Latimer's Law (10 page)

He brought her flowers the next morning when he showed up to help for the day. His kiss on her cheek was sweetly apologetic, and his hazel eyes, almost Gary’s eyes, were sorrowful. Everything was better after that—until a month later, when he struck her for the first time because he found a few recent bills in the to-be-paid tray on the desk. While she was on the floor, felled and stunned by the blow that had hit her at the junction of her neck and shoulder, he sucker punched her belly.

“Why can’t you listen? It’s important that you understand I’m the one who makes the money decisions. I’m the one with the business background, Abby. I can’t help you if you fight me like this. You make me crazy when you don’t pay the bills the day they come in the mail.” She could hear the punches landing, low meaty thuds as if she were pounding a tough steak on the cutting board. “I’ll write the checks from now on. I’ll handle the mail.” She curled around herself and waited for the hitting to stop. It would stop. It had to stop. Hitting her like this had to hurt his hands, surely.

In the darkness of the truck bed, her heart squeezed painfully. She shifted to her right and Cade’s hand slid off her thigh. He stirred, turning to his other side, and was still. The rocking truck settled. Abby crab-walked to the tailgate and squeezed herself into a ball. While she waited for Cade’s breathing to deepen again, her fingers explored the lump of luggage at her side. It felt like a duffel, with a wide-toothed plastic zipper just like the bag Cade had tucked her wallet in earlier in the day, after he’d taken it from her and rummaged in it for her personal information. Her fingers opened the zipper and felt carefully inside. Long years of carrying a handbag and groping within for various items made it easy for her to identify her wallet when she touched it. She brought it out and sat with it in her hands, thinking for a long time before she slowly turned the inside handle on the hatch and lifted it open.

It was time to go, wasn’t it? It was only a few miles back to the main road, and maybe from there she could hitchhike into Gainesville. The night was dark, but she felt sure she could follow the forestry road without getting lost, even at night. The pale sand of the campsite gleamed in the low light, and so would the sun-bleached gray marl of the road.

All that remained was to slip out without alerting Mort. Abby climbed over the tailgate and set her foot on the truck bumper.

* * *

The first flicker of lightning woke Cade. He lay in the darkness, eyes wide and ears waiting for the thunder so that he’d know how far away the storm was. He’d also have to bring Mort into the back of the truck with them. Brave as the dog was in most circumstances, including gunfire over his head, thunder reduced him to a quivering jelly. If Cade commanded him to a task during a thunderstorm, the dog would perform it, but without joy and certainly with fear. Mort much preferred to stick close to his master when the thunder rolled.

“Are you awake, Abby?” Cade said softly, after the rumble died away. “I’m going to bring Mort into the truck with us. He’ll feel safer.”

When there was no answer, Cade moved a hand toward where Abby lay next to him.

Or, rather, should have lain.

The pad in the truck bed was empty except for him. He moved his hand in a broad arc, knowing he wouldn’t find her. When the next flicker of lightning grayed the blackness, his quick eyes scanned the back of the truck. No Abby. Perhaps she had crept out to relieve her bladder, but a feeling of unease plagued him. The next flash showed him the open zipper of the duffel bag near the tailgate, and his concerns were confirmed: Abby had gone. He found himself somewhat confused by the depth of the disappointment he felt. Dinner had been so charmingly relaxed until he’d forced her confession with his story about Roy, and despite her trepidation at sleeping next to a stranger, she’d crept into the truck bed and eventually succumbed to her exhaustion, even relaxing enough to touch him in her sleep as they lay side by side. He’d thought that they’d taken some sort of step forward; to what, he didn’t know, but he’d been sure she trusted him, after a fashion.

But she was gone.

He groped first for his Beretta. It was where it should be, in its pocket holster under the mat at his head. He brought it out and put it in his waistband, holster and all.

Cade scrambled to the tailgate and found the hatch very slightly ajar, and not latched. If she’d closed it all the way, she’d have wakened him. What he didn’t understand was why he hadn’t noticed when she left. How did this woman sail beneath his radar so successfully time after time? He lifted the hatch and saw Mort standing there, gazing up hopefully.

“Hey, boy.
Such
Abby!
Such!
” Cade grabbed at the pair of folded jeans she’d used as a pillow, and held it to Mort’s nose. The dog gave him a mournful look as lightning flashed again, but dutifully snuffed the earth. It took only seconds for the rangy shepherd to find the scent and begin to track it out of the campsite and straight toward the forestry road rather than the pit toilets. Cursing, Cade called Mort back and climbed out of the truck, letting down the tailgate. Mort leaped up immediately, and while Cade ruffled his neck fur to reassure him, the rain began, a drenching downpour that would have soaked Mort even through his thick coat. Cade closed the tailgate and crouched beneath the hatch while he thought.

Abby had slipped away, and now it was storming. Cade wondered how far she’d gone and if she would be able to find shelter in this remote area. How long ago had she left, and why hadn’t Mort alerted?

Coming to a decision, Cade patted his front pocket. Keys right where they should be. He thought about what Abby would do once she left the campsite. It was night, and a dark night at that. She’d stick to the road. There wasn’t any other real choice, was there?

Cade reached into the bed of the truck and groped for the flashlight. Might as well pack up now, rather than leave anything behind. If he managed to find Abby, he’d figure out what to do with her then. Regardless, now that he was thoroughly awake, there was no reason to stay at the campsite.

The fire pit was rapidly becoming a sodden mess, hot ash puffing into the air with every raindrop, sizzling as it was quenched by the storm. He needn’t worry about it causing a brush fire. Cade shined the light at the picnic table, where the empty beer bottles and Abby’s jug of orange juice still stood. His fishing reel was upside down in pieces on sodden paper towels. That reel would never be the same, he thought, heading for the table and gathering up everything he found there. The fishing pole was leaning against a nearby tree. He broke it down into its three components and stashed everything in the back of the truck. He’d find someplace to chuck out the trash later. Mort panted into his face, anxious and distressed in the thunder and lightning. He rubbed the dog behind the ears.

Cade took one last look around, saw nothing else that needed to be collected and hopped into the back of the truck to change into dry clothes. Dressed and relatively dry, he waited a couple of minutes for the rain to slacken, commanded Mort to lie down, closed up the back of the truck and made a quick dash for the cab.

The faithful red truck started immediately. It might look like hell, but its innards were sound; Cade kept them that way. A tool or weapon was worthless if it wasn’t ready to use at a moment’s notice. He backed out of their campsite, then slowly circled the campground and aimed his headlights into each site, in case Abby was crouching beneath a picnic table or sheltering in the pit toilets, before he turned the truck out of the campground and began the slow, sodden drive back toward the main road.

The marl road was a mess already, though the rain had been falling for only fifteen minutes or so. Marl roads usually fared better than packed sand, but the rain was bucketing down, and where the road wasn’t rutted, the marl was slick. He shifted the pickup into four-wheel drive for better traction, wishing he could go faster, but aware he might miss Abby, if she were hiding in the scrub off the sides of the road. Slower was better.

His fingers alternately drummed and clenched on the wheel. He had no idea how much of a lead she had on him. Glancing at the clock on the dashboard was no help, though it did tell him he was wide awake at one-fifteen in the morning.

A mile crept by, then a second. A third, and still no Abby. Cade gritted his teeth and slowed even more, windshield wipers in overdrive. He squinted and peered and glared and cussed.

And worried, more than he wanted to.

She should mean nothing to him, except a problem to solve. It wasn’t his job. He was on vacation, and Abby didn’t even live in his department’s jurisdiction. Yet he couldn’t leave it alone. He wanted to fix it all for her, see her shy smile become more real, more confident. He wanted to reveal the woman he had glimpsed beneath the sadness and hurt. She didn’t flinch at his face. Maybe she could see past it, find something to value within him.

“Maudlin crap, Latimer,” he muttered to himself. “You’re romanticizing a car thief. Get yourself a hotel room and leave Abby to her problems. You’ve got your truck back, that’s enough.”

But he kept driving. Somewhere in the pouring rain and the black night, Abigail McMurray was soaked and scared and almost certainly heading for Wildwood, her responsibility to her day care clients, and Marshall McMurray and his fists.

Cade wasn’t sure he could live with that thought gnawing like a rat in his brain.

* * *

Thunder roared, waking Marsh where he lay on Abigail’s bed in a scatter of her clothing. A moment later there was another flash of lightning, and more thunder hard on its heels.

His bleary eyes turned toward the lighted digital clock on the nightstand.

One-twenty in the morning.

Marsh groaned, rubbing a hand over his face. He turned from his back to his side, and the buckle of his loosened belt pressed painfully into his belly. The nearly empty bottle of rye rolled toward him on the bed, clinking against his wristwatch. He touched it, recalling an hour of satisfying excess in an empty house, Abigail’s laundry hamper emptied over her bed. Quality time with a pair of her silky panties in his good right hand, and the rye in his left.

He pushed to his feet and tucked himself back into his boxers. Zipped up. Had she come home? If she had, Marsh hadn’t heard her, but he had been pretty far out of it, hadn’t he? The buzz was a good one, better than he’d had in a long time. He’d cut out a lot of the hard stuff because Abigail didn’t like having too much liquor in the house, not with the clients around, and while he understood and complied, he resented it. Beer made him slow and sleepy, but rye...rye was the good stuff, gave him the clarity and focus he needed.

Marsh reeled into the living room, the last swigs vanishing down his throat. He tossed the bottle toward the corner wastebasket and gave himself two thumbs-up when it swished in and clanked loudly against the other contents. “That’s a three-pointer from downtown for Marshall McMurray,” he announced to the room. “Nothing but net.” He put a hand on the back of the sofa for balance while he looked around the room. No Abigail. He looked at the front door, where the key was still in the dead bolt—no thumb latches for the clients to open and skitter out onto the sidewalks by mistake, nosirree—and locked. She hadn’t come in.

Another bolt of lightning lit the room with a brief glow, flashing behind the closed curtains. The thunder was virtually simultaneous. The storm was right on top of him. Rain pounded on the roof and gurgled noisily through the downspouts.

If Abigail was out there, she was getting soaked. She deserved it, for the hell she was putting him through right now.

But even through the warm, comforting buzz of the rye, Marsh felt a niggling doubt. He hadn’t driven past the local sheriff’s station earlier in the night, that little concrete bunker of a building tucked just one street off the main drag. What would he have seen, if he had? Nothing, so he hadn’t risked his car being seen passing the station. If Abigail was there, she would be inside, out of sight, spilling her guts to some fat-bellied good ol’ boy. While Marsh was clear on the proper use of corporal punishment, he was worldly enough to realize not everyone shared his views—not even men who should know better, like cops. Hell, who better to know women sometimes needed the back of a hand to help them learn where the limits were than cops? But the laws tied cops’ hands these days—laws made by bleeding heart liberals, and women!—who thought women should be treated like precious, fragile snowflakes. Don’t touch them this way, don’t touch them that way, or you go to jail, buddy.

Whose word would the cops believe, if it came to that? Marsh, just trying to make a life for himself and his brother’s widow, or that same widow, bleating like a sheep about how he was too rough, how he didn’t honor her femininity and her individuality? She didn’t understand her duty. Gary hadn’t taught her, but Marsh would. He loved her enough for that. Sometimes love had to be tough; and afterward, it was stronger. This was how they would make a bond that would last, a strong relationship with clear roles and boundaries.

Marsh went to the front door and turned the key. He opened the door to a world black with night and yet blurred white with rain, bouncing up from the pavement nearly to knee height, splashing like fountains. The streetlights pinkened the wall of water in cones half a block apart. He thought about Abigail struggling through the rain on a backstreet of Wildwood, maybe passing a cluster of junked cars or a ratty trailer park, her long hair streaming with water, her chambray shirt plastered to her sweet, high breasts.

“Come home,” Marsh yelled into the crashing thunder and deluge. “You come home right this minute!”

There was no answer from the wall of water overflowing the gutters on the eaves, or the churning clouds above. Marsh’s shoulders slumped as the good feelings from the rye bled from his system, leaving a queasy sickness in their wake. He leaned against the wall just outside the front door, water only inches from his face. “Don’t you do this to me, Abigail,” he muttered, scrubbing the heels of his hands over his eyes. He gritted his teeth at the storm. “I need you here with me, where you belong. You don’t understand how much I love you. You’re making me crazy.”