A Drive-By Wedding Page 17

  “No.” She shook her head. “Way I read it is we’ve got three choices. One, we talk to Gabriel and see if there’s something he can do to help that doesn’t jeopardize the family. Two, you leave with Sasha and I take off on my own and we split our defenses in half—not to mention you’ve got no one to stay with Sasha while you figure out how to go play macho protector.”

  “Or three,” Jeth said sardonically, half-angry, half-amused by Allyn’s reasoning, “I take you with me, and two out of three of us are happy.”

  “Two out of three?”

  “Yeah. You and Sasha. Me, I gotta figure out how to keep three of us alive, instead of just two.”

  “Oh, well, that.” She smiled suddenly; relief etched her features. “No problem—and it’s better than having me furious with you for going off and getting yourself killed without me. As for the part about you having to figure out how to protect three of us instead of only two… Not to worry. Libby may be good at following people, but like you, part of what I do in my work is figure out how to keep things alive.”

  Chapter 13

  They packed up and pulled out in the humid prelight of just before dawn, ghosts fading into the heavy morning fog, the van pitifully masked only by license plates borrowed from a vehicle in the main parking lot.

  Worn out from a day full of playmates, Sasha protested once in his sleep when Jeth moved him into the van and buckled him into his safety seat. Then he subsided into the deep, lightly snoring slumber he’d been rousted from.

  They drove, trading off, going straight through except to pick up gas and food, to stretch briefly and move on. At one stop, Jeth considered changing vehicles, but instead only appropriated a different set of license plates, again under cover of darkness and behind Allyn’s back. It was little enough, but it was what he could do while keeping them moving.

  States blurred together, individual landscapes lost to sleep and darkness and dull concentration on the road ahead. The green hills of Kentucky bled into first the urban then the rockier parts of Indiana, to Missouri, to the I-44 west and through the dust of Oklahoma and Texas, into New Mexico and finally, after a little more than thirty hours of driving, into northern Arizona around mid-morning of the second day.

  Jeth drove from there, picking up Route 66 into Flagstaff. There he parked Allyn and Sasha to lunch at the back of a small, quiet diner that was off the beaten tourist path while he went to rid them of the van.

  Aside from the trip she’d begun the day after she’d graduated from high school, this was Allyn’s first trip west. Everything was a far cry from what she was used to. She couldn’t get over the view of the San Francisco Peaks that backdropped the city, nor the dryness of the air—nor the sensation of shortness of breath that immediately plagued her when all she did was cart Sasha and most of his belongings into the restaurant with her. At seven thousand feet above sea level, Jeth assured her the condition was both natural and temporary, but his confidence didn’t lessen her feeling that she was seriously out of shape when she knew she wasn’t.

  While Sasha lunched on his favorite macaroni and cheese sandwich—also known as grilled cheese on white bread— Allyn feasted on tamales such as she hadn’t tasted since her grandmother had taken her and Becky into the migrant camps to teach religion classes to the youngsters during cherry picking season when they were very young. The memory startled her; cherry picking and migrant workers, churros, tamales and being a child were things she hadn’t thought about in years—didn’t even know she’d forgotten about until she remembered by accident. Still, once the dam opened the flood didn’t hold back. Nostalgia waged a war with her senses and won, sharpened taste buds she didn’t know had gone stale, reminded her nose of scents and aromas she’d forgotten how to recognize, fitted her mental ears with the music of Spanish.

  Her physical ears, however, were treated to the accents of Southwest twang, of Native American inflections, of native pipes mixed with country-and-western music mixed with country rock mixed with rock. Her eyes found colors and images that were different from those in the migrant camps, softer, tonier, as though filtered through sand. She felt oddly at ease in this place, this city, in a way she’d never experienced before.

  Her pulse quickened. She blamed it on the thin air making her slightly giddy, but a tiny ball of excited recognition stirred in her belly. Home. She’d be of no use as a marine biologist here, but it didn’t matter. Some part of her felt strangely tied to this soil. She’d never been here before but she knew this place, understood…something, even if she couldn’t be sure what.

  She shook her head, dismissing the thought. It was nothing, less, strictly fancy. For seven years she’d been tied to her studies, too, at home with them, then felt cut strangely adrift the moment she held her doctorate. It was the way she’d felt after high school, starting the cross-country trek that had ended within a week with her heading home.

  With her having chosen the course of her life to date.

  And now here she was after another eventful week knowing she was ready to choose another course, change one she hadn’t doubted.

  Until graduation.

  Until Jeth.

  Knowing, too, that he could have little or nothing to do with her choice, that they were only a temporary measure—he’d said as much, what was it, three, four nights ago.

  He hadn’t said much of anything else to her since.

  Something stirred the fine hairs at the nape of her neck and shimmied down her spine, lifted the light fuzz on her arms. Allyn stiffened without moving, let her gaze drift from the dim interior of the diner in Flagstaff toward the front door. A man stood there, obviously searching for something or someone, dark, muscular arms showing against light shirtsleeves, long black hair pulled into a ponytail. His top lip might have been puffy.

  Allyn breathed. Lots of dark men with long black ponytails here, she reminded herself. It was the place for them. No reason to suspect—

  Sasha made a strangled noise, and Allyn turned to him instantly, afraid he was choking. He was spitting out a mouthful of sandwich, but not because he was choking. Eyes wide with terror, he was staring at the man in the doorway and getting ready to scream.

  Quickly Allyn wiped his lunch from his mouth and clapped her hand over it, hauled him as quietly as possible into her lap and shielded the man from sight with her body, hugged and rocked Sasha, murmuring as calmly as she could, “Don’t, baby, don’t, don’t, don’t. It’ll be all right, I’ve got you, I won’t let him hurt you, just please be quiet, love, shh, I need you to be quiet. Maybe he won’t see us, maybe he’ll go away, maybe it’s not him.”

  Not whom? she wondered nonsensically. But whoever he was, it didn’t matter. He frightened Sasha, and Allyn had known far too many little kids in her life to dismiss this one’s obvious distress. Why had Jeth left them on their own, indefensible? Where was he, anyway? Aw, heck, this was stupid. Jeth wasn’t here, and she’d have to come up with a plan on her own. She was good at coming up with plans on her own, at thinking on her feet. She’d disarmed Jeth the day she’d met him, hadn’t she? She could handle this guy, too.

  Of course, she could manage this guy. She bucked up her courage and gave herself a firm mental nod. Absolutely, she could manage him. But since this guy was probably a lot more dangerous, she just wouldn’t deal with him as directly as she’d dealt with Jeth, that’s all.

  Yeah, right. That’s all was more than plenty. Because when she’d dealt with Jeth she hadn’t known about Sasha. And not knowing had made her a great deal more willing to take incautious risks than she was now.

  Plus she now knew Jeth hadn’t been out to hurt her, only to look after Sasha the best way he could without a getaway vehicle. That made a difference.

  Particularly since she currently had no getaway vehicle. Damn it.

  Patting Sasha’s back to quiet him, she tried to melt deeper into dimness that couldn’t possibly hide them for long if this man was looking for them. Strained to move Sasha’s diaper bag and gear i
nto a nearby corner, out of sight. Strived to observe the man while she tried not to move and attract his attention, attempted not to appear like she was looking for an employees-only exit out the back if she did attract it. It was damn certain he’d be able to move faster unfettered than she’d be able to move carrying Sasha.

  None of it was easy; Sasha’s terror had the better of him, made him well nigh hysterical. Subduing a two-year-old in the full throes of hysteria of any sort was often a process where the best you could do was prevent him from throwing himself around and hurting himself until the hysteria passed. Calming one whose hysteria was born of fear and panic brought on by situations he’d lived through was an exercise in futility. The only thing Allyn knew to do was to try to reassure him she would not let harm come to him by getting him far out of sight of the thing—the person—frightening him.

  Before that person took real notice of him.

  There were few other patrons in the diner. Three men and a couple of women. For a breath Allyn considered options. Then she drew air gently in and stopped thinking altogether, calmly covered Sasha’s hair with one of Jeremy’s baseball caps, bundled the sobbing toddler into her shoulder, collected his diaper bag and headed for the sign labeled Restrooms—hoping even as the man’s face shifted in her direction that if she went naturally, in plain view, without hiding, she’d remained largely unnoticed. In her experience most lone adults tried to ignore women carrying toddlers in tantrum.

  Experience seemed to be on her side this time. A surreptitious glance in the man’s direction confirmed that his gaze slunk right by her and Sasha. Relieved, Allyn took Sasha into the bathroom and sat him on the sink, pulled a washcloth out of his diaper bag and wet it, used it to wipe his face, soothe the back of his neck and generally cool him down. He clung to her, shuddering, for a while, but she talked and sang softly to him. He gradually relaxed enough for her to check his diaper. He protested when she set him down briefly to glance out the door, to see if the man who’d scared him was still around, but quieted readily enough when she picked him up again.

  Which is, of course, when she realized she had no idea what to do next. Because the man was no longer where she could see him out front, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t there somewhere, occupying one of the back tables the way she had. And she suddenly decided that to slip out the back, Jack, was such a movie cliché that anyone professional enough to track Sasha cross-country despite the weaving route she and Jeth had driven was also probably professional enough to have covered the diner’s employees-only entrance.

  Not to mention that, unlike most suspense-movie and television restaurant restrooms, this one didn’t have a convenient window.

  She worried the inside of her lower lip. Nope, nothing for it but to brazen her way out the diner’s front door where she was more likely to find people and hope for the best. That or sit until Jeth came back—blast him, where was he?—and hope that the guy who scared Sasha wouldn’t do anything in front of the other patrons—and that the other patrons would stick around as long as she needed them to unwittingly guard her back.

  Oh, heck, she decided. As long as she was hoping, why not simply hope he was gone, period?

  And why not hope she and Jeth could keep Sasha, keep the family they’d formed, keep each other?

  Even though there wouldn’t be anything for a doctor of marine biology to do in Arizona except sling hash or maybe hunt fossils in the canyons.

  She drew a shaky breath with the admission. Dear Lord, she wanted to keep Jeth.

  Her mouth twisted and firmed as she calculated. Right after she crowned him for taking so long about doing whatever he was doing, that is.

  Sasha snuggled into the hollow of her shoulder, snuffling a bit, his body growing heavier and more slack with each passing moment. Allyn smiled tightly. Panic was an exhausting business. He’d be asleep soon, she knew. She looked around the small restroom, felt the box-like atmosphere and claustrophobia set in. One thing was sure, she couldn’t keep him in here. Her driver’s ed instructor had taught her never to let herself get boxed in by traffic, to always leave herself an escape route when she was driving. The same principle applied to fires and when you had bad guys chasing you: if you didn’t leave yourself an out, you could die trying to stay safe by hiding from the smoke, the flames or the bullets in the broom closet.

  Not that there’d been any bullets, of course, thank goodness, but still. It was, all in all, a nauseatingly bad idea as far as Allyn was concerned.

  Breathing deep a few times as though preparing for a plunge into deep waters, Allyn gathered Sasha and his equipment tight to her chest and set her back against the door. No way was this baby going out of here first. Dangerous to back out or not, she couldn’t very well lead with Sasha, could she. Nope. Not a chance.

  She grabbed one last breath of disinfectant-cleansed air and slid sideways to open the door quickly and duck out. The moment she did, a man’s hand clamped over her mouth, his other arm slid around her waist, glued her to him.

  Instinct took over on the spot, and she’d stamped down hard on Jeth’s instep, kicked him forcefully in the side of the knee before she comprehended what he said.

  “For cripe’s sake, Lynnie, it’s me. Give over. We’re out of here.”

  “Where what how—”

  “Later.” He let her go and grabbed her arm to drag her toward the employees-only entrance she’d discarded as an escape route not fifteen minutes earlier. “Right now we got trouble.”

  “But—”

  He shook his head and paused at the door. For the first time, Allyn saw he had his gun in his hand. The safety was off.

  “Keep behind me, but stay close.” An order.

  The rebel in Allyn made her grind her teeth and mutter, “Yassuh, boss,” under her breath, but the smart woman with the toddler in her arms did what she was told because sometimes commands were given for a reason. And from the way Jeth looked, this was definitely one of those times.

  He glanced at her, jaw taut, eyes hard, weapon pointed ceilingward, available. “Ready?”

  There was nothing to say. She nodded, one sharp jerk of her chin downward. Then Jeth pressed the door open and took a fast look in all directions. Satisfied, he pushed the door wider, motioned his head to urge Allyn out. He followed, herding her into the alley, both hands wrapped around his weapon, raising it, lowering it as he made a continuous circle within a circle around her, marking every crack in the building’s walls, every pebble in their path and each nook and cranny in between.

  “Jeth, what’s—”

  Again he shook his head. “Not now. Keep moving. Get in the jeep.”

  “Jeep? Where—”

  A stab of his chin in the direction of a Dumpster butted up to the wall of the building across the alley. A worse-for-wear-looking former Army jeep with top sat just beyond it, facing the alley’s far end.

  “Jeth, we can’t. There’s no place for Sasha—”

  “Trust me,” Jeth snapped. “There’s a place. I made sure.”

  Keeping an eye on their surroundings, he relieved Allyn of the diaper bag and tossed it into the back of the jeep, guided her around the other side and stood guard while she put Sasha in his car seat. It was only when she turned in preparation to climb into the front that she noticed the body angled half upright in the space between the Dumpster and the wall.

  If it wasn’t for the blood still spreading across the front of his shirt, she might have allowed herself to assume the body was a wino catching some sleep while he waited for a handout. Not only was the blood seeping and staining, but the body belonged to the man who’d scared Sasha in the diner, long black hair, muscular arms, graying dark skin and all.

  Air choked in Allyn’s throat. “Jeth?”

  “He’s dead.” His jaw clicked audibly. “I found him back here. He tried to kill me. He didn’t succeed. Now let’s get the hell out of here so I can find some place it’ll be safe to throw up.”

  The world flashed by in unreal picture
s, scenery blurred and forgotten—caught like Allyn’s ability to breathe between one moment and the next.

  While Sasha slept, Jeth pushed the jeep’s speed to its limit, grinding up and down through the gears until they exited Flagstaff, then throttling it into high gear and flooring it.

  Space-shuttle speed wouldn’t have been enough to escape what was done.

  He’d never before had to put down a man. Wanted to, perhaps, wished he could destroy whoever had killed Marcy, but always there’d been another way, channels that didn’t carve irreparable ridges in his psyche or leave his conscience wanting to disown him. And the worst of it was, he was pretty sure that even though he felt a bit like throwing up, he didn’t feel a whole lot of remorse. The guy who’d exited the rear of the diner—and who was now lying dead in that alley—and his partner had tried to take him down. He’d had no choice but to fire back. And the worst of it was he wasn’t sure in his own mind if he’d fired the killing shot or the guy’s partner had—or where the partner had gotten to. Either way, there were shell casings from his weapon back there, and that was bad for Allyn and Sasha.

  Allyn touched his arm. He stiffened and shrank from the contact.

  “What happened?” She had to shout to be heard over the rush of the wind and the whine of the motor.

  “You tell me.”

  “That—that man back there. Behind the diner. He came inside. Sasha recognized him and got scared. I didn’t know what to do.” Pleading for forgiveness, for understanding, and she didn’t know why. This wasn’t her normal life, after all, it was his. “I wanted to go out the back, but then I thought he might have figured on that so I decided maybe to brazen it out the front where there were people or wait till you came, but you didn’t and I had to do something. But I didn’t. Then you came. That’s all. If you shot him, why didn’t I hear anything?”