Free You Can't Hide by Karen Rose

situation was very serious. When this got out, her reputation as a psychiatrist would suffer and in turn, so would her practice and her patients. That it would get out she had no doubt. There wasn’t a cop around that wouldn’t jump for joy to see her private practice dashed on the rocks. After Harold Green, they’d seen to it that her contracts with the states attorney’s office had not been renewed. And seeing her charged and tried? That would just be icing on the cake. “Don’t be selfish, Amy,” she said caustically. “Not only will your black sweater keep me warm, it will complement the black prison stripes. Which, thank God, at least are slimming.”
    “Tess, hush,” Amy murmured. “This looks bad now, but we’l work this out. You’l see. Let’s go get you something to eat. You haven’t eaten today, have you?”
    “No.” Murphy had offered to get her a sandwich while she’d waited for Amy, but she’d refused. Her stomach had been too upset to eat, but even if it hadn’t been she wouldn’t accept any help from Todd Murphy. Not again.
    “Well, I’ll take you to my place and make you some soup.”
    The thought of Amy’s soup made Tess queasy all over again. “No thanks. Just take me home. I’l be fine.”
    Amy bit her lip. “Tess, if you don’t eat, you’l make yourself sick again.”
    Tess felt her temper simmer and clamped it down. Amy meant well. She always meant wel .
    “I’ll eat. I promise. Now leave it alone.”
    “Doctor? Dr. Ciccotelli?”
    Tess stopped, not because she wanted to talk to the woman who’d called her name, but because the woman had stepped in front of the glass door, blocking her way. She was young, twenty-five maybe. Studious-looking with her wide gray eyes and narrow glasses. A long blond braid hung over one shoulder and a slight dent creased her chin. The drawl in her voice said
    “southerner.” The gleam in the girl’s eye screamed “reporter.” Here we go, Tess thought and wondered which of the cops in the precinct had set aside his distaste for the press and sicced this piranha on her tail.
    “My name is Joanna Carmichael. I’m covering the Adams case for the Bulletin . You were at the scene of the Adams’s jump just after midnight last night. Can you comment on the police’s position that Miss Adams’s fall was coerced?”
    Amy’s arm came down in front of Tess. “No comment,” her friend growled. “Step out of the way. Now.”
    Tess regarded the young woman’s eyes thoughtful y and made an instant decision. Joanna Carmichael didn’t know she’d been questioned or she would have asked her question very differently. When this got out, it might not hurt to have a mouthpiece in her own corner. “Give me your card,” she said. “If I have something to say, I’ll call you.”
    Carmichael dug in her pocket and came up with a card. “Thank you.”
    Outside, Tess dragged the cold, fresh air into her lungs. The gray sky was almost exactly the same color as the reporter’s eyes. But the thought of eyes brought Aidan Reagan’s to her mind, piercing blue and accusing.

    30
    Karen Rose

    [Suspense 5]

    You Can't Hide
    She was free to go. That she might not have been was a thought she hadn’t allowed while sitting in the interrogation room. She’d channeled her emotion into the cold fury that sustained her for most of the hour she’d sat there, feeling Reagan watch her through the glass. Anger was a safer emotion than fear. But now that she was out under the open sky, the fear hit, sending a shiver down her rigid spine.
    This nightmare wasn’t over. Not by a long shot. “I need to go home,” she murmured. I have work to do.
    Chapter 4
    Sunday, March 12, 6:30 P.M.
    Aidan stepped out of the cold evening rain and into his parents’ warm laundry room. He shivered even as the smell of something delicious teased his nose. It would be the pot roast his mother had made for Sunday dinner and… he sniffed again with appreciation. Pie. Let it be cherry,