TAMING JESSE JAMES Read online

  Even as he gave the order, he knew she wasn't.

  Something was wrong. She needed him and this time he couldn't fail.

  He didn't bother knocking at the Garretts', just shoved open the unlocked door.

  Seth stood poised at the base of the stairs, as if he were just on his way up. Surprise flickered on his face at the intrusion, but Jesse didn't give him a chance to say a word. With adrenaline pumping through him like an uncapped oil well, he grabbed two fistfuls of beige golf shirt and rammed the other man against the wall so hard Seth's head connected with an ugly-sounding crack.

  "You son of a bitch. Where is she?" Jesse barely recognized the rough, feral voice coming from his throat

  In contrast, Seth's voice came out strangled. "Who? Ginny? She's in the kitchen."

  He gave the man another hard shake. "Where's Sarah? What have you done to her?"

  Seth's eyes widened. "Sarah McKenzie? Corey's teacher? I barely know the woman."

  "You know her enough to stalk her. To lurk outside her house and smash in her windows and leave nasty notes on the door." He shook again. "I know you took her. Now, where is she?"

  "You're crazy! I don't know what you're talking about, Jesse. I swear it."

  Drawn by the raised voices, Ginny rushed into the entry. "Jesse! What is going on? Let him go!"

  "Stay out of this, Gin."

  "No. Good heavens, Jesse. What's gotten into you?"

  "Is she here at the house? Are you hiding her in your garage?"

  "Hiding who?" Ginny fluttered her hands. "This is ridiculous!"

  "Sarah McKenzie is missing. And the only one I know in Salt River who might have a grudge against her is your husband."

  "You're nuts." Seth's voice came out raspy. "What kind of grudge would I have against her? Corey's done better in just a few weeks spent in her class than he has all year!"

  "How about retaliation for having your good name smeared by allegations of child abuse? You found out she's the one who made the accusation, didn't you?"

  Seth's astonishment was either completely genuine or he had a lock on winning best actor of the century. "I had no idea who made the complaint until you just said it. I wouldn't have cared anyway, since it was completely false. I would never hurt Corey or Sarah McKenzie. Come on, Jess. You know me! You know I couldn't do any of this!"

  The stunned sincerity in his expression, in his voice, gave Jesse the first flickers of doubt since he'd seen that soggy piece of paper with Corey's name on it. He suddenly realized he was a few moments away from strangling one of his oldest friends.

  Could he have made a mistake?

  He could barely see through the black haze of rage and worry consuming him at the thought of the nightmare Sarah must be going through. But he considered himself fairly good at reading people, and right now Seth looked stunned.

  Jesse reluctantly released his hold and Seth slumped to a pine bench against the wall, rubbing his throat. "What's this about, Jess? Why would you think I'm involved?"

  He raked a hand through his hair. What was he supposed to do now? He had to find her and couldn't afford to waste time here with explanations if Seth wasn't involved. What had she been trying to tell him by leaving that damn paper out of her bag?

  "You heard about the vandalism at her house?"

  "Yes. Betty Ann, my secretary, told me. She heard it from her sister Janie, who works with Sarah at the school. It sounded like a real mess."

  "We found something of yours on the scene. We have reason to believe it was left there by whoever did the dirty work. I had a theory that it might be some kind of twisted revenge thing, but maybe it was just a plant. Something to throw us off."

  "It wasn't me, I swear it."

  Frustration prowled through him, gnawed at him. He wanted to pound his fist against the wall, to smash every single one of Ginny's pretty little knickknacks in the room.

  Where was Sarah?

  "Somehow her disappearance is linked to Corey. I can feel it in my bones. She left one of his homework assignments out of her bag. It was the only one she pulled out and I know she had to mean something by that. But what? Where the hell can she be?"

  He heard a small sound above his head, like the mew of a tiny kitten, and Jesse jerked his gaze to the stairs. Corey stood halfway down, his hand on the railing and his face so pale his freckles stood out in sharp relief.

  Ginny stepped forward. "Corey, do you know something about this?"

  "Maybe." His usual screw-you attitude was nowhere in sight. Instead, he just looked like exactly what he was, a young boy—and a frightened one at that.

  "What do you know?" his mother asked, when he didn't say anything more.

  He swallowed hard and gripped the railing. "You'll be mad if I tell you."

  Seth started up the stairs and laid a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Son, you have to tell what you know. Ms. McKenzie might be in danger."

  Tears welled up in his eyes. "I didn't think he'd hurt her."

  "Who, Corey?" Jesse pounced on him. "Where is she?"

  "You could try Elk Mountain," he whispered.

  They all stared at him. "What?" Jesse growled.

  "The trailer on Elk Mountain. Where we used to live."

  Ginny hissed in a breath, her face going as pale as her son's. "What are you talking about? That trailer's abandoned. It's just a pile of junk. Why would Sarah possibly go there?"

  "I don't know. But if she's missing, I think maybe my dad might have taken her there. That's where he's been living." Tears welled up in the boy's frightened eyes. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you he was back, Mom. He made me promise not to. Said he'd hurt Maddie or you if I told."

  Hob Sylvester. Son of a bitch. Suddenly Corey's mysterious injuries these past few weeks made a whole lot more sense. "Why would Hob want to hurt Sarah? He doesn't even know her."

  Corey sniffled. "I don't know. He was real mad at her, though. Said she should mind her own business after she had to go and tell 'bout the, um, the thing on my back."

  "He … your father did that to you?" Ginny asked weakly.

  Corey looked guilty and miserable at the same time. "When I told him about Seth wanting to adopt me, he got real mad. Said I was a Sylvester and he wouldn't let me ever forget it."

  Jesse didn't wait to hear the rest. He was already heading for the door, a ragged curse on his tongue. Hob Sylvester. He thought of all the calls he'd responded to over the years on Elk Mountain, back when Ginny and Corey lived there. The bruises and the broken bones and the wounds that went far deeper than flesh.

  Hob was a crazy, vindictive bully who was capable of anything. Just thinking about his sweet Sarah in the hands of a man like that sent a hot, greasy ball of fear slicking through him.

  He had to hurry.

  This time—please, God, this time—he wouldn't be too late.

  * * *

  "Here we are. End of the road, Teach."

  Sarah tried not to listen to the voice. She was in a safe, warm place where no one could touch her—no one could scare her—and she couldn't let anyone disturb her.

  She breathed deeply, shoving the entire weight of her psyche against the door to the terrifying world outside. If only she tried hard enough, she could keep that door closed tightly and could stay right here in this nice, safe, blank nothingness.

  "Come on. I ain't got all day." Someone on the outside grabbed her arm and yanked her out of both the truck and her safe, private haven.

  She wobbled a little at the impact of her abrupt return to earth.

  "Come on," Corey's father said, his voice harsh and ugly.

  He gripped her arm and started dragging her toward the only structure in sight among the towering trees, a dilapidated trailer with peeling aluminum skin of some nondescript color.

  No. This wasn't right. She was supposed to be at her safe little cottage right now with Jesse, not at some junk heap in the middle of nowhere.

  "I want to go home," she muttered.

  "Tough," he snapped. He
shoved her hard up the wooden steps. They were wet from the rain and she stumbled on a loose board. She reached a hand to the rickety railing to steady herself, then gasped as splinters drove into her skin.

  The sharp pain brought her fully back to the grim reality of her situation. She was on an isolated mountainside with a man who appeared to be drunk at best, completely crazy at worst. Even if Jesse somehow miraculously managed to figure out where they'd gone, it still could be hours before he arrived for her.

  She was going to have to save herself.

  The idea just about sent her scurrying back to the safe place inside her head.

  The flimsy door to the structure wasn't locked and Sylvester shoved her inside. Could he actually live here? It was little better than one of those cardboard boxes the homeless used back in Chicago.

  It looked as if someone had tried to make the trailer a home at one time, but the wallpaper was stained with water, the lace curtains tattered and ripped.

  Her gaze landed on something familiar. It appeared she'd just solved the mystery of the school's missing coins. The shattered jar lay in a corner in thick broken shards amid a pile of coins.

  So Chuck Hendricks had been right—Corey had been involved in the theft. Or at least his father had been.

  She didn't have time to dwell on it. Sylvester shoved her toward a blue-and-gold couch missing most of its stuffing.

  Still holding the gun, he immediately reached for yet another bottle on the counter, this one already half-empty, and carried it to the only other piece of furniture in the room, a chair of the same ugly print.

  For a few moments he drank and muttered, some disjointed soliloquy about Seth and Ginny and Corey, about how Seth was going to pay for taking from Hob Sylvester. About how the stupid bitch was still his wife, no matter what any judge had to say about it.

  She thought she heard Jesse's name in there, but she was only half listening, her nerves quivering as she tried to figure out how she could make it out of there in one piece.

  The man obviously wanted revenge, but she wasn't quite sure how she fit into the whole picture. Though she didn't really want to know, she figured the more information she had to rely on, the better her chances of surviving.

  She thought of Jesse and the weekend they'd shared, the bright color he had brought to her cold, gray world. She wanted to be in his arms again, to feel wonderfully, miraculously whole again. To tell him how very much she loved him.

  She was going to have to survive, no matter what.

  "What are you planning to do with me?" She interrupted Sylvester's rambling with a calmness that belied the panic surging through her veins.

  He blinked at her in surprise—just as if the chair he was sitting on had suddenly started carrying on a conversation—then suddenly smirked at her over the lip of the nearly empty Jack Daniel's bottle. "You're gonna help me, Teach."

  "How?"

  "See this?" He held up the gun with a broad smile. "This here belongs to Seth Son-of-a-Bitch Garrett. Registered and everything. Who do you think's gonna get blamed when it happens to be used to commit a crime?"

  "Seth?"

  "Give the teacher an A-plus." He saluted her with the bottle.

  Keep him talking. Talking and drinking, until Jesse had time to get there or until he passed out, so she could escape.

  "How did you get the gun?"

  Sylvester grinned at his own cleverness. "Wasn't hard. I made my boy give me the key to their fancy house so I could get in whenever I wanted. They never even knew I'd been there. Not like at your house. I didn't even get close before you saw me and called the police."

  She thought of the intruder, that dark, menacing shape outside her window. "That was you?"

  He snickered but didn't answer.

  "Why me?"

  "You dropped right into my lap, sugar." He seemed to have a little trouble getting the words out and she prayed he was too drunk to notice as she casually stretched her leg out and pretended to shift positions while she carefully slid a thick, five-inch-long shard of glass from the shattered coin jar closer, hiding it under her shoe.

  "My kid said you and our pretty-boy police chief were close. Thought I'd see if he was tellin' me more lies. For once he was right. The minute you saw me, you called him, didn't you?"

  "He's the police chief. Of course I called him."

  "Aw, come on. You don't have to fool ol' Hob Sylvester. You're doin' him, aren't you?"

  She flushed at his crudeness. Keep him talking. Even if you don't like what he's saying. "What does that have to do with anything?"

  "When I saw you, I came up with a great idea. Kill two birds with one stone, you know, and make them both pay for screwing up my life. While I'm setting up that son of a bitch Garrett to take the fall when you're found shot to death with his gun, I can also make Jesse Harte bleed by taking away something of his. It's the least I can do for my old football buddy." His cold smile oozed hatred.

  "What did Jesse do to you?"

  "Ruined my life, that's what he did!" He threw the empty bottle against the wall suddenly and she shuddered at the crash. "If it wasn't for him, I would have played college ball and maybe even the pros. I was one hell of a wide receiver. Had colleges knockin' down my door. University of Wyoming, Colorado. UNLV. They all wanted Hob Sylvester on their roster, I'll tell you what. Then Jesse Harte had to go and ruin it for me."

  "How?" she whispered.

  "Last game of the regular season, scouts in the stands, and QB hotshot Harte decides to blow off the game. He didn't even show up! How was I supposed to let the scouts see what I could do when I had that wussy Troy Smoot throwing for me?"

  She didn't understand half of what he was saying. Football wasn't exactly one of her areas of expertise, but besides that, his words began to slur.

  She cursed her stupid knee. If not for that, she could probably easily outrun a man who was more than half-drunk, even down a slippery mountainside.

  Jesse, please hurry.

  "Him and Garrett and that bitch I married are in it together. And now they have to pay. That's all. You just made the mistake of getting messed up with the wrong guy, sugar."

  He was crazy. He had to be if he thought this ridiculous plan would actually work, that anyone would blame Seth Garrett for her death.

  "Guess we might as well get to it, right?" He lifted the gun and she couldn't help flinching.

  "Here? You're going to kill me here, now?"

  "Why not?"

  She drew a shaky breath, scrambling for an answer. In the end, she decided to play to his ego. "Seems to me a smart man like you would realize the police would never believe Seth would bring me out here to kill me," she pointed out. "All the clues except the gun will point to you. Your fingerprints have to be all over this place."

  He scratched his head. "So where should we go?"

  She had the sudden, hysterical urge to laugh. Was the man actually drunk—or insane—enough to think she was going to give him a blueprint for her own murder? "Where would Mayor Garrett do it?"

  His big, dissipated face suddenly brightened. "I know. The courthouse. The sumbitch practically lives there. Come on, let's go."

  He gestured with the gun toward the door. Her time was running out.

  Sarah pretended to stumble as she rose, and staggered to her knees. While still down, she quickly closed her fist around the thick glass shard, heedless of it slicing through her skin.

  As her fingers folded around the sharp, cold glass, a strange, empowering strength flowed through her. She might go down in the end, but this time she would go down fighting, damn it.

  She stayed on the ground for several seconds, until Sylvester turned toward her, snarling impatiently. "Come on. Hurry up."

  It wasn't hard to make a distressed noise. "My knee. I have problems with it sometimes. I don't think I can get up."

  He muttered a harsh curse. "You better not be faking," he warned, but stretched a hand out to help her up.

  He brushed her brea
st as he reached for her. If not for that, she might not have had the courage, but in that moment he became Tommy DeSilva. All her hatred toward what had been done to her focused on him.

  With a grunt of rage, she drew her hand back and aimed for his eyes with all her strength.

  With a scream of pain, Sylvester backed away, clutching at his face. Bile rose in her throat at the sight of him, like something out of a horror movie—the glass shard sticking out of one eye, blood pouring everywhere.

  She nearly collapsed right then as the past jerked back to the present, but she knew she wasn't safe. Not while he still had a gun. With one hand she snagged the keys to the truck off the counter where he'd left them and raced out the door as fast as her knee would allow.

  Half skidding, half jumping, she made her way down the slippery steps and was almost to the truck when a wild shot rang out behind her. She didn't take time to look, just leapt for the cab of the truck, then fumbled with both locks.

  She wasted a few scary moments trying to figure out which key would start the truck, then she jammed the right one in. It worked! The truck rumbled to life just as another shot rang out, shattering the passenger window. Sarah didn't wait around anymore. She muscled the truck into gear, thanking heaven her father had bothered to teach her how to drive a manual, then roared through the darkness.

  She was halfway down the mountain, trying her best to drive with shaking hands and tears of shock running down her face, when she heard the first siren.

  * * *

  Chapter 13

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  "Okay. Twelve stitches down, just a few more to go. Can you hang in there?"

  Sarah nodded at the short, competent doctor with the steel-gray buzz cut and kind blue eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. She had never been treated by a doctor wearing a bolo tie before.

  "Good girl." He smiled and hunched back over her palm to continue repairing the damage she had done to herself by wielding a broken shard of glass with her bare hand.