Til Death Do Us Part

by Beverly Barton

  Joanna lifted herself up from her knees and ran.

  “Where the hell do you think you’re going, baby doll? You can’t get away from me. If you keep running, I’m just going to have to hurt you when I catch you.” Plott scratched his head.

  Joanna kept running and Plott chased her. Sweat seeped through his shirt—Eugene Willis’s shirt. Plott cursed under his breath. When he caught her, he’d make her sorry she’d ever run from him.

  She didn’t look back. Not once. She stumbled, but didn’t fall. Plott ran faster. When he got closer, he reached out for her, calling her name. His hand just missed grasping her long red hair.

  Panting, sweat drenching her body, loose tendrils of hair plastered to her face, Joanna ran and ran. Lenny Plott reached out again. This time he caught a handful of her hair. She screamed. He jerked her backward. She whirled around, prepared to fight. He yanked on her hair, pulling her forward. Ramming into her with the full force of his body, he knocked her to the ground and trapped her beneath him.

  “You women are so stupid.” Lenny smiled at her. “When will you ever learn?”

  LESS THAN TWO miles from Painted Canyon, J.T. saw dust clouds in the distance and heard the rumble of vehicles. Within minutes, a truck, a Bronco and a patrol car surrounded him. Joseph Ornelas jumped out of the patrol car and ran toward J.T. Several men climbed down off the truck bed and stood watching. Kate Whitehorn flung open the door of her neighbor Peter Yazzi’s Bronco and followed Joseph.

  “Plott’s taken Joanna,” J.T. said. “He’s got a head start. We’re going to have to track them.” J.T. slid off Washington and lifted Eddie down into his arms. “Eddie’s been bitten by a rattler. He needs to be taken to the clinic as fast as possible.”

  Opening her arms, Kate ran to J.T., who handed over her son. Peter Yazzi walked up behind Kate. “We will take care of Eddie. You go and save your woman.”

  “Peter,” Joseph called out to the older man. “I’ll radio ahead to the clinic and have them meet you with the antivenom serum.” He turned to J.T. “Get in the patrol car. I’ll send Agent Carmichael word on our general location.” Joseph turned to one of the men near the truck. “Donnie, take care of these horses for us. The rest of you can follow, but you’re to stay behind us and don’t make a move without my orders. Understand?”

  J.T. removed his 9-mm Glock and holster from his saddlebag, strapped the gun on and walked toward the patrol car.

  The youth named Donnie ran over, mounted Washington and trotted off, Playtime following. J.T. jerked open the passenger door of the patrol car and slid onto the seat. Joseph got in, started the engine and turned to J.T.

  “Painted Canyon,” J.T. said. “He was heading west.”

  LENNY PRESSED HIS body onto Joanna’s. She tried to wriggle, but the harder she tried to move, the harder he pressed. She struggled to slip one of her arms free.

  Plott grabbed her face in both hands and squeezed, squishing her cheeks inward, compressing her lips into a fish mouth. Lifting her head, he held it for a second, then slammed it down against the ground. Joanna gasped. He repeated the head-slamming three times. She cried out, the pain momentarily blinding her.

  Releasing her face, he loosened his tie, unknotted it and slipped it off his neck. Joanna slid her arm, freeing half of it, but her hand remained trapped under Plott’s chest.

  The minute Joanna slid one arm completely free, Lenny shoved himself up, straddled her hips and grabbed her wrists. She tried to lift her knee. He sat down on her, knocking the breath out of her.

  He bound her hands together with Eugene Willis’s silk tie, stood and yanked her to her feet. “Come on, baby doll, it’s too hot out here and not nearly private enough for what I have in mind.”

  Joanna kicked Plott. He slapped her across the face. “You stupid girl. The more you fight, the more I’m going to hurt you.” Leering at her, he grabbed both of her breasts. She kicked him again and again. He tightened his hold on her breasts, squeezing until she screamed. Then he kicked her in the stomach with his knee. Doubling over, she fell to the ground. Plott grabbed the ends of the silk tie, jerked her onto her belly and dragged her for several yards. Stopping abruptly, he pulled her to her feet, lifted her and slung her over his shoulder.

  He slammed her up against the side of the car, ripped her ragged shirt off her and tore it into a long strip. Giving her a hard shove, he pushed her into the car, leaned down and grabbed her feet. He bound her feet with the tattered material of her shirt, then locked and closed the door.

  When he got inside the car he sat there for several minutes, staring at her. She was scared to death. He could see the fear in her eyes. Green eyes. Hot green eyes. He could smell her fear, too, and the smell was delicious. No matter how brave they tried to act, sooner or later, they all succumbed to their fears. The ones who had testified against him and sent him to prison knew what it meant to fear him. Joanna Beaumont knew. He had given her the sweetest kind of pain, the kind she’d never be able to forget. And he would give it to her again before he killed her.

  But he had to find a hiding place before Blackwood found them. Surely there was a safe place somewhere out here in this damned desert.

  “WE’LL FIND THEM,” Joseph said. “It’s obvious Plott doesn’t have any idea where he’s going.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not sure that’s a comforting thought.” J.T. wanted to rent the air with his fury, yell at the top of his lungs from the highest peak on the reservation. He wanted to lash out and smash something—anything. If he had to contain his anger and fear much longer, he’d lose his mind. “If Plott’s lost, then he’s probably upset and taking his frustration out on Joanna.”

  “Stop thinking about it, okay?” Joseph gripped the steering wheel with white-knuckled ferocity.

  “How the hell do I stop thinking about it? I promised to protect her. Vowed to her that I’d never let Plott get anywhere near her, and look what I let happen.”

  “You didn’t let this happen. Quit beating yourself up. What were you supposed to do? Leave Eddie down in that ravine, or let him die from the snakebite once you brought him up? Besides, how do you think you’d have caught up with them on horseback?”

  J.T. hadn’t cried since he was five years old—not since he’d been ripped from his mother’s arms. A real man didn’t cry, didn’t show emotion. Hell, old John Thomas had taught him that a real man didn’t even feel any emotion.

  The tears lodged in J.T.’s throat. Dear God, please. Please.

  “Look, over there,” Joseph said. “Thank God, the fool isn’t trying to cover his tracks. See, it looks as if he’s turned off on the trail leading up to the old mine.”

  Joseph stopped the car, got out and walked around, taking note of the tire tracks. J.T. got out when the truck filled with half-a-dozen relatives and neighbors pulled up behind the patrol car.

  “There’s been a car turn here recently,” Joseph said. “If Plott took this road, then we’ve got him trapped. There’s only one way out and that’s the way he came in.”

  J.T. looked around, wondering how long ago Plott and Joanna had come this way. Long enough for him to have hurt her? Long enough for him to have raped her? Killed her?

  J.T. spotted a wad of black fur lying on the ground. He walked over, picked it up and examined it. “Damn! Look at this. It’s a black wig.”

  “Plott’s wig.” Joseph lifted the hairpiece from J.T.’s hand, then waved to the men in the truck. “He’s gone toward the old uranium mine. Stay behind us and don’t take any action on your own.”

  “Once he’s figured out he can’t get out of this alive, he’ll kill Joanna.” J.T. followed Joseph back to the patrol car and got inside. “We shouldn’t go storming in there.”

  “Man, start thinking with your brain instead of your heart.” Joseph tossed the wig into the backseat, then slid under the wheel. “He’s planning on killing her, regardless. If he knows we have him trapped, he might be willing to bargain for his life.”

  J.T. didn’t want
to admit that he wasn’t thinking straight, that at this moment he was far more lover than protector. Gritting his teeth, he shook his head. “How far is this mine?”

  “Not far. About two miles up into those hills.” Joseph turned on the ignition and shifted gears. “The place was abandoned years ago. Radioactive contamination to the workers caused a lot of our people to die from cancer.”

  “He’ll take her inside the mine,” J.T. said, but he wasn’t actually talking to Joseph, just thinking aloud. Before he could close out the thoughts, he pictured Joanna’s face, her terrified green eyes, and a surge of sour bile rose from his stomach to his throat.

  He was going to rip Plott apart, piece by piece. And if Plott had harmed Joanna, he was going to take his sweet time killing the man.

  When they reached the old mine, they saw a parked car with both front doors standing wide open. The late-afternoon sunshine glinted off the windshield of Eugene Willis’s dust-coated gray sedan. Joseph slammed on the brakes of his patrol car, flung open the door and jumped out. J.T. swallowed the bitter juice coating his mouth and got out on the passenger side, then looked up toward the old, abandoned mine.

  “Is there another way out of there?” J.T. asked.

  “Yeah, around on the back side.”

  “Then it’s possible Plott could try to escape that way.”

  “He won’t know about the back entrance, and it could take him hours, maybe days to find it,” Joseph said. “Besides, where’s he going to go? I told you, there’s only one way out of this canyon, unless the guy can climb better than a mountain goat.”

  “We’ll need some sort of light.” J.T. checked his gun.

  Joseph stared at his cousin. “I’ve got a couple of flashlights and I’m sure they—” he nodded toward the men getting out of the truck “—will have one or two if we need them.”

  “I want you to show me the way into the back of the mine. I’m going in alone. Understand?” J.T. waited for a reply, but Joseph only nodded agreement. “If you can keep him distracted from this side, I should have a good chance of sneaking up on him.”

  J.T. knew that this could be their only hope of getting Joanna away from Plott—alive!

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  JOANNA’S EYES HAD become accustomed to the partial darkness and the eerie silence inside the old mine. Thankfully, Plott hadn’t taken them very far inside. She could still see glimmers of sunlight toward the entrance. She lay quietly on the ground where Plott had tossed her, humming softly to herself.

  If she thought she had a chance of escaping, she would try to crawl. But she’d never make it past Plott to get to the entrance, and if she tried to go in the opposite direction, she would be lost in total darkness.

  Plott gazed around, turning his head from side to side. “Isn’t this an appropriate place to die? Almost like being in a grave already, isn’t it?”

  Joanna shuddered at the thought. Was she really going to die like this? Wasn’t there anything she could do to save herself?

  Plott shone Eugene Willis’s flashlight up, down and around, then dropped to his knees beside Joanna. She didn’t move a muscle, didn’t even breathe for several seconds. He laid the flashlight on the ground, within arm’s reach.

  “I’m going to untie you, baby doll, so we can have a little fun before I decide exactly how I’m going to kill you.”

  When he reached for her, Joanna scooted away from him. He threw back his head and laughed, then grabbed her by the feet and hauled her up and under him, straddling her hips.

  “I want you to be free to fight me the way you tried to do the last time we played. Remember?” Lifting himself off her, he pivoted around until he faced her feet. “I’ll never forget how much fun I had that night at your apartment. I bet you won’t ever forget, either. Not as long as you live.” Reaching down, he began untying her ankles.

  His diabolical laughter echoed off the rock walls. Joanna raised her arms, aimed her bound hands and pounded Plott on his head and back. Twisting his body around enough to knock her hands away from him, he leaned backward and slapped her across the face. Then, after kicking the loosened strands of her ripped blouse away from her feet, he rubbed his hands up and down her legs.

  Joanna shuddered. She couldn’t bear for him to touch her intimately that way. She would much rather he beat her. The physical abuse didn’t hurt her nearly as much as his sexual caresses. But his caresses weren’t truly sexual. She understood that, now better than ever before. Plott’s every touch, whether he was beating her or caressing her, was a form of brutalizing manipulation. To him it was all a matter of power.

  Plott stood, removed Eugene Willis’s suit coat and tossed it on the ground. Joanna glared up at him, seeing only his dark, shadowy outline as he loosened the shoulder holster, took it off and laid it down beside the flashlight. Joanna’s eyes focused on the gun. She swallowed. If there was some way she could get hold of that gun…

  Unbuckling his belt, Plott lowered himself back down, straddling Joanna’s hips again. When he touched her cheek, she spat on him. He laughed, and the sound made her want to scream.

  “So much to do,” he said, “and so little time to truly enjoy ourselves.”

  He unbuttoned her jeans. She bucked upward, trying to throw him off, then lifted her arms and brought them down against his chest. Grabbing her wrists, he flung her arms over her head and spread himself out on top of her. He insinuated one hand between their bodies and slid it between her thighs.

  “Just think, baby doll, your last moments are going to be spent with me on top of you. My face is the last one you’ll see. What I’ve done to you will be the last thing you remember.”

  “No!” she screamed. Her adamant denial echoed in the empty caverns of the abandoned mine.

  J.T. HEARD HER scream at the same moment he saw the beam of light. A flashlight lying on the ground! All he wanted to do was go flying toward the sound of her terrified voice, but he stopped dead still and listened to his gut instincts and to his years of professional training. He checked his gun.

  He had to take Plott unaware. It was the only way. Suddenly J.T. heard the rumble of men’s voices. What the hell? Then he realized the sound wasn’t people talking, but a distinct, synchronized chanting in a language with which he had recently become reacquainted. Why were they chanting? What purpose did it serve other than to alert Plott to their presence?

  The rhythmic thumping of what sounded like a drum blended with the voices. A picture of men painted and ready for battle sprang into his mind.

  Realization dawned on J.T. Damn, but Joseph Ornelas was a wily fox. The chanting and drumming would not only draw Plott’s attention, they just might spook him. This was J.T.’s chance to strike. He had to act quickly and silently.

  LISTENING, LENNY PLOTT lifted his head, turned left, right and left again. “Do you hear that?”

  Joanna heard the chanting and the drumbeat. “They’ve found us. J.T. isn’t alone. You’ll never get away, now.”

  “Shut up! I need to think.”

  “Do you have any idea what they’re going to do to you if you kill me?” Joanna wanted to cry out, to tell J.T. to come for her now, that she couldn’t bear being trapped like this another minute. But she would not allow herself to panic.

  “I said shut up!” Lenny grabbed her by the wrist, jumped to his feet and jerked her up beside him. “We’ll go deeper into the mine. If they try to come after us, I’ll be able to kill a few of them before they get me.”

  He bent over, clutched the 9-mm in one hand and picked up the flashlight with the other. Joanna jumped on top of his back, the sudden impact knocking him flat on his face. Even with her wrists bound, she tried to grab the gun out of his hand. Before she could reach it, Lenny threw her off him and moved a couple of feet away from her.

  “You just don’t know when to quit, do you, baby doll?” Standing, he aimed the gun at her and grinned. “Maybe I’ll use all my bullets on you before those savages come in here and rip me apart. I can make yo
ur dying a slow, painful ordeal.”

  Joanna simultaneously heard the feral growl and saw the huge shadowy form of a man behind Lenny Plott. She sucked in her breath. J.T.! She bit down on her bottom lip to keep from crying out to him.

  With the 9-mm in his hand, Plott spun around and faced J.T. The two men stared at each other for a split second in the semidarkness.

  J.T. glanced down quickly at Joanna lying at Plott’s side, directly below his hand that held the semiautomatic. Could he shoot Plott and put him out of commission before Plott could shoot Joanna?

  Plott spread out his leg until his calf touched Joanna’s shoulder. “Shooting me won’t save her life.” He pointed the gun squarely at Joanna’s head, then smiled at J.T.

  The moment Plott directed his attention on J.T., Joanna scooted slowly backward, inching her hips across the smooth rock surface. Plott glanced in her direction, then jerked around toward her. J.T. flung himself at Plott, knocking him over. The two rolled around on the ground, both men holding on to their weapons. Joanna scrambled to her feet and backed up out of the way. Lifting her bound wrists to her mouth, she bit into the silk material and began pulling on the tight knot.

  She glanced up from her task and saw two forms rise to their feet. She heard fists striking flesh, grunts, groans and curses, then the rattle of metal hitting the rock wall, then another loud clank as something hit the ground. An earsplitting gunshot echoed in the darkness.

  Neither man slumped to the ground. She had no way of knowing whether one of them had been hit or whose gun had been fired.

  She watched the two figures continuing their struggle, moving farther and farther back inside the tunnel and away from her. Giving a final tug on the silk knot, she managed to loosen the binding completely, and slipped her hands free.

  Bending over, she picked up the flashlight Plott had brought into the mine with them. She pointed the beam inside the mine, but J.T. and Plott were almost out of sight. She shone the light all around over the ground, looking for one of the guns. When the light reflected off the barrel of J.T.’s 9-mm Glock, she ran over and picked it up, gripping it firmly in her hand.