by Childs, Lisa
The woman continued, “But I doubt Cusack here would do the same. Until this mess at Blackwoods, his record was exemplary.”
“Still is,” Rowe said. “Sheriff, you wasted your time and the officers’ time in coming here.”
“I don’t think so,” the sheriff replied. “I think you know a lot more than you’re willing to admit.”
“Yes,” the bounty hunter agreed. “But he’s not going to tell us anything.”
“No.” Rowe confirmed her accusation. “I’m not…”
“If you’re aiding and abetting him, you’re going to lose your job,” the sheriff threatened, “and your freedom. Again.”
According to what he had shared on the news broadcast, the DEA agent had been undercover at Blackwoods Penitentiary when his cover had been blown and someone had nearly killed him. So he knew what it was like to be locked up like Jed had been locked up the past three years.
“Don’t worry about me,” Rowe said. “Worry about catching all those escaped convicts. Kleyn isn’t the only one, you know.”
Several prisoners had broken out of Blackwoods Penitentiary during the riot—not just Jed, but Jed was the one everyone had focused on apprehending.
Or killing.
* * *
MACY COULDN’T STOP STARING at her brother’s child—her niece. The little girl was so adorable. And smart. She’d said nothing when the officers had stormed the hangar. But her little chubby fingers had tightly gripped Macy’s hand—as they did now while they waited to see if Mommy and her friend were discovered in their hiding place.
Her friend?
She didn’t know Jed was her father. But then how would Erica Towsley have explained to the child why she couldn’t see her daddy—because he was in prison for two murders.
Macy wanted Erica to explain some things to her, though, like why she hadn’t come forward at Jed’s trial. And why she had never let Jed know that he was a father. He couldn’t have known before he’d broken out of prison, or he would have asked Macy to check on the little girl and her mother and make sure they were doing okay.
They weren’t doing okay now. Just by being with Jed, they were in danger. Those local officers had all had their guns drawn until Sheriff York had ordered them holstered. If he hadn’t been present, she was certain shots might have been fired.
And if Jed was discovered hiding in that grate, she suspected that shots might still be fired.
Macy lifted the child in her arms and turned away from the window that looked onto the rest of the hangar. She couldn’t protect her brother now—not if the sheriff and the bounty hunter found him.
But she would protect his daughter. She didn’t want the little girl to witness the executions of her parents…
* * *
EVEN AFTER THE HANGAR DOOR slid closed again, Jed held his breath. Rowe might not have really convinced the sheriff and the bounty hunter to leave. They might have only pretended to accept his claims and could be waiting for Jed to step out of his hiding place.
If he had been alone, waiting them out would have been no problem. He’d waited three years for the opportunity to prove his innocence. And those three years had been spent in a hole far worse than this hiding place.
The reason it was so hard to wait was Erica. She lay under him, her body soft and warm beneath his. Her face was so close to his that all he had to do was turn his head slightly to skim his lips across hers. But he wanted more than her kiss.
More even than her body.
He wanted her trust, too. And those damn doubts were back in her eyes, as clear as the sky-blue color that had haunted him the past three years. Everything about Erica Towsley had haunted him the past three years. Maybe she had been duped into doubting him once. But if she had really cared about him, she would not have been so easily fooled…
“I think they’re gone,” she whispered, her warm breath feathering across his cheek. And then she squirmed, her hips arching against his.
He swallowed a groan, as his body reacted—hardening and demanding release. Desire hammered at him, pulsing in his veins and tightening all his muscles. They had nearly made love earlier, at her apartment, until the breaking-news bulletin had returned them to their senses. Now the sound of shoes scraping across the cement floor above them drew Jed back to reality.
He couldn’t make love to Erica here. He couldn’t make love to Erica anywhere because he could never love a woman who did not believe in him. Having everyone but Macy turn on him and look at him with fear and disgust had destroyed something inside him—his self-respect and maybe his own ability to trust.
And to love.
As he had earlier, he covered her mouth with his hand—holding back any gasps or words she might have inadvertently uttered. Anyone could have stepped back inside the hangar.
Her breath warmed his palm and had a tingling sensation shooting up his arm—straight to his heart. The damn woman affected him as no other ever had. If only she could have loved him…
But she hadn’t had enough faith in him to have had any real feelings for him.
“They’re really gone,” Rowe said. He knelt beside the drainage tunnel and pulled up the grate. “I waited and watched to make certain that they drove away.”
“And knowing you, you probably threw out a few threats and a couple more lies,” Jed said. He tried to get up, but he didn’t want to put any more of his weight on Erica
Rowe reached down and offered him a hand up. As Jed grabbed it and hauled himself to his feet, Rowe said, “I wasn’t lying to the sheriff.”
He had to force it, but Jed grinned at the DEA agent’s semantics. “You didn’t tell him that I was here.”
“That was an omission,” Rowe clarified.
To pretty much everybody else and most especially Jed, a lie of omission was still a lie. Erica not coming forward to alibi him was a lie of omission he might never be able to forgive.
“I was telling the truth about bringing you in, though,” Rowe warned him.
Jed nodded. “Of course you will—once I go through the financial records from my and Brandon’s accounting firm, and I have the evidence I need to prove my innocence. Then you’ll bring me in until my conviction can be overturned.”
That didn’t guarantee his immediate release, though. He would have to do jail time for breaking out of prison. But until he had found out about Isobel, he hadn’t cared that he would have to go back…because he’d known it was for a crime he had actually committed. And then everyone would know the truth—that he wasn’t a killer.
Jed turned back to Erica, reaching one hand down to help her from the tunnel. But the hole was shallow so she was already hauling herself up the cement side.
Cold metal encircled his wrist and then snapped tight around it. The sensation was horribly familiar.
Rowe dragged his other hand behind his back and manacled it, too. “No, Jed, I have to bring you in now. I have to arrest you for breaking out of prison. I have to bring you back.”
“Back to Blackwoods?”
Back to Hell?
“There isn’t much left of Blackwoods,” Rowe reminded him. “It’ll take them years to rebuild that prison. Your name will be clear for a long time before the construction is done on Blackwoods Penitentiary. You’ll never have to go back there.”
“I won’t have the chance,” Jed said. “Once you take me in, I’m a dead man. And I’m going to die a guilty man, convicted of crimes I never committed.”
And worse than that, he finally had an idea who was really responsible for those crimes. But until he could prove it, nobody would believe him. However, he wouldn’t be able to prove anything if he was behind bars or dead. “Don’t do this, Rowe…”
“I have no choice,” he replied, all DEA agent now instead of friend and future brother-in-law. “I’m putting you under arrest…”
“You’re putting me six feet under…”
He was definitely a dead man.
Chapter Twelve
“He�
�s arresting him,” Erica whispered, as she stared through the window that looked onto the hangar. Her stomach clenching with dread and fear, she was as horrified now as she had been when Rowe Cusack had first slapped the cuffs on Jed.
But before he could drag him off, Macy had rushed out and joined them. Instead of staying there to support Jed, Erica had hurried toward her daughter. She hadn’t wanted Isobel to see any more than she already had. So she’d caught the child up in her arms and carried her back inside the apartment.
“You played hide ’n’ seek real good, Mommy,” Isobel praised her. “Nobody found you.”
Too bad Rowe had known where they were…
Not that she had wanted to stay inside that tunnel with Jed forever. The confinement had been overwhelming or maybe that had just been her feelings—her desire—for the man that had overwhelmed her. Being too close to Jed made her lose her objectivity and her common sense. Maybe it wouldn’t be bad if Rowe took him back to jail as long as he could keep him safe.
But she doubted anyone could guarantee Jed’s safety now. Too many people wanted him dead.
“Is it my turn to play hide ’n’ seek now?” Isobel asked. “I want Jed to be my partner.” The little girl followed Erica’s gaze out the window and wrinkled her nose in confusion. “Is he playing a game with that other man now?”
She wished it was just a game. Apparently so did Macy as she yelled at her fiancé. They were too far away for Erica to hear the words she shouted, but her argument must have been effective because he removed the handcuffs.
When Erica had been out there with them, she had heard his words and knew the DEA agent had spoken them with grim determination. He didn’t like this part of his job, but he wasn’t able to ignore his duty to uphold the law. Rowe Cusack was definitely going to bring Jed back to prison.
“I guess they are playing a game.” One neither man really wanted to play, though.
The little girl yawned. “I’m kind of sleepy now. I can hide ’n’ seek with Jed later.”
The child hadn’t really had much sleep—at least uninterrupted sleep—since Jed had shown up at their door.
Erica hugged her daughter, holding her close and rocking her back and forth in her arms. She was already comforting her because, if Jed went back to prison, the child wasn’t going to be able to seek out her father for a while.
Maybe never.
“Damn him!” Macy said, as she stepped back inside and slammed the door shut. Horror and regret widened her eyes, and she lowered her voice. “I’m so sorry. I forgot all about…”
Her niece.
But then, she had just become aware of the child’s existence. “It’s okay,” Erica assured her. “Isobel can sleep through anything.”
“I’ve heard kids are resilient,” Macy remarked with obvious envy. She crossed the room to the brass bed near the fireplace and dragged back the blankets. “You can lay her down here.”
Erica followed Macy to the bed, but she hesitated before releasing her daughter. If the police had discovered Jed and her hiding beneath that grate, she could have lost her child forever.
Macy reached out and squeezed Erica’s shoulder. “She’s safe here. I would never let anything happen to her,” she promised. “I would never let anyone take her or hurt her.”
Had Jed told her about the man in her apartment? If Isobel hadn’t awakened and gone with Mrs. Osborn to her place, that man might have taken Isobel.
“I’m her mother. I’m supposed to be the one to protect her,” Erica said, feeling as though she’d failed miserably.
“She’s a happy, healthy little girl, so you obviously have protected her all of her life,” Macy said. “But I want to help you now.”
“Why?” Erica asked, confused that a virtual stranger could be so generous. “You don’t even know us.”
Macy moved her hand from Erica’s shoulder to Isobel’s cheek. “She’s my niece. My brother’s daughter…” Her voice cracked as emotion overwhelmed her. “When I was growing up, Jed was always there for me—giving me the love and support our parents couldn’t give me. I failed Jed when it mattered most. I wasn’t able to save him from prison. Three years ago—” she glanced out the window and bit her lip “—or now.”
“You got Rowe to take off the handcuffs,” Erica pointed out. And the DEA agent hadn’t put them back on yet.
“I talked him out of arresting Jed in front of his daughter,” Macy said.
When Erica finally settled Isobel onto the bed, Macy’s breath caught as if she feared that her fiancé had been waiting for just that moment before he hauled her brother off to prison again.
“Rowe can’t take him in,” Erica said. All those claims the bounty hunter had made rushed back to her, bringing fear and panic. “He’ll die in custody.”
Because every law-enforcement officer wanted him dead out of vengeance over the death of the young cop. Apparently officers never forgot a fallen comrade.
Macy shook her head, unwilling or unable to consider how much danger her brother was in. “Jed survived three years in the most dangerous prison in Michigan.”
“And maybe that’s how he survived,” Erica pointed out. “Maybe his label of cop killer actually protected him inside the corrupt jail. But now…”
Macy’s breath shuddered out in a shaky sigh. “Now he’ll be sent somewhere else until we can find the real killer and clear his name.”
“Jed knows who the killer is.” Even though he wouldn’t admit it. And why wouldn’t he admit it? Was he actually protecting the real guilty person? Or was he protecting everyone else he cared about? Everyone else but himself…
* * *
“DAMN IT, ROWE, YOU CAN’T bring me in now.” Not when he was so close to proving his innocence. All he had to do was prove his sanity—to himself—first.
Rowe glanced toward the window leading to that little apartment inside the hangar. “I know it has to be damn hard, just finding out you have a kid and having to leave her again. But, Jed, I can’t have you out here—at the mercy of every bounty hunter and cop with a grudge.”
“I’ll be even more at their mercy when I’m locked up,” Jed argued. “You were in there—you know what it’s like.”
“That was Blackwoods and Blackwoods is gone. And Warden James will probably be locked up for the rest of his life.”
Jed snorted in derision.
“The D.A. made sure his bail was denied,” Rowe said, “he’s not getting out.”
“Not now but anything could happen at his trial.” No one knew that better than him. He had been so convinced that he wouldn’t be convicted of crimes he hadn’t committed. He’d been so naïve. “Plenty of guilty people have gotten off.” Especially if Jed wasn’t alive to testify against him.
Rowe shook his head, unwilling to believe it. “Not James. He’s guilty as hell.”
“And I was innocent. You can’t trust that the justice system is going to work.” There were times a man needed to take justice into his own hands. And if Jed was right about who had set him up, he would mete out his own justice to the bastard who had stolen three years of his life.
Rowe must have misunderstood what justice system Jed was talking about because he asked, “You really think you’ll be in danger in jail?”
“You were the first one who warned me about the shoot-on-sight order out on me,” Jed reminded him. “And now the governor put a big bounty on my head. Do you really think I will ever make it out to see my daughter again?”
“Jed…” Rowe narrowed his eyes with suspicion, as if he thought Jed was deliberately playing on his emotions.
Maybe he was. “I can’t go back inside until I find the evidence that’ll clear me.”
“I’ll find it,” Rowe assured him.
“You don’t know where to look.” He wasn’t sure that he did, either.
How did one go about tracking down a ghost?
“So Erica’s right.” Rowe cursed him. “You did recognize the person who tried to force you off t
he road on your way here.”
He shrugged. “It’s probably the same person who broke into her apartment. If Isobel hadn’t been across the hall at the neighbor’s who was watching her, she might not be here with us.”
“You don’t have to be out of prison to be able to protect her,” Rowe said. “I will protect her for you. I’ll make sure no one threatens or hurts that little girl.”
Some of the weight on his shoulders eased. “I’m counting on that.”
“You have my promise.”
Jed nodded in acceptance. He knew the DEA agent didn’t give his promise lightly and that once he did, he kept it. Or Macy wouldn’t be here yet. Rowe had promised to protect Jed’s little sister, and that was a vow he had nearly died to keep. “Thank you.”
