Clint pulled her up and started toward the barn, calling back over his shoulder, “We’ll be in the barn. We have to talk. Alone.”
The two guards looked at each other, then nodded agreement.
The air smelled of old hay, rusty tools, and mildew, but the privacy was worth it. Sherry turned to Clint, clutching his arms, her eyes desperate and determined. “Clint, I’ve been thinking. I could get Madeline to help. She could say we were in the house or something, and we could slip out the window and take the camper. If we could get to the airport, I have my credit cards and we could get airline tickets. We’d be long gone before any of them caught up to us.”
Clint shook his head slowly, and his hands came up to cup her elbows. “Baby, those people out there are not the bad guys. They’re protecting us.”
“Just long enough to get what they want out of you!” she argued. “Then they’ll leave you at the mercy of anyone who wants you.”
“It won’t happen that way.”
“How do you know? Can you give me guarantees?”
“You know I can’t.”
“Then come with me!” she shouted, shaking him. “I can give guarantees! I guarantee that if we leave we won’t have to live like fugitives for the rest of our lives! I guarantee that we won’t have to be afraid of someone trying to kill us in our sleep!”
“We’ll go away after I testify, if you want. But not now. Not before.”
Sherry hugged herself and tucked her chin into her chest, trying desperately not to fall apart. “Clint, I’m begging you,” she whispered, though she knew it was futile. “Please.”
The word was issued on a choking sob, and her face was crimson with the force of her plea. Clint stepped toward her and took her in his arms, letting her cry against him like an orphaned child facing the destruction of the world.
And as he had several times over the last twenty-four hours, he wondered if he was, indeed, doing the right thing.
Madeline and Sam stepped over branches and pushed aside bush limbs as they attempted a stroll on the wooded bluff surrounding the camp. Madeline held a twig whose leaves she kept pulling off, letting them flutter to the ground. When Clint and Sherry had disappeared into the barn, Sam had seemed willing to let it go at that, and he had brought her up here “to see what she was made of.” Smiling to herself, she reflected how she had passed his “endurance test,” if liking the woods was the criterion. “Maybe I’ll come back here with my sketchbook when all this is over,” she said. “Want to come?”
Sam chuckled and ducked under the limb of a young loblolly pine. “There are other places I’d rather go.”
“Like where?” she asked.
“Anywhere but here, or the other place we’ve been hiding. Home has a nice ring to it.” He turned back to her, leaning on the limb that reached between them. Laughter and deep thought fanned out from his eyes.
“Where is home for you?”
“Nowhere, really. When you haven’t seen your apartment in months it’s a little hard to call it home.” As if to change the subject, he looked back toward the camp. “Look at this,” he said, his voice lowering to the pitch of a sigh. “We’re up so high you can see the whole spread from here.”
“If you wanted to, I guess,” she said with a shrug. She dropped her bare twig and turned around, waving her hands in an all-encompassing gesture. “The beauty’s behind us, though.” She pointed to a platform up in a tree. “Is that where they sit when they deer hunt?” She turned back to Sam and saw his pensive gaze on her rather than the deer stand.
“Yeah,” Sam said. “Want to go up?”
Madeline bit her smile. “Are you sure it can hold us?” Ducking back under his branch, Sam gave a soft laugh and took her hand, gesturing with the other. “Only one way to find out.”
Never one to turn down a challenge, Madeline started up the ladder, careful not to strain her sore knee. The platform was much stronger than it looked, and she pulled onto it and waited for Sam.
With feline agility, Sam climbed up beside her. In the sunlight, reaching in finger-like rays through the trees, she saw for the first time how tanned he was. His brown hair was brushed with streaks of blond that spoke of much time outdoors.
“So what do you think?” he asked, sitting down next to her. Their arms brushed. Their faces were inches apart, and his breath smelled faintly of coffee, and a warm scent that she had come to know as uniquely his own.
“About what?” His eyes seemed to grow darker the closer they moved to her.
“About the stand. Do you like it?”
She drew in a shallow breath and looked around her. The pine trees created a shelter overhead, a giant, green rooftop that cooled the sun’s rays. Beneath them, blueberry bushes shared earth with dogwood, and younger pines rustled among them. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered. “Just beautiful.”
Sam nodded agreement, but his soft gaze told her his opinion that the area’s beauty was trapped elsewhere. “I like a woman who knows the value of a place like this.”
Madeline wet her lips. “I like a man who likes a woman who knows the value …” Her voice trailed off as he wet his own lips and moved slowly closer.
Their eyes embraced for a moment, and she held her breath. He was going to kiss her, and every fiber within her stood at red alert. Her heart did a drumroll, and her stomach did a triple flip.
But he stopped before their lips met. “Did Sherry tell you about our run-in last night?” he asked, almost as if it had some bearing on his intention to kiss her.
She shook her head. “What happened?”
“She thinks I’m a prison warden, and I think she’s ungrateful. We were in strong agreement, however, about our mutual dislike of each other. I was sure she’d try to make you see what a miserable jerk I am.”
Madeline narrowed her eyes and wondered why Sherry hadn’t mentioned it. Probably because it wouldn’t have mattered, she mused. Madeline was never easily swayed once she made up her mind about people. “She didn’t mention it. Just that you’re a cop and you’re in as much danger as Clint.”
A look close to surprise skittered across his eyes, then settled into relief. He pulled back a fraction to look at her. “Doesn’t that make you afraid to be around me?” he asked lightly.
Madeline frowned. It was another test, she thought. It was almost as if he was searching for a reason for her not to get involved with him. And somehow, it mattered to her that she pass this one, too. “Heck no,” she said. “If there’s going to be any danger, what better person could I be with than a cop? Not that I believe you could hurt a fly.”
The flicker of a shadow fell over his expression. Suddenly, he withdrew, and she knew she had said the wrong thing. “Let’s get down,” he said, his tone reticent. “I need to get back.”
The abruptness of his letting the magic drop surprised her, and made her the slightest bit angry. “Well, could you?”
Sam turned around to her at the ladder, his eyes hooded. “What? Hurt a fly? I’ve never had one pull a gun on me. I don’t know.” He expelled a quick breath and started down. “How did we get on this subject, anyway?”
Confused, Madeline gave a dejected shrug and followed him down. He seemed struck with something that drove him some mental distance away, and her brief surge of anger dwindled. When she was back on the ground again, she touched his arm. “You know, I didn’t mean to—”
“Shhh,” Sam’s hand came up to silence her, and his brows knitted in an apprehensive frown. “Listen.”
She did, but she didn’t hear anything.
Sam took a few steps to the edge of the bluff and looked out over the barn. The two guards were playing cards on a broken stump, and nothing looked out of the ordinary.
Madeline gasped when he drew his gun.
“Go back to the camp,” he whispered. “Now. Hurry!”
“But what’s—”
“Do what I say!” he whispered again.
Madeline started back, looking over her shoulder
every few steps to see what Sam was up to. She saw him take off on feet trained to be quiet around the bluff to the clearing behind the barn where Clint and Sherry still were.
And then she saw what had changed his mood. A man sat in a grove of bushes, arm cocked back to throw something at the barn. She opened her mouth to scream, but she heard Sam’s voice shout, “FREEZE!” and then a gunshot.
And in the wake of the worst sound she’d ever heard in her life came an even worse one. The sound of an explosion.
Chapter Seventeen
A sound like the end of the world exploded in Sherry’s ears, and she screamed. The acrid smell of smoke wafted on the air from some source outside the barn, but Clint still stood before her, his hands trembling as he grabbed her against him in a gesture that spoke of terror and fierce protection. Quickly, he cracked the door open and looked out. Satisfied that no one waited in ambush, he pulled her out behind him.
The patch of grass where they had sat together just moments ago was now a smoking black spot—a scalded landmark reminding them that they waited in the shadow of death. The guards were gathered on the bluff overlooking the barn, squatting over something on the ground.
Sherry saw Madeline running toward the house, arms wrapped around her waist, a look of stifled horror on her face. “Madeline!” she called, but her friend didn’t answer. “Madeline! What happened?”
Madeline stopped, but didn’t turn to Sherry. “Sam … shot …” The words were barely audible, and Clint didn’t wait to hear the rest. Vaulting toward the bluff, he pulled Sherry behind him.
“It’s Sam,” he rasped in a panicky voice as they ran. “Sam was shot!”
But before the words could sink in, a shaky, familiar voice reached their ears singing “Let It Be.”
Clint stopped running when he saw Sam standing on the outskirts of the group of men, his face as white as a colorless sky. His hands were shaking as they raked through his hair, but he managed a smile.
“You almost bought the farm, buddy,” Sam said.
“Looks like you came close yourself. What happened?” Sam indicated the man on the ground. “Had a grenade with your name on it. I just diverted his aim a little.”
“You shot him?” Sherry’s question was hoarse and disbelieving.
Sam assessed her for a moment, his self-deprecating expression silencing her. “Yeah, I shot him,” he bit out. “If I hadn’t, you wouldn’t be here to pass judgment.”
Sherry bit back her retort. All she knew was that a man was lying on the ground, probably dead, and Gary Rivers was searching his wallet, without much surprise or concern. She forced herself to look at the face, then gasped in surprise. He was young, probably a teenager, nineteen at the most, and he looked innocent and mischievous and a lot like someone she knew but couldn’t place. Tears sprang to her eyes and choked her, and she looked away. “He’s so young,” she whispered. “Couldn’t you have—?”
Sam leaned toward her, his eyes pinning hers. “He was about to throw a grenade at the barn. What do you think I should have done differently? Talked it out? Fired a warning shot? Run? I did what the situation called for. I did my job.”
“But he’s just a kid.” She knew it wasn’t Sam’s fault, and that she owed him her life. But the knowledge didn’t make reality any easier to bear.
Gary looked up from the body, his face whiter than Sherry had ever seen it. He flashed the man’s driver’s license at Clint. “Name’s Calloway,” he said. “Mark Calloway. Did Paul have a brother?”
Clint shook his head. “I don’t know. He never said.”
“He did,” Sherry said. “He mentioned him to me once.”
Gary stood up and handed the wallet to another officer, then looked down at the body, as if he, too, were struck with the youth of the young man.
“He must have come to get revenge for his brother’s death,” Clint said.
Gary nodded his head slowly. “And failed.”
“But how did he find us here?” Sherry looked up at him as the reality of his threat dawned on her.
“Good question,” Sam said. “Someone had to tell him. And if he knew, then someone else must too.”
“Are you sure he was alone?” Clint’s words shot through her like missiles.
“Some of the men are still combing the woods,” Gary said. “If there’s anyone else out there, they won’t get away.”
Sherry felt a sudden surge of nausea, and she leaned into Clint, whose arms tightened around her. “Then we have to leave again?” His voice held dread couched in acceptance.
“No choice.” Sam patted Clint’s shoulder. “The only problem is how to get out of here without being followed. But time is crucial. If we can just keep you out of trouble for the next couple of days, we’ll be home free.”
Sherry stiffened. Clint was determined to go to trial. And she was still just as determined to keep him from it. Even more so now. “I assume you’ll be letting my father know of this latest development. Am I right?”
“Of course,” Rivers said. “He has to be kept abreast of—”
“Then I want to speak to him.” The words grated out through clenched teeth. “You take me with you when you call and you let me speak to him.”
“Sherry.” Clint’s voice was admonishingly low, and it infuriated Sherry even more. “It won’t change anything—”
Her hands were shaking, and her legs barely supported her. “It might! If he knew how we felt about all this—”
“We don’t feel that way,” Clint insisted gently. “You feel that it’s a mistake, and I don’t. I’m going through with what I started. It’s the right thing.”
“The right thing? Being killed for the sake of one man? Is that the right thing, Clint?”
Until he reached up to wipe back her tears, she hadn’t known she was crying. “Just stand behind me,” he whispered. “That’s all I ask.”
“For what?” she spat out. “So that I can catch you when you’re full of bullet holes? So I can see that you have a proper burial? Get Sam to stand behind you! He seems to believe in this lunacy.”
She threw a haughty glance toward Sam, almost expecting a saucy retort, but he didn’t seem to hear. His eyes were trained on the camp, on the porch of the rickety old house, to the woman sitting on the steps with fear and denial in her face.
“I need you.” Clint’s words came as a shaky plea.
“Why, Clint?” She jerked away from him. “Have you become numb to the excitement, the adventure, after all these months? Do you need one more element of danger to keep the suspense going?”
“Sherry, don’t. You don’t mean any of this.”
“Oh, I mean it,” she cried, looking back at Sam. He wasn’t singing anymore, and his face was momentarily unguarded. For a moment, she felt sorry for him. She felt sorry for all of them. She wanted to scream, she wanted to collapse in a heap of tears, she wanted to run as far as her feet would carry her, she wanted to fling herself against Clint and hold him as if it might be their last day together. But all she managed to do was start walking down the bluff, toward the friend who seemed to need help in dealing with what she had just witnessed, and away from the man who needed more help in dealing with what he had witnessed months ago.
When she reached the porch, she leaned against a rotting column and looked down at Madeline. If Madeline would only cry, she thought, she would know what to do for her.
It was only this stony facade that she didn’t know how to handle. Did she want to be left alone, or did she desperately need her company? “You all right?” she whispered.
Madeline nodded.
“We’ll be leaving now,” Sherry told her, wiping a shaky finger under her eyes. “Seems like there’s no place safe to hide, though.”
“Who … who was it?”
“Paul Calloway’s brother. He was about to throw a grenade on the barn while Clint and I were inside.”
Madeline nodded quickly and swallowed. “I saw,” she said. “He had reared back to thro
w it, and Sam said, ‘Freeze.’And then there was the shot. So loud that it seemed to go right through me. And for a minute I thought Sam was hit. And then the explosion, and the fire, and I didn’t know if he’d gotten you and Clint or not.”
“We’re fine. Everyone’s fine.”
Madeline drew a deep, quivery breath. “Why does everyone have to be a hero?”
Sherry couldn’t answer. Instead she turned away and looked back toward the bluff.
Chapter Eighteen
Although she knew the possibility existed that they could be blown away in ten seconds flat if the right person managed to follow them in their unmarked, bulletproof station wagons to the waiting plane, Sherry was numb to the fear. Clint’s silence and his pensive perusal of the trees whisking by on the edge of the narrow road made her want to scream. Gary Rivers, who drove the car, was equally quiet, and Madeline hadn’t quite pulled out of her depression yet. Sam wasn’t even singing, she realized, and for the first time, she wished he would. Instead, he watched the windows, as if he expected a passing car to open fire on them all.
They hadn’t been driving long when Gary pulled into a rest stop to call Sherry’s father. “Come on, Sherry,” he said when he climbed out of the car.
Clint’s hand clamped over her wrist. “She’s not going anywhere with you, Rivers.”
“She said she wanted to talk to her father,” Gary said.
Clint turned to her. “I don’t want you to go. It’s too dangerous.”
“I’m a cop, remember?” Gary’s reminder was directed toward Sherry.
Clint’s hold on Sherry’s hand tightened.
“Let me go, Clint,” she said softly. “I want to talk to my father. It’ll be okay. Gary won’t let anything happen to me.”
Clint’s eyes narrowed. “You trust him more than you trust me?”
“It’s not a matter of trusting one of you over the other,” she said. “I just want to talk to my father.”
Clint relaxed his grip, and she got out of the car.
Sherry could feel Clint’s eyes on her as they walked toward the small building. She shrugged off Gary’s attempt to set his arm on her shoulders.