Most Wanted Woman

by Maggie Price

  While Zink drove away, Regan lingered in the advancing evening gloom that was slowly turning the sky a ghostly lavender. A few minutes, she told herself. She just needed some time alone to align her thoughts. And get a handle on control so she wouldn’t start sobbing when she told Etta she was leaving.

  Pulling her bottom lip between her teeth, Regan glanced at her watch. Etta was now probably glued to the TV, watching her favorite sitcom. A.C. had called earlier to say he was bringing dinner by after he ended his shift at the marina, so Regan didn’t need to cook on her night off from the tavern.

  Just as well, she thought as fatigue seeped through her. She was so tired, she wasn’t sure she could stay awake long enough to put a meal together.

  She wandered onto the wooden dock, where the breeze off the lake turned the air ten degrees cooler. With the lounge chair beckoning her, she settled onto its padded surface and stretched out her legs. Helplessly, her thoughts turned again to Josh.

  After Steven’s death, she had thought she would never want another man, but she did. Achingly. Desperately. A man she could never have. Would never even see again. All she could do was hope that after she distanced herself from Sundown she would be able to shut off the needs that were eating away at her.

  She could hope that, but in her heart she knew that would never happen. She would think about Josh McCall for the rest of her life. And want him.

  She closed her eyes against a throbbing sense of grief and loss and loneliness.

  Minutes later, she dropped off the edge of fatigue into sleep.

  Josh had just stepped out of the shower when the phone started ringing. Not his cell phone, which he’d left in easy reach on the bathroom vanity, but the landline phone downstairs.

  “Hell!” He grabbed a towel, hitched it around his waist and headed for the stairs. He reached the kitchen just as the answering machine clicked on.

  And swore again when he heard Nate’s voice.

  Josh scooped up the phone as he stabbed the button to turn off the machine’s recorder.

  “Dammit, Nate, I about broke my neck getting downstairs. Why didn’t you call my cell?”

  “Because using a cell phone is the equivalent of talking on a radio transmitter. Trust me, bro, you don’t want anyone with the right equipment eavesdropping on what I’ve got to say.”

  Dread clamped a vise on Josh’s chest. “You got something back on the run you did on Regan’s prints?”

  “I got plenty. Her real name is Susan Kincaid. She’s a paramedic. Her prints were entered into the system when she went to work for a Louisiana ambulance service.”

  “Okay.” Josh shoved a hand through his wet hair. He’d already known the Regan Ford name was an alias. And that she had extensive medical training. He’d also been on-target when he pegged a hint of the South in her voice. “What else?”

  “Ms. Kincaid’s got trouble. Or maybe I should say she is trouble.”

  Josh hesitated. “What sort of trouble?”

  “She’s wanted for murder out of New Orleans.”

  The comment caught Josh like a punch in the gut. He braced a shoulder against the wall. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. I had a lab tech do a second comparison of the latent prints you sent me off the snifter with those on the classification listed in the NCIC hit. It’s her.”

  “Christ.” Josh set his jaw against the pain that snuck through, fast as a razor-sharp blade, and pierced his heart. On the heels of that came a rush of realization that he cared about Regan, had connected with her in a way he never had with another woman. He squeezed his eyes shut and fought to steady himself. It took a couple of seconds to regain his mental balance. Later, he would let himself feel.

  Now, the only way he could deal with this was to shift into cop mode. “Who did she supposedly kill?”

  “Dr. Steven Vaughn. Her fiancé.”

  I was engaged once. He died.

  Josh clenched his jaw tighter against the memory of Regan’s words. “How?”

  “She slipped him an overdose of drugs,” Nate continued, “then set it up to look like suicide. That’s all the info that came back on the NCIC hit, except that the New Orleans PD is willing to extradite. The contact at the NOPD is Detective Payne Creath.”

  “You have to figure Creath asked NCIC to notify him if her fingerprint classification got a hit,” Josh commented, forcing his mind to focus on the facts. “Which means if you don’t contact him, he’ll contact you.”

  The silence coming across the line pressed like fingers against Josh’s eardrums.

  “Why the hell wouldn’t I contact Creath?” Nate asked.

  “Because I’ll do it,” Josh snapped. Dammit, his mind was already accepting what Nate said as fact. Why, then, was there another part of him sending the message to hold back? “After I find out what Regan has to say.”

  “Her name’s Susan, bro, and I already know what she’ll say. She’ll swear she’s innocent. Then she’ll try to explain how changing her identity and hiding out from the law for a year shouldn’t make her look guilty.”

  “Yeah,” Josh agreed. There was no reasonable argument to that.

  “Look, when I talked to you the other day it was obvious you have a personal interest in this woman,” Nate said, his voice losing its hard edge. “If it’ll make things easier on you, I’ll call Decker and have him pick her up.”

  Josh stared unseeingly across the kitchen. There’d been so many contradictions in what Regan had said. The way she’d acted. So many things the cop in him had overlooked while emotionally he just let himself get sucked in deeper. Caring for her. Wanting her.

  Have you broken any laws?

  Not a one.

  Dammit, he’d believed her. Would have banked his career on the fact she was telling the truth.

  His career. Damn.

  He hadn’t known how much his badge meant to him until he’d spent an entire month living with the prospect of losing it. Just the thought had put the fear of God in him. And resulted in his resolve to toe the line a little closer from now on. If he was smart, he would call Decker and have the chief come and pick Regan up. Susan, he reminded himself. Decker could call Creath and deal directly with the NOPD cop.

  And he could stay out of it, away from her, which is what she’d said she wanted all along. Not because some guy had abused her and she was afraid he’d come after her lover. No, she’d needed to put distance between them because he was a cop. And she was wanted for murder.

  The storm of dark anger brewing in his gut had him curling his fist against the kitchen counter. Like hell he would stand back. They were playing by his rules now and the lady was going to have to deal with him face-to-face.

  This time, there’d be no running away on her part.

  “I’ll notify Decker,” he said, his voice clipped with anger.

  “All right,” Nate agreed. “What about Creath?”

  Josh knew the standard procedure—contacting an officer who’d issued a warrant should be the first item on the list. Still, there was that something niggling at him, an uneasiness or maybe even an awareness that told him to hold back until after he confronted her. Dared her to look him in the eye and lie again.

  “I’ll contact Creath, too. After I get some answers from her.”

  Nate cursed. “You can get whatever the hell answers you think you need from her after you contact Decker and Creath.”

  “I’ll handle this my way, Nate. I want twenty-four hours.”

  “Bro, I ran Kincaid’s prints. As you’ve already pointed out, if I don’t contact Creath, he’ll probably call me, wanting to know how I got her fingerprints and where the hell she is.”

  “Right.” Josh was well aware he was not only stretching rules for a woman wanted for murder, he was asking his brother to do the same. Still, there was that something in his gut.

  “If Creath calls you, use the stolen car story.”

  “Dammit, Josh.” Nate paused and Josh could almost hear his brother gnashi
ng his teeth. “All right, you’ve got twenty-four hours, and the clock starts ticking now. If I don’t hear from you by this time tomorrow, I’m getting Bran and our sisters and we’re all coming to Sundown and kicking your butt.”

  Josh narrowed his eyes. “You’re welcome to try.”

  “Whatever it takes to stop our rebel brother from tossing away his career over a woman he’s gotten in too deep with.”

  “I’m not in that deep. And you’ll hear back from me.”

  Josh slammed down the phone, stripped off his towel as he took the stairs two at a time. In his bedroom he jerked on a T-shirt and jeans, then wrenched open the drawer on the nightstand.

  With his anger growing into a black heat that bubbled in the blood, he clipped his badge to his waistband, snagged his handcuffs, then stalked toward the door.

  Asleep on the padded lounger, Regan dreamed she was in a clearing, with the woods, thick and green, surrounding her. The air was still, the bright sun warmed her flesh. She was alone, her secrets safe.

  All at once, a green car slammed into one of the massive oaks that lined the clearing. The crash of glass, the horrendous rending of metal exploded on the air. She raced to the car, worked desperately, futilely to save the injured teenage girl. And while Regan worked, a man snapped her picture.

  Suddenly the sun hazed over. The air went cold. Something moved stealthily at the edge of the darkened woods.

  The shadows parted, and Creath stepped into view, his eyes glinting with the lust for revenge.

  “No!” Frantic, Regan shoved at the hand Creath locked on her arm, jerked against the metal he snapped around one wrist. And then he snatched her up off the lounger.

  A scream caught in her throat; her eyes flew open. This was no nightmare, she realized. It was real. But it wasn’t Creath who’d picked her up. Not Creath who she stared up at through the waning evening light. It was the hard, angry face of another cop.

  “Josh.” His name came out in a raw gasp as he turned and strode across the dock. She craned her neck, saw he was carrying her toward his slick, high-powered speedboat. “What are—”

  “Just shut the hell up.”

  “I—” The air hissed out of her lungs when his muscled arms locked around her, as hard as the steel he’d fastened around her right wrist. Handcuff!

  Fear erased the last muddled dregs of sleep. “No.” In wild panic, she fought against his hold, shoving a palm against his chest, the loose end of the cuff dangling from her wrist. “No!”

  His hand shot up into her hair, his fingers clenching as he tugged her head back. His eyes were smoldering, his lips a thin, furious line. “Keep struggling, and I’ll add resisting arrest to the charges against you. Susan.”

  Paralyzing terror engulfed her. She knew her color faded. She could feel it drain and leave her face cold and stiff.

  Her dazed mind cataloged Josh’s movements as he stepped onto the boat, felt it sway beneath their weight. A second later he dropped her on one of the deep-cushioned benches that faced each other behind the control console. Before she could move, he locked the loose end of the handcuff onto a metal rail bolted to the boat’s hull.

  “That’s just in case you get the urge to run from the law again.” His voice was utterly flat, more frightening than the hiss of a snake. From behind him, the dim light from the dock enhanced the sheer physical power of his hard, broad shoulders and conditioned muscles.

  She was Josh McCall’s prisoner. And he was in total control.

  Oh, God. Her mouth dry, lungs heaving, Regan watched in stunned silence while he cast off the ropes that moored the boat. That done, he dropped into the seat behind the control console. Seconds later, the engine roared to life; he kept the speed slow and steady as the boat curved away from the dock, then he hit the throttle and sent the boat slicing through the dark water.

  While wind slapped at her face, fear speared into Regan’s bones. Despite the heated night air that rushed across her flesh, a cold sweat misted her skin. For an entire year she had lived in dread of this moment. Had imagined it playing out in any number of scenarios, which always included a backup plan for escape. She jerked her right wrist, felt the bite of metal against her flesh and knew there’d be no escaping this.

  No running from Josh.

  The boat seemed to spin beneath her, and nausea crawled up the back of her throat. While she fought for control, she studied Josh’s face, illuminated in the wash of light from the control panel. He kept his gaze focused out over the dark water, and never once looked her way.

  Even through her fear, Regan ached. From the moment she’d met him, she’d known that whatever danger she faced from the outside, she was facing danger just as great from her own heart. And she’d been right, she thought. She had fallen in love with the man who would send her to prison.

  She had no idea in what direction they were going, no clue how long the boat cut through the inky water. When Josh finally turned off the engine, she heard her own heart tattooing through the abrupt silence.

  He lowered the anchor, then turned in his seat toward her, his face unreadable. The boat’s navigation lights glinted off the gold badge clipped to the waistband of his jeans. She understood it was the cop she was dealing with, not the man.

  “You know who I am.” Her lips began to tremble, and she firmed them into a hard line. “So why did you bring me here instead of taking me to jail?”

  “The first thing you need to understand, Ms. Kincaid, is that I’ll be the one asking the questions.”

  She narrowed her eyes, welcoming the flare of temper that heated her cheeks. For a time anyway, she would use that anger to push back the debilitating fear clawing inside her. “Well, Sergeant McCall, would you at least tell me how you found out who I am?”

  “I ran your fingerprints.”

  She blinked. “My prints…”

  “Which I lifted off the snifter you drank from last night.” His voice changed from dangerously soft to viciously sharp. “I watched a woman I cared about have a panic attack. I wanted to help her. Protect her. But I couldn’t do that without knowing what she was up against. Which meant finding out what the hell she wasn’t telling me. Now I know.”

  “You should have left it alone,” she shot back, her temper building to match his. “You should have just left me the hell alone.”

  “Yeah, I can see why you’d think that.” The hand he’d rested on the steering wheel clenched into a fist. “You had me convinced you were hiding from some badass who’d abused you. That you had to keep your distance to protect me. Lady, you deserve an Oscar.”

  “It was no act!” she shouted, because she was too frightened to do otherwise. “The badass is obsessed with me. He killed my fiancé and my partner because he viewed them as obstacles in his way to having me. And when I disappeared to get away from him, he set things up to make it look like I’d killed the man I loved. If you don’t think all that’s abuse, think again.”

  Josh studied her for a long moment, his eyes steady and measuring. “Since the New Orleans PD wants you for murder, it doesn’t look like they bought your story.”

  “Why should they? He’s one of them.”

  This time it was Josh who blinked. “Are you claiming some obsessed NOPD cop committed two murders?”

  “I’m not claiming it,” she said, tossing the word back at him. “I’m telling you he did. He admitted it to me.” The wind whipped her hair into her face. In reflex, she started to lift her right hand, wincing when the cuff bit into her wrist. She used her free hand to shove at her hair. “It wasn’t until after I reported him to his chief that I found out how effectively Creath had blocked me from getting help.”

  “Creath,” Josh repeated mildly. “This would be Detective Payne Creath? The cop who issued the murder warrant on you?”

  Regan’s insides turned to ice. “Have you…” Fear settled over her like a vapor, rippling against her spine. “Have you talked to him?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Don’t
. Josh…don’t talk to him.” The terror that clawed up her throat sounded in her voice. “No matter if you believe anything else I say, you have to take my word for it that Creath is dangerous.” Her hands had begun to shake, and she curled her fingers into her palms. “You won’t think he is, because he has a way of making people like him. Believe whatever he tells them. I did. So did Steven and Bobby. But something inside him is twisted. Evil. He killed them.”

  Having deliberately positioned Regan on the end of the padded bench where the stern’s navigation light would illuminate her, Josh had a clear view of her face. To his knowledge, a person could not intentionally make herself go pale, much less pale to the point that the skin seemed translucent and the lips looked like those of a cadaver. That’s exactly what she’d done when he’d said Creath’s name.

  Seeing her looking so small and fragile—and terrified—tightened the knots in his gut. He conceded there was more than just cold anger inside him. His heart had also taken a couple of nasty slashes from the news Nate had give him. The realization he was powerless to keep his emotions totally at bay had him wanting to break something with his bare hands.

  He forced his gaze past her shoulder. In the distance, lights dotted the lake where other boats were anchored. Around them there was only silence. Echoing, stretching silence.

  He looked back at Regan, stared into the deep pools of her eyes. It hadn’t just been a cop’s refusal to allow a suspect to ask questions that had kept him from explaining why he’d hauled her into his boat and driven to the middle of the lake. He hadn’t answered because he simply didn’t know the reason.

  Her name’s Susan, bro, and I already know what she’ll say. She’ll swear she’s innocent. Then she’ll try to explain how changing her identity and hiding out from the law for a year shouldn’t make her look guilty.

  He appreciated the spirit of Nate’s warning. But like Nate said, he was the rebel of the McCall clan and he’d never allowed others to make up his mind for him. No reason to start now. He had always trusted his instincts when it came to forming conclusions about people’s character. Conclusions that were almost always confirmed—or disproved—by that person’s actions and behavior.