Marilyn Pappano - The Sheriff's Surrender

“So you prosecuted this guy and got a conviction.”

She nodded. “He served five years on a fifteen-to-twenty-year sentence. He warned me at the sentencing that he wouldn’t forget me. He got out a few weeks ago, killed his wife, who’d divorced him while he was inside, then came looking for me.” Her smile was thin and bitter. “So…thanks for the great advice. At least when I was on the defense side of the table, none of my clients ever tried to kill me.”

“No, they killed innocent people instead.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but what good would it do? He’d refused to see reason nine years ago, and he appeared even more rigid now. A decade of blaming her seemed to have set his opinions in stone.

When she didn’t respond, he walked out of the room, his boots echoing on the wood floors. She didn’t follow him, but sank back against the window. She was suddenly tired—of being alone, being afraid, being sorry. Of trying so hard and failing so miserably. Of being damned for doing her job, for obeying the law, for other people’s mistakes. She wished she could run far away and never come back, but at the moment she’d be lucky to get within ten feet of a door.

Since that was out, she wished she could curl up in bed, pull the covers close around her and sleep deeply, peacefully, without dreams, until all this ugliness was done. There was a bed six feet in front of her, the navy-blue covers turned down on this side, the fat pillow with an indentation ready to cradle her head. She could kick off her shoes, leave her clothes in a pile on the floor and sink down into all that softness, with nothing showing but the top of her head. The sheets would smell of Reese, and the covers would create a warm, dark cocoon, and she would feel safe because Reese’s bed had always been a wonderful place to be.

Had been. Until nine years ago. Wasn’t anymore and never would be again.

Wearily she got to her feet, intending to return to the guest room and go quietly insane. She stopped beside the bed for a moment, picked up his pillow and lifted it to her face. It did smell of him, of the same cologne he’d favored years earlier, of the scent that was simply him, of the time when she had smelled of him. She breathed deeply, bringing back sweet memories of sweeter times, then, with a lump in her throat, hugged the pillow tightly to her chest.

When she finally walked away, it wasn’t out of the bedroom, but into the safe room. She left the door open barely an inch, allowing a bit of weak light into the darkness, then sat on the bed and breathed deeply. There was nothing wrong with feeling melancholy as long as she didn’t cry, and she wasn’t going to do that. Crying served no purpose. It solved nothing and merely provided others with proof of her weakness. It didn’t even make her feel better—her eyes got puffy and red, her head ached and she had trouble breathing—so she absolutely was not going to do it.

And then she lay down, snuggled close to Reese’s pillow and cried.

Lunchtime came and went with no sign of Neely. Reese had spent the rest of the morning thinking about what she’d said, trying to imagine her working as an assistant D.A., wondering why she’d gone that route when her heart had always been set on defending crooks, not prosecuting them. Was it the Miller case that had pushed her to the other side? Had getting shot opened her eyes to the fact that there was more to justice than simple fairness?

He’d always thought her insistence that justice equaled fairness was naive. What was just about a man who’d beaten his wife half to death on numerous occasions going free because he hadn’t been read his rights—rights he already knew by heart from the five other times he’d been arrested? Where was the justice in dropping charges against a drug dealer because the officers had lacked probable cause for searching his car? When their search had been justified, when drugs and money, both in great quantities, had been found, what did probable cause matter?

Why did acknowledged criminals even have any rights?

When his stomach started grumbling, he put a frozen casserole in the microwave oven, set the timer, then glanced at the wall that separated the guest room from the kitchen. What was she doing in there that kept her so quiet? Reading? Sleeping? Looking outside where she couldn’t go and heaping silent curses on his head? He told himself it wasn’t important. All that mattered was that she was keeping her distance from him. That was the only way they were going to get through the rest of the day. But when he kept wondering, he finally walked down the hall to check.

It was so quiet in the guest room because she wasn’t there. He checked the bathroom—the door was open, the lights off—then his bedroom. It was empty, too. She couldn’t possibly have left the house. The first thing he’d done after sending the deputy on his way was reset the alarm. Even if she’d managed to sneak out without his knowing it, the dispatcher would have called.

He made a quick check of the entire house, including the garage, then ended up once again in his own room. He was about to turn away and resort to searching closets when the door to the safe room caught his attention. Normally he kept it closed, but when he’d left Neely earlier, it had been wide open. Now it was only slightly ajar.

He pushed the door open and reached for the light switch, then abruptly stopped. She was lying on her side on the bed, her knees drawn up, her sherbet-green skirt covering her legs and feet, and she was asleep.

The first sensation that swept over him was relief. He might resent her like hell, might wish she’d disappear from his life and his memory, but he didn’t want her dead, hurt or in danger. Whatever wrongs she’d committed, whatever mistakes she’d made, she didn’t deserve to die for them. She certainly didn’t deserve to die for sending a drug dealer and murderer to prison.

The second sensation was…hard to identify. Something weak. Soft. Damnably foolish. For the first time he noticed the signs of unrelenting stress—the shadows under her eyes, the tension that wrinkled her forehead even in sleep, her fists clutching his pillow to her chest. She looked so fragile. Vulnerable. Pushed to the limits of her endurance and beyond. There was a part of him—the part that remembered loving her—that wanted to close the door and lock them inside this safe place, then gather her into his arms and simply hold her. That part knew instinctively that as long as he held her, she would sleep without dreams, without fear, until the fatigue was banished and she was rested enough to rely on her own strength.

Thank God the rest of him knew better than to give in to such weakness.

Minute after minute passed, and he simply stood there and looked at her. Nothing broke the silence but breathing—hers slow and even, his ragged and less than steady. Nothing existed but the two of them, no place but this room.

The timer beeping in the kitchen finally spurred him to move. He left the safe room, then, on impulse, returned with a chenille throw. Careful not to touch her, he spread it over her, pulled the door nearly shut and went back to the kitchen.

After lunch, he spent the next few hours on the Internet, searching for whatever he could find on Eddie Forbes. By the time he read the last archived newspaper article, he felt pretty damn grim. A lot of criminals accepted the risk of arrest and prison as part of the cost of doing business and bore no ill will toward either the cops or the D.A. Everybody—good guy or bad—was just doing his job.

Eddie Forbes wasn’t one of them. He blamed his unfortunate incarceration on everyone but himself. He’d already killed his ex-wife and her lover and threatened to kill Neely next. Because he blamed them most? Or because they were women and more vulnerable than the cops, crooks and lawyers involved?