Seth's expression was skeptical. "Ambushed," he repeated dryly.
"There was a van blocking the road and three men who were shooting at them. One of those men shot Tom." Going on quickly before he could show any more doubt, she added, "It was a black van. Presumably the men would have gone down into the ravine to make certain they were dead, but a woman with kids stopped. She called for help on her car phone."
He considered her thoughtfully for a moment, and she suspected that her last comments had struck a chord. She would bet that theyhad received a call about the accident from a woman with children, that the womanhad reported a black van and three men in the area. Still, he sounded far from convinced when he spoke again. "This ishis story."
She nodded.
"And you believe him."
Another nod.
"Why?"
Because instinct had told her early on that Dillon wasn't guilty. Because even when she'd been his hostage, he hadn't hurt her, hadn't wanted her to be afraid, had been quick to reassure her that she would be all right. Because when he had been soaked, freezing and suffering from his injuries and exposure, he had been more concerned withher wet clothing, with whether or notshe was warm and comfortable. Because handcuffing her that first night had filled him with shame. Because she'd started trusting him practically from the start. Because she'd started falling in love with him soon after.
"Because his story of being ambushed, considered along with everything else, makes sense," she said at last. "Because all of his injuries weren't caused by the accident. Because, like Tom, he had been shot. In the back, Seth. Because…"She glanced hesitantly at the door, seeing through the glass that no one but the dispatcher was in the outerroom, that she was still absorbed in her magazine, but she lowered her voice anyway. "Because I think it was Steven Vickers who shot him."
* * *
She told Seth everything—how Dillon had gotten the job with Bradley Electronics, how he had discovered the problems with the bank's system and pointed them out to his boss, how Russell Bradley had challenged him to prove his assessment by breaking into the bank, how Bradley and Bill Armstrong had then usedhis break-in to cover up their own. When she finished, she sat back quietly in her seat and waited for him to speak.
When he finally did, his expression was drained, his voice weary. If he was still angry, she couldn't tell. "When did he show up at the cabin?"
"Aboutfive o'clockTuesday."
"So he was there when I came by the next morning."
She nodded.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because he was standing right inside the door with Tom's gun."
That piqued his interest. "Tom was shot with a nine millimeter. We think it washis own gun."
"All of your deputies carry nine millimeters, don't they? Including Steven Vickers."
Looking pained, he didn't comment on that. Of everything she'd said this afternoon, that, she knew, was probably the hardest for him to accept. He had hired Steven himself, had trained him and fathered him along. It had to hurt to even consider the possibility thathis officer had been bought off by the badguys, that one of his own men had tried to kill an unarmed prisoner, that in the process he had almost killed one of his fellow deputies.
After a moment he shook his head. "Ashley, this is crazy. Steven's a cop. We've known him all of his life. He almost married your sister, for God's sake. How can you believe that he's part of this?"
"I don't blame you for not wanting to hear this, and I don't expect you to believe it. Just consider the possibility, Seth. Look into it—not because I'm asking you to, not because it might keep Dillon alive, but becauseif it's true, Steven has to be stopped. He has to be punished."
"It'snot true. None of it is true. It can't be."
"Then who shot Dillon?" she asked gently.
"Maybe Tom did. Maybe Boone tried to escape after the accident, and Tom shot him." But she could see that he wasn't impressed with his own theory. Tom had suffered serious head trauma in the crash; Dillon had injuries of his own, both from the wreck and from his confinement in theSylvanCountyJail. Tom was taller, much heavier and far more muscular than Dillon. How likely was it that the badly injured deputy had shot his prisoner in the back, lost his gun to the wounded man and was then shot himself?
Not very.
"How is Boone now?"
"He'll be fine."
After another silence, he grudgingly asked, "You believe this guy?"
"Yes."
"Everything? You believe he thought he was just doing his job when he broke into the bank? That Bill Armstrong—bank president, former mayor, school board member, county commissioner—was behind the robbery of his own bank?"
Ashley stood up and paced off the length of the room, five feet, maybe six, then retraced her steps, passing her chair and ending up in front of the window. There was a small parking lot out back, enclosed with an eight-foot-tall chain-link fence and secured with a wide gate. The occasional impounded car went into the lot, and when prisoners were brought into the jail, the deputy parked out back, them brought them through a narrow door only a few feet from this office.
Right now the only vehicle in the lot was a Crown Victoria, old and much used even before its tumble into a ravine. The front left door was missing, and every window was either shattered or missing altogether. She couldn't identify a single body part that hadn't been scraped, crumpled oraccordioned ; the roof had been flattened until it rested mere inches above the door frames. The only way the back doors could be opened was with a crowbar, which meant Dillon must have escaped through the window. Lucky for him he was so lean. If he'd been bigger, taller or heavier, he wouldn't have been able to wriggle through that small space. He would have been forced to stay there and wait for Seth and his men to arrive. And if his luck were bad enough and Steven Vickers had been the first deputy on the scene…
Sighing, she turned her back on the badly damaged car and faced Seth. "You sound just like him. That's the reason he took off a year ago. He didn't think anyone would believe him. Armstrong and Bradley are good citizens, and he's…"
"A punk."
His response weighed down her shoulders and made her sigh again. "Maybe he was right. Maybe you would have been too bigoted and narrow-minded to listen to him. Maybe you would have taken the easy way out and locked him up without ever considering other suspects. Maybe you would have been so eager to solveCatlinCounty's biggest crime ever that you wouldn't have cared that you were sending an innocent man to prison."
"That's not fair, Ashley."
She smiled sadly. "Lifeisn't fair. Ask Dillon."
For a long time he sat silent, toying with a pencil on his desk. Finally he tossed it onto the desk pad, sat back and met her gaze. "What is it you want from me?"
"I want you to talk to him. To listen to him. To prove—"
"Or disprove."
She acknowledged his interruption with a nod. "To prove or disprove what he says. And I want you to let him stay at my cabin until you have proof one way or the other. I don't want him locked up here. I don't want him where somebody can get to him."
"Why are you doing this? What difference does it make to you?"
Ignoring his questions, she moved away from the window. "Give me enough time to get home and talk to him, to tell him that you're coming. Thirty minutes should be plenty. And please don't tell anyone anything, especially Steven." She walked to the door, then turned back and finally answered those two questions. "I'm doing this because it's the only thing Ican do. Proving his innocence makes all the difference…He makes all the difference in the world to me." She slid her purse strap over her shoulder and opened the door, then stopped once more. "Thank you, Seth."
* * *
The first hour and a half Ashley was gone passed at a relatively normal pace. Dillon knew it would take her close to thirty minutes to make the fifteen-mile drive down winding, narrow roads and another half hour to return. Figure another thirty minutes to get her money and talk t
o Seth, and she should be on her way home. Hell, she shouldbe home by now, he thought with a scowl. She'd been gone at least two hours, maybe two and a half.
Maybe she'd had trouble with the van. Maybe she'd needed time to track down Seth. Maybe she had stopped at the store or gotten delayed by friends or acquaintances.
Or maybe she wasn't coming back.
Maybe she had gone to see Seth, all right, to tell him where his missing prisoner could be found.
No.He couldn't let himself start thinking that way. He trusted her. Hedid. There could be any number of innocent reasons why this trip was taking so long. He didn't have to automatically suspect the not-so-innocent ones. Ashley deserved better than that.
He stopped his restless prowling in front of the fireplace. The fire was out, the ashes cold, sending a pungent smoky scent into the room. He had let the flames die soon after Ashley left. It was such a sunny, warm day outside. But inside, with the door closed and all the windows covered, it was gloomy and uncomfortably cool. Maybe he should build another fire to warm the place before she returned.
Or maybe they could warm each other in bed instead.
With a sigh, he settled his gaze and his attention on the mantel, where primitive pots shared space with carved boxes and one tall round basket. He picked up one box and lifted the lid to reveal a half-dozen metal buttons inside. Silver thimbles, some looking fairly old, nestled in the next box, and two thin gold bands sat on a piece of fluffy cotton in the third. Wedding rings. Hers and Seth's, or maybe her grandparents'? Feeling guilty and more than a little foolish, he picked up the larger of the two and slid it easily onto his finger. It definitely wasn't Seth's, he decided. Sheriff Benedict was a big man with big hands. This ring might fit his little finger, but definitely none of the others.
For a time he stared at his hand. Even in the cabin's gloom, the gold somehow gathered enough light to gleam brightly against the dark bronze of his finger. He'd never worn a ring of any sort, not once in his entire thirty-four years, but this one felt comfortable. Familiar. Right.
But itwasn't right. He wasn't anyone's husband and wasn't likely to everbe .
Returning the ring to the box and replacing the lid, he picked up the tall basket. Most of her baskets were woven with thin, flat reed or narrow bundles ofsweetgrass , but this was made from some sort of vine, with a flat, round lid. Lifting the lid by its round wooden knob, he looked inside and grinned. She didn't have any money at all, she'd insisted, but she had lied. The basket was filled with bills, a few fifties and twenties but mostly tens, fives and ones, some rolled together, others crumpled and dropped in. He wasn't surprised that she kept a little cache of money around the cabin; it sounded like something she would do, exactly like something her granny would have done.
Hearing the uneven sputter of the van's engine chugging up the hill, he put the lid back on and the basket back where it belonged and went to the front window to look out. A tremendous feeling washed over him—relief mixed with shame. He shouldn't have doubted her. She'd given him no reason to think that she would betray him, and he regretted the lack of faith. Better than anyone else in his life, though, she would understand where the doubt had come from.
She climbed out of the van and slammed the door, then circled to the other side, taking a grocery sack and a small cooler from the back. He would like to go out to meet her, to greet her, but he went no farther than the door, opening the lock, staying safely out of sight of any prying eyes.
"How did it go?" he asked the moment she was inside.
"Okay." She didn't stop but went straight to the kitchen, setting her load on the counter there. Potatoes and a bottle of garlic powder spilled out of the bag, rolling until the back-splash stopped them. "I picked up a few things for dinner tonight."
"You saw Seth?"
"Yes," came her muffled answer as she opened the refrigerator and ducked behind the door to unload the cooler.
"Everything's on for tomorrow?"
Straightening, she closed the refrigerator, set the cooler on the counter and removed a cake from the bag, setting it aside out of the way. She finished unloading the remaining items, gathering them neatly on the counter, before finally facing him. "You really want to leave tomorrow, don't you?"
He studied her face in the yellow glow of the overhead light. She looked so serious, so unhappy, so… So filled with regret. Feeling an odd little quiver inside, he cautiously answered. "I don'twant to leave at all, Ash. Don't you know that? But I have to. If I want to stay alive, if I want to keep you alive, Ihave to go."
"No, you don't. You don't have to go anywhere. If you stay, we can work things out. We can—"
He laid his fingers over her mouth. "No more arguments, please."
Last night she had let him stop her, had let him distract her. Not so this afternoon. She pushed his hand away."Would you stay if you could? If you woke up in the morning and the bank-robbery charges were gone, if Russell Bradley and Bill Armstrong had disappeared, if you were a free man, would you stay here?"
His grin was crooked and felt phony. Itwas phony. There was nothing amusing about her question, nothing worth smiling about. She was talking about the one thing he wanted most in the world—to stay here with her. The one thing that he could never have, because the bank-robbery charges weren't going to be dropped, and Russell and Armstrong weren't going to disappear from his life. He was never going to be a free man again.
"Honey, you wouldn't be able to get rid of me," he murmured.
She considered his answer for a moment, seemed to grow a little unhappier, then flatly announced, "I told Seth where you were."
Dillon stared at her, certain that he must have misunderstood. But the words remained between them, emotionless and blunt, and her expression confirmed them. He took a step away from her, then another, not stopping until the table was at his back. "You … told … Seth…"
At last her grimness and regret gave way to other feelings—to fear and anxiety, remorse and sorrow. "I had to, Dillon. Can't you see that he'll help us? That he'll protect you? That he'll prove your innocence so that you can stay?"
He'd never felt such numbness. It was almost as if he were outside looking in, watching this little scene unfold between two other people … except for the sharp little ache of betrayal that was rapidly growing in his chest. "You told Seth," he murmured again,then his voice sharpened. "Whatdid you tell him?"
"Everything."
She didn't elaborate; she didn't need to. She had waited until she'd gotten all the details herself and then gone running off to repeat it all to her precious Seth. She had played Dillon for a fool, had made him believe in her, had coaxed him and seduced him…
A sickening shudder rippled through him. Oh,God, was that what last night had been about? Seducing him into trusting her, into opening up and letting down his guard? All her talk about wanting him, about having just one night together, about not having a chance for a commitment or a future but settling for just one little bit of intimacy… Had it all been lies, all part of her plan to get away from the cabin alone this afternoon? Had there been any truth at all in anything she'd said or done in the past five days?
"He's coming up here to talk to you," she said uneasily. "He's going to let you stay here at the cabin while he checks out your story. He just needs to hear it from you."
He didn't believe her. He wasn't sure he could ever believe her again.
"I—I asked him to give me thirty minutes so I could talk to you, so I could make you understand…" Her voice quavered. "Dillon, youhave to understand. This isright . It's best—"
"Right for whom?" he interrupted. "For Seth, who gets tosinglehandedly capture the armed-and-dangerous bankrobber? For you? This earns you points with him, doesn't it? Are you willing to settle for his gratitude, or are you hoping to get something more from him? Hey, maybe he'll sleep with you—he could go a long way toward easing that loneliness you were talking about lastnight, couldn't he? Maybe he'll be so grateful that he'll even let you
back into his life."
Her eyes bright with unshed tears, she responded with more dignity than he deserved. "Right for you, Dillon. You haven't done anything wrong, beyond trusting the wrong people, and—"
He interrupted her again with an angry, mocking laugh. "Damned right, sweetheart. Obviously I haven't learned my lesson yet. I trustedyou."
"You haven't done anything wrong," she repeated, becoming more agitated, "and Seth can prove it. Now that he knows who to investigate, he can clear your name. You'll be able to stay here. You can have all the things you want—a job, a home, a family, a place to belong."
"With you?" heasked, his voice menacingly soft. "You think I would stay here with you? You think I would trust you? You think I would still want you?" He wanted to find some satisfaction in the hurt that flashed through her eyes, but he couldn't feel anything except his own hurt. Anger. Betrayal.
Survive the Night Page 22
