Dana Nussio - Shielded By The Lawman

It hadn’t been Michael running toward her this time, but one day it would be. Safe? They would never be safe. Even if he didn’t know where they were—or who they were—he would find them. No prison walls would be strong enough to contain that type of hate.

It didn’t matter whether he would be able to convince a parole board that he was a safe risk for release or not. Michael’s network could fan out like a freeway map. Why had she ever thought they would be able to escape him?

She shivered and pulled her jacket tighter as she neared her apartment building.

She wouldn’t allow herself to think any more about a guy who had problems of his own and no time to deal with hers. Her only focus could be on that sweet little boy whose hair smelled of baby shampoo and whose kisses were the most precious gifts she could receive. Without hesitation, she would trade her life for her his.

If she allowed herself to think about any man at all, it would be the one who still stalked her nightmares. The one who’d promised to kill her, and always kept his promises.

Michael Brooks wedged himself between the car door and the frame and tilted his head back to pitch a mouthful of profanity at the bawling Chicago South Side sky. The least the sun could have done was shine on his first day seeing it from outside the prison gates in six years, but instead, it pissed all over him like the rest of the scum responsible for putting him behind bars.

“Would you get in and shut the door?” his driver grumbled from inside the car.

Michael whipped his body into the front seat so fast the other man flinched, his head cracking against the door. For the first time all day, Michael smiled. Then he brushed rainwater off the paper-thin jacket covering his button-down dress shirt and no-name jeans he’d been presented upon his release.

“Good to see you, too.”

He glanced around the interior of the cop’s personal vehicle, a foreign-made SUV with many driver distractions across the dash. He brushed his fingers over buttery leather upholstery.

“Nice ride.” Nicer than the guy deserved.

When Larry didn’t answer, Michael wanted to slug him. He’d been itching for a fight all day, an itch among many that hadn’t been scratched for too long. He tossed his measly bag of possessions into the backseat. He had nothing. That was his wife’s fault. Ex -wife. She was responsible for everything that sucked about his life now. No place to go home to. No feminine heat in his bed. No chance to get to know his son. And most of all, no access to his own sweet nest egg.

She would pay for all of it. When he figured out where the hell she was. He would find her, too. He had to. She held the key to his future in more ways than she knew.

Larry didn’t even look his way as he pulled out into traffic. Maybe he was too scared to risk it. Served him right.

Michael waited through a few stoplights in the tiny community where the prison bus had plunked him, but then he couldn’t stay quiet any longer.

“Got anything else you want to say to me?”

Larry’s Adam’s apple shifted a few times, and then his jaw tightened. “I thought maybe you’d like to thank me for coming all the way out here to pick up your sorry ass.”

“You joking? I’d still have my own ride if you and your buddy—”

“Hey, if you don’t want me to be here, I can...”

“Nah. It’s over.”

And if the guy believed that, he had a piece of land near Hyde Park with an active oil well in the backyard. Someone as indebted to him as the loser sitting next to him didn’t need a reminder of what he owed, anyway.

“Thanks for coming to get me,” Michael said finally.

He knew better than to piss off his so-called allies when he just might need them later.

“Glad Clint found you a decent place to live,” Larry said.

Michael’s jaw tightened at just the mention of the second officer’s name. This mess was as much his fault as Larry’s. “If that’s what you call decent...”

Larry made a tight sound in his throat and handed Michael an envelope with cash for the deposit and the first month’s rent. “Anything’s better than another night inside, right?”

He nodded. Any place would be better than spending another night in that concrete hellhole with fluorescent lights that held the place hostage in constant daylight, with those grating buzzes and steel-door clicks that could wake a corpse, and the rock-hard pad that passed for a mattress. But he suspected he would never be able to sleep again without those lights. Those sounds. That mattress.

“The place will do for now.”

Larry pointed to the computer screen on the dash. “Put in your address.”

He looked from the contraption to the driver.

“The GPS.” Then he slid a glance Michael’s way and grinned. “Oh. Right. You probably haven’t used one of those in a while. It was an upgrade on this model.”

Michael didn’t need any reminders of the conveniences he’d missed out on. The things that were this guy’s fault. And Maria’s.

“Doesn’t anyone use maps anymore?” he groused.

He let Larry guide him through the screens to enter the address on that scrap of paper from his pocket. The information on the other side of the crumbled sheet was more important to him, anyway, but Larry didn’t need to know about that.

“It’s going to take a few weeks to get used to all the changes since you...left.”

“Maybe a month.”

He wondered if he would ever reacclimate to a world that didn’t have prison’s clear rules. The order. Inside, each man understood his role, from the murderers holding court at the top of the social hierarchy to the guys playing Susy Homemaker for their meathead boyfriends. Even he had a place, as a master of demand-chain management for chemical life enhancers.

Outside, he was just an ex-con with nothing at all. At least not yet.

“Have you found any answers for me?”

Larry shook his head, still staring at the road. “You’ve got to be patient.”

“I don’t have to be anything. I’ve been waiting for years.”

“Give me a little time.”

“I got that request to you a month ago.”

“Which was a stupid move, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t.”

“Your wife did a fine job of disappearing.” He slid a glance Michael’s way. “Do you think she might have had a good reason?”

“You believed the bitch‘s lies, too?”

The side of Larry’s mouth lifted, but he didn’t say more. Michael’s hands fisted at his sides.

“My marriage is none of your business.”

“Guess not.”

At least Larry didn’t point out that he no longer had one of those. Good thing for him because Michael would have punched him in the throat.

“Just let me know as soon as you find out anything, okay?”

“I will.” Larry reached for a button on the dashboard, and a storage area popped open. He pulled out a burner cell phone and handed it to him. “So we can keep in contact.”

He murmured his thanks, though they would have stayed in contact whether Larry liked it or not. The officer didn’t need to know that he wasn’t the only one searching for answers. Michael had made some buddies inside who had helpful friends of their own.

Larry pulled the SUV to the curb and cut the engine. “That’s the place.”

Michael could only stare through the rivulets on his window. The two-story clapboard house with its peeling paint had probably been showing its age in the fifties.

“It ain’t much.”

That it was a long trip from the apartment Maria used to keep pin neat was one hell of an understatement.

“It’s just until you get a job and get back on your feet.”