by Jane Graves
She hit the button to roll the window up, then flicked the door locks. John circled the minivan and headed for the driver’s side of the Explorer, his teeth clenched, looking as if he were ready to explode. His left eye was practically swollen shut, surrounded by a Technicolor bruise that made half his face look like something out of a zombie movie.
Ever see a pissed-off cop, Renee?
Oh, yeah. Now she had.
John yanked at the Explorer’s door handle. Finding it locked, hauled a gun from the waistband of his jeans and whipped it around until Renee was looking right down its barrel.
“Police! Put the car in park and turn off the engine!”
Renee gasped at the sight of the gun. She hated guns.
“I’m gonna blow a hole in this window!”
From the look on his face right now, she didn’t doubt it. She didn’t doubt he’d tear right through the door with his bare hands if that was what it took to get to her.
If only the kid in the car ahead of her had the good sense to get himself and his friends away from the raging wild man waving a gun around, Renee might have a shot at escape. But his gaze was glued to the spectacle John was creating as if he were watching an episode of Cops.
“Last chance, Renee!”
She was trapped. Maybe it was better to let him in than to have him claw his way in. He’d still mangle her, of course, but maybe he’d actually let her live. She shoved the gearshift into park.
“Unlock the door!”
Renee’s finger hovered over the door lock.
“You’re resisting arrest! Unlock the door or I’m breaking the glass! Now!”
Renee held her breath and flipped the automatic switch. All four locks shot up. John stuck his gun back into the waistband of his jeans and jerked the door open. He clamped his hand onto her arm, yanked her from the car, and spun her around.
“Hands on the car!”
“John, please—”
“Shut up and put your hands on the car!”
She placed her hands on the car like a common criminal, which was exactly what he thought she was. He patted her down, running his hands roughly over her waist, her hips, then down each of her legs. She had a flash of the fantasies she’d had about him less than an hour ago, and not one of them had involved him touching her like this.
“You know I’m not armed,” she told him. “I don’t have a gun. I hate guns. I don’t even like the word—”
“Oh, yeah? The way I hear it, you shot a convenience-store clerk”
“It wasn’t me!”
He spun her back around, took her by the upper arms, and pinned her against the car, glaring down at her with an expression that bordered on the homicidal.
“You’re a lying, bail-jumping, car-stealing pyromaniac,” he muttered. “I ought to—”
“I’m innocent! I didn’t do what they say I did!”
“Innocent people don’t run! And they sure as hell don’t steal cars!”
“I was only borrowing it. Really. I—”
“You have a vocabulary problem, Renee. Borrow and steal are not the same thing. If I give you something, that’s borrowing. You take my keys while I’m sleeping, that’s stealing. Now get in the car!”
He shoved her through the driver’s door, then got in after her. The minivan still sat in front of them, its occupants glued to the situation as if this were a commercial break and the action would pick up again any minute.
John laid on the horn. The kid’s eyes flew open wide. He yanked his head back into the car, stomped the accelerator, and left the drive-through, apparently deciding that John’s possession of a firearm gave extra weight to his honking. As John drove by the window, the teenage girl on duty looked as if she’d swallowed her Dubble Bubble.
“You should have told me you were a cop,” Renee muttered.
“You should have told me you were a fugitive.”
“I’m not a fugitive! I mean, I am, but it’s only because—”
“Forget it. I don’t want to hear it.”
“'Where are we going?”
“To give you back to Leandro.”
Renee swallowed a gasp of sheer terror. Did he actually intend to throw her on the mercy of a madman? “But you’re a cop. Don’t you have priority, or seniority, or something?”
“Only if I want to exercise it. The minute the bondsman posted your bail, you signed your rights away. He can send anyone after you he wants. Leandro has the authority to bring you in, and since I’ve had all the fun I care to have for one night, I think I’ll step aside and let him do it.”
“Please, John! Please don’t make me go back with him. He’s so angry—”
“Why? Because you torched his car? Gee, I can’t imagine why that would piss him off.”
“You know what he’s like. Don’t make me go with him. He’ll kill me. I swear he will!”
“He won’t kill you. They stopped that ‘dead or alive’ thing about a hundred years ago.”
“Please. I want you to take me back. Please.”
“I said he wouldn’t kill you. I didn’t say I wouldn’t.”
Renee came within an inch of believing that. She had never witnessed anything like the hard, intense, “I wanna maim somebody” look John was giving her right now, and it was all the more frightening because she was that somebody.
“John. Please listen—”
“No. I’m way past listening. Especially when all I hear are lies.”
“I’m sorry about that. But—”
“Sorry? Sorry? You lie to me, steal my car, and get me into a fight with a thousand-pound gorilla, and all you can say is you’re sorry?”
That was when Renee knew that this was more than just your average cop-to-fugitive animosity. John was taking this personally. Very personally. She’d made him look like a fool, and there was no way he was ever going to forgive her for that.
A moment later he slowed the car, then swung into a hospital parking lot and came to a halt in a spot near the emergency room door. Renee looked around questioningly.
“What are we doing here?”
“I told you. I’m giving you back to Leandro.”
“He’s here?”
“Only for as long as it takes them to shove his nose back into place.”
“You actually broke his nose?”
“Yeah. It’s standard operating procedure when you’re protecting innocent young things from their abusive boyfriends.”
Renee winced. If he’d intended to make her feel guilty, he’d succeeded.
John got out, circled the car, then dragged Renee out the other side. “I want you to behave in here,” he said, hustling her toward the door of the emergency room. “You step one foot out of line, and I’ll make whatever plans Leandro may have for retaliation look like a picnic in the park. Got that?”
Renee fought the irrational urge to yank her arm away and run. What would be the point? She’d never get away from him. She’d just be putting him in an even fouler mood than he was already in.
John dragged her into the waiting room and up to the glass window. A middle-aged Hispanic woman in Snoopy scrubs with a stethoscope dangling around her neck stood behind the glass, flipping through a chart.
John slid the window open with a thunk and flashed his badge. “Where’s the guy who came in here a few minutes ago? Tall, smashed nose, ugly as sin?”
The woman eyed John’s badge. “He’s in the back.”
“He needs to come to the front. Right now.”
“Sorry. He’s doped up.”
“What?”
“He was complaining about pain, so I shot him up with Demerol. I’ve got a plastic surgeon on the way.”
“Surgeon?” John said with disbelief. “He’s having surgery?”
“Yeah. Whoever smacked him really did a number on him.”
“When will he be released?”
“Sometime tomorrow.”
John closed his eyes and muttered a curse. Renee felt an enormous surge
of relief, an emotion John clearly didn’t share. He stuffed his badge back into his pocket with a harsh breath of frustration. “Well, that’s just great.”
The doctor leaned toward John and dropped her voice. “He’s not wanted, is he? Just between you and me, he has a face right off a post-office wall.”
“No,” John said wearily. “He’s not wanted.” Then he turned an accusing glare toward Renee, as if it were her fault that Leandro was out of commission.
“Pretty wicked-looking bruise you’ve got there,” the doctor told John. “Does your smashed-up face have anything to do with that guy’s broken nose?”
“You might say that.”
“You want me to take a look at it? You could have an orbital fracture. I can get a facial series—”
“No. It’s fine. Got any surgical tape?”
“Uh, yeah. Sure.” The woman went to the back room, then returned with a roll of tape and handed it to John.
“Mind if I take this?” he asked.
“No. Go ahead.”
John took Renee by the arm again and led her back toward his car.
“So,” she said, with as much nonchalance as she could muster, “I guess you’re taking me back to Tolosa?”
He didn’t respond. She took that as a yes.
When they reached his car, he pulled Renee’s arms around in front of her, crossing one wrist over the other. Before she knew exactly what was happening, he’d wound the surgical tape four or five times around them.
“What are you doing?” she asked, horrified.
“I’ve got no handcuffs.” He ripped the tape off and pressed down the loose end. “And I’m taking no chances.”
Renee looked down at her bound wrists, and all at once the reality of the situation came crashing down on her. How had this happened? she asked herself for the thousandth time. How had she landed on the wrong side of the law again, when she’d put her heart and soul into becoming the kind of person who would never have to worry about being arrested?
As a teenager, she hadn’t felt humiliated to be dragged to jail. All she’d felt was defiance, along with that hopeless feeling of not giving a damn because nobody else did, either. The indignity she felt right now was a result of the self-respect she’d managed to gain since then, and a philosophical person might say that her humiliation was a step in the right direction.
She wished she could tell John about the years she’d spent putting her past behind her. About how she’d suffered through demeaning, dead-end jobs just so she could pay her bills. About how she’d finally built a life for herself she was starting to be proud of, only to have it shatter into a million pieces.
She’d seen the man behind the badge. The man with a heart. The man who’d shown her compassion when he thought she’d been abused, then gone to war with Leandro when he thought she was in danger of being hurt again. That was the man she wanted to talk to now.
Slowly she lifted her gaze from her wrists and met John’s eyes, but as he stared back at her, she saw that his anger had been replaced by an impassive, stony stare. His jaw was rigid, his eyes cold and unreadable, and that was when she knew. There was only one side of him she was going to see from now on: the cop side.
She held out her wrists. “Please don’t do this. Please. I’ll go quietly. I promise.”
“Tell me some more lies.”
“But John—”
“You want your mouth taped, too?”
“No, but—”
“Then I suggest you keep it shut.”
He opened the car door and shoved her into the passenger side of the front seat, pushing her head down to clear the opening as she’d seen cops do when they were arresting people on Real Stories of the Highway Patrol. He slammed the door behind her. She settled back in the seat, her heart thumping in her chest in a relentless rhythm.
“We’re going to the cabin so I can get my stuff,” John told her. “Then it’s nonstop back to Tolosa.”
His words settled on her with heart-wrenching finality, and by the tough, uncompromising expression on his face, she knew she wouldn’t be talking him out of this. He was going to deliver her to jail, then turn his back and walk away, believing he’d done his part to incarcerate a desperate criminal. She’d be shuttled through the system and eventually land in prison, sentenced to a life of despair and hopelessness for a crime she didn’t commit.
It was official. Her life was over.
Twenty minutes later, John pulled up in front of the cabin, a feeling of déjà vu washing over him like an ocean wave at high tide. Only a few hours ago, he’d been in this very spot, primed for a night of hot sex with a beautiful woman. Now he was dragging that beautiful woman to jail.
God, what a night.
Actually, the more he thought about it, the more he decided this turn of events might work out pretty well. This would give him an excuse to return to Tolosa. He could tell Daniels he had had to cut his vacation short to bring in a fugitive. How could the lieutenant argue with that?
Fortunately, Renee had the good sense to keep her mouth shut on the way back to the cabin, because if she’d opened it up and started yapping again about how sorry she was and how she was innocent and all the rest of that crap, he probably would have gagged her, tossed her onto the roof of the car, and tied her to the luggage rack.
But instead of talking, she spent the whole time with her bound hands in her lap, running her fingernail back and forth along the seam of her jeans. And she was still doing it now, her blue eyes downcast, a strand of blond hair falling carelessly across her cheek. She looked so damned innocent that if he didn’t know better, he’d think—
John killed the car engine, feeling like the biggest moron who’d ever walked the planet. She’d played him like a fiddle all night, only to start up the music again just by sitting there doing nothing at all.
He yanked the keys out of the ignition, then got out, circled the car, and opened Renee’s door. He took hold of her arm and pulled her out of the car. The single floodlight down the path by the cabin door gave off enough light to softly illuminate her face, and when she turned her eyes up to meet his, all at once he felt as if he were manhandling a stray kitten.
No. She’s not innocent. There is absolutely nothing innocent about this woman.
He flipped the locks, shut the car door, then took her by the arm and led her down the winding, wooded path toward the cabin. She let out a ragged sigh, and he felt as if he’d just kicked a stray kitten. Damn. This woman was driving him crazy. The quicker he got back to Tolosa, turned her in, and forgot he’d ever known her, the better off he was going to be.
All at once, Renee’s head shot up. “What’s that?”
“What’s what?”
She stopped suddenly and listened. “That noise.”
“Cut it out, Renee.”
“I mean it!” she whispered, inching closer to John and scanning the darkened forest. “Someone’s out there!”
John stopped and listened, but by his skeptical expression, Renee could tell he thought she was lying. But she was sure she’d heard a rustle of dry pine needles, as if someone were walking through the trees.
John shook his head and started to lead her toward the cabin again, when the same sound filtered through the night air, this time louder. He whipped his head around, his gaze searching the forest, and she could tell he’d finally heard it, too. Slowly he drew his gun.
“Who is it?” she whispered.
“I don’t know,” John whispered back. “There shouldn’t be anyone within ten miles of here.”
Renee thought her heart was going to beat right out of her chest. She was sure someone—or something—was walking through the forest. Unfortunately, the risen moon had faded to a pale timber disk, making it hard for her to see what sharp-toothed animal or ax-wielding human was out there waiting for them.
John led her by the arm into the trees, stepping over a fallen log half-buried in pine needles, dodging a cluster of saplings. Every ounce of self-p
reservation she possessed told her not to go anywhere near the forest, but then she decided that sticking like glue to the guy with the gun was probably the best course of action under the circumstances.
“Sounds like someone walking through the brush,” she whispered.
“Shhh…”
“Are we sure Leandro’s still in Winslow?”
“Shut up, will you?”
John stopped and listened. Seconds passed, filled only by silence. “Hey!” he shouted. “Who’s out there?”
Renee heard a mad crunch of pine needles practically at her feet. She looked down, and right in front of her, a pair of red, devil-like eyes glared up at her like a creature from the depths of hell.
With a strangled scream, she yanked her arm from John’s grip, whipped around in a blinding one-eighty, and started to run.
“Renee! Stop!”
But her fight-or-flight instinct was in full swing, with the fight part not even an option. Then all at once her ankles hit something hard. She flew through the air, then fell facedown into the dirt, knocking the wind out of her lungs in one big whoosh.
“Renee! It’s only an armadil—”
John never finished his sentence. Instead, the same fallen log that had tripped her tripped him, and he fell in a sprawling heap only inches to her left, letting out a muffled “Oof.”
In the span of a single heartbeat, Renee came to two important conclusions: one, she’d just run screaming from one of God’s more benign creatures—an armadillo—and two, her way out of a prison sentence lay in a pile of pine needles only a couple of feet beyond her hands.
John’s gun.
Without even thinking, she pushed herself to her knees, then lunged for the weapon. She grabbed the gun with her right hand, which was bound beneath her left one, then did a fireman’s roll to her right before rising to a sitting position. To John’s credit, he was already on his knees, but she’d been quicker in zeroing in on the gun. It felt heavy and dangerous, but despite the awkward position of her hands she clung to it tenaciously, determined not to give in to her gut instinct and run screaming from it, too.
