Outlaw Justice (Decorah Security Series, Book #13): A Paranormal Romantic Suspense Novella (4 page)

Clever move, Steve though. If you wanted the cops to help find your runaway wife, accuse her of a crime. Hoping he was keeping any emotion out of his face. “What makes you think she’s here?”

“Her husband thought she might be.”

“Why?”

“You used to know her, right?”

“Yeah, but I haven’t seen her in years.”

Campbell, who was doing all the talking asked, “What are you doing here?”

“The last tenant who rented the house trashed the place. Before I put the property on the market, I have to evaluate the damage.”

“Mind if we come in?”

“Yes, I do mind.”

“You’re not being cooperative.”

“I’m a former Baltimore City cop and now work for Decorah Security. I know when I have to cooperate and when I don’t.”

Both men looked disgruntled when they realized their status wasn’t enough of an intimidation tactic, but they knew Steve was within his rights to deny them access to the interior.

Campbell gave him a curt nod and backed away. Steve shut the door and watched them through the window. As soon as they’d stepped off the porch, he started for the back of the house.

Leah was already in the hall, looking scared.

“Did you hear that?” he asked.

“Yes. It’s a lie. I never assaulted Warren. But I guess he made it sound plausible.” She gulped. “What am I going to do now?”

“We’re getting the hell out of here. Grab your stuff.”

“I don’t have much.”

She zipped up her bag and he took it from her. When he glanced out the window again, he saw the two officers heading for the garage—where they were going to find a car with a license plate that belonged to Warren Pendelton.

Outside, Steve pulled his keys from his pocket and reached for Leah with his free hand.

“Hurry.”

He hustled her across the weedy lawn toward his SUV, which was parked at the curb—thankfully in front of the police cruiser.

Leah slid into the front seat and closed her door. He had just closed the driver’s side door when Campbell shouted, “Hold up.”

Were they going to shoot, he wondered as he jammed the car into gear and took off.

In the rearview mirror, he saw the two officers pelting for their cruiser. Too bad he hadn’t had time to let the air out of their tires.

He drove straight down the street, then took the second right, hoping he remembered his way around the area.

Beside him, Leah was hunched down with her arms wrapped around her shoulders.

“Tell me how far behind they are.”

She swiveled in her seat. “They haven’t taken the turn yet.”

“Good.”

He made a left, just missing a car at the next cross street.

“Warren’s lying,” Leah repeated what she’d said in the house.

“I know.”

“How?”

“Because I know you’re trustworthy.”

“I could have changed.”

“Are you trying to get me to stop and wait for the cops to catch up?”

“It would be better for you. This way you’re—what do they call it—an accessory after the fact.”

“We’ll prove you didn’t do anything besides escape from an abusive marriage.”

“How?”

“I don’t know yet.”

He made it out of town and slowed down a little after turning onto one of the country roads that crisscrossed the area. Hopefully the state cops would have a much less intimate knowledge of the immediate surroundings.

Leah gave him a doubtful look. “You’re getting yourself in trouble.”

He shrugged and kept driving, taking a twisting route through the corn and alfalfa fields, making sure that the patrol car hadn’t picked up his trail. When he got to a familiar section of the county, he drove off the blacktop onto a dirt road.

“Where are we going?”

“Out of here.”

He pulled up in back of a gray weathered house that was next to one of the many rivers in the area.

A stoop-shouldered gray-haired man wearing faded jeans and a tee shirt that said Rehoboth Beach came out when he heard the vehicle. He was holding a shotgun.

“He’s armed,” Leah gasped.

“He’s cautious. Wait here,” Steve answered.

He got out, watching the old guy watch him as he approached.

“Jerry,” he called out.

“Steve Outlaw?”

“The same.”

“What you doin’ back here?” he asked, shifting the barrel of the weapon downward.

“I need to rent a boat, and I need to stow my car,” he said, gesturing toward the SUV.

“You in trouble?”

“You could say that. I’ll pay cash for the rental.”

He pulled out his wallet and extracted two fifties. “Will this do?”

“Yeah.”

Turning back to the SUV, Steve motioned to Leah, who got out of the vehicle and waited while he drove it into a barn out back and closed the doors.

“Jerry, this is my friend Leah,” he said. “Leah, Jerry.”

“Nice to meet you,” they both said, each of them eyeing the other with curiosity.

“Leah ran into a little trouble. If two state cops come looking for her, it’s better if you never saw us.”

The old man didn’t ask what kind of trouble. He simply led them down to a small but well-kept wooden boat dock where several craft were moored.

“Where are you goin’?”

“Better if I don’t say.”

“How do I get my boat back?”

“I’ll phone you after we tie up.”

Jerry considered the arrangement, then said, “Only for you,”

“Appreciate it.”

The old man led them to a sleek model with an inboard motor, a long back deck and a small enclosed area at the front. Steve helped Leah onto the deck, then directed her under the canopy. Jerry and Steve talked for a few minutes about the craft’s operation before he started the engine. Then the older man climbed back onto the dock and cast off the line.

Steve motored slowly down river until they were well clear of the dock, then throttled up the engine.

“Where are we going?” Leah asked.

“Baltimore. Decorah Security has a couple of slips in Fells Point,” he said, naming an older part of the city on the Inner Harbor. It was where the police station in the TV show,
Homicide,
had been filmed.

“How do you know Jerry?”

“He and my father used to fish crab together. After dad passed, Jerry kept in touch with me. He’d take me out fishing, and sometimes we’d spend the night on one of his boats.”

“I never met your father.”

“He died of lung cancer when I was ten. I figure he got it from the asbestos floating around where he worked in a shipbuilding factory.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“He was a good dad. I always wonder if I would have turned out differently if he’d lived.” He turned toward her. “I never met your parents, either.”

“I kept you away from them because they would have considered you way below their social level—and hanging out with the right people was important to them.”

“And they approved of Warren.”

“Yes, but after his initial charm campaign, he kept us away from them. I think now that he didn’t want me running back home if I needed help.”

“Nice.”

“And like I told you, Dad’s dead now, and Mom’s in a nursing home.”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t say thanks for getting me out of there.”

“I wasn’t going to turn you over to those guys, and of course, they might not even
be
cops.”

She gave him a startled look. “How could they not be cops?”

“Well, either Warren lied to the police, or he hired actors to play the parts.”

“And put them in a cop car?”

“Or one from a movie company. I don’t really know which.”

“You said you trusted me. I want everything out in the open. I told you I was squirreling away some money.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “And before I left, I did take some money from his wallet—but since I was married to him, I think it’s my money, too.”

“Yeah.”

She dragged in a breath and let it out. “But I didn’t assault him. It was the other way around. And I didn’t steal anything from the house—which is how I think he was making it sound.”

“Right.”

“I mean what would I do with any of his stuff?”

“Sell it?”

She laughed. “Don’t you have to give ID at a pawn shop?”

“Uh huh.”

“Well, that leaves me to sell on a street corner.”

He nodded, believing her and thinking that Pendelton had made her departure seem as bad as possible.

As they approached the Baltimore Harbor, Steve said, “Go below. It’s better if people only see a guy on this boat—not a couple.”

“Right.”

Leah went down to the lower level, and Steve motored toward one of the Fells Point piers. After one of the nearby boat owners attached the line for him, Steve went down and called Decorah Security on the company’s secure line.

Frank answered, and before Steve could say anything, his boss warned, “The cops came here. They’ll looking for you and Leah.”

“Shit.”

“Don’t stay on the line. We see your location from your phone. Turn it off. You can pick up the car that’s parked near the Visionary Arts Museum.”

“Thanks.”

When he clicked off, he saw Leah staring at him.

“It looks like you got some bad news.”

“Yeah. That was Frank Decorah, my boss. He says the cops came there looking for us, which means that we can’t go to a Decorah safe house because I can’t implicate them in this.”

“I understand,” she said in a thin voice. “Warren was pretty clever—the way he cut me off from help.”

“Yeah. But you have me. And there’s a Decorah car in the area.”

“Why?”

“One of Frank’s contingency plans. It’s across the harbor. But before we go over there, you probably want to buy a hat and maybe a different shirt from one of the shops on Broadway.” He thought for a moment. “Actually, I could use a change of clothes and a toothbrush.”

“You think the cops know we’re here?” she asked.

“I hope not, but I’m not taking any chances.”

Steve made a quick call to Jerry to tell him where the boat was moored. From the dock, they walked over to a funky apparel shop where Leah bought a loose-fitting gauze shirt and a wide-brimmed sun hat and Steve picked up an Orioles cap and a dark tee shirt. There was a dollar store a few doors down where he bought a cheap carry bag, underwear, and a toothbrush. After changing in the rest rooms, they took the water taxi across the harbor to the street below Federal Hill where the Decorah car was parked.

Steve stooped down to get the keys from the right front wheel well. Once he’d opened the car, he reached into the glove compartment where he found an envelope with a thousand dollars in small bills.

Leah eyed the money

“Decorah leaves that kind of cash lying around?”

“Yeah, they figure that if you need to pick up a car, you might not be able to use your credit card either.”

“What would we have done without a car?”

“Maybe stolen one.”

“Seriously?”

“If it was my only option.”

“And the money? Were you going to rob someone?”

He laughed. “I don’t think I’d go that far.”

“But you’re not sure?”

“Let’s be glad Decorah came through for us.”

“It sounds like you hooked up with an interesting outfit.”

“I thank my lucky stars that Frank Decorah found me.”

“How?”

He laughed. “In a bar. He started a conversation with me, and I realized it wasn’t just a coincidence.”

“Are you going to tell me more about that?”

“When we’ve got the time.”

As he drove away from the parking spot, she asked, “What now?”

“We need to get off the street.”

Steve had been a cop in this city, much of the time patrolling Pig Town, a working class area in the southwest section of the city. It had gotten its name in the second half of the nineteenth century when it was filled with butcher shops and slaughterhouses.

Now it was a mixed neighborhood of condos, apartments and typical Baltimore row houses, some with original brick facades and others modernized with the artificial mica-specked stone that was popular in the fifties and sixties.

Steve headed for the older section of town and cruised slowly down a street of row houses. He slowed when he saw The Hot Spot bar.

“It’s a little rough in there,” he told Leah. “But they have rooms upstairs for rent.”

As he spoke, the door of the Hot Spot opened and two guys came out, swinging at each other. One turned and fled. The other took off after him.