Justice Reborn (Cowboy Justice Association Book 8) (12 page)

Everything that had happened in the last week welled up inside of her, stealing her ability to even draw breath. It was too much. Way too much for any one person to handle and although Amy had pleaded at the end not to trust anyone, the pressure of being alone and on the run and scared was simply too much for Josie. She hiccupped as a sob escaped from her lips and tears welled, spilling onto her cheeks.

“Can you turn back time, Evan? Because that’s the only thing that can help me.” She finally looked up into the kindest eyes she’d ever seen, eyes that practically begged to help her. “I am so fucked, I don’t know which way is up and I don’t know what to do. There are people that want me dead and they’ll do anything, even burn down a motel with innocent people in it to kill me. If you had any brains whatsoever you’d save yourself and drive me to the nearest bus station, drop me there, and never look back. I could only get you killed or injured.”

Chapter Thirteen

“I
’ve never been all that smart, so I think you’re staying right here. Talk to me, Lisa. Tell me what’s going on and why you’re so scared. Let’s start with why you think someone wants you dead.”

Holy hell, Evan was finally getting somewhere with Lisa but she wasn’t making it easy. She had some delusion that the fire was set to kill her. She seemed so levelheaded most of the time, so being hysterical like this didn’t make sense.

Lisa hopped up from the bed and began to pace back and forth. “I don’t think someone wants me dead, I know it. I’ve been on the run since leaving D.C. Hell, they set fire to the motel last night, Evan. I don’t want them to do that – or worse – to you.”

The color in her cheeks was high and she was getting herself all riled up. He’d never get a coherent explanation out of her at this rate. She was working herself up into stroke territory.

“Calm down, honey. You need to stay calm.”

She rounded on him then and leaned down until they were nose to nose, her finger poking him in the chest.

“Never in the history of calming down has anyone actually calmed down when told to calm down.” She straightened, her jaw jutting out stubbornly. “And I am calm. At least compared to that night. Believe me, after everything I’ve gone through this is calm.”

Fighting to suppress a grin, Evan nodded, keeping his expression neutral. Or as neutral as he was capable of.

“I’m sorry. You’re right, that wasn’t helping. How about we go downstairs, have some coffee, and you start from the very beginning? How does that sound?”

For a moment he thought she was going to argue, but instead she nodded and padded on bare feet out of the bedroom and downstairs, leading the way into the kitchen. He waved her to a chair while he poured them both a cup of coffee, the pot still fairly fresh from when he’d made it late in the morning.

“Now,” he said, sliding a cup in front of her and settling into the chair opposite at the tiny kitchen table. “Why don’t you go all the way back to the beginning? Pretend I don’t know anything at all about anything. No detail is too small.”

Waiting wasn’t easy, but Evan sipped his coffee while Lisa added cream and sugar and gathered her thoughts. She had a few false starts but eventually put down her mug and spoke.

“First of all, my real name isn’t Lisa. It’s Josephine Eleanor Carlton. My friends call me Josie. I’m sorry for lying to you about that but I had my reasons for wanting to remain under the radar.”

She kind of looked like a Josie. More than a Lisa. But he was still hurt she hadn’t trusted him with the truth, although at the time he’d done nothing to earn that trust.

“Okay, Josie.” He tried the name out on his tongue, careful to keep his own emotions from derailing her story. This wasn’t about him. “You’re not Lisa. I guess that’s what I get for not asking for references and paying you in cash.”

Her eyes widened and she took another gulp of her coffee. “I wouldn’t have taken the job if you wanted those things. I would have left town, I guess.”

That would have been a shame. Despite all this drama, she was the best thing to happen to him in recent memory.

“So Josie, you were telling me why people want you dead,” he reminded her, watching her expressions and body language closely. He’d participated in hundreds of interrogations but this one might be the most important.

Her fingers twisted around the handle of the cup, her knuckles white. “I was coming home from work. I was working as a waitress after getting laid off and my shift ended late, after the restaurant closed. It was almost one in the morning.”

“You lived in Washington D.C.?”

Lisa—no, Josie—nodded. “Like I told you before, I moved there to be closer to a friend from college – Amy. She helped me find a place to live and get a job.”

Tears glistened in Josie’s eyes and Evan reached out to place his hand over one of hers, squeezing lightly. He had a feeling there were going to be many more tears before this story was told.

“She sounds like a good friend. Does she know you’re on the run?”

More tears. Shit, he’d hit a nerve.

“She does. I mean, did. She died that night.” Josie released the mug and her hand flew over her mouth to cover a sob. “When I got out of my car I could see two men running from Amy’s car. She lived in the same apartment complex I did. Anyway, they jumped in a car and drove away. I walked over to Amy’s vehicle and she was lying on the pavement next to it. She was still alive but bleeding from her stomach. There was blood everywhere. I pulled out my cell phone to call 911 but Amy grabbed my arm. I remember being shocked that she still had that much strength. Anyway, she told me there was a thumb drive hidden in the covered saucepan in her apartment. She told me to take it and get away from there, to hide. I wasn’t to trust anyone because they would kill for it.”

Evan was struggling to wrap his mind around Josie’s words. It sounded like something out of a Bond film. Thumb drives and deathbed warnings. However, he’d been in law enforcement long enough to realize that some things were more complicated than anything Hollywood could come up with.

Josie had pulled her legs to her chest, her arms wrapped around her knees as she’d recounted her friend’s last moments. She appeared alone and lost and more than a little frightened. He hoped he could reassure her that he could and would protect her. He hadn’t lost anyone under protection yet and this woman wasn’t going to be his first.

“Honey,” he said gently, walking a fine line between allowing her to wallow in her misery and needing to hear the rest of the story. There had to be more than what she’d told him. “How about a drink? I think you could use one.”

She scrubbed at her damp cheeks and nodded, sniffling as he dug into his pocket for a handkerchief.

He reached into the cabinet over the refrigerator, far out of Josie’s reach, and pulled down the hidden bottle of whiskey he hadn’t touched in weeks plus two glasses. She shouldn’t drink alone and he had a feeling he’d need one himself before her story was over.

He poured two shots and pushed one closer to her, watching as she knocked it back, a gasp coming from deep in her gut as it slid down, warming her stomach as it was heating his own. She wiped off her mouth with her hand and licked her lips nervously.

“I called 911 but it was too late. Amy died right then and I knew that I had to help her. She’d been frantic with worry so I had to get the thumb drive and get out of there. I just didn’t know where I was going or what I was going to do. She didn’t have time to tell me what was on it. And then–”

Josie broke off and reached for the bottle, pouring herself another generous measure. “I’m not sure about the rest of this, Evan. You were a cop before, right? Isn’t there a saying…’once a cop, always a cop’? I need you to be on my side here. I need you to believe in me because some of the stuff I’m saying is going to sound pretty far out.”

Josie had been watching too much television.

“In all my years in law enforcement I’ve never heard that once I’m a cop I’m always a cop. Never. I was a cop and now I’m not. That doesn’t mean I still don’t often think like one or still have the instincts, but I am not an officer of the law. Actually, I’m an out of work loser right now. And I am on your side.”

“You’re not a loser.”

“Thank you. Before you go further, can I ask a few questions?”

He was struggling to picture the scene in his mind and he needed it to be clear.

“Sure.” Josie shrugged and took another sip of whiskey. “I’m not all that keen on telling the next part anyway.”

“You said your friend Amy was lying on the ground, right? Next to her car? How far was that from her apartment and did she…well…pass on before you went to her place to retrieve the thumb drive?”

“Yes, she was lying on the ground next to her car. The apartment building was maybe twenty feet or so. Not far. And I did stay with her until she was gone. I didn’t leave her. I wouldn’t do that. She was my best friend. But even that came back to bite me in the ass.”

This must be the part Josie didn’t want to tell. From experience, he knew to ask open-ended questions and simply wait for the answers. Let her talk her way through a difficult situation.

“How so?”

Her head fell back with a long groan, her gaze on the ceiling and decidedly away from him. “I held her as she told me about the thumb drive and not to trust anyone. Then she…you know…left. In real time it must have all happened very fast, although it felt like it was all in slow motion. But our neighbor must have heard Amy screaming or something when the men were running away. She came to the door and turned on her porch light so she could see. And what she could see was me hovering over a bleeding Amy as she passed away. She started yelling that I was a murderer and she was getting her gun and calling the police. I realized I didn’t have much time. I had to grab a few things and get out of there or I was going to be arrested for killing Amy.”

Fuck.
Evan felt like he’d taken a punch to the gut. No wonder Josie was terrified. Not only had she seen her friend murdered but she was a suspect.

“The neighbor had a good view of your face? You said the building was twenty feet away and it was the middle of the night.”

“Good enough, apparently. She always hated me and Amy. Said we were bad for the building because we were out late at night. Of course I was out late at night. I was at work.”

“So you ran, but you retrieved the thumb drive first. It must not have taken you long to find it.”

Josie lifted her head and took another drink, her eyes watery and red-rimmed from crying. “Amy and I had exchanged keys so getting into her apartment wasn’t an issue. She never cooked so her saucepan was in the same spot in the cabinet that it always was, and the drive was just where she’d said it would be. I grabbed it and shoved it in my pocket, then went to my place for my backpack. I didn’t have time to take much as you can see but I got the hell out of there before the cops arrived. Headed to a cheap motel outside of the city to spend the night and figure out what I was going to do. But that didn’t turn out like I thought it would. I ended up leaving in the middle of the night.”

If she’d taken her own car, it wouldn’t take long for the police to catch up with her.

“I assume the cops showed up and you had to run again?”

Leaning forward, she buried her face in her hands and took several deep breaths as if trying to steady herself. Evan wanted to reach out and comfort her but her body language was too forbidding at the moment. She didn’t look as if she’d appreciate being touched while she was recounting her story.

“That would have been bad enough, but no, they didn’t show up. Although I guess they might have later after I left. No, it was the guys who ran from the scene. The ones who killed Amy. I couldn’t sleep and I heard some noises from the parking lot. I peeked out of the curtain and saw them getting out of their car, guns drawn. I didn’t know what to do so I called the front desk yelling about men outside with guns. The manager ran out there with his shotgun and threatened to call the cops. It gave me a few minutes of cover to run. I left my car there and caught a city bus a few blocks over and it took me to the bus station. From there I emptied my checking account from a nearby ATM and boarded the next bus that was leaving fifteen minutes later. And here I am.”