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Her face was heart-shaped, her features strong but perfectly proportioned. Full lips marked a wide, expressive mouth that was, at the moment, twisted in some sort of grief. When his gaze moved back to her eyes, he felt himself drowning in the tears blurring her vision.
Pain shot through his gut so fast it left him momentarily breathless. He hated to see a woman cry. They stared at each other, eye to eye, separated by less than a yard. Finally John found his voice.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
Alicia shuddered. His voice sifted through her wounded spirit like cold water on a burn, easing the shock and pain of what she was feeling, if only for a moment.
“No…I, uh…” She swiped at the tears on her cheeks and then threw back her head, unaware that the simple lift of her chin had given her the look of an able opponent, not a victim. “Crap,” she mumbled, her fingers shaking as she tried to pull the nozzle away from the pump. “I need gas.”
Not wanting to lose the connection with her, John moved a step closer.
“Swipe your card. I’ll pump it for you,” he offered.
But Alicia knew that credit card transactions could be traced, and since the last thing she wanted was to let her father know where she was, she hadn’t even brought a card with her.
“Uh…I’m going to pay cash.”
John pointed toward the sign at the pumps. “Then thank the economy for the problem, but they won’t turn on the pump until you’ve prepaid.”
“Yes…of course,” Alicia said, and tried to put the nozzle back on the pump. But her vision was still blurred from tears, and she kept missing the slot.
“Here, let me,” he said softly, then swiped his own card, waited for the approval to come up, then stuck the nozzle in her gas tank.
Alicia took a deep breath. When the stranger moved between her and her car, she suddenly shuddered. In spite of the mess she was in, she didn’t understand the urge she felt to put her hand on the back of his neck. Instead, she began digging through her purse, pulled out a handful of bills and then found herself fixated by a single bead of sweat that had escaped his hairline and was sliding down the jut of his jaw.
Her nostrils flared as the thought of being naked under this man flashed through her mind.
God. Where had that come from?
When the man turned around, Alicia thought that from the look in his eyes, he was on the same page.
“Thank you for your help,” she said, and thrust the handful of bills into his hand.
Before John could respond, another car pulled off the highway and up to the pumps, coming to a stop right behind the woman. He saw her eyes widen and her pupils dilated in shock.
“Oh no. Oh God…He found me.”
Two
John didn’t know who the man was, other than a big bald bodybuilder, but the woman was obviously afraid of him. He made a point of never involving himself in marital discord, but there was no way he was going to lose track of her until he figured out how she fit into the puzzle of the soul he sought. He replaced the nozzle and stepped back to watch from between the pumps as the man continued to approach.
“Get away from me, Dieter,” Alicia warned.
Dieter paused, smiling openly as if to say this was out of his hands.
“Come, come, Alicia, your father wants you to come home.”
“How did you find me?” she asked.
Dieter shrugged. “GPS.”
Alicia’s lips went slack. “You’re not serious. Dad has a tracking device on my car?”
“They’re on all his cars,” Dieter said. “I would have thought you’d known that.”
“It’s obvious I don’t know him nearly as well as I thought I did,” she muttered.
Dieter took a step closer. “So you’ll come with me now?”
Alicia’s pulse skipped as she took a nervous step back. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Oh, but you are,” Dieter said, and lunged, only to find himself suddenly face-to-face with a man who’d come out of nowhere.
Dieter frowned, then looked at Alicia. “Who is this? Is he with you?”
John answered, “Who I am is not what you should be worrying about. I heard the lady tell you to back off at least twice, and you’re not paying attention.”
Dieter jabbed a finger at John, poking him in the chest. “You aren’t part of the equation,” he said. “I take my orders from her father, and he wants her home.”
When John grabbed the finger and twisted it backward, it sent a shooting pain up Dieter’s arm all the way to the back of his jaw. Even worse, it somehow rendered him immobile, and he didn’t know why.
“Ow! Shit! Let me go. Let me go!” he yelled.
But John continued to maintain pressure as he addressed Alicia. “I take it this man isn’t your husband?”
Alicia’s voice was shaking. “No, he works for my father.”
“Did you do something illegal?” John asked.
Alicia rolled her eyes. “No.”
“You’re not wanted by the police?”
“No. Lord, no.”
“I’m assuming you’re of legal age.”
Alicia stifled a snort, which John interpreted as a yes.
“Then I’d say you’re free to do what you want.”
Alicia’s eyes filled with tears all over again.
“I’ll never be free again,” she said, more to herself than to John, but he heard it and knew her peril was working to his advantage.
John looked back at Dieter, whose face was turning paler by the minute.
“Are you going to keep following her?”
“It’s my job,” Dieter moaned, still trying to figure out why he felt numb all over.
“Then I guess she’ll need a head start,” John said, then grabbed Dieter’s neck with his other hand and squeezed. Dieter dropped between the car and the gas pump like a stone.
Alicia shuddered. What had just happened? “I need to hide,” she mumbled, still staring at Dieter’s body.
“Why are you afraid of your father?”
She wiped her hands across her face. “This is a nightmare. Please…I need to get another car and get to a place where he can’t find me until I can figure all this out.”
John exhaled softly. Bingo. Right into his lap.
“I can help.”
Alicia swayed where she stood, then looked up. His eyes were so dark that she couldn’t see the pupils. She shivered. She didn’t know this man from Adam. He could be a serial killer, a sadist—anything. Then she asked herself: Was her father any different? Should she trust the devil she knew or the devil she didn’t?
John felt her pulling away. He had to act fast.
“My name is John Nightwalker. I live about fifteen miles from here, and as you can see, I have a car. You’ll have to leave your car here anyway, and I’ll help you all I can. Just tell me what you need.”
Alicia saw his lips moving, but she’d lost track of his words as soon as he’d said his name. The skin was still crawling on the back of her neck, and she had the strangest urge to cry.
“So…what do you say?” John asked.
Alicia blinked. “Um…I, uh…”
“You can trust me,” he said.
Somehow she knew he was telling the truth.
“Yes, okay.”
John’s pulse skittered, then settled. Was this it? Was this the beginning of the end of his search?
“Better get your things out of your car,” he said.
“What about him?” she asked, pointing to Dieter.
“I’ll take care of that,” he said.
She hurried to get her suitcase. When she turned around, John was pulling a six-pack of beer out of his Jeep. He popped the top of a can and forced Dieter’s lips far enough apart to pour the tepid amber liquid down his throat. At that point Dieter coughed and came to, hacking and spitting. John helped him up, opened the door to Dieter’s car, then squeezed the same nerve on his neck that he’d squeezed before and once again rendered him unconscious.
John grunted softly as he maneuvered the other man into the driver’s seat. Once he had Dieter behind the wheel, he poured the contents of two more cans of beer onto his clothes and then onto the seat, tossed the rest of the six-pack onto the floorboard, then stepped back and shut the door. To the observer, Dieter would now appear to be drunk and passed out in his car.
John turned toward Alicia. “Get in,” he said as he took the suitcase out of her hands and put it in the backseat.
Alicia took a deep breath and looked back down the road on which she’d been traveling. She knew what was behind her. Time to take a chance on what was ahead. Then she looked at John, exhaled slowly and scooted into the passenger seat as John slid behind the wheel.
“Buckle up,” he said, and pulled out onto the highway.
She began fumbling with the seat belt as he picked up his cell phone and punched in a number.
“Police. Whatcha need?”
“Hi, Carl, it’s John Nightwalker. I want to report a situation at Marv’s Gas and Guzzle. There’s an abandoned car at one pump and a drunk passed out in the car behind it. Someone needs to get those two cars towed out of the way so people can get gas when they need it.”
“Is the drunk a local?” Carl asked.
“Nope. Out-of-state license. Don’t know anything more.”
“Figures,” Carl said. “I’ll get someone down there right now. Thanks for calling.”
“No problem,” John said. There was a glint in his eye as he disconnected.
“Thank you,” Alicia said.
John nodded.
At that point, the silence inside the Jeep became uncomfortable. What on earth had she just done? Alicia wondered, realizing how completely she’d given herself over to this man. All she could do was pray she hadn’t put herself into a more dire situation than the one she’d been running from.
“I won’t hurt you,” John said, then turned and caught her staring. Once again, he looked straight into her eyes.
It was a fleeting look, but there was something in it that Alicia found comforting. A second or so later, he turned his attention back to the road, but it was enough for her to relax.
She shivered slightly, then leaned back against the seat as the wind whipped through the windows, putting her long dark hair in disarray. But her appearance was the last thing on her mind. For the first time since she’d starting running, she felt as if she was at least partially in control. Maybe this nightmare was going to have a positive outcome after all.
Richard waited for the phone call from Dieter telling him that he had Alicia and was on the way home, but it never came. He left a scathing message on Dieter’s cell, then left to attend a business dinner, confident that everything was under control and his subordinate was just off the radar for some reason.
Dieter, however, was not as certain. Waking up in jail was the single biggest shock of his life. He’d been in jail before, but he’d always seen it coming. This time, he had no idea how or when—or why—it had happened. He swung his legs off the bunk, swiped his hands across his face, then stumbled to the bars, rattling them to emphasize his demand.
“Hey!” he yelled, then winced. Yelling made his head ache. “Jailer! Jailer! I need to make a phone call. It’s my right. I get to make a call.”
A few moments later, the door across the aisle opened and a tall scrawny man in a khaki uniform sauntered in. Dieter stared. The man was rail-thin with a hawk nose and a big bushy mustache.
“What?” the man drawled.
“I get to make a call! Bring me my cell phone.”
The jailer shrugged. “You use our phone and reverse the charges…understand?”
“I don’t understand anything,” Dieter muttered. “How did I get here?”
“Hauled your drunk ass in, that’s how.”
Dieter frowned. He hadn’t been drinking. He’d been—“Oh hell,” he muttered. Alicia. The big Indian. Richard was going to kill him.
“Here’s the phone,” the jailer said as he thrust a cordless headset through the bars. “Make it quick.”
“Where am I?” Dieter asked, realizing he didn’t even know the address of the jail.
