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“He never planned to marry Leah.”

“It looks that way. He certainly couldn't have been planning to do it anytime soon, because until he files to have you declared dead, he's still a married man.”

Shivering, Kate hugged her knees back to her chest. “So
why
didn't he have me declared dead?” she wondered half out-loud. “It's not like he needs my half of the estate, but it's not a small amount of money, either.”

Carley tilted her head, eyes narrowed. “He claims—this is what I've been told by Amy Black, chief counsel for the prosecution—that he loved you so much he couldn't bear to give up hope that you'd be found…and able to take your rightful place as his wife. Just the way you'd want to.”

Kate almost threw up. And then started to shake. All she could see was a red haze. She couldn't do it. Couldn't
walk back into that insidious life of manipulation and control, his diabolical use of tenderness to soften his prey for the kill.

Because Thomas had the one thing that could tip the scales in his favor. The perception of honesty. In everything he said, there was
some
truth.

“Hey.” Carley's hand was on her wrist, gently tugging. “It's okay. You can't—and won't—go back to him.”

Kate could hear her words clearly, although they sounded as if they came from a great distance. It was the fervent support shining from Carley's dark eyes that reconnected her to the world. She listened to the cheerful and unnaturally high-pitched voices coming from the television set several yards away, watched her son happily trying to force a truck into a blue box half its size. And she thanked her best friend's sister for sending her strength where hers had failed.

“What
is
true?” she whispered.

“In the state of California, he could've been charged with your death even without a body if there'd been reasonable cause. His claims of undying love went a long way toward protecting him against that. He sure as hell wasn't going to rock the boat by having you declared dead,” she said urgently. “It was all part of the act.”

Yes, and that was what she had to remember every second of every day from now on. With Thomas, it was
always
part of the act.

“And…” Carley added, her glance sympathetic “…in
his own twisted way, Thomas does love you. As much as he can love anyone.”

“Love to him is control,” Kate said in a low voice.

“I know.” Carley paused, squeezed Kate's hand. “But you broke away from all that, and you aren't going back.” She said the words with such certainty Kate had to believe them. “In the meantime, the fact that he couldn't have you declared dead prevented him from stealing your life out from under you.”

Yeah. Kate wanted to laugh at the irony of it all, but couldn't find any humor. Thomas had already stolen her life. Twice now.

A chord of fear chased through her again, leaving her weak. “What life is that?” she asked. Shook her head. “I can't get a grip on who might be living that life,” she admitted, “or what it's going to look like.”

Had she traveled so far, maintained her composure for so long, only to lose control now, when it was all finally coming to an end?

“Oh, sweetie, come here.” Carley leaned over and pulled Kate close in a sisterly embrace. “It's all going to be okay,” she half crooned, and while Kate knew her friend couldn't have any idea what she was talking about, she succumbed to the comfort she was offering. “You're worn out, and you're finally in a place you can relax your guard, and that's good. But don't worry, you're still you and you're going to be just fine.”

“I don't know who that is,” she mumbled against Carley's shoulder.

“You're a world-class fashion designer who'll be sought after just as zealously in a few months as you were two years ago. You'll buy yourself a beautiful new house—anyplace you want—and a new car, a few new pieces of plastic that'll get you in anywhere you want to go, enough clothes to tide you over until you have employees eagerly sewing up your newest collection…”

Kate slowly relaxed as Carley wove her fantasy. There was so much ground to traverse between where she was right then, destitute and unkempt on Carley's couch, and the woman her friend was describing. So many problems Carley casually forgot to mention. Still, this vision of herself was a diversion she couldn't quite turn away from.

“You're going to join the new mothers' group at the club, be inundated with suitors and invitations and…”

Scott. Her heart fell as a quick pain shot through her. She didn't want suitors. And Scott would never fit into this fantasy.

“But first,” Carley said, sitting up, as though she knew she'd just lost Kate's attention, “we have some business to take care of.”

Kate nodded. She moved through life one day at a time. The past two years had taught her that very valuable lesson. She couldn't forget it. Couldn't ignore the value gained from these lost years.

Or was it that she couldn't let go of two years that might've been the best she'd ever live?

 

“I'm going to suggest we keep your reappearance quiet for as long as we can,” Carley said several minutes later. The women were once again on the couch. A new video of
Blue's Clues
episodes played in front of them, already entertaining the freshly diapered toddler who was half gumming, half chewing a cookie.

“I agree,” Kate smiled sadly at her son as he swayed back and forth to the Blue theme song, his little bottom thick with diaper and overalls. “For his sake if nothing else. I don't want anyone near him.”

Especially not his father.

“We won't be able to avoid the press forever,” Carley warned. “Nor do I think we want to. We're fighting a very powerful man, here, as you well know. It's only because I went public that I've been heard at all.”

“I understand.” She'd known what she was getting into. She glanced at her son. “I just want to keep him out of things as much as possible. I'd also like the prosecutor's office to know about my reappearance before the defense does.”

“Which is why I suggested we keep things quiet for now.” Carley shot her an ironic grin. “It just means we're going to have to do something about your hair and nails ourselves.”

Kate was almost comforted by the thought of living, even in this small way, the ordinary life she'd just left behind. She flipped her ponytail. “I think I want to keep it long, anyway.”

“It'll be beautiful.” Carley's smile touched the coldest places inside her. “With some wave and curls, you'll be rivaling Miss America again.”

As if she ever had.

“I'll bet you never thought all those hours of begging you guys to let me do your hair would pay off, huh?” Carley's grin grew.

Kate meant to smile back. But her tears got in the way.

“I'
m done.” Kate set the pen down on the table with an aching hand, pushing the legal pad across the long Formica-topped wooden table. Along with several chairs, that table was the only furniture in the second-floor examination room at the San Francisco downtown precinct.

“It's all here?” Amy Black's gray hair was falling out of the neat twist she'd worn several hours before.

Kate nodded, still not used to the feel of curls around the sides of her face and neck. She wasn't quite used to the sensation of silk against her skin, either, though she'd designed the navy suit and cream blouse Carley had pulled from the back of her closet. “From the time I abandoned the car outside my home and walked to the bus station nearly two years ago, until Mrs. Winchester drove me to your door this afternoon,” she confirmed.

They were alone at the moment, but Kate still couldn't relax. Detectives Gregory and Stanton had left
to follow up on the results of the dental exam they'd ordered a couple of hours before, intending to hold her there until they'd confirmed she was the woman she claimed to be.

David Holm, Ms. Black's younger and more cynical partner, was out getting dinner for them. She hoped it wasn't Chinese. She didn't think she could handle the spices. Or the chopsticks. Or those cookies that told fortunes.

“Where did you say your son was?” Amy asked, her eyes kind behind the large lenses.

“I don't know.” And even though that had been her choice, the fact was eating away at her. But she trusted Carley a whole lot more than she trusted the San Francisco police. “Somewhere safe.” Carley had taken him to a cabin that belonged to a friend of a friend of a friend someplace outside San Francisco. She had a cell number to reach her, but that was all.

Amy nodded. “Probably not a bad idea.”

Kate had no idea whether Thomas knew that she was back—she hadn't been out of that dirty gray-walled room in hours. But she knew for sure that he wasn't going to take the news gently.

“I'm prepared to bring my son in for DNA testing,” she said now, keeping her wits about her through sheer force of will—and almost constant thoughts of Taylor and Carley out there waiting for her.

She'd had to break down and think of Scott more than once, as well, but no one need ever know that.

“I don't think that'll be necessary,” Amy said now, frowning. “Once your identity has been confirmed, the state will be dropping the charges against your husband. There'll be no reason for us to confirm whether or not he's your son's father.”

She stared at the older woman. “He is.”

Ms. Black shrugged. “It's irrelevant.”

Kate stared. “No, it's not! I'm not dead, but Leah is. Thomas is claiming he couldn't possibly have fathered her child. Taylor's DNA can prove that he's lying. He
is
capable of fathering children.”

Amy Black didn't respond, other than through her sympathetic expression.

Something wasn't right.
Kate's heart stopped and then jumped inside her chest, beating so hard, so fast, she could feel its pressure when she dragged in air.

“What?” Kate asked.

Amy shook her head. Raised her hands and let them fall to the table.

“Tell me.”

“There's nothing to tell.”

She'd spent the better part of a day with this woman, some of the most painful and difficult moments she'd ever endured. That had to count for something. “Please, Amy, what is it that you aren't telling me?”

The woman leaned forward. “The state's case against your husband in the murder of Leah Montgomery was based largely on the patterns set by the dual disappear
ances. Two women, best friends, both disappearing while claiming pregnancy by the same man…”

She was burning, sweating, from the inside out. “Thomas killed Leah.”

Amy's smile, while filled with empathy, was no comfort as she shook her head. “His alibi checked out.”

“So someone's lying. We know she was pushed off that cliff!”

“Yes, but—”

“No one knew about that cliff except Thomas and Carley.”

Carley! Oh, my God. Taylor was with Carley! Lurching up, hardly able to see the door through the red fog in front of her eyes, Kate bumped her knee, catching her ankle on the chair Detective Gregory had vacated half an hour before, and still tore for the only way out.

“Mrs. Whitehead!” Amy Black was there, a firm hand on her arm. Kate flung her arm frantically, trying to get free.

“Mrs. Whitehead…Kate…”

Ms. Black held both her arms. Kate heard a scream, an animalistic cry. Felt the raw burn in her throat. And pulled for all she was worth.

“Hey…” Amy Black's arm was around her—at least she thought the arm belonged to Amy. “It's okay.” The woman's voice had taken on the tone of an elder speaking with a very small child. Ordinarily such a tone would have sent Kate farther away. This time it called her back.

“It's not okay!” She shook her head, focusing for all she was worth on the other woman's gaze. “If Carley killed Leah…”

“She didn't!” Ms. Black said emphatically, then stopped and seemed to make some kind of decision. “Sit,” she said more firmly, indicating the chair Kate had abandoned.

“You're sure?” Kate stood, still poised for flight.

“Positive.”

Her breathing slowed. The frantic tensing of muscle and nerve began to lessen. And she saw herself from afar, saw that she was so completely distraught and at her emotional limit that she'd actually, for one moment, doubted Carley. Of all people.

“How can you be so sure?” It was no longer a question about Carley, but about the detective's confidence.

“Because—although this isn't information we're ready to divulge yet—we just found out who did.”

 

Kate fell to the chair. Stunned. What had she just done? How could she possibly have thought Carley was capable of murder? Had her faith in humanity dwindled so far?

“Who did it?” she asked now, watching the prosecutor from a place of quiet detachment. Emotions still simmered inside her; she could sense them, feel them there. And was thankful for the rational stillness that had settled over her, due mostly to the older woman's calm certainty.

After watching her for several more seconds, Amy
Black took the chair next to Kate, between Kate and the door. “You aren't going to like what I have to say,” she said, eyes narrowed as she studied Kate. She sat sideways in the chair, her knees almost touching Kate's thigh, her body a solid wall beside her.

“Thomas did it,” Kate said.

Amy neither confirmed nor denied the statement.

“Walter Mavis came to us late yesterday,” she said, instead, seemingly out of the blue. “He'd seen the article about the results of Ms. Montgomery's autopsy.”

Feeling as though a shield of see-through cotton had fallen around her Kate sat quietly, nodded. She had no thoughts, no judgments. Or even suppositions. She just listened.

“He said he might be able to tell us something that could help us. He agreed to testify if we'd cut a deal with him.”

Things like that happened. On television. In the news.

“His testimony in exchange for the state's agreement not to prosecute,” Black continued.

Walter was a sweet old guy. She could see the value of that deal. But why would anyone want to prosecute him? Even if the hermit
had
spied on her and on Leah. He was the most harmless creature she'd ever met, carefully picking up the spiders that entered his home and taking them outside.

“He must've seen who went up there,” she said. And it made sense that he'd tell the police.

“He did it.”

 

Kate wondered how many times a person could be hit and remain conscious. Too many. Walter had pushed Leah? It wasn't possible. Didn't make sense.

“No,” she said over and over. She just couldn't accept that. It was too much. “He was our friend….”

“He was an alcoholic who had to have his alcohol. Thomas paid his liquor store tabs.”

“He killed her for a bottle of whiskey?”

She had to lie down. Sleep until she had the energy to go on. Escape. But then the nightmares would start. She wasn't sure which would be worse.

“He admitted to pushing her over the cliff. He said he'd done it because Thomas threatened to expose him if he didn't.”

“Expose him for what?”

“Obstructing justice in the investigation of your disappearance. He had the old man convinced he'd go to jail for keeping quiet about the fact that you visited Miner's Mountain the day you disappeared.”

“And Mavis bought that?”

“You said yourself how secluded the old man is. He's never seen a television show in his life, which is unfortunately how most people gain their legal knowledge. And he panicked at the thought of being locked up.”

It was typical Thomas, preying on a person's weaknesses as a means of control.

“Apparently, after pushing Ms. Montgomery, he
couldn't live with himself,” Amy continued. “Luckily for him, Mavis talked to a guy where he gets his liquor who told him to call an attorney before he came here. The guy gave him Dan Hillier's name. Hillier showed him the article about the autopsy results.”

“His attorney cut the deal,” Kate said, almost thankful for the diversion of this little side story, as though its impact wasn't changing her life.

“Dan Hillier knew we'd want Thomas Whitehead badly enough to give Mavis a buy.” The disgust tingeing Ms. Black's voice brought Kate closer to the life she was trying to avoid.

“So you've got Thomas,” she said, remembering how the woman had implied earlier that the state had nothing on him. When, in fact, she'd merely been telling her why the state didn't need a sample of Taylor's DNA….

“No, unfortunately, we don't,” she said.

“Sure you do.” Kate nodded, even that slight movement making her dizzy. “Hiring someone to kill another person is the same as killing that person yourself….”

Amy sighed heavily. “We made the deal last night and spent the morning investigating Mavis, trying to build our case. Now that we know what we've got, we also know the defense has enough evidence to discredit Mavis's testimony from here to New York.”

Kate felt the blood drain from her face.

“He's an alcoholic. He eats weeds, thinks crickets are
members of his family. At one point he called you his daughter.”

He'd told her if he'd ever had a daughter, he'd have wanted her to be like Kate. She'd said she'd much rather have had him for a father…

“The onus is on us to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Thomas Whitehead hired the hermit to kill Leah, and with Mavis's testimony as our only real evidence, we don't have a hope in hell of convincing a jury.”

The prosecution had been planning to use Kate's death, the pattern of her and Leah's disappearances, as evidence, thinking that, with Mavis's testimony, even discredited, that would be enough.

“You believe Mavis murdered Leah, though,” Kate said.

Amy nodded. “The handprints on Leah's back measured the same size as Mavis's. He said she scratched him, grasping for his arm to save herself as she went off the cliff, showed us the scar. And forensics found his DNA under her fingernails. Thomas withheld liquor money and Mavis was in bad shape, mentally and physically. He wasn't himself. So when Thomas threatened to expose him, he became convinced he'd go to jail for keeping quiet after you disappeared. And he believed it when Thomas said no one would ever find out about Leah. No one knew about him or the cliff, and he'd seen how easily doubts about Thomas were dismissed in connection with your disappearance.”

The lump in her chest constricted her breathing. She
could imagine Leah, knowing she was going to die, grabbing for the old man who'd been like a father to them….

“And now, because the state made a deal, he just walks,” she said when she could think clearly enough to speak.

She sensed more than saw Amy Black's nod. “In this case, the deal was made pursuant to the witness's
agreement
to testify in court, not on his actually having done so. I've wanted Whitehead for a long time,” the woman went on. “Giving up Mavis seemed like a small thing. The man lives on a mountain. He's no danger to society.”

“What about Leah's blood on Thomas's car seat? It's clear now he was lying about that, since she obviously wasn't having her period.”

Amy Black's face was impassive. “Maybe she scratched herself.”

“Maybe he hit her.”

“I'm inclined to agree with you but since there's no evidence, my opinion is worth nothing. She had a massage that afternoon, and apparently no one noticed anything out of the ordinary.”

Kate welcomed the numbness that spread through her. If only it could last until she'd taken her last breath on this earth.

“It would've been better if I'd stayed away,” she said, almost to herself, leaning on the table with both forearms. “Without me, you could have convicted Thomas….”

Amy Black's gaze was open, sincere. “We might've sent him to his death for murders he didn't commit.”

A burst of anger shot through Kate, fierce, bitter. She sat back sharply. “So instead he walks—despite the murders he hired someone to commit?”

Black shrugged.

“Wait a minute!” Kate suddenly said. “We can still get him,” she said. “If I get on the stand, testify to his abuse.” The very idea of finally having her say, coming clean, getting the shameful secret out into the light gave her momentum. “The jury will see his violent nature, the DNA test will prove he's a liar, and then, with Mavis's testimony added to the fact that only a handful of people even knew about that cliff…”