Perfect (Second Opportunities 2)

Again, Julie obeyed. She chewed without tasting, every fiber of her being concentrated on calming her shattered nerves so that she could think again. The tension in the car grew into a taut, living thing that added to her strained nerves. She spoke simply to break the silence. "C-could I have m-my Coke," she said, reaching for the white sack of drinks on the floor near his feet. His hand clamped on her wrist in a vice that threatened to break the fragile bones. "You're hurting me!" Julie cried, assailed by a fresh onslaught of panic. His hand tightened more painfully before he flung her wrist away. She reared back in her seat, leaned her head back, and closed her eyes, swallowing and rubbing her throbbing arm. Until a few moments ago, he hadn't actually tried to inflict pain on her, and she'd lulled herself with the misconception that he wasn't a depraved indiscriminate killer but rather a man who'd taken revenge on his unfaithful wife in an act of jealous insanity. Why, she wondered desperately, had she allowed herself to think that he wouldn't be just as likely to murder a woman whom he'd taken captive or a teenager who could sound an alarm and get him captured. The answer was that she'd been fooled and deluded by her memories—memories of all those glamorous stories about him in magazines, memories of countless hours spent in theaters with her brothers and, later, with her dates admiring him and even fantasizing about him. At eleven years old, she hadn't understood why her brothers and all their friends thought Zack Benedict was so special, but within a few years, she'd understood it perfectly. Ruggedly handsome, unattainable, sexy and cynical, witty and tough. And since Julie had been away on a summer scholarship in Europe during his famous trial, she had no knowledge of any of the sordid details, nothing concrete to offset all those lovely on-screen images that had seemed so real to her in theaters. The shameful truth was that when he'd told her he was innocent, she'd believed it might be possible he was telling the truth because it then made sense for him to try to escape so he could prove it. For some incomprehensible reason, a tiny part of her still clung to that possibility, probably because it helped her control her fear, but it didn't lessen her desperation to get away from him. Even if he was innocent of the crime for which he was sent to prison, that didn't mean he wouldn't kill to prevent being sent back there, and that was if he was innocent—a very big, highly unlikely if.

Her whole body jerked in alarm when the bag on the floor crackled. "Here," he snapped, shoving a Coke toward her.

Refusing to look at him, Julie stretched her hand out and took it, her gaze fastened on the view through the front windshield. She now realized her only hope of escaping without getting anyone hurt or killed was to make it easier for him to take off in her car and leave her behind than it was to stick around and try to shoot his way out of his predicament. Which meant she had to be out of the car and in full view of onlookers. She'd blown her first attempt to escape; he knew now she was desperate enough to try again. He'd be waiting, watching. When she tried again, everything would have to be exactly right. She knew instinctively she wasn't likely to live to have a third chance. At least there was no further need to carry on any nauseating charade that she was on his side.

"Let's get going," he snapped.

Wordlessly, Julie turned on the ignition and pulled out of the parking lot.

A quarter of an hour later, he ordered her to pull over at a roadside phone again, and he made another phone call. He had not spoken a word except to tell her to pull over, and Julie suspected he knew that silence wreaked more havoc on her nerves than anything else he could do to intimidate her. This time when he made his phone call, he never took his eyes off her. When he got back into the car, Julie looked at his impassive features and couldn't endure the silence another moment. Giving him a haughty stare, she nodded at the phone booth and said, "Bad news, I hope?"

Zack bit back a grin at her rigid, unremitting rebellion. Her pretty face belied a stubborn courage and acid wit that continually caught him off guard. Instead of replying that the news was very good, he shrugged. Silence ate at her, he'd noticed. "Drive," he said, leaning back in his seat and stretching out his legs, idly watching her graceful fingers on the steering wheel.

In a few short hours, a man who looked very much like Zack would drive from Detroit through the Windsor Tunnel into Canada. At the border, he would make enough of a nervous spectacle of himself to cause the customs officials there to remember him. When Zack remained at large for a day or two, those customs officials should remember him and notify U.S. authorities that their escaped convict had probably crossed into Canada. Within a week, the hunt for Zack Benedict should be mostly centered in Canada, leaving Zack much more free to continue with the rest of his plan. For now, for the next week, it rather looked as if he had nothing whatsoever to do except relax and revel in his freedom. It seemed like a delightful notion and it would have put him rather in charity with the world if it weren't for his troublesome hostage. She was the only kink in his relaxation. A very big kink, since she apparently wasn't half so easily subdued as he'd thought she would be. At the moment, she was driving unnecessarily slow and casting angry looks at him. "What's the problem?" he clipped.

"The problem is that I need to use a bathroom."

"Later!"

"But—" He looked at her then and Julie realized it was useless to argue.

An hour later, they crossed the Colorado state line and he spoke for the first time. "There's a truck stop up ahead. Get off at the exit and if it looks all right, we'll stop there."

That truck stop turned out to be too busy to suit him, and it was another half hour before he found a service station that was relatively empty and laid out to please him with an attendant positioned in the island between the pumps so he could pay for gas without going inside and with rest rooms on the outside of the building, "Let's go," he said. "Take it slow," he warned as she got out of the car and started toward the rest room door. He grasped her elbow as if to help her walk through the snow, his feet crunching the crusty powder in perfect rhythm with hers as he matched her stride for stride. When they reached the rest room, instead of letting go of her arm, he reached out and opened the door, and Julie's temper exploded. "Do you intend to come in here with me and watch?" she burst out in furious disbelief.

Ignoring her, he looked around the tiny tiled room, checking for windows, she supposed, and finding none, he let go of her arm. "Make it quick. And, Julie, don't do anything stupid."