Walking After Midnight (38 page)

Watching him devour his sandwich brought a pang to her heart. Poor man, if ever she got the chance she was going to take a great deal of pleasure in making sure he got three square meals a day.

A memory of how she had cooked for and fussed over Lem in the early days of their marriage crept from her subconscious, reminding her that she had vowed never to provide such services for a man again. But she was in love, and she couldn’t help it. Summer decided wryly that she just must be a little Suzy Homemaker at heart.

„What if one of the people you called
is
involved in this?“ she asked to distract herself. Sammy wasn’t, she reassured herself fiercely. If they had to trust somebody – and the time had come when they did – Sammy was the one she would choose every time. But still she didn’t tell Steve what she had done.

„I was in the Marines with Kendrick of the DEA.
He’s
solid as a rock.“

„He’s not the only one, is he?“ Summer wished she had never brought up the possibility that their prospective rescuers might be bad guys, too. It was making her queasy.

Steve ran a hand over his face. „Hell, I think they’re all solid. They are all what I would call people of integrity. It’s impossible for me to imagine any of them being corrupted by drug money. But you never know. Anything’s possible. People go wrong every day. Cops go wrong. We’ve already identified Carmichael as a cop, and I’m ninety-nine percent certain that your pal Charlie and the other goon from your basement will turn out to be cops, too. There are gonna be others. Higher-ups. That’s why I called people I know personally. Friends, or former friends. And the media, too. For insurance.“

„But why tell them – everybody – to meet at Harmon Brothers, of all places? Why not just have everybody converge on the boat warehouse and be done with it?“

„I chose Harmon Brothers because it’s easy to find. God forbid that anybody should get lost. And because there’s a lot of empty acreage there, without a lot of civilians around. And because the van isn’t there. Remember, once the bad guys find out where that van is, they don’t need us. Corey, being of no more use to them and being able to identify them and testify, if it ever comes to that, will be killed. So will Elaine. We’ll be hunted down. If I sent the goons to the boat warehouse, and they beat us there, or something went wrong and our posse didn’t show, we would have played our last card. They would have the van, and we would have zilch. As it is, by keeping the location of the van back, I have an ace in reserve. If things go right, when we show up in Harmon Brothers’ parking lot, the thugs should be there with Corey and Elaine – and suddenly we should find ourselves swimming in assorted cops, feds, and reporters.“

„And if things go wrong, they still don’t know where the van is,“ Summer added softly.

„You got it.“

„Plan B?“ she asked.

He grinned. „Always. I always, always, have a Plan B.“

„You’re brilliant,“ she said, smiling at him as she finished the last of her sandwich. Not so much because she thought so – which she did – but because she could tell he was worried. And that he didn’t want her to realize it. So she would pretend to be totally confident in his scheme just to give him peace of mind.

Just in case, though, there was always Sammy. God, she hoped she wasn’t wrong about Sammy.

„You’re besotted.“ His smile was lopsided as, meal finished, he stood up and came around to where she sat on the opposite side of the picnic table to drop a kiss on her mouth.

„Probably,“ Summer admitted, following him with her eyes as he straightened and crossed the grassy picnic area to toss his trash in a tall mesh wastebasket. He still looked like he had come out the loser in a barroom brawl. His skin around his eyes remained defiantly purple; the gash on his cheek was healing, but it was indubitably there. The left side of his face sported more colors than a rainbow. The right side wasn’t much less showy.

His broad shoulders and muscled arms sported a wash of sunburn to add interest to their own bruises. He still limped slightly on his left leg.

He was dirty, unshaven, a little smelly – and her heart swelled with love every time she looked at him.

If anything happened to him, she would want to die.

She said a litde prayer for him, for herself, for all of them as she gathered up the remains of her own meal and followed him to the trash can.

„Summer.“ He was standing beside the motorcycle as she walked up to him. His helmet was on the seat waiting for him to put it on. Hers was in his hands. There was a certain agitation evident in the way he passed the thing back and forth between his hands.

She looked at him inquiringly.

„I’m not taking you with me.“

„What?“ She frowned, not understanding.

„Now that everything is in place, now that the hunt’s been called off and all the bad guys are converging on Murfreesboro, you’re safer without me. I’m gonna drop you off at the first reasonably well-populated place we come to, and I want you to call your sister in Knoxville to come and get you. If you’ll give me her number, I’ll call you there tomorrow and let you know how things went.“

Summer stared at him. „Not on your life!“

His lips twisted into a wry smile. His eyes were both warm and rueful as they met hers. „Now how did I know you would say that, I wonder?“

„You’re not leaving me!“

„Listen,“ he said quietly. „I’ll be safer without you, too. You’re just one more person for me to worry about when the going gets rough. My goal is to get Corey – and Elaine – safely away from the goons. If you walk into the lions’ den with me, then you’re just one more person I have to keep safe. One more distraction. See what I mean?“

Summer did see. Instinctive protestations bubbled to her lips only to die unuttered. He was right; there was nothing she could do to help him now, and much she could do to hinder him. The only smart, sensible thing to do was to stay behind.

She would never have guessed how terribly hard it was to agree not to put herself in mortal danger.

„I see what you mean,“ she said in a tone as neutral as she could make it. Inside, her heart screamed and wept.

He put her helmet down on the vinyl seat beside his, reached out and took her face in his hands. „I just found you,“ he said quietly. „I don’t want to lose you again.“

It was the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to her.

Summer’s arms went up around his neck. She pressed herself close to his hard, warm body. Tears welled up in her eyes, but – heroically, she thought – she fought them back. Crying would not help either of them.

„I don’t want to lose you either,“ she whispered against his weather-dry lips.

„Baby, I’m harder to lose than a bad penny,“ he said with a crooked smile. Then he kissed her.

It was infinitely slow, and sweet, and tender. Almost as if he was saying good-bye.

When Steve lifted his head at last, and she reluctantly opened her eyes, Summer’s vision was blurred with unshed tears. But just momentarily. As her vision cleared, her eyes widened. Over Steve’s broad shoulder she saw that a police car and two other vehicles, a white Ford and a navy blue Lincoln Continental, were pulling onto the gravel shoulder of the road not two hundred feet away. Her gaze skipped right over the Ford. The flashing blue light of the police car mesmerized her. The navy blue Lincoln terrorized her. She was unable to move, unable to say a word; frozen with fear.

Steve must have sensed her horror, because, before she could choke out so much as a syllable, his head swiveled toward where she was staring.

„Jesus,“ he whispered, releasing her and grabbing for the nearby bike. For a moment Summer thought he meant to leap aboard the motorcycle and make a run for it through the forest. Her muscles tensed as she prepared to leap with him.

But it was already too late. The cars had stopped, and men, some uniformed and some not, spilled from their depths.

„Freeze!“ a uniformed officer shouted, leaning over the just-opened door and snapping a pistol into two-handed position atop the closed window. Its barrel was pointed directly at Steve. „Get your hands in the air!“

But Steve wasn’t looking at that man, or the other uniformed officer who popped up on the opposite side of the patrol car, his gun pointing across the roof of the car at them too. He wasn’t looking at the middle-aged man in a white shirt and tan Sansabelt slacks who was standing beside the Ford, talking excitedly into a cellular phone, either. He was looking at a balding man with a black mustache who emerged from the driver’s side of the van. The man appeared unarmed, but as he stepped down the breeze caught the edge of his tan linen sport jacket and Summer saw that he was wearing a shoulder holster complete with shiny black pistol.

One of the thugs from her basement. Summer recognized him at once. The one Steve had identified as being known to him, as a cop. What had he said the man’s name was?

Not that it mattered. A thug by any other name was still as deadly.

Another man walked around the van to join Black Mustache. This guy was short, stocky, fiftyish, with a graying crew cut. Like his partner, he was dressed in a sport coat and slacks, although his were navy and gray, respectively. On his feet he wore shiny tasseled loafers.

Summer wondered if they were the same ones Muffy had christened.

„Fuck,“ Steve said under his breath, and lifted his hands into the air.

37

„Get your hands in the air! You, lady! Get your hands in the air!“ The uniformed cop’s order was a staccato bark.

Summer, unused to being on the wrong end of a policeman’s pistol, held her hands up, palms pointing outward, at about shoulder level. She felt like a spectator, not a participant, in events that had no reality.

As if she were caught up in a really, truly, hideously bad dream.

Her most rational thought was, These guys constitute a major spanner in Steve’s plan. Even her little insurance policy would not help in this case.

„Get those hands up!“ The cop screamed.

„She’s not armed,“ Steve called. „We’re not armed.“

„Get them
up!“

The second uniformed cop, pistol wavering dangerously, slid on his heels down the small hill that separated the roadway from the picnic area while the first stayed on top of the hill and kept them covered. Summer, her hands at eyebrow level now in imitation of Steve’s, just out of instinct sidled a little closer to Steve for protection.

Of course there wasn’t anything he could do to protect her now.

„Don’t move!“ The second cop stopped about a yard away, the mouth of his pistol aiming first at Steve, then at Summer, then at Steve again. He seemed nervous, and more frightening because of it, as his buddy came down the hill, his pistol at the ready too.

„Both of you, hit the dirt! Now!“

„The lady is the daughter of Murfreesboro’s police chief. She’s not with me of her own free will. Go easy on her, will you?“

„I don’t care if she’s the daughter of the President! I said hit the dirt!“

„It’s okay. Lie down on your stomach on the ground. Keep your hands where they can see them.“ This quiet instruction from Steve was vaguely reassuring. He didn’t sound panicked. He didn’t sound as if he were on the verge of despair. He sounded calm, cool, and collected.

Maybe the two guys in uniforms were good cops. Maybe they would take them to jail and thus save them from the bad cops. Summer clung to that thought.

Following Steve’s example, Summer dropped rather awkwardly to her knees, then lay flat on the ground. It was damp from last night’s rain, and the leaves were slippery wet beneath her cheek and knees and hands. With her head turned to one side, she watched as one of the uniformed cops ran his hands swiftly over Steve’s prone body, patting him down. Then he dragged one of Steve’s hands down behind his back, snapped a handcuff around it, and secured the other the same way.

Seconds later the same procedure was being performed on her. The young cop’s hands ran over her everywhere, touching her in places he had no business touching. Thankfully, though, the search seemed to be entirely impersonal.

Summer’s wrist was grabbed and dragged behind her back, and seconds later she, too, was handcuffed. The metal was cold and unfamiliar-feeling around her wrists. In a few minutes, she thought, being shackled in such a way might start to feel uncomfortable.

Steve was already on his feet and being marched toward the patrol car when Summer was half lifted, half dragged upright. In minutes she was being helped up the hill. Ahead of her, Steve slipped and almost fell on the slippery slope. Summer remembered his lightning-fast move in her basement, and for a few seconds waited hopefully for all hell to break loose. It didn’t. Steve was dragged to his feet and shoved up the hill in Summer’s wake.

„Get the dog,“ Black Mustache ordered abruptly. They were the first words Summer had heard him say.

„Yes, sir.“ One of the young cops scowled, but obediently went to pick up Muffy, who backed away, yapping at him like a Fury.

Apparently Muffy had more intelligence than Summer had given her credit for. She was learning to tell the bad guys from the good. Or vice versa. At this point, Summer had no idea which was which.