by Alicia Scott
He contemplated her for another moment. He was starting to feel strung too tight, and that would get him nowhere. If there was ever a situation that required logic and rationality, this was it. It was only his freedom, his life at stake. And now that you’ve kidnapped her, is her life at stake as well? Do you think Ham would hesitate to harm her?
The thought came out of nowhere and floored him. For a minute, he could only sit there and blink. He stole another glance at her. She sat quietly, her tangled red hair torched by the bright spring sun, her skin alabaster white and her lips rose petal pink. She was beautiful in her own way. If he’d met her under any other circumstances, he might have nodded politely at her, but he still would have walked away.
He preferred sophisticated women, ones who wouldn’t expect things from him he couldn’t give. Ones who considered great sex to be its own reward. This woman before him … she looked as if she still slept curled in a ball, her dreams searching for a happily-ever-after that had never quite found her.
A marriage counselor. A woman hell-bent on saving the world when God knows she didn’t look as if she could even save herself.
You got her into this, Cain. What do you do now?
Nothing, he decided resolutely. Just a few more hours of her assistance and he’d be in Idaho. Once out of the immediate range of the Oregon state police, he’d let her go. She’d call her brothers. She would be safe. If Ham did hunt her down and ask questions, she certainly wouldn’t tell any stories. As far as she was concerned Cain was a murderer, and he was best off to keep it that way. As long as she thought the worst of him, she was safe from Ham. Cain owed her that much, and if there ever came a day when he was a free man, he would find her and thank her for the small part she played in helping him uncover the truth.
Cain didn’t know if he ever would be a free man, though. The cops would hunt him until he cleared his name, and to clear his name he needed to confront Ham. Confronting Ham would probably lead to his own death, or possibly to Ham’s. Which would finally make Cain guilty of one murder though convicted of another. Either way, Cain’s future didn’t look very encouraging, and for all his brilliance, he couldn’t quite crack this riddle. Cain’s conundrum, he called it.
First things first: He had to make it to Idaho.
“Do you have a cash card?” he asked Maggie abruptly.
“Y-yes.”
“All right.” His voice was deliberately hard. “This is what we’ll do. We’re going to walk across the street to the other mall. I’m going to remove the handcuffs for the occasion, so don’t do anything that will make me make you regret it. Got it?”
She nodded, but her brow was furrowed into a rebellious scowl.
“At the mall,” he continued relentlessly, “you’ll withdraw as much as you can. Then we’ll steal another car and head for Salem. With any luck, it will take them a while to notice the vehicle is gone.”
She opened her mouth as if to protest, then abruptly shut it again. She hunched her shoulders a little more. Finally, in a faint voice, she asked, “Are you ever going to let me go?”
“When we get to Idaho … if you cooperate.”
He followed up the statement with a dispassionate stare. And she peered back at him from beneath the long, tangled locks of her red hair, looking like someone who’d gotten too many hard knocks and not enough pick-me-ups. Her lashes swept down abruptly, brushing her pale cheeks delicately and hiding her eyes. Her fingers knit together on her lap, as if seeking to comfort one another.
He forced himself to watch and remain impassive.
“All right,” she agreed.
“We use your ATM card. We steal another car,” he repeated.
“I cooperate. You don’t hurt anyone,” she repeated.
“We have ourselves a deal.”
He reached across the bench seat and briskly grabbed her handcuffed hand, releasing the metal bracelet. He folded the cuffs in his back pocket, beneath the cover of his overshirt.
“I still have a loaded gun,” he reminded her softly.
“Who could forget?”
He opened the truck door, peered around for cops and drew her half out of the vehicle. “We walk, nothing fancy. Let’s take the map with us.”
She obediently retrieved the map and handed it to him.
She was silent for a moment. Then she expelled in a rush, “You don’t have to do this. Running from the law, stealing cars, it’s no way to live. If you’d let me call my brother Brandon, he’s very smart—you’ve never talked to anyone as smart as him. He could help you. I just know he could. You seem like you’re quite intelligent. I mean … surely you must want more from life than to spend your days running from the police. What kind of future is that?”
“It’s not much of one.”
“My family could help you—”
“Maggie,” he interjected quietly. “Enough.”
He turned and walked away, and the motion of his arm forced her to follow.
Chapter 4
She cast a surreptitious glance at her captor as he led her across the parking lot.
His steps were long, forceful and not at all furtive. His green gaze was hard and level and never ducked guiltily to the pavement. In the faded blue shirt, worn T-shirt and work-softened jeans, he looked like anyone, any random man who might work with his hands and know what he was about. Solid shoulders, lean flanks, muscled forearms. A few women gave him a second glance before spotting Maggie.
He’d been a computer programmer? She never would have guessed that. She thought computer programmers were supposed to be like accountants, nice, bland men with innocuous smiles and rapidly blinking eyes. In jeans and T-shirt, Cain looked more like the dairy farmers she’d spend her summers with in Tillamook. She could see him striding along in the field, shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal tanned forearms, and bright August sun torching his golden hair as he wrapped his gloved hands around baling wire and hefted hay bales effortlessly onto the flatbed. Heave-ho, heave-ho. From the time of the summer of ’78 on Lydia’s farm, she’d spent all her summers watching that ritual, driving the tractor that pulled the flatbed through the fields and feeling her heart beat in rhythm to the constant, sweaty motion.
Her mouth was suddenly dry. Her shoulder was pressed against his rib cage, her hand still firmly tucked in his, and shivers abruptly raced up her spine.
Oh, God, Maggie, you have finally gone and lost your ever-lovin’ mind.
“ATM machine,” Cain exclaimed briskly as they arrived on the other side of the four-lane intersection. “This way.”
He pulled her to the left and she trotted along blankly like a well-heeled puppy dog.
Do something, you ninny!
She looked at him again. His face was composed. His intelligent gaze had locked on target, and he led them to the machine with rapid, precise steps, as if he had no care in the world and he would escape from an entire state’s police force through sheer force of will.
That was the problem. She knew that look. She’d seen it on Brandon’s face more times than she could count. The oldest of them, he’d had the opportunity to know Max the best, and he’d been the first to watch their father simply walk out the door one day and never come back. He could have hated her and C.J., particularly C.J., for while Maxmillian had married Brandon’s mother for her inheritance, he kept returning to C.J.’s mother in L.A. out of love. But Brandon had been the first to realize that C.J.’s fierce exterior hid a scared, angry little boy who’d lost the father he considered an idol. And in those rough beginning weeks, Brandon was the one who would calmly and firmly say, “It’s all right, C.J. Everything is going to be all right.” Then he would look at both C.J. and Maggie with a gaze just like Cain’s, cool, composed and magnetic, as if through sheer force of will, he’d keep them safe. After ten days, C.J. and Maggie would have followed him anywhere, they trusted him that much.
At the time he was solid and reliable, everything their father hadn’t been. And now? Ever since his wife’s deat
h, Brandon had been jetting around the globe, unreachable and unpredictable. Even C.J. had edgily growled last week, “What the hell does he think he’s proving? That he can disappear like Max?”
Maggie couldn’t answer. She just knew in some deep part of her heart that Brandon would never return, just as Max never returned, just as her mother had always threatened to never return.
“All right. Proceed, Maggie.”
Cain came to an abrupt halt, turning briskly. She stared at him blankly, her hand tucked into his, her shoulder against his chest. She felt very small, all of a sudden. Lost in her thoughts and the emptiness that sometimes consumed her from the inside out.
“Woolgathering?”
She could only nod. He looked strong, she thought abruptly. Even on the run, he appeared in control, as if he never doubted his ability to succeed. She couldn’t imagine being that sure. She couldn’t imagine not lying in bed at night, wondering if anyone would ever hold her close and love her enough to stay.
“Maggie?” Cain prodded. “Dreaming of being rescued by a dashing young man?”
She shook her head, fixing her gaze on his sternum and the nubby fabric of his T-shirt. “Just take the money,” she told him. Her voice was faint. She hated that. Abruptly she swallowed and the emptiness was gone. Instead she was angry, angry and frustrated and furious because she sounded like such a mouse, acted like such a mouse, and what had it ever gotten her?
“Take the money,” she demanded more harshly. “Take it and kidnap me and get this show on the road. We have to go to Idaho. You have to kill your brother. I suppose if you let me live I can write up the events and option them for a Sunday night movie. Robert Redford can be you. Do you think Sandra Bullock would mind playing me?”
Cain was silent; then he frowned. “You say the damnedest things, Maggie.”
“Yes,” she agreed curtly and suddenly she was the one striding ahead to the ATM machine. “I’m the odd one, the quiet one, the timid one. I’m never any trouble—just ask anyone. Good, sweet little Maggie.” She yanked her cash card out of her purse and jammed it into the machine. “So, how much money does an escaped felon need these days?”
“Two hundred.” His eyes were still on her face. “You know, you’re not that passive, Maggie. You’ve already argued with me several times and I’m carrying a gun.”
“Oh goody, I’m developing. I’ve gone from passive-aggressive to suicidal. Give me a decade. I’m sure I can hit manic-depressive.”
She snatched the money from the machine’s mouth.
“Self-pity, Maggie?”
“Yes, it’s the next step of the hostage trauma process. First denial, then self-pity.” She stuffed her ATM card into the pocket of her skirt, then slammed the wad of twenties into his hand. “Here’s your allowance. Don’t spend it all in one place.”
He wasn’t moving. “Maggie, I won’t hurt you. Help me get to Idaho and you’ll live to see your three-legged cat. I promise.”
“And I’m supposed to trust the word of a convicted murderer?”
“I’d ask you to trust the word of the pope, Maggie, but he’s not currently available.” Abruptly, he pulled her against his body. His eyes were no longer so calm. They burned, the tension radiating from him like waves. He looked frustrated, too, frustrated and angry and edgy. She could feel his thighs pressed against hers, and was suddenly painfully aware of her small breasts pushing against his chest. Her nipples were hard and sensitive. She wondered if he could feel that, too, and then her cheeks flushed with pure mortification at the thought.
She blinked several times rapidly; then in a small rush of anger she planted her hands against his concrete chest and pushed away. His grip on her hand kept her from going too far, but she could at least tilt back her head and stare at him mutinously.
“Stop it,” she demanded. “If you’re going to kidnap me, you’re going to kidnap me. You’re bigger than I am, stronger and armed, so I suppose I don’t have much say in the matter. But don’t mess with my mind. Don’t tell me what my problems are. You’re a murderer, for God’s sake. You’re trying to kill your brother. What do you know about happy, healthy lifestyles?”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. He flinched as if she might have actually hurt him, but she wasn’t so big of a fool that she believed that.
His eyes remained hooded, dark. His face appeared carved from a mountain. The silence stretched out, grew taut. Behind them, she could hear the random sounds of chattering pedestrians and roaring cars. The simple, everyday sounds of a busy mall. Bright, pinging noises that still couldn’t break the tension between them.
Abruptly, Cain nodded. His shoulders came down; his face grew smooth and expressionless, impenetrable. “You’re right,” he said. “You’re absolutely right.”
Then without another word, he turned and started pulling her toward the parking lot. “Come on, Maggie. We have another car to steal.”
• • •
They walked across the huge parking lot of Fred Meyer twice, peering in windows to see which doors were unlocked and how much gas prospective vehicles had. Cain preferred trucks for their powerful engines and off-road capability. Besides, he’d driven trucks all his life and felt less conspicuous in one than in a sedan. He finally narrowed down the selection to two trucks located at the back of the lot, both big and relatively new.
“They’re both probably insured,” he declared dryly.
Maggie lifted her chin. “Good.”
“Is there a color you prefer?”
“Oh no, I’m not going to have anything to do with this. If you’re going to steal another truck, then you steal another truck. For the record, I think we should take the bus.”
He glanced at her. “Oh yes, the special program TriMet started just for escaped murderers. I’d forgotten about that.”
“I hear it’s very good.” She played right along with him.
“Let’s take the blue truck, Maggie. I’ve always liked blue.”
“Buses might be blue.”
He granted her a small smile. “You really do try, Maggie. You really do try.”
“It’s never too late to change.”
He didn’t say anything, but as a silent rebuttal, opened the truck door for her, one hand already reaching out to assist her.
She batted it away with more force than necessary, holding herself perfectly rigid. “I can get in all by myself, thank you.”
“Yes, but this way is faster.” And while she was still opening her mouth for another rebuke, he clasped his hands around her supple waist and tossed her up into the king-size cab. With a startled cry, she grabbed the dash to keep from sliding on the floor, then with another gasp, hastily rearranged her skirt to cover her thighs. She gave him a look of pure indignation, but he simply smiled.
“I think we’re getting the hang of this,” he murmured and swung himself into the cab. Quick glance in the rearview mirror revealed no one else around. He got to work.
Maggie was glancing at her watch as the truck roared to life. “Forty-two seconds,” she muttered. “I don’t know how you do that.”
“Lots of practice.”
“As a computer programmer?” She raised a skeptical brow.
“As a Minuteman who would someday have to rise up and protect the last frontier from the ever-encroaching, ever-devious ZOG.”
That widened her eyes and shut her up in a hurry. He enjoyed the effect so much he continued talking casually as he swung the vehicle out of the parking lot. “Didn’t you know that ZOG is out to stupefy the American people?”
She shook her head.
“Public water supplies are contaminated—secret troops are being trained. The World Bank and the United Nations are actually ZOG puppets ready to take over the world once the government crushes the last of the U.S. resistance. It will be like the apocalypse—that’s what my father always said: ‘We are in a state of war, son. A state of war!’”
His voice trailed off. Maggie’s face was pale now; he could hear th
e wheels turning in her mind. The patient appears to be suffering from paranoid delusions, perhaps even acute schizophrenia.
“Can you open up our loyal map?” he said lightly, his gaze on the road. “We need a course for Salem.”
She muttered something under her breath but complied. The woman was obviously scared of him, but the meek act was certainly dropping away in a hurry. In its place she was … He didn’t know who she was. But she could certainly flash those blue eyes like nobody’s business. And her stubborn streak might be even wider than he’d previously estimated.
Interesting, in a woman who seemed so humbled at first glance. Who had taught her to look like that, to think so little of herself? She cared so much about others, why hadn’t someone thought to give a little more care to her? He had the impression sometimes, from a fleeting, wistful look in her eyes, that she was a woman who was very lonely. And when he saw that look …
He shut off the thought with a curt shake of his head. It was none of his business, dammit. She had been absolutely on target back there. It was bad enough he was taking her hostage; he certainly had no right to mess with her mind.
For his purposes, all that mattered was that she seemed to have a remarkably level head, she held up under pressure, and she could navigate. Yes, she was a serious candidate for the hostage-of-the-year award.
“Okay,” she said after a moment. “I’ve found us on the map.”
“All right, Sulu, lay in a course for Salem, sticking to back roads.”
“Sulu?”
“Star Trek.”
“Oh.” She glanced over at him narrowly, then shook her head. “Geek.”
He simply smiled.
• • •
Mile turned into miles. They left Portland’s suburbs and whizzed through lush green fields. Mount Hood rose up behind them, old and wise with its snowcapped head. They passed farmers out working their fields, dogs leaping and racing along the side of the road.
After a bit, Maggie glanced over at Cain, then decided on her own she was willing to risk the act of rolling down her window. The scent of fresh-mowed grass filled the cab. The wind caught her hair, lifting the red strands to the sun and streaming them away from her face.
