into his mouth.
Maleah turned and, without a backward glance, walked away.
When she reached the guard who had been assigned to escort her to and from the interview, he opened the door for her. At that precise moment, Browning called her name.
“Maleah?”
She paused, but didn’t turn around or look back.
“It was good for me,” he told her. “Was it good for you?”
The sound of his laughter followed her as she hurried away from him as fast as she could.
Chapter 28
The moment he saw Maleah, Derek sensed she was on the verge of collapse. Not that anyone else would even notice. She managed to hide her emotional stress remarkably well, especially considering what he suspected she had just endured at Browning’s cunningly cruel hands. What Derek wanted to do and what he did were two entirely different things. He wanted to grab her, hold her, and tell her it was all right to fall apart because he’d be there to take care of her. What he actually did was walk over to her, give her a casual glance, and ask her if she was ready to leave.
“Yes, I’m ready,” she told him, her voice deceptively calm.
They both shook hands with Warden Holland and thanked him.
“Will you be scheduling another interview?” the warden asked.
Derek wanted to shout “no way in hell.”
“No. This was the final interview,” Maleah said, absolute certainty in her voice.
As they walked together out into the parking area, he waited for Maleah to speak first and was prepared to take his cue from her on how to proceed. If she wanted to talk, he’d talk. If she wanted to be quiet, he’d keep his mouth shut. If she needed time alone when they returned to Vidalia, then he would give her some time alone. But within a few hours, he would have to tell her about Saxon Chappelle’s niece. Only sixteen.
Sixteen was far too young to die.
As Derek and Maleah approached her Equinox, she pulled her keychain out of her pocket and tossed it to him. He caught the chain mid-air, keys jangling together when he grasped the large silver “M” to which the chain was fastened.
“You drive, okay?” Maleah did not make eye contact.
“Yeah, sure,” Derek said.
For a woman who usually insisted on driving her own car and even the rental cars they had used in the past, a woman hell-bent on always being in control, handing over her keys and asking him to drive meant only one thing. Maleah didn’t trust herself to drive. Outwardly she appeared to be completely fine, but it was obvious to Derek that she was far from all right.
This was the second time she had asked him to drive after a visit with Browning. The first time, her request had taken him by surprise. This time, he had known she would ask. He had expected her to come out of this final interview in bad shape. What he didn’t know was just how bad it really was.
He unlocked the doors before they reached the SUV, and then he opened her door. But he stopped himself just short of actually touching her, despite wanting to hug her to him and then ease her gently into the passenger seat. By the time he rounded the hood and slid behind the wheel, Maleah had put on her seatbelt and sat there ramrod straight, her fisted hands crossed at the wrists and resting in her lap.
As soon as they were on the road, he asked, “Want some music?”
“Not especially.”
“Want to stop for—”
“No, please, I don’t want anything. Not right now. Nothing except peace and quiet. All right?” She leaned back her head and closed her eyes.
“Yeah, sure.”
They spent the next twenty-one miles in complete silence. Derek kept his eyes on the road, not once glancing at Maleah. But she was all he could think about. If only she’d make a sound. A gasp or a sigh or even a hiccup or a sneeze. It was as if she had hit some sort of mute button inside her.
Less than thirty minutes after leaving the penitentiary, Derek turned in at the Vidalia Hampton Inn, parked the SUV and killed the engine. When Maleah didn’t open her eyes or say anything, he came damn close to grabbing her and shaking her. But the minute he looked at her, really looked at her, his heart stopped. God in heaven!
“It’s going to be okay, Blondie,” he told her in the calmest, most reassuring tone he could muster. “It’s going to be okay.”
He undid his seatbelt, got out, pocketed the keys, and rushed around to her side of the SUV. When he opened the door, she sat there unmoving. He reached in, unhooked her belt, and very gently reached down and peeled back the clenched fingers of her right hand. She had clutched her hand so tightly that her short, neat nails had dug into her flesh so deeply that her palm was bleeding. He repeated the process with her left hand and found it to be in the same condition.
“Ah, Maleah, sweetheart . . .” He pulled a white monogrammed handkerchief from his inside jacket pocket, wiped the bright red droplets of blood from each palm and wrapped the handkerchief around her right hand. “Come on, let’s get you out of here and into the hotel.”
When he grasped her shoulders and turned her sideways, she opened her eyes and stared at him. After slipping his arm around her waist, he lifted her up, pulled her out of the SUV and straight into his arms. Then he eased her down onto her feet.
She looked up at him. “Thank you.”
Keeping his right arm around her waist, he caressed her cheek with a gentle backward swipe of his left hand. “You’re welcome. Come on. You need to lie down and rest for a while.”
She nodded and then followed him into the hotel and down the corridor to the elevator. He kept his arm around her, supporting her, sensing that without him, she would spiral down to the floor and curl up in a ball. He didn’t bother asking her for the key to her room; instead he walked her straight to his room. He unlocked the door and led her over to his freshly made bed. She didn’t protest when he eased her down onto the edge of the bed. But when he moved away from her, intending to take off her shoes before getting a washcloth to clean her hands, she reached out and grabbed him. The bloody handkerchief wrapped loosely around her right hand slipped off just as she gripped his shoulders.
“Don’t leave me, Derek. Stay, please. I—I . . .”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he told her. “I just want to take off your shoes so you can lie back and relax. Then I’m going to get a warm washcloth and wash your hands. Okay?”
“I won the game,” she said. “Browning told me everything he knows.”
Derek lifted a stray tendril of glossy blond hair that had escaped from the soft bun atop her head and wrapped it behind her ear. “I never doubted for a minute that you would beat him at his own game.”
“I need to tell you what he said, everything about—”
Derek tapped his index finger over her lips, effectively silencing her. She gazed up at him with questioning eyes.
“You can tell me everything. Just not right now. You need to rest for a few minutes. You need to let me take care of you. Just this one time. All right?”
She nodded. “All right. Just this one time.”
He smiled. “That’s my girl.” And in that moment, Derek Lawrence admitted an undeniable truth—he thought of Maleah as his. His girl. His woman. His to care for and protect.
Derek knelt in front of her, removed her sensible pumps, set them under the bed, and then lifted her feet and
