Home To Texas - Ransom My Heart Part 27

Chase went off the road, just as the other driver had intended. That hadn't been his only option, of course. After all, he'd been prepared for the Jeep's move, or for something like it. Chase taught courses on defensive driving, gave seminars on how to avoid situations just like this.

Only this time, avoiding wasn't what he'd intended.

The Jeep kept up the pressure, both vehicles bouncing along, still side by side, but well off the narrow road. Chase hit a couple of cactus plants, which appeared too quickly in the beams of his headlights.

Then both vehicles were into the wash--another site, carefully chosen. Chase had time to think before the wheels on the right side of the truck began climbing the rock wall.

The Jeep didn't pull back, still edging him along, close enough that they'd b.u.mped doors a couple of times, Chase had slowed considerably, but between the incline of the wash and the Jeep's crowding, he didn't have much room to operate, not much room in case the truck spun out if he braked too abruptly.

Suddenly the Jeep dropped back, but before Chase had time to react, he ran into an outcropping. It wasn't big, but enough to turn the truck, sending it careening drunkenly on two wheels for a few seconds before the topography and the slope it had been following put an end to the ride.

Almost in slow motion, the pickup lost the battle to remain upright and slammed over onto its side.

Chase felt the jar all the way to his spine, pain flaring like wildfire along the half-healed collarbone. Son of a b.i.t.c.h, he thought, gritting his teeth as he reached to douse the lights. The truck rolled on over onto the roof and before it had stopped moving, Chase had the door open and had slithered onto the ground.

The lights of the Jeep behind him were cut off abruptly, plunging the terrain around them into darkness. Chase used his elbows and knees, crawling quickly despite the rocks and plants, keeping his body low. As he moved, he heard the Jeep's door slam and even the footsteps of the approaching driver. Chase had managed to put maybe fifty feet of darkness between him and the man who had run him off the road.

"You okay in there?" the driver of the Jeep called, still standing a safe distance from the truck.

Trying to pretend that what had happened was an accident and he was just playing Good Samaritan? Chase wondered.

Which meant he wasn't very bright. He was also carrying a flashlight, moving its beam slowly over the rough ground ahead of him, making himself a pretty good target.

They both waited through the desert silence that was the only answer to the shouted question. The questioner came closer to the truck, cautiously s.h.i.+ning his flashlight around it. There was no movement, of course, from the overturned vehicle.

"h.e.l.lo," he called.

Stupid, Chase thought again. The man couldn't a.s.sume Chase had been killed or injured in the wreck. He sure shouldn't a.s.sume Chase would believe it had all been an accident.

There had been something about the voice that was familiar It had echoed in his memory, but Chase couldn't pin the recognition down, couldn't seem to remember where he had heard it before.

The Jeep driver moved closer. Still just man-shaped.

That was all. Nothing he could recognize. From behind the outcropping, Chase could see the beam of light from the flashlight playing around the interior of the wreck now.

Looking for him. And looking, of course, for what he'd been carrying, Abruptly the flashlight was cut off. It seemed that the man holding it had finally reached the conclusion that if Chase wasn't in the truck, he had to be somewhere else, hiding somewhere in the darkness that surrounded him.

Then there were only sounds. As Chase listened to them, trying to identify each one, he backed quietly toward the place where the guy had left the Jeep parked, its motor still running, ready to move quickly out of the unforgiving territory they both knew so well.

Chase was careful, but the guy had probably been making enough noise himself that even in the stillness of the desert night he hadn't been aware that Chase was moving.

When he came back toward the Jeep he was running. And he was carrying the canvas bag Chase had brought from Sam's.

By that time, Chase had put the Jeep between him and the man--a slight advantage, he hoped, when the shooting started.

"That's far enough," Chase warned. The .38 in his hand was directed steadily at the chest of the man carrying the bag.

"Throw it down and put your hands over your head," he ordered.

Instead, before he had even finished speaking, the bag came hurtling toward him out of the darkness, quickly followed by a couple of shots seemingly directed at the spot where his voice had come from. Chase was no longer there, ; hadn't been there since he'd seen the bag coming.

He squeezed off a round of his own. He didn't think he hit anything, but at least he would have a target he could see. And the guy had begun running again, only not toward the Jeep---which would have been the smarter thing maybe--but away from it. Toward too much open territory, too visible against the lighter darkness of the sky.

"Stop now," Chase commanded, "or you're a dead man."

Mac would have liked that line, gotten a good laugh out of the melodrama of it. He kind of liked it himself, Chase thought, his finger beginning to squeeze the trigger. He had given him fair warning, and if the b.a.s.t.a.r.d-Then he realized, a little disappointed, that the guy had stopped, both arms lifting into the air. His first smart move, d.a.m.n it. Chase forced himself to ease off the pressure on the trigger, and then he waited a second, just to make sure before he ordered, "Throw the gun. Pitch it forward toward the truck. And don't lower your hand below your ear when you do it."

He had time to count to three before the man obeyed, awkwardly sending the gun out into the darkness in front of him.

"Flashlight, too," Chase suggested.

"I left it in the truck. I couldn't carry everything." There was something plaintive about that. Almost asking for sympathy, Chase thought. Only he was fresh out. Not for a guy who put little girls with candy-pink toenails in danger.

Chase eased around to the front of the Jeep, to the driver's door. He s.h.i.+fted the revolver to his less-reliable left hand, knowing that the man he was holding pinned with its threat couldn't see him, couldn't see anything except the desert, stretching before him. Chase opened the Jeep's door and fumbled around until he found the switch for the headlights.

The man caught in their glare, silhouetted against the night sky was big, maybe as big as Mac. He was wearing jeans and a dark s.h.i.+rt, like just about every other inhabitant of south Texas, Chase thought.

l.UftOUtlt 1 1."llttt! t "Turn around," Chase ordered.

There was a slight hesitation, and then, seeming to recognize that he had no choice, the man turned to face him Not bad information, Sam. You

were wrong about that, Chase thought. Pretty d.a.m.n accurate, as amatter of fact."Now what?" Jason Drake asked."Now we play Twenty Questions," Chase said, feeling anger at another betrayal blossom in his chest.

"My right-hand man," Sam had said.

"I ask them and you answer them. And as you do, try to remember that

I'm not real happy with you right now. There's a lot of goodwill down here that belonged to my brother. Somehow it's rubbed off on me. n.o.body's going to give a d.a.m.n if I shoot you.

n.o.body's even going to ask me to explain why."

"What do you want to know?" Jason Drake asked sullenly.

Chase laughed.

"Everything," he said simply.

"I want to know it all."

Chapter Fourteen.

"Have a late dinner," the kidnapper had instructed. That was exactly what she'd been pretending to do for the last three hours, Samantha thought irritably, although she couldn't have named anything she'd eaten.

She recognized that her irritation, which had been increasing almost exponentially as she sat at the table in Crosby's, nursing a cup of decaf, wasn't really because she was having to wait. It was anxiety-based. Her mind and her heart were with Chase, who was supposed to be making his way here, traveling openly along the road to Del Rio.

He was the decoy, the intended target, and despite the fact that she had recognized the logic in his plan, she didn't like that aspect of it now any more than when he'd proposed it. She had only agreed because Chase hadn't given her a choice. He had reminded her that if their unidentified a.s.sailant had had any part in the original kidnapping, Amanda might possibly still be in danger.

So she had picked up the money at Sam's on Friday, using Mandy's weekend with her grandfather as a cover.

Chase was to have gone to Sam's ranch tonight and without making any attempt to hide what he was there for, he would pick up another bag, only this one wouldn't contain any money. Bait and switch.

"May I join you?"

She looked up from her coffee at the question. Both 1XU[tSU[lt lvl.y Z/cult hands had been cupped around the white earthenware mug, maybe to still their trembling, or at least to make it less obvious. The man who had spoken to her was the one with the mustache, the one who had taken Mandy.

Neither of them seemed out of place in the popular restaurant, she realized, which was probably why he had chosen it as the rendezvous. There were some tourists scattered in the lively throng, and scores of natives and Texas border-hoppers jammed together among the crowded tables.

"Of course," she said politely.

He pulled out the chair across from hers and sat down.

His dark eyes studied her face for a moment.

"Did you give our friend my message?"

"Yes," she said.

"I'm sorry I couldn't be more helpful."

"We appreciate what you did."

"Was it ... profitable?"

Samantha hesitated. Of course, since it was almost midnight, whatever

was going to happen had probably already happened, even while she had been sitting here, endlessly waiting.

"Not yet," she said.

"At least, not as far as I know."

His eyes moved to survey the room, and she waited again until they came back to her face.

"Is that why you're alone?" he asked.

"My friend should be joining us soon," "To deliver the package."

Again she hesitated, but this was, after all, why Chase had sent her.

"I brought the package," she said.

She could read the surprise in his eyes, and then, as she watched,

amus.e.m.e.nt touched their darkness. The soft mus-'ll tache moved slightly as he smiled at her.

"I think that makes you the ... bagman?"

She laughed and was rewarded by a flash of very white teeth.

"At least you didn't say bag lady," she said.

"I think you've been watching too many bad American movies."

"Bad TV shows, all dubbed in Spanish," he agreed, still smiling.

"I guess technically you're right. I'm the bagman."

"Your friend believed that was safe? For you to come here?"

"He gave you his word--and my father's--that the delivery would be made. No one should have any reason to suspect that I'd be the one. I came the long way around. I crossed the border at Eagle Pa.s.s. I'm driving a rental."

"And you weren't afraid to carry that much money? You weren't afraid that someone might try to take it from you?"

She thought about Chase, deliberately making himself a target for whoever had shot at them.

"It's only money," she said softly. That was the truth, of course--a truth she had always known.

"Spoken like a true Kincaid," the kidnapper said.

"What do you know about the Kincaids?" she asked.

She resented his a.s.sumption about her and about her life, lumping her together with her rich father.

"Only that. Only the money. How much money you have."

"There's nothing wrong with having money. Nothing evil. Especially not if you've worked for it. My father earned what he has." She wondered why she was defending Sam, who certainly didn't need her defense.