Authors: Alicia Scott
She'd become more distant after that, veering
toward little games and petty displays he didn't know how to respond to. He
couldn't play the jealous type, he couldn't pour out his soul as she seemed to
want. If she didn't want to be with him anymore, he accepted that. It was her
choice to move on, and he honestly wished her well.
He would miss her, but that was life—cause and
effect, choice and consequence. He accepted that. He valued his independence.
And if he lived alone and died alone because of it, he was willing to pay that
price. Choice and consequence.
When Abraham had abruptly appeared in Portland
and instantly swept Kathy off her feet, Cain had figured it was for the best.
Kathy had seemed happy. She'd always liked men with an edge and Ham certainly
had that. But Ham had also seemed to have turned over a new leaf. He'd claimed
that he'd left the militia movement and their father's racism behind. Cain had
figured that must be the case for Kathy was Jewish, something that Ham never would
have tolerated before.
Cain had never suspected a thing. Down to the
last moment, he'd never suspected the truth about his brother.
I knew you were many things, Ham. But a
murderer? A murderer?
God, how could he have not seen that coming?
How could he have let Kathy pay for his mistakes with his family? For not
realizing just how deep Ham's hatred ran, just how dangerous Ham had become?
He'd tried to tell everyone at the trial. He'd
testified on his own behalf, telling the judge, the jury and Kathy's family
what Ham had done. But the weapon was Cain's hunting knife with Cain's
fingerprints. Then Ham got on the stand, calmly swore on the Bible he held
sacred and proceeded to tell the room how he'd witnessed Cain's attack on Kathy
in a jealous rage. And Cain had no alibi to back up his version of events.
It had been over after that. No one believed
him. Not even Kathy's brother Joel, whom he'd considered a good friend, not his
boss, not his co-workers, not anyone. Cain had no proof on his side and no one was
willing to listen to him otherwise. They all just said they never had felt very
close to him, they never had felt as if they truly knew him. No one believed in
him at all.
He stood alone. He went to jail alone. He held
the truth alone.
And the first six months in prison, he'd
listened to the cell doors slamming shut every night,
kchnk, kchnk, kchnk,
and
dreamed of Kathy calling his name.
"Cain?"
He was so disoriented, it took him a moment to
realize the voice wasn't in his head.
"Cain?"
He forced himself back to reality, blinking his
eyes and peering belatedly at his passenger. She was chewing her lower lip and
staring at the gauges. "I think we get to walk soon," she said.
His gaze swung to the gas gauge. It already
rested on Empty. "I am having such a bad day," he muttered at last.
"Really?" Maggie chimed. "Mine's
been rather nice." She smiled glumly.
"Try to locate us on the map again. We
either find civilization or take up hiking."
Maggie retrieved the map, her mind moving
quickly. She thought they were still heading toward Tigard and Tualatin. What
if they did run out of gas? Then they'd walk. Could she run for it? Somehow,
she didn't think he'd unhandcuff her to walk. Most likely, she'd be glued to
his side. But what if someone came along in a car? He wouldn't want to arouse
suspicion by having someone see them handcuffed together. Maybe he'd undo the
handcuffs then.
She could try running for it. She wasn't
exactly dressed for the occasion, but maybe a car would spot her and offer
help.
Or maybe Cain would pull out his gun, shoot the
other person and steal yet another vehicle. He hadn't actually done anything
violent yet, but he'd gone to prison for murdering his girlfriend. That seemed
to suggest he could be lethal when provoked.
Oh God. She started searching in earnest for
their road on the map.
"Okay," she said after a moment.
"I think we're almost in Tualatin."
She directed him across another few streets,
down 99W, across another few back roads and then they were in Tualatin, right
off I-5. The library, Safeway, and K mart was on their left. Fred Meyers
appeared on their right. Banks and liquor stores. Surely there had to be a gas
station somewhere.
"We're ditching this vehicle," Cain
said and whipped them into the long strip mall with K mart.
"And stealing another," she filled in
morosely.
"I promised the last person would get his
car back and Idaho is a long walk."
"I don't think returning someone's stolen
car is considered a good deed if you just turn around and steal another."
"Any better ideas?"
"Turn yourself in? Let me go?" She
smiled hopefully. "I'm just going to slow you down, I've never been
particularly fond of Idaho, and you still don't know how to manage the bathroom
breaks."
He turned into the parking lot, shut off the
engine and looked at her. "True. Let's think about this." He gazed at
her steadily, his green eyes sharp. After a moment, he nodded to himself. That
worried her.
"How much money do you have?" he
quizzed.
She instinctively clutched her purse against
her.
"Now, Maggie, we've come this far
together, don't back out on me now."
"I'm not exactly rich," she half
lied, hoping that might sway him.
"Consider it a loan." Cain wiggled
his fingers impatiently. "How much?"
She reluctantly opened her purse and took out
her billfold. At least she never carried much cash on her. "Five dollars
and … sixty-seven cents."
"Five dollars?" he said
incredulously.
"Five dollars!
You're walking around with only five
dollars on you? How are we going to outrun the entire state police force with
five dollars?"
"I didn't 'walk around' with only five
dollars in my purse," she said stiffly. "I had fifteen dollars. You
already spent ten."
"Maggie, you can barely fill a gas tank
with fifteen bucks."
"I know. And I took the bus." She
smiled grimly, her hands folded on her lap very prim and proper. "Besides,
it's not safe for a lone woman to travel with too much cash." And then her
blue eyes did flash piercing flames at him.
He glared at her a minute longer, then shook
his head. "Of all the people in the world," he muttered, "how
did I manage to kidnap a poverty-stricken shrink?"
"I don't know. Why don't you return me and
try again?"
He scowled, contemplating her for another
moment. He was starting to feel strung too tight, and that would get him
nowhere. If there was ever a situation that required logic and rationality,
this was it. It was only his freedom, his life at stake.
And now that you've
kidnapped her, is her life at stake as well? Do you think Ham would hesitate to
harm her?
The thought came out of nowhere and floored
him. For a minute, he could only sit there and blink. He stole another glance
at her. She sat quietly, her hands folded on her lap as if she didn't want to
draw any attention to herself. Her tangled red hair was torched by the bright
spring sun, shimmering a deep burning red. Her skin was alabaster perfect and
her lips a rose petal pink. She was beautiful in her own way. If he'd met her
under any other circumstances, he might have nodded politely at her, but he
still would have walked away.
He preferred sophisticated and experienced
women, ones who wouldn't expect things from him he couldn't give. Ones who
considered great sex to be its own reward. This woman before him … she looked
as if she still slept curled in a ball, her hands clutching the satin edge of a
thick blanket, her dreams searching for a happily-ever-after that had never
quite found her.
A marriage counselor. A woman hell-bent on
saving the world when God knows she didn't look as if she could even save
herself.
He glanced at her again, and her bright blue
eyes seemed vulnerable.
You got her into this, Cain. What do you do
now?
Nothing, he decided resolutely. Just a few more
hours of her assistance and he'd be in Idaho. Once out of the immediate range
of the Oregon state police, he'd let her go. She'd call her brothers. She would
be safe. If Ham did hunt her down and ask questions, she certainly wouldn't
tell any stories. As far as she was concerned Cain was a murderer, and he was
best off to keep it that way. As long as she thought the worst of him, she was
safe from Ham. Cain owed her that much, and if there ever came a day when he
was a free man, he would find her and thank her for the small part she played
in helping him uncover the truth.
Cain didn't know if he ever would be a free
man, though. The cops would hunt him until he cleared his name, and to clear
his name he needed to confront Ham. Confronting Ham would probably lead to his
own death, or possibly to Ham's. Which would finally make Cain guilty of one murder
though convicted of another. Either way, Cain's future didn't look very
encouraging, and for all his brilliance, he couldn't quite crack this riddle.
Cain's conundrum, he called it.
First things first: He had to make it to Idaho.
"Do you have a cash card?" he asked
Maggie abruptly.
"Y-yes."
"All right." His voice was
deliberately hard. "This is what we'll do. We're going to walk across the
street to the other mall. I'm going to remove the handcuffs for the occasion,
so don't do anything that will make me make you regret it. Got it?"
She nodded, but her brow was furrowed into a
rebellious scowl.
"At the mall," he continued
relentlessly, "you'll withdraw as much as you can. Then, we'll steal
another car and head for Salem. With any luck, it will take them a while to
notice the vehicle is gone."
She opened her mouth as if to protest, then
abruptly shut it again. She hunched her shoulders a little more. Finally, in a
faint voice, she asked, "Are you ever going to let me go?"
"When we get to Idaho … if you
cooperate."
He followed up the statement with a
dispassionate stare. And she peered back at him from beneath the long, tangled
locks of her red hair, looking like someone who'd gotten too many hard knocks
and not enough pick-me-ups. Her lashes swept down abruptly, brushing her pale
cheeks delicately and hiding her eyes. Her fingers knit together on her lap, as
if seeking to comfort one another.
He forced himself to watch and remain
impassive.
"All right," she agreed.
"We use your ATM card. We steal another
car," he repeated.
"I cooperate. You don't hurt anyone,"
she repeated.
"We have ourselves a deal."
He reached across the bench seat and briskly
grabbed her handcuffed hand, releasing the metal bracelet. He folded the cuffs
in his back pocket, beneath the cover of his overshirt.
"I still have a loaded gun," he
reminded her softly.
"Who could forget?"
He opened the truck door, peered around for
cops and drew her half out of the vehicle. "We walk, nothing fancy. Let's
take the map with us."
She obediently retrieved the map and handed it
to him.
She was silent for a moment. Then, she expelled
in a rush, "You don't have to do this. Running from the law, stealing
cars, it's no way to live. If you'd let me call my
brother Brandon, he's very smart, you've never talked to
anyone as smart as him. He could help you, I just know he could. You seem like
you're quite intelligent. I mean … surely you must want more from life than to
spend your days running from the police. What kind of future is that?"
"It's not much of
one."
"My family could help
you—"
"Maggie," he
interjected quietly. "Enough." He turned and walked away, and the
motion of his arm forced her to follow.
Chapter 4
S
he
cast a surreptitious glance at her captor as he led her across the parking lot.
His steps were long, forceful and not at all
furtive. His green gaze was hard and level and never ducked guiltily to the pavement.
In the faded blue shirt, worn T-shirt and work-softened jeans, he looked like
anyone, any random man who might work with his hands and know what he was
about. Solid shoulders, lean flanks, muscled forearms. A few women gave him a
second glance before spotting Maggie.
He'd
been a computer programmer? She never would have guessed that. She thought
computer programmers were supposed to be like accountants, nice, bland men with
innocuous smiles and rapidly blinking eyes. In jeans and T-shirt, Cain looked
more like the dairy farmers she'd spend her summers with in Tillamook. She
could see him striding along in the field, shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal
tanned forearms, and bright August sun torching his golden hair as he wrapped
his gloved hands around baling wire and hefted bales of sweet alfalfa
effortlessly onto the flatbed. Heave-ho, heave-ho. From the time of the summer
of '78 on Lydia's farm, she'd spent all her summers watching that ritual,
driving the tractor that pulled the flatbed through the fields and feeling her
heart beat in rhythm to the constant, sweaty motion of heave-ho, heave-ho.