He looked over his shoulder to make sure the road was clear as he pulled into the right lane. He had just gone by a woman in a small car who looked to be terrified by the weather conditions. It was annoying not having a rearview mirror, but to get over his annoyance Alex had only to recall the desperate fight when a man from Jax"s world had appeared in the back seat of the Cherokee. Alex saw that the woman he"d just pa.s.sed had a death grip on the wheel. Her eyes stared unblinking straight ahead as she single-handedly created a traffic snarl, so afraid of danger that she had become danger itself.
Jax pointed. "Hammond Street, one mile."
Over the long drive, Jax had developed into a good navigator. It had only taken her a short time to overcome her uneasiness at traveling at highway speeds. She was now an old pro.
She was good at reading maps and had good eyesight, so she was adept at picking out signs in the distance for different highways they had needed to take on their way east and then north. She also kept a lookout for any cars-or pirate plumbing trucks-that might be following them. Several times they had taken exits and detours to be certain that cars that stayed on their tail were not really following them.
Jax had been amazed at the size of some of the cities they had gone through and couldn"t get enough of the sights and changing scenery as they crossed the country. She was a tourist in a strange land. Her childlike wonder never failed to make Alex smile.
They had stopped at night only long enough to get the sleep they needed to keep going. Alex knew that they both were still working the drugs out of their systems. Jax especially still needed rest to recover from her ordeal. Given the nature of the people after them, they knew that they had to stay alert. It was also fatiguing to constantly remain on the lookout for anything that might be suspicious.
Alex had been able to persuade her to cover herself up with a blanket in the back seat and get some sleep along the way. He could tell how much she still hurt because he didn"t have too difficult a time convincing her to rest. She hated missing all the sights, and she didn"t like leaving him to be the lone lookout, but she needed the rest and she knew it.
As they drove up through the seemingly endless woods of Maine, she looked to finally be a lot better. She had stared longingly out the window at the pa.s.sing forests. He knew that they reminded her of home.
Alex turned on the windshield wipers as he took the Hammond Street exit. From his brief look, the city of Bangor seemed old and tired. Some of the houses did look grand, but in a bygone-era sort of a way. It looked like a peaceful, low-key place to live, a place where people made do with what they had, and not a whole lot ever changed, except with the slow rot of time.
He followed Mike Fenton"s directions and in short order they saw the red glow of the sign for the Downeaster Motel. There were a lot of cars in the front parking lot. The portico in front stood at the head of two parallel sections of rooms running back from there in a U shape.
As he drove slowly through the lot, he scanned the cars for license plates from Ma.s.sachusetts. He saw a number of them here and there. Maine being a tourist destination, there were plates from all over. Some of the cars were packed full with belongings pressed against rear windows. Some of the trucks had kayaks or bicycles attached to their roofs.
Alex drove around to the far wing of the two-story building that extended back to end at a small area of residential woods. A lot of cars were parked for rooms up closer to the office, but farther down the side was mostly deserted except way at the end, where there was a cl.u.s.ter of cars. By the room numbers on the doors he knew that was the place he was looking for.
When he reached the end he made a U-turn and parked on the slight slope at the back of the broad lot so that if he had to he could get the Cherokee rolling downhill to start it. So far, on their trip east, it had behaved itself, failing to start with the key only once. He supposed that if someone had been chasing them it would have failed to start more often.
Parking as he had also put the driver"s side closest to the room.
"You ready?" Alex asked as he watched for any activity.
Jax carefully scanned the whole area, appearing to take note of every detail. "This makes me nervous."
"I can"t say that I disagree."
Jax took his hand and squeezed it, offering rea.s.surance. They"d made it through tough situations before.
Alex hooked a magazine pouch on his belt on his left hip. It held two seventeen-round magazines. He double-checked to make sure the magazines were placed in the pouch with the bullets facing forward so that if he got in a gun battle and had to draw them to reload, he could use the index finger of his left hand to feel the tip of the hollow-point round at the top of the magazine to help guide it into the gun in his right hand for fast, blind reloading. He lifted the Glock from its holster and held it in his lap, his index finger lying along the slide.
Alex opened the phone and hit Redial with his left thumb. Mike Fenton answered.
"This is Alex. We"re outside."
Alex watched and saw the drapes open a crack as the man peered out.
"I see your truck. We"re so glad you"re here, and that you"re early. Come on in. Everyone is dying to meet you."
"How many of you are there?"
"Including me, nine."
"I want all of you to come out of the room. Leave the door wide open. I want everyone to move away from the door, toward the woods at the back. Stay in plain sight. Jax is going to go in and check the room."
"Alex, I can understand that you would be a little nervous, but we-"
"If any one of you does anything threatening, I won"t hesitate to shoot them."
Mike went silent.
"Do you understand?" Alex asked.
"I do," Mike said. "I don"t blame you for being cautious. You"re right. We"re happy to do as you ask."
"Thank you."
Alex closed the phone.
"If you hear any gunshots, hit the ground," Alex told Jax. "Understand?"
"Yes. I think they"re sincere."
"I hope so, but I"m not going to take any chances. You be careful in there, will you? If you have any problem I"ll be there in a flash."
Jax nodded. "Just don"t miss if this turns out to be an ambush. There"s two of us and nine of them."
Alex offered her a smile. "It"s their tough luck to be at such a terrible disadvantage."
She squeezed his hand as she returned the smile.
Alex watched as the people started filing out of the room. They strolled casually, talking among themselves so that it wouldn"t look suspicious to see that many people standing around in the parking lot. There were seven men and two women. They were all dressed casually, similar to but perhaps just a little better than most any tourist traveling up to Maine for a vacation.
"The trees smell so good," Jax said to herself.
"What?"
"Nothing. Just thinking of home. The balsam trees remind me of home."
As Alex watched the group amble off into the lot closer to the trees and out of the way of the open door, he squeezed Jax"s hand again. "Be careful."
She winked at him. "You too."
He watched her walking across the lot, mesmerized by the graceful shape of her, by her fall of long blond hair, by how beautiful, how precious she was. There was no other woman in the world like her.
How he wished she was from his world.
He knew that if they ever accomplished what they needed to accomplish, accomplished what she had come to his world to do, and they found the gateway and somehow were able to make it work, she would have to go back to her own world.
Along their long trip east, when she had told him what she knew about the gateway and how it could be used to take things back to her world without a lifeline, he had asked if it was possible for him to go through the gateway, too.
Jax had said that that was one thing she was certain of: no one from his world could ever go to hers. Lord Rahl, the man who had separated the worlds, who had sent people to this world, had made certain that that could never happen.
She could come here, but he could never go there.
Alex didn"t know how he would be able to endure her leaving. Without her in his world-in his life-his world would be dead.
The group of people all took in Jax without looking obvious about it as she walked toward the room. She disappeared inside.
None of the people looked concerned. Alex thought that was a good sign. He hated to be so melodramatic about the whole thing, but he"d been fooled by Cain"s people before. He wasn"t going to take chances if he didn"t have to.
After a few minutes, Jax reappeared in the doorway. She gave Alex the all-clear. He holstered his gun and hopped out of the truck, pulling his jacket down over the weapon. Jax started ushering the people back into the room, then stood just outside the door, waiting for him while she watched them like a sergeant at arms.
As Alex joined her, she put an arm around his waist. "They don"t look like a dangerous lot," she whispered.
"That"s what we"re hoping."
"But that doesn"t mean they aren"t."
"I know."
AS ALEX STEPPED INTO THE ROOM behind Jax, all eyes were on them. The two-room suite was larger than the typical motel room. The two beige couches forming an L at the corner of the front showed discoloration from heavy use. A round table with half a dozen chairs sat at the back.
None of the furniture was especially elegant, but it was comfortable-looking. There was a wet bar beside a TV in a tall cabinet opposite the couches. Through double louvered doors that stood open to the right he could see the edge of a bed in the other room.
The nine people standing in a cl.u.s.ter in the center of the room were all grins. They looked like devout worshippers about to meet the Pope.
"I"m Mike Fenton," a rather thin man said as he stepped forward, thrusting out his hand.
He was shorter than Jax, balding, and wearing jeans that still had the fold marks in them from coming right off the rack. His gray-and-blue-striped, long-sleeved shirt likewise looked to have been freshly unwrapped. He was grinning from ear to ear.
Alex shook the man"s hand. "Alex. It"s nice to meet you face-to-face, at last."
Still gripping Alex"s hand, Mike swept his free arm around, indicating the rest of the people in the room. "We"re all so relieved that you arrived safely. And you would have to be Jax."
"I am," she said as she shook his hand. He held her hand respectfully, gazing into her eyes as if welcoming an alien from another planet to his world. Alex supposed that he was.
Alex was so focused on evaluating everyone as Mike introduced them that he knew he wouldn"t remember all their names. None of them looked like a pirate. They were all wearing new clothes that to a greater or lesser extent still bore new-clothes folds. They had apparently followed Alex"s instructions and had not gone to their homes or any place familiar.
Mike gestured to the table in the back, where papers were neatly laid out. "How about if we get business out of the way first? Get the t.i.tle to the land taken care of so that everything is finalized and legal?"
"I"d like that," Alex said.
"Do you have the fee?"
Alex pulled an envelope from an inside pocket of his jacket. He handed it to Mike.
"There"s ten thousand even."
"It came to ninety-six hundred and seventy-five dollars."
The man opened the envelope and counted back three one-hundred-dollar bills. He then fished around in his pocket and came up with a twenty and a five. He handed them over as well.
"There. Paid in full."
Alex folded the money and slipped it into a pocket. "If you don"t mind my asking, what"s going on with this money issue?"
Everyone chuckled self-consciously.
"Well, it"s rather hard to explain, and there are much more important things to deal with, but briefly it has to do with traditions involving this land and the way it has been deeded. The simplest way to explain it is "value for value." Stipulations having to do with the t.i.tle require conventions that can seem a little odd at a time like this, but they have a serious purpose and must be followed to the letter. Payment for services is one of those stipulations."
Alex was in a way only too happy to use the money that Sedrick Vendis had paid to buy his paintings just so that he could deface them. It seemed like ironic justice to use that money to pay for the legal fees to get the land that Vendis and Cain so badly wanted.
"But now that the fee is out of the way," Mike said, "we can get on with it."
At the man"s urging, Alex sat before a stack of papers and folders. Jax stood behind him, her back to the wall. Mike sat beside Alex as all the others gathered round to watch. It had the feeling of a grand ceremony.
The lawyer opened the top folder. "All of these need to be signed where I"ve indicated with little red stickers."
Alex eyed the inch-thick stack. "Shouldn"t I read all of these?"
"You"re welcome to do so, and as a lawyer I must advise that you do, although I can a.s.sure you that I"ve been over everything, personally, and it"s all in order. I"d be happy to explain any of it you find difficult to understand."
Alex picked up the pen. He scanned the first and second pages that were stapled together. They had to do entirely with identifying the parties involved in the rest of the paperwork. It took two pages to say that he was Alex Rahl and that the Daggett Trust was the Daggett Trust.
Alex started signing his name.
Mike Fenton lifted away each page after Alex had signed it. He scanned the next page, really only looking for anything that stood out as odd. Everything looked like what he imagined normal deed transfers would look like. With people wanting to run guns through a gateway to another world, the legal technicalities of the land where the gateway sat didn"t seem overwhelmingly important, but Alex scanned them anyway just in case.
But then he started coming to pages having to do with the Daggett Trust. Those pages had nine signatures on them-the nine trustees. Each page awaited Alex"s signature.
"What"s this?" Alex said, frowning at the trustee agreements.
"In essence, it puts you in charge of the Daggett Trust, making you the lead trustee to the land involved in the Daggett Trust-all of it."
Alex looked up. "What do you mean, all of it?"
"Well," Mike said, "the part you inherit, and all the rest of the land a.s.sociated with it-all the land controlled by the Daggett Trust. It all belongs together. This puts you in charge of all of the land as a single ent.i.ty."
Alex stared at him. "All of it."
"Yes, that"s right."
"And how much land is that?"
"Altogether? Nearly sixty-five thousand acres."
Alex was still staring at the man. "And what do you mean that it puts me in charge of the land?"
Mike Fenton folded his fingers together on the table. "Well, for all practical purposes, it all becomes yours once you take t.i.tle to the key piece. You become the lead trustee. For all practical purposes, this makes you the Daggett Trust. You have to uphold all of the deed stipulations, of course, but it"s all yours."