Out of Character (14 page)

She lay down on her side, hugging a pillow, the searing pain in her stomach quashing every last hunger pang.

“Get dressed.”

Jillian bolted up in bed, instantly alert. “Why?”

“Don’t ask questions, just get dressed,” Paul whispered, dropping her ski jacket and gloves onto the bed. “That’s what I thought. Uh-huh.” It took Jillian a few seconds to realize he wasn’t talking to her anymore, but rather on a cell phone.

“Hurry.” He shifted his attention from the phone long enough to issue the hushed command.

Although she didn’t have a clue what was going on, Jillian didn’t even consider disobeying him. The urgency in his voice had her pulse sprinting. She slipped from under the covers into a morgue-like chill, the numbers of the digital clock and a thin beam from Paul’s penlight providing enough light for her to locate her clothes. She dressed hurriedly in the dark bathroom as Paul continued his quiet conversation.

“Yeah. I had a feeling. Almost. Uh-huh. That’s why I’m still alive.”

She hurried out of the bathroom to the chair beside the window.

“You ready?” Paul asked.

“Except for my shoes.” She felt under the chair for her running shoes, slipped them on. Her fingers fumbled over the laces.

Paul shone his penlight on her. “Put on your coat and gloves.” When she’d complied, he shut off the light. “Let’s go. Hold onto me.” He reached back and grabbed her gloved hand then squatted down and crept out of the room, along the unlit hallway, and down the stairs.

It was so dark Jillian couldn’t see much more than Paul’s silhouette. She felt as if she were playing some kids’ game as she tried to duplicate his stoop and gait. Except her heart was pounding too wildly for it to be a game.

Paul led her through the kitchen then silently opened a door. “Be careful of the stairs.” Despite his warning, Jillian stumbled against his back on the first step into the pitch-black basement. She clung to him as she blindly descended a steep stairway that Paul seemed to have no problems navigating. After taking a dozen steps across the musty basement, Jillian rammed Paul’s back again. He flipped on the penlight and fiddled with a window high on the wall. It opened, a rush of icy air displacing the cool mustiness.

He flipped off the penlight. “I’ll go first then help you out. Don’t come out until I tell you to.” He launched himself through the window.

“It’s clear,” he whispered after a moment. “Reach up. I’ll pull you out.”

She banged her shin on the sill as he yanked her through the window and onto the snowy ground. She scrambled to her feet.

Paul took her hand. “This way.”

The night was frigid and dark, the moon and stars obscured by clouds. Snow-caked pine needles scraped Jillian’s cheeks as Paul guided her through the trees. She wasn’t sure why he’d roused her in the middle of the night and led her out a basement window and into the woods, but she’d bet it wasn’t for a midnight hike.

“This way. Hurry.” He released her hand and pressed his palm against her back. Within seconds they were jogging, crunching over icy snow that seeped into Jillian’s running shoes and under her jeans, scratching and biting her bare legs above her socks.

Then she heard it. An explosion behind them. Followed by the odor of burning gasoline.

She froze as a wave of nausea engulfed her. “No.” She looked over her shoulder toward the sound and smell. Through the trees, she saw flickers of red, yellow, and orange.

“Come on.” Paul wrapped his arm around her shoulders and urged her forward.

Her legs wouldn’t move. “The smell. It’s the same smell.” Fire mixed with gasoline, consuming her car. Consuming her best friend.

Paul’s arm tightened around her, and his lips brushed her ear. “No one’s inside this time.” He gently turned her head away from the fire. “Don’t look at it. Don’t think about it. Think about moving your legs, about running. Just think about running.”

Paul’s words and pressing arm got her legs moving again.

“Where are we going?” Jillian puffed out after a couple minutes of jogging through snow.

“Away.” Paul didn’t sound the least bit winded. “Unfortunately, our car was disabled, so it’s on to Plan B.”

“Do you have a Plan B?”

“I always have a Plan B. And Plans C and D. Follow me.”

The trees were so dense now they had to go single file. Jillian’s breaths came as painful gasps, and her feet and ankles were numb, but she managed to keep up with Paul.

He stopped. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

Jillian bent over, struggling to catch her breath in the cold. When her breathing had eased, she straightened and looked around. She couldn’t see the blaze or hear it, couldn’t even smell the fire anymore.

In fact, she couldn’t hear, smell, or see anything besides shadowy trees and endless dark.

Her heart hit a speed bump then sped up, slamming against her chest. She was alone in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees. Someone might be stalking her, and she’d never realize it until too late. She listened, straining to hear over the blood pounding in her ears. A loud crack pierced the dark silence then several clumps of snow hit the ground. Branches giving way under heavy snow or being jostled by an owl or sleepy squirrel.

Or being bumped by a human.

She couldn’t breathe, as if the trees were sucking up all the oxygen instead of expelling it the way they were supposed to. A louder crack or maybe it was a shot. She was going to scream, to have hysterics if she had to stand alone for another instant in the terrifying blackness.

Hug a tree.
The words flashed through her mind, from one of those posters aimed at helping kids lost in the woods. She squatted down, felt around for a tree with its lowest branches over her head, and wrapped her arms around it. She immediately felt calmer. She’d always thought the only point of hugging a tree was so the child would stay put and be easier to find. She’d never realized how comforting holding something solid was when you were alone and scared. It was like hugging a hard, prickly teddy bear.

She crouched with her arms around the tree and her cheek pressed against the cool bark, listening for Paul and shivering. It was so cold. She smoothed her loose hair over her half-frozen ears and stuffed it under the collar of her jacket to hold it in place. Then she hugged the tree again and tried to think warm thoughts, to remember all those Chicago heat waves she’d spent without air conditioning.

She still couldn’t hear anything besides an occasional crack or a clomp of snow hitting the ground. Sounds that could be something or nothing. No steady crunching announcing Paul’s return. Where had he gone? What was taking him so long?

Don’t panic.
She forced herself to breathe slowly, to think logically. Paul was coming back. He wouldn’t have taken her out of the house if he intended to desert her here.

Except how did she know what Paul intended? Maybe he planned to kill her, either so she wouldn’t describe him to the authorities or because he had no use for her. Leaving her in these woods was an easy, nearly foolproof way to do it. She’d never find her way out of the trees before she froze to death. Paul might have blown up the house himself to eliminate all evidence she’d been there.

Her stomach cramped painfully, and she was quaking with cold and fear. She’d never see her brother and his family again, her friends, Andy. She was going to freeze to death in these woods, and she couldn’t do a thing about it. The night was too dark, the trees too dense. All she could do was wait until she got so cold she stopped caring, until she fell asleep in the snow, until—

“Jillian.”

Jillian thought she’d hallucinated Paul’s voice until his penlight came on in front of her. She launched herself at him and wrapped her arms around his neck, weak with relief. When her knees buckled, he moved his arms around her to support her.

He held her for only a few seconds before he spoke again. “We need to go.”

She nodded against his chest. “I didn’t think you were coming back for me.”

Paul muttered something under his breath and tightened his arms for a moment then released her. “This way. I found our vehicle.”

He kept hold of her arm and left the penlight on as he led her through the trees. They jogged at a slower pace than before until they reached a dark-colored SUV parked in a small clearing.

“Get in.” The instant Jillian was inside Paul started the vehicle, flipped on the parking lights, and drove through the snow and trees. After a couple minutes, he turned onto a snow-packed road and switched on the blower. “The heat should kick in soon.”

Jillian hugged herself, trying not to shiver. Paul’s return and their jog to the car had warmed her a little. Now that she was sitting still, the chill had returned with a vengeance.

Paul had a quick conversation on his cell phone, and then stuck it into his jacket pocket. “You warming up?”

Hot air blew on Jillian’s face. She nodded. “The heat feels good.”

“Thank God it works. With government vehicles, there’s no guarantee.” He snorted. “I was in Russia one winter, and they stuck me with a vehicle with no heater. When I complained, some bureaucrat told me to shut up, that the cold built character. I won’t repeat my response.”

“When I went to Girl Scout camp, the counselors always said things like that, like eating burned food that had been dropped in the dirt built character. And cleaning latrines, that was a major character builder.” Jillian broke off, embarrassed by her nervous babbling. “Sorry, I don’t know why I mentioned that.”

“You were a Girl Scout?” Paul asked.

“For five years. Were you ever a Boy Scout?”

“Nope. Although my character could probably have used it.”

They drove in silence for several minutes, the parking lights barely illuminating the snowy road and ditches and thick trees. Jillian stared out the window, guilt weighing her down. “They found us because I called Andy, didn’t they.”

“Seems likely.”

“Damn.” She’d hoped against hope he’d tell her she was wrong. She shut her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“Too late for that now.”

She kept her eyes closed, her eyelids holding back hot tears. Self-pity and self-recriminations—because someone either was trying to kill her or didn’t care if she died, because her stupidity had resulted in destruction and maybe even death—would have to wait until she was alone. She opened her eyes and blinked a couple times until the mist cleared then resumed watching the pale snow and shadowy trees.

Paul eventually turned off the road and back onto the snow. The vehicle bumped between the trees for a minute then stopped.

Jillian tensed. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Paul shut off the parking lights, but left the vehicle idling. “We have four hours to kill before the plane gets here.”

“A plane’s coming here?” Even in the dark, it was obvious they were surrounded by trees.

“About fifteen minutes from here.”

“I’m sorry,” Jillian said again, although the words were completely inadequate. She braced herself for the angry lecture she deserved.

“Did you honestly think I was going to leave you in the woods?” Paul asked. “That I wasn’t coming back?” He was staring at the blackness in front of the windshield.

“I panicked. It was dark, and you were gone so long.”

“I didn’t know exactly where the SUV was. I had the coordinates, but I had to look around. I wouldn’t have left you, Jillian.”

He sounded offended, maybe even hurt. As he had a right to be, since he had saved her life. “Like I said, I panicked.”

“This may be unrelated to your call. They might have tracked us down some other way, and the timing is coincidental.”

“You don’t believe that, do you?”

“It’s possible.”

“It never seemed real before.” She needed to explain. “I thought the shooter was a kook, the car explosion was a fluke, and I’d imagined someone pushing me.”

“The explosion was a car bomb, but we hushed it up,” Paul said. “Our guy saw a hand shove you. He’s the one who pulled you back.”

“You never told me that.”

He gave her a sideways glance. “I guess I didn’t.” He leaned forward, his arms resting on the steering wheel.

“Why didn’t they try to kill me earlier in Denver? They had plenty of chances.”

“Because we always had someone watching you, and they obviously knew it. Whoever was following you decided to risk pushing you that night, figuring in the crowd, he wouldn’t get caught. Unfortunately he was right.”

Jillian slumped in her seat. “So Kristen did die because of me.” Her voice sounded as drained and hollow as she felt.

“Kristen died because whoever’s after you didn’t think twice about killing her,” Paul said. “You had nothing to do with that. You’re the victim.”

“That’s what Andy said.”

“Andy’s right.”

She couldn’t think about Kristen tonight, not when she was already so close to falling apart. “You’re really with the government?” she asked instead.

“You didn’t believe that either?”

“None of this made sense to me. I thought you must be a criminal holding me for some reason. That’s why I called Andy, because I didn’t believe I was in danger from anyone besides you.”

She rubbed her face with her gloved hands. “I never imagined anyone would ever want to kill me. I feel so helpless.”

Paul took one of her hands. “You’re not helpless. You’ve got a lot of good people determined to get to the bottom of this. And to protect you until it’s over.”

She sat looking at his hand holding hers, the pressure warm and comforting even through their gloves. “Is Andy in on it?”

Paul’s grip tightened. “We don’t know. Maybe someone put a bug his phone thinking you might call and removed it before we could check it.”

On to the next question, the one she feared even more. “Was anyone hurt tonight? Tell me honestly.”

“No. No one was hurt.”

At his definite tone, she let out a shaky breath. “Thank God. But I assume they destroyed a house and a car.”

“The government can afford it,” Paul said. “All they care is that we’re still alive.”

“Only because you got us out so quickly. How did you know something was wrong?”