Cowboy Alibi

Chapter Nine

The Shamrock Motel sat, low-slung and shabby, just off Highway 21 about two hours outside Boise. Its Las Vegas-style marquee was missing several lights so that the sign read ham ock in neon green.

They came upon it less than a mile down the road from the Lucky 21 Truck Stop, a fact that combined with Joe’s growing exhaustion to overcome his dismay at the motel’s seedy appearance. Back up the highway about a quarter mile, he’d spotted a turnoff that might provide them a good place to hide the cruiser. As soon as he could find a place to turn around, he reversed course and backtracked to the turnoff, driving down a winding gravel road for another quarter mile until he found a stand of trees that would hide the cruiser from view, at least until full daylight the next day. By then, he planned to be already at the truck stop, looking to grab a ride on a big rig into Boise.

Joe pulled the dead deputy’s service weapon out of the waistband of his jeans and laid it on the car seat. He saw Jane’s curious sidelong glance. “We’ll get further unarmed,” he explained. “Less conspicuous.”

She nodded.

They cut through the woods, keeping the highway in sight, until they reached the clearing where the Shamrock Motel sprawled under the blue-green combination of the waxing moon and the anemic neon of its marquee sign. Joe told Jane to wait in the parking lot while he went inside and rented a room for the night.

The desk clerk took his money without really looking at him, no doubt aware that the less he noticed, the fewer questions he’d have to answer when someone with a badge or a P.I. license inevitably came calling. Joe signed the register “Mr. and Mrs. John Clark” and the clerk handed him the key to room 24.

Jane followed him to the room, located at the far end of the motel. There were only a couple of other cars in the parking lot, and no signs of occupation down where their room was located.

Jane went immediately to the bathroom as soon as they got inside, leaving Joe to drop wearily onto the bed, hoping the worn bedspread was relatively clean. He was surprised to see a phone on the bedside table; a lot of places like the Shamrock Motel didn’t bother with that sort of amenity, knowing its typical clientele wouldn’t require more than a bed and relative anonymity.

He picked up the phone and dialed the operator. Asking to place a collect call, he gave the operator the number of his deputy chief’s office in Canyon Creek and prayed that Riley Patterson was pulling one of his usual late nights.

His second in command answered on the second ring. The operator told him there was a collect call from a Sheriff John Clark and would he accept the charges? Joe held his breath, hoping his old friend would remember their games of Cowboys and Indians from their childhood days.

“I’ll accept,” Riley said.

Joe released his pent-up breath.

“Joe?” Riley asked when the operator left the line.

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“Are you okay?” The worry in Riley’s voice caught Joe by surprise.

“I’m okay. Listen, I don’t have long-”

“Neither do I. I just got a call from an FBI agent out of the Idaho Falls Resident Agency. Did you know you’re wanted for murdering a couple of Idaho cops?”

Joe closed his eyes, his head hurting. How had Holbrook managed to set up the frame so quickly? “I can explain-”

“Don’t call me here again.” Riley hung up on him.

Joe stared at the phone, dumbfounded. What the hell was going on? He knew Riley. Had known him his whole life. There was no way he would have bought any story about Joe being a cop killer.

The phone to the police station was already being monitored, Joe realized. Riley had forced him off the line before they could finish a direct trace.

It would buy them a little time, although whoever was trying to discover their whereabouts would eventually follow their tracks to the Shamrock Motel. With luck, it wouldn’t happen until they were already headed west to Boise and the relative anonymity of the bigger city.

But Joe couldn’t risk calling Riley or his office again. He was effectively cut off from all the people he could trust.

He and Jane were on their own.

“Jane?” He looked around the empty motel room. The door to the bathroom was closed.

She’d been in there a long time, he realized. Too long. Pushing to his feet, he crossed to the door. “Jane?” he called, his gut tightening with alarm. Had she been hurt in the ambush and hidden it from him? Had she climbed out the bathroom window and run away?

He heard soft snuffling sounds inside, which relieved him on one count but scared him on another. He tried the door handle. It was unlocked.

“Jane, I’m coming in.” He pushed the door open.

Jane looked up at him from the floor, where she sat huddled on a towel between the tub and the toilet. She’d stripped off her clothes and thrown them in the tub, leaving her shivering in her underwear. Tears reddened her eyes and stained her face. “I didn’t want you to see me like this,” she said, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand.

He crouched in front of her, wincing as his injured side protested. “Like what? Human?”

She managed a watery laugh before her expression fell. Her lips trembled and fresh tears spilled from her eyes. “I’m so tired of having other people’s blood all over me.”

“I know.” He thumbed away her tears, cupping her cheek in his palm. “Tell you what. Let’s get you under the covers and warmed up, and I’ll see what I can do about getting the blood out of your clothes before morning.”

She let him pull her to her feet. As he started to turn away, she lifted her hand to his face, her palm rasping against his beard stubble. “You’re feeling a little feverish.”

“We’ll have to find some ibuprofen in the morning before we head to Boise.”

Her eyes glittered with pride. “No, we won’t.” She picked up something sitting on the edge of the sink and put it in his hand. It was a small, clear, resealable plastic bag full of pills. “Ibuprofen and your antibiotics. I had them in the pocket of my jeans.”

“Smart girl.” He took out one of each and dry-swallowed them, then tucked the bag in the pocket of his own jeans. He pulled a relatively clean-looking towel from the rack by the tub and wrapped it around Jane. “Let’s get you into bed.”

“I bet you say that to all the pathetic, sniveling girls,” she murmured as they left the bathroom.

He chuckled, but deep down, a ribbon of pain threaded through his heart. She sounded so much like the Sandra he remembered, the wounded, beautiful creature who’d turned his life upside down at a time when he hadn’t believed he could ever care about a woman again. She’d gotten under his skin so easily it was frightening, with her combination of vulnerability and steely strength. She was doing it again, chipping away at his armor piece by piece, and he didn’t know what to do to stop it.

He didn’t even know if he wanted to anymore.

“NINETY-FOUR DOLLARS and seventy-eight cents.” Jane slid the last penny into the pile in front of her and looked at Joe with a sinking heart. “We need more cash.”

He nodded. “I think I can get us a ride to Boise with a trucker at the truck stop up the road. But when we get there, we’re going to have to find an ATM and get some more cash.”

“You can’t do that! They’ll be looking for you.”

“I know.” He scooped up the money and put it back in his wallet. “But they’ll be expecting us to end up in Boise anyway, right? We can use that to our advantage.” He settled back against the headboard, pressing his hand against his left side as if he was in pain.

She scooted up the bed to sit beside him, reaching for his shirt to check the wound. “Is it still bleeding?”

He let her look, lifting his arm and settling it over her shoulders. A shudder of pure, feminine awareness rippled through her, but she forced herself to concentrate on his injury.

The bandage she’d put in place back at the cabin hours ago had held, but blood had seeped through to the surface. “I wish we had some way to change the bandage, but there’s nothing sterile in this place.”

“There’s a shop at the truck stop. I noticed it when we passed. We can probably pick up a few things there,” he said, his breath gently hitting her ear.

She lifted her head and found his face inches from hers. The air between them crackled with tension. His arm felt heavy on her shoulders, his fingers curling around her upper arm and pulling her closer.

Heat washed over her, swamping her with yearning. But as she felt herself leaning toward him, a flash of memory pushed through her desire-fogged brain. The angry undercover cop, his face red and his eyes dark with satisfaction.

Reno Police. You’re under arrest.

She pulled back, sliding away from his arm. “We should go to Reno, Nevada.”

THE BUS TRIP from Boise to Reno took over twenty hours. Despite the discomfort from his wounded side, Joe had settled down to sleep an hour out of Boise, suggesting she do the same. They’d gotten very little sleep in the past forty-eight hours, and they didn’t know what would await them in Nevada.

But Jane remained wide-awake, even as they crossed into Utah several hours later. Despite the whirlwind of activity that had started with catching a ride with a big-rig trucker from the Lucky 21 Truck Stop and ended with a mad dash to catch the bus to Reno, Jane couldn’t settle down so easily.

They’d hit the ground running in Boise, searching out a couple of different cash machines so Joe could max out the cash advances on his credit card. He’d also used a credit card to book them two one-way tickets to Portland, Oregon, to throw people who might be tracking his credit-card purchases off their trail.

They’d used some of the five thousand dollars in cash at a nearby drugstore and another cheap motel, where they’d changed their appearances-a buzz cut for Joe and red hair dye for Jane. They’d picked up cheap backpacks and some supplies and clothing at a discount store near the bus station, using another couple of hundred dollars from their cash supply. By 10:30 a.m. they’d bought two one-way tickets to Reno, also with cash, and boarded the bus for the long, winding trip to Nevada.

Even though she was exhausted, Jane couldn’t stop worrying about what waited for her in Reno. For all she knew, she’d been there just once, gotten arrested, and that was the end of it. There was a part of her that wanted to find nothing in Nevada to link her to her past. Every instinct she had was screaming for her to run away and put her past-whatever it might be-behind her.

But her past wasn’t going to leave her alone. Clint Holbrook, whoever he had been to her, wasn’t going away.

He’d called her his wife. But she didn’t feel like his wife. She felt no sense of connection to him, only a deep, grasping fear and a fast-growing hatred for all he’d done to hurt the people she cared about.

She glanced at Joe sleeping beside her. Without the Stetson to hide his new buzz cut, he looked more like a soldier returning from a hard war than a cowboy cop.

He also looked pale and a little thin. They hadn’t eaten much over the past couple of days, and the infection, though proving mild enough for the amoxicillin to handle, had taken a toll on him. She hated waking him when they reached Salt Lake City, but they had to transfer buses. She shook his shoulder, trying to be gentle, but he started awake, his eyes wild with the surge of adrenaline.

He relaxed a bit as he took in their surroundings. “We’re in Salt Lake already?”

She nodded. “We have a long layover. How about we get something to eat?”

They joined the throng of travelers exiting the bus at the Salt Lake City station, Joe keeping her close by draping his arm over her shoulders. They’d agreed on a cover story for their travels-newlyweds on an economy honeymoon. They even wore a pair of stainless-steel wedding bands they’d picked up cheaply at the discount store in Boise.

She toyed with the ring as they left the bus station, staying close to Joe. Outside, Salt Lake City sparkled like a thousand jewels as twilight descended. The setting sun painted the mountains in the east in tones of gold and red, reminding Jane of the Sawtooth Mountains back home.

Her stomach twisted as that word rang in her head. Home. That’s how she’d come to think of Trinity, but only because she knew nothing else but those five short months there. That time was the sum total of life as she knew it.

For better or worse, it was time to leave Trinity behind and find out who she really was.

Joe caught her hand as they crossed the street, following the crowd toward a large mall visible a few blocks ahead. They found a sub sandwich shop in the mall and grabbed a couple of sandwiches for dinner. Jane enjoyed the anonymity of the large mall, the sense of safety in numbers. As they ate, she found herself pretending she was just an ordinary woman, having dinner with a friend.

A boyfriend, she amended mentally. Since it was her fantasy.

Maybe they had met in college. Joe was probably a few years older than she was, but maybe he’d worked a while and gone to college later. He’d majored in criminal justice, of course. Top of his class. Her major had been-

What? What interested her? What was she good at? She had no idea.

“What did I tell you about myself? Back in Wyoming,” she asked aloud.

Joe looked up from his dinner. “Not much, really. You didn’t talk about your past. You were all about the present. And sometimes the future.”

“Did I tell you other things about myself? What my dreams were? What talents or skills I had?”

He gazed across the table at her, his expression apologetic. “Not a lot. I know you liked music. You could play the piano.”

“I play the piano?” She smiled at that.

“Yeah. You said you came to it later in your life and wished you had been able to take lessons when you were younger. You wanted to be better at it.”

“Did I ever play for you?”

His expression softened. “Yeah. You did. I have a piano at home. It belonged to my mother, but she died before she could teach me to play. My father thought piano lessons were a waste. I was going to be a rancher like he was, and that was that.”

“But you’re a policeman instead.”

He nodded. “Call me a rebel.”

She laughed. “Oh, yeah. You’re a rebel.”

He smiled. “You used to tease me about that.”

“About what? Being a rebel?”

“Being a cowboy. Mom, America, apple pie-”

“Cowboy Joe,” she murmured.

“Yeah.” His smile faded, and she could almost see him putting deliberate distance between them. “Let’s see if we can find a clothing store around here anywhere. We need a few more things if we’re going to spend too much more time on the move.”

They spent the next hour looking for a few items to add to their stash of supplies. Joe bought a gym bag to accommodate the jeans and fleece items they bought in case they had to rough it outdoors. They were a couple of months from temperate weather, especially at night. “It won’t hurt to be prepared,” Joe said as they took the last of their supplies to the checkout stand.

They made it back to the bus terminal with a half hour to spare. During the wait to board the new bus, Joe transferred their purchases to the gym bag, while Jane counted up what cash they had left. “We still have about $2,000,” she told him softly.

“Maybe that’ll be enough,” he answered.

“Enough for what?”

“To make more,” he answered cryptically.

The boarding call came before she could ask him what he meant. He picked up the extra bag, gave her a look. “Reno, here we come.”

She followed him slowly to the bus, terrified of what lay ahead.