“Gee, thanks,” Cassandra said, grimacing. She yawned, tilting her head back against the headrest to try and ease the ache in her neck.
“There’s no point in staying on the road anyway, if we can’t go more than fifteen miles an hour,” Jack pointed out, ignoring her sarcasm. “You haven’t noticed anyone following us, have you?”
“It’s not like I could tell,” Cassandra told him. “Traffic is so packed out there that someone could be right next to me, watching us, and I wouldn’t have a clue.”
“Find a decent place to get off the road,” Jack said, shifting in the back seat. “Where are we at?”
Her irritation rising up inside of her, Cassandra glanced at one of the highway signs as she came within sight of it. She read off the next three exits to Jack, slowing to a stop once more as the traffic in front of her inexplicably ground to a halt.
“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do.”
Cassandra raised an eyebrow, stifling another yawn as she listened for Jack’s idea.
“We’re about four exits away from an exit that leads off into a nature preserve. I’ll tell you where to go from there.”
Cassandra shrugged. “If I can stay awake that long,” she said, uncaring that the resentment was palpable in her voice. She had a right to be resentful, didn’t she? Jack had kidnapped her; he had nearly forced her to watch him torture an innocent man, something that would have given her nightmares for years to come.
She still felt a certain undercurrent of fear and distrust of the man in her backseat, but something in the fact that he had relented when it became clear that Riley bore him no ill will had lessened her certainty that Jack was guilty. If Riley had wanted Jack to meet his kids, surely Riley didn’t think that Jack was guilty of the murder.
“Stay awake another twenty minutes or so, and you’ll be able to get some shut-eye,” Jack told her. “We just need cover.”
Cassandra nodded numbly. Her eyelids felt unbearably heavy, her hands like wooden blocks at the ends of her tingling arms.
She battled the ebb and flow of traffic, watching the signs as they passed until she saw the exit that Jack had mentioned. Cassandra inched her way to the exit lane, shivering with relief once she was able to drive a little more evenly as she came off of the highway.
“Keep straight. The road feeds into the entrance of the preserve.”
Cassandra followed the signs and Jack’s instructions, continuing along the road as it petered out from a surface street to a glorified two-lane path through the thickening woods. Ramshackle houses disappeared, replaced by scrubby pine trees; the grass became steadily taller as oaks and other big, broad trees replaced the pines.
“Turn right on the little side road up here,” Jack said.
Cassandra made the right-hand turn onto a dirt road; glancing in her rearview mirror she saw that they were alone.
The early morning sunlight dimmed around her, dappled by the dense foliage, and Cassandra winced slightly at how bumpy the dirt road was under her tires. Sighing, she thought to herself that at least she would get some rest soon.
“Keep going until the road dead-ends,” Jack told her.
The road steadily became rougher, the bumping under her tires more pronounced, and Cassandra fought to keep her grip on the steering wheel. Arriving at the dead end, she came to a stop, glancing into the back seat.
“There’s a little path, right there,” Jack told her, sitting up and pointing over the front passenger seat. “Your car should just fit.”
Cassandra groaned. “If this fucks up my tires, we’re not going to get very far,” she said. She could hear the whining note of fatigue in her voice and hated it.
“It won’t,” Jack told her firmly. “We need to be as concealed as possible.”
Cassandra had to admit to herself that his logic was sound. She crept onto the path and followed it until they were completely obscured by the trees, the car so far away from any road that they would be nearly impossible to find, even if someone decided to search for them in the preserve. Cassandra shifted the car into park and turned the key in the ignition, shutting down the engine.
“You can put the seat back,” Jack told her, his voice surprisingly gentle.
Cassandra didn’t reply; she reached down along the side of the seat and found the lever, before reclining the seat as much as possible.
Exhausted as she was, Cassandra wasn’t certain that she would be able to fall asleep. She was keenly aware of Jack’s presence only a few feet away from her, and her memories of the coroner’s reports, and the storage unit she had been in just an hour before, made her heart beat faster with an instinctive dread.
Within a few moments, though, she felt her body beginning to relax. Almost against her will, the tightness in her neck, her back, and her legs began to loosen, and her eyelids became unbearably heavy. Her heart began to slow down, and before Cassandra could realize it, she slipped down into the comforting, velvety darkness.
Chapter Twelve
Hours later, she swam up into consciousness, unsure at first as to what had prompted her awakening. She couldn’t hear anything going on, but she knew she didn’t want to be awake. She was still so tired, so sleepy that even the thought of opening her eyes was painful. Why am I awake? She frowned, trying to remember what had been happening when she fell asleep.
Before she could bring any details to mind, Cassandra’s thoughts were interrupted by a pair of rough, strong hands beginning to move along her body. At first they seemed to merely be exploring the shape of her curves, examining her almost impartially. But as one hand moved from the swell of her hip, along the indentation of her waist and then up to caress her breast, Cassandra could sense the intention shifting.
What the—?
She remembered suddenly that she had fallen asleep in the car, that she was with Jack Hardy—and opened her eyes to see his tanned, muscular forearm wrapped around her waist. Her heart thudded in her chest and she squirmed, trying to get away, but Jack’s grip on her only tightened. “Shh,” he hissed in her ear. He kneaded her breast with one hand while the other skimmed at the hem of her blouse, tickling her lower abdomen.
“What are you doing?” Cassandra tried to pry his hands off of her, but her body betrayed her; she couldn’t force her hands to grip him properly, and her nipples hardened, straining at the fabric of her bra.
Jack’s fingertips found them, rolling and twisting the firm nubs, sending jolts of sensation shooting down to her already-wet pussy. Cassandra gasped and shivered, arching instinctively into the touches as her body refused to be repelled by the man’s advances.
“I know you’ve thought about something like this,” Jack murmured in her ear, his voice tight with lust. “You’re exactly the kind of woman who dreams of a strong man who knows what she wants…even when she tries to pretend like she’s in charge of everything.”
He gave one of her nipples another tweak, and Cassandra’s breath caught in her throat with an involuntary cry of pleasure. She pushed her hips back instinctively, longing for his body but finding only the leather of her car seat.
“It’s been so long, Cass. So long for both of us,” he said. “When was the last time a man fucked you properly?”
Cassandra started to protest, but the words stopped short of her lips as she felt the rasp of Jack’s stubble against the back of her neck, the surprising softness of his lips pressing a kiss along her hairline.
The part of her brain that insisted she should resist fell silent, and Cassandra gave into the deeper instinct of her body, twisting in his arms, longing to feel that delicious hardness pressing against her back, against the curve of her ass. One of his hands began to slowly drift downward, tickling her abdomen, sliding underneath the waistband of her pants.
His fingertips brushed against her slick folds, and she heard a sharp intake of breath. “Fuck, Cass. You’re soaking wet already—you must have been fantasizing about this ever since I grabbed you, huh?”
Cassandr
a awoke with a start, her whole body tingling, heat rushing in floods through her veins, her breaths coming short and fast. She opened her eyes and looked at the passenger seat—empty, save for her purse, the pack of cigarettes and the lighter. She was soaking wet, her body almost painfully aroused.
She gasped, reaching into her purse and fumbling for a moment, still half-asleep. Her fingers found the handle of the screwdriver she had stolen and pulled it free of the bag and Cassandra turned her head to face the backseat. Her blood roaring in her ears, she realized that she was alone in the car—it had just been a dream.
She closed her eyes for a moment once more, shivering as she pushed down the intense arousal that had risen up inside of her, under the influence of her dream’s phantom caresses.
Wait, she thought abruptly, opening her eyes once more. I’m alone in the car.
She sat up, scrubbing at her face, trying to shake off the lingering grogginess of insufficient sleep. Aches began to make themselves known in her body; a few hours of sleep in the driver’s seat of her car had not been enough to make up for staying up for more than twenty-four hours.
Jack was nowhere to be seen. One of the back doors of the car was open, and for a moment Cassandra was convinced that the fugitive had made an escape, leaving her alone in the woods. Her grip tightened on the screwdriver. A moment passed, and Cassandra heard the sound of water flowing onto leaves—someone was pissing into the underbrush nearby. Of course, she realized; it wasn’t as though Jack had had a real opportunity to use the bathroom at any of the few stops they had made on their bizarre adventure.
The crunch of dead leaves under heavy feet warned Cassandra that Jack was returning to the car. Quickly, blushing at the instinct that had prompted her to take her impromptu weapon out in the first place, she slipped the screwdriver back into her purse, trying to shake off the last remnants of her incredibly vivid dream.
I’m losing my mind, she thought. Having crazy sex dreams about convicts—this is how Stockholm Syndrome starts.
A moment later, the car shifted and groaned, and Cassandra turned around to see Jack sliding into the back seat. He raised an eyebrow at her.
“Don’t tell me you’ve lost that cute little toy you put in your bag to deal with me,” he said, his lips twitching in an almost-smile.
“Toy…?” Cassandra’s heart beat faster in her chest.
Jack leaned back against the seat, folding his arms.
“The screwdriver you got at the gas station. I figured you picked it up in case I lost my mind and tried to murder you.”
Cassandra’s whole face burned as the blood rushed into it, and she clenched her teeth. How did he know about that?
For a long moment, silence stretched out between them, and Cassandra couldn’t quite bring herself to meet Jack’s gaze. She realized that if Jack had wanted to kill her, then at any point when she had been asleep he could have. Hell, he could have taken me as soon as I walked into my apartment, or when we got to his storage unit, before Riley came to. It’s not like he’s squeamish about violence.
“Do you really think you have it in you to kill me?” Jack asked.
Cassandra finally summoned up the courage to look him in the eyes.
“If you tried to kill me or—or something else…” She licked her lips as her cheeks heated up again. “Yeah, I think I could.”
Jack nodded slowly. “Fair enough,” he said, the faint ghost of a smile on his lips, a hint of respect in his piercing blue eyes. “Come on. We need to get back on the road.”
Cassandra reached down and pulled her seat back up into its upright position. She looked around, trying to figure out how she could navigate back onto the path.
“I’ll get you out. Just do exactly what I say.”
With Jack’s instructions, Cassandra got the car turned around and back onto the path. Her mouth tasted sour, her neck and back ached. She had the strong impression that her deodorant and perfume had worn off hours before, but it was the lingering dampness of her labia which felt dirtier than anything else. Squirming slightly in her seat, she made her way back onto the road in silence.
As she drove up the country road leading towards the Interstate, Cassandra considered everything that had passed between her and Jack in the hours they had been together. She had seen him on the point of torturing someone, only to back off when it became clear that Riley was innocent. She had trusted him enough to fall asleep in his presence, though that was as much because she was simply too exhausted to stay awake a moment longer. Back in the storage facility, Jack had trusted her enough to let her witness what could have been a very ugly—and supremely incriminating—moment.
Of course, I was his getaway driver. He couldn’t exactly let me wander off. But he trusted me enough to let me—to make me—be his getaway driver.
Ever since she had found herself pinned to her kitchen wall, a hand over her mouth to prevent her from screaming, a question had been simmering at the back of Cassandra’s mind. Between her fear, confusion and utter fatigue, she hadn’t yet let herself think about it, much less ask it of the man himself, but now that she was certain that whatever else happened in the course of their adventure together, Jack hadn’t started out with the intention of killing her, Cassandra was free to wonder: why had he picked her?
“Hey,” she said, flicking on her turn signal as she approached the highway entry ramp. “I have a question for you, if you’re willing to answer it.”
“No promises,” Jack said from the back seat.
Cassandra shrugged. “Why did you choose me to accompany you on your…mission?”
She glanced in her rearview mirror, finding Jack’s face. An expression like amusement flitted across his face for just an instant.
“You really don’t know?”
“No,” Cassandra admitted. “I mean, I helped the cops put you away. It seems like a strange choice to me.”
“You’re smart, Cassandra,” Jack said. “I checked your stuff out—lots of free time in prison. I know you do your research. Even with my case, it wasn’t like you just jumped to the conclusion that I must have murdered Laura Granger. You looked at the evidence, the things you’d seen, and you talked to people… You took all the information that was available and came to the conclusion that it pointed to me being the killer.”
“But you’re insisting that you’re not,” Cassandra pointed out.
“That’s because I know I’m not the killer,” Jack explained. “If I were in your position, hell, I’d probably think I was lying. But you, you keep your mind open and examine shit. You base your opinions on facts, and you never assume anything of anybody. I figured that was a good trait to have in someone who I needed to help me.”
He paused for a moment and Cassandra wondered if that was all he intended to say.
“Other than the NYPD, Laura, and her killer, you’re the only one that knows so much about the case. And obviously, it’s not like I can go to the police; they decided a long time ago that it was me. The system doesn’t work once it’s already convicted you.”
“That makes sense,” Cassandra agreed.
She could see how it had to look for someone like Jack. He could try as hard as he could to get an appeal, but without new evidence no judge was going to grant it, and the police—even the best of them—were not interested in looking like they’d made a mistake and gotten the wrong guy. The whole system was stacked against people once they’d been convicted. Hell, even once they’re accused, Cassandra thought, remembering some of the other cases she had covered in her time at the newspaper. The law was supposed to assume that a person was innocent until proven guilty, but the police assumed that whoever they arrested was guilty of something, and if that happened to be the crime in front of them, so much the better.
“Of course,” Jack added, “it doesn’t hurt at all that you’re hot as a five-alarm fire.”
Chapter Thirteen
“Okay,” Cassandra said, glancing in the rearview mirror, “explain to me why
we’re going back into Manhattan, where tons of cops are no doubt still looking for you?”
Good question, Jack thought. He had been considering the issue of the police ever since he’d given up on the idea of Riley being involved in framing him. He couldn’t think of any way around it, they were going to be taking a big risk.
“The next name on my list,” he said simply. “A guy named Lenny.”
“So if Riley’s supposed beef with you was that you destroyed his relationship, what’s the deal with this Lenny guy?”
Jack stretched against the seat cushions, remembering the man’s sallow, discontented face. It was easy to picture Lenny the way he’d seen him last: dirty and disheveled, bruised from a rough takedown, screaming obscenities as Jack led him into the police station.
“He’s one of my bounties,” Jack explained. “It’s been a little while now since I caught him, but he’d definitely want my guts for garters.”
“What was he arrested for?”
Jack combed his fingers through his hair, yawning as the car swayed on the road. “Drugs,” he said. “He was a big guy in…used to be coke, but by the end he’d graduated to meth. And a little pot, on the side, I think.” He shook his head. “He was arrested after being set up in a sting operation. He managed to make bail, but of course, idiot that he is, tried to dodge the trial.”
“In your case, they didn’t let you out on bail because they figured you’d run, and as a bounty hunter, you’d know better than the usual criminal how to evade the cops,” Cassandra said.
Jack shrugged. “It was a fair assessment. I wouldn’t have split, though.” He laughed bitterly. “That was still when I was convinced that the legal system worked the way it should, nine times out of ten at least. I figured there was no point running and implicating myself when I knew I was innocent. And surely my lawyer would be able to prove I didn’t do it, right?” He let out another laugh, shaking his head.
“So, why would Lenny—of all the people you’ve taken down—set you up? I mean, if you’re going with former bounties, there’s got to be at least a dozen more candidates, right?”
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