“If—when—we get out of this, I’ll know better, God,” she vowed in a barely audible whisper. “I’m better off staying single than letting myself get tangled up with this kind of guy, again. I may be a slow learner but I finally do understand.”
Marie knew she should thank the Lord for that new enlightenment, but the idea of bidding Seth a final goodbye made her too sad to be truly grateful. If this was what the answer to her prayer was to be, she almost wished she hadn’t prayed it.
Seth had taken up a defensive position twenty yards to the west of where Marie and Patty were hidden. He tried to control his breathing as he waited for Eccles, or whoever it was, to draw closer.
The beam of the flashlight seemed to be losing strength as the batteries ran down. “Come on,” Seth murmured. “Just a little farther.”
The light paused. A man called out, “That you, buddy?”
Seth remained mute.
“Come on. You can ID me, can’t you? It’s Jonathan.”
For an instant, Seth hoped his pursuer was telling the truth. Then, he realized he had recognized the voice all right, and it wasn’t that of his old friend.
Out of the corner of his eye, Seth thought he saw the blanket move. He had not intended to answer and thereby reveal his position, but if there was a chance that Marie was planning to show herself because she’d been fooled, he’d have to intervene.
“It’s not Jonathan,” Seth shouted. “It’s Eccles.”
All movement ceased. Someone laughed hoarsely.
“Good for you, Seth, or whatever you’re calling yourself these days. Long time, no see. We’ve missed you. Where’ve you been hiding?”
Still, Seth remained silent. He’d thought about moving to another vantage point, but the woods was too quiet for that. One snap of a twig or rustle of leaves and Eccles would have his position. If his voice had not echoed so well across the hilly terrain, it would already be too late.
The light began to move again. Seth stiffened, leaned his arm against the trunk of a sturdy oak and took aim. Almost close enough for a shot. Just a few more yards.
The light stopped. Seth’s eyes narrowed. Tensing, he peered into the dimness of the forest.
Although little moonlight got through the leafy canopy, he was still able to see movement, manlike shadows, or so he thought. In a situation like this it was common for a person’s imagination to take over and lead him to see things that weren’t really there. During training it didn’t matter. In this case, he couldn’t afford to make a mistake.
Assessing the light beam, Seth soon came to the conclusion that it was too still, too stationary. Eccles was no fool. Chances were good that he had propped it in the crook of a tree branch and left it there as a diversion.
That meant he could be anywhere, creeping closer. And probably was.
Time passed at a crawl. Marie wanted to look out so badly that she could hardly contain herself. If it hadn’t been for Patty, she’d have peeked as soon as someone had yelled. And if Seth hadn’t broadcast that their adversary was the same man he’d predicted it would be, she might have made a serious tactical error.
She was about to change her mind for the umpteenth time and peek anyway, when she heard noise of a scuffle begin. Instead of being far away, it sounded as if it was taking place right there, next to their hiding place.
Pushing Patty behind her, closer to the rocky overhang, she shushed her. “Get back. Stay put, no matter what. Understand?”
“Uh-huh.”
The frightened child was tugging on the back of her mother’s jacket and whimpering.
Outside, men were clearly coming to blows. Marie could tell because the sounds of the punches connecting and the resulting grunts and groans were all too audible.
Suddenly, something crashed into the other side of the blanket and knocked her backward. The men were right there! Close enough to touch. What should she do? Seth had ordered her to stay hidden, yet this changed everything. Or did it?
Of course it did. What kind of heroine stayed in hiding and let her hero take a beating when she might be able to prevent it? Seth might not be the kind of man she should spend the rest of her life with, but he was still her champion. She had to do something.
Slipping out from under the pitch dark of the blanket with a last, firm warning for Patty, she blinked to try to hurry her eyes’ adjustment to the change in the amount of light.
She didn’t have to see well to be awed by the intensity of the men’s struggle. They were lunging, swinging, staggering around so rapidly and covering so much ground, it was impossible to tell who was who.
Marie edged cautiously out of the way, hoping she’d discover some way to help Seth. There must be something she could do, some way to tip the balance in his favor.
One of the men rose up and hit the other on the head with something small, probably a rock or the butt of a gun. The sharp, cracking noise brought bile to her throat. As she watched in horror, the victim slumped back onto the forest floor and didn’t move.
Marie froze. She wasn’t sure whether anyone had noticed her and didn’t want to call attention to Patty’s hiding place by making noise.
Squinting, she tried to see better. Both men were relatively the same size. They had both been dressed in dark clothing and were now equally camouflaged with mud and leaves from their battle.
One was standing over the other with his back to Marie. She saw the glint of a gun in the moonlight. That could be Seth, she reasoned. Or he could be the man lying prostrate on the ground. Surely, if Seth were the victor, he wouldn’t shoot a man in cold blood, no matter how much he hated him.
The click of the armed man cocking his pistol sent shivers up Marie’s spine. That wasn’t Seth. It couldn’t be. Not if he was half the man she thought he was.
A broken branch lay among the forest litter at her feet. Bending slowly, she hefted it as well as a small rock.
The fighter who had remained standing laughed maniacally and raised his pistol, affirming her conclusion.
Marie threw the rock as far as she could to one side, then grabbed the broken branch with both hands.
The man whirled and fired at the crash of the rock.
Marie lunged and brought the branch down on his head as hard as she could.
The blow wasn’t enough to knock him out. Stunned, he faltered and started to swing his pistol toward her.
She reared back like a baseball player, swung with all her might and batted him out of the ballpark.
Seth regained consciousness just in time to see Marie’s bravery. He could hardly fault her for leaving her hiding place when she had clearly saved his life.
He raised on one elbow. “Nice aim, lady. Remind me to recruit you for the Serenity All-Star team.”
“Oh, Seth!” She fell to her knees at his side. “I was afraid he’d killed you.”
“He would have, if you hadn’t conked him the way you did. Where did you learn to hit like that?”
“Girls’ softball in high school.” She eyed their enemy with trepidation. “Did I kill him?”
“I doubt it.” Seth started to rise, letting Marie assist him. “Let’s get him tied up just in case he comes to. Is Patty okay?”
“She’s fine,” Marie said through tears of joy. “Judging by the way that blanket is moving, I think she’s got your dog under there with her.”
“Probably. I was afraid Eccles would shoot Babe, too.”
“Then that is the man you thought it was?”
“That’s him,” Seth said, rubbing the knot on his head. “He’s still dangerous. But now it looks like I’ll be able to prove my innocence. He has to have lied to his superiors in order to have arranged this mission to kill me. That alone will give them reason to listen to my side of the story for once.”
“I wish I could say the same,” Marie said sadly. “Even with Roy dead, I still have those old partners of his chasing me. How am I ever going to prove I’m innocent?”
A strange voice echoed from
the distance. “Tell me where you are and what the blazes is going on out here, and I’ll believe anything you say.”
Seth immediately pulled Marie into his arms and turned sideways to shield her.
“This is the Fulton County Sheriff,” the voice explained, drawing closer. “So don’t shoot. I’m one of the good guys.”
“So are we,” Marie shouted back at him. “So are we.”
SIXTEEN
By the time the sheriff’s men had hauled the stunned Eccles to a waiting ambulance and had guided Marie and the others back to the campground, it was nearly midnight.
She gladly climbed into the back of the sheriff’s car with Patty and cuddled her close.
Seth leaned in. “Are you warm enough?”
“I will be,” she answered, her teeth chattering. “Right now, all of me is numb, even my brain.”
He nodded toward the sheriff. “Harlan here says I can drive my truck back to town myself. Do you mind?”
“No,” Marie said. “Just be careful, okay?”
“I will.” He started to reach for her hand, then stopped, so she tucked it beneath the blanket and he withdrew farther.
As he closed the car door, Marie was struck by an immense sense of loss, of loneliness. Had she come to rely so strongly on Seth’s sustaining, strong presence that she missed him already, even though he was standing right outside the car? Apparently so.
Well, you’d better get used to it, she told herself. All the excitement is over. He has no more reason to hang around and baby you.
Although she had known that from the start, the thought still struck her like a dagger in her heart. It was essentially over, wasn’t it? Oh, there would be plenty of details to iron out and lots of explaining to do, but if the sheriff was right about her pursuers being either dead or out of commission, she and Patty were probably quite safe. That was a relief.
Slamming the driver’s door, Harlan glanced back at her. “Ready to go, ma’am?”
“As ready as I’m going to get,” Marie replied. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this cold before.”
“I put the heater on high,” he said amiably. “You’ll warm up soon. And I’ll take you and your little girl by the hospital so you can be checked out, just to make sure you’re both okay.”
“Is that really necessary?”
“It’s standard procedure,” he answered. “Sorry about your car. You were lucky you got out of it when you did.”
“There’s no sign of it yet?”
He shook his head as he turned the car around and started back along the muddy road to the highway. “Not yet. But we’ll find it. The creek narrows about three miles out of town. It didn’t sink upstream, as far as we can tell, so it’s probably snagged down around there somewhere.”
“I don’t know how to thank you. Any of you,” Marie said, fighting back tears of weariness and despair. “I don’t know what I’m going to do now. Everything I owned was packed in that old car.”
“Don’t you worry,” Harlan said. “We take care of our own. After we finish at the hospital, I’ll see that you both get clean, dry clothes.”
“You will?”
“Of course.” His smile was reflected in the rearview mirror. “Seth tells me you’re acquainted with Becky Malloy. She’s in charge of the community pantry. We keep both food and clothing available there for emergencies like this.”
“I guess it is an emergency,” Marie admitted. “I hate to be a bother, though.”
“No bother. Serenity is like a big family. We have our local stinkers, sure, but we also have plenty of good folks who’ll look out for you.”
Meaning I won’t need to bother Seth anymore, she added to herself. That figured. He had his own problems. Boy, did he. If that man she had hit over the head was any example of the kind of dangerous people who were after Seth, poor Roy had been a piker by comparison.
“Did—did the man you said was shot say anything about me?” she asked, dreading the answer.
Harlan nodded. “Sure did. Seems he and his buddies were chasing you because they thought you had money that belonged to them.” He chuckled. “If they’d stayed in Baton Rouge a little longer, they’d have known that the ransom had been recovered. All of it. They were on a wild-goose chase. Two of them died for nothing.”
“What about the other man? Is he still out to get me?”
“Nope,” the sheriff said. “He’s been told he made a big mistake. Besides, by the time the law gets through with him, he’s going to prison for a good, long time.”
Marie gave a sigh of relief. “Thank God.”
“Sure enough, ma’am. Looks like the good Lord is takin’ fine care of you and your little girl.” Pausing, he added, “So, what are your plans from here on out?”
“I don’t have a clue. I suppose I’ll try to get my car repaired, providing the water hasn’t ruined it, and then go back to Louisiana.”
“Um, not right off, okay? I imagine I’ll need your testimony, and it would be much easier if you were close by, at least for a while. If you don’t mind.”
“No. I don’t mind.” Marie was secretly relieved to have found a plausible reason to stop running, to stay in Serenity for a little longer. She was tired of feeling disconnected and homeless. It would be good to spend a few more days or weeks among the friendly folks in the little Ozark town.
And beyond that? She was so weary, so emotionally drained, that she didn’t want to have to plan any further. Later, she’d make plans. Right now, all she wanted to do was cuddle up with her daughter, praise God for their deliverance and close her eyes for just an instant.
Before the sheriff’s car reached the highway, she was sound asleep.
Seth was deep in contemplation as he followed Marie and the rest of the cars back to town. Eccles had regained consciousness long enough to boast about his subterfuge, meaning that Jonathan wasn’t alive after all. That had been a blow. Seth felt as if he was having to bid his friend a final goodbye for the second time. It didn’t hurt as much as it had initially, but it was still painful.
And now what? he wondered. When he saw Harlan turn and lead the way to the emergency entrance of the tiny county hospital just off the highway, his breath caught. Was there something wrong with Marie? Or with Patty?
He whipped into the parking lot and leaped out of his truck, intending to follow them inside. Instead, he was grabbed and held fast by several men clad in black clothing and bulletproof vests.
“Let me go!”
“Easy, man,” one of them said. “We just want to talk to you.”
“Not now. I have to go inside,” Seth insisted.
“In a minute. First, I’d like a few answers.”
Seth’s head whipped around as he recognized the man’s voice. “Mac? Is that you?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Now settle down and tell me what in blazes has been going on around here. Eccles has been acting like some kind of a madman.”
“He is crazy if he thinks I’m going to let him get away with it this time,” Seth said firmly. “He’s been trying to kill me ever since I found out he was behind the theft of military secrets from some of our best clients.”
“What about your wife?”
“He killed her, too, or had her killed,” Seth insisted. “I could never prove it, but I know he was responsible. Jonathan Biggs had been trying to help me prove my innocence—until he was murdered. After that, I figured the best thing to do was go into hiding, so that’s what I did. I wouldn’t have tipped my hand and gotten in touch with the agency again if I hadn’t felt I had to.”
Mac nodded understandingly. “I figured it had to be something like that. We’ve had our eye on Eccles for months now, ever since there was another breach of internal security. If you hadn’t come back into the picture and stirred things up, we might never have been able to pin anything on him.”
“What about Alice’s murder? Am I still a suspect?”
“You won’t be. Not after we get all this straightened o
ut. We will need you to come back to Philly for a bit, though. Think you can get away?”
“If it means I’ll be free from then on, I’ll make it happen. When?”
“As soon as possible. How about tonight?”
Seth eyed the emergency entrance, then nodded. “All right. Let me make sure the woman and child are okay first?”
“Sure.” Mac stepped back. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re not under arrest. Do what you have to do. We’ll wait out here.”
“Thanks,” Seth said, smiling. “I will be back, you know.”
The other agent grinned at him. “I don’t doubt it for a second, man. You always were so honest it made the rest of us look bad even when we were behaving ourselves. Just make it snappy, okay?”
The first person Seth saw when he burst through the door was Logan Malloy. Judging by the serene look on the pastor’s face, all was well.
Seth shook Logan’s hand. “Are they okay?”
“Fine,” Logan assured him. “Only a few bruises from your little adventure. The doc wants to keep them here overnight, just to be sure, but he says there’s nothing to worry about.”
Shoulders sagging, Seth sighed. “Good. When I saw Harlan pull in here, I started imagining the worst.”
“Speaking of worse things,” the pastor said, “when were you going to tell me about your past problems with this guy Eccles? I might have been able to help you get justice, you know.”
“I know. And I was going to confess everything, eventually. But after Marie came to town and I started trying to protect her, I didn’t want anything to happen that might pull me away. Not when she needed me so badly.”
“What about now?” Logan asked.
Seth gestured toward the parking lot. “The men who were with Eccles are out there, waiting for me.”
“And?”
“And, I suppose the fairest thing to do is to go with them now and get it all over with.” He glanced down the hallway, hoping to catch a glimpse of Marie. “I just wish I could talk to her before I leave.”
Nowhere to Run Page 15
