“Carrie, we’ve already been over this.”
“This will save us at least fifty miles. Look.” She pointed to the map and ran her finger along its surface, outlining the two-lane highway, wanting to convince him this was actually a much better plan. She hoped he’d believe this was an overlooked shortcut. If she had her way, they’d soon be off the interstate, which bored her to tears. The scenery was sure to be more though-provoking than the same bleak stretch of highway looming ahead, mile after tedious mile. Carrie loved driving through small farming communities. At least the back roads had character.
Kyle studied the map as if he strongly suspected she’d distorted the facts, but he couldn’t very well argue with what was directly in front of his nose.
“I suppose we could go the way you suggest,” he admitted without much enthusiasm. He made it sound as if he was conceding something important and she should appreciate the sacrifice he was making for her benefit.
“Come on, Kyle,” she said cheerfully, feeling generous. “Let’s make the best of this, shall we? You don’t need to give me the silent treatment. I know you’d rather not be taking this trip with me. That was understood from the beginning. But we’re stuck together, so let’s do what we can to get along, all right?”
“I know this isn’t exactly your idea of a vacation either,” he conceded, with barely a hint of graciousness.
Sucking in her breath and her pride, Carrie held out her hand to him, prepared to make the first move toward a peace accord. “Friends?”
He stared at her outstretched arm as if he expected her to be hiding an electric buzzer in her palm. When he did shake hands, it was briefly and without much enthusiasm. Carrie didn’t need a crystal ball to know he trusted her about as much as he would a snake charmer.
“Friends,” he agreed, but the word seemed to have a difficult time making it past his lips.
She beamed at him, to show she was proud of him. It wouldn’t be so bad. These next days would be their swan song. With effort they could get along. Holding her tongue for more than a few days would be impossible.
The first hour after they left the freeway was peaceful, although Kyle gave her a fright when he turned on his radar detector and all at once beeping sounds came from the dashboard.
Kyle explained what it was. “I don’t want to take the chance of running into a radar trap.”
She asked several questions about the fuzz buster, and once she involved him in conversation they got along fairly well, which wasn’t all that surprising. Men were pretty much alike, as far as she could determine. They could talk up a streak as long as the subject was either their cars or themselves.
They sailed along at an even pace. Rolling waves of wheat fields bordered the road and stretched out on each side as far as the eye could see. Against a backdrop of bright blue sky, the sight was worth every bit of effort it had taken her to convince Kyle to drive this route.
“We’re making good time,” she said, noting that he was traveling well above the speed limit.
“Yes,” he said, tossing her an almost-friendly grin. “The best part is that there aren’t as many places to stop. If you need a rest room, you’re going to have to take your chances out in the fields.”
She stretched her legs out in front of her, folded her hands behind her head, and was silently complimenting herself on how well everything was going.
She should have known it was too good to be true. And far too good to last for long. When she least expected it, the car lurched unexpectedly. Except for the restraint of the seat belt, Carrie might have been hurled forward. Immediately the BMW started to make a loud, incredibly discordant sound.
“What was that?” she cried.
“I hit something,” Kyle explained as he eased the vehicle over to the side of the road and came to a stop.
Carrie leaped out. Kyle followed, frowning as he walked around his car. As if he were soothing an injured child, he gently patted the hood.
“Is that your muffler?” she asked, pointing down the road. Actually she wasn’t all that knowledgeable about car parts, but she’d replaced her own recently and had a general idea of what they looked like.
He turned to see. “Along with my exhaust pipe,” he agreed.
“What happened?”
“There was something in the road,” he said without emotion. “Obviously I hit it.” “Something” turned out to be a rock the size of a small watermelon, small enough to slip under the car and large enough to do considerable damage. Kyle had lost both the muffler and exhaust pipe, and he must have put a hole in the gas tank as well. Gasoline squirted onto the road.
This wasn’t a happy turn of events. It went without saying this small accident wouldn’t have happened if they’d remained on the interstate.
“Are you angry?” she asked, granting him plenty of space in case he chose to vent his frustration with a small temper tantrum. Then she remembered this was Kyle Harris she was dealing with. Kyle was far too dignified to release his irritation the way most people did.
“Why should I be angry?” he asked, confirming her suspicions.
“I’m sorry, Kyle.”
“It isn’t your fault,” he reassured her smoothly.
After pulling the car parts and the rock off to the side of the road, he stood in the middle of the highway, arms akimbo, staring off into the distance. Carrie couldn’t remember the last time they’d seen another car, let alone a farmhouse. Wheat fields stretched as far as the naked eye could see.
The sun was beating down, and Kyle wiped his hand across his brow. “This doesn’t look promising.”
“Someone will come along.” She forced herself to sound optimistic. She glanced at her watch, silently praying that they were at least on a school-bus route. Glancing down the road, she would have given her eyeteeth to find a bright yellow bus.
“Someone could come along,” Kyle agreed, “but it might take a while. Next week, if we’re lucky.” He leaned his back against the side of the car and slowly sank into a sitting position. He stared vacantly into open space and went still and quiet as if he were meditating. He was probably wishing he’d never laid eyes on her, Carrie guessed.
She couldn’t help but admire his restraint.
Lowering herself onto the grass beside him, she gathered her knees under her chin and pressed her forehead there.
“I feel terrible about all this,” she confessed, willing to accept full responsibility for the mishap. If she hadn’t suggested they take this shortcut, this might never have happened.
“It’s not your fault,” he told her for the second time.
“But I was the one who—”
“I said it wasn’t your fault!”
“You don’t need to yell at me,” she snapped back. Then she realized what he’d done. Kyle was losing his cool. Unemotional Kyle Harris. The same Kyle Harris who rarely raised his voice. Carrie was ecstatic.
“Do it!” she said excitedly, leaping back to her feet. She knotted one fist to encourage him and punched the still afternoon air. “Let loose, Kyle. You have every right in the world to be angry. Go ahead, yell.” She threw back her head and let loose with a scream herself to help him release his inhibitions.
He stared up at her as if she’d taken leave of her senses. “What’s wrong with you? Have you been sitting too long in the sun?”
“No.” She reclaimed the place next to him on the grass when it was apparent he wasn’t going to follow her lead. “For a moment there, I thought you might be human. I was wrong.”
“You think I’m inhuman because I don’t throw a temper tantrum? I prefer to think of myself as mature.”
“But don’t you ever get angry?”
“Of course I do.”
“How do you express it then? Everyone does, in one way or another.” He didn’t seem the type to beat his dog. He was kind to old ladies and good with children, she’d seen that for herself. In their increasingly heavy schedule of public service appearances, Kyle had nev
er been anything but wonderful. Except to her, of course.
“I run,” he explained in a thin, tight voice. “I know you’d rather I did something a bit more dramatic, like shoot everyone in a McDonald’s or my local post office, but I prefer to vent my frustration in a more appropriate manner.”
This was at the crux of their dislike for one another, Carrie decided. Probably the most unheralded, wild act Kyle had ever committed was tearing the DO NOT REMOVE tag from his pillow. She sincerely doubted that he’d done the things normal kids do, like skip school or eat paste. He was probably the best debate team member his school had ever produced.
“How long do you think it’ll take someone to happen upon us?” she asked after several long minutes. She couldn’t tolerate the silence any longer.
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
An edge sounded in his voice, but that was the extent of his irritation as far as she could tell.
Five more minutes passed. Kyle stood, reached inside the car, and got the map. He spread it open. “My best guess is that we’re about here,” he said, pointing to an obscure spot on the map. “There’s a town here.” He moved his finger an inch or so down the road. “Maybe ten miles.”
“Looks more like fifteen to me.”
“Fifteen, then,” he said with the utmost patience. “I’ll head that way and you can wait here.”
“You’re not leaving me.” She wanted that understood right now. Apparently he didn’t know her as well as she thought.
“Carrie, we don’t have any choice.”
“I’m not sitting out here in the hot sun while you traipse into town.” As it happened the afternoon was a balmy seventy-five degrees and she was in no immediate danger. Physical danger, at any rate. Emotional was something else.
“I can make the trip in half the time without you,” he insisted.
“Maybe you can, but…I don’t know why I object so strongly, but I don’t want to be left here by the side of a deserted road all by myself.”
“It wouldn’t be more than an hour or two,” he insisted.
Carrie was convinced Kyle viewed her as a damned nuisance, and for once she agreed with him. “You’re right, I’m being silly. The only logical thing is for me to do as you suggest and wait here,” she said bravely.
He studied her a moment as if he wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly. As if he was afraid she was going to change her mind, he opened his suitcase, got out his running shoes, and took off his loafers.
He warmed up by running around the car a couple of times; at least that was the excuse he gave her when she asked.
“You’re sure about this?” He eyed her speculatively.
“Of course,” she said, flashing him a stouthearted smile. It’d take more than being abandoned in the blazing sun to get her to admit what a coward she was. It wasn’t likely she’d meet up with a mass murder on a lonely country road. This was what she got from religiously watching Unsolved Mysteries, which was her all-time crime-solving favorite. Carrie had seen every episode since the show had first aired. She believed one day she too might solve a crime.
Carrie went the first few feet with him but quickly became winded. “Be careful.” She raised her hand to bid him farewell.
He jogged backward for several steps, studying her, before he turned, increased his speed, and took off. Watching him, Carrie was reminded of a gazelle, his movements were so fluid and graceful. Within minutes he’d disappeared around the curve in the road.
Carrie remained where she was, her fingertips pressed to her lips as she battled back some unnamed emotion. It wasn’t that she was especially worried about him—other than his inability to express emotion, that was. As for his safety, she was sure Kyle could take care of himself. Nor was she overly concerned about her own well-being, except that she seemed a little rocky emotionally.
All right, a whole lot rocky. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this close to tears. And for what reason? For the life of her, Carrie didn’t know.
She returned to the car and sat down in the shade of the disabled vehicle. No sooner had she checked her watch than she caught sight of a movement out of the corner of her eye. Looking up, she saw Kyle rounding the corner. He was coming back.
Leaping to her feet, she stood waiting anxiously for an explanation.
“I can’t do it,” he muttered. He bent forward and braced his hands against his knees as he sucked in deep gulps of oxygen.
“You can’t run fifteen miles?”
“No,” he said, as if she’d insulted him. “I can’t leave you.”
“Why not?” She’d thought she’d done an adequate job of convincing him to go on without her.
“Your eyes,” he muttered, sounding as if he was angry with himself. If that was the case, he was more angry with her, although heaven knew he’d never admit it.
He wasn’t making any sense.
“You looked at me with those big brown eyes like a dog-pound puppy. You made me feel I was leaving you to an unknown fate. We’re both in this. If you think you can make fifteen miles, we’ll go together.”
“I couldn’t jog that far.” If the truth be known, she wouldn’t make it around the next curve in the road without requiring CPR.
“We’ll walk,” he said kindly.
If he were a different kind of man he might have made a derogatory comment about her not being physically fit. Perhaps there was more to appreciate about the newscaster than met the eye, Carrie decided.
“You might want to change your shoes,” he said, staring pointedly down at her sandals.
“Ah.” As best as she could remember, everything else she’d packed had heels.
She did a quick check of her suitcase and was just getting ready to close the lid when she heard a car, a very old and sick car that coughed and choked its way down the road. Within seconds a battered blue pickup came into view.
“Kyle,” she screamed on the off chance he hadn’t noticed. “Someone’s coming!”
The farmer wore denim bib overalls and a straw hat. He pulled over to the side of the road and stuck his head out the window.
“You folks having trouble?” he asked, then climbed out of the cab. “Name’s Billy Bob,” he said, nodded once, and then decisively held out his hand for Kyle to shake. Kyle introduced himself and Carrie and explained what had happened. Carrie inserted a word or two every now and again, accepting the blame for their predicament.
“Is there a chance you could drive us into town?” Kyle asked after a couple of minutes. “I’d be more than willing to pay you for your trouble.”
The farmer rubbed his hand along the side of his jaw as if their predicament took serious consideration. “I don’t suspect it’d be much bother, but you just keep your money inside your wallet. Folks around these parts are glad to help one another. We take pride in being neighborly.” He held the door of the rusted-out truck open for Carrie. “You two climb on board and I’ll get your luggage for you.”
It only took him a minute or two to load the suitcases in the back of the pickup, which he did with surprising dexterity. Now that she watched him, Carrie noticed Billy Bob seemed to be in a hurry, which wasn’t the impression he’d first given them.
Billy Bob joined them in the cab of the truck and revved up the engine.
“I can’t begin to tell you how pleased we are you came along when you did,” Carrie said. She was sandwiched between the two men, so pleased at being rescued that it was all she could do not to kiss the farmer’s sun-leathered cheek.
Only he wasn’t tan. He must have been ill, she decided, because he didn’t look as if he’d spent a day in the sun in years. His skin was as pale as a newborn’s.
Kyle struck up a conversation and the men talked sports. Carrie was content to let the two chatter, but she noticed the way Billy Bob kept glancing into his rearview mirror as if he expected someone to come up behind him.
Now that she got a good look at him, she realized she had the impression sh
e’d seen him someplace before. “You live around these parts?” she asked when there was a lull in the conversation.
“Me and the missus have a farm on the other side of Wheatland,” he said.
“I suppose you’ve got a family?”
“Sure do,” he answered with a tinge of pride. “Five.”
His hands! That was what was bothering her so much. They were smooth and uncalloused, and his nails were clean and cut square and even.
The two men continued chatting, seeming to find a variety of subjects to discuss at length.
For one wild second Carrie thought she was going to be ill. It was all beginning to add up in her fevered mind.
This wasn’t any farmer.
If his pale face was any indication, he hadn’t spent a single day toiling under the hot sun.
Each bit of information tallied with the next, and the fact he kept checking his rearview mirror troubled her as well. Then there was the certainty she’d seen him before. His profile was familiar. Carrie was convinced she’d seen him, and she racked her mind trying to think of where it might have been.
It came to her then, all at once, like a flash flood.
She had seen this man. Recently, too, if her memory served her right. He’d been featured on Unsolved Mysteries.
3
“Kyle.” The name came out of Carrie’s throat more like a toad’s croak than anything a human would emit.
Her co-worker glanced fleetingly in her direction and waited a few seconds, but when she didn’t immediately continue, he picked up the conversation.
Billy Bob was a felon, Carrie decided. He must be in order to be profiled on Unsolved Mysteries. Unsuspecting, Kyle didn’t understand the danger they’d innocently gotten themselves into.
Given no other choice, Carrie carefully jabbed Kyle with her elbow. Her voice had completely deserted her. She was taking deep, even breaths, hoping to calm down enough to speak coherently, although she hadn’t a clue about what to say. Announcing that she’d seen Billy Bob on Unsolved Mysteries was likely to get them killed. She grabbed hold of Kyle, tightly pinching the tender skin of his upper arm.