Watch Me (30 page)

“Who’d think twice about any of the junk in that mess?” he went on. “I don’t know how he functions in such a chaotic environment. He and Robert.” He shook his head.

“And Cain?”

“Cain’s not like the rest of us. He’s not related.”

“Is that why you didn’t mind setting
him
up?”

“He deserved it. He
asked
for it.”

She wondered how quickly she could unlock the door and get it open. Would she have any chance if she jumped? They were gaining speed, going at least forty miles an hour. But he’d have to slow down once they hit the winding part of the road. That was probably her one opportunity. There’d be rocks, branches, pinecones, trees and stumps all along the shoulder. But if she got lucky, if she hit a soft patch, she might survive the fall.

“Don’t even think about it,” he said mildly.

She released her seat belt. “Why not? It might be my only chance.”

“I’d find you and kill you anyway.”

“What about Jason?” She wanted to distract him, keep him talking while she searched for another opportunity. “Did you kill him, too?”

He didn’t answer.

“Did you shoot Jason?” she repeated.

“Cain shot Jason.”

She inched closer to the door. “That’s not true, and you know it. Cain didn’t shoot anybody.”

His gaze slanted her way. “Of course I wouldn’t expect you to believe me. You’re one of his many conquests, after all. My dad told me at the funeral. He was very upset, you know. He said you fell for Cain just like Amy did. And Sheridan. I thought she was different, too good for him. But no…she proved herself to be no better than the rest.”

“Is that why you did it? You were angry that Cain had been with Sheridan?”

“No, I was disappointed in her. I thought someone would finally put him in his place. But Sheridan had nothing to do with it.”

“Who did?”

No answer.

“You’re not going to tell me?”

“You wouldn’t understand even if I did. You have no idea what it’s like always living in someone else’s shadow.”

“Cain casts a big shadow.”

“Cain?” He laughed. “Cain’s shadow wasn’t half as big as Jason’s.”

“You were jealous of Jason?”

His knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. “You would be, too, if you saw how my father worshipped him. Robert couldn’t do anything right. I could see why he might pale in comparison. But Jason wasn’t nearly as smart as me. I skipped
two
grades, for crying out loud. I graduated from med school at twenty-two. You’d think my dad would be proud of that.”

“He
is
proud of you, proud of what you’ve accomplished. Why would you ruin it? Why would you take the one thing he—” She caught herself, but Owen finished for her.

“The one thing he really loved?” He chuckled bitterly. “You understand more than I thought.”

“No. I can’t comprehend how one brother can kill another, regardless of what his father thinks. There’s something wrong with you, Owen. You have to get help.”

He looked wounded. “There’s no need to be unkind,” he said. “This isn’t personal.”

“Living is personal to me.”

He smiled. “That’s a good comeback. I’ve never been quick with that sort of thing. Maybe that’s why Dad liked Jason better. Jason had a quick comeback for everything.”

“Maybe he liked him better because he wasn’t a psychopath.”

“You’re making me angry,” he said, but she couldn’t have told from his voice. He spoke in the same monotone he always used.

Karen could feel the metal of the door latch against her upper arm. “If it was Jason you wanted, why’d you shoot Sheridan?”

“I couldn’t make it too obvious. I’m not that stupid.”

“But you went after her again when she returned!”

“That was Ned’s fault. He told me she knew something she wasn’t saying. He told me she was going to crack the case. And I’m still worried that might be true. You never know what little detail might give the truth away. If she remembers something, I could be in trouble.”

“So you decided to make sure she never did.”

“I have a family now,” he said. “I have a successful practice, too. I can’t go to jail.”

“And what about Amy?”

Regret flashed across his face. “Amy got in the way. I didn’t want to kill Amy.”

“They’ll catch you this time, Owen. Robert was home when we left. He might’ve seen us together.”

“I’m sure he did. He’s got the whole exterior of my dad’s place on camera surveillance. Did you know that?”

This surprised Karen. She’d never seen any cameras during her many visits. But it explained how Robert had known with such certainty that she’d gone into the house and not over to a neighbor’s. “What’re the cameras for?”

“He’s protecting the place from burglary. Dad has most of his money in silver, sitting right there in the
house, in case you weren’t aware of it.” He adjusted his rearview mirror. “They’re both a little weird, if you ask me. But I’m not one to point fingers.”

Karen stared longingly at the passing landscape. “Weird?” she echoed weakly.

“That was a joke,” he said. “Funny, huh?”

Karen didn’t find it funny at all. She found it terrifying. “If you hurt me, you’ll go to jail, which is exactly what you’re trying to avoid.”

He smiled confidently at her. “You got into my truck on your own. It wasn’t as if I dragged you in. And the cameras will prove it.”

“They’ll also prove that you were the last one to see me before I disappeared.”

“So they’ll come around to ask why. And I’ll simply tell them that you and my father were fighting—the tape will show that, too—and I got you out of there before you could swing that shovel again.”

“It won’t be that easy. They’ll want to know why you weren’t more concerned about your father.”

“It won’t be that hard, either. I’ll say I could tell he wasn’t seriously injured. They’ll believe me because I’m a doctor. And Robert was there to look after him.”

They probably would believe him. As far as Ned and the police were concerned, he’d have no motive. She and Owen had always gotten along just fine; it was Robert who’d never liked her.

“Even if they suspected me, they’d have to prove it,” he added.

And he was too smart to leave any evidence behind. He’d gotten away with two murders already.

They came up on another truck that was going much slower, and Owen put his foot on the brake.

“Aren’t you going to pass them?” Karen wanted him to do something that might attract the driver’s attention. If the driver looked over at her, maybe she could signal to him.

“I’m not in a hurry,” he said. “People get sloppy when they hurry. I’m the kind of person who likes to take his time.”

Her fingers twitched, wanting to reach for the door handle. But the truck was still going too fast. She needed Owen to either speed up, so she could get the attention of the driver in front of them, or slow down so she could jump. “Where are we going?”

“Not far. Any little side road will do.”

Panic surged through Karen. He intended to kill her. And he didn’t have a twinge of conscience about it. She could imagine him talking about her as distantly as he did Amy. “It was unfortunate, but she found the shovel and the ski mask so I had to take care of her….”

Grabbing the steering wheel, she jerked it to the right. He cried out and tried to fight her off, to straighten the tires.

Karen heard the squeal of brakes, smelled burning rubber as they spun. Then she saw the steep drop-off falling away to the river below, just before he got the truck under control.

They were both breathing hard as they came to a stop in the middle of the road. Fortunately, there was no one behind them. Gratitude for that filled Karen with hope, gave her the presence of mind to go for the door handle.
But Owen grabbed her and punched the gas pedal. They lurched forward, gaining speed as they wrestled.

Somehow, he managed to fend her off, drive and pull a gun from under his seat almost all at the same time.

Karen’s heart jumped into her throat. She saw her mother standing over her, kissing her goodbye before sending her off to kindergarten, the principal of her high school as she was awarded her diploma, her boyfriend in college laughing as he tackled her under a tree, Cain sitting in her class, doodling, John smiling as he proposed. The images rushed toward her in the split second she realized she was about to die.

Then the gun went off.

C
ain had spotted Sheridan’s car out front. He knew she had to be here somewhere. But he couldn’t see her anywhere inside and, other than the plastic that was missing from the window, nothing seemed disturbed. He wished he hadn’t let the dogs go home ahead of him. They’d smelled familiar ground and been so eager to run he’d given them the whistle that sent them off before they’d reached the old cabin. When he didn’t arrive behind them, they’d eventually backtrack, but they weren’t here now and he could’ve used their incredible sense of smell.

He poked his head into the woodshed attached to the kitchen and saw that the cellar door was open, but it was completely dark inside.

A sick feeling settled in the pit of his stomach as he went to retrieve his flashlight from the backpack he’d left on the counter. Was Sheridan in that hole? Someone had been here; he knew he’d closed the door when he’d cleaned up after the kids who’d broken in and vandalized the place—and discovered that rifle.

If she was down there, what would he find? Sheridan
on the ground, bloody and bruised and nearly dead, like she’d been in the woods?

Or would she
be
dead this time?

Why had she come here? And where the hell was Skye and that trusty gun of hers?

Snapping on the flashlight, he went back to the cellar door and angled the beam down into the hole. He couldn’t see anyone. But neither did he find a body.

“Sheridan?”

“Cain?” A wan light went on as he descended the stairs, and he sighed in relief. She was wedged into the corner between two shelves. How she’d managed to get into such a tight space, he had no idea, but it wasn’t easy for her to get out.

“What’re you doing here?” she asked.

He’d planned to stay out in the woods, to escape all the turmoil that recent events had caused inside him. But it didn’t bring him the peace it used to. He’d changed since Sheridan came to town. All he could think about was her. “This was on my way home. I was heading back.”

“You scared me!”

“I could say the same! Do you know what I imagined when I couldn’t find you upstairs and I saw the cellar door open?” His voice was a little too gruff, but he’d been so busy fearing the worst that his heart was still pounding.

“It must not’ve looked good.”

“No.” Someone else could’ve run into her here—the man who’d nearly buried her the night Cain’s dogs went crazy. That was what upset him so much. “You shouldn’t be running around out here alone. It’s not safe.”

“I just wanted to see where those kids found the rifle.
It’s odd that they uncovered something so well hidden, without doing any damage or rummaging around the place or anything.”

“They did plenty of damage. I cleaned it up.”

“Oh.”

“Where’s Skye?” he asked.

“She went home.”

“I thought she was going to stay. At least for a while.”

“She wanted to. But she has a young family and a lot going on at The Last Stand. And our partner, Ava, is new. There’s no way she could handle our cases as well as her own, especially the ones where she was coming in late on the action.”

“You should’ve gone with her,” he said.

She stared up at him, her eyes defiant. “Is that what you want? You want me gone?”

“I want you safe.”

Her flashlight dimmed and went out. Cain had his pointed at the ground. “And if I’m gone, then you’re safe, too, is that it?”

He’d be safe from the worry, safe from the fear. And maybe he wouldn’t think about her every time he closed his eyes. “I’m safe, regardless. You’re just another woman to me.” He scowled and looked away, hoping to appear as indifferent as his words, so she couldn’t read that statement for the lie it was.

“You haven’t changed? Making love is still all fun and games to you? You won’t invest any emotion, won’t form an attachment?”

It was safer to let her believe he was that shallow. Then she’d go away and never contact him again. And he
wouldn’t be tempted to risk more of his heart than he’d ever risked before. “Quit blaming me,” he said. “You’ve known all along that I’m not the kind of man you need.”

She frowned at him. “Did you sleep with Karen Stevens?”

He didn’t answer.

“Cain?”

“What do you think?”

“You did.”

He wanted to tell her how much he regretted it, what a mistake it had been, but he refused to hide behind excuses. “That’s right.”

“Recently?”
she pressed.

“God, give me some credit.” He turned to go up the stairs, but she grabbed his arm.

“If I don’t mean anything to you, what’s wrong with here and now, Cain? Why not take what you want one more time? What do you have to lose?”

Everything. He lost a little more of himself with every touch, was already consumed by the thought of her. “I’m not in the mood.”

She lifted his hand to the soft flesh of her breast, and he felt his body instantly react. It was all he could do not to back her up against the wall.

“You’re going to get hurt, and then you’re going to blame me,” he said.

Her voice held a mocking note. “What makes you so sure you won’t be the one to get hurt this time?”

He knew better than to rise to the challenge, but his libido demanded a different answer. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he said and snapped off his light.

Owen was breathing hard as he stared at the blood spatter on his passenger window. Karen’s death wasn’t supposed to go like this. He’d hoped to take her out into the forest, where he could shoot her without worrying about being seen or heard. Instead, he’d made a mess in his truck.

Checking to make sure the vehicle ahead of them hadn’t seen them spin out and stopped to help, he got back on the road. He definitely didn’t want to be straddling the highway when the next driver came up behind him. Not with a dead woman slumped in his passenger seat.

He glanced at Karen. Boy, had she surprised him. He’d never expected her to be so strong. She was almost as strong as Sheridan. But he’d been lucky in one regard: he was pretty sure the incident had gone unobserved.

Problem was, the bullet had traveled through her chest and lodged in his seat. How was he going to explain that?

He told himself he’d think of something. First things first. Stay organized. And that meant he had to dispose of the body before he got distracted by other concerns.

Giving the truck enough gas to come up to a reasonable speed, he laid the gun in his lap as he tried to decide where to dump the body. He had a shovel. He could go someplace and dig a shallow grave. But that would take a lot of time. The night he’d tried to bury Sheridan was too fresh in his mind. Digging was harder than he’d realized for a man who wasn’t used to physical labor. And he had so much to do. He had to clean his truck, hide that bullet hole in the seat and invent some kind of
excuse for Karen’s disappearance—all before his wife began to wonder where he was.

He needed a place where he could get rid of the body fast without worrying about being observed. A place where it wouldn’t be found until he could cover his tracks.

He smiled as the obvious occurred to him. Now that Sheridan was staying in town, Cain’s focus was on her. Which meant Owen could dump Karen in the cellar of Cain’s old cabin and leave her there until Lucy fell asleep tonight. He had a key; Cain had given it to him years ago.

Yes, that would work. Later, he could get “called to the office.” As the town’s only doctor, he was on duty 24/7. His wife had quit trying to keep track of him at night.

The darkness embraced Sheridan seconds before Cain’s arms went around her and his mouth crushed hers. He kissed her with soft, pliable lips, meeting her tongue with his as his hands slipped up the back of her shirt. “You think you’re tough, huh?” He sounded breathless as he kissed her neck, cupped her breasts.

She caught his bottom lip between her teeth. “I’m as tough as you are.”

He laughed. “I don’t doubt it. Should we go up to the futon?”

“No.” She liked it right here, where it was so dark neither of them could see. There was something erotic about such absolute blackness, about darkness so thick it felt tangible. She could throw her head back and cast all reservations aside because she didn’t have to worry about giving too much away.

“This is no place for a nice girl.”

“I think I’ve already proved I’m not so nice.”

“You don’t mind getting messy?”

“I like messy.” Her hands were under his shirt, too. She closed her eyes as she swept her fingers over his flat stomach, traced his pectoral muscles and explored the ropey muscles of his neck and shoulders.

He pulled his shirt off, and she didn’t bother using her fingers anymore. She used her mouth.

“You make me so hot,” he whispered.

She moved lower, which became the trigger that threw everything into fast-forward. They couldn’t get naked fast enough, couldn’t touch enough, couldn’t get close enough. He paused only when their clothes were off, and he was lifting her onto him. She sensed a strange hesitation, a desire to say something. But she didn’t want to let him think, didn’t want to let herself think, either. Wrapping her legs around him, she pulled him inside her.

“That’s what I want,” he said.

“I want it, too,” she whispered. But then it hit her: Birth control.

“Cain?” she gasped.

His face was buried in her shoulder while he supported her weight. “What?”

“What about a condom?”

He stopped, but the way he squeezed her bottom told her it hadn’t been easy for him. “Don’t you have anything in your purse?”

“No.”

“Do we really need it?”

She thought he was joking. “Unless we’re willing to risk a baby, we do.”

She’d said it flippantly, but he remained serious. “Would you trust me that much?”

Sheridan stiffened in surprise. “What did you say?”

“You heard me.”

“We’ve been over this. We’re talking about a lifelong commitment, Cain. I’d want to keep the baby.”

“I understand that.” His chest rose and fell as he recovered his breath. “I won’t leave you high and dry. You know that, don’t you?”

She clung to his shoulders. “But you already got stuck with this problem once. You don’t want to do it again.”

“This isn’t the same.”

“How’s it different?”

He touched her forehead with his own. “I was lying when I said you don’t matter to me.” He hesitated, as if his next words were difficult, but that made them sound all the more sincere. “I’m in love with you.”

Sheridan didn’t know how to react. It was the last thing she’d expected to hear. “Cain…”

“I tried to warn you.”

“You told me I was going to be hurt.”

“You probably will be hurt. I make a terrible husband.”

“It’s been eleven years since you were married. And you were so young. How can you say that?”

“Because it’s true.”

“At least you’re good in bed,” she teased. “We’ll always have that.”

He took her words for the cue they were, only this time he moved much more slowly, drawing it out. “So what do you say? Wanna make a baby with me?”

It was probably the most reckless thing she’d ever
done. They lived across the country from each other, and she had no idea how they’d work out the logistics. Would he move to California? Would she move to Tennessee? How would her family react? Was this something he’d said in the heat of the moment? Would he want to marry her ten minutes from now?

She didn’t know the answers to any of those questions. But she knew she wanted Cain’s baby. He was the only man she’d ever loved. And, after twelve years, she’d only fallen harder.

“Yes,” she said and then he finished so tenderly she knew he wasn’t going to change his mind.

John wasn’t sure exactly what hit him. All he knew was that Karen had been there one moment and was gone the next. “Where’d she go?” he muttered and realized from the frustration on Robert’s face that it wasn’t the first time he’d asked.

“You must have a freakin’ concussion,” he said. “I told you! Owen took her somewhere.”

They were standing in Robert’s trailer, but John couldn’t remember walking there, and he couldn’t clear his head enough to think straight. Pain radiated from behind his eyes; he had to squint just to see the screen Robert was trying to show him.

“He’s right there.” Robert pointed to a grainy figure crossing the front lawn. “That’s Owen.”

“I see him. But where’s his truck?”

“It’s not in the picture. I’m guessing he parked it across the street.”

“You weren’t there?”

“I was watching for Karen to come through the house, like you told me to.”

“So…” John struggled to recall if he’d asked this before. “Did you see her hit me?”

“No! When I came out, you were lying on the ground and there was no one else here.”

He gingerly touched the swollen lump on the side of his head. “What’d she hit me with?”

“A shovel, I think.” He touched one finger to the screen. “Owen picked up something right here.” He froze the playback. “That looks like a shovel to me.”

John couldn’t argue with that. It looked like a shovel to him, too. But why would Karen be carrying a shovel? “Where are they now?”

Robert’s eyebrows drew together. “I don’t know. Owen’s not picking up his cell phone. He’s not at home. And he’s not at the office.”

Robert was getting at something. That much was becoming clear. “So?”

“I’m worried.”

“Why?”

“That mask we found in her purse?”

John finally conjured up the knitted ski mask in his mind. “Yeah?”

“It had blood on it.”

“She wouldn’t hurt anybody.” He remembered the news she’d imparted last night. “Not physically, anyway.”

“I’m not sure the mask belonged to her, Dad.”

“It probably didn’t. She’s covering for Cain.” Cain was the bad guy here—had been since he was a kid. But he wouldn’t get away with the things he’d done. John
was determined to attain justice. He’d sit in the crawlspace beneath Sheridan’s house all summer if he had to, but he’d eventually see or hear something that would put Cain away.

“What if it wasn’t Cain, Dad? What if…what if it was Owen?”