Dan put his hands to his waist. “Whose side are you on?”
A big grin split Mark’s face as he pointed past Dan to Joan, who sat up straighter in her chair. “Hers.”
Dan caught himself before an answering chuckle escaped him. Instead, he shook his head, quirked his mouth into a grimace. “Damned defensive linesmen. Never were too smart.” Then he got down to business. “All right, let’s see what I can do about making everything okay—”
“Ha! Don’t believe him.” This from Joan. Dan pivoted to her, gave her a look, but it did no damned good. “The last time he said that to me, his plane crashed and we nearly got eaten by bears.”
“Will you just sit there and accept that staying with me, instead of visiting with the ladies in the kitchen, is for your own good, Joan? You’re just safer here with me. Where I can keep an eye on you.”
“I’m safer? Or are you?”
“All right, I am.”
She crossed her arms under her little-children-of-theworld sweater-covered bosom. “Well, you won’t be when Mrs. Compton and Mrs. Edwards tell everyone that you growled and bit me on my neck right in front of them. I’m telling you, you better let me go talk to them—before they combine forces and bash you in the head.”
Dan ignored the shocked gasp from Mark, and the burning heat on his own cheeks, to tell Joan, “Is that why you’re mad? Because I won’t let you go tell them some cockeyed story about me being a werewolf—which is exactly what you’d do, isn’t it?”
“I might.” With that, she snatched a touristy-type magazine from the round wood-block table next to her and began flipping pages.
Effectively dismissed, Dan exhaled and turned back to Mark, who said, “Man, you are in over your head. It’s about time.”
“Shut up, Mark,” Dan griped. He knew it So he didn’t need anyone else telling him. In silence, he watched Mark make his way behind the desk. His big blond pal put the telephone receiver to his ear and punched the different incoming lines, all the while listening. Dan sat on one of the chairs that faced the desk and begged, “Tell me it’s still working.”
Mark nodded. “Yep. Up and running. For now, anyway, given all the rain and flooding going on down in the valley. I heard about it on my transistor radio, right before the batteries went dead.”
Dan spared a fatalistic chuckle for that. “Man, that’s par for the course.” Then he took the receiver when Mark held it out to him, adding, “What we need are cell phones.”
“But first we’d have to have cell sites, right? I’ll go get the guest register, so you can give the names to Cal. Ask him if they’re building an ark yet. If so, tell him the only things we have two of up here are men and women.”
Dan couldn’t resist. “But only one woman capable of breeding in the new post-flood world.”
“Ha, ha, Hendricks,” she retorted to his back. He tensed, fully expecting to get clobbered at any second. Sure enough, the clobber came, but with words muttered not quite under her breath. “As if you’d have a chance.”
Dan’s gaze locked with Mark’s, whose eyebrows shot up. He pointed and tripped his way to the closed door, mumbling, “I’ll just get that register…with the names…and check on supper…while th—” He made it to the door, jerked it open and fled through it, closing it sharply behind him.
Alone now with his shy little “bride,” Dan pivoted, bracing an arm across the chair’s back. She looked up at him, green eyes edged with defiance, cherry mouth puckered with the same emotion. All spit and fire to cover her fear, her helplessness…her needing him. Dan’s heart melted, bringing a smile to his face. “You okay?”
Tears sprang to her eyes, but she said, “As I’ll ever be.”
“You know, you’re brave as hell. You’ve been through a lot and yet you don’t give up. You keep pushing. I like that about you.” Dan watched her reaction, saw her blink, swallow and raise her chin. He winked, too full of his own sudden emotion to do anything but turn his back to her and dial the number to the department.
As it rang, he forced his thoughts to what he needed to say. Then Cal answered. Dan surprised himself with how excited he felt, like a kid on his birthday. So much had happened, so much still needed to happen. “Cal, it’s me, Dan. Yeah, we made it to the lodge. Hear it’s raining cats and dogs—What? Old Shep’s home? Are you kidding?”
He pivoted, telling Joan, “That’s my grandfather’s dog. He’s as bad as the old man.” Then Dan went silent. Her eyes were still suspiciously shiny. Had no one ever told her she was brave? Poor kid. Taking a deep breath around the tightness in his chest, Dan faced forward again and listened. “He brought what—that collie with him? Puppies? That’s what we need. Ad? What ad? Tell me you’re lying.” Again he turned to Joan. “Grandpa took an ad out in the paper inviting all of Taos to his wedding on Halloween.”
“Oh, lovely.” She grinned. “Whatever shall we wear?”
She sobered at the same moment Dan did. His gaze locked with hers. The implication—that she might be in his life then—spread a warmth to his heart, and a frown to his face. Was that where they were headed? To a life together?
“Dan,” Joan urged, “remember Pam and Bob Jackson. And my friends.”
“Yeah.” He turned away from her, put the receiver to his ear. “Cal, do me a favor, man. I need you to call some folks in Houston and tell them Joan’s okay.” He gave him the names and then added, “So, despite falling out of airplanes and getting stuck in a tree, I’ve also found time to solve the LoBianco murder.” He jerked the receiver away from his ear, waited a second, and then put it back. “Settle down, man. Okay, I’ll wait. Go get them. Yeah, put me on the speakerphone.”
Behind him, the office door opened. Dan turned, saw Mark coming in with the guest register, which he held out to him. As he took it, Dan said, “Thanks, man. I owe you, big time.”
Mark waved that away, and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I’ve got a situation in the kitchen—too many cooks. I’m just going to slip out.”
Dan nodded, heard Sheriff Halverson’s booming greeting in his ear. “I’m fine, sir. Thanks. Yes, that’s right, I know what happened and who did it. Just not what he looks like, or what his name is. Or why. Yes sir, he. No, not her. I know, confusing.”
To prove it, Sheriff Halverson went ballistic. All Dan could do was listen and gesture and shake his head and try to cut in. “Yes, sir, I know what’s at stake—The killer’s probably that same—No, it’s not—Yes, we’re safe here. I’ll be careful, yes. I appreciate that. I know. What? No, it wasn’t Miss O’Leary. Yes, sir, I’m sure.” Having won the floor with that, Dan launched into how he knew Joan wasn’t guilty.
Several minutes later, his luck and the phone line still holding, Dan got to the names in the guest register, telling Ben Halverson he’d like them to double-check everyone here, just to be sure Joan was safe. No sense taking chances. Then he waited, hearing through the lines a flurry of activity. He could just see the scene now—everyone getting pen and paper, Cal on the computer and ready to input, the phone call going to the D.A. But what he liked best was the note of pride in Ben Halverson’s voice and how he called him son. “Yes, sir. You ready? Okay, here’s the first name I need you to—Hello? Hello?”
This is not happening. Dan sat stock-still, staring straight ahead at a framed restaurant association certificate hanging on the wall. The phone line was dead. He whirled to tell Joan. Her chair was empty. His gut twisted. He slammed down the receiver in its cradle and jumped up, turning to the office door…which was ajar.
A howling string of epithets accompanied his running steps out of the ground-floor office and across the lobby’s flagstones. He took the split-log stairs two at a time, sprinting to the second-floor kitchen—empty. Hadn’t Mark said something about too many cooks? Where was everyone? More alarmed by the second, Dan jetted back to the stairs, took them in a headlong flight and didn’t slow down until he jerked to a stop in front of his room.
Breathing hard, crazy with worry, he
fumbled in his jeans’ pocket for the room key. Finally, his fingers and the denim cooperated, allowing him to extract it. In the next second, he held his Beretta in his other hand. Only then did he put the key to the lock—and freeze. The door was already open. Alarm shot through him.
He retreated from the doorway, took a couple of calming breaths, forced himself to think. Just follow police procedure. He did, plastering his back to the hallway wall and listening. He heard things being bumped and knocked about, whispering, the closet sliding open, drawers being pulled out. Dan’s jaw set with rage. His eyes narrowed. That was not Joan. She’d have no reason to rummage through their room like that. She knew where everything was.
Then that meant, just as he’d feared, she wasn’t safe here. But whoever this was, they’d be sorry. Especially if they’d so much as harmed a hair on her head. Deadly grim, and ready as he’d ever be, Dan jerked away from the wall, twisted to face the room, kicked the door open and burst inside, leading with his gun and yelling, “Police! I’m with the police and I’m armed. Freeze! Put your hands up or I’ll shoot!”
10
THAT EVENING’S GATHERING around the lobby’s ill-tuned piano—despite the sugar cookies and the cider, the out-of-tune singing and the cloyingly cheerful camaraderie— could do nothing to lift Dan’s dark cloud of doom and gloom. And lingering embarrassment. Thus, he was happy that the milling, buzzing, visiting beehive of a crowd, made up of virtually everyone else staying at the lodge, was ignoring him over here in his little corner of the room on the big couch all by himself.
To prove that he didn’t care, he slouched down on the thick cushions, crossed his arms over his chest and evil-eyed the throng. He didn’t want to sing, anyway. And he sure as heck didn’t want cookies and cider, not even if they were offered to him. Least of all did he want any part of the sharing of personal tales, all that snowed-in bonding. Furthermore, he really didn’t like any of these people. And he wanted to go home. To Grandpa and Old Shep. The guys.
Speaking of guys, what about this middle-aged Romeo with the Groucho Marx eyeglasses, eyebrows and matching mustache? Was he for real? His appearance aside, what bugged Dan more was the way he bird-dogged Joan’s every step. If Groucho didn’t knock it off, Dan silently threatened, he’d have to pull his gun and shoot the yutz from here. Drastic? Yeah. But any other course of action involved getting up off the couch. Which might mean he’d have to trade pleasantries—before and after the shooting. He focused inward, checked his mood. No. Definitely precluded making nice.
Since when did you start having moods, Hendricks? Oh, about two days ago, he answered himself, playing his life in reverse from right now on the couch to all the way back to Interview Room 3, and then forward again to now. It suddenly occurred to him that he had no idea what he used to do with his time, pre-Joan. Great. She’s taken over. Hot-tied and domesticated, that’s me.
A sudden and cryptic vision of himself in another six months—standing in a mall, lost, holding a bunch of packages and Joan’s purse while she shopped, and himself wearing a Have You Seen My Wife? T-shirt—made mingling, in the interest of police work, very attractive. Very macho. As if he really had a choice, given that the phone lines had never come back on. Which meant the guests remained who they said they were, that he had to accept them at face value. Or he could use the human approach—talk to folks, see what he could glean from their words and attitudes.
Thinking along those lines, Dan glanced around the crowded room at the cheerfully milling people across the way and realized that the piano’s ivories were no longer being tortured. No reprieve, then. Time to chat up the strandees. Up and at ‘em, Dan. His antisocial grimace deepened as he started to pull himself off the couch. But he wasn’t quick enough. He never even had a chance to get out of the way before Joan startled him with her apparitionlike appearance. Just poof—she was there and merrily plopping down beside him on the couch, a mug of hot sloshing cider in one hand, a fistful of cookies in the other. “Howdy, stranger,” she greeted him.
“Howdy, yourself.” Dan grabbed her arm, extending it and her dripping mug out over the flagstone flooring. “Let’s not add third-degree burns to our excellent adventure, shall we?”
“Especially not to any sensitive areas, huh?”
“Especially.” He mugged a grimace, but couldn’t hold on to it, not in the face of her big grin. All right, so he couldn’t stay mad at her. Hiding the sappy giddiness that her nearness caused him, Dan let go of her arm to brush her bangs out of her eyes. “What became of the screechalong?”
“Refreshment break,” she cheerfully supplied, sticking a fistful of cookies under his nose. “Want one?”
He pulled back, brushing at her hand. “No, thanks. Aren’t you afraid your new friends will be mad at you if they see you over here talking to me?”
“I would be, if I was in the seventh grade.” Then, sounding as cheerful as a spring robin, she asked, “So, how long are you going to sit here behaving like a six-year-old who didn’t get what he wanted from Santa?”
“Is that how it looks?” He glared at her jokingly. “What’re you laughing at? Where’s your boyfriend?”
Grinning, Joan eyed him and scooted back, settling herself right up against him. She crossed her legs on the cushions and took a particularly loud slurp of cider. “You mean Scott?”
“Aw, man.” Dan chuckled. “That’s low.” His knees spread, his hands folded together atop his abdomen, he rolled his head until he could look into her teasing green eyes. “Not Scott. I’m talking about your current boyfriend.”
“Oh. Groucho? I gave him the slip at the cider bowl. What a persistent little twerp.” She leaned forward to set down her mug and the cookies. Then she swung back to him, leaning into his chest to rub noses with him, give him a quick kiss and whisper, “Kinda reminds me of you.”
With her body pressed against his, Dan felt a quickening in his hinterland, but feigned being unaffected as he loosely held her to him, “We’re talking about the persistent part, I hope. And it’s lucky for you I am. Otherwise, I wouldn’t know the truth. And if I hadn’t held you hostage out in that blizzard, I’d never know how you feel about me. Or worse yet, just how you feel.”
“There you go, being bad again.” Joan chuckled as she pulled away and sank back into the cushions. “I guess you know I had my hands full convincing all these nice people that my life was not in any danger from you. Just as I feared, they were ready to mob you and lock you in a utility closet until the snowplows come through.”
Veeing his eyebrows down over his nose, Dan sat up to pluck a sugar cookie off the table. Taking a bite, wiping crumbs off his freshly laundered denims, he talked with his mouth full. “Speaking of this afternoon, see if I have events straight. While I’m in Mark’s office on the phone—busting my hump to clear your name—you slip away to attend a meeting of the Ken Thompson hate club, right?”
Joan chuckled and mouthed, “Uh-huh.”
“Then I turn around, and you’re gone. I’m looking all over for you, I’m frantic, I can’t find anybody. So I take the stairs like an Olympic sprinter and hightail it to our room, praying you’re not hurt or worse, when—picture this—I draw my gun and burst into our room, yelling I’m the cops, put your hands up. Only to scare the hell out of three blue-haired little old ladies going through our stuff.”
Joan clamped a hand over her mouth, but her laughterfilled eyes gave her away. She made sounds like she was choking.
“It’s not funny,” Dan warned, fighting a grin himself. “So there we are, they’re yelling, I’m trying to calm them down, they’re trying to get by me or kill me—I still don’t know which. Then I realize I still have my gun drawn, which isn’t helping, so I holster it, ask them what’s going on. Big mistake. They trade looks and then start—now, here’s the good part—undressing me and shouting how they need to do a load of laundry. Need to, mind you. Like the fate of the free world hinges on them rinsing out my boxers.”
Joan eyed him and then col
lapsed on herself, holding her sides and giggling uncontrollably. Chuckling now, Dan leaned over her and persisted with his version of events. “Obviously I chose not to roam the halls wearing your undies and the shower curtain. So tell me, how did those ladies get elected by the club to keep me in the room while you chaired your meeting?”
Joan flopped over on her back, a sensual picture with her auburn hair fanned out around her, and grinned at him. “They got the short straws. See, I knew you’d come looking for me, so we sent the three cutest ones to take you on. They were supposed to cry and make you feel bad and get you to cooperate with them. Worked, didn’t it?”
Dan forced a pained expression onto his features. “Oh, yeah, it worked. They’d didn’t leave me a stitch. I’m yelling where are you, they’re yelling she’s fine—she’s with the men, she’s with the men. I didn’t find that fine at all. Then I get shoved into the bathroom. So there I am—stripping in fast-forward time, throwing my unmentionables out. the door, trying to strip before they start that crying again. Or worse, barge in to finish the job.”
Joan zipped upright, as if she’d been pulled forward, and leered at him. “Ooh, you should’ve let them. They might’ve liked that”
Dan sobered, painfully so, as he wagged his remaining bit of cookie in her face. “Let’s not sear that image into my brain. It would render me incapable of…performing. I’d have to become a monk. And you—you ought to be ashamed. These are little children’s grandmas we’re talking about.” With that and a glare, he poked his cookie into his mouth and seriously chewed it.
But Joan the Bad met his gaze evenly. “So, tell me, just how do you think they got to be little childrens’ grandmas, huh?” She batted her long eyelashes at him, managing to convey both innocence and wantonness.
Dan grimaced. “Don’t even look at me like that. Or this afternoon in the library will be nothing to what these old folks will see right here.” Joan’s eyes widened and she wiped the wanton look off her face. Seeing that, Dan called a halt to the fun. “All right, O’Leary, move it. I need to go mingle and see what I can learn. See who in our little circle here is really who he says he is.”
The Great Escape Page 14
