about this protected witness thing? Any chance they might whisk her away again, right out from under our noses?”
“Well, that might be what she was hoping for when she called ’em,” Roan said with a dark half smile. “If she was, she’s gonna be disappointed. The U.S. Marshal’s Office doesn’t intervene for protected witnesses in local criminal matters. They’ll cooperate with us on this-if they ever find her case worker and her file.”
“Doesn’t mean she won’t try to disappear on her own,” the senator growled.
“If she does,” Roan said, still being patient, “we’re going to be there to stop her. But she’s going to have to come up with that bail money first, and I don’t think-” He broke off because it was obvious Holbrook wasn’t listening to him. The man was staring past him toward the courthouse doors like a wolf who’d just spotted a rabbit, and Roan could almost see the fur on the back of his neck bristling.
“What the hell? Isn’t that-”
Roan pivoted in time to watch his murder suspect, wearing the dowdy blue-denim skirt and faded pink blouse she’d had on in court earlier, whisk through the double glass doors and disappear into the maw of the hungry media mob waiting outside.
“That’s her-that’s Owen. How the hell-” Sputtering, Holbrook turned to glare at Roan. “What the hell just happened?”
“Looks like she made bail after all,” Roan muttered grimly. Seeing the woman-even that brief glimpse-had given him one helluva jolt, and set his heart beating in a way he couldn’t account for, though he sure did try. Adrenaline, he told himself. The gut instinct to give chase when somebody’s running. And she was running. He knew it with a certainty that clutched at his belly and shivered through every muscle and nerve in his body.
“Evidently,” he said in a grating voice, “the woman has resources we didn’t know about. Or somebody put it up for her.”
“Put it up for her?” The senator looked around him in a half-bewildered, half-furious kind of way. “Goddammit, who’d do a thing like that?”
“I did, Clifford, and I would appreciate it if you would not swear in this courthouse, please.”
At the sound of that firm and rasping voice, Holbrook jerked and spun around like a man who’d just taken a haymaker punch to the chin. Roan pretty much did too, and he wondered if it was possible a United States Senator could be feeling the same way he was right then-like a tardy schoolboy caught in the hallway after the bell had rung. Together, both open-mouthed and speechless, they watched Ada Major, the court clerk, march toward them with her pocketbook under one arm, corseted and painted to within an inch of her life.
Roan was the first to find his voice. “Miss Ada,” he said, nodding a greeting.
“Sheriff,” said Miss Ada, returning the nod with her customary dignity. She turned back to the senator and clamped one bony blue-veined hand over his. “Clifford, I want you to know how sorry I am about your boy. Truly sorry. I know the sheriff here is going to find out who did this awful thing-” she paused to fix Roan with a tight- lipped glare “-even if he has gotten off to an unfortunate start. Arresting Mary Owen…” She tsked and gave her head a shake, making her starched auburn curls bob only slightly.
“Ada,” the senator said in a wondering croak, “why in the world did you put up that woman’s bail? You let my son’s killer just…walk out of here?”
The lady made a very unladylike noise. “Oh bosh. That girl never killed anyone. She certainly doesn’t belong in jail. Besides-” Miss Ada’s eyes twinkled; she gave her curls a girlish pat “-if Mary’s in jail, who’ll do my wash and set come Friday?”
“Miss Ada-”
“Roan.” The lady transferred her cool hard grip from the senator’s hand to Roan’s. “I’ve been working in this courthouse since before you were born-and you, Clifford, were a muddy-faced schoolboy. I’ve seen a good many criminals come and go. I like to think I’ve developed some instincts over the years, and they are telling me that girl is no criminal.”
“You don’t need to be a criminal to commit murder, Miss Ada,” Roan said, thinking about the conversation he’d had with Boyd just yesterday. “Sometimes you just have to be desperate.”
Miss Ada’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. “Ah, but this wasn’t a desperate kind of murder, was it? From all I hear, whoever shot Jason Holbrook did so with a good deal of malice aforethought. If you can find so much as an ounce of malice in Mary, I’ll eat my Aunt Fanny’s wig!”
Roan didn’t know what to say to that, so he just shook his head. The fact that in his heart he half agreed didn’t help his mood any.
“Well,” said Miss Ada briskly, “I’d best get back to work. Clifford, it’s nice to have you come visit. Though it’s a pity it took a death to bring you home. Sheriff…” With a curt nod for each of them, she went clicking on down the corridor.
“My God,” Holbrook said as he watched the lady disappear into the clerk of court’s office, “I tried my first case in that woman’s courtroom, fresh out of law school. She hasn’t changed a bit, has she?”
“Nope,” said Roan, “and not likely to. She’ll be wearing that blue eyeshadow and red hair when they put her in her coffin.” Since he didn’t think it would be a good idea for the father of his murder victim to see him grinning, he ducked his head and spent an extra second or two setting his hat in place.
It only took those moments for the little spell of amusement to pass and that powerful sense of urgency and exasperation grab hold of him again. Mary Owen might not be Miss Ada’s idea of a murder suspect, but at the moment she was the only one he had and he’d be damned if he was going to give her a chance to slip through his fingers.
He started for the doors, then paused and turned back, frowning. “Senator, can I get somebody to drive you home?”
“No, you go on.” Holbrook gave a gusty and resigned exhalation. “I think I’m going to stay here a bit…settle myself down some before I face all that.” He nodded toward the mob beyond the glass doors and glared fiercely at Roan, his face pinched and grim. “Go-just…whatever you do, don’t let that woman get away.”
Roan nodded and touched his hat brim with a forefinger. His step was rapid and purposeful as he strode down the corridor and pushed through the double doors, his narrowed eyes following the tall figure of Mary Owen as she pushed her way through the crowd of reporters and photographers…head down, one hand up in a desperate attempt to shield her face from the pitiless eyes of the television cameras.
The media horde had caught Mary unprepared. She hadn’t even thought about the possibility of-
But she
If only she’d waited for her lawyer-maybe he could have shielded her, whisked her out of the courthouse another way. But after Miss Ada had paid her bail and she’d been told she was free to go, all she’d been able to think about was escape. Like an animal let loose from a trap, she’d bolted blindly, her only thought to run…as far as possible away from here!
But now it appeared she’d escaped from the trap only to stumble into the midst of a pack of ravening wolves. The heat from their bodies was suffocating as they crowded around her, pushing, jostling, grabbing, thrusting…their words, their questions, their shouts all running together in a chorus of hungry-sounding yips and howls, deafening to her ears and terrifying to her soul.
“Mary! Mary Owen-did Jason Holbrook attack you?”
“Miss Owen! Will you be pleading self-defense?”
