The Hiding Place (36 page)

As she looked ahead through the shimmering mist, she did not see Laird. Where had he disappeared to? Enough diffused light came in to see he was not under here. Then, through the drift of wayward spray, she saw him, as if in a spotlight on the other side, exiting the falls. She hurried faster and fell hard to her knees, sprawled on her stomach in a puddle.

“Oomph!’ she cried as the breath slammed out of her. She hit her chin, biting her lip. Her cell phone skittered away, over the ledge, just as Clay had kicked it away the day he’d killed Alex. Damn, why did she have to think of that now?

Beamer nudged her, licked her cheek. She got to her knees; her hand on the sturdy dog’s back for support, she stood. Five feet below, her phone lay in a pool of water. At her feet, her plastic sack had broken open and spewed everything into this puddle. She gathered the things up hastily, jamming them into her pockets. All that mattered was that Laird must have just gone out to the other side of the lake.

Ignoring her pains and cuts, she pressed on. It got lighter again. But was a trap awaiting her, another boulder when she stepped out from under the falls? Still pressed to the slick rock face, she shouted, “Heel!” to Beamer and darted outside. She scrambled, apparently safe, up the rocky, twisting path ahead.

No Laird. No Jordie. She stared across the falls-fed tarn. He had not fled to this side of the lake. They must have gone up this jagged path toward the top of the falls. Could Beamer pick up a scent on water-washed rock?

She pulled Laird’s sock from her pocket. “Find, Beamer. Find!” she commanded, thrusting it at the dog. He sniffed. He went in circles. He started up the rocky path, then came back. Then he sat, looking up at her, with his head cocked as if to ask her for more help.

No more help from Beamer, at least not here, she thought, starting onward with the dog coming behind her. Was Laird even up this way? Did he have some other hiding place once he emerged from under the falls? If he’d fled again, maybe Beamer could pick up his now-familiar scent once they got off these wet rocks. But, of course, above must be a wild river. Would everything be water-washed up there, too?

Out of breath and drenched with mist and sweat, Tara emerged above the falls. About twenty feet away, evidently waiting for her, Laird stood on a rocky ledge above the roiling river rushing to plunge over the edge. And in his arms, he held their sobbing, kicking son.

T
ara’s first thought was to get close enough to Laird to snatch Jordie from him, but any sort of a struggle could tip them all into the water surging over the falls. Her second instinct was to comfort the upset child. At least Laird had him warmly dressed with a hood pulled up over his head, as if he still could hide the child’s reddish roots from her.

“Hello, again!” Laird shouted as if he hadn’t a care in the world while he stood on the jutting ledge. “Welcome to one of the most beautiful spots my father and I have ever found. Shall we chat about the good old days or the bad new ones? See, Jordie, the lady has a dog. Doggie, see?” he added, bouncing the boy. “Don’t cry. Quiet now so I can talk to the lady.”

With Jordie being almost dangled over the falls, Tara knew she had never hated or feared anyone so much in her life as she did Laird right now. But she’d never been more certain that she would do absolutely anything it took to get Jordie away from him—though that did not include walking toward him, where he could push her over the brink. Did he think she would actually fall for this charmer routine?

She dug in her jacket pocket where she’d stuffed the small sack of candy. Most of it, she knew, was smashed. She had the peanut butter jar in the other pocket, but no more bread.

“Hi, Jordie,” she called, forcing a trembling smile and blinking back tears. Laird and Jordie looked as if they stood in a halo of mist. The roar was not as loud as it was below, but enough that they had to almost shout at each other. “I brought some candy for you. Are you hungry, honey? Would you like to play with the dog—doggie, like Daddy said?” she asked in a frenzied out-pouring of words, as Beamer pressed tight to her legs.

At first she thought the dog was wheezing, but she realized—more through touch than sound—that Beamer was growling. Did he instinctively know that Laird was the enemy they’d been tracking, or did he think that he was going to harm the child? Beamer and Nick had tracked both escaped felons and lost children, so maybe the dog had a sixth sense about this.

Jordie stopped crying, swiped at his eyes with one fist and nodded. When Tara extended the candy to him from where she stood on solid ground, Laird shouted, “You’re crazy, Tara! Always have been, messing with down-and-outers who don’t pay you half the time. Just stay back. You found us with the dog, didn’t you? I didn’t know you had one with you, but I do know trackers are not trained to be attack dogs.”

“Really? This one’s trained by a man who’s been living for years with the Delta Force in combat with the Taliban. Are you certain he only trains dogs to do tracking?”

Laird’s eyes narrowed. He looked suddenly unsure of himself. If that bluff seemed to work, maybe she could use others. Yes, conning Laird like she’d never done anyone else.

“Why don’t you just marry him?” he demanded. “Go east with him and his niece and have your own kids.”

“Obviously, because I already have my own kid, who has been abducted for nearly three years. Laird, you took a child from his
m-o-t-h-e-r
when she didn’t even know that he—”

“Never mind all that coddling social work crap again. Too late.”

“Too true. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to let you take my child.”

“I hungry, Daddy,” Jordie screeched, twisting to be put down. “I want candy!” To Tara’s horror, the child bucked in Laird’s arms, almost throwing them off balance. She detested Laird for standing at the edge of the rock as if to say,
One wrong move and I might drop this child.

“I have peanut butter, too, with jelly in it,” she said, producing the jar of it. “Grandma sent it for you, Jordie. Laird, you brought that child out here without food? But then, you didn’t plan to be here long, did you? Is Daddy Dearest coming or his lackeys, maybe in a similar helicopter that pulled Marcie Goulder away from me and then just dumped her?”

“Daddy Dearest,” Jordie repeated. “I want candy!”

“Let me at least roll this jar of peanut butter to you, Laird. Let him get some protein in him.”

“Ah, the mother-knows-best approach. How do I know there isn’t something in it to harm him?”

“Harm him? You’re the one who’s been harming him! How dare you let an alcoholic take care of my child! She’s probably only been hitting the bottle because you were so awful to her when she found out she couldn’t be your next broodmare!”

“Now there’s the real Tara. Too clever by far.”

“Of course, you’re planning to get rid of her now one way or the other,” she plunged on, ignoring his accusations. “How about this scenario? You help her fall down some stairs when she’s on the sauce. She supposedly hits her head and goes into a coma that you can drag out at the clinic until you—”

“I should have just let Dad get rid of you!” he exploded, almost screaming, despite the fact Jordie started to cry again. “I told him no, the mother of my son had to be protected, even if she had no intention of giving me that son. I was furious when that loose cannon Rick Whetstone actually tried to roll a rock on you. I said he needed to go, but I didn’t realize that would mean—mean what happened. Then his girlfriend took over and got really pushy, but I didn’t have anything to do with that. I really didn’t want you hurt, Tara.”

“Didn’t want me hurt? What do you think you were doing by keeping me comatose, by letting me think I had a daughter who died, by taking my son away from me?”

“Just shut up. I don’t want any of that to upset him, even though, at this age, he won’t remember it later.”

“Not upset him? That’s laughable—pitiful and criminal. You haul him out here without food. You plan to take him from the only stability he’s known, and you think I’ll upset him? You’re planning to ditch the one he thinks is his
m-o-t-h-e-r,
his second
m-o-t-h-e-r
you’ve taken from him, and you’re trying to make me feel guilty for wanting him? I can’t say wanting him back, can I, because I never had him? And now, you’re standing on a precipice, over an abyss that could be the end of him!”

“Then just back off! Take that dog and get out of here!” he shouted with another nervous glance at Beamer. “If you do, I’ll tell my lawyers to work on joint visitation rights, I swear it. You cooperate and, once I arrange things with Jennifer, I’ll see that we share Jordie, you know, alternate weekends or vacations…”

What a story he continued to spin for her. She’d been expecting some sort of salesman’s pitch, but she could play that game. She’d do anything to get Jordie back from the falls and a chopper that could take him away forever. She’d already lost almost three years of his life, and she could not bear to lose more.

“All right, I’ll take that bargain,” she told him. She was lying now for all it was worth. “A child should definitely have both parents, and you and the Lohans can offer him so much over the years.”

She was almost sick when she said that, but it was something he believed, something he would go for. “But on one condition,” she added. “That you let me hold him and feed him now before I go. Laird, please. I’ve never touched my son since he left my body.”

He frowned but nodded. Maybe the boy’s crying and struggling was wearing him down. As she had suspected, Laird seemed to be the sort of father who wanted his son to learn to play golf far too young, to make him proud, compete with his cousins and impress his grandfather, but not one he really wanted to take care of on a daily, boring basis.

Not budging from where she stood, with the candy sack in one hand and the peanut butter jar in the other, she held out her arms. Laird took five steps, stopping about three feet away. With a nervous glance at Beamer, he handed Jordie to her. As he’d approached, she felt Beamer, glued against her left leg, stiffen and growl again. Would the dog protect her if Laird attacked? Frowning down at Beamer, Laird still stayed close.

Jordie weighed more than she’d imagined. He filled her arms and her heart. She told herself she had to be wary of some trap or trick from Laird, but, for one wild moment, she almost didn’t care. Her own son was in her arms, cuddled against her, sheltered from the brisk wind and drifting mist, and not fighting her as he had Laird. It was the promise of candy and peanut butter, of course, but it still warmed her to the depths of her soul.

“Since we’re going to be civil to each other,” she said to Laird, taking a couple of steps away from him when he still hovered, “I would like you to stop dying his hair.”

“Sure. Of course. There’d be no reason to then anyway.”

Too agreeable, the little voice in her head warned, but she felt besotted with Jordie’s expectant expression as she popped a mashed piece of chocolate in his mouth, then dug her index finger into the peanut butter jar to feed him that, too, with Laird watching every move she made. Like a little bird, Jordie opened his mouth, so she scooped up more and put it in. He sucked on her finger, his eyes wide on her.

She would have nursed him, would have had wonderful moments with him like this. Could he feel her love for him, her frantic need to protect him? She hugged him as best she could with the jar in one hand and her other hand poised to feed him more. With his small arm around her neck, he did not protest when she kissed him lightly on one dirty cheek.

“Good p.b.,” he told her.

He called peanut butter p.b., Tara thought. She had so much to learn about him. But the time to act was now or never. She could see a speck behind Laird’s head that she had thought at first was another vulture, but it was growing bigger, bigger. It must be the chopper. With the roar of the falls, Laird couldn’t hear it yet. He’d soon have reinforcements, and then it would be too late to keep Jordie or save herself. She knew too much. Laird’s lies aside, Jordan would insist on getting rid of her. And she could only think of one thing to do, desperate or not. Nick had said once that Beamer had jumped a guy who tried to rob him. But had Beamer done that on his own? What command would he need?

“Beamer, get him!” she shouted. Then she added, “Elk, elk!” since the dog had always been disturbed by them.

With a single bark, the dog leaped at Laird and pushed him back. Clutching Jordie to her, Tara tore the way she’d come, down the path that led beneath the falls.

She could heard Beamer barking, but also Laird cursing and running after her, half skidding down the path. Burdened with the boy, she was too slow. Laird spun her around, slammed her into a rock.

“You deceitful bitch!” he shouted.

She actually saw stars, but she held Jordie to her as Laird tried to rip him away. Beamer was at him again, biting his pants, maybe his leg. He swore and tried to kick the dog off, slamming Beamer into the wall.

The sound of the hovering chopper above them vied with the roar of the falls. “Went after Alex when I told you not to get involved with that stupid business of yours. The coma was all your fault! You had a duty to me, to the Lohans!”

Jordie was screaming in her ear. She was dizzy. Laird pried the child from her arms and set him down on the path, sobbing and kicking. “Stay here, Jordie!” Laird shouted, holding her against the rock wall with one arm straight out so she couldn’t scratch or hit him. “Stay right here until Daddy gets you! Grandpa’s here to take us for a plane ride, so you stay here!”

Tara wasn’t sure where Beamer was. Jordie’s screams, the waterfall, the chopper’s rotors roaring…her head. She glimpsed a long, black corridor stretched out before her, but she fought to find the light. Laird was dragging her, partly by her jacket, partly by her hair. Her head hurt so much. Up, up out over jagged rocks where he had first stood, to the edge of a foaming maelstrom below.

He was going to shove her over the falls! Right in front of his father and at least one other witness. They would probably applaud. Finally, the rebel, the family traitor, would be gone.