Freefall

by RaeAnne Thayne

  Not yet. Someday he might be ready to hear them, to accept the love she so wanted to offer, but she knew he wouldn't believe her now.

  She drifted to sleep with his arms tight around her and words of love trapped on her tongue.

  Chapter 17

  Long after Sophie drifted to sleep in his arms, Tom held her and gazed at the multicolored light from the Tiffany lamp on the mantel.

  He was too edgy to sleep. So many emotions crowded through him he couldn't sort them out. Love and trepidation and elation and doubt. She tangled him up worse than a rescue line caught on a trawler's mast.

  He ought to be relaxed and easy, content to hold her like this. But the future loomed just outside that bedroom door, dark and uncertain. This was where she left last time, after they had shared this same stunning connection in each other's arms.

  He couldn't stop thinking about how he had gone to her room that night after the house was still and quiet and found everything gone. Her suitcase, her camera gear. Everything. The only thing left behind to show she even existed beyond his imagination was a subtle scent lingering in the air, womanly and mysterious and all Sophie.

  And a note, he remembered. She had left him a note, savage in its brevity: "I had to run. Sorry. Thanks for a great week."

  He had sat in that empty room most of the night drawing her scent into his lungs, wondering what he had done to send her running.

  He'd tried to reach her for months in New York but she built a solid wall against him, and he eventually realized he could only bang his head against it so many times. The woman wasn't interested. Eventually he gave up and tried to forget her.

  He never had. She had somehow seeped into him. Every time he came home to Seal Point and walked down to that sheltered beach he would remember those staggering moments in her arms and all his unanswered questions.

  How would he ever forget this? he wondered. When he was twenty-five, he recognized what they had as something amazing and rare. He knew he had feelings for her then but they were nothing compared to the vast sea of tenderness he found himself adrift on now as he held her and watched her sleep.

  He couldn't do this. Restless energy flowed through him and he knew he had to get away from her for a while, if only to regain a little much-needed perspective. After carefully untangling their limbs, he slipped from her side and rose from the bed. She stirred a little but quickly slid back under with a tiny smile playing at her lips.

  He stared at her rumbled beauty for a long moment and had to rub a fist over his heart at the rage of emotions there. Finally he dragged his gaze away and yanked a pair of swim trunks out of a drawer. In moments he was channeling all his excess energy into fast, even strokes across the cool surface of the pool.

  Trying only to burn off his restlessness, he lost count of his laps sometime around twenty-five. Somewhere around fifty, he slowed, his muscles seething and his breathing ragged, then stopped altogether and turned on his back, gazing up at the night sky as he floated.

  It was probably close to 2:00 a.m. on his wedding night and he was out here in the cold night air while his bride waited inside, warm and welcoming. What kind of an idiot was he?

  A scared one, he finally admitted. He could risk high seas and hurricane winds without even working up a sweat and had once yanked a HH65 Dolphin with an engine malfunction out of a free-fall ten feet before it would have crashed into the churning sea off Kodiak Island.

  But he was terrified of letting himself love a woman who had left him once and might again.

  Would she, though?

  He focused on Orion there in the heavens. There was the question. She said she planned to stay, that the children needed her. And he couldn't deny he had seen the tender emotions in her eyes earlier as he kissed her. She had feelings for him, he knew she did.

  Could he somehow find the courage to trust her? To forget about her rejection of him a decade ago?

  He would have to, he realized. Unless he could forget the past, they would never be able to build any kind of future. His distrust would always be there between them, a living, prowling thing.

  He loved her. Her sense of humor and her gentleness with the children and her amazing skill behind a camera. Life without her would be as gray and colorless as a photograph left too long out in the sun.

  Somehow he had to swallow his wounded pride and accept that she had reasons for leaving him—reasons, she said, that had nothing to do with him. Reasons she couldn't—or wouldn't—tell him.

  If he couldn't do a simple thing like that, he didn't deserve to have her stay.

  * * *

  She awoke alone in her husband's bed.

  Sophie reached a hand out but the pillow beside her was cool, empty. She rolled onto her back and gazed at the ceiling. Had he been that eager to leave her, then, that he had left her sleeping in his own bed?

  Hurt soughed through her like a bitter wind but she tried to ignore it. She couldn't blame him for escaping. She couldn't expect one shattering moment of intimacy to make up for the way she had treated him.

  Where had he gone? she wondered. To the study? Or perhaps one of the children or his father had awakened and she'd been sleeping too soundly to hear.

  Maybe Zoe had another nightmare and this time Sophie hadn't been there to squirt the bad dream spray. Guilt pinched at her and she hurried from the bed, quickly finding a shirt of Tom's in the closet, a cotton rugby shirt that swamped her, reaching nearly to her knees.

  She padded barefoot out into the hallway but saw no lights on underneath William's door so she headed up the stairs. When she reached the top, she saw a figure just emerging from one of the rooms at the end of the hall.

  "There you are," she called softly to him. "Did Zoe have another nightmare?"

  Oddly, he froze, his back still to her, and she walked closer, so relieved that he'd been seeing to one of the children's needs and not merely escaping her presence that lighthearted happiness bubbled through her. "I'm sorry I didn't wake when you left. I guess that's what happens when you completely wear me out."

  The figure stiffened for a moment then straightened and turned toward her, illuminated by the soft glow from the small lamp always left burning in the hallway.

  Sophie stared, her stomach dipping like she was back on the Santa Cruz boardwalk. "P-Peter?"

  "Hello, Sophie." For a dead man, her brother-in-law spoke with surprising casualness.

  The hallway swayed. "You can't be here. It's impossible. I must be the one having a nightmare."

  "You mean you're not happy to see me?"

  "No. You're dead." Wake up. Come on, wake up.

  "Afraid not, Soph. I'm not dead and you're not dreaming."

  He walked toward her and grabbed her arm with fingers that were definitely flesh and blood. She swayed for a moment, light-headed, as her pulse raged in her ears. For a moment her vision dimmed and she thought she was going to pass out.

  She was still trying to concentrate on breathing when he pushed her into the nearest room—the master bedroom she had been using, she realized, teetering on the verge of hysteria.

  Inside, he shoved her into a chair and flipped on a lamp. She was too numb to protest. In the pale yellow light, she could see it definitely was her sister's husband. She couldn't mistake those pale blue eyes or smooth features, although his hair looked shaggier than she had ever seen it and he needed a shave.

  She looked for cuts, scrapes, broken limbs, but could see none of those. "How can this be?" Her voice was raspy, harsh. "No one in the car could have survived that plunge over the cliff. The police said so. Your body was washed away and never found."

  He snorted. "Don't you watch soap operas? If there's no body, you can be sure the son of a bitch is going to turn up in a later episode."

  Her mind couldn't seem to function past the shock. Thoughts seemed to whirl through it like blinding snow in a Nepal blizzard.

  "How could you survive it? It's impossible! That car plunged six hundred feet into the Pacific." />
  He didn't answer and suddenly, horribly, she knew. "You weren't in that Mercedes when it went over the cliff, were you?"

  "You always were much smarter than your sister, weren't you?"

  She stared at the mild amusement on his face. An instant later, she realized the implications. Peter hadn't been in the Mercedes. Shelly had been alone there, buckled into the passenger seat. He must have steered toward the cliff then jumped out just before the car soared over.

  "You bastard," she whispered. "You murdered her."

  "Ah, Sophie. Such a harsh word, murder."

  She couldn't breathe, couldn't think. "What else would you call it?"

  He took the armchair across from her. "Expedience. Necessity. I didn't want Shelly to die. I loved my wife, whether you want to believe that or not—it broke my heart knowing she would have to go over that cliff. But I didn't have any choice. I was backed into a corner with no other way out."

  Dear heavens. What kind of horror must Shelly have experienced in those few seconds while the car plunged into the sea? Her sister's last brief moment on earth had been spent knowing the man she loved had betrayed her in the most grievous way imaginable.

  She jerked her mind away, knowing she would sink completely into hysteria if she allowed herself to follow that particular train of thought.

  "You hired that man to kill Walter Marlowe."

  He raised an eyebrow. "If the police have already figured that part out, they must know all of it, then."

  Questions surged through her faster than she could process them. "They're convinced you hired Harris for the job but they haven't figured out why you would possibly want him dead."

  His handsome features hardened. "I'll tell you why. Marlowe was an interfering old woman. How's that for a motive? He couldn't leave well enough alone. We started making money. A lot of money. Let's just say not all of it from legitimate sources. I kept telling him I knew what I was doing, to just leave things to me, but he wouldn't stop nosing around. Finally he threatened to go to the authorities with his suspicions. I couldn't let him do that, of course. Again, expedience."

  He spoke so casually of killing his wife, of hiring someone to kill an old and treasured friend of the family. As casually as a man talking about discarding a suit in a color he no longer liked.

  "An effective solution. The only problem was, I got rid of one difficulty but gained another."

  "Harris."

  He nodded. "Right again. The man wasn't content with the amount we agreed on. He started demanding more and more and I knew it would never end. He had information about me that would destroy me and I knew he wouldn't hesitate to use it. I couldn't let that happen. I knew I had to plan an escape."

  "Why kill Shelly? She adored you!"

  "She loved the kids more. I didn't want to do it but I knew she would never agree to leave without them and there was no way in hell I could make it safely out of the country with a wife and three brats. This way was better. Easier. With Shelly's body inside, nobody ever suspected I could have staged the accident, as they might have done if an empty Mercedes ended up in the ocean."

  Hate and fury roiled up inside her and she fought nausea. Her sweet, loving sister had died so this man could fake his own death and leave the country.

  "Why go to so much trouble? You could have just disappeared before the police suspected you. You didn't have to kill her."

  "And spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder? I don't think so. I'm heading to Europe to start over, not to live some fugitive's hole-in-the-wall existence. I would have left days ago but I need to find something first. Something that seems to have disappeared."

  His hard gaze sharpened on hers and she wondered what he had lost. Another thought occurred to her and she pressed a hand to her stomach as the slick nausea rolled again.

  "Have you been here at the house all along?"

  Lurking, watching, waiting.

  "Next door. The Worthingtons have gone on a three-month-long world cruise and left their house empty. Wasn't it convenient that they gave their neighbor and trusted investment banker their security codes in case of a problem? The timing couldn't have been better."

  So close. Just through the trees. Suddenly she remembered William's frequent, eerie insistence that he had talked to his son. The intruder she saw slipping from the house in the middle of the night the week before. Her mysteriously ransacked suitcase.

  Peter must have been coming and going between the two houses at will. And she knew nothing of it.

  Zoe said she had seen someone in her room. Had Peter dared search the house while they were all here? Had he come in this room while she was sleeping? Watched her?

  He rose from the chair, restless suddenly. He wandered the room, his eyes darting around, and she wondered again what he might have lost. What could possibly be so important that he wouldn't leave the country without finding it first?

  "I thought I had everything so carefully planned but the whole damn thing turned out to be a screw-up from start to finish. Where is it?"

  She blinked at his abrupt mood shift, from casual, confiding, to harsh anger. "Where…where is what?"

  He stopped by her chair and wrapped tight fingers around her arm. For the first time she began to realize she could be in danger. She was the only one who knew he was still alive. He had killed two people already. To what lengths would he go to make sure his existence stayed a secret?

  "Where did you hide it?" he demanded.

  "Peter, I don't even know what you're looking for. How could I have hidden it?"

  "You found the stash, didn't you? And decided to take it for yourself. Where is it?" He shook her arm when she just gazed at him helplessly.

  After a moment more of silence, a crafty light entered his eyes. "Come on, Sophie. I'll split it with you. Just tell me where you put it."

  "I don't know what you're talking about. I swear I don't!"

  "That tacky jewelry box you sent your sister. She never let the damn thing out of her sight. It was on the mantel the day of the crash but when I came for it a few days later after things had calmed down a little, it had disappeared."

  "The Russian enamel box? What possible use would you have for that? It's virtually worthless."

  "Don't act so innocent. We both know you're not." The pressure of his fingers on her arm increased, reminding her horribly of a decade earlier. Groping hands and hot breath and bitter fear.

  "It's not the box itself, it's what's inside," Peter went on. "You know where it is, don't you? I can see it in your eyes."

  She pictured the box she had unknowingly given to Ali because the angel looked like Shelly. Ali had taken to carrying it around with her in her backpack so she could feel the comfort of her mother's presence at school. It was probably still in her pack in Ali's room.

  "I don't know," she insisted, hoping she sounded convincing.

  "You're lying. Where is it? I'm not playing games, Sophie."

  Suddenly, to her horror, he produced a small silver handgun. At the sight of it, deadly and cold, fear blasted through her.

  The children. She couldn't let him kill her. The children had been through too much loss. This would destroy them.

  And Tom. How could she die without telling Tom how very much she loved him? Without trying to make things right between them?

  Her mind raced as she tried to come up with a way to escape. If she called for help, who would respond? Tom was the only one in this household of women, children and one frail old man who would be able to protect her but she didn't know where in the huge house he might have gone after he left the bed they had shared.

  Besides, if she called out, the children would undoubtedly hear her first. Would Peter hurt his own children? He had killed his wife without blinking, apparently, so she could only fear that he would have no qualms about hurting his children.

  No. She couldn't call out.

  But perhaps she could convince him she would help him, then somehow slip away and call the
police.

  She had to try, to protect the children.

  "I do know where the box is," she finally admitted. She rose from the chair and eased toward the bedroom door.

  "I didn't know there was anything inside it besides old letters. I gave it to Ali so she could have something of her mother's. Thoughtless of me, I know, but I really didn't know. It's probably in her room somewhere. If you'll wait here, I'll get it for you."

  He followed her, the gun dangling in his hand. "I'm not stupid enough to let you out of my sight. You'll probably run right to my noble and heroic big brother."

  "I won't. I swear, I won't."

  "Why should I trust you? You probably tell good old Thomas everything. You were always hot for him. You probably couldn't wait to return to Seal Point after all these years and take up where you left off, to climb right back into the sack with him again."

  If she wasn't still warm from just leaving Tom's bed, she probably wouldn't have blushed. But she felt the heat soak her cheeks and knew by the dark amusement in Peter's eyes that he had noticed it, too.

  "You're screwing him again, aren't you? That's his shirt you're wearing so you must have just left him. What's the matter, wasn't old Tom man enough for you?"

  She drew in a ragged breath but said nothing, only faced him belligerently, her chest heaving with each breath as she did her best to stay calm.

  The amusement in his eyes changed to something else, something hot and terrifying. Before she realized what was happening and could step away, he grabbed her arm again, the gun in his other hand.

  "Now that you've reminded me, I believe the two of us have some unfinished business. I've been thinking for ten years about this sexy body of yours and remembering how that sweet mouth of yours tasted. This is my last chance to see how good my memory is."

  She tried to pull away but again he was too strong. And there was that gun to think about. "What about…about the box?" She hated herself for the quiver in her voice but couldn't seem to keep it out.