Luke (25 page)

Pain and remorse rode with her, but beneath them was slow-growing rage. She'd never thought it would turn out like this, had never expected Luke to be hurt again. She couldn't believe it had happened, and for what? The petty machinations of an individual who had to be sick, or worse? She couldn't stand it. Somehow, some way, she was go
ing to get to the bottom of it. But first she had to get to Roan.

Rounding a curve, she saw the wide mouth of the waterway where it opened into a branching channel. Beyond it lay a strip of sundown-streaked sky. Silhouetted against the light was a heavy fiberglass bass boat with the shapes of two men in it. As she appeared, it roared into life. Then it jerked into motion, churning foam, leading a wide white arrow of fast-moving wake, as it skimmed forward.

The bass boat was bearing down on her. April held her course. With her hand steady on the tiller, she zeroed in on the other craft and headed straight for it.

One of the men reached into the bottom of the other boat and came up with a rifle. He nestled it into his shoulder. The other man yelled and leaned to shove the barrel skyward. Words were exchanged, then the rifle was set back down where it came from.

April sped on, coming closer and closer. She narrowed her eyes, trying to make out faces. The two looked nearly alike in camouflage shirts and pants that gave them a thick body shape, and with identical caps pulled low over their eyes. In their sameness, they were featureless, impersonal, as stolid as soldiers.

She was going to hit them. Their boat was not only heavier, but also wider and more stable in the water. If they did collide, the dinghy would nosedive, might drag her under. She could be crushed against the other boat.

She didn't care.

The lips of the man at the larger boat's console moved in a curse. He spun the wheel hard right. The fishing boat swerved. April shot past then hit the first rolling wave of its wake.

The dinghy bounced high. She grabbed the side as it came down in the following trough with a bone-cracking thud, then shot up again as it ran into the second wave. The crash as she bottomed again drove her to her knees. She felt the sting of a cut. At the same time, she tasted blood and knew she'd bitten the inside of her mouth.

Then she was dancing over the minor ripples with the double roar of both outboard motors in her ears and the rush of wind in her face. Ahead of her was a baffle of cypress trees. She put her head down and sent the dinghy flying for the widest opening between them.

Behind her, the other boat was turning, crossing the furrows of her lighter wake. The men in it had seen her, knew who she was. They were preparing to chase her down.

Hard exultation swept through April. She could do this, could draw the pursuit away from Luke. She would get away from them, then make it to Roan to bring him back. Nothing was going to stop her. Nothing.

The other boat straightened and raced after her. The thunder of its motor was throttled down now, however. The big fiberglass craft might be more powerful and faster, but these advantages couldn't be used among the trees and curving channels. The dinghy was smaller and more maneuverable, could go places, cut through outlets, where the other boat
couldn't. She kept well in front as she zigzagged in and out, taking first one branching waterway and then another, always seeking the widest path. On she sped as the minutes passed.

She tried to remember the way Luke had come. That big dead cypress towering ahead was one she was sure she'd seen before. The rusted metal advertising sign nailed to a stump looked familiar as well, as did the line of plastic milk jugs hanging from a limb that was a fisherman's trotline swept from its moorings during some storm. If she kept heading toward the lightest section of the horizon as best she could make it out through the trees, she should be heading west toward Turn-Coupe.

But the sky was darkening, the night closing in. Everything was beginning to look the same. The speed she was traveling was dangerous in the failing light. It would be easy, too easy, to tear the bottom from the dinghy on a submerged snag or unseen stump. Worse than that, she couldn't search for open water through the trees.

Perhaps ten minutes later, she realized she had lost her sense of direction. She had no idea if the channel she was following led to the lake proper or only deeper into the morass of sloughs and canals cut through the swamp long ago by loggers. It seemed wider than the others, but she thought she should have reached open water by now. Surely Luke hadn't come this far?

He might have, easily, might have backtracked, gone in circles, anything. He'd been trying to confuse her, she knew. It seemed he'd made a good job of it.

As she swung around yet another curve, she saw a fork in channel. Which way, left or right? She had to decide.

She swung left. That way looked familiar. She hoped it wasn't because she was traveling in circles, prayed that it was because she was getting back into an area she had once known in the old days when she'd roamed the lake with Luke.

I'll find you.

The words he had spoken hovered in her mind. They steadied her nerves, comforted her as she watched the waterway narrow. Then she sped along a wide bend, came out into a lily-pad covered pool.

The way she'd turned should have been familiar since she had been there just days before. She had returned to the place where Luke had first anchored the pontoon boat.

April groaned and threw the dinghy into a turn. It was too late, however, and she knew it. The other boat was closing in behind her. Her pursuers were at the bottleneck where the channel and the pool met. They blocked her way. She eased off the gas, letting the dinghy idle in a slow circle through the rocking water hyacinths and lily pads as she tried to think.

The man in the front of the other boat had his rifle lying across his lap. He leaned forward and flipped a switch with a click that came sharp and clear across the water. A spotlight beam flashed across the waves. Its white glare shone full in her face, blinding her. Then a shot exploded. The whining hiss of it crossed in front of her boat then ric
ocheted off the water and into the crowding ranks of cypress tress.

“Stay where you are! We're coming in. Don't make any trouble and you won't get hurt.”

The shouted order came across the water in rough, hard-edged tones amplified by some type of bullhorn. The threat it carried was real. She could go quietly or else.

That voice, flattened and distorted by the water, sounded familiar. It was the voice on the phone.

T
he shanty appeared out of the darkness after what seemed like hours. It squatted at the edge of the lake; a low rectangle thrown together from mixed scraps of raw lumber weathered to mildew gray. The screened porch on the front was so close to the lake that its sagging door opened directly onto the short, rickety catwalk to the dock. No lights shone from any of the house windows. There was no sign of power lines or roads. By all appearances, the place was a primitive camp used only for fishing or hunting and with access solely by water.

Dismay crowded April's chest as she stared at it. The only people who would have much knowledge of the camp were those who used it. Whatever her captors had in mind, it was unlikely they would be interrupted.

She still hadn't seen their faces. The spotlight had been kept in her eyes while the dinghy was attached to the back of the other boat by a mooring rope. Then she'd been towed across the lake like a defeated Cleopatra being hauled into Rome, though with less audience or fanfare. In fact, no had seen them that she could tell. They had steered clear of
the main channel, making their way by circuitous back routes with unerring certainty.

Because of that expertise, she could guess the identity of one of the men who had chased her down. There was only one person who fit the job description: hunter, fisherman, gun-toting redneck—delusional maniac.

Frank Randall. It had to be. Anyway, she thought she recognized his sloping shoulders and burly body. In all likelihood, then, this fishing camp was his choice. If it was supposed to be the headquarters for his guide service, she didn't think much of his chances of success.

What did he want with her? What could he want? She could guess, but she wasn't anxious to find out if she was right.

As the two boats came alongside the dock, Frank sprang from the heavier craft and secured it. The other man centered his rifle on April's chest, indicating with a jerk of his head that she should step up onto the dock. When she complied, he moved in behind her. He prodded her with the barrel of his weapon, urging her toward the porch. She walked lightly along the catwalk's rattling boards in her bare feet while Frank skirted both her and her captor and went on ahead. The screen door shrieked on its spring hinges as he opened it, then slammed shut behind the three of them as they crossed the porch and entered the house.

The dark interior smelled of moldy upholstery, rancid bacon grease and sweat. There was also another odor she couldn't quite place. Frank moved
deeper into the front room, a drifting shadow that stopped at a shape that appeared to be a table. He picked up something that glinted in the moonlight through the window. Then there came a scratching sound, like a match being struck.

Coal oil, the strange smell was coal oil lamp fuel. She focused on that bit of information while the match he held flared red and gold and lamplight bloomed in the small, dirty room. Then she gathered her courage, and lifted her gaze to stare across the burning flame at Mary Ellen Randall's brother.

His eyes were wide and opaque. If he felt any regret, any doubt about what he was doing, no sign of it showed on his face. He replaced the lamp globe he had removed, shook out the match and tossed it to the tabletop. Then he turned away.

His easy dismissal sent anger through her like a lightning flash. “Why are you doing this?” she demanded. “What have I ever done to you?”

“Nothing,” he answered as he turned back with deliberation. “Nothing except high-hat my sister, brush her off as if she were nobody.”

“I barely knew her!”

“And didn't want to know her any better,” he answered in grating contempt.

It was true, she hadn't. But it wasn't because she thought she was better than Mary Ellen as Frank was suggesting. Mary Ellen hadn't cared for books or ideas or bits of esoteric knowledge, and April had only the most fleeting interest in makeup, clothes and celebrity magazines. Besides, there had been that other problem.

“Your sister wanted Luke,” April said. “We could never have agreed on that.”

“My sister was a fool,” Frank said, his lips twisting with contempt.

April frowned. “But if you think that…”

“You aren't here because of him, April Halstead,” broke in a voice behind her. “You're here because of what you did to me.”

April stiffened. She turned slowly to stare at the angular figure, the face that had such a masculine cast in its unflattering collection of features, the bulbous hazel eyes and colorless mouth.

“Muriel,” she said in a stunned whisper.

The other woman gave a barking laugh. “For somebody who thinks she's so smart, it took you long enough.”

It was true. Muriel had been in the service. Muriel had a grudge against her of long standing. Muriel was frustrated and unbalanced, and ready to lash out at the person she blamed for her failures.

Still, it wasn't easy to accept. She had to, however. Muriel still held her rifle and her camouflage pants were muddy to the knees, as if she'd been wading in the swamp.

April, staring at that last telltale evidence, felt her face harden. “You shot Luke.”

“He was in my way.”

“For what? What do you want with me? For heaven's sake, Muriel, you trashed my book. Wasn't that enough?”

“A fat lot of good that did when it made the bestseller lists anyway! Besides, other people thought it was good, the stupid cows, and kept say
ing so and saying so. It was too much to bear when my work was just as well written and meaningful. But would you help me bring it to people's notice? Oh, no! You didn't want the competition. You couldn't stand that somebody else might take the limelight away from you. You wanted it all.”

“Your book was—” April stopped abruptly as she realized telling Muriel hard truths about her story while she pointed a gun at April's breastbone was hardly wise.

“My book was wonderful, a masterpiece!” Muriel declared with a brightly feral gleam in her eyes.

It had been grandiose, rather, and so derivative it hovered perilously close to plagiarism. There had been at least three phrases that April had recognized as coming directly from her own work, and several others with the familiar style of different authors she knew well. The urge to point out these faults was so strong that she had to struggle with herself to conquer it. “Your book,” she said finally, “had a few problems.”

“It was perfect!”

One of the great mysteries of writing, April thought, was that the person closest to a work was least able to see its defects. “I'm sorry,” she said, “but we have an honest difference of opinion. I didn't set out to harm you in any way, and would have been happy to help if I had thought—”

“Liar! You're a lying bitch,” Muriel declared, with spittle collecting at the corners of her dry lips.

“You've never done anything for anybody.”

“That's not true.”

“You're selfish and egotistical and so sure of yourself that it was ridiculously easy to make a fool of you. But I've got you now, and you're going to write me a bestseller to make up for the one you took away. You're going to finish your work in progress and turn it over to me.”

“I don't think so,” April said with steel in her voice.

“You'll do it or you'll starve. Or maybe I'll find some other way to change your mind. Maybe I'll let Frank, here, help me. You're not his sister, but could be he'd like to pretend for a little while.”

“Shut up, Potts!” Frank growled from behind April. There was angry recoil in his voice, but also a desperate self-loathing that didn't sound good. It didn't sound good at all.

April lifted her chin as she held Muriel's gaze. “You can't keep me here that long. Even if you could, I don't know how you can expect me to turn out decent work.”

“It won't be that long. For the rest, what's the big deal? You can write anywhere.”

April laughed; she couldn't help it. “It takes more than just putting words on paper. You need concentration and emotional involvement, and the less stress, the better. Besides, I don't have the manuscript. And I don't see a computer here anywhere.”

“No problem,” Muriel replied with grim satisfaction. “I broke into your office and printed out a nice clean copy from your hard drive. And longhand will do just fine for the rest. I can always transcribe it later.”

“You've been in my house, in my computer
files?” It was difficult to say which felt like the greater violation. The idea of either was enough to make her shake with rage.

Muriel took off her cap and tossed it aside, then ran bony fingers through her thin blond hair. “Piece of cake,” she said with offhand satisfaction. “That old house of yours is like a sieve. And we use the same word processor.”

“I've added a great deal to the story in the past few days. You don't have that.”

“So, that's what you've been up to out in the damned swamp. I thought you were getting it on with your nighttime Luke. Doesn't matter. Frank can go get the extra pages.”

She had an answer for everything, April saw, but she had one last card to play. “You'll never get away with it. My writing style is distinctive. Anyone who knows my books will recognize it. Even a judge will be able to see it, I think, if I show him the original story proposal and my research notes.”

“So, I'll rewrite a few sentences here and there. Problem solved,” Muriel said with a hard glitter in her eyes. “But I don't think you'll be going to court.”

The only way April might fail to lay claim to her work was if she wasn't around to prove her authorship. That meant Muriel didn't intend for her to live long after she typed “The End” on the manuscript.

Muriel Potts would benefit from all her hard work. Muriel would claim her story about Luke's family. Muriel would benefit from the exploitation of his history, the intimate family story of the man
she'd shot. April couldn't stand it. It was all wrong, a desecration of monumental proportion.

As these thoughts struck April one by one, she felt a major shift inside her. Suddenly she understood why Granny May objected so strenuously to her using the Benedict family history. The sense of trespass must be far stronger in someone who'd been a part of the family so many long years.

She, April Halstead, would never be a Benedict. And that was something she wanted now with such anguished longing that she felt sick with it. Strange, but she might never have realized either Granny May's position or her own desires if she hadn't been forced out of her seclusion and self-absorption by Muriel Potts. Now that she knew, it was too late.

Too late to tell Luke how much he'd meant to her long ago. Too late to let him know how constantly he'd been in her thoughts all these long years, how he had lived with her so vividly in her fantasies that she'd turned him into the dream lover of millions of women. Too late to apologize for letting her fears convince her of his guilt in Mary Ellen's death. Too late to tell him she believed in him now, or that she loved him and always had, always would. Too late to let him know that he was right in his suspicions, and he'd always been her hero.

It was also too late to discover if he'd felt anything for her in the days they'd just spent together except protective concern based on the past and simple sexual appetite.

She really couldn't stand it.

“Nothing else to say?” Muriel asked, her thin lips curling. “That's smart, but then you've always
been that, haven't you? Fine. In the meantime, I think I'll have the famous romance author cook me dinner while Frank goes and gets my manuscript.”

“You want it now?” Frank asked, putting his hands on his hips.

“Now!” Muriel snapped as she turned to him. “I want her butt in a chair working by good daylight in the morning. She can get on faster if she picks up where she left off.”

His face set, he said, “I don't think going back there is a good idea.”

“I'm not paying you to think, buster! I'm paying you to do whatever the hell I say. Get our ass back out there and don't come back without every scrap of paper she had on that boat. You got that?”

His only answer was a grunt. Stalking into the back of the two-room shack, he returned a moment later with a second rifle. With it hanging from his hand like a part of his body, he slammed out through the screen door with a force that made the walls shudder. His booted heels sounded on the dock. There was a silence during which April thought he was probably detaching the dinghy from the big fishing boat. Then the heavier craft rumbled into life and sped away.

“You do know how to cook, don't you?”

April's concentration on what was happening outside was so strong that she started at that snide question. Glancing around, she saw that the table where the lamp sat was part of a rudimentary kitchen that took up one corner of the front room. A cheap metal cabinet holding a sink could just be made out in
the dim lamplight, along with what looked like a woodstove.

“On that?” She nodded at the ancient contraption of pig iron and corroded nickel.

“Why not?”

“It will take forever for the thing to get hot enough to cook. By the time it does, this place will be like an oven.”

“So?”

Forcing April to do her bidding was plainly more important to Muriel than logic or comfort. Not that it mattered, April told herself. It wasn't as if she had anything else to do, or would be able to sleep if she were ever allowed to go to bed. This way, Muriel could be lulled into thinking that she was going to accept her situation. There would be other, more important, battles to be fought.

With an attempt at a negligent shrug, she asked, “So, what do you want to eat?”

The menu they settled on wasn't exactly gourmet fare. The hardest part was building a fire in the old stove. Kindling and newspaper had been stacked beside it, however, along with sticks of stove wood. In a short time, the makeshift meal of canned meat, canned beans and potatoes steamed with onion was cooking. As an added bonus, the heat of the stove finished drying April's shorts and tank top as well as the long, tangled skein of her hair.