“I knew it would happen that way.” Instead of greeting her, Gail walked inside with a puzzled frown and continued into the master bedroom. Casey trailed her, puzzled, since the nurse had never shown any interest in that room before. “Women in my family always deliver fast. I knew it would be that way with my baby, too.”
“I didn’t realize you’d had a child.” Her neighbor had never mentioned it, Casey was certain.
Gail stared around the heavily shadowed room. “This doesn’t look right.”
“The electricity’s off.” Wasn’t that obvious? “Gail, I need you to drive me to the hospital.”
The other woman didn’t seem to hear. “I set everything up. We have to go to my place.”
“For what?” Casey asked.
“For the birth, of course.”
“Gail!” She wished the nurse would snap out of whatever this was. “I need to go into town.”
“I have to make sure he doesn’t find us.”
“Who?” Casey demanded. “Owen’s in jail.”
“We’ll be safe there.”
The response didn’t track. It reminded her of a customer at the restaurant where she’d worked in L.A.
One day he’d wandered in muttering, oblivious to his surroundings. “He gets that way sometimes,” the manager had said. “Slips in and out of psychosis. Just give him a coffee and leave him alone.”
How could that apply to Gail? She wasn’t psychotic.
Case recalled the comment she’d made last night about Owen resenting the baby. There’d been a disconnect, but she’d snapped out of it quickly. With luck, she’d do so again now.
She clapped her hands. “The hospital! That’s where we’re going, Gail.”
“No!” Two powerful hands clamped onto her forearms. “I’ve kept you safe. We’re not going anywhere that he can hurt us!”
Kept her safe? As Casey stared up at the larger woman, the truth dawned. Gail was the other prowler, the one who’d vandalized Jack’s car and tried to burn down Enid’s house. She’d attacked anyone who got close.
That must be why she’d yelled at Matt for visiting too often. He’d been trying to warn Casey earlier, not threaten her.
“Nobody’s going to hurt us.” She spoke placatingly. “Dean isn’t here, Gail.”
“Don’t you go making excuses for him!” the woman snarled. “He killed the baby inside me and he’ll do it again.”
She must have had a miscarriage, Casey realized. No wonder Gail had been traumatized. “Listen!” Casey rapped out the word. “Dean has nothing to do with this. That happened a long time ago. Stop this right now!”
A groan wrenched from the woman, animalistic in its ferocity. Without warning, she slammed Casey into the wall.
Pain throbbed through her head. She could barely react as the nurse yanked her through the hall and into the living room.
Another cramp caught her midsection. Not now!
“Stop struggling!” Gail roared, sounding not like a battered wife but like an abuser. If she was identifying with her ex-husband, how far would she go?
Casey jerked away from her captor but, gripped by the contraction, she nearly fell. The next thing she knew, she was being dragged out of the house. Mud sucked at her bedroom slippers and drizzle soaked her top as the enraged woman hauled her along the trail.
Casey yelled for help but the wind whipped away the words. There was no one to hear them, anyway. With darkness falling, Enid and Matt must be tucked inside their homes. Even if Bo and Rita returned from work, they wouldn’t be able to see her on the secluded path.
When they staggered into the cabin, the presence of the playpen and child gates struck Casey as grotesque evidence of their owner’s delusions. Still recovering from the contraction, she tried in vain to resist as Gail thrust her into the bedroom.
A fetal monitoring device, probably discarded by the hospital, occupied one corner. An alarming array of medications and syringes covered the bedside table. And on either side of the bed, Gail had installed restraint straps.
It was a scene from a nightmare. Knowing it might be the last chance she had, Casey threw back her head and screamed.
* * *
JACK PULLED UP behind a car he assumed belonged to Gail. Casey’s was still in the carport.
The front door stood ajar. He hurled himself through it, shouting for his wife.
A mad race from room to room turned up nothing except a bunch of lit candles left unattended. Casey must have been forced to exit unexpectedly.
He tried to call the police. Nothing worked—not his cell phone and not her land line.
Jack would have to handle this on his own. His mind buzzed.
If the nurse had fixated on his wife and her pregnancy, she might not be operating rationally. Just because a person suffered from a mental illness, however, didn’t mean he or she lacked cunning.
Did Gail keep a gun at her cabin? What a grim irony that he’d queried her about the other tenants’ weapons but he had no idea about hers.
Jack was weighing whether to try Bo’s house when he heard the scream. There was no time to lose.
He ran to the car and put it in gear.
* * *
KNOWING SHE WAS FIGHTING for her baby, Casey attacked her abductor frantically. Biting and kicking, she startled the older woman long enough to twist free.
Gail still blocked the exit. Seeking weapons, Casey snatched a scalpel and a syringe from the bedside table. “You take one step closer and I’ll make you sorry!”
The nurse’s eyes fixed on the implements as if they mesmerized her. “Put those down. You’ll hurt yourself.”
“Back up,” Casey said. “Get away from me.”
The nurse blinked and a shudder ran through her. “He beat me,” she half whispered. “I lost my little boy. I never even got to hold him in my arms.”
“That was a long time ago. It has nothing to do with me.” Casey kept the sharp tools aimed, unable to spare any sympathy while she remained in danger.
“He plea-bargained in court. They gave him three months.” Gail’s voice broke. “Three months! He cried and said he was sorry, that he’d stop drinking. When he got out, he seemed so different. I thought no other man would love me, especially when they told me I couldn’t have any more children.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks. Casey felt sorry for what the woman had endured and for the lack of self-esteem that had kept her in such a horrible relationship. But she wasn’t foolish enough to let down her guard.
When her abdomen squeezed again, she nearly panicked. She couldn’t become vulnerable, not now.
From behind Gail, a scraping noise marked someone’s entry into the house. Then Casey heard the most welcome sound in the world.
It was her husband’s voice, calling her name.
* * *
JACK WOULD NEVER FORGET the sight of his wife crouched in that bizarre room, defending herself with a couple of small implements. Or the slackness in Gail’s expression as she hovered between madness and sanity, unable or unwilling to face what she’d done.
He subdued her without difficulty. Sunk into a deep depression, she hardly spoke a word.
Casey leaned against the wall, arms wrapped around her midsection. “You got here in the nick of time.”
“I’ll never doubt my instincts again,” he told her. “I only wish I’d never left.”
She grinned crookedly. “So do I.”
Matt showed up a minute later, having also heard the scream, and they secured Gail with a length of twine from his pocket.
Her phone, which didn’t require electricity, still worked. While Jack put in calls to the police and the doctor, Casey had another contraction.
“They’re about four minutes apart,” she said.
“You’re keeping track?” He couldn’t believe her presence of mind.
“I check my watch automatically.”
He encircled her with his arm and wished he could absorb the pain into himself. When she gas
ped, he told her over and over that everything was going to be all right. It seemed to help.
A police cruiser and the ambulance arrived simultaneously. Relinquishing Gail to the chief ’s custody, Jack thanked Matt and rode with his wife into town.
“I keep wondering when this craziness started and why I didn’t notice it.” Sweat beaded her forehead as the vehicle crunched over the littered roadway.
“She must have seized on Owen’s activities to cover her attempts to drive people away.” Jack brushed a damp strand off his wife’s brow. “The important thing now is for you to relax.”
“Relax? Oh, no, here comes another one!”
Dr. Smithson met them in the labor room, along with a nurse Jack hadn’t seen before. They sent him to scrub up so he could witness the birth.
He was glad he hadn’t had to deliver the baby himself out there at the Pine Woods. He felt helpless in the face of the powerful forces controlling his wife’s body.
The doctor and nurse, by contrast, knew exactly what to do. So, in a way, did Casey, who had all the right instincts.
And she’d been prepared. Gail had managed to do that right, at least.
Soon—much faster than usual for a first-timer, the nurse informed him—the infant’s head descended, followed by her perfect body.
“She’s fabulous,” Jack told Casey as the nurse wrapped Diane warmly. “I can’t believe it. She’s wearing a hat. Is that stylish or what?”
“The hospital volunteers make them,” the nurse explained. “Come on, Dad. Want to hold her?”
“My wife gets priority.”
“Go ahead,” Casey said. “I want to see her in your arms.”
Jack crooked his elbow and accepted the tiny infant with trepidation. Wrinkled and waxy, she seemed much smaller than the newborns on TV shows. “Isn’t she kind of little?”
“Seven pounds eight ounces,” the nurse answered. “That’s a healthy size.”
A miniature hand closed around Jack’s finger. He heard himself saying foolish things about what a strong grip she had and pointing out that her eyes were as blue as her mother’s.
“And you’ll be a perfect angel. You’ll never hog the bathroom and you won’t date any boy unless I approve of him, right?” he asked his daughter. “Maybe you’ll let your old man escort you to the prom.”
“Fat chance,” the nurse quipped.
“Hey! Let her answer for herself.”
He reveled in the joy of cradling the miracle that was his daughter, until he noticed Casey’s eyelids drooping. If he didn’t hurry, his wife would go to sleep without holding their child.
“Sorry. I’m being selfish,” he said, and lowered Diane gently.
Casey buried her nose in the little girl’s temple. With a contented sigh, she curled around their daughter.
A sense of awe claimed Jack. He allowed himself to revel in it a little while longer as the nurse removed the baby to be examined at length. But it didn’t last.
The danger was over. So why did he still feel unsettled as he paced into the waiting room?
He had unfinished business in Greece, of course. Then what? He loved Casey and Diane so much he didn’t see how he could bear to give them up, yet his wife had made it clear their marriage wasn’t her top priority.
If she didn’t love him enough to come back to L.A., then she might not love him enough to stay together in the face of whatever life threw at them. Even if he had the good fortune to find work here, he couldn’t promise they’d always be able to stay in Richfield Crossing.
If he had to live without her, better to do it now while he still had a place to go and a job to do. Yet leaving her and the baby felt like cutting off his arm.
His spirits flagging, Jack went to check on Casey. She was asleep in the recovery room, a nurse told him. Reassured that she’d suffered no complications, he decided not to disturb her.
At the nursery window, he studied his daughter in her clear plastic bassinet. Since she was the only newborn there, no one disturbed him as he watched her wave her little hands and blink sleepily.
An amazing panorama spread before him—images of a toddler learning to walk, a little girl laughing as she rode her tricycle, a young girl singing in choir. His girl. His Diane.
He would come back to see her as often as he could, even if Casey didn’t like it. He’d provide for her, too, of course. This little girl would grow up knowing she had a daddy.
Jack’s throat clenched. Finally he tore himself away.
* * *
WHEN CASEY AWOKE, weak morning light seeped through the hospital window. Now that the medications had worn off, her body ached from labor and delivery and from Gail’s assault.
Yet at the same time she felt a profound relief. She’d stood up for herself, and Jack had come back when she needed him.
She smiled when she saw him in the doorway. The smile faded as she took in his business suit. “You’re leaving?”
“I still have a job to do,” he said. “I went by your house and secured everything. I talked to Enid and she promised to drive you home from the hospital when you’re ready.”
Casey didn’t want Enid to drive her home. She wanted her husband. Wasn’t there anything she could do to make him stay?
Nothing she hadn’t already tried, she thought unhappily.
“Thank you,” she told him. “If you hadn’t showed up, I don’t know what would have happened.”
“Matt was on his way,” he answered. “And Gail didn’t appear to have much fight left in her. You were quite a tiger, sweetheart, defending your cub.”
“But nothing’s going to be the same without you,” Casey blurted. “I’m not Superwoman. I can’t do everything myself.”
“There’s no point in going over the same ground again.” Jack thrust his hands into his pockets. “I wish … well, never mind what I wish. Some things weren’t meant to be.”
This isn’t one of them! Casey felt like shouting, but she didn’t want to waste their last few minutes on a quarrel. “You’re welcome any time.”
He didn’t answer. He’d retreated behind that mask again.
A nurse’s aide entered with breakfast. Jack gave Casey a quick kiss, mumbled something about catching his flight, and fled.
The world had become much too big a place, she thought glumly as the aide plumped up her pillows. And Richfield Crossing suddenly seemed very small.
* * *
CHIEF ROUNDTREE DROPPED BY later that morning. “I thought you and Jack might like to hear the latest.” Moving with a trace of a limp, he took a chair.
“He had to leave.” Casey adjusted the covers over the robe Enid had brought her. The tenant had arrived earlier, eagerly recounting how the electricity had come on in the middle of the night and awakened her.
“Gone already? Darn shame. Well, Mrs. Fordham’s lawyer had her transferred to a mental facility for evaluation.”
“I couldn’t believe the change in her,” Casey admitted. “It’s as if I never knew her.”
“I don’t hold with insanity defenses but that woman’s not right upstairs.” The chief ’s wrinkles seemed deeper than usual, and she realized he must have had a long night. “I made a call back to Michigan. The police had to do some digging but it turned out a patient had filed a complaint about her a couple of years ago. Apparently Mrs. Fordham became obsessed with the woman’s pregnancy and began calling her at home, saying she wanted to come and get her baby.”
Casey had never imagined the troubles went back that far. “I’m surprised Dr. Smithson hired her.”
“They never filed any charges because she left her job voluntarily,” Roundtree explained. “It’s not the sort of thing one employer relates to another. These days, you can be sued if you give an employee a bad report.”
“So he never knew about it?” Casey didn’t need an answer. “But she’s been here two years. How come this never happened before?”
“I’m no expert in psychology.” The chief sighed. “Maybe th
at incident in Michigan shocked her into behaving. Then you came along, alone and needing a friend.”
Casey didn’t want to think about what might have happened had she never phoned Jack about the prowler. Yesterday, Gail had become so delusional, she’d have done anything to get the baby.
“What about Owen Godwin?” she asked. “What’s going on with him?”
“He may be senile; however, he’s not so far gone he can’t be held responsible for his actions. At least, that’s my opinion, but it’ll be up to the jury. Still, if they convict him, he may get to serve his sentence in a special facility.”
“I hope Mrs. Godwin and Mimi are bearing up.”
Roundtree cleared his throat. “According to my wife, they’re getting some help from a very sympathetic young man. That would be Royce Ledbetter, in case you hadn’t guessed. He’s serving as volunteer chauffeur and shoulder to cry on.”
Casey remembered the way he and Mimi had danced at the community center. “That’s good news.”
The chief arose stiffly. “Your husband is an impressive fellow. I hope we get to see more of him.”
“I do, too.” She preferred not to burden Roundtree with her problems. Besides, she didn’t want to risk him repeating anything to his wife.
After he left, Casey thought about Royce and Mimi. How incredibly lucky they were to fall for someone who lived in the same town. Life would have been so much easier if she’d never gone to L.A.
But then she wouldn’t have met Jack. And no matter how much it hurt to lose him, she would never wish that.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
On the next afternoon, Casey’s milk came in. Despite some initial awkwardness, she managed with the nurse’s guidance to provide Diane’s first feeding. It gave her immense satisfaction.
Only after she’d laid the baby in the bedside bassinet did Casey realize that, under other circumstances, Gail might have been the one to instruct her on infant care. Or that, at least, she’d have been a steady and welcome visitor.
It saddened her that the older woman had cut herself off. Of course, she hadn’t done so intentionally. Casey supposed she could find a way to forgive. Still, she’d never trust Gail again or allow her near Diane.
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