Caitlyn lifted her head. Her eyes swiveled toward him like searchlights, silver beacons in the murky twilight inside the cab. He gave her a long, intent look as he took the turn, and a barely perceptible nod.
The side road was paved but narrow. It wound steeply down between banks thick with ferns, rhododendron and mountain laurel. Trees rising high on both sides of the road blocked the light.
“Take it easy,” Ski Mask growled, glaring over at him, “you tryin’ to get us killed?”
“Sorry,” C.J. muttered. Up ahead he could see a straight downhill stretch of road, just before it disappeared in a sharp turn to the left.
The sound was like a boiler letting go-a giant hiss, creaks and groans and thumps-as everything in the cab and the sleeper compartment that wasn’t fastened down hurtled forward at roughly twenty-five miles per hour. One of the loudest thumps was caused by Ski Mask’s forehead hitting the windshield. C.J. tried not to think too hard about that sound; it was one he hoped to go the rest of his life without ever hearing again.
Anyway, for the next few minutes he had enough to do to keep him from dwelling on the fact that he might have just killed somebody. He’d never jackknifed a tractor-trailer before, and that was another experience he’d just as soon never repeat. The ride was bumpy and
But at last there was stillness, both of sound and of motion. C.J. sat gripping the wheel, thinking for one dazed moment that he must be dizzy, that his internal axis was off plumb. But it was only the cab, which had come to rest canted at an odd angle, with the driver’s side higher than the passenger side. Fear clutched at his heart as he looked over at his passengers. It released him, wrung out, drained, limp with relief, when he saw Caitlyn slowly unfolding herself from her cubbyhole, moving stiffly, as if she wasn’t sure everything was going to work the way it should.
Ski Mask was slumped against the passenger door; no way to tell if he was breathing or not. His gun was in Caitlyn’s hands.
“You okay?” his voice felt sandy in his throat.
She nodded. Her eyes skidded sideways, toward the inert figure by the door. “Is he-?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think we ought to wait around to find out, though. Whoever he was planning on hooking up with-”
“Your truck-”
“Isn’t going anywhere anytime soon,” he said dryly. “It’s jackknifed. Come on, we have to get-” He was shoving at his door, which seemed to be jammed. “No dice. It’ll have to be this way.” He shoehorned himself out from under the steering wheel and stretched across the center console.
Caitlyn cringed back out of his way. “Oh God, you’re not-”
Trying not to notice her horrified expression, C.J. reached across the gunman’s body and opened the door. In an awful sort of slow motion, Ski Mask began to lean…then all at once, tumbled out of the truck. C.J. felt as sick as Caitlyn looked when they heard him hit the pavement with a slithery thud.
“Now you,” C.J. said grimly, half lifting, half shoving her toward the door. “I’m right behind you.”
He tried not to think about the body lying crumpled on the ground as he stepped over it.
He found Caitlyn waiting for him on the other side of the trailer, as far from Ski Mask as she could get. She was standing in the middle of wet, leaf-littered pavement, hugging herself and looking first up the road, then down, like a lost traveler. He went to her and without a word, folded her into his arms.
He held her for a while, not nearly as long as he wanted to, feeling the tremors she tried to hide. Until she drew away from him with a reluctant sniff.
“I guess you had to do that,” she said huskily. “I think he was going to kill you as soon as we got to- Oh, C.J.-” her voice broke “-why did you have to come back? Why couldn’t you just-stop…trying…to
She pounded him once on his chest, then slipped away from him. Eluding him when he reached for her, she put a hand over her eyes. Her vision was still blurry, but she didn’t need detail to recognize the shock and bewilderment in his face. She felt awful. Her heart hurt as though it were being torn in two.
“You set it up,” he said in a flat voice. “You and Jake Redfield. Right? You were hoping Vasily would make his move. You were hoping to be kidnapped.” His laugh was a whisper without amusement. “And I…messed things up.”
Pain lanced through her; she cried out with it. “Oh, no! C.J., you were brilliant. Absolutely…completely… magnificent. I couldn’t have imagined a more spectacular-” And she was crying, but laughing, too.
Then she was back where she wanted to be, in his arms again, and he was kissing her, wildly, recklessly, smearing both their mouths with her tears. She held him tightly, with all her strength, and felt the tremors he tried so valiantly to hide.
“It’s just,” she whispered brokenly, “that now I have to worry about keeping you alive. I don’t know what I’d do if-”
“Yeah, well, this wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t tried to keep me out of it. If you hadn’t lied-”
“I know, I know. I’m sorry. I swear I’ll never do it again. It’s just that you’re so damn protective-”
“You damn right I’m protective. I
“Oh, C.J.,” she whispered. She pulled back from him and gazed, unfocused, into his face. “What are we going to do now?”
“Good question.” Looking past her, over her head, he added grimly, “This might be a good time to let me in on the plan.”
Caitlyn let out a slow breath. Her teeth had begun to chatter. It had stopped raining, but water and leaves fell with a noisy patter as the wind stirred the tops of the trees. “It’s simple, really. We figured Vasily would try to kidnap me-he still thinks I know where his daughter is.”
“You mean…you don’t?”
“No.” Her laugh was scared and breathy. “I don’t. I know how to get in touch with the people who know, but I can’t just…take him to where she is.”
“Oh, God.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Caitlyn said quickly, over his agonized groan. “The plan was for me to pretend to know and then lead him into a trap-a fake safe house-where FBI agents would be waiting. C.J.-” At his angry hiss, she caught at his arms, and felt a strange thrill go through her at the strength, the coiled-spring tension in them. “C.J., listen-it would have been all right. Vasily wouldn’t risk harming me as long as Emma’s in hiding. I’m still his only hope of getting her back.”
“Yeah, well-” he cleared his throat with a low growling sound “-right now we have to worry about getting
“Staying well back out of the way, I should imagine. They’re not going to risk scaring Vasily away.”
“Yeah…and speaking of Vasily…” He was once again directing his nervous and searching gaze beyond her. “I don’t know how far away the rendezvous point was, but that truck made a good bit of noise jacking itself up like that. If they were anywhere nearby, there’s a good possibility they heard it. No telling how much time we have before somebody comes to investigate. Do you have any way of contacting those FBI guys? No…guess not.” He sighed grimly. “Then I’d say-” He froze. So did she.
They both heard it at the same time: the roar of a powerful engine making its way toward them up the steep, winding road.
They took off running instinctively, like flushed quail. Caitlyn’s thick-heeled dress shoes making scraping, clumping noises on the wet pavement. After a few steps they halted, clutching each other’s arms, both talking at once, in panting gusts.
“Where’s the gun?” C.J. wheezed.
At the same time Caitlyn was saying, “
There was a shocked pause. Caitlyn said, “Oh, no-I left it in the truck.”
And C.J. was yelling, “Are you
They both halted again, breathing hard. Then C.J. said evenly, “I’m not leaving you here. Don’t even think about it.”
Caitlyn was sobbing. “C.J., you’re the one they’ll kill!”
