They sipped in silence for a moment.
“Think she’ll take the deal?” Donovan asked.
“If her lawyer’s got any sense, she will. But I don’t think she’s figured out the rest.”
“You mean the part about how, now that she’s behind bars, all those other bench warrants will come back to haunt her?
“I may have taken the liberty of alerting a few states to the fact that we’ve got Ms. Merill in custody,” Jamal grinned.
“That must have been satisfying,” Donovan guessed.
“Felt pretty damn good,” Jamal said, raising his coffee cup.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Dawn was breaking when Donovan left the Cleary Police Station. His body was tired, but his mind was revving as he turned onto the town’s main drag. He needed to talk to Eva. He reached for his phone before remembering it had gone down a sewer drain about a hundred years ago. He couldn’t afford to be without a phone right now.
He spotted a 24-hour pharmacy up ahead and pulled into the parking lot. There was a Mini Cooper just like Eva’s parked on the side. He parked next to it just to feel closer to her.
He got out, stretched, and went in through the automatic door.
“Morning,” he said, greeting the girl behind the register. “You got prepaid phones here?”
She looked up from her tabloid and cappuccino. “Yep. Aisle Seven.”
He headed across the brightly lit store and was halfway to Seven when a flash of red hair caught his eye.
Eva.Every cell in his body sang. It was as if he’d conjured her up out of nowhere.
She was staring at a product display chewing on her lower lip and didn’t notice when he strolled down the aisle.
“Well, aren’t you a sight for exhausted eyes?”
Eva’s eyes widened in shock. Something fell out of her hand onto the floor, and Donovan bent to pick it up.
“What are you doing—”
His question was cut off when he realized what he held in his hand. A generic brand pregnancy test with a man and woman laughing on the box.
She was frozen in place staring in horror at his hand, and the look in her eyes telegraphed everything.
“Are we—”
She snatched the test out of his hand and bolted down the aisle and ran for the front door.
“Hey! You gotta pay for that,” the clerk yelled after her.
Eva ran through the front door, and Donovan heard the rev of her engine before he got the feeling back in his body. After last night, he’d thought there was nothing in this world that could surprise him again.
He was wrong. Big time.
His body started responding to his brain, and he jogged to the front of the store, tossing a ten at the woman behind the register.
“It’s always the pregnancy tests,” she muttered.
Donovan threw his car in gear and peeled out of the parking lot. He could see the blue of her car at the next stop light. There was no way he was letting her get away. He flicked on his lights and siren and took off after her.
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