by Lowe, Shelia
“Maybe you oughta leave that to the cops.”
“Listen, just for argument’s sake, let’s say you did pick ’em up. Maybe I could make it worth your while to just drop ’em back off again, right here and now.”
“What makes you think I’d tell you, if I did pick ’em up?”
“Let’s cut the crap. Would fifty bucks do anything for you?”
There was a snort of derision. “I may be a whore, but I ain’t a cheap whore.”
Lainie’s voice came back: “Now, I know everyone has their price—”
“Well, sister, mine’s a lot higher than fifty bucks.”
Claudia’s heart was thumping as she leaned down and whispered in Annabelle’s ear. “Come on, kiddo, we gotta go. Now.”
“What—”
“Shhh . . . follow me.”
Despite the cold, her hands were clammy as she unlocked the door to the cab and pushed it open just wide enough to peek around. Through the windshield, she could just see the top of Lainie’s red hair near the front wheel well, her back to the truck. Roberta was too short to be seen.
With Annabelle holding on to the belt loop of Claudia’s jeans they moved around the passenger seat, keeping their heads down. Claudia pushed the passenger door open slowly, hoping Roberta would not choose this moment to end the conversation.
Roberta’s cell phone was Velcroed to the dash. Claudia reached for and stuffed it into her pocket. Right now, they needed it more than the trucker did. Let Roberta buy herself a new one with her thirty pieces of silver.
Then they were on the ground.
The rumble of the semi’s engine idling was a godsend and covered the sound of their exit from the truck. They hurried to the back of the 18-wheeler, crouching every few feet to look under the trailer. Lainie’s and Roberta’s feet were visible near the front of the truck, where they were still haggling over the price of betrayal.
At the rear of the semi, Claudia crouched down low and took a cautious glimpse. The steady ding-ding-ding of an open door reached her. The white car was idling with its headlights on. She whispered her intention into Annabelle’s ear. Her eyes feverish with excitement, the girl nodded agreement.
First Annabelle, then Claudia made her move. They crept behind the sedan, staying low until they reached the open driver’s door. Then their luck wavered.
As if pulled by an invisible string, Lainie’s head swiveled in their direction. “Hey! What the—”
The rest of her shout was lost as Claudia hustled Annabelle into the car. The girl scrambled across the seat, all legs and arms.
Claudia wedged herself behind the steering wheel and slammed the door shut. The seat was pushed up uncomfortably close, cramping her long legs and pressing the steering wheel against her belly, but there was no time to make adjustments.
Reaching for the panel of electric locks, her hands shook so badly, she accidentally hit the button that slid the rear window down. Shit! Shit! Roll it up!
Lainie was running toward them.
“Go, Claudia, go!” Annabelle cried, bouncing in her seat.
Lainie threw herself at the driver’s door, grabbing the handle at the same instant the lock engaged. Claudia released the brake, jammed the transmission into gear, and hit the gas. Lainie hammered on the glass, screaming for her to stop.
They skimmed past Roberta, who flattened herself against the truck, gaping at them, Lainie clamped on to the handle, trying to keep pace.
The speedometer needle rose and Lainie was forced to let go. Her skinny body swung away from the car, her legs still moving as she stumbled and went down on the roadway with a shrill cry of anger and pain.
“She landed on her face,” Annabelle cried out.
Claudia watched in the mirror as their enemy receded in the distance. The highway opened up in front of her— once again, the road to freedom. Her breathing was as labored as if she’d run a mile, but she started to laugh, knowing it was sheer nerves. She put out her right hand and high-fived Annabelle, who promptly burst into tears of relief.
Then a low sob from the backseat shocked them both into silence.
Chapter 33
Annabelle twisted around and stuck her head through the space between the seats. “Omigod! Claudia, you won’t believe it.”
But Claudia guessed even before she saw the two little towheads in the mirror. She offered a silent thank-you to whatever forces had allowed this miracle.
Daring to breathe a little easier, she adjusted the seat into a more comfortable position, then dug Roberta’s cell phone out of her pocket and had Annabelle punch in Jovanic’s number for her.
He answered in a voice filled with tension. Of course he wouldn’t recognize Roberta’s number on his caller ID.
“It’s me,” she said.
“Claudia! Thank God. Are you safe?”
She gave him the quick-and-dirty version of what had happened. Just the basics, while Annabelle tried to reassure the two scared children. They might not understand her words, but seemed to be reassured by her manner.
Jovanic told Claudia that when Annabelle had yelled they were in Las Vegas, he immediately alerted LVPD and the FBI, since Annabelle was a minor who had been transported across state lines. He hadn’t known about the two little ones, of course.
He had raced off to Nevada in his Jeep while the FBI worked to get a fix on Claudia’s location from the phone call Jovanic had made to her. They were able to identify a general area and were currently canvassing the neighborhood where Bert had his condo.
Nearly three hours after leaving home, Jovanic was now passing Primm, an outlet mall forty miles outside the city of Las Vegas.
He must have driven like a madman, Claudia thought, tears of gratitude welling up. But there was no time to get weepy. She still needed to keep her wits about her and get them all a safe distance from harm’s way.
Jovanic wanted a description of the car she was driving so local authorities could spot her when he alerted them. She told him it was a white Saturn. “But don’t ask me what model or year because I have no clue. It has a damaged front bumper.”
“Okay, forget that. You’re on I-95 South? About how far from Vegas?”
“Maybe fifty miles. We just passed a sign for Indian Springs. It’s deserted out here.”
“Okay, I’ll contact Nevada HP—”
Suddenly, headlights glared in the rearview mirror; a vehicle was moving up fast on them.
“Oh God, Joel, it’s Bert. He got out of the ditch— What do I do? What do I do?”
“Claudia, listen to me—” Jovanic’s voice was urgent. “Hang up and call 911 right now. I’ll call too, but you’ll give a better description of what’s happening. Do it. Now!”
Behind them, Bert flicked on his high beams, filling the Saturn’s mirrors with reflected light, blinding her with the glare. Claudia reached up and switched to night view, but then it was harder to gauge his distance. Batting the mirror upward in frustration, she tossed the phone to Annabelle.
“Call 911,” she said, pushing the speedometer to eighty-five. “I need both hands.”
Ninety.
Annabelle punched in the numbers.
Ninety-five.
The Escalade swerved in the lane, hugging the Saturn’s rear bumper. Its driver seemed impaired, maybe as much by the injury to his leg as the booze in his system.
One hundred.
The accelerator was nearly touching the floor; still, she couldn’t seem to lose him.
Watching the scenery fly past, Claudia’s senses felt more acute than normal. Maybe it was the concussion, but she could feel the sounds—the steady hum of the engine, the muted rush of air hitting the car, their dangerous speed on the dark road—and she found herself mesmerized by them. She could almost imagine that none of this was really happening, that they were just actors in an action movie.
Then Annabelle’s voice broke through the surrealness of the experience as she got the emergency operator on the line. “There’s a guy chasin
g us,” she said, sounding more excited than scared. “He’s got a gun . . .”
Claudia coached her on their location as best she could, but with few signs along the road and at the speed she was driving, it was too hard to read them.
She chanced a glance in the side mirror. The Escalade was a higher-profile vehicle and more powerful, and Bert was staying on their tail with ease. She could tell he was playing with her, viciously mocking when the Escalade lightly kissed the Saturn’s bumper.
The speedometer hit 105 and she couldn’t push the Saturn any more. With the low visibility, they might end up in a ditch.
A movement in the side mirror caught her eye. Bert, leaning out of the driver window. Too late, Claudia remembered he was left-handed.
Sparks flashed on the road just ahead of them. Could he hit a moving target?
The next shot smashed the side-view mirror.
“Get down low and get those kids on the floor,” Claudia yelled to Annabelle, instinctively yanking the wheel to the right. The children in the backseat would be vulnerable if a bullet came through the trunk. The accelerator was mashed to the floor. How could she hope to outrun him when their vehicles were so badly mismatched?
The Escalade started to move to their left, but instead of coming alongside them it nudged the edge of the Saturn’s bumper, nearly wrenching the wheel out of Claudia’s hands. Annabelle screamed and dropped the cellular to the floor. The two little ones started crying.
Claudia hit the brakes. The ABS kicked in and the brake pedal vibrated madly under her foot.
Boom! The SUV slammed into them again, harder, pushing the Saturn across the lane. She fought for control, but they were sliding left, toward the metal rail at the side of the road. Less than a foot from the rail, she jerked hard on the wheel, swerving back toward the center of the roadway.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” Her jaw was clenched so tight her teeth hurt. Pulling the rearview mirror down, she saw the Escalade veer across the lane, coming straight at them like something from a nightmare.
The Escalade bumped them, then Bert lost control and the SUV was spinning—once, twice. It brushed the metal guardrail and the wheels on the driver’s side went airborne. In slow motion, the Escalade’s left side lifted, flipped, and came down on its roof, sliding . . . sliding . . . sliding.
It all seemed to happen in eerie silence as metal buckled and glass shattered. Fifty yards down the road, Claudia hit the brakes.
She was shaking uncontrollably as she popped the trunk lever and opened her door. “Stay in the car with the kids,” she ordered Annabelle, who was already halfway onto the road. “Call 911 back and tell them to send an ambulance.”
“No way,” the old defiant Annabelle shot back. “I want to see.”
“Please, don’t give me a hard time.”
“That’s bogus! I’m not staying—”
“Annabelle! This is not a fucking game. I need you to take care of those kids, and I need you to call the cops. Do you understand me?”
Annabelle flounced back into the car, her mouth set into a sullen pout. “Fine! But I don’t think it’s fair.”
“Your objection is duly noted,” Claudia muttered, slamming the door shut and pocketing the keys. In the trunk’s wheel well, along with the spare tire, was the jack, a tire iron, and a heavy Maglite like the one Jovanic kept in his car. She found some flares and took them, along with the tire iron in case she needed a weapon, and the flashlight.
Slamming the trunk shut, she sucked down a few calming breaths, then started back down the road to the accident scene, where the SUV had come to rest on its roof.
The terrain was sand, dirt, and sagebrush that snagged on the legs of her jeans as she walked. The only illumination came from the cars, the starlight, and the moonlight.
From a hundred feet away, she could see the upturned Escalade’s wheels still spinning. At fifty feet it became evident that the front window had blown out. At twenty-five feet she made out a dark shape on the roadway.
She swung the Maglite in a wide arc. Bert lay facedown, his body bent in an angle that it hadn’t been designed to accommodate. He wasn’t moving.
Shivering and numb, not just from the low temperature, Claudia lit a flare and laid it on the road. She approached the Escalade with caution and pointed the flashlight at the passenger window. Lainie’s head lolled upside down against it, the blood blending with her red hair. Her eyes were open, as unseeing as Paige’s had been when Claudia found her.
From the distance, headlights appeared. The hulking form of a big rig lumbered along the highway. Claudia stood in the road and waved her arms, yelling for the trucker to stop, until she realized it had to be Roberta, the lady Judas. She dropped her arms and stepped back onto the dirt.
The truck slowed as it neared the smashed-up SUV, and Roberta leaned out of the window to get a look. After she’d rubbernecked long enough to satisfy her curiosity, the truck picked up speed and left the scene.
Chapter 34
The woman from Child Protective Services closed her car door and turned to face Claudia. “Those kids have no idea how lucky they are.”
Claudia looked through the window at the children and smiled at them. They were huddled as close as their seat restraints would allow. They stared back at her with eyes drooping with fatigue.
“I’m sure they’ll feel a lot luckier once they’re home with their families,” she said. “Any idea where they belong?”
The social worker shook her head. “No, but I’m sure we will soon. I’m gonna get them to UMD and have them checked out, get them something to eat and a bed for tonight.” She held out her hand. “You’re a brave gal.”
“Sometimes you don’t get a choice,” Claudia said, returning the handshake. As the social worker drove off toward Las Vegas, she didn’t feel at all brave. For a moment she stood alone at the side of the road, grateful to be alive and physically unscathed, but still rattled from the too-close encounter with death.
A few yards away, the fire services, paramedics, and police vehicles were strobe lit in a string of flashes from the police photographer’s camera. A skinny photographer in a navy Windbreaker with LVPD stenciled across it walked backward with his camera, continuing to fire across the southbound lane where the Escalade had come to rest.
Claudia watched him for a couple of minutes, then started to return to the dark blue Nevada Highway Patrol car where she had left Annabelle wrapped in a blanket, telling her adventures to a good-looking young state trooper.
The photographer shot another blast. In the light, a Jeep could be seen approaching the first of the emergency flares a trooper had added to the ones Claudia had placed on the road. The Jeep pulled over and Jovanic got out. Claudia saw him extend his badge wallet to one of the investigating officers, who gestured in her direction.
As his arms drew her to him all the air seemed to rush out of her. Had it all really happened in one day? She sank against him, too overcome to speak.
Jovanic rested his cheek against the top of her head and she felt his breath, warm in her hair. They stood together in silence, clinging to each other. Then he lifted her face and covered it with kisses. Between them was the enormity of knowing that if Bert Falkenberg’s machinations had been successful, this opportunity would have been denied them forever.
His presence infused her with new energy, but Jovanic kept his arm around Claudia as they strolled over to see Annabelle. The young trooper straightened and moved away from the vehicle, giving them some privacy.
“Seems I owe you an apology,” Jovanic said to Annabelle. “I should have listened to Claudia. She’s obviously a better judge of character than I am.”
Annabelle stared up at him, suspicion in her eyes, clearly taken by surprise at his words. She said nothing, but she couldn’t hide the pleased little smile that touched the edges of her lips.
“This is one amazing young woman,” Claudia said. “Annabelle, you can be my backup any day.”
Jovanic nodded approval
, then said he needed to talk to the commander. As he walked away, Annabelle looked back at the SUV. “What about them?”
“You don’t have to worry about them anymore.”
“Are they dead?”
“Bert’s pretty badly hurt.”
Lainie had been killed on impact, but drunk drivers tend to survive the crashes they cause. The paramedics had talked about Bert having sustained a spinal cord injury, possible brain damage.
A tear slid down Annabelle’s nose and over her upper lip and she swiped it away. “Why do they all have to be so . . . so bad?”
Claudia knew instinctively that she was talking about all the men in her young life who had let her down. Dominic Giordano, Cruz Montenegro, and this most monstrous of all betrayals by a man in whom she had trusted and confided.
Crouching on her heels, Claudia gently touched her cheek. “I know it seems like that right now, but they’re not all that way. I promise.”
“Yeah, like I’m s’posed to believe that.”
“Give it some time, kiddo. You’ll see.”
Together they watched a couple of EMTs take out a stretcher and wheel it over to where Bert lay. The coroner’s van would come later for Lainie. No hurry for her.
Claudia wanted to tell Annabelle not to watch as they loaded Bert onto the stretcher, but something told her she needed to see it. Maybe some of the bad dreams that were apt to follow this real-life nightmare would be a little less intense if she saw with her own eyes that he was no longer capable of hurting her.
Annabelle gave a little shudder, but not for Bert. “Ugh, I feel so gross. I haven’t had a bath in days. My hair is all greasy.”
Claudia produced a small comb from her jacket pocket. “Here, at least you can comb your hair, if that will make you feel a little better.”
Annabelle took the comb from her and started vigorously tugging at the snarls. Too vigorously. Turning her frustration, anger, fear on herself.
“Hey, don’t attack it. You need to keep some of that hair on your head.”
