Breath of Dawn, The (23 page)

He fishtailed around a bend, losing seconds. The Tahoe barreled down, reckless in its desire to overcome. Instead of gunning it, Morgan carefully accelerated like a horse pulling away from the pack in the final stretch. Far as he could tell, Markham still believed him to be Erin. He pulled a slow, hard smile.

Back at the highway, with the Tahoe barreling down, Morgan turned toward town, praying Erin and Livie had already passed
this spot, heading away. He’d wanted to give her more time, luring Markham in through the park. But sometimes things went wrong. “Just a little help, Lord. Like the Red Sea, Livie and Erin on dry ground, and then, if it’s not too much, I’ll slosh through too.”

Near town, he waited around a bend in the road with double yellow road stripes, then darted around a snowplow. Again with controlled acceleration, he took the curves with speed and precision until he eased onto the small, descending exit that accessed several ranch homes in a low, narrow valley.

He swung around at the bottom, fishtailing onto the frontage road that would emerge on the far side of Juniper Falls. Unless Markham looked down and back in time, he shouldn’t notice. Morgan blew out a hard breath, thanking God for that plow and one smokin’ chariot.

Hollering in frustration, Markham cursed the snowplow Erin swerved around in her dark red Maserati. His knuckles whitened like wax on the wheel when he thought what she must have spent for it. The tendons felt like lances up the sides of his neck and down between his shoulder blades. Finally his opportunity came.

He gunned the Tahoe, shaking his fist at the plow as he accelerated, then swung the wheel back, exulting, until the tires broke loose. Momentum pulled his front end as the back swung around in a spin. He jammed the brake pedal, and the IBS—so-called intelligent brake system—drummed worthlessly. He cut the wheel into the spin and slid sideways across the oncoming lane and off the pavement.

His shoulder rammed against the door, the belt jerking over his chest as the whole side of the Tahoe crunched into the canyon wall. Everything went still. No airbags deployed. He blinked and opened his eyes, blinked and opened.

With the driver’s door wedged against the rock wall, he unbuckled and crawled out the passenger side as a car crept past, passengers staring. They would stop if he signaled. Instead, he slammed the door and kicked a dent in it. He kicked the side panel. Again he kicked, and again. He slammed his fists into the hood. No dents,
but it felt good. He grabbed a melon-sized rock from the base of the canyon wall. With a roar, he heaved it at the windshield. Spider-web splinters stretched across the safety glass.

And finally, gripping the back of his head, he saw what he’d done with dawning dismay. The rage drained, leaving ice-cold loathing. He looked over his shoulder at more faces passing. No one stopped. No one dared.

Erin’s neck burned from wrenching around to look. Though she didn’t know his plan, she’d expected Morgan to find them by now. Her anxiety must have shown, because Livie’s intense little gaze hadn’t left her. Mile after mile, the weight of Morgan’s trust pressed down as the child’s unease increased.

“Where’s my daddy?”

“He’s coming, honey. Any minute now, he’ll find us.” The highway stretched and wound, mountains towering on either side. Like the truck she no longer owned, this vehicle was solid and reliable. She’d driven the highway many times. The only difference was Livie.

A half hour, then an hour. She reached Highway 70 and passed Idaho Springs.

“I want my daddy.” Livie’s voice rose to a heart-tugging pitch.

Erin asked brightly, “Want to sing a song?”

Livie almost refused, then nodded. “Sing ‘Sunshine.’”

“Umm . . .”

“You my sun . . . shine, only sunshine.”

She started the song, Livie watching her mouth, her eyes, every part of her, seeing if she meant it. “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray.”

Her voice cracked. How could she be what this child needed?

“You’ll never know, dear—” She looked in the rearview mirror and through the snow saw Morgan’s Maserati speeding up to her. Heart rushing, she said, “Daddy’s here, Livie. He’s right behind us.”

She’d expected that to be exciting news, but Livie’s eyes pooled. “Daddy.” Her wanting grew so big it burst out in tears. She’d been brave, but the thought of him so close and not accessible was more than she could bear. “I want Daddy.”

“Just as soon as we can, honey. Just as soon as we can.”

She answered the instant Morgan phoned and told him, “Livie wants you.”

“Get to Lawson Dumont. Don’t stop on the road.”

In the five miles to the exit, Livie fell asleep, but Erin got off anyway. She parked in the first available lot and hurried back to Morgan emerging from his wine-red rocket. “Livie fell asleep. I tried to keep talking so she could see you, but—”

Morgan gripped her arm. “It’s okay.”

The fear and pressure hit like an emotional avalanche. She started to shake. “Is he gone? Did you lose him? I just kept driving and—”

He hugged her briefly, tight and keyed up himself. “You did great, but we’re not far enough to relax.”

“Okay.”

“You all right?”

An honest answer would bring tears. “I’m glad Rudy had a gun.” Her voice betrayed her gratitude and relief.

Morgan cocked his head. “Did I see you kissing him?”

She looked up into his eyes. “He deserved it.”

“Ah.”

She closed her eyes. “I messed things up for you and Livie. You had a plan—”

“Plans change.” He frowned. “I just don’t want this hitting her too hard.”

The crying had been pitiful. “What do you want to do?”

He strode to the SUV and looked in. “Since she’s sleeping, we’ll go on the way we are.”

“Are you sure?”

He nodded. “She might wake tender, so call me. This storm system is extensive, but you have good tires. Just don’t take any chances.”

“I won’t. Morgan . . .” She fought to express so much.

He brushed a thumb down her cheek. “You’re doing fine. Let’s put some miles behind us. Okay?”

The next time they stopped was when Livie woke crying as though her heart had broken in her sleep.

A
ny exultation he’d felt at eluding Markham evaporated with Livie’s tears. Kissing her head again and again he murmured, “It’s okay, sweetie. It’s okay.” But it wasn’t. She had no context for what was happening. It made him weak when she wailed for Mommy Noelle. So much for gentle separation. “Want to call her on my phone?”

“No.” She slapped at it, but not hard enough to knock it loose, then clutched his neck. “Hold you, Daddy.”

He knew what she meant, but she always reversed the object with that verb, and sometimes he wondered if she wasn’t saying exactly what she meant. “I’m holding you, sweetie. I won’t let go.” Erin had gone into the gas station while he comforted Livie and filled their tanks. With only one of those accomplished, he went in too.

Erin exited the restroom looking wrung out. She said, “I’m sorry. Nothing I did made any difference.”

“She’s okay. Are you?”

She stared too long at an end cap that held nothing more interesting than tire gauges. “Morgan, you can go back. If I leave—”

“Stop it. We’re not splitting up.”

“You have to realize he won’t stop.”

“I know the score.” He rubbed his child’s back.

Her lip trembled. “Go back and follow your plan for Livie.”

“That’s not happening.”

She splayed her hands. “I’m Erin Spencer now. You gave me what I needed.”

“Yeah, well, you owe me the other half of that deal.”

“Like I’m doing so great? She doesn’t know me. She wants Noelle.”

“She’s two years old. This isn’t her decision.” Maybe too many of his choices had been floated in that boat.

Erin stepped close. “I’m thankful for all you’ve done, but it’s enough.”

This wasn’t only about Livie. It was about yesterday and last night, about Paris and running for her life. He’d found her treasures, but it didn’t make up for the rest. She was hurt and she was scared.

Her eyes were a dark force. “I’ll find some way to make it right for you. But this isn’t it. Please let me take the new name and go.”

“You could call yourself Methuselah, and it won’t matter the first time you do something that requires your social security number.”

“What?” She searched his face. “Then why—”

“I didn’t want you to take off.”

She processed that with something that looked like betrayal, as if he’d tricked her into this when it couldn’t be further from the truth.

“We gave you a buffer that allows some anonymity. But that’s not enough. He’s tracing you through records, and he’s better at it than I’d hoped. You need a personal firewall, and I can provide it.”

Her face twisted. “Maybe that’s true, but I can’t stand to have you and Livie in this. I’m going.”

“How? Because Livie doesn’t ride in the Maserati.” He hadn’t intentionally deprived her of the truck she might have taken off in without looking back, but he thanked God it wasn’t in the mix now. Her realization showed as she slumped. He hitched Livie, who’d stopped crying at some point, higher on his side. “So are you finished?”

She glared at the floor. “I should have kept my truck.”

“Well, here’s the other news. I need your cell phone.”

Her eyes came up, hard. “Why?”

“It’s another connection that could leave a trail.”

Fighting tears, she took it out. He opened the men’s room door and dropped it in the trash, then stepped back out. “When we get there, I’ll put another phone on my plan. For now we’ll purchase one of those.” He indicated the circular rack of prepaid cell phones.

She pressed her hands to her eyes.

“He’s playing for keeps, Erin.”

“You think I don’t know?” Her voice had lost its steam.

He brushed her arm. “So let’s quit wasting time and energy on useless scenarios and make this work.”

After a moment, she nodded.

Since Livie wouldn’t let go, he took her to the bathroom with him. When they came back out, Erin was waiting with a small beanbag teddy. Hiccupping with latent sobs, Livie accepted the comfort of that little toy and slightly relaxed the death grip around his neck.

Erin said, “Maybe for now you should drive the SUV.”

She was right. Livie needed him. “Okay. Let’s get as far as we can today.” He paid for the gas, the cell phone, and an untraceable prepaid Visa for Erin, just in case. “Any plastic you have besides this—”

“I know.”

She had to feel stripped. He wished he could make it easier but couldn’t see how. He hated turning over the Maserati, and not because he thought she’d take off. The snow worried him, the terrain and Erin’s mental and emotional condition worried him. But there it was.

After buckling his daughter into her car seat, he walked Erin to the Maserati and opened the driver’s door. “Just like before, okay? Lots of power you need to control.” He rested his hand on the small of her back. “Stop worrying.”

He could almost see the new facts spinning in her head. Had she really thought it would be as easy as getting married? Had he? The minute he smelled the wet shower in her wrecked place, reality had crashed in. She had to be terrified.

His gaze fell to her mouth, but he dragged it away. “Let’s hit the road.”

Fear tasted like mercury on her tongue. Morgan’s words had penetrated and begun multiplying—splitting and dividing and growing into a life of their own. She had thought she’d been careful, thought she’d been clever. She hadn’t even faked careful. She didn’t know how to be this kind of careful.

The new person, Erin Spencer, rose up like a clown with fiendish laughter. To keep her from taking off, Morgan had built a house of cards. It collapsed with his admission to Celia, and with a single match from Markham, it could all go up in flames.

Now Morgan promised her a firewall, and naïvely she believed. Show me another card trick, magic man. She would watch his hands and miss the part where something else disappeared.

She slipped into the belly of the beast, feeling smaller in the Maserati than in the SUV. But she couldn’t bear to get between Livie and her daddy, not for a while, anyway. She’d offered to separate, but where would that leave her? No vehicle, no home, no income. She’d be issuing refunds for everything she couldn’t deliver with nothing to list in their place. Her eBay store didn’t bear her name, but her financial information with PayPal did.

Without a pirated social security number, she could only disappear through Morgan’s house of mirrors. She had trapped herself more surely than Markham could have. She just hadn’t expected it to hurt.

The snow came more thickly as she drove the narrow twisting canyon out of Glenwood Springs. Her wipers thwacked in a rhythmic swipe and smear that left small trails of snow in their wake. While the SUV muscled through, this rare exotic animal, whose power she nervously kept leashed, tried through elegance to skate upon the surface.

Around a curve, the road plunged down. As the Range Rover dipped down and away, the Maserati chose a new direction, gliding sideways in a graceful arc until the rear side panel smacked into the guardrail that kept vehicles from tumbling over.

Ushered by Rudy’s awe and Morgan’s certain devastation, tears flooded her eyes.

In his rearview mirror he had watched it happen like a self-fulfilling prophecy. The instant he assessed the road hazard, the Maserati began its slide. Thirty yards ahead, he pulled to the side and stopped. He told Livie to sit tight, and cautiously climbed the sloping Interstate, thanking God the traffic was light.

Erin’s hands covered her face as he pulled open the car door. After all the times she’d been strong, her crying now was just wrong. “Are you okay?”

She nodded, but he saw a reddening bump just above her temple.

“I’m so sorry.” She cried harder. “It started sliding. And nothing—”

“The tires are practically racing slicks. On that curve and this grade . . .”

Sniffling, she slid her hands off her teary cheeks. “How bad is it?”

He leaned to look. “I’m glad the guardrail was there. Besides that bruise are you hurt?”

“No.” Her voice was as small as the real answer was big. She hurt in ways he couldn’t even guess. Every relationship had taught him that.

He wanted to comfort her, but the side of the road wasn’t the place. He pulled the door as wide as he could before it touched the rail. “You take the SUV. Livie’s okay now.”

Letting it idle, she put the gears in neutral and engaged the parking brake. She stepped out into the snow and leaned past him to see the damage. She didn’t need to know how expensive it would be to fix and how much value had been lost.

He brushed her arm. “Livie’s waiting.”

She grabbed her purse and headed to the Range Rover, punishing herself, though this was nothing compared to—

The pain in his chest almost doubled him.
Crushing, screaming metal, the collapse of pliant flesh.
“She died instantly.
Died instantly.”
He needed Livie, needed Erin, out of there. Reaching in, he turned off the engine, engaged the locks and alarm, and shut the door. Erin watched him come.

“Slide in,” he rasped.

“Can you drive?”

Better than he could ride after watching her crash. Breathing deeply, he rested his forehead against his hands on the steering wheel. The pounding of his heart made lights blink behind his eyelids. “Buckle up,” he told Erin, who seemed to be waiting.

She did. “What about the Maserati?”

“I’ll send someone for it.” His roadside service would get the Maserati to the nearest garage. At some point Rick could get it from there. With luck no one would careen around that bend and plow into the jeopardized vehicle before that. He raised his head and looked into the back seat. “You okay, Livie?”

Eyes intense, she murmured, “Okay, Daddy,” and snuggled the little bear.

He eased the SUV back into the lane and shot a glance at Erin. “It’s not your fault.”

Her gaze fell to her hands, and his followed. They were small and tense and bare.

“You’re not wearing your ring.”

She straightened her fingers. “I didn’t want Rudy to see.”

“Good thought. But you should wear it now.” She might be trying to forget, but they were married. Maybe it wasn’t all she’d imagined, but reality rarely was.

Leaning, she pried it from her pocket. The sparkle reminded him this was no game. He and Erin were joined. He had to find a way to make it work. His daughter deserved that. And so—he swallowed—did his wife.

Leaving Liam with a friend, Noelle got back into the truck beside Rick. With multiple accidents on the slippery roads throughout the county, it took hours for the sheriff’s department to respond to the call they placed after taking Hank and Celia to the airport. Now, finally, someone was available to talk about vandalism.

Rick had wanted her to stay home, but she needed to see what had driven Erin and Morgan into their rash marriage. So together they met the heavy, graying Officer Wentz at Quinn’s—Erin’s—address. She stood with Rick behind the man as he surveyed the damage
from the doorway. She wasn’t sure the officer could make it up the ladderlike stairs, but he merely took in the scene from the door.

“The two of you live here?” he said, frowning.

“No,” she told him. “It’s our . . . friend’s place.”