Maggie's Man (6 page)

And Cain had moved, faster than the man had
expected, faster than Cain had expected. Suddenly he was rage and fury, and the
months of brooding, the months of wondering how his brother could've done such
a thing were simply gone. He was angry, angrier than he'd ever been, and he
shoved the skinhead against the wall so loud the crack silenced the room. Heads
turned.

"I'll say it once, then we're through
here," Cain stated quietly, his arm pressed against the man's Adam's
apple, pinning him to the wall. "I am not my brother. I am not interested
in you. I am an innocent man. But if I catch any of you 'saluting' Kathy's
death, that may change."

He'd abruptly released the smaller man, who
slid down to the floor. The guy hadn't fallen. He'd been wiry, compact and made
from sturdy stock that was used to taking a few beatings. He'd shaken himself
out, then had merely grinned at Cain's dark, fierce expression.

"We're all innocent in here," the guy
had mocked. He'd squared his shoulders. "But buddy, boy did you handle
that poor. We'll cut you slack, being it's day one and all. Next time someone
offers you a cigarette, though, buddy, you'd better take it. You a geeky man, a
white-collar sissy boy. Mess with us, and that is war. College boys can't
afford war, not in here, mister. Not in here."

But the guy had been wrong about that, though
maybe not as wrong as Cain would've liked.

Six years, six years… God, he suddenly felt so
old.

They approached another red traffic light and
he slowed to a halt.

"I'll make a deal with you," he said
at last.

Maggie looked at him sideways, her blue eyes
barely discernible through her hair. "What?" she asked, her voice
clearly wary.

His finger tapped the steering wheel twice.
"Despite what you may think, Maggie, I don't want anyone to get hurt. I
have to get to Idaho—everyone's going to have to accept that—but I'd like to do
it as quietly as possible." He paused to make sure he had her attention.
The light turned green so he started driving again, careful to observe the speed
limit.

"Yes?" she prodded after a minute.

"Let's think about this logically. We're
in Portland, in a state with one of the lowest tax rates. The counties and
cities have constrained budgets—"

"Thanks for the political
commentary."

"It's relevant, Maggie. Consider the chief
of police right now. He has one escaped felon and limited manpower. If you have
limited manpower, how do you deploy it? It's all about tactics—how you position
yourself in the short term. He has tactics. I have tactics to try to outmaneuver
his tactics. What I really need, however, is strategy—a plan for winning the
game."

"What did you do before … well,
before?" she interrupted curiously.

"Computer programming." His hands tightened
reflexively on the wheel. But that had been six years ago. He hadn't been on a
machine since then. The World Wide Web, home pages, web sites, were all things
he'd only read about, when he thirsted so desperately to know, to play, to
understand, to do. He'd missed everything, because it was either that or build
an Aryan Brotherhood home page to help with recruitment. He'd preferred to do
nothing.

Cain took a deep breath. "Back to the chief
of police. He can move cars into the immediate vicinity in hopes they can catch
me holed up somewhere. They probably figure I'm on foot, or I've stolen a
car—"

"They don't think you had an accomplice
for a prison break? A friend?"

His stomach tightened, and something old and
sad twisted in him again. For no good reason at all, he saw his mother standing
at the window of the old log cabin, watching the rain dance in the evergreens
and reaching out her hand wistfully, as if she'd like to catch the rain on her
palm. As a child, he'd never understood that look on her face. Now, he
understood it a lot.

He kept his gaze on the windshield, though his
knuckles had whitened with the force of his grip on the wheel. "No."

"But they don't know that," she
pointed out. "They'll still check with your friends."

"I don't have any friends."

Her eyes blinked several times. "Of course
you do. Everyone has friends."

He glanced at her at last. "I'm a
convicted murderer, Maggie. Just whose Christmas list do you think I'm still
on?"

"Oh," she said weakly. For a moment,
she looked almost sorry for him. He didn't want that. He didn't need that.
"Family?" she suggested at last. "Siblings? I mean … uh … other
than this brother you don't like."

"No."

"Oh. Well, your father then."

"He hasn't spoken to me since the day I
left Idaho."

"Mother?" she asked faintly.

"Died when I was twelve."

"Wife?"

"Never married."

"Not even a girlfriend?"

"I had a girlfriend," he granted her
at last. He turned long enough to gaze at her squarely. "She's the one
they say I murdered."

Sapphire-blue eyes widened. She drew in her
breath so fast it hissed. She simply stared at him, obviously too appalled to
speak.

"Oh," she said at last.

Maggie's gaze swept down to the vinyl seat. He
returned his attention to the road and for that she was grateful. She couldn't
think, she couldn't move. She was handcuffed to a man who'd murdered his
girlfriend. And from the sound of it, he was the classic loner, intellectual
type. Probably obsessive, maybe paranoid as well. And armed. Don't forget
armed.

She was going to die, killed by a man with a
deep, soothing baritone, and she'd always placed a lot of stock in someone's
voice. Had his girlfriend thought the same?

Her free hand clenched and unclenched on her
lap, fidgeting nervously with the hem of her skirt. Her grandmother Lydia, her
father's mother, who'd insisted that Maggie, C.J.
and Brandon spend each summer together on her dairy farm
because otherwise the half siblings would never see one another, had always
told Maggie that she had the famous Hathaway Red hair, which meant she had the
famous Hathaway Red spirit. Someday, Maggie would add to the legend with a
story of incomparable courage and passion just like her
great-great-great-grandmother Margaret for whom she was named.

Lydia had obviously inhaled too much
fertilizer. Maggie had no Hathaway spirit. She was a genetic mutant and she
wanted to go home now.

She stared at the handcuff morosely, then at
the gun tucked in the small of his back. How to get out of the handcuffs. Or
maybe grab the gun. She didn't know anything about guns. Just the noise was
enough to send her running. She chewed her lower lip. No immediate plans flared
to life in her mind. She risked another glance at Cain.

He didn't look immediately dangerous. His
fingers were thrumming against the wheel, his brow furrowed as if he was lost
in great thought. Prison break probably did require a certain amount of
concentration. Or maybe murder did.

"Do you … have you … killed a lot of
women?" she ventured after a bit.

"Women? No. According to the prosecution,
I murdered Kathy because she was sleeping with my brother. They called it a
crime of passion." His lips twisted ironically, his fingers drumming
slightly faster on the wheel.

"Was she?"

"What?"

"Sleeping with your … your brother."

There was a small pause. His face was perfectly
expressionless, not hard, not scowling, not angry, not anything.
"Yes," he said finally. "She was."

"Oh." Her gaze slid from his face to
his hands. His fingers had stopped tapping the wheel. Now he clenched the wheel
tightly and his knuckles had gone white. So he wasn't as calm as he sounded. So
he wasn't so cold. She glanced at him again, wanting to understand more though
she had a feeling she shouldn't.

"And that's why … that's why you think you
have to kill your brother," she finished for him.

He glanced at her, his expression not obsessive
or maniacal. In fact, he looked abruptly tired and worn. "I don't want to
kill him," he said. "I just think it may be the only way."

Maggie didn't know what to say to that and a
strained silence filled the cab.

"You can't imagine it, can you?" he
asked suddenly. "I must sound so insane to you."

"I don't think murder is particularly
sane," she admitted. "It sounds as if your brother and girlfriend
made a mistake. Well, okay, so they betrayed you, and well, that must have hurt
a great deal. But by seeking revenge, you're only prolonging your own pain and
denying yourself a fresh, new future."

"Well said, Maggie, well said."

She risked a brave smile. "So you'll
abandon your quest?"

"No."

"Oh."

He smiled abruptly; she had the strange
sensation that he was toying with her. "Of course, you wouldn't understand
sibling rivalry, would you, Maggie? It sounds as if your brothers are knights
in shining armor who are already riding to your rescue as we speak."

"They'll help," she stated with
absolute confidence. "We're actually half siblings, related through our
father. He disappeared in a plane crash when we were still children, so our
grandmother invited us to her dairy farm in Tillamook for the summer. We'd
never even met until then. C.J. lived in L.A., Brandon lived in London and I
lived in Lake Oswego, Oregon. Our paths never would've crossed—my grandmother
is a very wise woman. By the end of the summer, we'd become so close we took a
vow to always be there for one another. 'One for all, all for one,' that kind
of thing. We've always held to it."

"My brother will come after us, too,"
Cain said at last, his gaze riveted on the windshield. "But not with quite
the same intent."

Cain backtracked abruptly. "But we were
talking about the chief of police." Maggie thought his voice was rough,
but he cleared his throat and when he spoke again, the tones were the cool,
determined tones she'd come to expect. She shook her head, slightly bewildered
by the change in topic. "The chief of police has limited resources,"
Cain continued unperturbed. "He can't barricade the entire city—it would
require too much manpower. So the state police start patrolling I-5 and the city
police scour Portland. Where else do they go, Maggie?"

"I … I don't know."

"Sure you do, it's common sense. Next they
check out logical places for me to go. I have no real supplies or money. It's
not like I had a fancy or sophisticated prison break. I simply insisted on
representing myself for the appeals process. While the prison legal department
handles filing all the affidavits for prisoners, they can't represent me at
trial, only I can. So for my new hearing, I was allowed to go to the courthouse
with just one guard—I was shackled, of course—but for some reason he only did
the leg shackles. Then there came this moment … this completely unplanned,
random moment, when in the corner of the law library where I was doing
last-minute research, the guard decided to bend down and pick up someone else's
trash. I suppose he didn't like litterers. But there he was, bent over, and
there I was, hands free above him. And so I … I hit him. I knocked him out
cold."

Maggie stared at him, aghast. "That's
awful!"

"Yes. Yes it is," he murmured. For a
moment, he looked troubled.

"They'll check in with my old
employer," he continued abruptly, his tone brisk. "That's Beaverton.
We're not headed toward Beaverton, so we should be fine. Next they might try my
old apartment building, but after six years that's a long shot. Which leaves us
with…"

"Your family," she filled in glumly.
"And you are going to Idaho."

"Exactly. You see the problem, Maggie, and
why I took a hostage? On the one hand, I'm escaping. On the other hand, I'm
doing exactly what they expect me to do. Not good strategy on my part."

"It's hopeless then. Give yourself up and
let me go." She smiled at him hopefully.

"I can't."

"You can't?"

"No. I have to get to Idaho. And you're
going to help me do it."

"I am?"

"Yes. You have the map. Think of it,
Maggie. From Portland what's the fastest route to Boise? Head due east on
I-84."

She nodded, and suddenly she realized how much
she was helping him.

"But we didn't do that," she intoned
dully. "We headed south because I said so. But it was purely accidental on
my part! I don't
want
to help you escape."

He shrugged, seeming to think that part was
inconsequential. It probably was to him; he had a gun. "Sure, but heading
south was a good idea, Maggie. I think we'll do it a bit longer. A lot longer.
I think we'll head all the way to Salem, then cut through the Cascades there.
Go through Bend. There will be fewer cops covering a much larger area,
increasing our odds of escape."

"But that will take all day!"

"At least."

"I have cats!" she wailed.