Jace reached over the fence. He circled her rib cage with his hands and lifted. Gathering her into his arms, he carried her across the fence and set her down on the other side. They crouched down in the shadows.
She exchanged looks with him in the dark. Once again, he’d been there when she’d needed him. Once again he’d helped her deal with what she couldn’t deal with alone.
Her throat grew thick. The whole thing was insignificant, stupid, really. They’d been through so much more than crossing a fence. Yet for some reason, it was all hitting her now. What in the world would she have done without him? Why in the world was he still sticking around?
She pushed the questions from her mind and focused on the roof of Dirk’s house. Dirk, too, had been there to help her. And Linda. She owed all of them. But her thoughts kept winding their way back to Jace, causing her to feel strong one moment, vulnerable the next.
Maybe she was finally going out of her mind.
Crouching, Jace moved along the fence where the dog couldn’t see them. Shanna followed, forcing herself to concentrate on the task at hand. The dog yapped a few more times, then was quiet. Reaching the far corner of the yard, Jace stopped. They peeked over the fence.
A light shone from Dirk’s window.
A muffled sound, like a laugh, bubbled in Shanna’s throat. She hadn’t realized how frightened she was until just then.
He’d made it home. Thank God.
They climbed over the fence and entered the corner of Dirk’s yard. More than anything, Shanna wanted to race across the yard, barge through the door and yell for Dirk, to make sure he was all right. Instead, she kept behind Jace, moving quietly and carefully across the yard and to the patio.
Edging up to the glass door, Jace peered inside.
Shanna forced herself to stay at his shoulder. “Do you see him?”
“No.”
“He must be upstairs.”
“Wait a second.”
“What is it?”
Jace grasped the door handle. Unlocked, it slid open easily, silently. “Stay here.”
He slipped inside before Shanna could protest.
She entered right on his heels.
“Oh, God.” Jace spun around. He grasped her shoulders and pushed her back toward the door. “I told you to stay outside.”
Panic surged through her. She fought to break free from his hands, to see beyond the kitchen. She ducked to the side and ripped from Jace’s grip.
She stumbled forward, half-expecting to see Dirk or the sheriff or Barstow himself to be standing in the shadows with a gun.
What she saw was a dark shape sprawled on the floor of the family room…blood soaking into the carpet.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Dirk!” Shanna raced across the kitchen.
Dirk lay on his side, facing away from them. Red soaked into carpet fibers, spreading out from his back like an aurora.
She dropped to her knees. She grabbed his shoulder and pulled him onto his back.
His open eyes stared up at her. The pupils held a grayish cast. Blank. Dead.
Her chest squeezed. No, no, no. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t breathe.
Hands grasped her shoulders, Jace’s hands. He started pulling her away.
She tried to shrug him off. “He can’t be dead. He can’t be.”
“He is.”
“No.” She fought free of Jace’s grip. She’d gotten Dirk involved in this. She’d put him in danger. He couldn’t be dead. There had to be a way for her to save him.
She ripped his jacket open. Blood drenched his white uniform shirt. She had to do something. She tore the shirt open. A dark hole puckered in the center of his white chest.
She’d taken first aid years ago. Pressure. She had to put pressure on the wound. She had to stop the bleeding. She wadded up his jacket and held it against what appeared to be the source of the blood.
Again, Jace’s strong hands clamped down on her shoulders. “He’s not bleeding anymore, Shanna. His heart isn’t pumping. He’s dead.”
She pressed a shaking hand to Dirk’s throat, felt the soft glands under his jaw, felt the bulge of his Adam’s apple, felt the threads of arteries under the skin. But she couldn’t detect a pulse. Couldn’t feel any stirring of life. His throat was oddly cool under her fingertips.
A surge of emotion stung behind her eyes. Tears gushed free and streamed down her face. “It’s all my fault. All my fault.”
“It’s not.”
“It is.” She gasped in a breath. She never should have asked for his help. She should have refused when he offered. Dirk was a good man. And now he was dead because of her.
“Shanna, we’ve got to get out of here.”
Something hit the toe of her boot. She looked down. Something had fallen from Dirk’s jacket, which was still wadded in her hand. She blinked, straining to see through her tears.
A tiny key lay on the carpet, a bulbous orange plastic base encased the end. Shanna picked it up. She looked at it for a second on her open palm, but all she could focus on was Dirk’s blood staining her skin.
A siren screamed outside.
“Come on, Shanna. Now!” Jace grabbed her arm and yanked her along behind him.
Stuffing the key in her pocket, she scrambled to keep up with him. “My laptop! Did you see my laptop?”
“No!” Jace barked. He dragged her out the door. They sprinted across the yard.
When they reached the fence, Shanna glanced behind. Red and blue lights reflected off the house’s eaves and pulsed in the night. Sirens ripped the air. The yaps of the dog next door hit her nerves like the strike of a ball-peen hammer.
Neighbors’ lights flashed on all around.
They vaulted the fence and ran along the edge of the property. Shanna’s head pounded. Her breath rasped in her ears. They reached the end of the yard, leaped the fence again and raced through another.
Where did they leave the car? Shanna wasn’t sure. The only thing she knew was the police were behind them, that if they didn’t find the car soon, they wouldn’t have a chance of getting away. And that with all the blood on her hands and clothes, it wouldn’t take much for them to conclude she’d murdered Dirk.
Maybe she had.
A jangle of shouts erupted behind them. This time Shanna didn’t turn around. She kept her eyes on Jace’s shoulders, kept her grip tight on his hand, and ran for all she was worth.
______
Shanna stared at the cable news report on the cabin’s satellite TV. She’d turned the volume down, unable to listen to the anchor’s speculation about what a horrible person she must be. Endless tears made her eyes burn. They ran hot down her cheeks. She wanted to change what had happened, erase what she’d seen. But it had finally sunk in that it was too late. “I never should have let him help.”
Jace stopped pacing and turned to look at her. “That was his decision. Not yours.”
“I could have told him no.”
“Shanna…”
“I could have. Instead, I used him. I saved myself by sacrificing him.” She rubbed her forehead with her fingertips, digging hard into her skin. “I get it now, what you said before about being desperate, about selling out anyone if the stakes are high enough.”
“Forget what I said, Shanna.”
“That’s what I did. I sold Dirk out. I put him in danger to save my own skin.”
“You didn’t do anything of the kind.” He sat down beside her on the love seat. Raising a hand, he ran his fingers along her cheekbone and through her hair. “He wanted to help you. He tried. What Barstow or the sheriff or whoever shot him did isn’t your fault any more than Roger’s or Davis’s deaths were.”
His touch was so tender, his words so caring, they only made Shanna want to cry harder.
A photo flashed on the screen. She blinked the tears back and tried to see it more clearly. In the grainy image, two people were running from a glass-doored building. It took her a moment, but she knew who it was and wh
en it was taken. Her and Jace, escaping from the Talbot building early that morning.
Just when she thought things couldn’t get worse.
“They have your picture, Jace. I can see your face.”
Jace narrowed his eyes on the TV. “Part of my face.”
He was right. His hat shielded his eyes. Several days’ growth of beard obscured his jawline. On the other hand, Shanna had forgotten to replace her sunglasses on her mad dash out of the building. The camera had gotten a clear shot of her, new hairstyle and all.
Shanna read the scroll beneath the images. Her stomach hitched. “They think we killed Dirk.”
She’d known it was coming. Since they ran from Dirk’s house, police lights flashing, she’d known his murder would be blamed on her and Jace. But seeing it on national cable news was almost more than she could take.
“At least they don’t have a gun with your fingerprints on it this time.”
Fingerprints. She hadn’t even thought of that. “Did you touch anything in Dirk’s house?”
Jace nodded, a matter-of-fact look in his eye. “The door. I tried to smear the prints on our way out, but there’s no telling how successful I was.”
“You were in prison.”
“And on the police force. They have my prints on file. If any prints survived, they’ll be able to trace them to me.”
More tears wove their way down her cheeks and pooled under her chin. It just kept getting worse and worse. Now Jace was pulled into this even deeper. Now his life was ruined, too. “There has to be something we can do.”
“There is.”
“What?”
“The same thing we were trying to do before Dirk offered his help. Get our hands on that laptop.”
Shanna frowned. She’d assumed her boss had taken it from Dirk when he’d shot the security guard. “You think Mr. Barstow doesn’t have it?”
“I don’t know. He might. But then, he might not.” He nodded to the pocket of her jeans. “What did you pick up back there? What fell out of Dirk’s coat?”
She dipped her hand in her pocket and pulled out the key.
Jace stared at it and shook his head. An incredulous smile spread over his lips. “I can’t believe it.”
“What?” Maybe her mind was still frozen from shock, but she wasn’t following whatever it was that Jace found so obvious.
“Bus stations have lockers that use keys like that.”
“You think he put my laptop in a locker at the bus station?”
He tilted his head to the side as if that was exactly what he thought. “It seems that Dirk was so enthralled with the thought of using the bus station to meet and exchange the laptop, he stashed it there anyway. Unless…”
“Unless what?”
“Unless he already had it before we talked to him. Did you mention the laptop when you asked to use his car?”
She searched her memory. “I think I did. What does that mean?”
“Probably nothing. Probably Dirk planned all along to win you over by delivering that laptop. Maybe the high school football game was another part of his fantasy. Reliving his glory years or finally getting the girl at the game like he’d never been able to do in high school. Who knows?”
Shanna stared at the key. She didn’t know what Dirk planned. She wished he could be there to tell them in person.
“So you see? It wasn’t your fault. If the laptop is in a locker at the bus station, Dirk probably got the computer before he ever talked to you. And if he’d played it straight instead of trying to orchestrate some sort of heroic spy adventure or relive his high school days, he would have been able to give it to you right away. And maybe he wouldn’t have gotten shot.”
Shanna knew there was something to all the things Jace was saying, but it didn’t change the one fact that mattered. Dirk died trying to help her.
And she couldn’t let something like that happen again. “I’m going to the bus station. If the laptop is there, I’m going to get it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“My problem. My solution.”
“Shanna, you just saw the news reports. The police will be on you as soon as you step in the door.”
“You were on television, too.”
“Only part of my face. I’ll ditch the hat. Shave. I won’t be as easy to recognize.”
“They have your fingerprints. We have to assume they do. And that part of your face might be enough.”
“I’m willing to take the chance.”
“I’m not.”
Jace blew out a frustrated breath. “If not me, how about Linda? No one is looking for her.”
Shanna’s throat felt tight. Asking Linda to retrieve the laptop seemed like a logical choice, except…
She shook her head. All she could think about was Dirk’s shirt, soaked with blood. All she could see was his flat, dead eyes. “I can’t.”
“Linda’s your friend. She wants to help.”
“Dirk wanted to help, too.”
“Dirk’s death isn’t your fault. We’ve already established that.”
“He never would have been killed if he didn’t try to help me. I shouldn’t have let him. I signed and sealed his death sentence. Whether he took the laptop before we got back to Palmer or after doesn’t make one damn bit of difference.”
Jace stared at her, no longer arguing.
“I’m not going to put Linda in that position. I’m not going to put you in that position, either. I’m going to get the computer myself.”
Jace glanced at the television screen, then back to her. “You won’t make it.”
“At least I won’t be putting someone else at risk.” That, she couldn’t stomach. Already she would never forgive herself.
“Let me do it.”
What? Was he deaf? “You don’t get it, do you?”
He gestured to the television. “I can change my appearance. I can slip through unrecognized.”
“Absolutely not.”
“It would work.”
“It might not.”
“Shanna, it’s worth the risk to me.” Jace covered her hand with his. “You’re worth the risk.”
She shut her eyes. She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t allow herself to hear his words or soak in the warmth of his touch. She pulled her hand away.
“I’m already in this up to my neck.”
“And I’m sorry about that.”
“Nothing’s going to happen.”
“Stop.”
“Think of Emily. Don’t you want to return to her? Don’t you want to end this?”
Tears streamed down Shanna’s cheeks, more tears than she ever thought she could cry. She had no answers. No options. “Don’t you understand? I care about you, Jace. More than I ever wanted to. More than I should. You’ve helped me so much already. You’ve given me someone to believe in, someone who’s every bit as heroic as he seems. If something happened to you, I couldn’t live with myself.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to me.”
“Now you’re the one who’s in denial.”
“At least I’m not giving up.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“It isn’t?”
“No.”
“You’ll be sacrificing yourself if you try to get that laptop.”
“Better than selling out someone else.” She dug her fingers into her forehead, kneading it as if the pressure would help her think. If she’d been able to come up with another solution—a way to keep Jace from risking himself and still ensure that she could return to Emily—she would have jumped on it in a minute.
“I’m sorry I ever told you what happened with my partner.”
“It doesn’t matter whether you told me or not. I still wouldn’t have let you risk yourself this way.”
“That’s not your decision to make.”
She gripped the key hard in her fist. Sharp edges digging into her flesh, she stuffed it into her pocket. “Yes, it is.”
_____
_
“I need a drink.” Jace turned away from Shanna and retreated into the kitchen before he gave in to his need to take her by the shoulders and shake her until her sense returned. Rummaging through the liquor cabinet, he located a bottle of Glenlivet. He leaned on the counter, feeling sick.
“Jace? Are you okay?”
“I’ll be fine.” Grabbing the bottle, he strode for the bathroom and shut the door behind him.
He screwed off the cap on the booze and took a deep slug. The scotch burned down his throat, warming him from the inside out, but it did nothing to wipe the sick feeling away. He stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror.
How could she do this?
How could she pull him into this mess, make him care about her, then shut him out? He knew she thought she was doing this to help him. To protect him. A reaction to his fears of her selling him out. A reaction to the danger Linda was in. A reaction to Dirk’s death.
He set the bottle aside and leaned against the vanity. Damn, damn, damn. Why had he told her about what Darla had done? Why had he heaped all that on her head?
Because he was a selfish bastard, that’s why.
He hadn’t known Shanna then. Hadn’t recognized what a giving woman she was. How positive and caring and…glowing. He hadn’t realized the part of her that would never sell him out was the precise quality that drew him in the first place. It was the light he’d seen in her eyes when she’d first peered at him from the cab of his truck.
But not realizing was no excuse.
He’d been so worried about his own skin, so concerned with protecting himself from the disappointment—hell, the unadulterated load of crap—that Darla had brought down on his head, that he hadn’t recognized that Shanna was nothing like Darla.
Well, he got his wish, hadn’t he? He was going to be sitting around this cabin safe and sound while Shanna charged into that damn bus station, risking her own life and her little girl’s future.
Yesterday all he cared about was bringing Barstow and Gable down. So much had changed in one damn day. This wasn’t about Barstow and Gable anymore. It wasn’t even about Roger and the other guy and Dirk.
Jace was in this for Shanna.
He was falling in love with her.
Grabbing the bottle, he brought it to his mouth, ready to drink himself into pitiful oblivion.
Manhunt (A Rocky Mountain Thriller Book 1) Page 14
