He nodded, appreciating that she didn"t freak at danger but used her brains. He stuffed a few clothes, his toiletries, his wallet, and his gun into his backpack, and picked up his briefcasea"which held copies of everything he"d mailed to Vegas, plus the complete South American reports, and some footage he"d shot himself in Venezuela knowing he"d have to leave the rest of his stuff.

She made her call, hanging up without giving any personal information, then stepped into her jeans, tucked in her T-shirt, and stuffed her few things in her bag.

"What are they doing now?" she asked Adam, who"d swapped positions with her and was peering through a crack in the blinds.

"They"re either breaking into your car or rigging it to explode. I can"t tell. "

"Oh, great. My home invaded, office blown up, now my car," she mumbled, grabbing her toothbrush and toiletry bag from the bathroom. "What next?"

"They kill us. "

"It was a rhetorical question. "

"Here come the cops. Come on. "

Their door faced the parking lot, and the very last thing Gretchen wanted to do was barge on out there to join the hired thugs. But they couldn"t hide in the room; they had to get out.

Adam pulled the door open an inch and she crowded under his arm so she could peer out as well. The two dark hulking shapes were doing something to her car, all right. The police cruiser turned in to the motel parking lot, and as the headlights pierced the gloom, they briefly highlighted the two men who did not look like ordinary car thieves. They wore dark suits and carried their tools in a bulky leather briefcase.

As they were panicked into action, Adam said, "Let"s go. "

He pulled the door open and she slipped out, hoping neither cop nor robber would glance over a shoulder and see her and Adam so painfully exposed.

He grabbed her hand and they ran the length of the motel, in the opposite direction of the commotion.

They rounded the side of the motel, out of sight, and pulled up against the pollution-gray siding. The highway stretched in front of them, brightly lit and relatively quiet at two A. M. "We could hitchhike," Adam said, gesturing to the highway.

"We might get picked up, all right," she said, pulling him back against the siding as a dark sedan came toward them.

It wasn"t just that the car itself looked like a prop from a G.o.dfather movie, and had her stomach sinking, but that the driver looked like one of the extras. In the gleam from the overhead streetlights, she had the impression of a big head, hulking shoulders, and no neck. The car slowed, and even though the driver didn"t bother with a turn signal, the vehicle started to turn into the lot.

The flashing police lights changed the driver"s mind right quick. He straightened the car, and, as he did, his headlights strobed over her and Adam. There was no possible way he hadn"t seen them.

Could their luck get any worse?

The car swerved toward them, and for a second she was frozen there until she felt her arm almost tugged out of its socket as Adam hauled her into a sprint.

She"d wondered, back when she first took her training, what it would feel like to run for her life.

Now she knew.

It felt like one of those dreams in which the faceless monster is chasing, and you run and run but you can"t ever run fast enough.

They dodged behind the motel to the miserable sliver of ancient asphalt that housed the dumpsters. She felt like a fox trapped between two packs of baying hounds. On her left was the sinister shadow of the sedan with Bull Neck following them. On the right, police officers were in noisy pursuit of the two guys who"d been messing with her car.

Adam scrambled up on top of one malodorous dumpster and held out a hand for her. She grabbed it and he hauled her up. From there they could step onto a cinderblock wall that separated the motel from a convenience store/gas station.

He bent his knees, ready to jump, but she stopped him. "There are police over there. They can help us. "

He shook his head. "No time. I"ve got to get to Las Vegas. You go if you want. Get back to your life. "

Since her entire life had either been blown up, invaded, or tampered with in some fashion, it wasn"t all that exciting a prospect. Besides, she was in too deep now to give up. And the thought of Adam continuing on without her didn"t impress her in the least.

"I"ll see this through," she decided, launching herself off the wall to make a bone-jarring landing at the edge of the convenience store property. She just managed to prevent herself from toppling onto a heap of scattered dented and rusting beer cans, crushed, empty cigarette packets, and candy wrappers.

"Maybe we could go into the convenience store anda""

"Good idea, go. "

The black sedan turned into the gas station even as she took the first step toward the brightly lit squat building. Adam didn"t move.

"Come on. Don"t be a hero!" she cried.

"I"ll slow him down." Adam reached into his back pocket, and she knew d.a.m.n well he was going for his gun, just as the driver"s side of the sedan opened.

"No." She grabbed his arm and pointed with her free hand. "Look!"

A camper van the size of an oil tanker swung in from the other entrance and pulled into the bay opposite the sedan. A couple of seniors were visible, and there was a wheel cover with I *heart* Grandpa affixed to the front.

And G.o.d bless Grandpa, she thought, as Bull Neck swiftly tucked his firearm away. This time it was Gretchen"s turn to yank Adam"s arm, pulling him into a run. They sprinted what seemed like half a mile to the end of the camper and around the back of it.

She scanned the vicinity, but with pursuit so close, there was only one option. Still holding Adam"s hand, she ran out into the highway.

Even with spa.r.s.e middle-of-the-night traffic, they took their lives into their hands. Still, she figured, better the possibility of death and maiming in a roadway than the certainty of it from the men chasing them.

They made the other side and she glanced back, but with the bulk of Grandpa"s camper in the way, she couldn"t see the black sedan.

"You must be awfully important," she mumbled as he pulled her down the embankment and into a thicket of some kind of scrubby bush. They crouched and ran until the sound of a siren split the air. Both scrambled back up the embankment and peeped over.

"I like the look of that," Adam said as the black sedan roared past them with the quiet purr of a very powerful motor. One rear door was flapping open and she could see the tumble of dark bulk in the backseat, one arm fishing out for the door handle. "He must have caught up with the other two guys. "

The car flashed past, closely followed by two black and whites with sirens screaming. "I hope they get caught. "

"Me, too. But don"t count on it. "

It was a reprieve, if only a short one. She was so happy, she took her first deep breath and then had it sucked right out of her when Adam grabbed her for a long, hard kiss.

She responded, thrusting her fingers in his hair, touching his shoulders, his back, squeezing his b.u.t.t, and pulling him hard against her. It was so good to feel him alive and whole.

She pulled away unwillingly.

"Come on," he said. "We"ve got to get out of here. "

"How did they follow us and we didn"t even notice them?" She"d kept a vigilant eye out as she"d driven and she"d have sworn they weren"t followed.

"I don"t think they did. Did you use your credit card to buy your things?"

"Cash. "

He said nothing, and she groaned. "They must have found my car records at the office. s.h.i.t!"

"Hey." He pulled her back against him. "We"re going to beat them. We are going to win. Come on. We"ll start walking. Maybe when we get to the next town we can steal a car. "

"Good plan. "

It was a s.h.i.tty plan, and they both knew that, but they didn"t have a lot of options.

They walked.

It wasn"t too bad. Her bag with the essentials stuffed in it wasn"t too heavy. There was a half-moon, so they could see in the long sections between overhead lights, and Adam seemed so safe and normal somehow that she couldn"t entirely believe they were in danger. For a P. I., she"d known little enough of that.

They didn"t talk; both were too busy listening for vehicles. The only sound was of their shoes scuffling and the breeze blowing through ancient pines. Occasionally she"d hear a rustle of some nocturnal animal or the hoot of an owl. Once an animal, a coyote or a wolverine, dashed across the road.

Perhaps it was the fear, but she was aware of everything. Every sound, the smell of dust and oil, the feel of the pavement beneath her feet, the breeze against her cheeks and in her hair, the feel of Adam"s hand, so solid and warm holding her own.

She wanted to throw him down and make love to him, right here, simply so she could enjoy incorporating every super-sensitive nerve in her body.

They couldn"t, of course. The business of staying alive was too much on their minds. But if they got out of this, she promised herself she"d do things that would have Adam on his knees thanking her.

She wove scenarios in her head as they walked, deciding it was more pleasant to plan s.e.x than to imagine what would happen if they were caught.

Adam"s hand grew warmer in hers, almost as though her thoughts and fantasies were communicating themselves. It was amazing, but there was a kind of lovemaking going on between their joined hands that was making her wet with antic.i.p.ation.

Twice they dove for cover and her heart pounded in terror as a vehicle drove by. One was a dusty old pickup truck, the other a small, fast sports car.

After an hour of walking, they sighted a gas station/rest stop and she breathed a sigh of relief. Her bladder was full and she fantasized about hot coffee.

A couple of long-haul rigs were parked over to one side for the night, and a tour bus was refueling.

"There"s some kind of tour pulled in here," she said, in case he"d missed it. "It should be safe to use the wash-room and grab some food. We could be walking for a while. "

"It"s dangerous to bea""

"It"s more dangerous to make me pee in the bushes. Believe me, you don"t want to do that. "

A ghost of a smirk flitted across his face. "All right. But keep your ears open. If I see anything I don"t like, I"ll hoot like an owl and you meet me out back, behind the dumpster. "

"You"re not coming in?"

He shook his head. "If they come snoopinga"and they willa"they"ll ask about a couple, not a woman alone. "

A shiver crossed her back. "I"ll be fast. "

But it wasn"t as easy as she"d imagined. When she followed directions for the ladies" room, she discovered a line. She blinked as though it were a hallucination. It was three in the morning in a rest stop at the foot of the Sierra Nevadas. How could there be a line for the bathroom?

She shook her head, but the sea of pastel-colored jackets and polyester trousers didn"t disappear.

Her feeling of disorientation intensified when one of the women, who reminded her vaguely of her own grandmother, turned to her with a smile and said, "I hope I get lucky in Las Vegas. "

Chapter Six.

It was hopeless. Adam knew it in his gut. He was going to die, gunned down ignominiously on a two-bit highway and probably included as a grim robbery statistic.

That was bad enough, but the truth burned like acid through his vitals. They wouldn"t be satisfied with silencing him. They"d take Gretchen, too.

Two innocent lives forfeited, and those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds would get away with one of the biggest stock scams in history. Unless a miracle happened, he and Gretchen were toast.

Without wheels, they didn"t stand a hope of getting away.

Wait a minute. He shook his head, knowing fatigue had dulled his brain. There were wheels out front. He had a gun. They could hijack one of the ma.s.sive long-haul trucks.

Trying to appear casual, he strolled toward the two rigs. As he did so, he pa.s.sed the tour bus.

"Warm evening." The words made him start. He glanced up to find the driver leaning against the bus enjoying a quiet smoke. The scent of burning tobacco should have clued him in that he wasn"t alone, but he"d been too busy focusing on the rigs.

"Yeah," he answered, and stopped. Might as well find out how long he"d have to wait until the bus left so he could get on with his hijack.

"Are you driving through the night?" As in, How the h.e.l.l long are you going to be here?"

"Yep. I do this trip four times a month. Seniors, mostly. The scenic circle tour. From here we drive straight through to Las Vegas. "

"Las Vegas?" he said. It shouldn"t have been a surprise, but the idea of anyone but him and Gretchen going to Las Vegas seemed amazing. "When do you pull out?"

The driver checked his watch. Adam saw the pale green glow of the numbers. "About half an hour. "

"That"s where we"re going." Easy. Easy, he told himself, thinking fast. Hitching a ride on a tour bus of seniors was not only easier than stealing a rig, but no one would think to look for them here. "Our car broke down back a way. "

"You"re driving all night, too?"

Was it his imagination or did he hear slight suspicion?

He gave a short laugh. "My girlfriend suddenly decided she wanted to get married. Like, right now. So we loaded the car and headed out. We"re planning to get married tomorrow." He ran a finger under the collar of his T-shirt as though the words were choking him. It wasn"t for the driver"s benefit. He couldn"t help himself.

The cigarette tip glowed red, and the driver chuckled as he exhaled. "Las Vegas gets its share of those. Hundred and fifteen thousand weddings a year. They come from all over." He tossed his cigarette and Adam watched it arc to the ground. "Your girlfriend knocked up?"

Adam thought about Gretchen for an instant, and imagined that tough, capable woman growing round with his child. The idea made him grin. "Yeah. You haven"t got a couple of spare seats on the bus, have you?"

The driver hesitated. No doubt this was against company rules.

"I"d pay cash," Adam said. "I got some out of the bank. Figured I"d need a good stake for the tables." He grinned, man to man. "Hope I win. My girlfriend wants to start a college fund for the kid. "