At last the beefy Holcomb freed Marcus’s injured wrist, though he was quick to snap the unlocked cuff onto the stretcher and ogle the female EMT, a short woman with a blond ponytail and breasts that strained the buttons of her uniform shirt.
“I’ll be ridin’ with you.” Holcomb’s leer belied the wedding ring’s gold flash on his finger. “For your protection, darlin’.”
Glancing up from a perfunctory check of Marcus’s vitals, the EMT sent the big cop a knowing smile. “I feel safer already. Think we’re about ready to haul him.”
“I’m coming, too,” Caitlyn insisted, trying to imagine some way she might speak to Marcus privately. Some way she might ask him about what had really happened with Josiah.
And one last chance to decide whether she was being a fool, wanting so badly to believe Marcus’s story, to trust in her bone-deep intuition that he had told her the truth. That he was no killer, but a devoted older brother protecting a boy he’d helped to raise. A brother with a terrible, uncontrollable affliction.
“You won’t be going,” Timmons said with a shake of his head. “I’ll be taking you directly to the station.”
Try as she might to argue, the officers stood firm. Timmons insisted that the long wait at Charity Hospital—always chaotic and overcrowded on the weekends—would “hinder the investigation.”
But Caitlyn knew the man was lying. Knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that what both cops really wanted was to separate her from Marcus so they wouldn’t have a chance to come together on a story.
And so she wouldn’t try to interfere when they locked him in a cell.
THE AMBULANCE SLICED THROUGH black-silk darkness, its siren off, its red light swiftly pulsing. Inside the metal box, Marcus saw the intermittent wash of crimson through the grimy window, its flash lighting half the face of the female paramedic sitting at his side.
With Marcus’s vitals strong and his condition stable, the curvy blonde turned her attention from Marcus’s vitals to flirting with Officer Holcomb. The muscular cop grinned as he eyed her breasts, his muscles straining in a mating display that would have done a peacock proud.
The entire time his hand was resting all too close to the service weapon in its holster. A weapon he would undoubtedly make use of if Marcus so much as twitched the wrong way.
But what did it matter, now that the worst had finally happened? He had given away his freedom and, worse yet, his ability to provide for his family, all because of a weakness for a woman he could never have. A woman he wasn’t even positive believed him.
From the look he’d seen on Caitlyn’s face, she wasn’t certain, either.
Soon enough, though, the detectives would convince her that he had killed before, which must mean he’d been somehow involved in the deaths of the two young women whose bodies had been left for her to find. She would turn from him in horror, fearing he had only meant to get close enough to kill her, or, failing that, to take advantage of her sexually.
But from the moment she had pointed a gun his way, Marcus had known she was far tougher than he had at first imagined, shrewder and more sensible than her sweet face and youthful innocence suggested.
She would have shot him, he had no doubt. Gentle vegetarian or not, she was tough enough to defend herself against anyone who made a move to harm her.
Rather than being furious that “anyone” included him, he smiled. Better she should distrust his story, distrust him, than fall victim to the stalker menacing her.
A stalker who might be in for the surprise of his life if he wasn’t careful.
“What the hell’re you smiling at?” Holcomb demanded. “You got a hole in your arm and a jail cell in your future.” He slid a wink in the blonde’s direction, and she giggled in response, a sound that assaulted Marcus’s nerve endings like the scritch of nails across a blackboard.
Scowling, he zeroed in on the peacock. “I’m just looking to clear up a few questions.”
It was little more than a bluff, since no matter how successful he was in convincing the detectives he had nothing to do with the recent murders, he was bound to be sent back to Pennsylvania to face the justice he had eluded for so long.
Holcomb ignored the sarcasm to smirk. “You holdin’ out for the Easter Bunny, too?”
“Let’s just say I’m holding out for the truth about those murdered girls. Heaven knows their families deserve more of it than you’ll find chasing the wrong suspect.”
Holcomb shrugged, his bulging shoulders nearly splitting the seams of his black shirt. “Maybe so, but making a habit of running is damned suspicious. You could’ve saved everyone a hell of a lot of trouble if you’d only—”
A horn blared an instant ahead of a sickening crunch as something slammed into the ambulance’s rear right side. The jolt sent the vehicle sliding, then spinning out of control. The driver yelled, “Hold on!” and the EMT shrieked as the force of the impact slung her across Marcus’s body.
With the ambulance still careening to the right, the officer grabbed at—and missed—the rail of Marcus’s gurney. The right tires dropped hard off the pavement, and the vehicle’s left side rose, shifted and finally tipped, accompanied by the sounds of screams.
Equipment flying, the heavy vehicle slammed onto its side with a deafening crash. As the rear doors popped open, the interior lights winked out.
Recovering more quickly than the others, Marcus wriggled an arm free of the strap that had held him to the gurney. Around him in the darkness, he heard the creaking and hissing of the wrecked vehicle, and the moaning of the officer, who lay sprawled below him on the side of the ambulance that now served as its floor.
The EMT’s panicked voice climbed the register. “My leg. Oh, God, my leg hurts. Compound fracture—bone’s sticking through the skin. Hal? You okay up there? Axel? Talk to me, Ax.”
The driver groaned, “My head,” and the paramedic called out, “Axel? Holcomb?”
The big cop didn’t answer as, in the distance, Marcus heard the shrill of sirens. Emergency vehicles coming to help.
Lifting his good arm, he felt the handcuff that had been locked to the gurney slip free from a broken rung. In a lightning flash, he understood that he had one chance. One miraculous opportunity to extricate himself and slip away.
With rescuers on the way, he didn’t hesitate for a moment. He quickly clambered off the gurney and scrambled to the door.
Headlights shone through from one of at least four vehicles parked helter-skelter along the freeway’s shoulder. Three men rushed toward him, the nearest shouting, “Everybody all right?”
Marcus looked to the right, into the darkness beyond the ambulance, which lay smoking on its side beside a drainage ditch. Swampland, alligators—anything could lie out in that direction, but still, it was his only chance.
His only shot at freedom, one he owed it to his family to take.
IT WASH IS ONLY SHOT, so he aimed carefully, sighting the runner disappearing in the blackness and holding his breath to squeeze the trigger.
At the sharp crack, the bystanders who had been rushing toward the ambulance shouted, panicking. One of them fell to her knees, clutching her chest before collapsing.
Another dead, perhaps, in addition to those he might have killed when he had deliberately struck the ambulance in his desperation to kill his rival. Despite the sacrifices he’d made and the risk to his own safety, he suspected he had missed his target, for his hands were shaking and his heart pounding so hard, he doubted he could hit a billboard, let alone one runner in the night.
With the sirens drawing nearer, he slipped back into his car, congratulating himself on having demolished the ambulance with only minimal damage to his own vehicle, and sped off. Panic might have cost him the chance to kill the man seeking to deprive him of his rightful bride again, but he prayed that this time he had at least scared the bastard off for good.
Or at least for long enough that he could claim the woman who’d been born—then reborn—just for him. The flesh-and-bl
ood version of the dolls who would surely guide him to escape all consequences for his actions.
Including those that left so many silent, glass-eyed victims in his wake.
Chapter Fifteen
Detective Davis leaned across the interview-room table, his rougaroux fangs and onion-tainted breath making Caitlyn sit back farther in her chair.
“You may have Reuben snowed,” he said, “but I know damned well there’s more to this story than you’re saying.”
Heart thumping, Caitlyn shoved her chair back and surged to her feet. Since he’d bludgeoned her with the news that Marcus’s ambulance had crashed and Marcus was missing, she felt wild, reckless—and in absolutely no mood for anymore of this man’s bullying. “Maybe you should call Detective Robinson back in, since you haven’t heard a single thing I’ve told you.”
Davis stood to face her. “You say something worth listening to, I’ll listen. But you keep shoveling that bullshit, don’t be shocked when I won’t open wide and say Ah.”
At the contempt in his eyes, she shook her head in disbelief. With his partner called out of the room, he’d clearly taken off the gloves.
Was he closer to her old boss than she had imagined? Could Josiah have convinced him, maybe even bribed him, to do whatever it took to cause her grief?
“I’ve told you three times, I have to call Reuben,” she said. “He’ll be frantic when he gets back to my house and finds that broken back door.”
Shaken as she’d been, she had forgotten about calling on the way here, and the moment she had stepped inside the interview room, her cell phone had lost its signal. Did they have a way of jamming calls, or was the low battery warning the problem?
“I thought he was your friend,” she added.
“If you’re so worried about Reuben, just come clean with me, and you can get out and call him yourself.”
“What is it you want, Detective?” she demanded. “I’ve already explained what happened this evening at least three times, by my count.”
“Guess I shouldn’t be surprised you make your living telling stories,” he scoffed. “That fairytale about the little old lady no one else but you can see—I’m sure the tourists would eat it all up with their silver spoons.”
She rolled her eyes. “So that photo of her in the cemetery—that’s a figment of my imagination?”
He waved off her question. “God only knows what you and your lover boy cooked up. What I want are the facts. The cold, hard facts about what really happened tonight and who really shot Le Carpentier.”
Rather than rising to the bait, she bluffed. “I’ve already told you everything I know.” She had no intention of admitting to her short-lived attempt at keeping Marcus captive, much less the way she’d fallen for the hero behind those hard brown eyes.
That thought startled her out of her anger at the detective, and she sucked in a sharp breath. Because it was absolutely true. In spite of every sensible reason she had to run in the opposite direction, she really had fallen for Marcus’s courage and his willingness to sacrifice for those he loved, his soul, his face, that hard, well-muscled body.
She wanted him as she had never wanted any man before. Wanted to hold him, to make love with him, to spend day after day unraveling his mysteries, getting to know every facet of him. Irrational as it seemed, her eyes filled with tears as she was blindsided by images of the two of them together, playing hide and seek in the mansion with three beautiful children, two strapping, dark-haired boys and a laughing blonde toddler with chubby legs and eyes as green as grass, just like her mother’s.
Impossible, she thought, and ridiculously old-fashioned, light-years from the Bohemian business-owner roadmap she’d had for her own life. Yet the vision drew her in, so vivid and sharp-edged that it sliced her to the bone. For it was a vision that could never be, of children who would never be born, a man who could never claim the right to be a husband or a father. A forlorn, hopeless future that shattered something deep inside her.
Her emotions must have bled through, because Davis closed in on her, pumping his index finger toward her chest with every furious word. “It’s all over your face. You’re letting that guy screw you. And you’re lyin’ for him, too. I’d stake my pension you know exactly where he’s run to.”
“Then I hope you’re good at panhandling,” she shot back, “because I have no idea. For all I know, he could be badly hurt. Or even—even—”
“Dead,” Davis finished for her. “And that’s the damned truth. If whoever tried to off him before hasn’t caught up to him, the dogs’ll run him to ground out there in the dark. And I can tell you, sister, all bets are off when this kind of arrest goes down at night.”
Struggling to vanquish the horrific thoughts conjured by his words, she wiped away angry tears. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because I’ve got a fellow cop dead in that ambulance wreck, and I’m just itching to throw anyone in jail who’s been aiding and abetting the man who caused that crash.”
“Detective Robinson said it was an accident.”
He hesitated a few beats before shaking his head. “Nothing accidental about it, according to witnesses. Somebody rammed the rear quarter panel and caught the back tire, which spun it out. And if that wasn’t enough to seal the deal, somebody—probably the same bastard—took a couple of potshots at Le Carpentier while he was running.”
“What?” she cried. “Was he shot again?”
Davis’s shrug said he couldn’t care less. “Believe me, the cops are out there beating the bushes. ’Cause the question of the hour is who the hell’s out to kill him, and how’s all this connected? And the way I figure it, only you or he can tell us.”
“Did you ever think of the fact that whoever murdered those two women might be out to keep him from talking? Maybe that morning in the cemetery, Marcus caught even more in his pictures than he realized. Or someone thinks he did.”
“So you’re tellin’ me it’s just a coincidence that your guy’s wanted for the murder of his own fiancée? And some mysterious other killer’s out to shut him up? Please,” he scoffed.
Her need to accuse Josiah Paine warred with the instinct not to mention him to his friend Davis. Finally she said, “Bring back Detective Robinson. I’d like to speak to her. Alone.”
Davis glowered at her. “You got something personal against me?”
She held his gaze. “Absolutely, Detective.”
“You wanna explain that?”
She shook her head. “Not a bit. Now, will you get her, or do I end this conversation right now?”
“Let’s suppose I decide to hold you, maybe leave you in the parish lockup until morning. I can see to it you have some real interesting company.” His eyes glittered, cold as ice chips. “Pretty girl like you, you might come away with all sorts of new friends, not to mention some new stories. Maybe not the type you’ll want to tell your tour groups, though.”
Caitlyn felt a prickling behind her neck. “Then I want a lawyer,” she said, though she had no idea how she would pay one. “But either way, I’m finished talking to you.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself, Miss Villaré.”
With that, he turned and strode out, closing the door firmly behind himself. And leaving her to wonder whether he was going to find his partner or make good on his threat to have her jailed overnight.
She paced the room and rubbed her arms to keep from freezing in the air-conditioning. But distracting as the cold was, her worry for Marcus burned like a hot coal in her belly. Was he scared? In pain? Would they hunt him down and shoot him like a rabid animal?
Raw terror seared its way up her throat, and she fought an impulse to be sick.
Detective Robinson walked in, stopping halfway across the room before shaking her head. “Lord, girl. You could hang meat in this icebox. Let me see what I can do about that.”
She disappeared for another minute before returning and passing Caitlyn a fuzzy brown cardigan, a close match to the ivory version the dete
ctive herself wore.
“That AC’s got a mind of its own, but here, this’ll help,” she said.
Ordering herself to calm down and not give away her concern for Marcus by blurting out her questions, Caitlyn draped the oversize sweater over her trembling shoulders. “Thanks. And I’m really glad it was your turn to play Good Cop.”
“I am a good cop.” Robinson smiled, her bracelets jingling as she settled her broad rear into the seat across from the one Caitlyn took. “Would’ve been a better one, though, if I’d done my homework sooner.”
Caitlyn tilted her head. “Homework?”
“ViCAP—that’s the federal database that helps track violent criminals—is only as good as the departments keeping the information up to date.” The detective shook her head, her disapproval written in her face. “Thanks to somebody forgetting to follow up his paperwork, we never got the news about Theo Le Carpentier.”
“You mean…you know he has a brother?”
Detective Davis shook her head, her light eyes darkening with some emotion. “Had a brother. Marcus hasn’t had a brother for the past four years.”
THE DOGS WERE CLOSING IN, their frenzied barking growing louder by the second.
Crouching in the damp weeds, Marcus peered out at the frontage road and prayed the ride he had called—thank God he’d managed to hold on to his cell phone—would beat the frenzied animals and their handlers, who would undoubtedly shoot first and ask questions later.
“Come on, Craven,” he murmured, hating to stake his life on the motel clerk. Marcus prayed that the kid had really meant it when he’d sworn he was up for anything, and that he would prove the kind of guy who would ask no questions, not even of a sweating, bloodstained man who had arranged a ride less than a mile from the spot where the freeway had been shut down and emergency vehicles were swarming like buzzing flies on a fresh kill.
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