Woman on the Run (new version)

by Lisa Marie Rice

  A warrior.

  “Cooper?”

  Cooper didn’t answer. He strode to the telephone and angrily punched *69.

  When he heard someone say ‘Herbert Davis’ on the other end of the line, he snarled, “Who the fuck are you, Davis?”

  Cooper heard a sharp intake of breath, then a cautious voice asked, “Who is this speaking?”

  Cooper tightened his grip on the phone, reminding himself to tighten his grip on his temper, too. “This is Sam Cooper. I’m speaking from Simpson, Idaho, from the phone of—” he shot a glance at Sally—no, Julia—curled up on the sofa. She was deathly pale, her wide turquoise eyes fixed on him. She looked as small and as vulnerable as a child. The tactile memory of her soft, delicate frame still lingered in his hands and the very thought of anyone hurting her made him half insane. He turned slightly, so he wouldn’t be distracted. “I’m speaking from Julia Devaux’s phone. Now I’m going to ask this just one more time—who the fuck are you?”

  “I’m not authorized to disclose that information.” The man’s voice was distant, impersonal.

  It was a wonder his hand wasn’t crushing the plastic receiver. “You listen to me, you son of a bitch. If you’re from the U.S. Marshal’s Office, then you guys running WitSec are worse bunglers than I thought. I’d heard the rumors about the Office going downhill, but this is beyond bungling. You can’t send an innocent woman with killers on her trail out here without even an agent to watch out for her. What the hell kind of protection is that?”

  “Ah…er…” The man’s voice sputtered. “We’ve been having some budget cuts and our Boise office—”

  “The hell with budget cuts!” Cooper roared. “What’s the matter with you people? You can’t just dump a witness and hope she’ll be safe. She’s got a contract out on her head. She needs the protection you’re not providing. Starting now.”

  “Well, starting now, she’s no concern of yours. We’ve got a leak in our security and we’re pulling her out.”

  “The hell you are,” Cooper said, his voice suddenly soft with menace. “You just try it.”

  “Cooper?” Julia’s voice was faint as she touched his elbow. Cooper turned. “Cooper, what’s he saying?”

  A muscle tightened in Cooper’s jaw.

  “Cooper?”

  He placed his palm over the receiver. “He says they want to pull you out.”

  “Yes, I know. When are they coming?” She rested her forehead against his shoulder for a moment, swiping at the tears with the heel of her hand. She looked small and frightened and confused. Cooper felt that harsh squeezing in his chest again. He clutched the receiver until the dark skin of his knuckles turned white.

  “You’re not leaving here,” he said bluntly.

  “What? I don’t understand—”

  He hated the sound of her voice like this—lost and dazed. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re staying here. With me.”

  This shouldn’t be happening to her. This shouldn’t be happening to them. Right now, they should be in her bedroom, still fucking. He was always so frantic the first time, but he hadn’t worried too much about it. He knew he’d settle down some, in time. He thought they’d have all the time in the world.

  And now their time was up.

  “Cooper?”

  He looked down at her upturned face, pale and confused, and in it saw the future he’d only dared start hoping for begin to recede. With Sally—no, Julia, dammit!—he felt more alive than he’d ever remembered feeling. Before she had arrived he had been losing himself, sinking more and more often into his bleak thoughts, as if he were on an ice floe that had broken off from the continent, drifting slowly away from the mainland.

  She had changed all that, her very presence had been a lifeline thrown to him at the last minute before he disappeared over the horizon. She had brought him back to life. She was bringing Simpson back to life.

  Damned if he’d let her go.

  “Cooper, they’re coming for me. I have to get ready, pack—”

  “Honey, listen to me. You’re not going anywhere. You’re staying right here, where I can protect you.”

  “But—” Julia looked around, as if the men from the U.S. Marshal’s office were coming any minute. “They want to pull me out. It’s over, Cooper.”

  “No, it’s not over.” Only the fear underlying the stubbornness in her pale, pretty face kept him from shaking her. “It’s not over at all, honey. Don’t you see? The Marshal’s Office is just going to give you another identity and put you somewhere else. But their security has been compromised. If that happens once, it can happen again. So hush. Let me deal with this.”

  He lifted his hand from the receiver. “Talk to me,” he growled.

  “Well, Mr.—ah, Cooper,” Herbert Davis began.

  “That’s Senior Chief Cooper.”

  “Oh.” There was a long silence at the other end of the line. “Navy.”

  “SEALs.” Cooper never tried to impress anyone with the fact that he’d been a SEAL. But right now he needed Herbert Davis’ attention and the best way to do that was to let Davis know who he was dealing with. “And for the record, you’re not taking Julia Devaux anywhere. She’s staying here. She’ll be under the care and protection of the Sheriff, Charles Pedersen, and me.”

  There was a small shocked sound. “Absolutely not! Why I’ve never heard anything as outrageous as that in my entire—”

  Cooper made his voice soft and deadly. “There’s no way in hell I’m letting you take her out of here. Not with the kind of protection you’ve been offering. So let the sheriff and me take care of it.”

  “I’m afraid that’s impos—”

  “You’d damned well better do it or I’m taking this straight to the Justice Department. Right after I contact my very good friend Rob Manson at the Washington Post. You’ve read his byline. He’s the one who wrote the series of articles on how the Marshals botched the Warren affair. He’ll love this one. Federal witnesses with no protection put out as bait. I can see the headlines now.”

  “I—ah—I wouldn’t do that if I were you Mr.—”

  “Cooper. And I’ve got Manson’s number right in front of me.” Cooper was so convincing that he saw Julia looked, startled, at his empty hands, expecting to see an address book. He didn’t need an address book for Rob’s number. “Manson works late Sundays while the newspaper is put to bed. He’s still at his desk. You’re going to notify the sheriff here, Charles Pedersen, and we’re all going to come up with a plan to keep Julia Devaux safe until the trial or I’m calling Rob and then Justice. And I mean right now. Rob might be in time to have the story in tomorrow’s paper.”

  “Look, Mr. Cooper, surely you realize that I can’t trust you. How do I know who you are? You’re complaining that we’re not protecting Miss Devaux adequately. But we’d be reckless if I just entrusted her to the first man who calls me up.”

  He was making sense, damn him. Cooper stared at the wall, thinking furiously. “Okay,” he said finally. “This is what you’re going to do. You’re going to call a number I’m going to give you. It’s Josh Creason’s private cell. You ask him who I am. Tell him I have Harry Sandersen and Mac Boyce with me and that none of us have lost our edge. I’ll hold the line.”

  “This Joshua Creason,” Herbert Davis hedged, “would that be General Joshua Creason? Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?”

  “No.” Cooper raised his eyes to the ceiling. “That’s Joshua Creason, the opera singer. Of course it’s General Creason, you—” Cooper bit his tongue. He wanted the man’s cooperation, not his antagonism. “You’re wasting time. Check me out with Josh. And tell him he still owes me ten bucks and that he’d better have improved his poker game.”

  Cooper was put on hold. He leaned against the table, preparing to wait it out. Sally—Julia—watched his face, her own white and strained. They didn’t speak. He held out an arm and she huddled against him. He held her close, his cheek against the top of her head.

  Af
ter a quarter of an hour, the voice came back “Mr. Cooper.”

  “Yeah.” Cooper straightened and Julia looked up at him tensely.

  “This is—this is highly unusual.” Davis blew out a breath. Stress reliever. Cooper just bet that this son of a bitch was under stress. His fumbling had almost cost a witness her life.

  “Yeah.” Cooper wasn’t about to cut him any slack. He waited.

  “I, ah, I consulted with General Creason, who gave me a number of reassurances about yourself and Sandersen and Boyce. And we checked Sheriff Pedersen out.”

  This was stuff Cooper already knew. He was silent.

  “After, ah, after consulting with my colleagues, we have decided that if you come up with a feasible plan, we can keep Ms. Devaux in place. You will coordinate with our Boise office.”

  “Roger that.”

  “You’ll give me status reports on a regular basis.”

  “Yeah. And I want more information on the case right now.”

  The hairs on the back of Cooper’s neck rose as Davis recounted, as blandly as an accountant discussing the new tax code, how they suspected a security breach. And how the word on the street was that the price on his Julia’s head was now six million dollars.

  “So…I’m placing Ms. Devaux in the hands of your sheriff and yourself. Her safety is your direct responsibility now. You’re okay with that?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Okay. Call me tomorrow afternoon and we’ll go over the details.”

  “Will do. I’ll call you at thirteen hundred hours with a detailed security plan. And you plug those leaks, you hear?”

  Cooper heard another little puff of air and Davis hung up. When Julia timidly touched his shoulder he put his other arm around her and held her tightly.

  “So that’s that. You’re staying here,” Cooper said finally. Every muscle was stiff with tension and battle-readiness. “The only way anyone will ever get to you will be over my dead body.”

  Julia drew in a long breath. “In that case, Cooper,” she said faintly into his shoulder, “maybe you better put some clothes on.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Cooper, no,” Julia whispered, shocked. Then more loudly, “No!” Shaking with nervous tension, she jumped up and paced around her living room.

  Cooper watched her with his usual impassive expression, but Chuck looked concerned, then pained, as he shifted uneasily on one of the broken springs of her couch.

  Cooper had called Chuck immediately after hanging up. Chuck had made it to her house in less than ten minutes, huffing and puffing, which had given Julia enough time to put on her jeans and to pull a sweater over her head. Chuck walked into the house just as Cooper had come out of the bedroom buttoning his shirt, missing a few buttons as he worked his way up.

  Despite the serious circumstances, Julia had felt a quick flush of embarrassment. Chuck would draw the obvious conclusions. But to his credit, Chuck didn’t give the slightest indication that he thought she and Cooper had been doing anything more than sipping tea and discussing the weather.

  Chuck had listened soberly as she told him about the murder that September day and what had happened since. Then both of them had listened as Cooper outlined his plan to keep her safe.

  Julia grew more and more anxious as she listened to his low voice outline a plan that would have been banned by Amnesty International as cruel and unusual punishment.

  Cooper’s plan basically consisted of keeping her in a locked room with an armed guard outside the door for as long as it took the state to take its case to court. Julia felt her throat close at the thought.

  “That’s not a plan, that’s a sentence.” Julia wrapped her arms around her midriff, shaking with cold and tension. “You’ll have to come up with some kind of alternative plan, Cooper. You can’t keep me under lock and key like some prisoner. I’d go crazy.”

  Cooper watched her calmly, dark eyes steady. “You won’t be anyone’s prisoner. It’s just that you’ll be safe. As safe as I can keep you.”

  “That’s not safety, Cooper. It’s death.” Julia shuddered. Over the past month and a half, having coffee with Alice, planning the resuscitation of the diner, getting involved in the lives of the people of Simpson—all those things had kept her sane. She knew herself. Knew how swamped with terror she would be if she holed up in a room, cowering. She would feel like a frenzied moth, beating itself to death against the windowpane. “I can’t do this, Cooper.” She wheezed with anxiety. “I can’t. I think—” She drew a shuddering breath, “I think I’d rather die.”

  Cooper’s eyes honed in on her face, judging how serious she was. “So what are you suggesting?” he asked, frustrated. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Walking around with a bull’s-eye on your forehead? Taking out an ad in the Pioneer? Maybe with a map and an arrow. ‘Attention all hired killers. Julia Devaux is here.”

  Julia willed herself not to let the threatening tears fall. “I want to be safe, Cooper. Of course I don’t want to take any unnecessary risks. But I also don’t want to be locked up. Now what exactly did Herbert Davis tell you? Does he know for certain that Santana knows where I am?”

  “No,” Cooper said reluctantly. “But he strongly suspects it.”

  “On the basis of what?” Chuck asked.

  Cooper turned gratefully to Chuck, clearly hoping Chuck would be more rational. “Julia’s data was in an encrypted computer file together with two other cases. The other two witnesses were both relocated to Idaho, like Julia.” Cooper clenched a big fist. “They’re both dead.”

  The stark words hung there. Chuck looked thoughtful and Julia felt panic rise again, a dark fluttery winged thing in her chest.

  “Dead…how?” she asked finally.

  “Accident. Both of them.” Cooper’s jaw muscles clenched. “So they say.”

  The tight cold band around Julia’s chest eased a little. “They who?”

  “Police and Feds.”

  “Both the police and the FBI think they were accidents?” Chuck asked.

  Cooper nodded tensely. “And the Marshal’s Office.”

  Chuck scratched his jaw. “Don’t know, Coop,” he said finally. “The police and the Feebs, they’re not dummies, you know. They’d have investigated pretty thoroughly. Nobody likes to be caught with their pants down…beg your pardon, Sally.”

  “And surely—” Julia licked dry lips. She was finding it hard to think straight, but one fact was staring her in the face. “Surely, if someone knew where I was—he’d have come after me first, wouldn’t he? I understand there’s a five million dollar bounty on my head.”

  “Six,” Cooper said grimly. “It was upped.”

  Julia closed her eyes and shuddered. Santana was willing to pay six million dollars to see her dead. She’d never been on the receiving end of such hatred. Her mind raced as she tried to grope her way through the situation. “There’s no hard evidence that my cover has been blown, is there?”

  “No.” Cooper spoke the word reluctantly. “But there’s no guarantee that it hasn’t.”

  Julia walked slowly to the window and looked out. The temperature had dropped and the ground had frozen. The light coating of snow gleamed a dull, sodden gray in the lamplight. The world looked cold and lifeless. Julia tried to imagine staring out this little window, hour after hour, day after day, frightened, lonely and trapped. Her heart turned as cold and as sodden as the ground at the thought.

  Cooper walked up behind her and she could see his reflection in the dark window. She met his reflected gaze. “I can’t do it, Cooper,” she said softly. “I can’t be locked up. Please don’t make me.”

  He lifted his hands and put them on her shoulders. “You won’t go anywhere without telling me.” She turned around, hope flaring in her eyes.

  “No.” Her eyes searched his. “I won’t.”

  “Promise.”

  “I promise.”

  “You’ll go to school and back, and either Chuck or Bernie or Sandy or Mac or I will a
ccompany you.”

  “Yes, Cooper.”

  “You’ll carry a gun at all times. Except when you’re teaching and Chuck will be right outside the school.”

  “I will?” Julia blinked, startled. “I’ve never used a gun in my life.”

  “You’ll learn. I’ll teach you. It’s not rocket science.”

  “Okay.” Julia tilted her head, considering. “And I want you to teach me the basics of self-defense.”

  “Good idea. Aikido.”

  “Ai…what?”

  “Aikido,” Cooper repeated. “It’s a martial art. Doesn’t require the bulk or strength of judo or karate.”

  “Yes, Cooper.”

  “You want to see one of your friends, Alice or Beth or Maisie, you let me know, and I’ll accompany you. Either that or Chuck or Sandy or Mac or Bernie will. I’ve got to tell Loren and Glenn, too,” Cooper went on, shooting a glance at Chuck. “And the other men in town. They won’t have to know why. All they’ll have to know is that she’s never to be alone. Not for one minute.”

  Chuck nodded.

  Julia wasn’t too sure what she’d bargained herself into, but right now there was only one answer. “Yes, Cooper.”

  “You don’t answer the phone. Ever. You let me answer.”

  “Yes, Coop—” Julia began, then stopped. “At all hours? How can you do that?”

  “I’ll be here as much as I can. I’m moving in with you.”

  “But, Cooper—” Julia’s mind whirled. “If you move in with me—what about—I mean, what will people here think? It’s not really…” She shrugged helplessly and turned to Chuck.

  “That’s okay, honey.” Chuck patted her shoulder. “The very last thing you have to worry about is what people in Simpson will think. Everyone here likes you a whole lot. Hell, if anything, we’re all really happy that Coop is finally getting laid.”

  I’m being protected to death, Julia thought a few days later. She pushed open the lavatory doors at school and stopped the janitor from following her in by slapping a hand on his chest.