Too Far Gone

by Marliss Melton

  Sean didn’t answer. He glared at the second cop, who was frisking Ellie. “Take it easy,” he gritted, offended by the sight of another man’s hands on her body, especially hands that were rough and uncaring.

  “There’s no call to treat us like criminals,” Ellie insisted. “All we’re doing is trying to find the men who took my boys—”

  “Ma’am, why don’t you save it for the FBI?” the cop cut her off coldly.

  “We’re supposed to be meeting Special Agent Butler of the FBI right now,” Sean grated. “One p.m. in City Market.”

  Ignoring him, the officer snapped handcuffs on Sean’s wrists, setting them intentionally tight. He did the same to Ellie. Pulling them both around, he ordered them to march toward City Market’s far end, where a squad car sat parked at the curb. Sean searched the area futilely for any sign of Butler.

  Cuffed and humiliated, Ellie walked with her back straight, her chin in the air.

  “Hey, that’s the lady we saw on the news,” came a distinct comment from the crowd. “I bet you she killed her kids.”

  “Easy, Ellie,” Sean advised, seeing her eyes flash, her head turn. His own ears burned with fury at the unfeeling remark. He sent the kid who said it a steely-eyed glare.

  Butler, if he was anywhere about, did not step forward.

  As Sean and Ellie were stuffed into the backseat of the cruiser, Sean murmured reassurances he didn’t fully believe. Hannah’s concerns were evidently warranted. Somewhere along the line, the disturbingly false evidence had convinced Butler not to show up after all.

  A cold, uneasy feeling settled in Sean’s stomach. He’d broken the law by carrying his gun out of state. Being in the Navy, that meant the Uniform Code of Military Justice was also going to get involved, which wouldn’t look good on his record. Lieutenant Commander Montgomery’s admonishment to keep personal ties from interfering with professional obligations had just been blown to hell and back.

  Ellie’s stomach hurt. Wedged in a cage of Lexan glass in the rear of a squad car, she tried to get comfortable on the slippery plastic seat, but with her hands cuffed behind her, that was impossible.

  “I’m scared,” she admitted as the policemen got into the front of the cruiser. They pulled out into traffic, spectators gaping after them.

  Sean’s sidelong glance was both comforting and regretful. “It’ll be all right, Ellie. Don’t forget, we’ve got good people on our side.”

  “How could anyone think I killed my own children?” she cried, the boy’s accusation stinging her like salt poured into an open wound.

  “Just stay calm, hon,” he reasoned, grimacing as he adjusted his shoulders.

  “What happened?” she asked. One minute she’d been paying for her custard, peering out into the main room for signs of the kidnappers, when she saw Sean go running past the store. A minute after that, two uniformed officers had followed him. She’d thought for sure they were coming to Sean’s rescue, at the behest of Butler.

  “Some old man and his little dog stepped in my way. The kidnapper jumped into a car and took off.”

  He looked so suddenly grim and thoughtful that Ellie knew a terrible thought had just occurred to him.

  “What?” she prompted, but he merely gritted his teeth and shook his head.

  Fear encased her heart in ice. What wasn’t Sean telling her? It had to be something unspeakable.

  His blue gaze slid her way, and catching the fearful look on her face, he summoned a smile and even leaned over to put a sweet, swift kiss on her cheek. “I’m sorry, hon,” he rasped. “This should never have happened. Especially not to you.”

  Touched by his apology, she drew a shaky breath. “I don’t know if I can stand to be questioned again,” she admitted, dreading the hours to come.

  “I’ll be with you this time,” he comforted.

  Tears of relief mingled with tears of uncertainty. She slid closer to him, taking comfort from his solid presence.

  They fell silent as the cruiser took them through town, right past the homeless shelter with the twin griffins grinning down at them from atop their pillars at the gate.

  “Ellie, I’ve gotta tell you something,” Sean suddenly admitted.

  She sensed his reluctance immediately. His news couldn’t be good. “Tell me what?”

  “It’s about where I was when the boys were taken, why Solomon couldn’t get a hold of me,” he added roughly.

  Ellie drew a deep breath and held it. She’d wondered about his unwillingness to talk about that night.

  “I took a short leave to unwind for a couple of days. I tend to ignore my phone when I do that. I don’t watch the news or listen to the radio, either.”

  She slowly exhaled. That didn’t sound so bad. “Where’d you go?” she asked, picturing him fishing or camping, generally relaxing.

  He stared straight ahead, avoiding her gaze. “I went to stay with a friend. A woman,” he added flatly. “I’ve known her for a long time.”

  It took a full second to process just what he was telling her, but when she did, she pulled away, just then realizing how much she’d come to rely on him.

  So, while she’d been fighting with every ounce of strength to keep two strangers from abducting her boys, Sean had been getting off with some woman he’d apparently known for years. . . . Sean had a lover?

  She couldn’t speak. The thought of Sean doing with another woman what they’d done together for the past few nights stripped the air from her lungs. Unbidden, illicit images flashed in her mind, feeding her disillusionment, her sense of betrayal.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” he muttered, his blue eyes convincingly regretful. “We weren’t . . . we hadn’t . . . it was just . . . Hell, forget it; it doesn’t matter. I just wish you didn’t have to find out. At least not like this.”

  “It’s not your fault,” she insisted shortly. “You don’t have to explain yourself.”

  It was her fault. She should never have slept with him in the first place—not even to fill the yawning emptiness within her. She’d forbidden herself to rely on a man for anything, and that included her sanity. This was what she got for letting her guard down. She deserved a bitter dose of reality.

  Refusing to reveal the pain pressuring her chest, Ellie focused on the scratches in the Lexan glass in front of her. In the grand scheme of things, Sean’s sleeping with another woman counted for little compared to her fears that her boys might never come home—or that she might find herself in jail for a crime she hadn’t committed. She’d gladly give him to the first woman who’d take him if it meant she could have her boys back. She’d do well to remember that.

  As the squad car pulled into a parking lot behind an older brick institution, Ellie focused on the difficulties ahead of her. She swallowed against the dryness in her throat.

  Now the nightmare would begin all over again.

  As they were pulled from opposite sides of the car and herded toward a back door, she cast a harried glance at Sean. Half a dozen squad cars assured her they’d arrived at a station of sorts, but it seemed too small to be the sheriff’s office.

  Manhandled up a set of steps to the second story, they were thrust into a quiet hallway and led to a closed office door. One of the officers gave a knock.

  “Come,” said a nondescript voice.

  The door swung open on a nondescript office space. A man in a Navy blue suit rose from the laptop he’d been typing on and turned to greet them. With a gasp, Ellie recognized Special Agent Butler.

  “Thank you, Officers,” he said to the police. “I’ll take her from here,” he added.

  “What the hell is going on?” Sean interrupted. “You said you’d meet us down in City Market.”

  Butler sent Sean a shrug that was chillingly apathetic. “Change in plans,” he said simply. With a flick of his fingers, he gestured for the officers to take him out.

  Only Sean wouldn’t budge. “I am not leaving Ellie,” he insisted. “You are not going to question her and intimidate her witho
ut me here.”

  “I’m sure she appreciates your loyalty, Mr. Harlan,” Butler drolly replied. “But it really would be better for her to dissociate from you.”

  “Look, if you’re talking about the so-called evidence against me, Hannah Lindstrom told me all about it,” Sean snapped. “It’s bullshit. There’s no way I was involved in the kidnapping. You have to know that. I gave you my alibi’s number.”

  “Your alibi hasn’t returned my call, Mr. Harlan,” the agent answered with forced patience. “You’re under arrest for carrying a concealed weapon without a permit. That’s it, for now. I won’t discuss impending charges for abduction and murder.”

  “What!” Ellie gasped, regarding the agent in disbelief. “We told you, the Centurions kidnapped my sons so their father would have his legacy. You said you believed us!”

  Regarding her with grim sympathy, Butler gestured again for the officers to take Sean out. “Take him to Central Booking.”

  “You’re making the biggest fucking mistake of your life, Butler,” Sean gritted, resisting long enough to add intensely, “Don’t say a word to him, Ellie. Call Reno Silverman. He’ll know what to do.”

  “Wait!” Ellie cried, her knees wobbling with fright. “I don’t understand what’s happening.” But it was too late. Sean was gone, and the door thumped shut, leaving her alone with a man she’d thought was an ally. How could he have done this to them?

  “Have a seat, Mrs. Stuart,” he said in a distinctly warmer voice.

  “I don’t want to sit,” Ellie snarled, suspicious of the benign expression now on his face. “I have nothing to say to you. How dare you turn the tables on us! You should be ashamed of yourself for accusing Sean of harming my sons. He’s done nothing but go far out of his way to help me!”

  Butler took a long, measuring look at her. With a sigh and a shake of his head, he said regretfully, “Perhaps I should make you aware of the evidence against him, Mrs. Stuart. The tire tracks of the second vehicle at Jones Lake State Park match the tread on Mr. Harlan’s truck tires. When we searched his truck, we found a knife with trace DNA of your children all over it.”

  The room seemed to slowly turn. “You mean blood?” she whispered. Her own blood rushed from her head, leaving her dizzy. She sank into the chair Butler had indicated earlier.

  He shrugged. “The knife had been wiped down, so trace DNA was all that was left.”

  For one brief second, Ellie allowed herself to consider the possibility of Sean’s guilt. Her thoughts returned to the conversation they’d had the night he’d wrestled open her electric panel. Look, it isn’t you, he’d said. I just don’t date women with kids.

  No. Impossible. The Sean she’d come to know and cherish might be a womanizer, but he most certainly wasn’t a murderer. She knew him well enough now to be certain of that.

  “You’re lying,” Ellie accused, her voice fraying as she attacked him verbally. “Sean wouldn’t harm a hair on my boys’ heads. He adores them!”

  “The same way you adore them?” Butler asked, regarding her closely.

  The question rendered her speechless for a moment. “I’m their mother. Of course I would love them more. But he’s . . . he’s been like an uncle to them.”

  Stepping toward his desk, the agent plucked up a small pile of papers and held them under her nose. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten these e-mails you sent to Mr. Harlan while he was stationed in Afghanistan.”

  She didn’t intend to say another word, not when Sean had warned her to keep quiet, but the agent made no sense. “I never wrote him any e-mails,” she retorted. “I don’t even own a computer.”

  “You have access to computers at your college library,” he reminded her mildly. “You created an e-mail account with EarthLink on August twenty-seventh of last year,” he added.

  “For my English class,” she agreed, thinking back to the previous semester. “My professor wanted us to e-mail our essays rather than hand them in.”

  Butler nodded patiently. “These were among the e-mails in your Sent box. “Perhaps if you read them, you’ll remember.”

  Baffled, knowing full well she’d never sent Sean any e-mails, Ellie glanced down to read.

  Dear Sean,

  There are just weeks left now till your return, and not a day has gone by that I haven’t dreamed of our future together.

  “I never wrote these words!” she exclaimed with certainty.

  Butler appeared perplexed. “Perhaps you’ve just forgotten. Read the next e-mail,” he invited, shuffling the pages.

  With great reluctance, she looked at the second e-mail. The words leaping off the page turned her cold with their implication.

  If only I didn’t have three mouths to feed. I work all night and day, and there’s never enough to go around. Sometimes I just don’t want to be a mother anymore. It’s just too hard to do it alone. Life would be so good if it were just the two of us.

  “No!” Ellie stated loudly, shooting to her feet in outrage. “I never wrote these e-mails, and you know it!” With a violent twist of her shoulder, she knocked the pages from his hand and into the air, where they rocked gently to the floor in the now-silent room.

  Too late, she realized she hadn’t taken Sean’s advice, and now this man had her twisted into knots. With a supreme effort, Ellie dragged in several calming breaths, clamped her jaw shut, and sat back down, her heart thumping heavily.

  Butler seemed deeply troubled by her assertion of innocence. Picking up the papers one by one, he laid them back on his desk, then stroked his chin and paced the room. “I don’t know if you’ve considered this, Mrs. Stuart,” he said gravely. “But perhaps your SEAL friend is making sure that you go down with him. I hope you won’t let that happen,” he added with grave sincerity. “We can clear any suspicion regarding your participation in this crime with a simple test, a polygraph, which, if you pass, will eliminate you as a suspect once and for all. Then I can focus all my attention on who really made your boys disappear.”

  Tears of helpless confusion swarmed Ellie’s eyes, blurring her vision. Her muddled thoughts were no clearer.

  How could Butler be so certain Sean had murdered her sons? She’d relied on Sean for the roof over their heads, for her sanity. She’d trusted him alone with her boys too many times to count. Could she have been so blinded by his appeal that she’d failed to see the monster within him?

  No, it couldn’t be. She knew Sean—every inch of his powerful and sexy body, his humorous and caring soul. And yet, he was a sniper for his SEAL team. Killing was his job, and she knew by the respect Solomon gave him that he was good at it, remorseless and deadly accurate.

  What if her judgment had failed her as it had eleven years ago when she’d thought Carl was the man of her dreams?

  Squeezing her eyes shut, shaking her head in helpless confusion, Ellie was certain of only one thing: her innocence. And here Mr. Butler was offering her the opportunity to prove it, immediately, without a lawyer’s fee. He couldn’t make the polygraph test show that she was guilty, so what was the harm? “I’ll take it,” she agreed on a choked whisper.

  Butler had kept respectfully quiet while she made up her mind. “Let me uncuff you, Mrs. Stuart,” he offered gently. “And then I’ll call your lawyer for you.”

  Alone in the back of the cruiser, supposedly on his way to jail, Sean shook off the remaining effects of having been hit with a Taser. No sooner had he stooped to get in the car than one of the cops had pegged him in the small of his back. Fifty thousand volts of electricity had seared Sean’s spine and convulsed his muscles. Sons of bitches! he’d thought as they’d closed the door on him, chuckling at his helplessness.

  With the top of his head and his extremities still tingling, Sean pulled himself up into a sitting position and glared at the scumbags now escorting him to jail. That was so unfucking necessary, he thought, simmering with fury. He sure as hell planned to pay them back one day. As soon as they got to jail, he’d call Reno, whom Ellie ought to have gotten ho
ld of by now. Reno would have this crazy misunderstanding sorted out by the end of the day.

  In the meantime, poor Ellie.

  Sean had promised he’d be with her this time as she was being questioned. But, no, they’d had to cart him off to jail on concealed weapons charges, while implying he was guilty of murdering her sons.

  Christ, he hoped Ellie didn’t believe them.

  Fighting a sudden headache and blinking against the bright sun, Sean peered outside the windows. The cruiser had turned east, onto the Islands Expressway on-ramp. Was this the way to jail?

  Recalling the events leading up to this moment, Sean realized that every step had to have been orchestrated: first the kidnappers had lured Sean into a trap. Even the old man had played a part. They were probably all Centurions, members of the brotherhood.

  Butler, too? Surely the FBI was thorough in screening their agents, weeding out those with affiliations to secret organizations, especially ones with ties to the mob. If Butler wasn’t one of them, he’d realize his mistake the minute Tiffany returned his call. What was taking her so long? One sentence from her and Butler would see there was no way Sean could have been at Jones Lake State Park the night the boys were abducted. Aside from being fined for carrying his gun out of state, he’d be off the hook despite the odd circumstance about his knife and the boys’ DNA.

  With a deep, calming breath, he closed his eyes and relaxed his shoulders, hoping to alleviate the discomfort now wicking up his arms. Goddamn, the cuffs were tight!

  Opening his eyes again, he caught sight of water, winking behind a screen of marsh grass to his left. Other than an occasional building, there wasn’t much else on this stretch of highway bearing them toward the ocean. The county jail was a ways out of town, apparently.

  Ten minutes later, the cruiser exited the expressway. Sean watched alertly as they turned onto a two-lane road that crossed a low-lying area surrounded by marsh. The instinct for danger had him sitting up straighter.

  Hold on, now. It didn’t make sense to build a jail near water, especially not in a hurricane-ridden state like Georgia. Imagine evacuating hundreds of dangerous inmates every time a hurricane swept toward shore.