Fugitive Bride

by Paula Graves

  “You should buy the hair dye. I’ll buy the glasses. In case anyone’s paying attention.”

  “Good thinking.” He had reached the main road and he pulled over to a stop, sparing her a quick look before he got back on the blacktop. “So, we find a shopping center. I’ll go with you to the computer store to pick out what I need, but you can pay for it. Then we do the opposite when we pick up your hair dye. You pick, I pay.”

  She flashed a wry grin. “As long as the first place we stop has a bathroom.”

  * * *

  “YOU’RE TELLING ME you don’t have any sort of security system in your vehicle?” Archer Trask gave Quinn a look of disbelief. “In your line of work?”

  “Rather like the doctor who ignores his yearly checkup.” Quinn shrugged. “I’m afraid it’s a failing many of us have—focusing more on our clients’ security needs rather than our own.”

  Trask didn’t appear to believe him, but Quinn didn’t care. Trask could prove nothing, and Quinn had access to enough legal help to keep the Bagley County Sheriff’s Department from doing any harm.

  Meanwhile, he needed to get back to his office and convene a task force to dig deeper into the Tara Bentley case. First line of attack—find out the name of the deputy who’d helped kidnap her and Owen. If he’d been able to get a decent look at the guy himself, he knew Giattina, who’d been parked closer, must have, also. As soon as Quinn finished this pointless interview with Trask, he planned to find Giattina and compare notes. He’d already warned Tony against sharing information with the police that Owen and Tara had revealed while he was acting as their lawyer. Attorney-client privilege was something Tony took seriously, so Quinn doubted he’d have revealed anything about the suspicious deputy to the investigators interrogating him.

  Trask gave Quinn a copy of his statement to sign. “We have your license plate number and the description of your vehicle. We’ll find Owen Stiles and Tara Bentley sooner or later.” Trask frowned. “If you should hear from them, I’m sure you’ll warn them that their decision to flee hardly makes them look innocent.”

  Quinn signed the statement. “Of course. Am I free to go?”

  “You’ll let us know if you hear anything from the fugitives?”

  “Of course,” Quinn lied.

  He caught up with Tony Giattina outside, where the lawyer waited by his Mercedes, talking on the phone. His dark eyes met Quinn’s, and he said something into the phone, then put it in his pocket. “Would you like to tell me why you’re aiding and abetting fugitives?”

  Quinn nodded toward the Mercedes. With a sigh, Tony unlocked the car and joined Quinn inside.

  “You knew what was going on,” Tony said with a grimace. “Is my car bugged?”

  Quinn reached under the dashboard and pulled out a small listening device. “I’m sorry. I needed to hear what they had to say to you.”

  “You breached attorney-client privilege.”

  “I’m not an attorney.”

  “No,” Tony said with a grimace. “You’re a damned spy.”

  “Former.”

  “Former, my shiny red—”

  “They’re in trouble. And I believed them when they told you they recognized one of the Bagley County Sheriff’s Department deputies as one of the men who kidnapped them.”

  “You think the cops were in on what happened to them?”

  “Not the whole bunch of them, no. But at least one. And possibly more.”

  “So why didn’t they stick around and identify the guy instead of punching your lights out and running for the hills?”

  “Because who would believe them?” Quinn waved at the listening device sitting on the console between them. “You didn’t believe them, and you’re their lawyer.”

  Tony fell silent a moment. “What do you expect from me?”

  “Your silence. They told you about the kidnapper as part of your attorney-client relationship. It remains privileged until such time as they give you permission to reveal it.”

  “You don’t want me to tell what I know? If you and my clients are right, there’s a kidnapper working as a Bagley County deputy, and you want that information kept silent?”

  “I do.”

  Tony shook his head. “That makes no damn sense.”

  Quinn reached for the listening device and slipped it into his pocket. “What do you think would happen if we told what we know? Let’s say Trask believes us. He’d track down the deputy you saw, get your identification of the man and start questioning him. Which would be a disaster.”

  “Why would it be a disaster?”

  “Because I’ve come to believe the people behind Tara Bentley’s kidnapping are up to something far more dangerous than a simple abduction. And if we tip our hand, we may not find out what their plan is until it’s much too late.”

  Chapter Nine

  “Wow. Is that you?”

  Tara looked up at the sound of Owen’s voice, but it took a moment to realize that the gangly hipster in the saggy gray beanie shuffling toward her was her best friend. The cap looked ancient and well used, and it went well with the rest of his slouchy attire, from the baggy faded jeans to the oversize navy hoodie with the name of an obscure eighties’ metal band on the front. The sleek design of his amber-lensed glasses should have looked out of sync with the rest of his slacker aesthetic, but somehow the glasses seemed perfectly at home perched on his long, thin nose.

  “I almost didn’t recognize you,” she said as he set a large shopping bag from an electronics store on the hood of the SUV.

  “Likewise.” He waved his hand toward her hair. “I like the purple.”

  She patted her now-short hair self-consciously. The budget hair salon in the Abingdon shopping center had done a decent job giving her a spiky gamine cut, but the spray-on color she’d added was way outside her normal comfort zone.

  “We need to hit the road, but I had an idea for the SUV.” Owen pulled a small bag from inside his jacket and reached inside, withdrawing a small stack of bumper stickers. “Start sticking them on the back of the SUV.”

  The stickers, she saw, embraced every social justice issue known to man, including some that contradicted each other.

  “It would be better if this were a Volkswagen Beetle,” she muttered when he rejoined her at the back of the SUV after he’d stashed his new computer inside.

  “You make do with what you have,” Owen said with a shrug. “The main thing is, it doesn’t look like the SUV that left Kentucky this morning.”

  She tugged at the ends of her hair. “And we don’t look like the people who left Kentucky this morning.”

  “Exactly.” He cocked his head. “Don’t suppose you could get your nose pierced?”

  She gave his arm a light slap. “No.”

  “Maybe your belly button?”

  “Get in the car.”

  From Abingdon, they took I-81 north, heading for the next rest stop. Spotting a sign for a sub shop at one of the interstate exits just south of the rest area, Owen pulled off the highway to grab a couple of sandwiches for their dinner.

  By the time they finally reached the rest stop, the afternoon had started fading into twilight. Owen found a parking place a few spaces away from the nearest car and parked.

  “Home, sweet home,” he murmured.

  “Let’s take a restroom break,” Tara suggested. “Give me a couple of dollars and I’ll buy some drinks to go with our dinner.”

  The bathrooms were blessedly clean and human traffic at the rest stop was just busy enough for Owen and Tara to be able to blend in without any trouble. She bought the drinks and, while she was there, picked up a few of the brochures for south Virginia campgrounds and attractions.

  She showed Owen one of the brochures over dinner. “It’s a campground about two hours east of
here. We pay a small fee for a campsite. There’s a communal restroom within walking distance, and a charging station for electronics. They even advertise free Wi-Fi.”

  Owen looked at the brochure, his brow furrowed. “There is a tent stashed in the back of the SUV...”

  “We stay here tonight, and then tomorrow we can settle in there. Maybe you can put that computer you bought to use.”

  * * *

  “HOW’S THE SALMON?” Becky Cameron asked.

  “Delicious.” Quinn tried to remain expressionless, not sure he was ready to let his colleague know that her sudden desire to socialize was beginning to make him uneasy. He turned keeping people at arm’s length into an art form. Becky knew that better than most, having worked with him off and on for more than fifteen years.

  “Are you ever going to tell me about your adventure this morning?” she asked, delicately picking at her own pan-seared trout.

  “Not much to tell.”

  She gestured with one long-fingered, graceful hand toward the bruise shadowing his jawline. “Owen Stiles packs a nice punch.”

  “We taught him well.”

  “You don’t seem particularly incensed at the idea of having your vehicle stolen by a trusted employee.”

  “Life is full of surprises.”

  Becky smiled, showing a flash of straight white teeth. “Subject dropped.”

  “That’s for the best,” he agreed, glancing around the crowded restaurant. “For the here and now, at least.”

  She nodded, taking a dainty bite of the trout. “We can catch up at work in the morning.”

  A few minutes of thick silence stretched between them before Becky spoke again. “You’re wondering why I invited you here when I know as well as you do that there are certain topics we can’t discuss in public.”

  “The question did cross my mind.”

  Becky’s smile was full of sympathy. “I don’t mean to be so enigmatic. That’s your bailiwick.”

  He managed a smile. “But you clearly brought me here for a reason.”

  “Socializing isn’t reason enough?”

  He quirked one eyebrow, making her smile.

  “Right,” she said, the smile fading. “I wanted to talk to you about something not connected to work. And I was afraid if I tried to approach you at the office, I would lose my nerve.”

  Now he was intrigued. “I can’t imagine you ever losing your nerve, Becky. About anything.”

  “It’s about Mitch.”

  Suddenly, the half filet of salmon he’d eaten felt like a lump of lead in his stomach. He laid down his fork and took a drink of water to cover his sudden discomfort. “Has something changed?”

  “Maybe.” A furrow creased her brow. “There’s some indication that he might not have died in the helicopter crash in Tablis.”

  Quinn froze in the act of straightening his napkin across his lap. “I saw the crash myself. We searched the area thoroughly for over a week. Men under my watch died trying to recover all the bodies. But it was the rainy season, and the current in the river where they crashed was brutally swift. Several bodies washed downriver and were never recovered.”

  “I saw film of the crash. I know how unlikely it is that he survived.”

  Quinn reached across the table and covered her hand with his. “I know you want to believe there’s a chance he survived.”

  “I don’t know what I want to believe, Quinn. It’s been nearly ten years. If he survived, why didn’t he try to reach someone? I know it’s grasping at straws. It’s just—what if he’s out there? Maybe he doesn’t remember what happened or who he is. Maybe he just needs to see a familiar face to trigger the rest of his memories.”

  He gave her hand another squeeze before letting go. “I don’t think it works that way. But if you want me to put out some feelers with some of my old contacts in Kaziristan—”

  “I’d appreciate it,” she said with a grateful smile. She looked down at her plate. “I don’t know about you, but I think my appetite is gone.”

  “You want to get out of here? Maybe we could head back to the office and talk about the subject we were supposed to talk about?”

  She nodded. “You go ahead. I’ll get the check and meet you there.”

  “I can wait,” he said, feeling an unexpected protectiveness of her. He’d never thought of Becky as someone who needed anyone or anything. Even her relationship with Mitch Talbot, a marine colonel she’d met when she was stationed at the US embassy in Tablis, Kaziristan, had seemed lopsided. She was the diplomat, a woman of culture, education and power, while he was a gruff leatherneck more at home in fatigues leading his men into combat.

  But clearly, she’d loved him deeply if she was willing to put her reputation and her connections on the line to find him ten years after his presumed death. Was she setting herself up for a fresh new heartbreak?

  She was obviously going to look for the man, whether Quinn helped her or not. And even though the thought of trying to dig up those old bones made him positively queasy, it was the least he owed her.

  After all, he was the man who’d sent Mitch Talbot to his death.

  * * *

  MORNING WAS JUST a hint of pink promise in the eastern sky when Owen woke from a restless sleep. At bedtime the night before, he and Tara had tried to sleep on the narrow bench seats, but after the second time Tara tumbled off the seat into the floorboard, they decided it made more sense to fold down the seats and use the now-flat cargo area to deploy the sleeping bags stashed among other survival gear in the underfloor storage area of the SUV. Given the dropping temperature outside, they decided to zip the two bags into one spacious double bag. Curling up back to back, they’d fallen asleep in relative warmth, if not comfort.

  At some point during the night, however, they’d ended up face-to-face, their limbs entangled beneath the down-filled cover of the sleeping bags.

  For a heady moment, Owen wanted nothing more than to stay right where he was for the rest of his life, his skin against hers, her warmth enfolding him with a sense of sublime rightness he had never felt with anyone but her.

  It would be so much easier if he could have found that feeling of completion with another woman. He’d tried more than once over the years to move on, to seek a relationship, a life, where Tara Bentley wasn’t the most important part of it. It had taken a long time for him to come to terms with the fact that as long as Tara was in his life, she would always be the most important part of it.

  Which meant the only way to move on with his life would be to let her go completely.

  He gently extricated himself from her sleeping embrace. She made a soft groaning noise that echoed inside his own chest, but he forced himself to keep moving rather than return to the warmth of her body. Trying not to wake her, he unzipped his side of the sleeping back, wincing at the rush of cold outside its down-filled insulation. He grabbed his jacket from the front seat and added it to the sweatshirt and jeans he’d worn last night for warmth before he opened the door and stepped out into the chilly morning air.

  Across the rest area parking lot, a handful of other travelers were up and moving, taking advantage of the bathrooms and vending machines. One machine seemed to dispense hot coffee, he noticed, swirls of steam rising from cups held by weary travelers exiting the building.

  He pulled up the collar of his jacket and tugged the ratty beanie over his head, grimacing at the need for disguise. It was too dark for the glasses, so he left them in his jacket pocket as he slouched his way across to the rest area center.

  After a quick bathroom break, the siren song of coffee drew him to the vending machine. He bought a couple of cups and tucked them to his chest under one arm while he studied the vending machine selections. Sweet or salty? Tara wasn’t much of a breakfast person, but they couldn’t be sure when they’d be able to eat a
gain, so she needed something with some protein. A bag of peanuts and a pack of cheese crackers would have to do.

  He didn’t immediately notice a new arrival at the rest area center, so it was with a flutter of shock that he turned away from the vending machine to find a Virginia State Police officer standing only a couple of yards away.

  He froze at first, his heart beating a tattoo against his ribs. Coffee sloshed in the cups pressed against his chest, almost spilling down his shirt.

  Turning as slowly as he dared, he settled the cups and edged toward the side of the room, where a few travelers were looking through the brochure racks advertising local tourist stops.

  He glanced back toward the policeman. He seemed to be looking for something.

  Or someone?

  Owen edged toward the door with his purchases, hoping he wouldn’t do something stupid like trip over his own feet and draw attention toward himself. Tara was asleep in the SUV, with no idea how close they were to being discovered.

  One foot in front of the other...

  “Excuse me, sir? Have you seen this woman?” The voice, so close, made him jerk with surprise. Some of the coffee spilled onto the pavement in front of the rest-area door.

  Slowly, he turned to face the policeman. The man was holding a printed flyer with a woman’s photograph on it. Owen nearly melted with relief when he realized the woman on the flyer wasn’t Tara.

  “I’m sorry, no,” he said, faking a midwestern accent. “Just driving through.”

  “If you see anything, give us a call.” The policeman started to hand Owen a card, then belatedly realized his hands were full. He slipped the card into the pocket of Owen’s jacket. “Have a safe trip.”

  “Thanks.” Owen gave a nod and headed quickly across the parking lot to the SUV.

  Tara was awake when he opened the door. He set the coffee and snacks on the floorboard and glanced over his shoulder. The policeman had remained outside the rest area center, talking to travelers as they entered and exited the place.

  Following his gaze, Tara asked with alarm, “Is that a cop?”