Maggie's Man (18 page)

Maggie couldn't take it anymore. She didn't
know this man. She didn't know herself. She leaped to her feet and did as she
was told. She didn't know what else to do.

Cain hefted the backpack over his shoulder and
pulled the baseball cap low on his head. Without another word, he opened the
door and gestured for her to lead.

It was now eleven o'clock. Rain had started to
fall. There was no moon; the night was black.

She was scared.

The rain had picked up pace by the time
they walked to the theater and reclaimed the truck. From a spring sprinkle, it
turned into a thick torrent, solid sheets of water fired from the sky.

They both scrambled into the truck quickly, their
shirts already soaked. Cain turned on the heater, flipping on the truck lights
and the windshield wipers. Even then, visibility was poor.

Tough night for running, but it meant it was
also a tough night for chasing.

Cain stopped on the outskirts of town and
filled the tank, then hit the road.

The night was quiet, almost peaceful with the
thunder of the rain, the steady rhythm of the windshield wipers, the thickness
of the night. He'd expected something harsher. He'd open his door and encounter
a posse. He'd make it to the highway and the entire state police force—led by
burning-eyed Joel—would pounce.

His hands gripped the wheel too tightly. He
felt the tension, raw and painful in his gut. His shoulders were beginning to
cramp and knot from the unrelenting strain.

The world swirled around him, cops running,
brothers chasing, bounty hunters… He stood in the eye of the storm, fighting
for a way out. Justice for Kathy, justice for himself. And the great Cain, the
brilliant computer programmer who'd once thought he held the world in his palm,
didn't know the answer this time. He didn't know what to do, and he didn't know
what would happen when he finally caught up with Abraham.

And he saw his brother, the last day of the
sentencing hearing, sitting cool and composed at the front of the courtroom,
not even blinking as they sentenced Cain to twenty years in prison, ineligible
for parole for ten years.

Cain had stood at the end, his arms and legs
shackled and he'd stared into his brother's calm blue eyes. "Why?" Cain
had whispered under his breath. "If you wanted revenge that badly, why not
just kill me? Why her? Why her?"

And Ham had replied in a deep rich baritone,
"'If anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over. Then
the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him.'"

That was it. Ham came, Ham plotted, and Ham
won. Cain couldn't even say he'd put up a decent fight. At least, not until
now.

He forced himself to take a deep breath and
relax his death grip on the wheel.

He was in eastern Oregon now and there was
nothing, absolutely
nothing
out there. The road was straight and lined
with night. No homes, no cars, no streetlights. By day this land was red dust,
sagebrush, and barbed-wire fencing. By night, it was simply a dark womb,
protective, embracing and safe.

He relaxed by degrees. The rain banged on the
roof, soothing and rhythmic. The inky-black well of night remained reassuringly
unbroken. Dark and soft. Maggie curled up in a ball on the seat, clutching her
locket, and seemed to fall immediately to sleep. He relaxed even more.

He could do this. If he remained calm, remained
logical, he could do this. He'd already covered two hundred miles. He'd been
careful to pay for things only with cash in Bend, he'd monitored the phone call
between himself and his father. All the police—or this C.J., or Brandon, or
Joel and Ham—knew was that he'd last been seen heading southbound outside of
Portland. Maggie had withdrawn money in Tualatin, as bank records would show.
After that … nothing.

Now, he was 250 miles from Boise, traveling
through terrain where the sagebrush outnumbered the vehicles one hundred to
one. He would need to stop one more time for gas, but they could be in Boise by
morning.

He would head north then, up to the mountains
that had raised him, and travel to the crest where he could still hear the
sweet, fading echo of his mother's lilting voice singing, "Amazing grace,
how sweet the sound…"

He pushed down on the accelerator and the truck
picked up the pace. The night remained thick. The sound of the windshield
wipers comforted him.

After another forty miles or so, Maggie
finally roused herself. He glanced at her once, seeing her grimace as she
stretched out her arms and rubbed her crooked neck. Her long red hair was tangled
around her like a subdued mink and her features were flushed with sleep. Then
she yawned, a cute little stretch that reminded him of a kitten.

At last, she leaned back in the seat, no longer
looking as timid or stiff. She appeared to be an amazingly resilient woman and
sleep had restored her. He had to force his gaze back to the rainy road.

"Are you hungry?" he asked at last.
"We still have some pizza."

"I'm fine. Where are we?"

"About fifteen miles from Riley."

"Oh." Obviously, Riley didn't ring
any bells for her. It wouldn't have rung any for him except that he'd just seen
a green highway sign advertising its presence. "It's still raining,"
she observed after a few minutes of silence.

"Yes."

"Awful night."

"Yes."

"Is it hard to drive?"

"Road's too straight for the rain to make
a difference."

"Oh." She knotted her fingers on her
lap, tapping her index finger against one knuckle.

Silence resumed its reign and they stared out
the windshield at the thundering night. She seemed lost in thought or maybe she
was just half-asleep.

"Cain," she asked abruptly, "why
didn't you kill the prison guard?"

He was so startled, he flinched. He stiffened
his shoulders as quickly as he could, unconsciously clearing his face and
erecting smooth, tough barriers all around himself. "Pardon?"

"You're the one who said there are
economies of scale with crime. But even after escaping, you haven't hurt anyone
else."

"It's only been fifteen hours."

"But you've had opportunity and
motive," she replied shrewdly. "I mean, you have this militia
background, everyone says you're dangerous. You grew up with a … different
perspective on society and government and law enforcement. Yet when you
escaped, you didn't shoot the prison guard, you knocked him unconscious. I
would think you would've bought more time by … killing … him, and I would think
you of all people know that. But you didn't do it. You didn't shoot him."

Cain was quiet, his finger tapping the steering
wheel, his mind racing ahead to try and divine the point she was heading
toward. "Do you want to believe I won't hurt anyone else?" he asked
carefully. "Will that make you feel better, Maggie?"

"I'm just thinking out loud," she
said and shrugged innocently. "I'm just thinking, here's this man who's
supposed to be dangerous and I haven't seen you hit so much as a wall. By your
own admission you don't drink. I've seen you angry, I've seen you desperate,
but for crying out loud, you didn't even swear. You've threatened me, but
you've never actually hit me. You've never thrown things, you've never had a
rage-filled tantrum. For a man who allegedly committed a crime of passion, I
have yet to see you so enraged that you couldn't control your own impulses. In
fact, you appear to be an amazingly restrained and cerebral person."

"Maybe I've just matured over the past six
years."

She looked at him quite seriously. "I
don't think so. You know, Cain, you've never said you killed her. You said you
allegedly killed her."

He didn't say anything. He wasn't sure he
could. And suddenly, he didn't know anymore what he wanted.

"Tell me," she whispered softly.
"Did you kill your girlfriend? Did you kill Katherine Epstein?"

He found he couldn't breathe. He found that the
words wanted to escape from his throat without his permission, and he'd said
them so many times before and it had never mattered. He realized abruptly that
he just couldn't take it. He couldn't claim innocence and then survive the look
of open doubt that would wash over her clear, expressive face.

He'd stood alone so long now. He wanted to just
remain there, an island who could never be touched by another betrayal. He
didn't need as other people needed, he reminded himself. He'd grown up alone,
moved to the city alone, survived six years of solitary. Maybe he had become an
island. He was simply untouchable.

"It doesn't matter," he murmured to
his inquisitive companion. "It doesn't matter."

Maggie frowned, looking ready to contradict
him, but suddenly headlights appeared up ahead. She perked up instantly,
leaning forward. He glanced at the speedometer and forced himself to maintain a
steady pace. The headlights before them appeared stationary in the rainy night,
and the only car he could picture watching the road on a night like this was a
police car.

Maggie leaned forward even more, her gaze
peeled.

But it wasn't a police car. It appeared to be a
hatchback of some kind, tilted off the road, its tires deep in the red mud. As
they drove by, a young couple appeared, their hair plastered against their rain-soaked
faces, their arms waving frantically for help.

Cain winced instantly. It was already too late.
Maggie's gaze was on his face.

"There's no one else around," she
said for her opening statement.

"Exactly. Including us."

"It's cold out, they're soaked to the
skin. They could catch pneumonia and die."

"Only in a Bronte novel."

"Cain." She touched his arm and they
both flinched. For a moment, his eyes abandoned the road and stared at her simple
white fingers resting on his arm. She had short, sensibly cut nails. She had a
small, sensible hand.

The truck tugged to the right. He yanked the
wheel in the other direction and almost overcompensated them right into a
ditch. Her fingers dug into his arm, and he straightened the truck quickly.

"Please," she whispered.

"I'm an escaped murderer," he said,
but for some reason it sounded as if
he
were pleading with
her.

"All right," she said earnestly, her
shoulders assuming that determined look he knew too well. "I'll make a
deal with you."

"You're a hostage. What kind of deal can
you make?"

"I'll cooperate."

"Cooperate? Maggie, I have a gun. Of
course, you'll cooperate."

"But it's only under duress, don't you
see? You have to handcuff me to yourself, or to the bed. You have to plan when
you sleep, you have to do all the driving and worry about my every move. You're
the one who said you needed to be well rested to successfully pull this off.
How are you ever going to be well rested if you're constantly having to worry
about me?"

He blinked in the darkness. Her argument was
amazingly lucid, which frankly scared him.

"So," she continued, sounding not at
all cowed but actually quite brisk, "if you go back and just check on
them, I'll cooperate. You might not even have to get out of the truck. Just
pull up, you know. I'll roll down the window and ask them what they need, make
sure it's no medical emergency or crisis, and the whole thing will be done in
just five minutes. They'll be helped, and you'll have my unlimited cooperation
for twenty-four hours. I could even do some of the driving and you could get
more sleep. You must be very tired."

His eyes narrowed. He turned this scenario over
in his head several times even as his foot was somehow slipping off the gas
pedal of its own volition. "I let you drive and you can drive us straight
to the authorities," he pointed out quietly.

She actually appeared indignant. "I beg
your pardon! I'm a woman of my word!"

Well, he'd been put in his place, he thought
dryly. "But you'd be helping a murderer," he persisted nevertheless.
"Surely even a 'woman of her word' doesn't lose sleep over turning in a
murderer."

Her fingers curled around his forearm again. He
found himself staring at her once more and her strong, pale face was sober.
"Listen to me. You've already said it yourself. You're going to get to
Idaho one way or another. There doesn't seem to be much I can do about that. I
wish I was like Brandon or C.J.," she said abruptly, and for a minute, her
tone was wistful. "But I'm not. I never will be. I'm just me, and I'm
telling you if you will stop and give five minutes to help those two poor
abandoned people, I'll cooperate. Cain, it's such an awful night and they're
all alone in the middle of nowhere. We can't just leave them like that."

"Maggie," he said quietly, "when
you buy six-packs, you take off those plastic rings, don't you? You take off
the rings and cut them with scissors so the dolphins won't get them stuck
around their snouts and slowly starve to death."

"Of course! And everyone else should as
well!"