The Runaway

by Lisa Childs

  His car wasn’t particularly fancy, but it wasn’t all-wheel drive like her Jeep or the sheriff’s SUV that pulled away from the front of the police department with its lights flashing red and blue and its siren blaring. Not wanting to get left behind, he jumped into the passenger’s side of the Jeep. Edie Stone drove fast with no fear of the slick roads, the Jeep easily keeping up with the sheriff’s black SUV that raced ahead of them.

  The sheriff was obviously on his way to an emergency—an emergency that involved Rosemary. What could have happened to her? The sheriff drove so fast that the distance between the vehicles widened.

  Edie cursed. “We’re losing him.”

  The road curved, and the SUV with the flashing lights disappeared. Then the Jeep rounded that curve, and Edie slammed on the brakes. The sheriff’s SUV had stopped behind an ambulance. A fire truck flanked the road in front of them.

  Whit unlocked and pushed open the passenger’s door. Where was she? What had happened?

  A voice shouted, “Lawrence!”

  He ignored it as he walked around the sheriff’s SUV, his shoes slipping on the icy surface of the road. To get around the ambulance, he had to step onto the narrow shoulder of the road. His shoes disappeared into the snow. He didn’t give a damn about the cold. He barely felt it as he headed toward the fire truck.

  The wreck was on the other side of the red engine. The crumpled car lay on its roof, the front windshield shattered but intact. He couldn’t see clearly through it, but he knew she was inside it. Her black hair spilled out the broken side window.

  Was she dead?

  Was she dead?

  Rosemary fought her way back from oblivion. Her head pounded, and she winced at the blare of sirens close to her. Help had arrived.

  She would be okay.

  If she fought ...

  She had to fight just to stay awake. Wincing and moaning against the pain in her head, she opened her eyes. Her vision was blurred—not just from the darkness that loomed over her like those dark clouds over the island—but from the hair that had tangled across her face.

  She tried to move her arm, tried to raise her hand toward her face. But the airbag held her arms beneath the steering wheel. Too bad it hadn’t protected her from hitting her head. She must have lost consciousness for a while—long enough for the emergency vehicles to get to her.

  Where was the help?

  Didn’t they know she was alive?

  She cleared her throat, getting ready to yell. But then fingers brushed across her face, brushing back the hair that had tangled around her head. And she could see ...

  Was she awake? Or was she dreaming? Because the face she stared into was the one she saw in every nightmare she had. Fear rushing through her, she screamed.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Her scream sent a chill racing over Deacon that had nothing to do with the cold wind blasting across the ocean and the shore and everything to do with the man kneeling next to her car. Deacon jerked the judge to his feet. “I told you to stay out of the way. What the hell are you doing here?”

  “What the hell are you doing?” Lawrence shot back at him. “She needs help, and you’re all just standing around!”

  Maybe that was why she’d screamed. She was crushed between the roof of her car and her seat, upside down with her hair falling over her face. Blood trailed from a wound, dripping out the broken window to stain the snow falling on the road.

  He dropped to his knees beside the wreckage. “Are you hurt?”

  She peered up at him through her tangled hair. “Sheriff. . .”

  “Are you hurt?” he asked again.

  She shook her head, and a grimace twisted her beautiful face. A moan slipped through her lips.

  “Of course she’s hurt!” Lawrence yelled. “What the hell is everybody doing? The fire truck and ambulance are here.”

  Maybe the judge was used to barking out orders in his courtroom, but this was Deacon’s turf now. He stood up and pushed the judge back. “Get the hell out of the way or I’ll arrest you!”

  Just then a paramedic rushed up with a couple firefighters who carried the Jaws of Life. The paramedic, George Reynolds, said, “You all need to step back, so we can assess her injuries and get her out of there.”

  The judge finally moved away, but Deacon leaned down toward Rosemary again. “They’re going to get you out. You’re going to be okay.”

  She fumbled around the now deflating airbag and reached out the window. “Genevieve . . .”

  Of course this was about Genevieve. That was why she’d come to the island, why she kept risking her damn life . . .

  “You worry about you right now,” he said.

  She tried shaking her head again but flinched. “Genevieve. . .”

  George tugged at him. “C’mon, Sheriff.”

  Deacon stepped back, out of the way. The firefighters moved to the other side of Rosemary’s crumpled car, but before they did, they put a protective plastic tarp over her.

  “No!” Whittaker Lawrence yelled, his face twisting into a grimace of grief. “Oh, my God, no!”

  Who the hell was Rosemary to him?

  Sparks began to shoot out of the firefighter’s machinery as they cut away at the wreckage. “She’s not dead,” Deacon told the judge and the reporter who stood near him. “They just covered her up to protect her as they work to extract her.”

  Whittaker Lawrence nodded. Then he turned away, as if he didn’t want them to see his reaction. It was too damn late for that. He was clearly out of his mind over her. Why? Because she was hurt? Or because she had survived?

  Deacon had no idea how long her car had been here—wrecked—before someone had called in to report it. Nobody traveled this way this time of year unless they were lost like Rosemary had been that first day.

  What about today? Why had she come this way today?

  She knew where the hall was and which direction town was. Why was she down near the pier? Had she been meeting someone—someone like Whittaker Lawrence?

  “How do you know Rosemary?” he asked.

  Whittaker was too far away to hear him—more so in his thoughts than physical distance. So Deacon focused on the reporter. “How do you know her?”

  “I don’t.”

  He jerked his thumb at the judge. “He sure does. How?”

  She narrowed her dark eyes as she studied Lawrence. “That’s what I’ve been trying to find out.”

  “You don’t have to answer the reporter’s questions,” Deacon informed the judge. “But you need to answer mine. How do you know Rosemary?”

  Whittaker cleared his throat and replied, “From school.”

  “School? College? High? Elementary?” he asked. “Any of them was a damn long time ago. So why are you here?”

  The judge glanced at the reporter before turning toward him again. “She came to see me a couple days ago,” he admitted. “She wanted help with something.”

  “Genevieve . . .” Deacon murmured.

  He nodded. “Yes. And Halcyon Hall.”

  Deacon grunted. Everything—everything bad that happened on the island—came back to that damn place.

  * * *

  Under that thick plastic, Rosemary felt like a corpse. And even though they had her covered up while they were tearing apart the wreckage to extract her, sparks danced before her eyes. Then her head spun dizzily as she went from dangling upside down to lying on her back on a stretcher. Another blanket covered her, this one warm and soft.

  “We need to raise your body temperature,” a paramedic told her. “You could have hypothermia.”

  “How long were you there?” the sheriff asked.

  “I don’t know . . .” She hadn’t looked at the time when she’d left the hall, and she hadn’t had time before she’d crashed. “But the heater in that thing was never great anyway.”

  His lips curved into a slight smile. “Hope you paid for the insurance when you rented it.”

  Rosemary felt a smile tug at her lips, t
oo. She hadn’t realized the sheriff had a sense of humor. She’d always been a sucker for a humorous man—like Whit. He’d gone out of his way in school to live up to his name, quick-witted and smart-mouthed. That was why she’d fallen so hard for him. Had she seen him? Or had that just been part of her nightmare?

  “What happened?” the sheriff asked.

  “I—I thought I saw someone. . . .” She tried to peer around him, but he leaned over the stretcher and was so broad shouldered that it wasn’t possible.

  “Whittaker Lawrence?”

  She shivered despite the blanket covering her. “He was here?”

  “Is that who drove you off the road?” he asked, his voice gruff. Anger flashed in his dark eyes.

  “No,” she said. “I did that.”

  He groaned. “Were you driving too fast again?”

  “I had no choice,” she said. “Something happened to my brakes. I think someone cut them ... while I was at the hall.”

  The sheriff cursed. “They let you in?”

  She nodded, and now dark spots danced across her vision.

  “We have to get her a CT scan,” the paramedic said. “Now . . .”

  She reached for the paramedic and grabbed his arm. “I don’t want to leave the island.” Because, no matter what Dr. Cooke had told her, she didn’t believe that Genevieve had run away.

  “We have a hospital on the island,” the paramedic said. “It’s small but fully equipped.”

  She released a shaky breath and nodded. Then she reached for the sheriff’s arm. “I need to talk to you.”

  “I need to talk to you,” another deep voice chimed in, and Whit’s handsome face, tight with concern, appeared over the sheriff’s shoulder. “I want to make sure that you’re all right.”

  “I told you to stay back,” Sheriff Howell said.

  “What—what are you doing here?” she asked.

  “I want to talk to you,” he said.

  “Not now,” the sheriff told him. “She’s hurt. We need to get her to the hospital.” He gestured at the paramedics to lift her into the ambulance.

  As the stretcher began to rise, Rosemary reached out again—for Whit. “I’m staying at the boardinghouse in town,” she said. “I’m sure I’ll be back there soon. I’m not hurt.”

  Not physically. But she might have been hurt mentally since she was compelled to see him again.

  “Why’d you do that?” the sheriff asked as he stepped up into the back of the ambulance with her. “Why’d you tell that guy where you’re staying?”

  “You don’t trust him?” He must have just met him—at the accident scene. How had Whit known she’d been in an accident? Except that she didn’t think it was an accident any more than the fender bender on the bridge had been an accident.

  She looked out the back doors of the ambulance just as a firefighter pushed them shut. Before they closed she saw Whit’s face—saw the concern in his expression.

  “As a rule, I don’t trust politicians,” the sheriff replied.

  “Aren’t sheriffs elected politicians?” she asked.

  His mouth curved into a slight grin. “I was voted into office,” he acknowledged. “But I’m a lawman. I didn’t lobby for votes like Lawrence does.”

  “You think that’s what he’s doing here?” Rosemary asked.

  He shook his head. “Not anymore. Not after seeing him with you. You’re the reason he’s here. What’s the deal with the two of you? He said you went to school together.”

  Her head continued to pound, but at least the hammering was duller now, not as sharp, not as painful. “We did.”

  The sheriff continued, “He said you asked him for assistance with Genevieve. Bane is outside his jurisdiction. How did you think he could help? Why did you think he would?”

  “Because he’s Genevieve’s father,” she said. “She’s my daughter. And he’s the father.” Even though he wouldn’t admit it ...

  But he had to be.

  The sheriff stared down at her through narrowed eyes. “How hard did you hit your head?”

  “I’m fine,” she insisted, and she was. “I was just a kid when I had her. Just sixteen.”

  He flinched and murmured, “Holly’s age . . .”

  “Holly?”

  “My daughter. I can’t imagine her having a baby.” He cursed. “I don’t want to imagine it. Don’t want to imagine her ever dating.”

  “With you as her father, it might not be easy for her to get a date,” Rosemary assured him. “Who wants to date the sheriff’s daughter?”

  “Hopefully no one,” he said. “So you believe that Lawrence showed up to help you?”

  She shook her head and flinched, just a little bit, at the jab of pain in her skull. “I don’t know what to believe. He denied that he could be Genevieve’s father. He acted like I was crazy.”

  Something like a low growl emitted from the sheriff.

  “Like you haven’t thought the same thing,” she accused him.

  He sighed but didn’t deny it. “I think you’re crazy for telling Lawrence where you’re staying. When you nearly got run off the bridge, were you on your way back from seeing him?”

  She sucked in a breath. “Yes . . .”

  “And today ... what the hell happened today?” he asked.

  “I told you—my brakes went out,” she said.

  “That’s why you were down near the pier,” he said with a nod. “But were you really at the hall before that happened? They actually let you in?” Now he sounded like Whit, like he thought she was crazy or maybe that she’d hit her head too hard.

  “I had an interview with Dr. Cooke,” she said.

  “Interview?” He snorted. “What—you were going to wash dishes to get inside the place?”

  “Counsel,” she said. “I’m a psychologist.”

  “Oh . . .”

  “I was heading out of the gates when I tried to use the brakes and the pedal went completely to the floor.” Her heart leaped with that remembered rush of fear and panic. “I didn’t know what to do.”

  “Of course not,” he said. “Were they wonky earlier? Since the accident on the bridge?”

  “That wasn’t an accident,” she said. “And neither was this. Someone must have tampered with my brakes.”

  He sucked in a breath. “And both these things happened after you accused the judge of fathering a kid with a sixteen-year-old girl. His career would be over if anyone found out. I don’t think he wants to talk to you. I think he wants to shut you up. Permanently.”

  “I don’t care what he wants.” She reached out and grabbed the sheriff’s arm. “I need your help.”

  “Yeah, I’ll investigate that bastard and—”

  “I need your help finding Genevieve.”

  “They let you in but didn’t let you see her?” he asked. “Elijah playing some sick game with you? Not that I’m surprised—”

  “He claims she ran away,” Rosemary said.

  “Claims? You don’t believe him?”

  “Where would she run?” Rosemary asked. “We’re on a damn island.”

  “With a bridge to the mainland,” the sheriff reminded her.

  She cringed at the thought of anyone trying to walk across that bridge. Driving was dangerous enough. Genevieve was a slight girl; she could have blown right off it. “No. She wouldn’t have run away—not in this weather.” She wouldn’t have survived.

  “You need to tell the authorities where she lives to look for her. She probably called someone to pick her up and bring her back home with them.”

  “She called me,” she reminded him.

  “And when you didn’t show, she called someone else,” the sheriff said. “She’s a teenager. I’m sure she has plenty of friends.”

  “She does,” Rosemary said. “But why isn’t she answering her phone?”

  “Did she leave it behind?”

  She shook her head. “She left nothing behind.”

  “Then she ran away and doesn’t want to be
found,” the sheriff said. “That’s probably why she hasn’t called you. She doesn’t want you bringing her home.”

  “I wouldn’t,” Rosemary said. “I never should have given her to my mother to begin with. Never should have trusted her . . .” Tears stung her eyes, and she blinked furiously to clear her vision and her mind.

  “I’ll reach out to the authorities back in your hometown,” he offered. “See if they can find her hanging out with friends there. Then you’ll feel better.”

  The sheriff was dismissing her concerns about Genevieve again, just like Dr. Cooke had. And Whit ...

  What the hell was he doing here?

  Really, after what had happened, after someone had tried—twice now—to kill her, she couldn’t trust anyone. Not with her life and not with Genevieve’s. She had to find her daughter on her own.

  * * *

  How the hell had the bitch survived?

  Again?

  When her car had turned toward the pier, he’d thought it was over—that he would finally be rid of her. With no brakes, she wouldn’t have been able to stop on the pier and would have either driven off it or off the rocky shore. The ocean should have sucked her in, sucked the car under, where nobody would ever find her.

  Just like nobody would ever find Genevieve . . .

  But Rosemary Tulle had survived yet again. At first he hadn’t been sure, though, when he’d seen that the car had rolled. She could have died in that crash. But before he’d had a chance to make sure, another car had come along and the driver had rushed to the wreckage before he could. The person had had a camera around her neck, probably going to take pictures of the pier. She’d called for help.

  He’d been watching—from the protection of the pine trees—as the fire department, paramedics, and the sheriff had arrived at the crash site. And some other couple—a guy in a suit and a blonde. At first he’d thought Rosemary might have been dead ... until he’d heard her scream.

  Damn it!

  If she could scream, she could talk, and she’d keep talking to the sheriff and anybody else who would listen to her. Would anyone listen to him when he was ready to claim what was his? Eventually somebody would, just like eventually somebody was going to believe Rosemary Tulle.