Heartbreaker

by Karen Robards

  “Bull,” Lynn growled. Her turtleneck was soaked too. Putting a dry coat on over a wet shirt was stupid. Too mad—and too cold—to be modest, she yanked the turtleneck over her head and stuffed it down in the cockpit near her feet in case she needed it later.

  “Lo-ove that Wonderbra,” he said, even as she thrust her arms into his too-big, blood-stiffened jacket and pulled it around herself. Still warm from his body, it felt wonderful. Glaring at him, Lynn hugged it close. Until that moment she had not realized just how bone-cold she had been.

  “Listen, Little Joe, I’ve had about enough of your jokes. If I were you I’d keep my big mouth shut.” She zipped the coat.

  “Or …” He was moving down the craft, his hand sliding over the plastic. Lynn couldn’t see him any longer—she was afraid to turn her head to follow his progress—but she could tell he was grinning. She sat very still.

  “Or as soon as I get out of this bathtub toy, I’ll kick your butt to next Tuesday.”

  He laughed out loud, pushed the kayak out from the bank, and jumped in. The kayak rocked violently under his weight. Lynn was so mad she didn’t even flinch.

  She just hung on to the sides as they nosed out into the current and were pulled downstream. The kayak bounced over the bumpy water. Icy droplets blew up from the river to splash her. Sounds behind her told her that Jess was steadying the craft with his paddle.

  A porcine porcupine stared at them from the tangle of undergrowth on the bank before waddling up a tree. A squadron of sparrows, flying low, sailed over their heads to vanish upstream. Lynn caught a glimpse of something large and dark—a grizzly?—shuffling away from the bank.

  “Here’s your paddle.” Jess nudged her, then passed the paddle to her over her shoulder. “Dip, raise, dip, raise, from side to side, kind of like a seesaw. Let the paddle grab the water and pull.”

  Lynn hated to let go of the sides long enough even to grasp the paddle, much less try to follow Jess’s instructions, but she did. The thought that sustained her was, Jess was in the kayak with her now. If she drowned, so would he.

  It would almost be worth it.

  As she rather expected, the kayak didn’t roll. Not with Jess in it. He would make sure of that.

  Dip, raise, dip, raise. Let the paddle grab the water and pull. First one side, then the other. Lynn quickly got into the rhythm of it. Though no praise was forthcoming from the back, Lynn was proud of herself as the kayak shot smoothly down the center of the river.

  “Good thing we’ve got this current from the spring runoff to pull us along. It doesn’t make any difference whether you know what you’re doing or not.”

  This raised-voice observation made Lynn grit her teeth. For a moment she was tempted to turn and bean him with the paddle. The thought of unbalancing the kayak was enough to dissuade her. Vengeance would have to wait for dry land.

  She couldn’t tell whether he was paddling or not. The craft felt stable, and it was his weight that was holding it so. At the thought a grin tugged at her lips.

  “At least you’re good for something,” she called over her shoulder.

  “What’s that?”

  “Ballast.” She snickered, glad to be giving as good as she got.

  He said nothing. Lynn resumed her paddling as the thick stands of alder and willow that had taken so much time and effort to wade through flew past. Kayaking, she decided, sure beat walking.

  As long as the blasted thing didn’t roll.

  Along with a bobbing branch and a trio of ducks, they barreled around a bend in the river.

  “We need to start pulling toward the side. Rotate your body toward the bank,” Jess instructed. “Now let the blade lock into the water and pull.”

  Lynn tried, feeling clumsy. But it seemed to work. The kayak nosed toward shore.

  Rotate your body, she repeated to herself. Lock and pull.

  They hit with a bump that was jarring. Lynn almost dropped her paddle, but she managed to hold on to it as the plastic underside of the craft lurched over the rocky river bottom with a gritty screech.

  A quick glance up at the riverbank revealed the same wild snarl of undergrowth they had been passing all along.

  “Are you sure this is the right place?” Lynn asked over her shoulder. An awful thought had just occurred to her: What if they couldn’t find Rory? The tall, straight tree trunks looked the same on all sides, like a crowd risen for a standing ovation. The under-story of vines and ragged bushes and deadwood looked the same too.

  “See that big boulder up there?”

  Lynn nodded.

  “I made a mental note of it because I knew we’d be able to see it from the river. About a yard past and two yards to the left of that boulder is where we left Rory.”

  “I’ll go get her.”

  “Sure you wouldn’t rather stay here with the kayak?”

  At the thought of sitting in that kayak without Jess, Lynn grimaced.

  “No, thanks.”

  She didn’t mean to let the thing roll with her again if she could help it.

  “You might need these.” Her boots were passed over her shoulder one at a time. It was a struggle, but despite the tight quarters Lynn managed to pull them on.

  Given the slippery nature of the craft and her flat-on-her-bottom position, disembarkation wasn’t easy, but she managed to get to her feet and step out into the water.

  As her weight left it, the kayak rocked dangerously in backlash. For an instant Lynn watched, hopeful that it would roll.

  No such luck.

  Jess grinned at her as if he had read her mind. He sat in the second seat, his paddle balanced on top of the yellow plastic in front of him and braced to hold the kayak in position. It was clear that he’d been paddling with his good hand, using the kayak as a fulcrum, while the less mobile hand simply held the paddle in position.

  The Marlboro Man as kayaker.

  “Hurry,” Jess said softly, holding her gaze. “Or I just might leave without you.”

  It was an empty threat. Whatever his faults, and they were many and varied, Lynn knew that he would not leave them. He had proved himself—oh, God, the brochure’s wording was popping up in her mind again—utterly reliable.

  Lynn thought about that as she scrambled up the steep bank and clawed her way through the willow thicket.

  Throughout this whole awful ordeal Jess had never failed to come through for her and Rory. When they had fallen down the cliff, who had come after them, saving their lives at no little risk to his own? Jess. Who had carried Rory all that distance from the cliff to the mining camp in the teeth of the child’s crush on him and her own suspicions about his motives? Jess. Who in the face of deadly danger had grabbed Rory and run with her, instead of simply taking care of number one? Jess. Who had shown them the way to the cave where they had spent the night, though he was wounded and bleeding badly? Jess. Who had come up with the kayak and the plan that might very well save them all and worked to make it happen despite his injuries? Jess.

  He could have left them on the cliff; he could have abandoned them last night. He could still take off without them and have a much easier time saving merely himself—but he wasn’t going to.

  Lynn was as sure of that as she was of anything in her life.

  Whatever his faults, she knew Jess would do his best for her and Rory until they were all safely out of this mess.

  The Marlboro Man as hero. In Jess’s case, reluctant as she was to admit that maybe she’d been wrong, the reality was living up to the hype after all.

  As Jess had said, the wall of ferns was visible immediately once she had made it past the boulder and glanced left. Frothy tendrils poured in a lush green waterfall to the pine-needle carpet. Stately evergreens rose all around like sentinels. A shaft of sunlight sparkled off dust motes in the air.

  Rory was as invisible as she had been when they had left her.

  “Rory,” Lynn called softly, conscious of an eerie feeling that the trees had ears. “We’re back. We need to
go.”

  Rory did not answer. Perhaps she had fallen asleep, Lynn thought. Approaching the ferns, she bent and swept them aside with one hand.

  Rory was not there.

  As she stared at the empty nest where she had expected to find her daughter, Lynn realized what had been wrong with this picture all along: The forest was too quiet.

  Except for her own breathing and the hushed rustle of the wind in the trees, there was not a sound.

  Not from a bird. Or an insect. Or an animal.

  Lynn sensed a presence to her left and whirled. Not three feet away, her daughter stared at her with enormous blue eyes. A man was behind her, portly, black-haired, and balding. Like Rory, he was crouching behind a large pine, partly hidden by the undergrowth. His hand pressed tightly over Rory’s mouth, clamping her to him.

  A black, businesslike-looking pistol was trained over Rory’s shoulder, aimed right at Lynn’s head.

  26

  “WHEN DID YOU TAKE UP with the Judas?” The man was wearing a stained white dress shirt, open at the collar, and a pair of black pants. He had the merest trace of a southern accent. His voice was soft, his tone conversational. He was frowning as he looked Lynn over, but not in a particularly menacing fashion. More as if he found her puzzling.

  Not quite understanding what he was talking about, Lynn tried a smile. With her hair wet and her face dirty, clad in a goose-down jacket big enough to be a dress, Lynn realized that she looked far different from her normal self. Usually she could count on racking up a few brownie points for appearance where men were concerned. Not today, as was clear from his lack of response to her smile.

  “You aren’t one of the Michaelites,” he continued. “I don’t know you.”

  He looked, and sounded, disconcertingly normal. The local used-car salesman as homicidal maniac.

  Lynn repressed a shiver.

  “No, I’m not,” Lynn agreed, taking care to speak calmly. Her gaze met Rory’s. The pupils of her child’s eyes were dilated with fear. As the reality of the situation sank in, Lynn realized that she was pretty frightened herself. Her throat was so dry she couldn’t swallow. Her leg muscles felt about as firm as Jell-O.

  Obviously, this was one of their pursuers from the night before. It had to be: How many different lunatics with guns could be running around in a few square miles of national forest? They had been caught—by the killers who had massacred that woman, those boys, the man on the cross. And who knew how many others? But perhaps there was hope, after all. He seemed surprised that she was not one of the “Michaelites,” whatever that meant.

  He had no way of being sure that she and Rory were members of the trio that they’d been chasing. He could not know that they had seen the bodies at the mining camp. Perhaps she could convince him that she and Rory were merely innocent hikers and knew nothing—except that he was holding Rory captive and had a gun pointed at her own head.

  That was pretty damning stuff, all by itself.

  Lynn felt nauseous as she realized that in all likelihood she was not going to be able to persuade him to just let them go. But she had to try.

  “Were you out here hunting?” she said with what she hoped was a disingenuous smile and her best Pat Greer, hearty-campfire-girl imitation. “Did we interrupt you? I’m sorry! If you’ll let my daughter go, we’ll get out of your way and let you get on about your business.”

  “Is Theresa with you?” He ignored her words completely.

  “Theresa?” Lynn was willing to say yes or no, depending on which answer was most likely to please him. Unfortunately, she had no way of telling that.

  “Theresa. Michael’s daughter.”

  “Oh.” While Lynn did a lightning-fast mental debate as to the possible advantages of telling the truth and disclaiming all knowledge of any Theresa, he shook his head as if dismissing the question.

  “Where’s the man?” He was watching her intently. Rory was trembling. Lynn could see the pale slim fingers of one hand quivering as they hung down between the child’s bent knees. The other grasped the arm that imprisoned her.

  “The man?” Lynn took a deep, calming breath as she considered the pros and cons of an ear-shattering scream. It would certainly bring “the man” lickety-split to the spot—but it might also precipitate her own, and Rory’s, murder. And Jess’s, when he came running.

  “The man who was with you last night.” He smiled. “Yahweh told me to look for you along the river, you know. You can’t hide from Yahweh.”

  “Yahweh?” Lynn was certain now that she was dealing with a lunatic and was unsure as to what might set him off.

  “You call him God, I believe. He speaks to us through the Lamb. He that leadeth us … But of course you would think the Judas was the Lamb. That was what he wanted everyone to think.” He shook his head sorrowfully. “You Michaelites have been misled, I’m sorry to say. The Judas was but a false prophet. Well, he is answering for his sins now.”

  “My daughter could go and fetch the man for you—and Theresa too. You and I can talk while she’s gone. She would hurry, wouldn’t you, Rory?” Lynn was desperate, trying anything she could think of to get the maniac to release Rory. There was a fanatical light in his eyes that told her even more surely than his incomprehensible words that he was irrational. The very reasonableness with which he spewed his nonsense was terrifying.

  He would kill without a qualm, certain he was doing the right thing.

  Rory nodded fearfully.

  “If he’s around, gunshots will bring him running.” The man smiled, shrugged. “Though that might not work with Theresa. In answer to your suggestion I am reminded of that saying about a bird in the hand.… You know it? Yes. So don’t worry about the others. They’ll join you soon enough, I promise. But here, I mustn’t keep you talking all day. I know you’re frightened and must long to get it over with. Death is something that is universally feared, I’m quite aware. But it is nothing to fear. Just a passing over into a better life.”

  “Please …” Lynn began as his hand shifted from Rory’s mouth to her waist. He was getting ready to rise.

  “Mom …” Rory whispered. The child was visibly terrified. She trembled. Her face was as white as paper; her eyes were huge dark pools as they met Lynn’s.

  Lynn realized that if she didn’t do something Rory was going to die. They both were going to die.

  “Don’t be worried, young lady. I promise you, death is nothing to fear.” The man sounded jovial, like a macabre Santa Claus. Pulling Rory up with him, he started to get to his feet, gathering his body together, his movements ponderous.

  The gun wavered as he rose.

  Acting out of instinct and pure mother-love, Lynn jumped forward and kicked for all she was worth. The toe of her boot made a solid smack as it connected with his gun hand.

  The gun went off even as his hand flew up, and the weapon went flying, spinning top over tail into the undergrowth.

  “Run, Rory!” Lynn grabbed her daughter’s arm and yanked her away from the man. His momentary shock, plus his bulk, gave them the advantage. Bolting like deer from a hunter, Lynn pulled Rory toward the boulder …

  … And ran headlong into Jess, who was clearly in the process of charging to their rescue. She hit his chest and would have bounced off if he had not caught her by her upper arm, steadying her even as he staggered a pace backward.

  “Come on!” Recovering, he gripped her wrist, hauling her and Rory around the boulder in a frantic imitation of the childhood game crack-the-whip.

  As his feet skidded on a patch of moss, Lynn realized he was still in his stocking feet.

  A lightning glance back told her that the lunatic was frantically searching the bushes for his gun. His ample posterior, clad in shiny polyester slacks that were stretched to the danger point, faced her as he bent to rake the undergrowth with his hands.

  “Hurry,” Lynn breathed, clinging to Jess’s hand now as she went slip-sliding down the steep bank after him with Rory in tow.

  Distant
male voices and the sound of crashing footsteps told her that their pursuers, summoned by the gunshot, were after them again in full force.

  “Get in!”

  Jess practically flung her into the river and bent over the back of the kayak. Lynn splashed through the knee-deep water, her boots growing unbelievably heavy as they filled with water, and whipped Rory around her toward the front seat.

  “Get in!” she cried to her daughter.

  Rory scrambled into the kayak’s front cockpit, sloshing water everywhere.

  “Get in with her! Hurry!”

  Lynn obeyed Jess’s instruction, clambering in after Rory as Jess pushed them out into the current. Trapped in mud and weighted down by water, her boots were left behind as her feet slid out of them. She had no time to worry about their loss. Her paddle was thrust past her elbow as soon as her bottom hit plastic. Lynn grabbed the paddle and maneuvered it so that it was in front of Rory. With both arms touching her daughter she could feel Rory trembling. But she had no time to worry about that, either, as she started to paddle for all she was worth.

  Grab the water and pull.

  A brisk breeze raced up the river, blowing her hair back from her face, smelling of pine. Her feet and legs were numb from the cold water, she was sitting in a puddle, and her freedom of movement was hampered by Jess’s oversize coat.

  Plus she was scared to death.

  Grab the water and pull.

  “Hold it steady!”

  The kayak was free of the bank now, picking up speed as its nose swung downstream. There was a splash, a grunt, and a violent yawing as a sudden shift in the craft’s center of gravity occurred.

  Jess was on board.

  Instinctively Lynn fought the rolling movement by leaning in the opposite direction. Controlling a kayak was kind of like riding a skateboard, she had discovered earlier. Lean in the direction you want it to go.

  “Paddle!” Jess suited action to word. Lynn followed suit. Huddled against Lynn’s chest, her body surrounded by Lynn’s arms and legs, Rory sat silent and trembling.