True Lies

by Ingrid Weaver

  The clouds that had rolled in at sunset had brought the tang of rain. The air was charged with expectancy and the threat of change. Frowning, Bruce shoved his hands into the pockets of his borrowed coat. “I don’t like this.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  “It’s gotten too big.”

  “McQuaig is big. We need the help. Anything else?”

  “No, just a bad feeling.”

  He was silent for a few moments. “You don’t have to take part. You've already contributed more than your share. Why don’t you stay in the truck and man the radio this time?”

  “No. I want in. I want to find Simon Duprey.”

  “You're too close to this one, Bruce. Considering your involvement with the sister—”

  “Leave Emma out of it. I want Simon Duprey because he’s our best chance of nailing McQuaig. He worked for them under duress, and despite his problems with the law, it’s my guess that he’d choose a deal over prison.”

  “We've already discussed that possibility.”

  “And if we've figured it out, so could McQuaig. Duprey might not last long enough to do us any good. I can’t let that happen.”

  “Because of the case or because of the woman?”

  Bruce couldn’t answer. He hunched his shoulders and turned his back to the wind. “There’s something else I want to talk to you about.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “This is my last case. I'll give you my badge when it’s over.”

  Crickets chirped shrilly from the long grass at the edge of the road. The wind gusted in whispers through the stand of birch that bordered the gas station. Xavier swore softly and stepped closer. “You're burned out. Take some time off. You've got it coming. There isn’t any reason for you to do something this drastic. You're a good cop. Why throw that away?”

  “Because that’s all I am.”

  “You've worked undercover for too long. I've seen it before. Take a vacation, get some perspective on the situation.”

  He shook his head. “This isn’t something that a tropical beach can change.”

  Twin beams of light swung around the curve of the road. A car slowed and pulled off on the shoulder. Xavier glanced toward it and stepped away. “We'll talk about this later. Once you have a chance to rest, you'll feel differently.” He started off toward the car. “In the meantime, you keep that badge, because if you try to give it to me, I won’t take it.”

  With an odd sense of detachment Bruce watched four more men emerge from the car. Xavier wasn’t taking any chances. Already there were units unobtrusively surrounding McQuaig’s estate. The planned raid was taking shape, but instead of feeling the thrill of anticipation or the low-level excitement of the chase, he was filled with an overwhelming sense of emptiness.

  His heart simply wasn’t in this anymore. He had known early this morning, when he had stood by the window and stared at the glinting piece of metal in his hand, that he would never be able to go back to the way things were. He’d always known that Emma Cassidy was a dangerous woman, but he’d never imagined how dangerous. With the vulnerability in her mountain lake blue eyes and the generous, healing passion of her body, she had managed to destroy the defensive wall that had shielded him for five years. No, there was no going back. He closed his eyes briefly, and into his mind flashed the image of Emma’s face as the cell door had clicked shut.

  He hadn’t wanted to say goodbye like that. He hadn’t wanted to say goodbye. Ever.

  * * *

  Muttering an apology under her breath, Emma locked the cell and tossed the keys on the table, then ran up the stairs and closed the metal door on the deputy’s outraged demands. Cautiously, she peered around the corner. There was no one at the front desk. Normally there were two officers on duty at this time of the evening, but from what she had overheard Haskin say, one of them, Thibault, was on a call. The other one, who must be Duff, was nursing a sore head in the basement. Haskin had already left with Harvey, so temporarily she had the place to herself.

  Moving swiftly, she went straight to Haskin’s office, slipped inside and closed the door behind her. With a quick glance to assure herself that the blinds were still shut, she crossed to the desk and picked up the phone. It was only when she was listening to the dial tone that it struck her—she didn’t know what number to call.

  “Damn,” she whispered. She bent over the desk and sorted through the papers, her anxiety mounting. She found the map that had been pinned to the bulletin board, but there was no trace of the files that Xavier had placed here this morning. The dial tone switched from a hum to a squeal and she jabbed at the zero.

  “Give me the Bangor Police,” she told the operator. But when the connection was made and she heard the first ring, she hung up the phone. McQuaig had the Bethel Corners sheriff on his payroll. Did it stop there? Or were there others? Could she trust them to deliver her message? What if her attempts to warn Bruce’s people backfired?

  Frustrated, she shoved the map into her pocket and paced across the room. This was too much. All her life she had claimed that she couldn’t trust cops. Now she wished she could. Bruce had asked her to give the law a chance, and she was trying. A week ago, when she had told him that Simon was in trouble, he had attempted to convince her to... She skidded to a stop. He had wanted her to go to the police. He had picked up a pen and scrawled a number on the back of an empty envelope and had said that it belonged to Xavier Jones.

  “That’s it!” she exclaimed. Even if Xavier himself couldn’t be reached, someone at that number would be able to get the warning to him. She glanced at the clock, her stomach knotting. If she ignored the speed limits, she could be at her cabin in fifteen minutes.

  If she had a car.

  Chewing her lower lip, she looked around the room until her gaze lit on the set of small hooks beside the locked gun rack. One set of keys dangled from the center hook. With the tip of her finger she lifted a slat from the blind and looked outside. Haskin’s patrol car was still parked in its usual spot in front of the station. Of course. He wouldn’t have wanted to draw attention to himself when he left with Harvey. Without giving herself time to think about what she was doing, she snatched the keys and ran outside.

  Her estimate had been off. She made it to the foot of her driveway in less than twelve minutes. Heedless of the damage the boulders were doing to the undercarriage of the patrol car, Emma gunned the engine and shot to the crest of the hill. She was out and running the moment she yanked on the brake. Before the echoes of the engine faded, she leapt over the rock that formed her doorstep and burst into her cabin.

  The telephone was gone. With a frustrated sob, she grabbed the zippered bag that Bruce had left under the desk and emptied it on the floor. Clothes, a pair of cowboy boots, two telephones and a modem fell in a heap at her feet. She untangled the cord of one of the phones and plugged it in behind the couch, then yanked open the top drawer of her desk. In less than ten seconds she held the envelope with Xavier’s number. Lungs heaving, Emma knelt on the floor and dialed the phone.

  “Come on, come on,” she whispered, holding on to the receiver so tightly her knuckles cracked. She heard two rings, then a series of clicks before it started ringing again.

  A tired voice came on the line. “Yeah? Epstein here.”

  Another cop. She hesitated for a split second, then decided if he was in Xavier’s office, she had to trust him. “I need to get in touch with Xavier Jones or Bruce Prentice.”

  “They aren’t here right now.” The tone sharpened. “Could I help you?”

  “This is an emergency. I need to get a message to them. McQuaig knows about the raid.”

  There was a brief silence. “Who is this?”

  “That’s not important. Please, just tell them that McQuaig knows. The raid on his estate near Bangor is no longer a secret. You have to warn Bruce and Xavier they've been set up.”

  “Where did you get this information?”

  “I overheard Sheriff Haskin talking to one
of McQuaig’s men. He’s working for them.”

  “The Bethel Corners sheriff? Are you sure?”

  She ground her teeth. “Listen, Epstein, I'm trying to help. Can you get a message to them or not?”

  “I'll see what I can do.”

  “Don’t play games with me. Lives are at risk. If you can’t contact them and get this stopped, then I'm going to take my chances with every law enforcement agency in the state and hope that I don’t hit another one of McQuaig’s flunkies. Then I'll go to the media, and if I do that, nobody wins. Either you give me some guarantee that—”

  “If you publicize this, you'll be responsible for endangering more people yourself. If you're on the level, you'll let us handle it. Why don’t you give me your name and your number and—”

  She slammed down the phone and covered her mouth with her hands, her fingers shaking too badly to grasp the receiver. Anxiety burned along her nerves. She had to warn Bruce, she had to help him. She couldn’t imagine a life without him.

  “Oh, God!” She rocked forward on her knees. Everything was happening too fast. By now Harvey would have alerted McQuaig about the raid and would already be on his way to Bangor. It would take over an hour for him and Haskin to drive there, but that would still give them plenty of time to prepare for the police. Epstein would relay her warning, wouldn’t he?

  She looked around the cabin, suddenly conscious of the silence. She had lived alone here for three years, but all it took was a week with Bruce and now the place seemed empty, as if a vital part were missing. Without him, a vital part of her was missing. How could she go back to this solitude after he’d shared it?

  She glanced at the reading glasses that rested on the coffee table and she remembered how he’d looked over the rims at her, his hair burnished in the soft light, his eyes sparkling with vitality. Something glinted on the floor and she leaned over, pushing aside the edge of his bag. Biting her lip, she picked up a gold earring and let it dangle from her fingers. What had seemed hopelessly complicated was now painfully simple. She loved him, and that wouldn’t change, no matter where he was or who he decided to be...

  Something underneath a crumpled shirt caught her eye. She lifted it aside and saw the corner of a black-and-white photograph. Grasping the white border of the photo, she tugged it free and found herself staring at her own face. He must have taken this the day they had met. She remembered wearing that shirt and canvas hat, but the expression on her face startled her. Did she really look that lonely, that lost? The edges of the photograph were dull with fingerprints and one of the lower corners was bent, as if it had been handled frequently. Something shifted painfully inside her. Bruce had taken this, his hands had held it, his fingers had left those marks. He must have been studying her picture from the day they had met.

  She set the photo down on the floor and looked through the pile of things that had been in his bag, but there were no other photographs. Why had he saved this one? He had kept it with him even when he had thought the worst of her. He had said that he cared. Was it more than caring?

  Would she ever get the chance to ask him?

  She smacked her palms against the floor and rose to her feet. She loved him, and she had lost too many people that she loved. She’d be damned if she was going to sit here and wait for it to happen again.

  * * *

  An ambulance rushed past, its siren whining to the blackness. The red lights glittered through the raindrops on the back windshield as Emma glanced in the rearview mirror. Her hands tightened on the wheel. Nearly an hour had passed since she had left her cabin. She had followed the map carefully, so this had to be the right road. She almost wished it wasn’t, not if that ambulance meant she was too late. The car hit a pothole and she jerked her attention back to the rain-slicked blacktop in front of her. The moment she rounded the next bend, any lingering doubts about her route vanished. A police car was parked at the side of the road, the flashing light bar on its roof making eerie shadows across a stand of birch trees.

  Emma felt her pulse thudding hard and thick at the base of her throat as she drove past. She expected to be confronted any second, to be taken back into custody before she had the chance to be certain her warning had gotten through. But no one stopped her. Just as no one had tried to stop her from doing twenty miles over the speed limit on the I-95. Of course, they wouldn’t think of stopping one of their own.

  She exhaled shakily and fumbled for the switch that would reactivate her flashers. She hit the siren by mistake, grimacing at the loud whoop that escaped before she could shut if off. Another mile rolled past before she saw a glow through the trees. When she steered around the final bend, her empty stomach knotted.

  The three-story house on the hillside was ablaze with light, from the casement windows under the eaves to the glass doors beside the rock terrace. Groups of people moved freely between the gaping front entrance and the dozens of vehicles that lined the sloping driveway and ringed the lawn. Blinking blue, red and orange blurred and glimmered through the slanting rain. She rolled down her window and listened, but she could hear nothing except the sound of her engine. No shouts. No shots. Whatever had happened was over.

  Her message to Bruce and Xavier must have gotten through after all. But the raid hadn’t been called off. It had been moved up.

  Another ambulance pulled away from the house and headed down the driveway. Emma watched it approach. Who was in there? Bruce? Simon? Both of them? She clutched the wheel, leaning her forehead on the back of her hands until the ambulance had passed, then slowly, woodenly, she nosed the stolen police car onto the lawn and turned off the engine. No, they were all right. They had to be all right. If they weren’t she would have been able to tell, wouldn’t she?

  Keeping to the shadows, aided by the night and the confusion, Emma managed to make her way to the house unchallenged. She stood behind one of the pillars at the front entrance, waiting motionless, while two rifle-carrying cops walked by. They held their weapons loosely and grumbled about the weather, obviously relaxed now that the raid was over. If she approached them, would they tell her what she wanted to know? No, she couldn’t risk being sent away, not yet. The moment they passed her, she melted into the shrubbery and worked her way around the house.

  When she got to the edge of the terrace, she paused. Through the open glass doors she saw that the room was an office or study of some kind. It was dominated by a huge, carved mahogany desk on one side and an ornate archway on the other. Her heart skipped, then thudded into a strong steady rhythm as she focused on the tall, blond man who stood in the center of the floor. His back was toward her, but she would recognize him anywhere, just as she’d always been able to recognize him. She didn’t even pause to wonder why she had been able to find him so easily—whatever had drawn her to this room was probably the same inexplicable and primitive bond that had drawn her to him from the start.

  Time seemed to slow. The rain was no longer as cold, the flashing lights that ringed the house faded from her vision. The wave of relief that flooded through her was so strong she swayed, taking a step closer.

  But then he moved, and she caught sight of the smaller man who stood beyond him.

  No. She had wanted them safe, she had wanted them healthy, but not like this. She had thought that she had prepared herself, but the reality was something else. It was a scene from a nightmare, not the one she had been fearing the most, but a nightmare just the same. It was a tableau that embodied all the conflicting loyalties and emotions that she’d thought had been resolved. Part of her wanted to retreat to the shadows and disappear, run back to the isolated safety of her cabin and pretend she could forget the image that was now etched on her brain....

  It was no use. Even across the distance that separated them, she could hear the metallic click as Bruce snapped the handcuff around Simon’s wrist.

  The fine hairs at the back of Bruce’s neck tingled. Although he couldn’t identify any sound that had alerted him, suddenly he knew he was no longer alon
e with his prisoner. Warily, he snapped the second cuff closed and turned around.

  A lone woman stood on the terrace on the other side of the open doors, a shadowy figure in black. She must be an apparition from the storm. She couldn’t really be here. She was safely locked into a cell seventy-two miles away. Speechless, he watched a droplet of water trace a path down her face and fall into her collar. Her gaze caught his, the deep, pure blue swirling with pain. Her lips formed a silent denial.

  His prisoner shifted restlessly. “Well, don’t you read me my rights or something now? Or are we going to stand around here all...” He paused as he followed Bruce’s gaze. The arrogant expression drained from his face. “Emma!”

  As if caught in a trance, she moved closer. “Hello, Simon.”

  He took a step toward his sister. “You're alive! Thank God. McQuaig told me you were dead.”

  “He lied.”

  “Oh, Emma, it was terrible. I thought they were going to kill me, and then when they told me that you had crashed, I didn’t know what to do.” He reached toward her, stopping when the chain of his handcuffs cut off the motion. “Help me, Emma.”

  “I've been helping you.”

  He held up his manacled wrists and took another step. “Don’t let the police lock me up. Please. I couldn’t survive if they did that.”

  Bruce fastened his fingers around Simon’s upper arm, preventing him from going farther. He had to finish this. “You're under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say—”

  “Stuff it, cop. I'm not going anywhere with you.”

  Setting his jaw, Bruce completed the familiar recitation. With each word he said, Emma moved nearer. As she stepped into the square of light that spilled from the room, he could see that not all the moisture on her cheeks was from the rain. He was able to see something else, too. The hunting bow, the one that had rested on the wooden rack on the cabin wall, was slung from her back. Black-fletched arrows bristled from the quiver that was strapped to her thigh.