Alexis and Ron had talked through the rest of the night. Their conclusion had been mutual. Alexis and Jody had to disappear. It had taken months to make the arrangements, months when Jody and Alexis lived under the scrutiny of a bodyguard, months when incidents still occurred, and the time for action seemed to be getting shorter.
In the end their plans had come together in a matter of days. First Jody disappeared, flying to Hawaii with a friend of Ron's as chaperon. Then Alexis disappeared, traveling to Hawaii by way of Canada. From there they had spent the next nine months traveling to different ports of call, sometimes disguising themselves, always keeping on the move.
The trip had been grueling, but there had been occasional moments of comradeship and pleasure. Jody had landed in Hawaii during a surprise hurricane. The man who had escorted her, Gray Sheridan, had taken her to the house of a friend, Paige Duvall, to wait out the siege. Jody had made close friends during those three days, and those friends, Gray, Paige, Gray's wife Julianna, and an Australian opal miner named Dillon Ward, had since proved to be friends of Alexis's, too.
Before coming to Kangaroo Island she and Jody had spent a week in Waimauri, New Zealand, with Paige and her new husband Adam Tomoana, and Jody had claimed Adam's son Jeremy as the little brother she had never had. Dillon and his wife Kelsey had joined them there toward the end of their visit. Alexis had been glad for the chance to thank them for keeping her daughter safe during Hurricane Eve.
Best of all, she had known when she left Waimauri that she had friends in the Pacific that she could count on. Even Julianna and Gray, who made their home near Honolulu, kept in touch with her through Ron, each time reminding her that they were less than a day away if she needed them.
Alexis hoped she never would. She hoped she would no longer need Ron's unselfish support, either. She hugged his letter to her breast and tried to imagine a life free of threat. She wanted only the things that others took for granted. The freedom to live without looking over her shoulder. The freedom to love without endangering her loved ones.
" 'It looks like he's stopped searching for you, Dana. He can't chance anything now. He has too much to lose,'" she quoted in a whisper.
She just hoped that Ron was right.
A light tapping startled her from her thoughts. Her eyes flicked to the bedside clock. It was one thirty in the morning, but she had company.
She should have been afraid, but she wasn't. Perhaps it was the news in Ron's letter. Or more probably the fact that neither poachers nor a man intent on murder knocked first. She suspected immediately that it was Matthew at her kitchen door. He had probably been checking the property and seen that her light was on.
Displaying the proper amount of caution, she switched off her light, then crept through the dark hallway to peer into the kitchen. A man was silhouetted through the glass at her back door, and she recognized the erect posture and broad shoulders as Matthew's. She had the door open in seconds for him to enter. "Is something wrong? Are the poachers back?"
He had almost forgotten the poachers existed. He just wrapped his arms around her and stood in the dark, holding her.
Alexis felt his tension and the strength of his grip. He was holding her as if she had needed rescuing. "Matthew, what's wrong?" she asked, her voice muffled against his chest.
He wasn't sure how to tell her that he knew who she was, or that he had breached her privacy to find out. Worse yet, if he had discovered her identity, others could, too. She was certain to feel less safe.
Still he couldn't keep the truth from her. She had to know that he knew, but also that her secret was safe with him. She had to know that now, more than ever, he would work to protect her.
Alexis tried to pull away, and although Matthew resisted for a moment, he finally freed her. "What's wrong?" she repeated, looking for clues on his face. But there were none. The room was too dark and the man too skillful at hiding them.
"We need to talk."
"At one thirty?"
"Your light was on."
She sighed. "Insomniacs, both of us."
"I haven't slept much for three nights. I've been reading."
"Reading?"
"Let's sit down."
"Let's go into the living room, then." Alexis led the way, turning on a lamp by the door before she sat on the sofa. Without hesitation Matthew sat beside her.
"Reading?" she asked again, a peculiar feeling in her belly.
"Before I Sleep."
She sat back, turning her face away from him. "That's your problem, then. Reading before you sleep keeps you awake. Maybe you should try watching movies on your video recorder."
He decided to minimize the game playing. He reached into the crate beside him and pulled out a copy of the book. Silently he handed it to her. She took it without reading the cover. "Yes, I've read it, too," she said, struggling to sound calm. "It's a frightening book, and definitely not one to read at night."
"Stop pretending, Alexis. I know you wrote it."
"Get out." Alexis stood and pointed to the doorway with a trembling hand. "Get out right now!"
Matthew had expected almost any reaction except this one, but he didn't have to think of a response. He just reached up and pulled her back to the sofa in one swift movement. "I haven't told anyone," he assured her. "And I never will. Never!"
"And that's supposed to make me feel better?" Alexis tried to break free, but he held her steady.
"How much of the book is true, Alexis?"
She stopped struggling, but she didn't answer.
Matthew loosened his grip, rubbing his thumbs along the inside of her wrists. "I'm not a violent man," he said softly. "But when Jeannie and Todd died, I wanted to kill the pilot who'd been flying their plane. I couldn't, of course, because he'd died with them. But sometimes I'd wake up at night after it happened, and I'd wish he'd lived somehow, so that I could have the pleasure of killing him myself."
She shuddered, and her eyes filled with tears. But for whose sorrow, she didn't know.
"And when I finished your book tonight," he went on, "I knew what it was like to want to kill again."
"There's a piece of Charles in each of us, isn't there?"
He heard the tears in her voice and saw them on her cheeks. "No, there's not." He folded her hands and brought them to his chest. "Our anger is the other side of all that's good in us. The Charleses of the world maim and kill because they have nothing inside them except anger."
"You've only read my book. You don't know him."
Gently he lifted her hands and brought them to his lips. "Tell me, then."
"No!"
"I survived reading the book. You survived writing it."
"I don't talk about it!"
"Shall I ask you what's true, then? Scene by scene?"
"Why are you doing this?" Alexis wrenched her hands free, but she didn't move away, because she knew Matthew would just bring her back if she did.
"Because I have to know what we're up against before I can help you."
"I haven't asked for help."
"You have a record of not asking for help. How long did you live with Cahill before you asked?"
She was stunned that he would so quickly get to the root of her greatest humiliation. She stood, ready to fight him if he tried to stop her. But he didn't. He just sat quietly, watching her. The fight drained out of her before it had time to strengthen. She walked to the window, folding her arms against the chill wind that blew through the cracks in the sash.
When she spoke, her voice had no inflection, as if she were telling someone else's story. "My parents are important people, wealthy people. But they never let my brothers or me take that for granted. I was raised to be responsible. I suppose in a way it backfired, because I grew up feeling responsible for everything that went wrong around me. If my parents got angry with me—and they often did—I knew they were right. I deserved it because somehow I'd failed."
Matthew knew what she would say next, but he also knew she had t
o say it. He sat quietly and waited.
"I was raised never to complain. If I was punished, I was supposed to accept it quietly and be thankful my parents cared enough to punish me. And because I was different from my brothers, I was punished frequently."
"Different?"
"Absentminded. Inattentive. Poor at math and science and athletics, the pursuits that were important to them. I was a dreamer."
"For which the world is now grateful."
She didn't smile at his encouragement. "When Charles showed an interest in me, I think I saw a way to prove to my parents and brothers that I wasn't hopeless. Here was a powerful man, a man they respected absolutely, and he wanted their daughter. My stock rose in their eyes immediately."
"You married him because they wanted you to?"
"I can't blame my decision on anyone. I only know that when Charles asked me to be his wife, I felt like someone special. I realize now that Charles's aloofness, his arrogance, reminded me of my father. In some adolescent way, I wanted the love and approval from him that I'd never gotten at home. A substitute, I guess. I thought if I could make Charles love me, I would know I was worth anyone's love."
"You must have been very young."
"Immature." She shivered again, rubbing her arms for warmth she badly needed. "I didn't realize that Charles wanted me to satisfy his own unmet needs. I was young and virginal enough to appeal to his darkest fantasies. His behavior on our wedding night was unspeakable. When it was over, I knew I had made the greatest mistake of my life."
"You stayed with him anyway?"
She shook her head. "I went home, but I was too ashamed to tell my parents about the man I'd married. So I told them we had fought, and that I had grounds for an annulment. They were appalled. The next thing I knew, Charles was there, and then I was leaving with him. I suppose it was easy for him to convince my parents that I was just overwrought from the wedding and the tensions of starting a new life. Charles has a silver tongue. Perhaps I even believed him."
"You didn't!"
She was silent, filtering through all the memories, the feelings. "No," she said at last, "I didn't. But I did believe that things would be better. Charles swore he loved me, that he'd just been insane with passion, and that if he'd hurt me, he was sorry.
"That was the pattern of our life together at first. Charles would be brutal, brutal enough that sometimes I feared for my life. Almost anything could trigger it, his shirts not being ironed properly, my nightgown on the floor beside the bed, artichokes for dinner when he'd wanted asparagus. The brutality was always private. He never hurt me. in front of anyone. He never left marks. And he always seemed surprised if I was upset. He'd apologize, as if he were apologizing to a child."
"Yet you stayed with him?"
"He could be indulgent, too. Sometimes he could make me feel like I was pleasing him, that I had finally learned to be a good wife. And I was frightened and insecure enough to believe that maybe he was right, maybe it had been my fault before. Then the violence would begin again, only worse. We had a swimming pool." She stopped, swallowing because her throat had finally gone dry.
Matthew had read the book. He knew what was coming. "You don't have to go on."
She did anyway. "We had a swimming pool. Charles made me swim with him every night. He liked to play in the pool. Roughhousing, he called it."
"Alexis, don't!"
"On good nights, we would swim laps together. But if it was a bad night, Charles would wrestle with me in the water, ducking me. One night he held me under, held me under until—"
Matthew grabbed her shoulders. "Stop!"
"You can't bear to hear it, can you? No one has ever been able to bear it. But it's true. I almost died in that pool. And when I refused to swim with him again, he set fire to the pool house when I was there napping one afternoon. I got out in time, but only just. I knew Charles had set the fire, although I didn't have proof. I was the only one at home, even the housekeeper was gone. And when the fire chief said the fire was arson, he looked at me as if I'd started it. I learned later that Charles had 'smoothed it over.' He told the chief that I'd been unwell and inclined to be fanciful. Some money had changed hands, supposedly to ensure that I wouldn't be investigated. My family looked at me more strangely than ever after that."
"Alexis..."
"What, Matthew? There's really nothing to say, is there? I found out the week after the fire that I was pregnant. I'd gone away without telling anyone where so I could think how best to end the marriage. When I found out I was pregnant, I told the doctor I couldn't have the baby. He was a country doctor in a country town. He made arrangements for me to have an abortion, but when the time came, I couldn't." Her voice broke.
Matthew knew nothing to do except hold her. His arms circled her chest, locking there, and his body molded to hers. He wished he could absorb her pain.
"Jody's my whole world. I know it wasn't fair to bring her into a horrible marriage. I know it wasn't fair to bring another helpless victim into Charles's life. But I realized I couldn't do anything but."
"It was courageous to have his child."
She sighed. "I know this sounds strange, but Charles comes from good people. His parents aren't twisted. He has a sister who's everything you would ever want a friend to be. I don't know why he's the way he is. He was the only boy on both sides of his family, and I know he was given everything he ever wanted because he was loved so much. Maybe that was it, or maybe there's something deeply wrong inside him. Perhaps he was born without a soul. I don't know. I've tried to understand. But as I was preparing to end the pregnancy, I knew, somehow, that I couldn't punish my unborn child for Charles's insanity. I knew that baby was innocent of the taint of its father. The baby would be good, like all the myriad generations of Cahills before it. And she is. She's everything her father could never be."
"Of course she is. She's an extraordinary little girl."
"So I went home, and I told Charles I was pregnant. I intended to leave him, but he seemed like a changed man after that. He was solicitous of my every need, generous, protective. I wasn't fool enough to believe he had repented completely, but I did believe that maybe he was trying. I started questioning all the things that had happened. Maybe I really had deserved his anger, if not his punishment. Maybe he really had just been playing in the pool, unaware of his own strength. Maybe the fire in the pool house wasn't arson, or if it was, maybe someone else had started it."
Matthew just held her tighter.
Alexis took what courage she could from his warmth. "When Jody was born and Charles found out he had a daughter, he was livid with rage. He'd wanted a son. He told me I'd failed him again, just as I always had. I wanted to believe he was just disappointed. I went home from the hospital hoping he'd see reason. But, of course, he didn't. Things went from bad to worse, and the abuse began again in earnest. I tried to secure a divorce, and he almost killed my lawyer. Charles had enough connections to get almost anything he wanted. Jody was four before I was able to get away from him. By then he'd almost killed me again, and I thought he might start on Jody next. The divorce was nasty, as it had to be. I hoped afterward I could begin a new life, and for a time it seemed like I might be able to. Then Before I Sleep was published."
She turned, and Matthew saw tears in her eyes. "And here I am. I've come all the way across the world to hide myself, and the only person on Kangaroo Island who knows anything about me has already discovered my identity. There is no place to hide, is there?"
Chapter 8
“DON'T, ALEXIS." MATTHEW stroked his hands up her back and neck until he cupped her head, forcing her to look up at him. "You're safe here. No one else will find out who you are."
"You found out, didn't you?" She tried to pull away, but the effort was halfhearted. She needed his arms around her.
"I was looking for answers, and I saw three copies of the same book sitting in the crate."
"I've been so careful, and I still made a mistake. What other mista
kes have I made?"
"I don't know, but I do know that running could be the biggest mistake of all."
"There's no place left to go."
"Is that bastard still looking for you?"
She wanted to say no. She wanted to tell him that Charles had lost interest in her. But somehow Ron's letter didn't seem as important now. Her momentary optimism had been foolish. How many other times had she believed that things would get better? How many other times had she believed that Charles had changed?
"Is he?" Matthew repeated.
"I want to believe he's stopped."
"But you can't."
"I don't know what to believe. I wanted to believe that no one would find out who I was, too." For just a moment she let her eyes and her voice betray her need to know that everything would be all right someday, that someday she and Jody could live a normal life.
Matthew couldn't look into Alexis's eyes anymore. He had come to protect her, not to get pulled into her soul. "If you have any doubts, you'll have to continue to be very careful. I'll help every way I can."
Alexis saw the way Matthew's eyes lifted to her hair. That, more than his words, indicated his feelings—or lack of them. He was a good, considerate man who had come to help a neighbor who was in trouble—nothing more. She had no right to entangle him in her private sorrows. He had more than enough of his own.
She shook her head, freeing it from his grip. "You've done too much already."
Matthew had pulled inside himself for protection, and now he found there was nothing to protect. Instead of gratitude he felt shame. He covered it with gruffness. "I'm not talking about getting involved, Alexis— Dana, whatever you call yourself. I'm talking about your safety and your daughter's."
"My name is Alexis Whitham. I left Dana Cahill behind a long time ago." Alexis retreated until she could feel the windowsill against the small of her back. There was no feeling in her voice as she spoke. "And I discovered a long time ago that the only person I can count on to keep me safe is myself. I appreciate your concern, and I'll welcome your nightly patrols around the property, but what you've discovered doesn't really change anything."
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