Authors: Stephanie Rowe
O
N THE OTHER SIDE
of town at the police station, Sean studied his notes. Still no word on Jimmy, though police departments across the country had been put on the alert for him. The Gibbs investigation had been thorough—the man had simply disappeared without a trace. And no one had investigated Max’s boat crash. It had been deemed an accident and that was that. The officer who had responded to the
scene hadn’t considered it odd that a seasoned boater like Max had crashed.
The officer in question was currently out on patrol. They’d be having a little chat when the man returned to the station in the morning.
T
EETH BRUSHED
, pajamas on, face washed, Kim walked from the bathroom into the bedroom. The closets were empty of psychotic maniacs, the windows locked, and there was nothing under the bed but dust. So she slid the dead bolt on her bedroom door—no more dressers to drag across the floor—and turned to face the room.
The gun from her dad’s safe was on her nightstand and her cell phone was on the waistband of her pajamas. She’d never shot a gun and didn’t have a permit for it, but Sean had shown her how to use it anyway. Better to shoot herself by accident and have a chance to live than let Jimmy cut her up piece by piece. Not that Jimmy was here, but her dad was in a coma and even her most rational side couldn’t quite explain that one away as an accident.
S
EAN CALLED
H
ELEN
to see if she’d heard of Pete Gibbs, but she hadn’t. She didn’t mind being woken up at two in the morning, not when the welfare of the man she loved was at stake. Then he rang the hospital to see if Max had shown signs of waking up. He hadn’t.
Next, he phoned Billy to get his okay to put a uniform on Max’s room. When Billy gave him the green light, the feeling in his gut was confirmed. Billy wouldn’t have agreed if Sean’s instinct about the suspicious nature of Max’s accident was wrong.
He wished it was. The man was like his father. How could Kim hate him?
He remembered the letter from Kim’s mom. Would he find the answers in there?
He unfolded the letter from his pocket and laid it on his desk. It was crumpled and the creases were starting to tear at the edges. How many times had Kim read it?
My dearest Kimmy,
Through you, I taste freedom. It is a wonderful feeling, and I live for each breath you take.
While I sit here in this dark place, my wonderful daughter lives in the light. Away from here, away from a love that would have destroyed you and your dreams. When you ask if any of us have heard from Sean, I can hear in your voice that you still love him. My wonderful Kim, never doubt your decision. You’re eighteen and love seems so pure and so right, but it isn’t. That’s what I thought, and I was wrong. You need to grow and find yourself, not marry a man who would use your love to condemn you to a life you don’t want. I won’t always be here to remind you that you made the right choice. I wanted to put it in writing, so you could look at it again and again.
Remember the night of your wedding? You were so young, so innocent, so filled with grand ideas and plans for a life with Sean. But I heard him talking to Dad. He was going to take over the Loon’s Nest, trapping both of you in this town forever. I saw the light in his eyes. He loves the camp. He idolizes your father. He was marrying you for the life he wanted, and he didn’t care if you suffered for it. And you would have. You’re like me, Kimmy. You are more than this town, more than this lake, more than that man. If you’d married him, you would have ended up like me, and I could never have lived with myself if I’d let my daughter make the same mistakes I made. You have found freedom. Never take it for granted, and never let anyone steal it from you.
Someday you may see Sean again and your old feelings will probably rise up again. First love never dies, and that’s why you had to leave. You never would have broken free of him if you’d continued to see him around town. So don’t come back. Not ever. To do so, you run the risk of losing everything you have fought so hard to get. I tried to leave your father before we got married, going off to college out of state. But he came after me, took advantage of my love and took me back to the life I’d tried to escape. As women, we’re never immune to our first loves, but always remember that it’s not real love. It’s not the kind of love that will bring you happiness and sustain you when life gets hard. Trust me, I know. Love with your brain, not your heart.
I know you love me, and I know your heart is always here with me, even though you’re far away. But know that your being away from here and being safe gives me more pleasure and joy than you could ever imagine. If you come back and let yourself fall into the trap, I will have failed as your mother. And more than anything, I couldn’t live with that.
When Cheryl gets old enough, take her away, too. I wanted to wait long enough to help her make the right choice, but I’m out of time. I’m exhausted and I can’t do it anymore. And I don’t need to. You’re safe, and you’re strong enough to save Cheryl as well.
I’ll always love you, Kimmy. I’m so proud of you.
Love,
Mom
Sean let the letter drop to the desk and closed his eyes. It was exactly what Kim said it was. Worse even. Joyce had thought him worthless. She’d thought he was a trap that would destroy Kim.
He’d thought she loved him like a son. Instead, she’d seen him as poison. He felt so utterly empty. Hopeless. Betrayed. Stupid.
Total and complete rejection from the family he’d considered his own. He’d thought it was horrible when Kim had left him. But this… He felt as if everything he’d ever believed had spun around and sliced him open.
How could he have been wrong? He’d loved Kim. He’d loved her mother. He’d loved the whole perfect family. How could Joyce have felt like that? About him, about Max, about the town, about life? He didn’t understand. He knew Max loved Joyce. He loved Kim. How could love have destroyed a family?
He slammed his fists on the desk. “Dammit!”
Did Max know about this? Did Cheryl? Kim did. She’d known for ten years and dealt with it by herself. He couldn’t even deal with it now. How could she have managed it ten years ago? She’d been just a kid.
He needed to talk to Kim. But what would he say? That Joyce was wrong? That Kim shouldn’t have listened to her? That the letter was a mistake? Would he have walked away ten years ago if Max had given him the same speech?
He didn’t know what to think. Or say. He felt as though he didn’t know anything anymore. He dropped his face to his hands and wept.
K
IM STARED AT
the bed. She needed to rest. But she was too wired. Jimmy was stealing even the ability to sleep away from her.
She scowled. “You will not win, Jimmy Ramsey!” She smacked her hands down on the mattress and pain shot up her right hand. “Ow!” She yanked her hand back but saw nothing on the mattress other than the comforter. Something slithered down her palm and she flipped her hand over. Blood was oozing from her palm, running down her wrist.
Fear raced through her and she yanked back the comforter. Nothing but the pale pink blankets she’d had as a teenager.
She ripped off the blankets and something glittered at her in the middle of the bed. Something small and shiny.
She began to tremble.
Slowly this time, she pulled the sheets and mattress pad back, the blood from her hand leaving bright-red streaks on the flowered cotton.
Now she could see it.
The tip of a shiny metal blade sticking up from her mattress. Pointed and sharp, the rest of the knife was hidden from view, buried deep inside the mattress.
But she didn’t have to look. She knew what the knife would look like. She knew the blade would match the scar on her thigh.
She dropped to her knees, staring at the steel tip. Then she yanked her cell phone off her waistband, hit Send and grabbed the gun off the nightstand. She would be a victim no longer.
S
EAN JERKED UP
when his cell phone rang, so caught up in the past. He lifted his head and wiped his cheeks. Dammit. He was too old to cry. Too old to feel this way.
The phone rang again and he picked it up to check the caller. Kim. What was he supposed to say about the letter? He didn’t even know what to say to himself. Or Max. Or Helen.
Everything his world had been based on was trembling on its foundation.
He punched Send. “Hi.”
“Oh, God, Sean. He’s been in my bedroom.”
Chills ricocheted down his spine and he jumped to his feet. “Where are you?”
“In my room. I think he’s gone.” Her voice wavered, then grew strong. “Dammit, Sean! He was in my bedroom.”
He heard the click of her cocking the gun and was glad he’d shown her how to use it. He paused to call in the location to dispatch and request all available officers, then ran for the door. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“Yell before you come in or I’ll shoot you.”
Kim tensed when she heard the knock on the bedroom door. “Who is it?” Yeah, she’d seen the flashing lights arrive and had thrown the house key to Sean out the bedroom window. She still wasn’t taking any chances.
“It’s Sean.”
“Hold on.” She unlocked the dead bolt, then moved across the room, raising the gun and leveling it at the door. “Come in.”
She aimed as the doorknob turned and the door opened. Then Sean stuck his head in, freezing when he saw the gun pointed at him. “Easy with the gun.”
“You alone?”
“No Jimmy.”
“Okay, then.” She let the gun drop and sank onto the edge of the bed.
“You okay?”
“No.” She held up her hand, wrapped with a bloody washcloth. “I hate him.”
He was across the floor in two long strides. “Let me see.” His voice was gruff as he wrapped his fingers around the wrist of her injured hand.
“It’s not deep.”
He ignored her and unwrapped it. “Did you clean it?”
“Yes, but it keeps bleeding.”
“You need to go to the hospital.”
She pulled her hand free and pointed behind her. “The knife.”
The shiny tip was sticking out of the bed, right where her body would have been if she’d climbed under the covers. Not enough to kill. Enough to hurt. And scare. Bastard.
Sean took a couple of pictures of the knife, then slipped on a pair of latex gloves and tugged it free. She couldn’t help but flinch when he pulled it out.
“Is this the same type of knife he had when he attacked you?”
“Looks like it.” She backed up. Stupid to run away, but she couldn’t help it. Seeing the knife like that, in her bed… She swallowed.
Sean dropped the knife and reached out to steady her. “Kim? You don’t look so good.”
“He was in my room. My bed. I had an alarm and he still got in.” She gripped Sean’s arms, feeling her pulse begin to skyrocket. “Any night I go to sleep, I could wake up with him here. You realize that, don’t you? That’s what this is all about.” God, she was cold. So cold. Shivering. Sweating. Shaking. “Making me realize there’s no place safe from him.”
Sean grabbed a blanket from the floor and wrapped it around her, then pulled her over to the bed and sat them both down. He surrounded her with his arms. “He won’t get you.”
“I’m freezing.”
“It’s shock.” He tugged the blanket closer around her neck, then began rubbing her shoulders, his fingers digging deep. It was the first time since he’d arrived that he’d given her the comfort she needed, like the old days. She took it in greedily, knowing it might never come again.
“He’s gone,” Sean said. The heat from his body surged through her, easing the trembling. As a teenager, she’d loved
him, but she’d never thought of him as someone who could keep her safe. It had been the other way around: he’d been the lost boy who needed a family to love. But right now, he was saving her. And she was going to let him. Just for now. Just for this moment.
“Right. Gone.” She took a deep breath. “Gone.” She felt like sobbing. How could this nightmare be starting all over again? No rationalization could convince her that she was imagining things now.
He continued to rub her shoulders. “When he attacked you before, it was in your bedroom, right?”
“Uh-huh.” He must have read the police reports.
“Same knife, same room. Anything else the same?”
She turned her head to look at him, not wanting him to stop touching her. His touch was grounding her, sending warmth into her stripped soul. “Like what?”
He looked at his watch. “It’s July twenty-fifth today. What day did he beat up Cheryl the last time?”
She stared at him. “On Christmas.”
He nodded, as if she’d confirmed what he’d already been thinking. “And when did he come after you? It was only a few days later, right?”
“January third.” The date was entrenched in her memory, that was for sure.
He said nothing else. His grim expression spoke for him.
She did the math. “So we have eight days until he tries to kill me.”
“Maybe.” His grip on her was a little tighter now than it had been.
“How can you be so calm?” Why wasn’t he freaking? It was all she could do to keep from jumping to her feet and screaming until her voice broke, and then screaming some more. She felt so terrified, so angry and so horribly helpless. She hugged herself even tighter and tried to curl into a tiny ball. She couldn’t deal with this.
He turned his head toward her. “You think I’m calm?”
That’s when she saw the expression in his eyes. They were burning with such a violent hatred and dangerous aggression that she shivered. It was as if she could see the rage bubbling up inside and it was milliseconds from spilling free and turning him into a crazed, revenge-seeking killer. Maybe he wasn’t touching her to calm her. Maybe he was touching her to keep himself under control.
Seeing his humanity instantly summoned her own strength and she uncurled her arms enough to set her hand on his leg. He immediately covered it with his free hand. “You’re coming home with me tonight.”
She met his gaze. “I know.”
H
OURS LATER
, S
EAN
sat back in his chair and watched Kim sleeping on the couch in the police station. She was using her duffel bag as a pillow and Sean’s sweatshirt as a blanket. Dealing with the knife incident and its aftermath had kept him at the station, and neither of them had suggested that Kim head off to his house without him.
Her hand had been fixed up by the paramedics. The puncture wound hadn’t been too deep, but it had been enough to remind them both about what was at stake.
Billy walked over to his desk and sat, keeping his voice low. “I followed up on the Gibbs investigation. According to his wife, he got a call at dinnertime and headed out right after that. She didn’t think anything of it because he was always getting phone calls and taking off without an explanation. They traced the call and it came from a pay phone about three blocks from his house.”
Sean rubbed his eyes. “So he got lured out of his house and someone picked him off? Where’s the body? Where’s the sign of a struggle?”
“Could’ve been having an affair,” Billy said. “Went AWOL with his lover.”
“You believe that?”
“No.”
The men fell silent for a moment, then Sean spoke. “About Max’s accident…”
“Yeah?”
“How come it was never looked into at all? The man was a veteran boater. The mere fact that he crashed into an island was so out of the norm that someone should have picked up on it.”
Billy lifted an eyebrow. “You didn’t pick up on it, either.”
“Yeah, I know.” Sean had been so caught up in the potential loss of Max that he’d abandoned all cop duties and left them in the hands of his colleagues.
“Seemed like an accident, a good case to give to one of the rookies. His report didn’t turn up anything suspicious, so I didn’t worry about it.” Billy rubbed his forehead.
“You think your officer could have been influenced by Jimmy?” Sean asked. With all the paperwork after the knife incident, Sean hadn’t been able to catch the officer in question before he went off duty.
Bill frowned. “No.”
“You sure?” It was uncomfortable questioning Bill about his staff, but Sean had no choice.
“If he missed a clue, it was because of inexperience, not because of bribery. I have total faith in my team.” Bill’s face had lost all trace of its easy humor.
Sean held up his hands in a defusing gesture. “Hey, I’m not on your case. I know I missed it, and I’m pissed about that. I just have to know who I can trust.”
Bill nodded. “Fine.”
Sean sighed. “I find it hard to believe that this accident with Max has nothing to do with Jimmy. The timing is too coincidental, and I don’t buy it. If Jimmy had something to do with Max’s crash, then he needed a partner because he was still in prison at the time. A cop would be an easy choice.”
“I hired these guys. They’re green, but they’re honest.” Billy stood up. “But I’ll check everyone out again, just to be sure. Do me a favor and don’t start spreading rumors that’ll cause the entire town to stop trusting its police force. The town’s too small, and they need to feel safe.”
“I won’t say anything,” he agreed. “Let me know what you find. And…thanks. I appreciate it.”
The chief nodded and walked out. Sean felt like dirt for questioning Billy’s judgment. But they had to know for sure, no matter how unlikely it was.
Sean leaned back in his chair and pressed his palms into his eyes. It was past ten in the morning, his shift was over and it was time to go home. He hadn’t slept much in the past couple of days, and he was fried. He picked up his keys and shoved back from the desk when his cell phone rang. He glanced at the display. It was Helen.
His heart jumped. Had Max woken up? He turned away so Kim wouldn’t hear him and answered softly. “Hi.”
“Sean? I heard that Kim got attacked last night. Is it true? What happened?”
Small towns. And Kim thought Helen was some frigid, calculating woman. Ridiculous. She was worried about Kim because she knew her husband would be concerned. “She’s fine. An intruder is all. How’s Max?”
“Nothing has changed.” There was a pause. “I was thinking about all your questions, about the night of the accident. I remembered that he got a call saying that he was needed for some crisis at the office. That’s why he was at the camp that night.”
Sean sat up. Two missing and/or injured men. Two calls. A pattern or a random coincidence? He didn’t believe in coincidence. His heart hammered. The first possible sign to validate Sean’s gut feeling about the “accident.” “What time did the call come in?”
“Around dinnertime. Maybe six or seven. Something like that.”
“Did the call come from the office?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he say who called?”
Helen’s voice lost some of its energy. “No. I guess I’m not being too useful, am I?”
“You’re very helpful, actually. Let me know if you think of anything else.” He paused. “How are you holding up?”
“Fine. We’ll get through this. It’s the kids I’m worried about.”
Helen’s kids were still pretty young, and they’d adored Max from the start. To them, he was Dad. “I’m sorry. I’ll try to swing by later today and see them.”
“No. You find out what happened to him. We’ll be okay.” Helen hesitated. “Can you do me a favor?”
“Anything. You name it.”
“Can you ask Kim to stop by the house tonight for dinner? I need to speak to her about Max.”
He grimaced. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Kim’s not really in the right frame of mind for that at the moment.”
Helen sighed. “Will you try?”
“Maybe.” He heard some stirring behind him and turned around. Kim was sitting up, her eyebrows furrowed in sleepy confusion as she watched him. “I have to go. Thanks for calling.”
He disconnected. “Ready to head out?”
“I’m not in the right frame of mind for what?”
“Having dinner with Helen and the kids.”
“Oh.” She didn’t argue and he sighed, realizing that a part of him had been hoping she’d change her mind. Thanks to the letter, he understood why she felt the way she did about her father, but it didn’t mean he thought she was right.
“Give me a second.” He looked up the number for the phone company and ordered a report of all incoming calls to Max’s house on the night of the accident. He gave them
his personal fax number, then hung up. “Let’s go. I’ll fill you in on the way home.”
Home. Interesting choice of words. He didn’t even know what home was anymore.
He grabbed her duffel bag, swung it over his shoulder and settled his hand under her elbow. She didn’t pull away, and they headed out of the station.
B
Y THE TIME
Kim got to Sean’s, she was too wired to sleep. It was almost noon, the sun was out and she couldn’t stop thinking about the pain in her palm. “I can’t believe you think Jimmy had something to do with my dad’s accident. He was in jail.” Yeah, okay, so he knew people on the outside, but really! She didn’t have space in her coping capacity to think of a band of loyal Jimmy followers.
“I’m guessing.” He grabbed her bag from the backseat. “Come on in. We both need some sleep.”
She followed Sean up the walkway. He lived in a log cabin all alone in the woods. Not a neighbor in sight. If no one knew they were there, the isolation was good because there were no nosy people to notice her. If Jimmy found them, then the isolation merely meant that she could scream all night and no one would hear her. No one would come to her aid.
Cut it out, Kim!
She had to find a way to stop freaking herself out.
Sean opened the door and punched the code to disarm the alarm. It was at least ten digits long. “I changed it when I moved in,” he said. “No one knows it.” He let Kim in, then shut the door and reset the alarm again. “Welcome to my palace.”
The cabin was charming. Logs made up the exterior walls, there was a huge stone fireplace, a homey open-concept kitchen with a rag carpet and gorgeous pine cabinets. The overstuffed denim couches had red plaid
pillows, and the recessed lighting cast a warm glow on the rooms. It was the cutest place she’d ever been in. “You decorated this?”
“No way. It came like this. It’s the vacation retreat for some couple in Boston, but they’re not using it this year.” He headed toward a door at the rear of the family room. “Bedroom’s in here. You can have it.”
She followed him through to the bedroom. It was on the first floor and had a couple of big glass doors. “Hmm.” How could she sleep open to the woods like that? So vulnerable and exposed.
He tossed the duffel bag on the bed. “You don’t like it?”
“Anyone could come through those doors. Isn’t there a loft or something?”
“You’ve seen the whole place.”
She pressed her lips together. “Maybe we should stay at a hotel.”
Sean came over to her and set his hands on her shoulders, kneading softly. “I’ll be in the next room.”
The next room seemed awfully far away with the puncture wound in her hand throbbing. She was so tired of being afraid. The only time she felt safe was when she was right next to Sean. She chewed her lower lip. “On the couch?”