Last Stand Ranch. Jenna Night

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СКАЧАТЬ see any resemblance between them. Claudia, with her big bones and impressive height, towered over Olivia, who was average height, but scrawny looking.

      Ricky yelled out “good-bye” as he jumped back in his truck and headed for his garage with Olivia’s car.

      Deputy Bedford got out of his patrol car carrying a clipboard.

      “Good evening, Mrs. Sweeney.” He nodded at Claudia as he walked up. Claudia and Olivia were still at the bottom of the porch steps, each with an arm wrapped around the other. Elijah noticed Claudia tightening her hold on her niece as the deputy came closer.

      “I saw some fresh skid marks on the road that came from wider tires than yours, just as you described,” Bedford said. Olivia nodded.

      “Any chance there’s a bigger story you want to tell me?” Bedford added.

      “What do you mean?”

      Bedford looked at her for a moment. “Someone taps your bumper twice, passes you, then comes back and forces you off the highway. That doesn’t sound like an accident. That sounds personal. Who would do that? And why?”

      Those were the questions Elijah wanted to ask.

      “Someone threatened to kill me back in Las Vegas,” Olivia said. “Maybe the guy who drove me off the road tonight was him. Maybe not.” She glanced at Claudia, her eyebrows raised in an unspoken plea for understanding. “I’d hoped I’d get away from him here, but now it looks like I’ll have to move on.”

      So that was why Olivia had come to Painted Rock. She was running for her life. And potentially putting Claudia in harm’s way.

      Deputy Bedford cocked his head slightly to one side. “Who was the man who threatened your life?”

      “His name is Ted Kurtz. He’s an attorney in Las Vegas.”

      “The man you testified against? I ran your name through the computer. As soon as I saw the pictures, I recognized you from the news stories on TV.”

      Olivia had been on TV? Las Vegas was less than three hundred miles away. If anything made the news there, it usually made the news in Painted Rock. But Elijah didn’t have much time for TV. “What happened?” he asked.

      Olivia glared at him. Then she turned back to the deputy and lifted her chin, as if daring him to take his best shot. She was tough. Elijah had to give her that. She might have looked terrified crouching by her car out on the highway, but she’d looked determined then, too.

      “I worked at a safe house for battered women in Las Vegas,” Olivia said, her voice flat and emotionless. “We had a woman stay with us on three different occasions over the course of about six months. Eventually she told us her name, Marion Kurtz, and that her husband was Ted Kurtz. He’s a big-shot defense attorney with links to organized crime.”

      Her gaze shifted to something just beyond Elijah’s shoulder. Sorrow filled her eyes and the defiant line of her lips slackened. Elijah knew from experience what was happening. She was looking into the past.

      “We tried to get Marion into counseling, get her out of danger, get her to file a police report and press charges. She’d show some interest, but then she wouldn’t follow through.” Olivia’s voice began to waver a little. “Finally, Marion came in with a black eye, a broken nose and a split lip. She said she was ready to press charges and leave her husband.”

      Elijah dreaded hearing where her story might go.

      “But she didn’t leave him and she never filed a police report. She decided to give him one more chance after he promised he would change. A week later Marion ended up in the hospital ICU, unconscious for two days.” Olivia’s voice caught, and she stopped talking for a few seconds to clear her throat. “When she regained consciousness, she claimed it had been a random attack. But later, she told me her husband had done it. She wouldn’t repeat that to the police, though, because Ted told her she wouldn’t survive if she did. He’d defended people in court who owed him favors. People who could make her disappear.”

      Claudia reached over to brush the hair from Olivia’s face. “Honey, given the situation, no one can blame you for what you did.”

      Olivia looked up at her. “If it hadn’t been for you...” Her voice trailed off and she shook her head. “I knew his alibi was a complete lie,” she continued. “I wanted to make any potential jurors question it, so when I testified before the grand jury, so they could determine whether the case would go to trial, I claimed I saw him at a time and place when I actually didn’t.”

      “Oh, honey.” Claudia shook her head.

      “I saw Marion in the hospital. I saw what he did to her. I was angry and I wanted to do something to make sure he wouldn’t be able to hurt her again.” Olivia shoved her hands in her pockets. “I regretted the lie almost as soon as I told it. A few days later I retracted my statement.”

      She turned to Elijah. “Without enough evidence to move forward with the trial, the charges against Kurtz were dropped. Charges were filed against me, but they were eventually dropped, too. Marion had permanent hearing loss and some other physical issues, but she did file for divorce. Things looked like they were blowing over.

      “Then three weeks ago Kurtz came up to me while I was walking down a sidewalk. I didn’t see him coming—he was just suddenly there beside me. He told me he was going to kill me. Things hadn’t blown over for him. Old rumors about him had taken on a new life. Stories that he was violent, that his hair-trigger temper made him unhinged. That he’d hurt people before.

      “The law firm where he works has to maintain a thin veneer of respectability and they were angry with him for marring that. His future there is in question, even now. He told me that getting rid of me would send a message to the women he’s hurt in the past about the consequences of standing up to him.” Her voice was hard with bitterness now, and shimmering tears were forming in the corners of her eyes.

      “That’s why you’re here?” Elijah asked. “To get away from him?”

      Olivia nodded. “Aunt Claudia saw me on TV during the worst of it and called me. She invited me to come for a visit, but I could barely bring myself to leave my apartment.” She impatiently rubbed her eyes, smearing away the tears that lingered there. “I lost my job after I told the truth. I was hoping to start a new life here.”

      Silence followed. Finally, Bedford spoke. “Are you sure you’ve told me the truth about what happened on the road?”

      “I’m not making it up.”

      “You do realize Ted Kurtz probably bills his clients in the neighborhood of a thousand bucks an hour? Can you really imagine him taking the time to personally trail you all the way from Las Vegas to Painted Rock just to bump your car a few times and drive you off the road?”

      “I never said I was sure it was him. Maybe he hired someone.”

      “What’s your theory?” Elijah asked Bedford. He wasn’t thrilled that Olivia had brought trouble to Claudia’s house, but it sounded as if she did have a good reason to fear for her life. Now Bedford wanted to dismiss everything she’d said, leaving her alone and vulnerable, just because she’d made a bad decision in the past?

      Bedford held up a hand. “I don’t have a theory. I want to help.” СКАЧАТЬ