Over the Line (35 page)

"Shh." He lifted a finger to his mouth when the sound of an engine grow closer. Then he saw the headlights bouncing down the trail in their direction.

He reached under the seat for his gun.

Gone.
Fuck.

The bastard must have taken it when he planted the hearts. That only left one option.

"Hang on. We're going to turn the tables on this creep."

The car drew closer. Jase was confident the Mustang was well hidden. Ninety percent confident anyway. Still his hands were sweating on the wheel when a late-model four-wheel-drive SUV idled slowly by.

"He didn't see us." She sounded breathless with relief.

"Nope. But the sonofabitch is gonna see us now."

He turned the key and slammed the Mustang into gear. They roared up out of the thicket and burst back onto the snowmobile trail—right on the tail of the SUV.

"What are you doing?"

"Letting him know that two can play this game."

He hit the lights, flooding the back of the vehicle like a spotlight. After a moment of shock on Grimm's part, the SUV took off.

Jase stuck to his taillights like white on rice. "There's a pen in the glove box. Get the license number."

"Got it." She scribbled frantically on the back of her hand. "Now what?" she asked as they bounced along the uneven path.

"Now we hope I can bump him hard enough that he'll run off the road."

"You're not serious."

"As a heart attack," he said, just as the SUV reached one of the access roads. Leaving a trail of dust, his tires spun off the shoulder into the gravel and he sped off down the blacktop.

"And the race is on." Jase put the hammer down and they roared onto the road in hot pursuit.

"Would now be a good time to point out that you don't have a gun?"

"There you go. Looking on the downside."

Speaking of guns. Jase saw the flash of fire just as it registered that Grimm had stuck the barrel of one out the driver's window.

"Get down!" He shoved Janey's head below dash level.

One of his headlights went dark; glass fragments flew against the windshield and a tire blew. He slammed on the brakes, fighting to keep the Mustang under control as the SUV sped off, dust hanging in its wake like a jet trail.

Finally, Jase managed to ease the car to a stop. Engine idling, he shifted into park and turned to Janey. "Are you hurt?"

She shook her head, raked her hair away from her face, then shook her head again. "Fine. I'm... fine."

Yeah. She was fine all right, Jase thought as the dust settled and the SUV's taillights gradually faded to small pink dots. As fine as any woman could be after someone had just tried to kill her.

"Bastard shot out a tire." Jase climbed back into the Mustang after inspecting the damage. "We've got to get out of here before he decides to come back."

Janey thought that was a damn fine idea. Would have said so if she hadn't looked up. Headlights. Bearing down. Fast.

'Too late," she said, transfixed by the twin yellow gold and glowing lights heading toward them.

Baby Blue swore and shoved the Mustang into reverse. He cranked the wheel hard right, shifted back to drive, and headed back down the road and away from the rapidly oncoming car.

"What are the chances it's not him?" She twisted in the seat and looked over her shoulder.

"Same as me winning the lottery," Jase said, eyes dead ahead.

"I think he's gaining on us."

"We can't outrun him. Not on three tires."

"What are we going to do?"

"I can't lead him back to my parents." He glanced in the rearview again. She didn't have to turn around to know what he saw. Grimm wasn't more than a football field away.

"And it's time I call this asshole out. He's obviously done playing around. He means business now."

They took a corner on two good wheels.

Jase glanced around at the hilly terrain cast in night shadows by a low-hanging moon. "Can you run in those shoes?"

Her sandals were little more than flat soles and a few crisscrosses of leather. The Italian designer hadn't had running in mind when he'd crafted them. She hadn't had running for her life in mind when she'd put them on.

The headlights grew even closer.

"I can run." She'd run barefoot over broken glass if she had to.

"We're near the Cochran Caves," he said as they raced along on the blown-out tire; the stench of burned rubber permeated the air.

"Caves?" Oh, God. Caves meant dark and damp and bats. Bats. Ever since she was a little girl and a bat had found its way into their trailer, she'd had an unnatural and unreasonable fear of bats.

She swallowed back an "ohmygod" that would have come out as a scream. He didn't need hysterics. And she needed a drink.

"We used to play in the caves when we were kids. I think I can still find my way through them. You up for it?"

Janey closed her eyes, swallowed thickly, and managed a nod. "Yeah. I... I can do it."

God, help me do it.

"If there were any other way—if I could get you out of the mix—I would."

She actually found herself laughing. "Out of the mix? My God. I'm the reason you're hurt and your life is in danger. I
am
the mix."

"Okay. Here's the plan. When I stop, you haul ass out of the car."

"And then what?"

He roared up the hill, battling to keep the crippled Mustang out of the ditch. "Then we run like hell."

He glanced around, like he was looking for a landmark, then slammed on the brakes and skidded to the side of the road. "Now," he said, unbuckling as he killed the motor.

Janey followed his lead, then took his hand. When they cleared the car, she did as she was told. She ran like hell, far too aware that Grimm would catch up with the Mustang in seconds.

Has to be adrenaline,
she thought as she and Jase raced up a grass and limestone hillside. That's the only way she could keep up with him. Adrenaline and the knowledge that Grimm had pulled up behind the Mustang.

She heard a car door slam. And she kept running, kept her hand clasped in Baby Blue's.

The sharp crack of a rifle shot ripped into the night. The limestone at their feet exploded. She gasped as shards of rock peppered her ankle. The pain was instant and biting and she almost went down.

Baby Blue kept running, pulling her along when she stumbled, zigzagging his way up the side of a hill that grew steeper and rockier.

Just when she thought she couldn't go any farther, the limestone at shoulder level detonated. He jerked her up against him, made a shield of his body, and pressed her into the side of an outcropping of stone and tree roots.

She'd hardly drawn a breath when he was on the move again, scrambling higher, dragging her around a curve in the hillside—and into the deepest, most absolute dark she'd ever known.

"How do you do with dark?" Baby Blue whispered beside her.

"Love it. Can't get enough of it," she lied, and tried to keep her teeth from chattering.

"That scared, huh?"

"Oh yeah."

"You just hang on to me."

Like epoxy.

She could see exactly nothing.
Nothing
as he took her hands, maneuvered her behind him, then wrapped her arms around his waist. "I know these caves, Janey. That's all you need to think about. Just trust me. When I take a step, you take a step. Just like dancing, okay?"

"Dancing in the dark. Got it."

"Good girl. Hang on. Here we go."

She almost laughed when she realized she'd pinched her eyes closed tight. As if avoiding opening them and seeing that she couldn't see a thing—not even his broad back, which was one inch from her nose—would make this all go away.

Inch by inch, Baby Blue led them deeper into the cave.

"Head down," he warned in a whisper. "The ceiling drops to about four and a half feet here."

She ducked, then stopped, midstep.

"What?"

"I... think I heard something behind us."

In the next second a beam from a flashlight confirmed it.

"It's okay. We're almost to a switchback. We'll wait for him there."

"And do what?"

"He may have the gun, but I have the advantage. He doesn't know where he's going; I do. And the dark is on my side. You still with me?"

If she could draw a full breath, she would have whimpered. Her ankle throbbed and burned like fire where the rock fragments had nailed her. Blood ran into the sole of her sandal, making her foot slide on the leather and walking tricky. And God help them both, if a bat dive-bombed her, she'd probably faint dead away. But she was still with him.

"Where else would I be?"

He covered the fingers she'd linked together around his waist like a set of locks, squeezed in reassurance. Then he made a sharp left, swung around in a 180, and stopped, taking them out of the approaching flashlight's range and plunging them into darkness again.

"Not a sound," he whispered against her ear. "It's going to end here." He pressed her a little deeper into the unrelenting blackness. "Don't move. No matter what happens. Don't move."

Then his solid warmth and protection left her. She bit her lower lip. Reached out into the void in front of her and felt only air. Cold, damp, dank-smelling air. Beside her, her right hand encountered rock. Because it was the only thing tangible, she moved into it for support, wishing the unyielding stone felt as comforting as Baby Blue's warm back against her cheek.

Please, God, don't let anything happen to him.

Then she heard it. The sound of footsteps. She held her breath as the faint beam of a flashlight cut into the absolute dark. Made herself breathe when Baby Blue's silhouette took shape a yard ahead of her where he crouched at the edge of a wall of rock. Waiting for Edwin Grimm and his gun.

Waiting with what looked like a knife.

She felt her first inkling of relief. He was armed. But as the light grew closer, casting an eerie, shifting glow on the wall facing them, she could see that it wasn't a knife at all. It was a rock. Long and narrow and marginally tapered.

God. He was going to fight a man wielding an automatic rifle with a rock. A dozen deadly conclusions to that scenario formed in her mind when a narrow beam of light bent around the corner.

This was it. One way or the other, this was all going to be over soon.

Heart hammering, she waited, waited, waited for an eternity of seconds. The silence suddenly became as thick as the darkness of moments ago.

Grimm was waiting, too. Considering. Deciding if he was walking into a trap. Just when she thought she'd die from the suspense, both the light and the nose of a rifle poked around the corner, not six inches from Baby Blue's face.