The Great Escape

by Cheryl Anne Porter

  She stood. But did she have to stare up at him with that scared-doe expression on her face? She didn’t ask, but Dan reassured, “I’m just taking Houston’s cuffs off you. Their property. They stay here.”

  She tensed, breathing shallowly. “Are you…cutting me loose?”

  There it was—that fear in her voice that sliced like a knife through his gut. Dan shook his head. “No. You’ve been arrested and charged. Only the D.A. out in Taos County can cut you loose.” Then, taking a big risk, he did something every rookie cop knew better than to do. He knelt in front of her to unlock her ankle manacles. This exposed his head and neck to danger, should she decide to attack him. But he knew she wouldn’t. Just knew, that’s all.

  Pulling the irons free of her, he chanced a look up at her face. Miss O’Leary’s classic features still looked very troubled. Dan raised an eyebrow. “I can trust you not to try to escape, can’t I?”

  She nodded. “As much as you can trust any cold-blooded killer.”

  Dan fought the grin that tugged at his lips. “Point taken. But to do that, you’d have to jump out of a perfectly good airplane. Would you?”

  “Only if it was on the ground. Otherwise, not without a perfectly good parachute.”

  “A smart aleck. I like that in a prisoner.” With that, Dan straightened up to his near-six-foot height. This put the top of her head at his chin. He hoped that point wasn’t lost on her. He also hoped she remembered the 9-mm he had strapped in its shoulder holster under his windbreaker. “For the record,” he added, “the Cessna will be in the air. And you won’t have a parachute.”

  Her puzzled frown deepened. “Why not? I mean, why would I need one? And what Cessna?”

  “Hold still,” was Dan’s only answer. He then worked to unlock her handcuffs and the waist-chain. This close to her, he caught her scent—warm and clean. But sweet somehow. Heady stuff. He glanced up…met Joan O’Leary’s openly-staring-at-him green eyes. His gaze slipped from her eyes to her mouth. Get a grip, Hendricks. He did, taking a giant step back and speaking as nonchalantly as he could. “We’ll be flying back to New Mexico now.”

  “We will?” Looking like a ponytailed little girl questioning an adult, she raised her chin to gaze up at him. “I convinced you that I’m…guilty of murder?”

  “I didn’t say that, now, did I?” He reached under his jacket and pulled out the handcuffs attached to his belt When he reached for her, she pulled her wrists to her chest, shook her head. Like a child defending herself against further hurt. A sense of helplessness had Dan firming his lips into a straight line and saying tightly, “Protocol. Hold out your hands.”

  Grimacing right back at him, she offered up her wrists—and a fuss. “As if I could do anything to you. You’re more than twice my size.”

  Finally. Safe territory. And precisely the point he wanted to make with her. “So was LoBianco.”

  Her expression changed to wary. “But you have a gun.”

  “So did LoBianco.”

  A grain of fright shadowed her expression. “He did?”

  “Yep. I’d think you’d know that.” Dan locked the cold irons around her child-size wrists. And hated like hell doing it. Her skin was red and raw. He fought to keep his expression neutral. “All right,” he said, “let’s go. You and I have some papers to sign. And guess who insisted on holding them? Our favorite detectives. So you’ll get to tell Hale and Carter goodbye. And I can pay off an old bet.”

  3

  AS ORDERED by the bossy pilot, Joan had remained quiet for several hours. Quiet meaning she hadn’t spoken out loud. Her thoughts were another matter. Jeez, what a bare-bones airline. No movie, no magazines, no bathrooms, no beverages. No food. Not even one lousy, hermetically sealed little bag of peanuts. As if she could open one. The only person with enough smarts and muscles to do that— without suffering a stroke while trying—would have to be a cross between a card-carrying Mensa member and a professional wrestler.

  So with nothing else to occupy her time or her thoughts, she glanced to her left at Deputy Sheriff Dan Hendricks. This was a whole different side of him she was seeing. Somehow, up here in the wild blue yonder, he didn’t seem as intimidating as in the interrogation room in Houston. She could almost forget he was a cop, that she was a handcuffed prisoner in his custody. She found herself wondering what he was like personally. One way to find out. Besides, he’d had things his way long enough.

  “You didn’t tell me you’d be the pilot,” Joan yelled, not sure if he could hear her under those lime-green earphones on his headset. Or over the loud droning of the itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny little plane’s engine.

  But apparently the big deputy could hear something because he turned to her, frowning as he moved the earphone to behind his ear and resettled his sunglasses. “What?”

  “I said, you didn’t tell me you’d be the pilot.”

  “Ta-da! I’m the pilot.”

  Joan made a face. “Imagine my relief, seeing as how you keep fiddling with all the controls to this thing.”

  He surprised her by grinning at her comeback and shaking his head. But he didn’t say anything. Just repositioned his earphone and refocused his attention on all those controls.

  Well, that went well. She occupied herself with clutching at her coat’s too-long sleeves. Thank heavens he’d made her put it on. She thought of another question, which she again yelled out. “Whose plane is this?”

  Again he looked over at her. Again he frowned as he moved the earphone away from his ear. “What?”

  Joan rolled her eyes. “The plane! Whose is it?”

  “Oh. The department’s.” He reached for that earphone again, but some thought stayed his hand. He looked over at her. “And the answers are—it’s a Cessna 421. And we have it because our jurisdiction covers a lot of territory. Yes, most of it’s mountainous. Yes, we log more miles in this than we do in our police units. And yes, tax dollars paid for the plane.”

  Another pause while he stared at her behind the dark amber tint of his aviator sunglasses. “Can I put this back on?” He indicated the earphone.

  Well, obviously it irritated him that she was talking to him. So she shook her head and said, “Not yet. Are all the sheriffs in Taos pilots as well as cops?”

  “No. Just me. And it’s commercial—my pilot’s license. I got it before I took this job. There’s only one sheriff. The rest of us are deputies.”

  “Oh. So, a pilot and a cop. A man of many talents, huh?”

  Again with the grin—a wide, dimpled, twinkling one that evoked visions of long nights and twisted bedcovers. “I haven’t had any complaints.”

  Joan swallowed, let his loaded comment slide. “So, do you always provide the shuttle service for prisoners?”

  “No. You’re special. If your next question is how long until we get there, the answer is we’re almost there. Hopefully, we won’t be too late.”

  Before she could stop herself, Joan asked, “For what? You got a hot date?”

  He grinned. “Yeah. So do you. With a mob of reporters. Sheriff Halverson’s setting up a press conference. You’re his grist for the news mill. He’s tired of being asked how come we’re letting the real murderer get away while we chase down every nutcase making a false confession.”

  Joan fluffed up like an angry chicken. “I told you, I am not a nutcase.”

  The somber deputy stared at her from behind those glasses. “And?”

  “And?” She frowned, thought for a second, came up with it. “Oh. And I didn’t make a false confession.”

  “There it is—the part I don’t believe.”

  “Don’t. I don’t care.” See if I talk to you anymore. And she didn’t. Not for two seconds, anyway. “Does that mean you’ll keep looking into all the evidence and considering other suspects?”

  “Tell me why we should, when we have you.” His squared jaw, the straight line of his mouth and his sunglasscovered eyes rendered him inscrutable. Then he tilted his head down farther, looking at her lap. Joan
followed his gaze, saw her white-knuckled hands clutching her coat. She raised her head, again met his…sunglass lenses. “Would that scare you, Miss O’Leary—if we quit looking?”

  She relaxed her grip on her jacket and lied, “No.” Then added, “What does scare me is being aloft in this gnat of a freezing airplane. Which does not have the first magazine, toilet, bite of food or drink or—” Suddenly hearing her own whining, Joan got quiet and stared at him a moment “Sorry. That’s the short list of my present miseries.”

  This time his grin was no more than a flash of white teeth. “I think I know the long one.” With that, he checked his instrument panel and then turned his attention to the outside world. After one or two quiet, engine-droning moments, he said, “Hard to believe it’s in the eighties down there, huh?”

  Well, that was out of the blue. And his first voluntary comment. Joan decided to play along. “‘Down there?’ Oh, you mean on Earth? That is Earth I’m looking at, right?”

  He spared her a glance. “Can I add a fear of flying to what scares you?”

  Joan made her I’m-not-a-baby face. “It’s not the flying that scares me. It’s the crashing part.”

  “Yeah, me, too. I was flipping through my student pilot’s manual, but couldn’t find the chapter on what to do if that happens.” The teasing twist to his lips made her want to grin right back at him.

  But she didn’t. She just quipped, “If you learned the other chapters well enough, you won’t need that one.”

  He laughed. “Look at it this way—worrying about crashing takes your mind off your short list, doesn’t it?”

  “Well, it did. But thanks for reminding me.” Since he was in the mood for chitchat, Joan felt encouraged to make a voluntary comment of her own. “You must love being up here. It’s beautiful. Does this blue sky go on forever?”

  Joan saw his eyebrows wing above his sunglasses. Her stomach lurched. “Did I say something wrong?”

  “No. Not wrong. Just ‘blue skies forever.’ My wife used to—never mind. I just didn’t expect to hear you say it.”

  With that, he slipped his earphone back over his ear, indicating they were through talking.

  His wife. Sergeant Mackleman said she’d been killed. A real conversation stopper. So, Joan had two choices—either stare openly at him or look out the window to her right. She decided the window was definitely the lesser of two…evils. So, peering out, looking down, she smiled. Gorgeous. Breathtaking. Earth dressed in early autumn colors. The yellows and reds, the blue rivers, the green fields, the high mountains and—

  “Did you really kill your lover, Miss O’Leary?”

  “What? I don’t have a lover,” Joan answered absently, still looking out her side window. Her brain promptly kicked her mental behind. She pivoted to face the lawman to her left. That lime-green earphone was pushed back. His expression said he’d heard her answer. Joan rushed to amend it. “I mean, no. No, wait—not no. I mean, yes. Yes, I killed him. In a fit of passion.”

  “Oh, that’s right. Passion,” he drawled, affecting a sober frown as he faced the windshield again.

  Joan didn’t know what to do. Or say. So, from under the sweep of her lashes, she scrutinized his profile. And wished again he’d take off those sunglasses. She liked his hazel eyes, the way the skin crinkled at the corners when he smiled. And the shape of his face, that stubborn jaw and strong chin. The military cut of his thick, dark hair. His wide mouth—

  “Like what you see?”

  She froze, held her breath. He hadn’t even turned his head, and yet he’d caught her memorizing his features? A better question to self: Why are you memorizing his features? Her heart knocked around in her chest. The moment stretched as she struggled for something appropriate to say.

  But the big deputy beat her to it. “I guess not. My mistake.”

  “Speaking of looks,” Joan said, “why’s it so hard to believe I acted in a fit of passion?”

  “Well, let’s see.” He looked over at her, then shook his head and shrugged those broad shoulders. “Nope. Don’t see it. Not you. But isn’t that the wrong term? Isn’t it ‘the throes of passion?’ Or ‘a fit of temper’?”

  Forget the semantics. Joan zeroed in on his insult. “You don’t think I can be passionate?”

  He shrugged, like no big deal. “I said passionate wasn’t the right word. I meant you don’t seem—”

  “I know exactly what you meant that I…don’t seem.” Put out with his assessment of her, Joan scrunched down in her seat and brooded. She’d show him passionate. Turn him every way but loose. Without a second thought, she blurted, “Not that it’s any of your business, but I can be as passionate as the next woman—even more so. And don’t you forget it.”

  A husky chuckle preceded his words. “I won’t. I’m just glad to know that all that red hair and those green eyes aren’t wasted on someone with no fire.”

  Slightly mollified, more than a little flattered and feeling ridiculous that she would be either of those things, Joan tamped a lid on her temper. She even managed to draw in her poked-out bottom lip. “I have fire.”

  The deputy’s chuckle became a laugh. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  She sat up and looked over at him. “Guess you’ll have to.”

  The lawman nodded. “Guess I will. Where you’re going, you’ll never have a chance to prove yourself.” He then turned a three-billion-watt grin on her.

  Oh, sweet heaven. Tingles went all the way to Joan’s toes. He was temptation on the hoof. Why couldn’t they have sent some old guy to get her, instead of this beautiful, sexy man? When he finally looked away from her, Joan worked at cooling her tingly parts. Because if she didn’t, she’d end up hijacking this plane and dragging him off to bed. She closed her eyes against that naked, sweaty vision.

  When she risked looking at the world a moment later, she sucked in a breath at the gray and gathering clouds that billowed in the distance. How long had they been there? So much for blue skies being forever. She looked over at her pilot, found him a study in square-jawed grimness. That earphone was back in place. She redirected her worried gaze to the clouds in front of their tiny aircraft. They were flying right into the storm’s fury.

  Suddenly afraid, she blanked out her thoughts of the deputy’s skill as a lover, in favor of his technical skill as a pilot. She raised her cuffed hands to capture the deputy’s attention. He glanced at her, moved the earphone back. Joan called out, “What do you make of this?”

  His lips twitched around a grin as he gazed at her. “Looks like trouble to me.”

  He wasn’t talking about the weather. Feeling her face heat up, Joan looked down, focusing on her jeans-covered thighs. At least he’d allowed her to dress in her own clothes before hauling her out of the Harris County facility. When she felt more in control of her fluttering belly, she glanced up at him. Thankfully, this time his gaze was fixed on the weather. Her own weather fears had her calling out, “You were kidding about that chapter on crashing, right? I mean, you’re not a student, right? You can handle this?”

  He slowly turned his head until his deep amber lenses were directed at her eyes. He nodded. “I was kidding, and yes, I can handle this. Or anything else that requires handling. Even you.”

  Joan’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re violating the prisonerslash-jailer relationship.”

  He looked from her…to the storm…back to her. “The slash-what?”

  “Slash-jailer. We need more detachment between us, sheriff.”

  “This is as detached as it gets in a plane this size. I can’t move over.”

  Joan quirked her mouth in irritation. “Not that. The looks, the innuendos.”

  “The what? Are you sure you’re not flattering yourself?”

  “No, I’m not. I mean, yes, I’m not…not flattering myself. I mean I’m sure.” She started over. “I mean, all that talk about my passion and you not having any complaints. And that grinning, twinkly look of yours.”

  “Twinkly look? I’v
e never looked twinkly in my whole life.”

  Joan jutted out her jaw like a bulldog. “Well, you just did and not a minute ago. I’ll thank you to remember that you have a certain responsibility toward me. After all, here I am handcuffed and helpless and stuck in this bathtub-toy airplane with you, and we’re about a billion feet off the ground.”

  “Eighteen thousand.”

  “Whatever. It’s not fair of you to take advantage of me like this.”

  The man’s jaw poked out to match hers. “Take advan— Did I miss something? How in the—? We’re strapped into these seats like astronauts. I haven’t put a hand on you in any way that didn’t have to do with my official duty as a sworn officer.”

  “Don’t play the ‘official duty’ card with me. Remember brushing my hair out of my eyes? Remember that? You liked touching me. Admit it.”

  His voice rose. “Admit what? You’re the one who—”

  At that moment, the Cessna bucked and jumped. The storm had found them. Wide-eyed with terror, Joan clutched her parka’s sleeves and riveted her gaze to every action her pilot made.

  Muttering under his breath, he repositioned his earphone and checked all the gauges and knobs and stuff on the panel in front of him. Without looking at her, he called out, “Hold on. We’re in for some stormy weather.”

  “Is that supposed to be funny?” Joan cried out as the tiny plane’s wings wobbled. If he heard her, he didn’t answer her. And if he’d answered her, she didn’t hear it—not over the panicked pounding of her heart. Was she safe in his hands? Could she have confidence in him, in his abilities? She looked over at his hands. He was whiteknuckling the wheel thingie. Oh, God.

  Then, unbidden and surprisingly, he began explaining their situation to her. “This is an unseasonal storm for September, but not unheard of. Houston Hobby and Taos both mentioned I might encounter it when I filed my flight plans. Looks like the ‘might’ part is right. It’s might-y big.”

  She had to agree as she split her gaze between the increasingly dark outside world and the deputy’s face. She saw him shake his head as he consulted some gauge doohickey. She stared at the same gauge and then turned to him. As if she’d asked, he glanced over at her and said, “Can’t do much but try to make it in. The good news is…if we crash, these strong north head winds will have used up the fuel. So there shouldn’t be any fire.”