The Perfect Cover (The Perfect Stranger #2) - Charlotte Byrd
The Perfect Cover
When Tyler McDermott escapes from prison, he takes me hostage. No, I do not fall in love with my captor.
Tyler is an innocent man who was framed for a heinous double murder.
Of course, I do not know that yet.
All that I know is that he has a knife to my throat. All that I know is that if I want to live, I have to let him in.
This simple act of courage will change my safe life forever and show me that true love is possible after all.
But what happens when that love is not enough?
Tyler
When I leave…
Last night was my thank you to Isabelle for everything she had done for me.
Last night was also my goodbye.
I knew I was going to leave as soon as we got to Ohio, the first place we stopped. I needed her help to get out of her neighborhood and all of the roads that were blocked. I needed to get at least a state away.
But after that?
I can’t have her endangering her life for me anymore.
I know that Isabelle won’t let me leave on my own. I know that she wants to protect me, but I can’t let her.
This is one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to endure and that includes identifying my wife’s dead body, standing in the courtroom, and being convicted of a murder that I didn’t commit.
Isabelle and I leave in the middle of the night. Blackness is still hanging in the air all around us.
I give her a kiss right before I get into the trunk of the 2002 Honda Accord that she bought from an ad on Craigslist. No one knows that this is the car that she’s driving and it’s going to be a while before all of the official forms are filed with the state in her name.
Standing in her garage, I press my lips softly to hers. She’s shivering. I rub her shoulders to warm her up, but the goose bumps don’t go away.
She’s not cold. She’s nervous.
“It’s going to be okay,” I whisper.
She gives me a slight nod and then gets up on her tiptoes to kiss me again. After a moment, we just hold each other in our arms.
It’s hard to explain how surprised I am that any of this is happening. When I first escaped from a maximum-security prison and hid in the home of the woman I only knew as a child, I had hoped that I could keep her sequestered in her room so that she wouldn’t find out my identity.
When that didn’t work and she recognized me, I had no choice but to tell her the truth.
I thought that she wouldn’t believe me. I had been convicted of killing my wife, her boyfriend, and her unborn child, the child that I had no knowledge of. The only thing I knew was that my wife’s lover was my partner and he had just taken the business from me. Unfortunately, the prosecutor used that as motive. Therefore, I must have done it.
The cops agreed and didn’t investigate. My wife’s murderer is still at-large and I was sentenced to life in prison.
No one believed me when I tried to tell them I was innocent.
No one except for Isabelle.
Isabelle knew me when I was barely a teenager. We were best friends and we had feelings for each other but neither of us admitted it out loud. She knew who I was at my core and she knew that I did not commit those crimes. I don’t know why she believed me, but she did and for that I will be eternally grateful.
However, her faith in me doesn’t change my circumstances. Every law enforcement officer in the Tri-state area is looking for me and I had gotten injured trying to escape. I thought that hiding out at her home would relieve some of the pressure, but I quickly realized that they were circling in on me.
There are police officers patrolling all the streets in her neighborhood and even pulling people and cars over to give out WANTED flyers with our pictures. There is a $100,000 reward available to anyone who can give the authorities any information leading to our arrests.
There’s an actual bounty on my head.
When I was studying at the University of Pennsylvania and starting my hedge fund, making millions of dollars in the process, I never suspected that I would ever be in this situation; hiding out in the trunk of a car and crossing state lines with