Framed For Love

by Rachel Ann Nunes

  “You didn’t care if I went. You were going to kill us both!”

  Her eyes glittered. “You lied to me, Jared.”

  Jared saw there was no reasoning with Laranda. Instead of her stint in the prison hospital giving her a change of heart, it had only embittered her more. Should he have gone to see her after all she had done to him and Cassi? He didn’t think so.

  “So what’s the plan now?” he asked without expression.

  Laranda’s anger vanished, and in its place fell a mask of perfect calm. With a flip of a switch on the arm of her chair, she glided nearer to Jared. “Things are getting too hot to stay here. The FBI is sticking its nose where it doesn’t belong. So we are going to Europe, just like I always planned. It fits in with my schedule.”

  “I don’t want to go to Europe.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Jared, you don’t learn very fast.”

  He leaned forward, a hand on the sofa’s armrest, until his face was a foot from hers. “What do you really want from me?”

  “Why, the information, of course.”

  “I don’t have any,” he said through gritted teeth.

  She smiled benevolently and reached under the handkerchief on her lap. “Do you recognize these, Jared dear?” She held his keys out on a fingertip. Her long, red-painted fingernails reminded him of bloody daggers.

  Jared felt the color drain from his face. He swallowed nervously but consciously avoided looking at Trent. “My keys. So? I always hide them in the nightstand.”

  Laranda’s head swung back and forth in an exaggerated manner. “Oh, no, no, no. We found these babies inside a lady’s purse.”

  Jared didn’t have to feign surprise. “So what is it you’re trying to say? Is this a game?” Of course she would play them, and he had to play, too.

  “Your girlfriend had them, and what we want to know is why. What did she think they led to?” She fingered the keys. “Where have you hidden the envelope that your friend here sent to you? We’ll find out eventually. They are watching Cassi.”

  Jared stifled a sigh of relief. Cassi was still free. With luck, Linden would keep her out of this altogether.

  Laranda was silent, but her eyes glittered. A part of Jared noted that she was still one of the most beautiful women he’d ever known.

  “You still care for me,” she said, missing nothing. “I find that very touching.”

  “Sometimes,” Jared said slowly, “I see you as you could be.”

  She hesitated, as though not knowing how to take his statement. Jared pushed his advantage. “Look, I have no idea what’s going on here. Without those papers you claim I’m supposed to have, I can prove nothing against you. You might as well let us go. Or at least let Trent. Please. He has a family. Five kids.”

  “And if I let him go, you’ll turn over the information?”

  Jared didn’t need to think long. He nodded. “Let Trent go, and once I have proof he’s safe, I’ll tell you where it is.”

  Laranda laughed softly. “Oh, how easy that seems to you, Jared. Even if I could, I wouldn’t let him go. Or you, either. For one, you both know that I’m alive instead of burned to death in a fire. Plus, there’s the information itself. You both claim not to know what it means, but you are probably lying. It’s far too dangerous for me to let you go.”

  “How about once you’re safely in Europe,” Jared said desperately.

  Her only response was a smile.

  “Aren’t you forgetting about the person who sent me the envelope?” Trent put in suddenly, breaking his tense silence. “I bet they have copies of everything they sent me. They could send it to someone else.”

  Laranda fixed her cool green stare on Trent, who flinched noticeably. “That person is no longer a problem, if you get my meaning. The copy you gave to Jared is the only copy out of our possession.”

  Jared’s hopes sank. Apparently the envelope sitting in his P.O. box was the only thing preventing Laranda from eliminating him and Trent completely.

  “You may go now,” Laranda said. “But I know we’ll have many good conversations on our flight out of the U.S. We leave tomorrow afternoon.”

  “To where?” Jared questioned.

  “I guess it won’t hurt to tell you,” she said. “Our first stop is France. Parlez-vous francais, mon cher?”

  “Nope, not a word.”

  “Well, it’s not like you’ll be mingling with the peasants.” She paused. “In the meantime, I’ll see that you are treated well, but I’ll want something for my protection.” She gave him an enchanting smile that told him she wasn’t talking about the envelope. Jared felt sick.

  At Laranda’s signal, the guards came and escorted Jared and Trent from the room. Her silky voice came after them. “I wonder, Jared, if you have a post office box?”

  Jared missed a step, and Laranda’s throaty laughter told him she noticed his fumble. Now that Laranda had the keys, it was only a matter of time before they found Trent’s envelope. Unless Cassi had intervened—but then her life would be in danger, and Jared couldn’t wish for that.

  The guards took them back to the bedroom where they had been given the new clothes, each step ripping away a little more of the hope in Jared’s heart.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CASSI DROVE ALL MORNING, AND by noon her stomach ached from want of nourishment. Her fear of being followed had lessened considerably as the miles had passed. Surely it would be all right to stop for gas and food. She chose a small gas station at the side of the road, glancing about nervously to see if any cars followed her from the freeway. None did. Maybe her impulsive flight to Utah had thrown the hounds off the hunt.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, Cassi filled her tank with gas and went in to pay. She limped slightly, her wound having grown stiff with inactivity.

  The male clerk stared at her as she walked around the store, deciding what to eat. She settled on a frozen burrito cooked in the store microwave, a bag of chip, and a large liquid yogurt to drink. At the last minute she added a bottle of water and a pack of bubble gum.

  “What happened to your leg?” the clerk asked with a friendly smile. Too friendly for Cassi’s comfort. She wondered what he would say if she told him she had been shot by organized crime thugs, and that they had killed one of her best friends.

  She forced a smile. “Oh, it’s nothing. I was running and had an accident, that’s all.”

  “You have really nice hair, you know?” The clerk tucked his long blond hair behind his ear. “I’ve never seen so many tiny curls. It’s really pretty. My sister gets perms all the time, but it never looks so fine.”

  “Well, thank you.” Cassi was surprised anyone could think her hair attractive today. She couldn’t remember if she had even brushed it that morning, though she knew she probably had. She handed the clerk her money, hoping to leave as soon as possible.

  “Yes, siree,” said the man. “I would remember hair like that, even if they hadn’t sent me your picture.”

  Cassi froze. She swallowed carefully. “My picture? You must be mistaken.”

  “Well, it looks enough like you. Some men came around with this flyer early this morning.” He slid it to her over the counter top. The reproduction wasn’t good, but it was her all right. But which side had passed it out?

  “There’s a number to call, but I reckon you probably know that.” The clerk leaned conspiratorially over the counter as he returned her change. “But I didn’t like them, you know? Dressed in their fancy clothes and driving them new cars. So I might be persuaded to lose this flyer.”

  Cassi forced herself to breathe calmly. It wasn’t her hair this creep was interested in, but a bribe. Anger arose too quickly to be denied, and she crumpled the paper and threw it back at him. “I don’t care who you call. I’m not that woman and I have nothing to hide.”

  She swept up her things and stalked from the store the best she could with her hurt knee. What an idiot! He thinks he can push me around. Hah! I guess I showed him.

  Wheels
squealing, she left behind the miserable station, a glimpse of the clerk picking up the phone burned into her memory. Despite that scene, twenty miles passed before she began to regret her actions. If she had paid the man, maybe she could have bought more time. Now whoever was looking for her would be close behind. It wasn’t the first time her impulsiveness had catapulted her into more trouble. Cassi gave a long sigh.

  She ate slowly as she drove, tasting nothing. At least the ache in her stomach had subsided. When she reached Las Vegas, she left the freeway and drove around town until she found a large grocery store. After pulling over to the curb, she fumbled through the clothes in the small case and found a flimsy gold scarf to hide her hair. She didn’t know if the men with the flyer had come so far northeast, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

  In the store, she bought a pair of cheap sunglasses, temporary hair dye, a pair of scissors, a brown eyeliner pencil, four large bottles of water, and two towels. The purchase used forty dollars, leaving her only a hundred and thirty of Quentin’s money. It should be more than enough to get her to Provo. She fingered the thin phone card he’d given her. When she arrived safely at her brother’s, she’d have to let him know that she was all right.

  Cassi filled up on gas again, though she still had more than half a tank, and continued on her journey. At the next rest stop, she parked the car as far away as she could from the bathrooms, glad that there wasn’t much traffic.

  Reaching for the scissors, her bottom lip clenched between her teeth, she began cutting. The snipping of the scissors became suddenly loud as the curly locks fell silently to the seat. Looking in the mirror, she tried to get the hair as even as possible, cutting it only a few inches from the scalp. A tear squeezed out of her left eye, coming from the frozen place in her heart, but she blinked it away and swept the hair into a plastic grocery sack.

  Opening the door to Quentin’s car, she sat on the edge of the floor, her feet braced against the ground. Bending her head between her legs, she put in the color, blotting it with a towel. She let it sit for the required minutes, and then rinsed it out and dried it the best she could with another towel. She gathered the garbage and stuck it in with her discarded hair.

  When she looked again in the mirror, a woman with very short, dark-red hair stared out at her. Not as flattering as her normal rich brown; in fact, it was atrocious. Cassi was pleased. Surely something hideous was more likely to be overlooked than its attractive counterpart. Methodically, she began to draw freckles with the eyeliner pencil.

  In less than fifteen minutes Cassi left the rest stop a completely new person. Her neck felt naked in the breeze from the open window, but she also felt a sense of freedom. She had always thought about cutting her hair, if only temporarily, and now she had a reason. What’s more, there was no one around to object.

  She turned off at another rest stop after St. George, where she waited until no one was in the ladies’ rest room before trimming a few more uneven parts of her hair. With her sunglasses and spattering of freckles, she looked quite different. She flushed the long locks of hair she had cut earlier down the toilet, and also the box of hair dye. The plastic parts she couldn’t flush, she separated into three trash receptacles.

  She had left the rest stop before she noticed a white car behind her that she thought she had seen a short time earlier on the freeway. Was it the same one? She slowed down to see if it would pass. It did, but it stayed in front of her, within sight, no matter how she slowed.

  Her heart began to beat erratically. Around her she saw nothing for miles but the freeway, winding like a ribbon through the stretch of barren fields and red earth. What was she to do? As if by a miracle, she saw an exit ahead. She waited until the car passed the exit, and then veered off the freeway suddenly. To her relief, the other car seemed not to notice her departure.

  Cassi drove down the exit ramp. At the end of the ramp there was an intersection where road signs pointed down two small paved roads going in opposite directions. Besides these, there was absolutely nothing. Not a person or another car was in sight.

  “I’ll just wait five minutes and get back on the freeway,” Cassi told herself.

  Her heartbeat gradually calmed as she counted the minutes on the car’s clock. After four minutes, she could wait no longer. Driving very slowly, she started up the on-ramp. She had reached halfway when she noted with horror that the white car was coming toward her, exiting the freeway by way of the entrance.

  Cassi backed down the on-ramp, her mind racing. What should she do? Then she noticed another car in the intersection behind her. A blue one. It made no move to pass.

  Two of them, she thought.

  She was trapped!

  * * *

  JARED STARED AROUND THE ROOM. It was a lot better than the concrete dungeon, but still a prison. He went at once to the large window, but found it barred, the release mechanism welded shut. Through the opaque glass he could make out nothing except for some green blobs he thought to be trees.

  “She’s a witch,” he muttered. “Her being here throws a new light on everything.”

  “Witch or not,” Trent said, lying down on the bed, “I like her hospitality better than that of her boss.”

  Jared snorted. “Big Tommy. He’s a bad guy, but at least you know where you stand with him.”

  Trent scratched at one of the bandages Jared had put on his face earlier. “Who is he?”

  “I don’t think you want to know. He’s an organized crime boss heavily involved in smuggling. He and Laranda were working against each other a few months back. It was one of his thugs who shot her. They almost got Cassi and me, too.”

  Trent paled. “I knew this was something big.” He gazed at the ceiling and sighed. “So what now?”

  “I don’t know. There’s nothing we can do but go along with it and look for a way to escape.”

  “She sure seems intent on getting you back for her injury.”

  Jared shook his head. “Oh, no. There’s much more to it than revenge. She is too caught up in money. She’s out for something more than to see me suffer.”

  “Two birds with one stone . . .”Trent trailed off.

  “Yeah, something like that.” Jared paced the room. “Was it just me, or did she mention something about the FBI?”

  “I heard it too. Do you think that’s why they are moving us to France?”

  “Could be. Or maybe it’s just the next step in Laranda’s game. There’s no way to tell. What I hate is just doing nothing. There’s got to be a way to send a message.”

  “We’ve checked out this room. There’s nothing.”

  “There’s the first-aid kit.”

  “What, are we going to write a message on a Band-Aid and paste it to the window? We don’t even have a pen.”

  Jared snapped his fingers. “No, but we’ll use the Band-Aids themselves.” He ran into the bathroom and retrieved the small red tackle box. With a mixture of open Band-Aids and white first-aid tape, he spelled out the words Laranda and France in the lid. “There,” he said, shutting the box.

  “I can’t believe they’d be so careless,” said Trent.

  “Well, neither can I. So that’s why this’ll be the real message.” He held up a tube of transparent antibiotic cream. Kneeling down before the cabinet under the sink, he opened the small wood doors and began to write on the white-painted wall that made up the back of the cupboard. Carefully he squeezed out the antibiotic cream, having barely enough to spell out the same words he had made with the Band-Aids.

  Trent stared at it doubtfully. “I don’t know,” he said. “What if they don’t see it?”

  “By ‘they’ I assume you mean the police.” Jared straightened up. “Well, they might not. They might not even come here at all. But we can hope that they do.”

  “And that the maid, or whoever they have cleaning up around here, doesn’t wash inside the cabinet.”

  “I doubt they do it very often.”

  A grin spread across Trent’s lips. �
�Well, we could give them a lot of other stuff to clean. Then they might tire before they reach the inside of this cupboard.”

  It took them longer than expected to dirty the room and bathroom. Having no dirt to work with, they had to content themselves with soap and shampoo from the shower, Band-Aid wrappers, and tiny ripped pieces of toilet paper. They were careful not to make the damage too unusual, but smears on the counter, the mirror, and a spilled spot or two on the carpet looked fairly natural.

  “You are a master at disaster,” Jared said as Trent wadded tissue and put it at precise intervals around the small waste can in the bathroom.

  “Five children teach you a lot of important stuff.”

  “I’ll bet.” Jared surveyed the disarray. “Well, there’s nothing more we can do here.”

  They sat on the bed and waited in silence. Trent slept, and Jared let him.

  * * *

  THE CALL CAME IN SHORTLY after noon. “Someone’s spotted her,” Justin said.

  Fred dragged his tired eyes from the computer in front of him. “Where?”

  “South of Vegas. A little place. The guy says he’s not sure it was her.”

  “It’s better than anything we have so far. Let’s send out a few teams and contact the local police with the car description.”

  “Right-o. But if it is her, where’s she going?”

  “Her parents are from Utah, aren’t they?” Fred said, fumbling for Cassi’s bio. “I’ll bet she’s headed there. I hope it is her because that would mean she’s not at Holbrooke’s.”

  Justin took the paper and grabbed the phone. “We’re close. I can feel it.”

  There was a knock on the door, and their secretary poked her head in the door. “Excuse me, guys, but there’s a Renae Benson out here. She’s pretty intent about talking to someone.”

  Fred had to think a minute to remember where he’d heard the name. “Oh, the wife of the other missing man. In his last phone call just before the shooting, Linden mentioned him, but I couldn’t find any connection to our case.” He sighed. “Oh, well. Send her in.”

  Justin glanced at him in surprise. “What are you going to tell her?”