Hidden Pearl (44 page)

Around a corner he saw one of the burly guards, his back to him but a gun firmly clenched in one big paw. Was that door the one behind which Christine was imprisoned? He clenched his jaw, determined to find out one way or another. Whatever he did to this guard had to be done silently.

When S.T. was still a few feet from him, the guard turned beginning to swing his gun up. S.T. lunged forward, raising his knee and planting it firmly in the man's belly, following that up with an elbow to his face. The man crumpled.

In seconds, S.T.  had grabbed the gun, shoved it into his belt and had his knee in the prone man's chest, his knife pressed against his throat. "Not a sound," he rasped as the guard opened his eyes, "except to answer my questions."

The guard nodded.

"Where's Christine Johnson?"

"Don't know."

S.T. sliced the knife into the soft skin at the base of his prisoner's chin. "I know a hundred ways to make a man die--slow and painful. Some of them you guys taught me. Now, you tell me--where is she?"

"She's gone."

"Gone?"

"She tricked everybody and escaped. Reverend Soul's plenty mad. She and that friend of yours, they're both gone."

"How long ago?"

The guard shook his head. "Don't know..." When S.T. increased the pressure against his throat, the man gasped. "I swear it. This job ain't worth dying for. I don't know. Everybody's out looking for them now."

S.T. lifted his knife away from the guard's throat.
Geesus
,
he thought trying to think what he had to do next,
I'm not cut out for this kind of stuff. Don't want to hurt somebody. Don't want to get hurt.
The next moment, the guard swung up, attempted to throw him off. Scrambling for the gun. S.T. used the side of his hand, bringing it down hard at the base of the man's ear, and knocked him unconscious. This time, he stripped off the man’s belt, wrapped it around his wrists, then dragged him into the first room he found with an unlocked door.

Heading out into the night, he felt a nearly disabling fear as to where Christine was. Had she and Hank escaped, found the Silverado and driven away? Was there any chance they were already safe and he could concentrate on getting himself out of this? It seemed a thousand years since he'd laid his head on Christine's lap, since they'd listened to music and talked of life and what it meant.

His world had been empty and barren before Christine brought life into it. He had thought he was living but knew now it had been a pale imitation of what was possible. When this was all behind them, he didn't know what would happen between them, if anything ever could, but he wanted to see her happy and unafraid, wanted to hear her laughter, her barbed quips that deflated his preconceptions about women, about life. He’d even like to hear her telling him what he should do.

He set out to canvas the area surrounding the buildings. If she and Hank were nearby, he would find them--hopefully without getting himself recaptured or killed. A rustle in a bush a few feet from the back door whirled him around, the gun pointed at the sound, his body lowered into a crouch. "Come out," he rasped.

"Don't shoot," a small voice begged. Only when the woman stepped into the moonlight did he recognize Sharon.

"You," he muttered, "what are you doing out here?"

"I'm sorry," she whispered tearfully. "I didn't realize I'd startle you."

"You’re lucky I didn’t kill you. Where's Christine?"

"I don't know. I... heard Reverend Soul ranting and raving about how she'd hit him, about how she had to be found, and I ran outside myself. I don't want anyone to be hurt."

"It's a little late for that. If you want to stay alive yourself, stay quiet and back in the shadows or go to your room, lock the door, and stay there. The next person to hear you might shoot first and ask questions later."

She swallowed back a sob. "I want to help. I need to help. I've done so many things wrong."

"Then stay out of the way." He headed into the blackness. The last thing he needed or wanted was someone tagging along with him, someone who might stab him in the back the first moment he got careless.

#

Christine knelt in the brush, her dress and hair as dirty as the dark clay of these hills could make it. She imagined she looked like a ragamuffin, but at least she didn't glow anymore. She kept listening for sounds coming up the road, but there was nothing. Had something gone wrong in Portland? Were S.T. and George coming back? Where was Hank?

The hardest part was not to run back to the buildings, not to see them as a refuge. If she'd had any intention of that, it would have ended when she saw the flashlight in a gully not far from where she crouched. The light grew closer and she could distinguish voices.

"We're not going to find anything until morning," the man she knew now as Ralph said.

"He said to keep looking and we will." He shone the light down the road and Christine pushed herself back into the shrub she'd hidden behind. When she heard them let out a yell, she thought at first she'd been seen and almost ran, but her moment of panicked paralysis saved her. They'd seen something farther down the road and ran toward it. She scrambled on her knees, staying low but she had to know what they'd found.

"George," one of the voices said, "what happened?"

She saw them pull a gag from George's mouth and realized with fear that he'd been only a few hundred feet from where she'd been hiding. Did he know she was nearby? It was no time to stay and find out. While they tried to figure out how to unfasten the handcuffs that held him to the tree, she scrambled backward and, when she was far enough from them, began running. At first she had no idea where she was going, then she recognized the hill behind the buildings and stopped.

Turning to head another direction, she was stopped by strong arms that grabbed her, a hand over her mouth almost instantly cutting off her startled scream.  She kicked back, connecting with shins and hearing a husky growl. Only then did she go limp. Tears in her eyes, she twisted in his arms, her lips hungry to find his, to convince herself that she was being held by him, that he was alive and with her.

Their lips met, tears intermingling, their hands desperately clasping each other closer. She didn't know how long they clung together, but finally he put her from him. "You're all right?" S.T. whispered.

"Only now," she whispered, barely suppressing a sob against his bare chest. He pulled her into the cover of a small grove of trees. "What happened?" she asked when he stopped.

"No time to go into it now."

"I saw them trying to get George free... Oh Storm, I love you. I love you so much." Again she pulled his head down for his kiss. One hand on his biceps, she felt the cloth tied round his arm, the dampness on it. Her startled awareness penetrated even the sweet haze of being kissed by him. She pushed away. "You're bleeding." It came out like an accusation.

She saw the flash of his white teeth. "You look a little the worse for wear yourself."

She remembered then the dirt she'd smeared all over herself. "Camouflage," she whispered, pressed back against his chest, feeling his arms close around her and recognizing for the first time that in his right hand he held a gun.

He chuckled almost silently. "Good trick. I barely saw you. Thought it was a little dirt bug at first."

"There is no such thing," she said, reaching up to stroke his hair, then felt the cloth tied around his forehead. "Is this another bandage?" she asked.

She felt his smile against her fingers. "Headband."

She foolishly wished she could see his bronzed body in the light. She could only imagine the striking image he had to make, hard, muscular body ready for battle. Then she thought of what battle meant and linked her arms back around his waist.

"What do we do now?" she asked. His plan better include her because she wasn't leaving him again.

"Where's Hank?"

"He went after the gun and Silverado, except if he'd been able to get the Silverado started, he should have been back before this."

"They might have done something to it to keep it from working."

"Tell me what happened to your arm?"

"George had a knife."

"You were stabbed?"

"Sliced a little."

"How little?"

"Practically nothing. If you stay low here, I'll go after Hank. About midnight, Jim Bailey is supposed to call the police if he hasn’t heard from me. Maybe we'll get some backup up then." He was still uncertain how much he could rely on the local police.

"I won't leave you," she said, clinging to his arm.

"I don't want that either, but what if Hank's in trouble." He looked down at her flimsy sandals, then took in the dress that was more than a little bedraggled. "Where'd you get this outfit anyway?"

"Soul," she whispered, the word laced with disgust.

She saw S.T.'s eyes narrow. "What happened?"

"Nothing in the end. He thought I was his little pearl. I hit him over the head and ran out. That's when I got Hank out of the closet they'd locked him in."

He gritted his teeth, suppressing the words he wanted to say. He knew she wasn't telling him everything and what he suspected Soul had wanted to do made him want to kill him all over again. He couldn't leave her alone, couldn't take the chance of Soul getting his hands on her.

"All right," he said finally, "we go together."

She smiled up at him. "From now on."

He bent to claim her lips again. He wanted it to be the way she said, but he couldn't think about whether it was possible, not now, not until they weren't in danger any longer.

"For what it's worth, I did think she lied when she said you meant nothing to her," Soul said as S.T. wheeled to face him, pushing Christine behind him. S.T. didn't attempt to bring his own gun to bear. He wasn't interested in getting shot and hoped to talk his way past this. He nodded his head toward the gun in Soul’s hand. "This hasn't been your style."

Soul chuckled. "It has a certain lack of charm, but it's definitely permanent."

"Drugs don't seem charming to me."

"They were intended to amuse me, not others. For instance, there was the time with your sister. Did you finally learn how she died?"

S.T. knew Soul was trying to upset him, break his concentration. In his heart, he already knew the answer to the question, yet he asked it. "Her grave on that hill?"

"It was an accident, you know. She didn't react well to the medication."

"That what you call it, medication? A better word is poison."

"Lily, that's what we called her, she wanted to take it, wanted to deal with her inner demon. Unfortunately it gave her delusions; they drove her to jump from the roof. A tragic accident."

"Then why didn't you report it?" S.T. asked his smile cold.

"The drug was scarcely legal. It would have brought all sorts of questions, people climbing all over the grounds. I couldn't have that, not for someone like Lily. She wasn't worth it, you know--destroying my ministry, all my work."

"It's all over now anyway," S.T. said.

"I rather gathered that when I saw you here and free. Where is my brother, by the way?"