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A Running Heart

Page 16

by Kendra Vasquez


  Inside the small building of Tim’s Truck & Transmission, a few shelves speckled the walls, and on the layers of dust sat gritty pumps and starters. A heavyset man with thinning hair stepped up from the back door through which Amanda had spotted two rows of steel skeletons; doors had been removed, hoods rested on the ground.

  The man, probably Tim, in a long-sleeve flannel, coughed at the counter.

  Amanda smiled. “Hi. Car-part dot com tells me you have a 2007 Gaudy Clip here.”

  “You need a part for a Clip?” He eyed her.

  Her heart raced. She gulped. “That’s right.”

  “Huh. I’d give you the whole thing for five hundred. The thing’s been sitting here rusting for years. Never sold a part off it.”

  Amanda shook her head. “All I need is the sun visor today. Well, now that you mention it . . . a couple of other things are starting to wear out on mine. How new is the interior?”

  He shrugged. “New as you can get as long as it’s the passenger side. How about you take a look yourself and I’ll tally it all up when you get back?”

  He motioned her to the back door and pointed at the far corner of the lot. “Over in that row.”

  “Great. Thank you.”

  He followed her out the back then stepped to the side where he saddled a wooden bench and returned to disassembling an automatic transmission.

  Chapter 15

  Two men desperate to find Amanda had left the city’s electrified night an hour ago. With each mile gained, the sun inched nearer to rising over the mountain peaks. The layers of the mountain range took on a rough texture when the sky’s navy wash contrasted the granite. With the opening of the day, Ryan figured it time to open up lines of communication with the driver, Amanda’s uncle, Jay Hudson.

  Ryan glanced at the man. Why hadn’t he grilled Ryan the minute they’d hit the road? He’d had a lot more to say during their first encounter. Ryan supposed now that the cat was out of the bag, what was left to say?

  Apparently Ryan was correct in his assumption as Jay focused on the road.

  The radio maintained a distant murmur of an all-talk AM station. He couldn’t imagine Jay had listened to it any more than Ryan. His ears popped from time to time, the only interruption to the thrum of highway driving.

  The mountains seemed different. Maybe it was in the air. How often had Ryan crossed the Rockies wrapped in leather seats and Armor All? Jay must’ve detailed his Rover recently. It had over thirty thousand miles on it, about a quarter of what was on Ryan’s truck. And once they reached Bayfield, it would have over three hundred more.

  Ryan needed Jay’s position before they reached the town. What was his stake in all of this? Did he think like his brother and believe Amanda a victim of a terrible mistake and resulting accident? He still didn’t know what Ryan had found.

  “So, you’re Jim’s brother.”

  Jay nodded. “You were his charity case.”

  “You could call it that.” They were on a roll. In another hour or so, they might have a real conversation going.

  The radio and wind noise filled the cab.

  “What have you done?” asked Jay.

  “I don’t—”

  “Stop.” Jay turned his head, just once. “Don’t. I heard enough tales when I was a car insurance agent. So don’t. Now, a couple days ago my niece shows up at my door asking about a time when you were in her life. And when I come looking for her, I run into you. Then, to top it off, she’s now sprinting off to Bayfield. So, like I said, what have you done?”

  Ryan opened his mouth, ready to fire back, though without force. He had nothing.

  Jay filled in. “Do you realize what could happen if her father finds out? He doesn’t need this kind of heartache again. None of us do.”

  Of course they didn’t. This wasn’t how Ryan had wanted things to happen.

  After all, he wasn’t there with Jay because he was left with a choice. He’d tried to help Amanda. She’d decommissioned his truck. Jay had to understand. Wasn’t he the one to whom Jim and Amanda had fled?

  Ryan sighed, commenced confession. “I shared something she didn’t know.”

  “Obviously.”

  Ryan threw a glare his way. “Maybe you want to know what it was.”

  “Again, obviously,” Jay ground out as his hands ground the steering wheel.

  Ryan’s eyes narrowed. “What do you know about that time? You must’ve thought it a bit odd, the way they came to Denver. Did you ever look into it?” He went back to the broken skyline rolling by his window. “Of course you would have. After all, he’s your brother. It’d be so easy for a claims agent.”

  “You were there from the beginning. You tell me.”

  Ryan dropped an arm on top of the inner door panel. The morning air pressed in against the glass. His voice heavy with sarcasm, he asked, “How about we both write what we know on slips of paper and exchange them at the same time?”

  Jay flashed a look from the corner of his eye.

  Yeah, he had to agree. This was getting them nowhere. It was time he started, somewhere. “There was a car accident.”

  “Someone was killed,” Jay added.

  “Yes.” Ryan gazed down at his pack and thought of the parts invoice copy inside.

  “How did my niece do it?”

  Ryan’s head shot upward. He was ready to fire in her defense. He then stopped when he observed the cool expression on Jay’s face. Instead, Ryan stated flatly, “She didn’t do it.”

  “She didn’t?” Jay scoffed. “So Jim rushed his daughter out of Bayfield because his poor girl couldn’t handle the grief of someone driving out of her life? Oh wait, didn’t Jim’s wife already do that? No. They were hiding something from me when they first pulled up outside my door. I could see it in her eyes, the wariness. Ever since her mom walked out, Amanda had hated the dress-up type and just couldn’t deal with Danielle’s torment, so she—”

  Ryan cut him off. “She did do something to Danielle’s car, but we’ve got it all wrong. Amanda didn’t mean to kill her. And now, I’m not so sure she did.”

  Road noise and nothing else as the mountains spread out. The Land Rover followed the edge of a high-altitude valley. Ryan had been ready to help back then, to offer any assurances he could. But he knew the best for him to do was to play ignorant and let them leave with as little guilt as possible.

  “It was because of the attack on her,” said Jay.

  Ryan considered the driver but didn’t answer.

  “That you came back.”

  Ryan gave a slight nod. Jay was partly right, but Ryan had driven to Denver because Jim wouldn’t let Ryan talk to his daughter in the first place. Ryan stared out the windshield at the ribbon of asphalt and gravel. The Land Rover climbed along it until they perched among the mountaintops. For a moment, they saw the mountains from the mountain’s point of view. Then the ribbon dove back down again, and the highway became a shallow shelf in the slope of a granite beast, lumbering over them like the guilt over Ryan. He wrestled with responsibility in the shadows. If he hadn’t been with Rebecca last night, things wouldn’t have gotten this far out of control.

  And yet he couldn’t regret being with Rebecca. One thing was for sure, there was at least one Hudson woman he couldn’t let leave him again.

  “Why’d you tell her you thought she didn’t do it? I thought she’d forgotten.”

  “Me, too. But apparently not.” She’d never forgotten. She’d told him that last night before she’d jumped back into the Jeep and drove off. He’d gotten in the truck, but he wasn’t alone. As Amanda’s cousin, Rebecca had felt an obligation. She’d needed to be there and stayed by his side through—

  “So what’s the rush? Why do we need to get down there so fast?”

  Ryan left his memories,
returned to the waves of evergreen outside the Rover. “Amanda now thinks she may not have killed Danielle. She’s going to ask questions. And what if someone feels like they’re being investigated?”

  “You’re thinking about the person who kidnapped her.” Jay’s gaze remained on the highway.

  Ryan shrugged. “You have a better idea?”

  “Hmm. But why now? Why not five years ago?”

  Ryan sighed, shook his head and whispered to himself, “My fault. Right from the beginning.”

  “What?” Jay demanded, showing a lack of patience for his brother’s ex-employee.

  Ryan held his breath then let it out as he admitted, “A few days ago, a Gaudy Clip, like the one Danielle drove, came into my shop. The part it needed, the store actually had in stock. Maybe I asked questions of the wrong people. Or maybe someone overheard me when I called Amanda—”

  “Wait.” Amanda’s uncle had a talent for interruption. “You called Amanda? Before the kidnapping?”

  “Yes.” And what if Germ had been listening outside? Ryan’s brows gathered as he clenched a fist with his right hand.

  “Keep going.” Jay’s expression was dark.

  Ryan closed his eyes, returning to his story. “The fact a part was ordered for Danielle’s car can help us to show Amanda’s innocence. Maybe whoever kidnapped her threatened her to stay out of it. Whatever Amanda hopes to find, it’s putting her deeper into trouble.”

  He raked a hand through his hair. They were going in circles. And what good would it do to bring Jay in on this? But Ryan had to tell him something. The problem was Jay hadn’t liked what he’d heard. His jaw muscles flexed. The green in his eyes frosted over.

  “If Amanda were to get hurt,” mused Jay, “it would shatter Jim, worse than any violence she ever did.”

  Ryan nodded. It would ruin Jim, and very likely it would ruin Ryan. He’d started this, spilled the details. And now he had one hell of a serious mess to clean up. If something did happen to Amanda, considering Rebecca was right there with her, he’d lose more than he ever bargained for when he’d hoped to free Amanda and thus himself. Besides saving them, he needed to see Rebecca. Her name whispered across his mind.

  He closed his eyes, craved her berry scent, cool touch, and clear head.

  Her calm reserve was nothing like Amanda’s hot-headedness, or Ryan’s impulsive side when he’d made the phone call. Now he wasn’t so sure who’d made the worst mistake. And until he finished what needed to be done, he couldn’t have what he wanted. Amanda deserved the truth. They had every right to search for it. He hoped Rebecca kept Amanda from doing anything reckless.

  The Land Rover picked up speed, increasing the road noise. Jay turned up the radio showing their silent agreement. Enough had been shared for the time being.

  Another hour had passed before Ryan’s eyes fell on Chimney Rock. His mind snagged on a question. Why hadn’t Amanda accepted his help? But he knew the answer right away. She’d always wanted to try fixing things without help first, and her past tendencies now put her and Rebecca in the middle of Bayfield, in the middle of danger, without him.

  As if he might stumble across the danger in the cars flying by, he kept his eyes on the traffic. It felt like the usual procession, farm trucks and semis.

  His lungs worked in overdrive like the air had lost oxygen content. They’d reached the final curve before Bayfield. The embankment dirt on his right held a certain reddish tinge that, when combined with the sagebrush pattern, told him he’d see the tops of a housing group nestled in a dip in the landscape.

  The morning sun bounced off their slanted roofs, skimmed rays across the rolling valley. He was back.

  His eyes returned to the road, his heart tightened in his chest. He followed the highway with his eyes where it opened up in front of him.

  Immediately, he stiffened, leaned forward. It couldn’t be. Slightly but still locked-on to the sight, he shook his head in denial. There were plenty of Jeeps in Colorado with that color. And this one was going the wrong way. His lungs froze. Things got worse.

  Jay said, “What the hell—”

  Ryan’s blood gelled. His heart choked as the Jeep swerved. It battered off a guard rail then sliced across the highway, before flying down the shoulder and plowing through a dried-up bush until, finally, it came to a stop.

  Ryan had realized the truth when the Jeep streamed past them. On the back was a face with stubble and a ponytail. Something like lead sucked in his stomach, shivered his systems. He slid forward, tensing leg muscles against the metallic weight. Jay nailed the brakes and pulled off the road.

  Door open, Ryan pushed off a starting block of the moving Rover. Barely checking for traffic, he hauled ass across the highway.

  Stopped with his chest heaving and heart pounding, he watched as the driver’s door slapped open, and a figure stumbled out. Rebecca!

  She held her head as she stumbled away from the Jeep. He moved, was by her side in a second. One arm caught her when she tripped. She peered up, dazed gray darted around, confused.

  “Rebecca.” His eyes moved frantically over her face as she leaned off-balance on his arm. He searched the gray swirling in her irises.

  Finally, his voice saying her name a second time, more urgent, registered in her eyes. She stopped her blind search, found his face.

  An upward curve came to her lips as she sighed. “Hi.”

  He smiled. “Hi.” Her eyes swallowed him. He rearranged her. They stood face to face. He grasped her forearm. She held him equally as firm but with her eyes. He couldn’t, would never look away from the intensity in her wondering stare.

  “How are you?” she asked.

  “I’m—” Wait. She was the one who just walked away from a car wreck. He should—

  Hands overtook Rebecca’s face—Jay’s hands—framed his niece’s face, pushed back chestnut tresses as he assessed her condition. After a thorough search of face, body and appendages, seeming finally assured she wasn’t seriously injured, he dropped a quick kiss on her forehead. On half a breath, he asked, “Where’s Amanda?”

  Amanda? Amanda! With his arm under Rebecca’s, Ryan scanned the Jeep’s interior and exhaled relief. No Amanda.

  “She’s back at the shop,” said Rebecca. “I went out for breakfast burritos. She’d wanted time to think, I think. I don’t know, but when I hit the highway, the brakes didn’t work. I thought of the emergency brake, yanked it, but it didn’t do anything. I had to use the transmission to slow down, you know,” she searched his eyes, “shifting into lower gears?” She shook her head. “I had to get off the highway, before the cars behind me . . .” Her wide eyes had seen too much. She took a shaky breath as her lids lowered and tears leaked.

  He brushed loose strands of hair back from her face, thumbing away the wetness. Was it wrong to feel satisfied he had her in his arms? She winced. He gently turned her head, spotting scratches. Her left arm had received the worst of it, grazed by the bush due to the Jeep’s window being rolled down. If it’d been a tree or something far sharper and rigid . . .

  Reflexively, he tightened his arm around her, pressing her close. He brushed a kiss on her forehead and breathed deep of the wild raspberry entangled in her hair, along her skin. He had her, wanted to keep her, not leaving her, not losing her.

  “Yep,” Jay said from under the hood, apparently having opened it while Ryan wrestled with truths. “There’s the trouble.”

  Ryan stepped toward the Jeep, supporting Rebecca, felt the war inside as he wanted to give her room to move but also wanted to keep her glued to his side. She breathed in sharply and he followed her look down, found her feet bare.

  She shrugged, appeared sheepish. “I can’t drive stick with high heels.”

  The corner of his mouth lifted. He easily scooped her into his arms, remembered how he’d t
old her he liked this look.

  At first, her breath came out as if she was irritated, but it turned into a sigh of comfort. She relaxed into him. His heart jumped triumphantly in his chest. He strode straight for the Jeep’s fender.

  Jay directed their attention to the plastic reservoir for the brake master cylinder. Fluid dribbled out of a gaping hole. “Someone punctured the bottle. Most of the brake fluid leaked out. I’d wager they snipped the emergency brake cables from underneath.”

  Rebecca shook her head. “Why?”

  “I was hoping you could tell us,” replied Jay.

  Ryan glanced at the cars zipping by their location. “Best figure that out when we’re safely off the highway.” He had Rebecca. He was in no hurry to dig into dark details. “Let’s hitch up the Jeep and tow it back to my shop.”

  He settled her into the passenger seat of the Jeep. “Wait here.”

  She tilted her head in an act of consideration then nodded. “I won’t be difficult for now.” She smiled.

  He cupped her cheek then stole her smile in a long, deep kiss. His body stirred in hunger. When he released her lips, his hand lingered, sliding a thumb along her cheek.

  He owed Amanda, had to fix what he’d never properly repaired in the first place. Teaching her automotive had never rid her of her feelings. His hand fell away from Rebecca’s cheek. They were here to make Amanda safe and give her the answers she needed.

  Afterward, he’d have time for other things, though he’d never thought past Amanda. Caught in a steady, cool-gray gaze, he glimpsed a new road worth traveling. Without a word, he stepped back then turned and hurried to help Jay.

  ~ ~ ~

  No longer holding Ryan physically, Rebecca held onto the sight of him instead, lamenting the loss of feeling safe, treasured. Sure, she could have kept on the leather-strap sandals she’d worn around Amanda, but those along with the bandaging had made her feet exceptionally cramped, and she wasn’t one to eschew the natural sensations of fresh air on one’s bare skin. Shoes, or no shoes, the brake pedal had been useless. She avoided recalling those moments for a while longer and instead watched Ryan work.

 

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