Shirlee McCoy - Fugitive

Goodbye to the past.

Hello to the future.

A fresh start. A clean break.

It’s what she’d been craving for months, but running toward it was so much more difficult than she’d thought it would be. Seeing the cabin burn was such an achingly painful thing that she wondered if she were really ready to move on.

Logan slid behind the steering wheel and offered a half smile that flashed the dimple in his right cheek, and Laney’s heart stirred, her mind yearning for the thing they’d had when they were kids. That solid connection, that deep knowledge of one another.

She turned away, staring out into the blowing snow as they started back up the mountain. The landscape hushed and still, the sky gray and heavy, they could have been anywhere, heading toward anything, but they were here, on William’s mountain, running for their lives together.

It was better than running alone.

She clung to that thought as they crested one final rise and then slowly made their way down the mountain toward the valley below.

FOUR

He had to get Laney to safety and leave her there before anyone knew that they’d been together. The pain in Logan’s head, the foggy shivery feel of warmth seeping back into his frozen body, even the risk to his life...none of it mattered as much as that.

Laney shifted in the seat, looking over her shoulder and back the way they’d come. He doubted there was much to see. Just the falling snow, the blue-black darkness and the billowing grayish smoke from the fire. They were almost down the mountain, and he could still see it, spreading across the night sky, relentless and unchanged.

Was the fire crew there? Were the police? Had anyone put his name together with Laney’s yet? It would happen. It was just a matter of time. When that happened, Laney would become a suspect, part of whatever plot the police thought Logan had hatched to stage his escape.

He couldn’t let that happen to her.

“How many people knew that you were on your way to Green Bluff, Laney?” he asked. The more people who knew her plans, the more likely the police could trace her movements. That could play to her advantage, or it could be the thing that brought her down.

“My clients. My coworkers. My friends. My neighbor, Mrs. Lawrence. She’s going to water my plants while I’m away.”

“Do they all know that you planned to stop at the cabin?”

“My close friends do. Mrs. Lawrence does. I left a detailed itinerary so that she’d know where to reach me if there were any problems at the house.”

So typical of the Laney he’d once known.

Making sure everything was perfectly in order.

“Call her and tell her that you’re on your way home.”

“What?”

“Tell her that the storm is too bad to continue. The pass is closed and you’re staying in a hotel until the roads are clear. Once they do, you’re going to return home.”

“But—”

“Make the call.” He tightened his grip on the steering wheel as the road widened in front of them. If the police were waiting at the entrance to the highway, no phone call would save her.

“And then what? You actually want me to go back home?”

“Yes.”

“Only if you go with me.”

“That will be the first place the police look once they realize that the cabin in the woods belonged to your husband and once they realize that you’re Elaine Mackey.”

“No one calls me Elaine. I changed my name legally when I turned eighteen. It’s Laney now. Laney Jefferson since I got married.”

“And you don’t think that the police will be able to figure that out?”

“So what if they do? You and I knew each other a long time ago, Logan. The only people who will even remember that are in Green Bluff, and I’m sure they haven’t thought about my family or you in years.”

He laughed at the absurdity of anyone in Green Bluff forgetting anything that had to do with the Mackeys or him. People in the small town had long memories.

“What?”

“No one in Green Bluff has forgotten you or your parents. No one has forgotten me either.”

“It’s been—”

“Eight months since I was arrested for stealing heroin from the evidence locker at work and selling it for a few million dollars and about five hours since I was sentenced to prison. I was the deputy sheriff of Green Bluff before that. I’m pretty sure that no one has forgotten me.”

“You never left?” She sounded surprised and a little appalled. She’d hated her life in Green Bluff. Hated the act that she’d put on for the people of the community. The only daughter of the founding father’s great-great grandson, and she’d had to be perfect, pretend that her family was perfect and hide the bruises and the pain. He’d watched her do it from the time she was eleven until he’d helped her escape. He understood why she’d seen nothing good in the community, but he’d found a home there, a place where he could be more than the child of a gang leader and a prostitute. More than a foster kid shuffled from home to home, trouble to trouble. He’d found roots in Green Bluff, and he’d made sure that they were planted deep.

“I didn’t see any reason to leave.” Even after he’d gathered enough evidence to have Laney’s parents thrown in jail for fraud, child abuse and neglect and to have her father arrested for and convicted of the murder of a fifteen-year-old foster child who had died and been buried on the Mackey property a few months before Logan arrived, Logan had known that Green Bluff would always be home.

“I guess I just figured that you’d moved away, maybe gone back to Los Angeles.”

“I spent fourteen years of my life in L.A., Laney, but that doesn’t mean there was anything there for me. Call your neighbor. Tell her exactly what we discussed, okay?”

“Fine.” She pulled out her cell phone and made the call, her voice cheerful and bright as she explained the change of plans. All those years of hiding the truth was paying off in a big way, but she didn’t seem happy as she hung up the phone.

“Good job.”

“I don’t like lying to someone I care about.”

“It’s not a lie if you follow through. Stay in a hotel tonight. Go back home tomorrow. You can fly to Green Bluff in a week or two.”

“I only have two weeks to clean out the house and get it on the market, then I have to go back to work. Besides, I told my father’s lawyer that I’d be there. He’s expecting me.”

“Will any of that matter if you get thrown in jail?” Up ahead, the road dumped out onto the highway. No flashing lights or police blockade.

“No, but...”

“What?”

“I wanted to get it over with. Going back there, seeing the place that I hated as a kid, it doesn’t fill me with warm fuzzy feelings.”

“Jail won’t fill you with them either.”

“I get the point, Logan. You don’t have to keep stressing it.” Laney leaned her head against the window, trying to ease the headache building behind her eyes. She hadn’t slept well the past few nights, lying awake into the early morning, telling herself that she could and would clean out her parents’ house.

Such a good plan.

Completely fallen apart now.

Maybe she could hire someone to clean it out, and she could supervise things from Seattle. That’s what she’d intended to do, but her father’s attorney had made it clear that he thought she should handle the job. Her legacy, he’d called it, and she couldn’t deny it. The Mackey house and the property it sat on had been in the family for more than a hundred years.

She’d be the last generation to have lived there.

She probably should feel better about it than she did.

“There’s a sign for food and lodging. We’ll pull off here and find a hotel. You can get a room for the night and go home in the morning.”