Cold Case Justice. Sharon Dunn
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she said, “I’m okay.” But the waver in her voice gave away how much pain she was in.
He took her hand. “Hopefully, a driver will come along quickly before that guy comes back.”
They wove through the evergreens, finally emerging from a cluster of trees. Matthew dove to the ground, taking Rochelle with him. She groaned when she hit the ground. Two cars with the lights on were parked along the road. He lifted his head and counted at least three men patrolling the road.
Rochelle gasped, her voice filled with fear. “That’s Elwood Corben, the man who’s after me.”
She pointed toward a man standing beside one of the cars.
What could they do? Rochelle couldn’t keep moving, not in her condition. Running in the valley parallel to the road until they were out of sight of the patrollers might be too much for her. This Elwood Corben had brought some manpower with him. What if he had someone patrolling the road in a car? They might have to run for miles before they were in the clear.
“Come with me. I know a place we can hide for a while.” Moving away from the path, he wove through the trees, listening for the footfalls of the man searching the woods for them. Rochelle lagged behind him. When he turned to look at her, she was bent over though trudging forward. She lifted her head.
“We’re almost there.” He pressed his hands against her cheeks. “Can you make it?”
She nodded but then her head tilted back as she swayed. He caught her and carried her the remaining distance to the cabin, setting her on her feet outside the door. She continued to lean against him for support while he broke the window and reached in to unlatch the door. Because crime was not a huge issue around here, security measures were usually not extensive. He’d leave a note with his phone number explaining why they’d broken in and offering to pay for the window.
The cabin was one large room with an adjoining bathroom. Whoever lived here had left behind a minimum of possessions. Rochelle collapsed onto a couch that must fold out into a bed. He found a blanket and laid it over the top of her. He dare not build a fire in case the men got this far out with their search. His guess, though, was that they’d be watching the road for a long time before they changed tactics on their search.
The gash on her head had begun to bleed again. He dressed it and dug through his pockets for the remaining ibuprofen. There was no running water but he found some tomato juice in the pantry. She took the pill.
Worry colored her expression. “What are we going to do if they come here?”
“I’ll stay awake. If we have to run, we’ll run. As soon as we have a little light, we’ll find a way back into town.”
“I know you want me back in the hospital.” She gazed up at him with wide brown eyes. “But when we get back to town, we have to get my son first. Please.”
“Of course.” After all this, her focus was still her son. He slid down to the floor using the couch as a backrest. He wondered what he had gotten himself into. In a million years, he couldn’t imagine that all of this was because of a murder. “Rochelle, why didn’t you go to the police when you witnessed this man kill Jamie’s father?”
She closed her eyes and covered them with her hand. “He threated to hurt my family. It was ten years ago. I was young and scared and I ran away. But now he’s found me.”
“You can go to the police now and tell them everything that happened then and today. They will help you.” She looked so forlorn, so defeated, that he didn’t regret listening to his gut feeling. Rochelle had needed him. Still, he was in over his head.
There was a long moment of silence before she answered. “I want to believe that, but I saw Corben talking to a cop in the courthouse and...this is a small police department and he’s a powerful man. He’s had police on his payroll in Seattle.”
Her voice faded.
He rose to his feet, needing to get an idea of the layout of the house and to think over what she had said. She grabbed his hand.
“Matthew, you didn’t have to do all this, but I probably wouldn’t be alive without you.”
Her hand felt like silk in his. As he looked into her eyes, affection for her tugged at his heart. He pushed his feelings aside. The trouble she faced was complicated. Way more than he had bargained for. Whatever had sparked inside him in that moment when she touched his hand—this was not the time or place to dwell on it.
“Yeah, well, it was for the kid.” He pulled away and wandered through the house, not finding anything useful—some canned goods, but not a gun or anything he could use in self-defense. When he returned to the sofa, she was fast asleep.
He listened until her breathing became steady and deep. She looked almost peaceful as she slept. He found another blanket that he wrapped around his shoulders. He slipped down to the floor using the couch as a backrest. His reaction to her thank-you surprised him. Maybe it was just about all they had been through in the past ten hours. Women he’d rescued on calls sometimes sought him out afterward. He recognized that glow of affection when they said thank-you, and he knew that relationships born out of trauma never worked out.
The best thing to do was to get Rochelle back to town and call the police so that kid had a fighting chance at a normal life.
Ten minutes passed and he felt himself nod off and jerk awake, bracing for the possibility that Elwood Corben and his thugs might burst through the door at any moment.
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