Watching his son, he kept his tone easy.
“Not exactly.”
Hearts couldn’t actually drop. He was a doctor. He knew how the pumping vessel was attached. And knew what stress could do to it, too.
Chantel’s tone made him want to hang up. To watch his boy play in bubbles and know that tomorrow was another day. That the sun would shine again and....
“They found her van, Max.”
Caleb made a motor sound with his mouth. Seemingly unaware that darkness had descended in their bright and cheery bathroom.
“I can’t do it again.”
“Hold on.”
Of course. That was what he’d do. His fingers gripped the side of the tub, slipped and gripped again, bruising the pads and turning his knuckles white. Pressure stopped the blood flow.
With no blood flow there was no pain.
Was there blood in the van? Jill had bled out on the street. And the clean-up crew hadn’t been fast enough. A vision of the empty street with a pool of his wife’s ended life—a photo that had been all over the news for days after she’d saved the life of a fellow officer—sprang to mind.
Caleb splashed. Laughed out loud. And looked to him for a response. Max smiled. His lips trembled and his cheeks hurt, but he kept that grin plastered on his face.
“Tell me,” he said into the phone, careful to keep his tone neutral. He’d promised himself he’d never again be at risk of a phone call like this.
He’d promised.
And then he’d met Meri. Safety conscious, paranoid, locked-in-fear Meri. Who’d found the heart and soul in him that he’d thought dead and gone, awoken it. And given him a son.
“There’s no sign of struggle,” Chantel’s voice held a note of sympathy, but not alarm. “The van was parked nine rows down in front of Chloe’s at the Sun Oaks shopping center.”
An upscale shopping development in the next town over. A maze of stores and parking that covered a square city block.
Meri liked to shop there.
Max’s thoughts calmed. And he rumbled inside. His stomach. His blood pressure. Every nerve on alert.
“Her cell phone was inside,” the thirty-year-old police officer continued. “That’s how they found the van, by tracking her cell. She’d left it on the console.”
Meri’s phone was a lifeline to her—her safety net. One push of a button and she could be connected to law enforcement. To Max. Or to The Lighthouse—a women’s shelter she’d been volunteering at since he’d known her. The shelter she’d lived at when she’d first come to Southern California.
She didn’t go from one room to the next without that cell phone. Wore it in a holster that clipped to any waistband. Showered with it on a shelf she’d had him install above the tile in the stall....
“There was a note, Max.” Another drop in Chantel’s tone. Another splash from the tub. Another rumble inside. “She said that she just couldn’t do it anymore. That she was too worried about Caleb all the time. That she couldn’t even leave him at day care for an afternoon, so how would she ever cope when he went to school? She was afraid that her paranoia would rub off on him. She said she had to go before he was old enough to remember and be traumatized. She left the phone because it was in your name.”
She’d have told him if she was leaving him. She would never have left Caleb. It didn’t make sense. He wasn’t going to panic.
“Were the keys in the car?” If she was ever in trouble and had to run—if she ever thought Steve was after her—she’d leave the car parked with the keys under the driver’s seat. It was one of the many precepts she’d laid out when she’d agreed to marry him.
Precautions, she’d called them.
They had to be prepared, she’d said.
“They were in the closed cup holder. Just like she said they’d be in the note.”
Who left a note in a car telling whoever looked that the keys were in the cup holder?
He sank down a little farther against the tub. She’d very clearly told him she’d leave them under the driver’s seat.
“She left you, Max. I’m so sorry....”
Another rumble. Another splash. And Dr. Max Bennet started to panic.
JENNA MCDONALD SAT at the white faux antique desk, a diary opened in front of her, and picked up a pen.
DAY ONE.
Pausing, pen suspended over the page, she read what she’d written.
Not her usual handwriting. There was some familiarity to it, but it was too shaky. It would improve. With time.
Everything did.
Until a time came that it didn’t? Did one have warning when that time had come? Did one know?
The wall in front of her was off-white. Her gaze following the color upward, she studied the soft gold-painted wood trim at the top. To remind her that a pot of gold awaited her, she’d been told. Different rooms had different messages. She’d chosen the pot-of-gold room. Jenna liked gold.
Something good to know. To hang on to.
Turning, she took in the generously sized room. Off-white metal furniture, including a queen-size bed, nightstand, and two dressers, fit with room to spare. The floor was carpeted, a light plush beige.
Nice. Peaceful.
The adjoining bathroom had a granite vanity, extra deep tub and walk-in shower. All donations, she’d been told. And lovely.
The closet was small. But too big for the couple of outfits hanging there—chosen from the impressive collection on-site—more donations. They’d told her to take as many as she’d like or thought she could use.
Taking things one day at a time suited her best. Until she figured out what was to come.
It had been said that clothing choice spoke of personality. Jenna’s personality wasn’t clear to her yet.
Somewhere in the folder of paperwork she’d amassed over the previous couple of hours, there was a coupon for a makeover, too, if she wanted one. Though her lack of need for one had been stressed ten-fold, lest she think she wasn’t good enough just as she was.
Lovely surroundings. And the price of admittance was higher than money could ever pay.
With a sigh, Jenna turned back to the diary she’d found still wrapped in its package, along with a new pen in the drawer of the desk at which she sat.
DAY ONE. She read again.
She
