“It was for her own protection. Knowing would have jeopardized her life.”
Wes’s teeth came together. “Where is my sister?”
“Just listen, Wes,” Eric said. “Sit down and listen!”
Wes wouldn’t sit down, so Eric just looked up at him and tried to go on. “We thought there was only one person who knew Clint was the witness. If he’d told anyone else, it would have pointed to his own irresponsibility, and his life would have been in danger. We didn’t think he’d tell anyone, and when we found him dead a few days ago, Clint convinced us to let him come back until he was called to the stand. He was desperate to see Sherry, and he thought the trial might drag on for months. He couldn’t stand the thought of going any longer without seeing her. But it was a mistake, Wes. Apparently, someone else knew about Clint, and when they sent Sherry that note, we knew that Clint had to go back into hiding, and he had to take Sherry with him this time or she might be the object of revenge. Madeline had to go, too, because she was here when the letter came, and Clint didn’t think it was safe to leave her behind.”
Wes’s face reddened. “Are you telling me that some murderer is out to get my sister?”
“She’s safe, Wes. She’s protected. I’m seeing to it that she’s taken care of.”
Wes stared at him for a long moment, then raised an arm and sent a lamp crashing to the floor. “You’re taking care of her? The man who abandoned her when she was just a little baby? I’m supposed to trust you to do the right thing for her?”
“You don’t have any choice, Wes. You have to trust me.”
“I want to go to her. I want to make sure she’s all right.”
“You can’t do that. In fact, I’ve posted people to guard your house, just to protect you and Laney and the kids. You have to take this seriously, Wes. You have to be careful. People might come after you to get to me.”
“Why? I’m not anything to you. There’s no connection here at all.” His mouth trembled as he got the words out, and he slowly bent forward. “So help me, if anything happens to my family or my sister, you’ll have me to answer to!”
“I understand that,” Eric said.
“You think you’re a big shot, don’t you? Playing with other people’s lives!”
“No, son, I don’t. God’s still in control.”
Wes breathed an incredulous laugh. “Give me a break. Don’t use that God talk on me!”
“Sherry told me you’re a Christian.”
“That’s true, I am,” Wes said. “But I don’t believe you are.”
“God forgives, Wes.”
“Not everybody,” he said.
“Everybody who asks. I’ve asked him, and I’ve asked Sherry. And Wes, I’ve asked you.”
“Too late,” Wes said. He stormed out the door, pushing aside the cops guarding the house, and headed to his car.
Chapter Sixteen
Wake up, Sherry!".
Sherry cracked open her eyes and saw that the sun had come up to paint pink-orange hues on the warped walls of the old structure. “What is it?” It seemed as if she had just closed her eyes and her run-in with Sam had been only a moment ago.
Madeline was sitting up straight in bed, her eyes flashing with exuberance and excitement. “I want to know what happened last night. Did Clint tell you what’s going on?”
Sherry pulled upright and shook her head, trying to allay the hung-over feeling after her horrific night. “Yeah.”
“Well, don’t keep me in suspense.”
Rolling her eyes, Sherry slid off the bed and stumbled toward the bag that Madeline had packed hastily when Clint had decided to take them. If she just had a cup of coffee, she thought. No, forget coffee. A toothbrush and a hairbrush ought to do for now. Then she could tell Madeline what she had learned. “I need my toothbrush,” she mumbled.
She unzipped the bag and reached inside. Her hand closed around something small and rectangular, and she pulled it out. “A novel?” she asked with disbelief. “Clint told you to pack absolute necessities, and you packed a novel?”
Madeline shrugged. “I couldn’t think. I just grabbed what I thought was important. I didn’t know how long we’d be gone, or if we’d have a TV …”
Sherry reached in again. “Dental floss?”
“I hate getting food stuck in my teeth.”
“Well, I certainly see how that could be at the top of your critical list.” Dreading what she’d find next, she grabbed the next thing out. “Your leotard? Madeline, what did you think they were going to do with us? Aerobics?”
Madeline moaned. “I’m sorry. I just grabbed whatever I could find. I got some of your stuff too. There really are toothbrushes in there. And a change of clothes for each of us. And a little mascara in case the need arises.”
“Why would the need arise?”
“Don’t you want to look your best for Clint?”
Sherry propped her elbows on her knees and covered her face. “Madeline, Clint’s in a lot of danger. He’s the witness for the Givanti trial, and all these men are here to keep him alive until he testifies.”
Madeline gaped at her as the news sunk in. “Keep him alive? That doesn’t sound good.”
Under different circumstances, Sherry might have laughed at the understatement, but it wasn’t at all funny.
“Yes.” Her voice was raw. “We’re all in danger, but Clint is the one they’re after. They want to stop him, and I’m afraid they will.”
“Wow.” Madeline lifted her chin and swallowed, looking at the wall with rounded eyes. “Then there was a reason he left.” She shook her head, as if trying to put all the pieces into place, then focused on Sherry again. “How did he get to be a witness?”
“Long story,” she said. “He saw a drug deal and a murder, and he got stabbed, and they’ve been hiding him ever since.”
“And Sam … what is he? Some kind of bodyguard?”
“He works for the Witness Protection Program. He’s been with Clint the whole time.”
“And that bomb they mentioned last night … the reason they changed our destination … someone was really trying to kill them?”
“That’s right.”
Madeline wilted in disbelief. “As amazing as all this is, I’m not that surprised. Sam seemed like a decent guy—not some crazed criminal. He’s hard not to like.”
Sherry refrained from telling her that her impression of Sam wasn’t as favorable since the confrontation she had had with him last night. “He’s liable to get hurt, too, if Clint does,” she said. “And so are we.”
A distant look glossed Madeline’s eyes. “Wouldn’t you know it?”
“What?” Sherry asked.
“I finally meet a nice guy, and I might not live to tell about it.”
Sherry shuddered. “Madeline, I’ve got to convince Clint not to testify. That’s the only answer.”
“How would that help? For there to be an end to this, I would think he would have to testify. Then he could get on with his life.”
“Until Givanti has him killed for revenge. The FBI won’t protect him forever. Sam’s job guarding Clint can’t go on much past the trial.”
Madeline shoved back her curls and tried to think. “But until then, if someone shoots at Clint, it’s Sam’s job to take the bullet?”
“Something like that, I guess.”
Tears of compassion and worry sprang to Madeline’s big eyes. “Well, is he a Christian?”
The question surprised Sherry. “I don’t know.”
“Well, we have to find out, don’t we? If he’s looking mortality in the face, he needs to know Christ.”
“He’s been with Clint for eight months. I’d imagine Clint’s done some witnessing.”
“Probably. But it won’t hurt to make sure, will it?”
Sherry felt ashamed that she’d had such bitter thoughts toward Sam, and hadn’t given his soul a moment’s thought. She looked up at Madeline and saw her staring blankly into the mirror, her face pale and haunt
ed.
“What is it, Madeline?”
She swallowed hard and shook her head. “I was just thinking. Wouldn’t it have been cool if Sam had been an accountant or something, and we’d met on an ordinary day without bombs and guns and hideouts … I might have fallen for a guy like him.”
Sherry looked down at her feet, wishing for a response. But sometimes there just wasn’t one.
Madeline sighed and started for the door. “I’ll see if they have coffee,” she said quietly.
Do you always look like this in the mornings?” Sam’s voice, gravelly from too little sleep, came from behind Madeline as she poured herself some coffee.
Madeline wasn’t sure where her smile came from, but when she turned around she couldn’t dismiss the one wreathing her face. “Is that a compliment or an insult?”
He gave a lopsided grin. “Don’t want to commit myself,” he said.
She sipped her coffee and looked at his sleepy eyes and the blue LSU T-shirt he wore. A holster was strapped across his chest as if it were a part of him. “So you’re a cop, huh?”
“Yeah, but you aren’t really surprised, are you?”
Madeline gave a slight shrug. “I don’t know. I sort of had you figured for an underworld spy of some sort.”
“Did you really? And did you think that your abduction was a matter of international security?”
Madeline raised her brows and pushed her black curls behind her ears. “It might have been. I thought maybe one of my Khaki’s Krewe cartoons had been discovered to have encoded messages to third-world regimes, and I was being chased so they could debrief me about what I know.”
His chuckle came from deep in his throat. “You watch a lot of television, do you?”
Her eyes widened flirtatiously, conveying that he was right, as she sipped her coffee.
“So where’s the tape of this alleged cartoon?” he asked.
Madeline frowned. “That was the only catch to my theory. There isn’t one.”
She surveyed the laugh lines crinkling his eyes, eyes that had lived hard and fast and told her things about him that she doubted he would ever have said himself. As he stood before her they were waking up, becoming brighter, more alert. “You must not need much sleep.”
“Not as much as you, obviously.”
She looked at the swirl of her coffee, remembering the gentle way he had tucked her in the night before.
“How’s your knee?”
She bent it for him. “Fine. A little sore, but I’ll survive. I may limp for the rest of my life, but—”
The screen door slammed, and Sam swung around to see Clint leaving the house. “I have to follow him,” he said, cutting her off.
Madeline followed Sam to the door and looked out over his shoulder. “There are guards out there with him.”
“Yeah,” Sam said distantly. “I like to stick close, though, just in case.”
Madeline gave a heavy sigh and stepped off the porch. Sam ambled ahead of her to a fallen log, just slowly enough to offer her an invitation. “It’s big enough for two,” he said.
Madeline cupped her coffee in her hands and sat down next to him, where they had a clear view of Clint walking aimlessly across the ungroomed grounds. “So you’ve been guarding him like this for all these months?”
“Eight months.”
“Don’t you get tired of it?”
“Not as tired as he does,” he said. “Besides, we’ve gotten to be tight friends, and I don’t have many of those.”
Madeline looked across the lawn to Clint. “I don’t know him that well. I’ve heard he’s a good man—a strong Christian. Is that still true?”
Sam smiled. “Even more now than before. This whole time he’s been like Daniel, devoting himself to prayer, trusting in God, even finding things to be thankful for. Some of our guards think he’s a lunatic.”
“And you? What do you think?”
“I think he’s walking proof of the Holy Spirit.”
They both grew quiet for a moment, and Madeline realized that a statement like he’d just made was not likely to come from an unbeliever. But she had to know for sure.
“Sam, do you—”
“Madeline, I wonder—”
They spoke simultaneously, then stopped. She deferred to him.
“I was just going to ask you about your spiritual life. If you know Christ.”
She couldn’t hold her laughter back. “Are you witnessing to me? Because I was about to ask you the same thing.”
He grinned. “I take it that means yes?”
“Yes,” she said. “And you?”
He chuckled. “Yes, I’m a Christian. As of six months ago, when Clint finally got through to me.”
“I’m glad,” she said.
He nodded. “Yeah, me, too. It’s made things so much better. I owe Clint big-time. I just wish Sherry wouldn’t give him such a hard time. He doesn’t need that.”
The wind whipped Madeline’s hair away from her face, and she looked at Clint. “Sherry has been through it too. If anyone’s seen that, I have.”
“So you’ve sort of been doing for her what I’ve been doing for Clint all this time,” Sam said. “Protecting her.”
Madeline considered the comparison a moment. “Not really. Protection is not my forte. I’m a believer in moving on. If I’ve done anything for Sherry, I’ve kept her from dwelling on things.”
She watched Clint start toward an old building on the property, a barn or garage of some sort. The two guards followed at a good distance behind him.
“Well, she needs to dwell on this,” Sam said. “Clint needs her right now. That’s why we took the chance of letting him go back in the first place. It was a mistake, but at least it got her here. And now she’s pulling this self-righteous stuff on him.”
“She’s not self-righteous,” Madeline quipped. “She’s scared to death for him.”
“Well, she should be,” Sam said, sending a chill through her bones. “But manipulating him with petty ultimatums isn’t going to solve things.”
“And what will? Letting him get shot to death as an example for anyone else who decides to cross Givanti?” She felt her face reddening, and her hands began to tremble. She’d never wanted to talk to him about this. She hadn’t even wanted to think about it.
“He won’t as long as I’m here.” Sam’s voice was broodingly earnest.
“And what about after? You won’t be there forever. After the trial, when they decide to get revenge, is anyone going to be there to protect him then? And how long? Indefinitely? Even a good friend can’t take that kind of responsibility.”
“I thought you said protecting Sherry wasn’t your forte.”
“It isn’t. Understanding her comes a bit easier, though.
She doesn’t see an end to this. Do you?”
Sam let out a heavy sigh and scanned the trees. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”
From the porch, Sherry watched Clint walking around like a man carrying a great burden. Two guards flanked him, obviously lending more stiffness to his demeanor. She fought the urge to go after him, to tell him she was just confused, that she desperately wanted him safe, and that the only thing she was certain of was her love for him. But if she loved him, she had to stop him. And running after him wouldn’t do it.
She watched as he threw a rock into the distance, his back rippling beneath his T-shirt as he reared back to throw another. He had been working out in these eight months, she realized. His shoulders seemed much broader than they had before, and she had recognized the new, corded power in his biceps last night. She slid down the wall of the house until she sat on the rotting planks.
Clint dropped to the grass, his back to her, and rubbed his hands roughly through his hair. Her heart melted and left a void. Across the yard, she met Sam’s eyes—cold, accusing, dull. Look what you’re doing to him, they said. And suddenly she knew that Sam was right.
Swallowing back her misgivings, she got up and stepped do
wn the four steps off the porch. She watched him stare out at the trees that surrounded him, his broad shoulders slumped in hopeless defeat. And she knew he was thinking, There’s loss either way, there’s no way to win …
… Absolutely no way. Clint raked both hands through his hair and dropped his head. Why had he expected Sherry to alleviate some of the pain and dread? Why had he expected her to understand what he had to do? And why did those blasted guards have to breathe down his neck?
Two soft hands closed over his shoulders. Sherry’s hands.
He looked up at her, saw the despair and the turmoil in her eyes, and wanted to wipe it away. But he feared she saw it in him as well. A soft sigh escaped his lips as he took her hands. His brows arched in grateful relief, and he moved her hands to his face. She had come to him. She was here. Thank God, she wasn’t going to hold back after all.
She stooped on her knees behind him and pressed her mouth to his shoulder. “I love you. And I don’t want to lose you again.”
“You won’t,” he assured her. He pulled her around to face him, his eyes looking earnestly into hers. “I’m right here. Let’s just take one day at a time.”
Sherry shook her head slowly. “I can’t think that way,” she told him. “I can’t live that way.”
“But it’s just for a little while longer. The trial has already started. Your father will send for me any day now, and I’ll go on that stand …”
“Don’t do it, Clint.” Her face reddened with the words, and her eyes welled up, breaking Clint’s heart and blurring his mind.
“I have to.”
Sherry bit her lip and looked over Clint’s shoulder. “Oh, can’t you get rid of those guards for a minute? Can’t we talk without someone hearing every word?” Her voice was straining toward the breaking point, but he knew she wouldn’t let herself break until she was in private. She had always been strong that way, but today he didn’t want her to have to be strong.
“That barn’s private,” he whispered. “We could go in there. It isn’t the cleanest place in the world, but—”
With a shaky hand, Sherry wiped at her tears. “Will they let us?”
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