Escape Out of Darkness Read Online Free PDF Page A

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 asuspicious 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