Fugitive Hearts Page 6

  “Sightings? You mean he’s been seen somewhere else, too?”

  Savard nodded. “Since the picture hit the news two days ago, I’ve heard he’s been spotted everywhere from Kapuskasing to Kenora.”

  “Wait, I can prove he was here. I have a picture of him.”

  “Why would you take his picture?”

  “It’s not a photograph,” she said, going to her desk to retrieve the doodle she had made. “It’s a sketch.”

  He studied the paper briefly, then handed it back to her. “It looks kind of like the picture on the news, all right.” He jotted something else in his notebook and slipped it back inside his coat, then withdrew a card and handed it to her. “Thank you for your cooperation, Miss Whittington. We’ll be in touch. If you remember anything more, please call this number. That’s for Detective Charles Sibley. He dealt with Leverette before.”

  “That’s it? You’re not going to post someone here in case he comes back?”

  “Did this person threaten you?”

  Dana shook her head. The only thing that had been in danger from John had been her heart. “No, he didn’t make any threats.”

  “We’ll investigate this report as thoroughly as possible, ma’am,” Savard said, his voice rough with weariness as he pulled his gloves back on. “But rest assured that if the person you claim to have seen really was Leverette, he’d probably be halfway to Calgary by now.”

  The diner next to the gas station had been doing a brisk business right up until dusk. Located just before the turnoff to Hainesborough, it was on the main route between Toronto and the Trans-Canada Highway. It was a good place for snowplow drivers to stop and fill their thermoses with coffee and grab a few doughnuts, or for travelers who’d had to postpone their trips because of the storm to rest long enough to wolf down hamburgers or sandwiches before they got back on the road, trying to make up for lost time.

  But now the crowd was thinning out. With nightfall, most people had already reached their destinations. The bell over the door remained silent, and the buzz of conversation had been replaced by the drone of a small television behind the counter.

  Remy knew he could allow himself another five minutes tops before he would have to move on. Although his stomach was growling audibly, the coins he’d found on the floor of the phone booth wouldn’t stretch to buy him dinner. He would have preferred to stay here long enough for his feet to warm up past the numb stage, but the waitress had been by twice already, eyeing the coffee he’d been nursing, and he didn’t want to risk becoming conspicuous.

  His immediate problem was where to go once he left the diner. Because of Dana, he couldn’t use Half Moon Bay as a base to work from, so his first priority was to find somewhere else to stay. But where? No one could survive in the bush at this time of year, and he sure didn’t have the means to pay for a motel. He had no friends he could count on—the events of the past year had proven that much. If he was lucky he might stumble over a cottage in the area that was empty for the winter…as long as his feet didn’t freeze solid while he was wandering around the bush looking.

  It appeared as if he had to risk going into Hainesborough earlier than he would have wanted. Hopefully, the news of the breakout would have died down by now. He could find shelter in his office or in the construction trailer in the yard. It had been two days, and the Kingston pen was hundreds of miles from here. Besides, no one would expect to see him—escaped felons generally knew better than to return to the scene of the crime, right?

  Wherever he ended up, he couldn’t count on luck being with him this time. He’d probably used up a lifetime’s quota of luck getting this far. Being in the exercise yard just as the leading edge of the storm had disrupted the power to the electric fence had been a fluke. A one-in-a-million opportunity. Two men had gone over the wall before Remy had fully understood what was happening.

  The decision to follow them had been instinctive. After being a law-abiding citizen for his entire adult life, he had escaped custody without a qualm or a backward glance. Odd, how easily the old skills had come back to him. He wasn’t as agile as he’d been as a juvenile, but he’d known how to avoid detection by sticking to the alleys and back roads. He’d ditched the prison issue jacket and stolen that poor sap Becker’s overcoat. He’d hitched a ride with an out-of-province trucker. Then he’d lied to the innocent woman who had saved his life.

  Damn, he’d already been through this in his mind, he thought, scowling into his cold coffee. He’d do whatever it took. He wasn’t going to leave a legacy of shame for his daughter. Somehow he was going to find a way to prove his innocence.

  He lifted the mug to his lips and drained the last of his coffee, then counted out enough coins to cover it. He slid to the edge of the bench and glanced around the diner, preparing to leave when his gaze was caught by the face on the TV screen.

  It was his mug shot.

  The shock of seeing himself like that kept him motionless for a vital second before his pulse tripped into over-drive. Hunching his shoulders, Remy ducked his head, as if concentrating on fastening the buttons on his coat while he watched the screen out of the corner of his eye.

  “…six feet three inches, weighs two hundred pounds…” Snatches of the newscaster’s voice drifted across the diner, listing details of his appearance.

  So much for hoping the news of the breakout would have died down. Remy felt a prickling sensation on the back of his neck, but he resisted the urge to look around. He turned up his collar and nodded to the waitress, forcing himself not to hurry as he walked toward the door.

  A man who was sitting on a stool at the counter was talking to the waitress. “Too bad they don’t have the death penalty anymore, eh, Maggie? After what Leverette did to his wife, he deserves to fry.”

  “My cousin was on the jury. She said she had nightmares about the way he used that knife.” The waitress took the carafe from the coffeemaker and topped off the man’s cup. “I hope they catch him. I hate to think of him getting away with it.”

  “They’ll get him.”

  “Where do you think he went?”

  “Probably Quebec, like those other two that escaped with him.”

  “Or down to the States.” She lifted her head. “Excuse me, sir?”

  One foot in front of the other, Remy told himself. All he needed to do was make it outside and he could disappear.

  “Sir?”

  Remy coughed into his hand as an excuse to cover the lower half of his face. “Yes?” he asked, half turning.

  “You forgot your hat.”

  It took an extra ten seconds to retrieve the hat Dana had given him, but by the time Remy made it outside, his heart was beating as if he had run a marathon. He gulped in a breath, and the cold air hit him like a punch to the solar plexus. The people in Hainesborough wouldn’t care if he froze—they were ready to see him fry.

  He slipped around to the side of the coffee shop, staying close to the wall while he surveyed the area. He thought about hot-wiring one of the cars in the parking lot, then dismissed the idea. It would be better to hike the remaining miles into town than to draw the attention of the police by stealing a car.

  Keeping to the shadows, he walked toward the highway, his shoes squeaking on the packed snow. His toes throbbed as the cold knifed through the rubber-soled sneakers, but at least his fingers wouldn’t freeze, thanks to Dana’s mitts. Too bad he couldn’t have continued his charade and stayed on in her cabin. She was from Toronto, and the news media there hadn’t given as much coverage to the trial as the local paper had. Add to that the fact that she had cut herself off from the world in order to write, and he might have been safer there than he had thought at first.

  She was a bright, compassionate woman, and under other circumstances he would have enjoyed his time with her. She wasn’t anything like Sylvia. If things were different, maybe he would have taken her up on the invitation he’d seen in her eyes.

  Oh, hell. He’d spent most of the day trying to forget about tha
t moment at the door. He’d known from the first time he’d seen her that he’d have to leave, but that hadn’t stopped him from enjoying the feel of her body next to his. And when she’d laid her fingertips on his cheek so tenderly…

  It must have been adrenaline. Something to do with the tension of the situation, because he couldn’t remember wanting to kiss a woman more.

  He hadn’t wanted to leave her.

  And that was precisely why he had. He had to keep his goal in mind. He couldn’t afford to—

  A siren wailed from the highway behind him. Acting instinctively, Remy leaped over the snowbank the plow had left and dove into the ditch.

  Snow slithered up the legs of his jeans as he sank past his knees. He tried to move forward. If he could make the cover of the trees, there was a chance they might not spot him, but each step in the drifted powder was like pushing against a ten-ton weight.

  Red lights flashed on the tops of the pines that flanked the highway. The siren grew louder. The people in the diner must have recognized him after all, Remy thought. The cruiser couldn’t have been more than a few miles away for them to get here so fast.

  He pushed himself harder, the muscles in his thighs burning, his breath steaming. The pines didn’t seem any closer. In desperation, Remy half ran, half jumped toward the shadows beneath the trees. His sneakers slipped and he went down face first in the snow.

  Headlights brightened the pine boughs overhead. The siren shrilled higher. There was the roar of an engine from the other side of the snowbank and then…

  And then the noise swept past.

  Remy lifted his head and looked around just in time to see an ambulance disappear down the Hainesborough turnoff.

  He wiped the snow off his face and rolled to his back to catch his breath. The siren hadn’t been for him. This time.

  His plan wasn’t going to work, he realized. Walking along the road like this left him too exposed. And the news of his escape hadn’t died down at all. His face was on every TV screen in town. People in the area remembered the trial. Could he risk continuing to Hainesborough, when there was no guarantee he would find anyplace safe to stay?

  Half Moon Bay would have been perfect, if it weren’t for Dana. She posed a threat not only to his freedom but to his peace of mind, so the place was out of the question.

  Or was it?

  Shivering, Remy crawled back to the snowbank and hauled himself up. There might be a way to use the place after all. Dana was staying in the caretaker’s cabin, not the lodge itself. It was a big complex, and he probably knew its layout better than she did. If he was careful to avoid her, and if he was lucky, he could lay low for another few days, maybe a week, before he risked going into town again.

  She wouldn’t even have to know he was there.

  It was a wild idea, but was it any worse than walking into town when his picture was on the news? Or staying here to freeze to death in a snowbank?

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Dana muttered to the cat as she hauled the vacuum cleaner out of the closet. “I’m working, I really am. I’m just taking a break, that’s all.”

  Morty blinked at her from his perch on the back of the couch.

  “You don’t have to hold the pose anymore,” she said. “You can take a break, too.”

  The tip of his tail twitched lazily. He continued to regard her flurry of activity with the tolerant detachment most felines exhibit for the antics of their humans.

  Dana threw a sidelong, guilty glance at her work table as she ran the vacuum along the hardwood floor. The drawing was coming along fine, it really was. Mortimer was manning the wheel—or was it catting the wheel?—of his little sailboat in hot pursuit of the sloop full of piratical mice.

  She was quite pleased with the mice. It had been a challenge to strike the right balance. They were mischievous enough to be interesting, but not menacing enough to frighten her readers. She had given one a twig for a sword and had put a clover-leaf eye patch on another. Everything had been progressing well this morning. Yes indeed.

  Until the leader of the pirate mice had unexpectedly developed a desperado mustache.

  Dana pushed aside the footstool and aimed the vacuum nozzle at a cluster of dust bunnies. She wasn’t normally particular about housekeeping, but somehow when she was working on a book, these otherwise boring tasks took on a glow of attractiveness. It was a good thing she had cut down on as many potential distractions as possible, because even in an isolated cabin that was stripped down to the bare essentials, she still managed to find plenty of things to do. And plenty of other things to think about.

  Where was John now? Had he really gone out West? Had he fled the country?

  Was he safe? Was he warm?

  “Stop it, just stop it,” she told herself, dragging the chair out of her way. It had been five days since he’d left. Almost a week. Even though she had deliberately restrained herself from checking any more newscasts, she couldn’t put him out of her mind. She didn’t know which would be worse, knowing he had been recaptured…or knowing he hadn’t.

  More than once she’d found herself looking over her shoulder when she was up at the lodge, or catching a glimpse of movement through the windows of her cabin at night. At odd times she seemed to feel his presence, as if he were somewhere nearby.

  But that was ridiculous. She would never see him again. She didn’t want to see him again. So why couldn’t she forget about him?

  Why? Because she wanted to believe she had made a mistake.

  Wasn’t that why she hadn’t told her sister about what had happened? Adelle had called yesterday, just to check on her, but Dana hadn’t said a word about Leverette or the police. Part of it was because she didn’t want Adelle to know how big a fool she had been—her sister wasn’t above a few I-told-you-so’s. Yet the main reason she had remained silent was because of her own doubts.

  What if the tall, compelling stranger really was just a luckless traveler named John Becker? What if there were reasonable explanations for the things that didn’t add up about him?

  The police didn’t believe that the man she had met could have been the escaped criminal they were seeking. Oh, sure, Constable Savard had gone through the motions, but Dana could tell by his lack of interest that he considered finding Leverette around here was about as likely as spotting Elvis.

  She couldn’t blame him for questioning her credibility. After all, it was a bit eccentric to want to live like a recluse and sketch mice.

  Was she wrong?

  “Excuse me,” she told Morty. He yawned, then jumped to the floor as she pushed the couch aside. She rammed the vacuum into the dust that had been underneath, but paused when she heard a clink.

  Dana shut off the vacuum and bent down to take look at what she had unearthed.

  There was a glint of metal from the floor at the edge of the couch. She reached out to grab it and felt something sharp prick her thumb. Reflexively, she drew back her hand and stuck her thumb in her mouth, then got down on her knees for a better look.

  “What on earth…?”

  There was a knife on the floor. Using her other hand, she cautiously picked it up and shook off the dust.

  It looked like the butcher knife that belonged in the kitchen drawer, but how had it ended up here? She knew she was an indifferent housekeeper, but even she wouldn’t have any reason to carry a butcher knife into the living room….

  “Oh, God,” she whispered, rocking back on her heels. Her gaze flicked from the long, sturdy knife blade to the couch. This was where John had spent most of his time. He had sat right here in this corner. This knife would have been within his reach the entire time.

  Remy Leverette was convicted for the brutal stabbing death of his wife….

  Dana’s stomach knotted. No. John wouldn’t have wanted to hurt her. He’d had plenty of opportunity, and he hadn’t done anything to harm her. He couldn’t have hidden the knife here. And if he had, there must be some other, innocent explanation.

  …b
rutal stabbing…

  She dropped the knife on the floor and put her face in her hands. She was doing it again. Making excuses for him, trying to talk her way out of the facts. What would it take to convince her?

  “You are a fool,” she muttered. “A complete and utter idiot.”

  Remy shut off the water and toweled himself dry, then carefully wiped the water drops from the glass walls and tile floor of the shower stall. He’d learned that the exhaust fan in the ceiling would eliminate the remaining moisture in the bathroom within fifteen minutes. The scent of soap would linger a while longer, but that didn’t concern him. It was Derek Johansen’s bathroom, so it would be expected to smell like Derek’s soap.

  Along with the glass shower, the bathroom also had a sunken whirlpool tub. A long mirror stretched over the granite counter and twin sinks. The fixtures weren’t the original ones Remy had helped install. Dana’s cousin must have renovated when he had taken over the management of the resort. The floors in the rest of the suite had been redone in pegged oak, and an open stone fireplace had been added to the main room.

  Apart from a few surface changes, though, the place was essentially the same as it had been fifteen years ago. This suite had been built for the owner’s use. Shaped like a sprawling pentagon, it perched atop the main lodge building where it had a commanding view of the outbuildings and private cabins. Through the telescope that sat in front of the south window in the main room, Remy could observe anyone who came within half a mile of the resort. He could also see the moment Dana stepped out of the caretaker’s cabin.

  For the past five days her schedule had been as regular as clockwork. She made her rounds of the outbuildings and the lodge in midafternoon, her red parka as eye-catching as a flag against the neat paths she had cleared. Each evening just before dusk she went to the woodshed and carried back an armload of firewood. After dark, she usually worked at her desk until midnight or so before she went to bed.