Falsely Accused. Shirlee McCoy

It had taken a while, but eventually they’d warmed up to one another. By the time she’d left for college, she’d thought of him as her annoying kid brother—still finding trouble, still not settled into the structured life Abigail offered. She had been frustrated with his lack of progress, but she had also been hopeful that he would grow up and mature.

      Still, she had been surprised when he’d told her he planned to become a police officer. She’d been even more surprised when he had decided to stay in Hidden Cove. Small-town life wasn’t anything either of them had been used to when they’d arrived. Both had often complained about the constraints of living in a town where everyone knew everyone else’s business. As a teen, Ryan had always been chomping at the bit, ready to break free of the life he had been forced into. The idea of him getting a job with the local police and staying in Hidden Cove hadn’t been on Wren’s radar.

      But then, she had never been close to Ryan.

      She’d loved him like a brother, but they had been too far apart in age and in personality to be friends. The inner workings of his mind had always been as mysterious to her as hers had been to him.

      Now, he was gone, and she was being questioned about his murder as if she were a suspect or the perpetrator.

      “I didn’t have anything to do with the shooting. Swab my hands for gun residue, take me in for questioning, but while you’re doing all that, make sure you have someone out there looking for the real perpetrator,” she said, hoping to illicit a response from one of the men.

      They remained silent. No further comment on her supposed shooting of a man she considered a brother, no questions asked in the hope of getting answers that could be used against her. The silence in the vehicle was eerie. The space between her and the two officers was unencumbered by mesh or Plexiglas.

      This wasn’t like any police cruiser she had ever been in. There were locks and handles on the interior door panels. Easy escape for a criminal who wanted to get away. As far as she had been able to see, there wasn’t a radio or computer attached to the console. Even a low-budget, low-tech police department would have radios in the vehicles.

      She shifted forward to get a better look, and the fairer-skinned man lifted a gun and aimed it in her direction.

      “Back off,” he said harshly, barely glancing in her direction.

      She did. She’d already seen what she wanted to. She had been correct. There was no police radio in the car. No computer system. Nothing tying this vehicle to the sheriff’s department. If these men were imposters, they had to be tied to Ryan’s shooting. If that were the case, they had an agenda that didn’t include taking her to the sheriff’s department and booking her on federal charges. This area of Maine was largely unpopulated, deep forest and stretching across the landscape. It would be easy to get rid of a body here—to hide someone and make it seem as if that person had gone on the run.

      What kind of trouble were you in, Ryan? she silently asked. Something big. So big he had been killed because of it, and it looked as if Wren was being set up to be the fall guy. If she didn’t escape, her SUV and Ryan’s squad car would eventually be found. His body would be discovered, and she would be gone—a story people told for years to come. How an FBI agent killed her foster brother and then went on the lam. The police would be searching for her instead of searching for the real killer, but she would never be found. Her body would be buried somewhere deep in the Maine wilderness.

      And that was something she couldn’t allow.

      Not just because she was innocent and needed to prove it, but because she wanted justice for Ryan. She wanted the person who had shot him to be punished to the full extent of the law. She had gone into law enforcement to make that happen to as many criminals as she could. She had committed herself to that goal, and she had spent more than a decade of her life devoted to it. Everything she was, all that she did, was tied up in her need to see justice served. She had no regrets about that.

      Lately, though, she had been tired.

      She had returned home after long days of work at the FBI’s Boston field office and asked herself if her devotion to justice was worth the silent and empty apartment, the lack of romantic relationships, the bonds of friendship that had become frayed and worn after years of missed and rescheduled get-togethers. Returning to Hidden Cove to help Abigail had seemed like the perfect opportunity to reassess her life and her goals. Wren had imagined plenty of downtime spent walking the farm or hiking through the woods.

      She hadn’t imagined this.

      She hadn’t anticipated it.

      She was neck-deep in trouble, and she was the only person who could get herself out of it.

      She slid sideways on the seat, watching as the vehicle zipped past shadowy trees. She knew this road well and knew exactly where she was. She’d traveled this way hundreds of times as a preteen and teenager. She knew the curves and the hills, the places where it opened up and where it narrowed.

      She knew that the next turnoff led down a long dirt driveway to a tired-looking bungalow-style house that overlooked Mystic Creek. She thought the place had been abandoned years ago, but she wasn’t sure. She hadn’t asked Abigail, because she hadn’t wanted her to know that there were still times when she thought about the bungalow and about Titus Anderson. Even after all these years.

      She watched as the driver flew past the old white mailbox that marked the Anderson property. They were going too fast for the road, taking curves too quickly, tree branches scraping the sides and roof of the vehicle. If she jumped out now, she could be too badly injured to run.

      She waited, her arm still seeping blood, her attention focused.

      They traveled another couple of miles, and then the driver braked hard, spinning onto a side road, the car slowing just enough that she was willing to take the chance. Had to take it, because it might be the only one she got.

      She opened the door and threw herself out, trying to jump clear of the back wheels. Her shoulder slammed into the thick trunk of a pine tree, needles jabbing her face as she stumbled and tried to regain her balance.

      She fell, her forehead glancing off the rough bark, knees sliding across dead leaves and aromatic needles. The screech of brakes spurred her up and on.

       Faster.

       Faster.

      The word chanted through her mind, her pulse matching the frantic rhythm of it. She was making too much noise, giving away her location with every frantic push forward.

      She needed to slow down, be quiet, think through her options, because if she didn’t, she’d die. And, in a place like this, it might be years before she was found.

      If she ever was.

      And maybe that was what this was about. The trouble Ryan was in had led to his murder, and she was slated to be the fall-guy for it. All the perps had to do was get her away from the murder scene, kill her and hide her body where no one would ever find it. With her vehicle left near Ryan’s body, she could be pinned with the crime and called a fugitive from justice. She wasn’t going to let that happen.

      She forced herself to stop and listen.

      They were behind her, crashing through the thick undergrowth, breaking branches and twigs. They’d have lights. She was certain of that. She didn’t glance back to see if she was right. She turned to her left, walking parallel to the road rather than away from it. Moving deliberately, being careful where she stepped and what she bumped. The moon was high and bright. It had been rising when she’d left the rehabilitation center where Abigail had been staying since she’d broken her hip. Now, it had reached its zenith and was descending. She used it as a guide. East would lead her back to the dirt driveway and Titus’s childhood home. His mother had died when they were in college, overdosing on the drugs that had stolen her away from him years prior to her death. He’d inherited the house, but he’d told her