Trust Me (26 page)

"I'll take a look at it."

"Then he waited for me to go inside and lock up before he cut the alarm and phone lines." She sniffed. "Otherwise, I would've been alerted at the front door when the alarm signal didn't go off and might've been able to make it back to my car."

"So you were in the hallway when he confronted you?"

"I was in the tub when I first realized he was here. He came in through the window and opened the front door so he could get out fast."

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"Who is he?"

"I don't know. He--he has to be a friend of Oliver Burke's, though, doesn't he?"

That note had been signed O.B. But maybe that had been intended to mislead. With all the publicity surrounding Oliver's attack, anyone who wanted to scare Skye could've written those initials. "If Oliver's behind this, he must've arranged it while he was in prison. Maybe weeks or even months ago," David said. "He hasn't been home yet. He was stabbed by his cellmate and went straight from prison to the hospital."

"He did?" She drew back, looking up at him with troubled eyes.

"My partner just visited him. He's still there."

"But he has to have set it up."

It was possible. David believed Oliver Burke was sneaky, that he planned his revenge against those on his list well in advance. Only a crafty kid could drown a fellow student and get away with it, and then have the nerve to show up for the funeral.

"Sheriff's here," someone said and David let go of Skye. Now that he could think straight, he remembered why it was important to be circumspect.

Married or divorced, he'd been in a committed relationship for years. He didn't want to embarrass the department, or Lynnette and Jeremy, any more than he already had.

"Sit down and try to relax," he told her.

"Are you leaving?" She sounded fatalistic, as if she expected him to.

And of course she would. He'd never been there for her, always had to go back to the life he'd chosen. He felt obliged to do so even now. He couldn't leave his son in the car indefinitely. And he couldn't bring him in. He didn't want Jeremy subjected to the sight of a man who'd been shot to death.

"I've got Jeremy in the car."

"Right." She sniffed and lifted her chin, her eyes bleak. He nearly told her about Lynnette's illness then. He wanted to, but he also knew it wouldn't be fair to Lynnette to divulge to anyone, especially Skye, that duty bound him far more than love.

"I'll call you."

She didn't respond. She stood, her spine stiff, as the sheriff approached.

"Ms. Kellerman, I'm Sheriff Bailey. I hope you won't mind if I ask you a few questions about what happened here tonight."

An older gentleman with white, wavy hair and a trim physique that belied his true age, which had to be around sixty, the sheriff acted respectful and nonthreatening. Nonetheless, David wished he could be present for the 165

questioning.

"No, of course not," she said, but her eyes lingered on David, and he felt as if he was abandoning her to drown in a sea of old memories and renewed fears.

"Detective Willis? Your kid's getting antsy out here. He wants to know where you are."

Pulling his gaze away from Skye, David forced himself to face Deputy Meeks. "I'm coming."

There was nothing inside the Jaguar to put a name to the man she'd shot. Skye heard one of the deputies--Deputy Meeks--say that to the sheriff sometime after the coroner arrived at her house, pronounced the obvious cause of death and removed the body from her hallway. But Skye hoped the intruder's identity wouldn't remain a mystery for long. She wanted to face this threat head-on. Instead she felt as though she was shadow-boxing. Yes, she'd killed the man who'd climbed through her window, but she didn't even know who he was. There was no reason for him to come after her, unless someone else had hired him to do it. And that meant she hadn't eliminated the real threat at all.

After he'd finished questioning her, the sheriff took a full set of fingerprints from the deceased, which he planned to run through AFIS. If her intruder had any kind of police record, they should get a hit almost instantly.

And, judging by how smoothly the goatee-wearing criminal operated, Skye was fairly certain he hadn't just taken to a life of crime. She was sure they'd come up with something.

How he'd managed to get her address, Skye had no idea. But the ease with which he'd found her was terrifying.

Would Burke hire someone else to come after her? If he could do that while he was in prison, what might he be able to arrange now?

It was a question Skye didn't want to address at the moment. She was exhausted, mentally and physically. But sleep wasn't in her immediate future. It was after five in the morning by the time everyone cleared out. By then, she was tired of the buzzing activity and the questions she couldn't answer: Why do you think this man would want to harm you? But you just told us the dentist who attacked you has been in prison for the past three years. How could he be behind this?

She chafed beneath the guarded glances of one particular deputy, who seemed to suspect her of using more force than necessary. But the indifference of the rest wasn't much better. They didn't care enough to wonder. They came and went as if this was more of the same old routine, while she was dying inside.

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Sheridan was the only person she wished would stay. Her friend had arrived shortly after David left and had sat through much of the interview with the sheriff. Sheridan had also taken it upon herself to clean up the blood in the hallway, as well as the splatter on the wall, so Skye wouldn't be faced with that stomach-turning task. Skye was grateful for the support, but then Sheridan had to hurry off to make an early-morning appointment with an eighty-year-old woman whom she feared was being abused by her temperamental son.

Skye knew Jasmine would've come, too, if she'd been around. But as soon as she'd returned home from the office yesterday, she'd received a call from the Fort Bragg police and headed back to the coast. They'd singled out a suspect in the slaying of the little girl. Jasmine wanted to speak to him as soon as possible, to get a feel for whether or not he was also responsible for kidnapping another girl, who'd gone missing from a small town about an hour south of Ft. Bragg three years ago.

That left Skye alone and feeling bereft.

Picking up her cell phone, she called Marin Memorial Hospital. She'd heard the sheriff use that name while talking to the officials at San Quentin.

How badly hurt was Oliver Burke? Was he seriously injured? Or were his wounds superficial? If he'd already been released, she wanted to know.

The phone rang three times before a professional-sounding female voice answered. "Marin Memorial."

"Yes. Urn..." Skye swallowed hard, unsure of how she might feel if Burke actually came on the line. "Oliver Burke's room, please."

"I'm sorry, but we don't disturb patients this early, ma'am. You'll need to call back after seven."

"B-but I just heard what-what happened," she stammered. "He'll b-be okay, won't he?"

Her nerves made her sound worried, and the woman softened. "I'm not sure. I just handle the phones here at the main desk. But..." There was a brief pause. "It's 6:40.1 guess I could ring the nurse's station on his floor and ask them to check if he's awake. Do you have the room number?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Then give me a minute to locate him."

"No problem," she said, and the woman put her on hold.

Skye wiped her damp palms on her jeans while she waited. Then, without another word to warn her that the call was going through, the phone began to ring and a different woman picked up. "Nurses' station."

"Oliver Burke's room, please."

"May I ask who's calling?"

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Skye drew a deep breath. "His mother."

"If you'll hold, I'll see if anyone's awake."

Skye expected to hear from the nurse again, but she didn't. Instead, the phone rang again and someone whispered, "Mom?"

It was Jane. Skye recognized her voice from the other night. Burke was at the hospital, probably being doted on by his wife. And Skye was standing alone in her house after shooting the man he'd sent to kill her.

"Jane?" She kept her voice low and breathy and, she hoped, unidentifiable.

"Yes?"

"How's Oliver?"

"He--he's going to be fine. Who is this?"

"Just someone who knows the kind of man he really is," she said and disconnected.

Tears streamed down Skye's face--for no particular reason. She was alive. She kept reminding herself that she should feel relieved. But Burke was alive, too. He was recuperating in a hospital room for now, but as long as he was still out there, somewhere, she knew this wasn't over.

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The ringing of the phone and his wife's quiet voice woke Oliver after a night of drug-induced sleep. Opening his eyes, he glanced around the colorless hospital room, noted the IV trailing to the shunt in his arm, the dotted yellow line on the monitor beeping steadily as it showed his heart rate, and finally Jane, who was standing with her back to him at the window, as she had much of yesterday.

This had hardly been the joyous homecoming they'd anticipated.

"Hey," he said, his voice cracking.

Jane turned but didn't approach the bed. "How'd you sleep?"

He winced because the simple act of clearing his throat brought pain.

It radiated from his wound down the left side of his body. "Better than you, apparently."

She offered him a feeble smile. "They didn't give me any morphine."

"I'll ask for some Valium, if you want."

Her smile became more of a grimace. "I don't think it would help with what's really bothering me."

He knew what was bothering her. It bothered him, too. They'd lost far too much, and the suffering had gone on for far too long. "We'll reclaim our lives. This is just a temporary setback."

She nodded but hardly seemed convinced. She was different than Oliver had expected. She seemed more like a stranger than his wife, and it wasn't hard to tell that the years he'd spent in prison had been hard on her.

She used to be a bright, bubbly woman, quick to smile. Now she was subdued, withdrawn. New lines around her eyes and mouth made her look older, too, even a little hard-bitten. She'd gained a few pounds. And now she smoked.

Smoking was a distasteful habit. Oliver hated it. His parents hated it, too, especially his father. Concerned about Kate's exposure to secondhand smoke, Maurice had mentioned Jane's new vice in one of his letters, and Oliver had asked her to quit by the time he was released. But he could tell that hadn't happened. She must've gone out for a cigarette a few minutes before he woke because he could smell the residual stench as if she'd lit up 169

right in the room.

"Who just called?" he asked.

A certain wariness entered her eyes, which were smudged with mascara from when she'd been crying yesterday. "Wrong number," she mumbled.

"In a hospital?"

"The caller was looking for another patient." She returned her attention to whatever she'd been looking at beyond the window. "The floor nurse patched it through by accident."

"Oh." He let his gaze wander over her backside, hoping to feel some kind of lust. He wanted to prove to himself that he hadn't changed sexual orientation while he was in prison. It'd be disappointing and embarrassing if he couldn't get it up for his own wife. But he felt nothing.

It's the pain. And the medication. No man would feel like having sex right now, regardless of how long he'd been in prison.

But he should want to touch her, shouldn't he? He shouldn't be thinking that the added weight made her look sloppy. She'd been up all night, watching over him. Where was his gratitude?

"Is Mom bringing Kate today?" he asked.

"They'll be here during visiting hours."

His parents had stopped by yesterday, too. Oliver seemed to possess a hazy memory of his mother smoothing the hair off his forehead, but with all the medication they'd given him, he wasn't positive that had actually occurred. In fact, he wasn't sure of anything after T.J. stabbed him. He didn'teven remember the ambulance that had brought him to the hospital.

"I've got to go." Jane began gathering up her purse, coat and novel from the cart that otherwise served as his meal tray.

Surprised by this announcement, Oliver shifted carefully in the bed.

"Where?"

"To work. I asked for the day off, but they couldn't give it to me.

We're too busy on weekends."

"It's still early."

"I have to get home and shower, then check on Kate. I'd like to see her for a few minutes before I go in."

She saw Kate every day. She hadn't seen him for years. "Doesn't your boss know I'm in the hospital?"

With a sigh, Jane ran a hand through her hair, which she'd begun to dye to hide the gray. He could tell because it was so much darker than her natural color. "They know. They just don't care."

"That's pretty insensitive, don't you think? I wouldn't go in if I were 170

you."

"If I don't show up, they'll fire me."

"Let them fire you! That's ridiculous!"

"Oliver, someone's got to support us until you're well enough to work."

The irritation in her voice annoyed him. She'd never used that tone with him before. He'd thought she was feeling sorry for him, but this suggested she was feeling more sorry for herself. "My parents will help us,"

he said.

"Your parents are living on a fixed income. And they spent their entire savings, even their retirement money, on your defense. They can't help us indefinitely. Who knows how long it'll take you to heal, how many months before you find work? Who even knows what that work will be?"

"They used me to fix teeth in prison. It's not as if I had the chance to learn a new trade!" he snapped.

The furrows between her eyebrows deepened, and Oliver realized he was seeing the expression that had formed all the lines on her face.

"You say that as if..." She waved impatiently.

"As if what?"