“What if you called your uncle before you called me and asked if you could use his cabin?”
“What do you mean?”
“If you did, maybe you told him who’s after us. Why don’t you call him? Maybe he can help.”
He shook his head. “What could I say? He would recognize my voice, but with my memory gone, he couldn’t be sure it’s me on the other end of the line.”
“Okay.” She sipped a spoonful of soup. “I’ll call him.”
“And say what?” he asked with an ironic laugh. “That you’re staying in his mountain house with his nephew, who won’t talk to him because he can’t remember anything? He’ll think you’re crazy.”
She set down her spoon and glared. “I will definitely go crazy if we don’t find out who’s after us. It’s like living in a bad dream.”
She was magnificent when she was angry. Her eyes sparked with green fire, the color rose again in her cheeks, and her shapely chest heaved with indignation. Could he have worked with such a woman for four years and not noticed? He glanced at Jessica in her playpen. Or maybe he had noticed, but Jessica’s daddy had beat him to the prize.
He held up his hands in surrender. “All right, have it your way. Call Uncle George and see what he can tell us.”
She rose to her feet and hurried to the phone. After a call to information for George Windham’s number in Florida, she dialed his home.
“Mr. Windham?” she asked. “I’m Rachel Goforth, a friend of your nephew Stephen Chandler. I’ve been trying to locate him, but the Bureau office in Atlanta either doesn’t know where he is or won’t tell me.”
She paused, listening to Windham’s long response. Her eyes widened and her eyebrows lifted in surprise. “You’re certain?”
“Certain of what?” Stephen asked, but she shook her head at him without answering.
“Thanks for your help, Mr. Windham.... Yes, if I find Stephen, I’ll have him call you.”
She replaced the receiver and stared at him in disbelief. “He says he hasn’t talked with you in several weeks.”
“That’s it? He took a hell of a long time saying it.”
“There’s more.” She settled in the chair across from him. “Someone from the Atlanta office called him this morning, asking how to find you.”
“That sounds reasonable, since I didn’t show up for work today, and George Windham is probably listed as my next of kin.”
She raised her eyebrows again. “Not if you’re married. You forgot your Anne Michelle.”
“Among several hundred other things. But I see your point. What did Uncle George tell this person?”
“The caller asked if he knew where you might go to get away from it all. George told him about this cabin. We’re not safe here anymore.”
“Don’t jump to conclusions—”
“I’m not.” She pushed to her feet and went back to the phone. After another call to long-distance and a request for the Atlanta office of the FBI, she dialed again.
“May I speak with Agent Ken Danford?” As she listened to the response, her eyebrows drew together in a frown. “You’re sure? Sorry, guess someone gave me bad information.”
“What was that all about?” Stephen demanded when she’d hung up.
The color had disappeared from her cheeks, and her hands were shaking. “Your uncle George said the agent who called said he was Ken Danford. The receptionist at the Atlanta office insists there’s no one there by that name. If it wasn’t an agent from your office trying to locate you—”
“Then whoever’s after us knows where we are. Get your things together. We’re leaving now.”
He rushed into the main bedroom where Rachel had placed his belongings. A quick check of the closet revealed men’s jeans, shirts and boots that looked as if they’d fit. He filled his arms with clothes, grabbed the garment bag and kit and hurried to the Explorer.
Passing Rachel with her arms loaded with Jessica’s things, he ran back to the house for his computer, cell phone and the maps he’d brought in from his car. On a rack beside the door hung a man’s heavy jacket. He snatched the garment and shrugged it on over his holstered gun.
Rachel joined him with Jessica in her arms. “Ready?”
“Can you drive? My arm—”
“No problem, but let’s move.”
Together they raced to the Explorer. While Rachel strapped Jessica in the child carrier in the back seat, Stephen scanned the mountainside and the valley below.
Sunlight glinted off a windshield as a vehicle left the highway and started up the road to the cabin.
“They’ve found us,” he said.
Chapter Six
“Looks like we’ll have to do this the hard way,” Stephen said.
“We can’t shoot our way out.” Rachel cast a panicked look at her daughter, who gazed at her mother from the carrier with innocent, trusting eyes. “That only works in the movies. If this encounter deteriorates into a battle, I’ll surrender and beg for Jessica’s life.”
“It won’t come to that,” Stephen said with infuriating calm. “Get in the car.”
“But—”
“No arguments. Get in.”
Stephen hopped into the passenger side. Unable to think of a better alternative, Rachel climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine.
He jerked his head toward the gravel road that snaked down the mountain several miles in a series of sharp switchbacks. “How long will it take them to cover the distance from the valley?”
“Ten minutes, maybe less.”
“Pull the car behind the cabin.”
“Are you crazy? We can’t hide a vehicle this size—”
“Drive!”
Shaking her head at his obstinacy, she put the SUV in gear, backed out of the parking area and drove up the sloping bank of the cabin’s side yard. The Explorer’s four-wheel drive made the climb easily, and as she maneuvered around the corner into the backyard, Stephen pointed to an almost imperceptible break in the trees.
“There’s a road.”
“Where?”
“Not much of one, but if you look close between those two large hickories, you’ll see it. Follow it as far as you can.” He threw open his door and jumped to the ground.
“Where are you going?”
“To cover our tracks. I’ll catch up with you down the mountain. Now go!”
In the back seat, Jessica began to cry. Rachel didn’t need further encouragement to take her daughter as far from the approaching danger as fast as possible, but even as she did as he ordered, plunging the vehicle into the underbrush along the rutted road, she hated leaving Stephen behind. In most circumstances he could take care of himself, but with his wounded arm and loss of memory, he was no match for a trained killer. But she had no choice. She had to get Jessica to safety.
With a sob of desperation, she increased her speed as much as the uncertain terrain allowed. Glad for the vehicle’s hunter-green finish that blended with the evergreens, she eased the SUV between the trees along the overgrown path that looked more like a rainwashed gully than a road. The vehicle bucked and pitched on the uneven surface. Jessica ceased sobbing and giggled with delight at the bumpy ride.
Low-hanging branches whipped across the windshield, momentarily obscuring Rachel’s view. In the rearview mirror, she could see Stephen, sweeping tire tracks from the red clay dust of the cabin yard with an evergreen branch and filling the ruts in the logging road with dead leaves. Then the road dipped over a ridge and she lost sight of him.
Rachel kept driving, but the farther down the mountain she progressed, the more obstructed the road became. Oblivious of the damage to her car, she crashed through head-high thickets of blackberry brambles and thick undergrowth. At one point she had to climb out and drag a rotted tree trunk from the road. At another, she crushed a maroon-leafed dogwood seedling in her path.
She halted and looked behind her. No sign of Stephen. Or anyone else. A glance at her watch indicated only seven minut
es had passed since she’d left the cabin. It seemed like an eternity.
She continued down the mountain, flinching at every whine of the motor, every pop of a broken branch. Sound traveled for miles in the mountains and could proclaim their presence as clearly as a neon sign.
Halfway down the slope, she maneuvered around another sharp switchback and discovered, hollowed into the red clay of the mountainside, an opening large enough for a vehicle to pull into while another passed on the one-lane road. She backed the Explorer into the makeshift cavern, killed the engine and rolled down her window a few inches.
She would wait for Stephen here. Exhausted and weak as he was from loss of blood and lack of sleep, she doubted he’d have the stamina to continue much farther down the mountain on foot.
If he made it this far.
Drawing the automatic from beneath her jacket, she operated the slide, chambered a bullet and waited. Thankful that her FBI training kept her focused so that fears didn’t overwhelm her, she listened for Stephen’s approach. He should be joining her soon.
She turned up the collar of her jacket against the cold seeping in the window. A keening wind tossed the tree branches, rustled piles of dead leaves, and lifted them in swirling eddies. From a distance came the splashing of a creek as it cascaded down the mountainside toward the lake below. From even farther away, the whine of a chain saw carried on the breeze.
In the midst of all those noises, someone could approach the car and she would never hear his movements, even with the window open. At least the cavern protected her on three sides, and she could spot anyone approaching from the front.
Where was Stephen?
She looked at her watch again. Another ten minutes had passed since the last time she checked. He should have joined her by now.
Unless he isn’t coming.
She discarded the possibility he might be hurt as quickly as it entered her mind, then smacked the steering wheel with her fist. He may have lost his memory, but she was certain he hadn’t changed his modus operandi. Accustomed to taking risks, he’d stayed on the mountaintop to catch a glimpse of their pursuers.
What if their pursuers had sighted him first?
She longed to go back to help him, but she couldn’t leave Jessica. If anything had happened to Stephen, and Rachel was also captured or killed, Jessica might never be found on this deserted mountainside.
Rachel stifled a sob and prayed.
The sun shifted behind the clouds, casting the woods in gloomy shadows, which brought with them a bone-deep chill. Rachel rolled up the window and crawled into the back seat. Grabbing the plaid blanket she kept in the back of the car, she tucked it around Jessica, who had fallen asleep again. Shivering, Rachel curled up next to her.
In less than three hours, the Kidbroughs would be waiting to pick up Jessica at the Biltmore Estate. If Stephen didn’t come soon, Rachel would have to decide whether to risk returning to the cabin and taking its main road off the mountain or chancing whether the old logging road exited onto another road at the mountain’s foot.
She snuggled against her daughter in an attempt to keep them both warm. In spite of her fears and the need to remain alert, she surrendered to the effects of too much stress and too many hours without sleep. She nodded off several times, only to snap to attention at an unusual sound, like the frantic barking of a dog and the lowing of cattle, carried on the wind from a farm in the valley.
I can’t desert him. Not again. Not now.
The prospect of leaving Stephen behind stabbed her like a knife in the heart. But Stephen could take care of himself, her conscience argued, while Jessica needed her protection to stay alive.
Please, God, keep him safe.
She slept again, and her dreams of being chased by dark, sinister strangers returned. She whimpered in her sleep, and her heart almost stopped when a hand clamped over her mouth and another closed over her gun. She came instantly awake, but the intruder muffled her scream.
“It’s okay,” Stephen whispered in her ear. “It’s me.”
She couldn’t see in the darkness, but she knew his voice. Her heart, pounding as if trying to beat its way out of her chest, slowed its racing when Stephen removed his hand from her lips.
Her joy at his arrival chased away her fear. “Are you okay?”
“Aside from being cold, hungry and exhausted,” he said, the irony edging his words, “yeah, I feel terrific.”
“Anyone follow you?”
“No, we’re safe—for now.”
“Tell me what happened back there.”
“Let’s get moving first. It’s almost five.”
She bolted upright. They had missed the rendezvous. “The Kidbroughs are waiting—”
“Do they have a car phone?”
“The number’s in the address book in my purse.”
“Call them. Set up another time and meeting place.” He slid the cellular phone into her hands and switched on the vehicle’s dome light.
She blinked in the sudden brightness. After fumbling in her purse for the address book, she found the number and punched it into the phone.
Dr. Kidbrough answered immediately. “Where are you? Are you all right?”
“We’re okay, just delayed. It’ll take us a few hours. Where can we meet you?”
“There’s a Shoney’s at the Hendersonville exit off the interstate, where we planned to stop for supper. We’ll wait for you there.”
“I don’t know how long—”
“Don’t worry. It’s open all night. We’ll wait as long as it takes.”
The affection and reassurance in his voice brought tears to her eyes. She turned off the cell phone, handed it back to Stephen and climbed into the front seat behind the wheel. Stephen settled into the front passenger seat and fastened his seat belt with his good arm.
“We’re supposed to meet the Kidbroughs in Hendersonville,” she told him. “Is it safe to go back to the cabin road or should we continue this way?”
He pointed down the dark, overgrown trail. “We’ll have to gamble that this old logging road eventually leads off the mountain.”
Rachel pulled out of the hiding place and headed down the rutted slope. As treacherous as the descent had been earlier, in the darkness, the road seemed a hundred times worse.
As if reading her mind, he said, “If the road deadends, we’ll hike out.”
She bit back an angry reply. He was in no condition to hike anywhere, and she doubted she could travel very far carrying Jessica across the steep terrain.
“This SUV is rugged,” she said. “If we run out of road, we’ll blaze a new one.”
“From the looks of the road behind us, that’s what you’ve been doing all along.”
“Did you see who’s after us?” she asked.
“After I covered the tracks of your car, I hid beneath a pile of leaves near the parking area. A red pickup, with gun racks in the rear window pulled up. Just one man inside.”
“What did he look like?”
“Tall, moved like a younger man... in his late twenties, early thirties. He was dressed in jeans, heavy jacket, work boots. A knit cap covered his hair, and he was wearing dark glasses, so I couldn’t get a good look at his face. Sound like anyone you know?”
“Maybe he was a local farmer, being neighborly.” Her voice shook as the Explorer lurched over a washed-out portion of the road.
“Would a neighborly farmer draw a .357 Magnum before kicking in the front door?”
She shuddered, picturing what could have happened to them if they hadn’t called George Windham and been warned someone was coming for them.
“Why did you stay up there so long?” she asked, trying to keep her voice from revealing how worried she had been.
Stephen considered her with a searching look, as if he’d picked up on the concern she’d tried to hide. “I couldn’t leave until he did, and he took his sweet time turning the cabin inside out.”
“Was there anything familiar about him?” she as
ked.
“Sorry. Without my memory, nothing’s familiar, except...”
“What?”
“You.”
“I’m familiar?” The caressing inflection of his voice brought a flush of warmth to her face and accelerated her pulse. “If you remember me, that’s a good sign. Maybe your memories are returning.”
“It’s not a memory.” His voice softened, warmed. “More like a feeling.”
“That’s only natural. We were good buddies.” She was glad he couldn’t see her blushing in the dark. Their conversation was treading dangerous ground.
“Did you get the pickup’s license number?” she asked, steering him onto a less hazardous topic.
“I tried, but red mud caked the plate. I couldn’t even tell what state the truck was registered in.”
“So we’re back to square one, with no idea who’s after us or why.” She sighed in frustration. “At least things aren’t any worse.”
As if to contradict her claim, the left front end of the Explorer dipped at a forty-five-degree angle, and the vehicle stopped abruptly, tossing Rachel forward. If her seat belt hadn’t been fastened, she’d have done a header into the windshield. She pressed the accelerator, but the car wouldn’t move.
“We’re stuck,” she announced.
Stephen unclasped his seat belt and opened the door. With the vehicle tilted to the left, he had to jump to reach the ground. He crossed in front of the headlights to inspect the left wheel.
Rachel lowered her window and studied the damage. “Should I try backing up?”
“Won’t help.” Stephen’s face was pale in the glare of the headlights. “The road’s washed out and the tire’s dropped into a gully. Do you have a flashlight?”
She reached into the glove compartment, grabbed a Maglite, and tossed it to him. He disappeared momentarily as he inspected the underside of the car.
When he popped into view again, his face was grim. “The axle doesn’t appear damaged, but there’s no way we’re getting out of here.”
“And I guess we can’t call a tow truck. So much for getting off this mountain.”
She tried to exit her door, but when it had opened only a few inches the bottom edge dug into the dirt. She crawled over the passenger seat, leaped to the ground and surveyed the tilted front end of the Explorer. “Is there any way we could jack up the car enough to free it?”
Undercover Dad Page 8
