“Clint!” Her voice was becoming raspier as the fear in his eyes more closely mirrored hers.
Roughly, he grabbed the phone, punched out a number, waited long enough for an answer, then entered another group of digits.
“Clint, the mystery ends right now,” Sherry said in a tremulous voice. “Tell me what they meant by ‘revenge.’”
Clint slammed the phone down. “They meant that you’re in danger, Sherry,” he bit out, his eyes turning darker. “They’re after you too.”
“But I didn’t do anything!”
“You’re someone I care about,” he explained in a vicious whisper. “They’ll use you to get to me.”
“Who will?” she shouted.
“I don’t know!” he yelled back.
Incredulity sprang to Sherry’s eyes. “You don’t know? Well, what do you know? How much trouble are you in, Clint? How badly do they want you?”
Madeline clutched her forehead and stepped between them like a referee in a boxing match. “Wait a minute! This is beginning to sound dangerous!”
Clint swung toward her. “It is dangerous.” He caught a ragged breath and gave a haunted look around the room, as if its very existence threatened them. “You can’t stay here where they can get to you,” he said in a more calculated voice. “You’ll both have to come with me.”
Sherry felt as if the tension in her shock-strained heart would cause it to collapse. “I’m not going anywhere with you!”
“Wait a minute!” Madeline shouted again, stemming Sherry’s hysteria and forcing Clint to look at her directly. “What kind of danger are we talking about here? Getting eggs thrown at our cars, or our house blown up? Is this a matter of inconvenience or life and death?”
“Life and death,” Clint said.
Sherry shook her head, every fiber in her body denying the danger that was becoming apparent to her. “I’m calling the police.”
“No, the phone could be bugged,” Clint said. “Besides, there’s no time.”
“Clint, I am calling the police!” she insisted. She reached for the phone, but he grabbed her wrist and stopped her.
“Go get your things, Sherry,” he said. “We have to go.” His breath was getting heavier, and she felt the slight tremor in his grip.
“No,” she bit out. “Not until I’ve talked to—”
“Do what I say! Now!” Clint grated. “We have to get out of here! I promise you we’ll call the police after we leave here, but right now we’re getting out!”
Sherry jerked her arm away and stepped back, making a valiant attempt to assess this new version of Clint. “And what if I refuse to go?”
“I won’t let you refuse,” he warned, his face reddening as he set his hands on her shoulders. “You have no choice.”
Sherry jutted her chin defiantly, and crossed her arms with a bravado she didn’t feel. “How do I know that you aren’t more dangerous than the person who sent that letter?” “You don’t know,” he whispered harshly. “But I don’t have time to convince you. You’re gonna have to go with your instincts, Sherry, and I know they’re telling you to trust me.”
“That’s not what they’re telling me.”
“Then you’ll have to go with my instincts,” he bit out. “I’m trying to save you, whether you cooperate or not. Madeline, get her things and yours. We might be gone for a while.”
Madeline hesitated. “Like … how long?”
He was growing desperately impatient. “Look. I don’t care whether you even take a toothbrush! You have exactly sixty seconds to grab what you need or we’re going without it. And don’t try to use the phone in the bedroom. I’m telling you that if they find out where I am, we’re all sitting ducks.”
“Who’s they?” Sherry demanded.
“Not now,” he said again.
“This is kidnapping.” She closed her eyes and struggled not to fall apart as Madeline disappeared into the back of the house.
Clint wrapped an arm around her waist and held her more like a lover cherishing his woman than a kidnapper clinging to his hostage. “Sherry, you have to trust me,” he whispered against her ear. “You have to …”
“Let go of me,” she whispered. “I don’t want you touching me. You’re despicable, and dangerous, and—”
“Sherry, I’m not the threat. You don’t understand.” His pleading voice against her ear almost made her want to understand, almost made her trust him, almost made her unafraid.
Until the telephone rang, recreating her hope and shattering it at the same time.
“You can’t answer it,” Clint said, his arm tightening on her. “They could be checking—”
“It’s probably my studio at Promised Land,” Madeline said, rushing back in with two packed duffel bags as the phone continued to ring. “I told Justin to call me if—”
Clint hooked her arm as she reached for the phone, his eyes on the edge of violence. “I said to let it ring,” he whispered slowly. “It’s time to go.” He swallowed and steadied his voice.
“We’re going to go out the same way Sherry and I came in.” He set an arm on each woman’s shoulder in a brotherly gesture that could turn forceful instantly. “Open the door, Sherry. And move fast.”
Sherry obeyed the order and pulled the door open. When they were outside, the three of them running through the backyard like soldiers expecting sniper fire, Sherry felt as if someone else occupied her body while she stood outside it, watching the man she had once loved turn into a quiet lunatic who treated her like an unexpected hostage, for that was exactly what she was.
Sherry tried to make eye contact with the strangers they passed on their way to the parking lot, but each seemed too caught up in his own life’s worries to notice the cry for help in her eyes—a cry for help she was afraid to put voice to for fear that a worse danger awaited her if Clint was right. Clint opened the driver’s door and shoved them in. “Get down on the floor,” he ordered. He slid on his sunglasses and his hard hat. “And stay there no matter what happens.”
“What … what are you expecting to happen?” Madeline asked in a carefully composed voice.
Clint didn’t answer. Sherry hunched against the seat and stared up at the stern, gruff set of Clint’s jaw, the glacial blackness of his eyes, the stiff set of his mouth, as he cranked the engine and set the car into motion. His eyes shifted back and forth from the rearview mirror to the side streets as he drove, as if he expected an attack at any moment. Hard, tense muscles bulged through his clothes, testimony to the newer, more defined strength she had felt when he’d held her. He was a different man, she thought with a shudder. The old Clint had been sensitive, gentle, selfless. There had been no hint that beneath it all were secrets and terror that could make him capable of … Sherry’s heart sank as she imagined the things he could be capable of now.
But when he glanced down at her, hunched next to Madeline on the floorboard, that sharpness in his eyes vanished, and his eyes softened. For a moment a deep sadness surged through her. That glimmer of regret in his eyes cost her her strength and her hatred, and she felt only a deep, yawning void with no hope of being filled, and the fathomless need to see the Clint she loved in that hard, unyielding countenance again.
Clint didn’t look at her again, for the fear and astonishment in her eyes tugged at his heart and distracted him from his purpose. He watched the trees as he whizzed past them, as if they were the enemy waiting for him. But somehow, in light of the things he had said and done to get the two women out of the house, he felt as if he were the enemy—theirs as well as his own.
Madeline’s look of composure and patience disquieted him. Sherry was probably struggling to understand the image of a new, dangerous Clint, but Madeline was more objective. She was turning the few facts she knew over in her mind, trying to concoct an escape plan for the first opportunity that arose, and probably trying to gauge his love for Sherry.
Maybe, he decided with a dismal ache in his soul, it was time to reveal his pistol. Maybe
then they’d both believe him capable of carrying out his threats.
He was sickened by the idea that it had come to this. Sherry was already afraid. The sight of a .357 Magnum would terrify her. When she’d known him—really known—him he hadn’t even hunted. And now he stalked and hid like a predator, and she would see herself as his game. That almost made him want to turn the gun on himself. He’d rather do that than threaten her with it. Still, the sight of the gun might be threat enough to keep her and Madeline from trying some foolish escape that would get them all killed. What did he have to lose, after all? Her trust? His heart sank lower when he silently admitted that he’d lost that eight months ago.
His hand glided down his leg, and he pulled up his jeans, revealing the leather holster strapped to his leg. His hand closed over the small black gun. Sherry’s heavy release of breath, as if she’d expected as much from him, almost made him leave it where it was. But it was for Madeline that he pulled it out and held it in his lap, aimed at his door. A deathly quiet, broken only by the sound of the engine, fell over them for a moment, but he kept his dull, lackluster eyes on the road.
Madeline wilted and dropped her head into her knees, as if a million plans had just been shelved, but Sherry’s eyes grew colder and more determined not to wilt. “What have you turned into?” she asked beneath the roar of the engine.
Clint didn’t allow himself to meet her eyes. “A survivor,” he answered with metallic certainty. “And I’ve had lots of practice.”
Clint tried to harden himself to the harsh pair of blue eyes boring into him with hatred as emphatic as the love he’d known harbored there. It seemed that time stood still as she made her chilling assessment of him, the fear in her eyes not as great as the despair. But until he had them all within the bounds of safety, he could do nothing to change those opinions.
“Where are you taking us?” Madeline asked wearily, as if she had nothing left to lose.
“We’re meeting a friend who can get us safely out of town,” he said. “I called him from your house and punched out a code on his beeper. He’ll be waiting.”
“Wonderful,” Madeline mumbled. “Another one just like you?”
Clint shrugged. “I ought to warn you, Madeline. Sam’ll see the two of you as just another problem to deal with. If I were you, I’d watch what I said when I met him.”
Sherry’s delicate nostrils flared a degree, and she seemed to sit up straighter in the small space allotted her. “If we’re such a problem, then why didn’t you just leave us?”
Clint turned off of the road and started a bumpy journey beneath a thick ceiling of pines that Sherry could see from the floorboard. “I’ve told you why,” he said.
The Bronco stopped, stemming Sherry’s comment, and Clint said, “You can get up now.”
The scent of honeysuckle and magnolia blossoms filled the air, and the soft, comforting sound of rustling summer leaves and flitting birds played on her senses, calming her heart. Sherry inched up and saw that they had parked in a small clearing surrounded by walls of sweet gums and blossoming dogwood and a forest of towering pine trees. A navy blue van waited opposite them, and the brown-haired man Sherry had seen glimpses of for the past day and a half leaned idly beside it.
“Aw, man!” Sam blurted when he saw the two passengers. “Does this look like some kind of party to you? Nobody told you to bring guests.”
Clint got out of the Bronco and leaned back wearily against it. “I had no choice.”
“Like you had no choice but to leave her office when I told you to stay put?” Sam flared. “Like you had no choice but to play sitting duck without any safeguards at all while I was losing that guy? You pull that again, pal, and I may not show up to bail you out.”
Clint frowned, ignoring the threat. “There was a letter in their mailbox. Cut-out letters that said, ‘Revenge is sweet and falls on those we love.’”
“Terrific,” the man muttered without surprise. Gray eyes focused disgustedly on a tree-mottled sky. “Not only do we have to pull a vanishing act in broad daylight, trying to keep ourselves intact, but we also have to worry about keeping them in one piece too. And they don’t exactly look like willing participants. I told you it was a mistake to come back when you did. But what do I know, right?”
As if the man’s ramblings were nothing new and therefore not worth acknowledging, Clint opened the van doors and looked inside, then dropped his head in a fatigued slump. “You could have at least gotten something with seats,” he said. “It might be a long ride.”
Sam made an up-and-down assessment of Sherry, then Madeline, his cool eyes telling them they were a burden that he did not welcome. “Who knew we’d have company? They can sit on the floor,” he said.
Sherry opened her mouth to lash out, but Madeline beat her to it. “Look, Mister Whoever-you-are. This is no picnic for us, either. If you don’t want any crashers in this little game of yours then just leave us and we’ll walk home.”
Sam uttered a low, dry laugh. “Lady, it sounds awfully tempting. But I’m not in the business of throwing pretty little appetizers to the wolves. It’s my experience that it only makes them hungrier for what they’re really after.”
Clint clutched the roof of the van with both hands and glanced over his shoulder. “Come on. Get in.”
Sherry planted her feet and refused to move, and Madeline did the same.
Sam stepped toward them, silver eyes conveying his impatience. “The man said to get in.”
Still, Sherry didn’t budge. Sam started toward her to meet the silent challenge in her eyes, but Clint stopped him. “I’ll handle her.” He looked at her for a moment, then scooped her up.
“Get your hands off me!” she railed, struggling to beat her way free of him. And Clint acquiesced, depositing her onto the bare metal floor of the van.
With a slight grin, Sam stepped toward Madeline, but her gritting, “Don’t you dare touch me,” warned him off, and she climbed into the vehicle of her own volition.
“You won’t get away with this!” Sherry sputtered as they slammed them in and climbed into the front. “My father will have the entire police force looking for us before it even gets dark.” The words were empty, she thought. He wasn’t likely to realize she was gone at least until tomorrow. But the two men abducting them didn’t know that.
“Yeah, yeah,” Sam said, as if he’d heard it all before. Then he cranked up the van and started toward the highway.
Through eyes misty with fury and betrayal, Sherry watched Clint settle onto the floor where the passenger seat should have been and lean back against the door of the van, covering his face with a hand. The new lifestyle didn’t come easily to him, she thought. There was at least some degree of suffering that went with it. She watched his chest heave, as if the weight of breath was too heavy. He leaned forward, hiked up the jeans on his right leg, and returned the gun to its holster.
Closing her eyes, Sherry fought the tears that would reveal her shock, her fear, and her rage. It was best to retain a neutral expression at times like these, she told herself, even if everyone knew she was faking.
Forcing her eyes to the world whizzing by outside the van, she wondered in anguish where the road had turned. What had happened to transform the man she would have spent the rest of her life with—the generous, kind, sharing man she had been head over heels in love with?
A fleeting memory came back to her of her last Christmas with Clint, when he had taken gifts at his own expense to the patients in the children’s ward of the hospital. He’d told her that night of the younger brother he’d had who had died after a long hospitalized illness, and the way he had never been able to forget the loneliness and boredom that had laced those last few months for the little boy. He’d never gotten over the need to find that younger brother in someone and offer the comfort and sunshine his own brother hadn’t been able to accept. So he tried to brighten the lives of the children confined during the holidays, as he brightened the daily lives of the youth who d
epended on him. She wondered now if he had remembered that ritual last Christmas-the one she’d suffered through alone—or if he’d been too caught up in his new troubles to think of anyone but himself. Was that man still there beneath the harsh, cold shell of the criminal with the gun strapped to his leg and the eight months of mystery in his eyes? Or was this all that remained?
Madeline nudged her out of her miserable reverie, and gestured toward Clint with a nod of her head. “What did he do? Why are we running?” she asked in the quietest whisper.
Sherry gave a helpless shrug. “I wish I knew,” she sighed.
“If we just knew what we were up against …” Madeline’s words trailed off as Clint opened his eyes. He stared at Sherry for a moment. Then he moved toward them, and sat before Sherry with his hands clasped between his bent knees.
“Sherry, I know you’re afraid,” he said in a soft voice that was barely audible over the road noise. “I’m afraid, too. But I want you to trust me.”
“Famous last words,” Sherry muttered. “Kidnapping me or my roommate is not the best way to win my trust, Clint.” Clint frowned. “Sherry, whether you can believe it or not, I’m doing this because I love you.”
Something in his eyes when he uttered the words tugged at Sherry’s heart, silencing her comeback, but Madeline was unaffected. “Give me a break,” she moaned.
“Just tell me what you did, Clint.” Sherry pleaded. “Make me understand what’s going on here to make you kidnap us.”
Clint kneaded his eyes, leaving them red. “Not yet. There’s no telling what could happen before we get out of town. It’s best if you don’t know.”
Sherry closed her eyes.
“Trust him,” Madeline said sarcastically.
“The bottom line,” Clint said in a bolder voice, “is that you have to trust me. Both of you. You just don’t have a choice. At this point there is nothing else you can do for yourselves.” Then, as if there was no point in continuing the conversation, he turned away and went back to the door.
“There’s something we can do for ourselves, all right,” Sherry whispered to Madeline when he was out of earshot. “And we’re going to do it as soon as this van stops.”