Page 10 of Two Hearts

H er husband—or, the stranger who looked like her husband—stared at Grace, sighed deeply and took her hand. “We’ll get them back, Grace.”

She studied him, his tanned face, his square jaw, the gray of his eyes, and she realized she didn’t know this man at all. She’d been married to him for all of two weeks, and she didn’t know the first thing about who he really was. “How?” she asked, without thinking first.

Jack held her eyes. “It’s what I do. I do it well.”

Confident, his tone. Strong. As strong as his hand around hers.

She believed him. And that simple reassurance made her feel slightly less afraid.

As little sense as that made…and she knew it made damn little.

Still, she sensed he was being completely honest with her for the first time since she’d met him. “Okay.”

Jack started walking, still holding her hand, back down the dark path that passed for a road out here. “My car’s right here,” she said.

“I’ll send someone back for your car. I think you ought to ride with me. We can…talk.”

“Something we haven’t done enough of.” To her own ears, her voice was low, wary.

And for a long time she searched his eyes, trying to see the man she’d seen before.

The staid, reserved man who went to work every morning in a nice suit and carried a briefcase.

But instead she saw only this stranger, his clothes rumpled, his hair uncombed, his strong jaw lined with stubble.

And a big black gun that still smelled of hot sulphur clutched in his hand.

“JW?” Jack called.

Grace looked around, saw JW handcuffing the still-unconscious man, rolling him over. “We’ll get the cars and toss him in on the way back. He ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

Jack looked at her, and a grudging half smile tugged at one side of his mouth. “Where’d you learn all that, Grace?”

She shrugged, saying nothing. “Where’s your car, Jack?”

“Back here.” He led her onward, JW bringing up the rear. When she saw the two vehicles sitting on the little pull-off alongside the dirt road, she frowned. “That’s not your car.”

Jack sighed. “I couldn’t drive the Lexus on the job,” he said. “I’m supposed to be stopping crime, not volunteering to play the victim.”

She nodded slowly, thinking as he spoke. “You, um, must work in some pretty rough neighborhoods.”

He licked his lips, a little nervously, she thought. “Not for much longer, Grace.” Then he looked right into her eyes. “I promise you that.”

Tilting her head to one side, Grace asked, “Why?”

“Why what?”

She thought about that for a moment, but couldn’t come up with a single answer.

Instead there were a dozen pecking at her mind.

Why was he going to quit? Why had he lied to her?

Why had she never known about this old car of his?

Where had he been keeping it? What else had he been hiding from her?

She gave her head a shake, deciding there was no time for all of this now.

Later, though, they were going to have to have some serious discussions.

She yanked open the passenger side door of the car—a mid-seventies model Ford Mustang—and got in.

A second later Jack was behind the wheel, and the car roared to life. The stick shift was on the floor, in between the leather bucket seats. New carpet covered the floor—in fact, the inside of the car had been totally renovated. Right down to the CD player in the dash.

“So…you’ve been…what? Restoring the car bit by bit?”

“Hmm?” He glanced her way, then nodded. “Yeah, for a couple of years. Most of the parts are original.”

“Looks like it’s almost done.”

“Just need a set of white-wall tires and a paint job.”

“What color?” she asked on impulse.

“Black,” he said without hesitation.

Black. She swallowed hard. She’d have expected her husband to be more of a beige kind of a guy. Or maybe powder-blue. But black?

She had a suspicion that this car was one of his passions. One he’d kept hidden from her. But it was reassuring to know that he did have some. Passions, that is.

“Where are we going?”

“JW’s already called for search units to be sent out here. He’ll head back to headquarters with his charge…maybe with a side trip to Memorial, depending on how hard you kicked the poor slob.”

“Not that hard,” she interjected.

“Here.” Jack leaned over the backseat, brought out a huge contraption and set it in her lap. Upon closer inspection, she identified it as a spotlight. “Shine that out your window as we go. See if you can spot anything out there on the swamp.”

She found the on button, aimed the thing and hit it. It sent a powerful, wide shaft of light out onto the swamp as the car rolled slowly onward.

“We’ll drive around the perimeter, see if we can spot any sign of that boat, or a car waiting somewhere along the edges.”

She strained her eyes to see, and realized she was hanging on his every word. “Will we find either of those things?”

Jack glanced sideways at her. “I doubt it. I imagine they had a car hidden somewhere on the far side, and are already heading back down the highway by now.” He reached over, clasped her shoulder, closing his hand around it.

“He won’t kill them, Grace. He wants to use them.

Obviously, he knows this guy we took can give us information on him.

Testify against him. That’s why he wants him back.

Otherwise he would leave the poor bastard hanging out to dry.

That’s the way his kind work. But as long as it’s a risk to him, he’ll do what he has to in order to get his buddy back—and right now, that means taking good care of Charlie and Hope. ”

She turned to watch his face as he spoke. He looked at her, taking only quick fleeting glimpses of the road, but for the most part, looking her right in the eyes. As if he knew, somehow, that helped her to believe him. She could see in his eyes that he was saying what he honestly believed.

“Will you trade this…this witness to get them back?”

For the first time his gaze flickered. “It won’t come to that.”

“But if it does?”

“It won’t be up to me, Grace. I would do it in a minute, but it won’t be up to me.”

He stopped the car and took the light from her, flicked it off and set it on the dash. Grace licked her lips, blinked at the tears that threatened, but Jack gripped both her shoulders now and stared straight into her eyes.

“Even now, they’re punching this guy’s name into a computer back at headquarters, Grace.

Within the hour we’ll know where he lives.

We’ll have the names and addresses of his friends, relatives, lovers, ex-lovers, enemies and casual acquaintances.

We’ll know where he eats, where he walks, what he drives, where he hangs out and how many times a day he goes to the bathroom.

We’ll have his driver’s license number, his credit card numbers, his Social Security number and his shoe size.

We’ll get him, Grace. And we’ll get your sister back safe and sound. ”

Swallowing hard, she nodded.

“Say it,” he told her.

“We’ll get Hope back safe and sound.” Then she closed her eyes and the tears she’d been fighting all night long finally broke free. “God, we have to, Jack. I love her so much…”

His arms slid around her, and he pulled her close to him, held her gently. “I know, I know.”

“No, you don’t.” Sniffling, she rested her head on his shoulder and twisted her arms around his waist. “I never told her. I’ve wasted my time being petty and jealous of her and teasing her for being all the things our mother wanted…things I thought were silly and foolish…until I met you.”

Jack’s hands stroked her hair. “You know I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, don’t you?”

Sniffling, she nodded against his shoulder.

“You never had any reason to be jealous of your sister. Never. But it doesn’t matter, because she knows you love her.

You hear me?” Another nod as she burrowed closer.

“But even if she has the least little doubt about it, Grace, it doesn’t matter.

You can tell her when we get her back. And we will. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” He squeezed her one last time, and set her away from him. “Now fasten your seat belt. I’m gonna take you to your parents’, and then I’ll—”

“No!”

Jack blinked and looked at her.

“I need to be looking for my sister, and for Charlie. God, Jack, I couldn’t just sit by the phone and wait to hear.”

He tapped his palm on the steering wheel, pursed his lips. “This is filth we’re dealing with, Grace. I’m liable to be up to my elbows in it before I tug Charlie and Hope out again. This is no place for you.”

She sat back and buckled up. Then she grabbed up the light and resumed shining it on the murky swamp. Jack put the car into gear and drove slowly.

“You don’t have a clue what kind of place is for me, Jack. I’m not afraid of getting dirty. I’m not afraid of much of anything.”

“No?”

“No.”

He took a deep breath.

“Jack, if you take me home, I’ll just come after you. Wouldn’t you rather know where I was, than have me stumbling into situations the way I did tonight?”

He let his chin fall almost to his chest, then quickly brought it up again. “You’re right, dammit.”

“I know I am.”

“Grace…you’re going to see things…that might change the way you…”

“The way I what?”

His face, shadowed and lit in turns by the interior lights and the movements of the steering wheel, seemed tense and taut with concentration. “The way you feel about me.”

“It works both ways, you know.” She kept her eyes on the water, the swamp, the creatures writhing around in the mud and slime.

“Now that the masks are off…I suppose I’m going to be telling you a lot of things about me that you didn’t know before.

You thought you married a delicate socialite, Jack.

But you’re going to know, pretty soon, just how wrong you were.

And maybe I’m not the wife you had in mind at all. ”

“That’s not gonna happen.”

“You can’t be sure of that.”