Authors: Lisa Childs
“If court-appointed accountants couldn’t figure it out, I doubt I will be able to,” Rowe said.
“Then concentrate on the witnesses,” Jed said. “I bet you’ll find they were paid off just like Leighton was. Track them down. And I’ll track down the money.”
“I’ll bring the ledgers to you,” Rowe offered. “I know where to find you.”
Even though the DEA agent couldn’t see him, Jed grinned at the man’s persistence. “Don’t waste your time. I would be gone by the time you got here.”
“I could send the police ahead to detain you,” Rowe warned him.
“You wouldn’t risk it,” Jed said with absolute certainty. “You wouldn’t risk my life.”
Or Macy would probably take Rowe’s—no matter how much she loved him. He didn’t trust that Erica wouldn’t risk his life, though, since she had already almost reported him.
He caught her as she reached for the door handle. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“Damn it, Jed—”
He clicked off the cell without explaining to Rowe that he hadn’t been talking to him.
“Let me go,” Erica demanded, her voice rising with panic as she tugged at her arm.
“No. I can’t let you go…”
* * *
H
IS
WORDS
,
SPOKEN
SO
matter-of-factly, chilled Erica’s skin so that goose bumps lifted beneath her heavy clothes.
“I’ll scream,” she threatened.
“Then I’ll have to shut you up.” He leaned closer.
Erica closed her eyes, flinching even before he struck her. But he didn’t hit her. Instead his gloved fingers slid along her jaw, tipping up her chin. Then his mouth covered hers.
She expected cruelty—for his mouth to punish. But instead his lips slid lightly across hers, brushing gently back and forth. Her breath caught and then escaped in a gasp.
And he deepened the kiss, pressing his mouth tighter against hers until her lips parted. Not for breath.
She didn’t need to breathe anymore. She just needed him—needed the passion that warmed her blood and quickened her heart rate. No man had ever affected her like this one.
But those effects hadn’t always been good. He had broken her heart when he’d dumped her before his deployment. It hadn’t mattered that they’d been broken up, though. She’d spent a year worrying about him and yearning for him.
And loving him.
So it was no wonder she had fallen into his arms and his bed almost literally the minute he had returned home. But he hadn’t professed his love then. He had only used her—maybe not for an alibi. But he’d used her all the same.
And broken her heart again.
She lifted her hands between them and pushed against his chest. He had always been muscular, but now his chest was like a concrete wall—hard and immovable. But Erica didn’t have to struggle or scream.
He pulled back, his nostrils flaring as he drew in a deep breath.
“I didn’t want to do that now,” he said.
Finally she breathed, drawing in a sharp breath as his admission stung her pride.
And her heart.
“I wanted to do that the minute you opened the door to me,” he continued, “even when I thought you had betrayed me and left me to rot in prison.”
“Jed, I didn’t—”
“I realize now that you didn’t betray me three years ago, but you were about to do it now,” he reminded her. “You can’t call the police, Erica.”
“I can’t,” she agreed, “because you took my phone.” But even if he hadn’t, she doubted she would have been able to punch in that last digit. She was almost grateful that he had taken the phone from her.
Who had he called to help him? Who was the lawman he trusted? A guard from the prison? It had sounded like they were all corrupt. Or the DEA agent whose badge he had used to trick her into opening the door for him?
“You have a landline in your apartment,” he said. “So you’re not going inside without me.”
“But if Mrs. Osborn sees you, she will call the police for certain.” Taking the impossible decision out of Erica’s hands but putting custody of her daughter and Erica’s own freedom at risk.
Jed shrugged off her concern. “I doubt she’ll recognize me. I don’t look like the photo they keep showing of me on the news.”
No. He looked even more dangerous than the mug shot taken before his trial. After three years in Blackwoods Penitentiary, he was undoubtedly more dangerous.
“I’m not worried about
her
calling the police on me.” He narrowed his eyes, which were dark with suspicion as he stared at her.
He was worried about Erica. Even though she had explained why she hadn’t come forward at his trial, he didn’t trust her, and now that he was dead, Marcus Leighton couldn’t confirm that he was the reason she hadn’t provided Jed with an alibi. In addition to that, she had almost reported him to authorities, so she couldn’t blame him for not trusting her.
“I won’t call the police,” she promised. “I’m not sure I believe you completely about that shoot-on-sight order. But I can’t risk it.”
His gaze widened slightly, but then he shook his head. “Somehow I don’t think I’m the one you’re worried about losing.”
She had already lost him twice. First to Afghanistan and then to prison. But then, he had never really been hers to lose.
“I can’t risk Isobel’s safety,” she said as she pushed open the passenger door.
He didn’t stop her this time, and she felt a moment’s flash of disappointment as she stepped onto the snow-covered pavement.
“I can’t risk her getting shot in the crossfire,” she said. “That’s why you need to get into whatever vehicle you brought here—” she gestured at a car and a van parked in the alley “—and drive as far away from us as you can get.”
“You’re right,” he agreed—almost too easily as he slammed shut the driver’s door after joining her in the alley. “I never would have come to you if I hadn’t thought you alibi-ing me would be the fastest way to get my conviction overturned.”
“I’m sorry…”
“And I never should have let you come with me to see Leighton,” he said, his voice gruff with guilt and frustration.
“I didn’t give you a choice,” she reminded him as she headed toward the back door of her building. “I didn’t tell you his address.”
“But I could have gotten it out of you…”
He could have—had he kissed her like he just had. So she didn’t argue with him, just closed her eyes and relived those few brief moments when his lips had covered hers.
“I’m not giving you a choice now,” he said as he slid his arm around her.
She opened her eyes, both anticipating and fearing another kiss. But he wasn’t even looking at her.
He had only reached around her for the door knob. “I’m going up to your apartment with you,” he said. “I’m going to make sure you and Isobel are safe before I leave.”
She shook her head. “Mrs. Osborn—”
“Will never get a good look at my face,” he said as he opened the door. “No one has recognized me since the prison break. No one will.”
The collar was up on his dark-colored wool coat, but it didn’t hide much of his face. Dark stubble did that, as did his expression, which was so intimidating that nobody was likely to stare at him long enough to recognize him.
Erica drew in a shaky breath and inhaled the scent that had always been Jed’s alone—rain fresh but musky male. “You’ll leave once you see Isobel?”
He nodded.
“Okay.” She followed him inside and up the back stairs to her apartment. “Let me go in first and distract Mrs. Osborn.”
Jed was already reaching for her door, too, but he didn’t have to turn the knob. It stood ajar, the apartment so dark inside that only shadows spilled out into the dimly lit hallway. Something clattered to the hardwood floor inside, and Jed shoved open the door and bolted into the living room.
“Stop,” she called after him in a loud whisper. When she was watching Isobel, Mrs. Osborn usually left the doors open between her apartment and Erica’s. And the older woman often dropped things.
But Jed didn’t stop.
So Erica rushed inside after him. He wasn’t alone. But it wasn’t Mrs. Osborn he grappled with in the dark living room. The black-clothed figure was nearly as big as he was. But not big enough to overpower Jed, even though the man swung a punch at him. While it connected, it didn’t even faze Jed.
Then Jed swung back, knocking the man to the ground. He reached for the intruder and dragged him to his feet, but the man broke free of Jed’s grasp.
He turned toward the open door. Erica stood there, blocking the exit. Her heart slammed against her ribs, and her muscles froze so that she couldn’t move out of the way.
But he didn’t charge at her. He didn’t even look at her. He kept his head down, as Jed had demonstrated he did so that he wasn’t recognized. Then the man turned again and ran down the hall toward Isobel’s room.
Despite his size, Jed’s reflexes were quick and his stride fast as he pursued the intruder. Erica’s muscles recovered as fear and determination pulsed through her, and she chased after them.
Her primary concern was protecting her daughter. She wouldn’t let anyone hurt her little girl. Size and muscle was no match for a mother’s protective instinct.
Jed’s primary concern was obviously catching the intruder, since he didn’t spare so much as a glance toward the little twin bed as they ran past it. The men did not even stop inside the small bedroom. The intruder vaulted through the open window, and, with a hard thump on the metal, Jed followed him out onto the fire escape.
The curtains fluttered in the breeze blowing through the open window, whipping the hot-pink satin against the walls. It was freezing in the room, but it wasn’t nearly as cold as the blood pumping hard and fast with fear through Erica’s veins.
She stopped next to her daughter’s bed, but she didn’t even need to look down at the tangled blankets to know that it was empty.
Her baby was gone.
Chapter Seven
“It’ll be too late.
By the time you get there, he’ll be well on his way somewhere else,” Macy warned her husband-to-be.
Rowe cursed and dropped his car keys back onto the desk before dropping his body onto the chair behind his desk. “I know. But…”
“But what?” she asked. “You’ve been keeping something from me, and we promised we’d never do that.”
“I want to protect you,” he said.
“But I’m not in danger.”
“Not anymore,” he agreed, his deep voice vibrating with the torment of remorse for what she had recently endured. He blamed himself.
She blamed Warden Jefferson James.
“But Jed is,” she said.
“Macy…” The torment hadn’t left his voice.
Her pulse quickened. “How much danger?” she demanded to know.
“You know everyone considers him a cop killer…”
“That’s why you went on the news,” she said, suddenly realizing. “You wanted to put doubts in the minds of the officers looking for him. You wanted to make it so that they won’t shoot first and ask questions later.”
A muscle twitched along his tightly clenched jaw, and he nodded. “Someone put out a shoot-on-sight order on him.”
“Someone?” She snorted. “It’s Warden James. He doesn’t want Jed able to testify against him.” And the unscrupulous man had already proven he had no problem with killing. Of course, he always had preferred that others get the blood on their hands instead of him getting it on his.
Rowe nodded again, sending a lock of blond hair over his furrowed brow. “Someone even put out an unofficial reward…”
“For my brother’s murder?” She sucked in a breath as pain jabbed her heart. “Does he know this?”
“I warned him about the shoot-on-sight order. I didn’t know about the reward until another officer told me what he’d heard.”
“So Jed knows he’s in danger out there, but he won’t come in?”
Rowe shook his head. “I promised I’d protect him.”
Her brother had always been stubborn…but she understood what he was thinking. “He won’t turn himself in until he proves his innocence.”
“His lawyer was murdered—”
“Marcus?” She wouldn’t have chosen the man to represent her brother for a parking ticket, much less murder. But Jed had always been loyal to his friends. She suspected they couldn’t say the same.
“It looks like he was paid off to throw the trial,” Rowe said. “I was already beginning to think that from going over the court transcripts.”
Macy had been premed, not prelaw, but she’d thought so, too. “He never objected to anything.”
“And he didn’t really challenge the eyewitness testimony,” Rowe said. “Your brother asked me to find the witnesses.”
She met her fiancé’s gaze. “Jed didn’t kill his lawyer.”
“I had to ask him…” He groaned. “If someone had helped set me up to spend the rest of my life in a hellhole like Blackwoods…”
“I know.” She crossed the room and dropped onto his lap, looping her arm around his neck. “I understand why you would have doubted him. But he’s not a killer. He won’t hurt the witnesses.”
Rowe pressed a kiss to her lips, the stubble on his jaw erotically scraping her skin. “You even wondered if he might not want revenge more than justice.”
“We have to make sure that we help him choose justice. Find the witnesses.”
Rowe sighed. “I’d rather find Jed. Bringing him in is the only way to make sure he stays safe.”
He wouldn’t be safe in custody, either. They both knew it. “The only way to make sure my brother stays safe is to prove his innocence.”
“We have to find the real killer,” Rowe agreed.
Before Jed found him…
* * *
T
HE
FIRE
ESCAPE
VIBRATED
beneath Jed’s feet as he chased the dark shadow down into the alley he had left just moments ago with Erica. His borrowed van was parked alongside hers. If he had done as she’d asked and gotten into it and left…
She would have walked into her apartment alone—and at the mercy of a brute of a man who’d immediately attacked Jed. If the guy had attacked Erica…
His fist stung from the one blow he’d connected, which had knocked the guy back on his feet and loose from his grasp. Jed hadn’t been able to catch him since. The guy had been just enough faster than he was that Jed hadn’t been able to outrun him in the hall. And he’d lost him on the fire escape.
He dropped off the last rung of the metal ladder and connected with the asphalt, his ankles stinging at the impact. Jed focused on the snowfall, trying to discern footprints. But the wind had whipped up, swirling around the light dusting of snow, so that he couldn’t track him. But the guy had to be around here somewhere. The short hairs lifting on his nape, Jed could feel him close. Maybe crouched behind one of the vans?
Jed moved silently, as he had learned to move during his deployment. He crept closer to the van and peered through the windows, trying to spy a shadow on the other side. Then he held still—perfectly still—and waited. As he’d learned in his National Guard training, he could hold his breath and slow his heart rate.
Could the man he’d chased from Erica’s apartment do the same? Eventually the guy would have to breathe, and Jed would hear him as he listened intently.
But he didn’t hear a breath. He heard a scream. Erica’s scream. It rent the eerie, predawn silence.
His heart lurched, shifting in his chest. “God, no…”
Instead of wasting time to go back through the building, Jed jumped for the last rung of the fire escape and pulled himself up. As he vaulted up the steps, his heart pounded hard with fear and dread.
Had he followed out a staged distraction while the guy’s accomplice had stayed behind for Erica and Isobel? Had that accomplice already hurt them?
He stopped outside the window and peered into the room to assess the situation before rushing in blind. Erica stood alone by Isobel’s bed, her hands clasped against her mouth as if she fought to hold back more screams. He scanned the corners of the room, checking for a man holding a gun on her. Because if this was an ambush, it would be for him. And Jed wouldn’t be able to protect her and their daughter if he was dead.
But seeing Erica in such fear and pain was killing him. He stepped through the window and joined her inside the room. “You screamed—”
She whirled toward him. “She’s gone! He took her, Jed! He took our daughter!”
He cupped her shoulders and then her face in his slightly shaking palms. “No. He wasn’t carrying anything down the fire escape. He didn’t take her.”
He damn well wouldn’t have let the bastard grab their child. If he had seen the man even reach toward the bed, he would have finally become that murderer everyone already thought he was.
Erica’s voice cracked with hysteria. “She’s gone…”
He pulled her into his arms, clutching her trembling body close to his chest. “He didn’t take her…”
But Jed must have been right about the accomplice. Instead of staying behind, though, he had gone ahead—with Isobel. And the other man had provided the distraction so that he could get away with the child.
Jed had only known about Isobel for a few hours, but he’d already lost her. He clutched Erica closer, but instead of offering comfort, he was seeking it. He didn’t deserve it, though; this was his fault.
Isobel had been taken because of him. Whoever had framed him for murder had found an even more effective way to hurt him than sending him to prison.
* * *
N
O
MATTER
HOW
CLOSE
Jed held her, Erica felt no comfort. His heart raced at the same frantic pace as hers. He was scared, too. Maybe even more scared than she was because he had seen more horrors in his life than she had in her relatively sheltered one.
Even though she watched the news, those things happened to other people—not her. In her safe little world here in Miller’s Valley, her child could never be taken. Her child would not be harmed. But Jed had shaken her safe world. He’d brought danger and murder to her life, making all horrible things possible. Even to her sweet angel baby…
Sobs broke free of her control, shaking her—making her so sick with fear that she nearly gagged. Big hands patted her back, trying again to offer comfort. But his touch chilled her, making her shudder.
“Erica, we’ll find her,” he promised. “We’ll get her back.”
“No, I want you out of here!” she yelled, wedging her hands between them so that she could shove him away from her—out of her safe, little world. “I want you to leave! This is your fault. This is all your fault!”
He flinched. He was so big and muscular that he probably couldn’t be physically hurt. But she had emotionally hurt him. Even though he had only just discovered he had a daughter, he cared about Isobel. He was as scared as she was.
A twinge of guilt penetrated her fear and hysteria. But anger pushed that guilt away. “It’s your fault that my baby is gone!”
Jed’s breath caught, and his eyes widened.
But she didn’t care anymore that he was hurting, too. She stepped back again. She didn’t care if he got hurt, either. She was going to call the police this time. She couldn’t waste another moment worrying about Jedidiah Kleyn.
But before she could turn away from him, a small hand slipped into hers and tugged on her fingers.
“Mommy, I’m not gone,” a soft voice informed her. “I’m right here.”
Erica whirled around and dropped to her knees to wrap up Isobel in her arms. “Oh, sweetheart…” Tears streaked down her face.
“Mommy, why are you crying?”
She couldn’t tell the child about the man who had broken into their home. But she couldn’t lie to her, either. “I was scared, honey, when I found your bed empty.”
“I was at Mrs. Osborn’s,” the little girl explained. “I woked up and she tooked me over there.”
Erica glanced up, her nerves returning as she discovered her neighbor standing in the bedroom doorway. The older woman’s gaze was focused on Jed’s face, her faded blue eyes narrowed with suspicion.
“Mrs. Osborn—” Erica jumped up and headed toward her, trying to block her view of Jed. But he was so much taller than she was—until he crouched down in front of their daughter.
“What’s going on here?” Mrs. Osborn demanded to know with equal parts anger and fear.
With a pointed glance at Isobel to indicate that she didn’t want to talk in front of the child, Erica guided the woman back down the hall toward the front door. “Nothing’s wrong…”