“Wait. I have an idea. Do you think you could trust me?”
She laughed. “Why the hell would I do that?”
“Because you’re right. I made this happen, and I don’t trust Gates, and I’m going to take care of you.”
“Ha!” The bitter sound turned into honest laughter. She had to stop and catch her breath. “Are you kidding me? You’re not going to take care of me. Let me tell you exactly what you’re going to do. You’re going to make promises. You’re going to say pretty things. And then as soon as it gets rough, you’ll walk away, and I’ll be worse off than I was before.”
“That’s not how I work,” he growled.
“That’s how everyone works. My own father taught me that. The man who loved me from the moment I was born. My fucking hero. So no, Tom, I can’t trust you.”
“I’m going to bring you in,” he said as if she hadn’t just laughed in his face. “You have information about a federal fugitive, and I’m going to bring you in for questioning.”
“I don’t have any information, and you’re not taking me anywhere.”
“Isabelle,” he said darkly. Then he started toward her.
She backed away. “No. We still have thirty minutes. Just leave and give me a head start. You owe me that.”
“I’m bringing you in. It’ll at least buy us twenty-four hours.”
She meant to fight him. She had every intention of getting away. But he reached out and grabbed her wrist, and one quick flick later, she was on the bed with both her hands clasped in one of his. “No,” she said, trying to scream the word, but it came out as a whimper. “Please don’t.”
“This is for your own good,” he answered. “I’m not letting you run anymore. You deserve better.”
“No!”
she said more loudly. “No, Tom, please!” But she heard the handcuffs click into place, and panic flooded her blood. “Let me go. I can take care of myself. I’ll disappear, and I’ll be out of your hair. Please.”
“Ms. Pozniak, you’re under arrest for aiding and abetting a federal fugitive.”
“Let me go!” she shrieked, struggling against him as he took her arms and pulled her to her feet. She broke free for a moment, falling back to the mattress, but he didn’t even stop talking as he grabbed her again.
“You have the right to an attorney. If you—”
“I fucking hate you, Tom Duncan,” she said as he swung her around. “You’re a lying bastard, and I wish I’d never touched you.”
He didn’t even flinch. He just kept on reading her her rights.
She really wished she hadn’t started to fall a little in love with him. She knew now that it was the very last time she’d let that happen.
CHAPTER TWENTY
HE DIDN’T KNOW what to do with her.
If he’d been in Cheyenne, it would have been fine. A locked interrogation room, a meeting with his boss, he would have had this under control. But Tom was in Jackson, and the federal courthouse didn’t have an interrogation room, and the holding cell was being used for the trial.
He damn sure wasn’t going to drop her off at the county jail and leave her there. In the end, he took her to the meeting room he’d been using as an office, handcuffed her to the table and stepped outside to call Mary.
He was met by a very angry Agent Gates, who’d seen them pass by on the road and must have scrambled to follow.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Duncan?” the man asked past clenched teeth.
“I brought her in for questioning. I thought that was what you wanted.”
“This is my fucking case,” Gates growled.
“Yeah, well, Pozniak is my fugitive, isn’t he? I mean, if you were up for finding him, you would have done it by now, right?”