Forever After (22 page)

She moved to the doorway of Sammy’s bedroom, her gaze wandering slowly over the contents. Meredith hated to make the child part with all her favorite things again. But better that than to watch Sammy grieve over the death of her canine friend. Toys were replaceable, after all. A dog like Goliath wasn’t.

There would be time tomorrow to pack Sammy’s clothes and the few small toys that could be stowed in the trunk, Meredith concluded sadly. She would do all the packing on the sly, just in case the board of commissioners surprised her and decided to give Goliath a pardon. In that event, Meredith would slip Sammy’s clothes back into her drawers, unpack her own things, and resume the usual routine, with Sammy never suspecting they’d nearly left here.

There was no point in upsetting the little girl unnecessarily.

Not that Meredith believed, even for a second, that Goliath would be forgiven his transgression. Those in positions of judicial power were, in her experience, a blind and dispassionate lot. The law was the law, amen. Even Heath, as kind and caring as he was, had become a slave to his own ethics.

Meredith had revered the law once, almost with awe. And she’d believed in the system, convinced that there truly was justice for all. Acting within the law, she had tried desperately to save her daughter, only to learn when it was nearly too late that Lady Justice sometimes granted her favors to the highest bidder. Since then Meredith’s ethics had been dictated by her conscience. She had learned to ex
amine her heart, to hell with the law. Sometimes a person had no other choice.

It wasn’t going to be easy for her this time. In leaving Wynema Falls behind, she was also leaving Heath.
Heath
. Oh, God. Until tonight, she’d halfway managed to keep a lid on her feelings for him. Now they were boiling over. Somewhere along the way, she’d fallen in love with him. Head over heels, with all her heart.

It was hopeless, she knew. Today he had proven to her, beyond a doubt, that he was a man of principal. No matter how difficult it might be for him, he would stand behind his convictions, which were intricately interwoven with the law he was sworn to uphold. She was a lawbreaker. All other difficulties swept aside, that one elemental difference was enough to hold the two of them apart.

Thinking back to her childhood and the peaceful summer days she had known as a girl in Mississippi, Meredith wondered how she had ever wound up in a mess like this. She couldn’t even contact her parents for fear her calls or letters might be traced. And now she was about to leave a man who’d become as important to her as breathing. Where would it all end?

She imagined moving to another town, trying to create a home in another run-down house, then carefully drilling her daughter on an entirely new set of lies. Mommy’s new name, their new past. Trying to explain why Mommy’s hair and eyes were suddenly a different color again.

It all seemed overwhelming to Meredith. As she wandered aimlessly through the house, gazing through tears at the bits and pieces of a life she was about to leave behind, she came upon Heath’s hammer, lying on the kitchen windowsill.

She closed her fingers over the handle, the wood of which had been polished smooth by the grip of his hand. As silly and sentimental as it was, she decided to steal it, too. A little bit of Heath to take along with her.

Oh, God…what had happened to her? How could she care so deeply for a man she didn’t dare trust?

Sanders tossed three antacid tablets into his mouth as he lay back against the pillows. As he chewed the chalky substance, he punched 9 on the motel room phone to get an outside line, then placed a credit card call to New York. Glen Calendri answered on the fourth ring, sounding disgruntled and slightly out of breath.

“Have I caught you at a bad time, boss?”

“No.” Calendri muffled the phone for a moment, his voice coming through in a hollow rumble as he dispensed with his companion.

While he waited, Allen fingered the fake leather binding on the motel room Bible that lay on the bedside table, idly wondering if anyone had ever actually read the damned thing. In his experience, people came to motels for two reasons, to rest or have sex, not get religion.

“All right, I’m back,” Calendri said.

Allen crossed his ankles, his gaze fixed on the toe of one dress sock, which was about to wear through. “We finally got a positive ID on her late this afternoon.”

“It is her, then?”

“It’s her. No question.”

Calendri laughed smugly. “I knew it! We’ve got the bitch where we want her now. You’re positive it’s my granddaughter?”

Allen quickly recounted the events of the afternoon. “Delgado’s sure. Saw the kid and the woman up close.”

“Jesus, why didn’t the idiot file charges to get the dog out of the way? They would’ve quarantined him.”

“Too risky,” Allen came back. “They could’ve run a check on his ID, for one. And he was drivin’ a rental car. Everybody was so upset over the dog, they didn’t check his plates, but they might’ve if he’d gotten nasty. We’ll take out the dog when we go in. Less chance of trouble before the fact that way.”

Calendri sighed. Then he chuckled. “The important thing is, we’ve found the bitch. Right? Now it’s just a matter of time till I get my granddaughter back.”

Thinking back, Sanders remembered Mary Calendri as she’d been when she first married Dan, fresh out of college, with stars in her eyes. She’d had a smile back then to light up a room. Within a month of her marriage, she’d begun to look like an old woman, her eyes lusterless, her smile strained, her face caked with makeup to hide the bruises. Allen could also remember how nervous she’d been, constantly fidgeting and visibly starting whenever Dan entered the room.

Allen didn’t claim to be any saint. Hell, he’d done things that would give other men nightmares. But he drew the line at knocking his old lady around or being mean to his kids. He had pitied Mary Calendri back then and he did now. She’d been incredibly stupid, thinking she could buck Glen Calendri and live. Once you got hooked into this organization, you were hooked for good. There was no way out, unless, of course, you chose to go out feet first.

“How do you want us to take her out, boss? And when would you like it done?”

After making a
quick trip to the bank the next morning, Meredith set her daughter down at the kitchen table to make tissue roses. While Sammy struggled to fashion something remotely resembling a flower with squares of pink tissue and hairpins, Meredith brought moving cartons in from the shed, slipped into the child’s bedroom to pack her clothes and then hid the boxes in the closet.

After Sammy went down for her nap, Meredith removed all her nonperishable foodstuff from the cupboards and put it into boxes as well. She left out only two cans of soup, which she figured would suffice as a last-minute meal for her and Sammy before they left town.

When she felt sure Sammy was fast asleep, she began carrying everything to the car, stowing as many of the cartons as possible in the trunk to provide more passenger room up front. When she had finished with that, she checked the Ford’s engine oil and transmission fluid to be sure the old car was as ready as it could be for travel.

By then, it was nearly two o’clock. Meredith paced the floors, glancing frequently at her watch to check the time, her nerves raw with anxiety. Heath’s meeting with the board of county commissioners would be taking place any minute now.
Pins and needles
. She was so tense that her skin felt prickly.

At least a dozen times, she considered going over to
Heath’s house right then and stealing his dog from the kennel. That way, she could be long gone before he even tried to call her, which would give her a good head start before he came home this evening and found her gone. The only thing that stopped her was the remote possibility that the county authorities might give the Rottweiler a pardon. Heath loved Goliath, and Meredith couldn’t, in good conscience, take the animal away from him unless she had no other alternative. It would be cruel, both to the dog and the man.

At around two-thirty, she realized she’d been so busy doing other things that she had forgotten to pen a farewell note to Heath. It would be inexcusable if she left without at least trying to explain why. She spent the next forty minutes at the table, agonizing over the wording. How did one say good-bye in a letter? There were so many things she wanted to tell him, all of which were impossible for her to express.

She finally settled for thanking him for being such a good friend to her and Sammy. Then she tried to explain her reasons for abducting the dog, which struck her as being more than a little wacky when she put them down on paper. Maybe it wasn’t a responsible decision. If her car broke down en route, she might even look back and consider it to have been a crazy one. But she had to do it.

It was ten after three by the time she finished the note and sealed the envelope. Heath still hadn’t called. Meredith couldn’t believe he had forgotten. The man was nothing if not considerate of other people’s feelings, and he had to know she was pacing the floors, waiting to learn the outcome of the meeting. She could only presume that the debate over Goliath’s fate had dragged on longer than expected, possibly because Heath was arguing so passionately in his dog’s behalf.

By three thirty, Meredith was nearly beside herself. If he didn’t call soon, she’d have no choice but to go get Goliath and leave. Had he decided to drive home to give her the bad news?

That thought spurred her into action. If the board had voted to have Goliath destroyed, Heath would undoubtedly do it right away. Waiting until tomorrow would be sheer agony for him. What if he was on his way home right now to tell her the verdict and pick up the dog? She couldn’t very well spirit Goliath away with Heath looking on.

She rushed into the bedroom to awaken Sammy, her plan to get the child into the car, drive over to get Goliath, and leave before Heath came home to stop her. Only Sammy wasn’t on her bed where Meredith had left her.

“Sammy!” she called as she moved through the house, checking first in the bathroom, then in the other bedroom. “Sweetkins, where are you?”

No answer. Meredith made a quick sweep through the remainder of the house, then went back through each room to check under the beds and in closets. Her daughter was nowhere to be found.

Stepping out onto the back porch, she scanned the yard. “Sammy!” she yelled.

When the child didn’t respond, Meredith began to feel the first twinges of panic. Sammy had been fast asleep the last time she checked. Had she woken up while Meredith had been outside packing the car? Meredith thought back. She’d spent several minutes inside the woodshed searching for the oil funnel. Had Sammy come outside during that time, looked in vain for her mother, and then wandered off? Meredith found that difficult to believe. Sammy had never left the yard.

Calm down
, she ordered herself.
Even a timid child is likely to wander off sometimes. And here lately, Sammy has been getting much bolder
.

Meredith circled the yard, checking Sammy’s favorite hiding places. Nothing. She was about to go back inside and double-check the rooms when her gaze fell on Heath’s house.
Goliath
. The dog was in his kennel. Maybe Sammy had sneaked over to see him.

Convinced that was exactly what had happened, Meredith set off up the road. Her heart sank when she reached
Heath’s driveway. She could see Goliath lying inside his doghouse, but there was no sign of Sammy.

“Sammy!” she yelled as loud as she could. “Sammy!”

Again there was no response, only the gentle whisper of the afternoon breeze in the surrounding trees. As Meredith turned to go back home, she glimpsed a patch of pink in the cow pasture on the opposite side of the road.
Oh, God
. For a frozen instant, all she could do was stand there and stare, her heart in her throat. What if the child had slipped through the pasture fence? Was that Sammy, lying out there in the grass?

Meredith couldn’t believe Sammy had gone anywhere near those cows. But sometimes children grew so distracted that they didn’t pay attention to their surroundings. How many times had Meredith read about a child chasing a ball directly into the path of a speeding automobile?

Sammy loved butterflies and sometimes tried to catch them. She might have followed one into the pasture.

Meredith broke into a run, her gaze fixed on that splotch of pink.
Her baby
. The cows in that field were dangerously unpredictable. Accustomed to grazing on open range, the animals were spooked easily by humans. One of them could have trampled Sammy or even gored her.

After scrambling over the fence, Meredith cut across the field. By the time she reached the splotch of pink, her breath was coming in ragged gasps and she had a stitch in her side.
Clover? Nothing but clover?
Meredith couldn’t believe she’d run all this way, half crazy with fear, only to find a clump of pink blossoms.

She spun, scanning the pasture around her. Oh, God. She wouldn’t be able to bear it if something happened to her daughter.

In the adjacent pasture, which lay directly behind her house, Meredith saw another splotch of pink. Probably only more clover, she told herself. But what if it was her child, lying injured and helpless in the grass? She broke back into a run.

Halfway across the field, she stepped in a burrow. Her
ankle twisted painfully, and she pitched forward, hitting the ground face first. Star-studded blackness exploded inside her head. For a moment, all she could do was lie there, her deflated lungs grabbing frantically for breath.

As her vision began to clear, Meredith pushed to her knees, her entire being focused on reaching that fence. She clawed her way erect and staggered forward.

Sharp barbs tore at her clothes and skin as she climbed over the wire. She scarcely felt the pain.
Running, running
. Her cheeks vibrated with every impact of her feet against the ground. When at last she reached the splotch of pink, she hugged her aching sides.
Clover
.

Doing a slow turn, she saw that the clumps of pink flowers dotted the fields for as far as she could see. Only what if one of those splotches
wasn’t
clover? The cows weren’t the only dangerous creatures out here. There were rattlesnakes as well. If Sammy were injured, she could lie unnoticed in the grass for hours, possibly even die.

As Heath executed the turn onto Hereford Lane, he was only half aware of his driving, his thoughts focused on how best to tell Meredith that the board had voted to have Goliath destroyed. She was going to cry. Hell, he wanted to bawl himself. And she was also going to oppose the decision. He dreaded that most of all because a part of him wanted to shake his fist at the commissioners and tell them to go straight to hell. Goliath had risked his life so many times in the line of duty that Heath had long since lost count. It didn’t seem fair that the dog should receive so little consideration in return.

On the other hand, though, Heath knew, deep in his heart, that the decision was the only one that could have been reached. The instant he’d seen that salesman’s arm, he’d known. Only a few weeks ago, Heath had seen on the news where a man who had been arrested for drug possession was filing a $300 million lawsuit because a police dog had bitten him while he was in handcuffs. The financial
liability for the county in regards to Goliath could be astronomical.

Up ahead, Heath saw someone walking along the road. Pedestrians were a rarity this far from town. As he drove closer, he noted the person’s diminutive stature and dark hair.
Meredith?
He tapped the brake, slowing the vehicle to a stop as he came abreast of her. For a moment, she didn’t seem aware that he was there, just kept stumbling along the shoulder. Something was wrong, he realized. Really wrong.

When she finally realized a vehicle had pulled up beside her, she whirled to peer in the passenger window. Then, with a glad cry, she circled the Bronco, drawing up outside the driver’s door. Heath rolled down the glass, noticing as he did that her face was streaked with dirt and that she’d been crying. The tracks of her tears had formed muddy rivulets on her pale cheeks.

“Merry? What in God’s name is—”

He forgot what he meant to say as he locked gazes with her. One of her eyes was the same dark brown he’d come to expect, but the other was a startling sky blue.
Christ
. Heath blinked, thinking maybe it was the sun partially blinding him, but when he looked again, one of her eyes was
still
blue.

Her voice rang in his mind, none of the words sinking in. He was so stunned that concentrating on what she was saying was beyond him. Instead, all he could do was gape, and while he did, he noticed yet another flaw in the picture, that her wind-tossed mane of dark hair seemed to be slightly askew.

It hit him then, like a fist to the jaw, that this woman he had come to care about so deeply had not only been wearing brown contact lenses ever since he’d known her, but a wig as well. Upon closer inspection, he spied a wisp of blond hair trailing from under those sable tresses that he had always so greatly admired.

What else about her was fake?

His gaze dropped to her bust, which had always struck
him as being just a trifle too ample for such a slightly built female. Because she had seemed so wary of men, Heath had tried like hell never to ogle her figure if there was a chance she might catch him, which had been most of the time. He allowed himself the privilege now. What he didn’t see filled him with quiet rage. In the coolness of the breeze, her nipples should have been reacting and forming hard peaks.
Nothing
. That had to mean she wore padding in her bra.

An instantaneous sense of betrayal crashed over him. For weeks, he’d been falling slowly and irrevocably in love with her, and all the while, everything about her had been a lie.

Then something she said sliced through the red haze of his anger.
Lost
. Had she just said that Sammy was lost?

“What?” His voice sounded as rough as sandpaper. “What did you say?”

She grabbed the top edge of the door window, her slender fingers turning white at the knuckles. “I can’t find her!” she cried. “I can’t find her anywhere! Not with Goliath, not anywhere! She’s been gone for at least an hour. Maybe even longer. She was taking a nap the last time I checked. That was probably about one.”

Heath’s heart caught. His anger deflated like a punctured balloon, and he forgot all about her mismatched eyes. He cast a worried glance at the surrounding terrain. Even though they were only a few miles from town, this was hard, dangerous country out here. In addition to the damned cows, the fields abounded with rattlesnakes. And bordering those fields were forests, some of them stretching for miles.

“Over an hour?” he repeated incredulously. “She’s been gone that long and you haven’t called the authorities?”

“I thought—” She released her hold on the window glass to gesture weakly with a hand. “I tried to find her myself, first. I didn’t want to raise a false alarm.”

“A false alarm? Jesus Christ, Meredith! It’s not like we’re in the suburbs where she could be at one of the
neighbors. Don’t you know what could happen to her out there? What the hell were you thinking?”

At the question, she cupped her hand over her eyes. No answer, just a silent jerking of her shoulders that told him she was gulping back sobs.

Caught between flagging anger and a clawing fear for Sammy’s safety that made him feel sick, Heath couldn’t take the time to comfort her.

“Get in!” he barked.

While she circled the Bronco, he radioed the sheriff’s department. He was already speaking with Jenny Rose by the time Meredith climbed into the rig. When she saw what he was doing, she turned as pale as milk.

Heath knew then that his first reading of Meredith Kenyon had been dead to rights. She was hiding from someone, undoubtedly a husband. That was the only reason he could think of that she would react this way. She was afraid the authorities might put out an APB. Or, worse yet, flash a picture of Sammy on all the news broadcasts.

For some reason, that realization only made Heath angrier. That she would trust him so little…All she had ever needed to do was ask, and he would have done everything in his power to keep the bastard away from her. Didn’t she know that?