Her baby was born that afternoon. He was a healthy, happy boy who weighed eight pounds three ounces. She named him Kevin Grant, after her father and grandfather. Her joy was so encompassing that she couldn't contain all of it. It had to be shared.
"A baby!" Ricki Sue shrieked. As delighted as she was to hear about the birth of Kendall's son, she was angry that Kendall hadn't told her of the pregnancy.
"Can't you come back now? My God, how long are you going to remain a fugitive? You've done nothing wrong, for crissake!"
To Kendall's dismay, no one in Prosper had tried to contact her through either Ricki Sue or her grandmother. Obviously Gibb had provided an explanation for her sudden disappearance; but why wasn't he seeking retribution? She was more suspicious of their failure to come after her than she would have been if they had tried terrorizing the people close to her Or maybe they knew where she was and were only biding their time before they struck.
Because they could conceivably be around the next corner at any given time, she did nothing to call attention to herself She was resigned to living the rest of her life in obscurity
under a false name, sacrificing her career in law, and worling at low-profile odd jobs to support herself and Kevin.
She could never pursue a meaningful career. She could never marry. Ricki Sue had offered to make inquiries into whether Matt had died from the blow to his head, but Kendall didn't want to know. If he had died, she could conceivably face charges of manslaughter. If he had survived, she was still married. Either way, she was permanently shackled.
Kevin was three months old that afternoon she sat with him on a quilt on the lawn of the widow's house. Denver was enjoying a gloriously warm spring day. The sky was clear, but Kendall sensed the approach of the government car as one senses when the sun is about to slip behind a cloud. She suddenly experienced a chill and realized that her days in exile were over.
The navy blue sedan pulled to a stop at the curb. Two men got out and started up the sidewalk toward her. The shorter, stockier one smiled pleasantly. The tall one didn't.
The first one addressed her. "Mrs. Burnwood?"
Her landlady came out onto the stoop. She didn't know Kendall by that name and looked bewildered when Kendall replied in the affirmative.
He removed a leather billfold from the breast pocket of his jacket and flipped it open to show her his ID. "I'm Agent Jim Pepperdyne. FBI." He nodded to the man with the stern mouth and opaque sunglasses. "This is U.S. Marshal John McGrath."
Chapter 21
John McGrath woke up with his memory fully restored.
He awoke suddenly and experienced no lingering drowsiness or disorientation. With stark clarity, he instantly remembered everything about his recent and past.
He knew his name, recalled his childhood in Raleigh, North Carolina, and remembered the number on his high school football jersey.
He remembered his seine with the FBI and the life-shattering event that had caused him to abandon the bureau two years ago. He remembered his present job. He recalled being sent to Denver, and why.
The car crash would probably be blocked from his memory forever, but he remembered driving over the rain-slick highway and coming upon the felled tree. He remembered feeling help less in the face of certain disaster and resigning himself to die when the car plunged over the cliff. He remembered regaining consciousness in the hospital, hurting all over. Surrounded by strangers, he had been a stranger even to himself.
Most vividly, he remembered Kendall looking him straight in the eye and saying, "He's my husband." John laid his arm across his forehead and swore beneath his breath, because he also remembered everything that had happened since that moment.
Especially last night.
Last night had him in shit up to his eyebrows.
Last night he had had carnal knowledge of Kendall Burn wood.
The pillow beside his was empty now, but it hadn't been for long. It still bore the imprint of Kendall's head. Recalling every sigh, murmur, sensation, he groaned and dragged his hands down his face.
Good God, was it any wonder his memory had been jostled?
Everything that made John McGrath who he was had been shaken loose by what he'd done.
He covered his eyes again, this time rubbing the heels of his hands against his eye sockets. How could he account for this to Pepperdyne? How could he account for it to himself?
At least he hadn't been unfaithful to another woman. He and Lisa Lisa. Lisa Frank. Like everything else, all recollection of her had been gone until this moment. Now memories of her came rushing back. And how fleeing that the first thing he remembered of their relationship wasn't one of their good times, but a quarrel.
John had arrived home after a trip to France to escort an escaped felon back to the states. He was exhausted, grimy, and gritty-eyed. He had jetlag and wanted to sleep for about thirty hours undisturbed. As he inserted the key into the lock, he hoped that Lisa was away.
But she was in the apartment. Wired. Spoiling for a fight because some first-class passenger on her flight that afternoon had acted like a jerk.
"I'm sorry you had a rough flight," he said, trying to sound convincingly sympathetic. "Mine wasn't exactly a lark, either.
I'm going to shower. Then let's go to bed and sleep it off, okay?"
But compliance simply wasn't among Lisa's character traits.
She was there with a Bowel when he stepped from the shower stall, and when he entered the bedroom, she was waiting for him between the sheets, smiling seductively.
From the time he had discovered the delightful differences between boys and girls, the sight of a naked woman had never failed to evoke a response. Nevertheless, that night he performed sloppily and selfishly, and Lisa missed his usual finesse.
She snapped on the nightstand lamp. "John, we need to talk."
"Not now, please, Lisa. I'm exhausted." He knew by her tone that it was going to be the "our relationship is going nowhere" talk, and he was too tired for it tonight. Even on good nights he resisted relationship analyses.
Disregarding his fatigue and foul mood, she launched into a familiar litany on the aspects of their relationship that were unsatisfactory, which, coincidentally, were the very aspects he liked about it.
They didn't see each other often enough, she said. As a flight attendant for a major airline, she had an irregular schedule and was away much of the time. His work involved extensive travel. They were in the apartment together often enough to keep their libidos well tuned, but not so often as to become dependent on each other. John preferred it that way. Lisa wanted more.
"You won't make a commitment," she complained.
He said that wasn't true, while silently acknowledging that it was. He liked their arrangement he didn't even think of it in terms of a "relationship"the way it was. It required very little time, effort, and attention from him. That's the way he wanted to keep it.
But that night Lisa continued to harp on his shortcomings until he got angry. "I'm not going to talk about this tonight, Lisa." He switched off the lamp and buried his head in the pillow.
She muttered, "You son of a bitch," but he ignored it.
The following morning, he woke before her. Lying there looking at her while she slept, he realized that Lisa Frank was as much a stranger to him as she'd been the day they had exchanged telephone numbers following a flight during which she'd been his attendant.
He had been intimate with her body many times, but he didn't know her. She didn't know him. No one got inside John McGrath's skin. He supposed he should have played more fairly and warned her of that. Instead, he had let them drift along until the final showdown and breakup.
His reverie was interrupted when he heard Kendall singing a lullaby to Kevin in the other room. She had probably just nursed him for the first time that day. John pictured her cradling the baby in her arms, smiling down at him, running her fingertips over the small features of his face, showering him with maternal love.
That's what she had been doing the first time he saw her, sitting on a quilt in the yard of that house in Denver. When Jim Pepperdyne identified himself to her, she had almost looked relieved, as though she had anticipated being found and no longer had to dread it.
They gave her time to gather her and the baby's things before walking her to the car. As she was about to get in, she hesitated. Her eyes darted anxiously between him and Jim."Are you taking me back to South Carolina?"
"Yes, ma'am," Jim had replied. "You've got to go back."
In the course of his career, John had witnessed nearly every emotional response that a human being could experience. He was a student of reflex, both conditioned and involuntary. He was an expert at reading inflections of speech and expressions.
He could distinguish truth from lies with amazing accuracy.
It had been his vocation to do so. Others relied on his expertise in human behavior.
So when Jim told her that their intention was to return her to the state from which she had fled, and her eyes filled with tears and she clutched her baby protectively to her chest, John was absolutely certain that Kendall Deaton Burnwood believed with all her heart precisely what she said: "If you take me back, they will kill me."
John had previously worked with Jim Pepperdyne on a Hostage Rescue Team. Pepperdyne was an excellent agent; John considered him one of his few real friends. Even though John was no longer with the Bureau, Pepperdyne had invited him to sit in while he questioned Mrs. Burnwood.
"Just as an observer," he had said casually as they made their way down the hall toward an office where Kendall was waiting. "You might find it very interesting. Besides, I need a read on her trustworthiness. Is she telling the truth, or a pack of lies?"
"You already know she's telling the truth."
"But her testimony has to be strong enough to convince a jury of something they'll think is preposterous. You're a coldhearted bastard," Pepperdyne had said amicably. "You're tougher and more cynical than most jurors will be. If she convinces you, we're home free."
"This isn't my line of work anymore," John had reminded him when they reached the office door.
Pepperdyne placed his hand on the doorknob, shot John a retiring look, and said, "Bullshit."
Chapter 22
She was alone inside the office, having declined counsel and saying that she would act on her own behalf. Her son was being baby-sat by another agent. She gave no outward appearance of anxiety, even when Pepperdyne served her the warrant.
She skimmed it, then looked up at them, perplexed. "This is a material-witness warrant."
"What did you expect?" Pepperdyne said. "A murder warrant, maybe?"
"Is he dead?"
"Mart Burnwood? No."
She rolled her lips inward, but John couldn't tell whether the reaction was one of relief or consternation. "I thought I'd killed him."
"If Mr. Burnwood is convicted of the charges filed against him, he'll probably wish he were dead."
She touched her forehead, her misapprehension plain to see.
"Wait. I don't understand. Are you telling me that Matt has been arrested and charged?"
"Him, his father, assorted others whom you tagged as being members of this vigilante group." Pepperdyne passed her a list of names. "The charges range from conspiracy to commit murder all the way up to capital murder. Since the district judge and the district attorney have been indicted, appointees are now serving in those positions. They're all in custody, Mrs. Burnwood. All have been denied bail."
"I can't believe it," she said in a small voice. "Someone finally took my calls seriously."
"They would have been taken seriously from the beginning if they'd been channeled to the right office." Pepperdyne sat on the corner of the desk. "Somebody in Justice had already picked up the odor of something fishy going on down there.
Too many prisoners turned up either dead or injured while in Prosper's jail. Sentences were extraordinarily stiff."
"They were already under investigation?"
"Even before you were hired to be the public defender,"
Jim replied. "We had a man down there working undercover. Before he could obtain incontrovertible evidence against any of the suspects, he disappeared without a trace."
He opened a file folder and handed her a photograph. "I think you'll recognize him."
"Bama! Oh, my God!"
Pepperdyne glanced at John. John nodded. Her surprise was genuine.
"The night I saw them kill Michael Li, I discovered his body," she said. "He'd been missing for about a week."
"He's still missing as far as we're concerned. We've searched the area but can't find a trace of the grave you mentioned in your phone calls. Do you think you could find it again?"
"I doubt it. It's been over a year. It was dark that night.
I was lost, disoriented, terrified. I literally stumbled across his body and then ran for my life. Even if I could take you to the exact spot, the elements would have eroded any physical evidence."
"We might be able to turn up something."
She pressed her lips with her fingers in an attempt to hide their trembling. "I can't believe that Bama was an FBI agent."
"Agent Robert McCoy. He must've blown his cover and paid for it with his life."
"Not necessarily. The Brotherhood might have been doing some spring cleaning and decided that the steps of the court house needed to be swept. That would have been ample motivation for them to kill him."
She stood up and walked to the window. Her arms were folded over her middle, her shoulders hunched forward self protectively.