Free Deceive Her With Desire by Nina Pierce Page B

She’d lost all sense of time since the four police cruisers had come at her with lights flashing and sirens wailing. They’d appeared out of nowhere, nearly running her one-ton off the road.
    The officers had charged the truck cab with guns drawn, yelling incoherent sentences at her. One of them hauled her from the truck, throwing her to the ground. Absently she rubbed at the bruise on her cheek where it had slammed into the road.
    The other three officers swarmed the truck like ants at a picnic. She was too frightened to protest even as the arresting officer groped her body a little too intimately. Deirdre had no idea what they were looking for until one of them produced something from beneath the driver’s seat. They waved the packets in her face accusing her of selling drugs. Pot didn’t come in crinkly cellophane packages. She still didn’t know what the bundles were. Whatever it was had been enough to have the police slapping cuffs roughly on her wrists, shoving her into a cruiser and bringing her to the police station.
    She should be pissed. She’d done nothing wrong.
    Instead, she was scared shitless.
    The door opened and she jumped, unable to control the gasp of surprise at the unexpected intrusion.
    “Miss Tilling, I’m Chief Lafflin .” The large man settled his sizable bulk into the chair across from her. His salt and pepper hair, well trimmed beard and ruddy complexion gave him a Santa Claus quality, but Deirdre didn’t fool herself into thinking there was anything jolly about the situation. “How about I take off those handcuffs?”
    With a surprising gentleness, he slid a key in the metal and clicked the lock. Though they hadn’t really hurt, Deirdre rubbed at her wrists, savoring her freedom.
    “You haven’t touched the coffee. Can I get you something else? Water? Diet cola?”
    “No, thank you I’m fine.” Like hell she was. “Do I need a lawyer?”
    “You’re welcome to call one if you’d like.”
    “But I haven’t done anything wrong.”
    “Did the police officers tell you why you’re here?”
    “They said they found drugs in my truck. But they’re not mine,” she add quickly. “I don’t know how they got there.” Of course she suspected it had something to do with one of the kids who’d been at the estate, but as scary as this all was, she refused to throw them under the bus until she talked to Mark.
    “The truck is registered in your name as a business vehicle for,” the man consulted a clipboard, though Deirdre suspected it was more for dramatic effect, “Tilling Gardens and Plants.”
    She didn’t want his deep voice and gentle demeanor to make her comfortable, but Deirdre found herself wanting to trust the man in uniform nonetheless. “That’s right. I’m the landscaping part of the business. I was leaving a job in Cutler when the police swarmed my truck like a SWAT team.”
    The chief’s mouth lifted at the corner. “Has anyone used your truck today?”
    “No, we were chipping wood into it all day.”
    “So it was never out of your sight?”
    When she’d walked the property with Jameson, trying to keep his conversation focused on the gardens and trees while her head was working out Austin’s odd reaction in the garage, she wondered if one of Jameson’s thugs had set her up. But admitting that may also throw suspicions on Mark and his students. “Well, I can’t say I was with it every minute today. But yeah, basically.”
    “Then how would someone have hidden the drugs without your knowledge?”
    “I demand to see her,” a man’s voice bellowed. “No, you can’t stop me. I’m here with her lawyer.”
    The commotion in the hallway happened only seconds before the door of the interrogation room flew open. Shawn Jameson strode in with a well dressed man in a business suit behind him.
    “Mr. Jameson.” The chief stood. “What can I do for you?”
    “This woman is an employee of mine.”
    “Shawn I—”
    He strode up to Deirdre and put an arm