Second Chance - 03 - Blind Trust

  The door opened, and Clint and Sam came back in. “Okay, let’s go. Madeline, can you walk okay?”

  “Do I have a choice?” Madeline asked as she got up.

  Erin winced as Madeline did. “Sam, isn’t there something you can do for her?”

  “I’ll try to get her some ice,” he said. “But we don’t have a lot of time to kill.”

  “Wait.” Erin reached for a flight bag tucked under one of the seats and withdrew a bottle of Tylenol. “It’s not much, but it’ll help some.” She handed it to Madeline.

  Madeline took it suspiciously. “Thanks.”

  “Try to keep it propped up if you can.”

  Madeline gave a perplexed glance back at Sherry, but Sherry shot her a don’t-trust-any-of-them look.

  They all filed off, and Sherry saw the truck and camper parked beside the airstrip, waiting for them. Clint took Sherry to the back of the camper, opened it, and told her to get in. She complied. He locked her in, but she went to the window and watched out as he and Sam made Madeline get in the pickup. Then Clint and Sam stepped aside, talking quietly for a moment.

  Seizing the opportunity, she turned around and took a quick inventory of the “luxuries” in the camper. A sink, a small refrigerator, a cabinet. Attached to the wall was a small bed, and above her head was another fold-out bed. Across from the bed was a narrow closet. She opened it and found it empty. She opened the cabinet below the sink and found several cans of food, a loaf of bread, some peanut butter. A light dawned in her mind, and she pulled open the drawer. Among the forks, spoons, butter knives, and can opener lay a paring knife. Quickly, Sherry grabbed it and, following Clint’s example, tucked it under her sock against her leg.

  A shudder coursed through her at the thought of using it, and she sank onto the bed again. If it came down to it, would she be able to hurt Clint to get away from him? She leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. She wanted to think she could, but for the life of her, she wasn’t sure.

  The door of the camper swung open, and she looked up to find Clint hunched in the doorway.

  “Wh-where’s Madeline?” she asked when he closed the door behind him.

  “She’s riding in front.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I wanted to ride with you.”

  “That isn’t necessary.”

  “Isn’t it? Isn’t it absolutely necessary to stop you from killing yourself trying to keep me from saving you?”

  “Nobody asked for your protection, Superman.”

  Clint stepped further into the camper and reached into the refrigerator for a canned Coke. “You sound pretty sure of yourself for someone who’s never taken a chance in her life until today.”

  Sherry lifted her chin at the barb. “I took a chance when I got tangled up with you.”

  “I don’t recall that you had any reservations at all.” Clint set one of the drinks on the table in front of her, then popped the top of his own and took a long drink.

  Sherry shrugged and looked out the window as the camper started to move. “Who knew what you were underneath? Who had any idea?”

  “And maybe I was wrong about you all this time,” he said. “Maybe that heart I kept remembering was nothing but ice and bitterness. Maybe all that ‘for the rest of our lives’stuff was just a line to get what you wanted at the time.”

  Some emotion seemed to show in her eyes, but instead of making them softer, it made them harder. “Maybe so,” she agreed.

  Clint gave an unconvinced grin. “Maybe you knew all along that you were tangled up with some sort of gangster, and you needed the excitement in your life.” He set down the can, considered it. “There were clues, you know. All those ideas I used to be so engrossed in at church, they weren’t really project plans for the youth group. They were blueprints of banks. You probably thought I didn’t have much money, but the truth is that I have millions stashed away in a Swiss bank account.” He shrugged and looked back at Sherry’s cold eyes. “Remember all those plants I kept in my apartment? They weren’t really plants. They were just clever props where I hid the money. It worked out real well for a while, and I only had to kill a few dozen people. You probably thought I was at home sleeping when I wasn’t with you. In reality, I was flying to distant parts of the globe to launder my money.”

  Sherry bit the inside of her cheek in impatience with his outrageous story and looked out the window.

  “Don’t know why you never suspected anything,” he said, shaking his head with exaggeration. “When criminal behavior is so deeply ingrained in someone, the way it is in me, it’s really hard not to spot. Unless …” His eyes widened in feigned understanding, and Sherry couldn’t help looking at him again. “Unless you’re a female thug yourself!”

  She rolled her eyes and looked out the window again.

  “Of course,” Clint said, clutching his head. “Why didn’t I see it before? You and your brother are in this together! That’s how he made his fortune! He didn’t really get it from his wife. In reality, he probably sells used cars to third world nations! I knew there was something fishy about that guy!”

  “If you think your flip attitude is going to lighten up this miserable situation, Clint, you’re wrong,” Sherry said. “I don’t find anything about this funny. I think you and your stupid tone-deaf friend are disgusting. As far as I’m concerned, I am a hostage, and you are a kidnapper. And when the police find us after I’m reported missing, I’m going to help them put you away for the rest of your life.”

  Clint’s eyes glittered with anger. “I’m not a criminal, Sherry. I’m a victim. And I can’t tell you how good it feels to know the woman I planned to marry has such faith in me.”

  “Faith can die, Clint!” she returned. “And I take full responsibility for winding up where I have in this relationship. I should never have loved you, and I should never have believed in you. Sometimes faith is just a flimsy means of self-betrayal, an excuse for not having to depend on yourself. I learned a valuable lesson when you disappeared, Clint. I learned not to believe in much anymore!”

  Clint’s eyes were anguished as he tilted his head helplessly. “I did that to you?” he asked in a raw voice.

  “I did that to myself,” she said numbly. And then she closed her eyes and banded her arms tighter around her knees, constructing barriers that no one was likely to break down.

  There’s something I should warn you about,” Madeline told Sam as she watched the signs that whizzed past on the highway. She was pretty sure they were going south, but the knowledge did her no good at all. “I have a very low threshold for pain. Any minute now this throbbing in my knee is going to reach the unbearable point, and you’ll hear some moaning like you’ve never heard before.”

  “A low threshold, huh?” Sam asked, raising a brow.

  Madeline nodded. “Well, I could pretend to be brave. But under the circumstances, I don’t see what good it would do me.”

  Sam winked at her. “Don’t worry. If I decide to torture you, I’ll go easy on the knee.”

  “That’s reassuring,” Madeline said. Somehow, the torture threat didn’t pack much weight when it was delivered with a grin that told her Sam would rather tickle her any day. She wondered if her hunch was well-founded.

  His eyes were the color of a winter storm with the first sparkling rays of sunlight warming through, and they made her smile against her will. “Ever had your portrait done?”

  His brown eyebrow cropped further upward with the question. “My portrait? No, why?”

  “Because I’m an artist. An animator, really, but I like to do portraits as a hobby. I’ve never drawn a criminal before.” Sam laughed aloud. “And now that the opportunity seems to have dropped into your lap, you might as well take advantage of it, right?”

  Madeline shrugged and glanced out the window. “Something like that.”

  Sam considered the idea for a moment. “You could do it as a cartoon, since that’s what you’re used to. I’d probably fit tha
t medium best, anyway.”

  The beeper on his belt sounded, and Sam reached down and retrieved it.

  “The little Mrs.?” Madeline inquired.

  “Yeah, sure,” he said. “I told her never to call me when I’m working.” He took the beeper and read the coded message coming across the tiny screen.

  “Aw, no,” he mumbled. “We’ve got to turn around.”

  Madeline sensed the sudden swing in his mood and thought it was best not to go on with the bantering. “Are we going home?”

  He shook his head. “Just someplace different. I’ve got to find a phone.”

  Sherry opened her eyes when she felt the camper stop, and a new wave of apprehension passed over her. “Are we there?” she asked Clint, who was sitting on the narrow counter looking out the window.

  “No,” he said. “I don’t know why Sam stopped.”

  The back door opened, and Sam stuck his head in and gave Clint a quick, whispered explanation.

  “He has to use the telephone,” Clint said when he’d closed the door again. “He got a message on his beeper telling us to turn around.”

  She slid to the edge of the bed, her eyes suddenly more alert. “Are we going home?” she asked, just as Madeline had.

  “I don’t know where we’re going,” he said. “We’ll have to wait until Sam makes the call.”

  “You mean you take orders from someone else?” she asked.

  “Does that surprise you?”

  “It frightens me,” she admitted. “What if this other person doesn’t like the idea of your taking hostages?”

  Clint gave her a wan smile. “I can guarantee you that he won’t.”

  Sherry swallowed hard and struggled with the fear drawing the blood from her face. “He doesn’t even know us. What if he—?”

  “He isn’t going to let anything happen to you,” he assured her. “He’s as worried about your safety as I am.”

  “Well, that isn’t exactly comforting, since you just chased me down in the woods,” she snapped.

  Clint turned back around to face her, his eyes slicing into her. “He has his own methods. I haven’t always agreed with them at first, but he’s been able to convince me so far.”

  Was it another threat? Sherry wondered miserably. Was he telling her that if the order was given, he’d kill her? Or was he saying something entirely different? Closing her eyes again, she tried to deal with the fear threatening to conquer her.

  The door opened again, and Sam leaned inside. “We have to go north. It might be a three-hour drive or more. But we can’t take the plane any further because Erin has to get it back.”

  “What happened? Why the change?” Clint asked.

  “A little matter of a bomb,” Sam said in a metallic voice. “The place was empty, so nobody was hurt. But the whole place is history. We think it was meant as a warning. So we’ve come up with another place we haven’t used before. Just tap on the window if you need something, and I’ll try to find a discreet place to stop.”

  The door closed again, and Sherry’s piercing, fearful eyes locked with Clint’s. “A bomb? What kind of hell are you taking me to?”

  Clint sank down on the floor and leaned back against the door. “My hell,” he said. “For the past eight months.”

  Chapter Seven

  Sam’s face was grim and pensive when he got back in the cabin. “We’re going to be driving for about three hours,” he told Madeline. “I’ll try to find a place up ahead where I can get you some ice.”

  “I’d be deeply indebted,” she said.

  “It might be a little while, though. This station is closed, so we’ll have to wait for the next town.”

  “I’ll survive,” she said. She studied his rugged profile, the pensive way he rubbed his beard, the deep lines around his mysterious eyes. His new mood scared her, and when she was scared, she talked. “So how is the Mrs.?”

  “Dandy,” he said. “She told me to pick up a loaf of bread and some milk.”

  “And did you tell her you were bringing guests home for dinner?”

  “Yeah. I told her to get the dungeon ready and not to feed the alligators, that they were getting a special treat tonight.” Madeline’s fears lightened a degree, and she looked out of the window. “Is there really a Mrs.?”

  Sam grinned. “You mean are there really hungry alligators?” He glanced askance at her. “Do I look like the kind of guy who would throw a little beauty to the alligators?”

  Madeline smiled faintly. “Then you are married?”

  “Was once,” he said, sobering. “It didn’t work out.”

  Madeline studied the abrupt flash of vulnerability in his eyes, and suddenly she wasn’t quite so afraid anymore. “Too many late hours and unexpected guests?”

  “Something like that,” he said seriously. “And the fact that she hated guns. Unfortunate, considering I practically sleep with mine.” There was a note of regret in his voice, a flicker of bitterness, before he changed the subject. “Why haven’t you been snapped up?”

  She smiled at the choice of words, but quickly sobered. “Haven’t wanted to be, I guess,” she said. “I like being independent. No one to answer to, no one to depend on. If you get kidnapped or something, you don’t have any explanations to make.” She flashed him a quick look. “Not like Sherry. Her father and brother will be pulling their hair out worrying about her. Calling the FBI, the CIA, the PLO, the KGB …”

  “And you like knowing there’s no one back home to worry about you?”

  Madeline nodded. “It just makes things easier to deal with, you know?”

  “I know,” Sam said, nodding. “I know.”

  It wasn’t long before Sam pulled into a 7-Eleven parking lot and stopped the camper. It wasn’t much, Sherry thought, and she didn’t know what town they were in, but it was a chance. The best one she’d had since this whole ordeal had started.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” she told Clint.

  “If you remember, I’ve heard that before.”

  “Well, it’s true. It isn’t like it’s a new development in the human body.”

  Clint studied her for a moment, wondering if he could, indeed, trust her this time. Nothing in her attitude had changed since her last desperate escape attempt. “Sherry, you don’t have to keep trying to get away. You’ll understand this all soon enough. You know I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “I don’t know that,” she mumbled. “I don’t even know who you are anymore. You’ve threatened to hurt me several times today. But that’s not why I want to use the rest room.” Clint raked his hand through his hair and held her eyes in a searching embrace, then he gave a dull shrug and sighed.

  “So are you going to let me go?”

  The door to the camper opened, and Sam stuck his head in. “I’m getting Madeline some ice for her knee. Anybody need anything?”

  “We could use something to eat,” Clint said.

  Sherry sat up rigid, realizing Clint was going to ignore her request. “Will you please tell him that I have to go to the bathroom?”

  Sam laughed aloud and peered around Clint. “I’ve heard that before.”

  Sherry’s face stung red. “Are you people aliens or something? Don’t you have bladders?”

  Sam flashed Clint a surrendering grin. “She does have a point there, you know.”

  Clint nodded wearily and took her arm. “All right, Sherry. But I’m going with you.”

  “Fine,” she said, though she deflated inside. She’d worry about getting rid of him when she got there. Maybe there was a window, or some people …

  Roughly, he held her arm and walked her across the dark parking lot. The store was flooded with bright lights that her eyes had to adjust to, and she tried to focus long enough to see if anyone was there who might help her. But she didn’t have time. Before she had even made eye contact with the store clerk, Clint had hurried her into the corridor leading to the rest rooms. And there was no one there to think it odd that he followed her
into the lady’s room.

  No windows, she thought, looking around the dirty room with a sinking heart. Jerking free of him, she went into the stall. She tried to close it, but Clint wouldn’t let her. Amazed, she gaped up at him. “What do you think I’m going to do? Drown myself?”

  Clint scanned the possibilities in the stall. When he was satisfied that there was nothing there that would help her, he stepped back and allowed her to slam the door. “All right, but you have exactly thirty seconds.”

  Thirty seconds! she thought frantically. She tore out the roll of tissue paper and searched for something, anything, that would give her an idea for escape. But there was nothing. Nothing!

  Nothing except the knife tucked in her sock. With a trembling hand, she took it out and examined it. It shone with a gloss that twisted her soul. What would she do with it? Threaten him? He’d wrestle it away from her in a minute. No, if she used it, she would have to mean business. She would have to use it the moment she opened the door. She would have to hurt him.

  “Fifteen seconds,” Clint said.

  Sherry closed her eyes and struggled with her choices. It might be her only one. And yet … she couldn’t do it. As frightened as she was, she couldn’t hurt Clint. Hating herself violently, she slipped the knife back into her sock and racked her brain for some other way. The person in the store was her only answer. She’d pretend to shop for something to eat, and somehow she would let the clerk know she was being held against her will. It was risky, and it might not work, but it was better than using the knife.

  Just as Clint ticked off, “Five seconds,” Sherry came out of the stall. Brushing past him, she washed her hands slowly, trying not to tremble.

  Then she pushed out of the bathroom and back into the store area. “I want something to eat,” she said, trying to make eye contact with the clerk, who seemed deeply engrossed in a book she was reading.

  “Sam got us something,” Clint said.

  “But he doesn’t know what I like. I need something salty. Some pistachios. Do you have pistachios?”