I don’t trust the police.”
Her stomach knotted further and she had to work to keep her tone steady. “Where are you taking us?”
“Somewhere safe,” he said, barely glancing back at her.
Somewhere safe? She swallowed a hysterical laugh. Everyone in Milwaukee knew he’d been arrested for killing his wife fourteen months ago. Caleb O’Malley had made headline news, not just in the city but across the country. Former sharpshooter for the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Department SWAT team arrested for murdering his wife.
Unfortunately, all charges against Caleb O’Malley had been dropped when the eyewitness, who claimed to have seen O’Malley shoot his wife and then take off from the scene of the crime, abruptly disappeared a week before the trial. Without the witness there wasn’t enough of a case against him. At least that was what his lawyer, Jack Owens, had told her.
Noelle had been sick at the thought of handing Kaitlin back over to her father, but there hadn’t been much she could do to prevent him from exercising his custodial right to take his daughter. Supposedly he wasn’t a criminal anymore.
Still, she knew there was no statute of limitations for murder. There was a part of her that believed the police would eventually find the evidence they needed to lock up Caleb O’Malley for good. If he was guilty, of course, which she was fairly certain he was.
Had she gone with one killer to escape another?
“Why don’t you let me and Kaitlin go?” she said, striving to sound reasonable. “Surely you don’t want to expose your daughter to danger.”
He concentrated on the road. “I told you, I can’t ignore the possibility they would use her to get to me. I thought about dropping you off somewhere, but obviously Kaitlin needs you so that’s not an option. I promise I’m not going to hurt you.”
He was right about one thing: Kaitlin did need her. No way was she leaving the child alone with a potential murderer. Yet she knew she was risking her life by staying. Granted, he’d tried to protect her back at the house when the bullets had started flying, but what did she really know about this man? Nothing except what she learned through the media.
And none of that had been good.
Trusting men wasn’t exactly easy for her, either.
“Did you see anything out on the street?” he asked, breaking into her thoughts.
“You mean before the gunshots?” She thought back to those moments when she’d faced Caleb O’Malley across the threshold. Ironically, there hadn’t been the usual black car she’d noticed over the past few days. “There was a red pickup parked on the street.”
“That’s my truck. Did you see anything else? Another vehicle? A person? Anything?”
“No.” She’d been far more preoccupied with trying to find a way to ease the transition for Kaitlin. Noelle had planned to invite him in, hoping he’d spend some time getting to know his daughter again before leaving with her. Especially after the way Kaitlin had clung to her, sobbing.
As much as she feared the dark-haired stranger, she wasn’t leaving Kaitlin alone with him any time soon. Kaitlin was the sole reason she’d come along in the first place. The poor child had already been through so much, losing her mother and then her father. Kaitlin had suffered night terrors the first weeks she’d been with Noelle, but the child hadn’t had a nightmare for almost five months.
Noelle would be shocked if today’s events didn’t bring them back. She’d be surprised if her own nightmares of the past didn’t return, too.
There was another long silence and she realized they were already well outside the city limits. Grimly she knew they could go for several hundred miles without stopping on the gas tank she’d filled yesterday.
“I’d let you both go if I could,” he said in a low voice. “But I’m afraid it’s too late. You and Kaitlin are in danger now, too.”
“In danger from whom?” she asked helplessly.
“I wish I knew,” he said, his tone weary. “Probably from the same person who killed Heather.”
She knew Heather had been his wife and Kaitlin’s mother. And if he thought she was going to believe that line of baloney, he was as crazy as the media had portrayed him to be.
During an interview on TV, one of his SWAT teammates had mentioned Caleb’s hair-trigger temper. She could imagine how difficult it must have been for him to discover his wife was cheating on him.
Not that his wife had deserved to die for her sins, leaving Kaitlin without a mother, or a father once Caleb had been arrested. As Kaitlin’s preschool teacher and an approved foster parent, she’d fought for and won temporary custody of the little girl. At first she thought it would only be a few weeks until other family had been notified but no one had been found. Over the past year she’d grown to love Kaitlin. And being forced to turn the child over to Caleb had nearly broken her heart.
“I guess you don’t believe in the theory of innocent until proven guilty,” he said, breaking into her thoughts.
“I never said you were guilty,” she said hastily. No sense in baiting the tiger. She needed to keep on his good side in order to convince him to let her and Kaitlin go. So far, she wasn’t entirely sure she believed in his theory that she and Kaitlin were in danger.
“So you believe I’m innocent?” he asked after several long moments.
She licked her dry lips and tried to smile. “The judge let you go, which is good enough for me.”
He let out a noise that sounded suspiciously like a snort, but didn’t say anything more. She stared out the window as the miles zipped past. Glancing over at Kaitlin, she noted the girl’s eyelids were starting to droop. Long car rides tended to make the little girl sleepy and no doubt she’d worn herself out with her crying jag.
Twenty minutes later, Noelle realized Kaitlin’s father had left the freeway and turned onto a country highway.
She couldn’t quell a hint of panic when she didn’t recognize the area. They were in a rural part of Wisconsin. Where was he taking them? What did he intend to do?
She’d gone along with him to protect Kaitlin, not to mention to get away from the rolling tear gas and flying bullets. But now, she was second-guessing her decision.
She and Kaitlin would likely be safer on their own. She trusted the police would protect them. Why wouldn’t they?
Somehow, she needed to find a way to escape.
* * *
Caleb dragged a hand over his face as the SUV ate up the miles, and tried to think rationally. He didn’t know who’d fired those shots at him, but if he hadn’t picked up Kaitlin’s stuffed giraffe, he’d be dead.
Leaving Kaitlin an orphan.
Somehow, he felt stupid for not realizing that whoever had killed his wife would still be out there somewhere, waiting for him. But the attempt on his life didn’t make much sense. Why not try to plant more evidence to get him back behind bars? What would they
