“Then why did the warden show up here?” he asked, his blue eyes bright with anger. “He’s looking for me.”
“And I probably should have turned you over to him.” But she couldn’t take the risk that Jed wouldn’t get hurt or, worse, wind up like Doc, if she talked.
Trusting this stranger, though, was putting her own life at risk. Warden James was not going to be happy if he learned that she had lied to him. So she had to make certain that he never learned the truth.
“I THINK YOUR BROTHER DID kill me and send me straight to hell,” Rowe grumbled as he zipped up the sweatshirt Macy had tossed over the seat a minute before. “First a body bag and a coroner’s van.”
“Then a slab in the morgue,” she murmured over her shoulder.
“And a cold unventilated drawer.” It had also been dark and confining, reminding him of those closets he’d been locked in so many years ago.
“I didn’t shut it all the way.”
He leaned through the partition separating the back from the front seat. “No, you didn’t, or I would have suffocated and wouldn’t be taking this ride right now—” Rowe shook his head in disbelief “—in the back of a hearse.”
“You couldn’t just walk out of the morgue,” Macy said, her voice muffled as she stared straight ahead, peering through the windshield. She steered the hearse down the narrow road which, like every other road in Blackwoods County, wound around woods and small, inland lakes in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
“No, I couldn’t, not with Warden James and his goons hanging around the hospital,” he agreed. So he’d had to trust Macy Kleyn again and rely on her quick-witted thinking to get him out of the hospital unseen.
He lifted his gaze from the windshield to the rearview mirror hanging from it, and caught the reflection of headlamps burning through the darkness behind them. His gut knotted with apprehension. “But someone still might have followed us.”
In the rearview, Macy’s wide-eyed gaze met his. “Someone’s following us?”
“It’s possible.” Given his recent run of bad luck, highly probable.
“Or maybe you’re just paranoid,” she said, her voice light even though her eyes, reflecting back at him from the rearview mirror, darkened with fear.
“Paranoia isn’t necessarily a bad thing.” He touched the wound on his ribs that Macy had had to add stitches to completely close. If her brother had obeyed the warden, that knife would have gone deep enough to kill Rowe.
Who within the administration had given him up? His handler or someone else in the office? He had worked with his handler, Agent Jackson, before. Hell, after six years with the DEA, he had worked with everyone in his department and a few others. He would have never suspected one of the special agents of blowing someone’s cover. But it was the only way the warden could have learned his real identity.
So Rowe had no idea who he could trust—besides Macy Kleyn. And if he’d gotten her brother killed, he was certain she would turn on him, too. “Because sometimes everybody really is out to get you.”
“I know.” She jerked the wheel, abruptly turning off the road. The hearse barely cleared the trees on either side of it as it bounced over the ruts of a two-track road. She shut off the lights but not the engine as she continued, blind, through the trees.
“Where the hell did you learn to drive like this?” he asked, that paranoia making him suspicious of her now. Her brother had said she was studying to become a doctor, not a stunt driver.
“EMT class.”
“So how did you wind up working in the morgue?” he asked, with a sense of revulsion as he remembered the coldness and the closeness of that drawer she’d kept shutting him in.
“I applied for a job as an ambulance driver,” she explained, “but the only opening at the hospital was in the morgue.”
She had given up school and her choice of career to be close to her brother—a brother Rowe might have gotten killed just as he had Doc.
Remembering the frustration and worry in his voice when Jed had told him about his younger sister, Rowe said, “Now that we’re away from the hospital, you need to drop me off somewhere and then forget that you ever saw me.”
She snorted out a breath that stirred her bangs. “Not likely.”
“Macy, I appreciate what you’ve done, but I can’t ask you to do any more.” He couldn’t allow her to get involved any deeper than she already was. He wouldn’t break his promise to the man who had gotten him out of Blackwoods alive.
“I’m not doing this for you,” she said as she pulled up behind a building. After shutting off the engine, she jumped out. Seconds later the back door of the hearse opened. Moonlight glinted off a row of smokestacks on the corrugated steel roof.
“Where the hell are we?” he asked as he crawled out of the hearse.
“Hell is right.” She tossed his earlier words back at him. “The crematorium.” She jangled a ring of keys in her palm.
“You have the keys?”
“It’s my second job,” she explained. “Unofficially.”
“That’s why the hearse was in the parking lot?” He’d been surprised when she had rolled his gurney out to that particular vehicle.
“Yes, Elliot took my van and left the hearse. We have an arrangement.”
“And that is?” And who the hell was Elliot?
“I fill in for him when he has a gig. He’s a musician. He pays me cash, and I don’t tell his dad, who owns this place, that Elliot’s not doing his job.” Her teeth flashed in the moonlight as she smiled.
“Nice arrangement—if neither of you mind a little blackmail.”
“What’s a little blackmail between friends?” she said with another quick smile and a shrug. “It’s going to work out well for you.”
“It already has. You got me past the warden.” He glanced back toward the road, but he could see nothing other than the dark shadow of leafless trees swaying in the cool night breeze. Yet if someone had been following them, they may have just shut off their lights, too.
Were they sneaking up on them now? He had no weapon, nothing to defend himself and her. Lying under that sheet in the morgue had been the hardest thing he’d ever done—relying on her to protect them both. Her brother hadn’t exaggerated about her at all. Macy Kleyn was damn smart.
Too smart to be risking her life for him.
Macy rattled the keys as she fingered through them, obviously searching for the right one. “Are you warm enough in the sweatshirt?” she asked as she huddled in her parka.
Winter was officially over, but northern Michigan had yet to get the memo. Rowe ignored the wind biting through the shirt to chill his skin. He had more to worry about than the weather.
“I’m fine. Thanks.”
“It’s freezing out. Elliot might have a coat inside,” she said. Finally, she jammed a key in the lock and pushed open the back door.
He hesitated outside. Even though it was damn cold, he would rather be out in the open than confined anywhere else. Ever. Again.
“What are we doing here?” he asked.
“We’re going to burn the wrong body.”
“What?” He glanced back to the hearse. He had made damn certain that he’d been riding alone back there. While he’d done his share of skeevy undercover assignments, this one had been the stuff of horror movies since the first moment the prison bars had slid closed behind him. And it had only gotten worse since he’d escaped. “Whose body are we going to burn?”
“Yours.”
He laughed at her outrageous comment. “Yeah, right. You’re funny, too.” Kleyn hadn’t shared that tidbit about his kid sister.
“I’m not kidding.”
“Then you’re crazy.”
Her teeth flashed in a quick smile. “You’re not the first one to call me that.”
When she flipped on a light, he studied her. “Have you been called that because you believe your brother is innocent?”
She jerked her head in a sharp nod.
&nbs
p; “And because you quit school to move up here to be close to him?”
“That wasn’t about being close to him,” she clarified. “It’s about proving his innocence.”
“That may be impossible to prove,” he warned her. No matter how smart Macy Kleyn was, she wouldn’t be able to prove the innocence of a guilty man.
“Alone,” she admitted. “It would be. That’s why I want…” Her gaze skimmed up and down his body, over the black sweatshirt that molded like a second skin to his chest and over the faded jeans.
If she kept looking at him like that, Rowe had a feeling he would give her whatever she wanted. “Are you going to tell me or do I have to guess? I don’t have time for games, Macy.”
He had already wasted too much time that he should have spent putting distance between him and Blackwoods Penitentiary. A lot of distance.
“I know,” she agreed. “So lie down.”
His heart kicked his ribs. Maybe he really had died, but he’d gone to heaven instead of hell…if Macy Kleyn wanted him. “What? Why?”
“Lie down on this,” she said, and pointed toward a metal table. “And play dead again.”
“We’re out of the morgue,” he reminded her.
“But we’re not done yet.” She picked up a Polaroid camera.
He had trusted her before and she hadn’t betrayed him. Yet. With a sigh, Rowe lay down. “I’m getting a little too good at playing dead.”
“We have to do this right, or you won’t just be playing.”
“We?” There she went with the word Rowe had always made a point of never using. “I just needed your help to get out of the morgue. I don’t need anything else from you.”
“Really?” she asked, her lips curving into a smug smile. “Do you have a cell phone? Someone to call if you did? A ride or a vehicle to take you somewhere Warden James won’t find you? Or the police who will be looking for you when news of your escape from prison gets out?”
He clenched his jaw so hard his teeth ground together. She was right. He had none of those things. No one he could trust. But he had made a promise. “I’ll figure it out.”
“I’ll help you.”
“You’re not even convinced I’m telling you the truth,” he said. She was too smart to completely trust him despite his knowing about her childhood accident.
“But if you are telling the truth and I don’t help you, I’ll never forgive myself.”
“What happens to me is not your responsibility,” he said. No one had ever really taken responsibility for him. Not his parents and now not even the handler who should have pulled him out weeks ago when he hadn’t heard from Rowe.
“No, it’s not,” she agreed. “But I would never forgive myself for wasting this opportunity to help Jed, too.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. He suspected she wasn’t talking about just keeping her brother out of trouble with the warden. “What do you want?”
“Close your eyes.”
He, who had always had problems with authority, did as she said. And a light flashed behind his lids.
He sprang up. “What are you doing?”
“Shut up. Dead men don’t talk.”
Chapter Four
Dead men didn’t do a lot of things that Rowe couldn’t help but think of doing with her, especially as her hands pressed against his shoulders, pushing him back onto the table.
“Don’t look so tense,” Macy directed him. “Relax.”
“You’re not the one somebody’s trying to kill.” Not yet anyway. But once the warden figured out Macy had helped Rowe get out of the morgue—and the man was too shrewd not to figure it out—he would retaliate. First by killing her brother and then…
“Macy, I appreciate everything you’re doing,” he sincerely told her, “but you can’t help me. I can’t get you any more involved than you already are. It’s too dangerous.”
“I’m already involved,” she pointed out as she snapped another picture. “So I might as well get something for my trouble.”
Disappointment rose like bile in his throat. Macy Kleyn was certainly no angel; just like everyone else, she had her price.
He asked her again, “What do you want?”
“I will help you get in contact with someone you can trust,” she said, “someone who can get you safely out of Blackwoods County.”
That was easier said than done, and his wish, not hers. “And what do you want in exchange?”
“For you to get Jed safely out of Blackwoods Penitentiary.”
“You want me to break your brother out of prison?” he asked. Apparently she still hadn’t accepted that Rowe was a federal agent, since she expected him to break the law for her.
“I want you to clear his name,” she said. Her hands gripped his shoulders again, squeezing. “He was framed.”
Rowe sat up and swung his legs over the side of the metal table, his thigh bumping against her hip. Unable to help himself, he touched her again, cupping her soft cheek in his palm. His fingers tunneled into her hair, brushing over the ridge of the scar on the back of her head. Her eyes, so full of intelligence, widened as she stared up at him.
Rowe couldn’t lie to her even though Jed probably had, so that he wouldn’t lose her respect and adulation. “Everybody serving time in jail claims that they’ve been framed.”
“Even you,” she said, her chin lifting defensively as she pulled away from him and stepped out of his reach.
“I wasn’t framed,” he clarified. “A jury did not find me guilty of any crime. A judge did not sentence me for any crime. I was sent in undercover to investigate Blackwoods.”
“A cover that didn’t last long.”
He didn’t need the reminder. His ribs ached, the wound throbbing. But he welcomed the pain; it confirmed that he was still alive. For now.
“Why was that?” she asked. “Aren’t you very good at what you do?”
“I’m the best,” he said. He wasn’t just bragging, either; he had the commendations to prove it. But more importantly he had the convictions. He had put away so many bad people. After seeing how the prison doctor had been tortured and beaten, he suspected that the warden might prove the worst. Rowe had to put him away, but he couldn’t do that if the warden found him first. “Someone blew my cover.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.” He looked away from her, then back again to her beautiful face. “And that’s why I can trust no one.” Not even her.
“You can trust me, Rowe,” she promised, her big brown eyes earnest.
“No, I can’t.”
She smiled slightly, as if pitying him. “I don’t think you have a choice.”
Rowe was afraid that she was right. Maybe about everything. “You really believe that your brother was framed?”
She studied him a moment before nodding. “Just like I believe that you’re really an undercover DEA agent.”
He closed his eyes, dragged in a deep breath then committed himself. “Okay, we have a deal.”
Her eyes widened and sparkled with hope. “You’ll help Jed?”
“If he was really framed, I’ll work to clear his name,” Rowe promised.
But in making this vow to Macy, he was breaking his promise to her brother. The more help Rowe accepted from her, the more danger he put her in.
“He was framed,” Macy insisted with total certainty.
Her brother had to be telling the truth, because if he really was a cop killer, he would have killed Rowe instead of risking his own life to get him out. A killer wouldn’t have hesitated to kill again. Only a good man would put himself in danger to save someone else.
“Then I have to help him.” Because Rowe knew what it felt like to be an innocent man locked up like an animal. He had only been behind bars for weeks; Jed had been sentenced to life, which might not be a bad thing if Rowe wound up getting his sister killed. Because if that happened, Rowe had no doubt that Jed would really become a killer.
“You can’t help anyone if you’re dea
d, though,” Macy said, as if she’d read his mind. “So I’m going to fire up the incinerator now.”
“The what?”
“The oven,” she said, gesturing toward the big metal box at the end of the metal table. “We have to burn your body.”
God, she really was crazy. And he had actually considered trusting her….
JEFFERSON JAMES SHOVED THE coroner aside and dragged open those refrigerated steel drawers, himself, until every damn one was pulled completely out of the wall. Only a few held bodies. An old man. A teenage accident victim.
Doc.
He quickly looked away from the battered face of the man he had once considered a friend. Or if not a true friend, at least an ally. For years Doc had had no problem cashing his very generous payroll checks. He’d known why his salary was so much higher than any other prison doctor’s. He had been reimbursed for his discretion. But then he’d taken it too far.
He’d betrayed James. And no one betrayed Jefferson James and lived to brag about it.
“Where is he?” the warden snapped, his anger and frustration spilling over.
Where the hell was Rowe Cusack?
Bernard gazed around the room, as if the body was hiding somewhere in the white-tiled room. He ran a hand over his face, wiping away the last traces of sleep. James had had to wake him up and physically drag him out of bed to bring him back to the morgue.
It was late. But James didn’t care. He wasn’t sleeping himself until he saw Rowe Cusack’s dead body with his own damn eyes.
“Bob brought the prisoner’s body straight here from Blackwoods,” Dr. Bernard said.
“Then where the hell did it go?” the warden asked. “Did he get up and walk out the damn door?” He tensed, goose bumps lifting on his skin as he realized what he’d said and that he’d said it before. His men, the guards who stood in the doorway between the morgue and the outer office, didn’t chuckle this time.
“I don’t know why you’re so worried about this prisoner,” Bernard said. “You’re acting like he’s not dead. But that’s not possible. Doc declared him dead.” He glanced toward his friend’s body. The two physicians had been true friends.
Lawman Lover - Lisa Childs Page 4