Officer in Pursuit (25 page)

Sasha and Grey both shut up. Sasha
still looked annoyed, but Grey… He was looking toward Kerry, his
gaze locking with hers.

She felt a sudden wave of warmth, a
happiness that put cracks in her guilty conscience. She was glad to
have him there, no matter how much he and Sasha bickered, or how
bad his breath smelled. She was glad to have them both – almost
unbearably so. She’d never had anyone like them back in
Kentucky.

She’d finally found the kind of people
she’d longed for all her life, and she could hardly believe they
were real. But her mistakes had followed her across state lines,
and now, her heart broke when she considered that her past might
hurt them too.

She couldn’t let that
happen.

* * * * *

The sun seemed unbearably bright when
Kerry walked out of the hospital with Grey and Sasha by her side.
Sunglasses would’ve been nice, but hers were back in North
Carolina, in the glove box of her wrecked car.

“You okay?” Grey asked. He was holding
her good hand.

“Yeah. It’s just bright out here,
that’s all.”

“We’ll be in the car soon and you can
put the sun visors down. We parked in the closest space I could
find.”

She was glad to settle into Grey’s
car. Sasha insisted that Kerry take the front passenger seat, and
Grey insisted on driving – all the way back, he said.

It was just past noon, and Kerry was
unbelievably glad to leave Mercer County behind. It was a beautiful
place, with steep mountains swathed in the rust and gold of fall
foliage, but she felt like she’d been abducted by aliens, left on a
strange planet. She just wanted to be home.

Besides, the Appalachian landscape
reminded her of Kentucky. One of the things she’d loved about Riley
County, from the moment she’d first arrived there, was how
different it looked. Flat and warm, with postcard-perfect palm
trees and flowers everywhere. She loved it, for its beauty and for
its sharp contrast to Eastern Kentucky.

It was a place she’d chosen; it was
hers. The sand and sun and palms – even the swamps and scorching
summer heat – were physical manifestations of the very first
decision she’d ever truly made for herself, without being coerced,
manipulated or bullied. Though she’d been 24 when she’d come to
Cypress, she couldn’t help but feel that that was when she’d truly
become an adult – a woman of her own – no matter what her parents
had said.

“The mountains here are gorgeous,”
Sasha said as Grey pulled out of the hospital parking lot. “We
don’t have leaves like this at home.”

Kerry murmured something in response,
agreeing as her mind cycled through the last several hours – seeing
the police officers who’d questioned her the day before again, then
finally being discharged by the doctor.

The first thing she’d asked the
officers was whether Brad had been found yet. He hadn’t, although
they’d assured her that they were looking for him, and law
enforcement in his home town had been alerted too, in case he
showed up there.

That didn’t give Kerry much
reassurance. The little coal mining town where Brad lived – where
she’d spent the worst years of her life, with him – wasn’t exactly
a bastion of justice. The police there were what Grey had described
them as: ‘good ol’ boys’. So was Brad. She couldn’t be sure they’d
look too hard for him.

Which meant that she was back at the
drawing board, with fresh scars.

She glanced sidelong at Grey, who was
quickly putting distance between them and the hospital, the little
town where her nightmares had briefly become reality. She’d kept
him at an arm’s length for so long, and now, she couldn’t help but
think it would’ve been kindest and smartest to have continued, to
have spared him all of this.

But where would she be now, if she’d
done that? She’d have Sasha, sure. And she appreciated her just as
much as she did Grey. But her heart longed for something more than
friendship, no matter how profound. For someone like Grey. Even
after all she’d been through, and the way she’d endangered
him.

Was that wrong? Did she deserve a
chance like this, even if Grey knew the risks and was
unafraid?

* * * * *

Little pieces of glass clinked
together like bloody wind chimes as they were dropped into the
metal bowl.

“I’m almost done,” said Tanya,
Michael’s wife. “Just a couple more to go now.”

Brad clenched his teeth as she dug at
his face with the pink-handled tweezers again. Damn, having the
bottle pieces removed from his face hurt like a son of a bitch –
like she was pulling out his teeth, straight through his
face.

He had to hold a kitchen towel under
his jaw to catch the blood that streamed from his cheeks, lips and
chin.

“This is a little’un.” Tanya’s hand
trembled, and it felt like she was cutting him open all over
again.

“God damn it!” Brad said through
clenched teeth. His ass was going numb against one of her kitchen
chairs, but his face seemed to have no maximum capacity for
pain.

“Easy, Tanya,” said Brad’s brother.
“It’s his damn face you’re butchering. Use your head.”

“Sorry.” She pursed her lips. “I’m
being as careful as I can. I’m almost done.”

A part of Brad itched to give her a
sharp smack across the face, a little taste of her own medicine.
But he didn’t dare go to the hospital, and he couldn’t just walk
around with a face full of glass.

“We have Aspirin in the medicine
cabinet,” she said when she’d finally extracted the almost
microscopic shard of glass. “Have you taken any yet,
Brad?”

“Of course I fuckin’ have. I’ve got a
broken whiskey bottle sticking out of my face, don’t I?” He could
speak freely now that she wasn’t jamming those damned tweezers in
his face.

She frowned. “Hold still now, and
we’ll be done soon.”

He clenched his jaw and let her get
back to work, hating her. By the time she finished, a creeping
blackness was giving him tunnel vision and blood was dripping from
the towel. He lost track of time and recoiled when Tanya pressed a
wet towel against his face.

“We don’t want your cuts to get
infected,” she said. “This is the most important part.”

She used a cotton ball to slather his
face in some generic drug store goo after that, leaving him with a
sticky mask. His face hurt so badly in some places that he couldn’t
believe she’d gotten all the glass out. “You sure you didn’t leave
any behind?”

“I don’t think so. I did my best. Does
it still hurt?”

“Yeah, it fuckin’ hurts!” He stood up
and threw the bloody towel down on the kitchen floor.

Instantly, he was dizzy.

Tanya grabbed his arm, scratching him
with her long, fake nails.

He shook her off and fell back into
the seat.

“Here.” Michael pressed something cold
and wet into his hand – a beer. “Tanya, go make up a bed for Brad
on the couch.”

It hurt to drink, but Brad did it
anyway.

“It true you found Kerry, after all
these years?” Michael asked as Tanya scuttled off.

Condensation from the beer can ran
over Brad’s fingers like the blood trickling down his neck. “Yeah,
I found her.”

Michael stared for a while at Brad’s
face. “Looks like she wasn’t worth looking for, if you ask
me.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking
about.” Brad jerked his head in the direction Tanya had gone and
immediately regretted it. “Would you let her go if she’d done this
to you?”

“She wouldn’t,” Michael said. “She
knows better.”

“Yeah well, Kerry will know better by
the time I’m done with her.”

“You still want her back?”

“Why the hell wouldn’t I? She’s my
damn wife. I’m not gonna let her run around on me, no matter how
worthless of a bitch she is. She’s gonna give me what she owes
me.”

Michael cracked the tab on a beer of
his own. “She just doesn’t seem worth it is all. Especially not if
you might get harassed by the law. There are plenty of other
women.”

“Fuck the law. I don’t care what the
police in West Virginia are doing. I’m bringing her here, and I’ll
make sure she never presses any charges on me.”

Tanya came back into the room,
carrying a fresh towel. “Your bed’s all made up, Brad. I’ll have
dinner ready in a few. We’re having pork chops. You let me know if
you want me to grab you another beer.”

Tanya really wasn’t that bad. She’d
gotten fat over the years and she definitely wasn’t getting any
younger, but she knew her place and Brad had never seen her give
Michael any lip. Why the hell couldn’t Kerry be like that? Why did
she make life so hard for him, and for herself?

He didn’t want to spend his time
chasing her around and teaching her lessons, he really didn’t. But
she made him. Everything she’d ever had the nerve to complain
about, she’d done to herself.

* * * * *

By the time Grey got Kerry home, it
seemed like he’d lived an entire extra lifetime within the past 24
hours. Her house was familiar, but things had changed.

He double-locked the door behind them
as she watched. “Have a seat on the couch. I’ll go look around –
check all the windows. You just relax.”

She sank onto the couch, and though
she sat up straight against the cushions, squarely in the middle,
he could see how tired she was.

The drive had been long, and they’d
dropped Sasha off before coming here. No one had slept well the
night before, and he knew Kerry wouldn’t sleep well now unless she
felt safe. It wouldn’t be easy – for obvious reasons – but he’d try
to give her a feeling of security.

One by one, he checked every window,
making sure they were securely locked, their panes uncracked. There
was nothing amiss.

“Thank you,” she said when he walked
back into the living room. “For checking, and for coming to get me.
For everything.”

“Hey, I owed you, remember? This is me
making up for when you babysat me after Bigfoot
attacked.”

That won him a small smile. “Somehow,
it feels like you’ve gone above and beyond repaying me for that.
Besides, you know what?”

“What?”

“I was secretly glad to have you
here.”

“I’m going to need you to put that in
writing. Or maybe make a recorded statement.”

Her smile flickered back into
place.

“Do you want me to stay now,
Kerry?”

“I do, but I feel guilty.
After—”

She was interrupted by a knock at the
door. She nearly leapt off the couch, and even he
twitched.

“I’ll see who it is.”

He hurried to the door before she
could get up.

“It’s Jeremy,” he said after checking
through the peep hole.

“Oh.” She sounded relieved, but her
expression was nervous – it was obvious she was biting her inner
lip. “I wonder if he has news. Maybe Brad’s been
caught.”

Grey opened the door. “Hey,
man.”

“Come in,” Kerry called from behind
him, a slight tremor to her voice.

Jeremy nodded and stepped inside,
looking dead serious. The grim expression had settled onto his face
over the summer and seemed stuck.

“Kerry. Grey.” He nodded at both of
them. “I’m glad to see you back in Riley County. It’s a hell of a
thing, what happened, and I’m sorry you had to go through it.
Anyway, I’ve got news.”

Kerry had risen from the couch. Now,
she sat back down. “Is it about Brad?”

“It’s about the crash. We towed your
car from the site and had a mechanic look it over. Someone damaged
your brake lines.”

Grey thought he was done being mad, if
for no other reason than he’d exhausted his capacity for anger over
the past 24 hours. But hearing Jeremy’s news gave him a second
wind, set his jaw on edge and made his spine prickle with
anger.

“Do you remember what it was like
driving your car yesterday morning? Did you have any problems with
stopping? Was your brake light on?”

Kerry shook her head. “I don’t
remember seeing the light. I did hydroplane shortly after I started
my drive, though. It took me a while to stop, but I thought it was
because of the rain. As for the crash… I’m sorry, I don’t remember
it very well.”

Jeremy nodded.

“I’m gonna go out on a limb here,”
Grey said, “and say that the person who messed with her brakes was
the same asshole who abducted her.”

It all made sense now – how Brad had
conveniently been at the scene of the crash, ready to swoop down on
Kerry and take her away. Meanwhile, she’d probably been too
disoriented and injured by the crash to realize what was happening,
let alone escape.

What a fucking coward. Everything Grey
learned about the man and the way he operated made him hate him
more.