Willing Hostage (10 page)

At first she thought he hadn't heard her but finally he answered in a strangely muffled voice, “It's all about oil shale.”

“Is the property Welker offered you money for some land with oil shale?”

“No. It's … information. Get ready to move.” The muscles of his leg tensed next to her.

She raised her head. The circle was taking the plane over the crest of the hill.

“Now.” He lifted her by the arm.

“My sweat shirt.”

“Leave it. They've seen it. Don't drop anything else.”

They ran along the gully full of bushes until the sound of the plane indicated it was turning. He pushed her down again. One of her legs lay in water as they hid under bushes. Goodyear laid his ears back, slanted his eyes, and moaned murder as he was tucked under Glade.

“Why should the FBI be interested in oil?”

“Everybody's interested in oil. Come on.”

They moved every time the plane turned its tail. Leah, expecting a bullet in the back at any moment, had a light, floating feeling until she slammed safely to earth again. They gradually left the plane's circle behind. Maybe it was staying with her sweat shirt.

“What if we run out of bushes?”

“We're dead.”

By the time they emerged the plane was only a sound behind them. “Can't we hide here till they run out of gas?”

“They've radioed for men and dogs by now. Let's hope we don't meet them on our way out.” They ran upright through trees. Leah could still hear the plane.

Keeping to any cover available, they came finally to a surfaced road. He checked the sun and headed them to the right along the road, but back in the trees.

“We're going in the direction of the plane, aren't we?”

“Yes, and in the direction of the truck, I hope.”

“What truck?”

“My … our ticket out of here.” His beard was growing out already. Goodyear had added scratches to those she'd left on his face.

One of her ugly boots squeaked as she ran, soaking from her periodic sojourns near water. He kept her moving at a killing pace.

“How many people … or groups of them are after you?”

“Your goons make three.”

“I reported you to the local police in Walden.”

His look made her shudder. “That makes four. Can't you run faster?”

“No.” She'd seen that look before … at Ted's Place.

A gray pickup was parked at the edge of the road ahead. “Stay here.” He thrust the cat at her and moved cautiously toward the truck.

Leah glanced back down the road. He was neither a “nice” nor a safe ally. If she wasn't so tired she could escape him now. Was she safer with or without him? Goodyear ran a set of claws down her neck. She slapped him and glanced toward the truck.

Glade peeked under a tarpaulin that covered the truck bed and gestured.

She hesitated, looking back down the road. At least he wasn't pointing a gun at her.

She could hear the sound of the plane again. It came from ahead.

Sheila's tortured body shimmered behind her eyes.

Leah pushed the struggling cat's paws from her face and ran toward the sound of the enemy plane and the dark man crawling into the cab of the pickup.

Chapter Fourteen

“See what's in the box.” Glade drove sedately. The plane appeared to their right, still making its circles.

“Cold chicken.”

Another pickup approached, a car behind it.

“Get down,” he ordered.

Leah folded herself over the chicken. She heard dogs barking as the vehicles passed. So did Goodyear. He climbed the back of the seat.

“Were those the dogs I saw at Ted's Place?”

“Probably.” He took a chicken breast. “See if that thermos on the floor has coffee in it.”

It did. Goodyear slithered down between them. With the smell of chicken he'd forgiven all.

“Give him the wing if there is one.”

“Why are you so nice to cats and so mean to people?” Leah handed Goodyear a wing.

Glade's teeth showed white between dark stubble in the first smile she'd seen. “That's a good question, Leah Harper.” The truck no longer moved sedately. “Is it just chicken?”

“There're rolls and packets of honey.” She took a closer look at the side of the box. A helpless, disbelieving mood made her laugh until she feared she'd choke on the chicken in her mouth. “It's Colonel Sanders!” A gift from the normal world. It must still be out there.

“Civilization is a creeping disease.” He laughed with her, but his laugh was hollow, like his voice. “Spread me some honey and have some coffee. Good old Ben is a civilized beast.”

“Who's Ben?”

“A friend who … provided all this.” But again suspicion tinged his voice.

The chicken vanished between the three of them. Goodyear ate bread and honey but showed no interest in coffee.

Leah dozed and slept. She remembered passing through a small town but aching muscles and a satisfied stomach succumbed even as she fought sleep. The next she knew, they were on a narrow dirt road sweeping endlessly through more scenery.

“Good morning.” Glade shifted his weight around Goodyear, who lay peacefully curled between his legs. “No one's following … yet. Any coffee left?”

“Where are we going?” She handed him the thermos cup and felt a twinge of panic when their fingers touched. What
was
she doing here?

“We're going to get lost.”

She swigged Maalox to fight the chicken. If they weren't lost already she didn't know the meaning of the word.

“Go easy on that stuff. You'll have to ration it. No drugstores where we're going.”

A winding lane led away to a desolate ranch house far below and the tiny prosaic figure of a woman gathering wash off the line.

“Why am I going there with you?” She looked back longingly at the woman.

“Look”—his sigh was impatient—“you are not a much-desired gift from heaven. Like you said, you'll only slow me down.” And then, almost under his breath, he added, “But I can't very well let them do to you what they did to Sheila, can I?”

“Why can't you?”

“If I had to, I'd kill you myself first.”

“What's the difference?”

“I'd be kinder and quicker. Let's just hope it doesn't come to that.” He reached across her to open the glove compartment and she shifted her legs to avoid his touch.

“You've killed before.” She couldn't look at him.

“Yes.” The glove compartment held a bottle of whiskey, an envelope, and an assortment of tools. He removed the bottle and envelope.

The fences stopped. The truck rose from a treeless grassy valley to pass through groves of aspen with tall white stalks and shaking lime-green leaves.

“I knew you were a murderer the first time I met you.” And here she was riding off to nowhere with him and all because some unknown criminals tortured and killed a woman who he said had been mistaken for her and because an airplane had chased her under some bushes. Things had happened too fast and Leah had made another of her famous mistakes by coming with him. She was sure of it.

“It's men,” she said miserably.

“What?” He took a drink and handed her the bottle.

“Men have constantly ruined my life. You are merely one in a long string.” She dared a drink and choked, wondering again what people saw in the stuff.

“Don't spill it.” He grabbed the bottle and capped it. “We'll have to ration this, too.” His sudden flow of conversation dried up and his look was black as the pickup flew over ruts and rocks and bumps till Leah thought every organ in her body would mash itself to jelly. He was either angry because of her comment on men, or disgusted because she choked on raw whiskey, or he was just planning on how he would kill her quickly if he had to. Had he come to her rescue at the sound of the airplane for her sake or because her presence would give away his own?

They swooped down on a guest ranch on a river bottom and left it just as fast. Leah looked back wistfully. Surely that ranch would be lost enough.

“Why didn't the men with the dogs recognize you when we passed them on the road?”

He swiped dark curls from his forehead. “They make mistakes, too, I guess. I had my head turned away.”

A sign read
ROUTT NATIONAL FOREST
. At least there were signs. How much more lost could they get? But the incredible jolting journey continued.

“The FBI and the police are after you. That's two of the four groups. And the goons make three. Welker said he was trying to save your life. If you gave or sold the property to the FBI, would the rest leave you alone?”

“No. And they're after
us
.”

“Why me? I don't know anything.”

“I doubt if Sheila did, either.”

“She was with the FBI, too.”

“So I hear. They didn't used to use women but I've been out of the country.… She was supposed to intercept Charlie and talk him into turning me over to Welker.” His smile was bitter. “Charlie was looking forward to the meeting but had no intention of—”

“Could Charlie have done that to Sheila?” She remembered the grinning man who stood beside her car at Ted's Place and her own uneasy sensation.

“No. She was an FBI operative. That would have been too far out of line even for Charlie. He specializes in accidents anyway … and games.” The truck slowed and turned onto a side road at a sign that read
TRAPPERS LAKE,
10
MILES
.

“So Charlie's not with the bad guys. Welker said a company hired them. What kind of—”

“An oil company.”

“And everyone is after the property and—”

“But if they get us they won't get the property. Because I won't tell where it is and you won't know.” His tone was icy.

“Oil goons, FBI, and the police. That leaves a fourth group.”

“That's … another organization,” he said in that muffled way. Those were the words Joseph Welker had used when she'd asked about Charlie. Both Glade and Welker had grown uncomfortable.

Another sign.
WHITE RIVER NATIONAL FOREST
. Surely they were lost by now. But did Leah really want to be? Need to be? Her glance slid to the powerful man beside her. In a way he reminded her of Jason … and there had been other Jasons in her life. But no one remotely like this man.

“This other organization must be even more secret than the FBI the way you and Welker look when it's mentioned. What is it? The Mafia? Or the CIA?”

The truck braked. Leah was flattened against the windshield. “The Mafia? The—”

“Woman, if I answer that one question, will you get off my back? I need to think, damn you!”

“The CIA? In Colorado?”

His hands on her shoulders lifted her from the seat. “I can't think when.…” He shook her once and let go. “I don't need you. Remember that.” It was almost a whisper. Blood vessels bulged on his forehead.

She had driven him to the point he had driven her. Leah could feel it. “The FBI, the CIA … is this property-information stolen?”

“Yes.”

“You're a thief as well as a murderer. And you ask me to trust you, go with you for something I know nothing about. Why should I? Sheila is dead and you say she didn't know. If you hadn't mistaken me for her, I wouldn't even be involved at all.”

“That, Leah Harper, is the only reason you are sitting next to me now. It's my fault you're in this. I'll try to get you out.” He started the engine and the pickup moved down the road. “But I can't promise anything. For either of us.”

Men. Always men. Her father hadn't wanted her mother to be any more than a dependent keeper of his house and family. When he died, Iris Harper had no training to head the family, no economic sense. His oversight ruined them all and eventually led to his wife's suicide.

Leah had enrolled in journalism her freshman year in college. There had been eight girls and two hundred and eighty men in the class. The male faculty had cut it down to one girl and two hundred and eighty men in two weeks. The one plucky upstart had stuck it out to graduate with honors. But Leah had moved out of journalism into liberal arts, the catchall for the undecided, unwanted, or undeveloped. And the dabblers.

“And then there was Clifford,” she said aloud, not meaning to.

“Clifford.” Glade glanced at her and then past her through the window. The truck slowed to a crawl.

“At the travel agency,” she explained.

An entire field of yellow daisylike flowers with brown centers appeared on their left, too large for daisies, too small for sunflowers, alight with sinking sunlight—too vast and bright for any postcard to capture.

They had stopped. Her companion stared at the field of flowers. Leah wouldn't have expected a murderer-thief to appreciate the golden glory on the other side of the window.

They eased forward, Glade scanning the roadsides. The flowers ended at a line of pine forest and then another clearing. At the back of the clearing sat a white wooden wagon that looked like an old gypsy home on wheels. The truck stopped again.

“Shepherd's wagon,” he said and watched it.

It looked deserted. There was a long handle meant to be hitched to a horse; its end lay on the ground. The wagon seemed to be shut up.

Glade checked the rear-view mirror and the sky, then turned the truck off the road into the clearing, driving in behind the shepherd's wagon where they couldn't be seen from the road.

“Are we lost now?”

“No. But we'll wait until dark before we go on. You can get out and stretch your legs, find yourself a tree.”

“A tree?” They were nearly surrounded by trees.

“All that coffee has to go somewhere. Just stay out of sight of the road.”

“You mean—But I can't—”