ANGEL MEETS THE BADMAN Page 8

  Jake glanced at Sara again, shook off his own worries and crossed the room to her. "Why don't we find someplace for you to catch a few hours' rest, hmm?"

  She looked up at him, shook her head. "I'll never sleep." But she got to her feet, anyway. Her knees didn't look too steady, though. Jake put an arm around her and helped her out of the room. This bungalow was a bit larger than the one she was in. It had two bedrooms and brought in a higher rental price. He was glad as hell it wasn't rented out this week. "Right in here," he said, pushing open the door to the second bedroom.

  Sara's knees buckled a little, so he tightened his grip. When he got her to the bed, he yanked back the covers and eased her down onto the clean sheets. She immediately curled into a ball on her side, her back to him. She pulled the covers up to her ears. He could see her shoulders shaking underneath the blankets, and he knew it was too damn hot to want to cover up at all, much less cover up and still be shivering.

  With a sigh he turned, took a single step away from the bed. "No, don't."

  Fear made her voice thin and tight, but soft for all that. He turned to face her again. "Don't what?"

  "Don't go. Please, Jake, I … I need to ask you something."

  With a sigh that felt suspiciously like relief, he returned to the bedside and lowered himself to sit on the edge of the mattress. She didn't want him to leave. That must mean she didn't think he'd killed Vivienne. Oh, sure, she'd said she believed he was innocent—to the cops. But what she really believed, way down deep in her gut, was what mattered. So maybe this meant she honestly, truly believed him. Or … or maybe that was what she was about to ask him—the big question: Did you do it?

  He didn't think he could stand it if Sara Brand asked him that.

  "Tonight, earlier," she said, "before all this happened, you stood in your bedroom window."

  He searched her eyes. "Yeah. And you stood in the kitchen window."

  She flinched. "You could see me, then?"

  "I could see you a little. Not enough. I turned my light off so I could see you better." He tried a hint of a smile, thinking maybe he could distract her from whatever was eating her up inside. It didn't have any effect on her. In fact, she seemed to be getting paler. "When I went into your bungalow just now to get the pills, I saw the lamp in the window. The matches. One pulled out of the book. Did you really come that close to lighting the lamp, or is this just wishful thinking on my part?"

  Teasing her didn't seem to help, either. She was shaking her head. Not even hearing him, he thought. "Sara?" he asked.

  Her throat moved as she swallowed. "When you turned your light off … you could see me?"

  "Yeah."

  She closed her eyes slowly. "Then the killer saw me, too."

  Jake sat there, stunned into silence.

  "I saw him … choking her … and I screamed…" Jake put his hand to her shoulder. "He— The window must have been slightly open, because he seemed to hear me. He looked out … right at me, and then he dropped her and he … he turned off the light."

  So he could see her better, Jake thought. No wonder she was scared to death.

  "I can't believe this is happening again," she whispered.

  "Again?"

  "Jake, hold me," she whispered. "Hold me, please. I'm so afraid."

  Swallowing hard, and knowing that this invitation into her bed had nothing whatsoever to do with sex, Jake nodded and crawled underneath the covers. He spooned against her, draped an arm around her, wondered how the hell he was supposed to slip away in the dead of night to save his own skin when she'd just given him reason to believe the killer might come after her next.

  "I was four years old," she began. "I was playing hide-and-seek with my mamma. I used to do it all the time … crawl into the cupboard underneath the kitchen sink and pull the door almost closed. Then I'd crouch there and peek out at her while she pretended to look for me. That's where I was when it happened."

  She rolled onto her opposite side and, facing him now, snuggled closer. Jake stroked her hair. He felt as if he were holding a child. A frightened, traumatized child, like the little girl she'd just described to him. In a way maybe he was.

  "A man kicked the front door in. I … heard the crashing sound and peeked out the crack of the cupboard door. I could see into the living room. I could see his gun spitting fire, and the little explosions that came from my father's back as the bullets ripped through him. The noise was— It was so loud. And … and Mamma screamed … and then he shot her, too. And then it just got quiet. Just … so quiet."

  Jake had gone stiff as the words poured from her. But now he pulled her even more tightly against him and held her close. God, no wonder this had her so upset. No wonder she was so afraid.

  "I was so scared I couldn't move. But I couldn't look away, either. I wanted to pull the cupboard door shut the rest of the way, close off that tiny crack, huddle as far back as I could. But I couldn't move. I could only sit there, frozen … watching … because I couldn't look away."

  "My God, Sara…"

  "The man, he dragged my mother's body across the floor and out of the house. I remember the blood, the way it smeared and made such a mess, and I sat there wondering who would clean that up. I knew Mamma couldn't. Then the man dragged my father away, too. And I thought it was over. I thought I was safe. But … he came back one last time … and he saw me. I met his eyes right through the crack in the cupboard door, and I knew he saw me. He even started to come for me. To kill me, too."

  "I'm sorry … God, I'm so sorry, Sara," Jake whispered, and his arms were holding her tighter than before, and he knew it, but didn't remember tightening them. Somehow his hand had begun stroking her hair, while his other hand rubbed her back.

  "But then there were sirens … the police. The man had to run. And even when he was gone I couldn't move … or even speak. I … I was still in that cupboard when the police found me hours later."

  Jake swallowed hard. "What happened to you then?"

  She sniffled. "I was taken away and put into the witness protection program. They gave me a new name, a new family. The newspapers were told that my entire family had been killed. In fact, I thought it was true. I thought my brother had died, as well. All the bodies had been taken away, so when they couldn't find him, they assumed…"

  She lifted her head, and Jake saw that her eyes were wet. "He wasn't dead, though. Marcus was in the basement when the shooting started, and he'd wandered away in shock before the police searched down there. He thought I'd been killed, and I thought he had. We only found each other again a year ago."

  Jake didn't like the feeling that was suffusing his chest or the ideas that were spinning around in his head. Ideas about protecting the little girl who still lived inside Sara Brand. Who still hid in cupboards every once in a while. He'd seen that old fear. He'd thought it was him she was afraid of. But it wasn't. It had never been him.

  "I spent my whole life being afraid, looking over my shoulder, waiting for that killer to finally track me down."

  Jake blinked. "You mean he wasn't caught?"

  Sara shook her head. "No. Not until last year, when he finally found out where I was. He came for me, just as I'd always known he would. And my brother killed him. My entire family's been trying to convince me that I'm finally safe—really, truly safe—ever since." Lifting her head, she stared into his eyes. "I was even starting to believe it."

  "And now this… Dammit, Sara, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Her eyes were so wide he thought he could fall into them, so full of hurt that it was almost painful to look at them, and every single tear track on her silken cheeks was like a knife right through his heart. He cupped her face in his palms and said the words he'd been telling himself not to say—not to even think. They seemed to tumble from his lips without giving a damn what he told himself. "I'm not going to let anyone hurt you, Sara Brand. Do you understand that? I promise, I'll keep you safe."

  Her damp eyes seemed trusting. Imagine that, trusting … him. She had no re
ason in the world to trust him.

  Mocking laughter seemed to fill his mind, and the stinging words came to him in the voice of officer Marty Kendall. Right. Convict turns hero. Dream on, Nash. You're going down, pal. And who's gonna protect her then? Hmm?

  Hell. He held Sara a little closer, realized he would be in jail right now if it hadn't been for her. He wanted to ease her fears. He wanted to be her hero. And that was a joke, because he knew damn good and well that he was no hero.

  "Maybe you should take one of those tranquilizers yourself, hmm? Get some rest?"

  Sara shook her head fast. "I can't. If he comes for me, Jake … I need to be ready."

  Tough talk from a scared little girl. "No one's going to come after you, Sara. Not tonight. Not while I'm here."

  "Yes, he will. He came before, and he will again."

  He ran a hand down her arm. "It's not the same guy, Sara."

  "They're all the same guy, Jake." Her eyes looked into his, and he saw a hard-won wisdom in them. Too hard-won.

  "Hot tea, then?" he said. "Decaf, or something herbal? So you can rest just a little bit?"

  Looking up into his eyes, she nodded. Jake got up, opened the bedroom door, pointed into the small kitchen. "I'll be in sight the whole time, okay?"

  Nodding shakily, she burrowed more deeply into the pillows, pulled the covers tight around her. Jake stepped into the kitchen, rummaged in the cupboards and found a few decaffeinated teabags. Not that the caffeine content, or lack thereof, was going to matter all that much. He knew what he had to do.

  When the water was hot, he poured it, and while his back was to Sara, he pulled a couple of the tranquilizers out of the bottle and dropped them into the steaming water. Then he stirred in some sugar to mask the taste. She would never rest in the state she was in. And if he had any hope at all of staying out of jail himself, he had to act. Now. Tonight. Either figure this thing out on his own or get the hell out of Dodge before the posse came back with a rope. He figured he had until sunup. And maybe not even that long.

  He went back to the bedroom and sat beside her, stroking her and soothing her until she'd drained every last bit of tea from the cup and passed out cold as a stone.

  There was something he hadn't mentioned to Sara, and now that he'd seen the fear—heard it in her voice—he knew he couldn't tell her. Not without scaring her even more. He hadn't mentioned that when he'd been inside her bungalow, he'd heard the creak of the back door and the sound of footsteps in the grass… Since he'd seen no one, he'd chalked it up to raw nerves, the wind, a hundred other things.

  Now, though, he realized it hadn't been any of those things. It had been the killer. And Jake couldn't for the life of him run away and leave her behind—not knowing that she was right. The killer had seen her. He probably thought she'd seen him, as well. And now he was planning to come after her next. Jake would be damned if he would run away to save himself and let the bastard get to her.

  But he couldn't stay here, either. There was only one choice left, the way he saw it.

  Sara woke with a groggy, head-stuffed-full-of-cotton sensation. Her head felt heavy, her limbs like lead. She drew a deep breath and found the air moist and pungent. The sound of lapping water made its way into her consciousness, followed by birds making rude screeching noises, and sudden bursts of movement—rustling, flapping sounds. The hard, misshapen bed beneath her seemed to be rocking gently.

  She was outside.

  Blinking her eyes open, she looked around, spying the wooden sides of whatever conveyance she'd been put into, then the booted feet and blue jeans of the man who'd put her into it, and beyond that, nothing but slate-gray fog.

  She sat up fast, sucking in a gasp as memory returned, her heart leaping into her throat.

  The man bent down. "It's okay, Sara. It's me. It's all right. You're safe."

  "'Safe…'" She repeated the word as if it were foreign. Indeed, that was what it had been for most of her life. And from the looks of things, it would be for a while longer. "We're in a boat."

  Jake nodded, straightening again. He was standing in one end of a small, box-nosed wooden boat, pushing it along with a long pole that vanished into the murky water. Sara squinted through the fog, even as she got herself up off the floor of the tiny vessel and onto the bench-like seat. It was a struggle because someone had mummy wrapped her in a soft blanket. Jake, she assumed. She freed her arms, settled the blanket more comfortably around her shoulders and got upright on the bench. But she could see little more than before. The darker shapes of trees dripping with moss, combined with the water, told her they were in the swamp. The bayou, as he called it. Gator's Bayou. The place he'd warned her repeatedly not to enter.

  "Jake, what's going on?"

  He drew a breath, let it out slowly. "I couldn't stay, Sara. Marty Kendall would have had me behind bars before breakfast time if I'd stayed."

  She licked her lips, lowering her head. "Oh, no."

  "I didn't have a choice."

  "You're wrong, Jake."

  "No, I'm not. I've spent almost half my life in prison, Sara, I don't plan on going back."

  "Half your … my God, Jake, how long was your sentence for that robbery?"

  Jake met her eyes. "Twenty years."

  "But that's—"

  "Excessive? I killed the town's favorite former cop, Sara. The guy was a hometown hero." Jake shrugged. "So I did seventeen, and they finally granted my parole."

  "Who was your lawyer?" she asked. "Bozo the Clown? Because that's just—"

  "Didn't have a lawyer. Couldn't afford one."

  "But, Jake, if you can't afford a lawyer, they appoint one for you."

  He shrugged. "I wouldn't have trusted any lawyer they'd picked out."

  "So you defended yourself?"

  He nodded.

  "Well, there you go. That's why you wound up with such a ludicrous sentence."

  He crooked an eyebrow at her. "You really think letting their guy defend me would have resulted in anything less?"

  She tilted her head to one side. "Their guy? God, Jake, you really don't trust the system at all, do you?"

  "Nope."

  "But you have to. Jake … look what you're doing here. Running away isn't the answer."

  "Bull."

  "You have to go back. You have to fight this thing, clear your name, help find the real killer…"

  He crouched down, his face inches from hers. "And what kind of fairy-tale world do you live in, where that's the way things work, Sara Brand? Hmm? I've got a record. I'm a convicted killer, who was seen having an altercation—some might even call it a physical altercation—with the victim only hours before she was murdered. I was the last one to see her alive. I was the only one in the house physically capable of strangling a grown woman to death. And I don't have anyone to vouch for my whereabouts at the time. Add to that the fact that the cop on the case has a hankering for my head on a platter, and you've got yourself a surefire conviction. If I go back there, Sara, I go to prison. Period."

  "There will be blood under the nails, Jake. The DNA tests—"

  "Don't kid yourself, Sara. Kendall won't let that evidence see the light of day."

  She said nothing. Just stared into his eyes for a long moment. They were dark, and they were scared. Angry, furious, frustrated, yes … but scared, too. "I can understand why you believe that. But what's the alternative, Jake? Do you really want to spend the rest of your life running? Always looking over your shoulder? Always waiting for them to find you?"

  "If that's what it takes."

  "Then why did you bring me with you?"

  He lowered his gaze quickly. Too quickly. Then he got back to his feet, resuming his pole pushing.

  She frowned, searching his face as the mist around them paled to a lighter shade. The sun must be rising … somewhere. There was certainly no sign of it here. "This is like crossing the River Styx," she whispered.

  "Yeah. I was thinking that."

  She drew a breath, sighed.
"You think he's going to come after me too, don't you?"

  "Who?"

  "You know who. The killer. You said you didn't think he'd seen me, but you know he did, and you know I was right about that. For all he knows, I can identify him. He's going to try to silence me before I can do that, and that's why you didn't leave me behind back there. Isn't it, Jake?"

  There was a long pause. Then, slowly, he looked down at her, his face expressionless. "You trying to make me into some kind of hero, Sara? I'm not, you know. I'm an ex-con running from a murder rap. And it ought to be pretty obvious why I'd drag you along."

  She only frowned at him.

  "Think about it, Sara."

  Blinking slowly, she lifted her brows. "Are you saying I'm some kind of a hostage?"

  He looked at her, didn't affirm or deny it, just looked at her.

  "Jake, if that's the idea, here, it's a bad one. My cousin's a sheriff. He'll have every cop in the country on your trail."

  Jake closed his eyes slowly. "I'd … let that slip my mind." Then he smiled slowly, a bitter smile that held no hint of amusement. "I can pick 'em, that's for sure."

  Thinning her lips, she shook her head. "Jake, please listen to me. You have to go back."

  "No, Sara. I don't. And you can either talk about something else or keep quiet."

  Sighing heavily, she let her shoulders slump. She didn't believe he'd taken her as a hostage, though that was obviously what he wanted her to think. He'd brought her along for some other reason.

  "Fine," she said at last. "Kendall's in charge of the case and he has it in for you."

  "How'd you guess?" he asked dryly.

  "So we get him removed from the case," she said. "It shouldn't be hard to convince the authorities that he's biased." She tilted her head. "Was he on the force during the investigation of his grandfather's death?"

  "Kendall was a rookie cop. His old man was a cop. His uncle worked in the D.A.'s office."

  "My God … you were railroaded!"

  "Murder is murder, Sara. The old man was just as dead, and I was just as responsible, whether he had relatives in high places or not."

  "What did you do when that old man fell on the floor, Jake?"