Twisted Shadows (40 page)

“Maddox said the phone is safe. Should I call and get a train schedule?”

“I have renewed faith in him,” Nate said. “But let's stop at a pay phone.”

“I'm a big fan of trains,” she said.

He turned slightly to look at her. “When I was a kid, I wanted a train set more than anything in the world. I never got over it. I travel by train whenever I can and never get tired of them.”

Another small insight into him. She was beginning to understand the man who had been so distant when she'd first met him. She wondered about the foster homes he'd lived in. She hoped they had been good ones, but she had enough experience in charitable endeavors to know it was unlikely.

“How do we get to Denver?” he asked, interrupting her thoughts.

“There's the interstate or a parallel state road.”

“We'll take the state road,” he said.

She looked at the map in the car, then gave him directions. She leaned back against the door where she could both view the cars following them as well as glance at his face.

She saw the lines in his face. Obviously he hadn't slept at all. How long could someone go without rest?

Denver was approximately two hours away on the state route, closer on the fast-moving interstate.

They stopped midway at a small café where several trucks and cars were parked. Sam had always heard that truck drivers knew the best places to eat. She hoped that legend was correct because she was hungry.

It was like stepping back in time. A juke box was just inside the entrance and the tables were worn and the vinyl seat fabric torn, but the smell of hamburger curled around her nostrils as if it was a porterhouse steak.

They sat in a booth and read a much-used menu. She ordered ham and eggs; he ordered the eight ninety-nine steak.

“I'll call the train station,” she said.

He nodded.

She went to the pay telephone, still wondering how they had been located, still worried about Jack Maddox and his dog. If the rental car did carry a tracing device, they wouldn't be safe until they reached Denver and ditched the car. She dialed information and got an 800 number. She dialed that and learned the Zephyr would leave the Denver Station at 7:45
P
.
M
. and arrive in Chicago late the next afternoon.

She declined the opportunity to make a reservation.

She returned to the booth. Nate was eating a wilted-looking salad as if it were food of the gods.

“The train to Chicago leaves at seven forty-five,” she said.

He looked at his watch. “Eight hours from now. Plenty of time to get some clothes.”

Their food arrived. She was starving, yet she had trouble eating. She was worried about Maddox and Jock. About her mother and Terri. About the man across from her.

He sat facing the door, his gaze slicing toward it every time someone entered.

“What do we do when we find my mother?” she said.

“Set a trap.”

“What kind of trap?”

“We can narrow possibilities to several people,” he said. “We will call each one and tell them that we've taken precautions, but want two hundred thousand to keep quiet.”

“And we wait to see who bites?”

“Yes.”

“And if no one does?”

“We try something else, but he will. He can't afford not to.”

“He? You know who it is, don't you?”

He gave her a bland look.

“Does Jack Maddox?”

“I don't think so.”

“Who?”

It was clear he didn't want to tell her. “We agreed to be honest,” she said. “It's my life. And I”m not going to leave this place without knowing.”

He grimaced. “It's only supposition, but you have the right to know. It could be a judge named McGuire. He was a patrolman in 1968. He's a federal judge now, nominated for the federal appeals bench.”

Her heart dropped. A federal judge, and all the political connections that went with that.

“How—?”

“He must be very good at burying the past,” he said. “Cops love him. They think he's on their side. He's cultivated a law-and-order image. But a federal Appeals judgeship means more scrutiny than for a district judge. Once there, he doesn't only interpret law, but makes it.” He paused. “It could be the reason I was taken off the case. One cautionary warning from a federal judge is next to an order.”

She looked down at eggs growing cold. She'd lost her appetite completely now, but she forced herself to eat.

After several bites, she knew she couldn't eat any more. “Do you really think we lost them? They seem to be everywhere.”

“We will once I get rid of the car,” he said. “And no one thinks about trains these days.”

“Except you,” she said.

“Except me,” he agreed.

“I want to call Terri.”

“Are you worried about her or Nick?” His voice was cool and she wondered whether she had just lost the ground she'd gained.

“Both.”

“Let's wait a while,” he said. “We need that cell phone. If they have a trace on the Faulkner phones, we might compromise it. Nor should we call from here. If they pinpoint this telephone, they can find whatever other numbers were called within a few moments.”

“And learn that someone called Amtrak,” she said.

He paid the bill and they went to the car. He studied every car in the parking lot, but then shook his head. “Won't do any good if they have something planted in my car, and they had the opportunity at your house.” He went back into the restaurant; she followed him.

He went straight to the cash register and gave the lady behind it a devastating smile.

“Do you know someone reliable who could give us a ride to the bus station in Denver?” he said. “I don't like the way the car is running, and we're due in Flagstaff for her mother's wedding.” He put an arm around Sam. “I'll make it worth his while.”

“What about your car?”

“I'll call the rental company and have them pick it up.”

“I'll see what I can do,” she said.

Ten minutes later they had a ride to Denver for a hundred dollars cash and a full tank of gas.

They caught the train seconds before it pulled out. The tardiness was planned.

The train started moving, and Nate looked for the conductor. Within minutes, they had tickets for a deluxe bedroom.

Nate said a brief prayer of thanks. He was ready to drop. A coach seat had not appealed to him.

The conductor showed them to a compartment. It was tiny with a cushy sofa and armchair and its own private sink, shower and toilet. A decided plus.

An attendant appeared almost immediately and asked whether they wanted their meal in the room or in the café or lounge car. They opted for the room. They ordered steaks and a bottle of wine and sat on the sofa, watching as foothills became prairie and the last glimmers of twilight faded into night.

He hoped he wasn't relaxing too much. But there was no way anyone could find them here, not after all the precautions he'd taken. And he was so damned tired.

He checked his weapon. That was the other reason he wanted to take a train. No one checked for weapons.

As a federal law enforcement officer, he could have declared his weapon on a flight but new security measures probably would mean a check with his office. He hadn't wanted that.

As soon as they ate, he would ask that the beds be prepared. The sofa would magically become a bed and an upper berth pulled down. The clackety clack of wheels beneath them already made a soothing lullaby.

In the interim, he simply enjoyed being with Sam. She leaned against him, and he put his arm around her. Tension drained from him. There was something about a train that always had that effect on him.

He'd picked up the schedule at the station. They'd bought tickets to Chicago, but he planned to leave the train at Naperville and take a second train into the city. Then they would find the elusive Patsy Carroll.

His eyes had almost closed when the attendant arrived to set a table with a linen tablecloth, then returned with steaks, baked potatoes and mixed vegetables.

Nate couldn't take his eyes from Sam as she ate with apprehension. They'd both purchased new clothes and she had a way of making even the most casual slacks and plain shirt look elegant. He continued to watch her rather than eat until she very pointedly looked at his plate.

He nursed one glass of wine while she had a second. He wasn't sure how well that went with the medicine she was taking, but if anyone deserved a few moments of normalcy, it was Samantha. When they finished, he asked the attendant to prepare the beds.

The lower one was wider than the upper berth. Two people could fit on the lower one only if they lay like spoons.

Spoons sounded pretty good.

But sleep sounded even better if not as enjoyable. He needed sleep to maintain an edge.

He looked at his watch. Ten Denver time.

He put out the
DO NOT DISTURB
sign, secured the door, then backed up the one chair against it.

“You take the shower first,” he offered.

She smiled. “What about simultaneously?”

“You haven't seen the shower.”

“Where there's a will, there's a way,” she said. She lifted up on her toes to brush a kiss across his lips.

“Don't do that to your bodyguard,” he scolded.

“A bodyguard is Kelley,” she said. “You're—”

“I'm what?” he asked when she stopped.

“A friend.”

He flinched at that. He didn't want to be that either.

He skimmed his hand over the shirt they'd purchased for her that afternoon while waiting for the train. Clothes and simple things like a razor and toothbrushes. He stopped at the open vee, and his fingers touched the swelling of her breast.

She trembled, but probably no more than he.

“Damn,” he said out loud.
Stupid,
he said under his breath. Yet he bent over her, his lips brushing hers and raining light kisses over her cheek and down her neck.

He kissed his way back up to her mouth, deepening the kiss. He was exhausted. He was also on fire as he always was when near her. Her eyes, weary a few moments ago, were now glimmering with life. He touched her everywhere, sliding her clothes off, his gaze possessively following the progress of his hands.

She turned toward the window.

“There's no one out there,” he said, but he leaned over and pulled down the shade as she unbuttoned his shirt. His skin was alive with wanting, alive with hundreds of writhing nerve ends.

She was as adept at taking off his clothes as he had been at hers. The car lurched and her body impacted with his. His body hardened, trembling with a need that went beyond lust or passion.

There was so little space that they naturally drifted onto the lower berth. He entered her, full and throbbing, but slowly. The urgency between them intensified and he felt her tighten around him. Their bodies reacted to each other with frenzied need and he plunged deeper into her, his strokes growing faster.

She wrapped her good leg around him, bringing him to the core of her. She cried out as the primitive dance turned wild and uncontrollable, reaching beyond familiar feelings and ending in flashes of white-hot splendor.

He kept her next to him, his body still fused to hers. They heard the lonesome call of the train whistle as they approached a crossing. Her body snuggled closer into his and relaxed, and several moments later he realized she was asleep.

Nathan McLean, sworn enemy of the Merrittas, touched her hair as his own eyes closed. He reached over to his clothes, felt the pistol there. Satisfied, he began the slow descent into sleep, knowing he wanted this Merritta with him. Always.

Tomorrow, though, they would be taunting the tiger.

He had to remember that.

thirty-one

Sam woke to the light filtering into the small compartment and the sound of movement outside their room.

Nate's arms were still wrapped around her, probably by necessity due to the narrow berth, but they felt wonderful under any circumstances. She moved slightly and then so did he, and she realized he must have been awake but had not wanted to disturb her.

“Hmmmm,” she murmured as she turned and looked at him.

His hair looked more mussed than usual and his cheeks had an overnight beard, but his eyes were as brilliant as ever and he looked incredibly sexy. “They deliver coffee,” he said.

“I don't need coffee.”

“How is your leg?”

She grinned at him. “What leg?”

He looked toward the door. He had locked it last night and shoved a chair in front of it as an extra precaution, but she knew he felt that they were safe here. Secure.

For a few more hours, anyway. Hours that belonged just to them.

For a fraction of a second, she wondered how Jack Maddox was making out with the police. And Terri. Was she safe? Then her mind jumped to her newly found brother.
What was he doing in Steamboat Springs?

“What are you thinking about?”

“You. Jack Maddox. Terri. My … brother.” She wasn't sure how the latter would affect him. He'd seemed to change in the past few days, but …

“You want to call Terri?” He knew it wasn't only Terri she wanted to know about. But Nick Merritt as well. Was he still in Steamboat Springs? Well, he wanted to know that, too.

“Yes.”

His arms tightened around her.

“Can we call from the train?”

He looked at his watch. “There's a brief stop in Omaha,” he said. “You can call from a pay phone there. I hate to use Maddox's cell phone unless we have to. He says it's safe, but there are always ways with sophisticated equipment.”

“How long before we get there?”

“About thirty minutes.”

She snuggled into him, hearing his indrawn breath and feeling his body harden again.

“Sam?”