Familiar Escape

Beside the fire she found a Coleman lantern and a tin cup. Closer to the tent was a flashlight lying on a bed of pine needles and beside that a battered ice chest. The police hadn’t bothered to pick up any of Thomas’s gear. She lifted the lid of the chest and found three unopened beers, water, coffee, some apples and bologna. It certainly looked as if Thomas had been camping in earnest.

So far, everything he’d said had checked out, but if he’d set up the campsite as an alibi, of course it would. She was reluctant to enter the tent, and that emotion surprised her. For some reason she felt as if she were invading Thomas’s privacy. Even though he’d requested as much.

“Familiar!” She went to the tent flap. The cat had found plenty to explore. He’d been inside the tent for more than fifteen minutes. “Kitty, kitty.”

The cat sauntered outside with what looked to be part of a newspaper. She knelt to take it and the cat used his paw to point out the date. February 17. It was the Saturday evening that Anna had been killed.

“This doesn’t prove anything.” She folded the paper and put it in her pocket. “Thomas Lakeman could have planted that newspaper. He could have bought it and left it just to attempt to show he was here.” The newspaper didn’t prove a thing, but it was good to have.

The cat gave one cry and began to walk the area. Molly watched him in awe as he created a spiral and worked his way from the inside out, examining the ground, sniffing the grass. She’d never seen a detective, much less a cat, conduct such an intense investigation.

When he paused about twenty yards away, she went to see what he’d found. “A clue?”

Familiar pointed to a hole in the ground. “Snake?” she asked, remembering that her father had always told her that snakes lived in holes. Though she enjoyed the woods, she was wary of the wild creatures, particularly snakes. The motto in Texas was that everything was bigger, and that certainly applied to the rattlers. A timber rattler could grow up to six feet long and as big around as a man’s muscular arm.

The cat left his find and walked to another place. He stared at her until she followed him. Another hole. She frowned, realizing the cat was showing her a pattern.

There were four holes on each side of the square and two larger ones in between. She understood. “A tent. So Thomas wasn’t lying about that. Someone else was camping here.” Why was the cat trying so hard to convince her of Thomas’s innocence? The answer was obvious—because he believed Thomas wasn’t guilty.

“Why would someone kill my sister, steal her baby and set Thomas Lakeman up to take the fall? Why him? If he’s telling the truth, he was just my sister’s friend.”

The cat didn’t have an answer, or if he did he wasn’t saying. But the question throbbed in Molly’s brain. Ever since she’d heard the awful news, she’d asked herself who would hurt her sweet sister. The name that always came up was Darwin Goodman. She didn’t say it, but in her opinion he was awful enough to sell his own child. And if a lot of money were involved, he’d even kill.

“We have to get back to the jail,” she said. “I have another question for Thomas.”

MY PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION supports everything Thomas said at the jail. There is a second campsite where two people slept. And whoever they were, they left in a big hurry. At night. I found some of their gear scattered at the edge of the clearing, which leads me to believe they left before first light. That makes me wonder if they had a reason to be gone. Sure, I have a suspicious mind, but that’s why I’m such a good detective. I don’t let a motive sneak up on me— I like to see it coming.

Call me a trained observer, but I detect a bit of chemistry between Molly and Thomas. She doesn’t trust him, not by a long shot, but she felt something for him. If she hadn’t, she’d never have gone to check out his campsite. One thing I’ve learned as a private dick is to always suspect the worst of human nature. Thomas, though, strikes me as a good man. Molly asked the right question—if Thomas is innocent, why was he set up? I think that’s how we’re going to have to approach this. Thomas is the key.

With that in mind, I hope Miss Molly Marvel doesn’t blow a gasket when she realizes what I have planned.

We’re back at the county lockup. It isn’t the most sophisticated jail I’ve ever seen. In fact, it’s pretty minimum security. They’re treating Thomas like he’s some kind of hardcore felon, but I suspect they leave him pretty much to himself once he’s back in his cell.

It’s a simple lock and key system and I didn’t notice any security monitors. Should be a piece of cake. I just hope Molly can handle it.

“MR. LAKEMAN, why would someone frame you?” Molly asked him.

Thomas found himself sitting in the interview room yet again, with the beautiful brunette seated across from him. A week ago he would have been planning a way to ask her for a date. Now he was hoping not to frighten her so badly she wouldn’t listen to what he had to say.

“I think I was convenient. Anna always turned to me when she was in trouble. There were a few times when she spent the night at my house with Kate. Darwin was drunk and she didn’t want to go home.”

He could see what she was thinking and he shook his head. “Nothing like that happened. Anna and I were friends. Nothing more. You don’t know me at all, but you should know your sister took her marriage vows seriously.”

“And how do you know that?” Molly’s question sounded angry.

“She could have left Darwin and started a new life, but she wouldn’t. She never gave up on her marriage. She was committed to it.” He watched her expression change. Something he’d said wounded her, but he couldn’t figure out what.

“It’s too bad she couldn’t commit to a man who didn’t slap her around.” Molly’s voice was hard.

Thomas swallowed and looked down at his hands. He knew for a fact that Darwin had beaten—not just slapped— Anna. But it would only hurt Molly to think of her sister’s abuse. Better to keep the ugly details to himself.

“So you believe you were just a convenient scapegoat?” Molly asked him.

“What else can I believe? I don’t have a lot of money. I write software for computers. That isn’t the most controversial career.” He saw her look at his hands, the rough callused palms. His face, too, had seen sun and weather. Even though he’d been working indoors for the past two years, he knew he still carried the look of the open range in his features. “Before I got this job I worked as a cowboy on one of the large spreads.” That was as much as he intended to tell her.

“That’s a jump in career choices.”

He thought he detected amusement in her tone, and it burned him. “If I’ve answered all your questions, I’d like to go back to my cell.”

When he stood, the guard was instantly at his side, almost as if he feared Thomas might get a second victim. “I’m done here,” Thomas said, and walked to the door so he wouldn’t have to see the guard and Molly exchange glances.

“Mr. Lakeman, I’m not finished.”

“Lakeman!” The guard stepped in front of him.

Thomas turned back to face Molly, a dare in his eyes. If he hadn’t realized before how much of his rights had been taken, he knew now. He didn’t even have the right to terminate a conversation with a condescending woman. They might make him stay in the room, but he wasn’t going to talk.

To his surprise he saw Molly look down at the table. She understood what had been taken from him. “Guard, Mr. Lakeman doesn’t have to talk to me.” She stood up. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Lakeman.”

MOLLY STOOD in the reception area of the lockup waiting for Familiar. The cat had disappeared the moment she entered the building. Now there was no trace of him. She tried not to appear impatient. What would she answer if someone asked who she was waiting for?

She sat on one of the hard benches set against the wall and tried to gather her thoughts. The bottom line was that she was no closer to finding baby Kate than she had been five hours before. The clock was ticking away and she was useless.

She waited twenty minutes before she stood and walked to the door that led to the cells. It was shut, and above it in large black letters were the words: Authorized Personnel Only. She opened it a crack to see if she could catch a glimpse of Familiar. He’d darted to the left, toward the cells, when the guard had taken her to the interview room on the right.

She thought an alarm might sound when she opened the door, but to her surprise nothing happened. It was going on five o’clock, and the few office workers were preparing to leave. No one seemed particularly interested in what she was doing.

But where was that darn cat?

The door was painfully wrenched out of her hand and she was pushed back into the waiting room by a large man.

“What—”

“Give me your keys!”

At first she didn’t recognize Thomas Lakeman, but when she did, she froze. He was out of his handcuffs and out of his cell.

“Molly, give me your keys!” He increased his grip on her arm enough to startle her out of her shock.

“What’s going on?”

Before Thomas could answer, Familiar appeared from around the corner, jumped onto her purse, and tugged it from her arm. In a flash he’d dug out her car keys and scooted them across the floor to Thomas.

Without ever letting go of her arm, Thomas scooped up the purse, the keys and the cat. Dragging her behind him he ran out the front door of the building.

“I’m sorry,” he said as he pushed her into the passenger seat of her car. In five seconds he was behind the wheel with Familiar right behind him.

Thomas burned rubber as he put the eight-cylinder SUV in reverse and pulled out in front of oncoming traffic. Without a second’s hesitation, he jammed the gas pedal to the floor and the car shot forward as several police officers swarmed out of the building.

“Stop!” an officer cried as he drew his weapon.

Molly felt Thomas’s hand on her neck as he pressed her down. The passenger window exploded and then they were gone. Behind them several panicked drivers had collided, effectively blocking the street.

Molly sat up. She didn’t really believe what had happened. Thomas had escaped from jail. In her vehicle. With her as a hostage. She felt as if adrenaline had been mainlined into her heart.

“It’s going to be okay,” Thomas said, his gaze on the road.

“Are you insane?” she asked.

“Technically, no.” Thomas glanced at her for a second, then turned his gaze back to the road. “I’m not insane, but I am desperate. I just wanted to thank you.”

“Thank me?” She couldn’t believe this. She was his hostage and he was thanking her. She’d almost been hit by a police bullet because of him, and he was thanking her. He was insane.

“I still don’t know how you trained that cat, but I have to hand it to you. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Molly had a sick feeling. Familiar sat between them, his attention totally on the road. She remembered the way he’d pawed the map, insisting that she go to the state park to check out Thomas’s story. The way he’d shown her the tent stake holes. What had he done?

“Any fool knows you can’t train a cat.” She glared at Familiar.

“Somebody trained this one, and whoever it was did one hell of a job.”

“What did Familiar do?” She’d fire him on the spot. She’d buy a cat carrier, stuff him in it and put him on the first plane back to Washington, D.C.

“He was in my cell when I came back from the interview room. I’d seen him around earlier, but I didn’t realize he was your cat until he started to act strange.”

One thing about Familiar—he could certainly act strange when he chose to. “Go on,” she said.

“He walked right out of my cell and went down to where the guard sits. I was watching, just amazed. The cat reached up and snagged the cell key. That quick.” Thomas snapped his fingers. “Then he brought it to me. Thank goodness they haven’t modernized the jail or it would be a different story. As it was, it was just like one of those Wild West shows. I unlocked the cell and walked right out.”

Molly knew better. “It was just that easy until what?”

“Until I had to knock the deputy out.”

“Good grief,” she muttered. “You struck a deputy?”

“He was about to yell and alert the others. I didn’t have a choice.”

She wanted to punch him. “Of course you had a choice. You could have stayed in the cell.”

“Now why would I do that when you went to all that trouble to spring me?”

Thomas took a hard right and headed up into what looked to be high hills or small mountains.

“Where are we going?” For a moment Molly was distracted from her plight by a bigger worry. What did Thomas intend to do with her?

“These are the foothills of the Ozark Mountains. I know some good places to hide out.”

She sighed. “We need to get a couple of things straight right now. I didn’t train the cat to help you escape.” She picked Familiar up and held him so she could stare into his green eyes. “That was his idea all by himself.”

Thomas laughed. “Try telling that to the deputies. I’m sure they’ll get a big laugh as they lock you up.”

“It’s the truth.” She put Familiar down on the seat, suddenly feeling how deep her troubles were. She’d been involved in a felony jailbreak. It didn’t matter that she was an innocent victim. It was her vehicle that had been used for the getaway. No one would ever believe she was innocent.

“The truth doesn’t matter, Miss Harper.”

“I didn’t plan this or help you. I’m innocent.”

He slowed long enough to look directly into her eyes. “Welcome to my world.”

Chapter Three

Thomas knew he’d shocked Molly, but she had to understand the score or she’d get hurt. No matter what her intentions—and if she hadn’t put the cat up to springing him, who had?—she was now involved. He might regret that she’d been dragged into the mess, but he certainly didn’t regret having his freedom. If he was going to prove his innocence, he had to be free to do it. Certainly no one wearing a badge seemed interested in seeking the evidence that would counter the circumstantial case against him.

“Miss Harper, I’m not going to hurt you, but I may need to keep your vehicle.”

Molly stared out the front window as if she’d gone into some kind of trance. Worry etched fine lines around her eyes, and Thomas felt a pang. This woman had lost her sister and her niece. Now, because of him, she was in trouble with the law.

“I’m sorry.” He meant it. “When I can, I’ll let you loose. I’ll call the sheriff’s office and tell them you weren’t involved in the breakout.”

“And they’ll believe you.”

The heavy dose of sarcasm in her tone actually made Thomas feel better. She was a fighter. “Why did you send the cat in to get the key if you didn’t want me to escape?”

The look she shot him would curdle milk. He automatically pressed harder on the gas pedal.

She raised her chin defiantly. “I didn’t send the cat. He went on his own.”

“You’d better come up with something more reasonable than that if you want the deputies to believe you.” It was sort of ironic. They were both at a place where their stories were “too convenient.” “Look at it from my perspective. You show up out of the blue and insist on talking to me. You come back twice in one day. And the second time, while we’re talking, the cat is casing the joint to plot an escape. Doesn’t that seem like you might have planned it? Heck, even the idea that a cat obeys your command is hard to believe. But that the cat planned it? Get a grip.”

He could see she understood, even if it was against her will. It was easier for her to be angry at him than it was to think how her own actions had put her in jeopardy.

“I didn’t plan a thing except for a talk with you.” She nudged the cat. “That’s what I get for listening to him. He insisted we go to the campsite. He found the place where those other campers pitched a tent. He’s your biggest supporter and fan.”

Thomas chuckled. He couldn’t help it. In another time and place he’d think about calling the men with the white coats for a woman who spoke about a cat as if he were human.

She slumped deeper into her seat. “You’re laughing at me like I’m a nut.”

He wisely kept his mouth shut and focused on the road. The sun had set behind the hills, and the blue-gray of twilight had turned the trees into stark black silhouettes. It was the most beautiful and the saddest time of day to him.

“Familiar is a private investigator.” She spoke softly, as if she didn’t believe the words. “I hired him yesterday and picked him up at the airport in Shreveport, Louisiana, this morning.”

He chanced a look. She’d really blown a fuse—she thought the cat was a detective. “You picked him up? Like at the baggage claim?”

“He flew in from D.C. First class. I hired Familiar to find Kate. He’s got a résumé that includes solving murders, kidnappings and busting international crime rings. All he’s done here is involve me in a jailbreak with the man charged with my sister’s murder.” Now it was her turn to laugh.

As Molly grew quiet, Thomas turned on the SUV’s lights. They cut a broad path through the gathering darkness, and to his left he saw a herd of white-tailed deer grazing. The light was poor, but he thought they were all does, the females who’d managed to survive the most recent season of hunting.

Thomas failed to see the sport in it when the hunter had a high-powered rifle, scopes that practically sighted the gun, a four-wheeler to cover ground, and walkie-talkies to conspire with his buddies. There wasn’t much sport in killing an animal whose only defense was flight.

“You look like you could spit nails,” she commented. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I was thinking about hunters.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to try to understand how your mind works.” She sat up taller. “Where are you taking me?”

“I have a friend who has a cabin. It’s a bit primitive, but you’ll be warm and safe.”

“Can’t you just let us out of the car? We’re a thousand miles from nowhere. I haven’t seen another car for the last hour. If you let Familiar and me out, it’ll take us two days to walk back to civilization.”

He considered it. “No.”

“Why not? You say you don’t intend to hurt us.”

“Something bad could happen to you.”

She raised her hands in disgust. “Something other than being taken hostage by an escaped murderer?”

“I’m not a murderer. I’m falsely charged. And I don’t consider this a dangerous situation because I won’t hurt you.”

“I’m supposed to take your word for that.”

“Look.” He was getting annoyed. “You don’t have any choice but to take my word. There are wild animals in these woods. Normally they avoid humans, but it would be my luck that I would put you out and a mountain lion would eat you. Now let me drive. It’s dark. The road has gotten narrow. I haven’t been back here in the past five years, and I don’t want to get lost. We have only a quarter tank of gas.”

Those words silenced her, and Thomas’s thoughts turned to the real danger of their situation. If they ran out of gas up in this area, they might wait around for days before anyone happened along. February wasn’t a big camping month and though the weather was mild now, a blizzard could pass through and they could easily freeze to death.

They wound higher into the hills, and Thomas had the sense that they’d entered a tunnel of trees. No stars were visible through the thick canopy of limbs. During the day it was beautiful. At night it felt a bit claustrophobic.

“Have you thought far enough ahead to figure out what you’re going to do?” she asked. “You’re free, but you don’t have a life. You can’t go back to your home. You can’t go to your job. What are you going to do?”

He didn’t have a specific plan, but he had an answer. “I’m going to prove my innocence. And I’m going to find Kate, if she’s alive. I’ve been sitting in that jail cell since Anna was killed. I haven’t had a chance to look for Kate. Now I will.”

Her voice was softer. “Do you believe she’s alive?”

As much as he wanted to lie to her, he had to tell the truth. “I don’t know. I want to believe she’s okay, but the sheriff has everyone convinced that she’s dead. He must have found something at the scene to make him so sure.”

“Has anyone talked to Darwin?” she asked.

He shook his head. “He wouldn’t talk to me. We had a heated set-to at my arraignment. I accused him of killing Anna and he screamed at me and accused me of killing his wife and baby. It was high drama on his part.”

“He was acting?”

“Darwin hardly knows me, but I think he knows I didn’t hurt Anna or Kate. We had words a few months ago after he’d hit Anna and she came to my house. He wanted to say we were having an affair, but I straightened him out.” His hands tightened on the wheel as he remembered. “I wanted to punch his lights out, but I couldn’t. I might’ve had a moment’s satisfaction, but Anna would have lost the only safe place she had to go.”

“You said high drama. Why would he accuse you of killing her?”

“He didn’t want the cops looking at him. I was the perfect scapegoat, and he played it to the hilt. How well do you know him?”

“The first time I met him was at the wedding.” Molly cleared her throat. “He was crude and awful. I guess I wanted my sister to have that fairy-tale love story—the prince on a white horse who would rescue her and love her and take care of her. Darwin was about as far from that as anyone can get. He married Anna for her inheritance. And when he went through all of her money, he started hitting her.”

“He’s a real charmer.”

“How often did you see Anna? Thomas, you have to tell me the truth. I have to know the facts if I’m going to figure out what happened to Katie.”

Thomas knew she was asking how often her sister received a beating at the hands of her husband. Earlier he’d tried to protect her from the truth about her sister’s abuse, but now he felt he had to tell her. “Anna came by sporadically, either when she was really happy or really scared.”

The dash light of the SUV gave Molly’s face a soft illumination, and he saw the tear trace down her cheek. She was hearing some hard things, but if she wanted to find Katie, she would have to hear a lot more.

He kept his gaze on the road as he talked. “About once a week Anna would come over because she was afraid. Either he’d already hit her or he’d threatened to hit her.”

“When she was pregnant…”

“Toward the end he just slapped her. He had some restraint. He never took it far enough to break a bone or do any permanent damage. It was more about bullying Anna, about breaking her down. The emotional pain was far worse than the physical.”

Now Molly’s tears flowed in earnest. He slowed the vehicle, but she waved him on. “I’m okay,” she said. “I just wish she’d called me. I suspected she was unhappy, but whenever I spoke to her, she said she was happy and for me to mind my own business.”

“It was so important to her for you to believe she was a success. That she’d made the right choice.” Thomas thought about the conversations he’d had with Anna. “She felt like a failure. She was the college dropout, the one who couldn’t get it right. She knew she’d worried your mom a lot. After your mother died, she felt like she had to prove to you that she was smart and strong and able to manage her own life.”

“You see how well that went.”

“There was nothing you could have done. Honestly. I tried. I begged her to leave Darwin, to take Kate and start over fresh. I offered her money, contacts, whatever she needed. She wouldn’t go.”

“She was hardheaded like that.”

“Anna looked up to you. She talked all the time about her sister, Molly, about how talented you were and how you were living in Arizona on an Indian reservation and helping the tribes market their jewelry and crafts.” She wasn’t crying any longer, but in the quick glance he shot her, he could see the pain on her face. Thomas wanted to ease her suffering. He knew enough about loss to know that a few well-placed words could last a lifetime. “Anna admired you so much. She said you’d gotten all the strength in the family. That you didn’t need a husband or anyone. She thought that was great.”