It wasn’t the time to call her on it, so he let it go-for now. “Well,” he said, lapsing into the accent of his North Carolina roots, “we’ll figure that all out in a bit. Right now, I’m getting you out of this place. You can’t stay here, since Carlos knows where you are, and if he wants to kill you bad enough he’ll find a way to do it.”
“Then where-”
“For now,” J.J. drawled, “soon as they’ll let me, I’m taking you home. With me.”
The next evening, driving through the desert with Rachel asleep in the seat beside him, her baby in the back in the car seat the hospital had made him go and buy before they’d let him take him, he kept running over it in his mind, asking himself if he was really doing the right thing-the best thing. For
Well, probably. But in spite of that he kept coming back to the conclusion that taking Rachel into his protective custody was the only way he could keep her safe. Keep an eye on her. Yeah, his place wasn’t much, but the only people on the planet who knew the exact location of his trailer were Katie and Deputy Daryl. Katie, he’d trust with his life. Daryl, though…
Beside him, Rachel came awake with a guilty start, the way people do when they’ve fallen asleep in a moving vehicle. She looked over at him, then twisted around to check on her baby before she faced front again, pushing her hair away from her face with both hands. “Is it much farther?”
“A ways,” he said, feeling guilty, now. The hospital hadn’t been happy about releasing her and her baby so soon, and it was probably only the fact that she’d almost been killed while in their facility that had made them give in to his request. More concern for the hospital’s liability than their patient, J.J. thought, but then, he was inclined to be cynical. “Are you-do you need to stop?”
She shook her head and gave him a wry smile. “No-just wondering. A little sore, you know?”
“To be honest, no, I don’t know,” he said, glancing at her. “So you’re gonna have to tell me if you need anything, okay?”
“No kids?”
“Nope.”
“Married?”
“Nope.”
“Ever been?”
He glanced over at her again. “No, and I should probably warn you, my place isn’t much at its best, and when I left yesterday morning to check out a report of a woman-a nun-walking around all by herself in the desert, it was kind of in a hurry. I haven’t been home since, so…be prepared, okay?” He glared at the road ahead. “Anyway, it’s just temporary, until I figure out what I’m gonna do with you. At least it’s safe. Should be, anyway, since only a couple people even know how to find it, and the ones that do I’m pretty sure I can trust.”
She nodded but didn’t say anything, and after a moment he looked over at her again. “If you don’t mind my askin’, how’d you get mixed up with the Delacorte family in the first place?”
She shook her head and he wasn’t sure she’d answer him. But then she leaned her head back against the seat and said, “It was at college-UCLA.” She cleared her throat and her voice grew firmer. “I was finishing medical school-my last term. Nicky was in my psych class.”
He made a snorting sound; it seemed an unlikely major for a mobster’s son.
She glanced at him, then hitched in a breath and plowed on. “Anyway…by the time I graduated, my grandmother had died and we were, uh, together. I started my internship, but-”
“Did you give up on your medical career because you wanted to, or because
She was silent for a moment, which he considered an answer, probably the true one no matter what she told him.
He expected her to be defensive, so she surprised him when she drew a breath and said thoughtfully, “I don’t know, now. At the time it seemed…I felt like my relationship with Nicky was so consuming, it didn’t seem to leave any time or energy for anything else. So, when he suggested-”
“Suggested?”
The breath came out in a gust. “He didn’t understand why I felt I needed to work, when he was so…wealthy. And as I said, my grandmother had died and I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be a doctor anymore. So, when he brought it up, it seemed like the right thing to do. At the time. So…I dropped out.”
Gave in, is what he thought. Caved. Knuckled under. He thought he was beginning to get a pretty clear picture of Spoiled Nicky the Mobster’s Son.
“Everything happened so fast. The next thing I knew, I was married, and then I was pregnant…then Nicky got shot.” Her voice had thickened, and when J.J. looked over at her, he caught a glimpse of tears glistening on her cheek. “He didn’t have anything to do with his father’s business. He’d promised me…”
“And you believed him? Nicholas Delacorte was the only son of the head of an organized crime syndicate roughly the size of New Jersey,” J.J. said roughly, angry all of a sudden without really knowing why. “You’re kidding yourself if you think he somehow managed to keep his hands squeaky clean. Didn’t you ever see
There was a little silence, and then she opened her eyes and said without looking at him, “Have you ever been in love, Jethro?”
“Many times,” he said dryly, and she surprised him with a watery-sounding laugh. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her brush the tears from her cheeks and sit up straighter.
“Doesn’t seem like there would be that many opportunities, out here in the desert.”
It was his turn to laugh without much humor in it. “No, there aren’t. Just another reason why I love it here so much.”
He could feel her studying him. After a moment she asked, “If you don’t like it, why are you here?”
“Long story.”
“Well-” she held up both hands, gesturing at the barren landscape and the road stretching ahead of them as far as they could see “-looks like we’ve both got time.” He could feel her eyes on him again-those exotic, black-almond eyes. “Unless,” she added with a hint of a sly smile, “it’s something you’re terribly ashamed of.”
“Oh, yeah,” he growled, “it’s definitely that.”
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, and looked away, as if it embarrassed her to have stumbled upon his closet full of skeletons. Like a curious-or nosy-little girl, belatedly remembering her manners.
What the hell, he thought. He wanted her to trust him, didn’t he? Maybe if he came clean with her it might inspire her to do the same.
So he blew out a breath and scrubbed at his beard stubble, and finally said, “I told you how I feel about predators.” She nodded. “Okay, well, because of me, there’s one out there somewhere who should have been locked up. Put in a cage where he couldn’t hurt another innocent child.”
Even through the growth of beard she could see the muscles bunch in his jaw, and knew he must be clenching his teeth-hard. After a moment she said in a low voice, “Okay, I don’t understand.”
“It’s not that complicated. The guy was the worst kind of predator, the kind that preys on children-in particular, little girls.” His voice was tight…harsh. Rachel could feel her heart tap-tapping in her loose, quivery belly, and pressed her fist against it while she waited for him to go on. “I had him for the kidnapping and murder of a six- year-old girl. Had him in custody. And I let my personal feelings override my professional judgment. As a result-” He let out an explosive breath. “As a result, he was released on a technicality. Promptly lit out for parts unknown. Now he’s gone. Vanished. In the wind.”
“What did you do?” Her voice was barely audible. “I can’t imagine-”
“Oh, I got…physical. Rough with him. You know-slammed him up against a wall, I think.” He glanced at her briefly, but long enough for her to see the anger, guilt and anguish in his eyes. “He taunted me with what he’d done to that little girl-details. And I lost it. But that’s no excuse. Maybe the miserable freak was hoping I’d kill him-put
