False Pretenses (29 page)

“I almost forgot that Remy’s funeral is tomorrow.” Zoe’s eyes filled with tears. “I wonder if we’ll even be able to go.”

“Not if we’re all dead.” And the minute Pierce said the words, he wished he hadn’t. Ethan must be frantic enough without his stating their worst fear.

There was a long, uncomfortable pause.

Finally Pierce said, “Sorry, Ethan. I really didn’t mean that. It’s just frustration talking.”

“Hey, I’m worried too. I just have to remember that Vanessa and I gave our lives to Christ. Nothing can happen to us unless He allows it for a reason. If I didn’t know that, I’d probably freak.”

“You have a lot more faith than I do,” Pierce said. “I believe it’s up to me to take care of myself.”

“I’m afraid I’m unequipped for that job—especially now.”

Vanessa didn’t move a muscle, didn’t dare to exhale until Shapiro was yards away from her. If he had known she was there, wouldn’t he have grabbed her—or shot her? Maybe now she could follow
him
. At least knowing where he was would ease the fear that he would jump out and grab her.

It was raining harder and the wind had picked up. She rose to her feet and continued walking the same path. How was she supposed to keep the sharp leaves from striking her face—and, at the same time, the rain from running into her eyes? Like taillights in a downpour, the color in Shapiro’s clothes stood out and enabled her to focus on him. He was moving faster than she was comfortable with, but she didn’t let him out of her sight.

All at once her shoe caught a tangle of vines. She toppled forward onto the ground and landed on her elbows. A silent scream caught in her throat as a bolt of electric pain shot through her wounded shoulder.

She lay on the ground in agony, surrounded by weeds and towering cane stalks. Claustrophobia again consumed her. She took a slow deep breath and exhaled. Then did it again. And again, trying to imagine herself out in a wide-open field.

She forced herself to get up, her shoulder bleeding again, and took a step forward and then another, pushing the wet cane leaves out of her face and struggling to spot the blue cargo shorts. She walked a little faster but couldn’t spot him. Had he gotten too far ahead of her—or was he on to her?

CHAPTER 30

Zoe stood at the window in the back bedroom at Langley Manor, the rain coming down so hard she couldn’t see where the yard ended and the woods began. Lightning flashed, and she clamped her eyes shut just as thunder boomed and shook the house.

She went over to her air mattress and sat with her legs stretched out in front of her. Pierce lay on his air mattress, facing the wall, and she sensed he was awake. Was he thinking of Vanessa too—and how badly Cowan might hurt her to find out their whereabouts? Could Zoe ever forgive herself if Vanessa ended up dead?

A wave of nausea swept over her, and she closed her eyes until it passed. Would life ever be normal again? Would she and Pierce return home together and work through the lies, or was it over?

Zoe wiped a tear off her cheek and tried to stifle her sniffling.

Pierce exhaled loudly, then turned over, picked up the box of tissues, and tossed it on her sleeping bag.

She plucked several tissues just as the cell phone rang.

Pierce stared at it for a moment, then reached over and put it on speaker, letting go of it as if it were a hot potato. “Hello.”

“Well, I see at least one of you is answering.”

Cowen’s voice filled her with dread.

Pierce glared at her. “How did you get this number?”

“How do you think? I want my hundred grand. Time’s running out. Why did Zoe hang up on me?”

“Sorry. She panicked. She wasn’t expecting to hear your voice. You said we had until the banks close.”

“That’s right. But you’re not going to get very far without my account number. Grab a pencil.”

“Hold on.” Pierce picked up the ballpoint Ethan had put in one of the sacks. “All right. What is it?” Pierce wrote the numbers on his hand as Cowen said them, and then repeated the entire account number.

“It would be a huge mistake to double-cross me on this.”

Pierce looked over at Zoe and rolled his eyes. “Why would we do that?”

“Now that’s the spirit. Because I never forget people who mess with me. I eliminate them—and their friends—with a great deal of
pain
.”

The line went dead.

Pierce dropped the phone on the air mattress and shot her a look of disdain.

“At least he believes we’re going to wire the money,” Zoe said.

“Vanessa must’ve told him that. But he obviously got to her.” Pierce’s eyebrows came together. “There’re only two ways he could’ve gotten this cell number, and we know he didn’t get it from Ethan.”

“I wonder why Vanessa didn’t tell him where we are. I know how scary he can be. If he threatened her, she wouldn’t have lasted two minutes before she told him.”

“I can’t answer that. I do know this: He’s going to be furious when the hundred thousand doesn’t show up in his account. And if he hasn’t already killed Vanessa, he will. And then he’ll come after us.” Pierce threw his hands in the air. “I sure hope getting your
new life
was worth dying for, Zoe.”

Vanessa watched her feet as she moved gingerly along the narrow, weed-covered path, barely visible between two rows of sugarcane stalks. How much time had she lost when she fell—one minute—maybe two? Where was Shapiro? How far could he have gone? What if he spotted her and was staying out of sight, waiting for the right time to make his move?

It felt as if she’d been walking for miles. Where was the road? Had the field angled off in a different direction without her being able to tell? Or did the road not come this far south?

Lord, please guide me out of here!

She stopped for a moment and listened carefully, the only sounds the distant rumble of thunder and the
drip, drip, drip
of rain draining from the leaves. Had the storm emptied itself?

Vanessa started walking again, her hands in front of her, protecting her face from being cut by the sharp leaves—and then suddenly, there was nothing but air. She put her hands down and couldn’t believe her eyes: She had reached the end of the row and was looking at the log fence that marked the Langley property.

Thank You, Lord!

Wasn’t she facing due north? That meant she needed to run to the log fence and climb over it, then turn right and follow the perimeter of the woods around to the open area behind the manor house. She and Ethan owned only fifteen acres. How far could it be to the house?

She stuck her head out just long enough to look to the left and then to the right. Where was Shapiro? If he had come to the end of his row and still hadn’t seen her, would he have given up, turned around, and retraced his steps back to her car?

Or would he assume that Ethan had reported her missing, that an APB had been put out on her car, and decided to walk the three miles back to town? Or had he called someone to come get him?

Everything in her wanted to dart out of this cane field and run as fast as she could to Langley Manor. But what if Shapiro was waiting, expecting her to surface—would he shoot her in the back? And if he chased her to the manor house, wouldn’t Zoe and Pierce be in grave danger too?

Vanessa sighed. Why was the Lord testing her faith
again?
Why had He allowed this life-threatening situation? Hadn’t she passed the test when she stayed faithful to Him, even after she witnessed Drew’s senseless murder—and endured those agonizing hours when Ethan was pursued by Drew’s killer and she didn’t know whether she would ever see him again?

Her thoughts flashed back to that Memorial Day afternoon when she sat out on the screened-in porch with an elderly friend, Tessa Masino, waiting for search and rescue to find Ethan.…

“Tessa, why does God have to test our faith?” Vanessa said. “Why do I need another trial? Why does Ethan? Haven’t we been through enough?”

Tessa tucked Vanessa’s hair behind her ear the way her mother often did. “It seems that way. But is faith really faith until it’s tested? It’s one thing to claim we have it. It’s another to actually put it into practice.…”

Vanessa sighed, coming back to the present. Did she have enough faith to believe that no matter what happened, God would use it for good? She looked out at the open space between there and the tree line, convinced it couldn’t be more than thirty yards.

Run!

The voice resounded in her head. Was it just her fear talking?

Go!

She hesitated for only a second, then sprang out into the open, running with abandon toward the log fence, the searing pain in her shoulder making her knees weak, but determination giving her legs.

She came to an abrupt stop at the log fence, slipped through it, and kept running, angling to the right and running along the perimeter of the woods.

A shot rang out across the gray Louisiana sky. She heard Shapiro’s angry shouts but couldn’t make out what he said. Only one voice was distinguishable, and it spoke from within with simple urgency.

Don’t stop!

A bullet zinged by her ear and ricocheted off a tree trunk.

Vanessa resisted the temptation to duck into the woods and hide and pushed herself harder than she thought possible, the trees to her left and the cane fields to her right. Judging from the muffled sound of Shapiro’s voice, she had a healthy head start. What if she was wrong about where she was? What if she couldn’t find the manor house? Or what if Zoe and Pierce were too afraid to answer when they heard banging at the door?

The words from one of the Psalms came rushing to her mind.
God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.

“Lord, I
am
in trouble. I need You!”

The bullet whizzed by her left ear. Would the next one end up in her back? She didn’t want to die, to leave Ethan and Carter. But if she did, was she ready to meet her Savior face-to-face? She decided she was, and the fear left her.

Vanessa kept pushing herself but wondered how much longer she could keep it up before she collapsed. She saw a clearing up ahead. The manor house had to be there. She would run to the back door where Zoe and Pierce could see her from the bedroom. Either they would let her in—or she would be at Shapiro’s mercy. Either way, it was out of her hands.

Zoe stood looking out the front windows at Langley Manor, wishing she were out on the gallery at her apartment, watching the activity on
rue Madeline
. She heard the floor creaking behind her, and then Pierce’s resonant voice.

“Did you hear
that?”
he said.

“Hear what?”

“Sounded like gunshots.”

“I didn’t hear anything,” she said. “Where were they coming from?”

“Not far.”

“Could it be someone hunting?”

“Wrong season.”

“What should we do about it?” Zoe moved away from the window.

“I don’t know. But we can’t ignore it.”

“Maybe it was someone poaching.”

“Maybe it wasn’t.”

Zoe studied his somber face. “You’re really concerned.”

“Of course I’m concerned, Zoe! There’s a madman out there who wants you dead—and Vanessa’s missing!”

“You think Cowen got Vanessa to talk, that he’s coming here?”

“I don’t know.” Pierce exhaled, the lines on his forehead disappearing. “I guess if he were coming here to get us, he wouldn’t fire a weapon and announce his presence. I’m probably being paranoid.”

Probably
, she thought. But wasn’t it nice to see his protective side kick in, especially when he had been so indifferent?

Zoe locked gazes with Pierce and, for a fleeting moment, connected with the man who cherished her. Caught off guard, she looked away, wondering if he felt it too.

A loud banging caused Zoe to jump, her hand over her heart. “Someone’s pounding on the back door!”

Pierce grabbed her hand and pulled her into the back bedroom, then picked up the ball bat and stood to the side of the window, his back to the wall, and craned to see out.

“Good grief, it’s Vanessa!”

Zoe heard Vanessa’s cries and her frantic banging on the door. “We have to let her in!”

“I’ll go.” Pierce took the key out of his pocket and gripped the ball bat tightly. “Stay here.”

“I’m coming with you.”

She followed Pierce down the hall and through the kitchen to the back door. He put the key in the bolt lock, opened the door, and pulled Vanessa inside.

“Quick, lock the door!” Vanessa cried. “He’s coming! Shapiro’s coming! He saw me run up here! We only have a minute before he shoots the lock and gets in here! We have to hide! He hanged Remy Jarvis! He tried to hang me!”

Zoe was rendered mute by the dreadful state of her beautiful friend. Vanessa’s long shiny hair was wet and stringy, her face and arms covered with slash marks. Her shirt was blood-soaked, her shoes covered in mud.

“Let’s go!” Vanessa took a step, and Pierce caught her, the bat falling on the floor.

“Whoa. Easy, girl.”

“My legs are tired,” Vanessa said. “I’m not used to running that far.”

“What happened to your shoulder?”

“Shapiro shot me when I escaped and ran into the cane field.”

“His real name is Reagan Cowan,” Pierce said. “The sheriff knows he killed Remy.”