Lawman Lover - Lisa Childs (21 page)

“We’ve had no contact with anyone inside,” Sheriff York informed him. “We’re waiting until the National Guard gets here and then we’ll be storming the building.”

Macy’s breath shuddered out against the side of Rowe’s face as she gasped again. “But won’t that lead to a lot of casualties?”

“We don’t know how many casualties there have already been,” the sheriff replied, his jaw clenched and his dark eyes grim.

“But you know for certain there have been casualties?” Rowe prodded, with a silent plea for the guy to admit that he had no confirmation and would therefore continue to give Macy hope that her brother was still alive.

“We stopped a couple of guards as they were leaving,” York admitted. “And held them for questioning.”

That was good. Damn good that York had known to let no one get away. “And what were their answers?” he prodded.

“They confirmed casualties,” he said.

Macy gasped again but this time it was a word. “Who?”

York shrugged broad shoulders. “We haven’t been able to get inside yet, so we can’t confirm anything.”

“Who?” Macy repeated.

“According to the guards, the casualties were both inmates and prison staff,” York replied. “But like I said, we won’t know anything for certain until we can get inside.”

“Whose decision was it to wait until the National Guard arrives?” Rowe asked.

“Yours,” Sheriff York replied, his voice gruff with bitterness.

He shook his head in denial of the man’s ridiculous accusation. “I didn’t even know about the riot.”

“It was the Drug Enforcement Administration’s decision,” York clarified. “One of the other DEA agents said we had to wait.”

Until all the evidence and witnesses had been destroyed.

“Damn it!” He shoved open his driver’s door. “Which agent? Which agent told you to wait?”

The sheriff stepped back as if to brace himself for an attack, and his hand settled on his holster. “The supervising special agent.”

Dread tightened Rowe’s stomach. The corruption had gone even higher than he’d feared. He slammed the door shut.

Through the open window, Macy stared at him, her brown eyes dark and tortured with fear for her brother. If Jed had been alive when the warden called her, he probably wasn’t now. But Rowe didn’t know that for certain, and he couldn’t live with himself if his actions caused her brother’s death and her pain.

“I’m going inside,” he said.

“But your supervisor…” Sheriff York sputtered.

Rowe glanced around and saw none of his fellow agents. The state police and the sheriff’s deputies had been pushed back here, away from the action, while the DEA SUVs were parked inside the gates.

“Someone blew my cover,” Rowe pointed out. “Someone in
my
office.”

“What does that have to do with Warden James?” York asked. Obviously he was as aware as everyone else was of how corrupt the prison warden was.

“Whoever betrayed me in the DEA is working with James.” He lifted his shirt to show the bandage that Macy had put on his wound. “If this had gone any deeper, I’d be dead right now. If the inmate that the warden had ordered to kill me had really wanted to kill me…”

The sheriff sucked in a sharp breath. As if unable to hold his opinion to himself any longer, he bitterly remarked, “The warden’s a son of a bitch.”

“And one of your biggest campaign contributors, if rumor is to be believed,” Rowe said, gauging just how much this man could be trusted. He had to know before he made a judgment call that could affect everything. But could he trust his judgment?

Jackson hadn’t betrayed him. Neither had Brennan. Maybe he could trust this lawman, too.

“That’s not true.” York shook his head in frustration. “He wants people to believe that, but I can show you my campaign records. I didn’t take a damn dime of his dirty money. Where the hell do you think the DEA got the tip about Blackwoods—that something corrupt was going on there?”

While the tip had been anonymous, there had been enough information to warrant an investigation. Information that someone in law enforcement had likely compiled.

But that didn’t mean that Sheriff York was that lawman. There was no time for the guy to prove his innocence, though. Rowe had to go with his gut. “You stay here. Don’t let her out of your sight.”

“Rowe!” Macy screamed, as if panicked over their separation. “What are you doing?”

Smoke rose from the prison. And the sound of rapid gunfire exploded like fireworks inside the concrete walls. She jumped out of the truck cab and grabbed at him.

“You can’t go in there!” she protested.

“I can’t
not
go in there,” he said, his heart aching with the fear on her face.

“It’s too late for Jed....” Tears streaked from her eyes, further smearing the blood on her face. “We both know that.”

Rowe shook his head. “We don’t know that. You Kleyns are fighters.”

Jed had saved him once. Rowe had to at least try to return the favor.

“I’m fighting now,” Macy said, clutching even more tightly to him. “I’m fighting for you.”

“So am I.” He pulled her hands from his arms and stepped back.

“I love you!” she said.

Her words swelled in his chest, filling his heart with an emotion he barely recognized. It had been so long since he’d loved or been loved. He couldn’t say the words back yet.

So he turned away from her and headed toward the prison. Macy rushed after him, reaching for him again. The sheriff caught her, and held her back.

But it was as if Rowe took her with him; he could feel her, filling his heart. He glanced behind once, to where she struggled in the sheriff’s grasp. Rowe loved her—that was why he couldn’t break the promise he had made to her. He would get her brother out of prison. Even if it was the same way that Jed had gotten him out, in a body bag, he couldn’t leave the man inside waiting for the National Guard that might never come.

Rowe walked through the open gates. But even though those gates stood open, panic pressed on his heart, as his old phobias rushed over him. He hated being confined. Hated small tight spaces. Most of all he hated Blackwoods Penitentiary.

The last time he’d left this hellhole of a prison he’d been zipped up in a body bag in the back of a coroner’s van; he hoped he wouldn’t be leaving the same way this time.

It wouldn’t be the same, though. Because the next time someone zipped him inside a body bag, he’d have to be dead.

Chapter Fourteen

Macy struggled against the strong arms holding her back. “Let me go! Let me go!”

“He’s gone,” the man said, his deep voice rumbling in her ear.

Macy shivered and finally broke free of his steely hold. Maybe all her recent battles had drained her strength. Or maybe this man was just stronger than the other men with whom she’d had to fight for her life.

She whirled toward the sheriff. “What do you mean?”

For some reason Rowe had decided to trust the man. But she didn’t. She
couldn’t.

“He’s gone inside.”

She glanced back toward the cement and barbed wire fence. She couldn’t see beyond it except for the smoke that rose above it, blending into the darkening sky. “Why did you let him go?”

Because it was what the warden wanted. Without Jed or Rowe to testify against him, he wouldn’t be charged with anything. This man certainly wouldn’t arrest him unless a judge forced him to.

“Do you really think I could have stopped
him?
”

She suspected the sheriff wasn’t just referring to the fact that, as a federal agent, Rowe outranked him. He meant more that when Rowe was determined, nothing and no one could stop him. Her breath shuddered out in a ragged sigh of resignation.

“If
you
couldn’t stop him,” the sheriff continued, “I didn’t stand a chance in hell of getting him to stay out here until the National Guard arrives.”

“Sheriff York is right,” a feminine voice murmured. “Rowe Cusack is a hard man to stop.”

Macy shivered and it had nothing to do with the cold wind that spun the smoke rising from the prison into billowy clouds. She turned toward the red-haired woman who’d approached them. “Who are you?”

“DEA Special Agent Alice O’Neil,” the woman replied, offering a smile that didn’t quite reach her narrow eyes.

“Where’s your supervising agent?” the sheriff asked her.

Alice shrugged. “I don’t know exactly where he is now. The last time I saw him he was on the phone coordinating with the National Guard.”

The sheriff gave a nod of satisfaction. “Good.”

“They should be here soon,” she assured the lawman.

It didn’t matter to Macy. The Guard wouldn’t arrive soon enough to save Rowe or her brother.

“Where did you see him last?” York repeated, determined to talk to the DEA agent in charge.

Alice gestured toward the fence. “Just inside there.”

The sheriff started forward then glanced at Macy, as if just remembering his promise to Rowe to stay with her.

“Let him go,” Alice coldly advised her. “Or you’ll have more blood on your hands.”

Macy shivered again but managed to nod at the sheriff’s silent question, assuring him she was fine even though she was anything but. When the sheriff disappeared inside the fence, she turned toward the woman standing too close to her. The barrel of her gun dug deep into Macy’s side.

“Why?” she asked.

“I would say that it’s fairly obvious why.” Alice laughed. “You’re so young.”

Lines creased the corners of Alice’s eyes and the sides of her mouth, but she couldn’t have been much more than forty. And with her pale skin and red hair, she was a beautiful woman. But her eyes were as cold as the warden’s and nearly as empty as Elliot’s. Except that Alice was alive and the man Macy had once considered a friend was dead.

“What does my age have to do with it?” Macy asked.

“You’re young and idealistic, like Cusack. He still thinks he can save the world.” She laughed again. “He can’t even save himself.”

“You blew his cover and gave him up for dead,” Macy surmised. “But he survived.”

The barrel jammed harder against Macy’s side, this time in retaliation more than to simply subdue her. “Cusack only survived because of your damn brother.”

Macy hated herself for the doubts she’d once entertained about her brother. He wouldn’t have hurt the old prison doctor. He wouldn’t hurt anyone. But had he been hurt?

The female agent seemed to think so because she taunted Macy. “There won’t be anyone inside who can help him now.” Alice shoved Macy toward the truck. “Just like there’s no one out here who can help you.”

More gunfire emanated from inside the prison walls like the music from a rock concert overflowing stadium walls. But this was no concert with staged pyrotechnics. This was real. Flames burst through the roof with an explosion of gas and cement. All the police officers who had manned the perimeter rushed toward the prison now, right past Macy and the female DEA agent.

She could have called out, but they might not have even heard her over the noise from the prison. And if someone had heard her, she had no doubt that just as she’d threatened to shoot the sheriff, Alice would have shot anyone looking to save her, too.

Special Agent O’Neil opened the truck door and pushed Macy inside. “Keep going,” she ordered, “over the console.”

Macy went willingly to where she had dropped her purse. As she settled onto her seat, she reached inside the bag. “Where are you taking me?”

“Straight to hell,” the woman murmured. She didn’t reach for the keys that dangled from the ignition, though. Instead she stared through the windshield at the prison as flames rose from the roof.

Alice didn’t even notice Macy digging inside her purse. When she finally fumbled the weapon free from her wallet, the sharp blade nicked her finger, and she sucked in a breath of pain and fear.

Rowe had wiped off Elliot’s blood, but he hadn’t sterilized it. But then, with this woman pointing a gun at her, catching a disease should have been the least of Macy’s worries.

“I just killed a man I thought was a friend,” she shared with the distracted agent. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m not capable of killing you, too.”

“I’m not some stupid drug-dealing kid,” Alice replied.

“You know about Elliot?”

“I know about everything. You think the warden was smart enough to handle this entire operation on his own?” She snorted her derision of his intelligence, just as James had earlier mocked Macy.

She suspected that their arrogance would prove the downfall for both of these criminals.

“Was?” Macy repeated. “Is he gone?”

“He’s in there, too. Or whatever his prisoners left of him is in there…along with the body of your brother. And, in just a few minutes, your boyfriend will be torn apart.” A smile of satisfaction crossed the woman’s beautiful face.