Run Among Thorns (30 page)

Don’t you die, Kier. Don’t you dare.

He tugged on her hand, urging her on, and they broke into a run again. She stumbled on the smooth, black rocks that dotted the white sand, searching through narrowed, sand-blinded eyes for the flat, darker patches of sand that were harder, and easier to run on.

Setting a hard pace, Kier dropped her hand, leading them round the high-water mark. To their right, the dunes loomed higher, shimmering grey-green in the wind. Risking a glance back, she saw a figure emerge from the shelter of the lane. Kendrick. Armed.

“Kier!” she shrieked, but he’d already seen him.

“Don’t be afraid,” he yelled. “He can’t hit us at this distance, in this wind.”

I
know
, she thought, but she saved her breath.

They hit a patch of seashell shingle, shifting and treacherous underfoot. She struggled to keep lifting her legs, to keep the pace up. Her thighs burned.

“He’s got a choice—aim or run.”

Run
, she prayed.
Keep running
.

She did the same. The passed through the shingle back onto sand again. Wet sand, pockmarked with worm holes and casts, smooth and agony on the calves.

She kept running.

Then he veered, leading them out to their left, towards the centre of the bay.

“Where are you
going?”

“There.” He raised an arm, pointed to the far shore, lines of brown and green and pale sand.

“You’re crazy,” she gasped, and looked over her shoulder. She could see Kendrick now, far behind, and yet way too close.

“Don’t look, move!” Kier roared and she ducked her head and pumped her legs. They’d hit smoother, wetter sand now and the going was easier and sloping slightly downhill. Hard on the ankles, though, and Jenny grimaced behind her makeshift mask.

Feet pounding on wet ground, heart thumping in her ears. Breathing hard, fighting the wind that buffeted her right side, and the sand it flung in her eyes. Kier was ahead of her, not far, but far enough to keep her legs pumping, her arms moving, wrestling every stride from a tired body.

Then she looked up, and couldn’t see Kier.

She opened her mouth to shout, but the next two breaths brought him into sight. They’d come to the big tidal channel in the middle of the bay, invisible from the shore. At her level, it was almost ten metres wide, but down where Kier stood below her, up to his knees in water, it narrowed to barely four feet.

He flung a hand up towards her. “Cross.
Now!”

Catching his urgency, she flung herself down the sculpted slope, mud and sand crumbling under her and sending her sliding down into the cold water. She gasped at the impact, but she was barely in before Kier was hauling her bodily across the channel, almost throwing her at the other side. She dug in with fingers and toes, and threw herself forward and up, scrabbling for purchase, not allowing herself to stop for second.

Breathing was for later. Thinking could wait.

Now was only movement.

Only now she was cold, and her wet clothes dragged at her, weighing her down. Making the top of the channel’s far side, she faltered, and Kier’s hand caught her arm, driving her on. She fought to find the rhythm she’d made before, but her lungs burned, her joints protested and she couldn’t find her stride.

She let out a frustrated cry, strangled by lack of breath. “I can’t outrun him!”

“We don’t have to,” he was breathing hard, too, thank God. “Look.” He flung a hand out to their right, out to sea. At first she couldn’t see what he meant, only the grey heave of the ocean. Then she saw it. A thin white line, rough and indistinct.

And closer.

In the second it took her to sweep her hair out of her eyes and refocus, it came closer still.

The tide was coming in.

And it was coming
in fast
.

Her legs burned, her ankles and knees felt stiff and jerky. But she only realised she was really slowing when she felt Kier’s hand at her back.

“Not far,” he gasped.

Was he mad? It looked like miles. That wavering pale shore, misted by windblown sand. The shadowed bulk of Lindisfarne, beyond, looking like a mirage, an impression of a myth.

Kier passed her, pace-setting again, and
damn it all to hell
there was no way she was giving up in this. She dug deep, and kept running by force of will alone.

Her world narrowed. Kier’s back, like a beacon in his red coat. Foot down and
push
. Lift the other leg, pump your arm, watch the line. Each foot slamming down, propelling her on, hurting her, but carrying her forward. Every breath fought for, every heartbeat laboured.

Run. Move.

It took her a moment to realise Kier had stopped, was waiting for her. But no—he wasn’t looking at her, he was looking beyond her. She stumbled to a halt, swept hair and sand out of her eyes, and looked back, dragging air into her aching lungs.

Kendrick had stopped, too. Somehow he’d made it across the channel; his clothes were dark from the water. But the tide was spilling over the edge of the channel now, spilling into dips and troughs they’d never seen, revealing the treachery of a surface that had seemed flat. It turned the landscape into a relief map—here the sand was dry, here it was higher—there, the water seethed, a low point, danger.

She was close, she could hear Kier’s voice. He said, “No. Leave it,” and she saw that Kendrick was empty-handed, had stopped, was turning to go back. He’d stumbled in the rising water, and dropped his gun.

She knew then why Kier had said,
leave it
.

Dragging her hair out of her face again, she fought the gusting wind, digging her fingers into her scalp. Kendrick was a black figure in a grey shifting scene. Each blink brought the waters higher, cutting them off from him in streams of frothing brown. He was bending now, reaching down, searching blindly in the water around his feet.

“Move,”
said Kier, but this time he wasn’t talking to her.

Jenny realised she was holding her breath. She sucked in air, pulling the cloth against her lips, and clenched her jaw hard, feeling the grate and squeak of grit against her teeth, tasting salt.

The next surge of dirty brown water took Kendrick to his knees.

She whimpered, dragging the mask off her mouth, and made a move to go back, but Kier wrapped his arms around her and held on. “Not this time, love,” he muttered into her hair. “Not this time.” His arms were solid, her eyes were wide open, straining to see as Kendrick struggled to his feet. Even at this distance, she could see the way he swayed as he tried to keep his feet under him. The water was up to his thighs, and still climbing.

He lifted his head and looked their way. His mouth opened, his face twisted while the tide tugged at his jacket and foamed around his waist. For a moment he stood there, shoulders slumped, defeated. Then the sea took him.

Once, twice, they saw his head, his arm break surface. Then there was just water, angry and triumphant, and a sudden flock of oystercatchers, flitting across their line of sight, making for safe ground.

“Excuse me?” Jenny got to her feet. The three women—one police officer and two others dressed for the office—turned to face her, wearing identical expressions of concern.

The Police Station wasn’t exactly busy. A greasy-haired man occupied a plastic seat in the corner. There’d been a couple of track-suited girls there when they’d been brought in hours ago. But when they’d finished questioning her, and returned her to the, for want of a better word,
waiting room
, Kier was nowhere to be found. And no one would tell her where he was.

They’d told her they’d picked up John Dawson, that he was stable, and was likely to recover. They’d told her they didn’t expect to find Kendrick’s body any time soon. Maybe on the next tide. Maybe next month.

And they’d informed her she was free to go. There were no charges. John had led them to the file when he regained consciousness, and although there was much to concern them, and a hell of a lot to communicate to the American Embassy, it was obvious that she was blameless, and the charges against McAllister were dropped, as well.

She prayed they never ran the plate on the car Kier had lifted from York.

But that wasn’t the information that she’d just overheard the older woman say, the one in the soft grey suit. “Excuse me,” Jenny said again, “what did you say?”

The older woman assumed a broad, caring smile. “Miss Waring, Jenny? My name’s Lisa. I’m a counsellor. Now, I know the kidnap charges have been dropped, but why don’t we have a bit of a chat about what’s been happening to you?”

Jenny blinked. “No, that’s okay. But you said—”

Lisa lifted a hand, coming close to, but not quite touching her shoulder. “It’s perfectly normal to feel a little confused at this stage. And I want you to feel you can tell me anything. Why don’t we make use of one of the interview rooms here, and—”

“Actually,” Jenny bit out, “I never want to see another interview room as long as I live.” She smiled. Hard. “But I do want to know why you said Stockholm syndrome.”

The hand withdrew. The other women stood still. The police officer bit her lip.

Lisa looked concerned. Jenny was willing to bet she’d had training in looking concerned. “Jenny, we’re going to go somewhere private and have a chat about what you’ve been through.”

“No,” said Jenny, putting everything Kier had taught her about strength of will into the word, “you’re going to tell me why you said Stockholm syndrome. Now.”

Lisa pursed her mouth, bringing a forest of little lines into being. Telling Jenny that for as many professional smiles she had to dish out, there were reasons to frown. Jenny felt some of the tension slip, some of the anger fade.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m tired. And I just want to know what’s going on. Please tell me.”

Lisa sighed. “Stockholm syndrome is a psychological condition, a sort of emotional attachment, dependence, that can develop between a captive and captor. It’s quite common in situations where someone is in another person’s power, and although they’re at risk from that person, they depend on them for safety, too. It’s so easy for the weaker character to submit to the stronger. And in your case with all the emotional and physical strain … and with Mr. McAllister … well, it was almost inevitable, wasn’t it?”

Jenny wound her fingers into her palm. “Inevitable?”

“We’re concerned that you might feel an emotional attachment to him, a dependence on him, that is very, very damaging for you both,” Lisa explained, reached out a hand that stopped just short of physical contact.

It made sense. With the world shuddering, jerking, and groaning to a halt around her, Jenny was forced to admit that, logically, intellectually, it made sense. Hadn’t she feared this very same thing? Hadn’t she dreaded losing herself in him? But it hadn’t protected her, had it? She was still lost.

She couldn’t quite focus on Lisa. The other woman was weaving and blurring.

Jenny concentrated very hard and managed to inject a few words into the chaos. “But I thought…”

Lisa jumped right in on her hesitation. “But you see that it’s not natural, don’t you? I mean, it’s just not right to … to fall for someone under those circumstances. There’s a great deal about Mr. McAllister in Mr. Dawson’s file, and we’re very concerned. He even called it the ‘McAllister Method’—a way of manipulating and controlling people.”

Jenny was incapable of replying. It was as if someone had just disclosed all her insecurities and shouted them aloud to the room.

All those times she’d mentally looked away when her mind was trying to tell her … She’d thought she’d been turning her back on the little gibbering demons of doubt, but it had been the voice of reason she had been ignoring, all along.

Oh, God! I knew, all along I knew I should have listened to my head!
Not her treacherous, irrational, susceptible heart.

“Look,” it was the WPC speaking now. The strip lighting glinted on the silver numbers on her shoulder, making Jenny’s eyes hurt. “You don’t have to see him again. We’ll arrange for you to go home. You can leave now.”

Jenny stared at the floor. It hurt so much. What a terrible cliché, but it did, it really did. An incorporeal, grasping, gasping hurt. She stood very still, trying to isolate it, barely aware of the three women exchanging worried glances. With an effort, Jenny tried to pull herself together.

“No,” she said, and her voice sounded thick to her own ears. “No, that’s okay. If someone could give me a lift back to the cottage, that will do.”

“But Mr. McAllister …”

“You can tell him where I am. I’d like to speak to him. He can go where he wants.”

She closed her eyes. Everything hurt at once, legs, joints, head. But that, after all, was only a background to the pain inside.

It’s so easy for the weaker character to submit to the stronger.

Oh, damn.