Instinctively, she wrapped one arm around the thick root of the enormous tree. Her mind slipped unthinkingly into the habit of imagining that she was holding on to the iron limb of a protective man. It was silly. She had done the same thing as a girl, stacking up extra pillows in her bed and clinging tightly to them in the night. But she had no man, not really. She was alone in life, just as she'd always been. The man who was her husband didn't afford her protection from anything. He never had. To the world, Taylor Jordan might look like the perfect life's companion. But she was now painfully aware that in reality, he was nothing more than a stack of pillows or the twisted root of an ancient tree.
Casey knew she was as exhausted as she was delirious. She was so tired that within minutes, despite the dull throbbing of her feet and head, she was fading off to sleep. But while sleep was a blissful reprieve for her tortured body and mind, it gave her no warning of the ghostly beam of light swinging to and fro like a pendulum as it crept slowly toward her through the trees.
CHAPTER 21
It was the first real sleep Sales had had in three days. So when he awoke, he came from the depths with the gasp of a man desperately breaking the surface of the ocean. His head snapped this way and that for a sign of Casey. She was gone. He yanked on his boots and stood. Without moving, he studied the faint signs in the dust on the stone floor. When he came to the place halfway to the cave's entrance where her skin opened up, a small smile grew from his frown. His racing heart settled. After sliding the knife into the back of his belt, he picked up his rifle and walked carefully out of the cave. By the strength of the light, he knew it was close to noon.
Out in the sun, the thin swatch of blood grew so faint on the rock that he had to crouch low to distinguish it from the various striations in the granite. When it disappeared completely, it took several minutes of casting about before Sales could pick up the trail again. He knew she must have rolled downhill. Even when her general direction became apparent, it was slow work tracking her on the rough ground.
Once he found her first mark in the pine needles, it became easy again. He was several yards away from the rock outcrop when he spotted the shiny gray remains of her bonds.
"Shit!" he said aloud, casting his eyes three hundred and sixty degrees, hoping to catch a sign of her dashing through the trees. He bent down over the spot where she'd cut through the tape. The sharp-edged stone was liberally decorated with her blood. He touched his finger to one of the larger spots and brought it to his lips. It was still sticky.
He stood slowly and carefully examined the scene. The scuffs in the dirt at the base of the tree, a bloody swatch on another rock, and the pattern of blood on the sharp stone told him the story of how she'd been able to break free from the tape. Her resourcefulness and determination were impressive. His brow grew dark as he considered the possibility of her escape. He had expected her to be formidable, even before her bold move to set off the alarm with a knife to her neck. But to have the energy and the will to free herself in this way after a night of being bound up on a cold stone floor? He squatted back down and began to search for the new trail. Only years of practice made it possible for him to follow her.
When her feet started to open up, he knew even an amateur could track her down. Once he had that clear trail, he began to jog through the trees, knowing now the line of her escape was the same as any wounded doe's. She would move downhill in as straight a line as she could, fleeing from him as fast and as far as her injured feet would take her. When a stick snapped under his feet, he cursed, somehow sensing the magnitude of the mistake, and began to move carefully again at a much slower pace.
At the creek, the spot where she'd stood to dry was still evident, although the watermarks were rapidly evaporating in the warm sun. He knew from the sudden distance between her bloody footprints that this was the place where she had stood when he'd spooked her. Sales cursed again, but pressed on, glad at least that she was heading farther into the wilderness and not in the direction of the old mining road where he had stashed her car.
Around noon, he topped a rise in the woods and caught sight of her running well below him through a clearing in the trees. He swung the rifle expertly up to his shoulder, and held her in his sights.
"Bang," he said, with a gleeful smile. Then as she disappeared, he put it down and scrambled to the place he'd seen her last. By three o'clock, he knew he wasn't going to be able to run her down. The harder he pressed, the more distance she covered. At four-thirty, her trail crossed back on itself, and he knew she was completely lost. Sales marked the spot well, took his bearings, and started back for the cave. He was famished.
He stopped at the stream to drink his fill, then climbed the hill to the cave, wary all the while for signs of danger. Although he doubted there was any possibility of his being followed, one never knew. If the alarm company showed up with the police and they had a key to the house, there was the outside chance that one of the cops was sharp enough to suspect that the bed didn't look made quite right. He might notice the cut screen and figure that instead of an electrical malfunction, Casey really had pushed the panic alarm. It would then be well within reason that they remembered the dark blue Mercedes leaving the community. With an APB out for the car, who knew? A kid on a dirt bike or a lost hunter could stumble into the Mercedes and the rest would be history. They'd have a SWAT team in the rocks above his cave waiting to welcome him back with a bullet in the brain.
But as he surveyed the area from behind a tree on the edge of the stony rise that led to the cave, the only other sign of life was the plaintive cry of a male cardinal searching for a mate. Inside, Sales greedily opened a can of beans and slurped them down straight from the can. After resting his feet for nearly an hour, he rose with a long sigh and gathered up his things. Besides the rifle and the knife, he picked up his flashlight and snaked his belt through the roll of duct tape, wearing it on his hip the way he had when he broke into Casey's home.
By the time he reached the spot where he'd marked Casey's trail, the shadows had grown long. Before darkness engulfed him completely, Sales was locked in on her track again. He knew as hard as she'd run that she'd lie down once darkness came. He took his time and moved methodically along the path she'd taken. Every so often he would stoop to confirm that the faint dark smear on a rock or a leaf was really blood from her foot or that a particular twig was freshly broken or that a certain pebble was recently turned up from the earth. She had done nothing to conceal her trail. She was just running.
When his beam of light finally came to rest on her curled-up, bedraggled form at the base of an ancient white pine, he indulged himself with half a smile. He quickly swung the beam up into the boughs of the tree so as not to waken her. He approached her with stealth. Standing above her, he cupped his hand over the light, deflecting the beam and making a dim lamp. Despite her dirty, matted hair and the smear of dried blood on her face, she was still a beautiful woman.
"Goddamn hellcat is what she is," Sales murmured quietly to himself. He knew that to subdue her he was going to have to render her unconscious. With a carotid control technique, he could slip his arm around her neck and deprive her brain of its oxygen. He set down his flashlight. The darkness surrounding its beam was absolute, and he adjusted it so that she lay in its path. The moment Sales touched her, she came alive as if she were in the midst of a fight, scratching and clawing desperately. The light was kicked aside in the struggle, and the two of them fought in total darkness. Sales slowly tightened his grasp, careful not to crush her windpipe or break her neck. He wanted her alive.