Escape Out of Darkness (Maggie Bennett 1)

“And you don’t want to kill him?” she demanded. “You’re in a position for revenge, and you don’t want to take it?”

“It happened more than fourteen years ago, Maggie May. I’ve had a lot of time to come to terms with it. Mick Jagger might be able to shake his ass all over the stage at age forty, but I haven’t got his stamina. I was all set to burn out early and, in a way, Mancini gave me a second chance. You can’t do illicit drugs when you’re in intensive care for a month.”

“But Mancini must think you want to crucify him.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I’d love for people like Mancini to be run out of business. I’m just not about to offer my aging body as a sacrifice in the cause. You can be Superwoman. I’m only a mere mortal who’d like to make it to the other side of forty.”

“Pulaski, I’ll ask you nicely. Please don’t call me Superwoman,” she said.

“Since you ask me nicely, I’ll do my best. But it’s tempting. You want to tell me why you don’t like it?”

“Maybe when you know me better.”

“Am I going to get to know you better?” It was an idle question.

“Maybe,” she said. “Maybe not.”

She let Mack drive the next day. He’d been almost docile the night before, remaining in his own bed without a single suggestive remark escaping that remarkably sexy mouth of his. He hadn’t even objected when she insisted on leaving the bedside light on. He’d merely slouched down in the bed and covered his face with his hat. A few moments later he was snoring quietly.

She hadn’t expected to sleep so well. She wasn’t used to sharing a room, particularly with a healthy, attractive member of the opposite sex, and she was still keyed up and almost too tired from the last forty-eight hours to sleep.

For some reason Peter Wallace kept creeping into her mind. It had been months since their affair had faded away from lack of interest, and its end had been so subtle she’d hardly noticed it. That was what bothered her the most, she thought, punching the lumpy pillow. Maybe she wasn’t able to fall in love, maybe her emotions had been so wrung out years ago that she had none left to give. The thought was depressing, and Mack’s sleeping body in the bed next to hers didn’t help matters. But his gentle snoring proved soporific, and the unexpected revelation of his past career faded out of her consciousness and into her dreams. Suddenly there he was, a long-distance kinescope of a sixties rock star, whirling, dancing, posturing, and prancing, that mane of thick blond hair flying around him, that glorious voice of his singing, howling, screaming, and crooning into the microphone. Until even that dream faded into a deep sleep that lasted until six the next morning.

The arid land of the Navajo reservation seemed endless as they drove from Utah into Arizona. The radio picked up nothing but static and Barry Manilow, the artificial climate produced by the air conditioner made Maggie’s eyes itch, and there wasn’t a fast-food joint in sight.

But at least there was no black sedan in sight either. The roads were filled with the requisite pickups that seemed the major form of transportation in that part of the world, interspersed with the omnipresent Winnebagos.

“I like the name of that one,” Mack said out of the blue. “The Snow Princess out of Fairbanks, Alaska. You’d think if they lived in a place that pretty, they wouldn’t bother to travel.”

Maggie was instantly alert. “Don’t you think that’s sort of a suspicious name? I mean, isn’t snow another word for cocaine? Or is it heroin?”

Mack gave her an amused glance. “Are you seriously going to tell me that Mancini and his boys would advertise if they went undercover? Or the CIA? Or the rebels?”

“Hell, Pulaski, you have too damned many enemies,” Maggie said, leaning back. “You’re right of course. You didn’t happen to get a look at who was driving?”

He grinned. “A very large, very cheerful-looking lady well past sixty years old. Her equally large, equally cheerful spouse was beside her.”

“How do you know they’re married? You shouldn’t jump to such conclusions. If they were both looking cheerful, they are probably living in sin.”

Mack gave her a brief, curious glance. “I take it you’ve been married too.”

“Not on your scale. Just once, for a very short time,” she said, looking back at the Snow Princess with not much more than idle curiosity. It lumbered along in serene innocence. “We both knew it was a mistake, and fortunately neither of us was so egocentric that we couldn’t admit it. I was on the rebound, and I should have known better. Did you ever marry on the rebound?”

“Maybe number two, but I don’t really remember. I stopped marrying them a while before I lost my voice, and most of that time is a little vague.” He smiled at her, that curiously seductive smile that she wasn’t sure she trusted. “So who were you rebounding from?”

“A man. And a way of life,” she said repressively. “And that’s all I care to say about it. You want to tell me about your love life?”

“We’ve got only two days to Houston, Maggie May. I don’t think I’d get past age twenty.”

He managed to get a laugh out of her. “You’re a con artist. I bet you played havoc with all the groupies’ hearts.”

“Groupies don’t have hearts. Besides, I’ve learned my lesson. I’m now down to one woman at a time. Quality wears a lot better than quantity.”

“I imagine it does.” She sat back, remembering for a moment. Quality and quantity. When it came right down to it, her past had been sorely lacking in both. Of course there was more than one kind of quality. There was breathless, mesmerizing, addictive passion that left you stupid and vulnerable and in so much pain it took years to recover. And then there was the quality that came with a good man trying his best, with her doing everything she could to love him back and, ultimately, failing. She’d known that with Will, her husband of eight short months, and she’d known it with Peter Wallace. The sense of emptiness and failure that had been nagging at her for the past few months came back full force.

Maybe it was bad blood. Maybe she was doomed to follow in her mother’s footsteps, always falling in love with the wrong man, never being able to love the right one. Her sisters hadn’t been blessed with any more luck than she had. Kate was on the verge of a divorce, Holly seemed to go through men like Kleenex, and Jilly kept away from them altogether. They were a sorry lot, the four of them.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Mack’s voice rasped beside her, and she looked up, startled.