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“Stop right where you are.”
5
WHERE HAD HE seen her? Mat studied the woman more closely as she looked warily back at him. There was something about her bearing that reminded him of royalty, but her thinness, along with that long, fragile neck, and hands that bore no sign of a wedding ring, spoke of hard times. Her arms and legs were almost comically slender in contrast to her heavy pregnancy, and there was a world-weary quality in her blue eyes that made him suspect she’d seen more of life than she wanted to.
Those bright blue eyes . . . they were so familiar. He knew he’d never met her, but he felt as if he had. Her reluctance to call the police piqued his journalist’s curiosity. “You’re not going to report the theft, are you?”
He watched a small pulse pound on the side of her neck, but she remained cool. “Why do you say that?”
She had something to hide, and he had a good idea what it might be. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe you can’t report it because the car didn’t belong to you.”
Wariness flickered in her eyes, but not fear. The lady was down on her luck, but she still had a backbone. “None of this is your concern.”
He was definitely on to something, and he took a wild stab. “You’re afraid that if you call the police, they’ll figure out that you stole the car from your boyfriend.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why do you think I have a boyfriend?”
He glanced down at her bulging abdomen. “I’m guessing it wasn’t a girlfriend who did that to you.”
She looked at her stomach as if she’d forgotten it was there. “Oh.”
“You’re not wearing a wedding ring, and you’re driving a stolen car. It all fits.” He wasn’t exactly sure why he was giving her such a hard time. Habit, he guessed, born out of his professional curiosity about people who tried to hide the truth. Or maybe he was stalling because he didn’t want to get back into the Winnebago.
“I never said the car was stolen. You’re the one who decided that.”
“So why don’t you want to call the police?”
She gazed at him as if she were the Queen of Egypt and he was a stone-hauling slave building her a pyramid. Something about her attitude got his goat.
“You could just go back to him,” he said.
“You don’t give up, do you?”
He noted the combination of intelligence and aloofness in her expression. This lady had developed the knack for keeping people at a distance. Too bad she hadn’t used it on her boyfriend.
Who did she look like? The answer was right there, but he couldn’t quite grab hold of it. He wondered how old she was. Late twenties, early thirties? Everything about her manner and bearing screamed class, but her situation was too precarious for a member of the upper crust.
“I can’t go back, “ she finally said.
“Why not?”
She paused for only a moment. “Because he beat me.”
Was it his imagination, or did he detect a certain amount of relish in her words? What was that all about? “Do you have any money?”
“A little.”
“How little?”
She still had her pride, and he admired her gutsiness. “Thank you for your help, but this really isn’t your concern.”
She turned to walk away, but his curiosity wasn’t satisfied. Acting on the instincts that had made his reputation, he snagged the strap of her ugly plastic purse and pulled her to a stop.
“Hey!”
Ignoring her outrage, he lifted it from her shoulder and pulled out her wallet. As he looked inside, he saw no credit cards, no driver’s license, only a twenty-dollar bill and some change. “You’re not going far on this.”
“You have no right!” She snatched her wallet and purse back and started to walk away.
