Chapter 4
4
“I mean it, Conrad. You’re not leaving here without me.”
Conrad stood there, practically towering over her five-feet-six-inches. The man’s physical presence would be awe-inspiring under different circumstances. “You sure about that? Because you’ll be taking a risk that I’m not sure you fully understand.”
“I’m a second-year law student,” she stated, standing a little straighter. “I have a good handle on what we’re about to do.”
“Then, why? Why would you risk your future for me?”
She fisted her right hand and placed it on her hip. “You think we have time to go into this now?”
He studied her for a long moment before issuing a deep sigh. He stuck his hand out. “Can I see your cell phone?”
Nikki dug around in her handbag for it and produced it a few seconds later.
Conrad fished for his own, then tossed them toward the barn.
“What the hell?” It dawned on her the moment she asked the question. “Never mind.”
“It’s not too late to change your mind,” he said as the sun drifted behind the tree line to the west.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Follow me,” he said before taking off toward the woods.
Not two steps in, Nikki ran smack into a spiderweb. She let out a yelp before she could suppress it.
Conrad whirled around. “What happened?”
“Spider,” she said as she wildly swiped her hands in the air. She spit as an involuntary shiver rocked her body. “I hate spiders.”
He stopped long enough for her to finish. Then, without another word, took off.
This meant he was a fugitive. This also meant she was aiding and abetting. This could mean the end of a career in law.
An innocent person deserved a fair chance. Nikki needed to find the truth. She didn’t have confidence in small-town law enforcement, especially when they mistakenly believed they’d already found their perp.
Something her first-year law professor had said cycled back through her thoughts. Once a suspect is in custody, law enforcement often stops searching for the truth. They often, subconsciously, begin only proving they are already correct.
Now that a law enforcement officer was on the way to arrest Conrad, the investigation would shift to finding even more proof he was guilty. The evidence so far was circumstantial unless the ax yielded Conrad’s fingerprints. Of course, it would. He’d been chopping wood minutes before the murder had taken place. He’d been seen.
A question stamped her thoughts. Conrad was a Sturgess, a high-profile person whether he wanted to be or not. Where on earth could they hide where someone wouldn’t recognize him? Without food or water, they couldn’t stay in the woods forever, and thank the stars for that because she was a mosquito magnet and was scared to death of spiders and snakes. An involuntary shiver rocked her body just thinking about them.
The law would mark her as an accomplice. Her car was still parked near the main house. Her cell had been tossed toward the barn along with Conrad’s. She understood why he’d had to get rid of them since they could be tracked using the location finder.
Not having a phone caused her chest to tighten with anxiety. Being cut off from the world caused her pulse to pick up even faster, as if running wasn’t doing the trick. How would they call for help if they were trapped by a bear or wild hog? From everything she’d heard, those things were as disgusting as they were deadly.
Nikki wasn’t a country girl. Her chunky boots proved the point more than words ever could. Holding tight to her purse straps helped keep her handbag from smacking into her side.
Breathe. You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important to you.
Repeating the mantra helped until her toe caught on underbrush. She faceplanted and skidded, scratching her hands up in the process as the contents of her handbag splayed across the ground.
Nikki pushed up to sit and gathered her breath mints and wallet, leaving loose change behind. In an instant, Conrad was next to her with a helping hand. She grabbed hold of his wrist before he pulled her up.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I’m good,” she said, shouldering her purse strap.
“It’s not too late to go back,” he stated, his deep timbre barely above a whisper.
“I’m in this, Conrad. I intend to see it through.”
He heaved a sigh. “Okay, then. Can you keep going, or do you need a break?”
“Where are we headed?”
“Not too much farther,” he reassured as a rustling sound caused both of them to freeze. In the next second, he gently guided her down to acrouching position. It was too dark to see clearly. The winds picked up. Spring break in Texas could mean any type of weather, from an ice storm to blazing heat. You never knew what you were going to get.
A gust of wind shook the trees.
Nikki’s heart skipped a couple of beats.
They waited. Listened.
When it was deemed safe, they started again. She had no idea what was close to here. Fears of sleeping in a spider-infested equipment shed caused her body to shiver again. At least her eyes were slowly adjusting to the darkness.
Conrad stopped at a fort. It was old, made out of wood with heavy blankets, but sturdy.
“Tell me we’re not sleeping in there,” Nikki said.
“We’re not sleeping in there,” he responded.
“Thank heaven.”
“Stay right here.” He moved around to the opposite side of the fort, returning a few seconds later with a dirt bike.
“Why would that be out in the middle of nowhere?”
“This isn’t nowhere,” he said. “It was one of my favorite places to come when I was young.”
“You can’t be serious,” she said. “That thing isn’t going to work after all these years.”
“Of course not.” He threw his leg over and took a seat before motioning her to hop on the back. “When I returned to the ranch, I fixed this one up, rode this out here, and left it. My siblings and I kept it here for those times when we found ourselves in need of a ride back to the main house or just wanted to have fun.”
Barking in the distance alerted them to the fact dogs had been brought in to find them. This probably wasn’t the right time to tell Conrad about her other big fear. Motorcycles.
She slipped onto the seat behind him, wrapped her arms around his midsection after securing her purse, and then buried her face in his back.
No turning back now.
Branches slapped Conrad in the face, chest, and arms as he pushed the dirt bike as fast as he could through the terrain. Thankfully, he’d memorized this area and knew it like the back of his hand. There’d been many times in his childhood when he’d needed to disappear for a few hours. The fort had been the spot. It wasn’t uncommon for him to run into one or more of his siblings there.
Beaumont would not have approved, which made the place even more special. The man hadn’t visited this side of the property with the thick trees. He’d almost always rode to the east, which had made this area even more appealing.
Conrad had yet to show the spot to Beau. Trust was earned, in Conrad’s opinion. He’d been willing to give his half-sibling the benefit of the doubt, which wasn’t the same as blindly trusting the man. He was, after all, Beaumont’s son.
Zigzagging deeper into the thicket, he tried not to focus on the arms wrapped around him or the face buried into his back. Nikki shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t put her name on the line in case this investigation went south. There was no reassurance Conrad wouldn’t end up in jail. They might end up caught and arrested.
Giving himself a mental headshake, he refocused on the terrain. The short stint he’d had dealing with race cars had taught him that focusing on the wall at a high rate of speed during a hairpin turn led to a crash. Maintaining focus on where he intended to go, would deny any other outcome. Leaning forward, he navigated them off Sturgess property. At least the dogs that had been hunting them would lose their scent now. He had no doubt the animals would have caught up to them, given the chance. Stashing the dirt bike at the fort had been a symbolic gesture that had paid off.
Until the engine chugged, and the bike jerked. His gaze dropped to the gas gauge. Shit on a stick. Empty.
The bike stalled. Nikki hopped off the second it stopped.
“I hate motorcycles,” she said. “Had a boyfriend once who thought going a hundred miles an hour around the lake and scaring me to death on the back was funny.”
“What an asshole,” Conrad stated, and then apologized for forcing her on the back of this one.
“This was an emergency,” she said. “You had no choice.”
Even so, guilt smacked him hard. He should have asked upfront.
“Besides, we’re here now, and those dogs would’ve found us,” she continued, gripping her purse strap to the point of turning her knuckles white.
They might still.
“Can you run?” he asked. The place he had in mind was far but would offer shelter. Plus, they needed to put as much distance between themselves and the search team as humanly possible.
“These boots aren’t helping, but yes.”
She had on those thick-soled boots that were all the rage.
“We can walk for a while,” he said, adjusting his strategy. “Getting blisters the size of dollar bills will only hold us back tomorrow.”
“What do we do next?” she asked as they headed northwest. “We have no phones or transportation.”
“We can’t use credit cards, either,” he said. “That’s an important one.”
“I have a little cash,” she said. “My mom always insists on traveling with enough to get by in case the machines all go down.” She shrugged. “She had that happen on a road trip once when I was little and was able to pay for gas with cash. Made her day that her planning had paid off.”
“It’s good advice,” he said. “Seems like every move we make nowadays can be tracked.”
“I’m used to it,” Nikki said. “Aren’t you?”
“I’ll never get used to the loss of privacy.” Call him old-fashioned, but he kept enough cash on hand to get by for a couple of days. Most of his purchases were all cash unless he needed to buy something that had to be delivered. That was usually something for the ranch, a large purchase. “Big companies are always watching everything we do. So, I use cash mostly. And it’s the same reason I don’t have social media accounts.”
“None?” she asked with the kind of incredulity in her voice that made him laugh. “What’s so funny?”
“We have accounts for the ranch, of course,” he said, still chuckling. “But the world hasn’t ended because I don’t know what so-and-so is eating for breakfast today. So, I’m good.”
“Point taken,” she said. “I’m just so used to scrolling with my morning coffee. Makes me feel like I know what’s going on.”
“Do you honestly think those pictures are a real representation of your friends?”
“That’s not the purpose,” she said. “They tell me when someone is in town or in the same city as I am. Social media has its uses.”
“I’ll have to trust you on that,” he said. “It’s not my cup of tea, and I doubt it ever will be.”
“To each his own, I guess,” she said, shrugging.
“Does that make me an oddball?” he asked.
She didn’t immediately answer. “Not really. It just makes you different.”
His ego wanted her to add, in a good way. She didn’t.
“You must miss your phone already,” he realized.
“I feel like I lost an appendage,” she said with a laugh.
“We don’t have cell coverage everywhere on our land, so I’m used to it not working a lot of the time,” he said. “It’s helped make me less dependent on them, so I don’t mind. Besides, I like being off the grid.”
“That’s probably not a bad thing, even though I’m anxious as hell without mine.”
They had bigger problems than no phones. Every law enforcement officer in the state of Texas would have received a Be On The Lookout, BOLO, regarding him by now. Would they consider Nikki an accomplice or a hostage?
Conrad bit back a curse because he knew what he had to do if his back was against the wall, and he didn’t like it.