by Rebecca York
She couldn’t answer Jake, not and focus on Carter.
Open to me, she begged the unconscious man. Let me show you what it can be like.
She wasn’t sure what she was doing. She only knew she was showing him possibilities he had never even considered. Each bad thing could have come out differently. Each decision could have been the turning point.
As she tried to show him that, she felt him pulling back from the abyss.
The dark forces clawing at him loosened their hold, and his spirit came back to the body lying on the bed.
Her own body jerked as life swooshed back into him. Blinking, she looked down at him. He was sleeping.
Tell him what will make a difference for him, Jake whispered in her mind.
Go to the police, she said to Carter. Tell them that you were trying to question Evelyn Morgan. Tell them that she died trying to get away from you. It was an accident. You didn’t mean to do it.
He moaned.
I know you don’t want to go to the police, she soothed. I understand. But you don’t want to go to the dark place when you die. You want to change your life. Take your punishment. Then find a job where you work for humanity.
She didn’t know if it was possible. Maybe he’d already gone too far down the wrong path.
You think he’ll go to the cops? Jake asked.
Maybe. If we reinforce him.
Carter still slept, and she was exhausted from connecting with him. Jake came over to her side of the bed and caught her in his arms, carrying her to the chair by the window, sitting with her cradled in his lap. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against his shoulder.
“Tell him to stay asleep,” Jake murmured.
She did as he asked, sending Carter soothing, restful thoughts and the suggestion that he didn’t want to wake up yet.
“We have to get him back to town,” she said to Jake.
“We’ve got other problems first. Like, there’s a dead woman lying in the weeds.”
She dragged in a strangled breath. “Would you believe I wasn’t thinking about that?”
“You were a little busy.”
“What are we going to do?”
“What they would have done to us. She’s already dead. I think we can leave her for the alligators.”
Rachel fought a wave of sickness, but she didn’t have a better suggestion. He was right. Mickey and Tanya would have killed her and Jake and let the creatures of the swamp cover up the crime.
Still, she didn’t offer to help when he strode outside. Through the window, she watched him pick up Tanya and carry her into the underbrush where they’d taken refuge when the other couple had attacked.
When he disappeared from view, she waited tensely until he returned—alone.
“I put her in the water with Mickey,” Jake said when he reappeared.
“Did you see him?”
“No. But I saw a couple of gators.”
She winced. “What about their car? They must have left it somewhere.”
He shrugged. “Maybe they went hiking and got into trouble.”
“Maybe.”
“If it’s on the side of the road, nobody may check for several days.” He looked out the window. “But Carter Frederick’s car is still outside.”
She nodded.
“I’ll drive it back to the city with him in it.”
“Is that safe?”
“We’ll tie him up again and lay him on the backseat, just to be safe. You drive the car we came in. And we’ll meet up…” He paused to think.
“In the parking lot between the French Market and the river.”
“Kind of a conspicuous place.”
“But not too far from a police station.”
Rachel walked back to the bed and bent over Carter Frederick.
We’re going back to town now, she told him. Everything’s going to be all right. You’re going to turn yourself in to the police. You’re going to tell them that you were hired to get information from Evelyn Morgan, and she got killed when she was fighting with you. You didn’t mean to kill her. It was an accident. You’ll feel so much better when you explain it to them.
He moved restlessly on the bed, and she reinforced the suggestions she’d given him.
“Let’s go,” Jake said aloud.
“I’d better put my wig back on,” Rachel answered.
“Yeah. Right.”
He waited while she made herself look like the woman who had driven here with him. When she was ready, he stepped to the bed and helped Frederick up. She steadied him on the other side, and together they walked to the kidnapper’s car.
After they’d laid him on the backseat and secured his hands and feet, Rachel told him to sleep on the ride back to the city.
When she was finished, Jake closed the back door and opened the front.
Rachel came into his arms, and they held each other tightly for long moments.
“I don’t like separating,” she whispered.
“I don’t like it, either, but we’ve got to drive both cars back to town.”
“Unfortunately.”
Jake backed out of the space in front of the cabin. She did the same, then followed him down the access road to the highway. When she lost sight of him around a bend, she sent him a mental message.
Everything okay?
She felt his startled reaction. You can still reach me?
Yes.
That’s good. We won’t be out of touch on the road.
She followed him onto the highway, keeping him in sight. It took too much effort to stay with him the whole way, but she checked in with him from time to time, until they’d both pulled into parking spaces beside one of the pavilions of the French Market where vendors sold produce, hot sauce, Mardi Gras masks, T-shirts and other New Orleans souvenirs.
Since it was late in the day, the lot was almost empty. Jake wiped his fingerprints off the steering wheel and the interior of the front seat while she opened the back door and uncuffed Carter Frederick’s hands.
Jake leaned into the other side of the car and worked on the man’s feet.
When he was untied, they helped him sit up. Then they both wiped away any remaining fingerprints and walked into the market, where they stood behind a nearby pillar and looked out toward the car.
It’s time to wake up, Rachel said gently.
From her hiding place she saw Frederick blink and look around.
Who’s talking?
Rachel Gregory. You were going to get information from me, but you changed your mind because of what happened to Evelyn Morgan.
Alarm contorted his features. “She’s dead.”
But it was an accident. You want to tell that to the police. You want to come clean because you don’t want to end up in the bad place when you die. Do you remember that you were on your way there when I pulled you back? It will be for all eternity next time.
He shuddered, and she knew he was remembering the horror of what had happened when she’d snatched him back from the brink of death.
Jake grasped her hand, giving her a silent message, and she glanced at him before looking back at Carter Frederick.
You’re going to forget that I talked to you. You’re going to forget that you found us in Houma. You never left New Orleans. You fought with us here. You tried to kidnap me here. But you never caught up with us again.
“Will that work?” she whispered to Jake.
“I don’t know. But we have to try.”
She sent the same messages to him again, then ended with words of encouragement. You’re very brave to turn yourself in. But it’s the best thing. You want to change your life because you don’t want it to end the way it almost did. You should go right to the police station now. It’s on Royal Street. You’ll feel so much better when you tell them about the accident with Evelyn Morgan. Rachel waited a beat before asking, Do you know how to get to the police station at 334 Royal Street?
Frederick nodded. Then, as they watched, he climbe
d out of the car and looked around as though he had just realized where he was. Or maybe he was looking for them.
Rachel heard Jake gasp.
“What?”
“He’s got a gun. It must have been hidden somewhere in the car.” He cursed.
“Can we get it away from him?”
“We can’t take the chance.”
Before Frederick got more than twenty yards from the car, a uniformed policeman stepped out of the French Market and into the parking lot.
Frederick saw him and froze.
Then he raised the gun.
Oh, no! When Rachel started to dart out from around the pillar, Jake held her back.
Stay here. You can’t do anything.
She knew he was right. She’d only get them arrested.
Then the sound of gunfire made her gasp.
Chapter Seventeen
Jake fought against the sick feeling rising in his throat. They’d expended a lot of time and effort setting Frederick up to turn himself in. Apparently, his criminal instincts were too strong. As soon as he’d seen a cop on the street, he’d run.
Leaving Jake and Rachel where?
Jake heard the sirens. Was it police cars, or maybe an ambulance? Maybe the guy wasn’t dead, after all.
Jake ached to step out from behind the pillar and find out what was going on. Instead, he linked his fingers with Rachel’s, leading her in the other direction.
“Where are we going?” she gasped out.
“To an apartment over one of my antique shops.”
“Is that safe?”
“For a while.” I hope, he silently added.
They walked down the street at a normal pace, even though he wanted to get out of sight as soon as possible. As they turned down a side street, he felt safer. They wended their way toward the antique shop, then stopped short when he heard a radio blaring from an apartment.
“City police have shot an armed man in the French Quarter. According to authorities, the suspect drew a gun when he saw a patrol officer, and the officer opened fire. The injured man has been taken to Saint Luke’s Hospital in critical condition.”
Rachel gasped. “We have to go there.”
“What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know. But I feel like it’s important.”
Jake clenched his teeth. “We can’t. We have to lie low until it’s safe, then get out of the city.”
“And then what?” Rachel asked.
“I don’t know!”
Rachel gave him a pleading look. “Please, let me go to the hospital. It’s important, but I can’t do it by myself.”
He grimaced. “We can’t.”
“I have to.”
“One of your tarot-card-reader hunches?”
“Yes.” She looked so serious that his throat constricted.
He didn’t want to go anywhere near the hospital, but he felt Rachel’s urgency coming off her in waves.
“Okay,” he muttered.
She clenched her hand on his arm.
“Thank you. And don’t tell me it’s my funeral.”
The hospital was in walking distance, and they approached cautiously.
Now what? Jake asked, still wishing that they’d gone to the vacant apartment.
You know everything about the city. How do we get in?
Walk in the front door, like we’re there to visit a relative.
He felt her cringe.
Did you change your mind?
No. She took his arm, and they went through the oversize revolving door and into the main lobby.
Rachel moved along the wall, her gaze turned inward.
What are you doing?
I need to focus. Her urgency made him keep any further observations to himself as he watched people come and go. At least nobody was paying them any attention.
He was still taking in the busy lobby, when she spoke again.
The woman at the front desk is occupied. Pick up the two visitor’s passes that a man and woman just left on the counter.
Jake blinked, looking toward the desk as a man and woman walked away. While the clerk’s back was turned, he picked up the passes and kept his body angled away from the desk as he returned to Rachel. She clipped on her badge, and he did the same as she led him toward the elevator.
They’d come here to find Carter Frederick. And Jake was thinking that if the man was alive, he was in the emergency room, or being operated on. So why were they going up to one of the wards?
But Rachel had a head start on psychic talents, and she must be operating on some knowledge that he didn’t possess.
He sensed her excitement but couldn’t catch her thoughts.
In the confines of the elevator, he tried unsuccessfully to read her expression, before he asked, Rachel?
Her thoughts gave away nothing. Cryptically she only told him, Let’s see if I’m right.
He went along with her.
They got out on the third floor, and he followed her around a corner and down a hallway. When he saw uniformed police officers stationed outside a door, he wanted to run in the other direction, the way Carter Frederick had run, but he wasn’t going to leave Rachel.
“We’re expected,” she said to the officer.
“Names?”
“Rachel Gregory and Jake Harper.”
Jake stiffened as she gave their names. What was she doing, leading them to the cops? But the officer only nodded and stepped aside.
Confused yet intrigued, Jake followed Rachel into the hospital room and stopped short when he saw a woman lying in the bed. Her head was wrapped in bandages, but when he stared at her face, he felt the shock of recognition. It was Evelyn Morgan.
In the chair beside her was Detective Paul Moynihan.
“You’re alive.” Jake gaped at the woman who had come to his office.
She looked as if she had aged ten years since he’d seen her last.
“And very lucky. I was in a coma,” she said in a halting voice. “They didn’t think I would wake up, but I fooled them.”
“I see you got my message,” Moynihan said to Jake.
“Which message?”
“The one I left this morning on your voice mail and with your assistant—where I told you it was safe to come out of hiding.”
Jake nodded. He hadn’t gone near his voice mail or contacted his assistant today, but he preferred not to explain how they’d arrived at the hospital.
Instead, he gave Moynihan a dark look. “Why did you say Evelyn Morgan was dead?”
“We decided that if someone wanted her dead, we’d let them think they’d succeeded.”
“We were wanted for murder,” Jake accused.
“Questioning.”
Jake hardened his stare.
“And we still didn’t know you weren’t involved—until Evelyn woke up and told us about the guy who came to her hotel room and demanded information about an international terrorist plot she’d never heard of.”
“International terrorist plot?” Rachel breathed. She kept her gaze on Evelyn, but her mind zinged to Jake. It wasn’t that, was it?
Apparently she doesn’t want to tell the real story.
“Why were we at the top of the suspects list?” Rachel asked the detective.
“Because you both had appointments with her for just before she was attacked.”
“Call me a sentimental old matchmaker,” Evelyn broke in. “But I met Rachel Gregory when she did a tarot card reading for me. Then I was at Jake Harper’s restaurant and met him, and I thought they’d be perfect for each other. I was horrified when I found out I’d gotten the two of you in trouble.”
Jake stared at her, and their eyes met. She was lying, but the expression on her face told him that she wanted him to keep the confidence.
Don’t complicate the story, Rachel silently added, and he knew that starting to explain the real facts would only get them into deep trouble.
“I do so apologize,” Evelyn said.
�
�No harm done,” Rachel answered quickly. “While Jake and I were on the run from the police, we got to know each other pretty well. I guess your instincts about us were right.”
“Since you were innocent, why did you run?” Moynihan asked Jake.
“Because I’ve seen too many people railroaded into jail,” he answered. “It’s easier to prove your innocence if you’re free.”
Evelyn ignored the exchange as she looked from Rachel to Jake and back again, then smiled. “You found out what you have in common?”
“Yes,” Rachel answered.
“I’m so glad.”
She looks like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, Jake silently observed.
But she’s a tough-as-nails old broad.
Jake turned to Moynihan again. “If there are no charges against us, then I think we’ll be going.”
“Wait. I want to talk to you,” the woman on the bed called out.
“You probably should rest now,” Jake answered, knowing he was going to stay as far away from her as he could. When he turned and left, Rachel followed him out of the room.
You don’t want to ask her some questions? Like why did she start the fire at the clinic? Rachel asked when they were on their way back to the elevator.
I want to get as far away from her as I can.
Maybe she knows the Badger’s real name. It’s likely she was working for him out of D.C. when she torched the building.
Or she was working for Solomon. Maybe he wanted to get rid of his own clinic. If he’s still alive, he could be dangerous. And suppose she does know the guy who funded the clinic. What if he’s the one who sent Carter Frederick after her? What’s he going to do when he finds out she’s not dead? If I were her, I’d go into hiding. Like us.
Rachel sighed. That’s probably smart.
When they reached the lobby it was quite a different scene from when they arrived. Several camera crews and reporters had set up shop there. Ducking to the side, Rachel and Jake waited until a young brunette reporter began to give her stand-up.
“A man who drew a gun on a police officer earlier today and was shot by the officer has died. He was not carrying identification, and his identity is still unknown. He is believed to be in his early thirties. A white male with blond hair and blue eyes. The name of the officer involved in the shooting is being withheld, pending an investigation.”
