MALICIOUS PURSUIT.

BY.

KG MACGREGOR.

Disclaimers: By now, you should know this part by heart. If you like to envision these characters as familiar faces, I won't mess with that.

This is an action/adventure story. I wanted to call it a thriller, but I thought that was a little presumptuous. However, it is my hope that you have to read the whole thing in one sitting. Oh, and there's romance between women. Thought you'd appreciate that.

Thanks very much to TNovan & Ann who helped me out with the technical details. Any errors you find are questions I forgot to ask, things I didn't clarify, or stuff I made up. If you find mistakes, please let me know.

A HUGE thanks also to Tami, my beta reader en fuego, and to the "fresh eyes" who gave it a read. And thanks also to my Sweetcakes, not just for her editing, but for talking through all of the critical parts until we got things to work.

MALICIOUS PURSUIT.

CHAPTER 1.

"FIVE...TEN...FIFTEEN... twenty...," Ruth Ferguson mumbled to herself as she counted the nickels in her drawer. With a quick tap to the calculator, she scooped the change into its tube and continued with the pennies. If there were twenty-six, her drawer balanced for the forty-third day in a row. "Twenty-four...twenty-five...bang!"

"Again?" Arlene Jones was envious of her co-worker's streak, though she was seldom off in her own drawer, and usually then by only a few dollars or cents.

"Again!" Thank goodness for small favors, because Ruth wasn't interested in hanging around to reconcile her balance sheet today. It was Friday, and her weekend to be with Jessie.

"Congratulations! And the grand prize is you get to keep your job another week," Sharon Petrie joked. She supervised the tellers at the Bank of Madison, and loved the fact that Ruth kept the pressure on all of them.

"Lucky me," the blonde woman answered with playful cynicism, shouldering her purse as she readied to leave.

"You got Jessie this weekend?" Arlene asked.

"Yeah, I'm headed to pick her up right now."

"Any big plans?"

"No, we'll probably just hang out at the house and play. This rain's supposed to be around all weekend."

"Well, have fun."

"Thanks, good night." Ruth stopped at the door and took one last look back. She liked working here. The work was fun because her customers were so nice, and some of the people she worked with had shown themselves to be true friends through her ordeal of the past year.

The November wind had already torn the last of the leaves from the trees; now it was serving final notice that the cold Maine winter was ahead. Ruth hurried across the parking lot in the drizzle, pulling up the collar on her raincoat to ward off the chill. The days were getting shorter now, and it was dark already at five-thirty. From inside her pocket, a tap on the keychain unlocked the door and caused the lights to flash on her black Saturn coupe. Shivering, she started the engine and glanced at the clock on the dashboard. She would be early.

And as always, Skip would be late.

"A kid's meal, please, with an orange drink; and a...chicken sandwich with a cup of coffee." Ruth placed her order at the busy fast food restaurant, her regular dining establishment every other Friday when she met Skip Drummond to pick up her four-year-old daughter. Her ex-husband was better behaved in public places, so the restaurant was mandated in the court order to host the exchange.

Ruth hated it when her ex-husband came to her house, and she managed to get this one small concession by pressing the social worker who monitored her visits. Monitored her visits. That thought caused the young mother to shake her head in disbelief. It was beyond comprehension that things had fallen the way they had, but she vowed that this charade would end soon.

The pickup truck pulled onto the lot at 6:20. She knew it was Skip by the obnoxious fog lights positioned on top of the cab. Knowing him, he'd driven by the place at five till six on the off-chance of getting there before she did so he could raise hell about her being late. But Skip and his bullying demeanor wouldn't matter to her in about two minutes, once he delivered their precious little girl. Then he could go fuck himself.

"Mommy!"

"Jessie!" Ruth kneeled down to catch the running child in a fierce welcome that stung her eyes with tears. She steeled herself against the image of the tall booted man who walked behind her carrying a colorful backpack. At six-foot-six, Skip Drummond cut a handsome figure in his faded jeans and white buttoned-down collar shirt. His sandy hair was thinning already at twenty-nine years old, but it was nothing a Red Sox cap couldn't cure.

"Well, she's your headache for the next forty-eight hours," he muttered low so no one around them would hear.

Ruth ignored him. "How are you, sweetie?"

"Fine." Jessie was the spitting image of her mother, blonde, slightly built, and with expressive green eyes. Eyeing the kid's meal already spread out for her, she climbed eagerly into the booth and began to munch on a fry.

"Jessie, what happened to your arm?" Ruth felt her blood run cold when she saw the bruise on her daughter's upper arm as she pulled off her coat. Angrily, she glared at her ex-husband in accusation.

"Tell her."

"I fell."

Ruth didn't believe it for a minute and Skip knew it. Neither did he care. "She's got one on her butt, too. She's pretty clumsy." He dropped the backpack with a thump as he turned to walk out. "See you on Sunday. Don't be late," he taunted.

The son of a bitch! How could he hit his own daughter like that?

Ruth took three or four breaths before sitting down with her child. It was important never to cloud their time together with the specter of Skip Drummond, and in ten seconds, he would no longer exist in their minds.

"So what did you bring in your backpack, honey?"

"Just a shirt...and pants...and socks...."

"Who packed it for you?"

"Grandma."

That was good to hear. When Skip packed, he usually "forgot" things that he knew Ruth would have to go purchase on her meager salary. As it was, Jessie already had nightclothes, a toothbrush, underwear, and several changes of clothing at the small house. And she was wearing her heaviest coat, Ruth noted with relief.

"Where's Lisa?" Lisa was Jessie's favorite doll, a lifelike infant in a diaper and terry sleeper.

"Grandma said I had to leave her there, 'cause she'd get dirty at your house," the child answered innocently.

Ruth took another calming breath as she processed this tidbit. Her former mother-in-law sure explained why Skip was such a son of a bitch, as that's exactly what Barbara Drummond was.

"Do you want ketchup?" Jessie had stopped eating her fries.

"Uh-huh," she nodded vigorously. "Can we go out to the slide when I get finished?"

"Not tonight. It's raining a little, and we really need to get home soon."

"Why?"

"Somebody's coming to see me. He'll only be there for a minute, but I need to be sure we're home when he comes."

"Who is it?"

"His name's Dennis, and I don't think you know him."

"Why is he coming?"

Jessie was world class in the question-asking department. Ruth tried very hard to be patient with it, because she knew that Skip probably never answered anything.

"He's coming to pick up something."

"What?"

"You'll see. Have another bite of your cheeseburger." Ruth forced herself to take another bite of the chicken sandwich. She'd lost her appetite after the encounter with Skip, but she knew she needed to eat. It was going to be a long night.

Ruth pulled into the driveway of the small rented house, suddenly anxious about the impending visitor. Guiding her child up the back steps, she fumbled with the key and pushed open the back door.

"It looks different," Jessie announced, looking from one side of the room to the other. "I know, you took my pictures down." She pointed to the refrigerator, where Ruth had proudly posted her art work, not only as a reward to her daughter, but as a bright reminder of all that was good in Ruth's life.

"I put them in a box, sweetie. I've put all of our important things in a box."

That sent Jessie running to the closet in the hallway, where she always kept her toys and games. They were gone. "Where's the box?"

"I'll show it to you later, honey. I need to change my clothes before Dennis gets here. You want to come into the bedroom?" On their weekends together, they barely spent a moment apart.

Jessie came in to bounce on the bed and chatter as she watched her mom change. Ruth had laid out jeans, a pullover, socks and tennis shoes, so she dressed very quickly. When she was finished, she hung her dress on a hanger and draped it across the bed, laying the shoes next to it.

A sharp knock on the front door interrupted Jessie's story of what Lisa had done that day.

"That's probably Dennis. Listen, I need to go outside with him for a few minutes. Can you stay in here? Please?"

Jessie didn't want to do that, and she shook her head no.

"Jessie, please? When I'm finished, we're going to put our coats back on and go somewhere, okay?"

"Where?"

"You'll see." Ruth had used that answer already, and didn't want to put her daughter off any more than she had to, but for right now she had to. "Just please stay in here."

Flipping on the front porch light, she swung the door open wide to find a young man in pressed slacks and a fleece pullover. "Are you Ruth Ferguson?"

"Yes. Are you Dennis?"

"That's me! I thought for a minute I had the wrong house." He turned to wave to the driver who had dropped him off.

"I'm sorry. I just got home a few minutes ago. I should have turned the light on for you."

Dennis held out an envelope. "Mr. Huggins said for me to give you this." Dick Huggins owned a used car dealership in Farmington about twenty miles away. Ruth had stopped in on Wednesday night to see what they'd give her in a cash deal for the 2000 coupe.

"Thank you." Ruth quickly opened it and counted out sixty-five one hundred dollar bills. "Yes, that's right. It's right out here." Digging in her pocket, she clicked the keychain to light the interior lights. "I have a screwdriver in the glove compartment. The title's there too, if you want to fill out the mileage. I just need to sign it."

"Why don't you fill all that out while I take the tags off?" he offered, holding up his dealer tag. In just a few moments, Dennis was trading the plates for two sets of keys. "Thank you very much ma'am. You buying a new car?"

"Yeah, I'll go looking with a friend tomorrow." Lie. Big fat lie.

"Good luck finding what you need."

"Thank you, and thanks for coming to pick it up." Her plan was now irrevocably in motion.

"No problem."

Ruth stood and watched the car back out, glancing across the street and to either side to see if the activity had been noticed. This continuing drizzle was a nice cover for her clandestine moves tonight. No lights had come on outside, and no one appeared to be coming or going at any of the houses, so she had every reason to believe that this part of her plan had gone off without a hitch.

"Jessie?" Ruth returned to the bedroom to find her daughter looking in the empty closet.

"Where's your clothes, Mommy?"

"Jessie, listen. You know how I always try hard to answer your questions so you'll understand things?"

The little girl nodded.

"Tonight, I need for you just to trust me. I won't be able to answer a lot of your questions right now, but I will soon. I promise. Can you trust me tonight and try not to ask so many questions right now?"

Jessie agreed hurriedly. She didn't want to see her mother get mad the way her father did.

"Okay, I need you to go put your coat back on. We're going to take a short walk to where I parked our new car." Ruth slid the license plates and screwdriver into her daughter's backpack.

"We have a new car?" she asked with excitement.

"Yes, we do."

"What color is it?"

"Sweetie, remember what I asked you to do. No more questions right now, okay?"

"Okay." But Jessie couldn't help herself. "Are my toys in the car?"