No Safe Place

by Fitzwater, Judy

  I touched the stone and smiled at him, taking a subtle look through the screen door behind me. James would find me, I was sure, when he was ready.

  “I was looking for pottery,” I said.

  The old man pointed next door, and I went out and into the next open door, emerging into a small shop that sported battery-operated neon lights and glass cases containing intricately decorated pottery. A young woman, in jeans and a peasant blouse, greeted me.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “We’re just looking,” a male voice answered. I felt a hand on my waist. I jerked back and turned.

  James. My breath quickened. There were only three of us in that room, and he was blocking the door.

  “Good to see you, Elizabeth.”

  He was as blond and tanned as the last time I’d seen him, yet his eyes had changed. They were cold. They sent a chill through me.

  “I wish I could say the same,” I said. I unclenched my jaw and pushed away the urge to rip him apart, remembering what Ian had told me. Leave the emotion. What I needed was reason and strength.

  James slipped an arm over my shoulder and bent over, pointing to a vase in the case near the door. His touch made my skin crawl.

  “Where’s Cara?” I whispered.

  “I’ve put her and Patrice someplace safe.”

  “Where?” I hissed, as I continued browsing.

  “Keep your voice down,” he warned. “I’ll take you to them.”

  “No. Bring them to me.”

  “That wouldn’t be wise. Besides, they’re no longer in the state.”

  “Where are they?” I repeated more quietly this time.

  “Would you like to see that vase up close?” the clerk asked. “I can take it out of the case for you.”

  “No, thanks,” James told her. He gripped my arm and pulled me toward the door. I allowed him to do it only because I didn’t want that girl hurt if anything happened. Still holding my arm, he led me outside, his grip so strong I could feel my arm bruising beneath his fingers. He pulled me around the side of the building and then to the back of the mud structure.

  “What do you want from me?” I demanded. I wrenched my arm from his grip, repulsed by his closeness. “You searched Stephen’s belongings looking for something.”

  He shook his head, but I didn’t pause.

  “Someone mutilated his body looking for something. What is it you want?”

  His eyes hardened. “The book.”

  The book? The pocket atlas? Is that what he meant? It must be, because he obviously knew that I had it. Cara, why did you tell him? Did you have a choice?

  “The book wasn’t in Stephen’s belongings. I know he sent it to you. Where is it?” he asked, softening his tone.

  I didn’t get the chance to answer. Ian stepped from nowhere and slid one hand around the back of James’s neck, the other across his chest. One twist and it would be all over.

  Just like it had been for Stephen.

  I must have paled, because Ian asked, “Did he do something to you?”

  I shook my head.

  “You hooked up with him? You’ve just made the biggest mistake of your life,” James muttered.

  “Or yours,” I suggested.

  I watched as Ian drew James’s gun from a holster under his jacket. Ian pointed it at James’s temple. I was certain, as I’m sure Ian was, he had other weapons on him.

  “I thought you had more sense,” James said, addressing only me.

  “The lady wants to speak to her daughter,” Ian told James. “I suggest you make that happen.”

  “My phone is in my inside pocket,” James said.

  Ian nodded to me, and I pulled James’s jacket out, making certain I was far enough back he’d have to lunge if he tried to grab me.

  “Press five,” James said.

  I did and brought the phone to his ear.

  “Put Cara on. Two minutes, no more,” he said, and I immediately brought the phone back to my own ear.

  “Cara?” I choked.

  “Mom?”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Her voice sounded fuzzy, like she’d just awakened from a nap.

  “What do you mean you’re not—”

  “They flew us out of Sante Fe on a private plane. James said it’d be best if we didn’t know. Are you coming? He said he would wait for you to get to Taos and then bring you here. We’ve been so worried.”

  “You sound tired.” I could hear her yawn over the phone.

  “Sorry about that. Yeah. All I seem to want to do is sleep.”

  “Is Patrice with you?”

  “Yeah. She’s fine. James put Odin in a kennel, but other than that, we’re okay. Mom, give James the book like Dad wanted you to. He says once he gets it and takes care of what he has to do, we’ll be safe and we can all go home.”

  “You’re fine.”

  “Yes. I told you.”

  “You’re eating.”

  “Of course. Mom, they’re saying I’ve got to go now. Please. Just come with James. I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” I said to a dead line.

  I turned to James. “Your terms are the book for Cara and Patrice’s freedom.”

  “No.”

  Ian jerked James’s neck.

  “Elizabeth, listen to me. Stephen wanted Cara someplace safe. That’s all I’m doing, trying to help both of you. I need the book and the code to do that, but not in exchange for Cara and Patrice. Give them to me.”

  “You need them to locate Will Donovan,” Ian stated.

  Of course. The book needed a code to be understood. Ian had mentioned it earlier. That’s what they’d been looking for on Stephen’s body.

  Ian jerked James again. “When we have Donovan, be prepared to make the trade.”

  “What are you talking about?” I protested. That’s not what I’d agreed to.

  “Name the time and the place.” James turned an angry eye toward me and shook his head. “I’ll be there. With Cara and Patrice. Do you have any idea who you’ve—”

  “We’ll be in touch,” Ian interrupted.

  Suddenly James twisted to reach toward his boot. Ian knocked him cold with one deft punch to the side of his head with his gun. He caught him before he hit the ground.

  “What the hell do you think—” I stopped myself. The old Indian with the silver stepped out the back doorway to his place. He lit a cigarette, took a deep draw and then leaned back, resting one boot against the wall. He must have heard the commotion.

  “Your friend all right?” he asked, pointing at James with his cigarette.

  “No, he’s passed out.” Ian laid James down gently, allowing his back to rest against the adobe and concealing his gun behind James’s back. “Could you call 911?”

  “I’ll get my cell phone.” The old man stomped out his cigarette and went back inside.

  Ian grabbed my arm, and we took off walking fast.

  “You may have killed him,” I said.

  “No, but I would have if his friends didn’t have Cara. As long as she trusts him, she’ll be all right. But if she puts up a fight, there could be trouble.”

  I wrenched my arm from his grip and stopped cold.

  “We should follow James,” I insisted. “I think Cara’s been drugged. She sounded tired and she said she’s sleeping a lot.”

  “That’s good. You don’t want her too suspicious.”

  “It’s not good, damn it! I want my daughter.”

  He took hold of my shoulders and shook me. I was afraid I was going to burst into tears, but I was too angry to cry. I was shocked by his roughness.

  “Listen to me,” he said, his words measured. “We’ve got to find the code that goes with Stephen’s book before James does.”

  “That’s all you wanted, wasn’t it?” I spat out. “You want the book and the code, just like James.”

 
He propelled me forward. “James won’t be out long enough for the ambulance to arrive. He won’t harm Cara because he knows you’d die before you’d give him the book if he does. The book is going to keep Cara safe, but only if we get the key to go with it. If they locate the key first and manage to find a second copy of that book, your book won’t be of any value. Do you understand?”

  I nodded, although I didn’t at all.

  We’d arrived where he’d parked the rented BMW off the road that led to the entrance at the pueblo. He pulled open the passenger door and gently set me inside. Then he was in the driver’s seat, the motor was running, and we were tearing down the road as the wail of sirens drew closer.

  Chapter 21

  I locked the bathroom door of the motel room where we’d stopped about three and a half hours north of Taos and took a long, hot shower, letting water run through my hair and down my face. I wanted to wash away my anger, but it had settled deep inside me, along with the heart-stopping fear I felt for Cara and Patrice. I had to put them both away. I’d be no good to anyone if I let them rule me.

  My gun rested within arm’s length, on the sink. I’d left the shower curtain drawn back so there was no barrier between the weapon and me, and water puddled onto the floor. I was my only true ally, and I swore not to forget it. Ian was a way to an end, nothing more.

  He seemed certain we hadn’t been followed, but he still wouldn’t allow me out of his sight. That meant one motel room. Truth be told, I wouldn’t have gotten a wink of sleep in a room of my own, wondering who might be coming through the door the moment my eyes drifted shut. It remained to be seen if I could sleep with him in the room. It wasn’t that I had grown to trust him, simply that I believed he still needed me alive.

  As strange as it may seem, I took comfort in knowing that Ian could easily have killed me before now, if that was what he’d intended. Even if his goal wasn’t simply to protect me as he claimed, I was valuable to him, and I meant to stay that way until I used him to get Cara back.

  “Damn it, Stephen. Damn you. If only you were here. If only you hadn’t…” I whispered aloud.

  I turned off the water and grabbed a towel, burying my face in its softness, blotting away tears as well as water. I couldn’t play that game. Stephen wasn’t here and never would be. Being angry with him only drained my strength. Besides, I had to shoulder half the blame for what had happened to Cara and Patrice. I’d sent them off to Taos.

  And I couldn’t blame Stephen entirely for getting killed. Someone had murdered him. That same someone wanted what Stephen had sent me.

  If Stephen had expected me to hand everything over to James and walk away, all that changed once I realized he’d died trusting the wrong man. I wasn’t about to make the same mistake.

  I finished drying off and pulled on sweatpants and a sweatshirt—not clean, but clean enough—blotted up the water from the floor and wrapped my hair in a fresh towel.

  I’d allowed Ian to see my anger, but I refused to again let him see my fear. He’d told me at least part of what was going on, and I was determined to make him tell me the rest, but he startled me when I joined him in our room.

  He was sitting with his back to the window, the thick drapes drawn, no lights on except what shone from the bathroom. His face lay in shadow, his profile outlined by the sliver of light that escaped through the window from the porch outside. The ash at the end of his cigarette burned brightly and then faded as he inhaled and then let out the smoke. I’d never seen him smoke. It gave me an eerie feeling. This man whom nothing seemed to shake was not quite as strong as I’d thought.

  I flipped on the lamps, sat down on one of the double beds and pulled my bare feet under me. I shook my hair loose from the towel, which I wrapped about my shoulders, and tried to appear casual.

  “I like the wildness of your curls,” he said, drawing hard on his cigarette and staring at me with eyes that were a little too intense.

  “I don’t,” I said matter-of-factly, not at all comfortable with the way he was studying me. There was longing in his eyes, and it scared me more than anything else about him.

  “Of course you don’t.” His voice was soft, mellow, almost gentle. “You can’t control them. You like the illusion that you can influence your environment.”

  My skin prickled at his intimate tone. It made me acutely aware that we were locked in that room together. I wrapped one hand about my throat, hoping he couldn’t see the blush I felt there. Under different circumstances, I don’t know how I would have reacted. That scared me, too. I needed to pull his thoughts—and mine—back to the business that brought us together.

  “What form would the code be in?” I asked.

  “Each operative has his own system. When we make someone disappear, their location is recorded in some sort of code.”

  I felt some of my muscles ease. He was talking. His eyes had lost some of their intensity. Good.

  “Why record it?” I asked. “I thought the whole idea was for your clients to vanish without a trace.”

  “It is. But it’s essential to have a record. The codes serve as a safeguard if the operative is killed or the placement is somehow compromised.”

  “Does that happen often?” I asked.

  “Only once before, several years ago.”

  When Cara was small. When Stephen took Cara and me to Disney World. When he had feared for our lives.

  They had prepared, just as Stephen had prepared me, knowing someday it would happen again.

  “The people you hide can come back on their own,” I suggested.

  “Of course. When they believe it’s safe. Some don’t choose to return.”

  “Not ever?” I asked, not bothering to hide my surprise. What could be so dear that it would keep someone from their family and friends forever?

  “When someone dies in hiding, we’re sometimes left with instructions to return their remains to their native soils or to let their loved ones know what happened to them.”

  What happened to them. As though it would make a difference after their deaths. As though learning what actually occurred during the years that were robbed from them would somehow make it all more bearable.

  Maybe it would. What would I give, all these years after Josie’s death, to know how she’d died, where she rested?

  “Even if we find him, I won’t trade Will Donovan for my daughter,” I warned him.

  I waited for him to react, but all he did was light another cigarette off the end of the first one. Was he that numb or did he simply not care what I thought? Probably the latter.

  “Why does James think I have Stephen’s code?” I asked.

  “Because you do.”

  I blinked hard, wondering if Ian had lost his mind. True, I had the package Stephen had sent me, but that was all. And it hadn’t been in there.

  “They searched Stephen’s body and his belongings and didn’t find it,” he said. “By now they’ve searched your home and your belongings, as well.”

  I cringed to think of James going through my things, but I knew Ian was right. James had found his way into my home, and he’d no doubt gone through every inch of my condo after we’d escaped from him.

  “Edward Donovan doesn’t have it,” Ian went on. “That’s why I was in Denver, to make certain Stephen hadn’t mailed something or left anything with him. Will hasn’t contacted his father, either. Donovan’s received no correspondence of any kind from either of them. If no one else has the code, that leaves you. We all have that one person we trust. For Stephen it was you.”

  The irony of his words did not escape me.

  “Maybe he left it with someone or in some place no one knows about,” I suggested.

  “Someone has to know, otherwise what’s the point?”

  “If you had a bottle of scotch, you’d be drinking it, wouldn’t you?” I asked.

  He chuckled and the smoke caught in his throat. “Is that what Stephen would do?”

  “Absolutely. One good binge before he d
isappeared again.”

  “I don’t plan to disappear, Elizabeth,” he said with no trace of humor in his voice. “At least not without you.”

  He put out his cigarette, stood, and came toward me. My heart raced in my chest as he stopped beside me next to the bed. I felt dwarfed by his presence—tall, powerful—hovering over me. It put every nerve in my body on edge, but I never lost eye contact with him, as though my sheer will could be a match for his strength.

  He sat down facing me—too close. Gently, almost shyly, he reached a hand toward my hair. His breathing was ragged. I could smell the tobacco on him. And now I could smell the alcohol. He must have a flask. God, I prayed, just don’t let him be drunk.

  He leaned in and then paused, his lips just inches from my own. I dared not move as his gaze roved my face. I flinched and he drew back. Was that hurt I saw in his eyes just before they flashed to anger?

  “Damn it, Elizabeth! Do you actually find me that revolting or do you simply plan to go through life withdrawing further and further into your shell? Stephen’s dead. He won’t be coming back to you, but then you were living with his ghost long before he died. How long do you plan to continue?”

  My cheeks burned. The bastard. How dare he bring my feelings for Stephen into this?

  “What’s really at stake here?” I demanded, letting the towel slip from my shoulders to the floor, anger flaring in my voice. “Why did Stephen die? Why did he choose to help Donovan when he’d been warned not to?”

  “He did it for the same reason I’m helping you now. He did it for you, Elizabeth. He did it to stop Ackerman. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  I felt as though I’d been punched in the stomach.

  Ian must have moved forward, because the warmth of his breath rushed over my skin. I was aware of his body so close to mine. I was unsure of what he might do. And what I might do in response.

  The back of his hand stroked my cheek. “Stephen was so lucky to have you,” he whispered, a catch in the softness of his voice.

  I wanted to comfort Ian, to comfort Stephen, to make everything all right. Most of all, I wanted to believe him. I wanted so much to trust him. Where Stephen offered only silence, Ian offered explanations. And something more.