“I loved William,” she said a little too sharply.
“I wasn’t questioning that.”
“Then what were you questioning?”
“Usually people say they were dating for a certain amount of time before they were married. Not that they were friends.”
“We dated for six months. That was enough.” She pressed her lips together, stopping more words from flowing. She didn’t need to defend her relationship with William. Didn’t need to explain it. She didn’t even think Logan was asking her to. Somehow, though, in the darkest part of her mind and in her deepest moments of sadness over William’s death, she’d always wondered if loving him more would have saved him.
“I can understand that. I dated my wife for two years. We married the day after we graduated from college. People we knew said we were crazy, but...we just knew it was right.”
“This must be hard on her. She’ll be frantic when she hears that you’re missing somewhere in the mountains in the middle of a snowstorm.”
“Amanda died three years ago.”
“I’m sorry.” Such a lame thing to say, the words so powerless and futile.
“Me, too.”
“Did she—”
“This might be the end of the road.” Logan cut her off, the car easing to a stop a few inches from a fallen tree. “Let me see if it can be moved.”
“I’ll help.”
“Wait until I figure out how big the tree is.” He jumped out, the engine still humming, the harsh scent of smoke filling the vehicle. Laney wrinkled her nose, trying not to think of the cabin burning but unable to think of anything else. All William’s hard work—the floors, the table, the cabinets—all of it gone.
She blinked back hot tears and got out of the car. It was silly to cry about things. They could be replaced. Besides, she hadn’t planned to keep the cabin. She’d planned to sell it, and she could still sell the land it sat on.
If they ever got off of the mountain.
She grabbed hold of the small pine tree that Logan was tugging toward the side of the road, her arm brushing his as they moved it out of the way. The air was tinged with smoke, the scent of it stinging her nose and eyes. She knew she shouldn’t look down the mountain, but she looked anyway, searching until she found the dark plume of smoke she’d seen earlier. This time she could see a splash of gold in the gray-black world.
Would there be anything left when the fire crews finally got the fire under control?
“You okay?” Logan slid an arm round her waist and pulled her close. He felt warm and solid, and she thought about the years when he’d been the only person she could count on, the only one who knew the truth about her life and her parents. She’d trusted him then, but she knew little about him now. Not where he’d lived before he went to prison, not who his wife had been or how she’d died. Not whether he had children, a career, the kind of life he’d spoken about when he was a troubled teenager with big dreams.
“I will be.” She turned her back on the burning cabin and the woods and got in the Jeep. She’d come here to say goodbye. This was as good a time as any to do it.
Goodbye to the past.
Hello to the future.
A fresh start. A clean break.
It’s what she’d been craving for months, but running toward it was so much more difficult than she’d thought it would be. Seeing the cabin burn was such an achingly painful thing that she wondered if she were really ready to move on.
Logan slid behind the steering wheel and offered a half smile that flashed the dimple in his right cheek, and Laney’s heart stirred, her mind yearning for the thing they’d had when they were kids. That solid connection, that deep knowledge of one another.
She turned away, staring out into the blowing snow as they started back up the mountain. The landscape hushed and still, the sky gray and heavy, they could have been anywhere, heading toward anything, but they were here, on William’s mountain, running for their lives together.
It was better than running alone.
She clung to that thought as they crested one final rise and then slowly made their way down the mountain toward the valley below.
FOUR
He had to get Laney to safety and leave her there before anyone knew that they’d been together. The pain in Logan’s head, the foggy shivery feel of warmth seeping back into his frozen body, even the risk to his life...none of it mattered as much as that.
Laney shifted in the seat, looking over her shoulder and back the way they’d come. He doubted there was much to see. Just the falling snow, the blue-black darkness and the billowing grayish smoke from the fire. They were almost down the mountain, and he could still see it, spreading across the night sky, relentless and unchanged.
Was the fire crew there? Were the police? Had anyone put his name together with Laney’s yet? It would happen. It was just a matter of time. When that happened, Laney would become a suspect, part of whatever plot the police thought Logan had hatched to stage his escape.
He couldn’t let that happen to her.
“How many people knew that you were on your way to Green Bluff, Laney?” he asked. The more people who knew her plans, the more likely the police could trace her movements. That could play to her advantage, or it could be the thing that brought her down.
“My clients. My coworkers. My friends. My neighbor, Mrs. Lawrence. She’s going to water my plants while I’m away.”
“Do they all know that you planned to stop at the cabin?”
“My close friends do. Mrs. Lawrence does. I left a detailed itinerary so that she’d know where to reach me if there were any problems at the house.”
So typical of the Laney he’d once known.
Making sure everything was perfectly in order.
“Call her and tell her that you’re on your way home.”
“What?”
“Tell her that the storm is too bad to continue. The pass is closed and you’re staying in a hotel until the roads are clear. Once they do, you’re going to return home.”
“But—”
“Make the call.” He tightened his grip on the steering wheel as the road widened in front of them. If the police were waiting at the entrance to the highway, no phone call would save her.
“And then what? You actually want me to go back home?”
“Yes.”
“Only if you go with me.”
“That will be the first place the police look once they realize that the cabin in the woods belonged to your husband and once they realize that you’re Elaine Mackey.”
“No one calls me Elaine. I changed my name legally when I turned eighteen. It’s Laney now. Laney Jefferson since I got married.”
“And you don’t think that the police will be able to figure that out?”
“So what if they do? You and I knew each other a long time ago, Logan. The only people who will even remember that are in Green Bluff, and I’m sure they haven’t thought about my family or you in years.”
He laughed at the absurdity of anyone in Green Bluff forgetting anything that had to do with the Mackeys or him. People in the small town had long memories.
“What?”
“No one in Green Bluff has forgotten you or your parents. No one has forgotten me either.”
“It’s been—”
“Eight months since I was arrested for stealing heroin from the evidence locker at work and selling it for a few million dollars and about five hours since I was sentenced to prison. I was the deputy sheriff of Green Bluff before that. I’m pretty sure that no one has forgotten me.”
“You never left?” She sounded surprised and a little appalled. She’d hated her life in Green Bluff. Hated the act that she’d put on for the people of the community. The only daughter of the founding father�
�s great-great grandson, and she’d had to be perfect, pretend that her family was perfect and hide the bruises and the pain. He’d watched her do it from the time she was eleven until he’d helped her escape. He understood why she’d seen nothing good in the community, but he’d found a home there, a place where he could be more than the child of a gang leader and a prostitute. More than a foster kid shuffled from home to home, trouble to trouble. He’d found roots in Green Bluff, and he’d made sure that they were planted deep.
“I didn’t see any reason to leave.” Even after he’d gathered enough evidence to have Laney’s parents thrown in jail for fraud, child abuse and neglect and to have her father arrested for and convicted of the murder of a fifteen-year-old foster child who had died and been buried on the Mackey property a few months before Logan arrived, Logan had known that Green Bluff would always be home.
“I guess I just figured that you’d moved away, maybe gone back to Los Angeles.”
“I spent fourteen years of my life in L.A., Laney, but that doesn’t mean there was anything there for me. Call your neighbor. Tell her exactly what we discussed, okay?”
“Fine.” She pulled out her cell phone and made the call, her voice cheerful and bright as she explained the change of plans. All those years of hiding the truth was paying off in a big way, but she didn’t seem happy as she hung up the phone.
“Good job.”
“I don’t like lying to someone I care about.”
“It’s not a lie if you follow through. Stay in a hotel tonight. Go back home tomorrow. You can fly to Green Bluff in a week or two.”
“I only have two weeks to clean out the house and get it on the market, then I have to go back to work. Besides, I told my father’s lawyer that I’d be there. He’s expecting me.”
“Will any of that matter if you get thrown in jail?” Up ahead, the road dumped out onto the highway. No flashing lights or police blockade.
“No, but...”
“What?”
“I wanted to get it over with. Going back there, seeing the place that I hated as a kid, it doesn’t fill me with warm fuzzy feelings.”
“Jail won’t fill you with them either.”
“I get the point, Logan. You don’t have to keep stressing it.” Laney leaned her head against the window, trying to ease the headache building behind her eyes. She hadn’t slept well the past few nights, lying awake into the early morning, telling herself that she could and would clean out her parents’ house.
Such a good plan.
Completely fallen apart now.
Maybe she could hire someone to clean it out, and she could supervise things from Seattle. That’s what she’d intended to do, but her father’s attorney had made it clear that he thought she should handle the job. Her legacy, he’d called it, and she couldn’t deny it. The Mackey house and the property it sat on had been in the family for more than a hundred years.
She’d be the last generation to have lived there.
She probably should feel better about it than she did.
“There’s a sign for food and lodging. We’ll pull off here and find a hotel. You can get a room for the night and go home in the morning.”
“Where will you be?”
“I’ll find a place.”
“I can book you a room, too.”
“How will you explain that to the police when they question you and the person who checked us both in?”
“I can check in and—”
“I don’t want you to worry about me, Laney. Okay? I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing it for a long time.”
A lot longer than most people. He didn’t say that, but Laney knew the truth. He’d entered foster care when he was seven, and he’d mostly raised himself from that point on. He’d told her stories about the people he’d lived with, the trouble he’d gotten into, the dreams he’d had of finally finding a family that would be a real family to him.
She hoped that he’d found that with his wife.
“Do you have children, Logan?” she asked.
“Amanda and I planned to, but it didn’t happen.”
“So, you’re alone?”
“I have friends and community. That’s my family.”
“Oh.” She didn’t know why hearing him say that made her throat clog and her eyes sting.
Maybe because when she’d allowed herself to think about Logan, she’d always imagined him with the big family that he’d once told her he wanted.
“Is there anyone you want me to contact for you? A girlfriend or—”
“I don’t want you to tell anyone you saw me. Not your best friend. Not a boyfriend. Not the police.” He pulled into the parking lot of a well-lit hotel and parked in a shadowy corner. “You’d better get in there. The sooner you check in, the sooner you can start making the story that you told into the truth.”
“Okay.” But she didn’t want to leave him running through the dark town, trying to find a safe place to hide. She dug through her purse, took some money from her wallet and pressed it into his hand. “Take this. You can use it to get a room somewhere else.”
“I can’t take your money.” He shoved it back at her.
“I took your money thirteen years ago. Two thousand dollars, Logan. Remember? Consider this a partial repayment of the debt.” She tucked the bills into the pocket of her husband’s flannel shirt.
“There was no debt. It was a gift.” He trapped her hand, his palm pressing hers against worn flannel. She felt his heart beating beneath the fabric, his warmth seeping into her palm.
“This is a gift, too, then. Take it, okay? Because I can’t stand thinking about you wandering around in this storm.” Her voice broke, and she looked away.
“Don’t cry.” He cupped her cheek so gently that she thought she might just do what he’d told her not to.
“I’m not.”
“Good.” He smiled and leaned across her to open the door. “Better go. The longer you sit here, the weaker your alibi gets.”
Alibi?
Was she really going to need one?
She hoped not.
Prayed not.
She’d spent so much of her life in trouble, dug in so deep that she couldn’t ever get out of it. Once she’d escaped, she’d promised herself that she’d never return. She’d been an upright citizen, an excellent college student. She filed her taxes on time, had never been pulled over for speeding.
Up until the past few hours, she’d never worried about seeing a police cruiser or an officer of the law. She’d always assumed that they were on the same side.
Not anymore.
She’d crossed a line, committed a felony. Probably more than one. If the police found out, she was in big trouble. It should matter a lot, but at that moment, all she cared about was making sure that Logan would be okay.
“Why don’t you take my car? You can drive—”
“How will you get home?”
“I’ll call a taxi.”
“And if I get caught with your Jeep?”
“You won’t.”
“There’s no guarantee of that, Laney. Just like there’s no guarantee that a police officer won’t pull into this parking lot and see us sitting here together. Go check into the hotel. Get a good night’s sleep. When you wake up, tell yourself this was all a dream.” He smiled and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, his fingers calloused and hard.
She swallowed down further protest and climbed out of the Jeep. He was right. The best thing for both of them was to go it alone. With her cabin burning to the ground, the police would eventually track her down. If Logan were with her, they’d find him, too.
“Be careful,” she threw out before she closed the door.
He nodded, his eyes dark in the dim interior, his jaw shadowed
with the beginning of a beard. So different than the teenager that he’d been, but somehow just the same, too.
She hurried across the parking lot, nearly running on the snow-slick pavement.
A car door closed behind her, the soft snap echoing through her head as she entered the hotel.
Logan heading out into the storm again.
If she thought about it too long, she might turn around and go with him, so she didn’t think. She just smiled at the night clerk and did her best to forget that she’d just left her best childhood friend to face his troubles alone.
FIVE
Laney’s cell phone rang as she dragged her suitcase into her room. She answered quickly, her heart stuttering as an officer introduced himself, explained that her husband’s cabin had burned down and asked if he could ask her a few questions.
“Sure,” she said, settling onto the bed, her heart pounding so frantically she thought that she might pass out.
“Your neighbor said that you were on vacation?”
“That’s right.”
“And that you’re staying in a hotel close to the pass?”
“About fifteen miles from it.”
“Mind if I stop by? It’ll be easier to conduct the interview face-to-face.”
She did mind.
A lot.
“That’s fine. Or I could stop by the station on my way home in the morning.” She hoped she didn’t sound desperate for him to take her up on the offer.
“It’s better if we speak tonight. Just give me the name of the hotel and the exit number.”
She had no choice, so she rattled off the name of the hotel, the exit number and her room number. She wanted to keep talking and give him information that he hadn’t asked for just to try to prove that she was innocent of any wrongdoing.
Only she wasn’t innocent, and he hadn’t accused her of anything.
Yet.
She bit her lip, said goodbye after the officer did and disconnected. Then she sat on the bed staring at her shoes and wondering how she’d gotten into such a mess. Snow melted from her boots and seeped into the carpet, the track of slushy prints that led from the door to the bed making her pulse jump again.
Fugitive Page 4
