Authors: Suzanne Brockmann
“Northeast,” Alison said as she flashed both hot and cold.
Injured?
She went back into her bedroom and started pulling on her clothes. “That’s where he said he was going. I made a point to remind him that there’s still a police investigation ongoing over to the northwest, even though that’s the way Quinn would have actually gone. Where are you, Henry? I’ll be right there.”
August 6, 1898
Dear Diary
,
The town has thrown me a welcoming “ball.” It was hardly grand, barely fashionable, with women in ill-fitting, cast-down gowns with mud-stained hems and ghastly musicians playing barely recognizable tunes
.
Half of the town—the people who have been the kindest to me—had not been invited
.
But this ball is the reason he has kept my face clear of bruises and cuts so I can hardly complain. Still, the ruling class of Jubilation, those Lords and Ladies lifted from their place in the mud by the silver they’ve found in the surrounding hills, murmured at how ladylike I was. What small steps I took. They don’t know that I took those small steps in an attempt to keep my latest broken rib from paining
.
Or maybe they do know. Maybe everyone knows. Yet they do nothing. Save one man
.
He was there tonight, my gambler. He came, even without an invitation. He just leaned against the wall, watching me, for what seemed to be an eternity. When my husband finally went down to the street to have one of his cigars with the other men, the gambler approached and asked me for a dance. For the first time all night, the music seemed to be in tune
.
I accepted, even knowing that my husband would of course find out, knowing I would be beaten for it
.
He held me politely, this gambler with the quicksilver smile. He held me at the distance propriety demanded. Still, he managed to touch me, if only with his eyes
.
“Are you well?” he asked
.
I replied that I was, thank you
.
Then he surprised me by asking, “Would you tell me if you weren’t?”
This time I answered him honestly. “No.”
He was quiet for quite some time, and then he asked if my husband had hurt me again
.
With the outlaws gone, there was nothing with which to blackmail the monster, to keep him from harming me. And likewise, my gambler believed himself to be safe, because he no longer posed a threat. And yet the monster still marked him, watched him, waited for him to make a mistake. Just one was all it would take and my gambler would be brutally gunned down
.
I told him this, told him that he’d done enough, that he should leave this godforsaken place
.
But he said he would not, that he liked this little town. But his eyes and his smile told me that what he liked, in fact, was me
.
But I know that he saw my despair because he fell silent again. And when we were some distance away from the other dancers, he asked me, in a low voice, did I want him to kill my husband? And I knew if I said yes, he would do it right then, right there
.
I was shocked—not at the thought of killing, but at the fact that if this gambler tried such a thing, he would surely hang. When I told him this, he agreed, but said he was willing to take his chances
.
For me
.
I told him no and thanked him for his concern, pressing his hand as the dance ended
.
He bid me good evening and told me he would see me soon
.
Tonight I have begun to plan in earnest. Because in this gambler, I have finally found the man who can help set me free
.
A.J.’s camp was right where he’d said it was.
He’d either found his tent or gotten a new one. It was
pitched near his truck, near the cold remains of a fire that had been carefully doused.
“A.J.,” Alison called, suddenly feeling really stupid that she’d come out here alone.
This was crazy. She was as crazy as he was, and it wasn’t going to help at all in their search for Hugh.
But what if …?
“A.J.,” she called even louder, and she heard movement from the tent. “Wake up. There’s an emergency.”
He scrambled out, wearing only a pair of briefs, his feet jammed into his boots, his hair standing straight up. “Alison. What’s the matter? Are you all right?”
In the glow from her flashlight, he looked … a lot like she’d looked in shorts and boots. Except she’d only looked ridiculous. He also managed to look ridiculously sexy.
“I’m fine,” she said, “but Hugh went out scouting locations and he hasn’t come back. We’ve sent out search parties, but no one’s found anything, and … I thought …”
She’d thought that—maybe—if there was the slightest chance that Jamie really was real, that he could find Hugh the way he’d found Alison when she was trapped in the bathroom with that snake.
And God, yes, it was crazy, but the sun would be up in less than an hour. And the state police were starting to make noises that sounded an awful lot as if they were preparing the production crew for the very real possibility that they weren’t going to find Hugh alive.
But A.J. didn’t make her say it. He didn’t gloat. He didn’t rub her face in the fact that, yes, she’d come to him for help. He just closed his eyes and put his head back and said, “Jamie, where are you?”
And God, that was weird, but weirder still was this hope she had that Jamie truly existed. And she couldn’t help it, she started to cry.
“Hey,” A.J. said, moving toward her, but then stopping, as if self-conscious about getting too close. “We’re going to find him, okay?” He closed his eyes, again. “Come on, Jamie, I need you
—now.”
“The theory’s that he’s had some kind of car accident. Jeep. He was driving a Jeep,” Alison said in her stupid wobbling voice, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand as she willed herself to stop. “A Jeep without a LoJack signal, without GPS.”
A compass. Each of the production company Jeeps was outfitted with a compass and a first-aid kit and plenty of water and Gatorade. Which was great and would keep Hugh alive—provided whatever accident he’d been in wasn’t so severe that he couldn’t reach that water or Gatorade.
“We’ve tried calling him, tried to track his phone, but we’ve had no luck with that, either,” she said. “Should I … not interrupt you?”
“No,” he said. “It’s okay. He’s here.”
Jamie was here.
Oh, good …?
A.J. quickly explained the situation to the empty air, then paused, as if listening intently, before turning back to Alison. “He wants to make sure he’s … Hugh’s the redhead, right?” he asked. “With … the broken heart?”
Alison looked at him. “How do you know about that?”
“I don’t,” A.J. said. “But Jamie apparently does.”
“Yes,” Alison said. “Hugh Darcy. He’s in his mid-twenties, red hair, definitely a broken heart. He’s also gay. Is that going to be a problem for … Jamie?”
“No,” A.J. said, absolutely. “Jamie says don’t worry, he’ll find him. With a little luck, he’ll be able to focus on Hugh and just zap himself to wherever he is.” He pointed to his tent. “I’m going to get … pants on. Pants will … be good. On. I’ll be ready to go when Jamie gets back. Which should be pretty quick.”
Ready to go.
Of course.
After Jamie—the invisible ghost—found Hugh, the only person he’d be able to tell about it was A.J. Who would then have to go out in his truck and find Hugh himself.
“I’m coming with you,” Alison called. “Is that okay?”
A.J. emerged from his tent, still fastening his belt, a T-shirt
over his arm. “Of course. Are you sure?” But he didn’t wait for her to answer. He turned and, God, it just didn’t get any less weird. He was looking and listening to Jamie again, who was, apparently, already back.
Provided that he was real and not just a figment of A.J.’s psychotic imagination.
“Jamie found Hugh,” A.J. told her, and she wanted to believe him so badly, her knees went a little weak.
Please God, don’t let him just be crazy.
But A.J. returned his full attention to the empty space beside him. “He’s where …? Yeah, that’s really not good.” He turned back to Alison, his face serious. “He went south, not north. His Jeep’s in a ditch, like he went off the road, but then he left it, which he shouldn’t have done, and he went south again. Walking. He must’ve gotten completely turned around. But Jamie says now he’s just lying there, at the side of a dirt road that leads down to Mexico. He’s alive, but he’s really weak. Jamie tried, but can’t get him to move, hardly at all. It looks like he’s been pretty sick. Possibly injured.”
“Should we call for a chopper?” Alison asked. “There’s one standing by in Tucson, but it’ll take awhile to get here.”
A.J. shook his head. “He’s not that far,” he told her. “Twenty minutes, tops. But he’s in the total opposite direction from where the search teams have been looking.”
Alison nodded and held out her hand for the keys. “I’ll drive,” she said.
It would’ve been crowded with the three of them in the front seat of his truck, had Jamie not elected to ride on the cab roof.
When he wanted to talk, he stuck his face down through the plastic of the ceiling, right where the overhead light was, which was quite the bizarre effect.
Still it was better than the ghost sitting next to Alison and involuntarily jolting her again.
“Left here,” Jamie instructed, and A.J. passed the information on to Alison, who was driving like a NASCAR champion, fast and sure, her hands tight on the steering wheel.
“Thank you for asking me to help,” A.J. said, and she glanced at him.
“If he’s not here,” she said, “I’m kicking you out and you’re walking back.”
“He’s here.”
She drew in a deep breath and exhaled, hard. “How do I know you didn’t kidnap him and stage this whole thing?”
“And yet you’re in my truck with me,” he pointed out. “Probably because you don’t really think I’d do that.”
“But apparently,” she said, “I’m known for being wrong. According to you, I’ve written a whole book that’s wrong.”
“You wrote a book about a legend,” A.J. pointed out. “As for what happened to Hugh? After we find him, he’ll be able to tell us.”
“Unless you gave him the date rape drug,” Alison countered. “That would’ve made him forget what happened.”
“Damn,” Jamie said from the ceiling. “She’s got an answer for everything, doesn’t she?”
“We’ll make sure he gets a blood test,” A.J. said. “To see if he was given roofies. And after we get Hugh to the doctor? We can go someplace where there can’t possibly be a camera or a sensor or whatever you can imagine, and I’ll put a freaking bag over my head, if that’s what it’ll take—”
“While I write something on a pad,” Alison finished for him, “that Jamie then reads and you repeat.”
“Yeah,” A.J. said. “We can do it as many times as you want, however you want. You make the rules. We’ll do it till you’re satisfied—and okay,
that
came out sounding … That’s not what I meant. I meant—”
“I know what you meant,” she said.
They drove for a few more minutes in silence, as he berated himself for being an idiot.
This was, no doubt about it, a precious second chance that he’d been given, and he was not going to blow it.
But then she said, “I’ll do that, if we find Hugh. I’ll sit down with you. And Jamie. But you have to promise that, if we
don’t
find him …”
“We’re going to find him,” A.J. said.
“But if we don’t?” she said. “After you walk back to town? We’re going to sit down, you and me, in a very public place, and we’re going to call your mother and we’re going to make arrangements to get you the help that you need. Does that sound like a fair deal?”
“Alison,” he started.
She cut him off. “Yes or no,” she said. “Is that a deal? Either way, we’re going to talk, and you’re going to answer my questions.
All
my questions. I agree to this deal, do you?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Good. How much farther?”
A.J. glanced up at Jamie, who lifted his head and soared high above them, to get a bird’s-eye view.
“Half a mile, then a left onto the dirt road,” he reported, and A.J. relayed. “Then another two and a half miles, maybe a little less, and he’s off to the right side. I’ll go and be with him, and flag you down.”
He popped away.
“Are we alone?” Alison asked.
A.J. nodded. “Yeah.”
“Is he … always with you?” she asked. “I mean, was he … Did he …”
“No,” A.J. told her. “When we were … together, he wasn’t there.”
Alison glanced at him, shaking her head as she focused on the road, slowing to make the turn onto what seemed little better than an off-road trail. “I was going to say,
Good, because that would be weird
, but really, what about this
isn’t
weird?”
“I should have told you,” A.J. said, “before we got too … hot and heavy. But … you just … swept me off my feet.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but that’s bullshit. You swept
me
off
my
feet. I didn’t carry you into the shower. And then into my bedroom, where I’m positive my feet didn’t touch the ground once.”
“Okay,” he said, “so maybe my choice of expression was wrong, but I just … You’re irresistible.”
“Yeah, well,” she said, “you were, too.”
Were. Past tense. Ouch.
“I should have told you,” A.J. said again. “Bottom line? I was wrong, and I apologize.”
“And I don’t accept your apology, thank you very much,” she shot back. “I think you purposely deceived me. I think you knew damn well how I was going to react to your little news flash, so you lied.”
“By omission,” A.J. pointed out. “Funny how it was okay when Silas Quinn did it.” He could see, up ahead, Jamie in the middle of the road, waving his arms. “Slow down—there he is.”
And there he was.
Hugh Darcy. A slight figure collapsed at the side of the road.
Alison was out of the truck almost before she’d braked to a stop and put it in park. But A.J. was closer and he beat her to the man.