His jaw muscle twitched. “Go on.”
Now that she was singing she couldn’t stop the horrible discordant song. The recital just kept going and going, audio on an endless loop. She started pacing, the need to release her pent up energy urging her to put one foot in front of the other. Like a canary in a cage, she needed to flutter and squawk while she sang her sorry song.
Brian’s hands clenched and unclenched, keeping rhythm with the wild beats of her heart, as if his pulse kept pace with hers.
“He threatened to tell you everything. I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand the thought of you…” She shifted her thought processes and bit her lip before she filled in the blank. “I pulled my gun on him—”
“Your gun? When did you get a gun?”
The fog rolled over her tired mind and it wouldn’t dissipate long enough to concentrate on his question. “He kicked it out of my hand. I don’t know where it is. I lost it. He knocked me down and then he was on top of me, hitting me and kicking me. I picked up a rock and knocked him in the head.”
She stalled her pacing and turned to him, expecting the worst. He had such a respect for the authority of law and the sanctity of human life she was sure he was passing judgment on her. In his eyes she would always be the woman who killed Jeff Osborne.
“So then what happened?”
She fell onto the sofa and closed her eyes. Would his questions ever end? Hadn’t she already told him enough? Perhaps he had to hear the entire story. Was this some sort of punishment for deceiving him?
“When I left him, he was still alive. I got into his car and drove away. I wanted to call nine-one-one, but I didn’t know how I would explain it all. But I couldn’t just leave him like that, so I went back. I didn’t know what I would do if he was conscious. I was afraid of him.” She wiped her mouth as if she could rub the ugly truth away. “When I went back, I couldn’t find him. I looked, but I couldn’t find him anywhere. I thought maybe he hitched a ride and he was somehow all right. I didn’t mean to kill him.” She stopped and dragged in one ragged breath “I came home. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“So all of this happened…when? Saturday night after I left?”
“Yes. And early Sunday morning I guess. It seemed to last forever…”
“What weapon did you use?”
“Weapon?” She blinked at him. The question confused her. “Oh…a rock. A really, really…big…rock.” She gazed at him for help. Hadn’t she already told him this? Why was he belaboring the point?
“How many times did you hit him?”
“Just once.” She started to cry again, gulping in huge breaths between sobs. “It sounded so awful…the cracking sound.” She shuddered at the memory.
“You could have called me.”
His rebuke stabbed like a dull-edged knife, ripping in uneven slashes. “I know.”
“Is that all?”
She quaked at the lack of inflection in his voice. It scared her more than if he had ranted. “Yes. Isn’t that enough?” Shame filled her. The tears were gone, replaced by intermittent snubbing. Now was the moment. He would tell her what an awful person she was and arrest her. He’d tell her he had been wrong about her and wonder how she could have deceived him.
He pulled her from the sofa and put his arms around her. “You should have come to me with this.” His gentle tone surprised her so much she gasped in astonishment. She didn’t try to pull away. It was where she longed to be. “It’s going to be all right now.” He stroked her back, up and down, soothing away the tension. “Look at me.” He tipped her chin with his index finger and made her look him in the eye. “Honey, it was self-defense.”
“Self-defense?”
“You didn’t intend to kill him, did you?”
The thought horrified her. “No. Of course not. I just wanted him to stop hitting me.”
“You didn’t kill him.”
Her heart stopped. “What do you mean?”
“The coroner said the man had only been dead a few hours when the hitchhiker found him. If all this happened on Sunday morning, you couldn’t have killed him. He didn’t die until the early hours Monday.” He looked as if there was more to tell, but he stopped. There were obviously things about this case he didn’t want her to know.
She stared at him for a long moment. Then she realized she was in his arms, and he had addressed her with a term of endearment. She disentangled herself and put some distance between them.
His arms dropped to his sides. “Maybe it’s time you told me about your past.” His demand floated across the room toward her.
Actually it was well past time. She retrieved the photo album she had never shown anyone from her bedroom. She held it tightly to her chest before offering it to him. “These are pictures of my son Jake.” She sat beside him and flipped through pages of photos chronicling Jake’s growth from age one to age twelve. Then she turned to the back and showed him pictures of her sister. “That’s my sister Peyton Chandler. She died when she was eighteen. I was almost a year older than she was. I’ve been using her name. My real name is Paula Chandler Osborne. I’m the impostor.”
Brian’s head popped up. His sharp gaze pierced her heart. She didn’t know what to say or how to defend herself. The odd expression on his face, a mixture of disbelief and fear and something else she really didn’t want to identify, didn’t change as she told him the rest of her story. He kept his eyes riveted on hers. The way he studied her was too painful to bear. She felt her soul shrinking into a dark place where she could hide.
Her life had finally come full circle. Her past mistakes would never leave her alone. The man sitting beside her was the one she wanted to spend her life with, but that was never going to happen. She determined to leave Durango as soon as possible.
****
A rough hand covered her mouth and startled her awake. Peyton blinked and stared into the gray eyes of Cory Powell. A scream rose from her gut, but his palm cut off the sound. She felt the cold steel of a gun at her temple and knew fighting was useless. The scene was like a slightly distorted version of her ordeal with Jeff.
“Open your mouth and it’s the last thing you do.” His eyes glittered with undisguised hatred. She nodded to show she understood. He removed his hand from her mouth and stepped back. “Get up and get dressed.”
She did as she was told. Humiliation colored her neck. He was going to watch her every move. She pulled on jeans with her back to him, slipped her bra on under her nightgown, and tossed the gown on the bedroom floor. She slid her arms through the straps as quickly as possible and yanked a shirt from the closet.
He dragged her into the kitchen before she pulled the shirt all the way down. “Where’s your purse?”
She pointed at the kitchen counter. He rummaged until he found her keys and tossed them at her. With the barrel of the gun, he motioned her toward the carport. A bright moon hung in a cloudless sky, casting shaky shadows over her worst nightmare.
He opened the passenger door and pushed her in. “Slide over. You drive.” Once again, she scrambled over the center console—fear gripping her insides. This was the moment she had run from for the past twelve years. “Take me to Jeff’s car.”
She looked at him puzzled. How did he know about Jeff’s car?
“You know what I mean. Just do like I tell you.”
She gripped the steering wheel and drove out of town. She had ditched Jeff’s car down the same seldom-used dirt road where they had left hers. Bumping along the rocky track was like the horrible scene with Jeff was happening all over again. Except Cory had always been smarter. He made her drive. She would have no opportunity to manipulate the situation the way she had with Jeff.
She glanced at the gun he held loosely in his lap. It looked familiar. It was the same make as the one she purchased not so many weeks ago. Was that her gun—the one she lost in the woods when she struggled with Jeff?
She finally located the car after several minutes of desperation, worried she
might not remember the stand of pine trees she hid it under. Cory examined the vehicle. The keys were still in the ignition where she left them.
“Get in. You drive.”
She slid into the driver’s seat. Fighting Cory was useless.
The vehicle reeked of the cleansing agent she used to wipe down the steering wheel and the upholstery. “You cleaned the ride up pretty good. Guess you still remember a few things I taught you.” She had scrubbed the carpets, hoping to leave no trace of herself behind. Why hadn’t Brian asked her about the car? Odd. She didn’t respond to Cory’s backhanded compliment. Wiping down a stolen vehicle was a thirteen-year-old skill she had hoped never to use again.
Guilt nearly overcame her and she craved the warmth of a cleansing, hot shower. She rubbed the back of her hand at the thought of the cool, soothing lotion she would use to moisturize her ravaged skin. She pushed the thought of comfort away—it was like steel wool on her damaged psyche.
She wasn’t going to cry. She refused to give Cory the satisfaction. She knew his anger, in large part, was due to her betrayal. He hated his Uncle Mason. Turning to Mason had been the ultimate infidelity. She wasn’t sure who hated her more—Cory or Mason. Both men felt she had betrayed them.
She pulled out of the cover of woods and onto the highway.
“Head up toward Ouray.”
She stifled her reaction. Could he possibly know Jake was there with Johanna?
It was a long, miserable drive into Ouray. Not one word was spoken until they passed through town into the flat valley toward Ridgway. “Now drive out to the ranch where my son lives.”
She stared at her former lover in disbelief. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He smacked her hard across the mouth. She touched the blood on her already swollen lip and stared at her red fingertips as if violence was a new horror for her.
“Don’t lie to me. I know you’ve been there. Now drive.” The weapon was once again aimed at her face. She did as she was told.
****
Night shrouded the landscape in slithery fingers of dark gray and black as they approached the ranch. He motioned her to drive down a gravel track that veered to the left. The bump as they crossed cattle grades jarred her already sore body. After they traveled far from the main lodge, he instructed her to pull off and park in the trees next to a fence.
He pointed toward a building across the pasture. The bright reddish-orange of new wood glowed in the moonlight. Was this a shed or a bunkhouse? How often did Pierce come out to this pasture?
When she hesitated, he shoved her toward the fence, causing her to falter and nearly fall. She eased between the sharp prongs of barbed wire. He nudged her through, his impatience making her stumble and rip her jeans. The sting of a fresh wound throbbed just below her knee.
They trudged across the field to the building. He opened the door and pushed her inside. When she fell over the threshold and sprawled on the floor, he stood over her—a look of unadulterated spite glistening in his eyes. She cringed under its weight.
“Well, here we are.” His cheerfulness seemed off-kilter and forced. “Just me and you. Just like old times.”
“What do you want?”
“A little sugar for old time’s sake would be nice.”
All the fight had drained out of her, but his nasty suggestion dug up plenty of disgust. “I don’t think so.”
He grabbed her hair, pulled her from the floor, and kissed her hard. When he finished his violence, she ran the back of her hand across her mouth and spat. He laughed and dropped her back onto the floor. “You haven’t changed a bit. You always were a wild cat!”
“You were always a bastard.”
“You better be nice to me. Your life is in my hands.” His declaration was ice cold. He sat on a nearby chair and assessed her with a steely, penetrating gaze as she pressed her back into the rough wood siding of the wall. “Jeff sure messed you up, didn’t he? He thought he had you under control. He doesn’t know you very well, does he?”
“What does it matter what he thought?”
“It doesn’t. He’s dead.” He smiled, his white teeth glistening in the dark. “Yeah, I watched you crack his head open.”
Cory had been there? How? Jeff had pulled the car over in the middle of nowhere. A desolate place. She remained silent. Her conversation with Brian zoomed through her tired mind. Cory wanted her to believe she killed Jeff. She didn’t correct his error. The less he knew the better.
His eyes traveled up and down her body. “Jeff sure had you going. He soaked you for all he could get, didn’t he?”
“How would you know that?” She glared at him through squinted eyes.
“He told me before he died.” He acted nonchalant, but she knew better. She bit her lip to stifle any more comments. She would let him do the talking. Some things were coming back to her. “You know what he didn’t tell you?” He leaned forward in the chair. “Your husband’s been dead for ten years.” Cruelty sparkled in his eyes.
Her stomach lurched. “Mason’s dead?”
“Isn’t that a hoot? You’ve been running for nothing.”
Oh, but Cory was wrong. She’d been running from him as well. If she had the chance, she’d run again.
“After a while I’m going to sneak into the lodge and get our son. I’m looking forward to being a real family like we should have been.” He stopped, perhaps to relish her reaction. He’d always known what buttons to push. She came unglued and attempted to attack him. He pushed her down easily. She was no match for him.
“Leave him alone.”
“He’s my son.” He jabbed his finger in his chest.
She recoiled at the intensity of his assertion. She had to find a way to warn Pierce and Johanna. “I’m not going anywhere with you,” she said with more inner strength than she thought possible.
He stood and towered over her. His blood pulsing the vein in his neck. “Oh, yes you are. And we’re taking the boy with us.”
“I’m not going to help you kidnap him. Even if you threaten to kill me, I’m not helping you.”
“Oh, yes you are.” He jiggled the gun at her. “You ruined my life. You owe me.”
Heat crawled up her gut. “I didn’t ruin your life. You were doing a pretty good job of that on your own. I never made you do the things you did. You had a mind of your own.”
He snorted. “I’ll never forgive you for what you did to me.”
A quick angry outburst was on the tip of her tongue, but she quelled it. Some force from within stronger than her fear calmed her. She knew how to disarm him. He never could handle the unexpected. She had refused to forgive Cory so many years ago. It was what had caused the downward spiral of her life. She stared him in the eye. “I forgive you.”
He laughed, a dry mirthless cackle. “You forgive me?”
“I didn’t think I could ever forgive you. I realize now that I should have. Maybe none of the rest of it would have happened.”
“Why should you forgive me?” He yelled in her face. “I’m not the one who was driving the car. I did you a favor.”
She wasn’t going to argue with him. If he hadn’t goaded her into drinking and racing that night, her sister would still be alive. It didn’t minimize her complicity, but her involvement didn’t absolve his. The favor he had done for her was no favor at all. He had moved her sister’s unconscious body into the driver’s seat, dragged her from the scene, and rented them a room in a motel. It was the night Jake was conceived.
The police suspected their involvement in the accident from the beginning. She cooperated with the Austin cops and they dropped the charges against her, but the police wanted Cory in jail. He had taken the full punishment for tampering with the evidence and leaving the scene of the accident. Mason spent an exorbitant amount of money getting her off the hook, while he left his nephew to the vagaries of the justice system. She married Mason when he asked because she felt she owed him. Her father tried to talk her out of it, but she
was stubborn and Mason had promised to protect her.
She didn’t realize she was pregnant with Cory’s child until it was too late.
Cory still refused to admit his culpability in the matter. It broke her heart because she had once loved the man as much as any self-absorbed, teenage girl could love anyone.
He stood up. Indecision marked his features. She refused to flinch or show any kind of fear or dismay. “I’m going to go scope things out.” He smiled, wicked intent glistening from him like drops of poison. “But before I do I’m going to gag you and tie you up.” His tone implied he’d enjoy that.
****
Peyton woke with a start to find Jake standing over her, staring at her in stunned silence. She blinked several times to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. He removed the gag from her mouth.
“What are you doing here?” His young voice held suspicion in its uneasy tenor.
“Jake! Are you alone?” Panic leapt from her. She must have fallen asleep on the cot waiting for Cory to come back. Stupid. She groaned as he helped her sit up.
He stepped back and glanced at the door behind him. “Who would be with me?”
“Get out of here. Run back to the lodge and tell Johanna—”
The crunch of steps on gravel stopped her. She held her breath. Jake stared at the door with an alarmed expression on his face. “What’s going on?”
Before she could react, Cory entered the bunkhouse and glanced first at Peyton and then at Jake. He shut the door behind him with a hard bang. Cory grinned. “Looks like my plan is working better than I expected.” He took a step closer to Jake. “Do you know who I am, boy?”
Jake pressed his back against the nearest wall. “No.”
An Impostor in Town (Colorado Series) Page 8