Free Maggie's Man by Alicia Scott Page B

Ham would probably lead to his
own death, or possibly to Ham's. Which would finally make Cain guilty of one murder
though convicted of another. Either way, Cain's future didn't look very
encouraging, and for all his brilliance, he couldn't quite crack this riddle.
Cain's conundrum, he called it.
    First things first: He had to make it to Idaho.
    "Do you have a cash card?" he asked
Maggie abruptly.
    "Y-yes."
    "All right." His voice was
deliberately hard. "This is what we'll do. We're going to walk across the
street to the other mall. I'm going to remove the handcuffs for the occasion,
so don't do anything that will make me make you regret it. Got it?"
    She nodded, but her brow was furrowed into a
rebellious scowl.
    "At the mall," he continued
relentlessly, "you'll withdraw as much as you can. Then, we'll steal
another car and head for Salem. With any luck, it will take them a while to
notice the vehicle is gone."
    She opened her mouth as if to protest, then
abruptly shut it again. She hunched her shoulders a little more. Finally, in a
faint voice, she asked, "Are you ever going to let me go?"
    "When we get to Idaho … if you
cooperate."
    He followed up the statement with a
dispassionate stare. And she peered back at him from beneath the long, tangled
locks of her red hair, looking like someone who'd gotten too many hard knocks
and not enough pick-me-ups. Her lashes swept down abruptly, brushing her pale
cheeks delicately and hiding her eyes. Her fingers knit together on her lap, as
if seeking to comfort one another.
    He forced himself to watch and remain
impassive.
    "All right," she agreed.
    "We use your ATM card. We steal another
car," he repeated.
    "I cooperate. You don't hurt anyone,"
she repeated.
    "We have ourselves a deal."
    He reached across the bench seat and briskly
grabbed her handcuffed hand, releasing the metal bracelet. He folded the cuffs
in his back pocket, beneath the cover of his overshirt.
    "I still have a loaded gun," he
reminded her softly.
    "Who could forget?"
    He opened the truck door, peered around for
cops and drew her half out of the vehicle. "We walk, nothing fancy. Let's
take the map with us."
    She obediently retrieved the map and handed it
to him.
    She was silent for a moment. Then, she expelled
in a rush, "You don't have to do this. Running from the law, stealing
cars, it's no way to live. If you'd let me call my brother Brandon, he's very smart, you've never talked to
anyone as smart as him. He could help you, I just know he could. You seem like
you're quite intelligent. I mean … surely you must want more from life than to
spend your days running from the police. What kind of future is that?"
    "It's not much of
one."
    "My family could help
you—"
    "Maggie," he
interjected quietly. "Enough." He turned and walked away, and the
motion of his arm forced her to follow.

----
    Chapter 4
    « ^ »
    S he
cast a surreptitious glance at her captor as he led her across the parking lot.
    His steps were long, forceful and not at all
furtive. His green gaze was hard and level and never ducked guiltily to the pavement.
In the faded blue shirt, worn T-shirt and work-softened jeans, he looked like
anyone, any random man who might work with his hands and know what he was
about. Solid shoulders, lean flanks, muscled forearms. A few women gave him a
second glance before spotting Maggie.
    He'd been a computer programmer? She never would have guessed that. She thought
computer programmers were supposed to be like accountants, nice, bland men with
innocuous smiles and rapidly blinking eyes. In jeans and T-shirt, Cain looked
more like the dairy farmers she'd spend her summers with in Tillamook. She
could see him striding along in the field, shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal
tanned forearms, and bright August sun torching his golden hair as he wrapped
his gloved hands around baling wire and hefted bales of sweet alfalfa
effortlessly onto the flatbed. Heave-ho, heave-ho. From the time of the summer
of '78 on Lydia's farm,