Fugitive (A Rocky Mountain Thriller Book 2)

by Ann Voss Peterson

“You think he’s the writer Joy was talking about? The one she said was giving her husband a swollen head?”

  “If he isn’t, he might know who is.” Eric pushed himself up from the bed and crossed the room. He opened one cabinet near the phone, then another. Sure enough, there was a telephone book, very outdated, but perfect for what he was after. He called the number for the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle. Although the receptionist wouldn’t give him the reporter’s phone number, they promised to pass along the message.

  “It’s urgent,” Eric said. “It has to do with the manhunt for that murderer. If he’d like an exclusive interview, I can arrange it. Tell him to call back at this number right away.”

  Prohaska called back within the hour.

  They had eaten some canned chili and turned on the television while they waited, and Eric stepped into the kitchen so he could focus on the call. Sarah stayed in the living area, watching him.

  “Thank you for calling back,” Eric said. “I have a few questions.”

  “I usually ask the questions.” His voice was brusque over the phone. “I thought you had information about the manhunt for Eric Lander.”

  “Bear with me, will you?” He took a deep breath and held Sarah’s gaze. “What can you tell me about Larry Hodgeson? He was a fingerprint analyst with the state crime lab.”

  Silence.

  At first Eric thought the reporter had hung up on him. Then the soft whoosh of an expelled breath shuddered over the line.

  “Why are you asking about Hodgeson?” Prohaska’s voice was measured, interested, whatever he’d been in a hurry about earlier, forgotten.

  “Know the man?”

  “I’ve covered Wyoming criminal trials for years.”

  “When’s the last time you heard from him?”

  “He’s retired.”

  “When’s the last time?”

  “Almost a year.”

  “So you had contact with him after his retirement?” He met Sarah’s big brown eyes.

  “Who is this? What does this have to do with the manhunt?”

  “Why are you so protective of Hodgeson?”

  “Not protective. Curious. Hodgeson was a special project of mine.”

  “A special project?”

  “Who is this? Can I meet you, face-to-face?”

  “What about Walter Burne? What can you tell me about him?”

  “Burne was arrested for producing and selling methamphetamine a good five, six years ago. He was acquitted.”

  “And Larry Hodgeson worked on that case,” Eric said.

  “Pick a place. I’ll meet you.”

  “Why are you so eager to meet?”

  The reporter paused. “Okay. I’ll level with you. I’m writing a book.”

  A book. Of course. Being the subject of a book might give anyone a big head. “About Larry Hodgeson?”

  “About the Wyoming criminal justice system. But yes, partially about Larry Hodgeson. At least it used to be, before he stopped returning my calls.”

  The story seemed legitimate.

  “This is Eric Lander, isn’t it?”

  Eric bit the inside of his bottom lip. He hadn’t wanted Prohaska to know who he was, but when it came right down to it, his identity probably didn’t change anything.

  “I won’t call the sheriff.”

  “How do I know that?”

  “I want the story, not an arrest. You have my word.”

  “You’re going to have to do better than that.” If there was anything Eric had learned while going through this mess, it was that taking people at their word was a fool’s move.

  “What if I tell you that Hodgeson’s disappearance wasn’t random? That something happened to him, and I might know what?”

  Eric pushed up from the counter and paced across the kitchen half of the room.

  “Meet me. Choose a place. I’ll drive through the night if I need to. The worst that could happen is it’ll be a waste of your time.”

  No, that wasn’t the worst. Eric stopped and focused on Sarah. He thought she would be hanging on his every word, trying to use them like clues to figure out the other side of the conversation. But she stood with her back to him, her attention fully absorbed by the television, both arms cradling her abdomen.

  She must be watching news of the manhunt. Or maybe something went down at the Full Throttle.

  Their close call in the tavern still trilled along his nerves. He could have lost her. Either to a drug dealer or the sheriff. He had to end this craziness now. “Be in Thermopolis by noon. I’ll tell you where we’ll meet then. Give me the number for your cell.”

  Prohaska agreed. And as soon as he uttered the last digit, Eric hung up.

  ______

  Sarah heard Eric hang up the phone, but she didn’t take her eyes from the television. Her body alternated between a hot and cold sweat. It was all she could do to take in the images on the screen.

  “Sarah?”

  She gestured to the screen.

  The news coverage was live, a breaking story. The headline on the bottom of screen read Murderous Fugitive Strikes Again. The camera panned over wood corral fencing, a modest house, a barn she had redesigned and remodeled herself. A still image flashed on the screen. Eric’s face. Hers. And then another. The face of a man she’d just seen, just talked to, just given a hug.

  The smiling face of Glenn Freemont.

  Sarah didn’t know anything anymore. She’d gone from being suspicious of Glenn to grateful to him and back to suspicious. And now…

  She’d watched the images once already. One after another, ending with Glenn. She’d heard the reporter’s words. “Glenn’s body… he was at the ranch… shot with his own rifle.”

  Now a new clip flickered on the screen. The sheriff stood in her driveway. Behind him, county vehicles crowded around the barn. Yellow crime scene tape barred the doorway, flapping in the wind. He adjusted his silver belly Stetson lower on his bald forehead. “We have a strong lead. Just as in the Randy Trask murder, we believe the perpetrator is Eric Lander. At this time, it is less clear if Sarah Trask is a victim or his accomplice.”

  Sarah stared at Gillette’s smug face, her shock already turned to numbness. It was as if her entire life and everything she knew had been picked up by a tornado and flung into a million pieces.

  “Sarah.” Eric’s voice was tender, solid.

  She could feel his hand hovering near her arm, wanting to touch her but holding back.

  “It was only a few days ago that I was so excited Randy was home.” Her voice sounded raspy, like it belonged to someone else. “I thought he had a chance to turn his life around. I thought I could see the future...”

  “I know. I know.”

  “And now Glenn.” A sob shuddered from her chest and clogged in her throat. Glenn was dead. He’d tried to help them, and now he was dead.

  “It’s not our fault. You know that, right?”

  She knew it. She did. The sheriff or one of his men had pulled the trigger, not her, not Eric. But that didn’t mean they hadn’t played a role. “If he hadn’t given us his truck, he’d be going home to his wife.”

  Tears swamped her eyes, reducing the TV screen to glowing smeary color. She could feel the moisture on her cheeks, but she didn’t wipe her eyes. She needed to feel this, not deny it, not duck from it. That was the only way the horror could ever be washed away.

  Eric stepped up behind her. He wrapped his arms around her. His chest warmed her back. “I’m so sorry, Sarah. For Randy. For Glenn. For everything that’s happened.”

  “It’s not your fault, either.”

  “I’m sorry everything has happened the way it has all the same.”

  His words flowed over her like soothing balm on a burn. She knew she shouldn’t lean in to him, but her body wouldn’t listen. His chest felt so solid. Like something she could depend on. His arms strong around her.

  Sarah knew she was rationalizing, brushing all her concerns about their relationship aside because she need
ed him right now. But she couldn’t help it. She wanted to be sure of something. Certain to her bones. And while she might not be sure of Eric’s feelings, she did know hers.

  She loved him. Had for a long time. She’d just tried not to admit it.

  Sarah turned in his arms. Tilting her head back, she looked up at him. She couldn’t ask, couldn’t speak. She just had to trust he would know what she wanted.

  What she needed.

  He moved a hand to her face. With tender fingers, he skimmed over her forehead, along her cheekbone, brushing away a strand of hair that had escaped her braid. His touch moved lower, cupping her jaw. Then he tilted her head back and brought his mouth to hers.

  Sarah had craved the touch of his lips for months, yearned for his taste. She knew how his bare skin would feel against hers. Knew the sounds he’d make nuzzling her breasts, the stubble on his chin rasping tender skin. She’d run those sensations over and over in her thoughts for months. In her dreams. All the time sure she’d never get to experience them again.

  “Sarah.” His voice was little more than a whisper, but it rumbled through her chest. “I want you to know—”

  “Shh.” She pressed her lips hard against his. Whatever he wanted to say, she didn’t want to hear it. She wanted to focus on nothing more than what she felt right this minute. What she knew deep in her own heart. “I want you. That’s all. I just want you. Is that okay?”

  She brought her lips to his again.

  He nodded without breaking the kiss. Trailing his hand down her neck, he encircled her with both arms, pulling her tight.

  Yes.

  Heat raced over her and swept her along. She breathed him in, the scent of his skin making her sigh deep inside. This was what she needed. To be held. To be loved. To love him back. Even if it was only for tonight.

  Eric peppered kisses over her face, her neck.

  Skimming her hands up his sides, she pulled up the hem of his shirt and slipped her palms against ridged muscle and warm skin. She’d always loved the feel of his body. So hard. Unyielding. And she wanted more. She wanted all of him. She slipped her fingertips under the waistband of his jeans.

  He pulled back from her. Cool air surrounded her and for a second she thought he was going to push her away. She opened her eyes in time to see him yank his shirt over his head, not taking time to mess with the buttons. He tossed it on the bed.

  Shadows cupped around smooth muscle. He unzipped his jeans and shucked them down his legs. Wearing nothing but a pair of briefs, he reached for her. But instead of pulling her back into his arms, he lifted her T-shirt and skimmed it over her head.

  She shivered, yet she was anything but cold. Arching her back, she reached behind and unhooked her bra. Her breasts had become heavier just in the four months since she’d gotten pregnant, the nipples larger. She let the bra slide down her arms.

  Eric’s hands replaced the cups. He took her lips again, kissing and massaging. Slowly, he moved her to the bed. Gently, he lowered her to the mattress. She stretched out on her back, and he leaned over her.

  His kisses grew more demanding, and Sarah answered with demands of her own. All she could sense was how much she wanted him. All she could think about was the taste of his body, the scent of him that had always driven her wild, made her forget everything and just feel.

  Feel how much she wanted him. Feel how deeply she loved him. Wipe everything else away.

  He laced his fingers in hers and brought her hands above her head. He moved his kisses lower, down her throat, over her collarbone. His tongue circled a sensitive nipple.

  The sensation took her breath away.

  He flicked and kissed and sucked, then moved to the other, lavishing, taking his time.

  She thought she’d go mad with want.

  By the time he released her hands and littered kisses to her jeans, she wanted nothing more than to be naked. To see him naked. To feel him inside her.

  He unbuckled her jeans with deft fingers. Lifting her hips off the bed, he stripped off both jeans and panties and brought his lips to her belly.

  As he kissed the slight bulge of baby, tears swamped her eyes. She blinked them back, wanting to see him, to smile at him, but it was no good. She cried as he moved his lips lower, shudders of pleasure already seizing her. And when he worked his way back up her body and kissed away her tears, she thought her heart would burst.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  GOOSEBERRY BADLANDS WERE CARVED INTO the floor of the Big Horn Basin. Years of erosion had eaten away soft rock, leaving red, yellow and tan layered spires and canyons twenty-five feet deep. Many of the rock towers were topped by wider caps of harder rock called hoodoos, looking to Sarah a little like the formation on top of Saddle Horn Ridge. From one of the high spots among the hoodoos, the sole highway could be seen for miles stretching in either direction. A parking lot rested at the top of a circular foot trail that wove through the badlands.

  Sarah and Eric had slept later than they’d planned. Tearing herself from Eric’s warm arms had been one of the hardest things she’d ever done, and even now she wished she could curl up, skin to skin, and just pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  She hadn’t even been aware that Eric was watching her. Suddenly she felt insecure. Exposed. Even her cheeks heated, and she hadn’t blushed in years. “How I wished we were still in bed.”

  He moved up behind her, circling his arms around her and pulling her against his chest as he had last night before things had heated up. “I love how you think. In fact, I love everything about you, Sarah.”

  His words were so close to the ones she longed to hear, longed to believe, that at first she thought she must be imagining it. Dreaming it.

  She reached her arms above her head and rested her hands on his shoulders. The wind whipped off the basin, buffeting against them and whistling through rock formations.

  He pulled her tight. “Just think of it all being over and us living back at your ranch—you, me and the baby. Our little family.”

  That image brought a smile to her face. She could almost see it. Almost feel it was true. “You’re looking forward to being a dad?”

  “The more this seems real, the more excited I get.”

  Something wobbled deep in Sarah’s chest. She’d always thought Eric would make a great dad. But somehow she’d never envisioned him being excited about their baby, eager for it to be born.

  Had her dad been like that when her mom was pregnant with Randy?

  She didn’t know where the question had come from, but once it popped into her mind, she couldn’t shake it.

  She also couldn’t give it an answer.

  The wobble turned to a gnawing void, something hungry, something that couldn’t quite be filled. She fitted her bottom tight to Eric’s groin, yearning to feel him, but layers of denim kept them separate. She wanted to strip off her clothes, for him to plunge into her, fill her like he had last night, so she could feel the same way, close and intimate and loved.

  So she could finally be sure.

  Sarah shook her head and dropped her hands to her sides. Oh, sure, they could get it on right here with Prohaska on his way and maybe the entire sheriff’s department behind him. What was wrong with her? This need of hers was out of place, stupid, insecure. But try as she might, she couldn’t let it go.

  “What’s wrong, Sarah?”

  “Nothing… I don’t know.”

  He pulled her back against his chest. “It’s all going to work out.”

  She soaked in his warmth, tried to draw it into herself, make it hers, keep it from ever going away. “I can’t do this.”

  He turned her in his arms, eyes searching her face. “This?”

  “You and me.”

  “Listen, soon we’ll find the truth. This will all be over. And the two of us, we can take our time, let things settle in and grow naturally.”

  “You think things are happening too fast?”

&nb
sp; “Do you?”

  Was that the problem? God knew their romance had bloomed quickly last summer and fall. And in the past few days since they’d been reunited and were suddenly running for their lives, she’d totally lost perspective. Could she get it back after this was over? Could she then look into his eyes and know that he loved her?

  Could she then be sure?

  “I…” Craning her neck, she turned and looked up at him. She drank in the swirl of color in his irises, green flecked with brown. He was excited about the baby. Felt it was his duty to be a good dad. But did he really love her enough? Did it even matter as long as she couldn’t make herself believe? “I’m afraid.”

  “It’s going to be okay. We can see the highway from here, both directions.” He pointed at the gray ribbon, still void of cars. “No one can sneak up on us. If Prohaska brings the sheriff along, we’ll know about it in plenty of time to get away on the ATV.”

  She hadn’t been talking about their meeting with the reporter, but she didn’t know how to tell him what she really meant. That as wonderful as making love with him was and as many times as he told her he loved her, she was afraid she’d never really know if he’d come back for her or the baby.

  There was really no way to know.

  ______

  ERIC ANGLED HIS HAND to his forehead to block the midday sun’s glare. He wasn’t sure what had happened just now. One moment he thought he and Sarah were closer than they’d ever been. The next, she seemed gone.

  She was standing here physically, her butt nestled against him and driving him wild, but something was different. She’d grown distant. Closed off. The very pressure of the air had changed.

  He wasn’t sure how to take it.

  Throughout his whole life he’d relied on logic, reason, preparation, and hard work to see him through. And it had worked. It didn’t make for an exciting life—instead his was measured and safe. But that was fine by him. He could get his excitement scaling a challenging rock face or viewing a waterfall human eyes might never have seen before. It suited him fine.

  The past days, though, everything had changed. Each time he thought he had things under control, each time he thought he was relying on logic, he’d been wrong. But feelings… they were all he could be sure of anymore. Namely his feelings for Sarah. When he’d told her he loved everything about her, he wasn’t lying.