painting the outside in years and the weathered exterior looked dismally gray against the desert backdrop.

  Jake pulled up to the bay closest to the office and emerged from the Cherokee. Laura didn’t wait for him to open her door, but climbed out, too.

  “Hector,” Jake greeted the approaching mechanic.

  Hector Garcia was a wiry, middle-aged Latino with midnight-black hair and warm brown skin. Despite a limp and features far removed from classically handsome, he possessed a confident air that Jake had seen draw many an inviting female glance.

  Hector had big hands—with grease embedded in every crease and under the nails—which he was wiping on his grimy coveralls as his coffee-colored eyes swept the damaged Cherokee. He shook his head and gazed at Jake. “What the hell…? Somebody sideswipe you?”

  “Brakes gave out,” Jake answered.

  “No way, Jake-man. I check those out myself.”

  “Well, I want you to check them again…and don’t be surprised at what you find, amigo.”

  Hector’s ebony eyebrows shot up. His wicked grin showed off strong, white teeth. “You piss somebody off, Jake-man?”

  Jake flashed a wry smile of his own. “Yeah, maybe.”

  “You shouldn’t be running around with other men’s women. Learn from Hector’s mistakes.” The mechanic nodded toward his bum leg. “Some men no like you mess with their lady.”

  From the moment they’d met, Hector assumed Jake had gotten his scar in combat with some jealous lover. Flattered that the charismatic man thought him an equal player in the game of love, Jake hadn’t bothered correcting the misconception. “Yeah, but Maria ended up marrying you instead of your brother, didn’t she?”

  “A woman with hot passions like a chili pepper—theys worth the troubles.” He winked at Jake. “Good thing Mateo such a lousy shooter.”

  Jake bit back a laugh at the startled look on Laura’s face. Her eyes were as huge as the hubcaps nailed over Hector’s office door.

  Hector’s gleaming smile flashed again as
his gaze drifted over her. “This one has the fire, too, no?”

  Laura’s cheeks pinkened, and Jake grinned at her. “Yes.”

  Hector nodded. “She the reason for this?”

  “Could be.” Jake’s smile fell and his gut clenched. Hector’s troubles had been resolved without anyone dying. Would Laura and his? He pulled his wallet from his back pocket. “If you find somebody tampered with the brakes, will you keep it to yourself?”

  “Hector no tell nobody nothin’.” He shook one beefy hand at Jake. “No. No dinero. We settle later. You need the loaner?”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  “No problema. Mateo! Get Rubia’s keys for Jake-man.”

  Laura’s eyes widened again as Hector’s brother, the one who’d shot him, came scrambling out of one of the bays and ran into the office.

  “Thanks.” Jake patted Hector’s shoulder.

  Hector laughed. “Just keep Rubia away from the jealous hombres.”

  RUBIA, THE LOANER CAR, was a ruby red 1975 Impala, its front dipped low to the pavement and its rear pitched saucily toward the heavens like some teenaged girl bending over to touch her toes—all gleam and polish and tight body. Inside, tucked and rolled, crushed-velvet, bloodred upholstery covered the seats and door panels. A fringe of navy blue, hanging yam balls circled the velvet headliner.

  Laura, still puzzling over the dynamics that made up some families, burst out laughing. “Is this what they call ‘hiding in plain sight’?”

  She settled onto the passenger seat, her gaze locked with Jake’s as he shut the door. He grinned at her. “It’s not the most inconspicuous vehicle we could choose, but time isn’t on our side and it is reliable.”

  He strode to the driver’s side and got in. “Hector treats this car better than Maria, and believe me, he treats that woman like a queen.”

  Rubia smelled as if it were imbued with little vanillascented air freshener trees. Laura reached for the seat belt, but found none. If the seat had been vinyl she might have slid off onto the floorboard, but the velvet hugged her new jeans like Velcro.

  Jake started the engine. The mufflers roared like a disturbed lion and the huge speakers, occupying the space normally reserved for the back seat, flared louder, booming out a Freddy Fender classic. Laura threw her hands over her ears. Jake punched the off button on the radio.

  They looked at each other and laughed again. The humor slid all the way to the core of her, chasing off the last of her shock over their harrowing ride down the bluff.

  As they gained the main road, Laura’s gaze flicked across the unfamiliar instruments on the dashboard. “I saw cars like this in L.A. They had those hydraulics that pumped the rear end up and down to the beat of their boom boxes.”

  “Rubia can shake her bootie, too. But I think we’ll skip that this ride.” Jake raised the darkened windows, closing out the cool breeze that stole the warmth from the sunny day. His face sobered, all humor gone.

  She knew he was thinking about Ruthanne. Laura had suppressed her own worry for nearly an hour, but as they roared along in the noisy car, it returned with a rush that stole her breath. Had the poor woman just wandered off on her own? Or had someone lured her away from the senior complex?

  God help her, Laura didn’t want to think the worst. But fear railed at her as loud and fierce as the uncapped mufflers. If they were right about someone tampering with the Cherokee’s brakes, then Ruthanne might be in the hands of a killer. She shuddered.

  The Garcias crossed her mind again. Mateo and Hector had apparently found a way to live with the fallout from their shared love of Maria. “Family” had many definitions in these modern times—mom, dad and 2.5 kids seemed the exception rather than the rule.

  The families she’d known in Riverdell varied from the close-knit Crocker clan to her own odd household. How would the Crockers deal with the loss of Cullen…if, as Jake and she suspected, he was dead?

  And what about herself? Raised by an aunt and uncle poorly suited to parenting, she’d sought and found a surrogate mother in Ruthanne Wilder. She loved Jake’s mom as much as he did. If something happened to her…She gulped. If I’ve brought something or someone evil down on Ruthanne, how could Jake and I find a way to live with the fallout of that?

  Her stomach felt heavy, a cold brick against her heart She tried telling herself that Ruthanne had merely wandered off and would be found by the time they reached the senior complex. But as they sped down one road then another, she feared the killer had somehow guessed Jake’s mom might know where the face cream was.

  The thought raised goose bumps on every inch of her. She rubbed her arms, but the raw worry gnawed at her the rest of the ride.

  Jake pulled into the parking lot of the Sunshine Vista Estates and swore. “What the hell is going on?”

  Unlike yesterday, the parking lot was jam-packed. Jake frowned as he maneuvered through row upon row of spaces. “I’ve never seen it this crowded.”

  “That car over there is leaving,” Laura told him, spotting glowing backup taillights at the end of the lane. But when they reached the vacated spot, “compact.” was painted on the curbing of the short narrow slot. Definitely not the space for a zaftig lady like Rubia. She needed room to stretch her shiny hood and wide tail. They settled for parking her on the street and hurried to the complex.

  “I would have thought the cops would be here by now,” Jake said, commenting on the absence of any police vehicles.

  “Maybe they’ve come and gone and are looking for Ruthanne already.”

  “God, I hope you’re right.”

  People, milling about and visiting in small groups, crammed the entrance hall and huge foyer. It reminded Laura of the audience at Riverdell’s Vale Theater enjoying intermission during the special showing of Gone With the Wind the year she’d turned thirteen.

  Jake clasped her hand and hurried through the crowd to the reception desk. “Where can we find Emily Thatcher?”

  They were told she awaited their arrival in her office, and a moment later, they were ushered into a room as sterile as any research lab. The decor ran to chrome and blue Naugahyde, without a single personal touch.

  Mrs. Thatcher sat behind an uncluttered desk beneath a window with a view to the front entrance. Her once-brown hair had prematurely grayed and now resembled striped nutmeg. She wore it in an unflattering little bun at the crown of her head, pulled off her face so severely that her eyes—a flat blue, with straight, thick lashes and thicker eyebrows—seemed to bulge.

  Jake went toward her. “What’s going on? Where’s my mother?”

  “Oh, dear me. I’d hoped your delay meant you’d found her.”

  A bony woman, the manager of Sunshine Vista Estates had the voice of a twenty-year-old and the face of someone in her sixties. Laura guessed she was thirty-five and old before her time. She pointed to the two chairs pulled up to her desk.

  “Please, sit down.”

  “I don’t want to sit down,” Jake said. “Just tell me what happened. Have you notified the police?”

  “Goodness, no. Dear me, the police…”

  The woman started up in her chair, then dropped back with a plop. She seemed shaken to the point of not knowing proper procedure. How, Laura wondered, had she been promoted to the manager’s position of a senior housing complex? Didn’t anyone monitor this place?

  Mrs. Thatcher sighed. “I so hoped you’d found her.”

  “I want the police called now,” Jake said.

  She flinched as though he’d slapped her, but she quit whining and reached for the phone. “Certainly. Certainly.”

  Laura sank into the chair nearest the wall and Jake paced. As she listened to Mrs. Thatcher explaining the situation to the person on the other end of the line, Laura realized from the answers the woman gave that she was being asked the same questions that would be asked about a missing child. What had Ruthanne Wilder been wearing? When was the last time someone saw her? A knot formed in Laura’s throat. With her failing mind, Ru
thanne was as vulnerable as any toddler.

  Laura exchanged an anxious glance with Jake. Was he also worried about the encroaching night? It would be getting dark soon. And cold. What if they didn’t find her? What if she hadn’t taken warm clothes, didn’t find a warm place to stay? Laura’s throat constricted and her eyes burned.

  Mrs. Thatcher replaced the receiver. “They’ve dispatched a car, which should arrive at any moment.”

  “Now,” Jake said, clearly trying not to fume, “tell me how this happened.”

  “Of course.”

  Emily Thatcher’s plain eyes steadied on Jake. Laura detected a glint of resentment in them—as though Jake’s barely suppressed anger at her were misdirected. The woman folded her hands on her pristine desk, appearing in control of herself and the situation.

  Her words, however, exposed her cracked composure. “We are hosting a bake sale and craft fair today. That’s why all the people are here. They’ve been coming and going all day. Mr. Jarvis, the activity coordinator, is in charge of these special events. This is really his responsibility. Not mine. But he called in sick. That new strain of flu.”

  She lifted her chin indignantly. “Fool man. Should have gotten his flu shot. Can’t say I didn’t warn him. Anyhow, he didn’t dare come in. Couldn’t have him exposing everyone. So, well, I ask you, what else could I do? I told him I’d man the cash table.”

  Jake hit the desk with his open hand. “I don’t give a damn about Mr. Jarvis. Get to the part about my mother.”

  “Of course.” Her face went white. “I saw Mrs. Wilder when she came to buy some chocolate donuts. She said they were your favorite and she couldn’t cook them without a stove in her room.” She offered him a weak smile. “Well, I sold them to her and then she went on, walking around the lunch room, and, dear me, I was just so busy, of course, I lost track of her.”

  “When did you realize she was missing?” Jake’s raised voice cut through the tension in the room like a buzz saw.

  “Oh,” Mrs. Thatcher chirped, twin dots of bright pink standing out on her hollow cheeks. “Well, we were serving all the residents lunch in their rooms today, you know, since we were using the lunch room tables for the special event.”