Lawman Lover - Lisa Childs

by Intrigue Romance

  With Jed. It was probably too late, but her brother deserved justice—for his death and for his false conviction. “Go.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not leaving you.”

  “You have to go,” she insisted. “You put this whole thing in motion.” To save her brother. “You need to be there to see it through, to see who gave you up to the warden.”

  He glanced down at Elliot’s body. “I’m not leaving you here.”

  “He’s dead.” Because of her. But there had been no other way. He’d lunged at her when he’d heard the truck. He would have killed her if she hadn’t killed him first. “He can’t hurt me now.”

  “I’m still not leaving you alone,” Rowe said as he helped her to her feet. “You’re coming with me. I don’t dare let you out of my sight again.”

  Relief shuddered through her. She didn’t want to be apart from him either.

  He leaned down and picked up the bloody scalpel, then wiped off the blade on the side of his jeans. “Even though you’ve proven again and again that you can protect yourself…”

  She shook her head, never wanting to touch that sharp blade again. But he dropped it into her purse. Then he leaned down again and picked up the picture that had fallen to the floor during her fight with Elliot.

  When she’d kicked him, he’d fallen back and knocked the chair over. Then when he’d lunged at her, he knocked her into the desk and sent it toppling over and the two of them onto the floor.

  “This is the guy.” The one he had killed to protect her.

  “The warden told Elliot to grab me, but after he failed running us off the road, he sent his friend.” Maybe he hadn’t wanted to hurt her himself. But then she’d claimed to have killed his friend and he’d snapped.

  Rowe sighed. “And both of them are dead and therefore unable to testify that the warden had given them their orders.”

  “I’m sorry….”

  “It’s okay,” he said as he led her toward the broken-in door and the idling truck outside it. “We’ll find other people to testify.”

  “You can testify,” she said. “And Jed.”

  If he was alive…

  “IT’S OVER, WARDEN,” A DEEP voice taunted him through the bars of the cell in which they’d locked him, after storming his office and dragging him out into the prison.

  But James refused to give in to the fear that niggled at him. These animals wanted to scare him. They wanted to make him suffer as they imagined he had made them suffer. But, despite their weapons, ones they’d stolen from guards they’d either hurt or killed, and their threats, he had nothing to fear.

  They were too stupid to realize just how powerful he was. He had connections. He had bought off people in high places. He had backup—right outside the prison—that would save him and destroy all of them.

  Beginning with Rowe Cusack and Macy Kleyn…

  It was time. They would have made it from Detroit back to Blackwoods, because his partner already had. His partner was out there waiting for them.

  “It’s not over yet,” he disagreed. “But it will be soon….”

  That deep voice uttered a rusty-sounding chuckle. “You’re so delusional that you think you’re still in charge?”

  “Delusional is your thinking I wouldn’t have an insurance plan.” He snorted in derision at their stupidity.

  “Money won’t get you out of this, James,” the inmate advised. “Money doesn’t mean anything in here.”

  No. Money wouldn’t get him out of this situation. But despite his greed, he knew what was more powerful than money.

  Love. It would get him out of Blackwoods and back with his daughter. And maybe she would love him enough to believe him despite what would surely be revealed about how he’d run Blackwoods.

  “I know what matters,” he assured his prisoners, who were now his jailers. He met the hard gaze of the man who ruled the rebels. “I know what matters most to you. And if you don’t want me to destroy it, you’ll do what I tell you.”

  The prisoner laughed again. “Let me guess…let you go?”

  He nodded. The only way he could make certain that Macy Kleyn and Rowe Cusack were dead was if he killed them himself.

  ROWE HADN’T NEEDED TO WORRY about reinforcements at the prison. The sheriff and the state police had barricaded the street leading to the entrance. If he hadn’t grabbed his credentials off Jackson’s body, he never would have been allowed past the blockade.

  “You’re Rowe Cusack?” the sheriff asked as he leaned down to the level of the open driver’s window of the truck. The man was tall and young and mad as hell; his face flushed with anger, his voice gruff with it. “You’re the one who called in everyone but me.”

  “I didn’t know if I could trust you.” He still didn’t know, but he was pretty sure he couldn’t. “Since I didn’t call you in, why are you here?” He arched a brow and challenged the man with a direct question even though he didn’t expect a truthful response. “Did the warden call you?”

  “I came when the alarms went off,” Sheriff Griffin York replied.

  “What alarms?” Macy asked, leaning across Rowe to stare up at the sheriff.

  “The alarms for the riot,” he explained. “They report directly to my office.”

  “There’s a riot?” Macy gasped.

  “The whole place is on lockdown,” the sheriff replied, leaning down farther to meet her gaze. He gasped himself when he noticed the blood on her clothes. “Are you all right, miss? Are you wounded?”

  “She’s fine,” Rowe lied.

  She was actually trembling with shock over her latest brush with death and with concern for her brother.

  With a flash of pride, he added, “She just fought off an attacker.”

  “Attacker?” The sheriff’s gaze trailed over her again, as if he could visually assess her injuries. “Who attacked you, miss?”

  “Elliot Sutherland, a drug dealer,” Rowe informed him. “He was on the warden’s payroll.”

  “The kid from the funeral home?”

  Macy nodded. He’d been more than that to her; she had considered the young fool a friend.

  “What the hell’s been going on in my county?” Sheriff Griffin York asked, his voice shaking with fury while his face flushed darker with wounded pride. “I didn’t even know there was a DEA agent undercover in the prison.”

  “Nobody was supposed to know,” Rowe replied. That was kind of the whole damn point of going undercover. “But somehow the warden found out.”

  York sighed, but it was ragged with his own frustration. “You keep blaming James for everything. Do you have any proof to support your allegations?”

  “I came here undercover and left in a body bag,” Rowe replied, and that should have damn well been proof enough that the warden was corrupt. Too bad the courts and apparently the sheriff would need more to press charges and convict. “Where is James?”

  York jerked his head toward the prison. Despite evening falling, the place was ablaze with security lights and police flood lamps. “Inside.”

  “Have you had contact with him?” Because he wouldn’t put it past the warden to use the riot as a diversion to slip out to a private airfield. The guy was probably halfway to someplace with no extradition treaty with the United States.

  “We’ve had no contact with anyone inside,” Sheriff York informed him. “We’re waiting until the National Guard gets here and then we’ll be storming the building.”

  Macy’s breath shuddered out against the side of Rowe’s face as she gasped again. “But won’t that lead to a lot of casualties?”

  “We don’t know how many casualties there have already been,” the sheriff replied, his jaw clenched and his dark eyes grim.

  “But you know for certain there have been casualties?” Rowe prodded, with a silent plea for the guy to admit that he had no confirmation and would therefore continue to give Macy hope that her brother was still alive.

  “We stopped a couple of guards as they were leaving,�
�� York admitted. “And held them for questioning.”

  That was good. Damn good that York had known to let no one get away. “And what were their answers?” he prodded.

  “They confirmed casualties,” he said.

  Macy gasped again but this time it was a word. “Who?”

  York shrugged broad shoulders. “We haven’t been able to get inside yet, so we can’t confirm anything.”

  “Who?” Macy repeated.

  “According to the guards, the casualties were both inmates and prison staff,” York replied. “But like I said, we won’t know anything for certain until we can get inside.”

  “Whose decision was it to wait until the National Guard arrives?” Rowe asked.

  “Yours,” Sheriff York replied, his voice gruff with bitterness.

  He shook his head in denial of the man’s ridiculous accusation. “I didn’t even know about the riot.”

  “It was the Drug Enforcement Administration’s decision,” York clarified. “One of the other DEA agents said we had to wait.”

  Until all the evidence and witnesses had been destroyed.

  “Damn it!” He shoved open his driver’s door. “Which agent? Which agent told you to wait?”

  The sheriff stepped back as if to brace himself for an attack, and his hand settled on his holster. “The supervising special agent.”

  Dread tightened Rowe’s stomach. The corruption had gone even higher than he’d feared. He slammed the door shut.

  Through the open window, Macy stared at him, her brown eyes dark and tortured with fear for her brother. If Jed had been alive when the warden called her, he probably wasn’t now. But Rowe didn’t know that for certain, and he couldn’t live with himself if his actions caused her brother’s death and her pain.

  “I’m going inside,” he said.

  “But your supervisor…” Sheriff York sputtered.

  Rowe glanced around and saw none of his fellow agents. The state police and the sheriff’s deputies had been pushed back here, away from the action, while the DEA SUVs were parked inside the gates.

  “Someone blew my cover,” Rowe pointed out. “Someone in my office.”

  “What does that have to do with Warden James?” York asked. Obviously he was as aware as everyone else was of how corrupt the prison warden was.

  “Whoever betrayed me in the DEA is working with James.” He lifted his shirt to show the bandage that Macy had put on his wound. “If this had gone any deeper, I’d be dead right now. If the inmate that the warden had ordered to kill me had really wanted to kill me…”

  The sheriff sucked in a sharp breath. As if unable to hold his opinion to himself any longer, he bitterly remarked, “The warden’s a son of a bitch.”

  “And one of your biggest campaign contributors, if rumor is to be believed,” Rowe said, gauging just how much this man could be trusted. He had to know before he made a judgment call that could affect everything. But could he trust his judgment?

  Jackson hadn’t betrayed him. Neither had Brennan. Maybe he could trust this lawman, too.

  “That’s not true.” York shook his head in frustration. “He wants people to believe that, but I can show you my campaign records. I didn’t take a damn dime of his dirty money. Where the hell do you think the DEA got the tip about Blackwoods—that something corrupt was going on there?”

  While the tip had been anonymous, there had been enough information to warrant an investigation. Information that someone in law enforcement had likely compiled.

  But that didn’t mean that Sheriff York was that lawman. There was no time for the guy to prove his innocence, though. Rowe had to go with his gut. “You stay here. Don’t let her out of your sight.”

  “Rowe!” Macy screamed, as if panicked over their separation. “What are you doing?”

  Smoke rose from the prison. And the sound of rapid gunfire exploded like fireworks inside the concrete walls. She jumped out of the truck cab and grabbed at him.

  “You can’t go in there!” she protested.

  “I can’t not go in there,” he said, his heart aching with the fear on her face.

  “It’s too late for Jed….” Tears streaked from her eyes, further smearing the blood on her face. “We both know that.”

  Rowe shook his head. “We don’t know that. You Kleyns are fighters.”

  Jed had saved him once. Rowe had to at least try to return the favor.

  “I’m fighting now,” Macy said, clutching even more tightly to him. “I’m fighting for you.”

  “So am I.” He pulled her hands from his arms and stepped back.

  “I love you!” she said.

  Her words swelled in his chest, filling his heart with an emotion he barely recognized. It had been so long since he’d loved or been loved. He couldn’t say the words back yet.

  So he turned away from her and headed toward the prison. Macy rushed after him, reaching for him again. The sheriff caught her, and held her back.

  But it was as if Rowe took her with him; he could feel her, filling his heart. He glanced behind once, to where she struggled in the sheriff’s grasp. Rowe loved her—that was why he couldn’t break the promise he had made to her. He would get her brother out of prison. Even if it was the same way that Jed had gotten him out, in a body bag, he couldn’t leave the man inside waiting for the National Guard that might never come.

  Rowe walked through the open gates. But even though those gates stood open, panic pressed on his heart, as his old phobias rushed over him. He hated being confined. Hated small tight spaces. Most of all he hated Blackwoods Penitentiary.

  The last time he’d left this hellhole of a prison he’d been zipped up in a body bag in the back of a coroner’s van; he hoped he wouldn’t be leaving the same way this time.

  It wouldn’t be the same, though. Because the next time someone zipped him inside a body bag, he’d have to be dead.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Macy struggled against the strong arms holding her back. “Let me go! Let me go!”

  “He’s gone,” the man said, his deep voice rumbling in her ear.

  Macy shivered and finally broke free of his steely hold. Maybe all her recent battles had drained her strength. Or maybe this man was just stronger than the other men with whom she’d had to fight for her life.

  She whirled toward the sheriff. “What do you mean?”

  For some reason Rowe had decided to trust the man. But she didn’t. She couldn’t.

  “He’s gone inside.”

  She glanced back toward the cement and barbed wire fence. She couldn’t see beyond it except for the smoke that rose above it, blending into the darkening sky. “Why did you let him go?”

  Because it was what the warden wanted. Without Jed or Rowe to testify against him, he wouldn’t be charged with anything. This man certainly wouldn’t arrest him unless a judge forced him to.

  “Do you really think I could have stopped him?”

  She suspected the sheriff wasn’t just referring to the fact that, as a federal agent, Rowe outranked him. He meant more that when Rowe was determined, nothing and no one could stop him. Her breath shuddered out in a ragged sigh of resignation.

  “If you couldn’t stop him,” the sheriff continued, “I didn’t stand a chance in hell of getting him to stay out here until the National Guard arrives.”

  “Sheriff York is right,” a feminine voice murmured. “Rowe Cusack is a hard man to stop.”

  Macy shivered and it had nothing to do with the cold wind that spun the smoke rising from the prison into billowy clouds. She turned toward the red-haired woman who’d approached them. “Who are you?”

  “DEA Special Agent Alice O’Neil,” the woman replied, offering a smile that didn’t quite reach her narrow eyes.

  “Where’s your supervising agent?” the sheriff asked her.

  Alice shrugged. “I don’t know exactly where he is now. The last time I saw him he was on the phone coordinating with the National Guard.”

  The she
riff gave a nod of satisfaction. “Good.”

  “They should be here soon,” she assured the lawman.

  It didn’t matter to Macy. The Guard wouldn’t arrive soon enough to save Rowe or her brother.

  “Where did you see him last?” York repeated, determined to talk to the DEA agent in charge.

  Alice gestured toward the fence. “Just inside there.”

  The sheriff started forward then glanced at Macy, as if just remembering his promise to Rowe to stay with her.

  “Let him go,” Alice coldly advised her. “Or you’ll have more blood on your hands.”

  Macy shivered again but managed to nod at the sheriff’s silent question, assuring him she was fine even though she was anything but. When the sheriff disappeared inside the fence, she turned toward the woman standing too close to her. The barrel of her gun dug deep into Macy’s side.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “I would say that it’s fairly obvious why.” Alice laughed. “You’re so young.”

  Lines creased the corners of Alice’s eyes and the sides of her mouth, but she couldn’t have been much more than forty. And with her pale skin and red hair, she was a beautiful woman. But her eyes were as cold as the warden’s and nearly as empty as Elliot’s. Except that Alice was alive and the man Macy had once considered a friend was dead.

  “What does my age have to do with it?” Macy asked.

  “You’re young and idealistic, like Cusack. He still thinks he can save the world.” She laughed again. “He can’t even save himself.”

  “You blew his cover and gave him up for dead,” Macy surmised. “But he survived.”

  The barrel jammed harder against Macy’s side, this time in retaliation more than to simply subdue her. “Cusack only survived because of your damn brother.”

  Macy hated herself for the doubts she’d once entertained about her brother. He wouldn’t have hurt the old prison doctor. He wouldn’t hurt anyone. But had he been hurt?

  The female agent seemed to think so because she taunted Macy. “There won’t be anyone inside who can help him now.” Alice shoved Macy toward the truck. “Just like there’s no one out here who can help you.”