Wilderness Target (15 page)

“We’ll share.” She stabbed a peach with her fork and moved it toward his mouth.

“Mmm...sweet.” He offered her a spoonful of beans.

After they finished eating, she rested her head against his shoulder. “Can we just stay here a moment longer?”

Ezra tilted his face toward the sky, probably calculating how long they had until dawn. “It wouldn’t hurt to catch our breath.”

“What are you thinking about?” he asked.

“About my life in L.A. How it’s all gone...everything but my faith.”

“You miss it.”

“No, I guess not,” she said. “If we get to town, and we’re able to prove that Max is behind all this, he’ll go to jail, which is where he clearly belongs. I wouldn’t want to undo it all and go back to working for him. I just don’t know what happens next in my life.”

“What do you mean?”

“My whole life since I was fifteen, all my energy and focus, went into working, to get ahead and not ever be hungry again.”

He leaned back against the hay bale. “So you go back to work. Sounds like you have lots of skills and experience.”

She stared up at the stars. “I’m starting to think there must be something more for me than focusing on work.” For the first time in ten years, she was beginning to wonder if she could dare hope for a husband and a family. “Do you ever think about that?”

“I used to. With the kind of job I have, what kind of woman would put up with me?” The tone of his voice changed, hinting at some deep anger. “Work is enough for me.”

Clarissa crumbled inside. Ezra couldn’t have been more clear. She’d taken a risk, put her heart out there, and his response had proved that he wasn’t interested. She wouldn’t do that again. She purged her voice of all emotion. “I suppose we should get going.”

They walked for several hours. Clarissa nursed the deep hurt that was like a knife through her. As the sun rose up over the mountains, the country road came into view.

SIXTEEN

T
o Ezra the road was a welcome sight. Traffic would be light this time of day, but hopefully, someone would go by who’d be willing to give them a lift. Max’s men had assumed they’d headed toward the farmhouses, which bought them some time. But sooner or later the thugs would figure out where they had gone.

Clarissa had been quiet since they left the hayfield, and Ezra hadn’t really felt like talking, either. Her question about marriage and family had brought up the old pain connected with Emma. Thinking about her only made him angry.

“I hear a truck.” Clarissa grabbed his arm and pointed at the dust cloud up the road.

“Let’s hope he stops.” If the driver didn’t pick them up, they might be walking on this road for a while, which left them dangerously exposed. They couldn’t stay out in the open like this for long.

Clarissa had shown admirable strength through this whole trauma, but he could tell that her emotions were wearing thin. He needed to get her back to Discovery.

The truck loaded with rectangular hay bales came into view. It whizzed past them, but stopped about twenty yards up the road. Ezra ran ahead. A black-and-white border collie stuck his head out the passenger side window and barked.

“You hush up now, Bart.” The man was clean-cut, with streaks of gray in his black, curly hair. The dog sat back on its haunches at the command but continued to eye Ezra with suspicion.

“We could use a ride.” Not wanting to rile the dog up again, Ezra stood back from the window.

“Where to?”

“New Irish,” Ezra said.

“I’m taking a load of hay into Discovery.”

“Sir, that would be even better.” The end to their flight was getting closer by the minute.

The man seemed to be sizing Ezra up when he noticed the military patch on his jacket. “Marine Corps, huh?”

“Two tours in Iraq, sir.”

“I go back a little further than that.” Any suspicion the man had seemed to melt. “Why don’t you and your friend get up in the cab? If Bart can stand you, I can stand you.”

“Deal.” Ezra waved Clarissa over. “He’ll take us.”

“What’s your name, son?”

“Ezra Jefferson.”

The man tipped his baseball hat. “Steven Gould.”

Clarissa stood beside Ezra as he opened the door. Bart offered her a warm reception, licking her face and sitting on her lap when she crawled into the cab.

“Bart tends to like women,” said Steven. “Men he’s not so sure about.”

Ezra scooted in beside her. As the truck rumbled down the road, he searched the sky for signs of the helicopter, but saw nothing.

Steven drove through the tiny town of New Irish and turned onto the highway. The conversation was mostly about both men’s military experience. Even though Ezra and Clarissa probably looked awful, Steven didn’t ask any questions about what had brought them to that stretch of road in the early-morning hours. The dotted yellow lines clipped by. The tension that had coiled around Ezra’s chest for days loosened up.

The skyline of Discovery, the tall buildings of the university, came into view. “Where do you folks want to be dropped off?”

“The police station?” Ezra looked to Clarissa for confirmation.

Her eye twitched nervously, but she nodded. “Yes, I guess that would be best.”

Steven pulled the truck over to the curb across from the station and wished them well before driving off.

As she stared at the police station, Clarissa’s expression clouded and a furrow formed between her eyebrows.

“Like I said before, this is a good bunch of police officers. Max couldn’t have polluted everyone’s mind with his lies and false accusations.”

“I hope you’re right.” She looked at Ezra, her voice taking on an anxious tone. “We need to find out if the others made it down the mountain.”

His thoughts had run in the same direction as they’d drawn closer to town. He would never forgive himself for choosing to split up if the other four didn’t make it out. “We’ll deal with the Max situation first, and then I’ll call my partner and find out if the others showed up.”

They walked to the curb and waited to cross the street. Clarissa let out a gasp and took two steps back. Fear colored her every word. “It’s him. That’s Don’s car.” She pointed to a rental car parked in front of the police station.

“Are you sure?” Ezra stared at the car, and at a man with his back to them standing on the lawn outside the police station. The man did look like the one who had chased them over the past few days. “They must have figured we’d show up here after they lost us outside of New Irish.”

“We can’t go into that police station,” she said.

He grabbed her wrist. “He’s not going to try anything in broad daylight.” Ezra glanced around. It was still two hours before the shops opened up. The streets were deserted.

“Please, I can’t go in there.” He’d never seen her this frantic. “You don’t know what that man tried to do to me.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe we’ve come this far...only to have this happen. He’s turning around.” She darted up the street and Ezra followed, careful not to look over his shoulder and give them away.

Clarissa slowed her pace to a fast walk to keep from calling attention to herself. Ezra pulled her into the first alley they came to.

“Do you think he saw us?” She still hadn’t calmed down.

“I don’t know, and I don’t want to wait around to find out. We’ve got to hide somewhere they won’t be expecting us to go.”

“Do you have a friend we could go to?”

“No one who lives within walking distance.” He tugged on her sleeve. “Let’s keep moving. We’ll stay off the main streets.”

They hurried down another alley. “I don’t even see a coffee shop open.”

“Just keep walking.” The back entrances of the commercial buildings were all dark. They walked past a men’s clothing shop, a diner and an art gallery.

A man came out on the fire escape above them, and Clarissa jumped. Ezra put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s all right,” he soothed.

They stopped for a moment when they heard voices on the main street. Ezra peered around the building. Don stood talking on his phone. Ezra heard only bits and pieces of the conversation, but gathered that Don had seen them and was calling for help in the search. Ezra gazed around, trying to think of what would be open at this hour or where they could hide. If Max’s goons were watching the police station, they were probably also watching his office.

“It’s only a matter of time before the other three start swarming in,” she said.

“I say we keep moving,” Ezra said.

She slipped her hand in his. “Okay, you probably know this town better than I do.”

“Oh, yeah, how long did you live here?” He thought if he could keep her talking she’d calm down.

“A little over a year, I guess. I came here with my foster family.”

“That didn’t work out?”

“They were nice enough people, but...it’s a long story.”

“We’ve got time for stories.”

“It’s not a story I want to tell.” Her tone had become defensive. They hurried past another art gallery.

“There.” He pointed across the street to a twenty-four hour self-serve laundry. They waited at the light and then crossed. The glass storefront wouldn’t exactly hide them, but at least they wouldn’t be out in the open. As they stepped inside, Ezra glanced up the street. He thought he saw one of the thugs about two blocks away.

Inside, the air was humid. Two dryers tossed clothes around. A single washing machine chugged away. Whoever had loaded the clothes must have stepped out for a cup of coffee or something.

Ezra walked over to a bin of clothes that had been left behind. He stared down at his muddy shirt. “We kind of stand out dressed like this.” He grabbed a baseball hat and a blouse from the bin and tossed them to her. Then he rooted around until he found a men’s button-down shirt and cotton jacket that looked as if they might fit him.

Both of them changed in their respective bathrooms. Clarissa pulled the hat down over her face.

She sized up Ezra when he came out into the main area. He tugged at the collar of his shirt, obviously not used to having to wear such stiff fabric. “It’s kind of itchy, but what do you think?” he asked earnestly.

A slight smile graced her face. “I think you feel a little more at home in a worn flannel shirt and jeans.”

They stepped out the front door. The streets were still mostly deserted. “We need to get somewhere where we can make some calls. I’ve gone fishing with one of the police officers. If I can talk to him directly maybe he can bring us in safely.”

Clarissa scanned the streets. She took in a breath as though working up the courage to speak. “I think I know where we can go to be safe and make some calls. There’s a place about six blocks from here. It’s called Naomi’s Place. I know the woman who runs it. If it’s still open, she’ll let us in and help us.”

“I’ve heard of it. It hasn’t closed down,” he said. It was a shelter for pregnant teens. He could only guess at why Clarissa knew about it.

He surveyed the street again. His eyes grew suddenly wide. He grabbed Clarissa and pulled her around to the side of the building.

“Did you see one of them?” The stress in her voice revved up a notch.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I did. The four of them and maybe even Max are crawling all over the neighborhood looking for us. I have a plan. Our clothes are different. They’re not going to recognize us from a distance. Two of us together, though, will be a red flag.”

* * *

“So you’re saying we split up and meet at Naomi’s Place.” Her heart beat a little faster.

He nodded. “Are you up to doing that?”

Fear encroached on every fiber of her being, but she managed to nod. “It shouldn’t take us more than ten minutes to walk there.”

He kissed her forehead and squeezed her hand. “I’ll see you in ten minutes then.”

They walked around to the front of the laundry and took off in different directions. Clarissa peered out from beneath the brim of her hat, surveying the area around her. Zeke stalked up the street across from her, moving in the opposite direction, his red hair easy to spot. She kept her pace even while her heart pounded wildly and sweat snaked down her neck. She pretended to be interested in something she saw in a shop window before moving on toward the light.

Zeke continued to work his way up the street, peering down alleys and in open shops. When the light turned, she crossed the street. The redheaded thug was two blocks up on the same sidewalk as her. She hurried down a side street. When she was finally out of view, she stopped, pressed her back against a wall and took in a frantic breath.

She walked briskly the rest of the way, turning down a residential street and breathing a sigh of relief when the converted schoolhouse that was now Naomi’s Place came into view. A whirlwind of memories rushed toward her, some of them good and some painful. Coming here would open the door for Ezra to know about her past. She had chosen Naomi’s Place for a reason. Not only would they be safe there, but it would give her a chance to tell Ezra about all that she had been through. After all he’d done for her, he deserved to know the truth about her past.

She opened the chain-link gate. There was no sign of Ezra on either side of the street. Her rib cage tightened with fear. She only hoped he had made it without getting caught.

SEVENTEEN

E
zra was glad to see Clarissa waiting outside Naomi’s Place as he came around the corner.

She made her way up the steps, and he joined her.

“So this is Naomi’s Place. I’ve seen the ads around town,” he said.

She raised her hand to knock but stopped and looked at him, allowing her arm to drop to her side. “I stayed here when I was a teenager. My foster family kicked me out when they learned I was pregnant, and Naomi took me in. I miscarried. That was probably the saddest day of my life.”

Compassion welled up in him as he reached out for her hand. “You’ve been through so much.” He couldn’t read the expression on her face. The brightness of her eyes seemed to dim, and he sensed that she was retreating emotionally.

She turned her head away. “I don’t want your pity.” She knocked on the door.

He let out a heavy breath. “It’s not pity. It’s admiration for the person you’ve become despite that.”

Before she could respond, the door swung open. An older woman with salt-and-pepper hair, a long narrow nose and a soft smile stood on the threshold.

“Naomi,” said Clarissa.

The older woman looked at her for a long moment as recognition spread across her face. “Clarissa.” She gathered her into her arms. “My little lost lamb. I didn’t know if I would ever see you again.”

Naomi held her for a long moment, stroking her hair. Finally, Clarissa pulled free of the hug and wiped her eyes.

Naomi looked at Ezra. “And who is this?”

Clarissa seemed to be at a loss for words as she glanced at Ezra and then back at Naomi. A tear rolled down her cheek.

“I’m Ezra Jefferson. I’m her...her friend.” He stepped forward. “We don’t want to disrupt your day. We only need to borrow your phone.”

“Sure, why don’t you come in? The girls are just finishing up breakfast. I can bring you some food if you’d like.”

“That would be great. We’re famished.” Ezra placed a supportive hand on Clarissa’s back as they stepped inside a large, narrow room with an assortment of couches and chairs that had seen a little wear.

Naomi pointed to a door off to the side. “You can use my office to make your phone call.”

She disappeared through another door. The sound of female laughter rose up from a distant room, but was cut off when Naomi shut the door.

Though she had stopped crying, Clarissa still seemed emotionally wrecked. Ezra opened the door to the office and allowed her to go in first. The room had a desk that was barely visible beneath all the stacks of books, papers in file folders and photo albums. Clarissa slumped down on a couch pushed against the wall opposite the desk.

He grabbed a box of Kleenex off the desk and sat down beside her. “So this place is stirring up a lot of memories for you, isn’t it?”

She nodded, wiping her nose with a tissue. “Mostly good ones. They were kind to me here. I made two really good friends.” She covered her eyes with her hands. “Shouldn’t we make that phone call?”

Seeing her cry caused his own emotions to unravel. “We will do that. I want to make sure you’re okay first.”

“It’s not something that is going to be okay in ten minutes, Ezra.” She rose to her feet and stared out the window by the desk.

“Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“When I saw Naomi, it brought back the memories of the baby and all the dreams I had. You know, to be married and have a family,” she said.

“You can still have that.”

He caught the flash of hurt that crossed her features. She shook her head. “You don’t understand.”

He got up from the couch and stood beside her. “What don’t I understand?”

“Let’s make the phone call, okay?” Her words had a sharp edge to them.

“What don’t I understand, Clarissa?”

“Being with you...has changed something for me.” She turned to face him. “For the first time in ten years...I thought maybe I could love someone.” Her eyes searched his. “But you said you weren’t interested in that sort of thing back at the hay field when I asked you.”

He retreated a step and let go of her arm, running over the conversation in his head and suddenly understanding. “I had a fiancée who said it was either my job or her. My job didn’t have enough status or income for her. Doing these expeditions is like breathing to me. That’s what I was thinking about when you asked me if I would ever get married and have kids. I just kind of let go of the idea after Emma dumped me.”

Clarissa’s voice softened. “Oh, I thought that dismissal was directed toward me.”

He shook his head, finally comprehending what she was getting at. “You mean...you saw us...maybe sometime in the future?”

She turned her back again. “Now I’m embarrassed that I said anything. It doesn’t matter.”

The hurt and anger he felt over what Emma had done to him was still very raw. He’d closed that door, not wanting to open himself up to the possibility of that kind of pain ever again.

A gentle knock sounded. Naomi came in with two plates piled high with breakfast food on a tray. “Here you two are.” She set the tray on the desk. “Take as much time as you need.” She pulled out a small pink children’s backpack she had tucked under her arm. “I noticed that pack you are carrying is torn to pieces. I thought you might want a replacement.”

Clarissa stepped across the room and grasped her hands. “Thank you.”

“You were always very special to me. I prayed for you every day and wondered what happened to you after you left here so suddenly.” Naomi moved over to her desk and grabbed a photo from a pile. “Other people have wondered about you, too. Do you remember Sarah and Rochelle? The three of you were so close.”

Clarissa looked at the photograph, and her eyes glazed with tears. “Of course I remember them.”

“I’m planning a reunion for the girls who were here over that Christmas ten years ago. I hope you’ll come.”

Clarissa pressed the photo to her chest. “I’d like to.”

Her voice had such longing in it. Was she thinking about how much they had to overcome to do something as normal as go to a reunion?

“Maybe I’ll see you there, too, Ezra,” Naomi said.

Clarissa interjected, “Oh, he’s not my...” She shook her head.

After Naomi left, Clarissa handed him a plate of food. Hunger had been gnawing at his stomach for hours. He shoveled one forkful after another of scrambled eggs into his mouth.

As he ate, he picked up on Clarissa’s nervous glances in his direction. He wasn’t sure how to respond to what she’d said. She liked him and it seemed that she wished there could be more between them.

But would her feelings last when they were no longer forced together by circumstances? Was her attraction born out of a need for someone to cling to because they’d been in such a desperate situation? Or was there something deeper between them? He scraped his fork across the nearly empty plate and cleared his throat. He couldn’t answer that question with any clarity, and he sure didn’t want to feel the kind of pain Emma had caused him ever again. “I think I’ll call my partner first, find out if the others made it off the mountain.”

Clarissa gathered up the dishes and placed them back on the tray. “Yes, that’s been bothering me, too.”

He could hear the tension in her voice. The implications of what she had said lay between them, unresolved.

“And then it might take me a couple of tries to remember Officer Pitman’s number. I wish I had my phone with me. The number is in my contacts list. I haven’t memorized it,” Ezra said.

He walked over to the desk and picked up the phone while Clarissa sat on the couch, looking at him in earnest. He took in a deep breath and dialed the number.

* * *

Clarissa could feel the heat rise up in her cheeks when Ezra looked directly at her. She was embarrassed by what she’d said. Of course someone like Ezra wouldn’t be interested in someone like her.

Her stomach tied in knots as she listened to the phone ringing.

Ezra pulled the phone away from his ear. “What day is it?”

Clarissa drew a blank. She’d lost track of how much time had gone by while they were in the wilderness. Day had poured into night and night into day. They hadn’t had a full night’s sleep in days.

She shot to her feet and looked at the calendar Naomi had posted on her wall. “I think it must be Wednesday.”

Ezra clicked the phone off. “Jack won’t be reachable. He’s out on another short expedition with a new group.”

“If they made it back, we can call them directly. We can call Leonard or Jan,” Clarissa said.

“I don’t know their numbers off the top of my head. I need my phone.”

“That would mean we’d have to go back to the office?”

“It’s at my house,” he said.

“Do you think Max would have figured out where you live, and assigned someone to watch that place, too?”

He rose to his feet and dropped his hands onto his hips. “It’s no secret where I live. They could find out easily enough.”

Clarissa’s throat went tight with fear. There had to be another way besides going to a place that was so high risk. Ezra stood before her, the look on his face pensive. Why was he even trying to help her at this point?

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” she told him. “You got me back to town. This really is my problem. They’re not after you unless you’re with me.”

“What kind of man would I be if I walked out of here and left you high and dry? We’ve seen this through this far. Let’s finish it.”

The weight of the gratitude she felt made her knees wobble. Even if he never wanted to see her again after all this was over, she admired him more than any man she’d ever known. He wasn’t going to leave her when she needed him the most. “Thank you.”

She shuffled through a stack of books until she retrieved a phone directory. “What if we called the police station directly and asked for the officer you trust? If he’s there, he might be able to help us.”

Ezra flipped through the phone book. “It’s worth a try.” He found the non-emergency number for the police and dialed it. A crisp sounding voice came across the line.

“Hello, can I please speak to Officer Pitman?” Ezra asked. A moment later he gave Clarissa a thumbs-up, indicating that his friend was at the station.

She relaxed a little, enough to grab her beat-up backpack and start transferring things into the new pink backpack Naomi had given her.

“Hey, Grant, I’m here with a woman named Clarissa Jones....”

She listened as Ezra explained what had happened, and then gave one-and two-word responses to what the officer was saying. His expression grew grimmer. He cast a wary glance toward Clarissa and then he turned his back and lowered his voice.

Perspiration formed on Clarissa’s forehead as she wrung her hands together. What had Max told the police?

Finally, Ezra hung up the phone. He continued to stare out the window.

“Ezra, what did he say?”

He turned to face her. “You were right. Max did come into town claiming that you stole from him and that you jumped bail. The police department has orders to pick you up if they see you. One of Max’s henchmen must have posed as a bounty hunter. If the police caught you, you would have been turned over to him.”

“None of it is true. I didn’t steal from Max.”

“I know that, but we have to be able to prove it,” he said.

“Did he know anything about Leonard or the others?”

“There have been no reports—either of them coming out of the woods or of people being found dead. They must have at least made it out of the lodge. Another group would have gone through there by now.”

“That’s a good sign, I guess. What do we do now?”

“We’ve got to go to the police with something solid, otherwise they would be obligated to turn you back over to the state of California.”

“I didn’t take anything from him. He took everything from me, and now he wants me dead and I don’t know why.” Frustration laced her voice.

Ezra grabbed her hands. “That’s what we have to figure out. I need you to tell me everything.”

“I’m not sure where to start.”

“You said that there was something off about the bank deposits for house sales.”

“There wasn’t anything illegal about it, so far as I could tell. It was just that there would be a deposit for me to take to the bank, and then I’d get the paperwork for the sale of a property a week after that. It seemed backward to me. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. Max juggles a lot of properties. He’s not an organized person. He’s a salesman. That’s why he had an assistant. I just figured he was mixed up about which chunk of money belonged to which property.”

Ezra shifted his weight. “So you didn’t say anything to Max about how odd that was?”

She shook her head. “The one time I brought it up was when he said a deposit was for a piece of property that I knew was not our listing anymore. I drove by that house every day on my way to work. I saw the sign for a different Realtor in the yard and figured the home owner must have dropped us for somebody else.”

“And what did Max say when you pointed that out to him?”

“He shrugged and said he’d have to look into it.” She thought for a moment. “Shortly after that, he came on to me...that was a few days after Sondra was fired.” Clarissa took the money Max’s wife had given her out of the backpack and stared at it.

Ezra moved toward her and pointed at the money. “What if the reason the deposits didn’t match the date of sale for the properties was because the money wasn’t coming from the property sales?”

“You mean that Max was counterfeiting or laundering money?”

“It’s possible.”

“But his wife gave me this money and I don’t think she was in on anything,” Clarissa said.

“Maybe his wife didn’t realize the money was dirty. Think carefully about the sequence of events. Max sent his henchmen to the airport to get you after you had the money, right? Up to that point, his actions kind of implied he was trying to run you out of town rather than kill you.”

“But Max thought I knew more than I did when I brought up the thing about the deposits and the properties. Or he was afraid I’d figure it out. That’s when he came on to me. Maybe he thought he could get me on his side.” Clarissa took in a breath as a realization came to her. “What if Max suspected Sondra was snooping in his office? Or that she saw something, but he wasn’t sure, so he fired her?”