The hand that suddenly gripped LuAnn’s shoulder almost made her scream.
“Where’s your horse?” Riggs’s voice was even and calm.
She looked at him, the whiplash of fear receding as quickly as it had appeared. “About a hundred yards that way.” She jerked her head in the direction of the thick woods. “Is that your car alarm?”
Riggs nodded and gripped his car keys tightly. One eye on Donovan and the other on their avenue of escape, Riggs rose to his feet and pulled LuAnn up with him. “Ready, go.” Bursting out from their cover they raced across the open ground. Keeping his eyes on Donovan’s back, Riggs unfortunately caught his foot on a root and he went down, his finger gripping the key ring, accidentally pressing the alarm’s shut-off button. Donovan whipped around and stared at them. LuAnn had Riggs up again in a moment and they raced off into the woods. Donovan lurched toward them, his pistol making broad sweeps. “Hey,” he screamed. “Dammit, hold it right there.” Donovan waved the gun around, but he wasn’t going to shoot; he wasn’t a killer.
LuAnn ran like the wind and Riggs found it impossible to keep up with her. He had slightly twisted his ankle, he told himself, but truth be known, even at full speed he probably could not have caught her. They reached Joy, who stood patiently awaiting her owner’s arrival. LuAnn quickly released the tether and jumped into the saddle without even bothering to use the stirrup. She flicked out a hand and hauled Riggs up behind her. The next moment they were racing up the trail astride the fleet mare. Riggs looked back for an instant, but Donovan was nowhere in sight. They had moved so fast he wasn’t surprised. Riggs gripped LuAnn’s waist with both hands and hung on for dear life as she whipped Joy at a breakneck pace through the swerving trails.
They had returned Joy to the horse barn and were walking back to the main house before Riggs broke the silence. “I take it that’s how you handle those kind of situations. Break into the place. See what you can find. I don’t know why I should be surprised. That’s what you did with me.” He looked at LuAnn with angry eyes.
She matched the look. “I didn’t break into your place. And I don’t remember asking you to follow me.”
“I followed Charlie, not you,” he corrected her. “But it’s a damn good thing I was there, wasn’t it? Two times in two days. At this rate you’ll wear out your nine lives in a week.” She kept walking, her arms crossed in front of her, her eyes staring resolutely ahead. Riggs stopped.
She stopped too and looked down for an instant. When she looked up there was a far softer countenance confronting him. “Thank you. Again. But the more distance you put between the three of us and yourself, the better off you’ll be, I guarantee it. Forget the fence. I don’t think we’ll be staying on here. Don’t worry, I’ll pay you for it anyway.” She stared at him for a moment longer, trying to push away feelings that had been strangers to her for so long that they now simply frightened her. “Have a good life, Matthew.” She turned and headed for the house.
“Catherine?” She kept walking. “Catherine,” he said again.
She finally stopped.
“Would you please tell me what’s going on? I might be able to help you.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You never know.”
“Believe me, I know.”
She started toward the house again.
Riggs stood there staring after her. “Hey, in case you forgot, I don’t have a car to get home in.”
When she turned around, the key ring was already sailing through the air. Riggs caught it in the palm of his hand.
“Take my car. It’s parked out front. Keep it as long as you like. I’ve got another one.”
On that she spun back around and disappeared into the house.
Riggs slowly pocketed the keys, shaking his head in absolute frustration.
Chapter thirty-three
“Where the hell have you been?” Charlie came out of his study and leaned up against the doorjamb. His face was still pale, a detail LuAnn picked up on immediately.
“Same place you were,” she said.
“What? LuAnn, I told you—”
“You weren’t alone. Riggs followed you. In fact he managed to save me again. If he happens to do it once more, I might have to consider marrying the man.”
Charlie went a shade paler. “Did he go inside the house?”
“No, but I did.”
“How much did you see?” Charlie asked nervously.
LuAnn swept past him and into the office. “I don’t want Lisa to hear.”
Charlie closed the door behind them. He went straight over to the liquor stand and poured himself a drink. LuAnn watched his movements in silence for a moment before speaking.
“Apparently, you saw more than I did.”
He turned to her and downed the drink in one motion. “The news clippings on the lottery? The murders?”
LuAnn nodded. “I saw them. After my first encounter with the man, I wasn’t very surprised to see that.”
“I wasn’t either.”
“Apparently there was more, though.” She looked at him pointedly at the same time she sat down on the sofa, folding her hands in her lap and collecting her nerves as best she could.
There was a haunted look in Charlie’s features, as though he had awoken from a nightmare and attempted to laugh it off, only to find out he wasn’t dreaming. “I saw some names. A list of them in fact. Yours was on there.” He paused and put the glass down. His hands were shaking. LuAnn braced herself. “Herman Rudy. Wanda Tripp. Randy Stith. They were on there too. I escorted them all in New York.”
LuAnn slowly rested her head in her hands.
Charlie sat down beside her, put one beefy hand on her back, and slowly rubbed it.
She sat back and slumped against him; a painful weariness laced her words. “We have to go, Charlie. We have to pack up and go. Tonight.”
He considered the request before running a hand across his forehead. “I’ve been thinking about that. We can run, like we’ve done before. But there’s a difference now.”
LuAnn’s response was immediate. “He knows about the lottery fix and he knows LuAnn Tyler and Catherine Savage are one and the same. Our cover isn’t going to work anymore.”
Charlie nodded glumly. “We’ve never been confronted with both of those before. It makes disappearing a little trickier.”
She suddenly stood up and started her ritualistic pacing, moving in fluid circles around the room. “What does he want, Charlie?”
“I’ve been thinking about that too.” He went over to the liquor stand with his empty glass, hesitated, and decided against a second round. “You saw the guy’s setup. What did it look like to you?” he asked.
LuAnn stopped pacing and leaned up against the fireplace mantel. In her mind, she went through every detail of the place.
“His car was a rental, under an assumed name. So he doesn’t want us to be able to trace his real identity. I didn’t recognize the man, but there must be another reason he’s going incognito.”
“Right.” Charlie studied her. Over the years, he had learned that LuAnn missed almost nothing and her instincts were first-rate.
“He tried to spook me, which he did. I take that as a warning, a message that he’s a player and he wants us to be aware of that for the next time he calls.”
“Go on,” he encouraged.
“The place, the little I saw of it, was set up like an office. Very neat, very orderly. Computer, fax, printer, files. It was like he had made all of this some special research project.”
“Well, he would’ve had to do a ton of research to figure out the lottery scam. Jackson is no dummy.”
“How do you think he did it, Charlie?”
He rubbed his chin and sat down in front of his desk. “Well, we don’t know for absolute certain that he has figured it all out. I just saw the list. That’s all.”