Blind Trust (8 page)

T
here’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 that 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.”

S
herry 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

S
am’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.”

I
t 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?”

The woman looked up and shook her head. Sherry flashed her a desperate look, but the lady was undaunted. She merely looked back down at her book.

But Clint didn’t miss it. “Come on, Sherry. It was a good try,” he said. He set an intimidating arm around her shoulders and started her toward the door.

Sherry wasn’t about to let it go that easily. “Lady, he’s—”

Clint set his hand over her mouth, out of the lady’s sight. “She gets feisty when she can’t find any pistachios,” he explained, though the woman didn’t seem to care.

And with controlling force that had been worked into his muscular arms for months, he pushed her outside and into the camper. She landed on the bed with a bounce, and turned back to see his eyes burning into her with disgusted rage, but he didn’t utter a word.

For some reason that she couldn’t name, she felt unaccountably ashamed and deeply regretful.

O
ver an hour later, from where she sat, curled up in her corner of the camper, Sherry watched Clint in his private torment, his head propped on the heel of his hands. Her heart ached, and she didn’t want it to. “That place where we were going. Is it where you’ve been staying all this time?”

Clint dropped his hands and his eyes meshed with hers. “Yes.”

“Did … did they think you were still there? Is that why the bomb?”

“I doubt it,” he said. “They obviously knew I’d gone home or they wouldn’t have sent that letter to you. Like Sam said, it was probably just a warning.”

“A warning about what?” Fear sprang to her eyes, and she looked out into the night, stellar lights and natural shadows dancing by the window.

Clint didn’t answer. He simply stared at her with eyes as opaque and soulful as a cloudy sky at midnight.

“Okay,” she said with resignation. “You won’t tell me. But can’t you take their warning? Can’t you do whatever it is they want so they’ll leave us alone?”

“No,” he said.

Her balled fist came down on the thin mattress. “How could you have changed so much?” she blared. “How could I have been so wrong?”

His eyes held hers for a long moment, each looking to the other for the only balm that could soothe them. But neither could give.

“You weren’t wrong, Sherry. I’m the same man I was the night of our engagement party, when Laney had her baby and we talked about what kind of aunt and uncle we would be. I’m the same man who had already made a list of names for our children. I’m the same man who had to call you three times every night after I left you, because I couldn’t stand being awake and not having you with me.”

Sherry swallowed the emotion blocking her throat and dropped her head to her knees. She heard Clint get off the floor, felt his weight move the mattress as he sat down next to her on the bed. A small light over the bed flicked on, lending just enough light for them to see each other clearly.

“Look at me, Sherry. The same man.” Sherry reluctantly looked up again, and Clint’s eyes were misty shards of midnight, cutting into her soul. Her own eyes filled, and she blinked back the evidence of her grief.

“Then what happened?” The question came in a raspy whisper.

“I can’t tell you until we’re out of danger. It’s too risky.”

Sherry’s eyes blurred as she looked at him. “Too risky? Why? Are you afraid that if you tell me I’ll see the real you even more clearly? Do you know that in all the time you were gone, it never once occurred to me that you had done anything criminal and could be hiding? The lowest thing I could come up with was that you’d been so overwhelmed with responsibility that you had to get away. But when you came back, it all came together, like whirling pieces of a horrible nightmare. Only I can’t wake up. And it keeps getting worse!”

Clint lifted his hand to touch her hair, but stopped before it made contact. “It won’t get worse, Sherry. I’m here now.”

“But I don’t want you here! Don’t you understand that
you
are the nightmare? You’re dangerous, and secretive, and unpredictable! I don’t know who you are, and yes, I’m scared to death of you.”

Clint touched her hair softly. “Baby, I’m not a criminal and you don’t have to be afraid of me. You’ll see that soon.”

His touch sent currents of warmth seeping through her. More than anything she wanted to bury herself in his chest and feel the security of his arms around her, telling her it would be all right. But she couldn’t.

“Don’t touch me, Clint,” she whispered.

But his other arm came around her, forcing her to lean against him, coaxing her into laying her head against his chest. The power and insistence in his embrace terrorized her. Where would it stop?

“You say you don’t love me anymore,” he whispered. “But I know how hard it is for you to let go of things. You don’t replace things in your life, Sherry, and you never forget them. I know you still love me.”

“You’re wrong.” Trembling, she tried to pull away.

Clint leaned toward her, his breath teasing her face. “I’m not wrong, Sherry. I’m not wrong.”

His lips seemed to outline hers without touching, and she closed her eyes to escape the sight of them. “I love you,” he whispered.

The moment of contact almost shattered her, for the kiss was so gentle, so sweet, that she found no trace of the violence she had sensed in him all day. But it was there, she told herself, lurking behind the tenderness, waiting to strike her when her guard was down. “Don’t,” she whispered through quivering lips. “Please, don’t.”