Incriminating Passion. Ann Peterson Voss

deep breath, she pushed into a sitting position and scraped the remaining strands out of her eyes. Her injured hand left a trail of crimson on one cheek. “The truck— Did you see?” A strangled sound erupted from deep in her throat. The unmistakable sound of fear.

      “It almost ran you down.”

      “It was the same. The same truck that ran me off the road and into the quarry.”

      John gritted his teeth, fighting the urge to wrap her in his arms, to comfort her. There was no time. The truck could be back any moment. And this time he had the feeling the driver would make sure he didn’t miss. He pointed to a full-sized silver van towering above the cars. “My car is just on the other side of that van. Do you think you can make it?”

      She swallowed hard, as if pushing down her panic. “I can make it.”

      “Good. Lean on me if you need to.” He held out a hand.

      She grasped it. Her hand trembled. Her palm was sticky, blood oozing from raw flesh. She pressed her lips together in a determined line and nodded. “Let’s go.”

      Rising to a crouch, John peered over the trunk of one of the cars. The distant roar of a truck engine cut through the still air. He looked in the direction of the sound, waiting for the black behemoth to appear from around the corner and crash headlong into the parked cars, pinning them between the twisted metal. But he couldn’t spot the sound’s source. The parking lot was still as death.

      Time to make their move. He pulled her up. Still crouched, he dodged through the maze of cars, Andrea on his heels. Reaching his blue sedan, he unlocked the driver’s door and motioned her inside.

      She scrambled over the stick shift and into the passenger seat. John ducked behind the wheel. He slipped the key in the ignition and turned it. The engine revved to life.

      Suddenly the sound of the engine grew louder, deeper as it was joined by another engine’s growl.

      Andrea gasped. “The truck.”

      “Hold on.” Throwing the car in reverse, John hit the gas. The car shot backward. He yanked the wheel to one side. Tires screeching, it spun in place.

      And faced the truck.

      Black windows stared like malevolent eyes. The front bumper was dented. The perfect gleam of the truck’s right fender was marred by silver paint. No doubt the color of Andrea’s car.

      She covered her mouth, stifling a scream.

      John hit the gas. The car leaped forward. Another twist of the wheel and his car dodged to the side, just missing a black fender. He pressed his foot to the floor. He took the corner full throttle, tires screeching in protest. Fishtailing out of the parking lot, they raced onto the highway frontage road.

      One eye on the rearview mirror, John tried to steady his pulse. The black truck was nowhere to be seen, as if it and its driver had disappeared.

      “No one is following. It looks like we lost him.”

      Andrea stared shell-shocked at the cars around them, as if she was convinced any one of them might morph into the black truck at any moment. “You believe me now?” Her voice rang hollow, monotoned.

      He’d seen the evidence with his own eyes. The black truck. The squeal of rubber as it shot straight for Andrea. “Do I believe someone is trying to kill you? Yes.”

      “And Wingate? Do you still think I killed him?”

      He blew a breath through tight lips. He’d gone to her hotel room this morning to catch her in a lie, to prove she’d killed her husband, and to banish her from his mind for good. But instead of getting answers, he was stuck with more questions and no convincing evidence. He didn’t even have a body. “I don’t know.”

      “I suppose that’s an improvement. Maybe if the truck had run me down, you’d actually believe me.”

      Maybe I believe you now.

      He clamped down on the thought. A bitter laugh lodged in his throat. Hadn’t he seen enough in his years in the district attorney’s office to know how easily people lie? Didn’t he know the lengths people would go to protect their own guilty hides?

      He damn well should. But somehow, when he saw the tears in Andrea’s eyes, when he heard the fear and sincerity in her voice, he forgot every hard lesson the past fifteen years had taught.

      Whether she was guilty of killing her husband or not, he wanted to believe her. And that scared him more than a charging black truck ever could.

      STILL TREMBLING, Andrea stood in front of the window in John Cohen’s cramped office. She felt like a sitting duck waiting for the bullet. She hadn’t wanted to come here. She hadn’t wanted to report the latest incident with the black truck to the police. She’d wanted to disappear, to get out of town. She’d be long gone if that truck hadn’t shown up.

      And she’d be dead if John Cohen hadn’t pushed her out of the way.

      She shook her head. It didn’t make sense. John Cohen had bullied her, accused her and refused to believe her. But he hadn’t hesitated to rush into on-coming traffic to save her life.

      She turned away from the window and raked her gaze over his office. The battered desk. The ancient chairs. The stacks of files that towered like pine trees in the north woods. With most people, she could get a sense of them by examining their surroundings. Not so John Cohen. The room was so plain, so devoid of personality, the only feeling she could glean from it was the bone-deep ache of fatigue.

      And a loneliness that spoke to something in her own soul.

      She shook her head and wrapped her arms around herself. Ridiculous. She didn’t know John Cohen, and she didn’t want to know him. She wanted to get out of this office. She wanted to get as far away from the police and the district attorney as she could. She wanted to disappear.

      Male voices filtered in from the hallway. John pushed the door wide and strode inside alone. He crossed to his desk and dropped a small stack of files on the already heaped desktop. “I struck out. Seems the department doesn’t have the man hours available to offer citizens protection from what they consider to be two unfortunate accidents.”

      She breathed a sigh of relief. “I told you I didn’t want the cops involved.”

      He frowned. “Because you still think the Green Valley police are after you?”

      “You might not want to take a chance either if your life was on the line.”

      He held up his hands as if trying to fend off her anger. “You’ve got to admit, that’s a hard one to swallow.”

      “All I know is that I called the Green Valley police station and the next thing I knew, the black truck was after me.” She paced to the far side of the office, shaking her head. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. I’ll take care of myself when it comes to the black truck.”

      He narrowed his eyes on her. “And how do you propose to do that?”

      “I can get lost. I’ve done it before.”

      “Not when you’re involved in a murder investigation, you haven’t.”

      “I’ve told you everything I know.”

      “Which is close to nothing.”

      “It’s all I remember.”

      “You can’t just throw half memories and paranoia out there and then ‘get lost’ as you say. Especially not when you’re a suspect.”

      She bit the inside of her cheek. Her story probably did sound like half memories and paranoia to him. It sure sounded that way to her, and she’d lived through it. A bubble of helplessness rose in her throat. She might have never quite had control of her life, but she’d always had control of her memories.

      Now she’d lost even that.

      She straightened her spine