Escape Out of Darkness (5 page)

“Sure thing, babe,” he said in a husky murmur pitched to reach the silent watcher outside their window. “But I’d rather be able to see you. You didn’t used to be so shy.” Without letting go of her, he reached across, turning off the low-wattage light bulb that the Lone Star Bide-a-Wee Motel thought would suffice for reading. Then they were alone, with only the quiet murmur of Sybil Bennett’s cultured British tones warring with the sound of their mingled breathing and the flickering light from the television providing eerie illumination to the drab motel room.

“What next?” he mouthed silently against her ear. His body was still half on top of hers, but he held himself very still, doing nothing to increase the pressure of his hips against hers.

“Stay where you are.” She slid from underneath him, off the bed with a fluid, silent grace, moving through the dimly lit motel room like a ghost, keeping well away from the windows. She edged over to the outside wall, pressed her back against the stained and scarred paneling, and moved her head a fraction of an inch, just far enough to get a tiny glimpse out into the scrubby bushes that lined the front of the motel.

“What are you doing?” Mack pitched his voice perfectly—it reached her on the breath of a sigh, going no farther than her ears. And then he raised it a few decibels. “Damn it, Maggie, are you laughing?”

She couldn’t hold it back any longer. The amusement rippled out of her, a rich full laugh as she staggered back to her own bed. Only for a moment she considered rejoining him on his bed, considered and then wisely rejected the notion. She flopped down on her bed, still laughing. “You can turn on the light,” she said in a normal voice. “And you can call me paranoid.”

“Don’t tell me there was no one out there. I heard them too.” He switched on the light, squinting in the sudden brightness.

“Oh, there’s someone out there, all right—three teenage boys! They’ve given up on us since we were unsporting enough to turn off the lights, and now they’re peering in the window three doors down.” She let a last chuckle fade away in a contented sigh. “I guess I have been too alarmist. I’ll be glad when we get to Houston tomorrow and you’re no longer my responsibility.”

“Been that tough on you?” he drawled, turning his attention back to the television.

For the first time Maggie felt a moment’s doubt. Surely Mack Pulaski couldn’t have hurt feelings? Surely he wanted this small odyssey to be over with as much as she did. Didn’t he? Didn’t she?

“I’d like to deliver you in one piece, Pulaski,” she said after a
moment. “We can argue about it when I fix you up with my mother.”

He grinned, and she decided she’d imagined that momentary reaction. But he said nothing, turning back to the ever-present din of the TV, and Maggie lay back on the bed, stretching her long legs out and closing her eyes. She wasn’t lying when she said she’d be glad to pass him over to Peter Wallace. It had been years since her instincts had played her false. She could have sworn the men in the diner were far too interested in the two of them. She could have sworn someone had been watching them tonight, and not for the sake of vicarious thrills. When it came to a time that her reflexes were so far off, it was time for a long break. Whether she liked it or not, lives were depending on her. And she was beginning to doubt whether she could live up to the responsibility. This was still fairly new to her, this life-or-death situation. She’d managed so far, but there were no guarantees that she’d continue her lucky streak.

“Don’t worry about it, Maggie May,” Mack’s raw voice came from the other bed. “A little paranoia can come in handy sometimes.”

Maggie’s eyes flew open. “How’d you know what I was thinking about?”

He grinned. “I know you better than you think, lady.”

“Am I that transparent?”

“No, I’m that good,” he said, reaching down beside his bed for his abandoned glass of whiskey. “I’ll tell you something else, Superwoman.”

She didn’t even bother to snap at him for the nickname. “What?” she demanded warily.

“I don’t think you’ll be abandoning me in Houston. I think we’ve got more in store for us than a three-day trek across the Southwest.”

“Oh, you do, do you?”

“Yup. And my instincts are seldom wrong.”

Maggie opened her mouth to protest, to announce that her instincts didn’t tell her any such thing. But she realized with a
sudden rush of indecipherable emotions that her instincts agreed with his. Their journey together was far from over. And she wished she could figure out whether the idea pleased or worried her.

But right now she was too tired to worry about it. With the sound of her mother’s voice echoing in her ears, she willed herself into a deep, dreamless sleep.

She was awake in an instant. The harsh blue fluorescent light from the bathroom provided a glaring pool against the darkness of the motel room. She squinted at the flat, thin Rolex that was her one concession to yuppie-dom. It was 4
A.M.
, and something wasn’t right. The instincts that had been acting up for the past twenty-four hours, the instincts that she’d tried to ignore, that seemingly had been proven wrong, were now back in full force. And suddenly Maggie knew that the salesmen in the diner weren’t salesmen, and even if the teenage boys lurking outside their window were harmless, there were other eyes watching, eyes that weren’t quite so innocent.

She moved from her lumpy bed, edging next to Mack’s sleeping body, over to the curtained window that let in the murky glare of streetlights through the shiny, threadbare material. She pushed the drape to one side and peered out into the darkness, and then swore.

Their big white rental car was still sitting outside beneath the streetlamp. From her vantage point Maggie could see that at least two of its tires were slashed and very flat indeed. And on either side, like dark, evil sentries, sat anonymous black sedans, hemming in their only means of escape.

The sedans were empty, and there was no one in sight, but Maggie knew they couldn’t have gone very far. These people were frighteningly professional. She couldn’t imagine how they had found the two of them, but find them they had, and she was going to have to be even more inventive. She could see something
running underneath the picture window and she couldn’t tell if it was a string that could be cut or a wire.

“What’s up?” Mack’s voice was a whisper of sound in her ear, and she jerked upright, slamming her head against his chin.

He didn’t say a word, though she could see it cost him a great deal of effort. “Someone’s here,” she mouthed back at him, barely a sound escaping her lips.

“Are you sure?”

“Look for yourself. But don’t open the door. I can’t be certain, but I think they’ve got a wire or a string leading from our door to wherever they’re hiding out. Probably in the room next door. All we have to do is open that door and they’ll be on us like fleas on a dog.”

“String sounds pretty basic to me. Aren’t the people we’re running from a little more into technology?”

“It’s basic but effective. Besides, maybe it’s a wire-tripped bomb. Would that satisfy your sense of propriety a little better?”

“What makes you think it isn’t?”

“They’ve got cars hemming ours in. All three cars would go up if that string trips a bomb, and I don’t think they’d be into needless waste. Not to mention all the noise it would make. I wouldn’t think our friends, whoever they are, would want to call attention to themselves. Even the Mafia frowns on too much publicity.”

“Unless it’s the CIA. They’ve got the power to cover up our explosion with a logical explanation and they wouldn’t give a damn how many cars they blew up. After all, our taxes would pay for it, and the government doesn’t give a damn how much things cost.”

“Don’t you think this is a ridiculous time to discuss government overspending?” she hissed.

Mack shrugged. “What else are we going to do? It doesn’t look as if we dare open that door.”

“We go out another way, of course.”

“What other way?”

“There’s a small window in the bathroom that’ll prove a tight squeeze. You might put some clothes on,” she added dryly, casting a seemingly disinterested glance at his body, clad only in a pair of navy-blue Jockey shorts. “But we won’t be able to take anything with us. Only what you can put in your pockets.”

“What do we do once we get out the window?” he drawled, and there was a slight edge to his voice. “Not that I don’t have complete faith in you, Maggie May, but I hate to go into anything blind.”

“Don’t bother me with details. I’m making this up as I go along.”

She dressed more quickly than he did, pulling a pair of jeans over her running shorts and topping it with a cotton sweater against the early morning chill. She didn’t bother with her purse, simply taking out the credit cards and money. Slipping into her Nikes, she was busy with the latch on the narrow window when he came up behind her.

“You really think we’re going to fit through that?” He eyed it dubiously.

“If I can, you can,” she muttered, pushing the rusty hinge open with what seemed a scream of metal to her sensitive ears. She stood motionless, waiting. No sound came from anywhere around them, and Maggie could guess that in a sleazy old motel such as the Lone Star Bide-a-Wee the soundproofing was almost nonexistent. Either they hadn’t alerted their watchers or their enemies were as circumspect as they were. Whichever it was, Maggie didn’t care to wait around to find out. “Follow me, Pulaski,” she said, climbing up on the shaky toilet seat and scrambling out the window, landing on the ground with more silence than grace.

Mack landed with more of a thud, but he hit the ground running, and within moments they were a block and a half away, racing down the deserted sidewalks of the sleazy little border town. They didn’t stop until they were winded, until Maggie fell against the side of a building, gasping for breath,
holding the stitch in her side. And then she grinned up at him, immensely pleased with herself.

“Damn, we’re good,” she said, with almost a sense of wonder.

Mack took a little longer before he was able to speak. “You like this, don’t you?” he wheezed.

“I haven’t decided yet.” Her breathing was slowing to normal. “But it sure is exhilarating.”

“If you say so. I’ll ask you again—what next?”

“I was thinking we might sneak back, reconnoiter a bit, and see if we can learn anything. If we’re very careful—”

“Lady,” Mack interrupted her in awesome tones, “you just dragged me at a dead run halfway across this miserable little town. Are you seriously suggesting we go back again, putting our lives in danger?”

“Who says our lives were in danger?” she shot back, stung. “They may have been just watching us. I want to see—” Whatever she wanted to see was lost in the sudden bright flash of light to the west of them, followed by a crack of thunder and a minor earthquake. Maggie was flung back against the building, but Mack maintained his balance, staring at the billowing black smoke that was filling the predawn sky.

“I guess the black sedans were expendable,” he said grimly.

Maggie followed his gaze. There wouldn’t be much left of the motel in an explosion of that size, and she ran a nervous tongue over suddenly parched lips. “As I was saying, the first thing we do is get the hell out of here,” she said, her voice almost as raw and strained as Mack’s permanently wrecked one. “We need transportation. I’m counting on you for that. Come on.” She headed off at a brisk trot, and he followed.

“What the hell do you mean, you’re counting on me?” he demanded, jogging beside her.

“You’re the one who used to run with teenage gangs,” she pointed out coolly. “Surely you remember how to steal a car.”

“I should be offended.”

“You should be flattered. I’m sure I could manage to steal a
car if I had to, but I’m trusting your expertise. Is our best bet a private car or something on a car lot?”

Mack gave up arguing. “I always preferred car lots. That way you get your choice.”

Maggie nodded. In the distance they could hear sirens, fire engines and, no doubt, police. “Be ready to duck if they come our way.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said with spurious docility. “Anything you say.”

She cast an apologetic glance back over her shoulder. “Sorry. I forget that you’re more than capable of holding up your end of this situation. I think there were car dealerships somewhere in this area of town.”

“Used car would be better.”

“Used cars if we can find them,” she agreed.

Her memory, thank heavens, hadn’t failed her. As sirens screamed by on parallel streets she and Mack moved farther and farther away. Until they finally turned onto what passed for the local strip, the golden arches of McDonald’s dim in the slowly lightening sky, the used-car lots lit by strings of brightly colored lights.

“How does O’Malley’s Used Cars sound, Pulaski?” she asked.

“Sounds terrific as long as Mr. O’Malley doesn’t have a night watchman or an unfriendly Doberman.”

Maggie smiled at him sweetly. “I can’t tell from here. We’ll just have to live dangerously.”

He just stared at her for a long moment, a bemused expression on his face. “I’m warning you, I’m out of practice. And I never was one of the experts. Fast Dougal was as good as they come, stealing a car in under a minute. The closest I came was three and a half minutes, and that was when I was in practice.”

“I have faith in you. Take your pick.”

He surveyed the unpromising landscape around them. “American cars are easier than foreign cars,” he mused, half to himself. “But VW Bugs are the ones I had the most experience
on. Why don’t we go for that one?” He pointed out a bright orange monstrosity that had seen better years. Tattered yellow daisy decals dotted the hood, and a matching, wilted-looking plastic flower hung from the sagging antenna.

Maggie made a face. “Why couldn’t you have been adept in Mercedes?” she moaned. “Go ahead, Pulaski.”

For all his doubts, he made fast work of the car. The door wasn’t locked, probably due to the fact that the driver’s window was missing. Maggie watched with mingled amazement and respect as he deftly hot-wired the little vehicle, jumped in the driver’s seat, and grinned up at her. “You ready, Maggie? Let’s get the hell out of here.”

She climbed in beside him, yanking the loosely hinged door shut behind her. Staring at the cramped, definitely smelly confines of the little car, she sighed. “Hit the road, Jack.”

It hadn’t been her best night’s sleep, and no sooner had they put the little town behind them and headed back out on Route 10 than Maggie dozed in her seat. The old VW was surprisingly comfortable, and the cool breeze blowing in the missing driver’s window was even better than air-conditioning. It was getting on toward midday when she finally awoke, the AM radio penetrating her determined sleep.

She turned to look at Mack. He was relaxed, an arm resting on the empty window frame as the little bug chugged along the wide highway. He had the beginnings of a beard again, and the chambray shirt he’d grabbed before their midnight dash was open to the midday heat. It was a nice chest, Maggie thought sleepily. In another place, another time, there would be nothing she’d like better than to reach out her hand and slide it inside that open shirt. …

But that wasn’t exactly her style, even in the best possible of places and times. And besides, hadn’t she just given up on ever finding a happy-ending kind of love? Still and all, Mack Pulaski, a.k.a. Snake, certainly looked as if he could provide a substantial
temporary distraction, even if forever after wasn’t in the cards.

“What’re you looking at Maggie May?” His raw voice startled her. He kept his eyes straight ahead, but he must have been aware of her perusal the entire time. She had to remember not to underestimate him.

She yawned, sitting upright and running a hand through her tangled blond hair. “Your luscious body, Pulaski,” she said. “Did you manage to bring a comb when we checked out?”

“Nope.”

“Damn,” she said genially. “By the way, does this car have license plates?”

“It’s a little late to think of that, isn’t it? I checked before I made my choice. We would have been stopped hours ago with no plates.”

“Do you think Mr. O’Malley’s discovered it’s stolen yet?”

“I have my doubts. It was about the worst car on the lot. He’s much more likely to have noticed if one of his Cadillacs had disappeared.”

“Which reminds me,” Maggie said, braiding her thick, tangled hair and wrapping a rubber band around the end. “Why in the world would you steal VWs in the first place? They wouldn’t be worth much in resale—I thought car thieves usually went for the big-ticket items.”

“That’s why I was only a third-class car thief. I stole VWs because they were the easiest to steal. I didn’t make a practice of it, you know. It was more a test of manhood in the gangs, not a major source of income.”

“I don’t think I want to know what the major source of income was,” she said faintly.

“I don’t think you do.” He cast an enigmatic glance over at her disheveled figure. “There’s Tab and peanut-butter cookies in the backseat if you want breakfast. It was the best I could do at the gas station, but with someone of your sophisticated palate I figured it would hit the spot.”

“God, I didn’t even realize you stopped.”

“You were pretty tired.” Still that distant expression, both on his face and in his voice. Maggie dived over the back, retrieved the goodies, and settled back down in the front seat for a feast.

“Okay, Pulaski,” she said, taking her first swig of the soft drink. “What’s bugging you?”

He didn’t even bother to deny it. “How many people do you think were in that motel this morning?”

She put the cookie back down. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said in a gentle voice.

“How many?”

“Three other rooms were occupied when we went to bed last night. Probably six other people at the most. I don’t think anyone registered late. I would have heard them.”

“You didn’t hear whoever set the bomb.”

“No, I didn’t,” she agreed, waiting for his condemnation. He was suffering a near-terminal attack of guilt, and the only way to get rid of it was to heap some on her head. She expected it, didn’t even mind it. She was used to dealing with guilt.

But once again Mack surprised her. “There were three people killed in New York,” he said. “When they bombed my apartment building.”

“Yes,” she said, still not knowing what he wanted from her.

“And it’s possible that you could get killed delivering me to Peter Wallace.” He didn’t look at her, his posture behind the small wheel of the bug was relaxed, but Maggie wasn’t fooled. She could see a nerve jerking in his cheek, and his usually warm eyes looked bleak as they surveyed the Texas landscape ahead of them.