Taking the Heat

“Except for the fact that it was you who cuffed him. I’m sure it’s not going to reflect well on you when I mention that, along with the fact that there wasn’t anything wrong with his hand this morning.”

Taking his eyes from the road, Eckland gaped at her. “You know his hand was already broken!”

“I do? Too bad there isn’t a medical report to prove it.”

Eckland’s pupils narrowed into small pinpoints of black. “Are you threatening me, Officer Hadley?”

“Threatening you?” She forced a cool smile despite the tension wreaking havoc in her stomach. How had she gotten herself into this power struggle? She’d never wanted to get personally involved with the men she policed, never planned to get caught up in the kind of moral dilemma she’d been facing ever since Tucker’s fight. Like Officer Bell, she longed for nothing more than to do eight hours of work for eight hours’ pay. She had her own problems. But she couldn’t sit still any longer knowing how badly Tucker had to be hurting.

“I’m not threatening anyone,” she said. “I’m merely suggesting we pull over and loosen the prisoner’s cuffs so the staff at Alta Vista won’t be overly concerned. We wouldn’t want them to start an investigation, would we? If they find out what happened last week, a few heads are going to roll.”

“Yours will be one of ’em,” Eckland snarled.

“Mine might be the first, but I guarantee it won’t be the last,” she said softly, and she meant it. If she lost her job at the prison, there’d be nothing to stop her from going to the press with the story of Hansen’s behavior.

“I liked you when you started last week,” Eckland said, “but you haven’t done much to impress me since then. You’re treading on very thin ice, Officer Hadley. I suggest you watch your step.”

Gabrielle squared her shoulders and gave him a withering glare. “I suggest you pull over and let me loosen the prisoner’s cuffs.”

“Fine!” Nostrils flaring, Eckland slammed on the brakes and jerked the steering wheel to the right. The sudden deceleration threw Gabrielle against her shoulder harness. She glanced sideways at him to ask why he was driving so recklessly, but before she could say anything, they nearly clipped the front of a car in the other lane. Eckland overcorrected and hit the opposite shoulder, which spun them like a carnival ride and left them facing an oncoming pickup.

Brakes squealing, the truck swerved, skidded and smashed into them. The hood of their car crumpled like an accordion. Gabrielle heard Eckland scream amid the crunch of folding metal. Tucker cursed and his weight hit the back of her seat as the impact tossed the car into a nearby gully.

For a stunned moment Gabrielle sat there, breathing hard. They’d crashed. Thanks to Eckland and his giant ego, they’d nearly died. Gabrielle knew she was alive, but she wasn’t sure she was still in one piece. She did a mental checklist of her body parts, searching for pain or injury, wondering if the absence of feeling meant something worse than the presence of it. Was she in shock? Had she been paralyzed?

She wiggled her toes and fingers and found them all in working order, but her knees had hit her chest. It soon felt as if someone had flung an anvil at it.

Still, she was going to be okay, she decided. What about Eckland—and Tucker?

Eckland was groaning and complaining about his leg. Gabrielle fumbled with her seat belt, trying to free herself so she could help him when she heard Tucker’s voice behind her.

“Hadley, get these damn cuffs off.”

His hand. His poor hand. She was shaking so badly she could barely unlatch her seat belt. “Are you okay?” she asked, twisting to peer through the metal screen.

Tucker’s door was smashed in and he was doubled over. She couldn’t see anything except the thick black hair on the back of his head. “Tucker? Are you hurt?”

He groaned. “Just get these damn cuffs off.”

“No, don’t do it,” Eckland said between clenched teeth. “Just sit tight. I’ll radio for help.” He shifted, reaching for the radio, and Hadley cringed as she caught a glimpse of his torn pants and the leg beneath, which was obviously broken. She imagined she saw the bone jutting through the skin and nearly threw up. The only way they were going to get out of here was in an ambulance, she realized. They already had one broken leg. Then there was Tucker’s arm. Had he sustained further injury? Was there anything she could do to help?

“What’s wrong?” she asked Tucker again as Eckland, panting through his pain, placed their distress call. “Do you have new injuries?”

He didn’t answer.

“Leave him be! Help’s on the way,” Eckland grunted when he got off the radio.

She ignored him. Help could take an hour or more. Wrenching her door open, she rushed around the car. At least Eckland was free. At least he could move, to some extent. Tucker was still chained, couldn’t use his hands or his legs.

The back door required all her strength to open and creaked loudly as she pulled it back. Hunched over, his wrists still locked in his lap, Tucker barely moved but she could see his hand. It was black and blue and so swollen she couldn’t see the metal of the cuff anymore. And his face, when he finally looked at her, showed glassy eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, fumbling with the ring on her belt for the key that would release him.

“Hadley, don’t you dare, dammit,” Eckland said, but he was in too much pain to do more than curse.

A thin sheen of sweat was popping out on Tucker’s forehead and he’d closed his eyes as though he didn’t have the strength to speak.

“I have to. I can’t stand to leave him like this,” she told Eckland, unlocking the cuffs and kicking herself for not loosening them sooner.

Tucker cradled his hand in his lap and sucked in an audible breath. For a moment, the gray tinge to his skin grew worse. Gabrielle thought he was going to pass out, but he surprised her by grabbing her forearm and pinning her beneath him.

“What are you doing? Don’t make things any worse for yourself,” she cautioned, the terror of what he could do finally dispelling the dazed confusion caused by the accident. “You heard Eckland call for help. They’ll be here soon. Just sit back and relax.”

Eckland growled Tucker’s name, threatening and swearing at him, but Tucker didn’t answer. Suddenly alert and quick-witted as a cat—and seemingly oblivious to any kind of pain—he used his left hand to search through her keys and unlock his belly chain and leg irons. Rolling over her, he held her down with one knee while he recovered the handcuffs, locked her right hand to the screen between the seats and got out of the car. Then he scanned the horizon—and started running.

CHAPTER FIVE

HE WAS ESCAPING. Gabrielle couldn’t believe it. She used what little room the cuffs allowed to stand outside the open door of the car, where she could watch Tucker cross the deserted highway. Once he reached the other side, he started jogging into the desert as blithely as though he’d planned the whole thing. Jogging! He was jogging!

“Damn you, Tucker,” Gabrielle muttered, even angrier with herself because she’d let him fool her. This was what her compassion had brought her. An escaped convict, an injured guard, another disabled vehicle with God only knows how many people inside—and the burning desire to bring Tucker back, regardless of anything else.

Eckland managed to meet her hand with his keys, and she unlocked herself. It took some doing and by the time she was free, Tucker was well on his way.

Should she go after him? She glanced at Eckland, then the other car, and decided she’d better attend to the injured.

Eckland was swearing a blue streak, but his condition hadn’t worsened. The truck, which had rolled at least once, was still partially on the highway. The windshield hadn’t shattered, but it was cracked into a spiderweb Gabrielle couldn’t see through. A peek in the side window, which was still intact, revealed two occupants—a middle-aged woman driver and a man who looked to be in his early twenties. The driver had hit her face on the steering wheel and cut her lip. She was bleeding, though not profusely, and the man was rubbing a knot on his forehead where he’d banged into the windshield or dash. They were both luckier than Eckland.

Gabrielle helped them out and away from the truck, got a first-aid kit out of the patrol car for their use, and lit some flares to warn other motorists to slow down. Then she stood off to the side to wait for the ambulance.

But the sight of Tucker’s retreating figure, growing smaller and smaller as he made his way up the mountain closest to the road, taunted her. If she let him get very far into the desert, they might never find him. The Mexican border was only fifty miles or so to the south. He could slip across and easily disappear….

If he made it to the border. Chances were better that he’d die of dehydration long before he reached Mexico. He was injured, had no water, and they were in the middle of the Sonoran Desert, one of the hottest, driest places in all of North America. Temperatures this time of year often reached one hundred and twenty degrees. Though Gabrielle wasn’t sure exactly how that would translate into surface heat, she knew the ground would be a whole heck of a lot hotter than the air, probably one seventy or one eighty degrees.

What was Tucker thinking? That he’d rather die than go to Alta Vista?

Evidently.

Telling herself she’d worry about Tucker later, she walked back to see if there was anything she could do for Eckland, but he didn’t want her company.

“Stay the hell away,” he growled. “You’ve done enough.”

“Are you bleeding anywhere?” she persisted.

“My leg’s broke. That’s it. Nothing we can do but wait.”

“You don’t seem to have a back or neck injury. If it would make you more comfortable, I could probably help you out of the car.”

“I don’t want your help. I don’t want to be touched.”