Woman On the Run (5 page)

“Sam Cooper,” he said. He braced a large hand on the ground and stood up in one lithe, powerful movement so sudden she found herself stepping back in fright. He started brushing off seeds and Julia had another guilt attack.

“Most people call him Coop,” the Sheriff offered.

Julia wondered what her stickler of a mother would have thought about the etiquette of the situation. Could you use a nickname for someone you’d done your best to knock senseless?

Probably not.

“Mr. Cooper.”

“Miss Anderson.” She had a momentary pang of doubt. His voice sounded like a killer’s voice…deep, low and raspy. She sneaked another look at him.

He still looked dangerous.

“You’re sure you know this man, Sheriff?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Sheriff Pedersen grinned. “Breeds and trains horses on a big spread between here and Rupert. All kinds of horses, but mostly thoroughbreds and Arabians.”

“I…ahm…I guess I owe you an apology, Mr. Cooper.” Julia tried to think of something logical to say. “I…I mistook you for someone else.”

An embarrassing silence fell over the room.

“Can’t believe you let someone get the drop on you, Coop.” The Sheriff chuckled. “’Specially a girl.”

“Woman,” Julia murmured, refraining from rolling her eyes.

“What? Oh, yeah, can’t call girls
girls
any more.” The Sheriff shook his head in sorrow at the ways of the modern world. He looked Julia up and down and cackled at Cooper. “I’ll bet you have a foot and ninety pounds on her, Coop. You must be getting soft.” He turned to Julia. “Coop used to be a SEAL, you know.”

A seal?

For a moment, Julia wondered whether a month of terror had shorted out her brain. What on earth did the Sheriff mean? A seal…?

Oh. He meant a SEAL. A commando. Trained killer.

So she hadn’t been so off the mark, after all.

Julia absorbed this information as she looked at Sam Cooper, brainee. Splayed on the floor, he had looked dangerous. On his feet, he was terrifying, huge and menacing. Prime commando material, if she ever saw it. She observed him carefully, paying particular attention to his alarmingly large hands, and turned to the sheriff.

“That may be,” she said politely. “But his flippers are gone now.”

The Sheriff stared at her for a moment. He wheezed heavily once, then twice. It was only when he bent double, shoulders shaking, that Julia realized he was laughing.

It was the last straw. The whole miserable day came crashing in on her. Herbert Davis and his less than reassuring news that killers might have come close to discovering where she was; the terror when she thought one of Santana’s hired killers had found her; her heroic last stand at the Alamo; the overwhelming relief when she’d discovered that she might live, after all.

Then the Sheriff running to her rescue, only he didn’t rescue her at all. Actually, he could probably have her arrested for…for what? Assault with a deadly vegetable?

And to top it all off, the Sheriff was doing this lousy imitation of Walter Brennan in
Rio Bravo
, except he had all his teeth and didn’t limp. Julia had hated
Rio Bravo
.

Come to think of it, she’d hated
The Alamo
, too.

“If you don’t
mind
, Sheriff,” she said coldly.

Chuck Pedersen wheezed once more and wiped his eyes. “Flippers,” he said and wheezed again. He shook his head. “No, Miss…”

Devaux
, she thought. “Anderson,” she said.

“Anderson, that’s right. Sorry. You just moved here, right?”

“A little less than a month ago.” Twenty-seven days and twelve hours, but who’s counting?

“So you don’t know everyone in the area yet. But old Coop, here, he used to be in the Navy, a SEAL, like I said. Crack troops. Coop did damned well, too, got hisself a medal, he did. Then his daddy died and he came back to run the Cooper spread.”

Oh, God. Julia closed her eyes in pain for a moment. This was worse than she thought. It wasn’t bad enough that she’d assaulted one of the good citizens of Simpson. No, she’d clobbered a
war hero
. She opened her eyes and stole a look at Sam Cooper again.

He still looked hard and dangerous.

Gathering the few tattered shreds of dignity left, and pumping up her courage, she held out her hand to Sam Cooper, horse breeder/SEAL.

She stared straight into black, expressionless eyes and shivered. “Please accept my apologies, Mr. Cooper.”

After a moment, Sam Cooper took her hand. His was huge and hard and calloused. Julia held his hand and he held her eyes. Julia stared, then slipped her hand from his grasp and turned away, feeling as if she’d just escaped a force field. He made a sound, and she decided to take it as acceptance of her apology, remembering that SEALs didn’t talk. They just grunted.

Julia turned to the Sheriff and tried to smile. “I guess I owe you my apologies as well, Sheriff.”

“Chuck.” The sheriff grinned. “We don’t stand much on ceremony around here.”

“Chuck, then. I’m really sorry I caused all this commotion.”

He rocked back on his heels. “Well, I won’t say anytime, because you gave me a fright there, Miss Anderson…”

“Sally,” Julia said, hating the name.

“Sally. As I was saying, I thought I’d caught myself a criminal. Mostly what I do is break up a few fights on Saturday night and arrest speeders. Not many of those, either.”

“No, I imagine not,” Julia murmured. “Simpson seems like such a nice little town.” After all she’d been through that afternoon, what was a little lie? All right, a big lie. “Friendly and quiet.”

Years of living abroad made it easy to say the pleasant, untrue thing. Julia remembered her mother saying kind things about the landscape around Reykjavik—a sere, treeless, lifeless expanse—to a delighted Icelander.

The Sheriff beamed. “That it is. Glad you like it here. We’re always happy to welcome newcomers to Simpson. We need new blood. The youngsters keep leaving us, right after high school. I keep telling ‘em it’s a nasty world out there, but nobody listens. Can’t imagine what they think they’re gonna find out there.”

Oh, I don’t know
, Julia thought.
Bookshops, cinema, theater, art galleries. Good food, good conversation, shops. Sidewalks. Humans
. Then, because she’d always been told her face was an open book, she smiled and tried to think of something else. “You know what kids are like. I guess they feel they have to go and find out for themselves.”

Out of politeness Julia turned to the man she’d brained. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Cooper?”

* * * * *

Cooper started. He’d been thinking how easy this Sally Anderson was finding it to talk to Chuck even after five minutes’ acquaintance. He’d found it enormously difficult to tell Chuck how sorry he’d been when Carly, Chuck’s wife, had passed away.

And then Chuck had just stood around morosely, patting him awkwardly on the back when Cooper’s own wife, Melissa, had left. Looked like beautiful grade school teachers didn’t have the kind of problems men did. Particularly not beautiful schoolteachers with red, no—he checked again while she wasn’t looking—
brown
hair.

He could have sworn it was red. She looked like a redhead. He was real partial to redheads. Though truth be told, he’d never seen a redhead outside the movies as gorgeous as this one was.

She was still scared. Her hand had trembled in his. It had been soft and small and icy cold. The temptation to keep holding it just to warm it up had been overwhelming. He’d let her go because she looked terrorized by him. It was hard to forget the look of sheer terror on her face as she’d held him at bay. The last time he’d seen anyone look like that had been under gunfire.

She was hiding her fear well now, with a polite expression on that lovely face, but he remembered her trembling hand.

There was a sudden silence, and Chuck and the teacher were both looking at him in expectation. The echo of Miss Anderson’s question hovered in the air.

“Er…that’s right.” It must have been an appropriate response, because the teacher gathered her things and slipped out the door, Chuck patted him on the back and followed her and he was left alone in the school, except for Jim, out swabbing the corridor.

He listened to the sounds of Jim whistling “Be My Baby” out of tune but in time with the sweep of the mop. Cooper moved towards the door and heard something crackle. The notes. The notes Sally Anderson had written. He’d come here to talk about Rafael.

Fuck. He’d forgotten all about it.

* * * * *

The opening strains of
Tosca
filled the airy, light-filled room. The room was a treasure trove of beautiful, rare objects. The casual onlooker would never see the state of the art security system and the collection of handguns and rifles hidden in the false bottom of an oak Renaissance chest.

A computer sat on a Hepplewhite console. Next to it, an 18th century Wedgwood canister held pencils and pens.

The professional opened the file and started entering the custom-made decryption program that was a personal triumph. Sold on the software market, the program could easily have fetched over $100,000. If it were for sale—which it was not. A hundred thousand was a long way from a million and the Stanford Business program had been very clear on the fact that you had to spend money to make it.

The last of the commands to start the program had been entered and the computer beeped. Immediately, letters started scrolling down.

alkdjfpiwe cmòkjèqruepijfkmcx,vnsakjfqpoiurpi

alksdjpoiurekcnòlskjfpieujfnòlkdjfpawieurhmadnf

ncjdnemvkjfjruthdsgsrwvcjfkginbjdmslkcjhfgjkdk

Decryption 60%…70%…80%…90%…

Decryption completed.

The computer beeped softly and the professional sat up.

File: 248

Witness Placed under Witness Security Program: Richard M. Abt

Born: New York City, 03/05/65

Last domicile: 6839 Sugarmaple Lane, New York City, NY.

Case: Accountant for group of attorneys Ledbetter, Duncan, and Terrance. All three attorneys indicted for laundering money for the mafia. Abt only person willing to testify. Testimony to be given 11/14/04.

Placed under Witness Security Program: 09/09/04

Richard Abt relocated as: Robert Littlewood

Area 248, Code 7fn609jz5y

Current domicile: 120 Crescent Drive, Rockville, Idaho

Right church. Wrong pew.

The data starting spewing forth and the professional sat for a moment, swallowing the disappointment, then got up and poured some chilled
Veuve Clicquot
into a Baccarat flute, easing off the kidskin shoes ordered specially from an English cobbler, James & Sons. This would take a while.

The
Veuve Clicquot
was dry and went down like a dream. The light of the Murano chandelier glanced off the crystal of the flute, making a thousand little rainbows. Sipping, the professional watched the rainbows dance in the light.

It was easy, so easy to get used to the good things in life. Fine clothes, fine furnishings, a penthouse suite.

It was a long, long way up from the trailer park and waiting for the old man to come home, drunk more often than not. That was all over with. Forever. No more swinging belts, no more sympathetic teachers gently enquiring about the black eye, no more collecting food stamps.

No more. Not ever again
.

kdsjcnemowjsiwexnjskllspwieuhdksmclsldjkjhfd

kdiejduenbkclsjdjeudowjdiejdocmdksdldkjdjeiel

mpnwjcmsmwkcxosapewkrjhvgebsjckgfnghgdsj

Decryption 60%…70%…80%…90%…

Decryption completed.

The computer beeped again. After a moment, in which it seemed to pause to consider, the computer screen filled with words.

File: 248

Witness placed in Witness Security Program: Sydney L. Davidson

Born: Frederick, Virginia, 07/27/56

Last domicile: 308 South Hampton Drive, Apt 3B, Frederick, VA

Case: Chemist for Sunshine Pharmaceuticals. All top company executives indicted for providing designer drugs to friends and other business associates. Davidson turned State’s witness in exchange for reduced or waived sentence. Due to testify against employers on 11/23/04.

Placed in Witness Security Program: 8/25/04

Sydney Davidson relocated as: Grant Patterson

Area 248, Code 7gj668jx4r

Current domicile: 90 Juniper Street, Ellis, Idaho