No Sanctuary

She could feel his recognition by the tension in his hands. Hadn’t he heard she was getting out? Not caring one way or the other, she tugged harder and scrambled for the exit.

Ignoring the “Wait a minute!” he called after her, she pushed through the double glass doors and once outside broke into a dead run. Weak-kneed and sick to her stomach, she shoved the key into the truck’s door lock.

She didn’t bother turning on the air conditioner or taking time to roll down the window. The seat belt had to wait, too. Jamming the key into the ignition, she turned over the engine and drove. The need for escape had never been stronger—and grew worse when she spotted him in the rearview mirror running after her. Afraid he was about to grab on to the tailgate, she burned rubber merging into traffic, almost hitting a Brinks armored truck.

She was free, but that was temporary. Weighed with a new gloom, she drove in a mindless, circuitous route and after a good half hour of haphazard turns she located a familiar street. In order to delay her return home a little longer, she stopped at a discount store for the paint. Another encounter was inevitable, though. Detective Jack Burke had been in the right place to obtain her new address.

It happened sooner than she expected. She hadn’t yet reached the front door when the white pickup truck pulled into her driveway.

5

Doubt and worry buzzed like deer flies in her head as Bay waited for the worst. If only Madeleine would call now. She’d phoned early on to see how Bay made it through the night and once hearing Bay’s plans to go for her license, promised to check in later. Sparing the busy woman a recap of her neurotic first hours here was easy—Bay would like to forget her foolish reaction herself—but she would feel better if Madeleine knew he had arrived, her worst analogy of a bad penny.

He stopped at the far end of the house and killed the engine, all the while watching her with the same intensity she used on him. When he climbed out, she saw he’d taken off his tan suit jacket and loosened his tie, but that just made the gun on his belt obvious. She was no less resentful of his size and how capable and trustworthy he looked. Sure, she thought, trust him to ruin your life. One thing, she had to admit time hadn’t been all that kind to Jack Burke. Thanks in part to him, though, she didn’t have enough generosity of spirit to feel sorry for him.

He still possessed the kind of face movie directors chose for a big brother, strong, the features defined without being craggy. But his probing brown eyes looked sunken and the shadows beneath them suggested whatever was ailing him had become chronic. Then there was that faint scar running down from his lower lip to his chin, which had her wondering who else he’d ticked off since he’d helped put her away.

He moved with a smooth grace like someone used to physical work that involved the whole body. Rolled-up sleeves exposed tanned and well-toned arms indicating that whatever he did to keep fit, it wasn’t at an indoor gym. That healthy quality was offset by a slight slump to his broad shoulders, and the line bisecting those dark eyebrows cut deep enough to tell her that he frowned more often than he smiled.

He stopped a spare two yards away from her, his hands loose at his sides. She couldn’t keep from folding her arms across her chest and resented him for that, too.

“You didn’t have to run.”

“Then why are you here?”

“For the moment, I guess only to make sure you’re okay.”

Right, Bay thought, and on top of her already huge generosity, Madeleine had convinced the mayor to throw a parade in her honor and give her the key to the city. At least he hadn’t driven up in one of those unmarked cars. Regardless, the guy had cop written all over him and she wished they were standing farther back from the road than they were.

“I guess it’s a bit much to hope you believe me?” he continued.

She didn’t see a reason to respond to the obvious.

“Guess not. So much for my declining skill at small talk.”

“You think that’ll make it easier to haul me in?”

His troubled frown became one of confusion and made the ridge along his straight eyebrows resemble a mountain ledge. “Why would I do that?”

“To put me back where you think I belong.”

“Then you don’t know what I think.”

“Please.” Disgusted, Bay looked away. “Stop wasting my time. If your plan is to bug me day in and day out until I leave your precious town, forget it. If it’s to make me feel guilty because a good woman believed in me and helped me, is continuing to help me,” she added extending her arms to encompass her surroundings, “you can give it your best shot. But understand this, Madeleine Ridgeway will hear about it and she has connections.”

“I’m acutely aware of your friend’s connections.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Never mind. I don’t care. Your bitterness about having a case getting turned around is your problem. You should have done a better job with the investigation to begin with.”

“You’re right there. Look, I realize you’ve had plenty of time to add to your hatred of me, but if it would give you any—”

“It won’t.”

“Bay…”

“No!” Rising anger emboldened her. “You have nothing to say that I want to hear. In fact, I was hoping never to have to see you again. Since my lucky streak seems to be short-lived, I think I should at least have a right to ask you to stay away from me.”

“I’m not going to be able to do that.”

The quiet words shook her more than an angry outburst would have. “That sounds like a threat.”

“I could try to explain if you eased up on the defensiveness a bit.”

“There’s nothing to explain. I’m out. It’s over.”

“I don’t think so…and if you’re half the woman I think you are, you don’t believe it, either.”

The truth struck so close she barely refrained from stepping backward. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Uh-huh. And the moment you heard your partner described as a weak gambling addict who risked your friendship and trust, not to mention his relationship with the woman he was about to marry, you didn’t want to spit in the eye of the person reciting that crap to you?”

So he did know. And he was telling her that he didn’t believe the story Catfish Tarpley had to tell any more than she did. It grated that they should agree about anything, but she wasn’t going to let him know what she thought until she did some digging herself.

Instead, she played it cool and drawled, “Haven’t visited many lifers, have you? If you did, you’d know we’d do just about anything to taste freedom again.”

“Sorry, kiddo, you’re not going to convince me that you’ve grown that hard.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“It’s the way I saw you that first night—a scared, little kid—and how I still see you.”

Bay stared at the ground between them and tried not to wonder at the sadness in his voice. He couldn’t care, not then or now. This was a ploy of some kind. She simply wasn’t smart enough to figure out what and why.

“Why can’t you just go away?” she whispered in a voice that sounded too much like the child he’d described.

“Because I owe you.”

He had that much right.

“Do you know I didn’t hear about the confession until it made front page in the papers? A little odd, don’t you think? The case detective being left out of the loop?”

She shrugged. It wasn’t her problem if his fellow cops didn’t want to talk to him and that, as a result, he’d been professionally embarrassed.

“Tyler’s not a three-cop town anymore,” Jack Burke continued. “We don’t know everything the others are doing, but for a convicted murderer who once garnered national press to have her conviction reversed without the detective on record being informed, let alone assist in the new investigation, is unusual, let me tell you.”

“Maybe your superiors were trying to avoid any more PR damage than was already done.”

“A valid point. So is the unwritten rule that people don’t do favors for strangers.”