Runaway Heart

by Saranne Dawson

  “You can’t be one of his favorite people,” C.Z. said as Harvey continued toward them. “Especially since you defended Zach and tried to make him out to be a liar.”

  “Oh, we get along fine, just like always. He even called me after the trial, just to make sure I understood that there were no hard feelings. He said he knew I was just doing my job.”

  C.Z. studied the man walking toward them, the man who, among other things, might well have murdered her father. What she saw was exactly what everyone else saw—a pleasant, middle-aged man of average height, beginning to show a potbelly, with a thick thatch of white hair and an open, friendly face.

  “Well, well, Ms. Morrison, C.Z., isn’t it? I thought that was you over here.”

  C.Z. forced herself to smile. “How are you, Mr. Summers?”

  “Just a little nervous, to tell you the truth,” Summers said with a self-deprecating smile. “I find myself looking over my shoulder and avoiding dark places.”

  “Oh? You mean because of Zach Hollis?” she asked innocently, hoping that he was telling the truth. In fact, she hoped that he was truly terrified.

  Summers nodded. “Chief Colby seems to think he’s somewhere in the area.”

  Sam snorted derisively. “What I think is that he’s long gone. His folks have some money and I’m sure they’ve helped him disappear.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Summers replied. “Hollis always struck me as the kind of man who’d never give up.” He paused. “What brings you back here, C.Z.?”

  His tone was pleasant, and try as hard as she did, C.Z. couldn’t hear any underlying edge to his voice.

  “I’m visiting an old friend, Stacey Robbins. But I’m thinking about moving back to the area. I’m job hunting at the moment.”

  “Ah, I see. You’re a psychologist, aren’t you? I believe you were in graduate school the last time I saw you.”

  “Yes, that’s right. I was working at Walkill Prison, but the program was canceled.”

  “Walkill?” Summers echoed with seemingly genuine surprise. “Did you run into Hollis there?”

  “Yes, I saw him a few times, including just before he escaped. But I’d met him before that. Dad introduced us a couple of years ago.”

  “I see.” Summers nodded. “A sad situation. It’s no secret that I voted against hiring him, but still…” His voice trailed off and he shook his head sadly, then smiled at her.

  “Well, if there’s any way I can help you, please don’t hesitate to come see me. I’m sure your daddy would be very happy to know you’re thinking of coming back here.”

  You could help me quite a lot by telling the truth, C.Z. said to herself as she returned his smile and thanked him. Then she watched as he moved away to greet a family coming their way. She sighed inwardly. It was so difficult to believe that this man could be guilty of one heinous crime, let alone three.

  As a trained psychologist, C.Z. thought she had very powerful antennae where lying was concerned, but she had to admit that those antennae were failing her this time. He had to be lying—at least where Zach was concerned—and yet she found it very difficult not to believe him.

  “C.Z.! What a surprise!”

  “Oh, hello, Mrs. Williams.”

  “Please call me Mary. After all, we’re both grown up now. What brings you back to us?”

  As C.Z. explained why she was here, her mind raced. Mary Williams was a county commissioner and now, thanks to Zach, she knew Mary had also had a relationship with her father. C.Z. had always liked her, but now she saw the possibility of gaining some information, as well. If Mary had been close to her father, it was always possible that he’d mentioned to her his continuing investigation into the school bus tragedy.

  C.Z. didn’t know how close Mary was to Harvey Summers, but at least they’d had a long professional relationship. And she recalled, as well, that Zach had said Mary had visited him in jail before his trial. So when Mary suggested they have dinner together soon, C.Z. leaped at the opportunity.

  “I’ll be back next week. We could get together then,” she offered.

  C.Z. PULLED INTO the station about twenty minutes before Zach’s train from the city was due to arrive. She’d told Stacey that she had to return home but would be back in two days. Stacey was delighted to offer her home to C.Z. whenever she needed a place to stay, which was both a blessing and a curse, as far as C.Z. was concerned. The good side to it was that it meant she could nose around as much as she wanted without anyone wondering about her spending so much time in the area. But the bad side was that she wouldn’t be able to see Zach as often, though with both Stacey and her husband gone during the day, that might not pose too much of a problem.

  She sat in her car in the nearly deserted station and thought about her encounter with Harvey Summers. In fact, she’d thought of little else. She knew that sociopaths and psychopaths could often present charming facades, but Harvey Summers couldn’t possibly fit into that category. This was a man who’d lived his entire life among the same people and most of his adult life in a very public manner. He simply could not be other than what he seemed to be—and yet she knew that he was.

  What frightened her most about Harvey Summers was that he made her doubt Zach. In the absence of any proof that Summers was involved in the school bus tragedy or in her father’s death, it all came down to his attempt to kill Zach. Every other suspicion they had about him arose from that incident.

  She knew many people had tried to rationalize that incident as some sort of tragic mistake, but that was only to ease their minds. They didn’t want to believe Harvey had tried to kill Zach, but neither could they accept that their police chief could be guilty of attempted murder.

  C.Z. had nearly fallen into that trap after her meeting with Summers. But unlike the others, she’d forced herself to look more deeply into that evening, and there was just no way it could have been a mistake on either of their parts.

  The arrival of the train put an end to her uncomfortable thoughts but brought back her fears for Zach. She seemed to careen wildly between a certainty that he could handle any situation and a fear that he would be caught. Just as she was once again wavering in her certainty of his innocence, she thought unhappily.

  Given the lateness of the hour, she was surprised to see so many people getting off the train. She scanned the five cars nervously, searching for him and wondering what she’d do if he failed to appear.

  When she finally spotted him, she wasn’t at first completely certain that it was him. Despite the fact that she knew he was wearing his disguise, she had held in her mind the image of the man she knew.

  He wasn’t wearing the same clothes. Somewhere, he’d acquired black pants and an old sheepskin-lined suede vest with embroidery, as well as a pair of black ankle-high boots. He was carrying a large, well-worn duffel bag and wore a pair of wire-rimmed glasses.

  She watched him in total astonishment as he made his way down the platform toward her. He was walking differently, a slow, shambling sort of gait rather than his long, athletic stride. She detected a slight limp.

  Instead of being amazed at his ability to transform himself, C.Z. felt the icy fingers of fear skitter along her spine. Given her thoughts of a moment ago, she didn’t want to see this proof of his ability to transform himself.

  Instead of going to the passenger door, he came around to her side and bent to peer in at her. She very nearly recoiled as she stared into a face that bore no trace at all of Zach Hollis. Most of his face was covered by gray beard, which was growing thicker by the day, but even in the dim light, she could see that his striking eyes had disappeared, too. Behind the lightly tinted glasses they appeared to be a muddy brown or gray.

  Before she could get the window down, he had gone around to the passenger door and she leaned over to unlock it for him. When he slid into the car, she was still staring openmouthed at him. He grinned, but even that seemed different, thanks to the beard. He put out a hand.

  “Travis Bentley. Plea
sed to make your acquaintance, ma’am. Scott’s talked a lot about you.”

  Her hands went out automatically to be grasped by his, engulfed by a hand that seemed larger, though she realized that wasn’t possible and had to be the result of his looking larger with all the padding and the heavy vest.

  “Travis Bentley?” she echoed in disbelief, only now realizing that she was also hearing traces of a Texas accent.

  He reached into an inside pocket in the vest and drew out a worn leather wallet, holding it up so she could see the driver’s license. “License, Social Security card and a couple of credit cards that I can’t use,” he said, dropping the accent.

  “Who is he—Travis Bentley?”

  Zach shrugged. “No idea. Maybe he doesn’t exist or maybe he’s dead. My source doesn’t like questions—especially from cops.”

  “The clothes,” she said, “and the accent. You were even walking differently.”

  “I spent some time hanging out in the Village and in SoHo, then picked up some clothes in a secondhand shop after I’d figured out how I should look. The accent’s easy. My partner for a couple of years was originally from Texas.”

  “You’re scary,” she said sincerely.

  “Scary? I’m trying to look harmless.”

  “What’s scary is how well you’ve succeeded.”

  His eyes searched her face solemnly. “I thought you’d be pleased.”

  “I am, but—” She stopped, not knowing how to explain her irrational fear. She turned on the engine and backed out of the parking space.

  “What is it, C.Z.? Something happened.”

  She told him about her day, about seeing Sam Gittings and Mary Williams and finally about her encounter with Harvey Summers. He remained silent until she had finished.

  “So that’s it—Summers,” he said quietly. “And now you’re having doubts about me again.”

  “No! That’s not true. I—”

  “I’m not blaming you, Charlie,” he said gently. “I know you still have some doubts. If our situations were reversed, I’d have some doubts, too. We haven’t had time yet to build trust.”

  C.Z. WAS a sound sleeper, and by the time her brain woke up enough to tell her that the loud pounding noise wasn’t part of a dream, Zach was already out of bed and halfway dressed. Even then, she watched him put clothes on over the padding and reach for the wig before the terrible truth dawned on her.

  “Is it the police?” she asked, praying that wasn’t the case.

  Zach nodded as he adjusted the wig in front of the dresser mirror, then expertly popped in the contact lenses, followed by the glasses.

  Terror kept her paralyzed, sitting in the bed with the blankets clutched in both hands. Below, the pounding started again, and Zach turned to her briefly as he reached the top of the stairs.

  “I doubt they’ll come up here, but get under the bed.”

  She climbed clumsily from the bed and lowered herself to the floor, then remembered her clothing. But it was nowhere to be seen—at least until she began to ease herself under the bed. Then she found it, rolled in a ball and stuffed far underneath the bed.

  “Just a minute!” Zach called out, and then she heard him moving around, first in the kitchen, and then in the bathroom. She realized he was getting rid of any traces of her there, as well, and her fear turned briefly to wonder that he could function so smoothly. Had he been mentally rehearsing for this while she had been busy denying it would happen at all?

  Then he opened the door and slipped easily into his Texas accent. She held her breath as the officers—a couple of them, she guessed—began to question him.

  There was dust under the bed, and she had to fight an urge to sneeze. Her heart was pounding as loud as their knocking had been. One of them must have asked to use the bathroom because she heard Zach tell him where it was, then continue talking to the other man, casual conversation about the area and the house.

  She could not believe that she was up here, safely hidden under the bed but terror-stricken, while below her, Zach was chatting amiably with two men who knew him and were searching for him. It was surreal.

  The toilet flushed and then all three of them moved outside and their voices trailed away. Seconds dragged past. She finally sneezed, controlling it as best she could. More time passed. She couldn’t hear them, but she knew they must still be out there. She would have heard their car start up.

  With each passing moment, she became more and more afraid that they had recognized him, or at least that they were becoming suspicious. It seemed impossible to her that a man as distinctive as Zach Hollis could disguise himself well enough to fool those who knew him, and she felt that same uneasiness she’d felt when she’d seen him at the train station.

  Then, at last, she heard a car starting and the front door opening and closing, followed by Zach’s footsteps as he came up the stairs. Before she could begin to crawl out from under the bed, he had crouched beside it and was reaching for her. She sneezed again, then pulled herself into a sitting position, naked and surrounded by her clothing.

  The stranger who was her lover bent down to kiss her, his lips and tongue a tease and a promise that did little to soothe her frazzled nerves.

  “That wasn’t my idea of a way to wake up in the morning,” he said dryly as he drew her to her feet and then into his arms.

  She shivered, partly from the cool morning air and partly from a strange mixture of fear and desire and vulnerability. She was naked and he was fully clothed and in his disguise. He looked and felt like a stranger.

  “Get back into bed until I get the place warmed up,” he ordered, then kissed her again and went downstairs.

  She huddled dazedly beneath the blankets, all her tangled emotions beginning to resolve themselves into disbelief. How could he be so calm, even joking about his near capture? In her mind, she could still hear his slow drawl as he talked to the officers.

  I’ll never understand him, she thought dismally. And if I can’t understand him, how can I trust him?

  When he returned and began to strip off his disguise and his clothing, she stared at him, wanting to see some sign that he was at least slightly nervous. But his movements were completely natural and unhurried.

  He slid beneath the covers and drew her against him, but she resisted, even though the hard, muscled body pressing against hers was wonderfully familiar. He let her go, then raised himself up on one elbow and stared at her.

  “They’re gone, Charlie. The disguise worked.”

  “I know that,” she told him, staring into eyes that were once more ice-blue. “What I don’t understand is how you can be so nonchalant about it.”

  He stared at her for a moment, then abruptly sat up in bed and ran his fingers through his hair, which had been flattened by the wig. “I’m not being nonchalant,” he insisted with a slight edge to his voice. “I know how dangerous it was. But it worked, and that’s all that matters. Would you rather see me go to pieces?”

  “Under the circumstances, that might be more appropriate,” she replied in a tone not unlike his own.

  “Appropriate,” he echoed. “Look, I was scared—all right? When you’re in my business, you learn how to control that fear. If I hadn’t controlled it, they would have seen it, and then they’d have been suspicious. And it wasn’t just me I was worried about, either. If they’d gotten suspicious, they would have insisted on searching the place and they might have found you.”

  “Did you know them?” she asked to change the subject.

  He nodded. “One of them. The other is a new hire.”

  He was silent for a few moments, then turned to her. “Like Yogi Berra said, this is déjà vu all over again. One of the reasons it ended with Kelly, the woman I was involved with before, is that she thought I was cold. Afterward, I began to think maybe she was right, and that’s when I decided to leave the city and come up here. But I guess it didn’t do much good. I can’t change who I am. But I don’t want that to ruin things for us. When this
is over, I want us to have a chance.”

  “So do I, Zach,” she said softly. “And I never said you were cold. It’s just that you’re so different from any other man I’ve known.”

  “Is this where we both start talking about our pasts?” he asked with a grin.

  “No. I think I’d rather stay in the present,” she replied with a smile, even though she’d never been one to live completely in the moment.

  “Good,” he murmured as his mouth covered hers.

  They made love slowly and deliciously, lingering in each moment even as they both felt the ever-stronger drumbeat of passion. She let go of all her doubts and fears and yielded herself to him even as she made her own demands, delighting in her power over this man, liking the way he made no attempt to hide that fact.

  Whatever else Zach Hollis might be, he certainly wasn’t cold.

  “WHAT WILL YOU be doing while I’m gone?” she asked, trying to hide her nervousness.

  “I’m going into the woods to see if I can find that truck. But I don’t have any great hopes for success. And I think I’ll start hanging out a bit at the Antlers.”

  “What’s that?” Her uneasiness ratcheted still more.

  “It’s a bar out on Route 17. A lot of local guys who are into hunting and fishing hang out there—mostly ones who can’t afford to join a camp. Some of Summers’s men hang out there. The place is so damned dark and smoke-filled that I could probably walk in without my disguise and not be recognized.”

  “What do you mean, Summers’s men?” she questioned, confused.

  “His trash haulers. That’s his business. Being county commissioner is, theoretically, at least, only a part-time job.”

  “Oh. I didn’t realize that.” She frowned, suddenly remembering something. “Was William Davis one of his men—before he went to prison?”

  Zach frowned, too. “Davis? You mean that little ratfaced con? Why?”