Kathleen Creighton - Shooting Starr

“It’s just,” she whispered brokenly, “that now I have to worry about keeping you alive. I don’t know what I’d do if-”

“Yeah, well, this wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t tried to keep me out of it. If you hadn’t lied-”

“I know, I know. I’m sorry. I swear I’ll never do it again. It’s just that you’re so damn protective-”

“You damn right I’m protective. I love you, dammit!”

“Oh, C.J.,” she whispered. She pulled back from him and gazed, unfocused, into his face. “What are we going to do now?”

“Good question.” Looking past her, over her head, he added grimly, “This might be a good time to let me in on the plan.”

Caitlyn let out a slow breath. Her teeth had begun to chatter. It had stopped raining, but water and leaves fell with a noisy patter as the wind stirred the tops of the trees. “It’s simple, really. We figured Vasily would try to kidnap me-he still thinks I know where his daughter is.”

“You mean…you don’t?”

“No.” Her laugh was scared and breathy. “I don’t. I know how to get in touch with the people who know, but I can’t just…take him to where she is.”

“Oh, God.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Caitlyn said quickly, over his agonized groan. “The plan was for me to pretend to know and then lead him into a trap-a fake safe house-where FBI agents would be waiting. C.J.-” At his angry hiss, she caught at his arms, and felt a strange thrill go through her at the strength, the coiled-spring tension in them. “C.J., listen-it would have been all right. Vasily wouldn’t risk harming me as long as Emma’s in hiding. I’m still his only hope of getting her back.”

“Yeah, well-” he cleared his throat with a low growling sound “-right now we have to worry about getting us back. I don’t suppose you know where the cavalry is, right about now?”

“Staying well back out of the way, I should imagine. They’re not going to risk scaring Vasily away.”

“Yeah…and speaking of Vasily…” He was once again directing his nervous and searching gaze beyond her. “I don’t know how far away the rendezvous point was, but that truck made a good bit of noise jacking itself up like that. If they were anywhere nearby, there’s a good possibility they heard it. No telling how much time we have before somebody comes to investigate. Do you have any way of contacting those FBI guys? No…guess not.” He sighed grimly. “Then I’d say-” He froze. So did she.

They both heard it at the same time: the roar of a powerful engine making its way toward them up the steep, winding road.

They took off running instinctively, like flushed quail. Caitlyn’s thick-heeled dress shoes making scraping, clumping noises on the wet pavement. After a few steps they halted, clutching each other’s arms, both talking at once, in panting gusts.

“Where’s the gun?” C.J. wheezed.

At the same time Caitlyn was saying, “You go-it’s me they want.”

There was a shocked pause. Caitlyn said, “Oh, no-I left it in the truck.”

And C.J. was yelling, “Are you crazy?”

They both halted again, breathing hard. Then C.J. said evenly, “I’m not leaving you here. Don’t even think about it.”

Caitlyn was sobbing. “C.J., you’re the one they’ll kill!”

“Then I guess we’d better both get the hell out of here, hadn’t we?” He gave her a halfhearted smile as he grabbed for her hand. She made a whimpering sound and resisted, only for an instant. “Cheer up,” he panted, “maybe it’s the Feds.”

It wasn’t. She knew it wouldn’t be, even before she saw the hood of a gray sedan inching its way past the cab of the jackknifed truck, dark tinted windows reflecting jigsaw puzzle pieces of a pearly sky.

“We can’t outrun them,” C.J. gasped. “If we can make it to the woods-”

But the laurel-and fern-covered banks rose high on both sides of the road, and it was at least fifty yards to a place where they might have been able to leave the road and lose themselves in the undergrowth. It might as well have been miles. C.J. could probably have made it, but he wouldn’t leave her, and in her short skirt and clumsy, hard-soled shoes she didn’t have a prayer.

The gray sedan throbbed softly and puffed out its warm breath like some great beast, its unhurried pace making it seem almost benign as it came up behind them. Accepting the inevitable, Caitlyn slowed to a limping walk, and after a moment C.J. did, too. The big car glided past them and halted just beyond. The rear door opened and a man stepped out and gestured silently to them with one hand. In the other was a gun, held with the relaxed competence of one entirely comfortable with its use.

“I’m really starting to hate those things,” C.J. muttered as he ducked his head to climb into the back seat.

Caitlyn followed, groping involuntarily, her vision failing in the car’s shadowy interior. She felt C.J.’s hand envelop hers, and the sick terror in her heart subsided…just a little.

That small comfort was short-lived. The gunman motioned her impatiently to move over, then wedged himself between her and C.J. She felt the barrel of the gun dig into her ribs as he reached across her to close the door.

Silence settled around the five people inside the car. Cold to the bone, C.J. found that his eyes were riveted on the man in the front passenger seat, the same way they’d have kept track of a coiled rattlesnake.

The man had turned in his seat and was observing them with a tight-lipped smile. Now he favored Caitlyn with a slight nod and said softly, “I am delighted to finally meet you, Miss Brown.” His voice, C.J. noted, was slightly accented, something vaguely Eastern European, he guessed. He would probably be considered a handsome man, with even, deeply tanned features and silver hair, thick, wavy and expensively groomed. For some reason he had on sunglasses with mirror lenses, in spite of the heavily overcast day.

He signaled the driver with a hand gesture, and the car began to glide forward. “As you probably have guessed, I am Ari Vasily. I have waited for this moment for…quite a long time. You have something that belongs to me, I believe. Or…perhaps I should say, you know where it may be found.” His lips parted to reveal rather large and very white teeth. “But before we get to that-might I ask what you have done with Lorenzo?”

“If you mean the guy who hijacked me,” C.J. said, “he didn’t fare too well in the…accident.”

Vasily’s sunglasses swiveled toward C.J., as if until that moment he’d considered him of little consequence. After an interminable moment, his mouth gave a twitch of vexation. “Ah, I see. A pity. Reliable employees are hard to find. Well-” the sunglasses shifted back to Caitlyn “-then we will get immediately to business. My dear Miss Brown-Caitlyn-you will, of course, tell me where they have been keeping my daughter. And quickly-I am certain the authorities will not be far away.” He sounded faintly amused by that, C.J. thought, as someone might observing the antics of a clumsy child.

Cold inside, Caitlyn stared at the shiny blur that was Ari Vasily’s eyes. This was it-the moment she had been preparing herself for. Everything-everything-depended on whether or not she could carry it off.

She took a deep breath and did not have to try very hard to make her voice sound timid and afraid. “But I don’t know where Emma is. I swear-”

A slight movement of Vasily’s head interrupted her. He made a mild shame-on-you sound with his tongue. “Caitlyn…Caitlyn. Please don’t waste our time. If you do not know precisely where my daughter is, you most certainly know how to contact those who do. I want that information, and will do whatever is necessary to obtain it-as quickly as possible. Do you understand?”

She couldn’t answer. Her heart was beating too fast, and her tongue seemed to have stuck to the roof of her mouth.

After regarding her for a moment, Vasily shook his head and sighed. “You are correct in thinking I will not kill you, since that would defeat my purpose. There are, of course, numerous ways in which I can induce you to tell me what I want to know, without ever harming one hair of your pretty head. For example…” His voice was a thoughtful purr. Caitlyn’s skin shivered as if something unspeakable had crawled over it. “I know that you are a person who cares about other people…very much. You no doubt even care for this unfortunate fellow here-this truck driver who has had the bad judgment to interfere in my affairs.”

The sunglasses flicked toward the gunman sitting beside Caitlyn. With the casual indifference of one brushing at a fly, Vasily said, “Shoot him.”

Caitlyn jerked as though she felt the impact of a bullet in her own flesh; her throat contracted in a high, sharp cry. “No-wait-please-” She didn’t have to pretend the violent shudders that racked her body.

Vasily’s hand flicked, and beside her she felt the gunman’s body relax slightly. “Yes, Caitlyn?” Vasily purred. “You have changed your mind, perhaps? There is, after all, something you wish to tell me?”

“I…there is a safe house…” She could barely whisper. Her throat felt scoured and peppery. Her heart lumbered in her chest like a stampede, making it hard to breathe. “They would probably take her there. With everybody looking for her…it’s the closest place. It’s…not far from here, I think. Off the Blue Ridge Parkway. I don’t know if I can find it…I was only there once…” Her babbling died for lack of air.

There was a thoughtful silence. Then Vasily turned back to the front of the car with a soft grunt. “For your trucker-friend’s sake, I pray that you will find it. Dominic, if you please-”

Clammy and sick to her stomach, Caitlyn closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the seat. She couldn’t bring herself to look at C.J. Her mind cried out to him in anguish. Oh, C.J., I’m so sorry for getting you into this…please forgive me…I love you…I’m so sorry…forgive me…