Manna From Heaven

by Karen Robards

  Ridiculous or not, all she could think was: tractor beam. Designed to pull her and her vehicle up inside the craft. Any minute now, she would be paralyzed, and the Jeep's wheels would leave the road.

  Sadie whimpered in sympathy.

  Charlie's heart pounded. Her mouth went dry. She stomped the gas, pressing the pedal to the metal with a vengeance. The Jeep's rear wheels squealed as she peeled away from the light.

  Something crashed into the roof of the Jeep with the force of a falling boulder. There was a sudden loud thud just above her head. Charlie cried out, ducked and instinctively hit the brake. The tires shrieked. Though she fought to keep it on the road, the Jeep went out of control. It shot over the gravel shoulder and into the adjacent field, jerking and bouncing and sliding sideways as it went. For one blank, horrible moment as she wrestled the steering wheel, all Charlie could think of was that she could no longer see where she was going. Then she realized that the reason she couldn't see was because a black-clad body—a human body—was plastered across her windshield. A pale face rested almost directly in front of hers. Blood poured from its mouth. Its wide open eyes stared at her through the glass.

  Charlie screamed. The Jeep crashed with an ear-shattering bang, and she was thrown forward as it came to an instant, jarring halt. The body flew off the hood, vanishing into the tall sea of grass beyond the vehicle.

  For a moment after the Jeep stopped moving, she simply sat where she was, stunned. Her face rested in a smothering pillow; the world had turned white. It took just seconds for her to realize that the air bag had inflated. Then it deflated, leaving her leaning limply against her seat belt and staring out through the windshield into a field of tall golden grass that was partially illuminated by the one working headlight The other, like the entire right front of the Jeep, had plowed into a tree.

  A pitiful-sounding whine drew her gaze sideways. The blue cushion was no longer on the seat beside her. Neither was her dog.

  "Sadie!" Charlie called in an unsteady voice. The passenger compartment seemed to be intact, although the impact had severely damaged the Jeep's exterior. Sadie had been flung forward with no seat belt or air bag to cushion her flight; please God she wasn't hurt. Charlie called her again.

  Looking as shaken as Charlie felt, Sadie clambered out of the passenger side footwell into her arms. Charlie did a quick check. The dog was trembling, but seemed unharmed.

  Oh my God, Charlie thought, gathering Sadie close and burying her face in the dog's satiny coat as she remembered the body on the windshield. I've run over someone!

  At that moment there was a brisk tap on the driver's side window. Startled, Charlie glanced around to discover a face peering in at her. A black-gloved hand gestured imperatively at the lock button. Automatically, before she had time to think the action through, she released the lock.

  The door was yanked open.

  Still shocked and seat-belted into near immobility, Charlie found herself gaping at a tall, broad-shouldered, black-clad man with a black knit cap pulled down over his head almost to his eyebrows. One of his hands gripped the door. In the other he held a pistol, which was, thankfully, pointed at the ground.

  He surveyed her out of hard, narrowed eyes.

  "Laura, isn't it? Think you might have been going a little fast?"

  3

  FROM THE SAFETY OF CHARLIE'S ARMS, Sadie yapped at him hysterically.

  "What the hell is that?" His voice was a menacing growl. His expression was grim. Charlie realized that with the door open and the interior light on he could see her and Sadie clearly: a slender blonde with a dazed expression wearing black cowboy boots, jeans, a black T-shirt with Sugar Babes written across the front, and a fringed suede jacket, holding a tiny, shivering dog the same shade as her hair. He, meanwhile, remained in deep gloom, rendered all but invisible by his black clothes. As her gaze met his, it occurred to her that he was not, perhaps, overly friendly. She hugged Sadie closer.

  "Oh, my God, I think I ran over somebody." She ignored his question. It was stupid anyway. Anyone could see that Sadie was a dog. The pale face so recently plastered against her windshield was all she could think about, with its wide eyes and the dark stream of blood spilling from its mouth.

  "Ya think?" The words dripped sarcasm. "That was Skeeter. You were supposed to pick him up, remember? Pick us up. Not run him the hell over."

  Most of what he said didn't make sense, but she was too upset to notice.

  "We've got to try to help him—he's got to be somewhere right in front of the Jeep. He flew—he flew off the windshield when the Jeep hit the tree." Charlie shuddered in remembrance and scrambled out of the car, Sadie in her arms. Her knees almost buckled as she stood upright, and he caught her by one elbow, steadying her.

  "Are you hurt?" His voice was rough. The hand around her elbow was large and strong.

  "No. No, I don't think so." She was trembling, she realized, with reaction no doubt, but within seconds her leg muscles seemed to firm up and her knees no longer threatened to collapse. Pulling free of his grip, sliding Sadie beneath her arm, she began to move toward the front of her car. "I didn't even see him."

  He followed her. She was so busy scanning the weeds for some sign of the man she had hit that she was only peripherally aware of the presence of the stranger behind her.

  "Yeah, well, he was probably cutting it pretty close. The damned fool never did like to walk farther than he could help. But that still doesn't let you off the hook. Damn it to hell, you were supposed to stop when you saw our lights, not go rocketing down the road like a Nascar driver. Oh, yeah, I saw you speed up. What the hell were you doing?"

  His words still barely registered. She followed the beam of light forward on the theory that it was the path the body would have taken, wading through the shoulder high grass, looking down and all around and scarcely attending to the furious-sounding man behind her.

  A pair of black combat boots, toes pointing downward, were just visible at the far edge of the light They were attached to black-clad legs; the rest of the body was concealed by the grass.

  "There he is." She choked and stopped, pointing. Her companion broke off his diatribe to move swiftly past her. Charlie found that she could not, for the space of a couple of heartbeats, follow him. The horror of what she had done was suddenly all too real.

  She had run over someone. Killed him, probably.

  "I didn't even see him," she said again, pitiably, to no one in particular as she forced herself finally to move and join the man who crouched at her victim's side. He was turning the dead man over—there was little doubt, from the open, staring eyes and the blood running from the mouth, that he was dead—and checking his pulse. His gloves were off now, and she saw that his hands looked large and brown and capable. He certainly did not seem overly concerned about the other man's fate. There were no gasps, no groans, no rendering of first aid, no rush to summon assistance.

  Charlie frowned as he began to rifle through the victim's pockets. His manner just seemed—off.

  Both men were dressed identically, Charlie registered, in solid black from head to toe. Black knit caps, black army jackets, black gloves, black pants, black boots. A black backpack lay on the ground beside the dead man, a tangle of what looked like white silk and strings spilling from its partially open top. A black duffel bag was tied to his waist.

  It hit Charlie then that there was something mighty peculiar about all this. Suddenly cold, she wrapped her arms around herself, and must have made some small sound, because the live man in black glanced up at her. His eyes gleamed, reflecting the light. They looked black, too, just like his thick brows, but after a moment she saw, that they were a deep, coppery brown. His skin was tan, his nose straight, his jaw square. It was, weighed objectively, a handsome face, she supposed. But the set of his mouth looked ruthless, and the glint in his eyes was hard.

  Charlie took a tiny, instinctive step backward.

  "Don't have a breakdown," he recommended impatiently, his gaz
e already returning to the assortment of items he had spread out on the victim's chest: a set of keys, a wallet, a Chapstick. "You didn't run over him. Or at least, if you did, that's not what killed him. His parachute didn't open. He would've been dead wherever he hit."

  Parachute? Charlie barely stopped herself from saying it aloud. Her mind, still slightly sluggish with shock, was nonetheless beginning to sound an alarm. This man was no rescuer, as she had assumed; he was not a passing motorist who had seen the accident and stopped to help; he was not a fireman or a policeman or even a forest ranger. Except for her wrecked Jeep, there were no vehicles in sight.

  Where, then, had he come from? He did not look like a camper, or someone out for a nocturnal hike. Anyway, the area was too remote to make either plausible.

  Charlie regarded the mass of white protruding from the backpack on the ground with fresh eyes. A parachute: The man—both of the men, she guessed, although the live one wore no backpack—had jumped from the plane, helicopter, or UFO (choose one) that had pinned her with its light. The blow the roof had taken just before the wreck had been the dead man landing on top of the Jeep.

  Charlie watched with widening eyes as he opened and upended the duffel bag. Perhaps a dozen shoebox-sized bundles of a plastic-wrapped white substance tumbled out, along with a large quantity of cash, bound into bricks with rubber bands. Both hands rose to cover her mouth as she realized what she was looking at.

  His next words, uttered without a glance at her, confirmed it. "Coke's all here. Money, too."

  "Um, good," Charlie said, trying to sound enthused, or at least not as horrified as she felt. She must have succeeded, because he didn't pay her any particular attention. Instead, he pulled a wicked-looking stiletto out of his boot, and used it to saw through the rope that bound the duffel bag to the dead man's waist.

  Her stomach began to churn at the sight of the stiletto. A deadly knife in his boot, a pistol in his hand— the pistol was no longer in sight, she realized, but didn't doubt for a moment that he still had it—the way he was dressed, the coke, the money, the parachute, all begged the question: Who was this guy?

  The answer came to her instantaneously: nobody she wanted to know.

  Everything he had said to her since she had first unlocked her door for him scrolled in double-fast time through her mind. He had called her Laura. He'd been angry because she hadn't stopped when she'd seen the approaching light. He had said that she was supposed to pick him and Skeeter up.

  He clearly thought she was someone else. And, just as dearly, he was engaged in something she wanted no part of.

  Could anyone say "drug smuggling"?

  Had she really just been thinking that her life needed a little excitement? An exciting man, to be precise? God, she thought, if you're listening, I take it back. An encounter with an alien would have been preferable. According to the tabloids, people usually survived those.

  Fright cleared her mind, and rendered it suddenly sharp. If he discovered who she was—or wasn't—it wouldn't be a good thing, to say the least. She had to get away from him and back to civilization. The gas station she had passed sprang to mind. From there she could call the police and wait in safety for them to arrive.

  Her first order of business was to discover if the Jeep was still drivable.

  Subtly. Without alerting him to her intent. Without letting him know that she was not, in fact, Laura.

  She shivered artistically. No real acting required there. She was suddenly so nervous that her palms were sweating. The only surprise was that her knees didn't knock. Sadie whimpered as if sensing her distress. The dog, Charlie thought as she had many times before, was a mind reader.

  "I'm freezing," she said, in a tone that sounded slightly squeaky to her own ears. The night was growing colder, although under normal circumstances she would have been perfectly comfortable in her jacket. Still, he had no reason to disbelieve her. "I think I'll go wait in the Jeep."

  "Mmm." Engaged in returning the cash to the bag, he didn't even glance up. Lightheaded with relief, clutching Sadie tightly to make sure she stayed put—all she needed about now was to have to go chasing the dog across night-dark fields—she headed for the Jeep. It was still running, she realized as she reached it. She had never turned the engine off. Surely that was a good sign?

  The door was open, too. Sliding in behind the steering wheel, Charlie closed it—very gently so that the sound would not attract his attention—and pressed the button that locked all the doors. The resultant emphatic dick made her feel a little safer, but locking herself in the Jeep was useless if she could not get away, she knew.

  Set free, Sadie clambered across her lap into the passenger seat, where she remained standing as if poised for action. From the rear, a faint hiss and a rattle reminded Charlie of the raccoon. The wreck had apparently simmered it down some, not that it mattered. The creature was now the least of her worries.

  A live, armed drug smuggler trumped a riled-up raccoon as a source of terror any time, she reflected.

  Pushing the limp white carcass of the air bag out of the way, Charlie shifted into reverse. Heart thumping, eyes fixed on the black figure she could just see through the veil of golden grass, she stealthily trod on the gas.

  At first she didn't think the Jeep was going to respond. But then, with a screech of metal that made her wince, the vehicle disengaged from the tree and began to back up. It stopped abruptly. Charlie realized that something, the front bumper, the undercarriage, who knew, was hung up. Oh, God, what could she do? A quick, panicked glance revealed that the man was still crouched in the grass, although his position had altered. Was he looking at the Jeep? She couldn't tell.

  "It's okay" she said to Sadie, trying to calm herself as much as the shivering dog and not much liking the quaver she heard in her voice. Panicking would not help, she told herself sternly, taking a deep, steadying breath. Then, gritting her teeth, she shifted into drive. Maybe she could rock the Jeep free.

  Oh, God, he was on his feet now, heading her way. She could see the tall black shape of him through the grass, walking swiftly toward the Jeep. Panicking for real now, gripping the steering wheel so hard that her knuckles showed white, she shifted into reverse again and stomped the accelerator.

  The engine roared. The tires spun with a sickening slithering sound. The Jeep strained backward to no purpose: It was still stuck.

  "Oh, God," Charlie groaned aloud. Sadie whimpered. Her eyes were as big and shiny as black olives, and she looked as scared as Charlie felt.

  Disappearing behind the tree to reappear on the passenger side, he reached the car. He glanced in at her, then knocked peremptorily on the window. Charlie's heart pounded. Her breathing came in short, sharp pants. Her foot ground the pedal to the floor.

  The engine roared. The tires spun. The damned Jeep didn't shift by so much as an inch.

  He knocked again, more demandingly, frowning at her through the window. She might as well face it: The Jeep was not going anywhere. She was breathing so hard that she feared she might hyperventilate. Oh, God, she was trapped! What should she do? What could she do?

  Charlie remembered his gun. He could break the window. He could shoot her through the glass. Locked doors would not protect her. She was as easy a target as one of the caged animals in the back.

  Sadie moaned. It was all Charlie could do not to join in.

  He thought she was on his side. The thought steadied her. She just must play along.

  Taking her foot off the gas, Charlie swallowed convulsively and unlocked the doors. The click sounded as loud as a gunshot to her ears. The comparison made her shiver.

  He pulled the door open and looked in at her. Charlie realized that she was sweating. The breeze blowing in through the open door felt icy as it hit her damp skin. She pinned a questioning smile on her face, and hoped it didn't look as fake as it felt.

  "It's stuck on a tree trunk. Put it in reverse and hit the gas when I tell you," he said, seeming to notice nothing amiss in her dem
eanor. "I'll push."

  Charlie damped her teeth together to keep them from chattering and nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Then he slammed the door and walked around to the front of the Jeep.

  Charlie almost melted into a puddle of quivering jelly right there in the driver's seat. She felt like a death row inmate who had just been granted a reprieve.

  "Get a grip," she ordered herself fiercely, watching mesmerized through the windshield as he braced a shoulder against the hood. He waved. Meeting his gaze for a brief, trauma-filled instant, terrified that he might somehow be able to read her intention in her eyes, Charlie recognized that the wave was a signal and put the transmission into reverse. Then she stepped on the gas.

  4

  THE ENGINE ROARED. The wheels spun. He lifted and pushed from the front. The Jeep rocked—and came free. It shot backward in an arc, cutting a wide swath through the tall grass that swished past the windows. As she rocketed away from him, Charlie kept her foot to the floor. She dragged her gaze from his surprised expression to look over her shoulder—just in time to get a split-second glimpse of a second tree before she hit it.

  Fortunately it was only a glancing blow. The gray-barked trunk scraped along the left rear of the Jeep with a scream like bear claws on a blackboard. But there were more trees behind her, crowded together, blocking the way. Panting with terror, she hit the brake. She had traveled as far as she could in reverse.