Thirty-One and a Half Regrets (17 page)

“Just hurry, Mason. Please.” I realized I was putting him in danger, both physically and professionally, but I couldn’t stop myself from begging.

“I should be there in thirty minutes. Call me if something happens.”

“That might be difficult given the fact that room six is the police department’s room and they purposely have a broken phone.”

“Then how are you calling me?”

“I’m in the motel office.”

“You have got to be—” He broke off into a slew of obscenities then paused, trying to calm himself. “See if you can get into another room.”

“The officer’s going to come find me any minute now. He was in the bathroom when I left the room.”

As if on cue, Officer Sprout appeared in the doorway. “Ms. Gardner,” he growled.

“Mason, I’ve gotta go.”

“Wait!” he shouted. “What’s going on?”

“Officer Sprout found me.”

“
Officer Sprout?
The guy who’s been rejected from every police academy in Arkansas? The guy who the HPD hired anyway?”

That explained
so
much. “Yeah, that’s him.”

“I’ll be there in
twenty
minutes.”

I hung up the phone and turned to face the officer.

I was done. “I’m not goin’ back in there with you.”

Officer Sprout’s eyes bugged out. “You can’t just
leave
.”

“Watch me.” I started for the door, but that was when an image appeared on the television screen. Daniel Crocker.

I froze in my tracks.

“Crocker was believed to have been in an abandoned warehouse here in Shreveport, but after a lengthy standoff, police discovered the suspect was actually a homeless man with a gun. Arkansas State Police now believe Crocker is still in the southern Arkansas area. He is considered armed and deadly. Use extreme caution if you spot him.”

“Ah…” the older desk clerk groaned, plopping his feet on the desk. “He ain’t so bad. Everyone knows he was framed.”

I gasped in shock, delaying long enough for the officer to grab my arm and drag me back into the room. I tried to pull out of his grasp, but he was deceptively strong. When we were almost inside, I had a vision. I was in the motel room, hiding behind the bed as gunshots zinged over my head.

“Come on out!” a man shouted. “We’ve got no beef with you. We only want Rose.”

“Okay!” I shouted. “Stop shooting! You can have her!”

I looked next to me and my own shocked face appeared in the shadows.

My vision faded and I said, “You’re going to turn me over to save yourself.”

He scowled. “What are you talking about? I’m not doin’ any such thing. I only want to get you back inside before I get in trouble.”

He pushed me inside and locked the door. Two things hit me: one, Officer Sprout was going to turn me over without a second thought. And two, Crocker’s men were going to find us; it was just a matter of when.

I couldn’t wait for Mason to show up. I had to get away
now
.

I grabbed my lower abdomen. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

Officer Sprout made a weird face, like he wasn’t sure what to do with that piece of information.

“I just thought you might want to know that I’ll be in there for a while.”

He shrugged and sat down in his chair.

I stepped into the bathroom and immediately figured out how I’d bought so much time in the office. Officer Sprout must have paid a visit to Buffalo Bill’s Hot Wings. Gagging, I batted my hand in front of my face and found the exhaust fan switch. I needed the noise anyway.

I spun around to inspect the feature that had inspired me to lock myself into the reeking room: the frosted glass window over the toilet.

Climbing on top of the toilet lid, I grabbed the bottom handle and lifted. Nothing happened. I reached on top of the casing to make sure the window was unlocked, then gave it another jerk. Nothing.

No. No. No
. I had to get out of here. Now.

After I’d been working on the window for several minutes, I heard a pounding on the door. “Pizza delivery,” a man shouted.

“I didn’t order a pizza,” Officer Sprout said.

Shit.

My heart beating wildly, I hopped off the toilet and pushed up, grunting and straining until the window finally popped up, throwing me off balance. I fell on my butt, which was the least of my worries if the shouting outside the bathroom door was any indication.

Scrambling on top of the toilet, I pushed my upper body through the window, dismayed to see a five-foot drop in front of me. I’d learned a lot about climbing out windows over the last several months, but I didn’t have time to do it gracefully. The first gunshots echoed through the night as I dove head-first from the window, somersaulting to land on my butt in the grass. I climbed to my feet and looked around, considering my options. Behind the motel and to the left, there was a patch of woods; to the right was a storage unit surrounded by a tall chain link fence.

I headed for the woods.

I felt a little guilty for leaving Officer Sprout behind, but then I remembered my vision. I tried to keep quiet, but there was no disguising the crunch of leaves beneath my feet. Judging from the continuous sound of gunfire behind me, though, I was safe for now. Part of me was surprised no one was in the back looking for me, but they’d probably expected to catch us by surprise. Still, I wasn’t sure how much time I’d bought. Crocker wanted me alive, so they would soon figure out I wasn’t in the room and start searching the woods.

I ran about fifty feet, deep enough for the darkness to make it difficult to move around. Hopefully that same darkness would help conceal me. The gunshots stopped after about a minute and my heart lurched. How long until Crocker’s men came looking for me? Just as I was about to turn and go deeper, sirens started to wail in the distance. I closed my eyes, for once relieved to hear them. Tires squealed as cars sped from the parking lot. Some of the sirens continued down the road in pursuit, but I could see red lights bouncing off the trees now.

I started to get up but hesitated, unsure who to trust. Did I really want to be under the protection of the Henryetta Police Department?

Several minutes later a shadowed man appeared around the side of the motel, a flashlight beam jiggling on the ground in front of him.

“Rose!” Mason’s panicked voice called out.

I started to cry as I stood and ran toward him. “Mason,” I called out, almost knocking him over as I rushed into his arms.

He wrapped me in a tight embrace. “Thank God. I thought they took you.” I sobbed into his chest, but he tilted my head back to look at me. “Are you okay? Did you get hurt?”

“My butt’s a little sore from falling out the window, but other than a few scratches from the trees, I’m okay.” I wrapped my arms around his neck, clinging to him.

“You’re safe now.”

Was I? I wasn’t so sure.

“Mason, what are you doing here?” Jeff asked as he walked around the corner.

Mason’s head jerked up and his body stiffened. “Imagine my surprise when I found out that Rose was under the protection of the
Henryetta
Police Department and not the Fenton County Sheriff’s Office as I’d been told.”

Jeff shifted his gaze and kicked a stump on the ground. “Mason…”

“We’re friends. Which means you should have told me.”

“That fact that you’re here right now is exactly why I didn’t tell you. How did you even find out where she was?” He shook his head with a sigh. “You’re the judicial leg in this system, Mason. You have your own job to do and you need to leave Rose’s protection to the people who were trained to provide that type of help, the law enforcement officials!”

“Jeff, she was almost killed!”

“No. They wanted her alive.”

“
And that’s supposed to make me feel better
?” Mason shouted.

“Mason, you’re too personally involved to be objective.”

“You told me she’d be protected. She obviously wasn’t.”

“She was, Mason. Why do think my men got here so quickly? Those Henryetta bunglers may have official protection of her, but I knew they’d screw up. So while we were waiting to get her protection transferred to us, I had men stationed in the area, close enough to get here within a minute or two. The desk clerk alerted us as soon as he saw the first sign of trouble.”

Mason huffed in a breath and I rubbed his arm. I knew I had to help defuse this situation. “Mason, I’m fine. Really.”

“You’re fine after you dove out a window,” he said, but he seemed to be calming down. He looked up at his friend. “How did they find her?”

“How did
you
find her?”

I hoped Mason wouldn’t rat me out to Jeff. But he must have felt me tense beside him because he said, “From what I hear, the Henryetta safe house isn’t so safe. They use the same damn place every time. Once I knew they had her, it wasn’t hard to figure it out.”

“Exactly,” Jeff said. “All Crocker’s men had to do was find a previous occupant and they put two and two together. It’s a miracle that none of the Henryetta Police Department’s witnesses have been killed by now.” He grimaced. “After this fiasco, we shouldn’t have any trouble getting her officially transferred to our watch.”

“So what happens now?” I asked Jeff. “You’re telling me you’ll put me under your protection, but what does that mean?”

“We’ll find our own safe house, but for now you and Mason will come to the sheriff’s office. Even Crocker wouldn’t try to get you there.”

I looked up at Mason, who nodded his agreement.

“Well, that’s settled,” Jeff said. “We’ll take her to the sheriff’s office and met you there.”

Mason’s arm tightened around my waist. “I’ll take her.”

“Mason.” Jeff shook his head. “She’ll ride to the office in a sheriff’s patrol car. You can meet her there.”

He started to protest, but I put my hand on his arm. “It’s fine.” I turned to the deputy. “Can we go soon? I don’t want to stay here any longer than I have to.”

“We can go now.”

I grabbed Mason’s hand and followed Jeff around the building to the parking lot full of Henryetta Police cars and Fenton County Sheriff cruisers.

Jeff stopped next to a marked sheriff’s car and talked to the deputy standing next to it before turning to me. “Rose, you’ll ride in this patrol car and we’ll have another car follow.” He paused. “Just in case.”

I didn’t want to think about what “just in case” entailed.

Mason got to the sheriff’s station moments after I did and disappeared into Jeff’s office with him. Someone ordered sandwiches, and I ate two of them while delivering my statement. Afterwards, I sat at an empty desk and waited for Mason. Someone gave me a Sudoku book, but I couldn’t concentrate. I kept eyeing the phone. Jeff had told me he hadn’t heard anything about Bruce Wayne, but I also knew the department was more concerned with finding Crocker. Jonah was still looking, though, and might have a lead.

Still, it was close to midnight and too late to call him. Jonah was an early-to-bed kind of guy and although he wouldn’t mind me waking him up, I couldn’t do it. I also considered calling Violet. I wanted to hear how Muffy was doing. I hadn’t seen my little dog in a day and a half and missed her more than I would have thought possible.

Just when I’d started to think they’d be in there forever, Jeff’s door flew open and Mason and Jeff hurried out of the office. Mason stopped at my desk and sat on the edge, his no-nonsense expression on his face. “I have to go out for a little while. Jeff had a couple of cots set up in the back. If you’re tired, you can lie down and get some sleep.”

“So I’m going to spend the night here?” I wasn’t about to complain. I felt safer here than I did hiding at the motel.

“Yeah, it looks like it.”

I could tell he was distracted. “Mason, is everything okay?”

He leaned over and kissed me lightly. “Yeah, get some rest, okay.”

He was lying. Something was wrong, but I decided to let it go. I had to trust that he had a good reason for not telling me. If they’d found Crocker I’d be told soon enough. Unless…

My eyes flew open. “Is Violet okay?”

“What?” He blinked. “Yes. She’s fine. But I’ll have Jeff send someone to check on her to ease your mind, okay?”

“Okay. And could they check on Muffy?” My mouth twisted into a grimace. “I know she’s just a dog…”

He took my hand. “Rose, she’s not just a dog. She’s important to you.” He gave me another kiss and then stood. “I should have checked on her for you. I’m sorry. But Neely Kate and Jonah were okay when I talked to them this afternoon. I’ll have the deputy make sure she’s okay when they check on Violet. Now I have to go.”

“Okay.” I couldn’t help but worry as I watched him and Jeff head for the exit. Something was really wrong.

He still hadn’t returned a couple of hours later, but when I asked the other deputies about it, they only gave me vague answers. I tried waiting up for him, but I kept dozing off and writing nonsense numbers on the Sudoku puzzle I was trying to solve, so I finally gave up and went to the back storage room to rest on one of the cots.

When I awoke, Mason was sleeping in the cot next to mine. I watched him for several minutes, wanting to reach across the three feet between us and smooth the worry lines from his face. I hated to think that I was the one who put them there.

As though he sensed me watching him, his eyes opened and a lazy grin spread across his face. “All the times I’ve imagined sleeping with you, this was not what I pictured.”

A shiver ran down my spine and my mind turned to dangerous thoughts. “You’ve imagined sleeping with me?”

He didn’t answer, but his grin grew wider.

“Where’d you go last night?”

I’d asked the wrong thing. His expression turned serious as he angled his body toward me, still lying on his side. “My office.”

“Why the big secret?”

“It was broken into.”

“Why would someone break into your office?”

He hesitated. “They were looking for files. On you.”

I sucked in my breath. “And did they get them?”

He rubbed his face. “Yes.”