Sheriff’s Runaway Witness

by Kathleen Creighton

  “Take care of my dog,” he growled on his way out the door.

  Rachel woke from a light sleep, alerted by something she couldn’t immediately identify: faint sounds, scuffles, breathing…small things that told her she wasn’t alone. She opened her eyes-a fraction of a second before they were covered by something soft and white.

  She screamed, but the sound collided with the thick softness that covered her mouth. She tried to suck in air, and sucked in cloth instead. In desperation now, she struck out with both hands, clutching, scratching, clawing viciously at whatever she could reach. The screams she couldn’t utter tore at her throat as her body arched and bucked with all the strength she had left.

  Not enough.

  She heard voices, muffled voices, low, guttural voices. Brutal, strong hands pressed down on her shoulders. In one final desperate burst of strength, she lashed out with both arms and legs, and heard a growl of pain as her nails raked skin, maybe even drew blood. Then…the loud crash of something being overturned, the sharp thwack of heavy plastic hitting the vinyl tile floor. It was a sound that sent horror ricocheting through her brain, because she knew exactly what it was: The bassinet and cart her newborn son slept in, close beside her bed.

  My baby! Jethro-help!

  It was her last thought before the darkness came.

  J.J. had never driven so fast in his life. Not so fast as to be out of control, though; after nearly going airborne through a dip, he had to keep reminding himself that he was no good to anybody dead, or spun out and stuck in a sandy gully somewhere. He drove with full lights and siren, heart thumping, eyes glued to the road ahead, hands glued to the wheel, ears tuned in to any reports that came in over his radio. No reports of any disturbances at Ridgecrest Hospital, though. So far, so good. Maybe he’d get there in time.

  He had to slow down coming into the town of Ridgecrest, what with traffic and stoplights, and drivers who evidently had no clue they were supposed to pull over to the curb for emergency vehicles with flashing lights and sirens. It was as he was approaching an intersection with the traffic signal against him, slowing to make his way around bewildered drivers who had stopped in the middle of whatever lane they happened to be in, that he saw, coming along the cross street, a whole line of cop cars, both city and county, lights flashing and sirens blaring, slowing now to make the turn. Heading, evidently, in the same direction he was.

  His heart rate kicked up several notches. He waited, swearing vehemently and aloud, for the posse to pass, then threaded his own way through the intersection and gunned it, following hot on their trail.

  He had a bad feeling about this. A cold sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  The feeling got a whole lot worse when he turned into the hospital parking lot and nearly collided with a black SUV with tinted windows as it came lurching out of the lot, made the turn with squealing tires and sped away down the street in the direction he’d just come from. Something-call it instinct, call it gut, or maybe just a lot of years chasing down bad guys-zapped through J.J. like a jolt of electricity, and he almost-almost-hung a U-turn and went in pursuit of the black SUV. Instead, he drove on in the wake of the other law enforcement vehicles, but with an increasing heaviness around his heart.

  Too late, he thought. Dammit. Too late.

  Chapter 5

  Rachel came back to awareness and an overwhelming sense of grief and terror. She tried to cry out, but something cold and hard was covering her face. She clawed at it, and then at the hands that tried to stop her from doing so. She was crying, sobbing uncontrollably. And there were voices, voices saying words that made no sense to her. Soothing words, nevertheless, and the voices, some of them, were women’s.

  “It’s okay…you’re safe now…it’s just a little oxygen. It’ll help you feel better. It’s all right…”

  But Rachel was inconsolable. “They…took him. They took…”

  “No, no, dear-he’s fine. Your baby is fine. He’s in the nursery. We took him for tests, so you could sleep…”

  They were lying, of course. Telling her that just to calm her. She knew, because she had heard them-heard the bassinet fall. It had happened, just as she’d known it would. Carlos had sent his men to kill her, and they had taken away her baby.

  The hospital appeared outwardly calm. Sure, there were cop cars drawn up before every entrance, but nobody was shouting, running or shooting at anybody. Nobody was being evacuated, which meant probably nobody was being held hostage. All of which only confirmed J.J.’s suspicion that the perpetrators, whoever they were and whatever they’d been up to, had already fled the scene, most likely in the black SUV he’d nearly collided with on his way in.

  I shouldn’t have left her, he told himself. Dammit, should never have left her alone.

  You didn’t know who she was at the time, his reasoning self told him. How could you have known?

  But he had known. He’d known something wasn’t right. I should have stayed until I heard from Katie.

  But as he knew all too well, knowing what he should have done-or not done-after it was too late wasn’t worth diddly. Now, he was going to have one more life-possibly two-on his conscience.

  Along with the God-only-knew how many more that were there already.

  He went in through the emergency entrance, figuring the nurse on watchdog duty would probably recognize him from when he’d brought Rachel and her baby in and give him a minimum of grief. She did, and would have waved him right on in, but the two cops guarding the door needed more convincing.

  “A little out of your jurisdiction, aren’t you, San Bernardino?” one of them said as he studied J.J.’s identification.

  “A bit,” J.J. said. He was trying to hide his impatience, his urgent need to move on, but the Ridgecrest cops were no dummies.

  “Can I ask what you know about what just went down here?” the one with his ID said, glancing up at him while his partner moved in just a bit closer.

  J.J. raised his eyebrows and played dumb. “Something happen? When?”

  “Few minutes ago someone assaulted one of the patients here.” He took a notepad out of his uniform pocket, glanced at it, and put it back. “Name of Rachel Malone. You know anything about that?”

  Giving up the act, J.J. ran a hand over his beard and swore under his breath. “She okay?”

  “Looks like it,” the cop said, giving him a long, close look as he handed back his ID.

  “And her baby?”

  “Mind telling me what’s your interest, San Bernardino? Like I said, you’re way out of your jurisdiction.” He paused, obviously thinking about it. “You her husband? Different name, but that don’t mean much these days.”

  “Nope, no relation,” J.J. said easily. He really didn’t want to step on a fellow lawman’s toes. If he could help it.

  “You the baby’s father?”

  Why won’t they give me a straight answer? Oh, right, he thought, trying to curb his temper, cops don’t answer questions, they just ask them.

  “No,” he said through clenched teeth, “just the guy who delivered him. You gonna tell me how he is, or what?”

  Her room seemed filled with people. Policemen-except one was a woman-asking questions, taking pictures, writing notes, talking on their radios or cell phones. Nurses talking to each other in low voices; Rachel could hear them talking about her but didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything, she was sunk so deep in pain and despair. Pain gripped her like a vise, and it was worse than anything she’d ever known, worse than childbirth, worse than the night Nicky died. She could only wrap her arms around herself and curl herself around the pain, too full of pain even for breath. The nurses kept trying to put the oxygen mask over her face, but she didn’t want it. She didn’t want to breathe, didn’t want to live.

  My baby’s gone…

  Murmuring in the hallway…the nurse’s voice, speaking plainly, sounding distressed: “We’ve told her her baby’s fine, but she won’t believe us.”

  “Then why
don’t you just go and get him and let her see for herself?”

  That voice…with an accent…sounding a lot like John Wayne.

  The nurse again: “We thought…he’s still being monitored…so many people…”

  “Too many people? So clear ’em out. Come on, guys, that’s enough. You can do this later. Can’t you see the lady’s had about all she can take?”

  She lifted her head and gave a hoarse cry, cried out his name. “Jethro?” It was all she could manage; her throat was raw from weeping.

  She tore off the oxygen mask, and this time no one stopped her. She watched him come toward her, swimming his way through people, nurses and policemen, all making for the door now, though in no particular hurry. Then he was beside her, and she just naturally lifted her arms to him and he gathered her in, tenderly, as if he understood how wounded she was. As she clung to him, shaking, she felt his hand cradle her head against him, felt his body tense as his head turned, and his voice rumbled next to her ear as he called over his shoulder, “Somebody go get that baby-now.”

  She heard a nurse say huffily, from somewhere distant, “Well, I’ll have to ask the doctor…”

  And John Wayne’s voice grating, “You just do that, sweetheart.”

  Then all was still. She heard only the thumping of a strong heartbeat against her ear, and felt peace settle around her like a soft warm blanket.

  J.J. didn’t try to utter comforting words or in fact make any sound at all, just settled himself on the bed beside her and held her tightly, and after a few minutes he felt the tremors and tension in her body ease. Her head stirred against his hand, and he moved that hand to her shoulder, giving her the option to pull away from him if she wanted to.

  Which she evidently didn’t. She nestled her cheek more closely against his chest and tightened her arms around him. She sighed, and after a moment, sniffed loudly, then whispered, “He’s really okay? Tell me the truth.”

  J.J. uttered a garbled sound, cleared his throat and said, “Yeah, he is.”

  A shudder ran through her. “I heard the bassinet fall. I thought-”

  “He wasn’t in it. I guess they’d taken him to the NICU for observation, or something. Just to be on the safe side. You know-since he was born in, uh, less than ideal circumstances.”

  “I was asleep. And then…” Her voice was muffled and liquid, and she turned her face against his shirt as if to shut out terrible images.

  “Did you see who it was who attacked you? Was it Carlos’s men?”

  “Who else would it be?” she said angrily, then made a small sound, a gasp, and jerked away from him, wiping her cheeks with her fingers. Above them, her eyes were huge and frightened as they searched his face. “How did you- How do you know that?”

  He was saved from having to answer her by a discreet knock on the door. He called, “Come in,” and the door opened.

  A nurse entered slowly, smiling, bringing with her a rolling stainless steel cart which carried a clear plastic box. Inside the box, all wrapped up like a miniature mummy with a little blue stocking cap on his head, was the infant he’d last seen naked and sticky and swathed in one of his own emergency blankets. “I brought your baby,” she sang softly.

  J.J. got out of the way and Rachel scooted back against the pillows and watched with he could only call hunger while the nurse wheeled the cart right up next to the bed. She never took her eyes off that baby, not for a second, and watching her, J.J. got an achy feeling in his throat. Surprised the heck out of him, too. But the truth was, he’d never seen anything quite like the look on Rachel’s face when the nurse put that baby in her arms. As embarrassing as it was to find himself all choked up over something so sappy, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from it. No way around it-it really was beautiful, and come to think of it, right then he thought she was probably the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

  It was while he was standing there watching Rachel Delacorte cuddle and coo over her son, and thinking how beautiful she was, that it hit him.

  What he was looking at was nothing less than his own redemption.

  It must have been there in the back of his mind all along, he thought, and was maybe the reason he’d raced like a crazy man trying to get to her in time to save her life. What he had here was in all probability an eyewitness to the unsolved murder of two federal agents. If he could get her to tell what she knew…if he could convince her to testify-and keep her alive long enough to testify-he could close this case. And if he could close this case…if he could close one of the biggest open murder cases in the country in years…well, that ought to be enough to get him his old job back, shouldn’t it? Yeah…and he could finally get out of this godforsaken hellhole and back to being a homicide detective where he belonged.

  But it wasn’t the time to start talking to her about testifying in open court against a murdering mobster. First, he was going to have to get her to trust him. Which, he realized, might not be all that easy.

  Assured now that her baby was safe and sleeping in her arms, she lifted her eyes once more to him. And it didn’t make him happy to see that they were filled with questions, suspicion…fear. He told himself it was no different from what he was used to dealing with, and the only reason he minded was because it meant his job-getting her to roll over on her mobster in-laws-would be that much tougher. He tried to ignore flashbacks to the way she’d been with him a few hours earlier, when he’d held that baby in his own two hands, all squirmy and slippery and alive, heard him take that first breath, make that first sound, then placed him on his mother’s belly and guided her hands to touch him, cradle him. Tried to ignore the regret he felt now, remembering it all. The way she’d trusted him then. Trusted him in a way nobody had ever trusted him before. The truth was, he’d liked the feeling, and losing it-well, he hadn’t expected to mind it this much.

  “How did you know?” Her voice was low and tense, and her eyes weren’t giving him any quarter. “About Carlos. How could you know?”

  “I’m a detective-it’s what I do,” he said dryly, and instantly regretted it. Stonewalling was automatic for him, but she didn’t need that; she needed the truth.

  He took a step closer and felt worse than he’d thought possible when she shrank back into her pillows, away from him. He stopped and held up his hand. “Look, it’s not what you think. I saw the envelope, okay? The one you were hiding under your clothes. When you, uh, when I helped you take off your clothes in the car. Remember?” He hoped reminding her of the fact that he’d helped her might buy him points, ease her mind. But she didn’t say anything, just watched him, tense and still, the way he imagined she might keep her eyes on a rattlesnake she’d come upon unexpectedly, coiled up in her path.

  He moved another step closer. At least this time she didn’t flinch, which he considered progress.

  “Anyway, I saw your name on the envelope. After I left you here at the hospital, I had my office run your name.” She closed her eyes in what looked like defeat, and he added with a sympathetic smile, “Hey, like I told you, I’m a detective-well, used to be, anyway, and I am still a cop.” He paused, then added gently, “It’s my job, Rachel. Really. Among other things, I wanted to see if there was anybody we needed to notify.”

  Her eyes flew open and she gave a sharp gasp. “You didn’t-”

  “No. No, I didn’t. And whatever you might be thinking, I’m not the reason those goons found you. Your father-in-law probably had his people monitoring police band radio all over the Southwest. I imagine they had you made when the first call came in about a nun wandering in the desert. That’s not exactly something you hear every day, you know.”

  She hesitated, then nodded, and he saw a tear slip between her lashes and run down her cheek. “He’d know about the nun’s disguise. And Carlos has people everywhere,” she whispered hopelessly. “It really wouldn’t surprise me if you turned out to be one of them.”

  “Well, I’m not,” J.J. growled. “That I can promise you. Look, think about it. If I’d
wanted to harm you and take your baby, I could have left you out there in the desert to die.”

  She stared at him for a long moment, then shook her head and whispered, “I was so stupid. Stupid to think I could escape from Carlos Delacorte.” She brushed at her cheek as she gazed down at the sleeping baby. “No matter where I go, or what I do, he’ll find me. I’m never going to be free of him…or safe.”

  “Now that,” said J.J., settling himself on the bed beside her, “is where you’re wrong.”

  Rachel had to catch her breath, then, a tiny hiccup that was half laugh, half sob. All that was missing, she thought, was for him to call her “little lady.” Classic Duke Wayne.

  “What?” His smile was wry, almost uncertain, and she found that unexpectedly endearing.

  “What?” she shot back to him.

  “You looked like you were about to smile.”

  She looked down at her baby, hoping to hide the tears that flooded unexpectedly into her eyes. Hoping to hide the smile that came with them. “You just reminded me of something, that’s all,” she whispered. “Someone.”

  “Your husband?” His voice sounded stiff, diffident.

  “No,” she said, letting the smile come. “John Wayne.”

  He gave a snort of surprised laughter. “I remind you of John Wayne?”

  She looked up at him. “Yeah, you do. Not the way you look-more like…the way you talk. Sometimes.” And she couldn’t stop a little gasp of surprise as his fingers brushed her cheek.

  “John Wayne makes you cry?” His voice was gentle now, the way she remembered it had been…before.

  She pulled away from his touch, shaking her head, self-conscious, wishing she hadn’t mentioned it. “No, it’s just…you know, emotions, I guess.” She tried to wave it away with a gesture. “Hormones, maybe?”

  “Understandable.”

  He waited, silent and watchful, and after a moment she gave a self-conscious laugh and heard herself say, “When I was a little girl…” She thought, I can’t believe I’m telling him this. Five minutes ago I thought he was one of Carlos’s men, come to kill me. But the words didn’t stop.