The Seduction of Goody Two-Shoes

action Beretta Cougar, less than thirty-six ounces unloaded, ten rounds in the clip. She’d hated and feared the thing when Ken had first gotten it for her and insisted she learn to use it in addition to the firearms training the agency had provided. Now, her hands were steady as she checked it over, and her feelings toward it were downright tender. “It’s okay. It’s ready,” she said on an exhalation as she leaned over and placed it on the floor between her dripping feet.

The bag on her lap squelched softly as she opened it. Her searching hands found the flashlight first. She placed it on the floor beside the gun and went back to pawing through the bag.

“What’re you looking for?” McCall’s voice was soft and sputtery as he wiped away rain.

“S-something…” Her hands had begun to tremble. Suddenly, she was trembling-all over. She couldn’t seem to control it. She dug more frantically into the contents of the bag-desperately almost.

There was a tiny click and pale light washed the inside of the Volkswagen. “Here,” McCall said in a gravelly voice, “let me.” Gentle hands lifted the sodden bag from her lap. A moment later he held up a bar of chocolate. “This what you’re looking for?”

She made a small affirming sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a whimper and reached for it. Holding her off like an eager puppy, he peeled the wrapping off and broke it in half, then held one part out to her. She felt her throat swell as she bit into it, her eyes clinging to his through a shimmer of tears as he did the same. And all the while she trembled and ached inside with a strange, fearful happiness. What was this? What is this? Such a small thing, she thought. Such a simple little gesture…and yet she’d never felt so cared for. So loved.

“Don’t suppose you’d have any cigarettes in that bag?” His voice was raspy and seemed unnaturally loud.

“Sorry,” she murmured on a gulp of shaken laughter, hurriedly swallowing tears and chocolate.

“Bread crumbs…” He muttered that under his breath as he searched for the car keys. He seemed surprised to find them still in the ignition, right where he’d left them. “Damned stupid idea,” he said, glowering at the keys but making no move to turn them. He sounded angry, but somehow Ellie knew he wasn’t.

“It wasn’t,” she whispered. “It was a great idea. You just forgot one thing.”

He transferred the glare to her, eyes fierce and bright in a shadowed face. “Yeah, what’s that?”

“You’ve forgotten the story. Hansel and Gretel?” She leaned toward him, urgent and shaking. “Don’t you remember? Bread crumbs don’t work. The birds ate up the trail of bread crumbs. That’s how they ended up lost. That’s how they wound up in the witch’s-”

And suddenly his arms were around her and his hard, cold face was pressing against hers, his beard stubble a soft wet prickle on her skin. She could feel that he was shaking, like she was, and that some of the wet on his face wasn’t rain, either. His breath smelled of chocolate, as hers did. It bathed her face in warm, sweet puffs as he kissed her quickly, urgently-her forehead, her eyelids, her cheeks and nose, her lips-as if he feared he might never get another chance.

“We have to go…” Who said it? Who cared?

“Yes-yes…I know…”

“They could be after us any minute-”

“We have to get to someplace safe-”

“Just hope the damn car starts…”

“Well, try it and see!”

Ellie sent up a prayer while McCall pumped the gas pedal, then turned the key in the ignition. For the second time in recent memory, the VW’s engine fired on the first try.

Chapter 12

“We can’t go back to the hotel,” said McCall. “That’s the first place they’ll look for us.”

“I know. I know.”

He glanced over at Ellie. She was sitting upright in her seat, eyes riveted on the headlights’ narrow path beyond the windshield, tense as a bird dog on point.

“Hey-we’ve got a good head start,” he said gently. “They can’t come after us in this. We’ve got some time.”

She threw him a look, but didn’t relax. “Not necessarily. Don’t forget, General Reyes is a pretty big cheese in Mexican law enforcement. All he needs to do is make one phone call. There won’t be anyplace in this country where we can hide.”

McCall ducked his head to peer upward into the wind-driven rain. “With any luck this storm will have knocked out his satellite hookup. If we can make it to Chetumal we’ll be okay. I’ve got a diving buddy there-he has a private plane. He can fly us to Merida. If we can get to the American consulate there we’ll be safe.”

“With any luck,” she muttered darkly. But she did sit back in her seat, at last, with an exhausted-sounding sigh.

They were on the main highway, heading east, according to Ellie’s wristwatch, which had turned out to be a compass, too, as he’d suspected it might. They’d stopped to change the tire as soon as they hit paved road, Ellie doing her best to convince him that since he was injured, she ought to be the one to do the job.

Now…McCall was well aware that the world had changed a lot since the 1950s, and that he’d traveled a long road from his dad’s garage in Bakersfield, California, and that women in this century were a whole lot different than his mother had been, with her soft white hands and red nail polish that had never so much as touched a dip-stick. But in his book, there were just some things a decent man didn’t do, and standing around holding a flashlight while a little tiny bit of a woman changed a tire for him was definitely one of them. Anyway, the wound in his arm had stopped bleeding, and even though it did still throb a bit, it was a long way from keeping him from being able to twirl a lug wrench.

Since then, the little VW had been churning slowly but steadily through the downpour, sending up wings of water on both sides of the car, occasionally sputtering a little, but otherwise hanging in there.

Which was about as much as could be said for her driver and passenger. Hangin’ in there.

“Luck’s been with us so far,” he said softly, looking over at the woman beside him. Looking at the curling tips of her wet hair, dark and somehow childlike against her pale forehead, at her tense profile and slumping shoulders. Wishing she’d just put her head back and sleep. Wishing he could gather her into his arms and hold her while she slept.

Instead, unexpectedly, she straightened up and laughed. “Providence…” she murmured. “That’s what my Aunt Gwen called it. And you know what? Knowing Gwen, I don’t think she’d be surprised to find out Providence has such a sense of humor.”

McCall snorted. “Sense of humor?” Personally, he was having a hard time finding much about the last couple of days that was funny.

She shifted in her seat, half facing him. “Ever since I got to this country I’ve been feeling kind of like Alice-in- Wonderland, you know? Everything flip-flopped, nothing like it was supposed to be. Now I’m thinking maybe all the time it was just Providence having this huge joke on me.”

“Some joke-damn near getting us both killed.”

“Yeah, but don’t you think it’s funny? I thought you couldn’t be trusted, you thought I was totally bad news, and all the time, we’re the good guys. Meanwhile, the head good guy, the man I’m supposed to trust, he turns out to be the head bad guy.”

“Hilarious,” he muttered under his breath. But he was beginning to see her point. He’d been wondering himself how his Goody Two-Shoes had turned into Indiana Jones.

“And then,” she went on, really warming to it, “you go and sacrifice your cigarettes so we can find our way back to the car, and I try to follow my family tradition and start a fire as a distraction so we can escape, and the rain completely ruins both our plans. But as it turns out, the rain is what saves us. See what I mean? Providence.”

McCall shook his head. “Uh-uh,” he said with gravel in his voice. “You are what saved us, sister.”

She stared at him. “I’m what got us into this mess.”