Just in case.
Leaning back in his chair, he studied the statistics first. Brian Silverman. There was a birth date and the date he’d disappeared. The boy was not quite two years old. Had been gone for more than eight months. He had curly blond hair. Blue eyes. Was missing from Houston, Texas.
He’d last been seen with Beth Silverman. His mother, presumably.
Beth. God, Greg needed to talk to his Beth.
This woman was thirty-four years old. Had blond hair and blue eyes. Was last seen in Houston, Texas.
As he always did, Greg looked at the pictures last. His mind suddenly numb, he looked again. The hair color was different.
He should never have had breakfast. The pancake syrup was not sitting well in his stomach.
Greg put the card down. His hands weren’t shaking, he decided. He’d probably just thought they were because he was a little disoriented from the news about his father. And Culver. And Foltz.
Really, he was fine.
Just to prove it, Greg picked up the postcard again. Gave it a glance.
It fell to the floor as he made a run for the bathroom.
His breakfast was horrible the second time around.
“MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG, roll along, roll along,” Beth sang under her breath as she pushed the vacuum cleaner back and forth across the floor of the Mathers’ master bedroom. In deference to the unusually warm day, she was wearing a T-shirt with her cutoff navy sweatpants. The navy-and-white designer emblem across the front of the shirt made the ensemble a toss-up between a cleaning uniform and a fashion statement. What Beth liked most was the five dollars the duo had cost her at a close-out sale.
Close-out sales. And clean toilets. Ryan to pick up in half an hour. Greg naked. Beth’s thoughts, running along only pleasant lines as she finished her last job of the day, entertained her. She hummed more of the song she’d been singing, since she couldn’t recall any more words.
She thought she heard the doorbell.
Turning off the vacuum cleaner, she listened.
Yes. The doorbell rang again.
Hurrying to answer it, hoping—rather pointlessly, she knew—that it was Greg, she pulled open the heavy wooden front door with more energy than usual. She’d done everything with more energy than usual that day.
“Greg!” she said, thrilled that her wayward wish had been answered. She could get used to this very quickly.
“How long until you’re finished?” he asked.
“A few minutes,” Beth reported, feeling pleased. And then she really looked at him. Past the smiling lips and cordial eyes, to the man she knew.
Something was wrong.
Of course. Burt. Greg had found out something.
“I’ll just be another five minutes and then I’ll need time to load up my gear.”
“I’ll be in my truck.”
He was still dressed in his uniform, but driving his personal vehicle. In the middle of the afternoon. That was odd. Greg always drove his squad car when he was on duty. The truck didn’t have a radio.
Even odder, he didn’t meet her eyes when she glanced back up at him.
Rushing, her need to get to Greg, to help him, comfort him, far greater than her usual need to pack everything in the order she’d determined was most efficient, Beth threw things together. She gathered everything and made her way to the car, toilet brush and broom sticking out from under one arm, a bucket overflowing with supplies suspended from that hand, her vacuum clutched in the other.
She slammed her trunk on the tools of her trade and locked the car, knowing it would be just fine parked out on the street, then hurried over to Greg’s truck.
Staring straight ahead, shoulders stiff, jaw implacable, he didn’t notice her coming. The passenger door was locked. He hit the button on his side, letting her in. He didn’t come around to open her door. Didn’t look at her as she climbed in.
“What’s up?” she asked, hoping it wasn’t as bad as it appeared. Her earlier good mood hadn’t been strong to begin with, and the usual dread that was always so close at hand was already beginning to seep in.
Just once she wanted to be whole and able for Greg. Wanted to be there for him one-hundred percent, not busy dealing with her own problems. He’d done so much for her. Given her back so much of herself, if only in the form of the confidence she was gaining since he’d started to care so much about her.
Still without a word, without a look, he reached for a postcard on the seat beside him. Handed it to her.
Confused, Beth looked at it.
And couldn’t move.
Couldn’t breathe. Arrows were stabbing inside her skull. She had no idea where she was. What she was doing. She sat, head bent, simply reacting. Letting the unreality wash over her. Her heart beat far too fast, and she did nothing. Her skin was cold, clammy, yet her face burned. She didn’t move, allowing the red haze to consume her vision.
“That’s some secret you’ve been keeping.”
The words were bitingly harsh. She wasn’t sure what they meant. Didn’t recognize the voice saying them. Wasn’t even sure they were directed at her.
“I don’t know what part of this you found so hard to explain.” The same bitter tone.
The words made little sense. Other than that, they were like little pellets, pummeling her at a time she wasn’t equipped to handle them.
“Take me home,” she said. Nothing mattered but that she get someplace safe.
On some level she was coherent enough to know that Ryan was safer where he was for the moment. And yet, she desperately needed to hold her son in her arms, needed him close.
This was an emergency. They might not have much time.
The engine started, the rumble a strange kind of comfort beneath her. At least she was going somewhere.
She didn’t see the houses they passed, didn’t notice the streets or the turns, didn’t see a single person or sign. She saw nothing but that crumpled card in her fingers.
Fear escalated almost to the point of madness when the rumbling beneath her stopped. She waited for whatever was going to happen next.
Nothing did.
Beth looked up to see that she was parked outside her own duplex. For some reason she felt extremely relieved to be there. As though she’d been prepared to find herself somewhere else entirely.
“Thanks for the ride,” she said very politely, inanely, and opened the truck door. Her exit might have been made cleanly if her knees hadn’t given out on her as she attempted to jump down from the big truck. She caught herself with both hands on the seat, hitting her knuckles on the doorjamb.
The pain brought tears to her eyes. She welcomed the pain as something she recognized. Something she could concentrate on.
It gave her the strength to get herself to her door, find her key, put it in the lock. She saw no one, heard nothing. Just the key. In the lock. Open the door. Get inside.
The door didn’t close behind her. It hit something big and solid.
The man who’d followed her in.
She might have screamed then. Might have broken into hysterical tears if she hadn’t glanced up and seen the pain shining from eyes she’d grown to love. Eyes that had made such promises of love and safety the night before.
“I need some answers,” Greg said. His voice was still that of a stranger.
A frightening, intimidating stranger. He was wearing a uniform. A gun. If he chose to detain her, take her away, she wouldn’t be able to stop him.
Her eyes fell. Recognized the shape and width of those hands. This was the man who’d been naked in her arms.
She nodded. Turning unsteadily, Beth made her way into the living room. She wanted to sit in her rocker, but was afraid of the unsteady movement. She dropped to the old couch instead, bracing herself in a corner.
Afraid of Greg’s reaction, she didn’t look at that card again, although she wanted to. She desperately wanted to know what it said.
What it could tell her.
She w
as unsure what he was going to do to her. Would he just arrest her and never speak to her again? Turn her over to some other authorities and never speak to her again? Take her son away and never speak to—
“I’m listening.”
He was also standing. Too close. Telling her quite plainly who was in charge.
Beth opened her mouth, intending to say something. She realized he deserved answers. She wanted to give them to him.
She had nothing to say. She had to look at that card.
“Beth, now’s not a good time to play me for a fool.” The warning in his voice was more powerful than the words.
She was scared to death of him, yet she didn’t fear he’d hurt her. Not physically. The danger he threatened was far worse than that.
“I’ve never played you for anything,” she said. She tried to hold his gaze, but couldn’t. She couldn’t stand to see the stranger staring back at her.
“And you’ve never given me one damn answer, either,” he said, jamming his hands in his pockets as he started to pace in front of her. “I’m giving you an opportunity to do so now. If you still refuse, you leave me with no choice but to take you in.”
Did that mean there was a chance, even the slimmest of chances, that he might not?
She glanced at the card. Her name was still Beth.
Odd, considering the circumstances, but she found a small bit of joy in that fact.
Beth Silverman. Fighting down panic, Beth found she still had no idea who that was.
“I woke up in a motel room a week before I came to Shelter Valley,” she said.
She was thirty-four years old. That felt odd. A couple of years younger than she’d thought.
And her gaze landed on her son’s precious face. Brian Silverman. Not Ryan at all. Tears pooled in her eyes, blinding her to the rest of his information for the second it took her to blink them away. And then, just before her eyes filled again, she saw his birth date.
“He’s not even two yet,” she whispered. Her baby boy had been barely a year old when she’d brought him here. Big for his age and much younger than she’d assumed. No wonder he couldn’t talk! And potty-training him before he was two; it was ludicrous. Not fair at all to a little body that couldn’t possibly be experiencing all the sensations he needed to, in order to be successful at that important venture.
“I’m running out of patience.”
Stronger now, as though finally having possession of her son’s birth date made all the difference, Beth looked up at Greg. Even through her tears she could see his jaw twitching with the effort it was taking him to be civil.
She held out the card to him. “This is what I know,” she said. “It’s all I know.”
She was from Houston. She didn’t feel any affiliation with the place at all.
“What do you mean it’s all you know?” His tone was not getting any friendlier.
“Almost eight months ago, I woke up in a motel room in Snowflake, Arizona, with a splitting headache, a bad gash on my forehead and another one on the back of my skull. I had a bag that said ‘Beth’ on it, with some diaper essentials and a change of clothes for Ryan….” She couldn’t think of him as anyone else. “An exercise outfit for myself and two-thousand dollars in cash.”
“Go on.” He was still standing but had, at least, stopped pacing.
She shrugged, then met his gaze. “I had a baby with me who called me Mama. When I asked him what his name was, he just kept saying Ryan.”
“From Brian?”
“I guess.” She had a feeling he was always going to be Ryan to her.
“Then later, when I bathed him, I noticed a funny little V-shaped freckle mark on his knee. I have one, too.”
Greg sat down, not next to her, but not on the other end of the couch, either. “So why were you there?”
The world was getting smaller again. Her vision was tinged with red.
“How did you get hurt?”
“I don’t know.” The words were a whisper.
Not only was she frightened to death at her lack of ability to help herself, her powerlessness, but she was also ashamed to admit the truth to him. What kind of a basket case ran away from herself?
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I don’t know,” she said again, staring down at her hands. The gig was up. Unless…
Could she talk him into not turning her in? Could she get even one more night? Long enough to collect Ryan and run away?
Did she actually think she could hide from a lawman like Greg Richards?
“I don’t remember anything.” Finally, because she knew she had to, Beth looked over at him, saw the card in his hand. “Until you brought that, I didn’t even know my own name, my son’s age, where we were from. Nothing.”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re telling me you have amnesia.”
Beth nodded, humiliated, scared, placing her life in hands she wasn’t sure were ever going to be gentle with her again.
“I can’t buy that.”
“What?”
“You expect me to believe you don’t remember anything about yourself?”
She nodded.
“Come on, Beth. It’s not that I doubt amnesia happens, but I’ve been around you for months, and there hasn’t been one sign of mental confusion. And it’s not just me. It’s Bonnie and her family, the people you clean for, everyone you’ve known in the more than eight months you’ve lived here. You’d have to be a pretty good actress to fool an entire town.”
“It’s the truth.” And then, when the doubt in his eyes only grew more severe, Beth became desperate. It hadn’t dawned on her that he wouldn’t believe her. She’d expected him to be angry, yes. Do what he had to do, yes. But… “You have to believe me, Greg.”
“You’ve done nothing but keep secrets from me since the beginning. And now, when I find out why, you come up with a story that’s utterly fantastic. How can you possibly expect me to believe you?” he asked, his voice devoid of any of the warmth she’d come to depend on.
Because last night you made the most incredible love to me. Because I think I actually trust you. I need you. Because I love… “Because I’m telling the truth.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
YEAH.
Sure she was telling the truth.
Another day, he might have believed her. Greg slumped back against the couch cushion, thankful in a highly ironic sense that he’d just found unquestionable proof that his deputy and his superior had betrayed him. That experience was going to save his butt now. He’d been such a lovesick kid with Beth, so willing to have faith and believe in something that he couldn’t see or prove, that she’d probably be able to string him along even now, if not for his deputy’s timely lesson.
And unlike Culver and Foltz, Beth had struck at the very foundation of his life. For one thing, harboring a criminal could’ve cost him his job. For another, she’d undermined his newfound ability to trust.
That auburn hair wasn’t natural. He couldn’t get over it.
A cover. Just like the amnesia was a cover. Smart, really, the way she’d kept her secrets. Made the whole thing almost plausible. And that much more damning. She’d obviously been planning this all along. She had her cover all ready in case she got caught before she got out.
He was sure he should be feeling something—anger at the very least—but for now, he was going to go with the numbness that was all he seemed able to dredge up.
Surely she’d figured that she would be found out eventually. It was one of the first rules of conduct for people on the run. Always be ready, with no notice, to run again. To keep running.
He was lounging on her couch as though he had all day. Nothing to do. No crises to sort out. “It would’ve meant a lot if you’d been honest with me from the start.”
“I was as honest as I knew how to be.”
The intimacy in those warm blue eyes seared him. Just the night before, it had been as if God’s angel had reached right down and touched him. His
gaze roamed to the rocker behind her left shoulder. What was true and what was false?
“You aren’t trying to tell me you didn’t know you were betraying me?” he muttered.
He glanced over—and saw the bitter truth in her eyes before she closed them.
“I didn’t think so.”
“Greg.”
There was such pleading in her voice that he could’ve been forgiven for feeling a twinge of caring. Of hope. Thankfully it wasn’t a forgiveness he’d need to seek. Braced, he waited for her to continue.
“I know this is hard for you.”
“It’s not hard at all.” He wasn’t lying. He couldn’t feel a thing. And he damn sure wasn’t going to have her feeling sorry for him on top of everything else. He might have been taken for a fool, but he could handle it.
And recover.
With all parts still working fine.
“Please listen,” she whispered.
“I heard every word you said,” he told her in his best cop’s voice. “And a lot you haven’t.”
“I know—” She bowed her head.
He could barely see her in his peripheral vision.
“—but I need you not just to hear but to really listen to what I have to tell you.”
That was rich. Now that she was in trouble, she suddenly had things to tell him. Because the only difference between that moment and twelve hours before, when she’d lain naked beneath him right there on that couch, was the crumpled white card with the incriminating pictures.
He wanted to tell her that, but didn’t see any point in dragging himself through the series of quickly fabricated lies that would follow.
“I’m scared to death, Greg,” she said.
For a split second her raw emotion started to work on him. But only for a second. His armor had grown thicker than that. It would sustain him through this.
“For eight months now, that fear has been the only constant in my life.”
No. He wasn’t going to be sucked in. She was an expert at it.
If he wasn’t so sickened by his own part in the whole thing, he’d probably admire her for those abilities.
The Sheriff of Shelter Valley Page 18