‘Yeah, right.’ He ground his teeth, willing his fists not to clench. He could beat it out of her. But he really didn’t want to have to do that.
He let out a breath. He’d been her father once. He’d rocked her to sleep, been there for her first steps, read her bedtime stories. Sometimes. When he’d gotten home from work in time.
He had to stop thinking about that. He needed to know who she’d told about him. He considered the options, then tried another tack. ‘That’s not what your uncle Denny said. He said you’d told them everything.’
Her gaze shot back to him, wide and alarmed. And hurt. ‘Uncle D-D-Denny knows?’
‘That I have you? No. That I beat the ever-loving shit out of your mother because she defied me and humiliated me? Yeah, he knows.’
Betrayal flickered in her eyes and, dammit, there was that little twinge again. He knew how that kind of betrayal felt. After all, he was looking right into the eyes at the consequences of a betrayal that was even worse. Or at least just as bad.
‘He t-told y-you? About my th-therapy?’
‘Yep. Not because he wanted me to silence you forever, of course. He wanted to scare me into leaving town.’ He was done talking. He was done listening. And he didn’t want to look into her wounded eyes another second. He took another cup from the cooler, then got out of the car, went around to her side and opened the door. ‘Drink it.’
She pursed her lips, so he pried her jaw open, poured some in her mouth and held her nose and mouth closed until she swallowed it. She choked, gagging and coughing and giving him a killing glare. ‘B-bastard!’
He sighed. ‘Jesus, kid, you’re making this hard. You do not want to make this hard. Trust me. Will you drink the rest or do we have to rinse and repeat? It’s just Benadryl.’ He pulled the bottle from his pocket to prove it to her. ‘It will make you sleep for a little while. That’s all. I swear it.’
Her laugh surprised him. It was adult and full of contempt. ‘S-s-so you can h-hurt us in our s-s-sleep?’
‘I said I wouldn’t hurt y— Oh.’ He grimaced when he caught her meaning, then bristled with irritation that she’d even think it. He gripped her chin and forced her to look at him. ‘I am many things, Jasmine Marie Jarvis, but I have never and will never rape a child.’
She didn’t blink. ‘J-just k-kidnap and d-drug us,’ she said bitterly. ‘Th-that’s okay then.’
‘It’s for your own good, kid,’ he said, making his voice softer. More cajoling. It had always worked on her mother, but from the hard look in Jazzie’s eyes, it wasn’t working on her. ‘Look, I really don’t want to hurt you. But I will. You know I will. And then I’ll run and Janie will be here all alone. You don’t want that, right?’
Jazzie finally looked away, but not before he saw the tears in her eyes. Straightening her shoulders, she drained the cup and handed it back to him with the manners of a queen.
Yeah, she was a lot smarter than her mother had been.
‘If you try to run, I will stop you,’ he said. ‘And once I’ve stopped you, there is no good reason for me to keep your sister alive. You got that?’
She nodded. ‘W-w . . .’ She blew out a breath and he waited for her to finish, because he figured she’d earned it. ‘One more qu-question. Did G-Grandma know, too?’
Her eyes were flat now, and he recognized the look. She knew the answer already but needed to hear it out loud. At the same time, she was shielding herself from heartache. More heartache, anyway.
‘Yeah,’ he said, and watched her close her eyes, her flinch unmistakable. ‘She knew she was bringing you to see me. But she thought I just wanted to talk to you.’
‘S-s-stupid woman,’ she said, and he shrugged.
‘She just really wants to believe I’m a good person.’
Jasmine scoffed and looked away. ‘R-right.’
Fair enough. ‘If it’s any consolation,’ he said quietly, ‘your uncle Denny only helped me because I threatened his wife and kids.’ That wasn’t true, not at first. But he figured he owed it to her to salvage some of her disappointment in the adults who were responsible for her well-being.
It was the least he could do.
She gave him a disbelieving look that was far too grown-up. ‘W-whatever.’
He stepped back and allowed her to get out of the car. ‘I’m going to get your sister now. Do not try anything. Please.’
She folded her arms over her chest and looked away while he lifted Janie out of the front seat and retrieved the cooler from her feet, then she followed him into his room.
Seventeen
Baltimore, Maryland,
Sunday 23 August, 2.50 P.M.
Gage closed and locked the door to his room, then put Janie on the bed, covering her up before turning to look at Jazzie. ‘Get in the bed with her. You’ll be asleep soon enough.’
Jaw clenched, chin lifted, she gave him a wide berth as she walked to the other side of the bed. She sat on the mattress and pulled her sleeping sister onto her lap, smoothing Janie’s hair from her forehead, looking at him as if she had something to say.
‘Are y-you m-my r-r-real f-father?’
‘I thought you said that last question was your last question.’
‘I l-lied.’
His lips twitched. ‘You said you didn’t lie.’
She shrugged. ‘Are y-you?’
‘No. Does that make you feel better?’
Hate glittered in her eyes. ‘Y-yes.’
It was fair, he supposed. ‘I’m not Janie’s father either.’
Her arms tightened around her sister protectively. ‘G-g-good.’
‘Your mother apparently got lonely when I was in law school, studying all the time. She tried to pass you off as mine. Then she got lonely when I made partner in the firm and tried to pass Janie off as mine.’
Understanding glittered in there with the hate. ‘Th-th-that was wr-wrong of h-her.’
‘Yeah. Neither of us were the best parents in the world.’
She shook her head, struggling to keep her eyes open. ‘M-M-Mom wasn’t a g-good w-wife, but she w-was a good mom. Sh-she was th-there for us. Y-you w-weren’t.’
That was fair, too. ‘I have one more question for you now. Where were you that day?’
She closed her eyes then, flinching from the memory. ‘Behind th-the ch-chair. I c-came home from s-school. And s-saw her there. I heard you. In the closet.’ Her stutter was lessening as the Benadryl began to take hold. ‘I s-saw you.’
‘I figured that out myself,’ he said, feeling his eyes burn. He did not want to kill her.
No. No. You will not change your mind. She will send you to prison.
He sat down in the chair and tried to think, to plan. He needed sleeping pills. Powerful ones. He’d crush them and put them in . . . what? Applesauce? He’d read that somewhere once.
He knew dozens of dealers who kept sleeping pills. He just needed to pick one. And then . . . ‘Fuck,’ he muttered. He didn’t just need an alibi. He needed to find someone to blame for the disappearance of two young girls. He might have used Toby Romano. But I fucking killed him already. Goddammit.
He shoved his fingers through his hair and yanked hard in frustration. This was bad. Really, really bad. Whoever he picked, it needed to fit. All the pieces would need to fit, starting with Valerie, all the way to Jazzie, or the cops would be on him like white on rice. Who? Who would make sense?
Oh. Okay. The panic receded as the answer became obvious. Denny. Denny would be the perfect fall guy. And it would kill two birds with one stone, because Denny was his last loose end. He’d figure out another alibi. That would be simpler than presenting a plausible explanation for the murder of two children.
‘How did you know?’ Jazzie asked sleepily, breaking into his thoughts.
‘Know
what?’ he replied gruffly, realizing that there was no trace of her stutter left.
Her eyes were closed, her voice a little slurred. ‘That we weren’t yours.’
For some reason he found himself telling her. ‘Janie got hurt when she was two.’
‘I remember. The dog jumped through the glass door. She got cut up.’
‘Yeah, that was the day.’ The damn dog was trying to run away from an outside bath into the house, and it had run right through the glass, shattering it. The dog ended up without a scratch, but Janie had been in her walker and had nearly lost an eye.
He also keenly remembered waking up that morning as the father of two little girls and the husband of a woman who loved him. He’d gone to bed that night . . . changed. ‘Janie needed blood and I offered mine. Your mother tried to get me not to volunteer, but I was insistent. Janie was my baby and she was hurt.’ He paused. ‘But then I found out she wasn’t my baby.’
‘Wrong blood type?’ Jazzie slurred.
He was surprised. ‘How do you know about that?’
‘We learned about it in science class. Some types can’t mix to make other types.’
Smart kid. ‘Exactly. Your mother and I were both type A. You and Janie had to be either A or O. But Janie’s B. You’re type O. But I suspected by then, and I did paternity tests on both of you. Both of you came up as not mine. I confronted your mother, then went out and got stoned.’
‘And stayed that way,’ she whispered.
Also fair. He felt a twinge of regret that the kid knew what it meant to be stoned. He’d been a live demonstration during the final days that he’d lived with them. ‘Pretty much.’ He’d done coke in the past recreationally, or to stay awake when he had an important case, but he hadn’t needed it. After finding out his kids weren’t his . . . he’d needed it then.
‘Why did you get fired from your job?’
‘They found coke in my desk drawer. That was after your mother accused me of hitting her.’
‘You did hit her,’ she said sleepily. ‘I was hiding behind the chair then, too.’
‘Yeah, well.’ He didn’t have the energy to argue with her. ‘The firm found coke in my desk and fired me. I wasn’t an addict. Close, but not.’
‘Are you now?’
‘No. I can stop. I have stopped in the past.’ For weeks at a time. When he’d used again, it had been on his own terms. ‘I use when I want to now. Not when I need to.’ Except when you’re tired and about to meet your new boss, or you need to wake up, or your hands shake. He pushed the doubts aside, because that was situational. He’d be fine once he was working steadily again.
‘One . . . more.’ Jazzie blinked hard, struggling to keep her eyes open. ‘Why no divorce?’
He frowned at her. ‘What do you mean, why no divorce?’
‘We’re . . . not yours. Why . . . did you run away? Why not stay and get a divorce?’
Again he was impressed. ‘That is an excellent question, Jazzie. Really excellent.’
‘Answer. Please.’
He pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘The night I hit your mother, your aunt called the cops on me. If I’d been tried and convicted of assault, I’d have been disbarred. That basically means I’d have lost my job.’ Which he’d ended up losing anyway. ‘Your mother agreed not to press charges if I agreed not to divorce her and to continue paying the mortgage.’
Jazzie giggled quietly.
‘What the fuck is so funny?’ he demanded.
‘Grandma did the same, backwards.’ She sighed. ‘Knew Mama was cheating. Didn’t know about us not being yours. Told her she wouldn’t tell if Mama didn’t press charges.’
‘How do you know that? Hiding behind the chair again?’
‘No. Was listening outside the door that time.’
Shit. The kid made a habit of spying on people. ‘Go to sleep, Jazzie,’ he said sharply. ‘I have work to do.’
He was pissed about everything in general. Valerie had manipulated him, but the kids hadn’t asked for any of this. They hadn’t asked for their mother to be a fucking whore. They hadn’t asked that he turn out to be no blood kin. They hadn’t asked to be here, drugged up and sleeping on a filthy blanket.
Feeling twitchy, he got up to at least take off their shoes. They might as well be comfortable as they slept. Seeing as how they’d be sleeping for a long time.
He set Janie’s little sneakers on the floor, then pulled off Jazzie’s.
And froze. Jazzie had hidden a business card in her shoe. And not just any card, either. It was one of Taylor Dawson’s cards, with her cell phone number on the back. The card was soft around the edges, like it had been handled a lot.
Jazzie had been talking to the therapist. She’d lied. Furious, he grabbed her shoulder and shook her. ‘Wake up!’
Jazzie pulled back with a shocked whimper and he let her go. ‘You hurt me,’ she whispered. ‘You promised.’
He shuddered out a breath. He had. He’d promised. But she’d lied. Because you pointed a gun at her little sister. Duh. What did you think she’d do? He drew a breath, knowing that as furious as he was with the girl, he was more furious with himself for being taken in by her lies.
‘What did you tell the damn therapist?’ he growled.
Her eyelids fluttered. ‘Nothing.’ She blinked rapidly. ‘N-nothing. I s-swear.’
She was lying. She’d told the therapist, who’d probably involved the cops.
The cops already are involved. They had been ever since he’d left Valerie in a pool of her own blood. But they’d accepted his alibi. They’d accepted that Toby Romano had killed Valerie. Denny knew this for a fact, and Denny was far too stupid to lie.
Gage glared down at Jazzie, who stared back up at him with glassy fear in her eyes. Fear that hadn’t been there when she was fully awake. Denny could take some lessons in lying from this eleven-year-old girl.
He held up the business card. ‘What did you tell her?’ he asked quietly, menacingly.
Jazzie was trembling, clutching her sister in her arms. Good. She needed to be very afraid. So afraid that she lost her little mind.
‘N-n-n . . .’ She clenched her eyes shut.
‘Tell me the goddamn truth!’ he thundered, raising his hand, but checked the movement when Jazzie began to sob.
‘P-p-please. D-don’t hurt us. I’ll t-tell you. Wh-wh-whatever you w-want.’
He drew a breath, tried to calm himself. Or he’d kill her. And he didn’t want to do that, not with his fists. With pills. Pain-free. They’d just go to sleep.
Damn you, Valerie. Damn you and your whoring lies. You did this to me. To us. To our family. Which had never, ever been his.
He kept his voice icy cold. ‘Good. Tell me what you told the therapist.’
She was sobbing so hard that he was seriously afraid she’d choke. She spoke gibberish.
‘Jasmine!’ His voice cracked like a whip, but he didn’t realize he’d slapped her face until he felt the stinging in his palm. ‘Stop crying and tell me what I want to know or I’ll hurt your sister next.’ He raised his hand again threateningly. ‘Tell me what you told the therapist. Now.’
Jazzie shrank back against the pillow. ‘E-everyth-thing. I t-told her everything. D-don’t hit J-Janie. Please.’ She rolled on top of her sister to shield her, willing to take the pain so that Janie didn’t suffer, and for a moment Gage was her father again. For a moment he was back there, in the life he’d left behind. For a split second he wanted to soothe. To comfort. To promise her that nothing bad would happen.
Then he saw himself in prison, and his stomach roiled. Prison could not, would not happen. Whatever it took. He steeled his spine, hardening himself to Jazzie’s tears. ‘Everything?’
She nodded miserably. ‘P-p-please don’t hurt Janie.’
&nb
sp; ‘I won’t. For now.’ He added the last as an afterthought, to keep her frightened enough to obey. ‘Where were you going to meet the therapist for ice cream?’ he asked.
‘A r-r-restaurant. Gi-Gi . . .’ She gritted her teeth. ‘Seppe’s.’ She forced the word out.
‘Giuseppe’s? The Italian place?’ It was an odd choice for ice cream, he thought. He’d been there when he’d lived here before. He knew the layout, the location. He knew exactly where he could set up and how to get away once the deed was done. He was glad he’d bought the rifle. He’d need it because of the distance he’d have to put between himself and the front of the restaurant, but it would be a clean, unobstructed shot, unlike this morning at the horse farm.
‘Wh-what are you doing?’ Her eyes widened in terror when he took the rifle from his closet and checked the barrel. Still loaded. ‘You s-s-said you w-w-wouldn’t hurt us!’
‘I’m not going to shoot you.’ He looked at her squarely. ‘I’m going to shoot your therapist.’
Jazzie’s mouth fell open. ‘No! Y-y-you c-can’t! She p-promised n-not to t-t-tell. The th-therapist. Y-you d-don’t n-need to hurt her.’
‘She’ll tell. She has to if she thinks you’re in danger.’
‘No! P-p-please d-don’t! I lied. I d-didn’t say anything to h-her. N-nothing! I s-swear!’
He looked up from shoving ammo in his pockets. ‘Then why did you say you did?’
‘S-so y-you wouldn’t h-hurt J-Janie.’ Tears were streaming down her cheeks.
‘It doesn’t matter at this point, Jasmine. I can’t believe anything you say, so I have to assume the worst.’ If the therapist knew anything, of course she’d tell the cops. It was likely that she already had.
Fuck. What if she had told them? Breathe, relax, he told himself. He’d defended plenty of clients who’d actually committed the murders of which they’d been accused, but there had been no witnesses, so there had been no trial. Of course they’d killed all the witnesses themselves, but the end was the same. No witnesses, no trial. Everything would be fine.
But . . . if Jazzie had already told the therapist everything, why have this little meeting?