Blind Trust (15 page)

You’ll be safe here for now,
she told herself, not believing a damn
word of it.
You won’t be found here.

The sound of three men laughing registered. Panic. Thudding. Her
heartbeat pounded in her ears. She identified the voices. Mark from the ski
shop joking with Brad and another man she didn’t recognize. Football was the
topic with the Broncos chances being analyzed. It was nothing, they were safe.

Ursula could have tracked your cell,
she told herself as
she walked.
Last location, she would have known you came this way.

Snatches of daily life around her filtered in as she hurried.

“Martha!” Hal, the deputy was attempting to call Martha and Earl.
Apparently Earl had forgotten the ketchup for the rescue team and Martha had
forgotten Hal’s burger.

The road is blocked
.

Renee stopped with the thought.
How will they get here? Aeron
needed to be safe. She couldn’t do it alone.

Joyce and Charlie bickered as she passed them near the steps.
Renee could hear Joyce telling him that he shouldn’t go to work. She’d seen the
blood, the fall. He was trying to reassure her.

It registered as odd. She thought about turning to them but
spotted Sheriff McKinley.

“Sheriff?” she called to him. There was no way she could hide
this. Hopefully he would keep it private and no one would have to know.

“Sheriff!”

Renee hurried up the steps. She halted. Frozen. Halfway. An explosion
of fear detonated within her. Every muscle rigid. She spun. Drew her gun and
fired.

Chapter 16

I SAW RENEE start to pace in a circle and the worry and fear
swirled about her like vultures waiting to pounce. I spotted Martha’s son,
Ronny, and called him over.

“Twenty bucks if you keep Zack filled with milkshakes for a
while.”

He grinned and nodded. “Deal.”

Shooting Zack a smile, I headed out of the door to see Renee
trudging on the icy road to the sheriff’s office. She nearly collided with a stationary
ATV in her daze and my heart started to thud. I knew something was wrong, I
could feel the calmness beginning to slow the world. That hanging,
clickety-clackety feeling rumbling into life again. Like it always did before
fate took the lid off the blender.

“Hey, Aeron,” Evan called as I stepped out onto the ice-covered
road. “You get barred from The Ice Cooler last night?”

“Er, yeah,” I answered with a shrug. My gaze locked on Renee. I
prayed she was okay.

Evan seemed to straighten up and puff out his chest. “You can
always come round to ours if you want a drink?”

Renee passed by a woman who made my head ache just looking at her.
She was deep in conversation with another lady who was pointing up at the
sheriff’s office. I figured her for a gossip but her heart felt so wounded that
I winced with her loss.

“I got plenty,” Evan continued, flashing me his best grin.

I glanced at Evan, I didn’t drink. Why was he offering me a drink?
“Um, thanks,” I said, hoping it would fend him off for a minute.

Renee didn’t even notice as she passed Hal or Earl, Martha even
called her name but her eyes were solely fixed on the building she was headed
for.

What the heck had Ursula told her?

“Say hi to Duke for me,” I offered Evan who seemed delighted for
some reason.

I dodged around the two gossiping women as Renee stormed past
Charlie and Joyce. Brad, Mark, and another guy appeared around the side of the
station.

Her speed picked up. Sheriff McKinley was in the doorway. He
stopped as she called to him.

“Hey, Ice Queen,” Brad yelled. He was near her now, too near.
“Where’s your knight?”

Renee turned around. I started running. She raised her gun and
pulled the trigger.

Bam. Bam
.

Some guy who had been happily walking down the street and minding
his own business dropped heavily to his knees. Women screamed. People ducked
for cover. Hal fumbled with his pistol. Charlie sprinted to Renee. He ripped
the gun from her and dragged her up the steps.

Mark’s friend grabbed Renee’s other arm as Charle shot orders in
Hal’s direction. My feet felt heavy. My head heavier as I tried to take in what
had just happened. The guy lying in the road was pale, eyes closed. The doctor
came hurrying over.

“I was just in the field hospital,” he said, panting. “I heard the
shots.”

“She just shot him,” Hal managed, his hands shaking, his eyes
locked on the unmoving man. “She had a gun.” He looked at me. “Why’d she shoot
him?”

I realized that most of the folks around me were looking at me for
some kind of explanation but like heck did I know.

“Told you she was a lunatic,” I heard Brad call out. “Screw
loose.”

“You went and taunted her,” Mark muttered. “She was fine till you
started.”

Why had she shot someone? I stepped around the man on the road.
His stubble looked dark against his sweaty, blanched skin.

“Will he be okay?” I asked the doctor. “Will . . . I mean . . .
Did she?”

“He has a good chance if I can get him in the hospital,” he said
and made a point of glaring at Hal. “With a little help?”

“Right,” Hal mumbled.

I stepped forward to help but the doctor shook his head. “Your
friend.” He glanced up at the station. “Maybe it’s better you go on after her.”

He was right. I stumbled up the steps. My head felt fuzzy. She’d
shot him. She’d just shot a man in the street. Why? I managed to get halfway
down the hall before Charlie appeared and strode toward me.

“Inside,” he told me, motioning to an office.

The small room was more of a converted cupboard with a table and
two chairs but I knew an interview room when I saw one. I hated interview rooms.
The confusion misted over my mind started to mix with fear. I
really
hated interview rooms.

“She’s in the cells,” Charlie told me, pulling out a chair and
nodding for me to sit. I found it hard getting my feet to shift themselves.
Last time I’d been in an interview room with a policeman, it was my own father
arresting me and I spent a decade in the institution because of it.

“Take a seat.” Charlie’s stern tone made me move and do as he’d
instructed. He went around to the other side of the table.

“Aeron,” he started, lifting his hat and rubbing a hand through
his receding hair. “I know you girls have helped us over the last couple of
days.” He offered a small smile, replacing his hat. “You’ve been nothing short
of godsends.”

All I could do was stare at him. My ears rang with the gunshots.
My head replayed it over and over.

“Why does she have your gun?” he asked.

I frowned. “What?”

“Your gun,” Charlie repeated. His moustache touched the top of his
lip. I got the odd thought of how much like my father he was. Maybe it was the
uniform.

“I know from Sheriff McKinley that you have some kind of military
background.” He pulled off his hat and placed it on the table. A gesture my
father often made. I hated interview rooms. “When did she take it?”

Renee’s gun? Her CIG gun. He thought it was mine. It looked
different to most of the law officers’ guns. My father’s gun was pretty
hard-wearing, basic and clumpy. Renee’s and the other CIG officers all carried
a special one. I’d fired a few on the range when forced but I had no idea about
serial numbers or makes. I hated the damn things. Why had she shot him?

“Look,” Charlie said. “Let’s start small okay?”

I nodded. My heart and head roared like I might implode at any
second. The room squeezed in and out. I put my hands on my head to try and keep
it bursting apart.

“What’s your full name?” Oh, this was too familiar. He was too
much like my father.

“Aeron . . . Aeron Lorelei.”

He pulled out his book and wrote it down. “Where you from, Aeron?”

“Oppidum, Missouri.” My answers fell from me automatically and I
tensed. How much were these people supposed to know? Renee had told me that
anything short of national security meant that I couldn’t tell them a thing.

“What’s your friend’s full name?”

Commander Renee Black,
repeated itself over and over in my mind. “Um . . . Doctor Llys.
Serena Llys.”

Charlie noted it down. I shoved my hands in my pockets, praying he
wouldn’t see them shaking and hoped I could change my personality and start
lying like an expert.

“Where did you meet?”

“Serenity Hills Maximum Security Institution
for the Criminally Insane.” I took a deep breath. It was one heck of a
mouthful.
When you were serving time for murder
, my head taunted. “I . .
. we . . . work there.”

He raised his eyebrows. “That place has some reputation. Nasty
inmates.”

He only knew that as it had made national news. He didn’t know
just how bad it had been. My natural instinct was to defend my old friends.
Some of the girls had issues, that I would happily admit and some, like the
fury-fiends were beyond repair but they weren’t bad people. They were nothing
compared to Bison and the guards.

I knew Charlie was waiting for my answer. If I said the wrong
thing, I could make it all so much worse. I could sense that he was trying to
read me, which made me even more jittery.

“Yeah . . . I guess . . .”

“You’re a fair way from home,” he said. “Any reason?”

Training for CIG
, blared through my mind. “Uh . . . yeah.” I tried not to avert my
eyes like I was lying through my teeth. “Conference.” I tried to swallow the
cactus caught in my throat. Renee had told me to say conference, hadn’t she?
Hadn’t she? Uh oh, I couldn’t lie for Jell-O as Nan would say.

“Do you always carry your gun?”

He thought I was military. Were vets allowed to keep their guns? Was
I gonna end up in a cell if I told him that. Were folks allowed guns here? 

“It’s okay. My brother served for twelve years. He spent too many
after it checking into rehab.” Charlie sighed, running his fingers over his
hat. “Can’t stop him carrying his damn weapon though, not like he’s breaking
any laws.”

I blew out my relief through my nostrils, which made him look at
me like I could pass out any second. “Yeah, I get why he feels that way.”

“Did you realize it was missing?” he asked. 

“No . . . I mean . . .”

He smiled. It was the kind of smile my father so often used. I
hated that smile. The “I’m doing you a favor here” smile.

“I am trying to understand what happened.” He leaned forward.
“Aeron, I need to know if Serena has been acting odd lately.”

My first instinct was to say, “hell yeah,” but I couldn’t tell him
that because I didn’t know why. He’d want to know why, cops
always
wanted to know why.

“No, not that I know of . . . I mean . . . from a working point of
view.”

He looked at me from under his brow. “So you don’t socialize
outside work?”

Now I was in trouble. How did I answer that? Renee was
always
working, that was her, there were no rest days for the CIG, not really. “I . .
.”

“You seem pretty close,” he said. “Closer than colleagues.”

“I guess . . .” I had to find a way of getting away from this
subject. There was no way I could answer that without revealing the fact Renee
was charged with keeping my useless butt safe. “Is she okay?”

Charlie sat back and studied me for a moment. “She’s not talking.
I won’t lie to you, Aeron, this looks really bad for her.” He looked down at
his notes. “She shot an innocent man in broad daylight. Even counting the fact
she helped you save my life and a few others.” He shook his head. “It’s not
looking good.”

“But she wouldn’t just shoot nobody for no good reason,” I
protested. I wanted to put my hand in my mouth to shut myself up.

“Is there ever a good reason to shoot a man on a crowded street?”

I chewed on my lip and picked at my fingers, I couldn’t answer that
one and we both knew it. “So what will happen now?”

“Well. First we are going to try and get Serena to talk to us.” He
sighed. “Then, when the road is clear, we’ll get a district attorney up here
and start the process.” He tapped his pen on the desk and he leaned forward
once more. “You got your license?”

Uh oh. “No.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Do you have one?”

“No.”

“What unit were you in?” he asked, his brow furrowing deeper.

“I’m not at liberty to say,” fell from my lips before I knew I’d
said it. I sounded like Franken-Frei did. Somewhere in my head that gave me a
sense of pride. Maybe I
had
learned something.

“You told the sheriff it was medical, that you were involved in
handling disasters.”

“I said that I did
as part
of my duties, yes.” I had no idea
where the answers were coming from but I sounded like I knew what I was talking
about. “I can’t tell you nothin’ more.”

“Explains the gun,” he said more to himself than me. “And I’m
guessing that when I ask if anyone knows who you are, I’ll get a denial.”

“I’m not at liberty to say,” came my answer. Heck, I felt like
Franken-Frei had just floated in and taken me over.

“Is Doctor Llys a part of that?”

I said nothing. I hoped that he would take that as, “Yes, she’s a
CIG agent. If she just shot some guy in the street, there’s no way that he is
innocent.”

“What if I could prove she had just cause?” I asked. Now I sounded
like my stepmother had. Where the heck had that come from?

“To shoot a man on a crowded street?” He folded his arms. “You’d
be the best damn lawyer I’ve ever met.”

“Give me the chance?”

Charlie got to his feet and limped to the door. He was the guy who
had clung onto Zack for hours and saved his life and right now, he had the
power to stop Renee getting hauled into the judicial system.

“Give me a minute.”

He left the room and I gripped my head with my hands. Even if he
said yes, how was I going to prove Renee, who was meant to be a psychiatrist,
who wasn’t meant to have a military spec gun, had the right
and
the
justification to pull the gun, which was meant to be mine and shoot a complete
stranger?

How?

What if I contacted CIG? Would they help? I rubbed my temples
harder. If I knew
how
to contact them, then I knew from the training I’d
been on so far that no way would they help Renee out. They’d see her serve a
sentence before they uttered a word. Did Colorado have capital punishment?