"And it"s impossible to change to another selection," Amanda said. "I tried."
"I never used that to play my music." Grant moved up beside her. "Dad put it on there, but I never used it. I always used iTunes. He knew that."
"Well," Amanda said. "I"m glad we finally found that freaking source code."
"You are?" Charley asked. "Why?"
"Sarcasm!" Amanda hissed.
"I"ll hit them with the laptop," Dawson whispered as the three of them moved across the few feet of stubbled ground separating them from probable death. One ghost, one child, one woman with a rock, and one nerd with a laptop against three killers and a gun. The odds didn"t seem favorable.
The theme from High Noon played through Amanda"s head as she walked on wooden legs toward the van.
We"re going to die. The thought rolled through her mind with a frigid intensity, stirring her anger. She could at least see to it the evil trio didn"t get what they wanted.
She looked at Charley. "Can you erase it?"
"Sure," Dawson replied, a.s.suming she was speaking to him. "I could erase the whole hard drive if I had a couple of minutes. Do you have a plan?"
Charley shrugged. "I don"t know."
"Try! Dawson, hold the laptop out in front of you. This may hurt."
"What?"
She s.n.a.t.c.hed the computer from him and tossed it to the ground. "Do it!"
Charley squatted and reached inside with both hands.
"Get it!" Scott shouted.
Roger ran over and reached down for the computer. Charley threw himself on top of it. Sparks sizzled from the laptop. Roger screamed and jumped back.
"You may kill us, but you"re not going to get your d.a.m.ned program!" she shouted. "It"s gone! Erased! Fried! Suck it up and apply for a real job at Burger King!" Wielding her rock, she charged toward them. Before she died, she"d do her best to cause these people as much pain as possible. "Remember the Alamo!"
Alice lifted the gun, her finger on the trigger.
Instead of an explosion, a rumbling, rattling sound came from behind Amanda. She halted a couple of feet in front of Alice and spun around to see a car followed by a cloud of dust barreling down the road. The vehicle was covered in dirt and rattled ominously as if it would fall apart at any minute, but it was the most beautiful car Amanda had ever seen.
She changed direction and headed for the road. "Help! Help!" She threw the rock, hitting the car on the fender. She had to get the driver"s attention. Later she"d worry about car repairs and whether her insurance company would cancel her for rocking another vehicle.
The car swerved around and screeched to a stop behind the van. Both front doors flew open and two men stepped out. Jake and Ross! The cavalry had arrived!
"They"re getting away!" Charley shouted.
Amanda spun around to see Scott, Roger and Alice scrambling back into the van. The engine roared to life and the minivan shot onto the road. Jake and Ross turned back toward their car but before they could get in, the sound of metal colliding with metal shrieked through the air. The minivan had collided head-on with another vehicle, a bulky car that looked like it was probably white under all the dirt and dust.
The driver"s side door of that car opened and a slim woman with bright hair emerged. Sunny! All the cavalry had arrived! Amanda started to laugh but the sound merged with a sob somewhere halfway up her throat.
"Police!" Jake shouted, and she turned her attention to him. Gun drawn, he approached the driver"s side of the van.
Ross, also holding a gun, circled around to the pa.s.senger side. "Get out with your hands behind your head."
Amanda wanted to run over to Jake and throw her arms around his neck, then to Ross, then Sunny and Dawson and Grant, and then maybe she"d even hug Charley.
Or maybe not.
"The woman in the van has a gun!" she shouted to Jake and Ross. "And she"s crazy!"
Time froze. n.o.body moved. No sound or movement came from the van. The loud chaos of the past few minutes was replaced with a preternatural silence. The dust on the road settled quietly to the ground. Heat waves shimmered through the air with no breeze to disperse them. Tendrils of smoke drifted slowly upward from the laptop where it lay in the dirt. The squawk of a grackle in a nearby locust tree sounded loud enough to be heard in the next county.
As if that squawk somehow broke the spell, the back pa.s.senger door of the van slid open and Alice tossed out her gun. It landed in the dirt with a quiet plop.
The front doors opened slowly. With no fanfare the three people who had murdered Dawson"s parents and his neighbor then traumatized and terrorized Dawson and Grant stepped outside with their hands locked behind their heads.
Somehow it seemed anti-climactic. Considering everything these people had done, Amanda had expected them to come out with guns blazing, never mind they only had one gun and must be running out of ammo.
"Other side of the vehicle, over there with your buddy," Jake instructed Scott and Alice. "Please do something stupid because I"d really love to have an excuse to shoot you."
Scott looked at the laptop. Wisps of smoke still trailed from it but were becoming fainter. He shook his head and sighed. "We"re not going to do anything. It doesn"t matter anymore. It"s all over."
"I do not freaking believe you people!" Amanda strode over to confront him. "The three of you could have done so many things with your abilities but you threw your lives away because you couldn"t steal from the government anymore?"
Scott flinched backward. "Get her away from me!" He lifted a hand to his shoulder. "She a.s.saulted me and then shot me!"
Jake didn"t take his eyes off Scott and Alice, but he grinned. "You know what they say. Don"t mess with Texas women."
Amanda"s eyes narrowed. She"d like to a.s.sault Scott again, but that probably wouldn"t be a good idea with two cops around. "There"s a vacant house a couple of miles farther down the road. That"s where they held us captive and tortured us."
"Tortured you? Oh, look at your poor face!"
Amanda spun around. "Mother?" She"d have sworn nothing could surprise her after everything that had happened, but the sight of prim and proper Beverly Caulfield wearing tan slacks and a silk blouse, every hair in place, her designer heels covered in dust, was not something she"d have expected in her wildest dreams.
Beverly frowned. "Are these the people who hurt you?"
Amanda had forgotten her own injuries in the adrenalin of the situation. "Yes. Mother, what are you doing here?"
"We came in her car." Sunny moved up to her other side, hand held close to her dark skirt, almost hiding a Colt Mustang .380. "She"s the reason we"re all here."
Amanda looked at Sunny then at her mother, two women who couldn"t be more different yet each qualified as mother in her life. "Mom let you drive her Mercedes? Did you threaten to tell the world she uses paper napkins?"
"Don"t be absurd. I would never use paper napkins. I asked Sunny to drive because she drives much faster than I do."
"Yeah, most people do." Including ninety year old men on their way home from a heart transplant.
"Detective Daggett," Beverly Caulfield said, "we wish to press charges against this man for a.s.saulting my daughter."
Jake blinked rapidly but maintained his composure. "We"ll look into that."
"Yes, you will. He will pay for hurting my daughter." She lifted a hand to Amanda"s face, close enough Amanda could feel her warmth but not quite touching.
"I"m okay." Amanda tried to push her mother"s fingers aside, but Beverly grabbed her wrist and turned it palms-up.
"What happened to your hand?"
"It"s just a few splinters. I"m okay, really."
"We"ll get Wendell Langston to take care of you."
"Mom! Doctor Langston"s a brain surgeon! He"s not going to treat my scratches!"
"Of course he will. He plays golf with your father." She moved over to Dawson and Grant, somehow managing to be graceful even in heels on the uneven, rocky ground.
"Dawson, it"s lovely to see you again. I don"t believe I"ve met your brother. You must be Grant. Sunny filled me in on the situation while we drove here. I"m Beverly Caulfield, Amanda"s mother." She extended a manicured hand.
Grant wiped his hand on his jeans then accepted Beverly"s in a tentative shake. "Hi. Uh, nice to meet you."
"Are either of you hurt?"
"No." Dawson moved his bruised wrists behind his back, and Grant shook his head vehemently. Apparently neither of them wanted to be treated by a neurosurgeon.
Jake gave Amanda a helpless look then grasped Scott"s shoulder and spun him around. "Over there."
Scott and Alice trudged to the other side of the van to join Roger. While Jake kept his gun trained on them, Ross slapped handcuffs on the three and shoved them into the backseat of the car with the dented fender.
Jake came back over to Amanda. "I"ll need you all to come down to the station and give statements."
Her mother stepped between Jake and her. "She needs to see a doctor first."
Amanda leaned around her mother. "No, she doesn"t."
"Tomorrow will be fine." He looked at Dawson and Grant then back to her. "I think all of you could use a good night"s rest."
He was right. Dawson had aged ten years and had dark circles under his eyes. Grant was haggard and worn in a way no eleven year old boy should ever be. They stood together, separate from everyone else, alone, back in their small world.
That wasn"t going to happen.
Amanda strode over, pushed between them and wrapped an arm around each boy. "We"ll all look, feel and smell better after a shower, some food and a good night"s sleep. And I know a house with extra bathrooms and bedrooms as well as maid service. We can even ride there in a Mercedes." Amanda looked directly at her mother, daring her to refuse. She"d see just how far she could push the woman"s southern hospitality.
Beverly didn"t blink. "I"ll call Lucinda and have her set three extra places." She turned toward Sunny. "Four if you will join us."
Amanda had to give her mother bonus points. Opening her home to two strangers was commendable, but including her daughter"s birth mother, her husband"s former lover, was going the extra mile.
Sunny"s eyes widened and she took a step backward. "Uh-"
"Of course she will." Two friends, one father and two mothers. That sounded like a good mix to Amanda. An evening with those people and a couple of c.o.kes should help her heal from the awful memories of the past few hours.
"We"ll stop by Dawson"s apartment and get clean clothes for you boys," Beverly said, moving onward with her plans as if the possibility of a refusal was simply not possible.
Amanda tried to recall if she"d ever known anyone to refuse her mother. Not in her lifetime.
"Okay," Jake said, "that"s settled. Tomorrow morning I"ll see Amanda, Dawson, and Grant at the station."
"Tomorrow afternoon," Amanda corrected. "My bike"s around here somewhere, out of gas. I need to get my purse tonight, but I don"t think I"m up to riding right now so I"ll come back for it tomorrow."
"Come by the station early, we"ll get the statement out of the way and I"ll bring you out here with a gas can." Jake spoke the words casually as if tossing out an offhand solution to a problem.
It didn"t sound offhand and casual to Amanda. It sounded like another opportunity for the two of them to sit in his car. Maybe this time she could figure out a way to make Charley stay outside. "That"ll work." Her reply was just as casual and offhand and full of import as his.
"Good. Right now I"m going to take these people in and let Ross and his team come back and process that house and these two vehicles."
"Oh, that reminds me. There may be a body in that van."
Beverly gasped. Sunny flinched. Jake scowled. "A body? As in a dead person?"
"Well, at least they said there is. I can"t swear to it. I haven"t seen it with my own eyes. But they said it"s the real Brendan Matthews."
"The real Brendan Matthews? So he"s been dead at least two days."
"Three."
Jake looked toward the horizon where the hot summer sun was just starting to set. "Ross isn"t going to enjoy collecting this evidence. He"s probably going to have to take a couple of showers and use cologne before his date tonight with Hannah."
"At least now he knows for sure that Hannah"s innocent."
Jake laughed. "Yeah, he was pretty worried about that."
"I think that"s sarcasm again," Charley said.
"Get over here or I"m leaving without you!" Ross called.
"On my way!" His dark gaze settled on Amanda and he moved a fraction of an inch closer. "You really should get those cuts checked out."
"We"ll see."
He lifted a hand and for a brief moment she thought he was going to touch her.
Of course he wasn"t. Not in front of a bazillion people.
But if no one else had been there- "Okay," he said, stepping back. "Tomorrow. At the station." He turned and headed to the police car where Ross waited and the perps sweated.
She"d probably imagined that he almost touched her. Wishful thinking. A trick of the fading light of evening.
"I thought he was going to touch your face," Charley said. "You need to be careful of him. I don"t think you should ride out here alone with him tomorrow."
So she hadn"t imagined it. She smiled and watched Jake walking toward the car. In spite of the odds, he"d managed to find her and rush in to save her life. And that brought up a question.
"How did you know?" she called after him. "How did you know where to find us?"