Express Male (3 page)

Well. To be honest, it felt kind of menacing in light of the episode she’d just escaped. She told herself it was only because her nerves were frazzled from all that had happened tonight. Her rescuer had a nasty scrape on his jaw and a split lip, and his shirt was filthy from having rolled around on the asphalt. Anyone would look menacing under such conditions.

Of course, that didn’t explain why he was looking at Marnie as if she were his most hated enemy….

“Thank you,” she told him, shaking off the impression almost literally. “I don’t want to think about what might have happened if you hadn’t shown up when you did.”

His gaze was fixed entirely on her face, but he said not a word to acknowledge her gratitude. He seemed to be cataloguing her features, as if he were trying to figure out if he knew her from somewhere. But he didn’t, she was sure, unless it was just in passing at the mall. She would have remembered a man like him. For a long, long time. And then she would have dreamed about him. A lot. Probably without clothes. On either of them.

“Um, I guess you need to fill out a report or something?” she asked when he remained silent. And when, you know, her thoughts started to get away from her. “I know this sort of thing doesn’t happen often. I’ve worked at the mall for two years, and I’ve never heard about any woman being accosted in the parking lot.”

Although he still didn’t reply, his expression did at least change. A little. If possible, it became even more furious.

“Uh,” Marnie tried again, “I mean, if you need me to answer any questions, I can.” It wasn’t like she had any plans for the evening, other than to go home, curl herself into a fetal position in the closet and weep with gratitude to still be alive.

“Or if you think it would be better to wait until tomorrow, that’s okay, too,” she added. “I could come to mall security on my morning break. Or you could come to Lauderdale’s at your convenience. That’s where I work, in the, uh—” Gee, she wasn’t sure she wanted to be interviewed by this guy surrounded by women’s underthings. “Well, maybe it would just be better for me to come to security. What time will you be in?”

Two things occurred to Marnie as she asked the question. Number one, that although she knew most of the mall security guards by name and all of them by sight, this guy wasn’t one she recognized. And number two, his uniform didn’t hug his physique so snugly because he was muscular and well-formed—though, granted, he was certainly muscular and well-formed. It was because the uniform was two sizes too small.

She dropped her gaze to the gold-tone name tag each of the security guards wore and saw that his said “Randy Fink.” Which was funny, because he didn’t seem like a Randy Fink at all. Who did seem like a Randy Fink was Randy Fink, a mall security guard who made regular rounds in Lauderdale’s. Him, Marnie knew well. And he was indeed both randy and a fink. The man who stood before her now was neither. Well, not a fink anyway—she couldn’t speak for the other. He wasn’t Randy Fink, though, that was for sure.

Before she could say a word to point that out, her rescuer—such as he was—reached down to unsnap the holster of his gun. Marnie had always thought it a bit extreme for the mall to arm its security guards when the greatest enemy for most of them seemed to be the kielbasa at Hank’s Franks. Now it scared her even more that the mall security guards went around armed.

He spoke then, finally, in a voice that was deep and smooth and even more velvety than her attacker’s. The words he spoke, however, were just as puzzling. “Enough with the games, Lila.” He fingered the handle of the gun that rose out of his holster. “I was hoping you’d come along peacefully, but now I’m not so sure. And I really don’t want to have to do this the hard way.”

Funnily enough, it didn’t scare Marnie this time when a strange—and she meant that in more than one sense of the word—man called her by a name that wasn’t her own. No, this time, it kind of ticked her off. Whoever this Lila was, she really got around. And her choice of men left
a lot
to be desired. Marnie was sick and tired of being confused with her.

She had infinitely better morals than Lila for one thing. Maybe she didn’t attract a lot of men—or any lately—but the ones with whom she
had
been involved had
not
carried weapons, or engaged in fisticuffs, or threatened women, or slunk around in dark parking lots. She did have some standards. Which, now that she thought about it, might explain why she hadn’t attracted a lot of men—or any lately.

But that was beside the point.

The point was…Hmm. Well, she seemed to have forgotten the point. Anyway, it was better to live one’s life alone than to be involved with guys like the ones Lila dated. So there.

“I am
not
Lila,” she said adamantly for the third time, to the third man, that night. “I don’t know who Lila is, and I don’t know why you guys keep thinking I’m her. But lemme tell ya something. If I
were
her? First thing I’d do is torch my little black book and start over again. Because the men that woman attracts are just plain
odd.
”

The faux Randy Fink continued to gaze at Marnie in the same way he had before—as if he weren’t buying any of it. And he remained silent in light of her remarks.

She sighed heavily. “What do you want?” she asked calmly. Because so far tonight, she’d experienced, let’s see…fear, panic, confusion, terror, relief, happiness—oh, all right and a little lust for a minute there when she got that first good look at her rescuer—bewilderment, anger and sarcasm. Yep, calmness was about the only emotion she
hadn’t
felt tonight. And she figured she might as well just get them all over with, so she could go back to the beginning and begin once more with fear, since she figured fear was what she probably ought to be feeling again.

Faux Randy’s eyes narrowed at her question. “You know what I want, Lila.”

“No, I don’t, actually,” Marnie told him. “The first guy I met tonight wanted to give me this stupid manuscript. The second guy wanted to take it away from me. You seem to want to shoot me. At this point, I have no idea what to expect. So I’m asking you again. What do you want?”

Faux Randy settled his whole hand on the butt of his gun. Uh-oh. She’d been joking about that. Still, he did seem to be weighing the prospect of shooting her against the prospect of answering her question, so maybe there was still hope for a good outcome. Or, at the very least, an outcome that didn’t involve gunfire.

“First,” he said, “I want to know where you’ve been for the past five months.”

Well, that was easy enough to answer. In a vague, I’m not-giving-out-my-address-to-strange-in-more-than-one-sense-of-the-word-men kind of way.

“I’ve been here,” she said.

Maybe if she could keep him talking long enough, a real security guard would come along. Not that she trusted a single person on the entire planet at this point. Except maybe Bob Troutman, who, she knew, would be a slimy little git no matter the circumstances. Which currently made Bob Troutman the only human being on the planet Marnie would trust at this point. And of all the things that were going to keep her awake tonight, that one had to be the most troubling.

“Where’s here?” Faux Randy asked.

“Cleveland,” Marnie said. “Ohio. I was born and raised here. Save five years in Columbus to go to college, I’ve always lived here.”

“Right,” he replied in a way that indicated he believed not a word of what she said. “So I guess we
are
going to have to do this the hard way.” And with that, he did pull his weapon, and he pointed it right at Marnie’s heart.

Okay, cycling back to fear again.

“Look, this is nuts,” she said. She tried to hold up her hands, but thanks to the manuscript, could raise one only to shoulder height. Still, she turned both hands palm out. “I don’t understand any of what’s happened tonight, and all I want is to be left alone. If it’s the manuscript you want, take it. But please, just leave me out of it.”

“Oh, it’s definitely the manuscript I want,” he told her.

“And I definitely will take it. But you know full well there’s something else I want. And I’m going to take it, too.”

“What more could you possibly want?” Marnie asked.

“You, Lila,” the man said without hesitation. “I want you.”

A
T HEARING THE ROUGHLY
uttered declaration, every one of those emotions went zinging right through Marnie again. Even lust, briefly, which said a lot about her so-called standards. But instead of going back to square one this time—fear—she put on the brakes at calmness. In spite of the gravity of her situation, she sensed something about this man that prevented her from feeling true fear.

She had no idea why, but her instincts told her he wasn’t going to hurt her unless she badly provoked him, and she’d always been a strong believer in instincts. The way she saw it, human instinct had survived from caveman times, even when the overhanging forehead and unibrow had evolved into much nicer lines. Well, for people other than Bob Troutman, she meant. There had to be a reason for that. Other than that Bob Troutman was a Neanderthal, she meant. So she’d learned long ago to trust her instincts, and her instincts had never let her down.

The man released the safety on his weapon with a deft flick of his thumb and sharpened his aim.

Of course, there was a first time for everything.

“Please,” she said, spreading her fingers in entreaty. “There’s got to be some way to get this all straightened out without anyone getting hurt. Please,” she said again, even more solicitously this time.

“Give me the manuscript,” the man said. “Hold it out with one hand, very slowly. And don’t try anything funny, Lila. Because I
will
shoot you if I have to.”

Marnie did as he asked, keeping one hand airborne as she gripped the envelope with the other and very carefully extended it toward him. Cautiously, he accepted it from her, his gaze never leaving hers, as if it was more important for him to watch her eyes than it was to watch her hands.

“Which car is the one you’ve been driving?” he asked as he tucked the envelope under one arm, still holding the gun steady. Still not removing his eyes from hers.

She found the phrasing of the question peculiar. He hadn’t asked which car was hers, but which one she’d been driving. As if he assumed she didn’t own the car but was only using it. Still, if he was saying anything at all about her car, it was only because he intended to use it. And that couldn’t be a good thing. Unless he used it by himself. Which was probably asking too much.

Marnie closed her eyes, surrendering to the inevitable. “The one behind me is mine,” she said. “The yellow Volkswagen Beetle.”

“Turn around, and walk slowly toward it,” the man told her, “keeping your hands where I can see them at all times.”

“Oh, please,” Marnie said, unable to help herself. “You can’t possibly think I’m any threat to you.”

He laughed out loud at that. “Oh, sure. You’re harmless, Lila. Everyone knows that. Like that guy in Zagreb. The one you put in a coma a few years ago? The one who’s still in a coma? He’d definitely agree that you’re as gentle as a lamb.”

Yeah, Marnie thought, this Lila for sure needed to hang out with some different people. Not to mention find some new hobbies.

“Turn around,” he said again, his voice steely now.

“And walk to your car. And don’t try anything funny.”

Oh, gosh, no. She wouldn’t try anything funny. That would be
so
inappropriate in a situation like this.

She did as he asked, making her way carefully to her car with both arms awkwardly extended, constantly aware of his eyes—and his gun—on her back. When she arrived at the driver’s-side door, however, she remembered she’d dropped her keys when the second man grabbed her. She started to say something about that when she heard the merry
chirp-chirp
of the key fob unlocking the doors. Braving a look over her shoulder, she saw faux Randy standing a few feet away, her keys in his hand. Evidently he’d seen them on the ground and scooped them up, but she sure couldn’t have said when. He had to have moved awfully silently and awfully quickly to do that.

Gee, color her suspicious, but if he kept this up, she was going to start thinking he wasn’t a mall security guard at all.

“Get in,” he said. “Put your hands on the steering wheel and keep them there.”

She did as he instructed, then watched as he rounded the front of her car, his eyes never leaving hers. He honestly seemed to be afraid that she might overpower him. Either this Lila really was a very dangerous woman, or faux Randy was the lamest excuse for a man in the world. As much as Marnie wanted to cling to that second theory, she figured the first one was more accurate. Which meant three men tonight had mistaken her for a very dangerous woman. Her. Marnie Lundy. Who shrieked at the sight of an unexpected dust bunny.

The tiny car shrank to microscopic when faux Randy folded his big frame into the passenger seat, accomplishing the feat with a swiftness and economy of movement that belied his size, his gun never straying from Marnie’s midsection. Once inside, he slammed the door shut and thumbed the locks into place, then dangled her keys from his fingers. When she reached for them, he snatched them back. Her gaze flew to his in silent question.

“I’m going to tell you where to drive,” he said. “And you’re going to follow my directions. You will not exceed the speed limit. You will not swerve off the road. You will not try to attract the attention of another driver. If you do, you’ll be sorry.”

“Where are you taking me?” she asked.

Fear was creeping back in again, now that she realized just how little chance there was for escape. She was well and truly alone with him, helpless against him. She might be able to run once they reached their destination, but unless she could outwit him, there was no way she could get away. He was bigger, stronger, faster than she. He had clearly been trained for things she would never be able to master. He could easily overpower her. If he wanted to.

“How much gas do you have?” he asked.

“I filled up on the way to work,” she told him reluctantly. And damn her for not being one of those people who could drive a car until it was down to fumes. She couldn’t let the tank get below half before she started worrying.

“We shouldn’t have any problems then.”

Oh, yeah, speak for yourself, why don’t you?
Aloud, she only asked, “Where are you taking me?”

He studied her in silence for a moment, as if he were trying to decide how much to tell her. “It’s one of the few places we have that you don’t know about,” he finally said. “And it’s not far from where we are right now.”

He extended the keys toward her again, and Marnie reached for them gingerly. Although he allowed her to wrap her fingers around them this time, he still didn’t release them.

“Now what?” she asked.

“Buckle your seat belt,” he told her. “We wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, would we?”

She managed to refrain from rolling her eyes but did as he said, reassuring herself that she wasn’t following his instructions this time because she would have buckled up anyway. Nyah, nyah, nyah. Only then did he relinquish her keys. He lowered the gun so it couldn’t be seen by other drivers, but pressed it against her thigh. She guessed that that was because, if she tried anything, he could shoot her in the leg, disabling her without killing her. That would prevent her from crashing the car, and make it possible for him to escape with his own life—if not hers.

As she went to insert the key into the ignition, she realized her purse, a whimsical little Mary Frances number decorated with buttons and ribbons and lace in varying shades of blue—she’d spent way too much on it, even with her store discount, but she hadn’t been able to resist—was still swinging from her elbow. She turned and straightened her arm to let it slide down over her wrist, only to have her wrist seized by her companion, who gripped it with firm fingers.

“Problem, Lila?” he asked as he jerked her hand back up between both their bodies.

“I just wanted to put my purse in the backseat,” she said.

He smiled grimly. “I’ll do it for you.”

“Thank you,” she bit out.

“But not before seeing what you have inside.”

Of course.

Still pressing the gun against her thigh, he released her wrist, and Marnie held her arm still as he guided the purse carefully over her hand. She winced as she watched him manhandle it, turning it over and over in his big brawny fist, having not a care for any of the intricate detailing. Watching him treat the ultrafeminine accessory so carelessly hammered home how little trouble he would have mistreating her, too.

“How the hell do you open this thing?” he demanded.

“That beaded flower on the side facing away from you has a snap beneath it,” she told him.

He found the part she was talking about and unfastened it, but his big hand barely fit inside the little purse, so he turned it upside down and emptied the contents into his lap. One by one, he inspected each item before replacing it, starting with the tube of lipstick, then the tin of mints, then her hanky and so on. He was methodical and dispassionate in his task, even handled her emergency tampon with complete indifference. He saved her leather card case for last, flipping it open to extract one-handed her Visa card, her AAA card, her health insurance card and her driver’s license, studying each in turn.

“These are excellent forgeries,” he told her. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear they were the real thing.” He glanced up to look at her. “But we weren’t the ones who made them. Who did?”

Marnie inhaled a deep breath and released it slowly. “Well, that first came from the bank when I opened my Visa account. The second came from triple-A. That third was from my insurer and the fourth is from the Ohio DMV.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Very funny.”

“Wasn’t meant to be,” she said. “They’re not forgeries.”

Without returning the cards to the case, he dropped all of them into her purse and snapped it shut. “Start the car,” he said as he tossed it into the back without bothering to see where it landed.

Damn men, anyway, Marnie thought as she watched him do it. They had no clue as to the importance of the ideal accessory.

“Which way am I supposed to go?” she asked when the little car purred to life.

“Use the mall’s north exit,” he told her.

His directions after that were clipped, concise and to the point. After ten minutes of driving, they were out of the Cleveland suburbs. Another fifteen, and they were crossing the county line, headed west on Interstate 90 toward any number of small towns that doubled as weekend retreats on Lake Erie. Obviously “not far” was a relative term to him, because it was nearly another hour before they finally reached their destination. During that time, he spoke scarcely a word to her—not that Marnie was all that fired up to get to know him better—and she kept her own thoughts to herself. But when he finally instructed her to pull the car to a halt, throw it into Park and cut the engine, she saw that they had arrived at—

Oh. An isolated cabin in the woods. Why had she not seen this coming from a mile away?

“Get out,” he told her. Then he repeated what seemed to be his mantra. “And keep your hands where I can see them.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Marnie waited for the fear to roar up again, but she felt only resolve now. Exiting the car, she inhaled the pungent aroma of fresh evergreen, and through a break in the trees, she could just make out the glitter of moonlight on water. But not Lake Erie. They’d left the interstate for a county road some miles back and headed east, away from the lake. This must be a small tributary that fed into it. Had she been arriving here for a weekend getaway, she would have been charmed by her surroundings. In the moonlit darkness, she saw that the cottage was of the faux-rustic variety—perfect for a guy like faux Randy—built to look like a log cabin but obviously fairly new. It was enchanting, really.

How comforting to realize she’d enjoy such a cozy atmosphere during the last hours of her life.

Marnie still didn’t know what to do. She could try to run, but she didn’t relish the idea of being in the woods alone at night. Who knew how far it was to another cabin, or if there even was another cabin nearby? Besides, her captor would probably tackle her—or shoot her—before she even made it to the tree line. She didn’t want to go inside the house, since that would make escape even more difficult if not downright impossible, but there might be something inside she could use for a weapon….

The matter was taken out of her hands when faux Randy circled the front of the car and wrapped the fingers of his free hand around her upper arm. “Walk,” he said, jabbing the barrel of his gun into her ribs.

Well, okay. If he insisted.

He had the manuscript tucked beneath his arm as he guided her forward. Marnie made it up the three stairs of the front porch without tripping, but her entire body was racked with trembling by the time they reached the front door. Something cold and slimy had settled in the pit of her stomach, and she wanted to throw up. Faux Randy released her arm long enough to fish a new set of keys out of his trouser pocket, but his grip on the gun never wavered as he unlocked the front door and pushed it open. He dragged her over the threshold behind him and shut the door again, turning a single dead bolt with an ominous thump before flipping a wall switch to turn on the lights.

In stark contrast to the ugliness of her situation, the cabin itself was quite pleasant. Amber light radiated from a single lamp in the corner, warming pine-paneled walls that housed pencil sketches of the wilderness. The furniture was big and boxy, looking hand hewn of more pine, and upholstered with blankets of Native American design. The floor was dotted with wool rugs of a similar pattern, the hardwood beneath them gleaming. A large creek stone fireplace took up most of one wall, shelves crammed full of books taking up the rest of it. Opposite her was a row of windows that looked out onto darkness, but which doubtless offered a magnificent view of the woods or water during the day. The whole place was tidy and spotless, as if it had just recently been cleaned. Had she not been here as a prisoner, Marnie would have found it charming.