Deep in the Heart (24 page)

“My God,” John Thomas said. “Why would Sam leave with her? What on earth would make her walk off with a near-stranger without leaving me a note?”

Monty shrugged. “Maybe old Rebel there can tell us what we don’t already know.”

The sheriff nodded and unhooked the lead from the dog’s collar. He held Samantha’s shoes beneath Rebel’s nose so that he got the scent and then ordered, “Search, boy! Search! Find Sam, Rebel, boy. Find Sam!”

The dog whined and tossed his big head back as he sniffed the air, and then his nose instinctively went to the earth. While they watched, Rebel made two circles in the yard, narrowing it each time until he came to the open door of the old black truck. The moment he jumped into the seat he began to bay.

“Dear God,” John Thomas said, and tossed her shoes back in his car.

“Does that mean what I think it means?” Monty asked.

“Sam was in that truck. I don’t doubt my dog’s ability to know that much. The problem is, where did Claudia leave her before she left town? And where the hell is Claudia now?”

He made a quick decision. “Monty, go inside and get all the information Marylee had on Claudia. Hell, I don’t even know her last name.”

He wiped a shaky hand across his face, remembering last night and the way Samantha cuddled against him as she slept. Dear God he couldn’t lose that. Not when he’d just found the love of his life again.

Monty went into the café while John Thomas put Rebel in the backseat of his car along with Samantha’s shoes. But his deputy came back too soon to be bringing good news.

“She said her name was Smith. Claudia Smith. And Marylee didn’t get any other information because she wasn’t going to withhold wages or anything like that. This was just a temporary setup. The woman was more or less a charity case. What we have on her is exactly nothing, boss. Not a damned thing.”

“Somehow I’m not surprised,” John Thomas said.

“Let’s get back to the department. I want an APB put out on Claudia Smith.”

“What about Samantha?” Monty asked.

John Thomas couldn’t even look his deputy in the eyes as he answered. “We’ve got to find her, that’s all. I promised her, dammit. I promised her I’d take care of her. I even crossed my heart and…”

Monty looked away as the sheriff’s voice broke. He knew what that pain felt like. And he also knew that, right now, talking was impossible. That would come later, when sadness was repressed and anger took the forefront. That was how a man survived devastation.

John Thomas forced back the fear that threatened to overwhelm him. He didn’t have time to panic. He had to find Samantha Carlyle and he had to do it now.

Somehow, somewhere, he knew she was still alive. If she wasn’t, he would have felt it. Of that he was certain.

13

T
HE MILES BETWEEN
Rusk and New Summerfield shortened as Claudia pushed the old black pickup to its limit. The farther they drove, the better Samantha felt about it. It almost seemed that by leaving the small town behind, she left her troubles with it. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this lighthearted and carefree.

And, in spite of her misgivings about the old pickup’s capabilities, and considering a lack of a muffler or an air conditioner, it was performing valiantly. The noisy exhaust was muted by the wind whistling through the open windows. The gusts blew dust in their eyes and persistently pulled at the braid in Samantha’s hair, but it was a small price to pay for freedom.

When they passed through the city limits of Cotton, Claudia was forced to slow down. As she did, Samantha leaned forward and pointed out the driver’s side of the window.

“Look, Claudia! Do you see the third house from the left down that street?”

Claudia glanced in the direction that her passenger was pointing as Samantha explained.

“I grew up in that house.” She smiled in memory. “I used to sneak out the back door when I went to meet Johnny. He was my best friend.”

Claudia’s grin was wide, her eyes glittering with subdued excitement. “He’s sure more than that now, isn’t he?”

Samantha blushed, but denying the obvious would have been silly. Out on the street, she recognized a familiar face and started to wave when the pickup swerved sharply and threw her into the floor instead.

“Sorry,” Claudia said, as she increased pressure on the gas. “I almost ran over a dog.” She sliced a cool glance across her shoulder out the window behind them before returning full attention to the road ahead. From the corner of her eye she could see her passenger struggling to get herself off of the floor. “Are you okay?”

Samantha laughed uneasily as her heartbeat settled back into a regular rhythm. The shock of hitting the dash, then sliding onto the floor was still too vivid to forget. For a moment, she’d imagined them about to crash.

“I think so,” Samantha said, and brushed at the knees of her jeans. “But there really should be seat belts in here.”

Claudia laughed and patted the steering wheel. “This baby was built long before safety features came into play. That was back when you got in, sat back, and held on for dear life.”

Samantha sighed and tried to smile. “I
was
trying to hold on.”

“For dear life?”

Samantha shuddered. The question had come out of nowhere, but when she glanced over at the woman behind the wheel, she told herself she was imagining the threat behind it.

And so they rode.

Claudia talked nonstop and that was fine with Samantha. She had realized early on that participating in the conversation took little more than an occasional nod or smile. Most of her attention was focused on the rich green countryside and the abundance of trees lining the road. But her daydreaming quickly ended when she realized Claudia was slowing down. When she noticed her searching the roadside with a keen gaze, she couldn’t help but worry.

“What’s wrong?” Samantha asked.

Claudia grinned. “I’ve got to go,” she said, and wiggled her backside in the seat to indicate her predicament. Her pink shorts and shirt were limp and dust-stained, and stuck to her body from the heat, but she didn’t seem to mind. “I guess I should have stopped at that station back in Cotton, but I thought I could make it to New Summerfield first.”

“You mean you need to—”

“I gotta wee,” Claudia said bluntly. “And I’m not pulling over and baring my backside for just anyone to see.” She laughed and arched her eyebrows. “I’m particular about who I share myself with, if you know what I mean.”

Her laughter was infectious, and whatever comment Samantha might have made was sucked out the window with the air and Claudia’s giggles.

“Oh look! There’s a road.” Claudia pointed toward a small turnoff just ahead. “I’ll drive far enough up into the pasture to be out of view. Then I can do my business, and we’ll be on our way to the mall in no time.”

Samantha shrugged. “Okay. But you’d better be careful where you drive. You don’t want to get stuck up in there. We’re a long way from nowhere.”

“Don’t I know it,” Claudia said, and made the turn with nothing more than a neat twist of her wrist without slowing down.

The tires hit the old, unused road with a bounce, instantly tossing the truck out of the overgrown ruts. At that moment, Claudia hit the gas. The tires spun out on the thick, green grass, and then suddenly fell back into the track with a sharp bump.

Samantha grabbed onto the seat with one hand, and with the other pressed up on the roof of the pickup to keep from hitting her head on it.

“Hold on!” Claudia shouted, then giggled as a jackrabbit made a mad dash to get out of their way, its long donkey ears bobbing madly like fuzzy antennae. She laughed at the look on Samantha’s face when the rabbit narrowly missed being crushed beneath the wheels of the truck.

The highway quickly disappeared as the road wound over a small, knoblike hill, and then snaked toward what had once been a homestead. There was little left but a wide clearing in a scattering of trees, bounded by traces of a fence row and a dilapidated gate that was hanging only by habit. Grass was anywhere from ankle- to knee-high. A once-proud tree stood leafless and blackened beside a crumbling chimney, its skeletal branches having long since given up an attempt to provide shelter or shade.

Samantha grabbed onto the frame of the open window for support just as the underside of the pickup skinned an overgrown berry patch. She heard the hard, unripened berries whipping and thumping beneath the frame of the old truck as it came to a stop beneath the dead tree’s empty branches.

“This will do,” Claudia said.

Samantha rolled her eyes, thankful that they were still in one piece. She began smoothing the hair from her face, expecting at any time to see Claudia bolt from the truck.

It didn’t happen. But what did was just as unexpected as the side trip had been.

Claudia’s hair came away in her hands.

The blond, curly wig, the essence of Claudia the waitress, now lay in the seat between them. With it removed, the wide red mouth suddenly fit the face. Dark red hair, bone-straight and shoulder length, framed a pair of bright green eyes that darkened with hate. And then Samantha saw the gun.

“I know you!” she gasped, and started to open the door, although it had simply been reflex. There was nowhere to go.

The shot went off, deafening from its closeness, and the suddenness with which it had been delivered.

“Of course you do. It’s only fitting that you know the wife of the man you murdered.”

Samantha was in shock. She’d finally been found. The hate on the woman’s face was unmistakable. In spite of everything she and Johnny had done to stop it—as promised, her stalker had come. Heart pounding wildly, she tried to focus on something other than the gun barrel aimed in her face.

“Get out!”
the woman shouted.

And when Samantha hesitated, another shot blasted past her ears and out the open window. This time it was much closer than the first, and left her in no doubt as to what her fate would be if she disobeyed.

She opened the door, stumbling as she got out. And as desperately as she tried to make herself quit shaking and concentrate on a plan of action, it didn’t happen. The gun and the woman were too close and too real.

“Start walking!” she ordered.

Samantha complied while trying to make sense of the woman’s wild accusations.

“Why, Desiree? Why me? I never did anything to either you or Donny. No one at the agency was sorrier than I was when we heard that he’d died. I know it’s tragic when you lose someone you love. But to lose him to drugs has to be a difficult thing to bear. You should—”

“Shut up!” Desiree screamed. “You don’t know what you’re saying! Donny Adonis was a star. He was everything you’re not and you were jealous! That’s what! You were jealous! You gave away what should have been his part to that stupid television star who’s losing his hair.”

Her laughter was shrill and bordered on hysteria as she continued.

“Donny was perfect to play Casey Wilder. That part in Castle Rock’s new film would have pulled him out of his slump. But no! You had to play God! You took away his pride and his faith in himself when you gave that part to someone else. The disappointment killed him!”

Shaking with the burst of adrenaline from the satisfaction of finally revealing her identity, she waved the gun in Samantha’s face and sneered.

“Who did you screw to ruin Donny’s life?”

The rude accusation made Samantha shudder. This woman was beyond reason and out of control. At any moment, she expected the gun Desiree was holding to go off. Yet when she started sobbing instead of shooting, Samantha began to pray for a way out. If Desiree was still able to shed tears, surely, she thought, there would be a way to reason with her. But hope died as swiftly as it was born when she jammed the gun up against Samantha’s cheek and shrieked her words in a rush of hate and spittle.

“I hope it was good for you, bitch, because you humiliated Donny so badly that he committed suicide! Do you hear me? He killed himself! That means he’ll burn in hell, and I’ll never see any darling again.”

As she took a step closer to Samantha, the fury in her voice went from rage to reason, frightening in itself by the instantaneous change.

“That’s why you have to die, you see. I planned it for weeks afterward. Disguising my voice for the phone calls was easy. I have plenty of friends on the lots with all the technical equipment I needed. But implicating you was the best, don’t you think?”

Her smile widened as she began to explain.

“I had a friend—I have lots of friends, you know. One of them let me in the office where you worked. I told them Donny’s ring was missing, and I suspected he might have left it there during his last call. They let me look, and look, and look. While they were busy elsewhere, I used your typewriter to write the letters I sent to you. It was perfect, don’t you see? That way the police would never help you look for me—because they wouldn’t believe I existed.”

As she laughed, she slapped her leg with the barrel of the gun. Samantha jerked in reflex from the sound of metal against flesh.

Then suddenly, all of Desiree’s calm disappeared as she began to focus on the present instead of the past.

“You took Donny’s life, so I’m going to take yours. But to get to hell with him, you have to die, too.”

Samantha stumbled.
My God! The woman is beyond reasoning.
“Desiree, you have to let me explain.”

Samantha’s eyes were wide and frightened as she tried desperately to still the tremble in her voice. She couldn’t let Desiree know that she was afraid. It might be all it took to send her over the edge.

The woman’s entire body had undergone a transformation from the easygoing, giggling waitress to a tense, high-strung woman on the edge of madness. She was dry-eyed and panting, with her red mouth sliced into a snarl instead of a smile. She waved the gun back and forth in Samantha’s direction as she ordered, “I don’t have to do anything! Shut up and walk!

Samantha moved a few steps and then turned again, sensing that Desiree had a certain destination in mind and that when they got there, there would be no more time for talking. By then, she would be dead.