In Seconds
- Автор: Новак Бренда
- Серия: Bulletproof #2
- Год: 2011
- Язык: французский
- Жанр: Остросюжетные любовные романы
Электронная книга - «In Seconds». Краткое содержание книги:
Laurel Hodges has changed her identity twice. She's been on the run for the past four years, trying to outdistance the gang members who blame her for the death of one of their own. She's finally found peace and stability in the small town of Pineview, Montana. But just when Laurel thinks she and her children are safe...the nightmare starts all over again.
The Crew, a ruthless prison gang with ties to Laurel's brother, will never forget and they'll never forgive. And now that they've finally tracked her down, they'll stop at nothing.
Sheriff Myles King, who happens to live next door with his thirteen-year-old daughter, appoints himself Laurel's personal guardian. His growing attraction to her could change his life—Myles is beginning to picture marriage and family. But it could also end his life. If he can't save her, everything he's built, everything he wants, could be destroyed. In seconds...
“Why? She was my mother. Besides, I’d already paid the price for her crime. There wasn’t anything to be gained by sending her to prison.”
“Some people would argue with that.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Some? Like my deputy warden wife?”
“Former deputy warden. And, yes, I would like to have seen her charged.”
“My testimony might not have made a difference. You know that. She didn’t give me any damning details. She just told me she asked Gary to ‘take care’ of Martin, like he claims. That was all I could get out of her.”
“You believe she might’ve denied what she told you? Later on?”
“If the police came calling? Sure. Why wouldn’t she, after everything else she did?”
Peyton tucked her long hair behind her ears. “I guess I wouldn’t put it past her.”
Deciding whether or not to turn his mother in hadn’t been difficult for Virgil. It was deciding whether to tell Laurel that’d been tough. And it still was. He didn’t want to give his sister another emotional hurdle to clear. Maybe, with Ellen gone, it would be easier for both of them to leave the past in the past. As much as Virgil hated to admit it, they were both better off without her in the world. There was no manual on how to act when you had a selfish, lying murderer for a mother. Ellen was always so soft-spoken and nice. Pretty, too. Dealing with her was confusing as hell. Should they sympathize with the desperation that’d made her resort to murder? Chalk up her behavior to a few months of insanity and then too much fear to ever attempt to right her wrong? Assume she was sorry, that she’d changed even though she’d never taken responsibility for her actions?
Peyton stood. “So what are you going to do?”
“Maybe I’ll tell her later. When we have a chance to be together.” Maybe being the operative word…
“I’m talking about The Crew.”
Pursing his lips, he rocked back in his chair and said what had been going around and around in his head since he’d first learned of Ellen’s murder and realized what it meant. “I’m going to call Horse.”
His wife’s eyes latched onto his. “You can’t mean that.”
“I have to do something.”
“And this is what you’ve come up with? What on earth will you say to him?”
“Mommy, what’s wrong?”
Brady stood by the door, frowning at the tension in the room. He wasn’t used to seeing them at odds.
“Nothing, honey,” she responded, but the fact that she didn’t so much as glance back at him told Virgil she was completely involved in their conversation. He understood why. Calling Horse was a huge risk. But doing nothing could prove to be an even greater one.
Spotting his father, Brady scampered past Peyton. Virgil wouldn’t let Peyton lift him up, not while she was pregnant, so these days Brady relied primarily on Virgil to carry him when he wanted it. He snuggled with his mother only when she was sitting on the couch or lying down. “Can we throw the baseball, Daddy?” he asked as he climbed into Virgil’s lap where Peyton had sat just seconds before.
“In a minute, bud.” For now, Peyton still had him pinned beneath a disapproving stare.
“I asked you a question,” she reminded him.
Virgil drew a deep breath. “I’ll explain that he’d better not pick this fight.”
“Or…”
“I’ll finish it.”
He was transferred several times before he spoke to someone at California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation who could help him, but it wasn’t long before Myles had the information he was looking for. The mug shots for the inmates who’d broken out of the California Men’s Colony had come through the fax machine and, sure enough, he recognized them. One was “Ron Howard.” Nickname Ink. Real name Eugene Rider. The kid who’d claimed to be Peter Ferguson was Lloyd Beachum, age nineteen. Lloyd had three priors for drug possession and grand larceny, but Eugene’s arrest record made Lloyd’s look like child’s play. Rape. Armed robbery. Arson. Several counts of murder.
With a curse, Myles dialed the number he’d just gotten from the CDCR.
A woman answered. “Warden Wright’s office.”
To avoid the noise two of his deputies were making as they reported for work, Myles got up and closed his office door. “Is the warden in?”
“He is, but I’m afraid he’s not available. Can I take a message?”
“This is Sheriff King in Pineview, Montana. Tell him I spotted your boys and believe they’re still in this area.”
“Excuse me?”
He returned to his seat. “The two convicts who cut a hole in the fence and slipped out ten days ago? They’re in Montana.”
“Oh, dear! Um, in that case, hang on. I’m sure he’ll want to speak with you sooner rather than later.”
Two or three minutes dragged by before a male voice boomed across the line. “Sheriff?”
“Yes?”
“Thanks for calling. You have something to report on our escapees?”
Propping his elbows on the desk, Myles smoothed his eyebrows with a finger and one thumb. “I wish I had more than I do, but I’ll give you what I’ve got. They stole a red Toyota truck from a Quentin J. Ferguson in Monrovia, which they drove here. A leak in the radiator stranded them on the side of the road. That’s where I found them yesterday.”
“Tell me you have them in custody.”
“I’m afraid not.” Myles explained what had happened, then mentioned Pat Stueben’s murder.
“Eugene Ryder should never have been transferred from Pelican Bay. He’s a level-four prisoner if I’ve ever met one.” The stress in the warden’s voice revealed just how much he wanted to get these particular inmates back where they belonged.
Myles had wondered what someone convicted of so many counts of murder was doing in anything less than maximum security. But it happened sometimes. Due to good behavior, time served, overcrowding or myriad other reasons, their points dropped. “Considering his long list of offenses, why’d they reclassify him?”
“Four years ago, Ryder tried to kill a woman who was going into WitSec. Murdered the federal marshal who was protecting her, but he took a bullet that night that nearly severed his spinal cord. He was never supposed to walk again. He’s done much better than the doctors predicted, but he’s in constant pain. No one dreamed he’d leave his free and ready supply of codeine and head for the hills. When his back gets bad, he can barely limp around. And it’s bad almost all the time.”
Was the warden joking? Prison doctors didn’t have a corner on the painkiller market. “But there are plenty of alternatives to codeine available on the street. Including some drugs, both legal and illegal, that are a lot stronger.”
“He spent two years in Pelican Bay after the shooting, seemed like a different man. And they’re so crowded up there.”
Myles read over Ryder’s arrest record again. They thought he was a different man? This was obviously a screwup, and the warden didn’t want to admit it. So Myles changed tactics. “Who shot him?”
“Don’t know. Until ten days ago, he was just another inmate to me. Now all I care about is dragging his ass back here.”
Myles remembered the stories Mia had shared with her friend at school. Had she witnessed the shooting that’d injured Ryder? Or the slaying of the marshal?
Rex had mentioned that The Crew had been out to get Vivian and her brother for a long time, that they’d been in protective custody. “Was it the woman he was trying to rape who shot him?”
“Could’ve been. I haven’t looked into those details. They don’t matter. All that matters is what’s happening now. We gotta get these boys back in prison before they hurt someone else.”
But they’d have a far greater chance of catching their “boys” if they could figure out where they might be going and why. And that could be linked to their pasts. “What can you tell me that might help me locate Eugene? Does he have family in Montana? Friends?”