Thicker Than Water (27 page)

“Thank God you're all right,” he said. “When I saw the accident, I was afraid…” He looked toward the car. “Your mother?”

“She's hurt. Badly. I can't wake her.”

He shook his head slowly. “She shouldn't have jerked the wheel and slammed her brakes like that. All she had to do was pull over.”

“Please, do you have a cell phone or—”

“In the car,” he said. “Come on. Hurry.” He took her arm, helped her along as he started back up the hillside.

“I don't want to leave her!”

“We'll call for help and come right back to her,” he promised. “They'll want your names and information about your mom, and it'll be faster if you can give it to them yourself.”

She looked back toward the car, and the tears flowed this time.

“Trust me, child. She's in the hands of spirit. She'll be all right. As long as we do our part. She needs our help.”

“Couldn't you…you know, do something for her. Make sure she'll be all right until we get back?” She blinked through her tears at the man.

His lips pressed tightly together, but then he sighed and nodded. He moved closer to the car, wrenched open the driver's door and put his hands on Julie's head. Then he tipped his own head back and closed his eyes. “Be well,” he whispered.

“Please, please, please be okay,” Dawn added.

Z backed away from the car, closing the door again; then he returned to Dawn. “She'll be okay. I promise you.”

Nodding, Dawn believed him. “I promise, Mom, I'll be right back.” Then, with Z's help, she made her way back up the hill, using saplings to help pull herself along. “We have to call the police, too,” she told him. “Some maniac ran us off the road.” The same maniac who'd been following her the other day. That same black Jag, with the custom chrome wheels.
She'd been so sure she was only being paranoid when she had thought she'd seen the same car earlier that day. There were probably lots of black Jags around. But she should have known.

The man clambered up the last few steps to the roadside, turned and reached back down for her. “Come on, you're almost there. Are you sure you're not hurt?”

“A little bump on the head. It's Mom I'm worried about.” She let him take her hand, and he pulled her up easily. Dawn brushed the bark and dirt from her hands, took a single step toward the waiting car, then stopped in her tracks.

The black Jag sat there, waiting.

She shot her gaze to Nathan Z, her eyes wide and confused. “It was you?”

“I don't know what you mean. Get in the car, Dawn. Sit down and rest, and we'll place that phone call.” He stood near the passenger door, holding it open for her.

She hadn't told him her name! Dawn moved backward, glancing frantically up and down the road, seeing no other traffic, no buildings, no help. “I don't know what's going on here, but I'm not getting in that car with you. You're the one who's been following me. The one who ran us off the road. I don't understand. Are you some kind of maniac or what?”

“Now, Dawn,” Z said softly. “That's no way to talk to your father.”

Shock hit her like a tidal wave, and Dawn backed away, shaking her head from side to side. “No. No, you aren't…”

Nathan Z calmly pulled a gun from his pocket and pointed it at her. “Get in the car like a good girl. I promise this will all make sense to you once I have the chance to explain.”

* * *

Julie felt something stinging her eyes, blinked them open and tried to wipe the sting away. Her hand came away bloody. She lifted her head, blinking her vision into focus, and it all came rushing back. The black car. The accident.

“Dawn!” She scanned the car but didn't see her daughter. The back door was open, though. “Dawnie!” Julie wrenched her own door open and clambered out of the car, but the second she put weight on her left foot, it seemed to crumple underneath her, and she landed hard on the ground. Then she sat there, panting against the pain, realizing something was wrong with her foot, or, more precisely, her ankle. She tugged the leg of her jeans up just a little but couldn't see beyond the cross trainers and ankle socks. Gently, every move causing excruciating pain, she loosened the laces of the shoe and took it off. Then she peeled off the sock. God, it hurt.

The ankle was swollen to twice its normal size and mottled with deep purple. She closed her eyes and wondered how it had swollen up so fast. That thought made her turn her wrist to look at her watch.

God! She must have been lying unconscious in the car for more than an hour.

She looked around as panic set in. “Dawnie! Where are you? Dawn!”

The only replies to her calls were the sudden flapping movement of startled birds and the echo of her own voice from the steep mountains all around her. Beyond that, there was nothing. A hundred feet above her, she saw the guardrails that marked the side of the road. Much further below her, a little stream meandered, vanishing in thick forest, then appearing again.

Where the hell was her daughter?

Swallowing hard, she told herself that Dawn had probably been uninjured. She'd been wearing her seat belt. The air bag had deployed. Julie hadn't fastened her belt, and her own air bag hadn't been reset since her last fender bender. Dawn must have been unable to rouse her mother and gone for help. That must be it.

But deep down, Julie feared something far worse. She'd seen that car, the black car that had run them off the road. The cat that was its hood ornament. A Jaguar. It had to be Mordecai Young. It had to be. He'd promised he would come and take Dawn if Julie didn't hand her over. What if that was exactly what he had done? Run them off the road, stuck around to survey the damage he'd wrought and then taken Dawn away.

Julie looked at her watch again. One hour and ten minutes. The bastard had a head start. But she would catch up. No way was he taking her baby from her.

Julie used the still-open car door to pull herself upright and got back onto the front seat. She found her cell phone on the floor, reached for it and turned it on. And oddly, the only person she could think of to call, besides nine-one-one, was Sean. Even more oddly, there wasn't a doubt in her mind that he would come just as fast as he could. It wasn't even a question.

The phone beeped once, and she looked at the screen. No Signal glowed up at her.

“Dammit!” She threw the phone down, reminding herself that there were no cell towers permitted within the Adirondack Preserve. Too harmful to the wildlife. Which was why she'd used the pay phone to call her boss in the first place.

Fine, she would just find a phone. She would find a phone, and she would get help, and then she would track down Mordecai Young. After that, God help him. She might not have felt capable of murder before, but she felt willing and able now. He'd pushed her too far. And if he hurt Dawnie…

“No. He won't. He won't hurt her. She's his daughter. Why would he hurt her?”

Julie got out of the car, hitting the trunk release as she did, and then hopping on one foot to the rear. She leaned over, tugging open a suitcase and rummaging through it for something to use to wrap her foot. She would never make it up the hillside if she couldn't protect it somehow. Settling on several pairs of nylons, she dropped to the ground again, wrapping them around and around her ankle so tightly that she bit her lip until she tasted blood. Layer upon layer, she built a soft but firm nest for the injured ankle, knotted it off and finally got herself upright again. Gingerly she lowered the foot, put some weight on it. Pain shot up her leg, and she cried out.

“Okay, okay,” she told herself, breathless, dizzy with pain. “Just think.” She looked around her and spotted a tree limb lying on the ground. It was as tall as she was and a couple of inches in diameter. After hopping over to it, she picked it up. It was solid.

Good. She nodded firmly and turned to face the steep climb. “This is going to hurt like hell, Jones,” she told herself, using Sean's name for her without bothering to analyze why. “But losing Dawn would hurt a lot more. Remember that.” Grating her teeth, she started forward, distracting herself from the pain by trying to recall the last inhabited building they'd passed on the way up here. Sadly, the last one she remembered was the diner. It had to be at least a few miles back.

Halfway up the hill, she stepped down onto a rock that slid out from under her injured foot, twisting the ankle so hard she screamed in agony. The sound echoed around her, and then dizziness closed in. She clung to the hillside, fighting to stay conscious. She wouldn't give in to the pain. She couldn't. Drumming up every bit of strength, she forced herself to push on, growling with the effort, with the determination, like a mother lion in defense of a cub. Inch by blindingly painful inch, she clawed her way up that hillside, and finally she half climbed, half fell over the broken guardrails onto the road's grassy shoulder. She lay there for a moment, waiting for the pain to ebb, waiting for the strength to return, for her heart to stop pounding and her lungs to catch up with her body's demands for oxygen.

The pain didn't ebb, and her heart didn't slow, and she didn't catch her breath. Precious minutes were ticking by. She clutched her makeshift crutch in her hand, pushed herself upright with it and started limping back toward the diner.

* * *

“Where are you taking me?” Dawn asked softly.

Z had a way of looking at her that gave her the absolute creeps. It was almost…adoring. But he was a stranger to her. He had no business looking at her that way.

“To one of my houses,” he said. “You're going to love it there, honey. It's a mansion, really. Pool, hot tub, we even have our own lake.” He reached across the car as if to stroke her hair, but Dawn ducked away from his touch.

He let his hand hang in the air for a moment, his eyes looking wounded. “You're not even giving me a chance.”

“A chance to do what? I don't even know you.”

“A chance,” he said, his voice soft, “to be your father. I am, you know.”

“No, I don't know. I don't know any such thing.” She lowered her head. “You used to be…one of my heroes. Now you're nothing. Less than nothing.”

“I'm your father. We can have blood tests done to confirm it, if it would help you to accept me, Dawn.” Then he smiled slowly. “Dawn. That's not your real name, you know.”

Dawn blinked at him. She was afraid, not only for herself, but for her mother, lying back there over that drop-off, unconscious or worse. She wasn't even sure anyone could see the car from the road. What if no one found her? What if…?

“When you were born, your mother named you Sunshine.”

Dawn frowned, looking at him. “That's not a name.”

“Sure it is. We called you Sunny.” He smiled softly. “We were inseparable back then. I spent so much time with you. And when you would look up at me, you had these eyes that seemed so much wiser than they should. Like you knew me.”

She licked her lips, lowered her head. “How can I believe anything you tell me?”

He frowned, tipping his head sideways. “I don't—”

“How can I trust a word you say when you kidnapped me at gunpoint after you ran our car over that cliff?”

“That wasn't supposed to happen. She shouldn't have lost control.”

“It doesn't matter. What matters is that you left my mother back there, hurt and alone.”

“She's not your mother.”

Dawn jerked as if he'd slapped her. “She is. To me she is. She's the only mother I've ever known.”

He glanced at her. Dawn let the tears come, and he reacted. “Don't cry, Sunny. Please, don't cry. I don't want you to be unhappy.”

“Then call someone to help my mother. Please.” His lips thinned, and she thought his anger was returning. “If you don't, I'll never see you as anything other than a man who left someone I love to die. I'll never believe you really tried to heal her back there. I'll never believe anything you say to me.”

“Sunny—”

“But if you do send help, I'll believe you,” she said, her voice softer, calmer. “I'll listen to what you have to say. I'll even try to keep an open mind. I promise, I will.”

He glanced her way again, considering.

“I'll know that you really do try to live by the things you write in your books. That you aren't a fake. Things like—you only get good if you give good. And that doing harm to others will draw harmful energy right back to yourself.”

His brows went up, and he looked surprised. “You've read them?”

“All of them,” she told him. “Every single one. And I watch your show, too.”

He smiled. He didn't look at all frightening when he smiled. He had a pleasant face, round eyes that were the deepest darkest brown she'd ever seen, and a shaved head. He could look solemn or menacing, but right now, he looked kind. He looked like the man she'd once admired.

“All right,” he said. “We'll call as soon as we can get reception on the cell.” He nodded toward where the cell phone hung from its holder on the panel. “You keep track, let me know when we're in range, okay?”