Trust Me (10 page)

Willis seemed genuinely sympathetic. "It's a wonder you've hung on through all of this."

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"I've hung on because he didn't do it," she said matter-of-factly, but the suspicion she'd denied for so long was reasserting itself. What if? her mind kept asking. Did she know Oliver as well as she thought she did?

"Tell me about some of the girls he used to date--or wanted to date or simply admired."

"Back in high school?" She dropped her hand. Where was Willis going with this? Maybe she was disillusioned, exhausted, confused, but she had to be on her toes constantly. Protect what she had left.

"Anytime."

"Why? None of the girls Oliver knew back then have been raped or killed. A couple even came forward as character witnesses at his trial."

"Was there a particular girl he might've wanted who didn't return his interest? Someone he had a crush on?"

She didn't bother to search her memory. She knew the safe answer.

"No. I'm the only woman he's ever loved."

"I'm not asking about love."

"We all meet people we'd like to get with. They come and go. My friend at the salon's interested in you, right?" Jane suspected most women would have difficulty remaining immune to Willis's raw sexuality but she liked pretending she wasn't one of them.

"This wouldn't be someone who merely turned his head. This would be someone who stood out. A fixation with the prom queen, the captain of the cheer squad, someone he talked about a lot."

"The captain of the cheer squad was the prom queen, at least in his senior year. I went to the football game with him and watched the crowning ceremony. If I remember right, she wasn't that attractive. Certainly nothing remarkable."

"Who was the prettiest girl in school?"

Jane was about to say she had no idea. But then she remembered Oliver staring at a slim redhead who sat on the float next to the prom queen, wearing a stunning evening gown that showed off her incredible figure. He'

d been so mesmerized by this homecoming "princess" that Jane had caught him hours later trying to talk her into dancing with him. The girl couldn't be persuaded, and her refusal had bothered Oliver so much he'd been agitated for the rest of the evening.

Jane hadn't felt jealous of many girls. Being older was a good thing back then, an advantage, and she wasn't bad-looking herself. But jealousy had struck hard and fast that night. "Miranda Dodge," she said, almost automatically.

"Who was she?"

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She took another drag on her cigarette. "The girl all the guys wanted."

She blew out the smoke. "The kind you'd probably like. And get."

"Who'd she end up with?"

"I don't know. She went on to become a model, though. Last I heard she had a big spread in Playboy."

"Playboy?" Willis repeated the name of the magazine as if he wanted to be sure he'd heard right.

"Yeah, Playboy? Shortly after Jane had married Oliver, she'd discovered that particular issue in Oliver's desk drawer. Which had also bothered her. "Why?"

Willis didn't respond.

"Detective?" His manner made Jane nervous, and she wondered if she'd given away more than she'd intended by mentioning a pretty girl from Oliver's past. "He hasn't had any contact with her. It doesn't mean anything."

"Do you know anyone who might still be in contact with Miranda?"

She waved the hand with the cigarette. "I have no idea why I even remember her name." Except for those few hours of intense jealousy and that damn magazine in her husband's drawer, which had been so dog-eared she'd known he'd spent a great deal of time admiring Miranda's pictures.

"The age difference between you and Oliver didn't--"

"Age has nothing to do with attraction," she said, her words curt.

"You were twenty-two when you started dating. He was barely sixteen. Some parents would worry about him finishing school, getting an education."

"I was able to put him through school because I had a job," she said.

"They should be damn grateful to me."

"Are they?"

"I guess they are, now."

"And then?"

"Until he graduated, we didn't tell them how old I was. They thought I was going to a high school across town." She glanced at her watch, wanting to get back to work before she said something that would really cause repercussions. "My break is over."

He lifted a finger, indicating that he needed just one more minute. "Do you think Oliver ever cheated on you before the incident with Skye?"

This was the question that had gnawed at Jane ever since she'd first heard about Skye Kellerman. Granted, Skye was exceptionally pretty. But if Oliver could succumb to temptation that easily, there had to be other indiscretions, didn't there? Jane had even wondered if he'd messed around with some of his patients or dental assistants, people she knew and 64

socialized with. Had she given one of her husband's lovers a Christmas bonus? Had he?

Considering what she'd done since, she couldn't get too indignant.

Still... "You're wasting your time asking me. I'm the last person he'd tell, for obvious reasons."

"You might be the last person he'd tell, but I'm betting you'd be the first to guess."

She took a final drag on her cigarette, which had burned all the way to the filter. "I suspect he did, okay? What wife wouldn't question his fidelity after what I've been through?"

"Did he ever come home late, receive unexplained e-mails or phone calls, act in an evasive manner?"

He was asking her the same question again, going at it from a different angle, one that might slip beneath her defenses. "Not specifically."

Tossing the butt of her cigarette onto the oil-stained blacktop, she crushed it beneath the toe of her high-heeled shoe. "Sometimes when we were out together, he'd stop in the middle of the street to watch a pretty woman walk by. But a lot of men do that."

"What about his sexual habits?"

"What about them?"

"Would you say he was normal in that regard?"

She already craved another cigarette. "What's normal? Everyone's different." Except that she was pretty sure the detective didn't have trouble performing on demand. Sometimes Oliver couldn't get a hard-on. His occasional impotence had been a source of frustration to them both, especially because Oliver always blamed her for any failed attempts to make love. Usually he said she wasn't exciting enough.

"Was he addicted to sex?"

"How do you define an addiction?" she asked flippantly. "Almost every man I know is addicted to sex."

"Enjoying sex and being addicted to it aren't the same thing. Did he want it once a day, twice a day, more? Did he talk about it excessively?"

If anything, Oliver had the opposite problem. More often than not, he'd preferred to take care of his own needs. She figured he used Miranda's photos to help him with that, which really bothered her. But she supposed that wasn't so unusual. Plenty of men fantasized with girlie magazines. "No."

"Once a week?"

Reluctant to say it was only once a month or so, for fear the detective would wonder if she was lacking in some way, she looked over her shoulder at the shop--and saw Danielle standing at the door, ostensibly smoking but 65

watching them curiously. "That kind of stuff is none of your business. I've gotta go," she said, but Willis's next question held her as surely as if he'd reached out to grab her.

"How often did he shave his genital area?"

Pivoting, Jane lowered her voice. "Wh-what?"

Willis seemed to notice Danielle, too. Turning his back to her, he leaned closer to Jane. "You heard me. Come on, Jane. I'm only asking for the truth."

"You're twisting the truth to destroy an innocent man!" she whispered harshly. "And you're destroying me along with him!"

"Are you sure he's innocent?" It wasn't a question he expected her to answer. But the way he was looking at her, as if he could read every doubt, made even her teeth ache.

"Leave me alone."

"How often did he shave himself?"

"A lot of men shave. He was a cyclist."

"Cyclists shave their arms and legs."

She twisted her fingers together so tightly they hurt. "It's popular to do more than that these days."

"Then what harm could it do to tell me?"

Little warning bells were going off inside Jane's head. But they couldn't retry Oliver on the Kellerman attack. That was double jeopardy....

"Help me out." he said.

When he used that line, Jane figured just about any woman would sell her soul to give him what he wanted. And she wasn't as different as she would've liked. "Every now and then," she admitted.

"Did he refuse to let the hair grow back? Or was there a regular pattern--like shaving every other day or every weekend?"

She considered lighting another cigarette, decided against it. The nicotine calmed her. But she didn't want the detective to interpret the action as an invitation to stay longer. She was beginning to feel as if he was her friend, and that was very dangerous indeed. "He didn't shave all the time.

There was no pattern."

Folding his arms, Willis glanced away and cleared his throat. "Did he want you to...you know, shave the same area?"

Jane found his obvious regret at having to ask such a personal question as unexpected as it was appealing. Not only was Willis sexy as hell, he came off like a decent guy, and that decency was at odds with the blame Jane laid at his feet. "No. Whether Oliver shaved or not, or when he shaved, didn't seem to have anything to do with me. He did it just like he was.. .1

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don't know, clipping his nails. Why?"

Willis didn't answer. He withdrew a card from his pocket. "Call me if you notice anything unusual. Particularly if he's shaved the same day."

She laughed in disbelief and exasperation. "You're convinced my husband is a murderer!"

"Completely," he said and handed her his card.

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"Some of you have probably been told that guns are not for women."

Fighting the fatigue that plagued her after another sleepless night, Skye stood before fifteen students in the small classroom at the shooting range.

For many of these women, today would be the first time they'd ever held a gun, so she always started by dispelling the myths that surrounded their use.

"You've heard that women are too timid or frightened to handle a gun.

Women don't have the upper-body strength to become efficient marksmen.

Women don't have the 'guts' to manage such a powerful weapon." She paused, made eye contact with each person. "Raise your hand if you've ever heard something like this."

Several hands went up.

"Don't believe it. I won't discuss the sexism inherent in this kind of talk, but I will address the only one of those statements that is, at least partially, true. Women often lack upper-body strength, which can put them at a disadvantage when handling a gun. Most of our strength comes from our legs. But with the right technique, almost any woman, no matter how small, can learn to shoot and do it well."

Turning away to cover a yawn of exhaustion, she moved closer to a diagram she'd drawn on the board. "First, it's important to get the correct-size gun for your hand. Make sure it fits comfortably and that you have a good grip. In this picture, the gun is too big. See how the line of the wrist has to be broken for the finger to reach the trigger? You don't want that. You want the backstrap to fit perfectly in the web of your hand so that it lines up with the bones in your forearm, like this." She pointed at the ideal fit in the second diagram. "It's easier to use a gun that's too small than one that's too large." She circled a third picture showing a tiny gun held by a large woman.

"You'll just have to be careful not to put too much of your finger on the trigger while you're firing."

She approached a table where she'd placed a variety of unloaded handguns. "Now, let's look at the differences between pistols and semiautomatics, and why one might work better than the other in certain circumstances."

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A hand went up.

Skye motioned for the woman to ask her question.

"How long have you been shooting?"

"Four years."

The brunette in the third row raised her hand.

"Yes?"

"Did it take a while to become good at it?"

Skye hid a sigh. She hadn't prefaced her lecture with her usual bio because she wanted to get through the material as quickly as possible. Her mind wasn't on teaching. It was on the threatening call she'd received, on Burke's impending release, which was getting closer and closer, Sean Regan's sudden disappearance, Jasmine and the child she was searching for in Ft. Bragg and the financial difficulties they were facing at The Last Stand.

The list was getting long....

But she should've given more of her background. Apparently "My name is Skye Kellerman. I'll be your gun instructor today," wasn't enough.

"No," she replied, "but I was determined to learn fast, and I've spent a great deal of time practicing. Now--"

"Are you a policewoman?" another woman interrupted.

They wouldn't stop until they had the whole story. "No. I was the victim of an attempted rape."

A collective murmur went through the room.

"I decided to prepare myself in case such an attack ever happens again," she explained.

"Did they catch the guy?" the bone-thin woman in the front row wanted to know.

"Yes, the police tracked him down and put him in prison." But that didn't relieve the fear she felt as a result of her experience. Nothing relieved the fear. They wouldn't understand that, though, not unless they'd been through a similar trauma.

"How many years did he get?" It was the woman sitting next to the thin lady.

"Eight to ten. But the reality is three. He'll be out on parole this weekend."

The voices grew loud as they responded with alarm, but she didn't believe in minimizing what had happened to her. The public needed to know. Women needed to know. It could happen to you was her message.

They had to be prepared.

"Are you the person who started that victim's organization I've read about?" a middle-aged woman with salt-and-pepper hair asked.