MIDNIGHT CINDERELLA

by Eileen Wilks

  "I did," Mark said. "At first. Right after Dad's death, when she came crying to me about how you were neglecting her, I felt sorry for her. At first. That's one reason…"

  "You don't have to talk about it."

  "No. Hannah said I should make you listen. Maybe she's right. I never slept with Jenny, Nate. In spite of what you saw that day, I was never with her."

  "Hell, I know that."

  There was a thud from the back seat, followed by a string of curses.

  "What? What is it?"

  "My stupid leg fell on the floor when I tried to lean forward."

  "What? Why would you do that in a moving car?"

  "Because I'm almost as big an idiot as you are."

  "Are you all right?"

  They were nearly home. Mark didn't answer his question. Instead he asked him one. "Nate," Mark said, "why were you so damn eager to get me out of the house if you didn't think I'd been screwing your wife?"

  Nate was shaken. "Dammit, Mark, you can't have thought I believed her!" The silence from the back seat told him that was exactly what Mark had thought. "I never believed Jenny. I thought you knew. How could you have thought I did? Didn't you think I would have been a hell of a lot more angry if I'd believed her?"

  Mark's voice was soft. "I thought you didn't trust yourself—that you didn't want to lose control."

  Nate shook his head. "I was afraid you had started to care about her. She was good at that, and I didn't want her sinking her hooks into you any deeper than they already were. But I didn't know what to do, what to say. She was still my wife. I couldn't make myself talk about her that way."

  "Like Mom never let us say anything bad about Dad."

  Nate hadn't thought of it that way, but Mark was right. That's just how it had been. The silence that fell between them lasted the length of the driveway, but it felt different. This time it wasn't empty.

  Nate parked Susie's white Cadillac behind his pickup. He turned the car, but then he just sat there, absorbed by what he'd learned. "All this time, I thought you knew. I thought you couldn't forgive me for letting you leave instead of sending Jenny away. And for not protecting you." God knows he'd been angry with himself for failing Mark that way.

  Mark sounded stunned. "You thought I was mad because you didn't protect me?"

  "You were sixteen. Underage. What she did to you wasn't right."

  Mark cleared his throat. "I—uh, let's get inside so you can make up with Hannah." He hesitated. "You do want that, right? I mean, you want her."

  "Wanting her may not be enough. I don't know if she'll forgive me."

  "She loves you."

  "I don't want her to love me," he said, tensing. "I don't want that, ever again."

  "That's about the stupidest thing I ever heard you say."

  "Love is a trick. A weapon."

  "Hannah isn't like that."

  "This isn't about Hannah. It's about love. I didn't just learn this from Jenny, though God knows she taught me more than I ever wanted to know on the subject. Don't you remember Mom? How sad she was because of the way Dad treated her? But she loved him."

  "That's not—"

  "And Dad. I think he loved her, too, in his way. It pretty much wrecked him when she died." Nate shook his head. "Love is a sickness."

  "Nate, if you would just shut up for—"

  "Love makes people into victims. I don't want any part of it."

  "You stupid, pigheaded son of a bitch! I love you, too! So which one of us is the victim here?"

  Nate opened his mouth. There was something he was going to say. Something important he was supposed to say. But his mind was blank. Entirely blank.

  After a moment, Mark cleared his throat. "Of course, I just meant that I, uh—you know. Care. You're my brother. That's what I meant."

  "Sure." Slowly, one by one, thoughts sifted back into Nate's mind. They weren't quite the same thoughts he'd had before. They didn't fall into quite the same shapes. "That kind of—feeling—is different, though. Between brothers, I mean. I mean, I care, too. But that isn't what it's like between a man and a woman."

  Mark apparently recovered faster than Nate, because he sounded amused. "I sure as hell hope not. But maybe it's not completely different. Maybe you've got the wrong idea about what love means."

  Slowly, Nate reached over and opened the door. The thoughts taking shape in his mind were beginning to make sense. "Maybe I do," he said. "Come on. Let's get in the house."

  He needed to find Hannah. Quick. He had a feeling she could help him understand.

  * * *

  Chapter 17

  «^»

  The portion of the storm over the ranch might have slackened, but the part of it that squatted down over Bitter Creek was still going all out. The windshield wipers on the little Bronco barely kept the windshield clear enough for Hannah to see the stop sign her headlights picked out straight ahead.

  Good, she thought. She could stall the blasted vehicle out again when she downshifted.

  The barrel of the gun pressed against her was warm now. It had been icy cold when Jenny climbed in the back seat back at Nate's house and pushed it against Hannah's neck. "Keep it running this time," Jenny said.

  "I'll try, but I told you, I'm not used to driving a standard." Delay. It was the only weapon Hannah had. Nate's ex-wife might be nuts, she might be shaking with cold and whatever brand of mental breakdown she was having, but she wasn't stupid. She'd kept that shiny gun trained on Hannah constantly.

  They were in Jenny's brother's vehicle. She'd borrowed it without his knowledge, along with his gun, which she'd used to force Hannah to drive into town. Hannah had stalled the Bronco three times getting it backed out, but Jenny had gotten dangerously close to hysteria, so she'd had to quit pretending she couldn't use the clutch at all. She'd driven as slowly as she'd dared, praying to see a cop car or at least a passing motorist.

  The only vehicle they'd passed had been Susie's Cadillac, heading the other way.

  Nate would look for her. Hannah knew that, clung to it. She'd dropped those keys on the sidewalk so he would know something was wrong—if he found them. No, when he found them. He would come looking for her. But he wouldn't know where to look unless someone saw them creeping along the rain-washed road in the Bronco. It might be up to her to rescue herself, since, unfortunately, the storm seemed to be keeping everyone inside.

  Everyone but maniacs. "Do it right this time." Jenny's voice was hoarse.

  "I'll do my best." She downshifted, clutching awkwardly enough to make the car buck a bit. The gun dug into her neck. Her stomach lurched sickeningly.

  "Don't!" Jenny's voice was shrill. "No more tricks."

  Hannah breathed in, slowly, carefully, hanging onto her control. Control was the one thing she had that Jenny lacked. "Sure," she said, clutching more smoothly as she braked. "There. That was better, wasn't it?"

  "Keep going."

  "Just give me a minute. I don't want to do this wrong." Hannah eased away from the stop sign as slowly as any little old lady. "I really think you should move that gun back from my neck a little. If it were to go off accidentally—"

  "You'd be dead." She actually giggled. "That isn't a problem for me."

  Hannah licked her lips. "But you'd have trouble explaining all the blood in here, wouldn't you? Isn't that why you're taking me … wherever it is you're taking me?" She wasn't sure where they were now, but they seemed to have skirted the edge of town. House lights shone dimly through the downpour along the right side of the road. On the other side—nothing. "You don't want to have a lot of explaining to do."

  "I'll think of something if I have to. I'm good at that. Besides, Nate would never let me be arrested."

  Hannah had already discovered that when Jenny grew fearful she invoked her "soul mate." She tried another approach. "Have you ever seen someone who's been shot, Jenny?"

  "I'm not squeamish." But she sounded less certain.

  "I've worked in hospitals." Nowhere near the emerge
ncy room, but never mind that for now. "A bullet makes a real mess. Do you know what brains look like?"

  "I'm pointing this at your neck, not your head." But the gun didn't press against Hannah's neck quite so firmly.

  "But it's a pretty big gun. I'll bet the bullet would go right through my spinal cord. Then my brains would leak out—along with all that blood. There would be a lot of blood."

  "Brains don't … leak."

  "They do if you sever the spinal cord. It's all attached, you know." Desperation lent a real flourish to Hannah's creative version of human anatomy. "And then there's the spinal fluid, which gets mixed in with the brains. It's yellow, kind of a mustardy color, and it's runny, and it smells—"

  "Stop it. Stop talking. Pull over right here. This is far enough."

  Hannah swallowed and slowed the car. "We're apt to get stuck if I pull off the road."

  "Just stop, then." Jenny's voice rose. "I can't think of everything. There's so much to keep track of—I can't figure out everything. Just stop."

  The Bronco's headlights picked out something Hannah recognized at last, on the right side of the road—a pair of wagon wheels embedded in the ground, standing upright on either side of a dirt driveway. Good God, she thought. They were on Canyon Road

  . Right there, by that wagon wheel, Mario and his friends had surrounded her. And off to the left, where Jenny wanted her to pull over, was the arroyo with the dry creek bed that gave Bitter Creek its name.

  Dry … except when it rained.

  This wasn't exactly her lucky spot, was it?

  "I said to stop." The gun dug into her neck again, hard. "It doesn't matter what color your spinal fluid is in the dark, does it?"

  Hannah swallowed and did as she was told. Her mouth was dry. Her stomach was churning. Fear was a monstrous presence inside her, roiling her gut, making her hands shake. But I'm in control, she told herself. She could wait for her chance. Hadn't she always said that she could be patient when she had to be?

  But she would rather have had the gun.

  "Get out," Jenny said. "Slowly. Take the flashlight with you. I'll be right behind you."

  Hannah prayed for just one second's inattention on Jenny's part when she could grapple for the gun, slam the car door, hit her with the flashlight. She burned to do something. But that shiny gun barrel followed her unwaveringly as she stepped out into the cold, soaking rain. She turned to watch Jenny climb out of the two-door vehicle, holding the gun aimed with both hands. It should have been an awkward maneuver. Damn the woman for being so coordinated.

  "Turn on the flashlight." Jenny smiled. "We're going for a little walk."

  * * *

  "I told you," Nate said, his knuckles white where he gripped the phone. "She couldn't have left on her own. The car is here. The truck is here. And I found the keys on the sidewalk. She just dropped them there, in the rain." He paused while the sheriff asked another question. "No, nothing seems to be missing." Except Hannah. Everything in the house was just as it should be, only Hannah was gone. And she'd dropped those keys.

  Nate had been scared when he didn't find her in the house, but he hadn't really panicked until he found the keys. Hannah was a woman who paid attention to what she was doing. She was a practical woman. She didn't drop keys and leave them out in the rain.

  "All right," he said heavily. His hand shook slightly as he hung up.

  "He's going to look, isn't he?" Mark demanded. "He'll get his deputies out looking for her?"

  "He's telling his people to watch for her, but he doesn't know where to look." No more than Nate did.

  "It's my fault. If I hadn't helped her get away—"

  "It's the fault of whatever bastard has her." Nate felt very close to violence.

  When he thought about what someone might be doing to Hannah, he felt ready to explode. But he had no target for the rage swirling in him. It was useless to him, and it would make him useless if he gave in to it. "I was sure it was Bustamante who was out to get me. I thought he was the one who shot Trixie. But if he's in the hospital, he can't be behind—"

  The phone rang. Nate grabbed it. "Yes?"

  "Mr. Jones. This is Sammie."

  Sammie, the strange one. The one who liked to light fires. The one who had probably beaten Mario badly enough to put him in the hospital. Nate's voice was very low when he answered. "Yes?"

  "I thought you should know. It didn't seem right, so I thought I should tell you. I found your name in the phone book."

  Nate forced patience on himself with the brutal control he'd learned six years ago. "What isn't right, Sammie?"

  "That other woman—the one with the shiny hair who was at the drugstore that day—she didn't like Hannah. I could tell. I do, though. Hannah helped me. I told her I would remember."

  "Yes." Nate's muscles were rigid. His throat was so tight he could barely get the words out. "I'm glad you called me, Sammie. Do you know where Hannah is? Because she needs some help now. She needs you to help her, like she helped you."

  "She's with that other woman. I like Hannah. She shouldn't be out in the rain like this."

  With "that other woman"? With Jenny? Nate was suddenly sick. "Where? Where are they?"

  "Right across from my house. I was watching the storm, and I saw them. They went down in the big ravine, Mr. Jones. That's not right. When it rains, that ravine isn't safe."

  Fifty seconds later, Mark was on the phone, and Nate was turning the key on Susie's Cadillac.

  * * *

  Hannah could not believe how surefooted the madwoman behind her was. She herself had slid, slipped and twice she'd nearly fallen as they made their way slowly along the steep, muddy sides of the arroyo. The route had been roughly diagonal, as if Jenny were looking for something.

  Hannah's awkwardness hadn't been entirely faked in order to slow them down, either—but some of it was. She let her foot slide out from under her, grabbing for the scrubby bush beside her, but missing. She wound up on her hands and knees in the mud.

  Right where she wanted to be. The slope wasn't too steep here. If she could distract Jenny for just a minute…

  "You clumsy cow!" Jenny said behind her. "Get up."

  "I think I twisted my ankle." Hannah gathered her feet under her as if she were trying to stand, then she fell over. Now she was partially facing Jenny for the first time since they started down the ravine, and what she saw scared her. The woman's face was white, her eyes huge. She was drenched and freezing. Long shudders ran through her body every so often.

  She didn't seem to notice. "Get up," she said, "or I'll shoot you here."

  "I can't." She tightened her grip on the flashlight and collected herself. Her heart pounded fiercely.

  Jenny's lips moved. She might have been muttering to herself. She might have been praying. She raised the gun, her eyes narrowing as she sighted on Hannah's head, her arms shaking as she extended them in the approved two-handed grip.

  Hannah hurled the flashlight at the gun and flung herself to one side. The crack of the gun going off was louder than any thunder and she almost wet her pants, but she was unhurt. And then she was moving, pushing to her feet—

  Jenny's shouted command to stop came a split second before the second gunshot. Hannah froze, her muscles quivering. Damn, she'd missed. Her chance had come and she'd missed and now the madwoman was going to shoot her.

  "Looks like you can walk, after all," Jenny said cheerfully. "I think I'll keep the flashlight from now on."

  Apparently shooting at people brightened her mood. Hannah straightened.

  "Start walking. We don't have far to go now. Lovers' Leap isn't far."

  Lovers' Leap? That didn't sound good at all.

  It didn't look good, either, when Hannah stumbled to a halt three feet from the place where the ground stopped. From below, far below, she heard water rushing along, invisible in the darkness. From behind, she heard that horribly cheerful voice. "Just keep going."

  "You've got to be—" Hannah swallowed. Telling Je
nny she was crazy was probably not a good idea. But she was running out of ideas—good, bad or indifferent. She turned around slowly. "No."

  "It's best if you jump. They'll think you did it because Nate was going to leave you for me, now that I'm back. Go on." Jenny gestured with the gun. "Maybe you'll just break a leg or something. Wouldn't you rather take that chance than have me shoot you?"

  The fact that Jenny wanted her to step out over nothing was reason enough for Hannah to stay where she was. Maybe Jenny was a really bad shot. Maybe if she rushed Jenny she could cover the feet between them before a bullet—

  "Put the gun up, ma'am," said another voice from somewhere off to the left in the darkness. "Put it up, and no one has to get hurt."

  "Who's there?" Jenny cried. A long tremor shook her and her gun hand trembled badly. Hannah took a quick step toward her. "Back!" she shrieked. "I'll shoot, I will. Both of you stay back. No, wait. I want to see you, whoever you are. Come out where I can see you, or I'll shoot her!"

  The gun was pointed at Hannah's head again.

  The next voice came from off to the right. "You don't want to do that, Jenny."

  Nate! Gladness rushed through Hannah.

  "Nate?" Jenny said, her voice high and wobbly.

  * * *

  Nate had never been so scared in his life. The fear was a stomach-clenching monster nipping at him with cold, cold teeth. He'd run into one of Thompson's deputies at the top of the arroyo when he'd screeched to a halt up there, after doing ninety and better all the way into town. The deputy had told him where Thompson was, so Nate had been trying to work his way down from the other direction, hoping to flak the crazy woman who was holding Hannah at gunpoint.

  Nate tilted his flashlight up so his ex-wife could see his face. "Sure, Jenny, it's me. See?"

  "Nate." She sounded querulous, uncertain. "You aren't supposed to be here. You aren't supposed to—to see."