Ann Peterson - Marital Privilege

She clutched the bottom of her nightgown, trying to cover her legs. If only she could do something. Take control. Stand up, walk around, burn off the desperate feeling storming her nerves. Anything. Instead she was stuck in this damn car next to a man she didn’t know, driving hell-bent for nowhere. And there wasn’t a thing she could do to change it. Or was there? “Turn the car around.”

“What?”

“I want to go back to Beaver Falls. I want you to drop me off at the police station.”

Alec gripped the steering wheel. His head throbbed just behind his eyes. Dread pooled in his chest, filling his lungs, making it hard to breathe. “I’m not taking you back to Beaver Falls.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t trust the police.”

“Why?”

“My father has been successful because he knows that most people have a price, and he can afford to pay it.”

“You think he’s bribing police officers in Beaver Falls?” She sounded shocked, like this was the most outrageous suggestion she’d ever heard.

He shouldn’t be surprised. “You only think it’s ridiculous because your father was a cop. You come from a totally different world than I do. You automatically trust cops. You see them as the good guys, the white knights.”

“And your background makes you objective?” She shook her head. “Just because your father bribed cops in New York when you were growing up, doesn’t mean all the officers in the entire country are on his payroll.”

“Maybe not. But the trick is finding out which ones are. Before you trust them.”

“Do you have any reason to believe the Beaver Falls police are corrupt? Do you have any proof?”

“I have a feeling.”

“A feeling?”

“Yes. And in light of what’s happened, a feeling is enough. We can’t take chances.”

“I’m not taking chances. I’m just not going to let your paranoia prevent me from getting help.” Or from leaving you. She hadn’t said it, but the sentiment was there, hanging in the air between them like an iron curtain.

“It’s not paranoia.”

“Really? You haven’t given me one reason I shouldn’t rely on the Beaver Falls police.”

“Before I found Sally and the others, I called 911. I reported the gas leak and—”

“The others?”

Alec cringed. He had forgotten Laura didn’t know about the massacre he’d stumbled across. The deaths. The explosion. “I went to the restaurant to look for you. That’s where I found Sally.”

“And others.” The words came out on a whisper, as if she was afraid to know more, but couldn’t keep herself from asking.

“Yes. There were others.”

“Who?”

He’d give anything not to tell her. The news of Sally’s death was enough for Laura to come to terms with. But knowing Laura, she would never let it go. Not until she knew everything. “Your prep cook, Tim.”

She flinched as if he’d physically hit her.

“One of your waitresses.”

“Traci. Traci was supposed to open the dining room for lunch.” Her voice was robotic, as if she was keeping the names at a distance, not really thinking about what it all meant. “No one else. Please, no one else.”

“The guy that works for the produce company.”

“Ed.”

“I didn’t see anyone else.” As if the three he’d just named plus Sally weren’t enough.

She leaned back in her seat, breathing shallowly through her mouth. The only sound inside the van was the thrashing wind and the miles humming by under the tires.

Finally she turned her head toward him. “What does any of this have to do with not trusting the police?”

“I smelled a gas leak when I entered the building. I called 911. About the leak. About my suspicion that there was more going on. The police never showed. Not the entire time I was there.”

“Because their response time wasn’t as fast as you thought it should be, you assume the entire Beaver Falls Police Department is working for your father?”

She made him sound like he was paranoid. “It wouldn’t have to be the entire department. It could be one or two officers that delayed their response. Or the dispatcher. But I guarantee it wasn’t a coincidence that the police didn’t arrive before the gas explosion and fire destroyed evidence of the murders.”

“The restaurant exploded?” She gasped in a breath, weathering the shock as she had the news of the deaths.

Alec watched her out of the corner of his eye. There was no telling how these shocks, one after another, would affect her health. At just over seven months along, it couldn’t be good for her. Or for the baby. He’d heard enough stories of premature labor to scare the piss out of him.

But short of lying, he didn’t know how to protect her from the truth. And he’d lied to Laura enough. More lies, even to protect her, would only make things worse. “I know this whole thing seems insane. It’s only natural you’d want to go to the police, to trust them. Especially since your father was a cop. But if you knew my father, if you’d seen what he’s capable of…”

“I’ve seen enough to know we can’t handle this alone.”

She might be right. God knew he’d come awfully close to losing everything this morning, closer than he could bear thinking about. But who the hell could they trust? In his father’s world, trust was for dead men. And whether he liked it or not, this morning he’d been sucked back into his father’s world. And so had Laura. “We don’t have a choice. We have to handle this alone.”

She shook her head, as if she couldn’t imagine it.

She probably couldn’t. She was raised by a cop, taught to trust cops. He wasn’t. And the one time he’d trusted the authorities, they’d let him down. It had taken ten years, but they let him down nonetheless. “I understand you’re angry with me. Hell, you probably hate me. That’s okay. I deserve it. But you need to think beyond that. You have to trust me. You have no other choice.”

“No. I have a choice.” She narrowed her eyes to brown slits and set her chin. “I don’t trust you. I don’t even know you. I want out. Now. Take me to the police station.”

He tightened his grip on the steering wheel until his knuckles ached. “Like hell.”

“You’re kidnapping me?”

“Damn it, Laura. I’m not staking our lives on the police. If that means I’m kidnapping you, so be it.”

She reached toward him. Before he realized what she was doing, she unsnapped his cell phone from his belt. She flipped the phone open. “Now do you want to drop me off at the station, or should we do this the hard way?”

Alec gritted his teeth. He could just pull the car over and wrestle the phone from her before she had a chance to punch in 911, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not to Laura. “All right. Call them.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Tell them to meet you in an hour at Conason Park. Near the shelter.”

“What are you up to?”

He didn’t answer. She’d understand soon enough. If his plan worked, either Laura would be as safe as possible with the cops or as safe as possible with him. And all that mattered now was that she and the baby were as safe as they could be. “Make the call.”

LAURA JOINED ALEC on the edge of the bluff overlooking Bear River and the Conason Park shelter. A cool wind gushed through the valley and swirled over the bluffs. Laura shivered and pulled the blanket, rummaged from the winter driving supplies in the van, tighter around her nightgown. She hadn’t felt cold since she’d become pregnant. Through the Wisconsin winter she’d worn short-sleeved tops most days. But even though she wasn’t exactly dressed, the chill she felt now went deeper than any clothing or blanket could warm. It drilled into the very marrow of her bones.