Some Kind of Magic (2 page)

“Haul ass.”

At the moment, that particular part of her anatomy, plus every other part, was immobilized by fear. Both hands, bound in thick mittens, gripped the steering wheel, Claire's tight, shallow breathing creating a fog in front of her face, a layer of frost on the inside of the windshield.

Get out of the Jeep
.

Barely minutes ago, Claire had been bemoaning the utter vacuousness of her life. Now her brain was scrambling over plans, rejecting them one after the other as she tried to come up with something to save herself.

Run.

She had a mittened hand on the door handle ready to bail when the man's arm shot out and wrapped around her throat, pulling her back against the seat, the barrel of the shoved under her earlobe.

“Don't go anywhere.”

The words were forced out, one at a time against the vulnerable skin of her cheek, his breath whispered across her face, his unshaven jaw rough against her delicate skin. “I need you.”

Even in her terror, it was impossible to miss the exhaustion and pain in his voice.

There had been a couple of times in Claire’s life when she’d been so cold that every inch of her body trembled. He was shaking like that now.

The arm around her throat was shaking. The barrel pressed to her head—shaking.

That could be good.

Or that could be bad.

Maybe he was nervous about what he was doing. Maybe that meant he had a conscience. Or maybe it meant he was fighting the urge to kill her.

Either way, an involuntary twitch of his trigger finger could put an abrupt end to the drudgery of her days. And at the moment, the drudgery of her days was looking pretty appealing.

He smelled like gasoline and smoke. Not wood smoke, but something more toxic, something more like the smoke created by burning tires.

Her life didn’t flash before her eyes, at least not in a linear way. But in a matter of a few elastic seconds she thought about the people she’d known, she thought about the things she wished she’d said, and the things she wished she hadn’t.

Regrets.

She wished she’d had more guts in her life. She wished she’d taken more risks. She wished she’d known love. Real love. Not the selfish, one-sided relationship she’d had with Anton.

“Drive!”

He shoved away from her, falling against the backseat.

Her lungs released the air she’d been holding. Her breath came out in one long, gasping sob.

Drive.

He’d told her to drive, and she would drive.

If only she could.

Her circulatory system had gone haywire, seizing up like the rest of her. Her fingers were so stiff she couldn't feel them anymore. Her teeth were knocking together hard enough to shatter.

It took forever to get the Jeep into gear. As soon as the wheels began to turn, as soon as the vehicle began to move forward, she realized she couldn’t see. She turned on the defroster; tepid air blasting her in the face. With her mittens, she scraped at the glass.

It didn’t help.

Using her teeth, she tugged a mitten from one hand, then scraped at the ice with her fingernails, clearing a jagged circle big enough to see through.

Where was she supposed to go?

She asked the question, disgusted with herself for the obvious terror she failed to keep from her voice.

“Away... from ... this fucking Siberia.” His words were broken, forced out through frozen lips. “Turn up the heat and head to your house.”

Her house? Had he said her house? Why? She would have thought he’d want a ride to some buddy’s place, or maybe some private airstrip. Her house hadn’t even entered the realm of possibilities.

Okay. She got it now. This was something devised by Libby. Once they reached Claire’s, the guy in the backseat would whip out his boom box and start stripping.

She relaxed a little. She may have even smiled slightly. “We don’t need to go all the way to my place,” she said over her shoulder. “Nothing personal, but I don’t really want to see you take off your clothes. So let’s just forget it. When Libby asks me about it, I’ll tell her you were great.”

“What the hell are you babbling about?”

“Libby hired you, right?”

“You’re hurting my head. Just shut up and drive.”

She tensed again. Libby hadn’t hired him. This was real.

She couldn’t take him to her house. Her house was too secluded, too remote. And she didn’t have a phone. It wasn’t that she was into the suffering artist thing. Even if she could afford a phone, she wouldn’t have one. Born too soon or too late, she wanted to see a person’s face when she spoke with him or her. Half of a conversation was facial expressions.

She could go to Libby’s—but no, the last thing she wanted to do was expose her friend to danger.
Forgive me, Libby. That wall with the jagged glass doesn't seem nearly so wacko now
.

The station? What about the police station?

It wouldn’t take a genius to catch on if she pulled up in front of a building that had a couple of patrol cars out front, and bars on the windows. She didn’t want to do anything to set him off.

Maybe her house wasn’t such a bad idea. She would have the advantage since she knew the layout. It could be like Audrey Hepburn in Wait Until Dark.

She felt faint. Dizzy.

Hot air blasted her in the face. She turned down the temperature gauge.

“Turn that up. I’m freezing my ass off back here.”

She turned it back up, sweat trickling down her spine, under her layers upon layers of winter clothing.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said thickly. “I just want a place to get warm. Get some dry clothes. A place to...” His words trailed off, as if he were having trouble concentrating. “Think. A place ... to ... think.”

She felt a pang of sympathy, a feeling she pushed to the back of her mind.

His exhaustion was obvious. If she took him to her house, maybe he would fall asleep. If that happened, she could get away. She could go for help.

“My husband’s home,” she said, trying one last time to change his mind.

“Shut up and drive.”

The tone of his voice told her that he was tired of her chatter.

And so she drove.

In the direction of her house.

She’d read somewhere that kidnappers thought of their victims as non-people, and as soon as they began to think of them as people, things changed. There was much less chance of their harming you.

“What’s your name?” she asked over her shoulder, cringing, hoping he didn’t consider her question too personal.

He didn’t respond right away.

“Dylan,” he finally said.

It had taken too long to come up with that answer.

“Mine’s Claire.”

“Claire.” There was hesitation as he seemed to give that some thought. “Is that a hillbilly name?”

In his book, was hillbilly good or bad? "I don’t know,” she said, playing it safe.

"I’ve heard about you mountain people. You marry your cousins and brothers and shit like that.”

"I think you’ve watched a few too many daytime talk shows,” she said, anger beginning to edge away her terror.

"You know what I think?” he asked. "I think you made up that stuff about a husband.” He sniffed the air. "You have that mothball smell about you that says you live alone.”

A mothball smell! How could she smell like mothballs?

But then she remembered that before meeting Libby at the tavern, she’d been to the nursing to talk with the administrator about the art classes she was going to teach. Had some of that old smell rubbed off on her?

“Do you gargle with Listerine and drink castor oil?” he asked.

How old did he think she was?

"What’s your last name? Clampett?” He kind of laughed a little to himself, as if getting a kick out of his own joke.

"Maxfield,” she said. People often accused her of making it up, deliberately naming herself after Maxfield Parrish, the American painter, or Peter Max, but Maxfield was the name on her birth certificate.

“What did you do?” she asked, still attempting to get him to open up.

“Do?” he asked reflectively. “I was born.”

“I mean, what are you running from?”

“Maybe I’m just running from myself.”

She ignored his evasive answer. “There’s nowhere you can go. Nowhere you can hide. Why don’t I drive you to the police station? They’ll be easier on you if you turn yourself in.”

“You’re the one who’s been watching too much TV.”

Twenty miles.

That’s how far it was from Fallon to Claire’s house. Maybe it would give her time to come up with a plan.

Behind her he’d fallen silent. Five minutes later there was still no sound from the backseat. Was he asleep?

She gradually slowed the Jeep. When the speedometer dropped to thirty, she reached for the door handle. She would jump. She would jump and she would land in a snowdrift and she would be okay.

Behind her, he stirred.

She let go of the door handle and pressed a booted foot back down on the accelerator.

Ten minutes later, she pulled up in front of the two-story log home she rented during the off-season. The automatic yard light came on, illuminating a path to the door. Under normal conditions, she would have been glad to be home. Now she was afraid she’d driven herself into a trap. Claire cut the engine and pocketed the keys, grabbed her purse and slipped from the Jeep.

The man was right behind her.

He tumbled out the door, sprawling at her feet.

She let out a surprised, sympathetic sound. Her reaction was automatic. A human in trouble. She reached for him.

He growled low in his throat and jerked away. “Leave me alone.” Without assistance, he lurched to his feet, then stood there swaying, getting his bearings as he looked in the direction of the house.

Suddenly Claire’s dog, Hallie, decided it was time to punch in. She erupted from her fiberglass igloo, barking frantically.

Dylan—if that really was his name, and Claire sincerely doubted it—let out an alarmed shout. With gun in hand, he swung to face the dog.

The gun wobbled.

Claire threw herself on Hallie, hugging the shepherd to her. “Don’t hurt her!” Hallie may have come out barking, but it was all a front. She was one of the biggest cowards of the dog world.

“For chrissake, lady.” There was blatant irritation in the man’s voice. “I’m not going to hurt your dog.”

Relieved, Claire let go of the dog and got to her feet.

“You leave your dog outside in this Siberia?”

“She’s used to it,” Claire said defensively. “She'd get too hot inside. I let her inside sometimes. If it's really cold.” She couldn't believe he was chastising her over the care of her dog.

“Quit blathering and open the door.”

He was hugging himself, shaking.

Claire unlocked the door, her mind racing. She stepped back, hoping he would go first and she could make a run for it. Instead, she felt his hand on her back, pushing her ahead of him. She felt for the wall switch, muted light from a forty-watt bulb cast shadows about the room.

She dropped her purse on the kitchen table and turned to get her first good look at her captor.

Everything hit her at once. The cut and bruise on his forehead; the dark, intense gaze; the broad, unshaven jaw; the sensual mouth, with softly curving lips.

“My God,” she said.

Claire had an eye for detail. After all, she was an artist. Maybe. Unfortunately the verdict was still out on that. But if she were to witness a robbery, she'd be able to tell the police what the thief looked like from the top of his head to the color of his shoelaces. She didn't try to figure out why a person would, say, wear a golf cap with a suit, she simply observed the phenomenon.

It wasn't light enough in the room to distinguish the color of the man's eyes, but they were looking at her with an unwavering directness that she found disconcerting. The cut across his forehead had bled, then dried. He may have tried to clean his face at some time or another, but hadn't had much success. His jacket was torn, white feathers oozing out the rips. Some of the squares were flat and empty. His jeans were stained with what looked like blood—from his head?—and some kind of black soot, as if he'd stood too near a fire.

He was younger than she'd thought. Not over thirty, she'd guess.

He swayed, spotting the couch. He stumbled forward, falling into it, onto it, letting out a gasp of pain as he went down.

He just sat there awhile, apparently waiting for everything to stabilize, waiting for the sharp edges of his pain to dull.

Light from the kitchen fell on his face, accentuating the contrast of elegant bone structure. His hair was short and dark and straight. It was the kind of hair that had a mind of its own, that had a tendency to stick up around a cowlick. He had two: One on top of his head, and one in front, above his right eye. Near that right eye was a small, half-moon scar.