Kitabı oxu: «Magnum Force Man»

Chapter Two

The road was a narrow tunnel carved between two black walls of spruce and cedar. Even on clear nights, the light was all but shut out by the overhanging branches, limiting visibility to the reach of the high beams. Tonight, except for the flashes of lightning that penetrated the evergreen canopy, it was like motoring through a deep canyon.

Even so, Claudia Reynolds wasn’t particularly concerned. She’d driven under much poorer conditions and there wasn’t another soul on the road. In another twenty minutes, she’d be home, safe and sound, sipping a cup of tea in front of a toasty fire—

The shadow that darted onto the road in front of her took her by surprise, and she reacted on pure instinct. Her foot came down hard on the brake pedal as she swallowed a scream. The car went into a mad skid as the rear careened wildly.

For what seemed an eternity, Claudia pumped the brakes and fought the wheel as the vehicle skated uncontrollably across the wet pavement toward the row of trees at the shoulder.

Somehow she got the vehicle straightened and stopped, and in the silent aftermath of near catastrophe, her heartbeat sounded as loud as the thunder.

She sat for a moment, still gripping the wheel, paralyzed with dread as her racing pulse kept time with the windshield wipers. Had she hit him?

No! She couldn’t have. There would have been an impact.

Oh, God, maybe there had been an impact. Maybe in all the excitement, she hadn’t noticed. Or maybe she just didn’t want to believe it.

She closed her eyes and drew a shuddering breath as she sat there listening to the tick of the cooling engine. She would have to get out and look.

Her heart dropped to her stomach because it was the exact scenario that would have had her screaming at the ill-fated characters in the scary movies she used to devour. Now that her own life had become such a horror show, Claudia didn’t enjoy the classic slasher flicks nearly as much as she once had.

She could almost hear herself yelling at the hapless heroine: Don’t get out of the car, you idiot! He’s only pretending to be hurt!

For all she knew, he could be one of them. The men who hunted her so ruthlessly.

Claudia knew only one by sight, the sadist who had brutally tortured and murdered her mentor in Chicago two years ago. She’d caught nothing more than a glimpse of his face a split second before the elevator doors closed, but his red hair, so incongruent with such a dark visage, and those cold, soulless eyes still haunted her sleep.

That nameless killer and the covert organization he worked for were the reasons she’d fled her home in the middle of the night and sought refuge deep in the heart of the Black Hills of South Dakota.

On good days, she almost managed to forget they were still out there somewhere looking for her, but then something like this would bring it back and she would be reminded all over again of their evil objective. She would be bombarded by the images of their brutality and the gruesome knowledge of how horribly Dr. Lasher had suffered before he died. How she would suffer if they ever found her.

What if the man in the road had been sent by that deadly cabal to find her? What if his intent was to torture her for information and then kill her? After all her meticulous preparations, she’d be a fool to fall into such an obvious trap.

Why, oh why had he run out in front of her like that? Hadn’t he seen her headlights?

Leave him! Just drive away and don’t look back!

But what if he was just an unlucky motorist whose car had broken down in the middle of a storm and he’d been trying to flag her down for assistance? Maybe he was hurt or sick and that was why he’d acted so erratically.

Not your problem. What kind of lunatic would deliberately step in front of an oncoming car, especially at night in a hard, driving rain?

The dangerous kind, Claudia’s brain kept insisting.

All of this flashed through her head in the space of a heartbeat. Already she was reaching for her bag.

First, she checked her cell phone even though she knew she wouldn’t get a signal. She rarely got one so far from town, which was why she’d also had a land line installed in the cabin.

Next, she grabbed a flashlight from the glove box and removed the small Ruger she kept hidden beneath her front seat.

As she felt the weight of the stainless-steel revolver in her hand, she registered the irony even as she expertly checked the chamber. She’d always hated guns. Even in her dangerous neighborhood back in Chicago, she’d never once contemplated arming herself because the gun culture mentality was abhorrent to her.

But finding Dr. Lasher’s mutilated body had changed and toughened her after she’d had time to get over the shock. She’d been forced to open her eyes to the brutal reality of her situation. On the run, she’d quickly come to the realization that if she were to survive, she’d have to learn to take care of herself because she had no one else in her life who could protect her. No one.

Her keenly hewn survival instinct should have kept her at home this night, but when she’d left the house earlier, the dark clouds hovering over the hills had still seemed a long way off. With supplies running low and a bad case of cabin fever, she’d ignored the warnings, braved the weather and driven into Rapid City where she’d seen a movie, had an early dinner and stocked up on enough groceries to last her a couple of weeks.

As she’d driven out of town, the storm still hadn’t unduly concerned her. Her small SUV had four-wheel drive, the road to the cabin was in good shape and her night vision was excellent. Nothing at all to worry about except for a man running out into the middle of the road in front of her.

Bracing herself, Claudia opened the door and climbed out, then went wide so that she would have a clear view of the front of the vehicle. She could see the silent form in front of the headlights. He lay right beneath her left bumper. And he wasn’t moving. At all.

Rain pummeled her face as she eased toward him. Tightening her fingers around the grip of the revolver, she stood over him for a moment, gathering her courage before kneeling beside him to check for a pulse. He was alive. Unconscious but most definitely alive.

She ran the flashlight beam over him. She couldn’t tell if he’d been hit, but she saw no evidence of gushing wounds or broken limbs. Thank goodness for that. Still, there could be internal injuries or a head wound that might not reveal itself until later … until it was too late.

Shuddering at the possibilities, she bent lower. His wet face was turned toward her and she could see raindrops shimmering on his lashes and in his dark hair. He looked young, probably not much older than her own twenty-four years. His angular face was shadowed but unlined, and Claudia found something heart-tuggingly innocent about his features, about his present vulnerability.

Tearing her gaze from the unconscious man, she rose and glanced around. They were miles from anywhere. What on earth was she supposed to do with him?

She wouldn’t be able to call the police or an ambulance until she got back to the cabin, and maybe not even then if the storm had knocked out the phone lines. It could be hours or even days before service was restored. She could go for help, but with the temperature dropping, he might freeze to death before she made it back.

Pulling her parka tightly around her, she shifted indecisively in the cold rain. She hated to admit it, but there really was only one thing she could do. She had to drive him back to Rapid City. Self-preservation had consumed her for two whole years, but even she wasn’t single-minded enough to leave an unconscious man stranded in a rainstorm.

Yet when she thought about the trail of gore that had led her to Dr. Lasher’s mutilated body in the lab, her heart started to flail even harder. She didn’t like this setup. It seemed too staged. Like an ambush.

That notion caused her to glance around anxiously, her eyes peering through the wet darkness for any sign of movement as she listened for the slightest sound. But all was quiet except for the rain pelting the pavement and the hood of the car. And the stranger’s face. She needed to get him inside. He was already drenched. If he didn’t die of exposure or internal injuries, he might succumb to pneumonia.

Hurrying back around to the door, Claudia climbed inside the SUV and rummaged in the glove box yet again, this time for a roll of duct tape. It was on every survivalist’s short list, and she’d made sure to stock up when she first moved to the woods.

Returning to the unconscious man, she slipped the revolver into her coat pocket, then secured his wrists and ankles with the tape.

Mindful of any possible injuries, she took as much care as she could in moving him, but a certain amount of manhandling was necessary just to get him around to the door.

The old Claudia had been something of a couch potato, but Fugitive Claudia followed a strenuous workout routine to keep in peak form. Despite her fitness and the man’s lean frame, however, dragging an unconscious body in a freezing downpour was not exactly a piece of cake.

After several minutes of pushing and prodding and hoisting, she finally managed to get him inside the vehicle. Winded, she climbed over the back of the seat and got behind the wheel. She was shivering so badly she took a moment to compose herself as she turned up the heat and put the gun within easy reach.

At least with his hands and feet secured, he wouldn’t be able to catch her by surprise.

That was her hope, at least.

It took forever to turn the vehicle on the narrow road. Taking her time, she backed toward the wall of trees, eased forward over fallen twigs and leaves, then reversed again inch by slippery inch. Even with every precaution, though, she skirted too close to the edge and the rear tires slid off the pavement, spun uselessly for a heart-stopping moment before once again finding purchase.

A groan from the backseat snapped her head around, and she switched on the interior light to check on her unwelcome passenger. He lay on his back, eyes closed, his face ghostlike in the harsh glare.

“You okay?”

Nothing. Not so much as an answering whimper. “Hey, you.” Still no answer.

“Who are you?” she wondered aloud.

And why am I doing this? Why, why, why?

The painstaking maneuvering had kept her on pins and needles, but once she had the vehicle turned and headed back toward town, she breathed a little easier. The sooner she could dump the stranger at the hospital where he’d receive proper medical attention, the better.

‘Dump’ might be a harsh word, but she had no intention of lingering any longer than was necessary. Ever since she’d arrived in Rapid City, Claudia had made a point of keeping a low profile, though she didn’t try to make herself invisible.

To the contrary, she drove into town every few days to shop, dine out and go to a movie. She didn’t want the locals to think of her as a recluse because that could also draw unwelcome attention and speculation. The trick was to seamlessly blend in, and up until tonight, she’d managed to do a pretty credible job. But the unconscious stranger in her backseat now threatened to throw a monkey wrench into her carefully scripted life.

Nothing she could do about that tonight. All she could do was get him to a doctor and hope for the best.

Fog crept over the windows, and Claudia switched the heater to defrost. Not that it would help much with the visibility. The rain was coming down so hard, she could barely make out the road in front of her and the lightning strikes were getting closer. A little too close, judging by the blast of thunder directly overhead and the static electricity that tingled her scalp.

As she rounded a curve, she caught a glimpse of something else in the road. Not a body this time, but a downed tree. Lightning had split a giant spruce endways, cleaving it cleanly in two so that one vast trunk came down across the road while the other side smashed back into the forest. Claudia braked and sat for a moment, gazing through the windshield at the tangled black mass of heavy limbs and leaves, still glittering and dripping with raindrops.

She had a rope in the back of the SUV, but the splintered trunk was so huge she wasn’t at all sure her engine had enough power to pull it out of the way. And that was assuming she could tie a knot tightly enough to hold. All she might succeed in doing was overheating the motor, and then they’d be stuck here indefinitely.

So what were her options?

The man stirred in the back seat and she glanced nervously over her shoulder. She still didn’t like this situation. Not one bit. Alone with a stranger was not how she’d planned to spend the rest of her evening. What if he was a killer?

The hair at the back of her neck rose, not from static electricity, but from pure, unadulterated fear. Her hand crept to the gun on the seat beside her. She knew how to use the weapon. She’d made certain of that. And since his wrists and ankles were bound, she definitely had the upper hand.

So why was she sitting there paralyzed by fear?

This was no good. She had to do something. She couldn’t stay out on the road all night. If she stalled the engine or ran out of gas, they’d both freeze to death. Not to mention be sitting ducks.

She drew a quick breath. Okay, focus. Make a decision and live with it.

But the dripping chaos in front of her had made the decision for her. With the road blocked, she couldn’t get the stranger to a hospital, and if she took him back and left him where she’d found him, he’d likely freeze to death. And that she couldn’t live with because he might be just some poor guy down on his luck.

And, too, Claudia couldn’t be absolutely certain the bumper had missed him. If her vehicle had struck him, she was somewhat responsible for his safety even though the idiot had been standing in the middle of the road.

Serve him right if I did kick him out.

But even as she grumbled to herself, she was already backing up and carefully turning the vehicle yet again on the slippery road.

“Do not make me regret this,” she muttered as she shot another anxious glance over her shoulder.