“That depends,” Thomas said, pulling out a chair to sit beside her. She had to refrain from yanking her arm—hard—when he sandwiched her right hand between both of his. At least until she knew her next move.
Benny’s suggestion would work. They had to play him at his own game, find his weakness. While Thomas had held her hostage for ten years, he was held hostage, too. By his own belief that he had to appear in a good light to his public at all times.
She wasn’t sure how she could use that information yet, but it was the way to get this man. Of that she was sure.
“I know you’ve been through more than any one woman could bear,” he said now, his blue eyes sympathetic.
If he was speaking of her years with him, then yes, he was right.
“I understand you aren’t yourself right now.”
Another truth. She was a woman without a self. She waited to hear what he was going to do with that.
“So I can forgive the way you ran yesterday, making me relive my horrendous experience of two years ago, when I couldn’t find my wife anywhere, not knowing if she was dead or alive.”
She could tell he’d repeated that story many times over. He had a hard time maintaining the level of emotion it required.
How come I can see through him so easily now? Kate wondered. And why couldn’t I see this years ago?
He stared at her, his gaze deep. If he was waiting for an apology from her, they’d be there for a very long time.
“But now that my son is involved, I can’t afford to let my love for you cloud my judgment.”
He wasn’t going to throw her in jail. It wouldn’t look good. Kate played that thought over and over in her mind. And still, she felt her blood run cold.
Now that Thomas knew he could father a child, he was apparently quite taken with the idea of having one. Of course, that made sense. People had a soft spot for men with children, tended to trust them more.
“That said, I love you and just want my family home with me.”
The detectives, white-shirted arms crossed over their ties, stood by the wall, an avid audience. They’d shed their jackets an hour ago.
It made Kate sick to her stomach to see the hero-worship on their faces as they watched Thomas.
Bottom line, Thomas, I can’t take much more. Nor could she make herself speak up. Right now, sitting in that room with two cops under her deranged husband’s influence, she was virtually powerless. And experience had taught her a little too well. Whatever he had in mind, Thomas would go easier on her if she submitted with docility.
“So, if you’ll agree to come with me now, introduce me to my son, let us resume our lives, I’ll refrain from pressing charges of custodial interference against you for robbing me of the first two years of my son’s life.”
The son he’d almost killed.
“You’re going to hold me hostage,” she whispered. She had no doubt that once she went with him, she’d be chaperoned twenty-four hours a day.
“I’m sorry you see it like that,” Thomas said now. “In reality, all I’m doing is trying to protect you, baby.” He gently shook the hand he still held, laid it on his knee, holding it there, covered by his own. “You’re obviously having severe emotional problems. We knew that before you left two years ago. The pregnancy messed with your hormones. It happens that way sometimes.”
Kate was furious at those words, the condescending tone. And she slowly wilted inside. He was winning. Again.
Maybe he was one of the few who always did.
“I want you home. But I also want to know that my son is safe.”
If she’d been stronger, she would’ve laughed out loud. As if Taylor would ever be safe around his violent-tempered father!
“Tell me what you want, Kate. Do we go get our son, or not?”
She couldn’t make this decision. He was offering her hell…or hell.
Except that in one hell, she’d also have a piece of heaven. And a chance to see justice done. Their plan could still work. She’d still be in Thomas’s home, with the determination and opportunity to find whatever evidence she could. Money disappearing without explanation, as must have happened with Walter Mavis. Conversations or messages that resulted in some benefit to Thomas. Threats… The last thing in the world she wanted was to expose Taylor to the man, even for a minute, but Thomas had managed to take that choice out of her hands. The best she could do now was to make sure she was there, too, protecting her child.
“I’ll call Carley and tell her we’re on our way.”
24
Sitting with his back against a hard cement wall, long legs cramped from being pulled in beneath the shrubbery providing his cover, he watched as the shiny black limousine came slowly up the drive just before dinnertime. He’d been crammed into so many tight spaces in the past couple of days, he wasn’t sure his body would ever unfold completely again.
He kept his gaze on the car as it stopped before the massive front door of one of San Francisco’s more elaborate mansions. Whitehead would get out, run up the steps, disappear inside. A light would come on in what had to be his study. The shadow of a man would cross the room, probably toward a bar, because shortly after that, still shadowy and indistinct against the light, he would move to the window, raise a glass to his lips.
Eventually the light would go out. The man was boring. At least if the night before was anything to go by. The night before that, Scott had been up in the mountains outside Sacramento.
She hadn’t been there.
And last night she hadn’t been here, either.
He was running out of options. But was determined to watch out for her anyway. Somehow.
The chauffeur, a man who lived in a smaller house on the premises, got out—a different chauffeur from the previous night. He opened the back passenger door. The man Whitehead had fired, the one Scott had gone for first, had been only slightly reluctant to give Scott security codes and all the information he needed to get around the Whitehead estate undetected—after he’d been offered a large enough sum of money.
A leg appeared. A leg that wasn’t wearing dress slacks. Or any kind of slacks. It was long but slim, a familiar smooth ankle beneath a pair of Capri pants. And then the rest of her body slid out—showing him a woman he hardly recognized. Her hair was glossy and curling around her face like that of some beauty queen. Her face looked different, too. Her mouth larger, more seductive. Her eyes more pronounced.
Still, it was her.
He wasn’t sure if the heavy breath that escaped him held relief or disappointment.
She was here.
He had to restrain himself from rushing out to greet her, grab her, run with her. That wasn’t why he was here.
He sat on his hands when she reached inside the car, held the position for several long seconds, and then backed out carrying her son.
The breath that time was just painful. They were together. Here. He didn’t belong. Should have stayed home.
As diligently as part of him said to leave, another part made him stay, straightening first one leg, then another, as darkness fell, giving him more freedom to move about. An hour passed. Two hours. Lights had gone on—then off. Other lights had come on.
And now, three hours after they’d arrived home, the couple was upstairs in what he’d determined the night before to be the master bedroom.
Like a passerby held mesmerized by the horror of a car accident, he sat and watched as the man approached the woman. The curtains were wide open, as they’d been the night before. Lights were on, revealing the occupants of the room in almost vivid clarity to anyone roaming the estate grounds.
Which, as far as he could tell, was only him.
Move, he urged himself when the man reached out a hand to the collar of the woman’s white tailored blouse. It was easy enough to tell what the man in that room was doing. Slipping buttons through their holes. Slowly. Seductively.
Taking his time.
Tell him no, Tricia. Scream. Run.
&nbs
p; She wasn’t listening. On the contrary, she didn’t even raise a hand to stop the exploration. The blouse fell open. He tried to close his eyes when the man’s hand reached behind her back, but he just couldn’t. Something masochistic held him captive to the agonizing scene playing out before him.
He saw her breast the second it was exposed. First the curve of the underside, and then, horrifically, all of it as the man’s thumb ran across the nipple before he bent and licked the tip.
He’d thought he’d lived through the worst day of his life at eighteen.
Scott McCall couldn’t have been more wrong.
“This is nice, don’t you think?” Thomas’s voice wasn’t quite even as he bent to her breast, touching her in ways that made her want to take a shower.
“No, Thomas, it’s not nice. I told you yesterday morning that I don’t want this.”
He continued to toy with her nipple, sliding his free hand up to start on her other breast, as well. “Our situation’s changed since then,” he said, catching the tip of her breast between his teeth as he spoke.
She did her best not to flinch. Not to show any vulnerability that would turn him on hotter, faster. And tried to think of her baby safely asleep down the hall. He’d refused to go to his father, but had spent much of the evening staring at him, and Thomas had been satisfied with that.
He’d thought it a sign of respect.
“How has our situation changed?” she asked, more as a delaying tactic than anything else. She couldn’t think of Taylor right now. Didn’t want to remember the number of times he’d asked for Daddy or Dog when she was putting him to bed. Didn’t ever want her son to know this about his mother, the degrading things she’d submitted to because she was too stupid or too weak to free herself.
Because she was such a bad judge of character she’d married a maniac.
That’s not true. You’re not a bad judge of character—he fooled everyone. Leah’s voice floated into her mind. And from a distance Kate recognized the truth of the words her friend had never uttered to her. Because Thomas’s abuse was the one thing she’d never shared with Leah.
To Leah’s detriment.
“We’re officially back together,” Thomas said. “And tonight I plan to enjoy the best part of having a wife.”
“Even if I don’t want it?”
Thomas had always insisted their sevants not live in the house with them, and she knew this was why.
“Of course.” He glanced up at her, smiled. “Especially then. I can always make you want it. You know that. You’re a whore at heart, Kate, always have been.”
He was going to hurt her. She knew that. But she couldn’t just stand there and let him browbeat her into believing lies about herself.
“No, Thomas, I’m not.”
“You going to tell me that in the time you were gone you never slept with another man?”
Yes, she was going to tell him that. She was going to renounce Scott as if he’d never been. Because she had to.
She stared up at the only person she’d ever truly hated. Opened her mouth.
“You did!”
“No, Thomas, I—” Kate heard the fear in her voice and knew she’d lost. She hadn’t even made it through one night.
“You little bitch!” The slap across her mouth was familiar, even after a two-year respite. “You fucking whore!” The name-calling seemed to excite him. His eyes were glazed, his hands shaking as he ripped her shirt off her shoulders, bruising her shoulders as he yanked off her bra.
She raised her hands to protect herself. He slapped her again, then grabbed both breasts, squeezing them. “Did he touch you here, baby?” he sneered. “Like this?”
“Thomas, no!” With a strength she’d had no idea she possessed, Kate pulled away from him, ran for the door, was halfway down the hall before he caught up with her.
“Not with Taylor here,” she said, appealing the newfound fatherhood he apparently prized.
His eyes didn’t clear as she’d expected. Instead, they took on a gleam she didn’t recognize. There was no calculation there, no awareness of the pleasure he took in violence, just the look of a crazy man bent on retribution for all the sins against him.
“He’s not mine, is he?” he screamed, clutching her by the shoulders, shaking her so hard she almost lost consciousness. “I knew it! I knew it was too good to be true. A whore like you? You wouldn’t do anything so right as to give me a son.”
As if completely repulsed, he pushed her away from him so hard, the force of her fall knocked the wind out of her. And bruised the back of her head.
Through stars, Kate saw him head into Taylor’s room, saw the light come on.
“No!” Her screams scraped her throat. “No! You will not hurt him!”
Taylor’s angry wail drew her up from the floor and into his room. The baby hung suspended between his insane father’s hands.
Thomas’s head turned, his glare aimed straight at her. “Whose is he?” His roar scared the baby.
“Mama! Mama!” The shrieks tore through her, but it was the frantic look in her baby’s eyes that broke her heart.
“He’s yours!” She had to convince him. It might be the only way to save Taylor’s life. She hung on to Thomas, barely noticing her state of undress, the tears pouring down her face, the pain throbbing so fiercely in her head she could hardly focus.
“Please!” The word was a cry and a scream. “We did the test today! Do you think I would’ve done that if he belonged to anyone but you? What would’ve been the point?” She was rambling, her words only half decipherable even to herself. “You’ll know tomorrow, Thomas! He’s your son!”
“You whore!” he shouted again, shoving at her face with his elbow. The crack made her dizzy. She tasted blood in her mouth. “You have no friends!” he continued. The diatribe was familiar. She’d heard it innumerable times and, knowing what would come next, almost gave up, gave in, almost slid to the floor and let oblivion take over.
“Mama! Mama!” The dark-haired little boy was terrified. But so far he wasn’t hurt.
“Thomas!” She stumbled but straightened in front of him. “Do whatever you want with me. I’m your wife. All yours.” She coughed as a trickle of blood ran down her throat. “But don’t hurt him! You don’t want to! I promise, he’s yours.”
He stared at her. At the overwrought baby flinging himself wildly in her direction. “Stop it, son,” he commanded with a hard shake.
Oh God. His neck. “His neck!” The words burst from her as he shook the child a second time.
She didn’t see the foot coming until Thomas had landed a blow between her legs. “You fucking bitch! When you die I’ll be glad, you hear me? Glad!” Spittle sprayed her forehead. “No one’s ever liked you. No one! The world’ll be a better place without you!”
Maybe.
“Mama!” Taylor’s voice moved farther away.
“Give him to me!” She tried to yell, but the sound was weak, her throat hoarse.
“Look at him!” Thomas hollered, seeming to take some kind of powerful pleasure from shaking the baby. “He’s not mine! If he were, he’d obey me! Whiteheads always obey their fathers. Who does he obey, bitch?”
“Mamamamama!!!”
“Give him to me!” She was seeing stars. And shadows. And Thomas over by the window. Opening it.
“You want him so badly, don’t you?” Thomas said, his voice dangerously low and laced with a sickening glee. “Tell me how badly!”
“Thomas, please.”
Kate was out of her mind. Her heart was going to stop soon. No heart could beat that hard for that long, endure that much pain and still keep pumping.
“Mamamama! Down!”
“He wants down, love,” Thomas said, his voice sounding almost curious. “What do you say we put him down?”
With one thrust he had the window open and, before she’d even realized his intent, had Taylor hanging, suspended by his armpits out the second-story window.
“Dadadada
!”
Kate might have laughed at fate’s final, bitter irony, but then everything happened at once. As hopeless as she knew the act would be, she lunged for her son, but was held back by a strong male arm that wrapped around her middle, pulling her kicking and screaming away.
“No, honey, you’ll force him to let go…”
The words whispered in her ear were an illusion, as was the arm around her waist. She must have already lost consciousness.
But that didn’t explain why she saw Thomas let go of one of the baby’s arms. Heard him taunt her.
“You want him, baby, come and get him. And watch him fall…”
The last she remembered was an image of Scott lunging for her son as Thomas let him go.
“Hi.”
Kate blinked at the light that was blinding her. Heaven’s light. The one dying people always saw at the end of the tunnel. And Scott’s voice.
“Hi,” she said, figuring it made some kind of sense to hear Scott’s voice now that she was dead. She could feel herself smiling, although it hurt to smile.
“How are you?”
There was movement beside her. The touch of a hand against hers. Just a touch. She hadn’t expected to feel anything after death.
“Fine.”
“You are, huh?” More movement. Another soft touch—this one against her forehead. Just there and gone. “You don’t look fine.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” It hurt to talk. In her mouth. And her throat. And probably her head, too.
“Don’t say that.” Scott’s voice was stern and she felt like crying. “Don’t ever say that,” he went on. “You have nothing to be sorry for.” His words just kept coming so she listened, starting to make out shapes through the light. “You are an incredibly intelligent, courageous, loving woman who has more inner strength than I can ever hope to have.”
“I hurt.”
“I know, honey.”
He sounded sorry. Sorrow and pain. In life—and death.
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