Forever After (32 page)

Big hands. They seemed to be everywhere on her body, patting, pressing, checking her clothes. Still numb from fear, the silent screams locked behind her larynx, Meredith couldn’t speak. She just lay there like a beached fish grabbing for air.

Heath
. He wasn’t dead. He was here, running high on adrenaline and shaking like a leaf. But
here
. “H—heath,” she finally managed to gasp. “Oh, Heath!”

“Are you hurt? Did the bastards hit you?”

“N—no. Fine, I’m fine.”

He dropped her like a hot potato. Still unable to control her limbs, Meredith landed hard on the floorboard in front of the passenger seat, her rump smacking the rug between her spread feet. Pain lanced up her thighs from the twisted angle of her knees.

Heath dove his shoulders through the opening between the seats. “Sammy?” He shoved Goliath out of the way with such force that the dog thumped against the vinyl wall. Then he plucked Sammy up from the floorboard, handling her as if she were an oversize rag doll. “Sweetcakes?”

“Heef.”

Meredith could only sit and watch as Heath twisted down onto the driver’s seat and clamped Sammy to his chest in a fierce hug. He didn’t speak, just held onto the child as if determined to squeeze all the breath from her tiny body. Meredith heard his breath catch. When he inhaled again, the sound was jerky and ragged.

After a few moments, he gently deposited Sammy on the backseat again, then left the vehicle. Meredith could barely discern his outline in the darkness as he paced back and forth along the edge of the road. He didn’t want them to see him right now, she thought. He’d been frantic, thinking they were hurt, and now he was trying to walk off the panic.

When he finally came back to the Bronco, he seemed calm. Meredith wished she were. But she kept searching the darkness, expecting a man to emerge, his gun spitting orange flame. She assumed that Heath had eliminated the danger. But he hadn’t said as much. And in a situation like this, she found it difficult to relax on the strength of an assumption.

“Are you all right?” she managed to ask.

“I’m fine. Not a scratch.”

“Wh—what happened?”

Thrusting his arm through the opening between the driver’s seat and the door frame, he patted his dog and
ruffled Sammy’s hair. “Hey, there, sweetcakes. How’s my best girl?”

“Fine,” Sammy said thinly. “I was real scared while you were gone, though.”

“Me, too.” He drew his arm free and propped it on the back of the driver’s seat, his head and shoulders delineated against the moonlit sky behind him. For a long moment, he just stood there, leaning as if he were exhausted. Then he said, “It’s all taken care of.”

Just that? It was all taken care of? “H—how many were there?”

“Three,” he replied softly. “Man, I want a cigarette.”

A cigarette? She hadn’t realized he smoked. “Three? Are they all—?”

“I took care of it,” he repeated, cutting her off and glancing toward Sammy as if to warn her to watch what she said.

The encroaching blackness seemed filled with menace to her. “Are you s—sure? That you took care of them
all
, I mean?”

“Positive.” He made an odd sound that resembled a laugh, but wasn’t quite. “I went over and checked.”

He sounded so confident that Meredith stopped searching the darkness for movement. They were safe. For now. Her heartbeat slowed, the limp heaviness of her body growing even more leaden.

He strode around the front of the Bronco to open the passenger door. She felt his hands at her wrists. A second later, the handcuffs fell away. Her arms were achy, yet numb, and hung from her shoulders like stiff stumps. She flexed her fingers, wincing at the needle pricks of sensation.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

“Yeah, well. Better late than never.” He opened the glove compartment and rummaged around. A moment later, a lighter flared, and she heard him drag in a raspy breath. The smell of tobacco smoke curled in tendrils through the darkness. “Sorry, but when shit like this comes down, I need a cigarette afterward.”

The smell of the smoke made her think of her father and his pipe. Oh, how she would love to be sitting by the stove with her dad right now, a world away from this, watching the pipe smoke wreathe around his gray head.

Using the heels of her hands on the seat, she pushed up to get her feet under her rump. The pain eased in her knees and thighs. She turned to gaze at Heath.

He took another drag from the cigarette, the tip glowing orange and casting a glow over his dark, sharply chiseled face. As he exhaled, he chuckled drily. “Keeps me from heading for the bushes. Not very macho, I guess, but there you have it.”

Meredith peered through the shadows at him, not entirely sure what he meant. Then she realized he must be feeling squeamish. On the tail of that thought, she turned her gaze into the night beyond the Bronco windows, wondering what horrors the darkness concealed. Three men. All taken care of. And now he was smoking to keep from vomiting. As a girl, she’d once gone hunting with her dad, and she had seen the damage a high-powered rifle could do to a deer. The result was probably the same with a man.

Her stomach lurched, and the blood drained from her head.
Three men, all taken care of
. Oh, God. He had just
shot
three men. And then he’d gone over there to make certain they were dead. He’d had to look at them, touch them.

Not very macho? He’d gone to face them with only a rifle and a police-issue semiautomatic against at least one Uzi and God only knew what other weapons. Only a stupid man would have been unafraid, and Heath wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t one to strut, or flex his biceps, or wear his shirt unbuttoned to show off his chest. But when push had come to shove, he’d stood his ground, and he’d put his life on the line. In her book, that was about as macho as macho could get—the very best kind—understated until it counted.

He tossed down the cigarette and ground it out under his boot. “I need to call this in.” He shut her door, came back
around the vehicle and swung up onto the driver’s seat. Leaning forward, he turned on the dash lights and then the radio. After adjusting the squelch, he brought the mike to his lips. “Masters, to unit three. Come back.”

Almost immediately, a man’s voice came over the air. “Boss? I been tryin’ to get you. Thank Christ you called. The shit’s rollin’ downhill, and we’re up to our eyebrows.”

Heath glanced over at Meredith. “What do you mean, Charlie? Over.”

“We got the Feds breathin’ down our necks, and three county commissioners are sittin’ in your office, pissed off royal. You gotta bring her back in. Over.”

“The Feds? What’re you talking about?”

“The FBI! How in hell they got wind of this, I don’t know. We ain’t contacted nobody. But they sure as shit know! We got big trouble, son. There ain’t been but one call made from here tonight, and you know who made it. Now, suddenly, we got the friggin’ Feds on their way out here to transport your lady friend back east. Over.”

In the glow from the dash, Heath’s dark face went stony. He keyed the mike. “The son of a bitch has FBI agents in his pocket. Over.”

“Go to the head of the class, over,” Charlie replied.

Heath swore and punched the steering wheel with the side of his fist. Meredith’s stomach convulsed as if he’d hit her. “I can’t turn her over to crooked agents, Charlie. If Delgado made the only call out of there about this, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that he called Calendri. Now the Feds are suddenly involved? Those agents have to be on his payroll. If they take her into custody, she’ll never see a courtroom.”

“You don’t got a choice. Game’s over. If you don’t bring her back in, you’re screwed. Over.”

Meredith leaned back against her door, hugging her waist. Heath just sat and stared at the radio. “I can’t,” he finally said.

“Masters?” The male voice coming over the radio belonged to another man, and he seemed to be yelling. “Is
that you, Masters? This is Roy Fergusson. Do you hear me?”

Heath sighed. “Christ. The district attorney?” He keyed the mike. “I hear you, Roy. Stop yelling so loud. Over.”

“You get that Calendri woman back here. Immediately. Do I make myself clear? You’ve got six hours. I don’t know where the hell you are, but you’d better make the most of them. If she isn’t back on these premises and inside a cell where she belongs in six hours, you can kiss that badge of yours good-bye.”

“Roy, her life is in danger. Her father-in-law, Glen Calendri, is tied in with a big crime ring. Over.”

“Oh, bullshit!” The radio blasted static, making Meredith jump. Then Fergusson came back. “Would you listen to yourself? Organized crime? Get real. What you’ve got is trouble on your hands. She’s fed you such a line of malarkey, I’m surprised you fell for it.”

“It’s not malarkey, Roy. I just found that out, up close and personal. Three men just tried to run me off the road. When they piled out of their car, it looked like the Fourth of July. I danced real pretty to the tune of nine-millimeter slugs, sprayed from Uzis, and I damned near sold the ranch. No malarkey to it. Over.”

“Son of a—Don’t tell me! I don’t want to hear it! You took them out, didn’t you?”

“What do you think? They would’ve sprayed me so full of holes I’d’ve looked like a colander. Over.”

“Oh, shit.” There came an awful racket at the other end. Then Fergusson said, “Do you have
any
idea what you’ve done?”

“Saved my ass. Over.”

“You probably just killed three FBI agents!”

Heath sighed. “Roy, FBI agents don’t run people off the road and then start shooting without even showing their badges. Besides, I checked. None of them were packing ID, FBI or otherwise. Over.”

“You listen to me!” Fergusson roared. “You get her back here. You got it? Six hours, Masters. That’s it. No
further discussion. None of us want trouble with the Feds, and if you make any, we’ll crucify you before we take any of the heat ourselves!”

Heath replaced the mike in its bracket and turned off the radio. Meredith was uncertain what to say. As if anything she said would make a difference? His career was on the line. He had no choice but to take her back to town. If he didn’t, he would be in horrible trouble. As it was, it sounded as if he’d have to do some fast talking.

He folded his arms over the steering wheel and rested his forehead on his wrists.

“I’m so sorry, Heath.”

He gave a weak laugh and straightened. “It’s a hell of a mess. I’ll say that.”

Meredith swallowed. “I, um…I really appreciate all you’ve done. I’ll never forget it. Except for my dad, no one’s ever stood up for me like this. Not even my dad, actually. I wish I knew how to—to thank you. And I truly am sorry about the trouble you’re in.”

“Mommy, why is Heef in trouble?”

“For being our friend,” Meredith said softy. “He has to take us back to town, punkin, or they’re going to take his badge away.”

Sammy leaned her elbows on the console, peering up at Heath. “It’s shiny. You like it a lot, huh, Heef?”

He tucked in his chin to gaze down at the badge. After a long moment, he removed it from his shirt and held it up to the moonlight. The look on his face was incredibly sad and empty, making him seem like a lost little boy for a moment. Then, as if he were flipping a bottle cap, he sent the badge spinning out his open door and into the darkness. A second later, a distant
clink
drifted back to them.

Meredith felt as if her stomach had dropped down around her ankles. He turned his gaze on her. Then he looked down at Sammy, his teeth gleaming eerily in the gloom as he smiled. “I don’t like anything in the whole world better than you and your mommy, sweetcakes.”

“Heath,” Meredith interjected. “We need to discuss this.”

“There’s nothing to discuss. I’m going to need your help getting us out of here. Can you handle a stick shift?”

She’d learned to drive in a hay truck. “Yes, but—”

“No buts.” He climbed from the vehicle. “We can’t stay here like ducks in a shooting gallery. The keys are there, in the ignition. Start her up. When I holler, pull forward. If you hear a racket and you feel the back end drop, don’t worry about it.”

As she crawled over into the driver’s seat, he leaned back in to add, “Just don’t run off and leave me.” Then he chuckled and slammed the door.

As if she would leave him? She hadn’t the vaguest clue as to where she was, and she knew nothing about surviving in these woods. In addition to that, he’d just saved their lives and might again before this was over.

She heard him pawing through the stuff in the back of the vehicle. Then heavy metal clunked and grated. With each grating sound, the Bronco lurched. He was jacking up the rear axle to give the front tires traction.

“Okay, go!” he yelled.

She shifted into first, hit the gas, and simultaneously let out on the clutch. Gravel flew, pelting the underside of the vehicle. Then the Bronco lunged forward, its back tires hitting the earth with such force that the shock absorbers bottomed out. She slammed on the brake and clutch, gearing down into neutral.

Heath put the jack back in the rig, then came around to the driver’s door. After setting the hand brake, she moved over into the other seat so he could drive.

He didn’t stay on the highway for long. About two miles up, he turned onto a side road and soon took another turn off of it. From the console, he withdrew a spotlight and connected the clips at the end of the wire to something under the dash. Then he dropped the Bronco’s speed to a crawl and began spotlighting both sides of the road. When they came up on a cabin, he looked it over carefully before
he drove on. Meredith had no idea what he was doing.

“Have you forgotten where it is?” she asked, thinking perhaps he’d lost his way to his friend’s place.

He cast her an odd look. “No, I’m just doing a little shopping.”

Shopping? Meredith settled back. Several miles and at least a half dozen cabins later, Heath spotlighted a small log house back in the trees. Under a makeshift carport, she glimpsed an old red truck. “This’ll do. No one’s been here for months. Last hunting season would be my guess. They probably only come up a couple of times a year.”