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Fugitive Family
Pamela Tracy
Six months ago, Alexander Cooke's life was wrecked.His wife was killed, his workplace was robbed…and the evidence pointed to him. He saw one way out–he grabbed his daughter and ran. Now he's got a new life. Yet even with his new identity as Greg Bond, he's still looking over his shoulder. Still waiting for danger to reappear.Then he meets charming schoolteacher Lisa Jacoby, and forgets to keep his distance or protect his heart. When the killer returns, Alex won't run again. He's found a love–a family–he'll face anything to protect.
He hated living someone else’s life.
He wasn’t a laborer; he was a banker. Greg wasn’t wealthy like the real Greg Bond, the man whose identity he’d stolen—borrowed. Alex Cooke was an upwardly mobile man with a wife and child.
He had to remind himself he no longer had a wife.
And Greg knew that just to get at him, whoever had killed his wife wouldn’t hesitate to come after his daughter, too.
He had to remember his number one rule: stay as private as possible; don’t involve others.
That included his daughter’s pretty teacher, Lisa Jacoby.
PAMELA TRACY
lives in Arizona with a newly acquired husband (Yes, Pamela is somewhat a newlywed. You can be a newlywed for seven years. Ack, we’re on year seven!), a confused cat (Hey, I had her all to myself for twenty years. Where’d this guy come from?) and a preschooler (newlymom is almost as fun as newlywed). She was raised in Omaha, Nebraska, and started writing at age twelve (a very bad teen romance featuring David Cassidy from The Partridge Family). Later, she honed her writing skills while earning a BA in Journalism at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas (and wrote a very bad science fiction novel that didn’t feature David Cassidy). Please visit her Web site at www.pamelakayetracy.com, or enjoy her blog at http://ladiesofsuspense.blogspot.com/ or write to her c/o Steeple Hill Books, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279.
Fugitive Family
Pamela Tracy
Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.
—Isaiah 41:10
To my father, Albert Hammonds Tracy,
who continually demonstrated that fatherhood
wasn’t a job, it was a passion.
Also, as always, to the people who help along
the way to completion: my editors, my critique
group, my husband and son, and special thanks to
Roxanne Gould and Paige Dooley—
my final readers.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
PROLOGUE
Six Months Ago
The bank teller flinched and tried to go faster. Tried being the operative word. She was going as fast as her shaking hands would allow. As she continued to stuff money into the old, blue backpack, he managed a quick look at the customers. Some were hunkered down on all fours. One big man in a wrinkled business suit sobbed louder than the pair of twentysomethings next to him. He never moved his face from between his legs. The twentysomethings did a strange hiccupy thing when they looked at the bleeding security guard. They stopped making any noise at all when they looked at him and his gun. Fear was a powerful motivator. Their forgotten paychecks and deposit slips lay on the floor beside their purses.
Funny how money became unimportant when faced with mortality.
He could see the frantic activity around him, feel the raw energy. He planned for the robbery to take six minutes. He knew the response time, and he knew the dangers of the getaway. Before entering the bank, he’d put an orange cone at the lot’s entry. It wouldn’t completely deter, but it might keep someone new from entering the bank for at least six minutes. Every detail had been perfectly planned, and in this moment, he felt a clarity he would never forget.
Without taking his eyes off the teller, he carefully pulled a pencil from his pocket, inserted it under his mask and scratched at a nonexistent itch. He intended to leave a pencil behind. Not the one he scratched with, but an identical one. One that had taken him three days to snatch; one that did not have his fingerprints on it, but someone else’s.
He moaned in pretend relief. Then he lay the other pencil on the counter.
Ingenious.
He’d chosen the mask wisely, too. He wasn’t wearing a boring black ski mask or impersonating some ex-president. Instead, he looked like a walking maggot infestation. The larvae had taken over his head, neck, and only those with very strong stomachs would wonder what was going on under his plain blue jacket. No one looked especially inclined to get too close.
He smiled. It was really too bad, because in actuality—this more than any other time—was his finest hour. And the critics would never know because this time he wasn’t just acting, he was being. He didn’t have props; he had tools of the trade. Real gun, real backpack, and in the parking lot a real getaway car. He glanced at the security guard. His blood looked real because it was real. The security guard was really the only victim here. The bank could spare the money. The bank manager deserved to spend his life behind bars. Unfortunately, the guard didn’t deserve to forfeit his life. But first-offense bank robbers usually only got a slap on the hand, and this heist was designed to warrant so much more.
He hadn’t expected to feel such a rush. But, then, this was his first time in the lead role, and obviously it was where he belonged. Soon, the world would recognize his talent.
And, really, his talent wasn’t robbing banks.
He’d been planning this robbery for almost a year. There would be no mistakes and soon everything he wanted would be his. He knew this bank and its personnel inside and out. He knew that Wednesday was a slow day and that two major businesses made cash deposits right before noon.
He inched closer to the teller. He’d chosen her because not only was she the youngest, but she was also the new girl on the block.
“Faster, Helen,” he urged. “Make it work.”
She froze, fingers trembling, and slowly looked up. He grinned, not that she could see. He blinked a couple of times, hoping she’d notice the brown eyes.
She finished loading the money: all she had, all the tellers on either side of her had, all the money she could reach.
He grabbed the backpack. He turned, pushed aside a toddler and headed for the door.
He had the money.
He skidded to a stop just before reaching the door, turned one last time to survey the damage, and this time, he didn’t just aim his finger for the pretend itch under his chin.
He put his whole hand there.
The mask popped off like a rocket. He frantically grabbed at it, holding it in front of his face, up, down, and to the side, all the while knowing he’d mastered the perfect look of surprise. Then, with the mask held just below his chin, he looked straight at the surveillance camera.
ONE
“I didn’t kill my wife.”
The voice, deep-pitched and steady, seemingly coming from nowhere, almost caused Greg Bond to drop his hammer. No one would have noticed. They were all busy. Wiping sweat from his brow, he forced himself to stay calm and listen for the sound of his own voice. It only took a moment to find the source, but the noise coming from the construction site drowned out whatever the radio news commentator might be saying next.
He located the radio. It took all Greg’s will not to grab it, turn up the volume and listen to what the next chapter of his life might be.
He fell to his knees, ear pressed to the speaker, and listened as a monotone Paul Harvey wannabe managed four whole sentences.
“The body of Rachel Cooke was discovered earlier this morning in a deserted farmhouse in Yudan, Kansas. Her husband and the prime suspect, Alexander Cooke, already wanted for the murder of a security guard during a bank robbery last April, is still at large. The whereabouts of their six-year-old daughter, Amy Cooke, is unknown. Authorities believe she is still with her father and in danger. In other news…”
The radio commentator switched to the weather, as if the shocking discovery of someone’s wife, mother, best friend, and a fifty-percent chance of rain deserved to be mentioned in the same breath. Greg’s grip on his hammer loosened abruptly. The tool dropped to the ground. In all honesty, he’d forgotten that it was in his hand.
“Hey, Greg, you all right?”
Truth. Always stick as close to the truth as possible.
At one time he believed in telling the truth. He’d said it over and over to the authorities, to himself, to God. “I did not kill my wife. I did not rob the bank.”
The truth didn’t seem to make much of a difference then and it wouldn’t work now, so he said, “I’m fine. Thought I heard the word tornado.”
Greg picked up the hammer. Right now his heart was doing all the pounding he could handle. Funny, even after all these months, six to be exact, he’d still held out hope that Rachel was alive.
Never mind the blood. Never mind the words of his friends and neighbors. Personal opinion mattered little when compared to a video.
Vince Frenci, owner of the radio, shook his head and drawled, “Tornados knock things down—we build them back up. That’s life. It’s also job security.”
But Greg knew life wasn’t that easy. And security was fragile at best.
“I’m fine,” Greg repeated, slipping the hammer into his belt and heading for his toolbox. Greg’s coworkers called him a man of few words. Personal stuff didn’t get bantered. He didn’t socialize after work, and the few times wives had suggested “Hey, let’s fix Greg up with…” he’d begged off.
They knew he had a daughter. They knew he’d moved to Nebraska a few months ago.
Gazing past the other five construction workers, their tools, their questioning looks, Greg focused first on the elementary school parking lot and then onto G Street. It would take him all of ten minutes to get to the truck and pick up Amber from the babysitter. What he had to decide was how to quit work without arousing suspicion, followed by an even tougher decision: whether it was time to disappear or time to take a stand. Or maybe he was right where he needed to be.
As if demanding a decision now, the vacuum that seemed to envelope him after hearing the news story suddenly ceased and the noise and hustle of “real” time returned.
“Yeah, everything’s all right,” Vince Frenci yelled to the owner of Konrad Construction, who no doubt had noticed Greg’s momentary halt. “Greg just zoned out for a moment. I think he’s checking out Mrs. Henry, the third-grade teacher. Hey, I was in her class twenty years ago. I still wake up crying.”
“Maybe I’m not all right,” Greg said, loud enough for Vince to hear. “I feel funny—maybe I’m dizzy. Maybe the sun’s getting to me.”
“Oh, dizzy?” Vince said. “Oh, la, la. Then, it’s not Mrs. Henry. It must be that new first-grade teacher. She certainly made you light-headed yesterday. She makes me dizzy every time she gets outta her car. Better run down there, Greg, before she gets away.”
Greg shook his head. They’d gone from teasing him about the seventyish gray-haired grandmother teacher to razzing him about the twentyish red-haired first-grade teacher. His daughter, Amber, would be in her class. Of course he was interested in her. All he’d done so far was introduce himself.
And, of course, his coworkers had noticed.
Yesterday, he’d almost enjoyed the attention. It made him feel almost normal. Now he was terrified. Normal wasn’t allowed. Not until whoever had ruined his life was caught and behind bars. Today, he couldn’t listen to his coworkers joke as if it were just another day, as if it were a world where everything and everyone looked and did just what they should. His world was no longer like theirs. They believed that when they left work for the day, they’d always have a home to go home to, a good woman waiting, security.
He’d believed that once, too.
The body of Rachel Cooke was discovered earlier today…
The site foreman squinted at Greg and hollered. “You’re dizzy? Well, sit down before you fall down. We’ve got forty days without accident. I want forty more.”
“I’m dizzy, too,” Vince called.
“Yeah, but you were born that way,” the foreman snapped.
Greg wavered. He checked out his coworkers. With the exception of Vince, they were all back to work. Sweat poured down their faces as it poured down his. Dirt edged around their collars, soaked into their knees and elbows, and found its way under their fingernails. This corner of the parking lot had caved in during recent rainstorms. Their job was to repair it before the first day of school.
None of them looked like they were thinking about the words on the radio.
It was all Greg could think about.
“You want someone to drive you home?” the foreman offered.
“I’ll do it!” Vince volunteered.
Greg wasn’t surprised. Vince probably knew more about construction than the rest of the crew combined. He certainly knew more than Greg, yet the man never missed an opportunity to find something else to do. He was the advice giver, the joke teller, the “just a minute” excuse maker. But when all was said and done, and know-how was needed, Vince was the man.
Greg packed his tools up and headed for his truck. “I can drive. It’s just a headache and some dizziness.”
