Page 13 of Two Hearts

J ack had never seen her the way he saw her then.

The way her face changed. The look—yeah, that he recognized.

He’d seen that look before—outrage, fury, righteous indignation.

A man wrongly accused would get that look.

A rape victim’s father or husband would get it.

But Jack had never in all his years seen that kind of rage cross the face of an angel.

It made him shiver, way down deep inside.

He leaned into the ambulance just long enough to tell Charlie everything was going to be fine, that he would take care of things, and then he went after his wife.

Her walk was even different. Stride, longer. Footfalls, almost stomping. She walked right up to a volunteer fireman and tugged the flashlight from his hand. The man swung his head around, mouth open, took one look at her face and snapped it shut again.

Jack thought that was probably a wise decision on his part.

Grace went to the overturned car, to the muddy roadside around it, and she shone that light on the ground. This way, that way, the light beam moved. But it only illuminated the tracks of a dozen rescue workers.

“Damn! How the hell are we supposed to find which way he took her!” She flung the light to the ground, arms raising outward in frustration.

Jack took her shoulders, held on hard. “Take a breath, Grace. Come on, do it.”

She did, but he could see the tears of frustration and fury standing in her eyes.

He bent to pick up the flashlight. “The rescuers were walking all around the car. They had no choice. So was Paulo, when he first got out with Hope. But he would have kept on going. Away from the car. Away from all these other tracks.”

“If he kept to the pavement…”

“He didn’t,” Jack said.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Trust me, hmm? Come on.” Jack took her hand and pulled her along the shoulder of the road, about ten feet from the car.

“Now we just make a circle.” He climbed over the guard rail, held out his hand, and helped her over it.

Then he aimed the light’s beam at the ground and they walked down the steep, muddy slope, and around the car at a distance of about ten feet, all the way.

Not a footprint in sight.

Jack shook his head. “Damn. He’s smarter than I thought.”

“I told you,” Grace said. “He walked on the road.”

“No. He just crossed it.” Again, they climbed over the guard rail and crossed the street in the pouring rain.

Grace looked at Jack with doubt in her eyes, but as soon as they got to the far side of the road and he began shining the light around, he found the tracks.

Two sets of them, clear as hell, in the mud.

Just until the spot where the grass grew thickly and the ground was harder.

Jack signaled the nearest body—a cop standing on the yellow center line. The trooper came over and Jack pointed in the direction the tracks headed. “What’s that way?” Jack asked him.

He bit his lower lip in thought. “Let’s see…there used to be a trucking company off that way. Out of business now. Yeah, yeah, just beyond that hill there, and then there’s a diner, I think, and maybe the animal shelter just past that.”

Jack ignored him, flipping through the soggy pages of his notepad. “D & D Trucking?” he asked.

“Yeah—yeah, that’s the name.”

Jack nodded, looked at Grace. “Darius’s father owned it. That’s where he’ll be holing up, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find that he has help.”

“He’s gonna need it,” Grace said, that look still in place.

“Grace.” Jack caught her wrist when she would have walked past him into the darkness, across untended lots that ran between side streets and the urban area beyond. “We can get there faster by car. I’ll call for backup and…”

She shook her head rapidly, her gaze flying to Jack’s. Then she glanced at the cop and pulled Jack aside. “We have to slip in there unseen, and quietly.”

“The place could be guarded.”

“Right. And if the cops come charging in, sirens blaring, what’s going to happen?” She shook her head. “She’s hurt, Jack. We don’t know how badly. We don’t have time for a standoff.”

“It won’t turn into that.”

“Are you sure? Can you promise me that? Can you stand there and say you know without a doubt that my sister isn’t going to bleed to death while some negotiator plays psychological chess with this idiot?”

Jack licked his lips. She had a point, and a damned good one.

“At least let’s try to get close enough to see her. To see how badly she’s hurt. Then we can make a decision. With all the information. Okay?”

Jack nodded. Then he smiled just slightly. “You’d make a hell of a cop, Grace.”

“Oh, hell, Jack, you probably say that to all the socialites.”

“Only the ones I’m married to.”

There was a strength in her that Jack hadn’t seen before. Should have, probably. But hadn’t. Or if he had, he hadn’t recognized it for what it was.

But she was something.

Little did he know, he was only beginning to know his wife.

As the ambulances rolled away, Jack left instructions to keep the scene secure, but do nothing more. He made the obligatory suggestion that Grace stay behind, and her response to that was a look that could have wilted lettuce. He’d known better.

And then he and Grace started off across a littered lot in the rain.

* * *

Grace lay on her belly on the rain-wet grass, Jack’s hand on the center of her back to keep her there.

Just ahead of them, down a slight incline and beyond the veil of pouring rain, was a large, long building made of powder-blue, ribbed steel.

The front of it was lined with giant-size white doors that looked as if they’d roll upward to let large vehicles inside.

Five of them. And at the end, a normal-size door, also white, for a person to enter through.

“That must be the office down there,” Jack whispered, pointing to the little door on the end. “I’ll bet that’s where they went inside.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “They were in a hurry. It’s the easiest access. Lots faster than messing with one of the overhead doors—less noticeable, too.”

Gracie watched her husband for a moment, the way his eyes scanned the area below with hawklike focus. He didn’t even blink. “How are we going to get down there?” she asked. “There’s not so much as a bush on this slope…and it’s going to be light soon.”

“This way.” He slid backward a few feet, before getting up and helping her to her feet, as well.

Then he started off in another direction, walking a parallel line with the wall of the building they’d been studying.

She assumed he knew what he was doing—so she didn’t ask. But it seemed damned strange.

When they’d gone far beyond the point where the building ended, he turned right and walked this time in line with the rear of the building.

She could glimpse it every now and then through the shrubs that were clustered back here.

No windows that she could see. No back doors.

Again, they kept going after the building ended, and Jack took them to the right again, all the way to the front, so they wound up directly opposite of where they had been before.

He crouched there, looking down at the door. “Only one way in,” he said. “Let’s hope they aren’t right there waiting.”

“So all that walking was a waste of time?”

He smiled slightly at her. “No. He’ll be expecting us to come from the opposite direction, if he’s expecting us at all. He won’t likely be looking this way.”

She nodded. “I like the way your mind works.” Then, glancing down at the little white door, she shivered.

“Stay here,” Jack told her. “I’ll go in alone.”

“Right.”

He looked at her, surprise etched on his face.

“Well, I’m not going to let you go down there and get shot,” she told him. “Suppose Darius is waiting on the other side of that door with a gun drawn?”

Jack licked his lips, averted his eyes. “He won’t be.”

“Maybe we can make sure of that.” She’d been crouching low, but now she dropped to her knees and began patting the ground with her hands. She found one stone, then another, and a third. Gathering them up, she rose.

“What do you have in mind?” Jack asked.

“I’ll chuck these at one of the other doors. It’ll make noise. He’ll go to check it out. And you’ll be able to get inside without getting yourself killed.”

Jack nodded. “Good plan.”

“What if he has others in there with him?”

Jack shook his head. “I don’t think he does. The place doesn’t look like any kind of home base. Looks deserted. He may have called for some help by now, but I don’t think any has arrived.”

She nodded. “Okay, then. Let’s get on with it.”

Together, they crept closer to the large garagelike structure. Until Jack signaled her to stop.

Grace lifted the first rock. “I’ll aim for the door on the far end,” she said. “It’ll take him longer to check it out and come back that way.”

Jack looked at the door, then looked at her. “You’ll never reach that far.”

She lifted both brows and tipped her head to one side, then chucked her first stone. Jack’s head moved to follow its flight path, and when the stone clattered against the far side of the farthest door, he muttered, “I’ll be damned.”

“Go.” She gave him a shove, and even as he took off, she pegged the second rock. It hit louder than the first, and she reached for the third.

But before she could throw it, Jack was shouldering the little door open, vanishing inside.

Swallowing hard, Grace pulled back to throw the third stone…

but froze in place when a gunshot ripped through the gathering gray dawn and the sound of her sister’s voice screaming her husband’s name made Gracie’s blood gel in her veins.

“That’s real clever, isn’t it now?” a voice said from just behind her, close to her ear. “You got a nice arm on you, you know that?”