The Great Escape

by Cheryl Anne Porter

  None of which Dan got to answer, seeing as how Joan beat him to the punch every time and had their geriatric audience enthralled with her lies. Yes. Lies. Every one of her answers. The why of her lies eluded him. What was wrong with the truth? He thought about that Oh, yeah. Bloody murder. Capital crime. Prisoner. These sweet old people would flee like frightened deer. So Dan relaxed some, listening in on Joan’s rendition of their lives.

  Well, relaxed was a relative term, lasting only until she said to Gertrude Binder, a white-haired, cherubic older woman who inquired about their marital status, “We’re newlyweds from South Bend, Indiana.”

  We are? Dan lowered his mug to his lap and stared hard at Joan. Then he scanned their attentive grandparental audience. Yeah, they liked the idea of newlyweds. Great. Now all he needed was for some of them to be from—

  “Why, me and the wife are from South Bend,” chimed in a short, thin old guy with a graying mustache. “Lived there all our lives. Well, not all our lives—not yet, anyway. Right, Mother? Ha, ha.”

  Ha, ha. Great. Dan took a sip of his toddy, electing now to stare straight ahead. No way was he getting drawn into a conversation about landmarks in that fair city, one to which he’d never been. South Bend? Where the hell had she pulled that city from?

  “Oh, you are?” Joan gushed to the friendly gentleman. “Why, we might know some of the same people. You’ll have to talk to my husband about that.”

  Dan swallowed his sip in a gulp, scalding his throat. “I don’t think—”

  “Oh, do that later,” said a pleasingly plump matron with big, jet-black-dyed hair. Dan could have kissed her for saving him like that. She turned to Joan. “So are you kids on your honeymoon?”

  Here we go, he thought fatalistically.

  Sure enough, Joan took to that idea like a petty thief to a convenience store. “Why, yes, we are. How’d you guess?” She grabbed Dan’s arm to prove it, and turned a lovey-dovey expression up to him.

  He managed a grin for the round of congratulations coming their way and then eyed his “wife,” giving her his best you-can-stop-anytime-now look.

  Of course, she didn’t. But looking down into that pixie face—one he suspected he’d want to wake up to and see every morning for the rest of his life—was Dan’s further undoing. He was in over his head. It was that simple. One little green-eyed, red-haired woman and he was sunk like a submarine. All he could do was sit and watch her—and listen very closely to her lies so he’d know what their story was. In case anyone should ask him.

  Right now she was regaling their elderly audience with the tale of how they came to be stranded here. This ought to be good, Dan thought as he tuned in. “We were driving through to…Tucson when the snow hit and stranded us in our car. It was awful. We just finally had to abandon our new…Corvette and ski out.”

  Tucson? Corvette? Dan’s eyebrows slid right down over his nose as he again stared at her. He ought to ask her why they had skis and heavy clothes, since they were just driving through. In eighty-degree weather. In the valley. But he couldn’t. He was, after all, a participant and, to all intents and purposes, had been there and lived that. It didn’t matter, though, because he couldn’t have found a conversational opening what with all the sympathetic tsk-tsking and handpatting from the old folks clustered around him and his wife of ten seconds.

  “I think the worst part was the bears,” Joan explained, and Dan sputtered. She patted his knee, no doubt as a gesture of appeasement, and never missed a verbal beat. “They came right at us, all thr—five of them. Huge bears. Hungry bears. It was awful.”

  That elicited gasps and a breaking-up into discussion groups where everyone simultaneously recounted for his or her neighbor a personal encounter with bears. Dan took that opportunity to lean over and whisper, “Don’t forget the plane wreck and how you’re a murder suspect in my custody. Or do you think that’d be stretching it a bit?”

  Joan patted his cheek and whispered, “Leave me alone. I’m on a roll.”

  “I see that. While you are, try coming up with something to tell Mark Jacobs—my friend and the manager of this place. But mostly, I’m wondering what your groupies make of my shoulder holster and the handcuffs dangling from my belt loop. Strange devices for a man on his honeymoon.”

  Joan eyed him and pursed her lips into a pout, speaking low and seductively. “Then again, maybe not, Sheriff.”

  Dan’s breath caught “Now see? It’s that brilliance of yours—that’s why I married you. I like how you think.” With that, he straightened up and grinned behind his toddy mug, again content to let her bury them all in more lies.

  Before she reconvened the nice old people around her, she arrowed him a long-lashed, sidelong and sexy pout, and then chirped, “Now where was I? Oh, I remember—the day before the snowstorm. I was so helpless. I mean, there I was…Dan had me handcuffed to that old metal bed and was getting ready to—”

  Hot toddy spewed like sea spray from Dan’s mouth as he pitched forward. Several hands attached to clucking voices reached to pound his back. Someone even raised Dan’s arm over his head and shook it. When he could, Dan extricated himself from their helpful clutches and said tightly, “I’m okay. Thank you. Yes, I’m sure.” Then he turned to Joan. “Sweetheart, I’m sure these folks don’t want to hear the gory details of our—”

  Several loud protests to the contrary from Joan’s agog audience assured him that they did indeed want to hear the gory details. Dan shot his bright-eyed and grinning bride a warning look. And that was when big, blond Mark Jacobs walked up to the little group, recognized Dan and called out, “Hey, buddy, I had no idea—”

  Dan’s head-shaking and narrowed eyes stopped his friend’s words and brought a frown to the man’s face. Dan immediately stuck his hand out to Mark, saying, “How are you? Thank your staff for me for coming to our rescue. I’m…” Who am I? Had Joan told anyone their names, real or otherwise?

  “Ken Thompson,” she supplied, adding, “and I’m Barbie. Newlyweds from South Bend, Indiana.”

  Dan’s eyes began to water. But he held his expression and Mark’s gaze. By sheer dint of will. Mark stared at him, then at Dan’s outstretched hand. After a moment, his expression cleared and he shook Dan’s hand, saying, “Well, Ken and…Barbie, welcome. Let me tell you what everyone else knows. Snake River is a new lodge, so not all the rooms are ready yet. But we’re pretty much stranded here—without our maids or our chef. We have plenty of food and drink. As well as warmth and company. So, everybody’s pitching in, making do with what we have.”

  “Whatever you can do, we appreciate,” Dan assured him, looking his friend directly in the eye and nodding while he spoke.

  Mark nodded right back and handed Dan a room key. “All I have to offer is this room with a king-size bed. But since you’re…newlyweds, that’s probably fine, right?” He shot Dan a what-the-hell-is-going-on? look and added, “Once you’re settled in, could I talk with you a minute in my office, Da—Ken?”

  Da-Ken shoved forward on the sofa, grabbed his wife’s arm and stood them both up. “Nothing would make me happier, Mark.”

  With that, and for some reason Dan couldn’t immediately fathom, everyone was staring at him. Then he realized his gaffe. Mark had never said his name. Dan quickly searched his friend’s shirtfront. No name tag. Oh, hell.

  Joan…Barbie, bless her heart, pulled back some in his grip to look up at him. He telegraphed her an evil-eyed look, but it did no damned good. “How do you know his name?”

  A waiting silence again occupied the next passing seconds. Dan seethed, wanting very much to kill her. Right there in front of everyone. But before he could do that, or come up with a statement appropriate to mixed company, Joan crumpled her expression and all but whispered, “Oh, no, it’s happening again.”

  What is? was all Dan had time to wonder before Joan, appearing greatly upset, turned to the enthralled assemblage. “It’s his psychic powers.”

  Dan gaped from her, to the wary old folks, to the
struckdumb Mark, and back to…Barbie for her explanation. He was not least among those wanting to hear this one. “Sometimes,” she began, “after a lot of sex, the powers rekindle themselves, and Ken really can’t control them. Why, he’s not even aware of what he’s saying. He just blurts things.”

  Dan blurted, “What the hell are you talking about, Joan?”

  “See what I mean?” she deadpanned, shaking her head sadly, accepting the murmurs of sympathy coming her way. “He calls me by other names,” she stage-whispered. And further confided, “Ignore it—and the cursing. And the gun—it’s not loaded. He just likes to carry it. Not that he ever gets violent…as long as I’m with him. Don’t talk to him if I’m not. Because I couldn’t be responsible for what he might—”

  “That’s it.” Dan’s bellow had the old folks—and Mark, who should know better—gasping and jumping back. Dan shot them an irritated scowl and tightened his grip on Joan, too late directing her steps across the flagstoned floor of the lobby and away from her audience. He marched her directly toward the split-log stairs to one side of a small gift shop.

  Once there, he turned to the wide-eyed assemblage across the way. “We’re very tired. We’ll see you in the morning.” Then he turned to Joan. “Upstairs, Barbie.”

  8

  “KEN AND BARBIE? Thompson and Tucson? Our new Corvette? Where the hell did all that come from yesterday? And why?”

  Joan signaled for him to hold on until she swallowed the last of her breakfast biscuit. Dan waited impatiently. When it was down, she complained, “Are we back to that? It’s all you ranted about last night—before you fell asleep and snored all night, let me add I told you already that I wanted, just once, to be a normal, happy family. I’ve never had that. I like that story better than—”

  “Than what—the truth? You and your happy couple from South Bend. And normal? Who came off as normal—you? Certainly not me. Everyone here thinks I’m psycho.” Dan looked her up and down, adding, “You’re a pretty convincing liar, you know. Should I be concerned?”

  With that, he got up from his chair at the doll-size table and loaded the meal’s remains onto a tray from the lodge’s kitchen. Joan grabbed for the last piece of bacon. She bit into it, chewing thoughtfully as she turned those baby-greens on him. “No cause for concern, Sheriff. I tell the truth all the time. Well, except for the past week. But these are pretty weird circumstances, you have to admit.”

  “I freely admit it. And they get weirder every time you open your mouth. Last night when I went down to get our supper trays, people scattered to the four winds.”

  Joan chuckled and waved the crisp bacon at him. “This is good. Did Mrs. Binder fry it? Tell her how much I enjoyed it.”

  “Yeah, yeah…Are you finished eating yet? I need to get going.” Not waiting for an answer, he pulled her plate from in front of her and stacked it atop the other dishes already littering the tray.

  Her frowning gaze followed his actions. “Well, I guess I am.” Then she turned her face up to him. “Where are you going now? And why can’t I go? I’m bored, Dan. I’ve had a bath, I’ve eaten—ta-da, day over. If the other guests don’t see me soon, they’ll think you did something to me and storm the room.”

  “A—why would they do that when Mark has a key? But B—considering the ages of the other guests, I’d pay money to see that. Now come on, get up.” He headed for the room’s exit door and set the tray on a blond three-drawer chest next to it

  “I hate it when you do that A, B, C thing. And do you hear how you talk to me?” she called to his back. “You sound like you’re talking to a dog. Or a trained seal.” She huffed out a breath, heavy on the melodrama. “I just don’t see how this marriage can work. Father Evans tried to tell me. And Mother was right—I should’ve married Scott.”

  He turned around. “Stop that right now. None of those people exist.” He glared a moment, bit back the question, refused to ask it, refused to play into her hands. But couldn’t, for the life of him, stop himself. “Who the hell is Scott?”

  Her mouth turned down in petulance as she pulled herself to her feet. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” She dragged her terry-robed, barefooted self over to the upholstered chair he’d positioned in front of the closet door last evening.

  Watching her, noting every nuance of her being and her bearing, and sighing over what he saw, Dan unsnapped the handcuffs from his belt loop and decided he hated them more than she did. But he couldn’t yet give in to her moping and those big green eyes. He knew she was bored and resentful. But better those than dead. Which she could be if he let her roam freely and mingle. Because he hadn’t yet checked out all the guests. No sense taking chances with her life. His chest tightened at just the thought of her in danger.

  Dressed in his same clothes from yesterday, with his Beretta stuck in his waistband but hidden under his knit shirt, Dan approached his…what the heck was she? “Speaking of our marriage, we’re stuck with that stupid newlyweds story, you do realize.”

  With her drying hair hanging loose all about her, making her look morning-decadent and warm-bed desirable, she flounced onto the chair, sitting heavily. “I know. But if last night was any indication, I’d still be a virgin.”

  Dan stopped right in front of her. “Time out. Whoa. A virgin?”

  She looked up at him. “Huh?” Then hit at him. “No. Give me a break. I got over that years ago. I was just using it as an expression.”

  Dan nodded his relief. “Good. Virgins are too much trouble. Don’t look at me like that. I’m thirty-two, not sixteen. And we were both worn-out last night, as I recall. A sandwich, a shower and sleep. That’s all either of us could muster.” He clicked the one cuff around her so-slender wrist. “And this morning, who was up and in the bathroom, the door locked, before I even rolled over?”

  She pulled a face, admitting, “Me. I thought…well, I thought we were going to…you know. Remember our talk yesterday in the snow? About us?”

  “Oh, yeah, I do.” Okay, now we’re getting to it. Dan grinned as he looped the other cuff through the closet’s brass hand-grip and locked it. Then he settled a stare on her that he hoped was at hot as he was beginning to feel. “So tell me, why’d you lock the bathroom door? I would’ve taken a shower with you.”

  Her face colored, but she raised her chin, telling him, “I didn’t know that bathing prisoners was included in your job description. That would approach above-and-beyond, I’d think.”

  Dan leaned over her, bracing himself with his hands on the chair’s armrests, and planted a smooching kiss on her lips. “With you, sweetheart, I’m fully prepared to go way above and beyond.” Then he traced her lips with his tongue, sipping and swirling until she made the gasping sound he wanted to hear. He pulled back, sought her gaze.

  Her kiss-wet mouth was open, her breathing shallow, her eyelids drooped heavily. “Not fair,” she whispered, lifting her mouth for more.

  “But a part of my charm, ma’am.” He nipped biting kisses along her jaw, deftly avoiding her questing mouth. That was for later.

  “Charm, huh? If you’re so charming, how come you handcuffed me to this closet door? And how come you’re leaving me…like this, hmm, Sheriff?”

  “Oh, man,” Dan breathed, allowing his head to hang limply down. “Whew. When’d it get so hot in here?” Then he straightened up…well, the parts of him that hadn’t already…and told her. “Just hold that sprawled pose while I’m gone, okay? Because I can’t…do this—” he looked down at himself and then up at her “—despite appearances, until I know you’re safe here. I want to check the guest registry, see if I find anything suspicious. If the phones come on, I’ll call the department, tell them what you told me and get them working on that angle. Then I’ll be right back.”

  “I hope so. I’d hate to have to gnaw my hand off at the wrist to get free.”

  Dan chuckled. “And I believe you would, too. But you won’t have to. I’ll be right back, especially with you looking like…you do now,” he finishe
d on a lame note, then cleared his throat, as if that would clear his head. “I’ll be right back.”

  Joan nodded, puckered her lips at him and stretched like a lazy cat in the sunshine. “You already said that, Sheriff.”

  “Huh? Oh, I did. Right.” Dan frowned. Where was he going? And why—with this female display right in front of him? It wouldn’t come to him. “Where was I going?”

  “To the lobby. The guest register.” Then she sat up straight, dropping her languid pose for a look of genuine concern. “I drank a bunch of coffee. What if I have to go before you get back?”

  Grateful for the head-clearing change in subject, Dan hitched his jeans around and reverted to his lawman demeanor. “You just went. But cross your legs if you get the urge.”

  She made a face and asked, “What if there’s a fire?”

  “There won’t be a fire.” But thoroughly guilty now, Dan squatted in front of her, bracing his hands on the armrests. “Look, when I get back, maybe we can go mingle some. There’s a library-sitting room thing on the third floor where everyone gathers. We’ll join them. How’s that sound?”

  That brightened her green eyes and warmed his heart. “Great. And I want to eat lunch downstairs, too. I swear I won’t…embellish our lives. Well, not any more than I have to, because of what I’ve already told them.”

  Dan chuckled at her wide-eyed good spirits and wondered if he’d ever be able to tell her no and mean it. “Okay, lunch. I’ll give them our reservations.” With that, Dan pushed himself to his feet and adopted a scowl. “For the record, Scott is scum. He’d never make you happy. Not like I can.”

  Grinning now, she challenged, “We’ll see, won’t we?” Then she dropped her gaze, as if suddenly shy, and softly asked, “Dan, while you’re downstairs, can I get you to do something for me?”