Run Among Thorns (15 page)

“This is stupid!”

“Yes, but it is happening, Jenny. It doesn’t need your permission to be real.”

Jenny pressed shaking hands to her face. All she could do was repeat, stupidly, “It doesn’t make any sense!”

Beside her, Kier slid round in his seat and faced the wheel again. She felt the car move with him and thought,
That’s my life. He moves and everything else moves
. She heard the thread of hysteria in that, and dropped her hands, leaning her head against the headrest and trying, fighting not to cry.

Why me!
She wanted to scream, which was childish and pointless. That was the whole point, really. They didn’t know why her. That’s what they—she and Kier—needed to find out.

They
. She risked a sideways glance at Kier. He was leaning forward slightly, both hands on the wheel. Those hands were big, with long, blunt fingers. There was a dusting of dark hair over the backs.

Jenny swallowed, aware of the tingling sensation in the pit of her stomach, remembering those hands on her, arousing her with such skill and such tenderness. Looking at him, she was finding it hard to concentrate on the danger she was in from his superiors. She was focused on another danger. Because she had just fallen in love with her erstwhile kidnapper.

That couldn’t be good.

Kier turned the key and slammed the SUV into first gear. Jenny was silent beside him as he pulled away, gaining speed fast on the narrow road. He found he was waiting for her to ask where they were going. When she didn’t he looked over at her.

She was sitting staring straight ahead. Her face was white, her expression blank, and he couldn’t blame her.

He cleared his throat awkwardly. “I want to put some distance between them and us while they’re busy at the cottage.” He glanced out at the sky, which was just dulling towards dusk. “And we need somewhere to stay and plan out what we are going to do next.”

“Okay.”

Yeah, a plan. That’d be great, wouldn’t it, McAllister?
As a starting point, he tried to examine what they would be expecting him to do, why they thought he was running from them, protecting Jenny. He tried to think how he would have acted pre-Jenny, what would have been his reasons then.

Then he got it. They thought he was doing this out of stubbornness, out of his much-vaunted insistence on a subject being his property until the job had been done to his satisfaction.
“I believed I had specified my conditions for involvement clearly,”
he’d said. He had a reputation for being awkward to the point of obduracy, of insisting on undertaking these jobs on his own terms.

Only with this case it wasn’t just about stubborn bullheadedness. He cared about Jenny.

But they didn’t know that
. He played about with that thought for a while. He had a feeling that gave him an advantage somehow, but he couldn’t quite see where. In the meantime …

“I’m going to head into Dumfries and get us into a hotel,” he said.

“Okay.”

She was way too quiet. He wanted to pull over and bully her back into some spark of life. He wanted to kiss her again, until she was supple and singing beneath him. He wanted to have the right to reach for her.

Instead he concentrated on slowing for a junction and pulling onto the main road. Which put him some three miles east of the cottage track. And well ahead of any pursuit.

Or so he thought until a big black car pulled smoothly out of the cover of a clump of birch trees, and slid onto the road behind him.

Kier reached up and adjusted the rearview mirror to get a better look. Yes. There it was. A sleek competent Mercedes, capable of laughing off anything he pulled in the Rover. Along the flat, anyway.

He glanced across at Jenny, checking she still wore her seat belt. She did—and she didn’t seem to notice his scrutiny, either.

Outside, the last tree flashed past. They broke out into open countryside. Rolling hills, split up by scattered woodlands and small green fields, bound in by grey stone walls. Over to the south, Kier caught a gleam of silver water along the horizon, as the tide reclaimed the mudflats on the Solway Firth.

Looking in the mirror again, he noted the Merc was keeping pace but not crowding him. Not yet.

“Jenny,” he said, not taking his eyes off the road. “Jenny, we’re being followed.”

He heard her indrawn breath and then she was turning on the seat, trying to kneel on it to look over the headrest. He planted one hand firmly on the crown of her head and pushed, turning her to face front again. She gave an outraged squawk, but he just hissed, “Sit down!” and she subsided.

“Who is it?” she said, hunkering down to try and see in the wing mirror.

“I don’t know. But it’ll be one of Kendrick’s crew. He was lying in wait for us.” Kier cursed his stupidity. But he was still taken off guard by how big this whole thing had suddenly gotten. He needed to change his mind-set and start thinking right.

He eased the SUV a little faster, mentally tracking ahead, mapping out the local roads in his mind. He’d spent hours, days, studying all the lines of communication around the cottage as a matter of course. Identifying escape routes, back doors, fast exits. But his in-depth knowledge only extended for ten miles or so, and they were fast outrunning that boundary.

Behind him, the Merc was keeping up easily, now weaving deliberately from side to side in a move that was pure menace. Their pursuer was a showman, flamboyant. Reckless? If so, they had an advantage.

No one had ever called McAllister reckless.

“Jenny, get the map out the glove box,” he ordered.

She pulled it out with urgent hands, swiftly flicking through to the relevant page. “What do you need?” she said breathlessly. He couldn’t help admiring her levelheadedness, even while the hands holding the map were trembling.

A plan was crystallising, tantalizing him with its indistinct outline. “Jenny, there’s a place called Killminnoch, a little glen with a narrow road alongside a small gorge. It’s away to the northwest somewhere. Find it.”

He sighted a sign by the side of the road, indicating an intersection up ahead. “Hang on,” he said.

The intersection whipped towards them. He kept his foot on the gas pedal, judging his moment. At almost the last minute he dropped two gears, hauled on the hand brake, and spun the wheel, slamming his foot back on the gas as the world spun crazily. He heard Jenny gasp beside him as the car lurched, the tyres protested, and they skidded onto the side road, clipping the verge and then steadying, pulling away at speed.

He glanced in the mirror. He had no expectation of losing their pursuer so easily, but he wanted to test their reaction. It was fairly emphatic.

The Mercedes came round the corner sideways, charged after the SUV, and rammed them. “Son of a
bitch!”

The SUV lurched, and dimly he was aware of Jenny crying out. He was worried about her, but he had no time to spare—he had to focus. Because as the Merc had smashed into the trunk, he had gotten a good look at the driver.

It was Kendrick.

Chapter
        EIGHT

H
ow the hell did he get to be on our tail?
He must have anticipated this, left the cottage as soon as they … Kier cursed, thumping the wheel, as the car behind gave them another friendly nudge.
Stupid, stupid, stupid!
He remembered thinking that Kendrick’s nonchalance was all assumed, as if it were for an audience.

It had been for an audience: him. Kendrick’s men hadn’t been sloppy, being easily seen in the trees. They were decoys. They were
supposed to
be easily visible. So he wouldn’t be looking for the
others
, the more carefully hidden watchers who were watching
him
.

Which meant Kendrick had known about it as soon as they had left. Given their tortuous detour to keep away from the cottage, he had plenty of time to be lying in wait for them. There was only one road east, back to civilisation, after all.

The two vehicles raced, bumper to bumper, down a road that was barely a road, with grass sprouting through the asphalt along its muddy centre.

“Jenny, I need that—”

“I’ve got it,” she cried, stabbing at the map with a finger. Kendrick, wisely, was now choosing not to ram the SUV, built for rough use, with a luxury car, and was content with nudging them occasionally. Maybe not so reckless.

“Right, can you get us there? To the south end of that road?” The road slipped away to the right, covered with a fine smear of mud, and Kier fought the wheel for a moment, as the back end worked loose.

“Killminnoch, yes?” she asked.

“Yes. Can you do that?”

“Er … er, yes, I’ve got it.”

And she had, too. The instructions she gave were confident and precise, even navigating him down the roads they used, warning him of bends and narrows, and potential hazards. His mood was beginning to lighten. He began to nurture a little hope. It was only one vehicle, after all, only one man.

He suspected Kendrick wanted to play this as he himself would have: his own way, without interference. Which would explain the lack of obvious backup. Okay, Kendrick’s car was faster. Well, McAllister’s was more capable on this sort of terrain. Which gave him an advantage. One he intended to use.

He was starting to feel almost in control again while the wide tires kicked up stones against the undertray, until he dragged them round a tight bend almost by will alone, and saw the tractor pulling out across the lane.

Jenny screamed,
“Kier!”

He had no time to stop. He barely had time to react. He spun the wheel to the right, dropping a gear, and gave two hard punches on the brake pedal.

He saw a mask of a white face, mouth open, in the tractor’s cab, and then he was on the rough verge, front wing slashing through the hedgerow with a wail of thorns on paintwork. The whole SUV bucked and leaped, bouncing into the hedge, dropping a wheel into the hidden ditch against the hedge base. He felt something strike the back left corner of the vehicle with a sound like a pistol shot, and then they were out and away, swung back onto the road by the impact.

The narrower Mercedes tried to follow them, losing its wing mirror to the front of the tractor, but it skidded wildly across the road and put its front end in the opposite ditch.

It wouldn’t keep Kendrick for long—there was a tractor there to pull him out, after all—but McAllister didn’t need a big lead for what he had planned. Thirty seconds or so ought to do it.

“Directions, Jenny,” he snapped, watching the Mercedes as she retrieved the map from the foot well. Her voice shook and broke a little, but the directions came again, and they worked their way through the countryside.

He kept the speed up, took the turn Jenny indicated, and knew he had a chance of pulling this off.

“What now, Kier?” she asked, waving ahead of them. “This is Killminnoch.”

She was right. Thick trees planted long ago and never thinned came down to the road edge on the left. To the right a verge six feet wide suddenly dropped down maybe fifty feet to a small river, full and angry, rushing fast through a jumble of grey-green rocks and boulders.

He couldn’t answer her just then—he was looking for the clue he needed. There. A flash of silver by the roadside. He slowed down and turned sharply left opposite the curved mirror on a pole that had caused the flash, up a steep stony track at right angles to the road.

It was someone’s driveway, an access track to an A-frame lodge, out of sight farther up among the closely planted pines. The mirror, on the other side of the road, was to give people a view of oncoming traffic from their concealed entrance.

“What are you doing?” Jenny asked, breathless beside him as he put the SUV into reverse.

Saving our damn lives.

He twisted in his seat, bracing a hand behind her headrest, one hand on the wheel, and held them stationary with the foot brake.

He fixed his gaze on that little moon of silvered glass and waited.

Then he saw the flash in the mirror. He floored the gas pedal. Jenny shouted something incoherent beside him, and the big, hard-assed vehicle thundered down the steep track like a battering ram. In the split second before impact, he allowed himself a flicker of cold satisfaction that he’d got his timing dead-on.

The Rover hit the Mercedes dead centre on the passenger door with a sickening cacophony of screeching metal, smashing glass, and screaming tires.

The rear window shattered instantly, McAllister’s back was forced into the seat with bruising force, and he heard Jenny’s choking cry as she was thrown backwards.

Somehow he kept his foot on the floor and the SUV shunted the black wreck across the road and over the verge until it tumbled down into the gorge, barrel rolling, spilling bits of twisted metal and spraying glass out over the steep muddy slope in a high, glittering arc.

McAllister stomped on the brake and hauled the SUV back onto the road.

Jenny was gasping beside him, obviously winded. She heaved in a shuddering breath and whimpered. The sound cut through him, lancing through the adrenaline. He reached across and laid a hand on her forehead, sweeping the curls out of her eyes so he could see them.

“Okay?”

Am I okay?
Jenny thought wildly. She realised she was blinking at him stupidly, caught by the sensation of his rough palm against her face. He’d just rammed someone off the road and into a … a … ravine! The man was a maniac!

Her impulse was to say,
everything hurts
, but Kier was already turning away from her, hauling on the hand brake, twisting in his seat to look down into the little gorge. Craning past him, Jenny was able to see the wrecked Mercedes, with shattered windows and the boot swinging open, lying across the angry river, wedged against boulders where the water broke and eddied.

For a moment all she could hear was the rush of water and the screech and clank of metal as the black car settled farther onto the riverbed. “Oh, God,” she breathed, and fumbled with the door handle. There was no one climbing out of the car! She imagined the driver unconscious, drowning by degrees, dying.

Her stomach heaved, and she clenched her jaw together, breathing harshly through her nose.

It dawned on her, abandoning the door catch to release her seat belt, that Kier was making no move towards getting out. As she snapped the seat belt free, he cast one inscrutable look at her, put the gear lever into first, and released the hand brake.

“No!” she shouted, grabbing the hand brake with both hands as he started to pull away and yanking it on again. She was out of the car before he’d even reacted, and half-running, half-sliding down the slope towards the stricken Mercedes. McAllister shouted behind her, but she didn’t hear what he said.

One of the back windows was pushed in. The car was effectively damming the narrow river, and the fast-moving water was building up against one side, and pouring through the broken window in a dark torrent. As Jenny glanced up, struggling down the steep bank, the car settled even farther into the river, the bonnet slipping down between boulders, so that the windscreen was almost completely covered by the swirling, sucking stream.

Before she’d made it even halfway down the slope, he’d caught up with her, seizing her above the elbow and swinging her round so that she slipped and stumbled on the muddy grass and had to clutch at him to steady herself.

She struggled to get free, even as he planted his feet more firmly and grabbed her flailing arm with his free hand.

“He’ll drown!” she shouted above the roaring of the water. “We have to get him out!”

Kier’s face was set and grim. He leaned forward to growl in her ear. “It’s Kendrick, Jenny. We have to get out of here. Now.”

Horrified, it suddenly dawned on her that it hadn’t been an oversight when he was about to pull away, that he had meant to use this to his advantage. That he might even have meant to kill Kendrick right from the start.

Taking advantage as he slid a little on the slope, she wrenched an arm free and thumped him on the shoulder. He barely seemed to notice, looking past her to the Mercedes slowly being swallowed by the unrelenting rush of water.

She thumped him again. “You can’t
do
that!”

He looked down at her for a moment, his face a mask. “Watch me,” he said, and started to pull her up the bank.

She wanted to hate him for this, but found she just wanted to hold him. That even when it was he who was causing her distress, it was still him she needed to draw comfort from. The realisation was shocking and debilitating, and she started to cry, heaving on his grip to slow him down while she got the breath to argue.

“No!” she shouted, again. “Kier, you mustn’t! You have to … we have to try to help him!”

He spun around, taking her by surprise so that she fell against his chest, clinging for a moment, shutting her eyes and trying to hang on to the sense of overwhelming strength he radiated, even while it shamed her to be so dependent.

“You don’t seem to appreciate what sort of a man he is, Jenny!” His voice in her ear was ragged, and all at once she had an inkling that he didn’t like this any better than she did. The thought gave her strength.

She lifted flooded eyes to his. “Maybe I don’t, but I know what sort of man you are
not”

Now
he looked like she’d stuck him. She saw him swallow as he hesitated, looking back down the slope and then back to her. A muscle jumped in his jaw.

“There’s a rope in the trunk. Go get it,” he said.

She stared at him, joy and relief making her light-headed.

“Move!” he roared, and she turned and clambered back to the Rover.

When she got back, he was kicking at the ground near the river’s edge. She saw he’d created a little makeshift trench. He took the rope from her and began to knot it around his waist.

“Sit here. Put your feet there. Brace them, that’s it, against the front of the trench.” He finished tying the rope, and looked at her. “If you feel like you’re going to be pulled in, let go.”

Like hell I will.

He bent and caught her face in wet hands, forcing her to look up at him as she wound the rope around her own. “If you lose your footing, you
will
let go.” He enunciated each word slowly and precisely, holding her gaze with his. Her throat tight, she nodded in his grip, and he dropped his head and kissed her once, hard on her cold lips.

Then he turned, holding the rope out of the way in his left hand, and without hesitation dropped waist-deep into the river. The current caught him immediately, and the rope tautened, biting into the flesh on her hands. She planted her feet more firmly into the trench and leaned back, letting the rope play out little by little till her teeth were clenched from the burning pain.

Kier reached the car, and fumbled with the door handle. He backed upstream a few steps, fighting against the flow to open the door. The pressure of the water kept it closed for a moment, but he managed to wrench it open a fraction and the current did the rest, almost ripping it off its hinges.

Jenny couldn’t see past Kier to the interior of the Merc; she could only see him bending into the car, and his hand hanging tight to the door frame. He remained like that for some time, his shoulders moving as he struggled with something out of her sight.

Then he was backing out, leaning back hard to drag Kendrick through the door. He heaved, lifting a leg to brace against the bottom of the door frame, then Kendrick’s inanimate form came free suddenly, sending Kier staggering backwards … and they both disappeared beneath the surging brown water.

She cried out, the rope tugging viciously on her hands. Her knees started to buckle, but she twisted her wrist around the vibrating rope, threw her shoulders back, and heaved, shouting again as the harsh fibre burned her skin.

Through vision blurred with effort, she saw Kier surface again, turning towards her, supporting Kendrick with arms wrapped tightly around his chest from behind. He climbed to his feet and to the bank, and she hauled in the wet rope, almost sobbing with relief.