Chasing a Dream (18 page)

Justin must have passed out then, because the next thing he was aware of were mumbling voices and jostling as two men loaded him in the back of an ambulance. He searched the faces leaning over him. Tried to talk. Tess. Someone had to help Tess.

His eyes drooped heavily. He struggled to stay conscious. Maybe if he closed his eyes for just a second . . .

Then he saw a beautiful face, a face he loved, above him. She was there. Like a dream but more real. He whispered her name, reached for her.

“Easy, buddy. Lie still,” one EMT said.

He whispered her name, tried to call her back so she wouldn’t leave him.

“What’d he say?” the EMT asked his partner.

As Justin closed his eyes, succumbing to the numbing blackness, he heard the second EMT answer, “It sounded like he said ‘Rebecca.’ ”

***

The tape machine began rolling when the secretary picked up the incoming call. “Sinclair Industries. Marketing.”

“I have a collect call from Tess. Will you accept the charges?” an operator said.

The man in a basement room sat up in his chair and stubbed out his cigarette. “Get Morelli! We got her! She’s on the secretary’s line!” He held the headphone tighter to his ear and listened.

“Nancy?”

“Tess? My God, what happened to you? Word around the office is that you were kidnapped!”

“I can’t explain right now. I need your help though.”

“What? Tess, does Mr. Sinclair know you’re okay?”

“No! You can’t tell Randall anything about this call or what I’m about to ask you to do. Do you understand that? Please, Nancy, it’s crucial!”

“Tess, you’re scaring me! What’s wrong?”

“I’m in a little town outside Memphis. At a gas station. In a minute I’ll give you an address. I need you to wire me some money . . . as much as you can afford. I swear I’ll pay it back with interest as soon as possible. I have no money, no car, no place to stay. I’m desperate, Nancy, or I wouldn’t ask.”

“Why can’t you call Randall?”

“I just can’t. Swear to me you won’t tell him or anyone else where I am.”

“Tess, I want to help you, but I don’t have much money. The best I could do is maybe two hundred dollars.”

“Nancy, you’re a godsend! Thank you!”

“Where should I wire the money?”

“Have you got a pen?”

The man listening on the headset wrote down the address, too—just in case there was a problem with the tape.

“Got it?” Tess asked Nancy.

“Got it,” she replied.

“Got it,” the man said, grinning smugly. “Wait till Sinclair hears this.”

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

Tess waited at the gas station for almost two hours, hoping that Justin might change his mind and come back for her. Then, giving up that ludicrous hope, she walked down the street to the bank where the young woman at the gas station said she could receive a wire. When the money Nancy promised to send came, she walked another block to a cheap motel to get a room.

She spent the first hour in the room crying, then she went out for a newspaper so she could begin searching the want ads for a job. Later in the evening, having used what was left in the only box of facial tissues she found, she called the front desk of the motel to ask for more. While she waited for the tissues to be delivered to her room, she showered, cried some more, put her dirty clothes back on, then flopped on the bed. When the knock finally came on her door, she dragged herself off the bed and pulled the door open. And her heart leaped to her throat.

***

“Maria?” Tony Morelli called into the dark room at the address he was given to find his wife.

“Tony?” a weak voice answered.

“Maria, is that you? Where’s the freaking light switch?” Tony groped in front of him as he fumbled for the light switch and kicked a chair in the process. When he finally found the control, he flooded the room with light and turned to find his wife.

“Holy mother of God! Maria!”

He stared with dismay at his wife’s naked and battered body. Her wrists had been handcuffed over her head to an old bed frame.

“Tony,” she whimpered. “Why’d they do this to me? What did I do?”

A white-hot Italian rage flared in Morelli’s gut. Damn that bastard Sinclair to everlasting hell! How dare he do this to his wife? Especially after he’d busted his ass finding Sinclair’s unfaithful bitch of a wife.

Rushing to Maria, Morelli searched for a way to free her hands from the cuffs.

“Ah
, cara mia,
” he crooned softly, his hands trembling as he stroked her cheeks. The pain in Maria’s dark eyes cut him to the quick.

Sinclair had found Tony’s weak point, the only thing in life that mattered to him. But Sinclair would pay. Tony would find Sinclair’s vulnerable spot and exact his revenge, if it was the last thing he did on God’s earth.

Randall Sinclair would pay for hurting his Maria.

***

 “Hello, Tess. Have you enjoyed your little adventure?” Randall asked with a deceptively serene façade.

“Randall.” Tess’s legs became rubbery, and her lungs felt as if they’d collapsed. Terror in its purest form raced through her blood and closed icy fingers around her heart. He stepped into the room, brushing her aside, and for a fleeting moment she entertained the notion of running out the door and screaming for help. But she doubted that would do any good.

As she closed the door, her legs seemed rooted to the spot.

Randall wouldn’t kill her here. He might have been seen entering the room. He’d wait until one of his men could do the job and make it look like an accident. Or suicide.

When she finally turned to face Randall, a stinging blow found her cheek. Pain skittered from the point of impact through her head, and she crumpled to the floor.

“Get up, Tess. We’re going home.” Randall tugged on the cuff of his tailor-made dress shirt, straightening the sleeve. “My plane is waiting at the airport. Get your things together quickly.”

“Randall, I can explain. I just needed some time to think and to get my head straight. I was upset when you told me about Angie and I—”

“There will be time for explanations later.” He reached out and stroked her cheek, though the gesture and his expression lacked any affection. “I do hope you have answers concerning your behavior.”

His voice sounded calm, forgiving, but Tess wasn’t fooled for a minute. His composure frightened her more than his anger. She knew his rage boiled just beneath the surface.

“Right now, the important thing is that I’ve found you. We need to get back to the plane.” He consulted his gold Rolex watch. “I’m a busy man, Tess. This side trip to pick you up has cost me a great deal of valuable time. I hope you appreciate the significance of that.”

She met Randall’s gaze. Would it do any good to beg for mercy? Did she want mercy? At this point, she was ready to die. She didn’t want to go back to the existence she’d known with Randall. She couldn’t stand the idea of facing life without Justin, knowing how he’d betrayed her. Life held nothing for her.

“I’m sorry, Randall. Truly I am.”

“Trust me, Tess. You
will
be sorry.”

The fire in Randall’s eyes made her tremble.

An hour and a half later, she sat in a cushioned chair that, despite being designed for comfort, might as well have been made of jagged rock. To Tess, it felt more like an electric chair. Randall had hired a private jet to come after her, an expense he’d no doubt add to the list of grievances he held against her. For the first several minutes of the flight back to San Antonio, he’d glared at her silently, making her wonder how he’d make her suffer.

Then he shot out of his seat to tower over her, and the grilling began. She understood that the severity of her punishment hinged on the answers she gave.

She carefully avoided any mention of Justin. She answered Randall’s questions about trading the BMW for the Jimmy, bribing the salesman to forge Randall’s signature to complete the trade, using the cash from the bank withdrawal to pay for food, gas and motels. He asked how far she’d driven each day, what she’d eaten, how often she’d stopped, how fast she’d driven, and on and on. Randall worded his relentless questions in tricky ways, clearly trying to trip her up, to catch her in a lie, which Tess knew was the worst offense she could commit at this point.

“How much money had you spent of the twenty-four thousand by yesterday afternoon?”

“About four to five hundred, maybe. I’m not sure exactly.”

“And what happened to the rest?” Randall braced his arms on Tess’s chair and leaned over her, fixing her with a pointed gaze.

“Like I said, it was stolen.”

“Be specific. How was it stolen?”

She drew a deep breath, and pain sliced her heart at the memory of Justin’s abandonment, his theft. “I left the money in the car while I went to use the restroom at a gas station. That’s when the car was stolen.”

“How’d the thief get the car key? Or did they hotwire it?”

Clearing her throat, she whispered, “The key was inside.”

Randall’s face reddened, and his eyes burned with rage. “How stupid are you?” His tone held a deadly calm. “Are you telling me that you left more than twenty-three thousand dollars and the keys in a brand-new Jimmy while you took a piss?”

She searched for an answer to placate him.

“Are you?” he screamed in her face, slamming his hands down on the arms of the cushioned chair.

Tess jumped. “No!”

“No? Then there was someone with the car and the money?”

A sick, sinking feeling washed over Tess as she realized her slip. Randall must have read terror or panic in her eyes, because he moved in for the kill.

“You weren’t alone. Were you, slut?”

She knew the trap she faced. If she lied, Randall would see her deception in her expression. She’d always been a terrible liar. She was almost certain he had ways to find out the truth, to verify what she said.

“Who was with you, Tess? A lover?”

“A friend.”

“A friend?” Randall smiled with a sickening sweetness, then his face became hard again. “You don’t have any friends, Tess. Who was with you?”

“Someone I met. I was just giving h-her a ride.” Tess’s voice caught as she made the decision at the last second to try to pacify Randall’s suspicions. Randall honed in on the pronoun.

“Her?”

Tess nodded.

“What was her name?”

Tess swallowed hard.
Please, God, help me.

“Rebecca.” The name came like an answer to a prayer.

“Rebecca what?”

“Rebecca Boyd. She was on her way to Nashville and needed a ride.”

“I see. And where did you meet Rebecca Boyd?”

“I picked her up along the interstate one day, when it was raining.”

“Where?”

“Just outside of Waco.”

“Where was she from?”

“Wellerton, Texas.” By giving Randall a facsimile of the truth, she hoped her face would give nothing away. He seemed to believe her. The speed and confidence of her replies impressed him, she could tell.

“How old was she?”

“I didn’t ask. I’d guess she was about my age.”

“What did she look like?”

She wanted to ask why it mattered, but she knew why. He would verify everything she told him. Tess’s heart thudded. If he checked on Rebecca, he’d discover the woman was dead. But she’d come too far with the lie to turn back now. She prayed now that Rebecca and Justin had shared a family resemblance.

“Black wavy hair, blue eyes, tall, slim.”

“Pretty?”

Tess nodded. “I guess.”

He stared at her for a minute. “This woman, this Rebecca Boyd, stole the car and money, didn’t she?”

Tess shivered, and unbidden tears filled her eyes. “I don’t know. Probably.”

Randall’s lips compressed to a thin, stern line. “Still believe she was your friend, Tess?”

His remark hit its target. Tears spilled from Tess’s eyes. “No.”

“Mr. Sinclair, we’ve been cleared to land in San Antonio,” the pilot announced over the intercom.

With one last dark glare, Randall returned to his seat.

Tess turned to stare out at the twinkling lights of the city below them, the city she’d fled four days before. In four days, she’d lived a lifetime. In the past few hours, she’d aged fifty years. And she knew the worst was still to come.

CHAPTER
FOURTEEN

Returning to her house should have felt like a homecoming, but Tess could muster no such sentimentality for the walls and roof she shared with Randall. She numbed her mind to any thoughts of sorrow or loss. Remembering Justin and the laughter they’d shared promised to shatter the last of her composure. Dwelling on how close she’d come to winning her freedom from Randall served no purpose. She swore to herself she wouldn’t let him see her fear and defeat, but her body sagged like a punctured balloon and her spirit drained from her. He escorted her upstairs, and she waited with trepidation for what she knew would come.

She didn’t have to wait long. Though he remained eerily serene, his placid demeanor caused an apprehensive prickle on her neck. She didn’t trust his outward calm. The tight muscles in his arms and face showed the tension he barely held in check. They’d no more stepped into their bedroom than he grabbed her arm and turned her toward him.

“There. Now you are back where you belong. My bedroom.” His hand squeezed her arm, and he tugged her closer. “You’re my wife, Tess. Did you really think I wouldn’t come after you? That I wouldn’t find you?” He ran a hand down the side of her face, and when she met his gaze, his dark eyes smoldered with anger, lust, and a righteous sense of power.

A tremor rippled through her.

“I’ve given you everything money can buy,” he said. “What more do you want?”

His tone had a hard edge, yet she also detected a grief, a genuine puzzlement that shocked and disturbed her. She raised her chin a notch.

“Nothing,” she replied with a boldness that surprised her. “I want nothing from you.”

His gaze narrowed. She saw a combination of ire and rejection swirl behind the dark irises that glared at her. The malevolence she had expected, but the hint of pain knocked her off balance. For Randall to be hurt by her words and her actions would mean that he actually cared about her on some level. The prospect staggered her mind.