"Tires have another few thousand miles on them," the seller had told her, kicking the front left tire with the toe of his work boot. "Ain't much to look at, but she runs good."
She didn't have time to be choosy. Besides, this was the only car for sale by a private party she had found in the Stephensville classified ads.
"I'll give you a thousand dollars."
"The asking price is twelve hunnerd."
"One thousand." Kendall had removed ten hundred-dollar bills from her pocket and extended them to him.
He spat a stringy wad of tobacco juice into the mud, scratched his whiskers thoughtfully as he gazed at the money, then reached a decision. "Wait ri'chere. I won't be a sec. The title's inside the house."
She drove the nurse's car back to the hospital and had him follow her as far as the laundromat. "I'm going to park it here for the time being," she told him as he turned over two sets of keys to her. "My husband and I will pick it up later. I'll take you back home now. Sorry for the inconvenience."
Whatever inconvenience she had caused him was alleviated by the thousand dollars lining his pocket. Naturally he was curious to know her name, where she lived, what her husband did for a living. He had asked dozens of questions. Politely and fastidiously, Kendall had lied.
"You're a natural-born liar," Ricki Sue had once told her.
"That's why you're such a good lawyer."
Wistfully, Kendall smiled at the recollection. They had been making Toll House cookies in Grandmother's kitchen.
Kendall envisioned their faces and voices so clearly that they could almost have been in the hospital room with her now.
Ricki Sue had intended the comment to be a chastisement, but Kendall had taken it as a compliment.
"Careful, Ricki Sue. Words to that effect only encourage her," Grandmother had said. "And Lord knows she doesn't need any encouragement to tell a fib."
"I don't fib!" Kendall had protested.
. l i "that's the biggest fib of all. " Her grandmother had admonished her by shaking a dough-covered wooden spoon at her.
"When you were growing up, how many times was I called the schoolhouse to answer to some wild tale you'd been telling your classmates? She was always making up stories,"
had explained to Ricki Sue in an aside.
i "I sometimes reinvented the truth to make it more interesting," Kendall had said, sniffing loftily. "But I wouldn't call fibbing."
"Neither would I," Ricki Sue had said matter-of-factly as she tossed a handful of c hocolate morsels into her mouth. "It's called lying."
Thinking of the two women she so desperately missed caused Kendall's throat to ache with emotion. If she dwelled on memories now, the heartache would be immobilizing. And she bust act before any more time was lost. Before the man who Seemed to read her as easily as a primer recovered his memory.
She looked at her watch 1:00 A.M. Time to go d Tiptoeing to the door, she opened it and cautiously looked down the hallway. There were two nurses on duty. One's attention was devoted to a novel; the other was talking on the telephone.
Earlier, Kendall had slipped out unnoticed and stashed their ' Meager belongings in the car, so that now she had only the baby to carry out.
Returning to the crib, she slid her hands beneath his tummy and gently turned him over. He made an ugly face but didn't even wake up, even when she lifted him out of the crib and cradled him against her chest.
"You're such a good boy," she whispered. "You know mommy loves you, don't you? And that I would do anything to protect you."
She crept from the room. After being in the dark for hours the corridor seemed unnaturally bright. She spent several precious seconds letting her eyes adjust, then began moving stealthily down the corridor.
If she could make it to the intersecting hallway without being discovered, she'd be home free. But for about thirty feet she would be exposed. If one of the nurses glimpsed her out of the corner of her eye, she had an explanation ready: Kevin had gas and was fretting. She had decided to Walk him.
They would believe her without question, but her plans would be thwarted. She would have to try again tomorrow night. Each hour counted; tomorrow might be too late. She needed to disappear tonight.
She concentrated on keeping her footfalls silent and quick.
Eyes trained on the two nurses, she calculated the distance to the corner. HA much farther? Ten feet? Fifteen?
Kevin belched.
To Kendall's ears it sounded like a cannon being fired. She froze, her heart knocking against her ribs. But apparently no one else heard the burp. One nurse was still reading. the other was still talking, obviously warming to her conversation.
"So I said that if he went bowling three nights a week anyway, why did he care if I pulled some Light duty? He says, 'That's different." And then I said, you're dawn right.
Bowling doesn't pay for shit."
Kendall didn't stick around to hear the outcome of-the domestic dispute As soon as she reached the corner, she side stepped into another hallway. She'd made it!
Flattening her spine against the wall, she closed her eyes, breathed deeply, and slowly counted to thirty. When she was certain that She hadn't roused the nurses, she opened her eyes.
He, however, had been roused.
Chapter 3
She clamped his hand over her mouth.
Not that it was necessary. She was too dumbfounded to scream. Nor would she have done so anyway. On the night she fled Prosper, she had been shocked by circumstances much more frightening than this, and she hadn't screamed then.
Nevertheless, she was startled. It seemed he had materialized out of the walls. How had he managed to get within inches of her without her sensing his approach?
In his weakened condition, he shouldn't have been intimidating. He leaned heavily on a pair of crutches. His complex ion was ashen; his lips were practically colorless. Obviously he was in tremendous pain.
There was nothing weak about his eyes, however. They glowered at her from their sunken sockets. Kendall felt her heart in her throat.
She gave a firm, negative shake of her head, trying to make him understand that she wouldn't utter a sound that would give them away. Gradually he lowered his hand.
The nurse on the telephone had continued her litany of complaints without a glitch. The other nurse at the desk hadn't raised her eyes from the novel she was reading. There was no indication that either of them was aware that one of their patients had left his bed.
He had dressed himself in a pair of green OR scrubs. The right pants leg had been ripped apart to accommodate his cast.
The tear was so ragged, it looked as though he'd chewed through the fabrics. Kendall wouldn't have put it past him.
He looked haggard, but his jaw was set with determination.
He would have gone to whatever extremes necessary to get out of bed and clothe himself.
Kendall signaled him to follow her back toward his room.
He eyed her mistrustfully, but he didn't stop her when she began to tiptoe down the hallway. As the doctor had said, he maneuvered quite well on crutches. Their rubber tips made virtually no sound as they struck the floor tiles.
Passing the room he had occupied, they continued toward the exit where the corridor came to a dead end. Red stenciled letters above the depression bar warned that this door was for emergency use only and that an alarm would sound if it was opened.
Kendall reached for the bar. In a motion too fluid and fast for a human eye to track, he raised his right crutch horizontally and placed it in front of her at chest level.
She frowned at him, mouthing, "It's okay. Trust me."
He pantomimed "No Say.
Arguing silently with hand motions and exaggerated facial expressions, she finally convinced him that nothing untoward would happen if she opened the door. He gave her a hard, threatening look, then lowered the crutch.
Kendall depressed the bars It came unlatched with a metallic click, without setting off an alarm. Leaning forward, she pushed the door open.
She paused to listen, but the only sound that greeted her was that of hard rainfall splashing into puddles in the sparse grass of the yard and on the cement walkway from the door to the street.
Kendall held the door open while he hobbled through. She didn't let go of the closing door until she heard the click indicating that it was once again securely latched.
Only then did she speak, but in a whisper. "You're going to get soaked."
"I won't melt."
"Why don't you wait here and"
"Not on your life."
"Do you really think I'd bolt and leave you behind?"
He shot her a retiring look. "Save it, okay? Let's go."
"All right then, this way."
"I know. The navy blue Cougar parked at the laundromat."
He struck off down the sidewalk, seeming impervious to the rain. Kendall held Kevin tightly against her and, making certain the receiving blanket covered his face, followed the man on crutches.
He was shaking from chills, pain, and weakness by the time they reached the Cougar. Kendall hurriedly unlocked the passenger door for him before running around to the driver's side. On a second trip to Wal-Mart she'd purchased an infant seat for the car. She secured Kevin in it now and replaced the damp flannel blanket with a dry one. The baby's mouth made a few sucking motions, but he didn't awaken. It was still a couple of hours before his next feeding. She had timed her getaway with his nursing schedule in mind.
She slid behind the steering wheel and fastened her seat belt, then inserted the key into the ignition. The car started instantly.
"You made a good buy. I saw you from the window of my hospital room," he explained when she looked at him inquisitively. "Who was the old codger in overalls? Friend of yours?"
"A stranger. I answered his classified ad."
"I thought it must be something like that. How'd you know the alarm wouldn't go off when you opened that exit door?"
"The maintenance man left through that door this morning.
[ tested it again later in the day. No alarm. I gambled on it not being on a timer or something."
"But you had a logical explanation in mind if an alarm had gone off, didn't you? Aren't you the lady who's always prepared for the worst to happen?"
"You don't have to get nasty."
"Why not? Why should I be polite to a woman who claims to be my wife but was skipping out on me."
"I wasn't leaving without you. I was on my way to your room when"
"Look," he interrupted, his voice sounding as dry and abrasive as sandpaper. "You were sneaking out in the middle of the night and had no intention of taking me with you. You know it. I know it." He paused. "My head hurts too much to argue about it, so just . . ."
He ran short of breath. His upper body sagged with the effort of making such a long speech. With a feeble hand gesture, he motioned that she should get under way.
"Are you cold?" she asked.
"No."
"You're sopping wet."
"But I'm not cold."
"Fine."
Stephensville didn't have much of a downtown commercial district, although there were a few businesses and one bank on the four corners of the main crossroads. All the buildings were dark except for the sheriff's office. To avoid driving past it, she turned a block before she needed to.
"Do you know where you're going?" he asked.
"Why don't you try to get some sleep?"
"Because I don't trust you. If I doze off, you might push me out at the next wide spot in the road."
"If I'd wanted you dead, I wouldn't have pulled you from the wreckage. I could have left you to die."
He lapsed into a sullen silence that lasted for several miles.
Kendall thought he'd taken her advice and gone to sleep, but when she turned to look at him, he was watching her with the intensity of a sniper who has his target in the crosshairs of his sight.
"You pulled me from the wreckage?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
She snickered. "Well, it seemed the humane thing to do."
"Why would you save my life, then desert me in some hillbilly hospital to fend for myself when lam dispossessed of everything?"
"I wasn't going to desert you."
"That's a lie."
She sighed wearily. "After our conversation in your room tonight, I r ealized that you shared my lack of confidence in that doctor. So I thought it best to move you to another facility and get a second opinion.
"Rather than getting trapped in a mess of red tape and I really didn't want to hurt their feelings because they've been generous and kind to Kevin and me, I planned on sneaking you out."
"What if I'd been sedated?"
"All the better. You wouldn't have given me an argument."'
She glanced at him. "Didn't the nurse give you the injection after I left your room?"
"She tried. I insisted on a pill instead and then didn't swallow it. I like to be prepared, too. Gut instinct told me you might do something like this. If you did, I wanted to be awake."
Kendall glanced at the green cloth clinging wetly to his skin. "You stole the scrubs from the supply closet?"
"Better that than traipsing through the countryside bare assed. Are we on our way to South Carolina?"
"Tennessee, actually."
"Why the change in plans? What's in Tennessee?"
"If I told you, you wouldn't believe me, so why don't you just wait and see."
"What'd we do?"
