In the Running Read online

  Then he thought he heard something else. Yes, there it was again - a faint moan. She was alive!

  Maybe he could raise some help on the Jeep’s cell phone. No. From the pungent smell of the gas fumes trapped in this little hollow, he didn’t have time for that. One spark from the battery and the whole thing could go up in flames. His one experience with the blazing aftermath of a car bomb in Belfast flashed before his eyes and gave him an additional jolt of adrenaline.

  Like a madman, he cleared broken branches off the tailgate of the wagon and tossed them into the underbrush. When he yanked at the handle on the tailgate, the catch gave. The lid creaked open. A worn spare tire lay in the middle of the empty storage area. Peeking out from under it was a rusty tire iron! A few frantic seconds later, he’d popped the latch of the passenger door and pried the heavy door open.

  Hoisting himself onto the seat, he reached over and pressed his fingers against the side of the woman’s slender throat. Her skin was slippery with blood but her pulse was steady. Matt knew enough not to move an accident victim but the fumes from the spilled gas were turning the hollow into a bomb about to explode. Both their lives probably depended on the speed of their escape.

  Even as he hurried to release her from her seat belt, his training made him note her vital statistics. She was small - no taller than five foot three and about one hundred and ten pounds. Late twenties. Tidily built. Not voluptuous but unmistakably female.

  In his haste, his fingers fumbled with the catch on the seat belt. The woman groaned and opened wide-set eyes that were slightly unfocussed and filled with terror. They were also more intensely blue than any eyes Matt had ever seen.

  “Don’t,” she whimpered and tried to shrink away from him. She gave his hand a weak shove.

  “I’m unfastening your seat belt,” he said, releasing the catch. His voice was huskier than usual because of his concern for her and his sense of urgency about the gas fumes. “We have to get you to a hospital.”

  “No.” He could hear desperation in her voice. “No hospital.”

  “Take it easy now.” He soothed her as he would a child or a frightened animal. He calmly freed her limp arms from the harness. “We have to get out of these gas fumes. Put your arms around my neck.”

  His nostrils caught the acrid stench of smoldering electrical wiring. Damn! They were about out of time.

  As gently as he could in the awkward confines of the car, he hauled her into his arms and began to scoot his rear end up the slanting cracked leather seat. Soggy jeans didn’t slide easily.

  “My purse.” The woman was fighting him, squirming, trying to reach down to the floor.

  “Forget the purse.”

  He gripped her more tightly. Swinging his legs over the edge of the seat, he dropped lightly to the ground with her in his arms. However, the woman didn’t stop struggling.

  “Put me down.” She wasn’t strong but she sure was determined. “Purse,” she commanded in a voice that was barely more than a whisper. “Under the seat.”

  “For God’s sake, woman,” he exploded, “This car’s going to blow up. It’s not worth your life.”

  “It is!” she retorted and swung at him.

  Her unexpected wild punch caught Matt on the side of the head. The blow wasn’t hard but its suddenness made him relax his hold momentarily. She wriggled out of his grip, staggered a couple of steps, then steadied herself against the car.

  “Get it myself.” The woman was obviously hurting so badly she could barely get the words out.

  She looked about at the end of her tether. Her pale, oval face was streaked with blood. Her jacket was soaked with it and studded with shards of glass. Some cheap fool had replaced the side window with ordinary plate glass!

  The accusation in her vivid blue eyes got to him. They both knew whose fault it was that her car was totaled and she was weaving unsteadily on her feet, with blood pouring down her determined little face.

  The rhythm of the gas dripping was speeding up. Something snapped underneath the car. God knew what was happening down there. It was either get the damned bag or leave her there to be blown to bits when the gas fumes ignited. Matt hoisted himself up onto the car and grabbed the drawstring bag from under the seat. He leapt back down, shoved it into her arms without a word, and then hauled her up into his arms again.

  “Hang on,” he snapped and began the frantic, slithering scramble up the slippery incline to the road.

  Maura held the precious bag against her stomach and obediently wrapped her right arm around the stranger’s neck. She tucked her head under his chin to make herself as small a bundle as possible. His strong arms held her securely.

  In spite of the pounding ache in her head, she was exquisitely aware of him. His jacket was cold and wet against her cheek, but the loud pounding of his heart and the sound of each breath as he carried her up the hill were strangely reassuring. She liked the way he smelled. Unlike Jon and most men she’d dated, her rescuer wore no aftershave. He smelled reassuringly of hard-working male, damp denim and wet November woods. Maura clenched her jaw against the pain and let him bear her to safety.

  They were almost at the Jeep when the explosion rocked the ground under them. The man dived behind the vehicle, set her on the ground and crouched over her, protecting her with his body from the sparks the wind carried over them.

  “We’re out of range here,” he told her after a moment. He stood up and helped her to her feet.

  With his arm around her, she leaned against the Jeep and looked down the hill. Through the freezing drizzle and drifting bits of black ash, she could see a pillar of flame and black smoke rising high above the leafless trees.

  The ugly wagon was no more. And she was probably as good as dead. Without money or transportation, she’d be a sitting duck.

  A soggy cloud of hopelessness enveloped her, almost dampening the stubborn fire that was keeping her going. She gave up the struggle to keep her eyes open. She had enough fight left to remain conscious, but her level of awareness slipped a notch or two.

  She knew that the tall man with the angry, jet-black eyes and the impressively strong, lean body was placing her carefully on the back seat of his Jeep and trying to discover the extent of her injuries with efficient, yet gentle fingers. The sensations reached her through the thick veil of pain that emanated from somewhere behind her eyes. Strangely detached from the scene, Maura wondered why the light feathering of this stranger’s fingers over her body didn’t distress her more.

  She could tell he was trying not to hurt her but a few times when he did something to her scalp and to her left shoulder, a sharper pain stabbed through and she couldn’t avoid crying out.

  For a moment, when she’d regained consciousness in the car, her hazy mind had connected him with Jon. However, the sound of his marvelous low, gravelly voice had calmed her somehow.

  The part of her brain that was still functioning rationally screamed at her. She knew nothing about this man. Hadn’t she learned anything about the unreliability of outward appearances? She had to get away, somehow, and get to the cabin. She sighed. Just how was she going to do that?

  The fingers left her body. Maura shivered and opened her eyes. Intense, coal-black eyes were peering back at her. They were large eyes set in a squarish face with prominent cheekbones. Dark brows were fixed in a thoughtful frown. She wondered what a smile would do to that forbidding face. She tried to concentrate on what he was saying.

  “A piece of glass from the window took a fair slice off the top of your shoulder,” he told her. “It’s bled a bit. Luckily, it’s not too deep and I think I’ve got the bleeding stopped. Your head took a solid clout from the branch that broke the driver’s window. Gave you a pretty good scalp cut, too,” he went on. “I put a pad of gauze on that to staunch the blood but I didn’t want to tape it.” He lifted her right hand and placed it on the loose bandage. “Do you think you can hold it like that?”

  She did like his husky voice.

  “I�
�ll try.” She hardly recognized the reedy little voice as hers. “What’s your name?” she asked.

  She hadn’t meant to sound like an uneasy kid in a strange playground. However, this unsettling man didn’t know it but he held her life in his hands. She should at least know his name.

  “Matt,” he replied. His face didn’t relax into a smile, but his voice had some warmth in it. “Mattias Hanson. What’s yours?”

  “Maur…Maureen,” she replied.

  Good Lord! She’d almost told him. She’d been desperate enough to trade her long blond hair, her only really good feature, for a dark brown dye job and a mediocre pixie cut, and now, she’d almost blabbed her real name to the first person who asked.

  Not too swift, Maura. No, she was Maureen now. Why had she chosen a name so much like her own?

  “Maureen…?” Mattias Hanson prompted.

  “Everyone calls me Reenie.” She ignored his request for a surname. At least, Reenie didn’t sound like Maura. And Irene was her middle name, although only her father had ever used it. He used to tease her by calling her “Reenie, my little Queenie”. After he died, Gran insisted that she be called Maura.

  She considered telling the man with the husky voice she couldn’t remember her own last name, but in her present state, she didn’t have the wits to carry off feigned amnesia.

  Lord, her head hurt!

  She told herself to get with it. Husky Voice had told her his name was Mattias.

  Real amnesia would be easier to deal with than her current confused state. She was unsure about so many things. She didn’t know if Danny had really been killed or if the police knew about it if he had. The police. What if Jon had convinced the police she had something to do with Danny’s death! It would be Jon’s word against hers. And Wilson and Walt would back him up.

  At least, she had the photographs. She might be able to do something with them. She couldn’t let Jon get away with whatever he’d been doing. Whatever that was.

  She had to keep her thoughts from drifting…pull herself together…get her mind in gear. The man…Mattias…wanted information.

  “Kelly,” she decided.

  “I’m sorry about your car, Reenie Kelly.” There was such sympathy in Mattias’ dark eyes that she knew she must look as battered and frightened as she felt.

  He gestured towards the cellular telephone attached to the dashboard. “Can I call somebody for you?”

  “No. No, thank you, Mattias.”

  “Call me, Matt,” he said, running his large hand distractedly through his damp hair. The poor man obviously didn’t know what to do with her.

  “Don’t you have any family?”

  “No,” she said in the same whispery little voice. She wished she didn’t sound so pathetic.

  “Where were you headed? Is someone expecting you?”

  “I’m not sure.” That was true enough. She wasn’t sure of anything. “I mean, I can’t remember where I was going.”

  He took her hand and patted it awkwardly. “I’m not surprised. You took a pretty good bang on the head. There’s a good hospital in Millbridge. We’ll go straight there.”

  “No, we won’t,” she objected.

  Hospitals required I.D. She had hidden her charge cards, her driver’s license - anything with the name Maura Irene Taylor Fitzpatrick on it - under the carpeting of the Buick. Well, she didn’t have to worry about anyone stumbling on her real identity any time soon.

  “I can’t afford to go to a hospital. I’ll be fine. All I need is a motel.” She remembered how little money she had. “Is there an inexpensive one in Millbridge? I just need to get cleaned up and get some rest.”

  He got behind the wheel and started the engine. “I’ll look after the hospital bill. I was the one towing a defective trailer. The sooner we get you looked at, the sooner you’ll get your memory back.”

  “I haven’t lost my memory.”

  He swung around. His black eyes narrowed as they searched her face. “You couldn’t remember where you were headed.”

  She thought fast. “I just forget the name of the lodge I was going to apply to first. I’m looking for work. I had a list of the places hiring kitchen staff for the ski season. It was in the glove compartment.”

  She was babbling. She’d never been a very good liar.

  “We’d better have you checked over anyway before we talk to Gus,” he said, facing forward again and putting the Jeep in gear.

  “Gus?”

  “The sheriff. We have to report the accident to him and call your insurance company.”

  “No sheriff,” Maura insisted, wincing as she struggled into a sitting position. “No hospital.”

  “Ms. Kelly, it’s my fault you need medical treatment. We’ll go on from there after you’ve seen a doctor.”

  “Please. Don’t report the accident.”

  Maura met his eyes in the rear vision mirror. His stern face softened a bit. She must look really pathetic.

  “The car was on its last legs. I won’t be making an insurance claim. Please, Matt,” she pleaded.

  Matt could see a sheen of tears in her startling blue eyes. Even an eye that was rapidly puffing up and closing, purplish bruises on her cheek and bloody, matted hair couldn’t lessen the impact of those eyes. He’d better deposit her at the hospital before he did something really stupid. He had learned to avoid needy females like the plague. However, he should do something to erase the desperate look from those blue eyes. He had a totally irrational urge to take her in his arms and tell her to leave everything to him. Now, that was an urge he was damn well going to resist!

  Reenie Kelly was on the verge of hysteria. He was receiving a clear message that she was in real trouble. Hazel Leigh’s runaway boat had simply added to it. Were the police after her? Had the man in her life hurt her? Or threatened her?

  The outrage he felt at the possibility that any man had laid violent hands on her came out of nowhere. In his brief stint with the antiterrorist squad, he’d seen the brutality that men willingly inflicted on each other and on innocent bystanders. He’d been able to distance himself emotionally from it then. Now, just imagining someone hurting this spunky little woman was giving him fits. He wasn’t thrilled with this sudden onset of empathy.

  Considering the situation as coolly and rationally as he could, he knew what he had to do. He had caused Reenie Kelly enough trouble. Until he had a better idea of what or whom she was afraid of, he couldn’t, in all conscience, force her to report her accident to Gus. What would it hurt to do what she asked?

  “All right, if you don’t want me to report the accident, I won’t. My sister, Bronwyn, is a nurse,” he said. “I’ll take you back to the marina and get her to come and check you over. Will you accept her judgment about whether you need to go to the hospital?”

  Reenie Kelly nodded, then winced. She clutched the pad of gauze to the top of her head and eased back down onto the seat.

  Bronwyn answered his call on the second ring. Matt told her what had happened. His sister couldn’t understand why he wasn’t taking the woman directly to the hospital and he couldn’t tell her. He wasn’t sure himself.

  “Just be there, Bronwyn,” he said as he signed off.

  As Maura listened to him sign off, she lay with her eyes closed, more frightened than she had ever been in her life. She had no idea where she was being taken. She had no choice but to trust Mattias Hanson. Fate in the form of a runaway boat trailer had seen to that.

  There was something ironic about deciding not to make her getaway in a lodge boat because of the high waves on Lake Michigan, then having her escape scuppered by a boat on dry land. Some day, if she lived long enough, she’d laugh at that.

  Chapter Two

  “We’re here,” Matt announced.

  Maura struggled up onto one elbow so she could see where “here” was. She didn’t think she’d slept but darkness had fallen. One thing was for sure. The place was well lit. She had to squint against the painful light to see anything at
all.

  On a high steel fence, a floodlit black and white metal sign proclaimed “Hanson’s Marina”. Inside the enclosure, glaring security lights flooded open areas between several large, metal sheds with curved roofs, which she guessed stored boats for the winter. They cast grotesque shadows on the calm water of what must be a sheltered bay. The place looked like a set for the kind of movie where mysterious beings have abducted all forms of earthly life.

  Maura shivered. She hated this vulnerable feeling. She’d always enjoyed solitude and prided herself on being able to look after herself. Being hunted changed that. She made herself concentrate on the sure, economical movements of Matt’s hands as he wheeled the Jeep through the wide gates.

  For at least a few hours, her survival was in those long blunt-fingered hands. Reaching the cabin was out of the question for now. Even if she could get her hands on a vehicle, she was in no shape to drive. The pain, she could handle; the way her eyesight seemed to drift in and out of focus was another matter.

  As far as rescuers were concerned, fate could have played worse tricks on her. Matt Hanson seemed determined to see she was all right. How could she be so naive? Hadn’t Jon taught her not to take a man at face value? Matt was probably only trying to avoid being sued. He didn’t know she was more likely to sprout wings and fly than contact anyone in the Michigan legal community right now.

  Suddenly, a volley of deep-throated barking shattered the silence. Two massive German Shepherds in full cry came tearing around the side of one of the metal boat-storage barns. Running behind them, trying vainly to catch up with them, was a heavyset, balding man. The dogs leapt at the Jeep, yelping excitedly in the open window.

  “Down, girls,” Matt shouted.

  To Maura’s amazement, the dogs stopped and stood docilely by the side of the Jeep, their tails wagging vigorously.