Within Range (HQR Intrigue)

by Janice Kay Johnson - His Best Friend's Baby

  Midafternoon, Jacob still not having stirred, she called the hospital, where she was told Mrs. Wilbanks would be spending the night but was responsive and talking. The receptionist put the call through to Iris’s room, but nobody answered.

  When she tried again after dinner, she was able to talk to Iris, whose first words were “Oh, my dear! Jacob must have been so scared. I didn’t do a very good job taking care of him, did I?”

  “You did a fabulous job,” Helen said firmly. “We saved him because you slowed that awful man down and called 9-1-1 immediately. I got home in the nick of time, but what made him take off was the approaching sirens. I am...so grateful to you, Iris. Losing Jacob—” For a moment she couldn’t speak, but knew she didn’t have to tell Iris, of all people, what she felt.

  The older woman had two adult children, both male, one living in Boston, the other in a Portland suburb, but she’d once confided that her daughter had died from childhood leukemia when she was ten. She and Helen had sat side by side holding hands for several minutes.

  Iris was the closest thing Jacob had ever had to a grandmother.

  After calming her now, Helen asked how she was feeling, and was unsurprised to hear about a headache. “A concussion, the doctor said,” Iris concluded. “I’ll look ghastly for a while, too. My left eye is almost entirely swollen shut, and I’m going to have a whopper of a black eye. My jaw hurts, too. I might have lost some teeth, so it’s lucky I don’t have any.” She sounded almost cheerful. “My dentures are intact, thank goodness.”

  “You’re a brave woman, and I’m luckier than I deserve to have you for a neighbor.”

  Usually Iris would have demurred, but this time she said with satisfaction, “I’ll have to call both boys tonight and tell them all about it.”

  Helen said tentatively, “Did you get a good look at your attacker?”

  “I’m afraid not. The detective came to see me earlier, you know. He was so nice. I’m sorry I couldn’t help. I heard footsteps—he came in the back door, you see—but I had only started to turn when something slammed into my head. It might have just been his arm, or fist.”

  “Just?”

  Iris chuckled, then moaned. “Oh, I shouldn’t do that!”

  “I’m sorry—”

  “Don’t be silly. Jacob ran, you know. I crawled for the phone, and had already dialed 9-1-1 before he got his hands on Jacob and tore out.”

  Helen hated the image of Jacob trying to run away.

  She thanked Iris several more times.

  After setting down the phone, Helen stayed where she was at the kitchen table, wrestling again with her conscience. But in the end, what choice did she really have?

  None. If she told Seth everything, she risked going to prison and leaving Jacob to Richard’s mercy. No. She had to do this.

  With a sigh, she took out her checkbook to verify that she’d paid all of her bills, and tucked the latest bank statement into her purse. She’d stop at an ATM wherever she found herself after midnight and take out more money. From that point on, she wouldn’t dare use her debit card again. She’d be leaving close to five hundred dollars in the account, but that couldn’t be helped. Worse come to worst, she could call her mother and beg for a loan—although she hated doing that.

  No, she had enough to take care of them for a few weeks, until she could stop long enough to put together a new identity. Goodbye, Helen, hello... Who knew? Whoever that woman was, she’d have light brown hair, Helen had already decided. Blond was too memorable. Her natural color was out.

  Once Jacob had gotten up from his nap, Helen did her absolute best to keep him from guessing that anything was about to change. She played a game with him, helped him build with his plastic blocks, even watched a Disney movie with him after dinner. Tucked him in, set her alarm and went to bed herself, hoping she could sleep but failing.

  At midnight, she got up, packed the last few things—including the connecting blocks—and slipped out to the garage with a flashlight. Shuddering, she had to shake a big spider off one of the duffel bags before she could lift them from hiding and carry them out to stow in the trunk of her car. The remaining packaged food in the kitchen went in the trunk, too. She closed it as quietly as she possibly could, and looked around for any movement in the darkness. Her skin prickled with her nerves, and her chest ached with regret she tried to shake off.

  Last was the ice chest, which would ride on the back seat next to Jacob.

  She hadn’t turned on her porch light, of course. Her eyes had adjusted some to the darkness, but she still had to watch her feet carefully so she didn’t trip on the front steps. That was why she’d almost reached the car before she saw the tall man leaning against the back fender, arms crossed.

  He shook his head. “Not happening.”

  Chapter Six

  Seth straightened, took the ice chest from her and inclined his head toward the house. Without a word, Helen turned and retraced her steps.

  Inside, he set the ice chest down on the kitchen counter. Face pinched, she’d gotten only as far as the doorway.

  “You’ve been spying on me.”

  “I have.”

  “How did you know...?”

  There was no easy answer to that. “You only had a few alternatives. I could tell you weren’t going to open up to me.” He shrugged. “There was something about the way you thanked me.” As if she was really saying goodbye.

  She wrung her hands together and pleaded, “Please let me go. Richard won’t give up. He’ll keep coming after me.”

  “You?” He cocked an eyebrow. “Or his son?”

  He lost sight of her shocked stare when she gave an anguished cry and spun to present her back to him.

  “Helen.” Seth went to stand right behind her. He hesitated before setting his hands on her shoulders and gently squeezing. “Let me help you.”

  He had no idea whether she saw him as anything but the detective who’d become a major obstacle. Until her secrets were laid bare, he couldn’t let himself feel more. She sparked something powerful in him, though. His one certainty was that he needed to keep her close where he could protect her and her son.

  With his hands still on her, Seth felt the shuddery breath she drew. “I didn’t want to go,” she said, so quietly he just heard her. “But I’m scared to stay.”

  “You have to talk to me, Helen.”

  The quivering tension in her body relented, and her shoulders sagged. Finally she nodded and, as his hands fell away, faced him. “You haven’t left me any choice.”

  No, he hadn’t.

  Once she sat at the kitchen table, he pulled out a chair and did the same. “Jacob asleep?”

  “I was going to wake him last thing.” Her eyes looked more like bitter chocolate than caramel right now.

  He couldn’t afford much sympathy. “Where did you live before you came to Lookout? You must know I haven’t found any background on you before you moved here.”

  “We did live in Southern California. I told you the truth about that. The thing is...” She looked away, then back to his face, the jut of her chin defiant. “I changed my name.”

  “I didn’t find a divorce decree.”

  “It wasn’t in this state, and...I mean, I did legally go back to my maiden name after the divorce, but later when I had to run, I took on a new identity. When he found me in LA, I did it again. I wasn’t Helen Boyd until the day I left.”

  Well, damn. He’d suspected as much, but taking on new identities wasn’t easy these days. “Who were you before?”

  “Um... I was Megan Cobb. She... I found her in a cemetery in Seattle. She died before her first birthday.” Once again Helen averted her face. “I felt like I’d stolen something.” She swallowed. “I did.”

  “And Helen?”

  “Her grave is in Bakersfield, California. She was eight when she died.” />
  Her voice held pity for children who hadn’t had a chance to grow up, for their parents, too, but also sharp regret because stealing those identities hadn’t kept her and Jacob safe, after all.

  “How long had you been in Southern California?” he asked.

  “A year and a half. Jacob was born there.”

  “How did you know your ex-husband had found you?” Seth wondered if she realized she was clutching herself.

  “Over several days, I kept seeing the same man. Just glimpses. At the grocery store, near the bus stop I rode to work. The one that wasn’t far from Jacob’s day care. That time—” she rocked slightly “—he was pointing a camera at me. One with a huge lens.”

  “What did you do?” Seth couldn’t help hearing the growl in his voice.

  She seemed calmed by his anger. “I got off the bus at my office, went in like I always do but slipped out through the parking garage. Took a couple of different buses until I got home. I threw a few things in a suitcase, picked up Jacob and just started driving.”

  “To Bakersfield.”

  “Yes. I’d decided to stay off major freeways.”

  “And then you headed toward home.”

  She chewed on her bottom lip for a minute before her desperate gaze met his. “That might have been stupid, I don’t know. I thought it was the last thing Richard would expect.”

  “The question is how he found you in the first place. And whether he did.”

  “Why would anyone else be watching me? Or hire an investigator?”

  Seth shrugged his concession then grilled her. Had she maintained any hobbies from when she was married?

  No. She looked at him like he was nuts. How was a single, working mother of a baby supposed to have time for hobbies?

  What about work? Was she doing the same kind of jobs she’d had when married, or before her marriage?

  Richard hadn’t let her work outside the home. His insistence was her first clue that a trap was closing on her. And no, she’d worked in community development with a specific focus on Seattle’s problem with a growing homeless population.

  “That’s how I met him.” Her fingernails appeared to be biting into her upper arms. “He—I spoke to the city council. He talked to me afterward.”

  It was all Seth could do to tamp down his reaction. “Tell me about your family.”

  “My father died over five years ago, from a heart attack. It’s just Mom, me and my sister, Allie.”

  “How much contact do you have?”

  “Very little. I don’t know what can be traced, and what can’t. Once in a while, I buy one of those cheap phones, call and then throw it away. That’s it.”

  “Do you always call your mother? Your sister?”

  “No. I alternate, and Mom still has a landline, too, so sometimes I use that one.”

  “Okay.” He rolled his shoulders to stretch tight muscles. Here was the part he was really going to hate. “Tell me about your marriage.”

  * * *

  THE FIRST WORDS that came out of Helen’s mouth were “I was stupid.” Even before Seth shook his head, she wished them unsaid. She knew better. She was a smart, educated woman who’d read about abusive relationships and how manipulative, power-mad men wrapped their coils slowly around their prey. Like dipping a toe in cold water, then going ankle-deep, thigh-deep—at which point she’d known she was in trouble—but getting out wasn’t so easy once she plunged into the icy depths.

  “What happened is on him,” he said.

  “Yes. Yes, it is,” Helen agreed fiercely. The counseling she’d received while in the women’s shelter had helped her recover her confidence. For her, it happened fast, because she’d escaped her marriage quickly. It hadn’t lasted even two years.

  “Why did you fall for him?”

  She gazed at a bare stretch of wall so that she didn’t have to see what Seth was thinking.

  Voice tight, she said, “He’s handsome, maybe the most intelligent person I’d ever met, seemingly committed to a lot of good causes. He...has this sort of force field. I guess it’s charisma, but once people are sucked in, they want him to like them. They tend to do what he suggests, too.”

  “Sounds like a warlock.”

  “Yes. I never figured out if he really is well-intentioned in his stances on issues. Maybe I satisfied his need for control while he had me.” She hated feeling shame, didn’t deserve to feel it, but that was a battle she hadn’t entirely won yet. “It was classic. He didn’t want me to work, always thought of something the two of us could do when I planned to get together with a friend or Mom or Allie. His intensity kept me from noticing. I thought this sort of passionate closeness was normal in the first year of marriage.” She meant to laugh, but the sound was discordant. “Then he started giving me the silent treatment if I displeased him, which was awful since half the time I had no idea what I’d done or said. The first time he hit me, I almost left him, but he groveled, and I was sure I’d provoked his temper, and...” Her muscles rigid, she hadn’t moved since she’d started talking. “Only then it happened again. And again. I made up my mind to leave him. Unfortunately, the housekeeper called to let him know I was packing to go, and he came home. He beat me so badly, he had to take me to the ER. I think the doctor there suspected, but I made up some story because Richard was sitting there holding my hand, so loving and solicitous. After that, he told me no woman left him, and if I tried, he’d kill me. That made me wonder—” She hesitated.

  “About?”

  “He’d been married before, to a woman he met when he was a graduate student at the University of Michigan. She’d died in some kind of accident, supposedly.”

  Seth said something she was just as glad not to hear.

  “I was essentially a prisoner from then on. The housekeeper lived in, and a man started work as sort of a butler but really more of a bodyguard—and prison guard. After that, no matter how careful I was, I couldn’t please Richard. I made visits to half the emergency rooms in the city. He kept entertaining with me as his hostess, but he made sure I never had a chance to be alone with any of the guests.” She let out a long breath. “I’m not sure I’d have had the nerve to latch onto someone I didn’t know very well and beg for rescue, anyway.”

  “But you did escape.” Seth’s voice was guttural.

  “Yes. I waited for a chance when no one was watching. I’d been stealing a little bit of money at a time from Richard. He’d drop his coins or a few dollars on the dresser at night. You know.” Her shrug had to look as stiff as it felt. “I didn’t need much. When I saw my chance, I walked out. No coat, I couldn’t take anything. I...had bruises on my face. I walked quite a way before I saw a taxi. When I got in, the taxi driver took one look at me, then drove me to a hospital. A social worker called a women’s shelter for me. Someone came to get me.” She stopped.

  “You were pregnant.”

  Helen turned her head slowly to look at him. His face remained impassive, but his eyes glittered with what she knew was fury. Seeing that let her relax a little. It comforted her.

  “I had been feeling tired and nauseated for several weeks, but I thought it was stress. Thank God I left when I did.” The alternative still horrified her. “He had no idea I was pregnant.”

  Seth leaned forward. “Do you have scars?”

  “I... Only a couple. He...mostly broke bones.”

  Muscles in the detective’s jaw clenched. His blue eyes burned into hers. “Will you show me?”

  Startled, she shrank back. “Show you?”

  “Your scars.”

  He needed proof, she supposed. After a moment, she nodded.

  His chair scraped back. Bending her head, she tugged the collar of her sweatshirt aside so he could see the spot low on her neck.

  “He sometimes smoked cigars. Expensive Cuban ones, of course. He sort of stabbed me with the
burning tip of one.”

  Her fingers could have unerringly found the scar, even though the skin there no longer felt any sensation. Still, she’d swear she felt Seth lightly touch it with the tip of his finger.

  “I have a couple of other places, but I’d have to take clothes off, and I...” Her cheeks felt hot. She didn’t want to strip in front of him, for a whole lot of reasons.

  “Okay.” He gently tugged the neckline of her shirt back up. She could hear him breathing behind her. What was he doing? But then he returned to his place at the table, his expression grim. Helen knew what was coming.

  “What’s his name, Helen?” He frowned. “What’s your name?”

  Panic skittered over her. “You can’t—”

  “I can’t what?”

  “I don’t know!” she exclaimed. It was obvious Richard already knew where she was. “I just—”

  He waited.

  Was there any chance at all he could ask questions about Richard without learning about the bodyguard’s murder?

  She closed her eyes in resignation. What could she do but tell him? At least for now, running wasn’t an option. The knowledge gave her a claustrophobic feeling.

  Possibly because she was, once again, trapped? Another man had seized control over her life? Yes. Dear God, yes.

  And yet...relief was part of what she felt, too. She hadn’t wanted to leave this life and people she’d come to care about behind. Surrendering the burden of responsibility, if only briefly, that was a relief, too.

  Unless, of course, she ended up being arrested.

  Unreadable, Seth kept watching her.

  “Richard Winstead. He’s...a corporate attorney in Seattle. He sits on several advisory committees appointed by the mayor and city council members.” Bitterness etched her voice when she added, “If you ask around about him, all you’ll hear are glowing compliments.”

  “He’s not the first successful man to abuse his wife. Domestic violence covers every social class.”