The Price He Paid Page 14

  And that story was all that could save him.

  For a second, David let himself contemplate options he had never countenanced before. He could go now, today, make his way out of the country by whatever means necessary. He was strong, he could work, he could make money to send to his mother secretly and to repay Callie for the bail she had posted.

  Maybe Callie would even join him. They could start all over. Create the life they had begun to imagine as teenagers. They were older now, but still young enough to have a rich, full life.

  Mexico. The Caribbean. Callie had no roots, no one to belong to. Maybe she would. Maybe…

  Who was he kidding? She was an officer of the court, a prosecutor. She actually believed in the system that had nearly destroyed him. She would want him to stay, to fix this mess with Carson. To fight for him, even though doing so would cost her. David didn’t know exactly what she faced back in Philadelphia, but he had a strong sense that she couldn’t afford to ally her cause with his.

  He had a past he couldn’t reveal and a future that was untenable. His mother was rooted in Oak Hollow, and taking her away would kill her. Even if a miracle happened and he was cleared this time, the town was full of Mickey Carsons who would never forgive him for the death of Ned Compton.

  Circles, always circles leading right back to one fateful night, one life-altering decision he would not change even if he could.

  Callie sighed in her sleep. David rose to one elbow to peer down at her, wishing he could afford to touch her, taste her, love her again and again. He would never tire of her. Never get his fill.

  Never have the words to tell her what this night had meant, even if he had the luxury of waiting for her to awaken.

  With regret and longing weighing down his heart, David rolled as quietly as he could manage and slipped from Callie’s bed.

  They could never repeat this. Somehow he had to make her leave, return to her life, save her career.

  She could be saved. He could not.

  And he refused to see her go down with him.

  I love you, he said silently as he stood over her, scanning her features once more while his heart ached.

  Then he slipped on his clothes and stole into the night.

  He drove away as quietly as possible and headed to his mother’s. The more he considered his situation, the more he was certain that he had to disappear. Callie would never give up unless he forced her away. Made her hate him.

  Believing he had jumped bail would make him guilty in everyone’s eyes, maybe even hers. Taking her money and leaving her high and dry ought to do the trick. She didn’t have to know that he would repay her if it took the rest of his life. Just getting her out of Oak Hollow and safe again was all that mattered now.

  His mother would understand, and he’d take care of her, too.

  Feeling a little more settled, he turned down the lane that led to his mother’s house, preoccupied with the logistics of where to go next and what to take.

  Too late, he saw Sheriff Carver’s car waiting for him.

  Desperation nearly got the better of him, urging him to throw the car in reverse and race from the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, even though this vehicle was nowhere near being up to a chase.

  It was also his mother’s only transportation, which she would need once he was back in jail.

  The sheriff stared at him as though he could read the temptation on David’s face.

  David shut off the car and got out. Stood in silence.

  The man, another of Ned Compton’s very close friends, surveyed him with contempt. Finally he spoke. “I have to ask you to come with me, Langley.”

  “What for?”

  “Got to ask you some questions about where you were last night.”

  “What’s wrong with asking me here?”

  One eyebrow arched. “’Cause the judge will likely be wanting to hear what you have to say. Might as well do it all at once.”

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “Not yet,” the sheriff responded. “Remains to be determined. Your mama tells me she hasn’t seen you since yesterday afternoon. Where you been, boy?”

  David spotted his mother standing white-faced and frozen in the doorway. “Don’t you involve her in this.”

  The man’s eyes narrowed. “You trying to tell me how to do my job? You want to make this hard, son, things can go south pretty quick. I believe I just might have probable cause to arrest you again, unless you’ve got information that would change my mind.”

  If she were here, Callie would be raising Cain about asking for his lawyer, but she wasn’t. Though backing off stuck in his craw, he didn’t want his mother exposed to any more violence. “I’m not after any trouble.”

  “Then you best start telling me what I want to know. Otherwise I just might decide to hold you until we can set up a hearing with the judge. You don’t want that, you talk to me.”

  David gritted his teeth. “What do you want to know?”

  “Where you were last night, for starters.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m asking the questions, boy. Where have you been?”

  “You tell me first what’s going on.” Had Carson said something? David didn’t want to be the first to bring up the altercation with Callie yesterday, but he couldn’t imagine what else this could be about. If that was the case, his only defense was Callie. He wouldn’t let her be dragged into this. “I think I’d better have Randy Capwell present.”

  “Fine.” The sheriff grabbed his elbow.

  David couldn’t help tensing, pulling back.

  The man’s eyes lit. “Now you’ve done it. Consider yourself under arrest. You have the right to remain silent…”

  A jolt of pure animal instinct shot through him, the urge to fight or run screaming in his head. He could not go back. Could not be locked up again.

  “David!” his mother cried out.

  Mindful of her, he brutally reined in the impulse to fight being shoved toward the sheriff’s vehicle.

  “What’s happening? What shall I do?” she pleaded.

  “Nothing, Mom.” He clawed for a hold on his composure. “I’ll be fine. Just go inside. I’ll be back soon.” He knew he was lying. It was all over for him. He settled into a leaden resignation.

  The only alternative was to lose his mind.

  But as the car pulled away, he heard his mother’s piteous cries. Saw her stagger, then run after them in a halting gait, her robe flapping loose as she clutched it in one hand. “Leave him alone!”

  The sound of her terror was all he could hear as they drove off.

  Callie stirred and blinked as sunlight slapped her eyes.

  Her lids flew wide as memory flared in her brain, and one palm covered her chest while the heartbeat beneath accelerated.

  Cautiously she glanced to the left.

  No one. Maybe she’d dreamed him.

  Delicious soreness in her body said otherwise. David had been here, really here, right beside her in Miss Margaret’s bed. Perhaps she should feel odd about all they’d done in the darkness where a sweet old woman had slept. But she didn’t. Callie grinned. She was almost certain Miss Margaret would approve. The older woman had liked David back then and apparently had still believed in him until she died. Miss Margaret’s own love affair had been cut short by tragedy, but maybe Callie and David could close the circle for her.

  Oh, good grief, her common sense intruded. You don’t live here, and how are you going to explain being involved with an ex-con to your boss? Especially, she sobered, when he was going to trial again.

  The night’s magic soured under the harsh light of truth. It was just good sex, a part of her lectured.

  No…it was great sex. Amazing, mind-bending stuff. Let the record so state, Your Honor. The man turned me inside out…and I’m pretty sure I did the same to him.

  But her heart twisted with a longing that wouldn’t die. It had been more, whatever this was between them. There was a tender lining benea
th the heat.

  So where was he? She glanced around and noticed his clothes were missing. She shouldn’t be surprised, she guessed, but she would have liked to wake up with him. Maybe make love again.

  For a moment she lost herself in reminiscing. A sweet shiver ran through her.

  Someone banged hard on the front door. “Callie, come quick!”

  Callie sat up. “Jessie Lee?”

  “They’ve got him, Callie. The sheriff has David.”

  “What?” She couldn’t be hearing right. Callie leaped from the mattress and searched frantically for a robe. “Hold on, I’m coming!” she called.

  Breathless, she raced to the front door and opened it. Jessie Lee appeared terrified. “They came for him this morning. Took him back to jail.”

  “For what?” She gripped Jessie Lee’s shoulders. “How do you know this?”

  “Granny saw the sheriff go by with David in the back seat. She called David’s mom, but she was so scared she was hard to understand. I just took off, I didn’t wait for them to finish. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I knew you could fix it.”

  Dear mercy. Had Carson filed a complaint? That bastard. “I’ll get dressed. You call Granny and find out exactly what Mrs. Langley said to her.”

  “Want me to make you some coffee? I know how,” Jessie Lee said.

  Callie didn’t really want to wait for it to drip, but she needed her mind sharp, so she nodded. “Just one cup is plenty.” That would go fairly quickly. “Thank you, Jessie Lee.”

  “He’s gonna be all right, isn’t he, Callie?”

  “Absolutely.” She repressed a shiver of foreboding. Reminded herself that this had to be about Carson, didn’t it? So all she had to do was tell what really happened, and David would be okay.

  But she couldn’t legally defend him, and being a witness complicated things. To say nothing of what would happen if anyone knew where he’d spent the night.

  She turned back. “Jessie Lee?”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Let me use the phone first.” She’d better have David’s attorney there right away, since she wasn’t sure exactly what was going on. Capwell might be overloaded, but she would get him to David quickly if she had to drag him there herself.

  She started dialing. While she waited for the phone to ring, she mourned the loss of the night, the hope, the promise.

  But she was not going down without a fight. This was wrong, and she had to fix it.

  “You can’t see him,” said the deputy at the door.

  “What?”

  “Langley already told the sheriff he didn’t want you involved in his case.”

  “Are you kidding me? Look, his attorney is out of town, and he needs legal counsel.” She tried to shove past. “Let me talk to him.”

  The burly deputy stepped into her path. “I’m telling you he was real clear about it. He knows his attorney isn’t coming, but he still doesn’t want to see you.”

  The words were a knife to the heart. Even before last night’s magic, they would have hurt, but she’d thought…

  “He said to tell you last night was fun, but it’s over.” The deputy’s leer ended on a faint snicker.

  What? Callie reeled. He’d told them? He put what had meant everything to her up for ridicule? She faltered under the shock of it. Last night had been…everything.

  To her, at least. Apparently not to…

  Stunned and disbelieving, she turned away from the avid gaze peering past her defenses and into her wounded heart.

  No. David wouldn’t do this. His eyes had been soft and open, wounded and weary. He’d needed her as much as—

  He’d been gone this morning. Without a word. And now…

  “I want to speak with the sheriff.”

  The deputy looked at her then with something that might have been pity. “Sorry, ma’am, but he ain’t here right now.”

  “Why has David been taken into custody? On what grounds?”

  “Ma’am, there ain’t nothing you can do here. I don’t have to tell you that.” Then he seemed to consider. “Look, there was a complaint filed. Another assault. Can’t just let this man walk around free to attack ordinary citizens.”

  Ordinary citizens. Mickey Carson was anything but that, and Callie had no more doubts that’s who had filed the false claim. “I may be able to shed light on the charge. I’ll just wait here for the sheriff, then.”

  “He won’t be back until tomorrow. Had to attend a funeral.”

  She started to open her mouth to insist that the deputy take her statement.

  He said to tell you last night was fun, but it’s over.

  David couldn’t be clearer that he didn’t want her help.

  Last night must have been the aberration.

  She couldn’t think about last night, not and keep her composure. She walked away with all the dignity she could muster, moving as rapidly as her weak knees would carry her to her car. Somehow she inserted the key, turned the ignition, drove away…

  She saw nothing, only an endless desert before her as she drove back through the mountains to Oak Hollow.

  He’d talked to virtual strangers about them. Exposed her. Made her a fool.

  She was tired of fighting him. He’d told her again and again to leave him alone; it was time to listen. She would pack. Miss Margaret’s ridiculous thirty days could rot in hell. What did she care for any of these people who had never cared one whit about her? She could support herself, and whatever became of the property was no concern of hers…

  She barely made it into the driveway at her great-aunt’s before she dropped her head to the steering wheel and allowed the searing pain to take over.

  Last night was a lie. Her hopes—absurd, girlish dreams—were ashes. More, they were the worst kind of self-deception. David didn’t love her, had never loved her. She’d had some great sex and sold herself a fantasy of whopper proportions.

  Well, enough of that. Callie straightened in the seat. Screw David and screw Oak Hollow; she would be just fine without either one. She didn’t need anyone, not now, not ever.

  She shoved open the car door, grabbed her purse and stalked toward the house, every tap of her heels a drumbeat of fury displacing naked pain.

  I will not cry over you, David Langley, not ever again, you hear me?

  Anger felt better, a familiar friend. Anger had propelled her through college and law school, kept her awake through countless nights of studying dry texts as she marched her way from a past filled with defeat and into a future where she was a winner.

  She would win again.

  Callie climbed the porch steps with a lighter tread, strengthened by resolve never to open herself to such misery again. She’d had to go through this, she rationalized, to be done with the unresolved feelings of the past.

  She would give her statement to David’s attorney, but she was done with him and with the past. She had a future to secure, and her job was all she had. She reached for the screen door handle, already preparing a mental packing list—

  An envelope fell to the ground when the screen door opened.

  Callie Hunter – IMPORTANT, was handwritten on the front.

  Frowning, she slit the envelope open with her fingers as she shouldered her way inside. A single sheet of paper lay within. She drew it out and unfolded it.

  Only one sentence in nondescript block print:

  Ned Compton is the key

  What did that mean? Who would have sent this?

  Her fury stalled in its tracks. Her attention captured, she sank to the arm of the sofa and puzzled over the intent of the sender…and who might care enough about David to intervene.

  Something wasn’t right, and she realized abruptly just how distracted she’d been by Miss Margaret’s bequest, by her worries over her job, her uncharacteristic confusion over how to proceed. By, above all, David himself, his overpowering physical presence and the cloud of emotion that accompanied their past.

  She thought back to her sh
ock at the astonishing reversal in David’s trajectory, how the star athlete and talented student had become a killer when nothing in his life predicted a fate even close to that. Sure, there were the cases of ‘I never would have suspected’ when neighbors or coworkers reported some heinous crime, but all that she knew of the makings of a criminal argued against it ever happening to David. Generally the signs were there if you knew where to look.

  There were also the discrepancies in the present: how he cared for his mother, the good he’d done for Jessie Lee, the respect he’d shown Granny’s Jeopardy addiction…the beautiful carving at their baby’s grave.

  Something indeed was wrong with this picture.

  Including David’s actions of the morning, if she could manage to get her hurt feelings out of the way. He was a protector, she’d known since she met him.

  Could it be that he was protecting her now?

  Was she simply so desperate not to be made a fool of after she’d lost her heart again last night that she was grasping at straws?

  Ned Compton is the key.

  She’d asked a lot of questions about David, she realized, as she’d talked to people in the community. But she’d given short shrift to one essential aspect of investigating a crime: learning as much about the victim as about the alleged perpetrator.

  Ned Compton had many friends in Oak Hollow, but none of them had resided with him. None might know him the way the two people who’d lived with him did.

  David had been clear that he didn’t want her anywhere near him, and she could only speculate at this point about why. If he was refusing to speak with her, then she would go to the next person on her list.

  David’s mother.

  Ned Compton’s widow.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “She says she’s not leaving until you see her.” The deputy flipped an opened envelope through the bars, where it landed on the floor. “She said maybe this would change your mind.”

  David remained on the cot and stared at the paper, its ragged edges symbolizing the complete destruction of any control he might have had over his life. No privacy, not even the most basic courtesy… He was held in contempt by his jailers and by the townspeople with a few rare exceptions. He had no future here, and the sheriff had made it very clear that Mickey Carson’s word would be believed over anything David could produce, short of a videotape of the confrontation, which David had yet to explain.