Hell's Hilltop

by J. A. Dennam

  “So, how long have your hands been free?” she asked, claiming a safe place by the bar.

  Something told him it was a loaded question. He poured orange juice into glasses. “If you think I let you have sex with me, you’re wrong.”

  A flash of annoyance as she cautiously accepted the glass he handed her. “But you could have gone to the bathroom on your own.”

  His own glass hovered inches from his lips. “Lady, despite what you think, I do have some dignity.” Then he knocked the juice back, glaring at her over the rim until it was empty. When he was done, he rinsed it out under the faucet. “The knots finally came loose afterward when you were in the bathroom.”

  And he had the red welts to prove how long he’d struggled with them. They burned like a bitch just thinking about it.

  Now onto the cereal bowls. Granola was poured, milk added. When Ty placed one under her nose, Rena looked at the food with longing, but didn’t touch it.

  “How do I know it’s not drugged?” she asked.

  “Guess you don’t.” Ty loaded a giant spoonful into his mouth.

  She daintily plucked a small piece of cereal from her spoon. Tested it. When it was deemed safe, she tackled the rest with vigor. “You’re being awfully nice,” she said between bites, “for someone I just held captive for four hours.”

  Ty shrugged, successfully hiding his interest in her eating habits. “I just want to end this so we can part ways for good.”

  “So, you’re going to turn me in.” A flash of anger passed over her face. “That’s what I thought.”

  As much as he’d like to… “Rena, I aided and abetted your escape. Why the fuck would I turn you in?” Ty took her empty bowl and rinsed them both out, a task made more difficult when one was afraid to turn his back. “But, we’ll have to be careful when we leave here. You were in yesterday’s paper.”

  “I was?”

  With dishtowel in hand, he retrieved the newspaper from the coffee table in the living room. It slapped on the counter in front of her. “Found that on my doorstep when I got home last night.”

  Rena picked it up in delicate hands. Her almond-shaped eyes scanned the front page then dulled. “Not the most flattering picture of me,” she murmured.

  “Mug shots never are.” Though hers could have made a magazine cover in his opinion, the blond streak in her hair was a bit shocking. “I’m not too fond of the blond.”

  “I don’t know what I was thinking,” she said with distance.

  Ty finished with the dishes and nodded at the paper. “According to this, you suffer from paranoid schizophrenia. Derek gave you meds to bring you around before your escape. Anything we can get our hands on?”

  Her eyes widened with faux innocence. “Why? Are you afraid of me, Ty?”

  Ty reclaimed the dishtowel and dried his hands. “Lady, you have no idea.”

  They engaged in a stare-off that ended with a reluctant smile. For some reason, Ty’s sixth sense was right on with this woman. He could feel her emotions; read her thoughts despite her desperate attempts to block him. She’d hated him at first sight. Why was that, exactly?

  “If I’m going to help you,” he said with a challenge in his tone, “I’d like a few assurances. I don’t want to wake up the same way I did four hours ago.”

  Rena let out an impatient sigh, circled around the counter and opened the fridge. “I guess I should apologize for that?”

  Should she? An apology wasn’t quite what he wanted; however, the rope burns and use of the deadly weapon he could have done without. Rena’s flawless complexion still bore traces of Sophie’s blood when she’d slowly cut his shorts from his body. Scared shitless, he couldn’t have moved if he wanted to, but then all she had to do was strip to her own bare skin and he was a goner. There wasn’t a single imperfect inch of her, he noticed, as the lamplight caught her curves in a way that accented every detail. Slender shoulders, large breasts tipped with dark, dramatic nipples, a flat belly that complimented the elegant shape of her hips. Her long, willowy legs were made to wrap around a man, but those feet…. Damned if he didn’t want to kiss each delicate toe, despite the precarious nature of her mental state.

  If Rena had untied him at that moment, there were no guarantees he’d have backed off. Part of him was grateful she’d taken that option off the table. An even bigger part of him didn’t mind being forced into an erotic freak show of a booty call the likes of which he’d never known. And he’d known a few.

  But Hell would grow cold before he’d admit it. As Rena rifled through his refrigerator, Ty was suddenly reintroduced to her assets. The boxers she wore rode up just enough to offer him a tantalizing view of what he’d been treated to before, which only awakened the semi-soft traitor in his pants.

  The second thing he noticed was that she’d relaxed enough to turn her back on him. It was certainly a step in the right direction.

  “I don’t require an apology from you, Rena,” he answered thoughtfully, aiming to keep her on that course. “You were as much a prisoner of your illness as I was. Now that you’re back, we’ll call it even.”

  The fridge door shut and she simply nodded with her back to him, staring at whatever she held. “It’s not easy being this way,” she admitted softly. “It was never this bad, even when I was a kid. I was at my best when Austin and I were together.” She let out a short, derisive laugh. “Which seems like only weeks ago to me. I don’t remember a lot of what I did after… after I left him, but most of the time, I don’t want to.”

  “Do you remember prison?”

  Moving past the dense haze of her emotions, she opened drawers until she found the silverware. “Prison is a blur. There are a few moments I can recall. A few of the inmates who… left an impression. But nothing ever good, so I just try to block those out.” She popped the lid to a jar of olives and speared one with a fork. When it reached her mouth, her eyes closed in ecstasy. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had one of these?”

  He could imagine the pleasure she found in the simple act of raiding an icebox. “There’s ice-cream in the freezer,” he offered in a husky timbre.

  That didn’t seem to faze her as she popped another olive. “If it’s in a little paper cup, no thanks.”

  Ah. That, they must have served in prison. As much as he enjoyed watching her take pleasure in the little things, he was anxious to move forward. “I’d like to call Melanie now, but I need to ask you something first.”

  “What?”

  “Do you remember what your sister told you the other day?”

  Rena put her fork down and slowly recapped the lid. “Yes.”

  “Then you know what to expect when we go see her.”

  She nodded.

  “Think you can handle it?”

  A tense moment passed before her shoulders squared. “I have to.”

  The matter-of-fact manner in which she spoke didn’t fool him. “Maybe we should work on stabilizing your condition first,” he said as he opened the list of contacts on his phone.

  “I’m fine. I’m back now.”

  His thumb stilled over the screen as he regarded her with wry doubt. “Yeah, but for how long?”

  When her nostrils flared, Ty knew he was in for it.

  “I said I’m fine!” she snarled, throwing the fork in the sink.

  Before the olive jar followed suit, he caught her wrist and held it while she waged her internal battle. The angst swirled in her eyes as she stared him down, but Ty was never one to back off when someone needed his help. “I’m not the enemy, Rena,” he said levelly. “I think you know that or you wouldn’t be here.”

  The jar was surrendered and when he loosened his grip, Rena yanked her wrist free. “It’s pretty obvious why I came here,” she spat caustically.

  “Is it?” he challenged, moving even closer. Her body heat began to permeate his clothing. “We both know it wasn’t to kill me or you would have done it.”

  There was a deadly tilt to her eyes when she le
aned away from him. “If you say it was to….”

  “I don’t think that, either,” he came back without hesitation. “It’s because you know I’ll help you. You know I’m on your side, and right now I’m the best option you have. But my ass is on the line here, too. We do this my way, or we don’t do it at all.”

  “In other words I should just trust you with my life? No questions asked?”

  Being a fireman, it was something he was used to. The fact she fought him at every turn reminded him of the nightmare rescue that nearly killed him last spring. A one hundred-ninety pound woman he’d been carrying down a smoke-filled stairwell broke into a fit of panic. After nearly taking them both down a whole flight the hard way, Ty decided to knock her out. The hard way.

  But, hey, the woman survived and his captain covered for him when she complained about the unidentified fireman who’d planted his fist in her face.

  Ty chewed his bottom lip to keep from smiling. “I’m the guy who keeps people from going down in flames, remember?” Regardless of his methods.

  Whether he could save himself from those flames was an entirely different matter. Wisely, he backed off, put some distance between them and continued with caution. “Let’s look at your timeline,” he began, using his fingers to tick off the facts. “Three years ago, you’re living a perfectly normal life with Austin Cahill, planning a wedding, happy, and on medication that keeps you well balanced. A few weeks before you go missing, he notices a subtle change in your behavior, but doesn’t associate it with your illness.”

  “Because I didn’t tell him about it,” Rena admitted, absolving her ex of blame.

  Ty continued. “One night, a witness sees you fighting with someone by the river and you fall in. Vanish. For nine months, everyone believes you’d drowned when actually you’re hiding from society, having gone completely whack.”

  Rena cocked her head. “Excuse me… I went what?”

  “When you resurface in the form of a raging lunatic—”

  She rolled her eyes. “That’s better.”

  “—you’re caught and sent to prison where your condition deteriorates over a two year period of time. Derek, who gets wind that Sophie is controlling you with drugs, decides to sober you up before the big jail break Friday night.”

  “Thanks for the recap, Ty, but we’re all aware of this.”

  “I’m getting to something, here.” Ty waited until she indicated he continue. “Under Derek’s careful administration, you fully recover from a deep catatonic state. Hell, Saturday you were kicking ass and taking names… until we get to IGP headquarters where you suddenly go whack once again.”

  “And I think you’re suggesting Sophie was responsible for me going whack.”

  “Not just this time, but the first time as well. Before you supposedly drowned in that river.”

  “She wouldn’t do that.”

  His frustration spiked. “Really? I don’t think Derek and Crystal would be so quick to shoot down that theory.”

  “Yes, Sophie had a tendency to drug people,” Rena argued. “Yes, she controlled my condition while I was in prison, but before that she needed me lucid to find the capsule. It was much too important to her.”

  Did that mean Rena believed she’d reached that level of insanity on her own? That she belonged in a straitjacket? Call him a fool, but it was hard to swallow when she stood before him so coherent, sound on her feet, arguing with him as usual. “Okay,” he said, giving her the floor. “Let’s hear your theory.”

  But all he got was a defeatist shrug. “I don’t know, Ty. I don’t remember most of what happened after I left Austin. I thought we established that.”

  Her fiancé had sunk into a fit of grief that nearly destroyed two families and ended with him in the arms of another woman. “You recruited Brett Lockton to kill Austin’s new girlfriend,” Ty volunteered dryly. “Derek was caught in the crossfire when he filled in for her at work—”

  “Yes, I know that.”

  “—but you needed Derek for information about the bullet. So, you stole him—a spinal cord injury patient—from the ICU and handed him over to your mother, who used IGP’s resources to fake his death.”

  “Didn’t I tell you this Saturday?”

  “You got caught during your third murder attempt and thrown in jail before you could question Derek. Your mother got stuck with a paraplegic and no answers, so he became one of her science experiments—”

  “Would you shut up!”

  “—who’s sole purpose was to break you out of prison. So, your victim becomes your rescuer. Now, that is some crazy… crazy shit.”

  After a few deep breaths, Rena pinched the bridge of her nose. “Danny stole my fiancé and she could identify me as her attacker at the river. Is it really that hard to wonder why I wanted her dead?”

  With a disgusted shake of his head, Ty called her out as he took to pacing on the other side of the bar. “It’s like you’re reading from your courtroom transcripts.”

  “So what?” she fired back defensively. “It’s all I have to go on, too. Brett Lockton testified against me, it was a pretty open-and-shut case.”

  Ty stilled and regarded her from across the room. “I testified at your hearing, too.”

  Arms limp with shock, Rena’s face colored in mortification.

  He explained, “I was one of the first responders at Austin’s accident scene.”

  “You didn’t say anything about that,” she ground out.

  Ty took her anger to mean she cared what he thought of her after all. So he decided to lay it out there, test the waters. “I saw you in that courtroom. Mumbling unintelligible things, eyes wild and crazy…. It didn’t take a shrink to see you were completely checked out. A lost cause.”

  Her shoulders squared slightly and she approached him with chin in the air. “Maybe I am.”

  There it was. The fight he’d been looking for. Despite the grim topic, a burst of longing tugged at the center of his chest. Why the hell was he so attracted to her? She was a third-degree bitch who’d done nothing but bring him misery despite the sacrifices he’d made over the last few days.

  But that wasn't entirely true. Just a few hours ago, she'd not only pleasured him with her body, she'd left him with an intense desire to find out just how deep her passions ran. Was she only sating a base need that had been ignored too long, or a specific need for him?

  Realizing he’d been staring, Ty brought himself back, cleared his throat. “If you are a lost cause, I’m fucked.” Boy, was that an understatement. “Luckily, we didn’t know each other before your prison break, so the police won’t think to look for you here. But, if we can prove your behavior was controlled by a third party, those of us who’ve aided and abetted your escape have a chance to avoid our own prison time.”

  Her face smoothed out in understanding. “Ah. So, this is an act of self-preservation on your part.”

  “Who cares what my motives are, Rena? Derek believed you were salvageable and, given what I’ve seen so far, I believe it too. We just need to keep you healthy from here on out. Think you can work with me on that?”

  After several seconds ticked by, she held up her hands in defeat. “Whatever you say, Mr. Fireman.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Soft leather and deep blankets gave Rena a sense of burrowed safety. The noises around her were blessedly normal, homey even as bed sheets churned in the washing machine. Chewie chased rabbits in his dreams on the thick floor-rug beside the couch. As she watched him, sleep called her name in spurts, but she avoided the fall out of habit.

  Until her own dreams were no longer avoidable.

  “Over here!”

  As the security guard drew closer, Rena led her sister behind the pizza shack where they would hide until the coast was clear. The bottoms of their pajama pants were covered in brambles, which Elsa picked off while they waited for the man to pass by.

  With the wall at her back, Rena peered around the corner. Midnight offered them added cover, bu
t one couldn’t be too careful when trespassing on guarded private property. Luckily, it wasn't all that heavily guarded.

  “It was Daddy,” she whispered as the sound of slapping keys faded in the distance. “I don’t think he saw us, but we should wait a few minutes just in case.”

  Elsa gathered her hair in a fist and nodded. “Do you think he’s going back to the lounge?”

  Rena continued to watch until her father was out of sight. “Yep. That’s where he and Jackson hang out until the next patrol.” She looked down at her little sister and grinned impishly. “That’s why I never get caught here. I know their schedule.”

  A hand gently flattened against her ribs.

  Rena awoke with a smile on her lips, despite the fact she’d just been roused from her first pleasant dream in years. “Go away, Ty,” she mumbled sleepily.

  When the touch remained, she opened her eyes only to find that no one was near her. In a bath of tingles, the touch slowly faded away. Confused, she sat up and saw Chewie hunkered in the corner with his head down, ears back.

  A horrendous clanging burst through the house. Chewie broke from his docile stance and barked loudly. Rena shot to her feet. Ty emerged from the office with a finger to his lips.

  Wait a minute… had he been in there the whole time?

  “Go wait in the office,” he whispered. “Shut the doors.”

  Another burst of clanging startled her out of her thoughts. “What the hell is that?” she squeaked.

  “The doorbell.”

  “That is not a doorbell, it’s a fire alarm!”

  A brief quelling look. “Heavy sleeper, remember?” Then he scowled and waved her away.

  As soon as she closed herself behind the double doors of his office, she pressed her ear against the ornamental wood and waited.

  A woman’s voice greeted Ty as he ushered his visitor inside. Rena pushed the doors apart slightly, just enough to allow a peak. The woman was tall, ash blond, pretty, but a little on the prim side. Black-framed glasses sat upon a dainty nose. Evidence suggested she’d ripped a rubber band from her thick hair a short time ago and gave it a little fluff. Rena’s mouth creased in wry amusement. How transparent.