Unlawful Contact (9 page)

Julian took a step forward. “Sophie, I know this is hard. I know you’re exhausted and overwhelmed. But I have to agree with Sergeant King. Marc Hunter is a remorseless killer who’s been behind bars for almost seven years. He got skin-to-skin naked with you while you were unconscious, which constitutes unlawful sexual contact at the very least. How can you be sure he didn’t do more than that when you were unconscious?”

Because he used to be a boy who protected girls. Because he once offered to stop at third base so I could stay a virgin. Because no matter what else he’s done, Hunt isn’t a rapist.

She met Julian’s gaze. “Because I’m sure.”

He watched her, his scrutiny almost uncomfortable. “Everyone out.”

Matt shuffled out the door.

Everyone else stayed stubbornly put.

If she hadn’t been so tired and upset, Sophie might have laughed.

“It’s okay,” she said. “You can say whatever you need to say in front of them. They’ll all find out anyway. It’s impossible to keep secrets in a newsroom.”

Reece shrugged. “Reporters.”

Julian’s frown deepened. He reached out, rested his hand on the lump of blanket that was her knee, and took a deep breath. “All right. I don’t know a tactful way to say this, so I’m just going to come out and say it. Even if you
let
him touch you, even if you said ‘yes,’ even if you did everything he wanted you to do without fighting back, it would still be considered sexual assault because you were his hostage. I saw the tapes. I watched him put a forty-five to your head and threaten to kill you. I saw how afraid you were. No one would blame you, Sophie.”

Blood rushed into her cheeks, and she gaped at him. “You think—”

“I think you’ve just been through hell and are lucky to be alive. I’m asking you to help me make sense of it, and I’m telling you it’s okay. Whatever happened, it wasn’t your fault.”

Face burning, Sophie forced herself to meet his gaze. “He kissed me. That’s all. When I told him to stop, he stopped. He even apologized.”

Julian studied her, seemed to relax. “Okay, then. If you change your mind…”

“I won’t. He didn’t hurt me.”

For a moment there was silence, then Sergeant King nodded to Julian and left the room.

“I know it probably doesn’t mean much right now, but I’m launching a legislative probe of the Department of Corrections,” Reece said. “I’m going to find out how this happened and make damned sure it never happens again.”

Sophie met his gaze, managed a smile. “There’s a reason I always vote for you.”

Then someone knocked at the door, and a man’s blond head poked inside. “Sis?”

“David! How—?” Tears filled Sophie’s eyes, made her throat tight.

But then her little brother was there, beside her, hugging her.

And she couldn’t speak at all.

“R
ENT’S DUE IN
advance by noon every Monday. Cash or money order only—no checks, no credit cards.” The motel’s owner, a balding man with a beer gut that protruded from beneath his white T-shirt, jerked his thumb toward a list of rules that was stuck to the wall with yellowed tape. “You don’t pay on time, I toss your shit out. This ain’t no charity.”

“Got it.” Marc counted out three fifties and slipped his fake ID back into his wallet, his gaze scanning the brightly lit parking lot outside while he listened to the television behind him.

He told himself the tight feeling in his chest was just sensory overload—the natural response of the human mind to the chaos of the real world after six years of living in an institution. For so long he’d been locked in a tiny cell. Now he found himself walking wide-open streets, surrounded by the rush of traffic, the press of people, a riot of lights, of sounds, of scents. He ought to feel exhilarated. Instead, he felt naked, exposed, tense, some part of him always watching, always waiting, always wary.

He heard his name, and Sophie’s, and knew CNN had cut away to the update it had promised its viewers.

“Number seventeen. All the way on the end.” The man slid a key across the counter, his gaze on the television. “Think they’ll catch that son of a bitch?”

Careful to keep his expression neutral, Marc glanced over his shoulder, saw his own face staring back at him. The only difference between the man on the screen and himself was the beard he’d shaved off and the ski hat he’d pulled over his ponytail. “What do you think?”

“I bet he’s already crossed state lines. Probably hightailing it to Mexico.”

“Probably. And thanks.” Marc took the key and walked back out into the cold, trudging across the snowy parking lot to unit seventeen, careful to keep his head down.

He’d taken the bus from Nederland into Boulder this morning, then headed straight for the U-Store place. The last time he’d been there had been shortly after his arrest. Still out on bail, he’d realized he was probably going to go down. The case prosecutors were building against him in the press had seemed invincible—dirty agent gets caught with drugs, panics, and blows the good agent away—and every instinct inside him had told him to take Megan and head for the border. He’d spent a rainy afternoon gathering whatever resources the feds and cops hadn’t confiscated—clothes, cash, a fake driver’s license from an undercover job—and moved them into a storage locker just in case he needed to head south in a hurry. He’d put the locker under his mother’s name, then paid in cash for ten years of storage.

But he’d known that the moment he took off for Mexico, he’d be pegged as guilty. Even more, he’d known that if he and Megan were caught crossing the border together, Megan would be dragged into the nightmare, too. And so instead of listening to his gut and bolting, he’d stayed in Denver, hoping the jury would acquit him.

What a fucking moron he’d been.

At least he’d had the foresight to set up his secret little cache at the U-Store. It sure as hell had come in handy today. After he’d gotten a few hours’ sleep on the concrete floor of his locker, he’d hopped the bus into the city and come here. A seedy motel on the edge of town, it offered everything he needed—a place to sleep, shower, and store his shit, neighbors who wouldn’t ask questions, and a dirt cheap week-to-week lease.

He slipped the key into the lock just as the door next to his opened and a young woman with bleached-blond hair stepped out. She wore a rabbit fur coat, tight jeans, and knee-high leather boots. He didn’t have to ask what she did for a living.

Her gaze raked over him, and she smiled with bright red lips as she passed. “You look good enough to eat, honey. I might even do you for free.”

Marc returned her smile, watched her pass, his gaze drawn to her bountiful ass. A few days ago, he’d have taken her up on her offer. Hell, he’d have been more than willing to pay—anything to get inside a woman. But even as heat rushed to his cock, he realized he didn’t want her, free or otherwise.

He wanted Sophie.

You’re never going to see her again, idiot. Take what you can get before you find yourself back in prison wishing you had.

That was his dick talking. Unfortunately, his dick was probably right.

He pushed open the door to his room, stepped inside, and flicked on the light, locking the door behind him. The place was musty, stinking of mildew and cigarettes. A single bulb hung from the water-stained ceiling. A bed draped in an orange floral comforter sat against one wall, an old television against the other. On the other side of the bed, a door stood ajar, revealing a toilet. The far wall held a closet and countertop with a sink and a hot plate. A single window, its yellowed blinds hanging askew, offered a scenic view of the alley.

Home, sweet home
.

Compared to his cell, it was the honeymoon suite at the Hilton.

He dropped his pack on the bed, his mind off the hooker and back on CNN. He hadn’t realized how intensely the media would focus on his escape. It made his situation more dangerous, increasing the risk that someone would recognize him, even without the beard. It meant he needed to cut his hair, maybe even bleach it.

He turned on the television, telling himself that he was only watching in order to keep up with the police. But he knew that was bullshit. He wanted to hear about Sophie. He needed to see her. He needed to know she was all right.

The sound came on first, the picture fading slowly into view.

A heavyset cop was mumbling into the mic, giving the reporters an update on what was now apparently the biggest manhunt in Colorado history.

How flattering.

The cop droned on about how many investigators had been brought in and how many agencies were involved. The FBI wasn’t one of them. Apparently, the feds didn’t see any opportunity for good publicity in this, or they’d have stolen the limelight by now.

“At the moment we’re reviewing every possibility, including the increasing likelihood that the fugitive has fled the state or frozen to death in the mountains.”

Frozen to death?

Hunter, you dumbshit, how’d you do that?

At least the police were looking in all the wrong places.

But there was nothing new on Sophie.

Ignoring his urge to channel surf in search of news about her, he turned off the TV and began to unpack, determined to put his mind where it needed to be—on Megan and Emily and the job that still lay ahead of him.

He’d left most of the gear he’d stolen from the sporting goods store behind in the storage locker, taking only what he’d need in the city—six grand in cash, more clothes, shoes, the first-aid kit, food, and, of course, the pistols DOC had so kindly provided. He needed to lay in some basic supplies, including a laptop computer, and then hit the streets. He would check out all of Megan’s former hangouts, talk to everyone she’d known, try to find out where she’d gone—and who was after her. Someone would know something.

God, he wished he’d gotten the full story from her. All he knew was that Cross had raped her and gotten away with it—and that he hadn’t been alone. Megan had been too hysterical to tell Marc more. With a dead man on his floor and afraid for her mental stability, he hadn’t pushed her as hard as he should have. Then he’d found his ass in prison, unable to see her, unable to communicate except through a complex network of COs, some of whom he’d never met, none of whom he trusted with his sister’s life or sanity. Now he’d have to figure it out without her help.

But first he needed to unpack and get a shower.

He stashed the cash behind a couple of loose ceiling tiles, tossed his old, dusty clothes in a pile for the laundry, and put the first-aid kit with the shampoo, soap, and razors in the bathroom. Then he stripped, turned the shower on hot, and stepped into the spray.

A familiar knot in his stomach, he worked quickly, efficiently, shampooing his hair, scrubbing sweat and the stench of prison from his skin, rinsing the wound on his shoulder. It was only when he reached down to turn the water off that he realized he didn’t have to hurry.

There was no CO shouting at him that his four minutes were up. There were no catcalls, no raunchy propositions, no lewd glances. There was no gang of shower hawks waiting nearby hoping he’d drop his guard so they could finally take him down and pound him in the ass.

I’m going to make you scream, Hunter!

And it finally hit him.

He was no longer in prison.

He was alone. In a motel. In Denver.

He was
out
.

His body started to shake, his breathing suddenly ragged, his pulse thrumming against his eardrums. He closed his eyes, then rested his palm against the green tile wall, leaned into the spray, and let the hot water wash over him.

S
OPHIE SLID HER
pawn forward one space. It seemed a harmless enough move. Then again, she’d never understood the rules of chess no matter how many times her dad and brother had tried to explain them.

David moved one of his pawns, a look of mild amusement on his face.

Having no idea what to do next, her heart not really in the game, she moved another pawn. He moved a knight. Then she moved a castle—and watched him snatch it up with one of his bishops.

“How can you do that? He was all the way over there!”

He rolled his blue eyes, pretending to be annoyed, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Bishops move diagonally any number of spaces, until either they kill something or hit the edge of the board.”

“I think you just make these rules up as you go.” Then Sophie saw her chance. She moved a pawn and captured his bishop. “Ha!”

He raised an eyebrow, picked up his king, and moved it onto the other side of his castle. “Let me know if you need a hint.”

“No hints.” She captured one of his pawns with one of her pawns.

He shook his head and moved his queen halfway across the board.

“I hate her.” Sophie glared at the bit of black plastic, then moved another pawn forward.

He moved his queen again—one space. “Checkmate.”

“Already?” She stared in disbelief. “How can it be checkmate already?”

From the kitchen came the beep of the oven timer—and the delicious scent of their special chipless chocolate chip cookies.

“I’ve never understood how you can be so damn smart and still suck so badly at a simple strategy game.” He stood and walked off toward the kitchen, a smile splitting his face.

“It’s only simple for you because you got Dad’s math brains,” she called after him as he disappeared around the corner.

He was flying back to California tomorrow morning. She didn’t want him to leave. No matter the circumstances, she loved spending time with him. He was her only family, the only person left in the world who shared her memories of Christmas mornings, spring picnics, and lazy summer afternoons spent playing in the backyard.

She couldn’t imagine this past week without David. He’d been her rock, doing all the shopping, cooking, and cleaning, insisting that she rest, even contacting her insurance agent about her poor, battered car and picking up her rental. He’d listened when she’d needed to talk, held her when she’d cried, and kept her mind occupied. He’d even given her a Valentine’s card on Valentine’s Day complete with a red rose and chocolate.

When had her little brother become a man?

She could remember the day he’d been born, looking in her four-year-old opinion more like a shriveled potato than a brother. She hadn’t been any more impressed with him a few years later when he’d clunked around the house in cowboy boots that were too big for his feet, a dumb plastic fireman’s helmet on his head. And when he’d gone through his dorky Power Rangers phase, it had been all she could do not to clobber him.

But now he was a good five inches taller than she was, handsome enough to turn women’s heads, and on his way to being a horse obstetrician, not one whiff of dork lingering anywhere around him. It touched her more than she’d ever be able to say that he had flown back to Colorado, dropping everything the moment he’d gotten the news.

Mom and Dad would be proud of him.

She swallowed the lump in her throat, leaned back into the couch cushions, and pulled the blanket tighter around her. The heat in her apartment was cranked up to seventy-five, but it was still hard for her to stay warm. The doctor had told her it sometimes took weeks to recover fully from hypothermia.

The blanket—a silky soft chenille throw—had been a gift from Tessa. Like David, her friends had been there for her, calling to check on her, stopping by her apartment all week to visit, bringing her gifts. Reece was prepping the Legislative Audit Committee for its probe of the DOC. Julian had ordered extra patrols for her street and was coordinating with jurisdictions throughout the state in what was the biggest manhunt in Colorado history. The I-Team had even sent flowers.

“You missed deadline, Alton,” the card read. “Get out of bed, and get in here.’”

She felt loved and protected—and horribly guilty.

Her brother and her friends were doing all they could to watch over her and help her get back on her feet, and she still hadn’t told them the whole truth.

She hadn’t told them about her previous relationship with Hunt. She couldn’t. The night she’d spent with him had been her most treasured memory. Hunt had destroyed it, turning something precious into something painful. Sharing that memory—and admitting what had become of the man who’d been at the heart of it—felt somehow too overwhelming. Besides, nothing had happened at the cabin that would help police catch him. They knew as much about him as she did, maybe more. The fact that she’d had sex with him one night twelve years ago wouldn’t impact their investigation at all.

Nor had she divulged what he’d told her off the record about his sister. She was a journalist. Once she agreed to keep information confidential, she was obliged to honor her word, even in extreme circumstances. She’d heard of journalists who’d gone to jail rather than betray their sources. Of course, Hunt wasn’t the typical source. He’d been holding her hostage when he’d asked her to keep his secrets. For that reason alone, there probably wasn’t a journalist in the country who would condemn her if she went to the police and told them everything.

And that was the crux of it, the reason her conscience wouldn’t leave her alone.

She didn’t
want
the police to catch him.

What was wrong with her?

One minute she felt depressed, the next irritable, the next anxious, as if something terrible were about to happen. She felt sluggish all day, then lay awake at night remembering the way Hunt had kissed her, thinking through the things he’d told her, worrying about him and Megan. Had he found her? Were they safe? What if he’d frozen to death like police believed? Was someone really after Megan? What if the bad guy found her first?

Sophie tried to hide it, but, of course, she wasn’t fooling anyone. Tessa and Kara blamed her moodiness on trauma, and she supposed they were at least partly right. The whole hostage ordeal had been terrifying. She didn’t think she’d ever been more afraid in her life. For a time, she’d truly believed he might kill her.

But that wasn’t the worst of it.

“Do you want milk?” David called from the kitchen.

“With warm, gooey cookies?” she called back. “Are you kidding?”

If Hunt had just been some random psycho—just some crazed murderer who’d held a gun to her head and dragged her into the mountains—she’d have been able to hate him and forget him. But, sadly, every terrifying moment had been brought to her by a man she’d once adored. A man she somehow still cared about. How else could she explain her reaction to his kiss?

God, she felt used. And stupid. But more than that, she felt…brokenhearted.

What happened to you, Hunt?

His name was Marc, she reminded herself—Marc Hunter.

She’d spent the past two days running it all through her mind again and again, trying to understand, trying to put the pieces together, trying to find a way to think about what Hunt had done that made it less painful. But there was only one thing that could even remotely excuse the hell he’d put her through, and that was if he’d been telling her the truth.

And yet how could she take comfort in that?

If what he’d told her were true, it meant Megan had suffered unimaginable abuse while in state custody—and that her life was now in danger.

Either way, Sophie was going to do everything she could to get to the bottom of it starting Monday morning when she was back in the office.

She glanced at the clock on her DVD player, saw that it was almost ten. She reached for the remote, turned on the television, and surfed to CNN. Julian had promised to call her if and when they caught Hunt, but that hadn’t stopped her from obsessing over the news, watching every broadcast and weather report, reading every newspaper online, putting Google on alert for the name Marc Hunter.

David reappeared carrying a tray with two glasses of milk and two plates heaped with cookies. He set the tray down on her coffee table, a frown on his face. “Are you sure that’s good for you? Maybe you shouldn’t watch the news. Give yourself time to recover.”

She looked away from the screen, saw David watching her. She knew what he was seeing—her pale face, the yellowing bruise on her cheek, the dark circles beneath her eyes. She’d seen them herself every time she’d looked in the mirror and had felt like she was looking at a stranger. “Not watching it doesn’t make it go away.”

He sat down beside her and for a moment said nothing, seeming to study the coffee table. “When the police called and told me you’d been taken hostage, I thought it was a joke at first. Then, when I realized it wasn’t…All the way to the airport and on the plane, I kept thinking, ‘What if he rapes her? What if he kills her? What if she’s already dead?’ Jesus!”

Tears blurring her vision, Sophie reached out, took her brother’s hand.

“I lost Mom and Dad.” David looked up at her, his voice breaking. “I couldn’t bear to lose you, too, Sophie.”

She swallowed the lump in her throat. “You didn’t lose me.”

“Thank God!” He gave her fingers a squeeze. “But it makes me damned angry to think of how badly this bastard frightened you. You’re trying to hide it, but I know you’re afraid. It can’t be good for you to keep watching these news reports.”

“I’m a reporter. How can I avoid the news?”

“By turning your TV off, for starters.” He picked up the remote, and the screen went dark. “I know you’re afraid, but they
are
going to catch him. I just hope for his sake he
has
left the state. If your friend Julian finds him, he’ll end up in pieces.”

And then it hit her—a terrible possibility.

Marc and Julian facing one another.

Both armed.

Both trained to kill.

Her blood ran cold.

M
ARC FOLLOWED HIS
quarry through the chilly darkness, stepping into the cover of an alley when the guy stopped to do a deal. A quick conversation, a show of cash—and the exchange was made. The guy moved on down the street, still clearly unaware Marc was tailing him.

Donny Lee Thompson was a hustler, a small-time pusher who sold whatever he didn’t use himself. He was also Emily’s father and Marc’s best lead. He looked to be in his late thirties, maybe five-eleven, one-fifty—a skinny son of a bitch. His dirty blond hair was beginning to thin, and his skin had the sallow tone of a habitual drug user. Marc had wondered what Megan could possibly have found attractive about him—and then he’d remembered.

Drugs.

Ahead of him, Donny crossed a small side street, his pace suddenly quickening. For a moment Marc thought the bastard had realized he was being followed—and then he saw it.

A squad car.

A single black-and-white rolled slowly down the side street toward them.

Shit.

But even as adrenaline hit Marc’s bloodstream, urging him to fight or run, some part of him realized they weren’t here for
him
. They were just
here
.

He willed his feet to move—one casual step after the next. He’d once been an agent. He knew from his own experience that the best way to attract a cop’s attention was to rabbit. If he just kept walking, they would see what they expected to see—just another pedestrian.

Left. Right. Left. Right.

He crossed the side street, the squad car not ten feet away from him and drawing nearer, its tires crunching heavily in the snow. He hunched his head between his shoulders as if huddled against the wind and kept walking, the Glock heavy in the waistband of his jeans.

If they stopped him, if they searched him…

Red-blue-red-blue-red-blue.

Lights flashed. The siren chirped, then wailed.

He was about to break into a dead run when the car accelerated around the corner—and disappeared down the street behind him.

Breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding left his lungs in a gust, his heart slamming against his ribs.

Jesus Christ!

He sucked in cold air, steadied his step, kept walking.

Get a grip, dumbass!

Marc had been in Denver for almost a week now, the rhythm of the streets slowly working its way back into his feet. He no longer looked over his shoulder at every approaching car, no longer felt quite as exposed, no longer jumped out of his skin every time someone shouted or honked their horn or slammed a door. Still, he couldn’t seem to shake his sense of wariness, the instinct that told him to watch his back, the itchy feeling that never let him rest.

He’d spent every almost every waking hour this past week on the streets looking for information about Megan. So far he hadn’t found anything. Not one damned thing.

Megan wasn’t in any of her old hangouts. She wasn’t in any of the shelters. None of her old friends had seen her, and though some of them knew she’d skipped parole, they claimed to have no idea where she’d gone. They might have been lying, of course, but he didn’t think so. It wasn’t like hard-core addicts to turn down cash, and he’d flashed plenty of it. If anything ought to have made them talk, it was money they didn’t have to steal—or earn on their backs.

His frustration and sense of urgency growing, he’d come back to his motel room each night and logged onto the Internet, first scanning newspapers nationwide for reports of unidentified female bodies or abandoned babies, a knot of dread in his chest. Then, once he was reasonably sure Megan and Emily hadn’t been found dead in a ditch, he’d spent a few hours trying to crack the DOC database. Unfortunately, the latter was far beyond his pathetic IT abilities. He’d looked into hiring a real hacker, but he would’ve had to rob a bank first, and that went beyond his criminal ambitions, at least at this point.