Perfect (Second Opportunities 2)

He'd said "if the bridge doesn't hold" without betraying an iota of emotion in his voice or face and Julie shivered at the realization that Zachary Benedict could risk his own life without the slightest apparent concern. If the bridge didn't hold, then he and the heavy car would both end up plunging into that swollen, icy creek. She clutched the door to prevent him from closing it. "If it doesn't hold," she said, "I'll throw you a rope or a branch or something so that you can get to the bank."

He closed the door on her last words, and shivering, Julie clutched the coat and blankets to her. The car's tires spun in the snow then caught, and the automobile began inching forward. She held her breath, mumbling disjointed prayers as she stumbled through the snow to the bridge. There, she looked down into the rushing water, trying to gauge its depth. Logs raced past, swirling and bobbing, while she dragged a dead limb about eight feet long to the edge and stuck it in. When it didn't touch the bottom, her fear escalated to panic. "Wait!" she yelled, trying to make him hear her over the howling wind. "We can leave the car here and we can both walk!" If he heard her at all, he ignored her. The motor revved harder as the tires slipped in the snow and grabbed, then the car rocked and bumped forward, gathering enough speed to plow through the snow across the bridge. Suddenly Julie heard the timbers of the bridge begin to groan and she screamed, "Don't try it! The bridge won't hold you! Get out! Get out of the car—"

It was too late. The Blazer was moving steadily across the creaking timbers, plowing snow with its bumper, tires spinning and grabbing and spinning again as the four-wheel-drive gear did its work.

Blankets clutched to her chest, snow swirling all around her, Julie stood in a state of helpless paralysis, forced to watch what she could not prevent.

Not until the car, along with its insane driver, reached safety did she breathe again, and then she felt a perverse rush of fury at him for putting her through yet another new terror. Ungracious and ungraceful, she trudged across the bridge, opened the passenger door, and climbed in.

"We made it," he said.

Julie gave him a killing look. "Made it to what?"

The answer to that came minutes later when they made one last hairpin turn at the top of the mountain. There in the middle of a secluded clearing in the dense pines was a magnificent house made of native stone and cedar and surrounded by wooden decks, with huge expanses of glass. "To this," he said.

"Who in God's name built this place up here, a hermit?"

"Someone who obviously likes privacy and solitude."

"Does it belong to a relative?" she asked, suddenly suspicious.

"No."

"Does the owner know you're going to use his place for a hideout while the police are looking for you?"

"You ask too damned many questions," he said, pulling the car to a stop beside the house and climbing out. "But the answer is no." He came around to her side of the car and opened the door. "Let's go."

"Go?" Julie burst out, pressing into the back of the seat. "You said I could leave when I got you here."

"I lied."

"You—you bastard, I believed you!" she cried, but she was lying, too. All day long she'd been trying desperately to ignore what her common sense had warned her: He'd kept her with him this long to prevent her from telling the authorities where he was; if he released her now, there was absolutely nothing to prevent her from doing exactly that.

"Julie," he said with strained patience, "don't make this any harder on yourself than it needs to be. You're stuck here for a few days, and it's not that bad a place to spend some time." With that he reached across her, snatched the keys out of the ignition, and stalked off toward the house. For a split second she was too furious and too miserable to move, then she blinked back the tears of futility stinging her eyes and got out of the car. Shivering uncontrollably in the freezing blasts of wind, she trudged in his wake, carefully placing her feet in the knee-high craters his feet made in the snow drifts surrounding the house. Wrapping her arms around herself, she watched him try the doorknob. It was locked. He rattled it hard. It was locked tight. He let go of the door handle and stood there, his hands on his hips, looking about him, momentarily lost in thought. Julie's teeth began to chatter. "N-n-now wh-what?" she demanded. "H-h-how do you in-intend to g-get in?"

He gave her an ironic glance. "How do you think?" Without waiting for a reply, he turned and headed toward the deck that wrapped around the front and opposite side of the house. Julie trotted doggedly at his heels, freezing and angry. "You're going to break a window, aren't you," she speculated with revulsion, then she looked up at the giant panes of glass that soared to the peak of the roof at least twenty-five feet above and added, "If you break one of those, it'll fall down and cut you to pieces."

"Don't sound so hopeful," he said, his gaze switching to several large mounds of snow that had obviously accumulated over something beneath them. He began digging in one of the mounds and unearthed a large flowerpot, which he picked up and carried toward the back door.

"Now what are you doing?"

"Guess."

"How should I know?" Julie snapped. "You're the criminal, not me."

"True, but I was sent up for murder, not breaking and entering."

In disbelief, she watched him trying to dig in the frozen soil in the clay pot, then he slammed the pot against the side of the house and broke it, dumping the soil onto the snow beside the door. Wordlessly, he crouched down and began hammering his bare fist on the soil while Julie watched in incredulous amazement. "Are you having a temper tantrum?" she demanded.

"No, Miss Mathison," he said with exaggerated patience, as he plucked up a piece of dirt and brushed at it with his finger. "I am looking for a key."

"No one who can afford a house like this and pay to put a road up an entire mountain in order to get to it is going to be naive enough to hide a key in a flowerpot! You're wasting your time."

"Have you always been such a shrew?" he said with an irritated shake of his dark head.

"A shrew!" Julie said, her voice strangled with frustration. "You steal my car and take me hostage, threaten my life, lie to me, and now you have the—the gall to criticize my manners?" Her tirade was interrupted as he held up a dirt-encrusted silver object that Julie realized was a key, which he then inserted in the door. With an exaggerated flourish he swung open the door and gestured her inside with a sweep of his arm. "We've already agreed that I've broken all of Emily Post's rules of etiquette where you're concerned. Now, I suggest you go inside and look around while I get our things out of the car. Why don't you try to relax," he added. "Get some rest. Enjoy the view. Think of this as a vacation."