Hating himself, hating what he had to do, he turned to look at her, steeling himself and schooling his face into a neutral expression.
“I want to thank you for what you did in there, ma’am,” he said, injecting a hint of southern drawl into his voice. He could feel Gallenson’s gaze on him, sharp and suspicious. “I sure wouldn’t’ve walked away from it without your help.”
That much was true.
Sophie stayed silent. Jack knew she wanted to protest, to demand an explanation. Her uncertainty was almost a tangible thing, rolling off her in waves. Worse, Jack could see a deep hurt in her eyes.
“You’re welcome,” she said at last. Her voice was flat. Dead.
Gallenson reached for her upper arm and Jack flashed on the memory of how Vince had plucked her away from his back with the same grip.
“Get in the car, Sophie.” Gallenson’s voice invited no discussion.
Jack decided he didn’t like him much.
Sophie hesitated.
“Now.” It was a whiplash command.
Sophie looked at Jack one last time. He could see the questions in her eyes. But she walked back to the car without a word, her long legs in the jeans striding out with just the tiniest hint of imperfect balance.
She’d had three breaks to the left femur, he’d managed to find out after the trial. They’d told him she’d probably walk with a limp for the rest of her life, unless she got the best treatment in the world.
The car door slammed shut, closing her away from him.
Jack turned back to Gallenson and realized he had been watching Sophie too closely. Gallenson was staring at him with something like suspicion in his eyes. Jack scrambled to cover up his mistake.
“Gutsy lady,” he said casually.
“She is that,” Gallenson agreed, with something like joviality in his tone.
The good cheer made Jack’s skin crawl and he shoved his dislike of Gallenson up to healthy caution.
“You going to be in town long?” Gallenson added.
“I’ve got myself a job out at the mill. On Val Beaumont’s shift.” Credentials and references. Always let the power-holders of a town know you’re respectable as soon as you can manage it.
“Got somewhere to stay, Stride?”
“Not yet. Figured the job was the priority.”
“These days, I don’t blame you,” Gallenson agreed with a nod. He pointed back down the sloping street. “Half a mile back there is Ma Baker’s boarding house. It’s clean and decent. I’m sure she can find you a bed. Tell her I sent you.” He even managed to sound magnanimous, though Jack knew he was attempting to steer him somewhere where he could keep close tabs on him. Ma Baker was probably a distant relative of some sort.
He hesitated. He was down to his last twenty dollars and payday was at least a week away. It had been his intention to head back out into the woods and camp down in a warm dry hollow somewhere. He needed to preserve his funds. But the suspicion in Gallenson’s eyes was growing to hostility even as Jack hesitated.
“Thanks. I’ll do that,” he said quietly. He lifted his backpack up from the asphalt where Sophie had left it and settled it over his shoulder. His back where the pool cue had landed gave out a throb of protest and he winced a little.
“Ma Baker spreads a fine table and you look like you could do with some decent food. Been on the road long?” Gallenson dropped the question casually but Jack knew there was a more serious intention behind the question than simple curiosity.
“I spent most of the fall down in Texas,” Jack answered. “Working with an engineering mob—Lone State Engineering—working on a dam near Galveston.”
“Heard of ’em,” Gallenson muttered, rubbing his jaw. “Well, you get along now, down to Ma Baker’s. She shuts up pretty early.”
Jack nodded. “Thanks again.” He walked across the asphalt to the sidewalk, heading down the road toward the center of town.
He knew Gallenson was standing and watching him out of sight. All the while the skin between Jack’s shoulder blades crawled, as if he could feel the crosshairs of a rifle lined up on his back.
A year after the accident, just before everything had blown up on him and he’d hit the road, Jack had contrived to find out about Sophie, working his enquiries back through a series of cut offs. He’d learned she’d got married the previous spring.
The news had hurt and kept hurting for a long time but shortly after that he’d had his attention taken up with the matter of survival. During the long days on the road with only his own thoughts for company, he had managed to draw comfort from the fact that Sophie was settled, happy and secure.
If he’d known then that the man she had married was this Gallenson, he would have defied everything to go back to her and protect her from him and from the inevitable hurt he would inflict upon her.
What had happened to her? How had she ended up here, this way?
Jack could no more leave town now than fly, yet every drifter’s instinct he had was screaming at him to leave before trouble got way out of hand.
Chapter Nine
By the time Peter got back into the car, Sophie’s fury was a huge thing. She vibrated with it.
Peter didn’t even look at her as he put the car in gear.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she cried. “How dare you!”
“What the hell do you think you were doing in that bar? Beany’s, Sophie? What, are you stupid?” He glared at her, the blue eyes shining with anger. “Who was that guy, anyway?” he demanded.
His anger, the direct question, blew away her indignation like a wisp of smoke. “I don’t know who he is. I followed him into the bar because he looked like someone I knew a long time ago. But it wasn’t him. Then Vince picked a fight with him, for no reason except he’d got his nose out of joint. So I helped him.”
“You helped him.” Disbelief hissed out with Peter’s breath. He turned the car into the driveway of her house, bumping over the crumbling concrete edging on the side of the road. One day, the council would get around to fixing the gutters. One day, when the money was there. They’d been saying they’d fix them for three years now.
He braked the car next to his own patrol vehicle, which sat on her front lawn, squashing the grass. The tire tracks would stay there until next spring, now.
“How, exactly, did you help him?” Peter asked. His tone was reasonable, curious.
“I jumped on Vince’s back. I think I hit him a few times. Then he threw me away. Then I helped the guy up and outside.”
“That’s it?”
She nodded. She wasn’t about to tell him that her real strength in that fight had come from her association with the town’s police chief. She didn’t tell him for reasons different from those that had made her lie about Jack. It had been automatic, completely without thought, that first lie. Later, when she was alone, she would figure out all the reasons why pretending Jack was a stranger had been so instinctive. For now, she knew she had to let Peter think Jack really was Martin Stride, a drifter with a passing resemblance to a man she once knew.
Especially Peter. She had sat in the passenger’s seat, watching Jack and Peter talking. She had almost been able to smell Jack’s caution, had seen the wariness in his eyes, despite the jovial expression on his face. That had been all the warning she needed. The reasons why would come later.
There would be a later. After eight years, there would be a later. The novelty of a future with Jack in it was heady. Frightening.
So she returned Peter’s thoughtful gaze with relentless steadiness, not even close to letting her gaze drop guiltily.
Peter pursed his lips and blew out a breath. “It’s not one of your smarter decisions, Sophie. But, no harm done. How come you called him Jack?”
She nearly jumped. Nearly. But her heart was already racing, the adrenaline pumping. She rode out her surprise without giving away anything. “Slip of the tongue. Jack is the name of the guy I thought he looked like.”
“And they’re not the same guy?”
“Jack has been dead eight years.”
Peter looked out the window. “I see.”
“Well…” She held her hands out for the keys and opened her door. “I gotta go get ready. I’ll only be a few minutes.”
“I’m going to have to cancel on you, Sophie.” He grimaced. “Sorry. Something has come up.”
Just like that. After relentlessly asking for dinner for two months.
“I see,” she said slowly, not really sure she did understand. Was it something to do with Jack? Peter had come to the house, parked his cruiser on her ailing lawn, apparently to pick her up for dinner. He’d raced down to Beany’s, using her car to keep it unofficial, the concerned boyfriend. And suddenly, something had come up. It had to be Jack but she couldn’t see what else Peter had to do. He’d scared the potential competition away, after all.
Peter smiled, as if he wanted to take the sting out of it. “I’ll make it up to you,” he promised. He dropped her keys into her hand.
“Okay,” she agreed cautiously. She got out of the car. Peter came around the hood and stood in front of her. He was a tall guy and heavyset. He’d probably run to fat later on when his metabolism slowed but for now he held off the excess weight through the physical work of his job. The sweep of black hair and Elvis Presley blue eyes made him good-looking. Too good-looking for a law enforcement officer. The beauty of his appearance hid any wisdom or experience. He looked like he had never survived anything. Although plenty of women, even the gossips in Sophie’s café, would willingly swoon over the Alec Baldwin charm and lovely smile, Sophie easily resisted it. Suddenly, shockingly, she realized why. He didn’t look like Jack.
Peter gave her another small smile. “You know I care about you, right, Sophie?”
“You’re very patient with me,” she said, skirting the direct answer.
“I’m just watching out for you, is all. You’re all on your own—Jinnie couldn’t help you out of a barrel of ale if you were drowning in it and it’s a tough old world out there. Sometimes, I think you’re so focused on your own little cosmos that you really don’t have any idea of what it can be like out there.”
He was so wrong, so one-eighty degrees off the mark that Sophie couldn’t even laugh. She just stared at him. Is that how he saw her? A helpless single mom, ignorant of how the world could beat up on her if she let it?
No, it’s what he wants me to be.
She cast about for a response. Found one. “I think you’re overestimating Jinnie’s helplessness.”
“I know what I’m talking about. It’s my job.”
There wasn’t much you could say to a response that basically said you’re full of shit. Sophie shrugged. “Well, okay. I’ll see you around.”
“Good night, Sophie.” He didn’t try to kiss her for which she was deeply grateful. She wasn’t sure she could handle a kiss. Their relationship hadn’t progressed that far yet. Besides, he seemed to be fully preoccupied with his own thoughts. He got into the cruiser, started it and wheeled it around in a circle to the edge of the road, then took off down the hill back toward Beany’s.
Just before the bar, Marsden Street joined up with Lake Street and ran south, past the west end of the Pumphouse Pool, a small elongated bay in the lake. The police station was on Marsden, where the tiny commercial district was centered. It was the “rich” end of town.
Peter lived in an old ranch house farther down the valley, on the other side of the lake, a good thirty minutes out of town. If he was heading home, he would have headed west from Sophie’s place.
She watched as the cruiser turned right into Marsden Street. He was going back to work.
Why?
* * * * *
They came for him just after midnight. Even though he was expecting trouble, Jack was caught by surprise, because it happened far sooner than he had anticipated. He’d only been in bed an hour or so, after shutting the door on the smiling, white-haired Ma Baker and hauling his backpack onto the bureau next to the narrow bed.
Three of them, breathing heavily. Even through sleep-fogged eyes Jack could see sweat glistening at their brows and temples, as they leaned down to haul him from the bed. Excitement or nervousness. Their faces were a blur in the dark and they made no attempt to turn on the light.
It was their silence that told him this was serious. They had no intention of waking up the rest of the borders. Jack already knew Ma Baker would right now be temporarily deaf and blind and would stay that way for as long as this took.
One of them was shoving his stuff back into the backpack.
“Get dressed, Drainpipe,” came the single low command.
As he dressed, Jack focused on the words. Drainpipe.
The heavy hands that had hauled him out of bed were Vince’s, then.
When he was dressed, he was force-marched out of the rambling old house, across cold paving stones and shoved headfirst into the back of a Chevy sedan. A boot was planted on his rear and he was shoved farther in and pushed down onto the floor behind the front passenger seat.
The car’s suspension sank as two of the shadowy figures got into the front and the third slid onto the rear seat behind the driver.
“Just stay down and silent and all this’ll hurt much less,” Jack was told. The voice was definitely Vince’s but sober now and tinged with excitement.
Jack obediently stayed down, his mind racing. The operation so far was well organized enough to seem rehearsed. The other two men were totally silent, carrying out their part with smooth efficiency. If they were taking him where Jack suspected they were taking him, then he knew precisely what was happening. But he couldn’t confirm it because Vince’s promise wasn’t idle—if he stuck his head up, Vince would ensure he wouldn’t want to do it a second time.
The drive was a leisurely fifteen minutes. No speeding, nothing to draw attention to the car and its occupants. Finally, Jack felt the tires bite gravel as the car slowed to a halt. Doors opened, the men exited and cold air rushed in to fan Jack’s face.
The door next to his shoulder was opened. Vince’s heavy hands were on his arms, hauling him out without ceremony. Jack scrambled to keep his footing as Vince pushed him out onto asphalt.
They were outside town. The wide, well-made road told Jack they were on the same highway he had been walking along that afternoon, when all this had started.
“Hold him,” Vince’s voice said shortly.
Hands grabbed his arms. A quiver of apprehension shuddered through him. First would come the softening up process.
Vince walked toward him. In the inky darkness Jack could see his teeth gleam as he gave a quick smile. At the same time, he buried his fist into Jack’s stomach.
Despite being prepared for it, Jack folded over the fist as the air left his lungs in a rush. Pain exploded in his abdomen. Even as his head fell forward, he poured energy into lifting it up again, getting it out of the way of the free-wheeling upper-cut he knew would come next. With Vince’s power behind it the punch could easily lay him out cold.
He threw his shoulders back and hauled his head up, just as Vince’s fist whistled through the air where his face had been a fraction of a second before. The fist continued to drive upward, throwing Vince forward when he didn’t connect. His breath pushed out in surprise.
“Hold the son of a bitch, will ya?”
The arms tightened their lock on Jack. Vince drew his fist back and went for a straight punch that landed on the bridge of Jack’s nose. He saw stars for a few seconds and felt blood start to flow but was cautiously confident about surviving what was to come. If that upper-cut had connected, he wouldn’t have been standing at all.
The next few minutes were bloody and uncomfortable, as Vince took out his revenge. As beatings went, it was mild. Jack had once been taken out into a dark alley and done over with knuckle-dusters and chains. That particular episode had landed him in hospital for a month, peeing blood and seeing everything with a red film over it u
ntil the veins in his eyes had mended. There had been other beatings. In his former line of work being hit around was always a possibility and he had learned to ride them out.
The worst Vince handed out was a double-fisted blow to the sternum that made his ribs creak and his heart shudder under the impact before settling down again. When Vince delivered that, one of the men pinning Jack murmured, “Remember he’s supposed to be able to keep on walking, Vinnie.”
Finally they dropped him to the asphalt. His backpack landed next to him. A big pair of work boots stopped a few inches from where Jack’s hands pushed against the ground, propping his body up.
“You’re on the other side of the town limits, Drainpipe. Don’t cross back over them, you hear? Or next time it’ll be for keeps.”
Jack didn’t bother looking up. He concentrated on keeping his breath steady, riding out the shock to his body and marshalling his strength. It was over now.
He listened to the sounds of the men walking back to the car, the doors closing and the engine starting. The car pulled around and headed back into town, spitting sand and gravel from its tires.
Then silence, like an old friend, gathered around him. He heard wind sighing through the firs, high overhead.
He got to his feet, moving slowly. He picked up his backpack with an unsteady hand and moved to the side of the road, down across the gully into the trees on the other side. He found a little clearing where he could tend to his hurts and lowered his backpack to the ground.
Fifty minutes later he was on the road again, warm, dry, clean and more or less comfortable. His backpack had emergency supplies he’d learned over the years to always carry with him. They had done much to get him back on his feet again. First, water to help combat the physiological shock, aspirin for the pain, clean rags to mop up the blood and an instant ice-pack to compress over the swelling on his nose and cheekbone. He knew he’d have a black eye by morning.
Down at the bottom of the pack were packets of freeze-dried food that were intended for occasions like this. Jack lit a small campfire in the clearing to heat up water and made himself a meal a king wouldn’t sneeze at if he happened to come walking along the road and there wasn’t a restaurant for fifty miles. Chicken curry, hot and spicy, rice with a dash of saffron and chopped, green onions. Stir-fried reconstituted vegetables with a honey-based sauce. Hot stewed fruit with custard sauce. All of it was chosen for its restorative power, eaten hot to warm the belly and get his mind back to civilized thought as quickly as possible.
Dead Again: A Romantic Thriller Page 11
