I"LL FIND YOU.
NANCY BUSH.
Vaguely, Callie realized something had been b.u.mping against the boat. She started to turn back, fired by the certainty that Teresa was taking Tucker away, when the woman in the boat next to her let out a scream that sounded like a siren. A chill ran up Callie"s back. She shot a glance at the woman and saw her stumble back from the edge of the boat, her hands clasped to her chest while the man tried to steady her. Her gaze was fixated on the water.
A body floated into the light. Not a swimmer. Someone wrapped in a black dress and sweater. As Callie watched, the face turned slowly upward, mouth open, dark reddish-blond tresses sliding across the slackened flesh of a familiar face....
Prologue.
Dark. Hot. Driving faster than she should but she had to keep up with their car. She"d made an unforgivable mistake-a calculated risk, really; several of them, if the truth were known-and it had come back to bite her in the a.s.s. But she"d been new to the game then. Hadn"t known what she wanted, other than him. Couldn"t be blamed for that. Couldn"t . . .
A chill stole into her heart as she pressed her toe to the accelerator. Her hands were slick on the wheel. Carefully she wiped them, one at a time, on her jeans. Had to concentrate. Had to get this right. Already it was a problem that there were two heads in the car in front of her, not one, but too d.a.m.n bad.
Her mind wavered. Cast back to that night when she"d become his again. The feel of the chain he"d draped around her neck, the weight of the ankh cross. The pressure of the links as he twisted it until her skin pinched and her breath lay trapped in her throat.
"Who am I?" he whispered.
"The Messiah."
"Who are you?"
"Your handmaiden. I love you. I"ve always loved you."
"Liar."
"I just lost my way for a while, but I"m back."
"Will you obey me?"
"I"ll do anything you ask." Almost anything.
"You"ve left things very messy."
"I know. I"ll clean up everything." Almost everything.
He relaxed the chain ever so slowly, then drew back and touched the cross around his own neck. This, too, was part of the ever-changing rituals he expected them to all partic.i.p.ate in. The gold ankh shimmered dully in the light and she stared at it hard, promising herself that she would do everything he wanted of her. Almost everything.
Now the black Mercedes ahead of her had reached Mulholland Drive. She knew where they were heading. She knew where the turn would be, where the road pushed out around the cliff, where the rail was no barrier at all. Dead Man"s Curve. Maybe not called that, exactly, but close enough.
Her vehicle was a ten-year-old Ford Explorer. Brownish. Stolen. He"d given it to her for this express purpose. All she had to do was follow through.
But it wasn"t supposed to be two heads. Worry gnawed at her brain. Someone who wasn"t supposed to be targeted would die tonight because of her. She"d killed before and had even enjoyed it a little-maybe more than a little if the a.s.shole truly deserved it-but she had never murdered an innocent. But then who was to say the other person was innocent ?
Her mouth was Sahara dry. Her heart beat hard and slow, thumping in her ears with the precision of a metronome. Deafening her. She felt like she was floating.
They were traveling fast. Too fast. If she wasn"t careful she could lose control of her own vehicle. It was almost as if the people ahead of her knew the danger creeping up on them. Did they? Could they?
She focused on the driver, knew that he liked speed and risk, loved to push himself. She could see the second head-the woman"s-turn as she flashed at him in anger. She clearly didn"t feel the same way, but her quarry"s response was to accelerate even more.
A grim smile touched her lips. Carefully, she pressed her toe down farther and the SUV jumped forward. Did he know they were being followed? She doubted it. He was a narcissistic fool, believed himself infallible. She"d known that from the first time she met him in the dim light of the bar, the way his gaze had caressed her. She"d known just how to play him.
But now she had to time this right. Had to move up closer. They were almost there. The curve was coming up.
She glanced around anxiously. If a car approached in the opposite lane at the point of impact she would be lost. Likely to go over the edge herself. Her SUV gained on the Mercedes as she pushed it to reckless speed. The woman pa.s.senger looked back in fear as she bore down on them, her face white, her mouth opening in a scream.
And then her Explorer was on them. Deliberately she clipped the rear of their car, aiming for the back end of the driver"s side.
Bam! The Mercedes whipped around as if spun by a hand on a roulette wheel, then slewed sideways. The man overcorrected and the car swung back, shimmying as it hit the rail. It went airborne so fast that even she gasped in surprise. She felt a moment"s jubilation until she saw the third head lift from the backseat. A small head.
What? What!
The boy was in the car? NO! NO!
Oh, G.o.d. Oh, G.o.d. NO! He wasn"t supposed to be with them!
It felt like the Mercedes hung in the air forever. She was screaming herself as it smashed into the ground with a sickening crunch. Her own vehicle was shuddering and rotating. She wrestled the SUV around, the world spinning. She barely managed to stop its dizzying turn and straighten it out. Keep it, too, from sailing over the edge as it charged forward. Distantly, she felt her arms aching from the effort. But the boy. The boy . . .
Her Explorer flew around the next corner, hung on to the road. No traffic. A miracle. She stood on the brakes, shuddering violently to a stop. Pulled off at the first place she could, a small strip of dirt on the side of the road.
No . . . no . . .
She had to go back. Had to. It was dangerous. Foolhardly. Suicidal. Undoubtedly someone-there were houses there, nestled into the cliffside far below-had seen the vehicle launch over the edge, heard it as it smashed downward. But the boy.
She ran back to the site of the crash. An eerie calmness held. There was no evidence of the accident from up here apart from the missing chunk of rail that looked like it could have given way weeks, months, years earlier.
Heart in her throat, she scrambled over the edge and down the cliff. It wasn"t easy. It wasn"t safe. Her hands were ripped and bloodied by the bushes and limbs as her sneakers slid in the dried, loose dirt. She approached the car cautiously. The Mercedes lay on its side, wheels spinning, headlights aimed at a distant land far below and the snake of glittering headlights in the valley. The vehicle had been caught by a stump and scraggly line of twisted trees. All that had saved it from tumbling down the cliff. Lucky, she thought with a swept-in breath. Maybe still alive.
She saw the boy first. Lying still. Quiet. His booster seat flung to one side. Her heart sank at his body, limp and motionless. Tears filled her eyes as she ran to him. She searched for a pulse and found none. A cry wrenched from her soul. It wasn"t supposed to happen this way! Glancing up, she focused on the car. The woman was tangled up, flopped like a marionette, slung up inside the pa.s.senger seat belt, which had restrained her, the airbag crushed up against her.
And the man. The reason she"d been sent on this quest. To right the wrong she"d done to Andre . . . The Messiah, she reminded herself, though she had trouble remembering the name he liked to be called in front of the other handmaidens, was resentful of it.
Her quarry was on the ground a few feet from the boy, lying on his back. His eyes were open, reflecting a strip of moonlight. He focused on her and her blood ran cold. Alive.
They looked at each other and he lifted up a hand, as if he planned to reach for her. "Martinique," he said.
Her heart thudded hard in her chest. She remembered clinking her mai tai to his, the sight of the roll of bills he pulled from his pocket, the feel of him inside her while he moaned and thrashed above her and she thought of all the beautiful things she"d dreamed that his money could buy her.
With a last inhaled breath and then a slow expelling of air, he died.
She looked away from him and back to the boy.
I did this. I did this....
No, he did this, she told herself. Andre. The Messiah, she thought with hot fury. It was his fault.
And he"ll do it to your boy, too, she thought.
Her son.
One of the very messy things she"d left behind.
Headlights flashed up above on the road. Quickly, she pocketed his cell phone, which had incongruously landed above his head, then she carefully picked her way farther down the hillside and along the side of the cliff. Little by little, she inched down the steep incline to one of the backyards of several houses far below Mulholland, one that was completely dark. Briefly she thought about possible fingerprints on the steering wheel. She should have worn gloves. She hadn"t really believed she would go through with it.
Too late now.
By the time she"d worked her way onto the lower road she could hear the police sirens. It took her another two hours, mostly ducking out of sight, before she came to a place she could hail a taxi far from the crash site. Then was driven to a bus stop a few miles from the house she shared with Andre and the f.u.c.king handmaidens. She walked those last miles, but it wouldn"t hurt for the cabbie to think she was waiting for a bus.
She entered with her key through the front door, dusty, scratched and soul-sick, and immediately realized they were all in the ceremony room. That meant they"d be wearing their white robes. She had truly loved Andre once. Back when they were a reckless team of two, making their way from chump to chump. But things had changed. Andre had changed, become The Messiah.
She wanted to spit and had to contain her emotions. Still, the rituals of being a handmaiden made her grind her teeth and furthered her resolve to run away with her boy.
Could she do it? Could she make the break? Was it the right time?
Naomi, the biggest and baddest of the handmaidens, her dusty blond hair in cornrows, her "tude that of a street kid though Teresa had heard she"d come straight from the middle cla.s.s, caught sight of her before she could sneak to her room. Naomi pointed at her even while the others were chanting and undoubtedly holding hands in a semicircle, making sure everyone knew she"d returned. Sometimes Andre would select one of them for a s.e.x act while he was under the spell of his own beliefs, laying the joyous one down on the mats, letting them all watch. Her lip curled at the thought but she nodded to Naomi and hurried to strip naked and then slip the white robe over her head. By the time she was at the ceremony room and had taken her designated spot to Naomi"s right, her facial expressions were under control, though she could feel an uncontrollable quiver in her thighs and running down her legs. Fear. If she left and he came to find her . . . what would he do to her? What would he do to her boy?
"You," Andre said in a worshipful tone, curling a finger at her to come join him. He had that dazed, rapturous look on his face that caused the other handmaidens to begin chanting louder.
I can"t, she thought. Then, a sterner voice within her own self said, You will.
Andre gathered up the hem of her robe and pulled the garment over her head, then stripped off his own. He lay her down on the mat and covered her body with his own, and as the handmaidens" voices reached a crescendo and Andre roughly slid inside her, she closed her eyes and reminded herself that she had loved him once . . . that this was just another test she must endure to keep up the charade . . . that all she had to do was play along and ignore the rapturous madness in his eyes . . . that nothing was as important as saving her son.
PART I.
Chapter One.
Callie Cantrell slid open the door to her balcony and immediately felt the sweltering humidity of Martinique. She"d grown accustomed to it these past months, though when she"d first arrived on the Caribbean island she"d been limp, exhausted, and certain she would never become acclimated.
Or maybe that was just because she was mentally and physically spent. Numb. Lost. She"d lived in Los Angeles for most of her adult life and normally would have been able to handle the change in temperature, but ever since Sean"s death nothing was normal.
One year ago. A little over, now.
Leaning her forearms on the wrought-iron railing, she purposely pushed those dark and anxious thoughts aside, like she"d done nearly every moment since she"d decided she wanted to try to get better, to try to live again. Dwelling on his death was dangerous to her. She hadn"t needed a therapist to tell her that, but she"d needed one to bring her back from the edge, to help her begin the journey into the next phase of her life, to convince her she still had a life.
It had taken a month in a hospital and then continual sessions with Dr. Rasmussen to get her to start eating again, get her out of the house she"d shared with her husband and son, get her to accept that this was her new reality. She hadn"t truly been suicidal, though they"d thought she was. She"d simply been too destroyed to function in any positive capacity. Depression. Survivor"s guilt. Abject misery. Yep, she had them all. When she"d finally gotten up the gumption to take charge of her life, she"d told the Cantrell family lawyer that she was going to the island of Martinique for an indefinite stay. He"d objected. It was too soon. She was too fragile. What would he tell Derek and Diane, Jonathan"s grasping brother and sister? When was she coming back?
Now she gazed over the rooftops of the apartments and tenements on the hill below her, looking beyond the telltale signs of humanity toward the crystalline waters of Fort-de-France Bay. She should really appreciate its beauty more than she did, although she did recognize that the slow pace, French language, and sense of being in a different world were helping her slowly come back.
"Callie! Callie!"
Looking below, down the crooked cobblestone alley that led to the road, she saw a little boy, no more than five years old, racing around the corner waving his dust-grimed arm frantically.
Callie grinned and waved back. Tucker, the only other resident of the area she knew who spoke her language, was heading in her direction full tilt. "What are you doing up so early?" Callie called, leaning over the rail.
"I come to see you." He flashed her a huge smile and scampered up the cracked concrete steps to the apartment house"s front door.
Callie walked back inside and wondered, not for the first time, how Tucker could have so much freedom. It was barely six A.M., for Pete"s sake, and the child ran loose among Martinique"s narrow streets and alleys until way after dark. Callie rarely saw Tucker with an adult, and she"d only met his mother once. Aimee Thomas had regarded Callie with suspicion and had ordered in French-Martinique"s native tongue-for Tucker to leave the room. She then explained in broken English to Callie that she was Tucker"s mother and that she had tried very hard to keep him in line but it was difficult. She didn"t mention Tucker"s father, and Callie couldn"t tell if there even was one.
Callie had privately felt Aimee was just making excuses for being so lax, but since she hadn"t wanted to alienate herself from her she kept her opinions to herself. Tucker was too important to Callie for her to object too strongly. In fact, Callie realized, Tucker was the reason she was still here, almost a month after her initial date of departure. Was he a replacement for the son she"d lost? Almost a.s.suredly, but in that she didn"t give a d.a.m.n. If she wanted to lavish all her love and attention on the boy, what the h.e.l.l was wrong with that? And Tucker"s innocence and unbridled enthusiasm were a tonic she eagerly drank. She was slowly, ever so slowly, getting better.
Tucker impatiently rattled her apartment door and Callie hollered, "Hold on. I"m coming."
"Hurry! I brung you something."
"That"s "brought," Tucker, and no, I will not accept any more gifts. You"ve got to take this one back," Callie said sternly, glancing toward her bedroom and the bracelet on her dresser as she made her way to the front door.
She slipped the chain off the lock and opened the door. Tucker, like the bundle of pure energy he was, hurled himself inside and held out his hand triumphantly. "See?" he demanded.
Cupped between his palms was a tiny, bluish-tinted starfish.
"Ahhh . . ." Callie put the starfish in her own palm, examining it critically as she looped an arm around Tucker"s thin shoulders. "You"ve been beachcombing."
"Yesterday. And I goes today, too."
"You"re going today?"
Tucker bobbed his dark head. His eyes were a fine, clear blue and they stood out dramatically against his dark hair and skin. Callie had grown used to the way he mangled his verbs; in fact, it was amazing he spoke English as well as he did, considering his mother was so poor at it. Or at least that"s what she wanted Callie to believe.
"I go to the pier and waits around." Tucker glanced over his shoulder as if he expected someone to materialize in the open doorway. He moved still closer to Callie. "I have to go first with Maman, though."
Tucker"s dislike of doing anything with his mother was another piece of a growing puzzle. It"s none of your affair, she reminded herself, but she hugged Tucker extra hard. "Well, I have to go out this morning too," she said, straightening. "I"m going grocery shopping and I promise to bring you back something from the bakery."
"Chocolate?"
"You bet."
"You bet," he repeated, grinning.
She laughed, surprising herself. When was the last time she"d done that?
"Take me with you," he said suddenly, begging her with those beautiful eyes.
Callie had to fight herself from buckling under. "You are a heartbreaker," she scolded him lightly. "But your mom"s waiting for you and I"ve got a million and one things to do that you"d think would be no fun. Now," she added briskly, before he could put forth another protest and weaken her resolve, "let"s talk about that other gift you gave me. The one I have to give back." She strode into her bedroom and picked up the unusual silver bracelet with its rings of purple stones-They couldn"t be amethysts, could they?-that Tucker had bestowed upon her. Callie had been bowled over by the gift and done her best to refuse it. From all accounts Tucker lived in near squalor, and when he"d unceremoniously dropped the bracelet in her lap one afternoon, Callie had done a cla.s.sic double take. She was certainly no expert, but . . . even if it was a fake, it was an expensive one. It must belong to his mother. She"d tried to refuse but Tucker had been adamant, his eyes filling with unshed tears at her insistence that she couldn"t accept it. Sick at heart that she"d hurt his feelings, Callie had said she would keep the bracelet for a few days. Those few days had pa.s.sed and now she was anxious to give it back.