Familiar Escape. Caroline Burnes

Harper, I’m not going to hurt you, but I may need to keep your vehicle.”

      Molly stared out the front window as if she’d gone into some kind of trance. Worry etched fine lines around her eyes, and Thomas felt a pang. This woman had lost her sister and her niece. Now, because of him, she was in trouble with the law.

      “I’m sorry.” He meant it. “When I can, I’ll let you loose. I’ll call the sheriff’s office and tell them you weren’t involved in the breakout.”

      “And they’ll believe you.”

      The heavy dose of sarcasm in her tone actually made Thomas feel better. She was a fighter. “Why did you send the cat in to get the key if you didn’t want me to escape?”

      The look she shot him would curdle milk. He automatically pressed harder on the gas pedal.

      She raised her chin defiantly. “I didn’t send the cat. He went on his own.”

      “You’d better come up with something more reasonable than that if you want the deputies to believe you.” It was sort of ironic. They were both at a place where their stories were “too convenient.” “Look at it from my perspective. You show up out of the blue and insist on talking to me. You come back twice in one day. And the second time, while we’re talking, the cat is casing the joint to plot an escape. Doesn’t that seem like you might have planned it? Heck, even the idea that a cat obeys your command is hard to believe. But that the cat planned it? Get a grip.”

      He could see she understood, even if it was against her will. It was easier for her to be angry at him than it was to think how her own actions had put her in jeopardy.

      “I didn’t plan a thing except for a talk with you.” She nudged the cat. “That’s what I get for listening to him. He insisted we go to the campsite. He found the place where those other campers pitched a tent. He’s your biggest supporter and fan.”

      Thomas chuckled. He couldn’t help it. In another time and place he’d think about calling the men with the white coats for a woman who spoke about a cat as if he were human.

      She slumped deeper into her seat. “You’re laughing at me like I’m a nut.”

      He wisely kept his mouth shut and focused on the road. The sun had set behind the hills, and the blue-gray of twilight had turned the trees into stark black silhouettes. It was the most beautiful and the saddest time of day to him.

      “Familiar is a private investigator.” She spoke softly, as if she didn’t believe the words. “I hired him yesterday and picked him up at the airport in Shreveport, Louisiana, this morning.”

      He chanced a look. She’d really blown a fuse—she thought the cat was a detective. “You picked him up? Like at the baggage claim?”

      “He flew in from D.C. First class. I hired Familiar to find Kate. He’s got a résumé that includes solving murders, kidnappings and busting international crime rings. All he’s done here is involve me in a jailbreak with the man charged with my sister’s murder.” Now it was her turn to laugh.

      As Molly grew quiet, Thomas turned on the SUV’s lights. They cut a broad path through the gathering darkness, and to his left he saw a herd of white-tailed deer grazing. The light was poor, but he thought they were all does, the females who’d managed to survive the most recent season of hunting.

      Thomas failed to see the sport in it when the hunter had a high-powered rifle, scopes that practically sighted the gun, a four-wheeler to cover ground, and walkie-talkies to conspire with his buddies. There wasn’t much sport in killing an animal whose only defense was flight.

      “You look like you could spit nails,” she commented. “What’s wrong with you?”

      “I was thinking about hunters.”

      She shook her head. “I don’t want to try to understand how your mind works.” She sat up taller. “Where are you taking me?”

      “I have a friend who has a cabin. It’s a bit primitive, but you’ll be warm and safe.”

      “Can’t you just let us out of the car? We’re a thousand miles from nowhere. I haven’t seen another car for the last hour. If you let Familiar and me out, it’ll take us two days to walk back to civilization.”

      He considered it. “No.”

      “Why not? You say you don’t intend to hurt us.”

      “Something bad could happen to you.”

      She raised her hands in disgust. “Something other than being taken hostage by an escaped murderer?”

      “I’m not a murderer. I’m falsely charged. And I don’t consider this a dangerous situation because I won’t hurt you.”

      “I’m supposed to take your word for that.”

      “Look.” He was getting annoyed. “You don’t have any choice but to take my word. There are wild animals in these woods. Normally they avoid humans, but it would be my luck that I would put you out and a mountain lion would eat you. Now let me drive. It’s dark. The road has gotten narrow. I haven’t been back here in the past five years, and I don’t want to get lost. We have only a quarter tank of gas.”

      Those words silenced her, and Thomas’s thoughts turned to the real danger of their situation. If they ran out of gas up in this area, they might wait around for days before anyone happened along. February wasn’t a big camping month and though the weather was mild now, a blizzard could pass through and they could easily freeze to death.

      They wound higher into the hills, and Thomas had the sense that they’d entered a tunnel of trees. No stars were visible through the thick canopy of limbs. During the day it was beautiful. At night it felt a bit claustrophobic.

      “Have you thought far enough ahead to figure out what you’re going to do?” she asked. “You’re free, but you don’t have a life. You can’t go back to your home. You can’t go to your job. What are you going to do?”

      He didn’t have a specific plan, but he had an answer. “I’m going to prove my innocence. And I’m going to find Kate, if she’s alive. I’ve been sitting in that jail cell since Anna was killed. I haven’t had a chance to look for Kate. Now I will.”

      Her voice was softer. “Do you believe she’s alive?”

      As much as he wanted to lie to her, he had to tell the truth. “I don’t know. I want to believe she’s okay, but the sheriff has everyone convinced that she’s dead. He must have found something at the scene to make him so sure.”

      “Has anyone talked to Darwin?” she asked.

      He shook his head. “He wouldn’t talk to me. We had a heated set-to at my arraignment. I accused him of killing Anna and he screamed at me and accused me of killing his wife and baby. It was high drama on his part.”

      “He was acting?”

      “Darwin hardly knows me, but I think he knows I didn’t hurt Anna or Kate. We had words a few months ago after he’d hit Anna and she came to my house. He wanted to say we were having an affair, but I straightened him out.” His hands tightened on the wheel as he remembered. “I wanted to punch his lights out, but I couldn’t. I might’ve had a moment’s satisfaction, but Anna would have lost the only safe place she had to go.”

      “You said high drama. Why would he accuse you of killing her?”

      “He didn’t want the cops looking at him. I was the perfect scapegoat, and he played it to the hilt. How well do you know him?”

      “The first time I met him was at the wedding.” Molly cleared her throat. “He was crude and awful. I guess I wanted my sister to have that fairy-tale love story—the prince on a white horse who would rescue her and love her and take care of her. Darwin was about as far from that as anyone can get. He married Anna for her inheritance. And when he went through all of her money, he started