CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 23

"Idon't know how it happened," Leah was saying as Brooke, shaken to her core, walked into the kitchen from the garage stairs. Pulling herself together after the shock of finding the dead rat, she'd hurried down the deck staircase, quickly crossed the yard, and entered through the garage so she could wash the blood from her fingers in the laundry room basin. She'd dried her hands and counted to ten, then twenty, then fifty.

She was calmer now. Determined. But Leah was still upset and dabbing at her eyes with a napkin at the table.

Neal was at the coffee maker, measuring grounds for a fresh pot. "He'll come home," he said but shot Brooke a worried glance.

"I left the back gate open, if he does."

Neal said, "I thought I saw you on the deck."

"Yes—yes, I was," she said, "but I got my hands dirty and went back through the laundry room to clean up."

Neal eyed her speculatively, but before he could ask anything else, Leah said, "What about the blood?"

She knew?

"The blood?" Brooke repeated.

"Yeah." Leah swung her gaze from Brooke to Neal, who was adding water to the reservoir of the coffee maker. "You saw it, right?"

"What're you talking about?" Neal asked.

"There's blood smeared all over one of the pillows on the front porch. Marilee told me about it. She said you," Leah glanced at Brooke, "saw it when you drove in, so I checked." Leah shuddered visibly, then pressed her lips together. "I pray to God it's not Shep's."

"Why would it be his?" Neal asked, but there was trepidation in his voice.

But Brooke knew it belonged to the rat.

She remembered now seeing a smear of red on the yellow cushion as she turned into the drive.

Brooke headed for the front door and porch, where she saw the yellow cushions on the rockers, one smeared red, the stain looking like blood—rat's blood—but she couldn't let on about the dead rodent. Not yet.

Leah followed Brooke to the front porch and stood in the doorway.

"Am I cursed or what?" Brooke said, then bit her tongue. Her dog was missing, yes, but her daughter was safe, even if Marilee was in big, big trouble.

"Why in God's name would there be blood here?" Leah paced along the front porch. "Maybe Shep got out, stepped on something—glass or whatever—and came up to the porch and . . ."

"And then ran off?" Brooke asked.

"I guess." Leah looked across the street to the park and Brooke followed her gaze. A jogger in sweats raced by before disappearing through the open gate. A squirrel scampered out of his path and scurried up the bole of a fir tree. A few vehicles passed, and she heard the sound of a leaf blower from the house next door. It was Mr. Galanis, who wouldn't give up his Saturday morning routine of cleaning his driveway and smoking a cigar even if the leaves were sodden from the previous night's storm. She smelled the acrid smoke that seemed at odds with the clear air, fresh after the rain, then caught a glimpse of a police car rolling slowly through the intersection.

A typical Saturday morning for most Seattleites.

But not for Brooke, nor anyone else who lived here.

Not here.

Brooke picked up the smeared pillow and carried it inside, where she sniffed it and eyed the stain more closely.

"You think it's Shep's?" Leah asked, a tremor in her voice.

Neal shook his head. "Dunno."

"No—it can't be," Brooke insisted. "I saw a raccoon in the backyard. Maybe some creature was hurt and bled on the rocker."

Neal shook his head. "There weren't any tracks. No blood across the porch, I looked." He frowned, rubbing the back of his neck thoughtfully. "It's been a weird, weird morning."

"Amen. I'm just going to get rid of this." Before anyone could object, Brooke carried the pillow to the trash bin outside and dumped it. Her skin crawled when she considered the rat's blood, but she forced herself to remain calm. She would take care of the rat's bloody carcass the same way once she was alone. But for now she didn't want to explain about finding it, why she was even reaching into the birdhouse in the first place, or what it could mean.

Because she knew what had happened and who was behind it.

When she got back to the kitchen and had again washed her hands, she heard the coffeepot sputtering and hissing. Steam was rising from its vents, the smell of roasted beans permeating the air. Any other morning the warm scent would have made her smile. But not today.

"I just don't get how blood ended up on that pillow," Neal said, his eyebrows pulling together.

Brooke said, "We may never know."

"Well, we will the next time."

"Ugh," Leah said. "You think there will be a repeat?"

"Dunno. But I'm going to get a security camera. Make that two," Neal said, finding three cups and placing them on the counter. "From Bill Clayton—remember, he's the guy who makes all the security devices?" He poured coffee into the first cup.

"Yeah, I remember. The tracker on the Explorer."

"Right. If I had taken his advice and gotten the entire security package for the house, we would have videos of the porch and the yard. We'd probably know what happened to Shep," he said as he placed a mug on the table for Leah. "And we would have seen Marilee sneak out with Nick, so we wouldn't have been so panicked."

"Speak for yourself," Brooke said. "Yeah, maybe we'd know more about what happened to Shep. Maybe. But I would have been worried seeing Nick and Marilee together."

"But at least we would have known who she was with and not that she was kidnapped by some pervert or worse."

Brooke had to agree. "Good point." But had there been a camera, Gideon would have appeared on the screen, and there would have been all kinds of questions. Questions she didn't want to answer.

When Neal offered her a cup of coffee, she shook her head and held up a hand. "I'm good." The last thing she needed was more caffeine pouring through her already jangling bloodstream. "I think we need to talk to our daughter."

"Didn't you do that on the car ride home?"

"I tried." When she caught him looking at her over the rim of his cup she added, "It was pretty tense. She didn't exactly appreciate my advice. Nothing penetrated." And then she told him about Marilee knowing where Allison Carelli had been for the better part of a week, and her conversation with Allison's parents.

"Other kids knew this?" Neal asked, stunned.

"I guess."

"I'd better have a chat with Marilee," he said, taking a long swallow, then setting the coffee aside. "God, I hate these talks."

"But you're so good at them," she said, and he shot her a look to tell her he knew she was giving him the business before heading up the stairs.

"At least she's safe," Leah said as she stirred cream and sugar into her cup.

"Yeah, I know." For that Brooke was grateful, but Marilee was still very much a worry. It seemed that day by day, the fragile relationship Brooke had with her daughter was unraveling faster and faster.

"You should count yourself lucky."

"I do," she said, even though she had a mountain of worries and was heartsick that Shep was missing.

Yes, thankfully—oh yes, thankfully—Marilee was home and safe, but there were other issues, big ones.

"Remember what I'm going through, Brooke," Leah said, turning the conversation back to herself, as always. "Look where I am. A cheating husband who's leaving me for a slut, no home, no money, no kids . . . nothing! I would kill to have what you do." She frowned a little, looking pitiful.

Brooke could stand it no longer. "I heard Neal gave you the loan."

Leah stiffened.

"Quite a lot, in fact."

Leah's gaze darted away, a trace of shame showing before defiance resurfaced. "Neal understands what I'm going through."

"Again, that's a helluva lot of money."

Leah's lips pursed. "I wouldn't have asked for it if I didn't need it."

"You've asked before. And received."

Her sister stiffened, suddenly uncomfortable.

"What is it, Leah? Why do you keep running to Neal?"

"Whoa," Leah said, finding her tongue. "You said yourself to ask him, so I did."

"For more than you asked from me."

"Yeah." She lifted a shoulder as if to say, so what? Big deal. "Yeah, I did. And he gave it to me." She lifted her cup to her lips and stared over the rim. "So sue me."

"Loaned it to you."

"Yeah, yeah, that's what I meant." She took a long sip, and Brooke walked to the French doors to stare out at the deck and the yard beyond. Morning had broken, the rain abating, the clouds still threatening, but she could see the entire enclosure.

No Shep.

And somehow Gideon was involved.

She heard an almost inaudible buzzing as she walked into the kitchen.

Leah, standing near the open door to the stairs, said, "What's that?"

Oh. Crap. She always did have good hearing, had, even as a kid, been listening in everywhere, a regular little snoop.

"My phone," Brooke said, realizing Leah didn't know she had two phones or would recognize the subtle difference in the sound of the vibrations between the different cells. But Brooke did instantly. And this time it was her burner phone that was buzzing.

"Probably one of the moms I phoned earlier. I'd better make some calls or at least some texts and explain that Marilee is okay."

"Oh. Sure. But . . . can you still take me to the airport? My flight's at eight tonight. I should get there, what—before seven, maybe six forty-five."

"Yeah, of course." Brooke's mind was already racing ahead. Taking Leah to the airport would be a good excuse to finally have it out with Gideon. She would have time alone. Time away.

Leah's phone rang and she walked to the table and picked it up. Her face twisted. "It's Sean."

"Don't answer it," Brooke advised.

Leah hesitated.

"You're divorcing him, right? That's why Neal loaned—we loaned you the money."

"Yes, yes, I know, but I still want to hear what he has to say."

"I wouldn't," Brooke said, just as Leah said a crisp, "Hi," into her phone.

Glancing up at Brooke and obviously not liking her older sister's expression, Leah cradled the phone to her ear and took her cup with her as she walked to the French doors, stepped onto the deck, and shut the doors firmly behind her. Brooke watched as she leaned over the rail, right next to the birdhouse. All she would have to do was open the lid and she'd see the rat.

If so, Brooke would play dumb.

Let Leah scream and go into hysterics and have Neal wonder how in the world the bloodied rodent had ended up there.

But Leah wasn't interested in anything other than the phone call. It was obvious as she held the phone close, nodding and whispering. In that instant Brooke realized that Leah would give her husband another chance, that all Sean had to say was that he wanted to make things work and Leah would be into him all over again. She thought of the money Neal had loaned her sister—a small fortune—and if Sean the gambler found out, why wouldn't he play on Leah's already ragged emotions?

She made one step toward the deck to warn Leah but stopped.

Who are you to give advice? It's not like your life isn't crumbling around you. Forget Leah, the money, and her marriage. Concentrate on your own problems. It's not like you don't have enough worries of your own.

First and foremost she needed to find Shep. That was her top priority now that Marilee was safely home.

Secondly, she had to buy a pregnancy test and take it. She had to know if she was pregnant or it was a false alarm.

Finally, she had to figure out how Gideon knew her every move and was one step ahead of her.

She believed with all her soul that he was involved in Shep's disappearance.

She was certain he was at the end of the alley, loitering beyond the open gate.

And he left the dead rat, not just to freak her out but to let her know just how dangerous he could be. She didn't doubt it for a second. She'd seen the darkness in his gaze, the cruel glint. If she were to square off with him, she suspected she would need a weapon.

Neal had one. A gun that was locked away. A pistol that Brooke hated even being in the house.

Until now.

Out on the back deck, Leah stood leaning over the railing and appeared to be looking out at the lights of the city winking in the distance, but Brooke suspected Leah's vision was turned inward; she was deep in conversation with Sean, oblivious to the world.

As for the rest of the family, they were upstairs. She heard muffled voices coming from Marilee's room, so while everyone else was busy, she quietly eased her way into Neal's office again and closed the door, hearing a soft click. Moving noiselessly, she slipped around her husband's desk and knelt in front of the safe.

With an ear tuned to the sound of voices and an occasional creak of the ceiling, indicating someone was walking on the floor overhead, she tried to open the safe. Her fingers were trembling so badly, she overshot as she spun the dial and had to reset it twice.

Sweat collected on her forehead and fingers.

Come on, come on!

She tried more carefully again, and she heard the door to the deck open just as the tumblers fell into place.

Crap! Leah!

The door shut.

Brooke's heart was pounding so loudly she could barely hear Leah's footsteps in the kitchen.

"Hey!" Leah called, her voice coming closer. "Where is everybody?"

Hastily, Brooke tried the handle on the safe.

It didn't budge.

Damn!

Neal must've double-locked it with the key. She rocked back on her heels. Yes, they always kept the safe locked of course. But she couldn't remember when it had been double-locked. Not for years. And she didn't even know where the key was. She glanced rapidly around the room, trying to guess where it was hidden. What had Neal said just the other day when she'd asked about the keys to the unused staircase and he'd withdrawn a ring from his pocket?

"I have keys to all the locks here and at the office."

So the key was with Neal.

Shit!

"Brooke?" Leah called again.

Frantically, Brooke tugged on the handle just in case she'd been mistaken.

Nothing.

She heard Leah in the living room, closer now.

No time.

Swiftly, she rounded the desk, slipped out of the room, and pushed open the powder room door. She flushed the toilet and noisily turned on the taps, water rushing into the sink.

Calm down. Just calm the hell down!

But her stomach had twisted into knots and her lungs were tight. She made noise, turning off the taps and yanking the towel from its metal ring, then glanced into the oval mirror mounted over the cabinet.

Dear God.

She blinked at her reflection.

She looked like death warmed over, as Nana used to say, as if she hadn't slept in days. Her hair was mussed, her eyes haunted, her skin pale. The cut on her chin was a thin reminder of her fight with Gideon, how physical it had gotten.

Pull yourself together!

Find the dog.

And find out if you're effing pregnant.

Stepping into the hallway, she nearly ran into her sister.

"There you are!" Leah said, little lines puckering her eyebrows together.

"Yeah, here I am." She was heading for the kitchen. "But I'm going out. We need a few things for breakfast—I guess we could call it brunch soon—and I want to search for Shep now that it's light."

"If you call this light," Leah said, looking through the windows to the gray day beyond.

"Says the woman from Arizona. I'll be back within an hour or so. Tell Neal I'll text all the people we called earlier about Marilee being missing. No doubt gossip is running like wildfire through the kids at school, freaking out their parents."

"Yep." Leah was nodding. "All over the Internet."

"You know this?" Brooke asked as they walked into the kitchen. She grabbed her purse. "How?"

"I told you, I'm friends with Marilee. She already posted and her friends commented, so I'm pretty sure everyone at her school—what's the name of it? Ainswell?"

"Allsworth."

"Oh, right. Right. I remember now."

"You remember?" Brooke was skeptical. "How?"

"From all the posts!" Leah said, rolling her eyes. "I just told you."

"I'm not into it."

"For the love of God, weren't you, like, in sales? Of a tech company or something? You should be all over it."

"LinkedIn."

"And that's it?"

"No—yes. Well, I mean LinkedIn was the biggie. I had a presence on other platforms—we were encouraged—but I'm not on the job any longer, so . . ." She shrugged. Why was she bothering to explain all this to Leah right now when she had so much to do and her life was falling apart?

"Well, you should get online more. You won't believe what you can find there." Her grin faded and she added bitterly, "Even your husband's girlfriend if you want, apparently."

"You're getting over him," Brooke reminded her sister as she found her keys. "Remember? You're divorcing the guy who robbed you of your inheritance and cheated on you. The one who is trying to kick you out of the house? That guy."

"I know, I know, but—"

"No ‘buts,' Leah. It's over. You said so yourself. Don't let that con man sweet talk you. And don't," she pointed a finger at her sister, keys jangling on the ring as she did, "don't let him know you borrowed from us. Okay? If he thinks you've got a dime, he's gonna want it."

Leah sucked in her breath. "Ooh, harsh, Brookie."

"I'm just reminding you. I'll be back soon."

Leah's eyes darkened and her eyes narrowed. "You might want to check your messages. I heard your phone . . . well, someone's phone was buzzing," she said, seeing that Brooke's cell was poking out of the back pocket of her jeans.

The burner! She'd forgotten about it. Again.

"Yeah, it's going nuts," she said, holding up her iPhone, which she'd put on silent; the parent text chains about Allison Carelli's return had been on overload. But what about her burner phone? In all the mayhem she'd let it slip her mind. With all the chaos she'd been careless, leaving it in the niche in the laundry room. She closed the door at the top of the stairs and, on her way to the garage, retrieved it from its hiding spot behind the dusty containers of bleach and spray starch. Then she hurried down to the garage, her ankle twinging in protest.

Leah was right, Brooke realized as she slid behind the wheel and hazarded a look at the screen.

There were several messages, two from Gideon.

Call me.

As if.

Obviously he hadn't gotten the message.

And later, when she hadn't responded, in the hours before Shep went missing:

If I don't hear from you, you'll be sorry.

What? Seriously? An out-and-out threat?

And then Shep disappeared. And he'd left the dead rat in the birdhouse. Enraged, she fought the urge to phone him and call him out, tell him what a lowlife son of a bitch he was. But she didn't. Because that was exactly what he wanted: a reaction. He was taunting her, daring her to call him back, and it was all she could do not to take the bait.

The last message, sent from an anonymous number only minutes before, was much more disturbing:

He's not who you think he is.

She swallowed hard at that.

The anonymous caller was now texting.

She didn't have time for this, not for Gideon and his threats nor these dark, vague warnings from an unknown person.

A person who knew she had this phone number, this private number, but wanted anonymity.

A mixture of anger and fear swept through her blood, but she fought the anxiety and set her jaw. She'd figure out who was behind the eerie warning and when she did there would be hell to pay. Right now Brooke had to keep moving. Who knew when Gideon would strike again?

She didn't have the time or energy to deal with Leah's screwed-up marriage. Brooke had her own relationships to deal with, along with a shitload of other problems.

Disturbed, she hit the interior remote for the garage door opener and, as the door rolled up, texted Neal to let him know that she was running to the store for a few things and would be on the lookout for the dog.

As she pulled out of the garage, she thought of Leah's advice about social media and mentally kicked herself for not being able to use the different platforms to check on her daughter or search out more information on Gideon. After her initial fascination with him and a shallow Internet search, she'd told herself it didn't matter; it was a fling that would die a quick death and the less she knew about him the better.

But that had been a lie. The truth was she didn't want to know too much about him, didn't want to delve too deep in case she discovered something that would end the affair. Or something worse. Something she didn't want to know.

She'd been careless, reckless, and stupid.

Now she and her family were paying the price.

But at least Marilee was home and safe. Brooke took heart with that, even though recriminations followed her as she took off through the neighborhood, searching for Shep, looking down streets, in alleys and across yards as she drove to Northeast Seattle, far enough away from her neighborhood that she wouldn't chance running into anyone she knew. She located a strip mall she'd seen in passing and parked at an unfamiliar pharmacy. Once inside she bought a pregnancy test, then crossed the lot to a mom-and-pop grocery for milk, bagels, cream cheese, and eggs.

So far, so good.

Yet anxiety fired her blood.

Her next stop was for gas and then a coffee shop still far enough away from her house to guarantee it was unlikely she would run into friends or acquaintances.

After ordering a latte from a girl with tricolored hair and a nose ring she left her cup at a booth next to the bathroom and went inside. Hands shaking, she promptly took the pregnancy test and waited while she heard someone come and go in the next stall.

Please, no, she silently prayed, not even contemplating what a baby would mean. The irony of it didn't evade her. How long had she and Neal tried for a second child? Five years? Six? There were two miscarriages early in the pregnancies, one when Marilee was three and another a year later. Since then, nothing. Over the years it had become a nonissue. Brooke had thanked her lucky stars that she'd gotten pregnant young and become a mother and had never expected to have life growing within her again.

She heard the other woman wash her hands and tear off a couple of towels, just as two more women entered—friends, from the sound of it—chatting and laughing as if neither had a care in the world.

The door to her stall rattled. "Oops, sorry," a young voice said through the door, then to her friend, "That one's occupied."

Brooke closed her eyes. Ignored the continuing conversation about their toddlers and kids in elementary school, though she did hear the fear in their voices when they spoke of "that teenager who's missing."

"Probably a runaway," the voice in the stall said.

"Then what about the other one? From the same school. She's been gone over a year."

"If you ask me, she's dead," came the horrible conclusion from the woman flushing the toilet.

"Don't say that! She's just a kid."

"A kid who should've had parents paying attention."

They traded places, the stall door opening and closing.

"Those parents have to be devastated."

"Good. Then if they have any other kids, they'll be more careful."

"Not everyone can be a helicopter parent," said the woman now in the stall.

"These days everyone should be."

Brooke bit her tongue. Parents of toddlers and kids in primary grades had no idea what the challenges of trying to control, protect, and mete out independence to teenagers entailed. She hadn't. She'd been as cavalier as these women. And just last night she'd thought she'd lost her daughter.

The toilet flushed, the taps turned on, the electric hand dryer roared, and the women left, door clicking shut behind them. And Brooke waited, trying and failing to keep her thoughts from racing to their inevitable conclusions and the despair that came with them.

She knew there was a chance the baby, if there were one growing within her, was Neal's. A slim chance. She'd been careful with Gideon, as had he, though not always . . .

With Neal, the results of a positive test provided some promise. They could reconcile, make things work, deal with Marilee's horror of becoming a big sister at fifteen, find the joy and anticipation that comes with pregnancy.

With Gideon . . . oh Lord. She foresaw the end of her marriage, the loss of her daughter. And the child would forever hold her to a man she didn't love, didn't want, and couldn't trust. She knew nothing about him. Nothing. And she'd been an utter fool. She'd thrown away everything for a few hours in his bed.

She faced the threat of him grasping onto her forever. Threatening her. Terrorizing her.

It had to stop.

One way or another.

It had to stop.

She touched her flat abdomen.

A baby? With a man who seemed darker, eviler by every passing moment?

"No," she said aloud in the bathroom as she stared at the window of the tiny wand in her hand and noticed it was trembling. Her throat went dry and she felt her pulse ticking up with anxiety as, sure enough, the results became clearly visible: She was pregnant.

And there was little doubt the father was Gideon Ross.