Skychannel, playing pool or slots. He strode up the back stairs to his room, flung open the door and stopped dead. “What the—”
Torn, shredded, broken. Opened up and strewn all around. The room was trashed in a frantic search for what he’d never find.
“This time he’s gone too far,” he growled. “This is bloody war!” He grabbed what he needed, threw some notes from his wallet on the bedside table and bolted for the pickup.
An odd noise when he opened the driver’s door—a burned-out sizzle—gave him two seconds’ warning. “Run!” he screamed at passers-by, diving headlong on the road.
The truck exploded with a roar of fire.
His body lifted and flew with the force of the blast, landing with a sickening whump on the street. Smashing glass and shrill screams filled his ears as he rolled over and over on the gritty road like a flicked cigarette butt, the untarred mix of earth and gravel ripping his clothes and skin apart. He was almost relieved when he collided with something cold and solid—the makeshift red soil gutter on the other side. He slammed into the dirt wall and fell on his back, trying to catch his breath.
When the screams died down, a crowd gathered around him. “Call the police! This man’s been injured!”
“No cops!” His voice croaked so bad no one heard. A kid went running to the tiny police station at the other end of town.
The game of hiding in the shadows was up. He lurched to his feet and staggered away, his left boot peeling beneath his foot, the afternoon wind stinging his cuts and burns.
“You can’t go now, mister! You need help. The police and ambulance are on their way,” a woman called. “You need a doctor. You have to give a statement. Someone bombed your car!”
“No duh, lady,” he muttered and lurched ahead, bolting on unsteady feet to the dubious protection of the fields outside town. He had to get away. If the cops so much as asked him his name he was a goner, no matter what he answered.
There was only one way he could get out of here now—and she’d damn well better co-operate.
Could the whole world change in a single half hour?
Tessa walked home on automatic pilot. She didn’t even notice she’d reached the faded gray weatherboard of Mrs. Savage’s boardinghouse until she turned the knob to let herself in.
She looked at her hand in blinking confusion. Then she walked inside and wandered to the stairs, looking around her. The polished mellowness of the homey old place, the faded violet wallpaper, the scent of lavender suited the musty, old-fashioned loveliness of the latest Outback town she’d called home. She’d been happy at Lynch Hill…almost at peace. For a little while.
What am I doing? I have to get out of here. Now!
Time to go. Leave the money on the dresser and disappear. The same way she’d left the other four country towns in the past two and a half years, from Queensland to the Victorian border.
“Miss Honeycutt. Oh, Miss Honeycutt!”
She turned to her breathless, birdlike landlady coming in from the kitchen. Her flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes proclaimed she had fresh gossip to pass on. Tessa schooled her features into a smile of polite interest. Don’t give her a reason to wonder about you. Don’t leave her with any doubts or fear. “Yes, Mrs. Savage?”
Mrs. Savage straightened her teased mess of gray hair, with her usual mixture of quick curiosity and cringing apologetic smiles. “I do hope you’re not wanting to take a shower, Miss Honeycutt. I know how you like to rinse off after a hard day, but the water’s off again, and won’t be back on until tomorrow. I phoned the company for you—I know how much you like to—”
“It’s all right, Mrs. Savage. I’m used to country ways now.” While she smiled she mentally tallied what she could pack in ten minutes.
The old lady gave her a little, knowing smile. “Oh, but you must be wanting to freshen up and get yourself pretty—what with your date tonight with that nice man—”
Nine minutes—Tessa’s hand froze on the banister. “What man?” she asked, very quietly.
Mrs. Savage’s face creased with ingratiating innuendo. “Oh, my stars, you’re a lucky girl. He came to see you today. I said you wouldn’t be home till five-thirty, being one of your training days for young Matthew—heavens, you’re early today, it’s only one forty-five! Oh, of course, it’s the Easter break. You let the children leave at lunchtime! Anyway, he said he’d come back at five. Oh, and he asked me not to tell you! He wanted to surprise you. Silly me—! You won’t tell him, will you? What a handsome, charming man he is! That lovely hair—so wavy and tawny, like a lion’s mane—and his eyes, like caramel toffee! He’s so tall, so debonair! Just like Cary Grant on An Affair to Remember—”
Tessa reeled back. Cameron’s here. Oh, God, it’s too late, too late…. Then she came at her landlady like a drunken woman. He can’t find me. I can’t let him take me!
“…and he was so kind to an old lady—”
Tessa grabbed Mrs. Savage by the arms, her hold deliberately gentle. Seven minutes. “You didn’t see me. I never came home.”
Mrs. Savage let out a squeaking gasp. “M-Miss Honeycutt?!”
Tessa pulled the old lady closer, eye to eye, not realizing she was all the more frightening because her hold was so very gentle. “You didn’t see me,” she whispered right in her face. “I never came home.”
The landlady’s rheumy eyes goggled. “But—Miss Honeycutt—!”
You’re scaring her. Tessa closed her eyes. Think, think! You need time to get away, and Edna Savage can provide it! With a lightning change of plan, she released her, and gave Mrs. Savage a deliberately pleading look. “Please, I need your help. Can you help me?”
Mrs. Savage nodded, looking doubtful but willing. “Of course, Miss Honeycutt. Anything at all.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Savage. I knew I could rely on you.” Six minutes. “Keep him waiting here as long as you can. Don’t tell him I came home, that you saw me, or told me he came here. Do you understand?”
The elderly lady blinked. “But—he’s such a nice man! Why would you want him to think badly of you?”
Tessa nearly screamed in frustration. Five minutes. “Please, I’m begging you. I never came home!”
Mrs. Savage gave a doubtful nod. “All right, Miss Honeycutt.”
She sagged in relief. “Thank you.”
Run, Tessa. Now.
She tore up the stairs and shoved everything she’d need into an Indian-weave sack, throwing unwanted stuff on the floor in a frenzy of fear. “Shoes.” Cameron’s here.
“Underwear.” North last time. Southwest before that. I’ll have to head east or south—just nowhere near Sydney.
“Jacket—jeans—”
Oh, dear God, that man probably knows I came home.
