Free Guilty by Karen Robards Page B

knob stopped turning, the door began to open, slowly and soundlessly. Tom held his breath as Kate White came into view. She stood just inside the secure corridor, pale as a ghost and fragile-looking as a porcelain doll in her figure-hugging black suit, her blond hair loose now and spilling in a profusion of waves to her shoulders, her body seemingly unbloodied and in one piece, her face as expressionless as a doll's as she pushed the door open with one arm stiffly extended.
    Except for her eyes. They were huge with what he presumed was shock.
    As far as Tom could tell, she was, indeed, alone. Her build was too slight to allow Rodriguez or anyone else to hide behind her. Tom's eyes slid beyond her anyway, searching along as much of the secure corridor as he could see: nothing. No one. Only gray walls and doors and empty space.
    And Kate White.
    Unbelievably, there didn't seem to be any trick to this.
    "Kate? Is Rodriguez dead?"
    As he said her name, she looked directly at him for the first time since she'd opened the door. Their eyes met. Hers were shadowed now with trouble, and far darker than the robin's-egg hue he remembered from earlier, probably because her pupils had dilated with some combination of fear and trauma. She nodded, then seemed to take a deep breath before she started walking, or rather stumbling, toward him on slim, unsteady legs made to seem even longer than they already were by a pair of surprisingly sexy high heels.
    "Hold your fire," he ordered sharply over his shoulder. "She's alone."
    As his backup slowly emerged from their concealed positions and the door swung closed behind Kate, he holstered his gun and strode to meet her.
    She was so white she looked like she was drained of blood, he saw as he got closer. He deliberately made his voice gentle. "Are you okay?"
    She nodded again, and stopped walking. Her lips parted, but she didn't say anything. As he reached her, Tom saw the ladders in her stockings, the little trickle of dried blood on her cheek, the horror in her eyes.
    She was alive, possibly unhurt, but definitely not okay.
    Her eyes fell away from his. She took another deep breath, shuddered, then pressed a hand to her chest, to her white T-shirt, right in between her small but shapely breasts, as if her heart had suddenly started doing something it shouldn't and it scared her.
    "What happened in there?" he asked, even as his backup moved in cautiously toward the now closed door, ready to search the secure corridor for themselves.
    "I shot him," she said, looking up at him again, the words cold and clear. "He's dead."
    Then her knees gave way and, with a little cry, she crumpled.
    Tom was just close enough to catch her in his arms before she hit the floor.

C h a p t e r 7
    "YOU SURE YOU DON'T want to ride on over to the hospital, get checked out, just in case?" the EMT asked. Laura Remke was her name, according to the silver name tag pinned to her pale blue shirt. About five-four and stocky, with boyishly short brown hair and no discernible makeup on her round face, she looked to be in her early forties. She had been kind and efficient, and asked the minimum of questions, which were characteristics Kate greatly appreciated at the moment.
    "No thanks."
    Kate was sitting on a high-backed wooden bench nestled against the wall just outside courtroom 207, having been deposited there by the same cop who had scooped her up and yelled for an EMT when Kate's knees betrayed her. Someone had called to him urgently right after he had summoned Remke, and Kate hadn't seen him since he'd practically dropped her on the bench.
    She didn't even know his name.
    Not that it mattered. What mattered was surviving this nightmare the best way she could. She was alive, anyway, when so many others weren't. That was the most important thing. The rest of the horror she would find a way to deal with, just as she had found a way to deal with everything else life had thrown at her so far. As soon as the panic subsided, as