Double Play: Ambushed! / High-Caliber Cowboy

“I’M NOT GOING BACK to prison,” Angel said as he cornered hard again.

Vince grabbed the door handle and held on. The car came down hard as Angel straightened it out and hit the gas, driving him back into the seat.

Horns blared, brakes screeched. Behind them, sirens wailed. Overhead, the dark shape of a police helicopter blocked the desert sun for a moment before Angel cut between two buildings, sending a crowd of pedestrians scattering, their screams dying off under the roar of the engine. Vince could almost hear the sound of a prison-cell door closing behind him.

“Did you hear me?” Angel yelled over the noise.

“I heard you. You’d rather die than go back to prison.”

Angel jumped a curb, the car coming back down with another jarring slam. Vince closed his eyes. This was not the way he’d hoped his life would end. He thought of Max and how Max had made a run for it the day of the jewel heist. Foolish, very foolish. Going out in a blaze of glory. Only there was no glory; there was only blood and pain.

Not that Vince could convince Angel of that. He opened his eyes again as Angel cut through a casino parking lot, then another, then another until the sound of cop cars diminished just a little and there was no sign of the helicopter overhead.

Angel whipped into an underground parking garage and threw on the brakes. He was out of the car before it came to a complete stop. Vince got out too, his legs rubbery. He was getting too old for this.

He heard the shatter of glass, then the soft pop of a door opening. A moment later, an engine roared to life. Vince stumbled over to the vehicle, leaned against the side of it as Angel took off the license plates and switched them with another car in the lot.

Vince could hear the sirens growing closer. He thought about telling Angel to hurry, just for something to do, but Angel was good with his hands, quick, his movements efficient in ways his brain had never been.

The sirens grew louder and louder. He waited for Angel to get into the car and open the passenger side. All Vince wanted right now was to lie down in the back, close his eyes and trust that Angel would get them out of this—just as he had on numerous other occasions.

“You’re going to have to get into the trunk,” Angel said over the top of the car. He reached inside. Vince heard the soft click and whoosh as the trunk came open.

Angel was grinning, face flushed, eyes too bright. It was that feeling again of standing under a power line to be even this close to him. Angel loved this. And that frightened Vince more than the sound of the approaching sirens.

“The trunk?” Vince said dumbly as he watched Angel knock the rest of the glass out of the side window and reach in the back for a cap that had been lying on the rear seat.

Angel put the cap on his head, adjusted it in the side mirror. “I would suggest you hurry.”

All the other times Vince had just slid down in the front seat or hidden lying down on the backseat, but he could see that Angel was determined to have it his way this time—and there wasn’t time to try to reason with him.

Vince moved to the gaping open trunk. The sirens were so close he could almost feel the handcuffs on his wrists. He climbed into the trunk, scrunched up to fit his large body into the cramped space. He hated tight spaces. And darkness. It reminded him of when his stepfather used to lock him in the root cellar.

Angel slammed the trunk lid, the snap of the latch deafening in the pitch-black, musty darkness.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Antelope Flats, Montana

MOLLY HEARD AGAIN the soft rattle of ice in a glass, the same sound that had drawn her attention to the dark living room—and the man sitting there—in the first place.

She caught her breath as the faceless dark figure rose from the chair and moved toward her slowly, almost awkwardly.

Vince? He couldn’t have found her. Not this quickly. Her pulse thundered in her ears. Run, her mind was screaming, but her feet seemed rooted to the floor.

As the man reached the light from the hallway, Molly saw with relief that he wasn’t Vince. But the look on his face made her take a quick step back anyway. She heard Cash swear.

“Jasmine,” the man whispered. “My God. You’re alive.” His face was ghastly white, his fingers holding the drink glass in his hand trembling, the ice in his drink rattling softly.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Cash demanded, stepping in front of Molly as if to protect her.

“The door was open,” the man said vaguely as he peered around Cash to stare at her. He was soap-operastar handsome dressed in chinos, a polo shirt and deck shoes. But next to Cash, he looked like a cardboard ad cut out from a fancy men’s magazine.

“So you just made yourself at home?” Cash demanded.

The man was obviously shaken, deathly pale with beads of sweat breaking out on his upper lip. Molly thought he might be either drunk or dazed. Or both.

She wondered how he knew her. That is, Jasmine.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” Cash snapped.

Yes, Molly thought, who are you? And how did you know Jasmine? One thing was clear, Cash didn’t like him. Nor did the man like Cash.

The man seemed to drag his gaze from her to look at the sheriff. “I needed to talk to you,” he said, glancing down at the drink in his hand as if surprised to find it there. “I called the state investigator. He said I might find you here since you wouldn’t be at your office. The door was unlocked so I helped myself to your Scotch.”

Cash stood ramrod straight, his hands balled into fists at his side, anger in every line of his body. “We don’t lock our doors in Antelope Flats,” he said biting off each word. “Normally we don’t have to. What do you want, Kerrington?”

“Kerrington?” Molly repeated in surprise, recognizing the name from one of the articles she’d read about Jasmine’s disappearance. “The first man you promised to marry,” he said, scowling at her. “As if you don’t remember.”

“She doesn’t remember,” Cash snapped. “She’s suffering from some kind of memory loss.”

Kerrington stared at her. “Right,” he said and let out an unpleasant laugh. As if playing along, he held out his hand. “Kerrington Landow.” His hand was damp and cold from the glass he’d been holding, his grip too firm, as if he thought he could feel the truth in her pulse. “Still want to pretend you don’t know me?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know you,” she said. “I’m sorry.” But she wasn’t. She didn’t like the man.

He glared at her. From his expression, she couldn’t tell if he was glad Jasmine might be alive or just the opposite.

Cash cleared his throat. “Now if you don’t mind…” He grabbed for Kerrington’s arm as if to show him out.

“I’m not leaving until you tell me what the hell is going on here,” Kerrington said, drawing back out of his reach. “I thought the state investigators were still looking for her body out at that farm?”

“They are,” Cash said. “She might not be Jasmine.”

“So the state investigator doesn’t know she’s alive?” Kerrington said.

Molly decided the man was both drunk and dazed. And dangerous. She stepped in quickly. “Sheriff McCall, I don’t want Mr. Landow going away with the wrong impression.” She had to convince Kerrington that he couldn’t believe his eyes before he blabbed this all over town. She was counting on being long gone before it hit the newspapers.

“I know I resemble Jasmine,” she said reasonably.

Kerrington nodded and looked smug as if he were finally going to get the truth out of her.

“There is a lot about my past that I can’t remember,” she said. Or don’t want to remember. “So I came here looking for answers. The sheriff has been kind enough to send my fingerprints to the FBI to be compared to Jasmine’s. I’m staying here, out of sight, until we know for sure who I am.”

“You’re hiding her?” Kerrington said and shot a look at Cash, who groaned. “You think I don’t know about the fight you had with Jasmine? And now her car turns up just a few miles from town…. I think the state investigator needs to know what you’re up to.”

“I’m not up to anything,” Cash said between gritted teeth. “What are you doing in town, anyway? Jasmine isn’t your concern. Or is she? I never bought your alibi, Landow.”

Kerrington jerked his head back as if Cash had slugged him. “I didn’t kill her. I have an alibi. And anyway she’s alive, right?” He looked at Molly. “You’re just trying to confuse me, aren’t you. Make me say something you can use against me.”