Renee felt light-headed, and for a moment she was sure she was going to pass out. Renee? Had he just called her Renee? How did he know?
Alex turned to John. “Don’t you know who this woman is?” The room went deathly still. John didn’t move. He merely stared at his brother, keeping his cool, but she knew it was a hard-won battle. She held her breath, trembling with apprehension, because she knew his back was against the wall. What would he tell his brother?
“Yes. I know who she is.”
“No, I don’t think you do,” Alex said. “She’s an armed robbery suspect. She skipped bail days ago.”
“I told you I know who she is,” John said sharply.
“Then what the hell is going on here?”
“Renee,” John said, his gaze never leaving his brother. “Go to the bedroom.”
“John—”
“I said go. Now.” His voice was low and intense, with a commanding quality to it that said she didn’t dare disobey. She set the plates down on the counter top and left the kitchen, but instead of going all the way to the bedroom, she stopped halfway down the hall and leaned against the wall, where she could hear everything the two men said.
“Let me get this straight,” Alex said. “You know she’s an armed robber, and yet—”
“Alleged armed robber.”
“Don’t dump that semantics crap on me, John. This is the woman you sat down with your family at Sunday lunch, knowing who she was?”
“I didn’t ask for that. That was Sandy’s doing.”
“But you didn’t think twice about lying to everyone, did you?”
“You don’t know the whole story.”
“I know all I need to know. I was there the night they brought her in on that armed-robbery rap.”
John’s voice held steady. “She’s innocent.”
“You think so, huh? Well, maybe you’ll think twice when I tell you this. When I saw her that night, I happened to remember a certain little juvenile delinquent I arrested several years ago on a public-intoxication charge. How could I forget her? She dumped beer all over my shoes.”
Renee bit back a gasp. Was it possible? Had John’s brother been the patrol cop who had picked her up all those years ago? He was a detective now, but he wouldn’t have been back then, and he clearly remembered the incident… Oh, God.
He was the one. And he was John’s brother. She didn’t remember seeing him the night of the robbery, but she’d been in such a daze when they brought her in that she didn’t recall much of anything.
“She has a juvenile record as long as your arm,” Alex went on. “Public intoxication was the very least of it. Then I looked up, and there she was again. Little Miss Bad Attitude, all grown up.”
“I know about that too,” John said, his voice escalating. “But I don’t care what she’s done in the past. She didn’t commit that robbery.”
“Don’t you get it? It doesn’t matter if she’s guilty or not. She jumped bail, you’re a cop, and she’s in your damned house! That’s the problem!”
Several seconds passed before Alex spoke again, and when he did, his voice took on a no-nonsense quality that made Renee shudder.
“Let me tell you something, John—she didn’t just have a bad attitude back then. She was one of the scary ones. She truly didn’t give a shit whether she got thrown in jail or not. People like that don’t change. They may hide it for a while, but it’s always there, waiting to surface. I don’t know if it’s genetic, or if it’s beaten into them from the time they’re old enough to talk, but it’s there, and you just can’t get rid of it.”
Alex’s description of the person Renee had once been was so accurate that she winced at every word. But that stupid teenage girl didn’t exist anymore. How would John ever convince him that she was dead and buried, and the woman who rose in her place would never even consider breaking the law?
“It doesn’t always happen like that,” John said, his voice quavering a bit. “People change.”
“Christ, John, haven’t we both seen it? Kids who were rotten to the core, who grew up and looked okay on the surface, only to end up in jail one more time because it’s all they know?”
“Renee’s not like that!”
“Oh, she’s not? Do you think it’s just a coincidence that she’s accused of armed robbery? It’s never a coincidence. They’re always running around with the wrong people. They never break that habit. Then they end up acting it out all over again, committing bigger and bigger crimes. It never ends.”
Renee slid down the wall and sat on the floor, her knees tucked up to her chest, wanting desperately to cover her ears against Alex’s accusations. But she couldn’t. She had to know what she was up against. What they were up against.
Please, John. Please don’t give in. Please…
For several seconds neither man spoke. Renee hugged her knees against her chest and waited, her heart thudding in a sluggish, heavy rhythm. As long as John stood by her, everything would be okay. She could take anything. She could walk through hell doused in gasoline if only he stood by her.
“Listen to me, Alex,” John said. “I talked to the victim. She’s half-nuts. Her positive identification of Renee is a crock. She’ll be discredited right off the bat. But something she said gave us a lead to find the real culprit.”
He went on to tell Alex about their speculation that the robber was actually a man. He told him about the talent show at Aunt Charlie’s, and about his plans to go there to look for someone who met the description that the victim gave them. Alex protested a time or two, but John cut him off, telling him it was their best hope of finding the person who actually committed the crime, and that he intended to go there tomorrow night.
“First of all,” Alex said sharply, “that’s such an incredible long shot that no cop in his right mind would chase it. And second of all, you’d be pursuing it in an unofficial capacity while harboring a fugitive. Do you want that coming down on your head?”
There was a pause. Too long a pause. And when John spoke again, she could feel his conviction slipping away. “I’ve got to try.”
“Come on, John! You’ve never been one of those spineless idiots who’ll throw away his entire career for a few hot rolls in the hay. You’ve always been above all that crap. You, me, Dave—we all have. So what’s going on now?”
John didn’t reply.
Alex lowered his voice. “Look. We’re all entitled to a bout of really bad judgment at least once. We’ll consider this yours. Just do the right thing, and we won’t have a problem here.”
“A problem? What are you saying?”
“You’ve got twenty-four hours. If you don’t take her in, I’m going to.”
“Are you telling me you’ll take her right out of my house?”
“I’m telling you I’m not going to have you ruin your career because of some hot little felon who’s got you wrapped around her finger!”
“It’s my career! This has nothing to do with you!”
“The hell it doesn’t! Think of the family. It’s not just you we’re talking about here. You get caught doing something like this, and it’ll come down on all our heads. What do you think Dad would say if he saw how you’re behaving now?”
Suddenly Renee remembered something Sandy had said about Alex, that he was the one who’d followed in their father’s footsteps. But she got the impression that their father had practiced his own no-extenuating-circumstances brand of justice, and that John had never lived up to it.
Renee slid her hand to her throat, feeling hot and breathless. Why wasn’t John telling Alex to go to hell? Why wasn’t he saying something more in her defense? Could it be because he cared more about his family’s opinion than he ever let on?
Could it be he was starting to believe Alex and not her?
It was Alex’s voice she heard next, and every syllable he spoke reverberated like a cell door clanging shut.
“Twenty-four hours, John. If you don’t do the right thing, I’m going to.”
She heard footsteps leaving the kitchen, the front door opening, then closing sharply. The noise sliced through her like a cold wind.
Then…silence.
She heard nothing from the kitchen. Absolutely nothing.
She sat in the hall, mentally begging John to come to her, to tell her that everything was going to be all right.
He didn’t.
All at once she felt as if she were drowning in a sea of desperation, and every second that passed added to the deluge. She didn’t know how much time passed—maybe three minutes, maybe four, but finally she got up off the floor and inched her way toward the kitchen.
John sat with his back to her, his elbows on the table and his hands clasped in front of him. She walked over tentatively and sat down beside him, resisting the urge to reach out, to touch him, to connect with him somehow, when she sensed things were going terribly, terribly wrong.
He wouldn’t look at her. Renee knew what that meant. She’d seen enough legal shows on television to know that when the jury didn’t look at the accused, it meant the news wasn’t good.
“I heard everything,” she said.
“Alex will be back in twenty-four hours. He wasn’t joking, Renee. You’ll go to jail.”
“Only if you let him take me.”
“I can’t stop him.”
“You can’t? Or you won’t?”
“Don’t you understand? He knows. He knows you’re a fugitive, and now…” He paused, shaking his head. “We can’t go on like this. Not with Alex knowing.”
“Do you still believe I’m innocent?”
He paused. “Yes.”
“But that doesn’t matter to you anymore?”
“Alex is right, Renee. This isn’t about whether you’re innocent or not. You shouldn’t even be here in the first place.”
She grasped his forearm. “I’m here because you know what will happen to me if I stand trial. They’ll convict me, John. They’ll put me in prison. They’ll take away my life for something I didn’t do. And even when I get out, I’ll have to carry that with me for the rest of my life!”
He spun around to face her. “Don’t you think I know what you’re facing? Do you think I want you to go to prison?”
“Then tell your brother to go to hell!”
“I can’t do that!”
An icy chill trickled down Renee’s spine. “Does this mean you’re going to take me to jail?”
He stared at her a long time, and she felt a rush of panic. Don’t let it end this way. Please. Not this way.
“No,” he said. “I’ll never do that, no matter what my brother says.”
Renee put her hand to her throat, feeling relief because of that at least. “But Alex—”
“Alex doesn’t make idle threats. If you’re here tomorrow night, he’ll take you in.”
“Then I won’t be here,” she said, trying to interject a note of hopefulness into her voice. “I’ll go somewhere else. Then you can go to the club tomorrow night and find the person who committed that robbery.”
“No. Alex was right. We’re never going to find the person who did this.”
“But when you came home tonight you said it was a possibility. You said you thought we had a good chance—”
“I was dreaming. We both were.”
“It’s my only hope!”
He just shook his head.
“Why don’t you try to talk to Alex again tomorrow?” she said. “After he cools off. Maybe you can make him see—”
“No,” John said sharply. “Even if I could talk Alex out of taking you to jail, as long as you’re here, we still have only two choices. Either you eventually give yourself up and risk going to prison, or we carry on as if you’re not an accused criminal and I’m not a cop, waiting for the day when we slip up and you end up going to prison, anyway. Now, which of those two do you think we ought to pick?”
Renee felt as if she were walking through a nightmare where nothing was real anymore, and behind every word, every phrase, every look John gave her was something grim and heart-wrenching.
“What are you saying?” she asked.
“You have to leave. Tonight.”
Renee’s whole body quivered with disbelief. He was slipping away from her. A feeling of hopelessness built up inside her until she wanted to scream.
“Just one more night, John,” she said, her voice choked. “Just let me stay tonight, and then—”
“There’s a motel up the road. I’ll take you there. It’ll give you a chance to think about what you’re going to do. Then tomorrow—”
“No!” she shouted. “I don’t want to go to a damned motel!”
His jaw tightened, his eyes drifting closed. “I know how you feel, but—”
“No! You don’t know how I feel! If you knew how I felt, you’d never be able to do this!”
He pushed his chair away from the table and stood up. She caught his arm. “John.”
She held on tightly, waiting until he looked down at her. She swallowed hard, trying to keep her tears at bay. “I thought there was something between us,” she whispered. “Was I wrong?”
For just a moment she saw a tiny shaft of light in his dark expression, something that told her that no matter what he said, she still had his heart. But just as quickly as she’d seen the light, it disappeared, and his expression fell into shadow once again.
“No. You weren’t wrong. There was something between us. And it was all based on a fantasy. We’ve got no future, and we were crazy to think we did.”
Every word he spoke in that cold, emotionless voice ripped her open a little bit more. He slid his arm from her grasp and strode out of the kitchen, leaving her sitting at the table, tears streaming down her face.
How could he do this? How could he abandon her now, when she needed him the most?
John took Renee to the motel he’d told her about, a cheap but decent establishment ten minutes from his house. They didn’t speak the entire time he drove, and the silence allowed Alex’s words to bombard the inside of his head over and over again.
It doesn’t matter if she’s guilty or not. She jumped bail, you’re a cop, and she’s in your damned house. That’s the problem!
The longer Alex had talked, the more John’s eyes had opened to the reality of the situation, a reality he hadn’t wanted to face. He’d been going along these past few days, thinking that if he wanted Renee badly enough, somehow things would work out all right. Listening to his brother, though, he’d realized the truth.
He’d screwed up. Royally.
Then he remembered what Dave had told him. You’ve got to quit getting so personally involved. Sooner or later it’s going to eat you alive.
Dave was right. His lack of objectivity was a cross he’d borne since he first became a cop. It had gotten him exiled to east Texas, and it had gotten him into this situation now.
He didn’t look at Renee. He didn’t even glance at her, but he’d become so involved with her that he could feel every breath she took. He could feel her anxiety. Her fear. And it had clouded his judgment to the point that he didn’t even know what professional objectivity was anymore.
What do you think Dad would say if he saw how you’re behaving now?
Alex’s accusation had been right on target. If their father were here, he’d be wearing that expression that was so familiar, a look of disgust and disappointment that said John hadn’t lived up to his expectations. He never had, not from the beginning, and certainly not now. He’d always been the one to ask questions when their father’s word was supposed to be law. He’d been the one to challenge authority and get slapped down for it. He had the eeriest feeling that his father was looking down from heaven right now, and he didn’t much like what he saw. And the mere thought of that sent a chill down John’s spine.
It wasn’t as if he had any delusions about his father. Joseph DeMarco had been ruthlessly strict and heartlessly demanding, insisting that his sons live up to unreasonable standards. So why was he still beating himself up every time he fell short of his father’s expectations?
Deep down, he knew the answer. Because his father had died before he could do that one thing that would make the old man proud.
He pulled into a parking space near the garishly lit motel lobby and put the car in park. He shouldn’t have brought her there tonight. He should have waited until the light of day, when things wouldn’t have looked so desolate to her. But he’d been afraid that if she stayed with him one more night, she’d end up in his arms again and he wouldn’t have been able to bring her here at all.
He was going to catch hell from Alex tomorrow night when he showed up and found Renee gone. But no matter what his brother had told him to do, he couldn’t be the one to turn her in. As much as he wanted to right the wrongs he’d committed, taking her to jail when he knew she was innocent would haunt him forever. This way, at least he could hold on to the hope that maybe she’d managed to escape somewhere and live a halfway decent life.
She reached for the door handle.
“Renee,” he said. “Wait.” He pulled out his wallet.
“I have money,” she said quietly. “Paula let me borrow five hundred dollars.”
He held out a handful of bills to her. “Take it anyway.”
“I don’t want anything from you.”
He held the money out a moment more, but when it became clear that she wasn’t going to take it, he stuffed it back into his wallet and tossed it onto the dashboard. He desperately wanted to do something for her, knowing all the while that what she really needed from him he just couldn’t give her.
“So what happens when Alex shows up tomorrow and I’m gone?” she asked. “What will he do to you?”
“He won’t do anything to me. He won’t like it, but if you’re gone, it’ll all be over with.”
“For you, maybe. Not for me.”
She put her hand on the door again, then stopped. For several seconds she didn’t move. Then slowly she turned back around, her eyes filling with tears again, shimmering softly in the dim light.
“I’m so scared.”
At the sound of those faint, whispered words, John had to fight the urge to pull her back into his arms, to make more promises he couldn’t keep, to tell her everything was going to be all right when he knew that nothing was ever going to be right for her again.
“What should I do?” she asked.
“Run.”
She swallowed hard. “I haven’t got any way to run. I don’t have my car, or—”
“Call Paula. She’ll help you.”
“Is there any way, if I turn myself in—”
“No. Right now there’s enough evidence that if you’re arrested, chances are good you’ll go to prison. If you stay in town and Leandro catches up to you, after what you did to him this time, he may decide to take his own revenge.” He paused, feeling an overpowering desire to kiss her tears away instead of causing more. “Run as far and as fast as you can.”
“Maybe I’ll call you. When I get where I’m going. Maybe—”
“No. Don’t call. Don’t write. I don’t want to know where you are. It’s—” He stopped, then expelled a weary breath. “It’s better for both of us.”
She nodded slowly. “Do you want to hear something crazy?” she asked, with a small, humorless laugh.
“What’s that?”
“I think I was starting to fall in love with you.”
John closed his eyes, wishing to God she’d never said that. How was he going to spend the rest of his life knowing she was out there somewhere, remembering him as the man she might have loved if he hadn’t turned his back on her?
She opened the door, slipped out of the car, and walked away. She never looked back. And she was never going to know that maybe, just maybe, he was starting to fall in love with her, too.
He watched her approach the desk in the brightly lit lobby and ask for a room. He waited until he saw the clerk hand her a key, then jammed his car into gear and left the motel parking lot, thinking what an incredible fool he’d been the night he’d turned away from the police station and gotten involved with her in the first place. Thinking how cold and lonely that house of his was going to feel without Renee in it.
Thinking that there wasn’t any possible way he could hate himself more.