It only took a second to catch his breath. He loosened his death grip on the steering wheel and activated the siren with one hand while motioning for her to pull over with the other.
Her blue eyes widened in innocent surprise.
Innocent? Not a chance. He’d been hunting her from the moment his partner, Max, had been shot in cold blood during a convenience-store robbery right in Sarasota Falls.
She’d been the passenger, not the driver, back then. Her boyfriend, Jeremy Salinas, was a punk kid who’d been sent to Sarasota Falls to live with his aunt. The idea had been that maybe a small town would be good for him.
That hadn’t quite worked out.
Rachel hadn’t pulled the trigger, but according to the witness, she’d been the distraction.
Every bit as guilty.
Watching Rachel’s every move—no way was she escaping this time—he radioed in a 10-29 so his men would know where he was and what he was doing, then, not even giving her an inch, he motioned for her to pull over.
If she tried to lose him, he’d use his car as a weapon.
He cared that much.
She carefully coasted to a stop on the shoulder, apparently pretending to be nothing other than a law-abiding citizen.
How could Rachel seem this safe or look even remotely carefree? Obviously, she didn’t recognize him. Well, he’d enjoy nothing more than shoving a photo of his partner in her face. He’d make sure it was an eight-by-twelve complete with Max’s wife and kids. He intended to tattoo their likenesses on Rachel’s brain. He wanted to remind her of what she’d destroyed. She hadn’t just killed a cop, she’d helped erase a husband, son, brother...
* * *
HEATHER GRAVES DIDN’T feel at home in Sarasota Falls, New Mexico, and doubted she ever would. Already she missed her job working as a dental assistant in Phoenix.
She’d been safe there.
She wasn’t so sure she was safe here.
Friday, two full weeks ago, had been her last day of work. She’d spent the next few days packing up her parents’ house—she’d let it go too long, even paying rent on a home with no occupants—keeping only what had memories for her, like a train clock that had a different whistle for every hour. No matter where they lived, she’d grown up with the sound.
When she’d finished, she gave the house keys to the rental company and her own apartment key to her best friend, Sabrina. Sabrina thought Heather was foolish. Heather figured Sabrina was right.
Heather had been in Sarasota Falls ever since, renting a room at Bianca’s Bed-and-Breakfast, a quaint older house that came with a happy, somewhat mothering proprietress.
Yes, she was foolish, but she also liked to think of herself as brave. According to the lawyer who’d reviewed her parents’ will with her, she now owned a farmhouse in this town, one with the same tenant for the last twenty-five years.
Her parents had acquired the farm and acres around it when she was a little over one year old. Yet, to her memory, neither they nor she had ever stepped foot in Sarasota Falls. The lawyer had provided the name of the local company that handled collecting the rent as well as maintaining its upkeep. Apart from her parents’ basic details, the leasing office wasn’t much help.
Heather kept trying every avenue, though, because she had a lot of questions and knew of very few people who might have the answers.
She’d also gone out to the farmhouse and knocked on the door. No one answered. It looked empty; it felt unloved. It didn’t look like the type of house her city-loving parents would invest in. There was too much land, the location was too remote.
Bill and Melanie Graves had gone up in a helicopter to tour the Pacific coastline to celebrate their twenty-seventh wedding anniversary. She and her dad had planned it. Mom had said it was her dream. Dad’s dream, too, then.
Thirty minutes later, a sudden electrical storm had hit. No one on board survived.
In the space of minutes, she’d lost the only people who loved her, who applauded her, who thought she was the best thing that had ever happened. Period.
Everything was passed down to her: their belongings, both their cars and their secrets.
It was the secrets that had inspired the move, not the rental house. She might have been able to wrap her mind around them having property she didn’t know about. Might being the operative word. She’d have still investigated and tried to figure out why.
But soon after visiting the lawyer’s office, armed with their death certificates, she’d gone to her parents’ bank to close their account and was asked if she was aware that her parents also had a safe-deposit box.
No, she hadn’t been aware.
The steel drawer was long, hard and half-full. It contained the deed to the property in Sarasota Falls, her dad’s discharge papers as well as a bible, two birth certificates, a marriage license and two old drivers’ licenses.
She doubted the cop, who’d suddenly appeared behind her, would take her angst over family issues as a good excuse for her meandering style of driving. Surely, though, he had better things to do than pull her over for a warning.
She couldn’t shake the memory of standing in the bank’s vault, the safe-deposit box open in front of her, and finding the identification: the photos on the drivers’ licenses were of her parents.
The photos, not the names.
THE COUNTRYSIDE HEATHER was driving past was stunning—it was mostly grazing land, and a few small homes with long driveways nestled between trees with their leaves still green but turning yellow, orange and brown as the October weather took control. She tried to focus on the giant pines because what wasn’t stunning was the cop who was beside her, staring. His siren was screeching and he was frantically motioning to the side of the road.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” she murmured as she pulled over. She hadn’t been speeding that much. Her tags were current and her cell phone was in her purse, not plastered against her ear or in her hands while she texted.
Rolling down her window, Heather waited while the cop did his thing. Boy, he looked stoic sitting back there in his chief-of-police SUV. The siren hadn’t been enough for this officer, as his rapid do-or-die gestures actually had Heather considering her gas pedal and showing him what speeding really looked like.
That would have been a mistake.
What was taking him so long? She wanted to drive by the rental property, see if she could meet the tenant and visit a local farm that advertised a country store, a petting zoo and more. Then she would return to Bianca’s Bed-and-Breakfast, enjoy a hot bath and relax. Maybe even visit with Bianca a bit and discreetly ask about her parents.
This cop—or chief of police, as his vehicle indicated—was slow. Although Heather knew she should stay in the car, this wasn’t Phoenix, it was Sarasota Falls, so she pushed open the door. In a flash, the cop was out of his vehicle and striding toward her. He made it to her car in seconds, kicked her door shut before she could step out and looked through her open window.
Okay, time to get worried.
She swallowed, trying to push back the fear threatening to surface. “What’s the problem, Officer?” She twisted, trying to get a good look at the man who stood next to her car.
“Put both hands on the steering wheel.”
“What?”
“Both hands on the steering wheel. Now.”
“But—but, why? What’s going on?”
“Don’t.