Instead of going straight to the bathroom, though, he picked up a quilt from the chair. It was the Shoo Fly off her bed, the first quilt she'd ever made. He held it close to the fire, warming the layers of cotton, batting and muslin, and then he brought it to her, stooping, gathering it around her.
Then hewent into the bathroom and closed the door.
Barely moving, barely breathing, Ashley stared into the flames. Damn these little gestures of his! He wasn't supposed to be this way. He was a crook—a bank robber, an escaped fugitive, a hardened criminal. He had forced his way in here with a gun, scaring her senseless, and had made her his prisoner. He cared about nothing buthimself—his escape,his needs,his freedom. He didn't give a damn about anyone else, didn't give a damn whom he scared or whom he hurt.
But he didn't want her to be cold. He hadn't wanted her to sleep on the floor, hadn't wanted her to wear wet clothes. He had offered her every assurance possible, had promised that he wouldn't hurt her, hadsworn that he wouldn't hurt her. He wasn't supposed to be that way, not if he was everything people said he was.
So maybe he wasn't.
Maybe he wasn't such a loser. Maybe he wasn't a hardened criminal. Maybe he wasn't a sociopath, unburdened by conscience or guilt, as Bill Armstrong would have everyone believe.
But hewas a bank robber, and hewas holding her hostage. Hewas a wanted man, and she had seen in his eyes last might that hewas a dangerous man.
But maybe he wasn't dangerous for her. Maybe he saved his ruthlessness for people who threatened him, and she certainly didn't fall into that category. She couldn't hurt him, couldn't do anything that might bring harm to him. She couldn't get to a phone to notify Seth of his location. She couldn't—so far—outsmart him. She couldn't get him recaptured. She was no threat at all, and maybe, because of that, he presented no danger at all.
Her stomach growled, distracting her from her thoughts. On a normal day she would already be eating breakfast by now. Of course, it was too much to hope that Boone might have bothered to fix her a bowl of cereal or a cup of tea while he'd waited for her to give up her refuge in the bathroom. She was lucky he had built a fire. Knowing the toll his injuries had taken on him, she was surprised that he had managed even that task.
On a normal day…This undoubtedly wasnot going to be one of those. On a normal day she got up between six and six-fifteen, built a fire and got dressed. She fixed her tea first and if it was even remotely comfortable outside, she drank it on the porch, sitting in an old hickory rocker, listening to the birds, looking for deer, squirrels and other wildlife that often wandered out of the woods, watching the sunrise and gathering wool as the fog slowly drifted across the valley. Breakfast came next—whole-wheat pancakes with butter and syrup, a frittata heavy with vegetables from her own garden, biscuits floating in a platter of cream gravy or, if she was short on time or just plain lazy, a bowlful of granola with nothing but fresh yogurt for a garnish.
On a normal day she was in the workshop by eight. She followed no set routine there, unless she had an order to fill or an upcoming craft show to attend. She might spend the morning cutting reed for baskets, make eight dozen rose-scented, heart-shaped bars of soap after lunch and blend potpourri, work on her latest quilt, sketch a design for a new shawl to weave, tie together a twig tray or dip candles until quitting time. Lunch was always leftovers from last night's dinner, and dinner was usually something easy—a pot of stew that would yield several days' worth of meals, a meat loaf that could be sliced for sandwiches or frozen and reheated next week or a roast that would be wonderful tonight in thick slices, even better tomorrow in cold sandwiches with spicy mustard and best of all the next day chopped and cooked in gravy with potatoes and carrots.
In the evening on a normal day she would work on her counted cross-stitch samplers, or she would make herself comfortable on the rug while she fashioned the miniature sweet-grass baskets that commanded amazing prices from people familiar with such baskets in the Low-country ofSouth Carolina. If her fingers grew tired, she might read or put a tape in the little deck on the mighttable, and she would fall asleep to music.
Normaldays might be gone forever. Even if Boone kept his word, even if he left her physically unhurt, there were other harms that he would be responsible for. She might never again feel safe in her own home. She might need weeks or even months to forget the fear he'd caused. She would probably never again look without suspicion at a stranger who wandered her way.
She would have lost some of her innocence, and after a lifetime inthis world, she didn't have much of it left to lose.
The bathroom door opened with a creak, and he came out, looking cold, pale and miserable, as if all he wanted was to crawl back into bed and sleep for a week. That was probably the best thing he could do. Sometimes the body needed to simply shut down all nonessential functions in order to handle the injuries dealt it. Twenty-four, thirty-six, forty-eight hours of sleep would do wonders for him, but she wasn't going to suggest it. Whenever he slept, no doubt, she would be handcuffed nearby. She didn't care to spend any more time than absolutely necessary wearing these bracelets.
He knelt beside her, leaning forward to unfasten the cuffs. There was a faint lavender smell about him, from the soap he'd used to wash up. His hair was wet and slicked back, and he had no doubt made use of one of the extra toothbrushes in the medicine chest—she could smell theminty toothpaste when he made a pained exhalation—but he hadn't tried to shave. The heavy stubble that had covered his jaw yesterday was going to soon become a full-fledged beard that gave him a slightly sinister look.
As soon as her hand was free, Ashley slid away from him and got to her feet. "I'm going to fix breakfast," she announced, giving him a chance to stop her before she turned away to the kitchen. She was putting water on the stove to boil when he finally spoke.
"Do you have any aspirin?"
"No, but I have some white willow bark." Without glancing his way, she knew the look he was giving her. Seth gave her those same looks, as did most of her friends, but she'd learned to ignore them. She had come by her faith in alternative treatments legitimately. Her mother, her grandmother and all the women before them had believed in natural remedies. She'd grown up using licorice for sore throats, ginger for upset stomachs and evening primrose oil for PMS, along with a host of other herbal concoctions taken daily as a preventive measure. She couldn't remember the last time in her adult life that she'd been bothered by even anythingso minor as a stuffy nose.
After filling a glass with cold water, she took a bottle from the cabinet and carried both to him at the table, where he'd taken a seat. For a moment he didn't move, but finally he extended his hand, palm flat, and accepted the two capsules she shook from the bottle. He didn't take them right away, though. Instead, he looked at them as if he might rather suffer the headache instead of the cure.
She gave an exasperated sigh. "I'm not going to poison you, Mr. Boone. It wouldn't do much for my reputation if I did."
He glanced up at her. "What reputation?"
"Some people on the mountain don't have much faith in doctors or much money to pay them. They prefer the old ways, the natural ways. I put remedies together for them."
"You're an herbalist."
"Or a quack, depending on who you ask."
"You 'put' this together." He held up the capsules.
"You buy the capsules, and you can fill them with anything you need. For myself, I generally prefer to take herbs in tea form, whenever possible, but sometimes a capsule is better," she said with a shrug. Before returning to the stove, where the water was starting to steam, she hesitated long enough to speak again. "Besides, if I were going to poison you, I would have done it last night,before you got too comfortable in my bed."
Back in the kitchen, she added tea bags to two cups and poured hot water over them, then took a bag of baking mix from the cabinet. She wanted biscuits this morning, she decided, hot and flaky, with apricot preserves and honey and the butter that old Granny Tompkin
s had churned herself and traded for one of Ashley's egg baskets. Humming to herself, she prepared the mix, rolled it out on the floured counter and was in the process of hunting for her biscuit cutter when, unexpectedly, Boone appeared behind her, grasping her arm tightly.
"What—" Breaking off, she followed his gaze outside. A truck was slipping and sliding its way up her muddy driveway. She didn't need to see the blue light bar on top or theCatlin County Sheriff's Department seal on the door or to hear Boone's savage, almost frantic curse to know who was driving it: Seth.
"Son of a bitch!" Boone dragged her back a few feet from the window. When she looked back to tell him that he was hurting her, to insist that he let go, she saw the reason his grip was hurting so: he held the pistol in the same hand he had wrapped around her, and her tender skin was pinched against it. The sight ofit, and the absolutely palpable panic emanating from him, made her heart skip a beat.
"You don't need the gun," she said quickly. "Please, just put it away. I swear, I'll get rid of him, but you have to promise not to do anything,please!"
"What is he doing here?" he hissed.
She swallowed hard and glanced out the window. The Blazer was coming over the last small rise. In another moment it would be parked behind the van, and another moment after that, Seth would be at the front door—unless she stopped him first. "It's my ex-husband," she admitted. "I told you he comes by to check on me."
"Your ex—" Dismay and disbelief made his eyes even darker. "Sheriff Benedict? Sheriff Benedict is yourex-husband?"
She gave a small nod. "Please… He just wants to let me know that a prisoner has escaped. He'll want me to move into town until you're caught. He'll tell me to be extra careful. That's all, I swear it is. Please just let me talk to him, and I'll send him away. I won't tell him anything. I won't make him suspicious.Please, Dillon, please let me talk to him."
He looked out the window, then back at her. "If you try to warn him—"
"I swear to God, I won't."
He glanced out again,then released her. "Go on. But don't forget—if you can't get rid of him …I will."
She took a quick look. Seth was still inside the truck, pulling on a jacket. It was raining again, she realized numbly, a heavy mist that seemed to fall in slow motion. Twice she'd looked outside and hadn't noticed. Then, giving herself a mental shake, she went to the counter. She carried the mugs to the table, setting them down, removing the tea bag from one as she slid her feet into a pair of stretched-out loafers kicked underneath the table. She was about to turn toward the door when a set of keys, half-hidden in the folds of a lace runner, caught her attention—herkeys, dropped there last night when he'd closed the door and pulled that gun on her.
Seeing that his attention was still on Seth, she slid the keys into the deep pocket of her skirt,then took her tea to the door, pausing only long enough to take down a heavy woolen shawl from its peg and wrap it around her shoulders. With one last look back at Boone, she opened the door and stepped outside, leaving the door open a few inches behind her. "Morning."
Seth came to the top of the steps andstopped, the width of the porch between them. He was wearing his uniform, khaki trousers with a green shirt and a shiny green jacket. His boots were muddy, the uniform was wrinkled, as if it had been slept in, and his face was lined, as if he hadn't slept at all. "Good morning."
"What brings you out on a day like this?"
He drew a pair of black gloves from his pocket and tugged them on, reminding her of just how chilly it was and how poorly dressed—cotton skirt, sweater, shawl, bare legs—she was. "We lost a prisoner yesterday morning. The deputy who was transporting him, Tommy Coughlin, apparently lost control of the car and went into a ravine over near Sadler's Pass. The prisoner then somehow got his gun, shot him and escaped."
Ashley's throat went dry, but her expression didn't change. Had Boone lied to her? Had it happened the way he claimed—an ambush, an accident that was no accident, three attackers who'd shot both men—or was Seth's version correct? She didn't know, and she desperately needed to. "Jeez, I'm sorry, Seth. Is Tom okay?"
"He's in a coma. Besides being shot, he got pretty banged up in the accident. Apparently he suffered some head injuries. I talked to his mother this morning, and she said the doctors are guardedly optimistic—whatever that's worth." He removed his green baseball cap, bearing the county name over an embroidered sheriff's star, and shook the rain out of it, then hung it over the hand-carved wooden pineapple that decorated the railing there. "Anyway, I came to help you pack."
She kept her gaze even and cool. "I'm not going anywhere."
"You've got to get out of here, Ashley. You can't stay up here alone with that criminal on the loose. I won't be home much until Boone's in jail again, so you're welcome to stay there. Just get your stuff, and I'll follow you back into town."
She ignored the part about leaving—as she knew he would expect her to—and focused instead on what he would expect her to find interesting. "So you've caught—or almost caught—Dillon Boone. Bill Armstrong must be delirious with joy. What about the money?"
"It wasn't on him when they arrested him over inMossville ," he said dryly.
"Mossville. That'sSylvanCounty." She pretended she hadn't already known that that was where Boone had been captured. "Dillon Boone is an extraordinarily unlucky man."
"He's adesperate man. That's why you're going to do what I say. Pack whatever you need for the next four or five days and get the hell off this mountain."
She wrapped both hands around the mug to keep them from trembling and lifted it for a hot sip. Feeling only slightly fortified, she lowered it again and gave him a reproving look. "You expect me to drop everything and leave my home on the remote chance that some convict might come by here? You know me better than that, Seth. There's nothing here that Boone could possibly want—no telephone, no weapons, no money. Only poor Bessie. Besides, Sadler's Pass is miles from here. What are the chances that he could make it this far without getting caught?"
"It's only five miles over the mountain."
"Onlyfive miles over the mountain?" she repeated, exaggerating the words and rolling her eyes. "What are the chances that he could even find his way here? You and I grew up in these mountains, and we still get lost from time to time. Boone's an outsider. A flatlander. He's fromGeorgia, for God's sake. He's a city boy." After another sip of tea, she grew serious. "What are the chances he could even survive the weather last night? He must have been hurt, bouncing around in Tom's car when it went into the ravine. Hell, coming from theSylvanCountyJail, he was probably hurtbefore the car went into the ravine. I don't know if you had it any better in town, but up here it was pretty darned cold last night, and the rain didn't stop till morning. You know how quickly exposure can kill a man."
Seth's expression turned grim. "We're considering that possibility, but until we find him—or his body—we have to assume that he's still out there. The first thing he'll want is shelter, then transportation." He gave the van a derisive look. "I'm not sure even Boone is desperate enough or crazy enough to believe Bessie qualifies. Not that transportation will do him any good. The county is pretty much sealed off. The highway patrol has roadblocks on the only roads in and out."
"Seems like a lot of effort for a bank robber."
"A bank robber who shot a cop," he corrected her. "A bank robber who nearlykilled a cop."
She leaned her shoulder against the doorframe, feeling the rough wood prick at her shawl. If Boonehad lied, if he had shot and almost killed a good man like Tom Coughlin, then she was a fool to protect him—even if protecting him also meant protecting Seth. But he'd told a different story—Wewere ambushed… There was a van and three men… They opened fire…—and he'd told it convincingly. Last night she had believed him. This morning—this morning she thought she still believed him.
What was Seth's explanation for Tom losing control of his car?she wondered without asking. Tom was a good driver, never reckless, certainly not withCatlinCo
unty's Most Wanted in his back seat. Yes, it had been raining, but not hard; it hadn't started to come down hard until after lunch. Yes, the road might have been a little slick, but like her and Seth, Tom had grown up inCatlin . He'd logged tens of thousands of miles on the county roads. He would have been prepared for that.
Also Seth apparently thought Boone had taken the gun and shot Tom after the accident.Why? If the deputy had suffered serious head injuries in the wreck, there was no reason for his prisoner to shoot him. He could have simply walked away. And Seth's assumptions left no room for one other small detail that she knew and he didn't: Boone's own gunshot wound. If he'd stolen the gun from Tom and shot him, thenwho had shot Boone?
There was a van and three men…
"I really am sorry about Tom," she said. "I hope he's all right. But I can't run away every time something happens in the county, Seth.This is my home. This is where I belong. I can't be afraid of everything, or I won't be able to live here anymore. We've had this discussion often enough, Seth. You understand."
He looked anything but understanding. "This is different, Ashley. We're talking about an escaped fugitive who shot an injured cop! God only knows what he might do to you if you get in his way."
Survive the Night Page 6
