Читать книгу The Lawman Meets His Bride - Meagan McKinney, Meagan McKinney - Страница 10

The phone rang a second time, a third. With every ring, Constance could feel her body stiffen. The ache to grab it and scream for help was smothered by the fear of the gun in Loudon’s pocket. Every ring was torture.

It was Beth Ann, or someone else in her family, checking up on her as she’d requested. By now they would have already called her house, too. Obviously, Constance told herself, the only option was not to answer. That alone would set her family in motion trying to find her.

But she underestimated her captor’s shrewdness. He evidently didn’t trust her complacency.

“Answer it,” he ordered her.

At the same time he grabbed the steering wheel with one hand.

He spoke quickly. “I know you figure by now that I won’t shoot you. You’re right about that. But I swear by all things holy—you send even one hint to that caller, and I’ll dump both of us into that ditch just like that.”

Steep runoff ditches ran along both sides of the road, and the Jeep was moving at fifty-five miles per hour. She knew he could well be bluffing. But he jerked the wheel to warn her, and her heart missed a beat when they nearly swerved into the ditch.

“Answer it,” he ordered tersely as the phone continued to burr. “And no tricks.”

She fished the cell phone out of her purse. Loudon leaned his head close to hers, listening in.

“Hello?”

“God, ’bout time you answered, pokey,” Beth Ann’s voice complained. “What took you so long?”

When Constance hesitated, Loudon again jerked the wheel. The Jeep’s tires spewed gravel when they brushed the narrow shoulder. She felt her throat tighten with fear.

“I was passing two logging trucks,” she ad-libbed. “I had to wait until I got around them.”

“Oh. How’d it go? Did the guy buy the old Hupenbecker place?”

“He’s still debating, I guess.”

“Sure took you long enough. Is he cute?”

The Jeep hit a slight dip, and Loudon’s cheek brushed hers. She felt the rough masculine feel of his beard shadow. She forced herself to keep her tone light.

“Boys are cute, little sis. Men are handsome.”

“Well, is he handsome?”

“Can’t say,” Constance replied reluctantly but truthfully.

“Woo-woo! Are you still there with him?”

Constance took a sideways glance at Loudon. He shook his head and mouthed the word, no.

“No,” Connie whispered.

“Can’t hear you! We must have a bad connection.” Fuzz backed up Beth Ann’s assessment. “Well, at least the guy wasn’t an ax murderer. I gotta go now. I’m baby-sitting for the Campbells. Later, skater.”

Constance felt her heart sink as she put the phone away. If anything did happen to her, it was Friday and no one would be likely to seriously worry about her absence until Monday when her business associate, Ginny Lavoy, would miss her.

Another hazard, she thought bitterly, of having no love life. There was no one to miss you right away.

“‘Can’t say,’” Loudon repeated, a trace of whimsy mixed with his exhausted tone. “That’s a left-handed compliment if I ever heard one.”

“I didn’t mean to give you even a left-handed one,” she said, dead hope in her voice.

Loudon smirked and checked his watch. “Bad news travels fast,” he told her, turning on the radio to catch the top-of-the-hour news broadcast out of Helena.

The national news came first, the usual litany of political squabbling and natural-disaster news caused by abnormally warm ocean currents. Then the announcer turned to state news.

“The sound of gunfire erupted today at the Federal Court Building in Kalispell. Quinn Loudon, Assistant U.S. Attorney, literally blasted his way to freedom when U.S. Marshals attempted to place him under arrest. Loudon had appeared for pretrial proceedings stemming from charges of bribery and racketeering.

“According to witnesses, during the exchange of fire Loudon was wounded in one leg. He successfully eluded officials and escaped from Kalispell. A massive manhunt is presently underway, according to federal prosecutor Dolph Merriday.

“‘Quinn Loudon has lived a life of deceit,’” Merriday told reporters during a press conference only hours ago, ‘so today’s actions are no real surprise.’ According to Merriday, even Loudon’s superiors at the Justice Department did not realize Loudon’s parents were both career criminals who served long prison sentences.

“‘We caught him in the act, so he blasted up a courthouse to get free,’ Merriday added. ‘But his kind always foul their nests sooner or later.’”

The story was over in thirty seconds and the announcer moved on to other news. Constance felt a sudden numbness at the mention of Loudon’s criminal parents. While nothing in the news story actually contradicted anything he had told her, it lent an official—and damning—authority to the notion that he was a very dangerous felon.

Loudon turned the radio off, cursing softly.

“Well that flat does it,” he declared bitterly. “The bastards broke the knife off in me this time.”

Flat does what, she wondered, frightened by the desperation in his tone.

Loudon lapsed into a brooding silence.

Lance Pollard was right, he told himself. The case against him was indeed all smoke and mirrors.

Unfortunately, a cynical proverb he’d learned in law school was also true: No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people. Smoke and mirrors were enough to convict a man. Well, no doubt Schrader and Whitaker were dancing on his grave already. But damn them, anyway. He wasn’t in it just yet.

Constance had said nothing. Now, as he fell quiet, the awkward silence became unbearable.

“Now, at least, I understand your steamroller methods,” she told him. “This is obviously a very big deal if it led the state news.”

“I know what you’re thinking. There were two unpleasant details I left out of my story to you. Two details called my mother and father.”

The bitterness and hurt in his voice made her think of the pain Doug Huntington had caused her. What if she had been branded a criminal because she slept with one?

“Since when did children get automatic criminal status from their parents?” she asked coolly.

“They don’t. It was a cheap shot by Merriday.”

“Yes. And besides, you deserve credit for having done a lot in the criminal world all by yourself.”

He flinched. Then he almost laughed. “You are one difficult woman. And your damned sense of fair play only makes what I’m doing right now that much more reprehensible. Truly I’m sorry, Miss Adams, I really am. I just…I had no choice but to drag you into this. They didn’t mention on the radio that Sheriff Cody Anders is missing either. I don’t want to go missing like he did, so it’s got to be this way.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered bitterly, not looking at him.

“You still don’t believe me, right?” he pushed.

“No,” she admitted.

After a long silence, he replied inexplicably, “Good girl. You didn’t even know me until a little while ago.” His voice almost seemed to be fading like a weak radio signal.

They passed through the bright glow of a yard light, and she noticed the haggard pockets under his eyes.

He’s exhausted, she thought, and he’s probably lost a lot of blood.

Even as she felt pity welling inside her, a more practical side of her warned against it. Ask every convict in a prison, and he’ll swear he’s innocent, she reminded herself. This was not a field trip they were on; she was his unwilling hostage.

He lapsed into silence, either dozing or close to it. She watched the blacktop streak past under the headlight beams, trying not to dwell on Dolph Merriday’s troubling words: Quinn Loudon has lived a life of deceit.

Constance wasn’t sure how long her passenger had dozed. She suddenly started when his voice abruptly ended the quiet inside the Jeep.

“Where are we?”

“About ten miles west of Bighorn Falls.”

“Is that all?” he complained.

“I’m driving the nighttime speed limit. Would you like me to go faster?”

“No,” he said irritably. Montana state troopers were notoriously vigilant after dark.

“You insisted on taking the back roads to Billings,” she reminded him. “This route is far less direct.”

“I know what I said,” he snapped at her.

He was awake, but his voice sounded exhausted. Something occurred to her.

“Have you eaten anything today?”

“No, but we can’t stop anywhere. I can’t risk it.”

“There’s a few granola bars in the glovebox,” she told him.

He handed her one, too, and they both ate in silence for a few minutes.

Constance was the first to break it.

“You mentioned something about having an ‘ace in the hole’ in Billings. May I ask what it is?”

When he answered, his voice had lost its snappish tone. “I’d better not get too specific with you. You’ll be going to the police eventually. And you may end up being grilled by the same goons who’re trying to put handles on me.”

“I take your point.”

“Now you’re catching on. Actually I doubt if what I have is an ace. But with luck, maybe it’ll turn out to be a king or a jack. So far it’s my secret. All on my own, I was putting together a case against…the two men who are trying to set me up. I kept my efforts secret because I was afraid to jeopardize security until I have some idea just how high up the corruption goes.”

Quinn thought about how one secretly obtained court order had allowed him to painstakingly assemble a damning paper trail from phone and financial records. As huge amounts of money were released from the Federal Highway Fund to a major Montana road-construction firm, he had traced subsequent “portfolio diversifications” by the firm’s attorney— Brandon Whitaker.

Over time a clear pattern emerged. So regular you could plot it like a graph. A pattern known as “the kickback curve” among prosecutors. After each federal payment to Montana, Whitaker initiated lucrative transactions involving preferred stocks and leveraged buyouts. It was only circumstantial. But it would warrant judicial examination; Quinn was sure of that.

Despite her resolution to remain skeptical, Constance again felt herself wanting to believe her abductor. True, he was holding back specific details. But ever since their paths had crossed earlier, he had insisted on his innocence.

He didn’t really need to bother doing that—he had a gun, after all. A true criminal would simply rely on intimidation to gain her compliance.

Once again he lapsed into a long silence. His labored breathing became more obvious to her as he nodded out once more. Before long, his head had slumped onto her shoulder.

No question about it now; he was fast asleep. She glanced down. The greenish glow of the dashboard lights showed that his coat was open.

I could maybe get the gun, she thought.

But then what? She knew full well she wouldn’t use it, and he probably knew that, too.

She thought about her cell phone. Had he been thinking like a real bad guy, he would have taken it from her. But he didn’t. She could get it out, dial 911, and perhaps whisper to the emergency operator. Give their location and let the police take it from there.

Yet, she made no move to try. It wasn’t just fear he’d wake up and catch her. As much as she hated to admit it, she was starting to see this mess from his perspective, too.

If he was innocent—a strong possibility in her mind—then she might be condemning him to prison—or worse. If he were simply running to get away, Billings was the last place he’d head for. From frontier days to the present, Montana fugitives chose the Canadian Rockies to the north as their favorite refuge from the law.

Even as all this looped through her mind, a blue-and-yellow sedan eased by her in the passing lane—a Montana state trooper.

Her pulse leapt into her throat. The cop wasn’t pulling her over, just passing on his way to someplace else.

Flick the bright lights on and off a few times, she thought. That cop will pull you right over.

And then what? Loudon was armed and desperate—this time he might not aim high.

Wracked by indecision, she did nothing as the red-glowing taillights receded ahead.

She assumed Loudon was sound asleep. So hearing his voice made her nearly crawl out of her skin.

“Missed your chance,” he told her in a sleepy voice. “S’matter, you soft on crime?”

“Maybe I don’t want to get caught in the middle of one of your shootouts.”

“Oh. Here I thought maybe it was my sexy eyes.”

Heat came into her face. “I could floor it and still catch that cop.”

“You’re the driver.”

Despite his exhaustion, she detected a smug, mocking tone to his voice. He had called her bluff. It wasn’t bad enough that he had kidnapped her—now he had to toy with her to amuse himself.

“Since you’re awake, kindly remove your head from my shoulder.”

He complied, slumping against the passenger’s window.

“Do you know how nice you smell?” he murmured sleepily. “Your perfume is Gardenia Passion, right?”

He was right, but she said nothing. He didn’t even wait for a reply, going back to sleep immediately.