Sheriff’s Runaway Witness

sweeping by, watching constantly changing vistas-scrubby trees and shrubs she didn’t know the names of set on a carpet of golden flowers, juniper and Joshua tree-covered hills, and beyond them mountains layered in shades of purple and blue, canyons with cliffs carved in fantastic shapes and striated in red, orange, pink and cream, plains strewn with black lava rock from eruptions so ancient their sources had long since eroded away. Evidences of human habitation were few and far between, and often in advanced stages of abandonment and decay. Like those long-gone volcanoes, she thought, they’d been unable to stand up to the ravages of heat and sun and the unrelenting wind.

She was sure some people-Sheriff Jethro Fox for one-would find the desert harsh and barren and soulless, but to Rachel the vast emptiness, the endless vistas and boundless sky spoke of freedom. She hadn’t truly understood until hers was taken from her how precious a thing freedom was. Freedom to come and go, freedom to speak and laugh and visit, and most especially, freedom from fear. She wasn’t free in that sense, not yet, but the desert, the openness and emptiness, made her heart lift, made her believe such a thing might be possible for her, after all.

She thought then of what it had taken to bring her to this point, where freedom and a future without fear seemed within her grasp. She thought of the unlikely people who had made her escape possible: the mysterious Sam Malone, her grandfather, whom she had resented and despised as long as she could remember for his abandonment of her grandmother, and the letter holding the promise of a means to create a new life for herself, someplace where Carlos couldn’t find her.

Then there was…this man. Sheriff J. J. Fox, the lawman who might have stepped right out of one of the old cowboy movies she and Grandmother had loved to watch. The lawman who had not only saved her life and her baby’s life, too, but had given her shelter and protection, and now was taking her in his own private pickup truck to find her grandfather’s hideaway.

Her stomach clenched when she thought of him, sitting across the truck’s center console from her, not even an arm’s length away. It had been a long time since she’d been this close to an attractive man, so close she could almost hear his vital signs humming, smell his aftershave. And she had to smile inwardly at that thought, remembering awakening that morning to the sound of him swearing in the bathroom next to the tiny bedroom in which she’d slept, and then finding him later in the kitchenette, clean-shaven, with his jaws scrubbed rosy and dotted with bits of blood-speckled toilet paper.

Then…she thought of the way she’d trusted him, and fear clenched cold in her belly. Did she trust him, really? Was he being a little too nice? Sure, he’d said it was his job to rescue and protect her, but hadn’t his job ended when he’d delivered her safely to the hospital? Did his job really include taking her and her newborn son into his home, taking her shopping, buying her clothes, personal stuff-a toothbrush?

What does he want?

It swept over her again-the fear and suspicion and uncertainty. It came back to her like a movie scene on replay, recalling Izzy in her habit, telling her not to trust anyone.

Then it hit her.

Izzy! Oh, God, I forgot about Izzy. What if Carlos-how could I be so selfish? What have I done?

“Rachel? Rachel.”

The sharp edges of J.J.’s voice woke the big old dog sleeping beside the baby carrier in the backseat, and penetrated the fog of fear inside her head. She turned her head away from the window and caught the glance of concern he threw at her, realizing only then that her hands were curled into fists and pressed against her cheeks.

“You were a million miles away,” he said, and the side of his mouth she could see was tilted in a John Wayne lopsided smile. He glanced up at his rearview mirror and said, “It’s okay, Moon-go back to sleep.” Then he looked at her again, and the smile vanished. “What’s wrong?”

She opened her mouth, then shook her head and looked out the window again, seeing nothing but a blur this time. How could I have forgotten Izzy? My dearest friend, and I just left her there. If anything has happened to her…

“Rachel.” His voice was quiet but insistent. “What’s wrong? Tell me. If it’s something to do with Carlos-”

She shook her head rapidly, as if that would dislodge the awful images that wanted to invade there. Flashes of Carlos’s face, suffused with rage, his hand raised, his fist coming at her. Her head exploding with shock and pain. She drew a shuddering breath. “It’s…my friend. The one I told you I borrowed the habit from. She insisted I go-I didn’t want to leave her there. I didn’t. She said Carlos wouldn’t harm a nun, but I don’t know. I don’t think there’s anything Carlos wouldn’t do. If he’s hurt her-”

“Whoa, wait, slow down.” The pickup lurched and Moonshine sat up as he pulled off onto the wide sandy shoulder and stopped. He threw the lever, putting the truck in neutral, then turned in his seat and reached for her. She felt his hands on her arms, her shoulders, holding her firmly but not hard. This time, she held herself rigid and didn’t give in to the desire to take refuge in the harbor he offered. Because what she really longed to do was lean forward and lay her head against his chest and have his arms come around her, because something beyond all reason was telling her he had the power to make everything right again. She didn’t deserve that. She didn’t have the right to feel safe, not with Izzy-

“Come on, now, take it easy, okay? Just take a deep breath, calm down and tell me what happened.”

She nodded and dropped her eyes, avoiding that steely green gaze and fastening hers instead on a tiny nick on his cheek where he’d cut himself shaving. Staring at that spot, that small vulnerability, she felt a kind of peace come over her, along with a strange urge to touch the cut place. She couldn’t recall ever having that kind of impulse with Nicholas. Nicky had guarded his personal privacy religiously. She’d never have dared to invade his personal space unless he invited her to.

She shook off the distraction along with the dangerous impulse to trust this man she barely knew. Allowing herself to become so dependent on a man just because he’d saved her life once and was inexplicably helping her now was just foolhardy. This was real life, not one of her grandmother’s old cowboy movies, and you couldn’t tell the good guys from the bad guys by the color of their hats. The fact that J. J. Fox reminded her of John Wayne didn’t automatically make him a good guy.

On the other hand…the man was a cop, and if Izzy was in trouble, who else could she turn to?

She brushed at her cheeks and straightened up, doing her best to ignore both the dog panting over her shoulder and the pang of regret she felt when J.J. let go of her arms. “My friend, Izzy-Isabelle-we’ve been best friends since Catholic school. We went to med school together. I quit my internship when I met Nicholas, but she went on, and she’s a doctor now. She works in a free clinic in South Los Angeles.”

“And, I take it, this friend is also a nun?”

Rachel nodded. “Well, technically, she’s a sister, since she’s not cloistered. But anyway, she came to visit me, and she was wearing a habit, which she doesn’t usually. But…she was wearing it this time because she had a plan-” she pressed her fingers to her lips to cut off a gulp of laughter that was too perilously close to a sob “-to help me escape from Carlos’s compound.”

“I’m guessing Carlos is the one who gave you those bruises?” His voice was hard and dangerous, and the dog growled low in her throat.

She jerked her glance toward him, saw the same hardness reflected in his eyes. She felt a little chill go through her. “That’s not-”

“Look, I’m a cop, okay? I’m a detective, and a damn good one. I’ve seen bruises like the ones you’re wearing, and they don’t come from car crashes. I’m guessing you’re worried about your friend because somebody hit you, most likely with a fist. If not Carlos, then who?”

She closed her eyes and let go a breath, soft with defeat. “When the letter came-Sam Malone’s letter-I read it and signed for it while one of Carlos’s guards stood there and watched me. What could he do-short of killing the messenger, I guess. But of course, as soon as the messenger left, he went to tell Carlos. Carlos demanded that I give him the letter, and when I refused, he went ballistic. He, um…” She cleared her throat and swallowed hard.

Watching her struggle with it, J.J. felt a wave of a familiar emotion that was more anger than sympathy. What was it about women who’d been beaten up, that they so often seemed humiliated? As if it was somehow their fault.