Betrayed by Trust (16 page)

“I know Kincaid is ambitious, but—”

“There’s something else,” Dan said. “I don’t think the Golden Path was responsible for Foxworth’s murder.”

“But Altesse hated Foxworth.”

“He did. But their conflict, their rivalry, is like a game of chess for men like that. They have a twisted kind chivalric code. A victory gained through breaking the rules wouldn’t be as sweet.”

“Then you think Kincaid …”

“I think that Foxworth’s plan to deny Aldwyn’s power to the Path and hide you and Evan in plain sight was too slow for Kincaid. Foxworth’s approach didn’t mesh with Kincaid’s desire to use the Elemental’s power directly.”

“But how could he do that? Wouldn’t he need the amulet, or whatever it is the Path uses, to keep Aldwyn in line?”

“Yes. But first he’d need Evan. And Evan would be out of his reach unless I was dead.”

The idea of Dan being dead chilled my soul. “Do you have proof? We could go to the other directors—”

“Not enough. And for that matter, I don’t know how many of them know about you and Foxworth’s plan. We could tell them, and hope they’d counter Kincaid, but I’m not sure that some of them wouldn’t agree with his methods, and then we’d have several more powerful people after us. Not to mention that the more people who know, the greater the chance the Path might get wind of Evan’s existence.”

“Oh, God!” I hadn’t thrown up in months, but I thought I might be sick now. My husband had almost been killed and my baby was in danger. “What are we going to do?”

“We need to get away, to disappear.”

I nodded. I understood that we couldn’t go home; our house was being watched. But what I blurted out was, “We just bought a crib!”

The corner of Dan’s mouth lifted in a rueful half-smile. “I know, kiddo. I’m sorry.”

“We can’t go to family, can we? Kincaid will look for us there, right off.”

He nodded and gave me a lopsided smile that said he was proud I understood the situation. “You got it in one.”

“Where will we go? How long will we have to hide?” The ground was shifting under my feet. I wrapped my arms around my belly. “I’m due in a month! What about clothes, and baby things?”

Dan captured my hands and spoke quietly. “I packed bug-out bags for us and the baby right after Kincaid asked you to move into that secure facility. We can buy anything else we need.”

“You planned this three months ago?”

He held his hand up in the Boy Scout’s three fingered salute. “Always prepared.” Then he wrapped his fingers around mine again. “But I hoped we wouldn’t need them.”

I chewed my lip as I stared into his eyes, trying to assimilate the sudden turn my life was taking. Finally I said, “I guess we’re not going to hand out Halloween candy this year.”

A sad smile shaped Dan’s mouth.

I blew out a deep breath, trying to suppress the sense of impending loss that was rising in me. I liked the street we lived on, and our little bungalow, and our eclectic collection of furniture. I liked the neighbors who lived next door and barbequed every Saturday, sending mouth-watering aromas throughout the neighborhood. I liked my job, tedious as it sometimes was. Would I ever return to any of it? “What’s the next step, then?” I asked.

“Hand me my pants.” He pointed across the room at the plastic bag that held his clothes. “Then go steal us a wheelchair.”

Y
ou want to leave
now
?”

“Yes, right now. Kincaid won’t expect it, and that will give us a head start.”

“You just got run over! You need to rest!”

“I need to get you somewhere safe, more.”

The determined expression on his face was a blend of pain, emotional and physical. I could refuse, but I knew that it wouldn’t matter how much sedative the nurses gave him, Dan wouldn’t rest until I was safe. If I didn’t help, he’d find another way to make our escape happen. I growled in frustration and went to find a wheelchair.

It took me ten minutes to track down a chair that wasn’t in use or under the eye of hospital staff. When I returned with our borrowed wheels, a cute nurse’s aide was serving Dan his dinner tray. Dan was propped up against several pillows, his bare chest rippling with muscles and scrapes. A purpling bruise peeked out from under the wrappings around his ribs. His dark curling hair had fallen over the bandage that covered his sutures, and his black eye only served to make him look rakish and more handsome.

“Thanks, Becky.” Dan smiled at the young woman as she laid a napkin over his chest.

She blushed and fluttered her lashes. “Can I get you anything else? An extra pudding cup, maybe?”

“No, I’m good. But thanks.”

Becky backed out of the room, smiling at Dan, oblivious to my presence. When she was gone, I shut the door. “Another conquest.”

“Can I help it if I exude animal magnetism?” Dan attempted a wide-eyed innocent look. It didn’t work with the black eye.

He pushed the tray table at me. “You should eat.”

I lifted the lid covering the plate, exposing a sad Salisbury steak covered with mushroom gravy, a lump of mashed potatoes, and a pile of overcooked green beans. Hospital food. I replaced the cover. “Not hungry.”

“Eat it anyway. Evan’s hungry.” He threw back the sheet, and with a grunt and a grimace maneuvered himself off the bed and onto his feet. I reached for him, wanting to help, but he fended me off with a raised hand. “I can do this.”

I opened the pudding cup and slurped down a spoonful. Slowly, and with a fair amount of effort, Dan struggled into his pants. Then he leaned against the bed and pointed to the shoes parked under the chair. “I may need your help with those.”

I brought his shoes over and held them so he could slip his feet in. I knelt to tie them, glad the
ER
staff hadn’t cut the laces to get them off. I glanced up and could tell from Dan’s frown that he hated being dependent on me. “Where’s your shirt?” I asked to distract him.

“Gone. I bled all over it, and they cut it off to spare my ribs.”

The mental image of Dan’s ivory Alpine sweater covered with his blood made me shiver. “I should have stolen a scrub top for you, too.”

“I have shirts in the bug-out bag. We just have to get to the car.”

I finished with Dan’s shoes. He reached for my hands to help me stand, but I shook my head, using the bed to pull myself up. He’d just hurt himself more, trying to help me. I stepped over to the wheelchair and pushed it closer. “Your chariot awaits. You can wrap yourself in a blanket until we get to the car. You don’t want to get the nurses all hot and bothered.”

Dan gave me an
are-you-crazy
stare. “The chair’s not for me. It’s for you.”

I returned his look, and raised him with a
you’re-an-idiot
glare. “Your ribs are fractured,” I said sharply. “You may have a concussion. I can’t catch you if you start to go down.”

“I’m not going to go down. I’ve dealt with worse injuries than this. And my ribs aren’t broken, they’re just bruised. I’m going to lean on the wheelchair, and you’re going to ride so it won’t look funny for me to be pushing it.”

“Or
you
could sit down, and let me roll you out of here, so you don’t have to worry about the need to lean on anything.”

The set of Dan’s jaw grew rigid. “I will
not
have my eight months pregnant wife pushing me in a chair.” His tone had gone hard and even more quiet. He glared at me, his expression implacable.

I glared back, unable to believe my relaxed, laid-back husband could be so pig-headed. Our escape was going nowhere fast. “How about a compromise? I’ll push you down to the elevators, and then we’ll switch drivers in the lobby. That way the nurses won’t wonder what the hell you’re doing exerting yourself.”

I thought Dan might break a tooth the way he clenched his jaw, and that he’d flat out refuse, but a few seconds later, he said, “Deal.” He tried to ease into the chair, but plunked down the last few inches, and I heard his sharp exhalation of pain.

I rolled my eyes but didn’t say anything. I wished I could ask Mark if all former soldiers were as bull-headed as Dan, or if it was just former Green Berets.

We waited until the coast was clear of nurses, then slowly made our way down the long hall toward the elevators. We left the door closed behind us, hoping that would delay the staff’s discovery of our absence. Every moment I expected someone to challenge us, to demand to know where I thought I was going with a man who was supposed to be resting in bed, but we made it into the elevator without incident.

I blew out a heavy breath of relief and leaned back against the wall.

Dan struggled to his feet and pointed to the seat. “Your turn.”

From the stiff way he held himself it was clear that his ribs were hurting him. I wanted to dig in my heels and make him ride the rest of the way, but a deal was a deal. I made a face and sat down, ignoring Dan’s smug expression.

I let him push me through the deep lobby, then made him sit while I went to bring the car around. Several minutes later, I had him in one of the shirts he’d packed and loaded into the passenger side.

I squeezed behind the wheel of Dan’s 1972 Mustang. I adjusted the seat, compromising between being close enough for my feet to reach the pedals and having enough room for my belly. “We’re going to need to buy another car,” I said, as I pulled out of the lot. “There’s no way I’m wrestling a baby into a car seat into the back of a sports car every day.”

Dan’s expression grew even more pained. “This car is a classic! We can’t get rid of it. What about your Corolla? It has four doors.”

“My Corolla is an old tin can on wheels. And it’s parked in front of our house.” The rest of that sentence,
where the cameras are watching
, didn’t need to be said.

“I’ll think about it,” Dan muttered, then turned to look out the window.

I drove for a several minutes, then as we neared the Five, I asked, “Where to? North, or east?” West was Hawaii, and not so easy to get to. Mexico was less than fifty miles south, but I wouldn’t exactly blend in there.

“East.”

East. He’d answered my question, but just barely. I made the appropriate lane changes and merged into traffic. We had the whole country in front of us now. We could be heading anywhere. To Gran in Pennsylvania, Jill in Albuquerque, my folks in Illinois, Ringo in Phoenix. But we couldn’t go to any of them. Kincaid would look for us there, and if he would arrange for Dan to be run down, he’d probably threaten our families too, to get to Evan.

I glanced over at Dan. He’d leaned back against the headrest and shut his eyes. The faint glow from the dashboard lights was enough to reveal the strain in his face. We had hours to go before I needed more information. I let him rest.

Three and a half hours later, we stopped in Yuma for gas and food. I’d pushed the fifty-five speed limit as much as I dared, but I hadn’t wanted to draw any attention from law enforcement. When we stepped into the bright lights of the McDonald’s I could see the pain etching Dan’s features, but I waited until we’d eaten before I said, “I think I need to call it a day.” He might not stop to rest for his own sake, but he’d stop for mine.

I braced myself for an argument, but he surprised me by saying, “Yeah, me too.” He sucked his milkshake dry. “Take 4th Street. We’ll stay at the Yuma Cabana.”

I regarded him with narrowed eyes. “You planned to stop here, in Yuma.”

Dan lifted one shoulder in an abbreviated shrug. “It was one of several options, depending on when we left, under what circumstances, and how you were feeling. Boy Scout, remember?” He wrapped an arm around his side. “I confess, though, I did not plan on having two fractured ribs.”

“I thought you said they were just bruised?” I accused.

Dan looked guilty. “That’s what the doctor said. But ‘fractured’ gets more sympathy than ‘bruised.’”

“
Now
you’re trolling for sympathy?” I shook my head. “Too late.” But I winced watching how stiffly he moved when he got into the car.

Several minutes later we were at the motel. We checked in, paying cash. Dan showed a fake I.D. that he’d taken from his bug-out bag. He raised a brow when I asked for two double beds.

“I’m tossing all night now. You don’t need to share that—not with your bruised ribs.”

He must have been feeling pretty bad, because he nodded and asked the gray-haired manager for help with our bags.

The accommodations were standard for a mid-range motel, with slump block construction, a small but clean bathroom and a Magic Fingers box on the night stand between the double beds. The not-standard feature was the sliding door that led directly to the parking lot. We had two ways out of the room if we had to leave in a hurry.

I piled up the pillows on one of the beds, then helped Dan ease back on them.

“Do you want help taking off your pants?”

“Too much like work.” His face was pale. I dug out a couple of Tylenol and handed him a glass of water. When he’d settled, I reached for the phone, but Dan caught my hand, pulling me down to sit on the bed beside him. “I’m sorry, kiddo. We can’t call anyone.”

“If we disappear without a word, my folks will worry. So will Janna, and Jill. We have to let them know we’re all right.”

“Later. They won’t start worrying for a couple of days.”

I knew he was right, but I still didn’t like it. A part of me recognized that it wasn’t his fault, but it felt like he was ripping every last bit of my life away from me. At this rate nothing would be left except him and the baby.

He must have seen the frustration in my face, because he conceded a little. “We’ll call them tomorrow from a pay phone. That’s harder to trace.”

I wondered if the Trust would already be monitoring the phones of our family and friends. But hell, they’d bugged our house, so why not the houses of our families? Bugging private property without a warrant might be illegal, but Foxworth had been friends with Reagan back when the actor had been governor. It only stood to reason that the various directors of the Trust would also have friends in influential positions. Kincaid and his cronies might be able to get away with anything.

The reality of our situation crashed in on me. We were cut off from everyone we loved, and who loved us. We’d be constantly looking over our shoulders, as long as Kincaid wanted to control our child. All we had was each other. “How long will we have to hide?”

He shook his head slightly, and looked sorry that he had to admit bad news. “I don’t know.”

I felt my lip tremble as my eyes filled. I dashed the tears away, angry for feeling sorry for myself. Dan tried to pull me to him, but I resisted and put out a hand to stop him. “No! Your ribs. I don’t want to hurt you. I’m fine! It’s just hormones.”

He let me get away with that lie, and settled for rubbing his thumb over the back of my hand. “It won’t be forever.”

I sniffed and wiped away my tears. “I know.”

“Get some rest. Things will look better in the morning.”

I shot him a wry glance. “They can’t get much worse.”

I should have known better than to say that.

I slept fitfully, rolling from one side to the other, as I had for the last few weeks. It was nearly impossible for me to find a position that was comfortable for more than an hour. I felt huge, and I was so ready for this pregnancy to be over. Except now I wouldn’t be delivering in the hospital I’d toured, or be attended by the doctor I’d been seeing for the last eight months. When Evan decided it was time to make his appearance, he’d be doing it among strangers.

According to the clock, it was just after five in the morning when my eyes popped open for the umpteenth time. I gave up on sleep and rolled to a sitting position. A sliver of light from the parking lot showed around the edge of the curtain, and I could see that Dan’s eyes were closed and his breathing was steady. I was glad I’d insisted on the double beds.

A mild tingle washed over me. I almost didn’t recognize it for what it was, because for once this feeling wasn’t a warning of danger, as so many of late had been. This was just a “normal” premonition, one that suggested I should put my clothes on now, rather than wait.

The idea of getting dressed so early felt ridiculous, especially since I wanted to let Dan rest as long as possible. Instead I rubbed some lotion into my stretch marks. But the feeling grew more insistent, so I finally gave in and struggled into my maternity wear. As soon as I was dressed, the pressure eased—only to be replaced by a sense of expectancy.

I lifted the curtains aside to peek out at the graying sky, and jumped back with a squeak of surprise when I saw the dark silhouette of a man standing right outside the glass.

Dan awakened instantly. “What is it?”

It took me a second to answer. “There’s someone out there,” I said in a small voice, pointing to the sliding door.

Dan got to his feet quickly and silently, only the tightening around his eyes betraying his pain. He pulled his .45 out of his bug-out bag, and strode across the room. “Check the peephole,” he whispered, pointing to the other exit.

I crept up to the door and looked through the little lens, feeling as though anyone in the hall would be able to see me, too. “There’s no one there,” I whispered back.

A light tapping on the glass made us both hold our breath.

“Marianne! Let me in! It’s Barry.”

Dan and I looked at each other. Was he here on behalf of the Trust? How had he found us so quickly?

I shrugged. “Might as well let him in before he wakes up the other guests.”