Sanders 01 - Silent Run (17 page)

Despite her matter-of-fact tone, anger burned in her eyes, and Dylan felt like a shit for his comments. “I apologize."

“You should. At any rate, I don't know where Teresa is. Nor do I know where Jessica is. That's the bottom line."

“But they could be together. They could have kept in touch after Teresa left Chicago?"

“Yes, but if Jessica knew where Teresa was, she kept the information in her head, because it wasn't written down on any of the papers in her apartment. Although she did have her purse with her when she disappeared."

“Really?” Dylan said, surprised by that fact.

“As far as we can tell, yes. That's the clue that led the police to speculate that there was no foul play involved."

“Well, I think there's only one way to answer your questions and mine. You need to come with me to LA to meet Sarah, to see if she's Jessica. We can go right now. I'll drive."

Catherine's hesitation disturbed him.

“What? You don't want to go?” he asked in amazement.

“Of course I want to go, but I have a job. I teach an art class at the local community college on Friday afternoons, and today is the midterm exam. I can't miss it."

“What time is it over?"

“Five o'clock."

He didn't want to wait until the end of the day. They were three hours north of LA, and at this rate they wouldn't be able to meet up with Jake and Sarah until later in the evening. But he had no choice. Catherine was his best lead. “We'll go after your class."

Catherine stared back at him, uncertainty in her eyes.

“What now?” he asked.

“It has occurred to me over the years that maybe Jessica had a reason to disappear, and by trying to find her I might be putting her in danger. I wonder if I did exactly that when I called the police last night.

It might be better for me to wait here. If Jessica wants to find me, she'll find me."

“Maybe she doesn't know where you are. You were in New York when she disappeared."

“That's true. But if she wanted to track me down, she'd look here. I lived here for a couple of years when I was a little girl. I used to tell Jessica about the sand dunes on Pismo Beach and the beautiful waves. It was a happy place for me. I think she'd come here if she were looking for me. And my name is listed in the phone book."

“Perhaps she was coming here,” Dylan suggested, his nerves tightening at the thought. It would give Sarah a reason for heading north from LA. She could have been on her way to find Catherine. “Sarah doesn't know who she is,” he reminded Catherine. “She needs someone to tell her. If she's Jessica, you could be the one person to bring back her memory. And it's important, not just because her child is missing, but because someone is trying to kill Sarah."

“What?” she asked in shock. “You didn't say that before."

“Her accident wasn't random. Someone ran her off the road, and someone tried to smother her with a pillow in the hospital yesterday. That's the truth.” He gazed into her eyes. “You can see I'm telling the truth, can't you?"

“Yes, I can see that. But what you haven't told me is why you're trying to help someone you don't like. What do you have against Sarah?"

“She wrecked my brother's life. She took his kid and ran away seven months ago. Watching him search for his daughter...” Dylan couldn't even finish the statement. Seeing Jake's pain had just about killed him. He hadn't been able to do anything to help his brother, the brother who had quite literally saved his own stupid life. But he had a chance now, and he wasn't going to blow it. He needed Catherine to trust him, and she wasn't a woman to trust easily. He couldn't fake it with her. She was far too perceptive. “I don't like Sarah, but I'm not interested in hurting her,” he said truthfully. “I just want to help my brother get his daughter back."

“I never had a brother,” Catherine said. “I used to wish I did. Someone who would have protected me the way you want to protect your brother. All right. I'll help you. I'll go to LA with you tonight. But I'm as loyal to Jessica as you are to your brother. If I have to make a choice between them, I'll choose her."

“And I'll choose him,” Dylan said.

“Then we understand each other,” she said.

“We do.” And what he understood was that he didn't trust her any more than she trusted him. He would bet his life that Catherine knew how to run and hide as well as Sarah did.

Sarah felt much better after their late lunch. Jake hadn't said anything while they ate, and for that she was grateful. She needed a break from the constant onslaught of questions. A lot had happened in the past few days. She needed to process the odd facts that had come back to her and see if they made any sense. She started to clear their plates, but Jake waved her back.

“I'll clean up,” he said. “You sit. Save your energy for the big stuff."

“Thanks.” She watched him take care of the food and dishes with quick, quiet competence. There was a confidence about his movements, as if he were used to taking care of himself -- which she supposed he was.

She wondered what his life had been like before they met. Aside from his job, she knew next to nothing about him.

“How old are you?” she asked.

“Thirty-three,” he said shortly as he rinsed off a plate and set it on the counter to dry.

Which made him five years older than her. “Where did you grow up? San Francisco?"

“Yes."

“What did you like to do in your free time?"

Jake walked back to the table, looking none too pleased by her questions. “Why do you want to know about me? It's not going to help you remember your life."

“Probably not, but I'm curious. And you never know -- something you say, something you shared with me before, might spark a memory."

“You're reaching, Sarah."

“Okay, so I just want to fill in some blanks. Are you going to talk or not?"

Jake sat down with a sigh. “You never used to be so nosy."

“I didn't?"

“No. You weren't one of those women who wanted to know every last thing about me. I thought at the time how lucky I was."

“But you don't anymore."

He shook his head. “Because now I understand that you didn't ask me about my life so that you wouldn't have to answer questions about yours. You said, ‘Let's keep the past in the past,' and I said, ‘Sure, why not?' I had no idea that you had so much to hide."

“What about you? Were you hiding anything from me?"

The odd look that flashed through his eyes surprised her. And when he said, “Of course not,” she didn't believe him.

“Jake?"

“I didn't have a great childhood. I don't like to talk about it. I'm not hiding anything.” He frowned. “Fine, here's the abbreviated version of my life. As I told you before, my parents divorced when I was ten and Dylan was seven. My mother left, and my father raised us, so to speak. He wasn't really around that much. He was a businessman, an investment banker. Everything for him was about numbers and bottom lines. He didn't have patience for anything that didn't add up. He had high expectations that were impossible to meet, especially for Dylan. He was rough on my brother. He made life impossible for him. Every night the dinner table was a battlefield."

“So you tried to make things easier,” she ventured.

“It didn't work. My father and brother couldn't get along, and to be honest my father was a bully. He'd go after any sign of weakness. Even when Dylan was just a little kid, my father would taunt him about his failures, if it was missing a ground ball at second base or marking the wrong answer on a math quiz. Sometimes I'd try to distract him by doing something even worse."

Sarah leaned forward, resting her arms on the table. “Like what?"

He shrugged. “Anything, spilling something on the floor -- he hated that -- turning on the TV when we were supposed to be studying.” Jake stared down at the floor. “Whatever."

“You are totally lying,” she said. “You didn't do those things -- Dylan did. You just tried to take the blame for him."

His head jerked up. “That's not true."

“I don't think it's in you to screw up. You have this innate sense of right and wrong."

His gaze burned into hers. “When it comes to you, yes."

“When it comes to everything,” she countered. “Even if you tried to mess up to distract your father, I bet you didn't do a very good job."

“Okay, we're done."

“No, no, wait,” she pleaded, realizing she'd shut him down. “Okay, I'll buy your story."

“It's not a story."

“Tell me the rest. Please."

He drew in a deep breath and then said, “Things got worse for Dylan when I went away to college. My father kicked him out of the house when he was sixteen. Dylan wound up coming to live with me. He slept on my living room couch for two years in an apartment I shared with a few other guys. I got him signed up at the local high school and that was that. He was my responsibility."

“Your father didn't try to get Dylan to come home?"

“Hell, no. I think he was happy we were both gone. He threw some extra cash at me until Dylan was eighteen, and then he said he was done supporting either one of us."

“Your father sounds like a harsh man."

“Cold as ice."

“It's no wonder you're such close brothers. I'm sure Dylan would do anything for you.” Their tight relationship also explained why Dylan was so protective of Jake when it came to her.

“We'd do anything for each other,” Jake amended.

She gave him a thoughtful look. “I came between you, didn't I? You said something about that before."

“Dylan didn't trust you, but I wouldn't listen to him. He'd always been a cynic about women. He never got over my mother walking out on us. He went crazy when you moved in with me, and especially when you got pregnant. He pressured me to ask you more questions, to make sure I knew who you were before I married you. But I didn't want to ask you questions. I didn't want to rock the perfect boat we were on. So I blew him off. I told him to get out of my life if he couldn't be happy for me. I didn't see him again until the day you disappeared. He came back as soon as he heard you and Caitlyn were gone."

“You chose me over your brother. I'm amazed."

“It just goes to show how insane I was. But Dylan was right. I was wrong. I should have done everything he said.” Jake drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “In my job, I focus on every detail. I know how important it is to have a foundation that's strong, that won't cave in; otherwise nothing else matters. But in my personal life, with you, I screwed up. I didn't worry about building a foundation. I didn't care about the details. Our relationship was built on shifting sand, and look what happened. It collapsed. Why was I surprised?"

She didn't know what to say. She was still stunned to know that she'd been able to rip apart such a tight bond between brothers. Jake must have really loved her. And she must have loved him, too. But if she had loved him, why had she let him send away the brother he adored? Jake must have told her before how he had practically raised Dylan. She had to have known how close they were.

“Did I know at the time that Dylan disliked me?” she asked. “Did you tell me about your conversation with him?"

“Not completely,” he admitted. “You knew a little, but I didn't want to hurt your feelings."

Because he had a big heart, she realized. He'd protected his brother and he'd protected her. Jake was a good man. Why on earth had she left him? There had to be something he wasn't telling her about their relationship.

“What did we fight about?” she asked.

Jake stared at her. “Nothing."

“Seriously?"

“You weren't a fighter. You didn't complain. You didn't argue about anything."

“Wow. I sound like an incredibly boring doormat of a person. Why did you like me?"

Jake sighed. “You weren't a doormat. We didn't fight because we were in sync. We liked the same movies. We read the same books. We were never bored with each other. We didn't talk about a lot of personal stuff, but we talked about everything else. And you have a great sense of adventure, Sarah. You once read an article about all the public stairways in San Francisco. There are three hundred and something of them, by the way. You decided that we would find all of them and climb them. And we did. I had grown up in the city, but I'd never seen it before, not until I met you.” He paused. “You made me stop and feel the sun on my face. It sounds stupid, but I'd never done that."

No, because he was a goal-obsessed person, and right now he was chafing with impatience at having to tell her things about their past when all he really wanted to do was find Caitlyn.

“Thanks,” she said simply. “It's nice to know something about myself."

He shrugged. “Whatever it takes."

The muscles in his face tightened, as if he regretted the small confidence they'd shared. She doubted she would get anything more personal out of him. But she didn't want their conversation to end. She felt as if every word he spoke was lightening up the darkness in her head. “This is helping,” she said.

“Why? Are you starting to remember?"

“The memories feel closer."

“What does that mean?"

“I don't know, Jake. Just keep talking. Tell me about your mother."

“I don't talk about her."

“But why did she leave you behind? Don't mothers usually get custody?"

“She obviously didn't want custody,” he replied. “I think she was so beaten down by my father over the years that she just couldn't keep fighting. She used to drink, take sleeping pills. I'm sure she was trying to escape from my father."

“Did he abuse her?"

“I never saw him physically hurt her. I even remember some good times. But one day they were just gone. And then so was she. She wrote us a long letter and that was that. Over the years she did sign her name to a few birthday cards or Christmas presents, but that was basically all the contact we had with her."