Manna From Heaven (4 page)

Sadie moaned. It was all Charlie could do not to join in.

He thought she was on his side. The thought steadied her. She just must play along.

Taking her foot off the gas, Charlie swallowed convulsively and unlocked the doors. The click sounded as loud as a gunshot to her ears. The comparison made her shiver.

He pulled the door open and looked in at her. Charlie realized that she was sweating. The breeze blowing in through the open door felt icy as it hit her damp skin. She pinned a questioning smile on her face, and hoped it didn’t look as fake as it felt.

“It’s stuck on a tree trunk. Put it in reverse and hit the gas when I tell you,” he said, seeming to notice nothing amiss in her demeanor. “I’ll push.”

Charlie clamped her teeth together to keep them from chattering and nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Then he slammed the door and walked around to the front of the Jeep.

Charlie almost melted into a puddle of quivering jelly right there in the driver’s seat. She felt like a death row inmate who had just been granted a reprieve.

“Get a grip,” she ordered herself fiercely, watching
mesmerized through the windshield as he braced a shoulder against the hood. He waved. Meeting his gaze for a brief, trauma-filled instant, terrified that he might somehow be able to read her intention in her eyes, Charlie recognized that the wave was a signal and put the transmission into reverse. Then she stepped on the gas.

4

T
HE ENGINE ROARED
. The wheels spun. He lifted and pushed from the front. The Jeep rocked—and came free. It shot backward in an are, cutting a wide swath through the tall grass that swished past the windows. As she rocketed away from him, Charlie kept her foot to the floor. She dragged her gaze from his surprised expression to look over her shoulder—just in time to get a split-second glimpse of a second tree before she hit it.

Fortunately it was only a glancing blow. The gray-barked trunk scraped along the left rear of the Jeep with a scream like bear claws on a blackboard. But there were more trees behind her, crowded together, blocking the way. Panting with terror, she hit the brake. She had traveled as far as she could in reverse.

If he caught up with her …

Licking her lips, she glanced wildly around to try to determine if he was anywhere near. She could see nothing in front except the narrow path illuminated by the single working headlight. For all her sight told her, the
world might have consisted of no more than a golden carpet of mown-down grass, the trees beside and behind her, and the foggy night.

The thought that he might be racing toward her unseen, or even getting ready to shoot her through the glass, acted like a cattle prod on her fear-disordered reflexes. Slamming the transmission into drive, she stomped the gas.

The wheels spun out over the slippery grass. Just as they found a purchase and the Jeep started to move, the passenger door was jerked open and he dived into the seat beside her, dislodging Sadie, who leaped into the back with a high-pitched yelp.

Her foot stayed on the floor. The Jeep flew in a bumping, jolting beeline toward the road. He clung grimly to the edge of the seat with both hands, swinging his long legs inside as the door flapped like a wing beating the air. Charlie knew she was in deep trouble even before he managed to haul himself into a sitting position and grab at something inside his coat.

The gun. Of course. Casting a terrified glance at him, she discovered it pointed straight at her and realized with a fatalistic sense of calm that she was going to die.

“Stop the god-damned car!” he roared. If ever murder blazed from a man’s eyes, she thought, it was blazing from his at that moment.

In a display of obedience that she doubted he was going to appreciate, Charlie stood on the brake. At the same time she spun the wheel, hoping to throw him out again through the open door or at least injure him enough to enhance her prospects of escape.

He was flung forward, but managed to catch himself
with a hand on the dashboard before any damage was done. Charlie, hanging onto the steering wheel for dear life during the double doughnut that ensued, saw with dismay at the end of it that he was still aboard and unhurt. Her desperate gambit had served about as much purpose as swatting futilely at a hornet: It had just made him mad.

Curses poured from his mouth in a steady stream as the Jeep shimmied to a halt just a few feet shy of the highway, facing back the way she had come. Charlie looked at the beckoning trail of asphalt with burgeoning despair. So near and yet so far, she mourned inwardly, following the road home with her eyes. She thought of leaping from the Jeep and running for it, but a single glance at him dissuaded her. The door was closed now, which meant the interior of the vehicle was once again dark. But there was no mistaking the pistol pointed straight at her, shining with a dull black gleam that was no more menacing than the evil glint in his eyes.

“What the hell
is
this?” His voice was lower than before, but no less furious. “Are you fucking nuts?”

Before Charlie could reply, headlights from an approaching vehicle caught her attention. If she leaped out just as the car passed them, she calculated frantically, and hurled herself in its path, it would surely stop.

“Don’t even think about it,” he growled, grabbing her wrist just as if he could read her mind. Charlie felt the strength of his grip and abandoned all hope. No way could she break free.

But, miracle of miracles, the vehicle seemed to be slowing down without any help at all from her. Yes, it
was
slowing down. The driver had obviously seen the
Jeep with its smashed right front. Maybe he or she was the kind of Good Samaritan who would stop to see if there’d been an accident.

Please God let it be a he. A big, burly he, preferably complete with gun. A cop would be good. Yes, please let it be a cop. A pair of cops.

It wasn’t. It was a couple—no, a trio—in a mid-sized SUV. It was too dark to be precise about make or model or even color, although like the Jeep it was some dark shade, but she was clear on the number of people because the SUV pulled off the road right in front of the Jeep, stopped and turned off engine and lights. Then the trio got out. For a moment, as the SUV’s door opened, Charlie saw the occupants clearly: The driver was a blond woman several years younger than herself, and with her were two men. All of them were dressed in black, and, like the man beside her, the men brandished pistols.

God, it seemed, had a sense of humor. When she’d started wishing for a little excitement, he’d sent her enough to cure her of the hankering for the rest of her life.

Beside her, her captor was staring at the newcomers, too, with an arrested expression. As they approached the Jeep, stepping momentarily into the full beam of the single headlight, his gaze swung to Charlie.

“God damn it to hell and back,” he said bitterly. “You’re not Laura, are you?”

Charlie shrank away from him. Having been taught from an early age that discretion was the better part of valor, she chose not to reply. His hand tightened painfully around her wrist.

“If you have the sense God gave a gnat, you’ll pretend you’re supposed to be here,” he said through his teeth. “What’s your name?”

The urgency of his manner compelled her.

“Charlie. Charlie Bates.”

He swore, his gaze raking her. “I should’ve guessed. The clothes, the damned dog. You ever hear the saying, up shit creek without a paddle? Lady, that’s where you are right now. Get out, keep your mouth shut, play along with whatever happens and stay the hell close to me. My name’s Jake Crutcher.”

The trio had almost reached the Jeep by this time. Giving her a final inimical glare, he reached across her, doused the lights, turned the ignition off, pulled the keys from it, and got out. When she didn’t immediately follow suit, he ducked his head back inside the open door and said
“get out”
in a tone that made her jump. Though she would by far have preferred to stay where she was, Charlie did as he ordered. Not to do so might well be a fatal mistake, she thought, although she didn’t know whether to be more afraid of him or them. He was a solid black shape in a world full of charcoal shadows as he moved toward the front of the Jeep. Stomach quaking, hands icy with fear, she joined him, not seeing any alternative. As she did, he glanced down at her, and caught her hand in a grip that hurt.

Jake. His name was Jake, and apparently, as far as she was concerned, he was the good guy now, she reminded herself in a panic, discreetly wriggling her crushed fingers in an attempt to loosen his grip. Oh God, would they kill her if they discovered she was not one of them? It seemed very probable that they would: They were
drug smugglers, after all. Heart thumping, the dry, tinny taste of fear in her mouth, she pondered her options. Running for it was out of the question; his hand held hers in what she was certain was an unbreakable hold, as if he feared she might try to do exactly that. Besides, she would never be able to get away, and to run would be to reveal her fear. That might very well prove fatal. Already the newcomers were looking her up and down in a way that made her shrink closer against the dark bulk of Jake’s side.

Suddenly he truly did seem more like an ally than a threat. If he meant to kill her, her guess was she’d know it by now.

Instead he’d told her to stick close to him, and was even now holding her beside him with a death grip on her hand. For whatever murky reason, this particular drug smuggler was prepared to protect her, it seemed. Not exactly the protector she would have chosen if she had been doing the selecting, she reflected, but the old saying about not looking a gift horse in the mouth definitely applied in this case. He might appear menacing, and be every bit as much a criminal as the others, but every instinct she possessed screamed at her that he was the only chance for survival she had.

“Who the hell’s she?” One of the men—the shorter, stockier one—was looking her over in a distinctly non-friendly fashion as the newcomers reached them. “And where’s Skeeter?”

“This is Charlie. She’s okay. I told her to meet us out here because I thought we might need a backup vehicle. Skeeter’s dead. His chute didn’t open.” This last was said without emotion.

“Shit.” The stocky man sounded annoyed rather than grieved. The woman gave a little choked cry, and her hand flew to her mouth. The stocky man’s head turned toward her. “Shut up, Laura.” His tone was brutal. Then, to Jake, he added, “What about the stuff?”

“It’s here. All you have to do is pick the duffel bags up. Skeeter kept the cash with him. He’s over there.” Jake nodded in the general direction of Skeeter’s body.

“Hel-
lo
, seventy-five million,” the taller man chortled.

The woman—Laura—made another small sound. Despite her drumming heart, Charlie felt a stirring of sympathy for her. No one else seemed to care so much as a snap of his fingers that a man was lying nearby, dead.

“I said shut
up,
Laura.” The stocky man sounded positively menacing. Laura seemed to shrink.

Jake’s hand tightened again on Charlie’s fingers. Charlie had just managed to wriggle them into a state of near comfort, and it was all she could do not to wince.

“What are you and Denton doing here, anyway? Skeeter told me that Laura was the only one coming to meet us.”

“Yeah, well, change of plan.” The stocky man looked at Laura again. “You get back in the Blazer and pull it over there by those trees. I’ll be with you directly.”

“Sure, Woz. Whatever you say.” Laura looked at Charlie for an instant, her face pale and her eyes wide with what Charlie took for fright. Then she turned and walked back toward the Blazer without another word. The stocky man—Woz—and Denton exchanged glances. Charlie frowned. Before she could figure out what it was
in the atmosphere that suddenly caused her sixth sense to go on red alert, Woz was addressing Jake again in a voice that sounded almost amiable compared to his earlier harshness.

“Good idea, about having a second truck. We can throw Skeeter in the back, and keep Laura from having to see him. God, women! Well, we all have to live with ’em, don’t we?” He nodded significantly at Charlie, as if commiserating with Jake for having to live with her, then looked around as Laura pulled the Blazer’s door open. As the interior light flared briefly, Charlie was able to make out Woz’s profile silhouetted against the distant windshield. His forehead was low, his nose large, his lips thick, his chin pugnacious.
Not
a pleasant face, she thought. Then, as a corollary, came the companion thought: not a pleasant man. “Come on, let’s get a move on. We’ll retrieve Skeeter and the coke first. Babe, whatever your name is, you drive.”

“Sure.” Charlie was proud of how cool and collected she sounded. Inside, she was as jittery as a pain-phobic patient on a first visit to the dentist. Jake released her hand—under the circumstances he had no choice—and they all headed for the doors. She and Denton were on one side of the Jeep, Jake and Woz on the other. The night was cool and full of mist and eerily quiet except for their footsteps. She was just reaching for the handle when she heard a muffled
thunk,
followed almost immediately by a grunt and the sound of something heavy hitting the ground. Glancing across the top of the Jeep, she saw no one. Before that could even start to alarm her, something hard was jammed painfully against the base of her spine.