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  Elsie let go of Rachel and stepped back. Before she could start crying, she picked up her laundry bag and hurriedly checked out of the cottage. Being a minimal security prisoner, she could go from building to building, as long as she checked out and then back in at the guard stations. Hunched against the chilly early evening drizzle, she headed for the laundry.

  Dusk being the best time for an escape attempt…

  The muzzy gray light could fool the human eye. Too dark for cameras mounted on buildings to pick out movement.

  Elise thought of Brian, but his image was fading from her mind’s eye, so she guiltily let it slip away as she had so often lately. Not that she would ever forget him. But she had a son to think of—their son. Eric needed to be foremost in her thoughts. Diane must have murdered Brian. Why else would she have insisted on staying at the estate that night, when, until then, she’d wanted nothing to do with Elise or her son? None of the Mitchells had. And Diane had been the prosecutor’s star witness.

  Minna Mitchell, Brian’s mother, had deemed her a gold digger and Eric a bastard, because Elise had been pregnant when she and Brian married. None of the Mitchells had even come to see the baby. And now those same mean-spirited people had Eric in their clutches. But soon Elise would be reunited with the boy, would find some way to get him away from Diane and Kyle.

  Then they would be on the run, maybe forever.

  The laundry guard didn’t seem to notice anything amiss. Ensconced in her safe bulletproof glass cage, she let Elise into the interlock, checked her in, then called her cottage to say she’d arrived.

  Once inside, Elise stopped dead when she noticed two other inmates—strangers—sitting on washers, talking. Legs stiff, she headed for a washer beneath the windows. As she dumped in her clothes, her stomach felt like a lump had settled there. Every moment brought her closer to dark. To sweeping spotlights and roving guard dogs. The waiting grew interminable and she was afraid she might lose her mind.

  Finally, halfway through her wash cycle, the other inmates’ dryers buzzed. The women stuffed their clean clothing into their bags and left.

  Elise started a couple of washers and dryers, then climbed on top. Her hands felt like blocks of ice as she slipped on her gloves and rested her bottom on the washers. She launched her right foot, but, while the glass shuddered, it didn’t break. Both feet and the window exploded outward, along with the metal bars she’d noticed, more than a week ago, were coming away from the building. She slithered through the opening.

  Suddenly a light projected across the grounds, moving in her direction. She rolled into a tight ball against the building and covered her head.

  The light swept by her and kept going.

  A loud buzz was followed by the laundry door suddenly opening. Thinking she might get sick, Elise felt her pulse surge harder. Another inmate, one she knew by sight—a woman whose appeal she’d researched—stood there frozen in the doorway, a laundry bag balanced on her ample hip. Staring at Elise through the broken window, the woman’s dark eyes widened, and Elise figured it was all over.

  Eric…

  Pulse racing, having trouble getting a breath, she gave the other inmate a pleading look. The woman opened her mouth and appeared torn—she could be held accountable, adding time to her own sentence. Then she swallowed hard and quickly backed off into the interlock.

  Elise could hear her yell to the guard, “Damn, I forgot my favorite sweater, so I’ll have to come back later!” as the door swung closed and locked.

  Weak-kneed and sweating, Elise pulled the sweatshirt hood up to hide her light brown hair, which was plaited into a single braid. No panic attack, she told herself. Not now. Later, when it doesn’t count.

  She ran across the prison yard like the hounds of hell were on her heels. Getting caught was unthinkable, so she thought about Eric, instead. Pictured her son as she waited in the shelter of a tree. Tried to ignore everything else.

  The fear.

  The treacherous mud that pulled at her feet and threatened to down her.

  The bullets that would be aimed her way if she were spotted.

  If caught, she’d get two to seven years added to her twenty-year sentence…but it was equally likely she’d end up dead. Guards in the sniper towers were instructed to shoot to kill any prisoner trying to escape.

  Spurred on by the horrific picture that presented, Elise forced herself to run faster. Once inside a copse, she threw herself at a tree set back from the edge of the forested area and hugged the trunk so she wouldn’t fall to her knees. Trying to catch her breath before heading for the perimeter fence, she stared through the semidarkness toward the laundry building.

  The rain had let up, but the clouds gave her thick cover, and visibility was poor. If she couldn’t see, neither could a guard.

  Then a distant light caught her from the side.

  Dear God, the spotlight from the sniper tower only a hundred yards away was already starting its next sweep!

  Letting go of her support, Elise backed farther into the woods, her eyes shifting between the black hole before her and the approaching beam of light. Everything depended on her making it out without being detected.

  Eric’s life…

  Elise moved through the woods and up a sloped hill, scrambling over fallen trees, crossing a small ravine using a dead tree as a balance beam. The air was thick and rank, her breathing labored. Finally she neared the faint lights dotting the perimeter fence.

  Staring up at the double rows of razor wire curled around the top of the chain link, she wondered if she could make it over.

  A moment later, the searchlight had passed over the area and she was running for the fence, unzipping her sweatshirt jacket as she went. She reached for a grip and took her first step into the chain link. Shoving herself up, she reached with the other hand, stepped with the other foot.

  Small reaches. Small steps.

  Since being incarcerated, prison fare had filled out her formerly slight figure, and she’d spent as many hours in the gym developing the extra weight into muscle as she had in the law library developing her mind. She was nothing like the weakling the Mitchells had known. She was strong, buffed, focused on her purpose.

  Steadily she progressed up the chain-link wall. The sound of baying guard dogs in the distance sent chills up her spine, and she wished she could fly over the top.

  Elise swallowed hard as she let go of the fence with one hand, shrugging off the sweatshirt and throwing it over the jagged edges for protection. Then she took that last step and leaned forward. Got her leg over and found a toehold. Became aware of the advancing beam of light. Of the sound of dogs coming closer. She lifted the other leg, but hurrying made her sloppy. She didn’t lift high enough and the razor wire caught her pant leg.

  Balanced precariously, she felt her stomach take a tumble when sharp metal teeth bit into her shin. Her pants leg ripped, but she swung her leg free even as the beam bathed her in a garish glow. Frantic, Elise looked for a footing, missed and plummeted to the ground. She landed on her hands and knees, then, in agony, rolled onto her butt.

  She got to her feet and had barely made it through the ditch and up on the gravel shoulder, before the whole fence lit up like a Christmas tree. She’d been spotted.

  As she ran, an amplified voice reverberated around her. “Stay where you are! Stop and we won’t shoot!”

  She ran faster and coasted around a curve to where a dark, old-model car waited for her in the shelter of several trees. She slid inside even as a ping against the metal hood made her blood run cold. Shots. The keys—yes, they were there! She started the engine and sped down the highway.

  The rain was starting up again, harder this time. The wipers could barely keep the windshield clear.

  She had to get across the river before they caught her. And the river was flooded. Though the bridge was still in—at least, it had been the day before, according to the news.

  Lord, don’t let me end up dead like Brian. She was all that stood betw
een their son and Diane’s greedy heart. Elise kept her attention divided between the rain-splattered windshield and side-view mirror. The dimly lit bridge had just come into sight when lights swung into view in her rearview mirror. IDOC guards were after her!

  She took the last curve too fast, and the car fishtailed on the wet road.

  “Damn!” Elise frantically tried to regain control, but was blinded by yet another set of lights coming toward her through the driving rain.

  She jerked the wheel to the right, and the car flew off the road onto the soft shoulder, where it spun around, shuddered and died. She cranked the engine. The car started, but when she put it into gear it wouldn’t move. A loud unnatural whine and some shaking was its only response.

  Elise couldn’t believe it. A hundred yards from the bridge that might take her to freedom, to her son—and she was out of commission. The official vehicles were closing in.

  Run!

  She tore out of the car. Mud grabbed at her feet. She fought its pull, dragged herself onto the highway’s pavement and ran. The bridge was like a beacon, promising Elise freedom for her and safety for her child.

  A dozen yards behind her, tires screeched, then more shots rang out. She kept running, onto the bridge, into the light, praying the IDOC men would be too distracted to see her. Below, she could hear the frantic rush of water as the swollen river swallowed anything in its path. Halfway across…home free.

  Over the turbulent rush, a man yelled, “There she is!”

  “Stop!” bellowed another. “Or we’ll shoot!”

  When she kept going, head down into the driving rain, shots rang out, whizzing by too close for comfort. More shots. A whine near her ear. She nearly choked on her own bile. Then something hit her hard in the side, jerking her body into the rail. Searing pain like none she’d ever imagined possible made her cry out, and the old, rusting metal gave under her weight with a death scream.

  Blinded by the pain, head light, the world and her mental image of Eric receding, Elise flew headfirst into the raging river.

  Chapter Two

  Diane Mitchell lounged in the dayroom, breakfasting on tea spiked with brandy, and gazed out the window. The lake was seething from the vicious storm that had whirled off it the night before. All that rain was so tiresome.

  “Diane, I have a surprise for you.”

  A tremor of annoyance passed through her as she turned to see her husband filling the doorway. “Please, Kyle,” she said. “You know how I hate having my morning disturbed.”

  Without another word, her husband held up a section of the newspaper. Diane’s eyes widened as she read the headline: Escaped Convict Shot and Presumed Drowned.

  Emotion filling her, she rose and grabbed the pages from his hand. “Let me see.”

  “It seems our dear Elise is gone for good,” he said, sounding grimly satisfied.

  He didn’t have to add that that would give them all reason to celebrate. Diane quickly scanned the account of Elise’s escape. After having been shot, she’d fallen into the rain-swollen Illinois River, and her body had been swept away by the current.

  Diane frowned. “It says here that Elise’s body hasn’t been found.”

  “Don’t worry, they’ll find what’s left of her when the flood waters recede,” Kyle predicted. “Can’t even get rescue vehicles into some areas now. They’re using boats to bring people and animals out. They’re not going to be dragging for bodies yet.”

  Diane continued to read the article. According to the officers in pursuit the night before, Elise had been dragged under by the current. One of the officers assured the reporter that it would take a miracle for someone who wasn’t wounded to survive.

  Diane didn’t believe much in miracles—she’d fought for everything she’d ever wanted—but maybe this was an exception. A miracle for her, that is, not Elise.

  Flushed at the thought of her ex-sister-in-law’s demise—she couldn’t in truth mourn her—Diane dumped the paper, rose from her chaise and, without a look back at the husband she’d barely tolerated for the past half-dozen years, strode down the hall to the playroom. Eric sat on the floor, building a house with colorful play blocks.

  “Good morning, Eric.”

  The little boy didn’t look up from his task, but murmured, “Morning, Aunt Diane.”

  “We have a reason to celebrate today.” She made her voice pleasant. Inviting. “If you could do anything you wanted, what would it be?”

  Eric continued placing one block on another, never once looking up. Finally, he said, “See Mama.”

  Words that provoked Diane. Eric wouldn’t even remember his tramp of a mother if it hadn’t been for his maternal grandmother, Susan Kaminsky. Thankfully, the witch was finally out of her hair, stuck on some Florida swampland playing Florence Nightingale, hopefully for good.

  Staring at the innocent child, she reveled in the fact that Eric’s birth mother was gone for good. Now she and Kyle could apply for adoption, something the state wouldn’t have allowed while Elise was alive. Legal guardianship could always be challenged.

  But adoption…

  Diane told herself it was merely a matter of time. Soon everything she’d ever dreamed of would be hers.

  Seven weeks later…

  ELISE WATCHED from the shadows of a large pine tree as a tall woman turned into the courtyard of the U-shaped apartment building. Could this be Cassandra? She was the right size, but other than that, she looked so…different.

  “Cass?” she called out cautiously.

  The woman whipped around and took a defensive stance. “Who’s there!”

  Wanting to make sure this seeming stranger was Cass, Elise didn’t say anything, merely stepped out of the shadows into the pool of lamplight and stared at features that looked vaguely familiar. The other woman’s black-rimmed eyes narrowed for a moment, then went round.

  “Elise Mitchell? What the— Come in, quickly.”

  Without another word, she took Elise by the arm and hurried her through the nearest doorway. “I live up on the third floor.”

  If she had seen the former inmate on the street, Elise never would have recognized her, with her normally dark hair dyed a wild color and her features altered with a clever makeup job. She’d done a one-eighty at Cass’s appearance…the woman had altered her appearance like a chameleon.

  Elise steeled herself against the shot of pain that trilled through her side as she followed. Henry Perkins, the former medic who’d found her passed out near the riverbank, had dug out the bullet and patched her up, but the wound was still healing, and it protested when she put forth too much physical effort. Elise climbed to the third floor, thinking about how kind Perkins had been, how he’d believed her when she said she was running away from an abusive husband. She only hoped he would keep his own counsel as he’d promised. Someday, she hoped to repay him, though she had no idea how that might be possible.

  Once inside the apartment, Cass locked the door and leaned against it. “You’re supposed to be dead!” she announced. “The authorities gave up the search more than a month ago. They said no one could have survived that river.”

  “Thankfully.” Elise had read reports in newspapers and had seen others on television. “No one will be looking for me, then.” Or expecting her—namely, her former in-laws.

  “Elise, why did you do it? Why did you put your life on the line?”

  “I wasn’t going to get parole. Illinois State Senator Kyle Mitchell, potential candidate for the governor’s seat, would have seen to it.” Brian’s brother being a big-name politician gave him an edge with the authorities, as she’d quickly learned during her trial. “And now my little boy is in danger from the real murderer, Cass, most likely Diane.”

  Eric was the only thing standing between Diane and the property that she had always thought should have gone to her husband Kyle, the older brother, rather than to Brian. Elise didn’t care about money. Her mom had taught her to value family—just the two of them after her dad’s dea
th when she was six. She’d gladly let Diane and the others have everything but her little boy.

  Cassie said, “But your mother—”

  “Is in Florida. My aunt had a stroke and Mom was the only one free to help her. She’ll be gone indefinitely. Which means there’s no one to watch out for Eric’s best interests. That’s why, Cass. I have to get my son away from there. Away from Diane and Kyle.”

  “Then they’ll know—”

  “That I’m alive? Not until it’s too late. Not until I’m long gone. Eric and I will simply disappear.”

  Not that she’d worked out the details.

  Not that she wouldn’t miss her own mother—for how could she ever chance contact, lest she be captured again.

  “Oh, honey.” Cass stepped forward and hugged Elise.

  When Elise had worked on Cass’s appeal, they’d become friends. Cass had insisted that she, too, had been innocent, and Elise had believed her. It was all too easy to railroad someone into a cell, as she well knew. They’d gotten friendly, and Elise had told her all about her son.

  “Come on in the kitchen,” Cass said. “I’ll get you something to eat. Then you should get some sleep.”

  “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “Consider it payback. I haven’t forgotten how hard you worked to get me an appeal because you believed I was innocent. I know you were railroaded, too.”

  The small foyer led to a living room with only a couch, table and television. Cass took a left, into what probably was meant to be a dining room. A makeup table by the windows and a portable ballet barre along the opposite wall bespoke show business. They passed a rack of colorful props on the way to the small kitchen.

  “Sit.” Cass began pulling food out of the refrigerator, but her gaze was mostly on Elise.

  “What?”