Lost and Found (6 page)

"I hit him with the door." Babs tapped the brakes in token respect to the stop sign and pulled onto the highway. "I may have killed him." She was aware of Sam's eyes slanting toward her.

"I doubt it. Even if you did, I wouldn't waste too much time feeling guilty about it. You can bet he wouldn't have lost any sleep over killing you."

"I suppose."

Sam twisted to look out the back window. "They're following us. What the hell!" He grabbed for the armrest as the truck skidded into a right turn and shot down an alley barely wide enough to avoid scraping the paint.

"I've got to lose them." Babs spun left out of the alley. Sam closed his eyes as she made another squealing turn that threatened to overturn them.

"Look, don't get us killed. The idea is to avoid getting killed."

"Don't worry. I took a stunt-driving course a couple of years ago."

"Oh, great. Every bone in my body is broken. There's a car full of goons on our tail who'd like nothing better than to break a few more. And I'm stuck with someone who's had driving lessons from some suicidal maniac who tries to kill himself for a living. Just great. Look out! Didn't you see that car?"

"I saw it. I didn't hit it, did I?" She appeared to feel that was answer enough. Sam shut his eyes again. There were times when it was best not to face danger head-on.

The truck squealed around a corner, throwing him against the door. He swallowed a groan of pain, convinced that every breath was going to be his last. What did a few more bruises matter when he was going to die? Another quick turn and then they picked up speed. Sam opened his eyes, wondering if she'd speeded up because they were going the wrong way down a one-way street. From what he'd seen of her driving style so far, that seemed a likely explanation. They were on the highway. Wide open road stretched out in front of them.

"Great place to hide. They'd never suspect us of leaving town." He hurt in too many places to put much sarcasm behind the words.

Babs glanced in the rearview mirror. "I think I lost them a couple of turns ago. Besides, we couldn't dodge them in that little town forever."

"True." Sam leaned back against the seat. She looked at him, her eyes dark with concern.

"Are you all right? Do you need a doctor?"

He shook his head and then wished he hadn't. It hurt to move. In fact, it hurt to breathe. "I don't need a doctor. Just get us someplace where I can lie down and I'll be fine."

"You look awful."

"Thank you." His tone closed the conversation.

Babs drove in silence, watching the rearview mirror for any sign of pursuit, stealing glances at her silent companion. She didn't know if he'd fallen asleep, passed out or just didn't want to talk. Whichever it was, it left her with quite a few questions she didn't have answers for.

What she really wanted to do was find a nice quiet corner and cry herself to sleep. Maybe when she woke up this whole thing would turn out to be an extended nightmare. Of course, if it was a nightmare, then Sam Delanian didn't exist. Glancing at his still figure, she discovered that she wanted him to exist. She didn't want to wake up and find that she'd dreamed him.

She bit her lip, focusing her eyes on the road again. It was stress. That was what made him so oddly appealing. He'd saved her life and it was only natural that she would be grateful to him, but that's all it was. It had nothing to do with waking up in his arms this morning; or the way his eyes could laugh when the rest of his face was still; or the way his muscles rippled beneath his skin; or the thick lock of hair that was inclined to fall onto his forehead, filling her with an urge to push it back. She was grateful to him, that was all.

It was almost noon when she drove into a town considerably larger than the one they'd left behind. She pulled into a motel, parking the truck in back of the building where it couldn't be seen from the street. Not that it had done them a whole lot of good the last time but it was a simple precaution.

Sam roused when she shut off the engine, dragging himself into a more upright position and looking around, his eyes glazed with pain. "Where are we?"

"I don't know. Some town a couple of hours away from the last one. I'm going to get us a room."

"Okay." He caught her hand before she could slide out of the truck. "Be careful." His eyes held hers for a long steady moment. For some reason, Babs felt breathless. She nodded and slid out of the truck without speaking.

Twenty minutes later she was back with a room key. When she opened the door of the truck, Sam didn't move and, for one awful instant, visions of fatal internal bleeding flashed through her head.

"Sam?"

He twitched and opened his eyes, staring at her blankly for a moment. "You don't have to whisper. I haven't died."

Babs flushed. He'd read her thoughts with unnerving accuracy.

"I've got us a room."

"Good." He pulled himself into a more upright position and Babs found herself wincing for him. "No one recognized you, did they?"

"Why should they? I've never been here before." She put her hand under his elbow, bracing him.

"Your picture has been in every paper in the country."

"It was probably a bad likeness."

"Actually, it wasn't all that bad." He grunted as his feet hit the ground.

"I'm surprised Aunt Dodie didn't give them my high-school graduation picture." Babs slid her arm around his waist, urging him forward.

"What's wrong with your high-school graduation picture?" The irrelevant conversation distracted him from the ache that seemed to have invaded every bone in his body.

"I looked like I had just swallowed a tablespoon of alum. My face was all squinched up." She fumbled with the room key for a moment before getting the door open. Sam stepped forward as she found the light switch. He stumbled slightly on the doorjamb and Babs threw her arm around his waist, feeling his groan more than hearing it. "Let's get you to a bed."

Sam said nothing as she guided his stiff footsteps to the nearest bed and eased him down on it. His breath left him on a long sigh of relief. He caught her hand when she would have moved away. Babs stared down at him, caught by the brilliant blue of his eyes.

"I'm supposed to be rescuing you, remember?"

He looked terrible. There was a scrape high on one cheekbone, his nose was swollen, his lower lip was badly split. He looked like a man who'd been in a fight with a Mack truck and lost. Funny how her heart seemed to skip a beat when she looked at him. She smiled, the shakiness of it reflecting her own tension. Without volition, her fingers reached out and smoothed back the heavy lock of black hair that curled against his forehead.

"Consider it a fair trade in the rescuing department."

Sam gave her a half-smile, his battered face stiff. "I guess I don't have much choice, do I?"

"None at all."

T
he sound of his boot heels hitting the polished parquet echoed in the huge hallway. At another time, Emmet Malone might have paused to exchange stares with the portrait of his grandfather that hung on one wall, dominating the entryway. The resemblance between the two men was strong. Stubborn chins, gray eyes that held a little too much restlessness. It amused Emmet to know that, of all Carlisle Malone's descendants, he was the one who looked the most like him. It amused him because it galled the rest of the family and anything that shook them off their stuffy little perches, even for a moment, was worth a laugh.

But he wasn't thinking about familial resemblances at the moment. At the moment, he was thinking about his niece—the only person in his entire family he felt was worth a plug nickel. His brother's only child was the one reason he even bothered keeping in touch with the rest of his family. Now she'd been kidnapped and he wanted to know why no one had felt it necessary to inform him.

He crossed the hall with quick strides, waving off the butler who'd heard the door open and scuttled into the hallway, still shrugging into his jacket. The sight of the man annoyed Emmet. Not that he had anything against him personally. It was what he symbolized: a clinging to a way of life that was dead and gone, never to return.

He shoved open the library door, knowing the family would be gathered there in this predinner hour. It was another of the senseless traditions that had driven him to leave home at an early age. The San Andreas Fault could open up and swallow the entire city of Los Angeles but the Malone family would still meet for their predinner drinks and "conversation." In his experience, the conversation was inclined to consist of various family members sniping at each other.

Just as he'd expected, they were all gathered in the huge room. At his entrance, conversation stopped dead and they all looked at him. Emmet took his time, allowing his gaze to move from one to the other without speaking. He might have opted out of running the family holdings but he knew the value of intimidation and he used it now.

His cousin Dodie sat on a delicate Queen Anne chair, her too-large frame looking at odds with the exquisite furniture. Lionel was buried in an enormous leather chair that dominated him, not so much physically as mentally. It was a sad commentary that Lionel Davis was incapable of dominating anything, including a piece of furniture.

Their son, Lance, leaned in his favorite position against the mantel, his chiseled profile shown to good advantage. Emmet felt his upper lip quiver. Of all of them, he despised Lance the most. From the time he was a boy, he'd opted for the easy route, living off the trust fund, never bothering to do a day's work.

Bertie and Clarence sat side by side on a sofa that matched Dodie's chair, their elderly faces turned toward him with matched expressions of surprise and vague alarm. As usual, neither of them had much idea of what was going on.

Emmet let his presence sink in, drawing out the moment until the tension in the room could be felt. And then he smiled. Not the wide grin his friends might have recognized but a predatory, ominous smile reminiscent of a tiger eyeing a particularly juicy native.

"What a surprise to find you all here." He shut the huge door behind him and walked into the room, stopping in the center of the vast sea of Persian rug that covered polished maple flooring.

"Emmet. Er.. .ah.. .nice to see you. It's been a while." That was Lionel—as usual trying to pour oil on water already far too turbulent for weak stomachs.

"Emmet." Dodie nodded her head regally but not before he'd seen the flicker of uneasiness in her eyes.

"Well, if it isn't the great white hunter. Brought back any new trophies?" Lance swirled his cognac.

"Careful, Lance. Sneering will give you wrinkles. And when all you've got is your face, you'd better take good care of it." Lance's mouth tightened and his eyes spoke his dislike but he didn't say anything more.

"Look, Clarence, it's Emmet." As usual, Bertie was a few beats behind the rest of the world.

"I see that it's Emmet." Clarence's tone held an edge of temper, like a grumpy old dog whose nap has been interrupted just so he could shake hands with someone.

"Aunt Bertie, Uncle Clarence. I see you haven't changed." Emmet's smile lost some of its edge when he looked at them. Somehow, the world had lost track of

Bertie and Clarence and he had a feeling it was far too late to try to bring them up-to-date now. He turned his attention to Dodie, his eyes chill.

"I read in the newspaper that Babs has been kidnapped."

"That's right. It's a terrible thing. We've all been very traumatized by this."

"I think it's strange that I had to find out about my niece's kidnapping through the newspapers." He crossed over to the bar. The quiet tinkle of ice hitting a glass sounded loud in the stillness. He poured a healthy dose of Chivas Regal before turning to look at his family, leaning one hip against the maple of the bar. "Don't you think it's strange?"

"Naturally, we wanted to get hold of you but we were under the impression that you were off on some trip to the Amazon or the Zambezi or some such place."

"As a matter of fact, I was rafting on the Colorado."

"There." Lionel's voice expressed his relief. "You see, we couldn't have gotten in touch with you there. Don't imagine they have phones in those raft things, do they?" His smile faded under his wife's withering glance.

"Did you even try to contact me?" The silence gave him his answer. He took a swallow of his scotch, letting the silence stretch. "Have they made any demands yet?"

"Who?" Lionel stared at him, his eyes reminding Emmet of a trapped rabbit.

"The kidnappers. Who else would I be talking about?"

"Oh, the kidnappers. Of course, of course."

"Of course. Have the kidnappers made any demands?" Emmet spaced the words clearly, sensing an undercurrent he didn't understand.

"Why should they make demands? They were very well paid." Bertie tugged at her shawl, tangling the long fringes, her soft brow puckered in a frown.

"What?"

"What Bertie means is that they are undoubtedly expecting to be very well paid." Dodie jumped in, speaking just a little too quickly, a little too loudly.

"I don't think that's what Bertie meant at all. Was it Bertie? Just what did you mean?"

Bertie stared at him, her eyes reflecting her uneasiness. "Mean? I don't know what you mean 'what did I mean.' I didn't mean anything at all. Nothing. I don't think."

"What's going on?" He pinned Dodie with a sharp look. She met his eye without flinching.

"I don't know what you mean. The kidnappers haven't made a demand yet so, really, we don't know much more than what you read in the papers."

Emmet looked around the room. They were hiding something. He could smell it. The question was: what was it? And he knew exactly how to find out. There was always one weak point in any wall. His eyes settled on Bertie and his smile made her give a vague squeak of dismay.

It took him less than five minutes to get enough out of Bertie so that Dodie had to give up and tell him the whole story.

"We really had no choice. When Babette threatened to talk to Finney, we had to stop her. You know the terms of the will, even though you were cut out of it."

Dodie looked at him, as if expecting him to agree that they'd done the only logical thing.

"So you had her kidnapped. You've let her think that she's in the hands of criminals who may kill her whether they get the money or not."

Dodie shifted uneasily beneath the building anger in his voice. "We were all upset by the thought that Babette might suffer some worry but she really left us no choice. Naturally, we instructed the men we hired to treat her well."

"Well, that was gracious of you. Very Malone, Dodie. The Malones are nothing if not gracious. They may stab you in the back. They may mooch money from you. But they're ever gracious."

"Really, sarcasm is un—"

"Shut up." It was probably the first time in her entire life that anyone had told Dodie to shut up. She gaped, her mouth dropped open and she stared at her cousin, looking like a carp thrown up on dry land.

Emmet ignored her. He stalked from one end of the room to the other, needing some outlet for the rage that bubbled inside him. He kept thinking of how frightened Babs must be. His niece was a gutsy little thing but kidnapping was enough to make anyone nervous. He spun around, staring at his family. They stared back, with varying expressions of uneasiness.

"The problem with you people is that you're a bunch of parasites. Not one of you has ever done a decent day's work. You hung on Great-grandfather's coattails and then you hung on Caldwell's. Funny, he was quick enough to boot me out of the family for marrying the wrong woman but he never had the sense to throw all of you out on your butts. Not one of you is worth spit.

Babs is the only member of this family that's worth a thing but she's got one weak spot."

He paused, his eyes pinning each of them in turn. None of them quite met his eyes. "She's kindhearted. I told her to cut you loose years ago but she wouldn't do it. She said you needed her. Hah! You never gave a damn about her unless you needed money."

His fierce gaze settled on Dodie. "When Earl and Lenore died, you took a frightened little girl and tried to regiment her into your ideal of a Malone daughter and you've never forgiven her for being too damned strong for you to break.

"Well, you've pushed too far this time. Babs should have gone to the police. I'd like nothing better than to see the whole lot of you in jail."

"Jail!"

"Now, really, Emmet."

"What does he mean, Clarence?"

"Emmet, my dear fellow, I really think perhaps you've misunderstood our motives." For once, it was Lionel's voice that prevailed above the babble. No one could have been more surprised than he was. "I mean, no one meant Babette any harm. No harm at all. Besides, she's not even with the men we hired anymore."

"Then where is she?"

"Er... well, actually, we're not quite sure of that. A gentleman called and said he'd rescued her. He said he was a friend of yours. A Sam Delanian?"

"Sam has her?" Emmet's frown lightened a fraction and Lionel dabbed at his forehead with a linen handkerchief.

"When did you talk to Sam? Where is Babs?"

"Your friend called yesterday."

"So where are they? They should have been here by now."

Dodie sniffed. "Actually, I suggested to Mr. Delanian that it might be quite profitable for him to keep Babette away for a few days."

"You bitch." The flat words had more impact than if he'd shouted them from the rooftop. Dodie blanched, her eyes dropping away from the contempt in his. Lionel stared at his hands. Lance looked as though he might say something and then changed his mind and continued to stare broodingly into the empty fireplace. Bertie and Clarence looked confused, as usual.

"If she's with Sam then he'll take care of her. God knows, she's safer with him than she is with the lot of you."

He turned his back to the family and picked up his Scotch and downed it in a gulp, as if to wash a nasty taste out of his mouth. It was Lionel who broke the tense silence—more afraid of what Emmet might do than he was of his current anger.

"You're... ah... not thinking about calling the police or anything hasty like that, are you? I mean, it would be best for everyone if we kept it all in the family. Scandal and all, you know." His voice trailed off, his eyes shifting nervously when Emmet turned to look at him.

"I don't really care what's best for the family. As far as I'm concerned, nothing would make me happier than to see all of you rotting in San Quentin. It's too bad they closed Alcatraz."

Lionel paled and dabbed at his forehead, his hand shaking. Emmet let the silence stretch, giving them all a chance to think about what he'd said. Even Clarence and Bertie looked worried.

"No, I'm not going to the police." His upper lip lifted at the visible wave of relief that ran through the room. "I'm not doing it for your sakes or the sake of 'family.' I'm doing it for Babs's sake. This would cause a hell of a scandal and she'd be right in the middle of it."

"If she hadn't been so unreasonable about the paintings, none of this would have been necessary. In a few more days, Mr. Stefanoni will be going back to Italy and this will all be settled."

Emmet barely looked at Lionel. "If you weren't so damned stupid, you might be dangerous. This whole plan goes beyond dumb to downright insanity. Do you really think Stefanoni isn't going to figure out that you sold him fakes? He's not going to be amused. I'll go talk to him and see if I can pull your fat out of the fire this time but only for Babs's sake."

He walked to the door and opened it before turning to sweep them all with one last contemptuous look. "You'd better hope to God that nothing happens to her or I'll fit you all for cement boots myself."

He stalked into the hall, almost running over the butler who was on his way in to announce dinner. Emmet threw open the front door and stepped out into the fresh air, drawing in a deep lungful. God, he felt as if the very air in that house was tainted. He stared at the evening sky, thinking about his niece. Thrusting his fingers through thick gray hair, he walked down the steps. She'd be all right. Sam Delanian was a good man. He'd take care of her.