Accompanying Alice Read Free

envelope with my name on it for yesterday’s church collection. I didn’t go because my girls…” No, he didn’t need or want to know that. “Ah, here’s my gas and electric bills, my voter registration—” she paused, dug deeper, unaware he’d begun to relax “—a locket with my initials engraved on it that the girls gave me and–oh! Here’s a birthday card and–and—”
    “Enough,” he said. Relief eased his grip on her blouse and the barrel of the gun dropped away from her nose. “Enough. You’re not one of them. Thought you might… Can’t trust any… They killed–tried to kill—”
    He stopped, visibly attempting to collect himself. Alice tried to think, tried to breathe. The fear between the man and herself was palpable, as much his as hers. She hated fear, hated what it did to her, what it could make her do.
    She stole a glance at him, a frightened little jerk of her eyes in his direction, hoping he hated fear, too. Watching her, all the time. His gaze seemed to have a weight she could feel, a touch that made her shiver somehow with apprehension and anticipation. So little expression was visible behind the beard, the eyes, as though the only emotion he had left in the world was fear—and how to use it.
    With a jittery, half-expectant heart, she watched him. All her life she’d longed for adventure, daydreamed about being the plain little schoolmarm swept off her feet by some masked desperado on his way to Hole in the Wall or the Alamo, about how courageous she would be in the face of the terrifying and unfamiliar, how she would beat the odds against her and emerge the torch-bearing victor.
    Now here she was, six days out of mother-may-I-hood and scared to death to see what might happen next. She’d often had the strange and nonsensically guilty feeling that she’d given in to Matt that night on purpose so she’d get pregnant and have to get married. That way, she’d never
have to put her money where her mouth was, never have to live up to her dreams, never have to find out what she’d often suspected about herself: that she hadn’t really any courage at all and that she was actually a stickin-the-mud coward.
    She could have done without proof.
    Rain dribbled off her bangs, dripped off her chin and down the front of her blouse, but she barely noticed it. She couldn’t take her eyes off the man and his gun. Staring down at the weapon as though seeing it for the first time and wondering what to do with it, he rubbed his sore temple
with the heel of his hand, jarring open his wound. Fresh blood trickled down his cheek, and he viewed his bloody fist with surprise.
    “You’ve been hurt,” Alice said tentatively. “You need a doctor, maybe the police—”
    “No.” Panic roused him suddenly, tightened his hold on her blouse. “No police, no doctor. Gunshot wound they file a report. They file a report and they find me. They find me and I’m dead. Do you understand that? They’ve already killed Nicky and God knows who else. I’m next, unless I stop them, and maybe even then, but I’ve got to try.” He shook her in despair. “Do you understand? I don’t have time to die right now.”
    Her sentiments exactly. For the barest instant Alice stared at him wildly, wondering if she’d spoken her own thought aloud. Then sheer will let him twist his legs underneath him and push himself upright, drag her up with him. “Come on,” he urged. “Can’t stay here. Got to leave. Got to move before they find...”
    Vertigo staggered him, rocked him back. For the first time in her life, Alice recognized opportunity when it slapped her in the face: she shoved him hard, yanking away from him
at the same time, making a beeline for the car. With stunning speed he recovered and caught her, tossed her against the station wagon’s mud coated tailgate and pinned her there. He breathed hard, his breath warm and human against her rain chilled face. Gathering the courage she didn’t think she had, she