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“You don’t have to worry about that.”

“I don’t feel sad about it,” she claimed, even as tears started to roll. “I don’t care. I don’t love her either, so I don’t care.”

He said nothing; he understood completely. He felt exactly the same. Torn to bits, desperate not to care. So he just gathered her close, let her cry it out, cry herself to sleep.

And while she slept, he sat alone with her, watching the fire.

CHAPTER SIX

Deputy Michaela Wilson had pursued and accepted the job in Big Sur because she wanted a change, because she wanted community. And, though she wouldn’t admit it, because the man she’d lived with for two years, the man she thought she’d live with for the rest of her life, decided that being with a cop equaled too many complications.

She, a woman who believed to the marrow in law, order, rules, procedure, in justice, could admit she’d put the job ahead of their relationship more than once.

But to Michaela, that was the job.

She’d been an urbanite all her life, so the change of locations, of culture, of pace equaled an enormous personal challenge.

She’d wanted just that.

She wouldn’t deny that her first few weeks had tested her. She wouldn’t deny she thought of Red Buckman as Sheriff Dude. The man had a bikini-clad (well-endowed) woman riding a wave tattooed on his biceps.

He often wore an earring. Not to mention the hair.

All that added into the too laid back, in her opinion, too unbuttoned, and—she’d thought—too damn slow.

It wasn’t an easy matter for Michaela Lee Wilson to admit a mistake, especially one of judgment. But in the past eighteen hours or so, she’d had to admit this one.

He might look like a middle-aged surfer, but he was all cop.

She got another good dose of that cop when they sat in interview with Charlotte Dupont and her high-priced lawyer.

She didn’t know much about Charles Anthony Scarpetti, but she knew he’d flown up from L.A. in his private jet, wearing his sharp suit and Gucci shoes. And she knew—because Red had warned her—Scarpetti was the type who’d play to the media and pop up on Larry King.

Red sat placidly while Scarpetti pontificated in his slick lawyer way about motions for dismissal, about harassment, intimidation, filing for full custody of the minor child, spousal abuse.

Apparently he had a lot of rabbits in his lawyer hat. Red just let them hop around awhile.

Even twenty-four hours before, that placidity would have had Michaela metaphorically pulling her hair out. Now she saw it as carefully crafted strategy.

“I’ve got to say, Mr. Scarpetti, that’s a lot, and some really fine, shiny words in there, too. If you’re finished for now, I’ll tell you why you and your client are going to be disappointed.”

“Sheriff, I intend to have my client back in her home in Los Angeles, with her daughter, by this evening.”

“I know it. I get that clear impression. It’s not going to happen, and that’s a disappointment for both of you.” He leaned forward, but in a friendly way. “I have a really strong suspicion your client hasn’t been honest and forthright with you, Mr. Scarpetti. I could be wrong—lawyers gotta do what they gotta—but having some little experience with your client’s ways and means, I have to figure she served you up a whole platter of bullshit.”

“Charles!” Charlotte turned to him, managed to look beautifully indignant in her orange jumpsuit.

He just patted her hand. “My client is distraught—”

“Your client is an accessory to her own daughter’s kidnapping—by her own admission.”

“She was distraught,” Scarpetti repeated. “Confused, groggy from the sleeping pill her husband forced on her. Her child, also distraught, told you what her father had coached her to say.”

“Is that so?” Red shook his head as he studied Charlotte. “Man, you are some number. Deputy, why don’t you play back the recording on your phone, from when you took Ms. Dupont upstairs to dress.”

Michaela set her phone on the table, cued it up.

Charlotte’s voice, a little breathless, but very smooth, flowed out. “Police don’t make much, especially women police, I imagine.”

In contrast, Michaela’s voice hit clipped and dispassionate. “You’re going to want shoes, ma’am.”

“I’ve got money. I can make your life easier. All you have to do is let me go. Tell them I ran out, give me ten minutes’ head start. Ten thousand for a ten-minute head start.”

“You’re offering to pay me ten thousand dollars to let you escape from custody? How are you going to get me the money?”

“I’m good for it. You know who I am! Look, you can take this watch. It’s Bulgari, for Christ’s sake. It’s worth more than you pull in in ten years.”

“You’re going to want to put on shoes, ma’am, or go out barefoot.”

“Take the watch, you idiot! Ten minutes. I’ll get you cash, too. Take your hands off me! Don’t you dare put those things on me.”

“You attempted to bribe a police officer, and have shown yourself to be a flight risk. Sit down. Since you’re now cuffed, I’ll get you some shoes.”

Michaela cut off the recording during the stream of curses.

“I bet she didn’t tell you about that one.” Red scratched the side of his neck. “Now, before you start saying that was just a desperate plea from a desperate woman, let me save you the breath. It’s bribing a police officer, period. I also have your client’s confession on tape—including the Miranda warning before she gave it. We have BOLOs out now for her two partners, and we will apprehend them.”

“You said you already—”

Red just smiled when the lawyer cut Charlotte off.

“Had them?” Red finished. “You might’ve gotten that impression. We will have them. You know, they were both mostly careful about wiping things down, but it’s hard to get everything. Especially when you’re moving fast because, hey, the kid got loose, and the cops might be coming. We got prints.”

“We’re not disputing the child was abducted,” Scarpetti replied. “Ms. Dupont had no part in this terrible crime.”

“I guess she didn’t know where they took the kid, where they held her. She would never have been there.”

“How could I know! I don’t even know what I said on that recording of yours. I was so loopy from the pills Aidan made me take. It’s not the first time he’s forced me to … do things.”

She turned her head away an instant after she let a single tear slide down her cheek.

“I guess you didn’t know the Wenfields. The people who own the cabin.”

“I don’t know them. I don’t know where the damn cabin is. I only go to Big Sur when Aidan makes me. Charles!”

“Charlotte, you need to be quiet. Let me handle this.”

“Doesn’t know the Wenfields, has never been to the cabin. So saying that,” Red considered, “you wouldn’t have any idea they’d be out of town, that the house would be empty.”

“Exactly! Oh, thank God.”

“Now I’m confused. How about you, Mic? Are you confused?”

She kept her stony face on, but smiled a little inside. “Not really.”

“Just me then. I’m confused how it is, when you don’t know the Wenfields, don’t know where their cabin is, how your fingerprint—right index finger—ended up on the light switch of the downstairs powder room.”

“That’s a lie.”

“I guess you got a little careless. How I see it, you checked the place out with your partners, needed to use the facilities. And just didn’t think about tapping that switch.”

“They planted it. Charles—”