Oliver had never looked more docile than he did as he got out of the truck he'd borrowed from Noah and shut the door. Taking a piece of paper out of his pocket, he glanced down at it, smiled, then whistled as he bounded 240
up the walk.
Jane thought of the suitcase lying in the middle of the floor, the overturned drawers, the scattered items in the bathroom and felt panic rise like a hot air balloon in her chest. He'd know she couldn't be far; her car was parked right next to his truck. And she had his notebook. If he caught her with that...
She had to leave now, without so much as a change of clothes. She couldn't waste even thirty seconds. By then he'd realize what she was doing.
She heard him call her name, knew he was walking through the house as she had done and was so frightened she almost couldn't get her limbs to move. Open the gate! Run!
One hand fumbled in her purse for her keys as she lifted the latch and darted out.
"Jane? What's going on?"
Oliver's voice came from inside the house as she opened her car door and ducked inside. She tried to start the engine, but it merely coughed and sputtered and, after a few revs, died.
"Come on, baby. Not now," she mumbled, cranking the starter again.
"Not now."
The noise brought Oliver to the window. Just as the recalcitrant engine fired, she saw the look on his face, and it terrified her. He was a soulless stranger, a man she'd never really known.
He disappeared, presumably headed for the door. Afraid he'd reach her before she could get away, she wrenched the gearshift into Reverse and floored the accelerator. The Lincoln jetted back and crashed into her neighbor's car. The impact caused a whiplash effect, which slammed Jane's mouth against the steering wheel, but she didn't stop, even for a second. In some deep recess of her brain, she knew if Oliver managed to drag her back inside the house she wouldn't come out of it alive.
"Jane! Stop!" he called as she rocketed away.
She heard nothing but the screech of her own brakes as she took the corner at forty miles an hour. An Acura was coming the other way. She had to swerve to avoid a head-on and sideswiped a tree, but she didn't care. She was high on adrenaline, panting for breath and shaking so badly she could hardly drive.
The burning smell of rubber filled her nostrils as she squealed around the next corner, joining the traffic on Sunrise Boulevard. At that point, she couldn't travel very fast. She could only watch her rearview mirror to make sure Oliver wasn't following her.
But he didn't have to follow her. He knew where she was going.
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His parents still had Kate.
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Chapter
22
Planning to race after Jane, to chase her down, Oliver yanked the keys from his pocket and jumped into the truck. He didn't know what the heck was going on, but he wasn't about to let her leave him. Had she found the pills he'd purchased from the tattoo parlor? That had to be it. He couldn't imagine anything else that would send her into such a panic. She'd been fine when he'd talked to her at work this afternoon.
He'd find her and bring her home, where he could talk her out of her fears. She'd believe him because she wanted to believe him. She'd believed him up until now, hadn't she? But if she was on her way to get Kate, he'd have his parents to contend with, too....
He was already making up the lie he'd use when he got there--Those pills are just something I take when I can'tsleep... Jane knows about that, she's had problems sleepingin the past. ...It's not easy adjusting to the outside.... --when another thought occurred to him.
He slammed on his brakes. What if Jane wasn't going to his parents'
house? What if she was going to the police?
The gears growled as he threw the standard transmission into Reverse.
Backing up, he parked in the drive. The truck sat there crookedly, but he didn't care.
The collision moments earlier had brought the neighbor into the street.
She was pointing and screaming about the dent Jane had left in her car.
Oliver couldn't deal with that right now. If Jane was going to the police, he didn't have much time. He had to retrieve everything that might incriminate him. But if she had the pills he'd just bought, there wasn't a lot to recover. He had the knife with the eight-inch blade and Skye's address in his pocket. And he'd wiped the memory on his PC, so no one could trace where he'd been on the Internet. All he had to do was grab his notebook.
"Hey, what're you going to do about this?" the neighbor demanded, jogging across the lawn to catch him before he could enter the house.
"Our insurance will cover it, ma'am, no problem," he said politely.
"You have insurance?"
"Of course. What kind of people do you think we are?"
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As usual, his pleasant smile and courteous manner worked, and she began to settle down. "The woman who lives here seems nice enough," she said, a little sulkily. "Keeps to herself for the most part. I didn't even know she was married. Are you her husband or something?"
"Yes. We've been married for eleven years. You haven't seen me because I've been in prison for attempted rape."
This caused the neighbor's eyes to widen and her jaw to drop.
"I was reckless enough to use a knife, which sort of compounded the charges," he confided with a grin. "Assault with a deadly weapon and all that."
Blinking rapidly, she backed up. "Oh...well...never mind. I guess we can figure it out later," she said and ran straight home.
"Okay," he called after her. "I'll have Jane stop by when she gets back." Bitch, he added under his breath, then stalked into the house.
At the sight of Jane's suitcase lying on the floor, his hands curled into fists. Whatever she was doing, she wouldn't get away with it. She wasn't intelligent enough to outsmart him. He'd lived with her for eleven years, and she'd never suspected him of anything.
Kicking the suitcase aside, he went directly to the coat closet, where he removed the floorboard and checked for the pills.
They were there, exactly where he'd left them.
What did that mean? What had set Jane off?
He didn't know, but he didn't dare take any chances. Shoving the pills in his pocket, he hurried into the bedroom to get his notebook. Jane had torn the bed apart, looking for something. The bathroom was in no better state than the bedroom. Which wasn't fair at all. He'd controlled himself with her last night: it wasn't as if she could claim he'd abused her. And she'd been fine this morning. At least, she'd acted fine.
The mess made him uneasy. What had she been looking for? And what had she found?
He didn't have time to wonder. Returning to the bedroom, he reached behind the headboard, where he'd stashed his notebook.
It wasn't there.
Oliver's blood ran cold. She'd never paid much attention to his notebooks before. He wrote enough regular stuff in them, about job opportunities, investment opportunities, plans for a new house, car or pool, that it shouldn't give her any cause for alarm.
Unless she'd cracked his code.
Surely she hadn't managed that....
But just in case she hadn't already turned it over to the cops, he had to 244
get to Kate before she did. Kate might be the only thing for which she'd be willing to trade that notebook. Oliver didn't think that what he'd written would be enough to incriminate him on its own. He hadn't recorded details.
But he couldn't take that risk. Even if she hadn't cracked his code--and she probably hadn't--the police had people and computers that could.
Noah was at the Burkes' when Jane arrived. The sight of his truck in the drive made her chest ache with longing. But she steeled herself against the pain. He didn't want her. They couldn't have each other, even if he did.
She had to think about Kate. Only Kate.
Checking the street one last time, she got out of the car. Driving down Sunrise, she hadn't seen any sign of Oliver. It was easier to watch for him once she'd turned onto Zin-fandel because there was less traffic, but as far as she could tell, he wasn't following her.
Thank God.
Jogging up to the house, she rang the doorbell. Normally, she would've knocked, then walked inside. But after her recent exchange with Noah, she felt estranged somehow. Without physical proof, she knew Betty and Maurice wouldn't believe her about Oliver's rough treatment, any more than Noah had. And losing faith had put her in a different camp altogether--
the enemy camp.
Betty answered the door. "Is it true?" she said without a greeting.
Jane didn't know how to respond. Red rimmed her mother-in-law's eyes as if she'd been crying, and there were tears in her voice.
"Is--is what true?" Jane stammered. Noah had warned her not to tell his folks what she'd told him. He hadn't driven over here and volunteered the information himself. Or had he?
"Don't play stupid. Not now." Betty's voice cracked. "Have you been sleeping with Noah?"
Jane's heart nearly seized in her chest. "N-no," she said. It was an exclamation of dismay, not a denial of the truth, but Betty didn't interpret it that way.
"That isn't what they say." She stepped aside and pointed at the people behind her.
Jane's eyes cut to the living room. Wendy was there with Noah. They sat side by side on the couch, holding hands. Maurice was there, too, in his recliner. Initially, she'd seen only his legs, but now he leaned forward to get a look at her face.
"Why would Noah confess if it isn't true?" he demanded. Gone was the friendly smile he usually reserved for her.
Jane could barely speak above the rushing of blood in her ears. "I--I 245
didn't mean to," she said softly.
"How do you not mean to have an affair with someone else's husband?" Wendy wanted to know. Her eyes, usually so kind and forgiving, watched Jane with such disappointment it was almost more than Jane could bear. She loved these people. They'd been her family; she had no one else.
But whatever they'd been to each other was over. She had to worry about Oliver, had to get Kate and go away. "Where's my daughter?" she asked.
"She's in the back, coloring. Do you think I'd want her to hear this?"
Betty responded.
Jane licked dry lips. "Will you get her for me, please?"
"Are you kidding?" Betty shook her head. "You don't deserve her.
Oliver's been through hell--do you hear me? Hell! And for you to do this to him in addition to everything else he's endured...."
Despite her heartbreak, a spark of anger came to Jane's rescue. "You don't get to decide whether or not I deserve my own daughter."
"Yes, I do. Oliver just called. He said you're leaving him. He said not to let you take Kate, that you must be on something, you're acting so crazy.
And Noah agrees with him."
First, Noah had betrayed her to Wendy, then to his parents, and now he was siding with Oliver. It was the lowest blow yet. "Crazy," she repeated in amazement, staring at him.
"You need help." Noah had difficulty meeting her eyes, but that was little comfort in the wake of what he'd done. Now she had no credibility whatsoever. The elder Burkes didn't even want to let her take Kate.
"Kate's my daughter, too. You have no right to keep her from me,"
Jane said.
Noah spoke up. "You're not stable."
He believed it, she realized. He knew her better than any of them, and yet he fully believed what he'd just said.
"We'll release her to her father," Maurice added.
Jane rounded on her father-in-law, struggling to keep the hysteria from her voice as she started to laugh, but it was impossible. "You think her father's stable? Her father is a murderer!"
"You--you don't know that," Betty stammered.
Jane confronted her mother-in-law with defiance for probably the first time. "Yes, I do."
Betty's face fell, as if part of her feared it was true, but Jane knew Oliver's mother would never stand up against the others in the room.
Leaning to one side in order to look past her, Jane addressed Noah. "I'm 246
pretty sure he bought another knife this week. I think he was tempted to use it on me last night. If you don't do something fast, he's going to hurt someone. Do you want to live with that on your conscience? If having sex with me made you feel guilty, try that on for size."
Maurice got to his feet, his ruddy face even redder than usual. "You're talking about Kate's father."
"You think I don't know that?" Jane shouted. "That's caused me more pain than you can imagine. But his connection to Kate isn't what's bothering you. It's his connection to you. He's your son. If he's a killer, you have to ask yourself, 'Where did I go wrong? How did I miss it?'"
Noah released Wendy's hand and stood, too. "Stop it, Jane! They've been through enough without you making things worse."
"And I haven't been through enough?" she countered. "If you won't give me my daughter, I'll come back with the police."
"I guess you'll have to do that," Maurice said. "Because I won't let you drive off with Kate, not in your present state of mind. She's Oliver's daughter, too. And, regardless of what you think right now, he's entitled to some consideration. He's paid his debt to society."
Panic fluttered at the edges of Jane's mind. She had to get her daughter and get out of here. She was afraid Oliver would show up before she could return with the police and the Burkes would hand Kate over.
Without any proof that he'd broken his parole or done anything wrong, she wasn't sure Detective Willis or anyone else could help her. They'd tell her this was a family dispute, that it'd have to be handled in divorce court.
Saying a silent prayer, she nodded stiffly. "Fine. I'll be back." She stalked off.
Trying to make her reaction as believable as possible, she reversed out of the driveway, parked around the block and returned to the house on foot.
From the side window, she could see Noah, Wendy, Betty and Maurice in the living room, talking intently-- which meant Kate was still in the back room, being sheltered from the conversation.