To her own mother.
What she didn’t understand was what this man was doing.
“We’re…staying here?”
“They won’t look for you here. There’s no connection to follow.”
“But aren’t you…they?”
One corner of his mouth quirked almost sourly, and he let out a compressed breath. “Yeah. And believe me, harboring a fugitive is something I never thought I’d be doing.”
Then why are you? she wanted to ask. Almost did. But some combination of hoping he was doing it for very personal reasons and that it might not be the best idea to make him explain and then maybe question his own actions stopped her.
Hayley stepped into the room and gave Ashley a sympathetic look. “I’m thinking you’d like a nice, long shower. And I’ve got some clean things you can put on. How does that sound?”
“Heavenly,” Ashley admitted, getting up quickly. As she did the brightly patterned throw that had been tucked around her slid away. She wondered who had done that. For that matter, the last she remembered she’d been sitting upright. She felt an odd little leap of her pulse as she shot a glance at the man standing there, watching her. Had he done it? Raised her feet and tucked her in like the fragile person he no doubt thought her?
Then she noticed another blanket and a pillow on the floor beside the couch. Her breath caught. Had he slept there? Right beside her? In the first instant her heart leaped, then thudded back down.
Harboring a fugitive.
That was what she really was to him. A fugitive. Whatever his reasons were for not dragging her in immediately, she was still wanted. The phrase made her think of Wanted posters in the post office, and she wondered crazily if everybody who ended up there felt as bewildered as she did. Which didn’t change the simple truth.
He’d stayed here, with her, not out of any desire to be close, or protect. He’d done it to make sure she didn’t run. And that stiffened her spine.
“Is it all right if I accept Hayley’s kind offer, Deputy Crenshaw?”
He looked taken aback for a moment, whether by her words or her very formal tone, she didn’t know. And told herself she didn’t care. “Of course.” Then, rather wryly, he added, “But I think you’d better call me Brady, or it’s going to be a very long…however long this is.”
“All right,” she said, still coolly. “Brady.” She got it out without betraying how good it felt to say by calling herself seven kinds of a fool for feeling that way.
“Then let’s get you going,” Hayley said cheerfully. “And we’ll figure the rest out when you’re ready to tackle it.”
Ashley wasn’t sure what there was to figure out, except how to accept the grim truth that was staring her in the face—that she could no longer trust her own mind, her memories, even her way of thinking. Because she was losing her grip on all of it. It was progressing. Getting steadily worse.
Just as it had with her father.
* * *
Brady glanced up as Hayley came back from the bathroom. He was seated at the granite counter of the large kitchen island, working on his second cup of coffee of the morning. It hadn’t exactly been a restful night for him, and sleeping on the floor had little to do with it. No, it had been the sound of Ashley’s quiet breathing, the constant awakening to check that she was all right—hell, anyone in her situation would be prone to nightmares—and the frequent arrival of Cutter, as if the dog, too, wanted to check on her.
He found himself smiling as he remembered the moment, sometime well after midnight, when the animal had quietly padded over to him, leaned up to sniff at Ashley as if to make sure she was sleeping peacefully, then plopped down beside him and rested his chin on Brady’s chest. He’d instinctively lifted a hand to stroke the dog’s head and immediately felt an odd sense of calm. This must be what she got from this, he’d thought, but almost immediately he had—finally—gone to sleep.
He noticed that Hayley was carrying the shirt Ashley had been wearing. And his training and instincts suddenly snapped back to life. “That’ll need to be saved.”
She nodded. “I assumed. I’ll bag it. Alex has a safe in his den—we’ll put it in there. It registers times of opening and closing, so there’s a record.”
“Still shaky on the chain of custody,” he said wearily. “Good lawyer would get it tossed. And it’d be my fault.”
“Let’s not worry about that just yet.”
He took another long sip of the coffee. Quinn had made it, Hayley had told him, and the man obviously went for a more powerful brew, just as he himself did.
“Where’s the dog?” he asked now.
“Quinn’s outside with him,” Hayley said as she topped off his mug.
“Heck of a way to celebrate your first anniversary,” Brady said, nodding his thanks.
“We’re getting our celebrating in.” She grinned at him. She really was a beautiful woman. “But then, we don’t need an occasion, because every day is special.”
Brady drew in a deep breath. “I envy you. Both of you. You’ve so obviously found it, that holy grail of relationships.”
Her grin widened. “Oh, now that’s the way to put it.” Then she gave him a considering look. “So, haven’t found it for yourself yet?”
“Yet. If only,” he muttered. Then, managing a smile, he said, “Not many women like you around.”
Quinn and Cutter came in the back door in time to hear his words.
“Amen to that,” the man said and walked over to plant a rather fierce kiss on his wife, who reached up to cup his cheek as she returned it.
“Chilly out,” she said.
Brady had felt the brush of cold air as Quinn had passed. When he bent to pat Cutter as he paused beside him, he could feel the chill on the dog’s thick fur. Then he watched as the animal proceeded down the hall and stopped outside the bathroom door. He cocked his head and his ears swiveled forward, as if he were listening intently. Brady stifled a smile. But then he thought of what the dog was likely hearing, which sent him into thinking about what was going on in there, and images of Ashley with water streaming over her naked body slammed into his mind again.
His grip on his coffee mug tightened as he pondered just what he’d let himself in for. Not just violating his oath and his personal code by ignoring an APB, but staying under the same roof with the first woman who’d awakened certain body parts in a long time.
Apparently assured that she was safe, Cutter quietly came back and sat in front of Hayley and Quinn. And then, rather comically, he tilted his head back, back, back until he was looking at Brady. Upside down. He couldn’t help chuckling, and the building pressure in his chest eased a little. The dog’s silly look didn’t do anything for the rest of him, however.
“You have a decision to make,” Quinn said.
Brady’s mouth quirked. “Thought I already did that. We’re still here.”
“Yes. But once we have a detailed conversation with Ashley, and if she wants Foxworth to help, then you’ve got another one. Because our goal isn’t yours.”
He blinked at that. He would have sworn Quinn, and Hayley, too, for that matter, would be the upright-citizen type. As if she’d read the thought, Hayley said quietly, “Your goal, your job, is to uphold the law and follow legitimate, valid orders. Our goal is to help Ashley. They may not always coincide.”
“So you have to decide how involved you want to be.” Quinn lifted a brow at him. “There’s a lot to be said for plausible deniability.”
Brady let out a sour laugh. “Sure. ‘Yeah, boss, I found her about to jump off a cliff, got the APB on her, then turned her over to these folks I met maybe ten days ago and walked away.’ Sounds a bit short on plausibility to me.”
“Point taken,” Quinn admitted, but he was smiling.
“Just how,” Brady asked, “do you think you can help her?”
“We start with the assumption she’s not guilty.”
He opened his mouth to say something pithy about the presumption of innocence in the justice system, but shut it again without saying it. But he couldn’t resist saying rather bitterly, “Why don’t you go all the way to assuming she’s not mentally ill, either?”
“That may well be part of it.”
Brady drew back slightly. “Wait…you think…but she’s got a psychiatrist—”
He stopped when Quinn held up a hand. “What I should have said was that we will verify her exact situation.”
“How? Doctor-patient privilege and all?”
“We’ll work that out if and when Ashley gives us the go-ahead. But let me ask you something. The way she reacted in the crash, did that seem to you like someone mentally incapable of handling herself?”
Brady sucked in a deep breath as Quinn landed upon exactly what had been bothering him the most. “No. And people usually show their true colors under that kind of stress. But how a mental disorder might affect that, I don’t know. I just don’t know enough about it.”
“Exactly,” Quinn agreed. “And so we will dig into that, as well. We have people who do know.”
He didn’t say any of this, Brady noted, like someone who was winging it. He said it like a man with a plan, and more, the wherewithal to carry it out.
“What, exactly, is Foxworth?” he asked warily.
“Just what we told you.”
He thought about that takedown of the governor, and the other cases he’d read about when he’d done that bit of research. Including Quinn’s role in taking out a cop killer. “And you have what, endless resources?”
“Not endless, but sufficient,” Quinn answered. Then, with a half grin, he added, “Let’s just say our finance person is an utter genius.”
He gave the man a doubtful frown. And then Hayley said proudly, “Quinn and his sister founded Foxworth on their parents’ life insurance and built it into something amazing. And now, between that financial acumen and the goodwill and eagerness of those we’ve helped to help others, we have as close to endless resources as is possible for a private entity.”
“Life insurance,” Brady murmured. “The bombing.”
Quinn nodded. Brady thought a little more, searching his memory. Quinn stayed silent, letting him.
“That back-room deal, where they let the guy go back to the warmth and welcome of his terrorist buddies,” he said slowly. Quinn lifted a brow, but still said nothing. “That was…so wrong,” Brady said. “And all his victims couldn’t do a thing about it.”
“Exactly,” Quinn said, nodding his head in apparent approval.
“That’s the kind of thing you fight? Try to make right?”
“It is. The circumstances vary greatly, but that is what we do.”
Hayley offered him more coffee. He thought he might need the jolt to wrap his mind around all this, so he said yes. She poured, and he thanked her. Ordinary. But there was nothing ordinary about any of this.
Then Hayley said with a smile, “As one of our recent clients put it, we help people in the right turn lost causes into wins. And we do it without taking anything more from them.”
It seemed impossible to believe that there were people who made that their business, yet sought no glory or fame for it.
“So, what do you say?” Quinn asked. “In or out? Or do you need time to think about it?”
Brady sighed. Set down his coffee mug. He didn’t really need time. He knew he’d already made the decision when he’d brought Ashley here instead of taking her in.
“I think I’ll go get my civvies out of my unit. Maybe I’ll feel less guilty about this if I’m not in uniform.”
Quinn grinned at him. “Whatever works.”
“You can change in the media room,” Hayley suggested, gesturing to a doorway that closed off a room that was apparently better for the purpose than the multiwindowed great room. “Ashley’s going to take the second bedroom, but there’s a foldout bed in there that’s probably a lot more comfortable than the floor,” she added.
Brady was still shaking his head—whether at the existence of Foxworth or his own craziness at accepting all this, he wasn’t sure—as he opened the back of the unit and grabbed his go bag.
He headed back inside. Saw that Cutter was back down the hall, sitting beside the bathroom door. As if he knew Ashley would be coming out soon.
Brady closed the media room doors behind him and quickly shed his gear and uniform, then got out the jeans and sweatshirt he always carried in the bag. Silly as it was, it did make a difference, he thought as he pulled the jeans on and reached for the sweatshirt.
And tried not to think of possibly similar actions going on just down the hall. Tried not to picture Ashley naked, or in some lacy confection, as she pulled on her borrowed clothes.
He failed utterly, and zipping up his jeans was an interesting proposition.
CHAPTER 15
Ashley felt decidedly odd. As if she were living in the snow globe her father had given her, complete with the snow. A small, contained world where nothing bad could ever get in. Peaceful, quiet and safe.
And remember what happened to it.
It had been the first day she’d truly had to face the truth about her father. She’d come home from school to find her mother cleaning up the shattered globe, giving her the saddest of looks as she explained that Ashley’s father had once more lost control and this time destroyed her most precious belonging, which he himself had given her.
And he had committed suicide barely a month later.
She shook off the painful memory as she stood staring out the window at the fresh snow that had fallen overnight. But that only made room for more painful thoughts—that she was following the same path. That she had lost control enough to have attacked her own mother, then manufactured an innocent scenario that her miswired or off-kilter brain seized upon as reality, so vividly it was impossible for her to believe it wasn’t true.
Delusional. That’s what she was.
She turned around to face where Quinn, Hayley and… Brady were waiting. The Foxworths were seated, but Brady was on his feet, pacing, as if he were too restless to sit. She was startled by how much different he looked in civilian clothes. Minus the bulk of his gear, she was able to clearly see how lean and trim his waist and hips were, and how broad his shoulders and chest. The jeans he’d put on did crazy things to her pulse, and as he turned to go back the way he’d come, she found herself watching those back pockets in a way that would no doubt embarrass both of them if he turned around and caught her.
She yanked her gaze away from him and sat down as Quinn and Hayley started to explain in detail who they were and what they, and their foundation, did. She was puzzled but listened because it was fascinating. Who’d have thought there was a group dedicated to such a thing? Lost but righteous causes?
It wasn’t until Hayley paused and asked if she was with them so far that she realized this wasn’t just getting-to-know-you chitchat—this was specific.
“I’m following. And I think what you do is wonderful. But why are you telling me all this?”
“We’re offering Foxworth help, Ashley,” Hayley said.
She blinked. “To me?”
“Yes.”
“But…nobody can help me.” It sounded so forlorn, it embarrassed her. And that put an edge into her voice. “I don’t have that kind of problem. Don’t you understand? I’m going crazy, just like my father did, and there’s nothing they can do about it.”
Brady spun around on his heel, startling her. “Did you get a second opinion?”
She stared at him. “What?”
“First thing you do when you get a killer diagnosis is get a second opinion. Did you?”
“I… No. I mean, we know Dr. Andler. He treated my father.”
; “Not very successfully,” Brady said sourly. She stared at him. He couldn’t have chilled her more if he’d thrown her out in the snow. He grimaced and closed his eyes for a moment, then met her gaze. “Sorry. That was a lousy way to put it.”
He meant it. She could hear it in his voice, see it in those clear blue eyes. The chill faded. “Yes,” she agreed. “But you have a point.”
“I freely admit I don’t care for the man.”
“I… You know him?”
“Two years ago I was involved in a trial where he was called as an expert witness for the defense.”
“Mind telling us what bothers you about him?” Quinn asked, his tone casual.
Brady looked at the other man and said flatly, “He manipulated the jury. Cleverly, but still. His testimony was instrumental in getting a rapist off.”
“You were the arresting officer?”
“I was.”
“But if he was found innocent,” Ashley began with a slight frown.
Brady’s voice went harsh then. “He felt invincible after he walked free. So he raped three more women in the first week he was out, one of them a fifteen-year-old girl. And that’s in large part on Dr. Joseph Andler.”
She felt herself go pale. “My God. No wonder he practically ordered me to get a birth control shot after one time I ended up in…a bad place, with two strange men.”
“Of course,” Brady said, still with an edge. “He knew there were men like that out there, because he put one out there.”
“But naturally,” Hayley said sourly, “being only a witness giving his opinion, there were no repercussions for him.”
“Naturally,” Brady said, echoing her tone.
“I…didn’t know this,” Ashley said, sounding as shaken as she felt.
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