23
C harlie’s whole body was sore from the battering Cage gave her, and from bumping along in the Jeep; her face felt bruised and raw where he’d struck her, hit her three times for trying to roll out of the vehicle. And then when it blew a tire and skidded on the narrow trail, jamming hard between two trees, she’d prayed it was stuck. She’d thought at first the sharp report was a gunshot, it had sent her ducking down, filled with hope-but it was only the tire exploding when the wheel hit a deadfall. The men’s rage would, under other circumstances, have been amusing. They were near hysteria by the time they got the wheel off, then found that the spare had no air, that it, too, had a hole in it. The situation was entertaining, but turned heart-stopping when they grew so enraged that she didn’t know what they might do to her.
But they hadn’t taken it out on her. They had sworn and argued, then at last had set about patching the spare, irritably bickering. Now, bumping along again, she was terribly hot and thirsty, her sweaty T-shirt plastered to her, the too-tight ropes burning into her. The worst discomfort was the gnats; millions of gnats had found her, and were feasting. Their bites made her wild with itching, and she couldn’t scratch. Her last thread of composure was almost gone. And she was ashamed, so ashamed that her disappearance would have Max frantic, would cause all kinds of trouble. Ashamed that she hadn’t been watchful, that she’d let her guard down, had come out of the house completely unprepared for a prowler. She knew better. After several previous threats to Max, she knew better than to become complacent. She had stepped out thinking the dogs were barking at nothing or at some small wild animal; and now Max would have to deal with the trouble her foolishness had caused. Worst of all, she knew he’d come after her, that she’d put him in unnecessary danger.
No matter how she twisted and worked at the knots, she’d not been able to loosen one. With her feet tied, and her hands tied behind her, even if she’d been able to roll off the Jeep, she couldn’t have run, couldn’t get away, could only hop stupidly, like a trussed-up chicken.
When the men had finally gotten the spare tire patched and on the wheel, and had taken turns pumping up the tire with an ancient hand pump, they’d shouldered and fought the Jeep out of the trees and moved on again up into the pine forest. The woods were black as midnight, the headlights dim. She lay helplessly bumping along again on the dirty metal floor trying to understand what this was about.
She knew Cage’s name, the other man had called him that, receiving a vicious blow across the mouth, a strike that had made him spit blood. Cage Jones-the man Wilma had gone up to the city to testify against. In some way, this whole thing was about Wilma; that knowledge riveted her with fear. Was this retribution against Wilma, for her damning testimony? What else could it be?
Early in the evening, when she brought the dogs and horses in from pasture and fed them, she’d been imagining Wilma on her way home down 101 in the heavy afternoon traffic, her car loaded with boxes and bags of new clothes and early Christmas presents. She’d thought that when she and Ryan got back from their ride, if there was no “getting home” message from Wilma, she’d give her aunt time to unpack and have a cool shower, a drink, and some supper, then she’d call her and they could talk about Wilma’s weekend.
Tending to the horses, then going in the house to fix sandwiches for herself and Ryan, she’d amused herself imagining what Wilma had bought. New jeans, of course. New sweatshirts. But she hoped something frivolous, too. When the dogs began to bark, she’d stepped out on the porch, stood in the falling evening listening. Deciding maybe there were raccoons in the barn again, or the fox who often came to sneak dog food and that enraged the mutts, she had just slipped into the barn to see-
It happened so fast. She was grabbed from behind, the dogs going crazy, the horses plunging in their stalls. She was swung around hard, losing her balance, to face a huge man.
He had clamped his meaty hand over her mouth so she couldn’t yell, had dragged her out behind the barn and tied her up and gagged her, and then thrown her in the Jeep. There was a second man, thinner. Neither spoke until they’d driven for some time and were well away from the stables, up the narrow trail. She’d leaned up to look over the back, trying to see behind them, hoping uselessly that someone had seen them and followed. But every time she tried to look back, Cage reached around from the driver’s seat and knocked her down.
And who would have seen? She’d been alone at the ranch. There was no one to know she was missing, or to know what had happened. She’d bounced along miserably on the hard metal floor, through the darkening woods, with Cage watching her so closely, against any attempt at escape, that she just about lost hope. Until the tire blew and her hope rose again.
But that hadn’t lasted long and they were off again, she still steaming at her helplessness, at her inability to help herself.
But now…Did she hear something behind them? The faintest noise? Stealthily she slid up again along the side of the Jeep to sneak a look. The sky straight above them was still silver, but the dense woods through which they rumbled were so dark that surely Cage, looking back from the driver’s seat, could no longer see her clearly. Far back down the trail, she thought she glimpsed a flash of light. She saw it for just an instant, saw it again, flicking, then it vanished. Had she heard, above the Jeep’s rattling and grinding, another sound? A distant door close, an engine start?
She tried to judge how far they had come. They’d been climbing constantly, the Jeep’s engine straining, climbing very steeply in some places. When she could see through a gap in the trees, beneath the lighter evening sky, the black hills fell away, but then they were gone again, hidden by the pine forest.
There wasn’t much up this trail but forest, and patches of open hills. Some scattered old houses far up, a fallen fence line. And, nearly straight ahead, this trail would pass close to the Pamillon ruins.
Was Cage headed there? Did he mean to dump her there? Kill me and leave me under the fallen walls or in some caved-in cellar, where no one will find me? Leave me there to get back at Wilma? Certainly Cage hadn’t kidnapped her for a ransom. He wouldn’t get much, she thought ruefully, she wasn’t some heiress worth millions.
Oh, but Max would pay. He’d pay with the ranch, the horses, the cars, and every smallest thing he owned, go into debt for the rest of his life, if that was the only way to save her-except that Max was too clever for that, Max would never be so foolish, he was far sharper than these two cheap crooks, he would never let them twist him around.
Wouldn’t he? To save my life?
And she knew he would.
Was this revenge against Wilma? Did Cage think he could make Wilma suffer far more if he killed her niece? Or, she thought, could Cage want something from Wilma, something besides revenge? Am I a hostage? Is this some kind of trade? But trade for what? Certainly he can’t buy his freedom from the law with a hostage. The U.S. courts don’t make that kind of bargain.
This was all too unlikely, too bizarre. It had been such a peaceful afternoon, she’d so been looking forward to a quiet ride, to spending some time with Ryan. And then…everything had gone to hell.
The sky was going dark now. Cage, still grousing over the flat tire, which was all Eddie’s fault because it was Eddie’s Jeep, hadn’t glimpsed her peering over the back. She caught her breath when she saw another light, a flash as brief as a firefly, one pinprick, then gone. But then another, farther down the hills, where she thought their ranch lay. Then the trail behind them was hidden by a thick stand of pine. The Jeep came up over a rise and dropped down again, and Cage swung around in the seat, turning his light on her; he caught her looking, and before she could duck, he smacked her in the face so hard he sent her sprawling. She lay unmoving, hurting, detesting Cage Jones. And thinking about the lights.