He forced his body to relax. Even though the couch was too short, it was still more comfortable than the prison cot. And while he shouldn’t trust her any more than he had his inmates at Blackwoods, he did. She might be keeping secrets, but he doubted she was a killer, despite the gun. Knowing she was armed actually eased his mind. He didn’t have to worry about protecting her, not when she so capable of protecting herself.
For the first time in three weeks he drifted off to sleep. He might have slept for minutes or maybe even hours before the rapid cracks of gunshots jerked him awake.
Chapter Five
Strong hands gripped Macy’s shoulders, pulling her from her pillow and her slumber. He had been there in her dream, just as he was now. Shirtless, which left his muscular chest bare but for the soft-looking golden hair that narrowed to an arrow above his washboard abs. The too-big pajama bottoms rode dangerously low on his lean hips, so low that she forced her gaze back up to his face. His blond hair was rumpled, and brownish-blond stubble darkened his square jaw.
His icy-blue eyes stared deeply into hers. “Macy?”
She blinked, but his image didn’t clear from her mind. He was there. In her bed. What could he want with her…?
“Where’s your gun?”
She laughed—at herself and her wild imagination more than his question.
“Didn’t you hear those shots?” he asked with impatience and anger. “Someone’s out there firing at us.”
“More than likely they’re firing at a deer or a rabbit.” She never kept track of which season it was, but then the “official” hunting seasons didn’t matter much in Blackwoods County. Whether it was legal or not, someone was always killing something.
“Give me the gun,” he directed her, “and I’ll check it out.”
She blinked the sleep from her eyes and forced herself to focus on more than his chest. “No. It could be a trap.”
He pushed a hand through his sleep-tousled hair. “Yeah. They could be using the shots to draw me outside.”
She nodded. “Like I said, it’s probably just a hunter….”
He arched a dark gold brow. “And I’m what they’re hunting?”
“It’s always open season on an escaped convict.”
“Exactly. That’s why I need the gun.” He held out his hand, palm up. “I can slip outside without anyone seeing me and find out what’s going on out there.”
She lifted her fingers and pressed them against his lips. “Listen…it stopped. I don’t hear any more gun shots.”
“That doesn’t mean someone’s not still out there,” he pointed out.
His lips moving against her skin had her fingers tingling and her pulse tripping. She was more concerned about who was inside—not out. And while he wasn’t exactly in bed with her, he had one knee on the mattress as he leaned over her.
He leaned closer, his gaze intense as he demanded, “Give me the damn gun!”
She almost wished she really had a one. “I can’t do that.”
“You don’t trust me.”
“No, I don’t,” she admitted. “That’s why I’m surprised that you didn’t grab the gun last night while I was in the shower.”
“Knowing you had it helped me avoid temptation,” he admitted. His gruff voice and the hot look in his eyes raised goose bumps on her skin.
“Temptation?”
“You.” He leaned so close now that he pressed her down into the mattress as his long, lean body covered hers. “Ever since you unzipped that damn body bag, I’ve been tempted to do this….”
In one hand, he held her neck, his thumb tipping up her chin. And he lowered his head. Slowly. He was giving her time to fight him, to grab for the gun he wanted.
But she had been struggling with temptation, too. Even though she knew she couldn’t trust him, she was attracted to him. So attracted that she wanted his kiss no matter his motives for initiating it.
She arched her neck into his hand, lifting her head to close the distance between his mouth and hers. First his breath, escaping in a ragged sigh, caressed her lips. And then his lips brushed across hers in a soft, almost nothing kiss that just teased her with a hint of the passion possible between them.
Her heart stopped beating for nearly a second as she waited for him to increase the pressure, to part her lips and really kiss her.
Instead he jerked back and cursed.
And she laughed.
He clutched at his hand, trying to stem the flow of blood from a fresh wound. “What the hell was that?”
She struggled to sit up, wriggling beneath him. Her hips pressed against his. Despite being hurt, his body was hard and ready for more than that nothing kiss he’d given her.
He groaned and jumped off the bed, still clutching his hand.
“I lied about the gun,” she admitted. She lifted the pillow and retrieved her real weapon: the scalpel she’d grabbed back at the morgue.
“You really don’t trust me.”
“And with good reason.” She grabbed his bleeding hand and examined the wound. He would probably need a couple of stitches. She reached for her suture kit. “You tried to take the gun from me.”
“I didn’t want to use it on you,” he said. “I wanted to use it to protect you.”
She pulled out a needle and antiseptic. “I don’t need you to protect me.”
“No, you don’t need me,” he heartily agreed.
She lifted her gaze from his hand to his face. “We have an agreement. You’re going to help Jed.”
He nodded. But she worried that he had no intention of keeping his promise—even after he found out who had betrayed him.
“Rowe—”
Her cell rang. And her heart clutched, as it did every time she got a call, with worry that this would be the call, the one telling her that her brother hadn’t survived his sentence, that he was dead. Her hand trembling, she reached into her purse, which had been under her pillow with the scalpel, and pulled out her phone.
“It’s the morgue,” she whispered, dread choking her.
“Are you late for work?” Rowe asked, glancing toward the blind-darkened windows.
She shook her head. “It’s my day off.” She clicked the button and answered, “Hello.”
“Macy,” Dr. Bernard said, his voice raspy with weariness. “I need you to come in right away.”
Apparently he had discovered her “mistake.” Just how much was that error going to cost Macy? Just her job, or her life, too?
HE COULDN’T TRUST MACY KLEYN. The bandage on his hand proved that. She had lied about the gun. What else could she be lying about?
He shouldn’t care; it didn’t matter. He had clothes now, albeit baggy ones, and a knit hat he’d pulled low over his face. Since riding with her back to the hospital, he had access to transportation and a phone in the crowded parking lot. He’d already scouted out one vehicle with a cell phone sitting in the console and another car that would be easy to hot-wire.
Her van would be easy, too. But when he’d checked for a key hidden in the back wheel well, he’d noticed the scraped rear bumper. Black paint had transferred onto a corner of the chrome.
The coroner’s van was black. So was the SUV from Blackwoods Penitentiary that was parked next to the coroner’s van. Rowe would have gone closer to inspect the vehicles, but a driver sat behind the wheel of the SUV. The warden was here.
Warden James—not her boss—was the reason that Macy had been called into the morgue. That was why Rowe couldn’t take that phone and vehicle and leave, not when she might be in danger.
He really needed a damn gun. Too bad she’d lied about having one.
Would the warden’s driver be armed? Could Rowe get enough of a drop on him to overpower and take his weapon from him? Thinking of Macy in danger had him tempted to try….
MACY BLINKED BACK TEARS, but some trembled on her lashes and spilled onto her cheeks. “I’m so sorry. I have no idea how I screwed up so badly.”
“Neither do I,” D
r. Bernard murmured, his gaze hard as he stared across his desk at her.
“I—I had no idea I’d sent the wrong body to the crematorium,” she insisted, working the tears into her voice now so that it quavered.
Warden James’s expression was as severe as her boss’s and bone-chillingly cold. He stood behind the coroner’s chair, as if too anxious to sit. “I have a daughter, Miss Kleyn, who figured out at a young age how to wrap me around her little finger. But I knew what she was doing, just like I know what you’re doing. I let Emily get away with it, but you won’t. You’re wasting your time and mine with these crocodile tears.”
She sniffled, as if fighting back the tears. But he was right; they were just crocodile. She hadn’t cried real tears in a long time. Three years to be exact.
“Tell me where the prisoner is!” he demanded, and that jagged vein popped out on his forehead again.
“I told you,” she said, letting her voice rise with a hint of hysteria. Maybe she could convince the cynical man that her tears were real. “I sent his body to the crematorium.”
“And they already burned him,” Dr. Bernard said, repeating the information he had been given when he’d called Elliot a short while ago. “They’re faxing a photo of the body they burned.”
As if on cue, the machine on the credenza behind the coroner’s desk beeped. The warden barely waited before ripping the paper from the all-in-one printer. When he lifted it closer to his face, he cursed.
“It was him?” Macy asked, keeping her voice querulous.
James grunted. “So it seems.” But he sounded doubtful.
“Will his family be very upset?” she asked, and found herself wondering about Rowe’s family.
How long before they noticed that he hadn’t returned from his undercover assignment—if he was actually undercover? He had to be telling the truth, though, because if he were actually an escaped convict, he would have hurt her by now.
He would have used that scalpel on her, stolen her money and her van and been long gone. Maybe some of that was happening right now as she sat here with Dr. Bernard and the warden. Rowe was probably gone. And maybe so was her van.
But she was fine…as long as she could convince the warden she had nothing to do with his disappearance.
“The inmate had no family,” James claimed.
But was it a lie, part of Rowe’s cover, or the sad truth?
“So is this a very big deal then?” she asked with feigned hopefulness. “If nobody even cares about this prisoner…?”
“I care,” the warden replied. “I care that he might not really be dead, that this all might have been an elaborate plan to escape prison.”
She gasped in shock. “But he’s dead.”
“If that’s true, then it’s a damn good thing,” James said.
“Why?” she asked. She couldn’t imagine ever wishing someone dead except maybe the person—whoever that was—who had framed her brother.
“Because he’s a very dangerous man,” Warden James replied. “He’s a cold-blooded killer.”
She shivered. Rowe had said he’d been undercover as a drug dealer, not a killer. Which one of these men had lied to her?
“And manipulative,” the warden continued. “Anyone who would get involved with him, especially anyone gullible enough to help him, is certain to wind up dead.”
“Is he the one who killed the prison doctor?” she asked, testing the warden. If he lied about that, he was probably lying about everything.
“No.”
“Then who killed him?” Dr. Bernard asked, his voice cracking with emotion over the loss of his longtime friend.
“We suspect the same man who stabbed the missing prisoner,” Warden James replied. “That man had also been wounded in the fight and needed medical attention, so he was alone with Doc.”
She gasped. Rowe had wounded Jed? He had never admitted that to her.
“Who’s the monster that so ruthlessly beat up Doc?” Dr. Bernard asked.
Warden James turned back to Macy, his beady dark eyes so cold and hard that she shivered despite never taking off her parka. “You know that monster, Miss Kleyn. He’s your brother.”
Macy’s heart slammed against her ribs. “Jed?”
Her employer gasped and turned on her. “Your brother did this?”
She shook her head. “No. That’s not possible. He wouldn’t hurt anyone.”
“He’s in prison because he murdered two people,” the warden said. “One of them was his business partner who was also his fraternity brother. The other person was a young police officer.”
“Jed was framed,” she insisted.
“He was convicted by a jury of his peers. He’s a killer, Miss Kleyn. And since he’s convinced you otherwise, it makes me question your judgment,” he said. “Could someone else have convinced you of his innocence and enlisted your help?”
She resisted the heat of embarrassment from surging into her face. “Your prisoner was very dead when he arrived here. If the stab wound didn’t kill him, then being zipped up in that body bag must have. He was definitely dead.”
“You better hope he was, miss,” Warden James warned her. “Because if you’re in any contact with him, you’re in grave danger.”
“I’d have to be in the grave to be in contact with him,” she persisted, refusing to be intimidated into backing down or confessing all. It was easier to believe the warden was a cold-blooded killer than Rowe Cusack.
Warden James shook his head in disgust. “For your sake—and your brother’s—I hope you’re telling the truth.”
“Her brother,” Dr. Bernard said with disgust, “he will be brought up on charges for Doc’s murder, won’t he?”
The warden shrugged. “The sheriff has to finish his investigation. He’s young and inexperienced and overly cautious. He’s not convinced that there’s enough evidence to bring to our new district attorney. We all know that damn lawyer’s more concerned about his career than justice.”
If the warden contributed to his reelection campaign, the D.A. might get interested in carrying out the man’s idea of justice. Murder.
“Doc deserves better,” his friend said, his eyes wet with grief.
“I’ll take care of it,” Warden James promised.
Macy shivered, chilled by his not-so-subtle threat against Jed. But giving up Rowe, if he was even still around to give up, wouldn’t protect Jed. It would only put him in more danger.
“I’ll do the sheriff’s job for him since he seems unwilling to do it himself,” the warden continued. He squeezed the coroner’s shoulder then glared at Macy before leaving the office.
Jed was definitely in trouble. Even if Rowe kept his promise to help him, it would probably be too late to save her brother. Pain and fear clutched her heart, so that it ached. Soon she might be grieving like her boss was grieving for his friend, Doc.
“Macy, I can’t express how disappointed I am in you.” Dr. Bernard leaned back in his chair and ran his hands over his weary face. “I knew there was more to your story of giving up med school and moving here. I even thought it was because of a guy, because some boyfriend had broken your heart.”
“That was part of it,” she admitted. Her fiancé had thought she was an idiot for believing and defending Jed. And she had been heartbroken that she’d been stupid enough to actually fall for a guy who hadn’t really respected her, let alone loved her.
“Your brother was the biggest part of it,” the coroner assumed, “and you didn’t tell me anything about him. It makes me wonder what else you’re keeping from me, Macy.”
She couldn’t deny that she had other secrets. But to tell him would only put him in danger, too. Unless he was part of it….
He had been close to the prison doctor. How close was he to the prison warden? Was that why he hadn’t requested any authorities to look into all the deaths at Blackwoods?
“I thought you were so smart,” he said, shaking his head now in disappointment.
“I’m
no fool, Dr. Bernard,” she defended herself as she had had to too many times before.
“Then how could you have made the mistake of sending the wrong body to the crematorium?” He shook his head in denial of her claim. “You wouldn’t have made a mistake like that.”
“I was tired and upset. So were you last night,” she reminded him.
He nodded. “So tired that it didn’t immediately dawn on me what I saw in the morgue last night.”
Too scared to ask, she just waited.
“I saw a bloody bandage.”
“It must have fallen off the body when I unzipped the bag,” she explained even as she mentally kicked herself for not cleaning up. But there hadn’t been time with Dr. Bernard coming back, and Bob, and then the warden and his henchmen….
“Why the needle and sutures, Macy?” he persisted. “Why would you be stitching up the wound on a dead man?”
Coming up with a quick lie, she replied, “Practice. I don’t want to lose the skills I learned in my premed labs.”
“I didn’t hire you so that you could practice on the bodies in my morgue.”
“Maybe that’s why I made that mistake with the crematorium,” she said, as if admitting to one of the secrets he’d accused her of keeping, “because I wanted to cover up my handiwork.”
“I’m worried that you’re covering up more than a few stitches,” her employer said. “I can’t trust you. You’ve already been keeping too much from me. I have to let you go.”
“Dr. Bernard,” she said, protesting her firing. “I worked for you for three years, and this is my first mistake. Please give me another chance.”
There were few employment opportunities in Blackwoods unless one wanted to work at the prison, and even openings there were rare. People—employees and inmates—only left Blackwoods Penitentiary in body bags.
“I can’t do that, Macy,” Dr. Bernard said. “I can’t trust you. I don’t know if you’ve ever really told me the truth about anything.”
She sucked in a breath at the harsh accusation. Until her brother’s trial, she had never kept anything from anyone. But she’d learned then that the world wasn’t really the place she’d believed it was and that she had to protect herself. “Sir—”
Lawman Lover - Lisa Childs Page 6