Alice Sharpe - Bodyguard Father

A quarter of a mile later, he rounded a turn to find an older white sedan with Nevada license plates. Using her keys, he unlocked the car and slid behind the wheel. The car was registered to someone named Jack Ryder. A hasty search of the glove box revealed a few folded maps. He felt under the seat and came out with a woman’s woven handbag. It held little more than a small zipped wallet. The driver’s license showed his visitor’s face. Her name was Anastasia Ryder. So, was she Jack Ryder’s wife? She had a credit card, a library card and grocery store discount card. No private-eye license. A few receipts fell out of a side pocket. She had purchased new shoes and two different wigs three days before in Reno.

He also found a plastic bag half full of what looked like homemade oatmeal cookies and a key attached to a green oval labeled Shut Eye Inn, rm. 7, the sole motel in town.

Remembering the cell phone he confiscated, he dug it from a pocket, turned it on and scrolled through the outgoing calls. None to a local number. The last one she made was to an area code he didn’t recognize, but that wasn’t surprising. There were hundreds of new area codes now thanks to the proliferation of cell phones. The call had been made an hour before he caught Anastasia Ryder behind Scio’s barn. He pushed the call button. The phone was answered by a recording.

A woman’s voice. Name of Shelby Parker. He didn’t recognize her voice but her name rang a distant bell. No, he couldn’t remember where he’d heard it before. Was she connected to Rocko Klugg?

He flipped the phone closed and rubbed his jaw with cold fingers, trying to figure things out. At least Anastasia hadn’t called the police. And if her appearance was connected to Klugg, it would take hours for his henchmen to get here.

In the end, did it matter who Anastasia Ryder worked for? She carried a gun and a picture of him taken outside his ex-wife’s house. She’d taken photos of everything connected to him. Obviously, someone had employed Ms. Ryder to track him down and she had.

Driving her car, he made a U-turn on the empty road and drove back up his driveway, his leg screaming in protest as he hit every rut in the dirt road. The weather had grown even colder, the road icier. As he neared the top, his tires fell into well-worn grooves. If not for them, he’d skid all over the place. He flipped on the windshield wipers as snow started to fly.

And then he saw it. His truck, aimed right at him, barreling down the hillside, his prisoner at the wheel. He’d left the damn keys on a hook by the door!

For an instant, he met Anastasia Ryder’s green-eyed gaze as he slammed on the brakes, sending pain shooting up his right leg. He yanked the wheel to the left but she kept coming, the truck’s momentum overriding its aging brakes, sending it into a death skid aimed right at him.

The truck hit the car starting at the front right fender and grinding its way down the body, crushing the doors with a horrible metal on metal sound until it imbedded itself into what had once been the trunk. The car stopped abruptly thanks to a tree and that jarring conclusion saved him an uncomfortable trip down the hillside. It also released the air bag and he sank into it instead of slamming against the steering wheel.

Shaking inside, Garrett took inventory. Besides his leg, remarkably, everything else seemed to be in working order. He fought off the air bag, took the keys from the ignition and dumped them in Annie’s purse. After wrenching open his door, he slipped and slid his way around the car.

Ben’s truck was history. Radiator pushed inward, hood buckled, steam hissing, windshield shattered…it wasn’t going anywhere again. Damn, neither was the car. The two locked vehicles made a dandy roadblock.

How did Anastasia Ryder get untied? Stupid question, he knew how. He hadn’t tied her tight enough, he hadn’t wanted to break her soft skin. He hadn’t wanted to yank her arms behind her, he hadn’t wanted to hurt her.

And in payment of this gentle treatment, she crashed his getaway truck.

He pulled open the truck door, dreading what he would find. Anastasia had been thrown or had thrown herself flat onto the bench seat and she sat up slowly, her lovely face splattered with her own blood, hair tumbling across her forehead and down her shoulders. Tiny cubes of safety glass sparkled in her hair like ice crystals.

Her hands were still tied together, a cut rope dangled from the knot around one ankle. She’d apparently used his biggest kitchen knife to cut her feet free and brought it along as a possible weapon. It now stuck straight out from the dashboard, the tip imbedded in vinyl, the plastic handle still vibrating from the impact.

She bit her lip when her gaze followed his and she saw the knife.

“You’re lucky it didn’t imbed itself in something softer. Like your throat,” he said.

She nodded in a dazed kind of fashion.

“Can you move?”

She nodded again and sat perfectly still, blinking.

“I’ll help you,” he said.

More nodding. He brushed some of the glass away then reached inside and pulled on her jacket sleeve and her jeans. She slid closer to the edge of the seat until she slipped into his arms as though she belonged there. She looped her arms over his head and around his neck and for a second, he wondered if she knew how to choke a man with a rope. But instead of trying to strangle him, she looked into his eyes. The cold, miserable day receded, the pain ebbed, the clock stopped ticking.

“Thanks,” she said, lowering her gaze.

“If you’d stayed tied up this wouldn’t have happened,” he grumbled as he carried her away from the hissing, steaming mass of mangled metal. He set her on her feet, anxious to see just how injured she was. She swayed a little but caught herself.

“Can you walk?” he barked.

“Of course,” she said, shaking glass off her clothes, out of her hair. “I’m just a little…rattled,” she added, and proved it by trembling from the feet up.

“Stand here for a second,” he said as he handed her her handbag. “Don’t run away.”

He limped back to the truck and grabbed the rifle before pulling his duffel bag from behind the seat. He didn’t know how he was going to get out of here now that both vehicles were wrecked, but he knew he had to. Soon.

She still stood where he’d left her. What was he going to do with her? He couldn’t leave her here alone, could he? He pulled out his pocket watch and checked the time. The minutes kept ticking by.

As he approached, he saw the return of fear in her eyes. Why she should be afraid of him when it was she who had started this mess?

She believes you blew up Elaine Greason.

He moved a few steps toward the house and looked back at her. “Let’s go inside while I come up with plan B.”

She looked anxiously over his shoulder toward the cabin and back again, her gaze straying past the wreck. It appeared she longed to run down the hill screaming at the top of her lungs.

“The snow is beginning to stick,” he said.

“But—”

“Listen. I know you’re Anastasia Ryder, I know you have a husband named Jack, I know you came to find me and that you called someone named Shelby Parker once you followed me back to Ben’s place. I know all this. I know you’ve been stalking me and I know why. So let’s can the scared female act. Thanks to your little escape attempt, I have to figure out how I’m going to get out of here before the cops come. Or worse.”

As she walked toward him, she shrugged off her coat and shook off more glass. “Call me Annie,” she said.

THE FIRST THING Garrett Skye did was tape a square of thick cardboard over the broken pane in the door and sweep up the glass. He did this work efficiently and without fanfare as Annie stood by, still shaken up and disorientated. The stream of cold the hole had allowed to enter the cabin immediately stopped and along with it, some of Annie’s shivers.