She tucked the sheet around her body, feeble armor. Why couldn’t he be a harmless drifter who’d let her hitch a ride without giving her any trouble? She pressed her head between the pillows again, trepidation and resentment churning inside her. Through the slit of light, she watched him across the narrow space that separated their beds. The walls were thin. She was afraid to shut her eyes. If he made another move, she’d scream. Surely even in this seedy motel, someone would hear her.
He lay on his back with his ankles crossed, the remote propped on his chest, his hair inky against the pillow propped behind his head. He’d switched from monster trucks to bass fishing, and he looked perfectly relaxed, not at all like a man with rape on his mind.
Perfectly, totally relaxed…
Maybe it was a trick of the flickering light from the television, but she swore she saw the faintest smile of satisfaction lurking at the corners of those thin lips.
She squinted. Shifted the pillows ever so slightly. It wasn’t her imagination. He looked smug, not sinister.
He looked like a man who’d figured out the perfect way to get rid of an unwanted nuisance and come out a thousand dollars richer.
SHE GOT DRESSED IN THE bathroom the next morning and didn’t speak to him until they’d been served at a pancake place wedged between a service station and a thrift shop. Some of the diners were women, but most were men wearing caps that ranged from the trucker variety to sports teams. They eyed Panda suspiciously, but no one paid any attention to either her or her pregnancy bump.
He took a noisy slurp from his coffee mug, then dug into his pancakes, chewing without bothering to close his mouth. He noticed her staring at him and frowned. Her conviction that he’d been manipulating her last night wavered. She was almost certain he’d been deliberately trying to scare her off, but her instincts weren’t exactly foolproof these days.
She studied him closely, paying particular attention to his eyes as she spoke. “So, have you raped a lot of women?”
She saw it. A flicker of outrage camouflaged almost immediately by half-closed eyelids and a noisy slurp from his coffee mug. “Depends on what you mean by rape.”
“You’d know it when you did it.” She took the plunge. “I have to admit last night was interesting.”
His brows slammed together. “Interesting! You think that was interesting?”
Not at the time she hadn’t. But now? Definitely. “Maybe if you were a better actor, you could have pulled it off.”
He grew wary. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She ignored his scowl. “It’s obvious you want to get rid of me, but was that the best you could do?” Those sinister lips pulled tight, and his expression became so ominous she had to muster all the bravado she could find to set her elbows on the table and meet his gaze. “I’m not going anywhere, Panda. You’re stuck with me.” A small devil prodded her, and she pointed to the corner of her own mouth. “You have a little food right there.”
“I don’t care.”
“Are you sure? A fastidious eater like yourself?”
“If you don’t like it, you know what you can do.”
“Yes. Fly home and send you a check for a thousand dollars, plus expenses.”
“You’re damned right, plus expenses.” He swiped at his mouth with his napkin, more a reflexive motion than capitulation.
She curled her fingers around her own coffee mug. He could have dropped her off on the side of the road anytime and disappeared, but he wanted the money, so he hadn’t done it. Now he intended to scare her off and still collect the cash. Too bad for him.
She set down her mug. All this time she’d assumed he had the upper hand, but it was just the opposite. “You’re big and bad, Panda. I get that. And now that I get it, would you mind knocking it off?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The leers. All those references to ‘getting laid.’”
He pushed away his plate, leaving his pancakes half eaten, eyeing her with distaste. “Here’s the way I see it. Rich girl thinks she can add a little excitement to her life by slumming it with a guy like me. Am I wrong?”
She reminded herself who had the upper hand. “Well, the experience is definitely making me rethink the importance of decent table manners.” She gave him the same dead-eye look she gave her sibs when they misbehaved. “Tell me where we’re going.”
“
“Excuse me.” A sixtyish woman in a peach pantsuit approached their booth. The woman gestured toward a nearby table where a jowly man with a walrus mustache pretended to look in the opposite direction. “My husband, Conrad, said I should mind my own business, but I couldn’t help noticing…” She stared at Lucy. “Has anybody ever told you that you look like the president’s daughter? That Lucy character.”
“She hears it all the time,” Panda said. He looked across the table at Lucy and said in fluent Spanish, “
“It’s amazing,” the woman said. “’Course, now that I’m closer, I can see she’s a lot younger. Hope she doesn’t grow up to be like her.”
Panda nodded. “Another spoiled brat who thinks the world owes her.”
Lucy didn’t like that at all, but peach pantsuit lady was on a roll. “I used to admire the way President Jorik raised her kids, but obviously she missed something with that Lucy. Running out on the Beaudine boy. I see his mama’s television show all the time. And Conrad’s a big golfer. He never misses watching any tournament where Dallas Beaudine’s playing.”
“I guess some women don’t know what’s good for them,” Panda agreed.
“Confidentially, neither does Conrad.” She smiled at Lucy. “Well, y’all have a nice day. Sorry to have bothered you.”
“No bother,” he said, as courteous as a small-town preacher. But the moment she disappeared, he crumpled his napkin. “Let’s get the hell out of here before more of your fan club shows up. I don’t need this crap.”
“Snarl all you want,” she told him. “You’re the one who invited me on this joy ride, and I’m not calling it off.”
He tossed some bills on the table a lot harder than he needed to. “Your funeral.”
Chapter Four
THE SMALL RENTAL HOUSE SAT on one of Caddo Lake’s hidden bayous. A pair of aging window air conditioners protruded from the faded mustard-colored siding, and a square of artificial turf covered the front stoop. They’d spent the previous night at a motel near Nacogdoches, where Panda had made a point of ignoring her. Early this morning, they’d headed northeast toward the lake, which sat on the Texas-Louisiana border and, according to the pamphlet she’d picked up when they stopped for gas, was the largest freshwater lake in the South-and surely the spookiest, with its primordial swamps rising out of brown water.
The house was shabby but clean, with a small living room, two even smaller bedrooms, and an old-fashioned kitchen. Lucy chose the room with twin beds. The orange plaid wallpaper curled at the seams and clashed with the cheap purple and green floral quilted bedspread, but she was too grateful to have a wall between her bed and Panda’s to care.
She changed into her shorts and made her way to the kitchen. It was outfitted with metal cabinets, worn countertops, and a gray vinyl floor. The window above the sink looked out over the bayou, and a nearby door led to a small wooden deck that held a molded plastic table, webbed lawn chairs, a propane grill, and some fishing gear.
She found Panda gazing out at the palmetto banking the bayou, his feet propped on the deck railing, a Coke can curled in his palm. At least he hadn’t hunkered down with another six-pack. He didn’t acknowledge her as she
