Chapter Ten
Ashley sat on Dillon’s bed while he shoved the folders he’d grabbed from his library into a duffel bag that was much like hers, except that his was camouflage-green.
“Are you absolutely sure Chief Thornton is okay with this?” Ashley asked. “I wouldn’t want you to lose your job or anything.”
He paused in front of her. “Do you remember the chief saying he had a long tradition of cooperating with the feds? Well, trust me, he’s
never
cooperated with the feds. He’s old-school, resents their interference. Me, I never had a problem with them, until now.” He turned and opened another drawer in his dresser.
“So he was speaking some kind of code then? When he talked about turning a blind eye and giving someone the runaround and you going on vacation, he was telling you to take off with me and hide me?”
“Pretty much.”
“But isn’t that illegal?”
“It violates the spirit of the law but not the letter. Agent Kent never got around to arresting you. And he didn’t serve you or anyone else with a subpoena or a warrant. So technically, all we did was have a conversation. I’m now on vacation, and I happened to take you with me. You’re a witness in an investigation whose life is in danger until we catch Luther Kennedy. So the chief can argue later that you’re just in protective custody.”
“Sounds dicey to me. I’d red flag that like crazy in an audit.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I probably would, too.”
He shoved a thin blanket into the duffel bag and zipped it closed.
“Dillon? Why are you helping me? All those things that man said about me... If it wasn’t happening to me, if he’d said that about someone else, I’d believe him. Why are you helping me, and why is the chief helping me?”
He plopped down on the bed beside her, making the mattress bounce.
“Honestly, the chief is probably responding more to Kent’s denigration of us country folk than to anything else. He doesn’t appreciate city slickers coming in here and acting like we’re a bunch of idiots because we talk slow and there’s only one red light in town. He’s protecting his investigation more than anything else. He’ll be pushing Chris and the others to figure out exactly what’s going on, hoping to show up the FBI and prove the local yokels can out-investigate the feds.”
“I guess that makes a little more sense than blind faith in me, since we basically just met. What about you? Are you helping me because you want to prove Destiny cops are as good investigators as federal ones? I’d appreciate your honesty.”
“My honesty?” His gaze slid away from hers and he stared toward the front window, but Ashley didn’t think he was seeing anything outside. His gaze was turned more inward, as if he was remembering something. Or someone.
“Honestly, I don’t know what’s going on, what you’re in the middle of,” he finally said, his voice low, halting. “My instincts tell me to trust you, that you’re innocent. But the evidence says otherwise. The only thing I’m sure of right now is that you need protection. I’m not going to turn you over to anyone until I’m sure you’ll be safe. We’re going to get out of here and lie low until everything is sorted out. Once Luther is in custody and the investigation is over, if the evidence shows you’re guilty, I’ll put you in a cell myself.” His gaze slid back to hers. “How’s that for honesty?”
She swallowed against the lump in her throat. “I guess I asked for that, didn’t I?”
He put his hand beneath her chin and tilted her head up.
“If you’re innocent, you’ve got nothing to fear, not from me or the law, anyway. Okay?”
She pushed his hand away. “Okay.”
He frowned and looked as though he was going to add something else, but the squawk of a radio filled the room.
“John Wayne and Daisy Duke, this is Billy the Kid. Come in. Over.”
He rolled his eyes and grabbed a small black phone-looking device with an antenna off the top of his dresser. It reminded Ashley of the walkie-talkies she and her siblings played with as children, but the device Dillon was holding looked a lot more sophisticated.
“This is John Wayne,” Dillon said. “Over.”
“Rosco P. Coltrane is ticked off like you wouldn’t believe. And he’s smarter than he looks. Boss Hogg advises you to get out of Dodge ASAP.”
“Ten four,
Billy Bob.
”
“Ah, negative. This is Billy the Kid. No Billy Bob here. Estimate you have fifteen minutes, tops, to make your getaway.”
Dillon cursed. “Got it. Thanks. Over.”
He shoved the walkie-talkie into the side zipper pouch on his duffel bag.
“Was that Chris?” Ashley asked.
“Yep.”
“And you understood that?”
“Yep. He said Special Agent Kent figured out I was hiding you and he’s ticked about it. He’s on his way. He’ll be here in fifteen minutes. Chief Thornton told us to get out of here before Kent gets here.” He tossed the duffel over his shoulder and grabbed her duffel off the foot of the bed.
“So I’m Daisy Duke?”
He cocked a brow. “Only if you want to be.”
She grinned. “Abso-freakin-lutely.”
* * *
“H
ORSES
? W
E
’
RE
MAKING
our getaway on horses?” She was wearing a pair of borrowed boots, while Dillon and his farm manager, Griffin, saddled Dillon’s stallion and a mare. Apparently with the expectation that she and Dillon were actually going to ride the darn things.
Dillon pressed his knee into the mare’s side, forcing her to blow out a breath so he could cinch the saddle more tightly. “You have a better idea?”
“Well, yeah. When you moved your car out behind the shed, I figured we were going to head down some private road at the back of your property that no one else knows about.”
“Nope, there’s no secret road out here. And everyone in Blount County knows my bright red Jeep. We can’t risk Kent seeing it since it was parked in front of the police station when he got there. Too obvious.”
“And riding a horse isn’t?”
“Not where we’re going.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “You
have
ridden a horse before, haven’t you?”
“Sure. When I was fifteen.”
“It’s like riding a bike, ma’am,” Griffin called out. “You’ll remember how.”
Dillon nodded, as if Griffin had quoted some sage advice. “Plus, Gracie here is an old trail mare. As long as she has a horse in front of her to follow, she won’t give you any trouble.”
He finished securing Ashley’s duffel bag behind the saddle and turned around. “Need a leg up?” He bent down and cupped his hands. “Or are your feet too sore? I could lift you up.”
Ashley stiffened. “I can mount all by myself, thank you very much.” She put her boot in the stirrup, grabbed the saddle horn and hoisted herself up. She swung her right leg over the mare’s back and gently settled into the saddle, all in one quick, smooth motion.
Dillon’s brows rose. “I thought you said you hadn’t ridden since you were fifteen.”
“I haven’t. But I might have neglected to mention that I was in a saddle since before I could walk and have so many riding trophies on my mom’s mantel the fake-gold paint practically blinds you when you walk into the house.”
She expected him to laugh, or accuse her of being a ringer. But instead his expression turned serious.
“Your mom’s mantel, huh? Imagine that.” He strode to the bay-colored stallion Griffin had finished saddling, the one Dillon had told her he’d named Boomerang. He gracefully and expertly mounted the horse, making Ashley feel like an amateur.
“Nice form,” she grudgingly complimented.
He gave her a curt nod.
The two-way radio crackled again. “Billy the Kid calling John Wayne. Over.”
Griffin’s old, wrinkled face split into a wide grin. “Is that Chris?”
“I’m humoring him,” Dillon muttered. He held up the walkie. “Go ahead, Billy. Over.”
“Annie Oakley spotted Rosco P. Coltrane headed your way, two minutes out.”
A pained look crossed Dillon’s face. “Is Annie Oakley someone I know?”
“You see her every day, Mr. Wayne.”
“Got it. Tell Annie thanks for the warning. Over.” Dillon shoved the radio into a holder he’d strung around the saddle horn in front of him.
“Who’s Annie?” Ashley asked.
“I’m guessing Officer Donna Waters. She’s the only woman I see every day. Griffin?”
“Yeah, I know, Boss. I never saw either of you.”
“That would make it hard to explain my Jeep if anyone looks around. Just tell the truth, that you don’t know where we’re going. Because you don’t.”
Griffin nodded and ran to the sliding doors at the back of the barn facing away from the house. He slid one of the tall, heavy doors open, revealing a breathtaking view of the mountains. But separating the barn from those mountains was a deep green, open field.
“Come on,” Dillon urged. “Let’s go.”
Ashley nudged her mount over beside Dillon’s. “But there’s no cover. Agent Kent will see us if we go that way.”
“That’s why we’re not going that way.” He pointed out the door to the right. Acres and acres of tall cornstalks waved in the afternoon breeze. His mouth quirked up in a grin. “Let’s see if you earned those riding trophies honestly or not. Try to keep up.”
He kicked his heels into Boomerang’s side and the stallion took off in a gallop. Before Ashley could do more than blink, he disappeared into the cornfield.
“Keep up. Keep up? I’ll show you keep up.” She kicked her mount and took off in pursuit.
* * *
L
UTHER
ADJUSTED
HIS
position on the rocky outcrop in the mountains high above Harmony Haven and trained his binoculars on the FBI agent far below. Special Agent Jason Kent had been a burr in Luther’s side for months now. It was kind of nice seeing the agent have so much difficulty for a change.
Kent raised his hands in the air, obviously angry and frustrated as he talked to another man in front of the barn behind the house where Detective Gray and Ashley Parrish had been a few minutes ago. He whirled around and marched to his car parked on the side of the house. A cloud of dust spit up from his wheels as he punched the accelerator and drove back the way he’d come. The FBI agent was too dumb to take a harder look around. If he had, he would have discovered Gray’s red Jeep parked behind one of the outbuildings, not visible from the road. Kent hadn’t even considered that Gray and Parrish might have gotten away on horseback.
But Luther had no such affliction.
He’d seen them race out of the back of the barn and hightail it into the cornfield. And from his vantage point, he could see all four corners of that same field. All he had to do now was wait.
Sure enough, a few minutes later at the northeast corner, two horses and riders emerged from the waving dried-up stalks, moving at a fast clip toward a cluster of pine trees. Luther fondled the rifle in his hand. Tough shot from here, lots of variables—long distance, wind, heat, the unpredictability of horses who might shy or move sideways at any time. If he missed, he’d alert his prey he was following them. And while killing Gray wouldn’t bother him one bit, Gray was riding too close to Parrish to take the shot. He decided the risk wasn’t worth it. He needed Parrish alive.
At least for a little while.
He rubbed his aching shoulder. He wasn’t sure old Doc Brookes had done his best work with a gun held to his head. But at least he could use his arm again and the doc had given him pain pills to dull the ache. The bullet had only grazed him, so all he’d needed was stitches and disinfectant. Still, it had hurt like the devil. Parrish would pay for that. Once his friend’s scheme was done, Parrish would be all his. He’d carve out his pound of flesh.
And
then
he’d kill her.
Chapter Eleven
Dillon locked the cabin door and dropped the duffel bags onto the wood floor at the end of the couch, which—aside from a coffee table—was the only piece of furniture in the small space.
Ashley turned in a slow circle, her lack of enthusiasm evident in the tightening of her mouth, the slump of her shoulders. “Is this your cabin?”
“No. It belongs to a friend. He rarely uses it and told me where the spare key is in case I ever want to use it, which I do, during hunting season.”
“Are we staying here tonight?”
“That depends on Rosco P. Coltrane and whether he figures out we’re here.” He set the radio on the bar that separated the tiny kitchen from the main room of the cabin. “The couch does fold out into a fairly comfortable bed if we stay. And there’s a bathroom with a shower behind that door over there. But that’s pretty much it.”
She plopped down on the couch. “What do we do now?”
“I’ll unsaddle the horses and set them up on lunge lines so they can graze. After that, I figure we can put our heads together and discuss the case. I’m going to call Chris and see if he can give me more details on what Kent thinks he has against you. Sound good?”
“I suppose. Do you need help with the horses?”
“I’ve got it. It’ll only take me a few minutes. Lock the door behind me.”
* * *
A
SHLEY
PULLED
HER
feet up and sat cross-legged on the couch, staring down at the mass of paper and folders Dillon had spread out before them on the coffee table. He sat beside her, making lists, grilling her with questions.
He glanced at her legs. “You okay? Do your feet hurt? I can put more salve and fresh bandages on them.”
“They don’t hurt. Just shifting position.”
He cocked his head and studied one of the two-columned lists he’d just finished. “From what you’ve told me, we should be able to prove you were in completely different states at the time three of these audits Kent told us about were performed. I’ll get Chris to check out the hotel records and dates.”
“That’s a good thing, right? Doesn’t that give me an alibi?”
He tapped his pen. “Maybe. Can you audit someone long-distance, without physically going to their company?”
“Yes, in theory. It’s frowned upon, not recommended. And I’ve certainly never done it.”
“But it can be done.”
Her shoulders slumped. “Yes. It can.”
“Then we still have no proof that you weren’t involved in this scam.” He picked up the list of companies he’d written down during his talk with Chris on the phone earlier. “It’s interesting that whoever pretended to be you performed audits on a lot of companies they didn’t embezzle from.”
“Why is that interesting? It just shows the audits didn’t yield discrepancies the fake Ashley Parrish could use to blackmail someone, right? That is, if we buy what Special Agent Kent said about what was happening.”
“True.” He leafed through one of the folders and frowned. He pulled another one toward him and compared some pages from each.
Ashley leaned forward. “Did you find something else?”
“More like a new avenue of questions.”
She plopped back against the couch cushions. “Great. More questions. Go ahead. Ask.”
He turned to face her, resting one arm on the back of the couch. “I think we’re going about this all wrong. We’ve been focusing on proving you’re innocent instead of trying to figure out who’s guilty. Let’s assume you’re innocent and move from there.”
“Gee. Thanks.”
He smiled. “If this is a scheme, which we’re assuming, and someone stole your identity, they’re passing themselves off as a real auditor. The only red flags being raised are that after the audits are complete, money goes missing. What kind of person could fake an audit that passes muster, that no one complains about?”
Ashley blinked as the obvious conclusion dawned on her. “They have to be a real auditor, a CPA, or at least have been educated as one.”
“I agree.” He grabbed a notebook and pen off the table and started a new list. The first bullet said “Auditor, or trained as one.”
“Our bad guy also knows your Social Security number, and enough personal information to have faked a convincing-looking website under your name. Tell me about the picture Kent said came from that website. Are you sure you’ve never seen it before?”
“Pretty sure. I mean, I don’t live near my family anymore. It’s not like I get my picture taken very often.”
“Where is your family?”
“Sweetwater.”
“Tennessee, just outside Chattanooga?”
“That’s it.”
“Far enough to keep your family from dropping in unexpectedly, but not so far you can’t go home if you need to?”
“Am I that easy to figure out?”
“No.” His mouth quirked sardonically. “You’re just a lot like me. I did the same thing. Left home the day I graduated high school, went away to college to put some distance between me and my family. I never intended to come back.”
“But you did. You were going to be a vet, right? What happened?”
His smile faded. “Life happened. Let’s get back to the case. I think it’s logical to assume that whoever stole your identity knows you very well—well enough to be able to take a picture of you without you thinking anything about it, someone who would have access to your personal papers so they could find your Social Security number and other personal information, someone who was trained as an auditor.” He added a bullet item to his list.
“I also suspect they must not have been very successful as an auditor in their own right, or they wouldn’t have tried to use your reputation and identity to get clients. As we discussed earlier, a lot of the audits this person performed didn’t raise any red flags with the FBI, and weren’t precursors to embezzlement. That kind of strikes me as someone who was trying to make a living as an auditor but couldn’t manage to get clients off their own reputation. So they used your reputation to get a foot in the door. The embezzling came later.” He wrote another entry on his list.
“To get around using your identity, this person performed audits remotely. That strikes me as a way for them to get around the whole fake-website thing.”
Ashley frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“If they used your name and their picture, they couldn’t blame you later, or frame you, really, if things went bad. To cover themselves, they used your picture. But by doing that, they forced themselves to have to do the audits long-distance, so none of their clients actually saw them.”
“But what about Mrs. Dunlop? She supposedly saw the auditor, and pointed at me and said I was the one who’d worked on the audit.”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure I agree with that statement. All Mrs. Dunlop said was that you were the woman who’d killed her husband. She never once said she’d actually seen you in person. Maybe Kent jumped the gun on that and gave too much credence to a grieving widow who blamed you for her husband’s death. It wouldn’t be the first time a witness stretched the truth when they believed the person they were identifying was really guilty.”
“Well, that’s kind of a scary thought.”
“That’s one of many reasons cops don’t rely solely on eyewitness testimony. Even without a motive to lie, a witness often truly believes in their testimony, even if their testimony is dead wrong. Eyewitness accounts are notoriously inaccurate. It’s human nature not to remember a face well enough to later make a positive ID, especially after seeing other pictures of that person.”
He passed her the list he’d made. “Is there anyone in your life, or anyone you’ve ever met in the past, maybe even someone you considered to be a friend, who meets all that criteria? Someone who knows what client accounts you take so they don’t end up approaching the same clients? Someone who knows where you’ll be at any given time? Someone you may trust?”
A sick feeling settled in the pit of Ashley’s stomach. “Oh, my God.”
Dillon narrowed his eyes. “You think you have a suspect?”
She nodded and handed the legal pad back to him. “There’s only one person I can think of who knows me that well. She only studied accounting in college after I started studying it. She struggled all the way through, barely passing, no matter how much I tried to help her. And later, when my company took off, she was still struggling to get her first client.” She pressed her hand to her throat. “She moved away a year and a half ago, saying she needed a new start. And suddenly she calls me to tell me
her
business is taking off. She’s getting clients now and finally making a good living as an auditor. I was surprised, but happy for her. And she started going on trips and cruises, things she never could have afforded in the past.”
Dillon reached for her hand. “Ashley, who is she?”
She swallowed hard, and squeezed her eyes shut. “My best friend since kindergarten, the same woman who called you the night I was abducted. Lauren Wilkes.”
* * *
T
HE
THEORY
THAT
her best friend had perpetrated such an awful fraud against Ashley was enough to make sleep nearly impossible for her. But surprisingly, it wasn’t thoughts of Lauren’s possible betrayal that were keeping her awake.
It was the fact that she was sharing a bed with Dillon.
Sleeping with him should have been awkward because they’d only known each other for a couple of days. And it
was
awkward, but for an entirely different reason. It was awkward because it
should
have felt wrong, but it felt totally...
right.
And if Ashley was certain he would welcome her interest in him, she’d be in his arms right now.
She wanted him, desperately. She wanted to reach out and slide her fingers over his skin, feel his muscles bunch beneath her touch. She wanted to explore the fascinating angles of his face, experience the raspy feel of his stubble gently abrading her skin as he explored her body. And more than anything right now, she wanted to feel him inside her, loving her, and for a little while at least, making her forget all her troubles.
Her skin grew heated and her fingers ached from clenching them together to keep from reaching for him. What was wrong with her? She’d never yearned for a man’s touch like this. What was it about Dillon that made her feel so...out of control? Maybe a cold shower was what she needed. Anything would be better than this torture.
She flipped back the covers and started to get up.
Dillon’s strong arm immediately wrapped around her waist, trapping her, pushing her back down. The bed dipped as he rose above her, leaned over her. The moonlight filtering through the thin curtains revealed far too much of his glorious body, naked from the waist up, and had her digging her nails into her palms to stop from reaching for him.
“What’s wrong? Did you hear something outside?” He turned his face toward the window, as if to listen for whatever had disturbed her.
“No,” she whispered. “I didn’t hear anything. I...couldn’t sleep.” As if of their own will, her hands reached up and feathered across the stubble on his jaw.
He sucked in a breath, but didn’t pull away.
Feeling as if she’d been granted a treasure, a magical moment to satisfy her curiosity, she continued her exploration. She slid her hungry fingers down the side of his neck, lower, over the hard contours of his chest, lower still, to the tautness of his stomach muscles, which jumped beneath her touch. She hesitated, her gaze locked with his, waiting, wondering what he would do if she moved her hands...lower.
“Don’t stop now,” he whispered, his voice ragged, deeper than usual.
Those three words were the key that unlocked a floodgate of pent-up frustration and emotion. Ashley didn’t hesitate again. She slid her hands down to the waistband of the jeans he’d worn to bed, then groaned in frustration when she couldn’t get past that barrier. She plucked at the top button, but her hands were shaking so hard she couldn’t get it undone.
Dillon laughed and sat back, his thighs trapping hers as he made quick work of the button and zipper. He rolled to the side and lifted his hips to shuck off his pants and underwear. Ashley followed, her eager fingers searching for their prize.
He sucked in a sharp breath when she wrapped her hands around him.
“Ashley, wait, not so fast. We have plenty of—” He arched off the bed when her mouth covered him. His hands fisted in her hair and he shuddered beneath her.
She couldn’t believe how perfect he was, how hot and hard. He must have been lying awake thinking of her like she’d been thinking of him.
She couldn’t seem to get enough of him—his smell, his heat, his delicious salty taste. He shuddered again and she could feel he was close. Suddenly he bent down and wrapped his arms beneath hers and pulled her off him. She cursed in frustration and reached for him again.
He gave a pained laugh and pulled her hand away, then rolled and trapped her beneath him. He grabbed her wrists in a viselike grip and pulled them up above her head.
“If you don’t stop,” he said, his voice hoarse, “I’m going to disgrace myself like a randy teenager. Slow. Down.”
“But I want—”
“So do I. But I want to last. I want to make this good for you, too.”
He reached down and pulled her shirt off over her head, then expertly removed her jeans and panties until she was naked, too. Then he covered her with his body and captured her lips with his in an open-mouthed, ravenous kiss she felt all the way to her toes.
Every stroke of his tongue against hers sent a wave of heat straight to her belly. She was so ready for him she thought she might die if he didn’t take her right then. She was about to demand he do so when he slid down, his stubble against her breasts her only warning before he sucked her nipple into his mouth.
She cried out and bucked beneath him, but he was unmerciful in his assault on her senses. He lavished both her breasts with careful attention until she was aching with the pleasure-pain of it. And then he leaned up until his hot breath washed over her neck.
“My turn,” he breathed.
She shivered at his dark promise, and then he slid down her body and fastened his mouth on the very core of her. Her climax was immediate, an explosion of pleasure that flared across every nerve ending in her body, bowing her spine off the bed. He continued to explore and worship her with his mouth and tongue until she begged him to stop.