Deceived (Unlikely Heroes Book 3) Read online

  He was the sheriff?

  Oh dear God, not the sheriff!

  Sheriffs were bad. Very bad.

  She stumbled back. The urge came upon her then, her medical condition overwhelming her. Usually she could control it, but in times of extreme stress, it took over.

  “Cops are bad, bad, bad,” she blurted. Her arm twitched. Once. Twice.

  Had the man heard her? Did he think she was crazy? She cringed, anticipating his response. His ridicule. Perhaps a sneer of revulsion.

  Breathe Meg! Breathe! Before you pass out!

  She sucked in a deep breath, then another. But the sheriff didn’t say anything.

  Oh, God, the sheriff was moving in next door. She was so screwed.

  “Sheriffs are worse, worse, worse.” She yanked her ponytail. Once. Twice.

  Shut up, Meg! Control it!

  Though she couldn’t see the man’s face, she felt his gaze narrowing on her.

  Get a grip, Meg. You’re acting suspicious. He’s going to think you’re loony.

  Control it.

  Control it.

  She breathed in deeply, then exhaled. She was in control again.

  “Can I see your face now? Please.” She had to see his face. Faces told a lot about a person. She was a good judge of faces.

  Meg expected him to refuse. After all, he was the sheriff. A powerful man. He could do whatever he wanted and no one would complain. She expected him to call her crazy.

  But he turned the flashlight toward his face, obliging her.

  Meg stared. She caught a glimpse of short-cropped black hair, a ruggedly handsome face and square, clean-shaven jaw before he shined the light back on her. Late thirties? She had the vague, fleeting thought that he was good looking, but she was too scared to let the thought linger. She couldn’t tell what color his eyes were in the dark, but she felt that piercing gaze on her face.

  “Satisfied?” he drawled.

  Hell no. She was scared shitless.

  The urge to twitch came on again. Meg fought it back.

  Control it.

  She jerked her head in a quick nod. Once. Twice.

  He didn’t comment on the fact that she’d lowered her hands to her sides. Apparently he was convinced she wasn’t dangerous.

  There was no way in hell she was letting him handcuff her.

  “Sheriff,” Jones said from somewhere behind her. “The horse doesn’t have any weapons on it. Just a lariat.”

  “Put him in the corral for the lady,” the sheriff said.

  Jones moved away with Prince. Meg fantasized about leaping onto the horse’s back and racing away into the night...just like in the movies.

  The sheriff shined the flashlight over her again.

  “Do you have any identification on you?”

  “My purse is in the house,” she said. “I can go get it if you want.” She took a step around him.

  His hand shot out, stopping her. “Hold it. I have a few questions first. How long have you lived here?”

  Meg shuffled her feet. “I just moved in last weekend. Why?”

  “Did you purchase the house or are you renting it?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  Meg felt his stare through the darkness. She fought the urge to flee.

  Finally she muttered, “I bought it.” Under a false name. Kim Johnson. If he investigated her, dug deep enough, he’d find that out.

  “Anyone live here with you?”

  “No.”

  “You’re not from around here,” he said after a moment of contemplation. “What brought you here?”

  Meg glared at him, wishing he’d get the flashlight out of her face. The urge came on again, strong.

  “None of your business. I like the peace and quiet of the woods, woods, woods. Got a problem with that, that, that?” Her arm twitched again. Once. Twice.

  She felt that piercing stare through the darkness. He had to think she was crazy by now. Or high on drugs. She’d had three—or was it four?—tics in the past few minutes. Her condition hadn’t been this bad in years. Then again, she hadn’t been in such a stressful situation in a long time.

  “Not unless you’re involved in illegal activities.”

  Meg snorted. “Can I go now?”

  The sheriff tensed. He was a big man. A good foot taller than her. Certainly he wasn’t afraid of her?

  “Let’s go up to the house. You can show me your I.D.”

  Meg stepped past him and headed across the yard. He followed behind her, shining the flashlight in front of her, his steps cautious, as if he expected her to attack him. What did he think she was? A common criminal?

  Her tics may have freaked him out. She couldn’t blame him if he was afraid of her. Everyone else was.

  At least he hadn’t tried to handcuff her. For that, she was grateful. So grateful she finally managed to breathe evenly. She was in complete control now.

  “What happened to your head?” His voice came from behind her. Tense. Wary.

  Meg’s step faltered. Her head? She turned and faced him, slowly reached up to touch the painful, bloody lump on the back of her head. She’d forgotten about it in her eagerness to get rid of the body.

  “I, uh, fell off my horse.”

  The flashlight beam landed on her face again. Silence stretched as he studied her. She could feel his disbelief. Her heart galloped crazily in her chest. Her breathing grew shallow. Terror gripped her again, freezing her limbs. If he chose to handcuff her now, she was too weak and afraid to resist.

  No! She was not going to jail.

  Meg spun away from him, forcing her body to cooperate. She climbed the porch steps. The man followed. She felt his presence close behind her when she reached the back door. “I’ll be just a minute,” she said without turning around.

  His hand slammed open-palmed against her screen door, preventing her from entering the house. She leapt back, her heart pounding.

  “You’re not going to attempt to flee, are you?”

  Meg wished she could see his face again so she could at least try to read his expression. But it was too dark to make out more than the outline of his head.

  She drew in a shaky breath. “Where would I flee to? My bedroom?”

  Though she couldn’t see his eyes, she knew they narrowed on her. “Are you high on something, lady?”

  She rolled her eyes. If only it were that simple. “No.”

  She was pretty sure he didn’t believe her.

  “Do you have any weapons in your house?”

  Of course she did, but she wasn’t about to tell him that.

  The sheriff’s radio went off. He lowered his arm, allowing her to pass.

  Meg reached for the handle on the screen door. “I’ll be right back.” She had no idea what she was going to do. If she gave him her fake I.D. and he looked up the number, he’d know it was fake. Providing false information to a law enforcement officer was a misdemeanor. Would she be able to talk her way out of a ticket?

  As she stepped into the house, she heard one of the deputies say over the radio, “We found evidence of a struggle in the backyard and it looks like something was dragged across the forest toward the river.”

  Shit! Meg didn’t wait around to hear anymore. They were on to her. It would only be a matter of time before they found the body.

  They would never believe she’d killed the man in self-defense.

  Fear propelled her across the entryway.

  She flicked on the kitchen light.

  Her purse sat on the counter.

  Right next to her .45 auto that was in plain view.

  She needed to hide the gun.

  Meg reached for her purse to set it on top of the gun.

  A whisper of sound came from behind her.

  She spun around just as the sheriff slammed into her, knocking her to the hardwood floor.

  She landed on her left arm, the sheriff’s big body crushing her onto the floor.

  Meg cried out as excrucia
ting pain exploded in her hand, ricocheting up her arm.

  Cold steel clamped around her right wrist as the sheriff slipped a handcuff over her arm and snapped it closed. He reached for her other arm.

  She jerked away, holding her injured wrist against her chest. “Please,” she whispered, panic seizing her as she got a good look at the man’s too-serious face. He hesitated, his mouth hardening. Slate-gray eyes, cold and hard as stone, bored into hers.

  She sucked in rapid breaths as she tried to fight off the pain.

  “I think you b-broke my arm.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Zach Sullivan eased away from the woman and stared down at her wrist that she clutched to her chest. There was no visible break, but the injury could be beneath the surface. All the color had drained from her face and it was obvious by the way she was pursing her lips and scrunching up her face that she was in pain.

  Hell. When he’d seen her reaching for the large handgun on the kitchen counter, he’d tackled her, thinking it would be the safest way to subdue her. He hadn’t wanted to use the Taser on her and he certainly hadn’t wanted to shoot her. So he’d lunged at her legs and knocked her to the kitchen floor.

  He’d never intended to hurt her.

  He couldn’t handcuff her when she had an injured wrist. That would be cruel and inhumane. Guilt stabbed through him. He truly hadn’t meant to hurt her. He’d never hurt a woman in the line of duty before.

  She scooted back against the kitchen counter, clutching her injured arm against her chest, her face chalky white with pain. The handcuff dangled from her right wrist. Zach reached for it again. She cringed away from him, her eyes wild with terror.

  Cautiously he leaned back, dropping his hand, and eyed her for a moment. She didn’t look dangerous. Not in the least. He doubted she weighed much more than a hundred pounds. He was easily twice her size. Petite and small boned, she wore baggy jeans and a navy blue T-shirt that depicted an image of a white horse with a flying mane. Her wavy, abundant hair, an ugly shade of purplish-orange, was held back in a ponytail. A portion of it had come loose around her face. She blew it out of her eyes while he watched. He thought he saw blonde roots at the top of her skull. Interesting. Most women wanted to be blonde. Why would she want to dye her hair that ugly color? Was she hiding her true identity? Pretending to be someone she wasn’t?

  The nasty wound on the back of her head was recent. He had no doubt she’d not fallen off her horse. That had been a lie. He aimed to find out what had really happened out there in the forest before he and his deputies had arrived. He wondered how he could get her to talk.

  Zach contemplated her in silence. She had pale, creamy skin with rosy highlights, a small, slightly upturned nose. A light dusting of freckles sprinkled across the bridge of her nose. Her lips were puckered in pain as she continued to clutch her injured arm against her chest. She was an attractive woman, despite the ugly hair, and he guessed her to be in her late twenties or early thirties. Her eyes were her most outstanding feature. Not quite blue, yet not quite green, they were a color somewhere in between. Turquoise. Large and round, they stood out against her pale skin. He’d never seen such unusual, such pretty eyes before. Highly expressive, her eyes reflected her emotions like the surface of a lake. Right now they were filled with fear. She’d been scared ever since he and his deputies had encountered her out in the forest. Either she’d done something illegal and was afraid of getting caught or…

  He didn’t want to contemplate the alternative. He didn’t think he was particularly scary, but then again, he may have broken the woman’s arm. If he wasn’t mistaken, she was terrified of him.

  Hell.

  She blinked up at him, those big turquoise eyes filling with tears. She didn’t look like a killer. But he knew better than to be swayed by a pretty face.

  Zach stood. He motioned to the large handgun on the kitchen counter. “Mind telling me what you’re doing with that?”

  Her cheeks filled with color. “I bought it for protection after I was assaulted by a cop.”

  “Excuse me?” That was about the last thing he had expected her to say. She’d been assaulted by an officer? She had to be joking.

  But what if she wasn’t?

  He cleared his throat. “If a lawman assaults you in any way, you need to report it so the man can be properly reprimanded.”

  She huffed out a breath. “Yeah right. And who’s going to believe me over a cop?”

  The animosity in her gaze took him aback. For a moment, he was speechless. She seemed to have some sort of hatred and/or fear of cops.

  “Is that gun registered to you?”

  She lifted her chin. “Of course. How else do you think I got it?”

  Rather than comment on the many ways criminals obtained firearms, Zach said, “You said your driver’s license was in your purse. Do you want me to fish it out for you?”

  Her entire body stiffened. She yanked at her ponytail. Once. Twice. “It’s in that front pocket part. You can get it. Bad, bad, bad cop.”

  Zach narrowed his gaze on her. He was almost positive she was high on something. Looking away from her, he cautiously searched the front pocket of the purse, but he found no drug paraphernalia. He located her driver’s license and pulled it out.

  “Kim Johnson,” he read aloud, glancing down at her. “It says it was issued last week.”

  She nodded. “I just moved here, remember?”

  “Where’d you move from?”

  “Spokane.”

  There was nothing suspicious about that. So why did he feel like she wasn’t telling him the truth? Zach lifted the radio from his shoulder clip and called in her driver’s license number to dispatch.

  After a few moments, his dispatch deputy replied, “Uh, Sheriff, there’s no match for that number.”

  Zach’s gaze shot to the woman. She paled and looked away, fear slinking across her features.

  Zach read the number again to his dispatch deputy. “Kim Johnson. Check again.”

  He waited. Then his deputy said, “Sorry, that’s not a valid driver’s license number. The name doesn’t match and the number isn’t valid. It doesn’t come up in the system.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  Zach eyed the woman where she cringed on the floor against the cabinet. “Why do you have a fake I.D., lady? Who are you? Do you have any warrants?”

  She jerked her gaze away. “No warrants. I’m not a criminal.”

  Zach waited, but she didn’t say anymore. In his experience, if she was carrying a fake I.D., then she had a record. If he took her down to the jail and fingerprinted her, he’d find out who she was within a few minutes. If she was in the system.

  And if she wasn’t?

  Then the only way he’d find out who she was would be if she told him.

  He had a feeling she wouldn’t volunteer that information willingly.

  She moaned softly. He glanced at the arm she cradled against her chest. She was obviously in pain. He couldn’t ignore that. He’d have to have her arm checked out first, then he could take her to the jail and have her fingerprinted. If she had a warrant like he suspected, he would book her.

  “Let’s get that arm looked at. I’ll take you to the emergency room.”

  He would ask the medical staff to draw blood on her to check for methamphetamines or other illegal substances. He might even be able to get her to submit to a UA at the hospital, which would tell him within minutes whether she was under the influence of something.

  He held a hand out to her, offering to help her up.

  When she hesitated, clearly fearful of him, Zach said, “I’m not going to hurt you. And I can’t arrest you until after you get medical attention for that arm.”

  “You have no cause to arrest me. I haven’t broken the law,” she whispered. “Why did you attack me anyway?” She glared up at him, her eyes darkening. “I wasn’t doing anything except getting my I.D. like you requested. Obeying the law.”

  He cocked a brow. “A fa
ke I.D. That is a crime. And…you were reaching for that .45 auto. I wasn’t about to have a bullet through my brain.”

  “Oh please…I wasn’t going to shoot you. I have the right to bear arms.” She hissed out a breath when she accidentally banged her injured arm against the counter. “It’s not against the law to own a gun.” Her voice was strained. “And you can’t enter a residence without probable cause. You clearly assaulted me.”

  He narrowed his eyes, his gaze locking on hers. “I was only doing my job. And I had probable cause. My deputies found signs of a struggle out back.”

  She flinched, but her gaze never left his. “Do you have proof that I was part of this so-called struggle? And does ‘doing your job’ include attacking innocent women and breaking their arms?”

  Zach clenched his jaw. One minute she acted high, like she was strung out on something, the next she acted like a damn attorney. “I saw you reaching for the gun,” he said. “I reacted instinctively. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  They glared at each other. Against his better judgment, Zach softened under the vulnerable, frightened glimmer in her pretty eyes. She was scared to death of him. Perhaps she had been assaulted by an officer. He hoped it hadn’t been one of his deputies.

  “Cop With Power Trip Assaults Innocent Woman and Breaks Her Arm,” she whispered, her gaze defiant and filled with challenge. “Front page of the Sunday newspaper.”

  He scowled, lost all sympathy for the woman. “I do not have a power trip!”

  She gave an unladylike snort of derision. “All cops have power trips.”

  Zach fought back a snarl. First she’d been terrified of him. Now she was antagonizing him. And he sensed she was on the verge of pressing assault charges against him. The woman was exasperating as hell.

  “All right,” he muttered. “What do you want?”

  “Don’t arrest me. Let me go. And I won’t say anything about your breaking my arm.”

  Zach snorted. “Are you trying to blackmail me, lady?”

  “I’ll do whatever it takes.” She lifted her chin, glared at him.

  He didn’t doubt it. She appeared to be very determined.

  She lowered her gaze. “I’m not going to jail. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  When she looked up at him again, the terror was back in her eyes. Was it fear of being locked up or was she truly afraid of him?