Sudden Death

for one minute that I cancel Mass. I know it was on the tip of your tongue. I’m going to do my job. You do yours. Work with them. Agent Elliott did a good job covering your ass tonight; I think they’ll be fine.”

“Blondie doesn’t know who she’s up against.”

Megan dropped her briefcase on the wood floor. “First, do not talk about me as if I am not in the room. Second, you may call me Meg, or Megan, or Agent Elliott, or Your Royal Highness, but do not call me Blondie.” She turned to Vigo. “You’re the senior agent; what are we doing?”

Jack could see that asking anyone what to do got under Agent Megan Elliott’s skin. She was used to being in charge, making the rules, not following them. Well, so was he. And he wasn’t going to relinquish command to a feisty blond cop. Though it would be fun to watch her try to wrestle control away from him.

Hans looked a bit sheepish. “Meg, I’m sorry, I only said that because I was worried about what happened in the jail-” He stopped as he saw that he was digging himself farther into a hole that Megan’s silence was widening. Her silence and her piercing green glare.

Yowza.

Vigo glanced at his watch. “It’s two-thirty in the morning. What do you think, Meg?”

She took off her blazer and draped it over a chair. “We’ll crash the Jeep in sheer exhaustion, though I’m sure the Delta studs here”-she jerked her thumb in Jack’s direction-”will claim that they don’t need sleep, food, or water and are still functioning human beings. We’ll leave at dawn, in time to get Father Francis back for his obligations-if that’s okay with you, Father.”

Padre nodded. Jack shot him a look. Ten minutes ago he had everything under control. How had he lost it to Megan?

Yet he was getting exactly what he wanted: the four of them under his roof so he could protect them and monitor the situation.

“As soon as Mass is over, we need to sit down and start on that list,” Megan continued. “And when the Rangers arrive, we’ll make contact and get a copy of the evidence, autopsy report, and witness statements regarding Scout’s homicide. Someone saw something. These killers aren’t invisible men.”

“Good plan,” Vigo said.

Jack realized that if he wanted to regain control and protect those he cared about, he’d better earn the respect and the ear of Agent-Supervisory Special Agent-Megan Elliott.

“Fine,” Jack said. “Then I guess the only question is where everyone is going to sleep. Ladies choice: where would you like to bed down, Your Royal Highness?”

Ethan hadn’t slept well. The cheap motel room’s laboring air conditioner made the hot air only more humid. The nightmares had been followed by an odd lull, a peace he should have enjoyed but instead it terrified him.

Dawn came too bright, too fast, in the rearview mirror. Hours ago they’d left Benson, Arizona, passed through Tucson, and were now … where? He didn’t know. I-10 was endless, a ribbon of asphalt in a bleak, dry desert. Another time he would have appreciated the contours and colors, the vastness and the vistas. Now he wanted to bury himself in a hole and die. Take a handful of pills and disappear forever.

He needed to die. But the fucking bitch stopped him every time he had a gun to his head, a knife on his wrists, ready to fade away, painless, thoughtless. She said she cared. He started laughing again.

“Ethan?”

He swallowed the laughter, but it squeaked out in a feminine giggle. “What?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” What wasn’t wrong? He stared at his hands on the wheel of the truck. They looked foreign to him. Were these his hands? Had they given him new hands? Hands that could hurt, torture, kill? Maybe the restraints they’d used had cut off his hands at the wrists, and they sewed on his tormentor’s fists. That’s why he knew where to poke, where to press the needle into the flesh. A fraction of a millimeter off and the pain was only as irritating as a bee sting. But when the nerve was stimulated just so …

He screamed and let go of the wheel.

“Ethan!”

He barely heard her voice. He was drowning, his lungs unable to draw in air. His scream continued, he was helpless. He couldn’t stop. They were killing him …

Real pain cut through the vision. His mouth shut. Her hands were on the steering wheel, keeping the truck in their lane. His foot was on the accelerator flat to the floor. They rapidly approached the rear of a minivan.

He glanced at the odometer. Death at 110 miles per hour. Yes. Sixty more seconds and splat, all over the desert. Him and her, gone instantly. Just. Like. That.

She turned the wheel and put them into the eastbound lane, barely missing a collision with the minivan. The car they passed honked at them. Ethan glanced over, saw the kids in the back of the car. The infant seat.

They didn’t care about him. Not when he was imprisoned, not when he was freed. He was nobody.

His foot eased up on the accelerator-100 mph … 90 mph … 80 mph. He hovered between seventy-five and eighty miles per hour and only then did Karin take her hands off the wheel.

Biting his lip-he didn’t notice how hard until he tasted blood-he glanced at her. She’d dyed her hair again. When? She was dark blond when they’d met. Then brown. Now … blond. How had she done that? When? In the motel? He didn’t remember. She was prettier as a blond. Softer. As a brunette, she looked unreal, like everything he saw, as if in a dream. Now she was crisper. Real. Not a figment of his imagination.

Or was she? Had he made her up? Where had she come from?

“Let’s get breakfast,” she said. “There’s a diner on the other side of the California border. Quiet. Thirty minutes.”

He shrugged. If she was real, she didn’t understand him. If she was unreal, he didn’t understand himself. He would have laughed, but deep sadness overwhelmed him. Tears burned his eyes. She should love him, but she didn’t. She said she did, but she was using him. The thought came to him so clearly, he had a flash of sanity. For one minute he remembered who he was deep down, who he had been before. It was like watching the Wizard of Oz change from black and white to Technicolor. Vivid, clear, awesome … frightening.

For him, horrifying.

He blinked rapidly, the color giving way to shades of gray, then to nothing. Nothing but the steering wheel and the endless road.

“Ethan, it’s okay.”

He drove in silence. What would she do if he tied her down and really hurt her? He knew things he hadn’t shown her. Places on her body that would bring her such pain she would beg him to kill her. And he wouldn’t. He would let her suffer as she let him suffer. Alive.

“I’m sorry, “ Ethan said.

“It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.” She touched him like a lover, fingers soft on his skin. She kissed his cheek. “It’s going to be okay. Exit up ahead. You need a good meal.”

He followed her orders and stopped at the roadside diner in Blythe. Ethan didn’t talk as they ordered. The woman-Ethan wasn’t quite sure what her name was- talked about nothing while they ate.

“When are we going to be in Santa Barbara?” he interrupted.

“Five, six hours. Depends on traffic.”

“Okay.”

She said, “You have to be extra careful. We’re almost done. What if the minivan driver you almost hit took down our plates? Called the cops? We’re too close. I can’t risk screwing this up.”

“I’m sorry.” And he was. “Don’t hate me.”

The woman touched his hand. Ethan didn’t feel it, but he saw her fingers rub his palm. Why didn’t he feel them?

She’s not real, right?

“I don’t hate you,” she said. “I love you, you know that.”

He nodded.

As they were leaving the diner, a man approached. He was short, stocky, balding, and wore small wire- rimmed glasses. The stranger pushed Ethan in the chest. Ethan took a step back and looked down at the man.