by Karen Rose
“No.”
Ethan’s eyes blinked open at the pitiful moan and he twisted around to look at the clock on the nightstand. It was the middle of the night and Dana was dreaming. How could he have guessed? He turned on the lamp next to the clock and leaning up on his elbow, shook her shoulder gently. “Wake up. Dana, wake up.” She did, with a jolt, her eyes becoming aware all at once.
“I’m sorry.” It was a harsh whisper. Her breath was coming in sharp little surges, her body trembling. Her lips quivered as if she was about to cry. He wondered if she would have, had she been alone.
“You keep saying that,” he murmured. “Tell me now. What’s in your dream?”
She closed her eyes. “You already know.”
“I know the bare facts, Dana. Why won’t you trust me with the rest?”
Her eyes flew open at that. “It has nothing to do with trust, Ethan. For God’s sake, I’m sleeping next to you. Doesn’t that tell you I trust you?”
“You don’t do a lot of sleeping,” he shot back. “Do you dream like this every night?”
She seemed to shrink back into the pillows. “No. Only when I sleep normal hours.”
“Which is how often?”
She lifted a shoulder. “A few times a week. Sometimes I’m at the bus station. Most of the time I’m up with a client or one of their kids.”
“So you avoid sleep.”
She sighed. “I suppose.”
“That seems emotionally healthy,” he said dryly. “And this works for you?”
Slowly she shook her head. “Obviously not.”
“Well, at least we agree on something.”
She bit her lip. “I don’t know where to begin.”
“I’ll help you. Was your mother still alive when you married the biker dude?”
“Yes. I never brought Charlie home, although he and my stepfather would have had lots in common.” Abruptly she rolled over, crunching the pillow beneath her head. “I hated him.”
“Charlie or your stepfather?”
She was quiet for a moment. “Both. I especially hated my stepfather, I think.” Sighed again. “But underneath it all, I think I hated my mother more.”
He rubbed the flat of his hand down her back, felt her tension begin to ease. “Why?”
“Because she stayed with him, stayed with my real father, too. I used to wish she’d take us and leave. Go somewhere safe, where our dad couldn’t find us. Then he died and I was so glad. Do you know how guilty that makes a child, being happy her father is dead?”
“No,” he answered simply, stroking her back. “But I can imagine.”
“I don’t think you’d come close,” she said bitterly. “But I was happy. For a few months it was just the three of us, living with my grandmother.”
“You had a sister?”
“Still do somewhere,” she answered, still bitterly. “Although Maddie wouldn’t say the same. She says she has no sister.”
“So she also blames you for your mother’s death.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand. Your stepfather did it. He’s serving a life sentence.”
“You checked that, too, huh? Yeah, a life sentence. He’s got cancer now, so he won’t serve much more of it. I won’t be sorry to see him go.”
“So your mother just jumped out of the frying pan into the fire?”
“Pretty much. She brought this man into my grandmother’s house, I remember. I didn’t like him and I told him so. Next thing I knew I was on the floor.”
Ethan frowned. “He knocked you down and your mother still married him?”
“He was a good provider,” she said, her tone like acid. “We wouldn’t have to live with Grandma anymore.”
“I think I’m starting to get the picture,” he murmured and moved his hand to her head, brushing at her hair with his fingers.
“When I left Charlie I wanted a real life,” Dana said, changing direction abruptly. “I started waiting tables to earn money for college. Took as many classes as I could afford. One night on campus I saw this flyer about support groups for victims of abuse, so I went. The woman who led the group managed a shelter named Hanover House.”
“I thought you started the shelter.”
“No. That would have been Maria.” Affection warmed her voice. “She was the first person I ever knew who really cared about me. She’s the reason I went into psychology. I wanted to be like her. Plus I wanted to fix myself,” she added wryly. “Anyway, I started to understand the cycle of domestic abuse. Hated my mother a little less. I tried to get my mother to go to Maria’s support groups with me, but she wouldn’t. I think that’s when I began to understand that I resented Mother choosing the easy way over us. She would always see herself as having no choices. I just saw her as weak. Not loving us enough. I didn’t give up. I kept trying to get her to come to the groups, to leave him. He kept beating her. Then one day he put her in the emergency room. She called me.”
“And you went to get her.”
“Of course. She was my mother. I took her back to my apartment. Told her she was staying there and I think she just gave up fighting me. My stepfather came to where I was waiting tables. Mad. And I think I just . . . snapped. I yelled at him, that he was an animal and a child abuser. I told him that my mother had finally chosen me over him.”
“And he . . . ?”
“Went ballistic. The restaurant manager had to throw him out. Nearly got myself fired in the process. I thought he’d go off, nurse his wounds, and come after me again.”
“But he went looking for your mother.”
“He found her.” There was a long, long pause. “I found her later.”
His hand stilled on her back. “Was she alive?”
“No.” She whispered it.
“I’m sorry.”
She said nothing for a long time. When she did speak, her words were barely audible. “There was so much blood. Everywhere. I . . . It was splattered on the walls. Soaked into the carpet. I . . . I could hear it . . . squish. Under my feet.” She shuddered. “I still hear it.”
“In your dreams.”
She nodded, then took a deep breath, as if bracing herself to go on. “She was all in a heap. He’d beaten her. And stabbed her with one of my kitchen knives. So much blood. I turned her over and screamed when I saw her face. I couldn’t even recognize her face. I was screaming for someone to call 911, but nobody did. It was a bad place to live, even then. Nobody ventured out when they didn’t have to.”
He’d gone back to his soothing strokes. “So how did you get help?”
“I made myself get up and get the phone, but it kept slipping out of my hands and that’s when I noticed my hands were covered in blood.”
He remembered how she’d looked down at her hands when she’d come out of the shower the night before. He couldn’t think of anything to say. So he said nothing. Just kept stroking her back.
“I called 911 and I waited what seemed like forever. They finally got there and I was . . . hysterical. They told me that later. I must have told them to call Maria, because she came and took care of me while they took my mother away.” She flinched. “Maria made me go into the kitchen, and look away, but I can still hear them zipping the body bag. Maria started cleaning me up and that’s when the phone rang.”
She said nothing more and finally he asked, “Who was it?”
“My stepfather. I could hear his voice shaking. He was still caught up in his rage.”
“What did he say?”
She seemed to stop breathing. And said nothing.
“Dana, honey. What did he say?”
She shuddered hard. Once. “He said, ‘You killed your mother. Are you happy now?’”
Ethan’s hand froze on her back. It was exactly what she’d said the night before. I killed my mother. Are you happy now? He had to work to make the words come. “You know you didn’t kill her, Dana.”
“Did I beat her with my fists?” She was speaking calmly now. Too ca
lmly. “No. Did I stab her with my kitchen knife? No. Did I push her into a situation she wasn’t equipped to handle? That I did. Then I made it worse by publicly humiliating him, pushing him into that frenzy. I didn’t make him kill her, but I’m responsible. I set the events in motion.”
“The events were set in motion before you were born, Dana. Your mother made choices. You were a child.”
“I wasn’t a child when I pushed her to make a choice.” Still that eerie calm. “I acted like a child though. Me or him. Choose. If she’d chosen him, she might still be alive.”
He didn’t know what he could say to make her believe she was not responsible. “So what happened then?”
“Maria was there for me through the whole thing. She gave me the opportunity to work at Hanover House. Kept me at her side. I look back now and know it was to make sure I was all right. But it turned into . . .” She sighed. “My life. Maria died right before I graduated. She had a bad heart. I thought she was asleep at her desk. It was the way she would have wanted to go, I think. Working. I went on to get my master’s those first few years as the director of Hanover House. Got certified as a therapist. And . . . that’s it.”
That was far from it, he knew. “When did you start . . . taking passport pictures?”
“A year or so before that. Maria dabbled in helping women find new identities.” Abruptly she flipped to her back, looking up at him. Fiercely. “I do more than take the pictures, Ethan. I do it all. The passports, the driver’s licenses . . . All.”
“I thought as much.” But that she’d told him squeezed his heart. “How many women have you helped this way?”
“Two dozen or so over ten years. It got a lot harder after 9/11. But the computer technology’s gotten better, too.”
He lifted his brows. “So you intend to continue?”
She frowned, uncertain. “I don’t know. Probably not. I almost got caught this time.”
His pulse spiked as he considered it. “God. If they search your house . . .”
“David took it all away. All my tools and the laminating equipment.”
His heart slowed back to normal even as jealousy clawed at his gut at the note of sad affection in her voice. He remembered the look in the man’s eyes the night they’d met and again yesterday when they’d found Sandy Stone’s body. Hunter was in love with her. It didn’t take a P.I. or a cop to see it. But he didn’t think Dana did. “Decent of him.”
She swallowed. “Yeah, it was.”
He had to ask. “Dana, do . . . do you love him?”
“Yes, but not the way you’re asking. He and Max and the Hunters, they took me in. Made me family. David’s been like the brother I never had. He feels the same way.”
Relief shimmered like a jewel even as he doubted her take on Hunter’s emotions. “Good.” He leaned down to brush a kiss across her lips. “What do you dream, Dana?”
Her eyes flashed from sensual awareness to annoyance. “You don’t give up, do you?”
“I don’t consider it a failing.”
“It’s . . . Dammit, Ethan.” She shifted on the pillow, crossing her arms over her breasts under the blanket. “It’s me, all right? Walking through the blood. Hearing my feet . . .” She grimaced. “Hearing them squish. I always turn her body, and my hands are always covered in blood. But it’s not always her face. After Evie was attacked, it was hers, for a very long time. Sometimes it’s the face of a woman who’s just come through the shelter.” She stopped. Closed her eyes. “Last night, for the first time . . . It was mine.” She opened her eyes. Shrugged. “I . . . guess that freaked me out, seeing myself dead like that.”
He moistened his suddenly dry lips. “I guess so. What about tonight?”
Her smile was grim. “Lucky me again. Now you know it all, Ethan. Every last insane quirk I possess. Now it’s time for me to go to sleep. I’ll try not to wake you again.”
She tried to roll over and he stopped her, taking her mouth in a hard, fierce kiss, his heart stamping in his chest when she came up off the pillow, meeting him more than halfway. “I don’t mind,” he murmured, gratified when her arms released their death hold on herself and twined around his neck.
“I hate that I dream,” she whispered. “That you see me this way.”
Vulnerable, he thought. “Human?” he said instead.
“I always wanted someone to hold me when I dreamed. Thank you for being there for me this week. I don’t know that I could have made it this far without you.”
And when this is over? he wanted to ask. He opened his mouth to ask, then closed it, afraid of the answer. “You were here for me, too. Every time I was with you . . . I felt like I could go on, search for Alec a little more.”
Her smile dimmed. “I’m scared.”
“Me, too.” He kissed her forehead. “Me, too.”
“Tell me again. Please.”
“Tomorrow, honey. We’ll find them tomorrow.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Chicago, Friday, August 6, 4:15 A.M.
Jane had said nothing for the last hour, just drove with that scary smile on her face. Evie chanced a glance at her from time to time, but mostly kept her eyes straight ahead. Cataloging their path, as Alec had.
Alec. Where was he? In the trunk? Not in the backseat. Evie had managed to check as Jane was forcing her into the front, retying her hands in front of her, instead of behind. She’d tied her ankles together hard, but had removed the gag and this time there was no blindfold. After doing an odd circle around town, Jane was heading west. The same way they went to Caroline’s house.
Caroline. Was she all right? Was the baby alive? Safe?
The car slowed as Jane pulled into the exit lane. “I need to get some gas,” she said. “If you make a fucking sound, you’re dead. Got it?”
Jane stopped the car and got out to stretch, guzzling the last of the water from the bottle she’d kept in the cup holder between them. Close, but still so far away. Parched beyond anything she’d ever known, Evie licked her lips before she knew what she was doing. Jane laughed softly and threw the bottle in the trash can before pulling the nozzle from the gas pump. When she was finished she started to get in the car, then hesitated. She stood up and looked around. The road was deserted. They were the only car there.
“I need to pee,” Jane announced. “I’ll be in the shop for only a minute. You can’t get far in a minute with your feet tied like that. I will find you and I will kill you. Got it? Oh, and if you try to get help from anyone, even the guy inside, he’s dead, too. So stay put and nobody gets hurt.” She locked all the doors and set off across the parking lot at a brisk walk. Evie looked around the car, searching for anything she could use to escape.
And froze. Stunned. On the seat was Jane’s cell phone. She’d left it on the seat. Glancing quickly at the shop, Evie grabbed the phone and dialed.
The phone woke her. Ethan was already reaching for the light and a second later the phone was in her hand, his arm around her shoulders. Hands shaking, Dana answered.
“Yes?”
A broken sob. “Dana, it’s me.”
Oh, God, oh, God. Dana’s heart started to pound. “Evie. Baby, where are you?”
Ethan was already reaching for the hotel phone. Dialing Mia’s number.
“Dana, she’s got me. Jane’s got me.”
“I know. Where are you?”
“At a gas station. It’s the one three exits from the exit we take to Caroline’s.”
“Where is she, Evie?”
“Using the bathroom inside. Dana, listen. She’s got Erik, too. His name is Alec, though. I don’t know where he is now, but this morning he was at a motel in Gary. Alec said he saw a chicken and a school. That’s all he had time to say. Go find him, Dana. She’s OD’d him on his pills and hid him under the bed. Shit. She’s coming. I have to go. She’s got your gun. I love you.”
The line went dead. “Evie!” Nothing more. Dana grabbed the receiver from Ethan. “Mia, it was Evie. She’s at a gas stati
on about ten miles from Caroline’s house.”
“Calm down, Dana. I’m on it.”
“Wait! She knows where Alec is.” Ethan’s head snapped to stare at her, hope painful in his eyes. She nodded at him. “Something about a motel in Gary and a chicken and a school. She said Alec told her. I didn’t know he could talk.”
Ethan shook his head. “Neither did I.”
“I’m on it,” Mia repeated.
“Wait! Send paramedics to the motel. Sue OD’d Alec on his meds.”
“Got it.” There was a click as Mia hung up.
Dana hung up and jumped from the bed. “Sue’s taking her to Caroline’s house.”
Ethan grabbed her arm. “Which is why you’re staying here.”
Dana pulled away, shaking her head savagely. “I have listened to you tell me for two damn days that we’d find them. Now we’ve found them. I will not sit here. You can stay or you can come, but you’re not stopping me, Ethan.”
He hesitated for a moment, then rolled out of bed, grabbing his pants. A moment later he was pounding on the adjoining door to Clay’s room. Dana came out of the bedroom, pulling her shirt over her head. She took one glance at Clay in his jockey shorts.
“Hurry up. We roll in thirty seconds with you or without you.”
Clay pulled on his pants, zipping as he walked. He shoved his gun into his waistband and grabbed a shirt. “Let’s go.”
Ethan held up his hand. “Wait. Clay, we think Conway’s taking Evie to Caroline’s house. We’ll go there. You head for the police station. Evie called and told Dana where Alec was being held. Someplace in Gary, Indiana. Mitchell said she’d take care of it.”
“I’ll take care of Stan, Randi, and Alec,” Clay said, buttoning his shirt. “You go find Evie.”
Evie dropped the phone just as Jane left the shop, another bottle of water and three packs of cigarettes in hand. Tried to control her breathing. Tried not to look guilty. Jane got in the car, lit a cigarette, and started the car. Then calmly reached for her cell phone and pressed a few buttons. Examined the display.
She knows. She’ll kill me now.
Instead, Jane just smiled. “Thank you. She’s such a suspicious soul, your Dana. Hard to draw out into the open. But thanks to what I’m certain was your truly believable performance, I imagine she’ll be meeting us right where I want her.”