Authors: Perfect
"You've been waiting out here for two hours?" Julie exclaimed. "You must be frozen."
He kept his face averted, apparently concentrating on his task, and Julie restrained the peculiar urge to try to bend down and get a longer, closer look at him. "Would you like a cup of coffee?"
"I'd love one."
Rather than use up what was in the thermos, Julie headed back into the café. "I'll get it for you. How do
you drink it?"
"Black," Zack said, fighting to keep his frustration in check. She was heading southeast from Amarillo, whereas his destination was four hundred miles to the northwest. He stole a glance at his watch and began working even faster. Nearly an hour and a half had passed since he walked away from the
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warden's car, and his risk of capture was increasing every moment he stayed around Amarillo.
Regardless of which way the woman was going, he had to go with her. Putting some miles between himself and Amarillo was all that mattered now. He could ride with her for an hour and double back via a different route later.
The waitress needed to brew another pot of coffee, and by the time Julie returned to her car with the steaming paper cup, her rescuer had nearly finished changing the tire. Snow was already two inches deep on the ground and the biting wind was gathering force, whipping the sides of her coat open and making
her eyes water. She saw him rub his bare hands together and thought of the new job that was waiting for
him tomorrow—if he could get there. She knew jobs in Texas, especially blue-collar jobs, were scarce, and based on his lack of a car, he was probably badly in need of money. His jeans were new, she realized, noticing for the first time the telltale vertical crease down the front of the legs when he stood up.
He had probably bought them in order to make a good impression on his future employer, she decided,
and the thought of him doing that sent sympathy pouring through, her.
Julie had never before offered a hitchhiker a ride; the risks were far too high, but she decided to do it this time, not only because he'd changed her tire or because he seemed nice, but also because of a simple pair of jeans—new jeans. New jeans, stiff and spotless, obviously purchased by a jobless man who was
pinning all his hopes on a brighter future that wasn't going to materialize unless someone gave him a ride at least partway to his destination so he could start to work.
"It looks like you're finished," Julie said, walking up to him. She held the cup of coffee out to him and he took it in hands that were red from the cold. There was an aloofness about him that made her hesitate to offer him money, but on the chance he'd prefer that to a ride, she offered anyway. "I'd like to pay you for changing the tire," she began, and when he curtly shook his head, she added, "In that case, can I give you
a ride? I'm going to take the interstate east."
"I'd appreciate the ride," Zack said, accepting her offer with a brief smile as he quickly reached down and pulled the nylon duffel bags out from under the car. "I'm heading east, too."
When they got into the car, he told her his name was Alan Aldrich. Julie introduced herself as Julie Mathison, but to make certain he realized she was offering him a ride and nothing more, she carefully addressed him the next time she spoke as Mr.
Aldrich. He picked up her cue and thereafter called her
Miss Mathison.
Julie relaxed completely after that. The formality of Miss Mathison was completely reassuring, and so was his immediate acceptance of their situation. But when he remained absolutely silent and distant thereafter, she began to wish she hadn't insisted on formality. She knew she wasn't good at hiding her thoughts, therefore he'd probably realized at once that she was putting him in his place—a needless insult,
considering that he'd shown her only gallant kindness by changing her tire.
They'd been on the road for fully ten minutes before Zack felt the strangling tension in his chest begin to dissolve, and he drew a long, full breath—his first easy breath in hours. No, months. Years. Futility and helplessness had raged in him for so long that he felt almost lightheaded without them. A red car roared past them, cut across their lane to exit the interstate, lost traction, and spun around, missing the Blazer by inches—and then only because the young woman beside him handled the four-wheel-drive vehicle with
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surprising skill. Unfortunately, she also drove too damned fast, with the daredevil aggressiveness and fearless disregard of danger that was uniquely and typically Texan in his experience.
He was wishing there was some way he could suggest she let him drive, when she said in a quietly amused voice, "You can relax now. I've slowed down. I didn't mean to scare you."
"I wasn't afraid," he said with unintentional curtness.
She glanced sideways at him and smiled, a slow, knowing smile. "You're holding onto the dashboard with both hands. That's usually a dead giveaway."
Two things struck Zack at once: He'd been in prison so long that lighthearted banter between adult members of the opposite sex had become completely awkward and alien to him and Julie Mathison had a breathtaking smile. Her smile glowed in her eyes and lit up her entire face, transforming what was merely a pretty face into one that was captivating.
Since wondering about her was infinitely preferable to
worrying about things he couldn't yet control, Zack concentrated on her. She wore no makeup except for a little lipstick, and there was a freshness about her, a simplicity in the way she wore her thick, shiny brown hair, all of which had made him think she was in her late teens or very early twenties. On the other hand, she seemed too confident and self-assured for a twenty-year-old. "How old are you?" he asked bluntly, then winced at the brusque tactlessness of the question. Obviously if they didn't catch him and send him back to prison, he was going to have to relearn some things he'd thought were bred into him—like rudimentary courtesy and conversational etiquette with women.
Instead of being irritated by the question, she flashed him another one of those mesmerizing smiles of hers and said in a voice laced with amusement, "I'm twenty-six."
"My God!" Zack heard himself blurt, then he closed his eyes in disgusted disbelief at his gaucheness. "I mean," he explained, "you don't look that old."
She seemed to sense his discomfiture, because she laughed softly and said, "Probably because I've only been twenty-six for a few weeks."
Afraid to trust himself to say anything spontaneous, he watched the windshield wipers carve a steady half-moon in the snow on the windshield while he reviewed his next question for any trace of the tastelessness that had marred his previous words.
Feeling this one was safe, he said, "What do you do?"
"I'm a schoolteacher."
"You don't look like one."
Inexplicably, the laughter rekindled in her eyes and he saw her bite back a smile. Feeling completely disoriented and confused by her unpredictable reactions, he said a little curtly, "Did I just say something
funny?"
Julie shook her head and said, "Not at all. That's what most older people say."
Zack wasn't certain whether she'd referred to him as being "older" because he actually looked like an antique to her or if it was a joking retaliation for his ill-advised remarks about her age and appearance.
He was puzzling over that when she asked what he did for a living, and he answered with the first occupation that seemed to suit what he'd already told her about himself.
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"I'm in construction."
"Really? My brother's in construction work, too—a general contractor. What sort of construction work do you do?"
Zack barely knew which end of a hammer to use on a nail, and he sorely wished he'd picked a more obscure job or, better yet, had remained completely silent. "Walls," he replied vaguely. "I do walls."
She took her eyes from the road, which alarmed him, and regarded him intently, which alarmed him even more. "Walls?" she repeated sounding puzzled. Then she explained, "I meant, do you have a specialty?"
"Yes. Walls," Zack said shortly, angry with himself for having begun such a conversation. "That's my specialty. I put up walls."
Julie realized she must have misunderstood him the first time. "Drywall!" she exclaimed ruefully. "Of course. You're a drywall taper?"
"Right."
"In that case, I'm surprised you have any trouble finding work. Good tapers are usually in great demand."
"I'm
not
a
good
one," Zack stated flatly, making it clear he wasn't interested in continuing that conversation.
Julie choked back a startled laugh at his answer and his tone and concentrated on the road. He was a very unusual man. She couldn't decide whether she liked him and was glad of his company … or not.
And she couldn't get over the uneasy feeling that he reminded her of someone. She wished she could see his face without those sunglasses so she could figure out who it was. The city vanished in the rearview mirror and the sky turned the heavy, ominous gray of an early dusk. Silence hung in the car and fat snow smacked her windshield, slowly gaining an edge on the car's windshield wipers. They'd been on the road for about a half hour when Zack glanced in the outside rearview mirror on his side—and his blood froze.
A half mile behind them, and closing fast, was a police car with its red and blue lights rotating furiously.
A second later, he heard the siren begin to wail.
The woman beside him heard it, too; she glanced in the rearview mirror and took her foot off of the gas pedal, slowing the Blazer and angling it onto the shoulder. Zack reached into his jacket pocket, his hand
closing on the butt of the automatic, although he had no precise idea at that moment exactly what he meant to do if the cop tried to pull them over. The squad car was so close now, he could see there were not one, but two cops in the front seat. They pulled around the Blazer
…
And kept going.
"There must be an accident up there," she said as they crested the hill and came to a stop behind what looked like a five-mile traffic jam on the snowy interstate. A moment later two ambulances came tearing
around them.
Zack's rush of adrenalin subsided, leaving him shaken and limp. He felt as if he'd suddenly exceeded his
capacity to react with violent emotion to anything whatsoever, which was probably due to his having been trying to execute for two days a carefully thought-out escape plan that should have been a
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guaranteed success by virtue of its sheer simplicity.
And would have been if Hadley hadn't postponed his trip to Amarillo. Everything else that had gone wrong was a result of that. He wasn't sure even now if his
contact was still in his Detroit hotel, waiting for Zack's call before he rented a car to drive to Windsor.
And until Zack was further away from Amarillo, he didn't dare stop to find a telephone. Moreover, although Colorado was only 130 miles from Amarillo, with a tiny piece of Oklahoma's Panhandle in
between, he needed to be traveling northwest to get there. Instead, he was now heading southeast.
Thinking his Colorado map might also contain a small piece of the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles, he
decided to occupy his time productively by looking for a new route from here to there. Twisting around in his seat, he said, "I think I'll have a look at a map."
Julie naturally assumed he was checking his route to whatever Texas town his new job was located in.
"Where are you heading?" she asked.
"Ellerton," he replied, sending her a brief smile as he reached past the folded down back seat for his duffel bag near the tailgate. "I interviewed for the job in Amarillo, but I've never been out to the site,"
he
added so she wouldn't ask questions about the place.
"I don't think I've ever heard of Ellerton." Several minutes later, when he neatly refolded the map with its
typewritten sheet on the top, Julie said, "Did you find Ellerton?"
"No." To dissuade her from asking any further questions about the location of a nonexistent town, he
flashed the typewritten sheet at her as he bent over the seat to put it back into his duffel. "I have detailed instructions right here, so I'll find it."
She nodded, but her gaze was on the exit up ahead.
"I think I'll get off the interstate here and take a side road to get past the accident."
"Good idea." The exit turned out to be a rural road that ran roughly parallel with the interstate then began
angling off to the right.
"This might not have been a good idea after all," she said several minutes later when the narrow blacktop road began to wind steadily further away from the main highway.
Zack didn't immediately reply. At the intersection up ahead, there was a deserted gas station and at the edge of the empty lot near the road was an open phone booth. "I'd like to make a phone call if you wouldn't mind stopping. It won't take more than a couple of minutes."
"I don't mind at all." Julie pulled the Blazer to a stop underneath the street lamp near the phone booth and watched him walk across the headlight's beams.
Dusk had descended even earlier than usual, and the storm seemed to be outrunning them, dumping snow with surprising force, even for the blustery Texas
Panhandle. Deciding to exchange her bulky coat for a cardigan sweater that would be more comfortable while she drove, she turned on the radio, hoping for a weather forecast, then she got out of the car, walked around to the tailgate, and opened it.
With the tailgate down she could hear the Amarillo announcer extolling the wisdom of buying a new car at Wilson Ford:
"Bob Wilson will meet any price, anywhere, anytime…
"
he enthused.
Listening for a mention of the weather, she took off her coat, pulled her tan mohair sweater out of her suitcase, and glanced at the map that was sticking out of his duffel bag. Since she didn't have a map with