The night air was crisp and the sky clear as Gordon motored through Charlottesville and continued west into the Shenandoah Mountains. The road rose quickly, leaving the plains and small foothills behind. Pine, hickory, and oak bordered the road as it twisted along the east side of the ridge. He reached Waynesboro and made the turn, heading north on a secondary road that ran parallel to the massive ridge that defined the eastern edge of the Shenandoah Mountains. He reset the trip odometer on the Jeep and glanced at the dashboard clock. Five-eighteen. The sun was close to rising and the sky to the east began to lighten.
Gordon slowed as he approached the seven-mile mark. Even at twenty miles an hour, he was past the forestry road before it registered. He backed up and turned right, his hands starting to shake. He reset the trip odometer again and drove the narrow, rutted road at a reasonable speed. The last thing he needed right now was to slide off the road into a grove of trees or, even worse, over one of the many drop-offs that cut perilously close to the tire tracks. At two miles there was a fork in the road, with the main branch heading to the left. He took the right fork, now glad he had paid extra to rent the Jeep. He touched the four-wheel-drive control and felt the front transaxle kick in. The trees opened up on his left, allowing a spectacular view of the sun rising over the eastern seaboard and distant Richmond.
The caller had told him to watch for a gap in the trees where a vehicle had gone over, and as he drove he caught glimpses of the cliff he was paralleling. If Jennifer Pearce had gone over anywhere near here, she was most certainly dead. The drop was hundreds of feet to a base of rocks and large trees that would shred a fast-moving vehicle. He rounded a curve, and through the trees ahead he caught a glimpse of color. Blue. Jennifer’s Mazda was blue. He pulled ahead, his heart racing. One more curve in the path and he could see it. The rear of Jennifer’s car. He pulled up behind it and cut the engine. The silence was immediate. Slowly, he opened the driver’s door and stepped out of the Jeep onto the rocky ground.
The car was perched precariously on the edge of the cliff. One good push and it would be over. He carefully picked his way through the surrounding shrubs and reached the driver’s door. He took a deep breath and looked into the car.
Jennifer Pearce, her eyes wild with fear, stared back at him. At the sight of his familiar face, she broke into a huge smile and started to cry simultaneously. The tears rolled down her face. He reached in and gently brushed them away.
“Gordon,” she said quietly. “Oh, thank God you’re here.”
“I’m here,” he said, opening the door and reaching inside the car. It wobbled a bit, and he steadied it by pushing back against the frame. “Let’s get you out of there,” he said, surveying the situation. Her hands were bound with strips of leather, a thin piece of tanned hide between her wrists and the leather. The same with her feet. Her abductor had bound her in such a way that he could take the leather strips off and there would be no evidence she had ever been bound. The leather strips on her hands were pulled through the steering wheel, making it impossible for her to exit the car. Gordon untied her hands first, then her feet.
“Just slip out easy so you don’t rock the car,” he said, taking her by the hand.
She placed one foot on the ground and shifted her weight off the seat toward Gordon. Removing her body weight from the vehicle upset the delicate balance and the car started to move forward. Gordon yanked her out and they both went over backwards, he taking the brunt of the fall and she landing directly on top of him. There was a strange scraping sound and the Mazda disappeared over the edge. A few seconds of silence, then a distant crashing sound as the car hit the rocks hundreds of feet below.
Jennifer didn’t move from where she was. She wrapped her arms around Gordon and burrowed her face into his chest, pulling him tight to her. He responded by closing his arms about her back and giving her a gentle squeeze. He could feel the warmth of her tears on his chest as they lay silently on the forest floor. Finally, she raised her head and brought her mouth to his. They kissed, softly at first, then with the pent-up desire that was simmering inside both of them. When they stopped, Jennifer lifted her head and stared into his eyes.
“How did you know I was here?” she asked.
“Whoever left you here called your house. He was going to leave a voice mail so the authorities could find you or your body. I was at your house when he called.”
“Thank God,” she said. “If you hadn’t come to get me, there’s no way I would have lived through this.”
“We just got lucky,” he said. “Very lucky.”
“Yeah. Lucky.”
“Did you know the guy who left you here?”
She shook her head. “No, I’ve never seen him before. But from some of the things he said, I’m pretty sure he was working for Bruce Andrews.”
She told Gordon about how the man was killing to keep the brain chip program alive. How his son was in a wheelchair and that someone at Veritas had promised his kid a shot at a normal life. “It’s all a lie, of course,” she said. “The brain chip program is being dismantled. I’ve seen them physically taking the White Oak lab apart.”
“This guy-he referred to the Veritas contact as ‘he’?”
She thought about it for a moment. “Yes. He definitely called him ‘he.’ Not them. ‘He’ ”
“Andrews,” Gordon said quietly. “The bastard.”
“There’s something else, Gordon. Some of the accounting practices at Veritas are questionable. They are shifting everyday expenses into the research-and-development sector, setting themselves up to receive unearned government tax incentives.”
“Sounds like the Enron scandal.”
“Oh, this is far enough removed from that to keep the forensic auditors at bay. For a time, at least. And I get the feeling that Andrews is banking on that-having enough time to fix whatever damage is being done.”
“Well, it wouldn’t surprise me if the snake had something up his sleeve.”
“No, I suppose not,” she said.
She let her neck muscles relax and gently set her cheek against his chest. She felt safe with him and, despite their predicament, glad to be exactly where she was. It had been many years since a man had stirred the feminine side in her. Many years since she had felt happy to be a woman. But Gordon was lighting some sort of long-dormant fuse inside her, and somewhere along that fuse was the true happiness that accompanies two people totally at ease with each other.
Gordon’s cell phone rang, and he looked at the call display, then answered it. Jennifer could hear a muffled voice but couldn’t make out what was being said. “Yes, I was employing him. Why?” He listened, then said, “I’ve never been to his office. He was a referral from a mutual friend.” Again the other voice, then:“I’ve been in Montana, and I’m in Richmond right now.” A moment of silence. “Yes, I can prove where I was at that time.” The voice on the other end of the line spoke for a minute, and Gordon said okay a couple of times, then said, “Okay, thank you for calling.” He closed the phone, a serious look on his face.
“Wes Connors, the private detective I hired, is dead.”
“What happened?” Jennifer asked.
“He was shot in his office. The police have no idea who’s responsible. They’re just going through Wes’s files and calling all his clients who currently have him on retainer. They’re probably checking to see if he had any pissed-off clients, and to let his clients know he won’t be sending out any more reports.”
“You think Andrews had him killed?”
Gordon shrugged. “I don’t know what else Wes was working on, but my guess would be that this is Andrews’s doing. Wes Connors has been in the investigative business for years, and suddenly someone kills him. The timing is a little suspect. I thing Bruce Andrews is sending me a message.”
“Nice message,” Jennifer said.
“Yeah, from a real nice guy.”
“What happens now?” she asked, resting her cheek back on his chest.
“Well, going home or to work is out of the question. If Andrews tried to kill you once, he’s not going to back off now. We’ve got to stay out of sight, find some proof that Andrews ordered that guy to kill Kenga and Albert Rousseau. And you.”
“How?” she asked.
He shrugged, and her head moved with his body. “There has to be some way to find that guy. Or something in the police files on Kenga and Albert that points toward either Andrews or the killer.”
“I’m not so sure,” Jennifer said. “Andrews is going to cover his tracks very well. He’s not stupid.”
She lifted off him and sat up. A small piece of paper that had been caught in the folds of her shirt fluttered to the ground. She reached over and picked it up. Her eyes scanned over what was written on the scrap, then she said, “Well, now I know how I survived.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was arguing with the killer, trying to persuade him that Veritas was shutting down the brain chip program and that he was being used. I thought I was getting through to him, but the last thing I remember is him clamping the chloroform over my face and telling me, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t believe you.’ I was sure he was going to push the car over the cliff.” She held up the paper so he could read what was written on it. “I guess he had a change of heart.”
Gordon focused on the paper. On second thought, I do believe you.
“Well, that change of heart won’t get him in Andrews’s good books,” Gordon said. He propped himself against a nearby tree and watched the sun hover over the landscape. Completely out of nowhere, he wished he had a camera with him, the view was so spectacular. Then the thought of where they would stay washed over him. “You know any tasteless hotels in Richmond?” he asked.
“Tasteless? Why tasteless?”
“I don’t think using a credit card would be wise. Cash only. And you know what kind of place that gets you.”
“No, not really, but I’ll take your word for it.” She twisted so she could see the view. “You know, when I was a kid I used to make things up. Like if I was walking to school and it was snowy, I’d be trying to get there before the polar bears caught me. If a song came on, I’d be Diana Ross, singing into my curling iron.”
“Don’t think that’s too abnormal. I played a little Van Halen air guitar in my time.”
She laughed.“No, more than that. I really tried to transfer myself to somewhere else-anyplace but where I was. I didn’t have a happy childhood. Something changed when my little brother was born. I got downgraded to second fiddle. And after being the princess for so long, that’s a pretty tough demotion. God, I really didn’t want to be me.”
He stared at her for a minute, then asked, “So what happened? Why is Jennifer Pearce so okay now?”
“I think she learned the world isn’t perfect and that her parents didn’t mean to hurt her. She learned to forgive. And she learned to appreciate the things that she did have in her life.”
“She’s a lucky woman.”
She smiled, and for a moment the anxiety and fear were gone, replaced with a feeling that life had brought her to where she should be. What the reason was or whether she would even live through this were unknowns. And instead of that scaring her, it excited and intrigued her. Having faced the very real possibility of dying and then having survived, she felt more alive than ever before. And just being close to Gordon gave her a sense of belonging that had eluded her for so long. He calmed her and at the same time made her feel that what she had done with her life was important. She liked that feeling. And she liked Gordon Buchanan.
In fact, she really liked Gordon Buchanan.