He hurried back outside right as Lily pulled her red car to a stop. The smile slid off her face when she looked at Zane and Pike. “What’s wrong?”
“Kinsey isn’t here,” Pike said. “Did she say anything to you about leaving?”
“No. She promised—”
“Look at this,” Zane interrupted. A yellow baseball cap lay on the ground. The cap was jarring enough, but even more alarming were the scuff marks in the dirt and the fresh tire tracks leading away from the ranch.
“That’s your Bulldog hat,” Pike said.
Zane picked it up. “Kinsey was wearing this.” He turned it over in his hands but froze when a bright red smear along the band caught his eye.
The two brothers exchanged a one-second stare before they both sprinted back to the truck. Pike got behind the wheel, gunned the engine, made a wide turn and took off back down the road, turning when they came to the spur that would put them on Jodie’s trail.
Enough time had passed that the dust had died down, making it anyone’s guess if Jodie had continued up this road or not. All Zane could think of was that red smear and he looked at it again. His gut and every other instinct in his body told him this was Kinsey’s blood. He couldn’t imagine how the hat would end up in the dirt unless it had been torn off her head, a possibility supported by those ominous scuffle marks in the dirt. It was inconceivable to him that she would have lost it without knowing. And there was that blood...
“We’ll find him,” Pike said with a slap on his shoulder.
“I know.” He looked out the window at the rolling hills and felt sick inside. Jodie could be almost anywhere. Maybe they should call the police and try to get some help.
“If they took her to get to you, then she may be the bait in a trap,” Pike said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Zane said. He’d been staring out the window as he spoke and now he sat forward. “Slow down, Pike. Go back a few yards.”
Pike backed up the truck. Two tracks of flattened grass led off across a field, their bent stalks shimmering gold in the heat. Pike immediately followed the trail.
“What do you figure? He’s got a good twenty-minute lead?”
“At least,” Zane said. “Probably more like thirty minutes. Is it possible he’s headed to a major highway?”
“It’s possible. It’s a little out of the way but definitely possible, especially if he thinks we might be following him.”
The land began to climb until they finally flew over the top of the ridge. Zane recognized the plateau they’d ridden to the day before. Up here the ground was harder to read, rockier and scattered with downed trees and gullies. There were no longer any clear impressions of tires to follow.
Off in the distance, gazing past clumps of trees, he could see the imposing shape of the huge old oak. “I have a feeling about that tree,” Zane said.
“Then we’ll go look,” Pike said as he veered that direction. They had to slow down because of the rocks, but Pike kept with it. Zane leaned out the window and tried to see something, anything that would help. Was he letting the creep factor of the tree get to him? “Kinsey, Kinsey,” he whispered into the wind, then he sat up straighter. “I see something blue under the shade of the tree.”
“Big enough to be a truck?”
“Yes. It’s not moving. Why would he park there?”
Pike didn’t answer, but Zane could easily come up with a perfectly innocent answer. Maybe the guy was eating lunch in the shade of the tree. Maybe Kinsey was back at the ranch somewhere. Maybe he’d jumped to conclusions...
The ground finally evened out and they were able to travel faster. The blue truck was growing more defined, as was a figure moving around beside it. By the size of the person, Zane knew it wasn’t Kinsey, so it must be Jodie. If the guy was just out for a ride, he’d stay where he was and find out what all the drama was about. That seemed to be the case for a few seconds, and then suddenly the man disappeared around the back of the truck. When he reappeared the next time, he was climbing into the driver’s seat. The truck wallowed over the roots before it took off, making a wide circle to head south.
“I can intercede his path,” Pike said and slowed down to make a wide turn.
“No,” Zane said quickly. “Something’s on the ground. Drive to the tree. Hurry.”
Pike aborted his turn and they all but flew over the remaining distance. Try as he might to discern what Jodie had left behind, the intense shade of the tree and the twisted depth of the roots concealed the truth. Pike finally hit the brakes a good distance away to avoid those roots and Zane popped open his door. He ran with his heart in his mouth and then stopped abruptly as the ambiguous shadows on the ground evolved into Kinsey.
She lay sprawled, her clothes bunched around her body, her hair almost covering her face, smaller in this state than he’d ever seen her, her skin delicate and pale and covered with blood. For one interminable moment, he thought she was dead, but then he heard her moan. A second later, he knelt by her side.
Pike came to a grinding halt beside him. He, too, kneeled. “Oh my God,” he whispered. “What did he do to her?”
Zane felt her hands. They were cool to the touch. He smoothed her hair away from her beautiful face and saw that her right earlobe was torn. She cried when he tried to pull down her shirt and straighten her legs. Her eyes fluttered open and she looked at him. Tears immediately trickled down her cheeks.
“Where does it hurt, baby?” he whispered.
She licked her lips.
“There’s water in the truck,” Pike said and ran off to get it. Zane slipped off his vest and folded it under her head. He tried once again to make her comfortable, checking for broken bones as he did so, finding to his relief that a majority of the blood was on her face and seemed to come from the torn lobe and a gash across her forehead.
Pike was back in a minute and they wet a handkerchief to drip warm water onto Kinsey’s lips. She’d drifted off for a few seconds, but as the water touched her, she opened her eyes.
“Zane?”
“I’m here, honey. What happened?”
“A man,” she said.
“It was Jodie. Did he hurt you anywhere I can’t see?”
“My ribs,” she said very softly. “My head.”
“You’re okay now,” he said. Who the hell was Jodie? And why had he taken Kinsey and then abandoned her here? What was the point?
In a way, he didn’t care. Kinsey was beaten and bloody because of his selfish desire to have her close to him. He would find Jodie and one way or another, exact revenge for what the man had done.
But there was another question just as compelling. How had he, Gerard Hastings, provoked such violence? He had to find out. Someone had to know.
First things first. “Come on, sweetheart,” he murmured to Kinsey. “We need to get you to a doctor.”
She looked into his eyes but didn’t speak. Together, he and Pike helped her stand, then Zane scooped her gently into his arms. Pike wandered away with his cell phone as Zane carried Kinsey to the truck. The back was too full of tools and discarded lumber to use it as a bed for her, so he carefully helped her settle in the front seat, then he scooted in after her. She collapsed into his arms as Pike got behind the wheel. Pike handed him Kinsey’s shoulder bag, her wallet and the small art book. “I found these tossed aside,” he said. “They’re hers, right?”
“Right,” Zane said as he took the proffered items. “Who did you call?”
“Chance. He’s taking off to look for Jodie.”
“If he finds him, the bastard is mine,” Zane said.
*
KINSEY KNEW SHE was safe and for the moment that was enough. The cocoon of Zane’s arms lulled her as the truck ambled along slowly in deference to her injuries. They finally hit smooth pavement and the speed increased.
The urgent-care facility contacted the police. By the time they showed up, Kinsey’s ribs had been taped, her forehead gash closed with the proper bandages, her earlobe stitc
hed and her body laced with antibiotics and a tetanus shot. She was told in no uncertain terms that she should go home and go to bed at once, that in a bigger city with an actual hospital, she would have been admitted for at least an overnight stay.
“Hey, Gerard, long time no see,” Officer Robert Hendricks said as he came into the treatment room. The two men shook hands. Kinsey thought the officer’s expression reflected a certain surprise at Zane’s lack of response to his overt friendliness. “Where’s Pike?” he added. “I heard he came in with you.”
“He did. He got a call from Frankie, who’s been in town a couple of days for some reason. Sorry, I’m unclear on the details.”
“You don’t know why Frankie is here in town?”
“No, do you?”
“No, but I better look into it. Damn, I hope he hasn’t slipped back into trouble.” He turned his attention to Kinsey. “Are you up to telling me what happened?”
She was sitting in a reasonably comfortable chair, her hand firmly clasped in Zane’s. It was impossible not to notice the way the officer’s gaze kept straying to their linked fingers.
“It started in the Hastingses’ garden,” she began. All she could think of was Jodie’s threat. “He told me if I came quietly, Zane would not have to see me die, but if I caused a fuss, Zane would never forget how Jodie killed me.” She swallowed a lump and took a deep breath. “Then he started in on someone named Block.”
Zane took the floor for a moment and explained what they’d already been through in New Orleans. He also confessed his amnesia. “The Block name means absolutely nothing to me,” he added. “I’ll ask Pike and the others about it when I see them.”
Hendricks nodded as though a light had gone on in his head. “You have amnesia?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that explains why you’re looking at me like we’ve never met.”
“I’m sorry,” Zane said. “How well do we know each other?”
“High school, college, you were my best man, my wife and I were Heidi’s godparents.”
“Oh, hell,” Zane said. “I’ll buy you a beer when I get back to normal.”
Hendricks laughed but soon turned serious again. “Okay, Ms. Frost. What did Jodie say about this Block?”
Jodie’s voice came back, as did the sensation of his hot, sour breath against her neck. It was the exact words that were jumbled and she shook her head in frustration. “I can’t remember exactly how it went,” she admitted. “The impression I got was that Block was angry with me for taking something that was special to him. Jodie said I would die in an accident and then Block would get back what was his. It was all so confusing. Up until then I thought this all revolved around Zane...I mean Gerard. When I said I didn’t know anyone named Block, Jodie got angry. He...he ran the gun down my chest...I don’t know, I thought for a moment he was going to rape me. I tried to get away. He bit my ear. I don’t remember anything after that until he pulled me out of the truck. He took my handbag and he tore it apart as I tried to sit up. He took the cash, but there was hardly anything left. I wondered if this was some kind of bizarre robbery, but the money seemed incidental to him. He threw all my things into the field and started yelling at me.”
“What did he yell?” Zane asked.
“I don’t know. He was impossible to understand. The kicks began and I just tried to protect my head. After a really hard blow to my side, he said he was going to find a rope in the back of his truck and tie me to the tree for the buzzards.” She glanced up at Zane. “I thought about you finding me like that, what that would do to you.” Unbidden tears burned behind her nose. Zane hugged her shoulders and smoothed her hair.
She took a deep breath. “But all of a sudden, he gave me a last kick, got in his truck and left in a hurry. I couldn’t believe he was going away. The next thing I knew, Zane and Pike were there.”
“Does anyone have a picture of him?” Hendricks asked.
“If you have a piece of paper and a pencil, I might be able to give you something better than a verbal description,” Kinsey said.
“She’s a portrait artist,” Zane explained. “A very talented one.”
“My lucky day,” Hendricks said as he hustled out of the room to find supplies.
*
AFTER LEAVING HIS family at the ranch, Zane drove on to his house where he helped Kinsey up to the second floor. She sat gingerly on the bench at the foot of the bed while he carefully removed her clothes. Black-and-blue marks had begun to appear, each one representing a punch or a kick. He clenched his jaw so she wouldn’t see how angry they made him.
“My orange gown—”
“I’ll get it for you.” He found the garment beside the bed where he’d tossed it the night before after almost ripping it from her body. He pulled it over her head and helped her into the bed.
“You’re safe now, you know that, right? I’ll be here,” he told her as he helped her find a comfortable position and covered her with a light blanket.
She caught his hand. “I want to go home,” she said. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”
He swallowed his disappointment. Of course she wanted the comfort of her family and her own four walls, but the doctors had told him she shouldn’t fly for a few days. He leaned over to kiss her forehead. “I’ll take you home any time you say,” he whispered against her cheek. They would drive. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t made the trip before. “We’ll leave tomorrow if that’s what you want.”
“That’s what I want.”
“Okay, sweetheart. That’s what we’ll do. Try to get some sleep.”
Her grip tightened. “You aren’t leaving me, are you?”
“Of course not,” he said. He wanted to add that he would never leave her side again, but he wasn’t certain that would strike her as an attractive thought. Maybe leaving here meant leaving him.
Within a few minutes, her grip grew slack, her breathing even. The next thing he knew, he was opening his eyes on a room where the light had significantly changed. He glanced at the clock and sat up. He’d fallen asleep sitting up and over two hours had passed. He stood when he realized what had woken him was the sound of an engine outside.
His first instinct was to grab the gun off the shelf, and he did this before creeping across the heavily shadowed room to the window. It was crazy to think Jodie would dare come back to the ranch, but his heart beat in his throat anyway. Then he recognized Pike’s truck. He tucked the gun in the small of his back and raced downstairs to open the door before Pike could ring the bell and disturb Kinsey.
“How is she?” Pike asked as he came through the door.
“She’s asleep right now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she has nightmares about this for weeks.”
“I’m real sorry. I feel bad that I hired that jerk. I should have insisted on references. We’ve never had trouble before, so I guess I got complacent.”
“You didn’t know any of this was going on,” Zane said. “In retrospect, I should have hunted him down last night and I shouldn’t have left Kinsey behind—”
“We both feel responsible,” Pike interrupted. “And it does Kinsey absolutely no good at all.”
“I know it doesn’t. She wants to go home. I can’t let her make the trip alone.”
“I understand,” Pike said. “We’ll get along without you. Dad is home now, he plans on riding out with us to Bywater, so don’t worry about it.”
“I have a favor to ask,” Zane added.
“Shoot.”
“I need someone to take Kinsey’s car to the rental place and settle the bill. Of course I’ll repay it.”
“I know you will. I’ll take care of it. How are you going to get to Louisiana?”
“I’ll take the SUV. Hopefully when we get there we can find my truck. I want to give the SUV to Kinsey since I’m responsible for the destruction of her car. Which leads me to ask something. The ranch appears to be profitable. I’m a little startled at how much money I have.”
�
�The ranch is profitable,” Pike said, “but you’re twice as rich as anyone else. Your mother’s father died a couple of years ago and left you a small fortune.”
“That explains it.”
“Like I said, Dad got home a couple of hours ago. We’ve filled him in on what we knew so you wouldn’t have to start at the beginning again. Lily was going to come stay with Kinsey, but she got busy cooking, so I came instead. Dad wants to see you.”
Zane looked toward the stairs. Reason said Kinsey would sleep through his absence and that Pike was just as capable of protecting her as he was. Nevertheless, he didn’t want to leave.
“I’ve been meaning to ask if the name Block means anything to you,” he said. “Jodie mentioned it to Kinsey during the abduction.”
Pike shook his head. “It doesn’t ring any bells. She doesn’t recognize it either?”
“No. One more question. What’s up with Frankie and why aren’t any of the rest of you married?”
“That’s two questions,” Pike said. “It’s hard to keep in mind that you don’t remember everything about us. Frankie has been in and out of trouble his whole life. I guess there’s one in every family and in our family, it’s Frankie.”
“I thought it was Chance.”
“No. Chance is a player in some ways and he never walks away from a fight, but he doesn’t tangle with the law.”
“And Frankie does?”
“Afraid so. He used to run with an unruly bunch of losers. Lately he’s been trying to sort himself out. Listen, you have enough to worry about right now. I’ll take care of Frankie.”
“How about the married part?”
Pike flashed a tentative smile. “That’s harder to explain. Things just haven’t worked out for any of us. Maybe it has something to do with the parade of women Dad marched through our childhood. Maybe that left a bad taste in our mouths when it came to marriage.”
Alice Sharpe Page 15
