Chapter Fifteen
Lauren stared out the window overlooking the lawn in the front of the house. The sun had set a long time ago but the police car parked out front kept vigil.
In case her sister showed up.
And Jason had insisted on staying over for protection. In case her sister showed up.
As if Lauren needed protection from her own sister. She may have misjudged Beth’s deviousness and mental state, but she’d never accept the fact that her sister could hurt her.
But Lauren knew better than to argue with the men who insisted she needed watchdogs. The little lady needed protection, the old cop had said. Lauren bristled at the memory.
“Are you going to watch the police car all night?” Jason asked, coming up behind her.
“It’s not like I’m going to get any sleep.” She continued to stare out into the dark night. The car was barely visible, but she knew it was there.
“I’m sure we could find something more interesting on TV.”
She shook her head.
“Do you want to talk?” Jason placed a hand on her shoulder, his strong touch meant to reassure her.
But how could anything calm her now? His musky scent aroused her, but she wasn’t in the mood for sex or conversation. She still needed to process her sister’s escape. The charade. The lies.
She exhaled, her warm breath fogging the window in front of her. “No. I just need time to think.” About how she’d been so easily deceived.
She tried to reassure herself that she wasn’t alone. The doctors had been fooled, as well.
Jason removed his hand and, despite not wanting the attachment to him, she felt the loss.
“I just want you to know, I am sorry. I didn’t want to be right about your sister.”
She inclined her head. “I know. And you’ve been a gracious winner.” She couldn’t bring herself to look him in the eyes and see the pity there.
“There are no winners in this situation.” Without warning, he gripped her arm and turned her around. “And I don’t take any pleasure in your pain.”
She believed his words. She just couldn’t deal with anything beyond the fact that her sister, the sister she’d sold her car to protect, was an escaped felon.
“Did the prison say when Beth’s doctor would call you?” Jason asked.
They’d heard about the escape from the institution but not any details about how she’d managed the feat. Lauren only knew it involved fire. Her sister’s weapon of choice.
“Lauren?”
Jason’s voice brought her back to the present and she shook her head. “The prison says he’s tied up with the police.”
A loud knock sounded at the front door. Since receiving the news, they’d locked the doors.
Lauren wasn’t in the mood to answer. “Would you mind?” She waved toward the entryway.
“Of course not.” He headed for the front door.
No sooner had the creaky hinges sounded, indicating he’d opened the door for their visitors, than she heard familiar male voices.
“We came as soon as we heard the news,” Jason’s father said, his tone kind and concerned.
“I can’t believe the loony-toon arsonist escaped!” Hank wasn’t as compassionate.
Lauren cringed at the description. But she was forced to admit it was on target. Her crazy sister had set fire to The Wave last year and apparently she’d set another one today to facilitate her escape.
Nausea rose in Lauren’s throat.
“Uncle Hank, if you’re going to talk like that in this house, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” Jason defended her honor.
At this point, Lauren wasn’t sure she deserved to be defended. She’d talked to her sister for hours and never once detected something was off.
She straightened her shoulders and headed to the entryway to greet the men. “Jason, he has every right to be upset. Everyone does.”
Jason shot her a grateful look. “Lauren’s being generous. Now you do the same for her.”
Lauren smiled. “Well. I see you decided to come into this house after all. What changed?”
Thomas flushed, his cheeks turning red.
Nothing seemed to embarrass Hank. “We wanted to see how Jason was doing. Imagine if your crazy sister came here and realized you and my nephew were a thing. News like that might send her over the edge. If she’s not there already.”
At his words, Lauren’s blood chilled. “Oh my God. What if she recognized you? What if she already knows?”
“Recognized him how?” Thomas asked.
Jason placed a calming hand on Lauren’s shoulder. This time she did take comfort from his touch.
“Lauren and I visited her sister in prison,” he said.
Hank’s eyes opened wide, and without warning, he reached over and smacked Jason on the side of the head.
“Hey! What was that for?” Jason raised a hand to his head, rubbing the spot.
“For being an idiot! You went to see a Perkins in prison?” Hank yelled.
Lauren’s temples began to throb. “Look, we didn’t tell Beth Jason’s last name, so there’s a chance—”
“There’s no chance!” Hank insisted. “I heard when the police raided this house last year they confiscated files on almost every citizen. Especially us Corwins. Trust me, she knows.”
Lauren’s gut told her he was right.
“Could it be that the visit upset her enough to precipitate the breakout?” Thomas asked, always the polite, rational brother.
Lauren shrugged. “I don’t think it matters what precipitated it. She’s out. She has an agenda and I can’t begin to guess what it is. It’s not like she confided in me.” She paused, thinking about what she did know about Beth. “I can tell you two things for certain.”
All three men stared at her intently.
“One.” Lauren held up a finger. “Beth wouldn’t hurt me, and two, she’s not stupid enough to show up here.” She raised a second finger.
“That’s a lot of faith in a—”
“Don’t say it, Uncle Hank.” Jason grabbed his uncle’s elbow and started nudging him to the door. “We appreciate you stopping by to check on us, but as you can see we’re fine. And we have police protection.” He pointed to the street through the side windows near the front door. “So you two can go home and rest easy.”
“But—”
“No buts. I’ll call you in the morning and check in,” Jason said, his tone firm.
Thomas nodded. “He’s right. Let’s go.” The two men had started for the door when Jason’s father suddenly turned. “Ms. Perkins?”
Surprised, Lauren met his gaze. “Yes?”
“Try to rest easy. You can trust Jason to make the right decisions. You’re in good hands.” Thomas Corwin nodded at his son. Then he led his brother out the door.
Once the men were gone, Lauren retreated to the den once more. Jason followed, settling into a seat on the couch.
She eased down beside him, her mind on Thomas Corwin’s words and the love in his expression. She’d never known such unconditional love and acceptance from her own parents and never would. But she was glad Jason had found it with his dad.
Lauren smiled. “Your father is proud of you.”
Jason glanced away. “I don’t know why he would be.”
Lauren blinked, stunned at his words. “Why would you think that? You’re a son anyone would be proud of.”
He cocked his head to one side, struggling to find the right words. All it had taken was his father’s comment about Jason making the right decisions to bring his frustration and insecurity roaring back.
Not that he didn’t think of his failings every day, but since Lauren’s return, he’d been able to put them to the back of his mind.
Until now. “What’s there to be proud of? What decisions did I make that were so sound that you’d trust me to make the right ones for you? I blew the one thing I went after in life. I let myself be duped by a woman. I spent half my life training for my one big moment and never made it because I allowed myself to be led around by my—Never mind.” He rose from the couch and walked to the window she’d been looking out earlier.
“Now who’s unfairly blaming himself? Did you do drugs? Ingest them? Cheat? No, you did not. So I won’t have you trash-talking yourself!” Lauren was obviously appalled on his behalf. “Just where did this negativity come from?”
“It’s always been there. Ever since the committee refused my appeal…when I realized that nobody would ever believe in me again. I just never let you see it.” He stared out the window into the dark night. “Hell, I try not to see it myself.”
Lauren stood and crossed the room, raising her hand to his face. “Jason, you have always been the most honest, determined, goal-oriented man I’ve ever met. I’d trust you with my life. How can you not believe in yourself?”
Instead of comforting him, her words only served to remind him of his failures. His current lack of a goal, a dream.
“I don’t believe in myself because I allowed my goals to be taken away from me. And I haven’t replaced them with anything meaningful since.” He turned and walked out of the room.
Two days of tense silence passed. Two days of nonstop work on the house to fill the time while waiting for news on Beth. The insurance adjuster came and went. He took photographs to submit to the company and promised to get back to them. Meanwhile, Lauren felt brittle, yet somehow she kept moving, thoughts of Paris keeping her going. She had to focus on her upcoming debut, because nothing here in Perkins made sense.
Since their conversation the day of her sister’s escape, Jason had withdrawn. They slept in the same bed but he made no overtures toward her, and when she rolled on top of him in her sleep, he pulled away. She ought to be grateful he was giving her the distance she’d been asking for.
She wasn’t.
He’d become a man filled with his own demons. Demons she believed he’d suppressed beneath a brave facade until his father’s comment shattered the illusion he’d created for himself.
She ached for him, surprised he couldn’t see that his father’s perception of him was dead-on.
And she was angry at herself for being so emotionally invested in Jason, since it was going to be that much harder to leave him behind.
Early the next morning, Jason placed Trouble’s food bowl on the kitchen floor and the cat dove for his meal. The feline devoured the canned food while Jason wondered how even a cat could eat such foul-smelling stuff. “Better you than me,” he muttered.
He called his crew together and gave them assignments for the day while he could look forward to haggling with the insurance adjuster. The sooner they agreed on a settlement, the sooner he could begin work on the area damaged in the fire. If they finished in time for closing, Lauren would accomplish her goal, sell the house and walk out of his life. The end was near.
He was finished deluding himself and he had his father and Lauren to thank for opening his eyes. “You’re in good hands,” his father had told her.
“He’s proud of you,” Lauren had said.
They’d inadvertently brought him face-to-face with the past he’d been trying to outrun. He wasn’t over it yet, much as he’d tried to lose himself in Lauren and pretend otherwise. And when she was gone, he’d have plenty of time on his hands to figure it all out.
In the meantime, he’d been giving her what she wanted—the emotional distance that would make it easier to leave later. He’d taken a lesson from Lauren and put up his own walls to protect himself, even though he knew it wouldn’t make losing her hurt any less.
“Jason!” Lauren called from across the house. “Jason!” He started for the bedroom but she came running, meeting him in the kitchen.
“What’s wrong?”
“Beth’s doctor just called on my cell and you’ll never guess who came to the prison not long before the fire and Beth’s escape?” Her cheeks were pink, her words rushed.
Only one name came to mind. “Brody Pittman?”
She nodded. “He said he left his tools, and because he’d had clearance before, they let him in. But nobody had turned in any tools after the construction work finished. And within half an hour, my sister had escaped.”
“So there is some connection between them.”
“Looks that way. The police have an APB out on them both.”
Jason tried to follow the logic in his brain and couldn’t. “Let’s talk this through. So your sister and Brody meet up at the prison. We don’t know how long ago. In the meantime, you come to the house and find it’s been vandalized, right?”
Eyes wide, Lauren nodded. “Go on.”
“Then one day, Pittman gets himself hired at JR Plumbing, the only plumber in town, so he can end up here when your hot water heater breaks.”
“Or was tampered with?” she asked.
“I knew you were smart.” He grinned. “Okay, what reason would your sister have for sending Brody Pittman here to screw with the house?”
Lauren hazarded a guess. “She didn’t want me to sell it?”
He leaned against the counter. “But why would she go to such lengths to hold on to this old place? Sentimental reasons? Or something else?”
Lauren shrugged. “I don’t know.”
She sounded frustrated and he didn’t blame her. “Let’s backtrack. What else did the doctor say?”
She closed her eyes, trying to remember. “He said Beth had been agitated ever since our visit.”
Just as Jason thought, her sister had reacted to their conversation. “And we discussed the Corwin Curse and the journal,” he said, naming the two things Beth had responded to. “And then she escaped. Because…”
“She wanted something.”
“The journal?”
Lauren sighed. “That might have been the impetus for her escape, but what about before? What was she sending Brody Pittman here to find?”
They stared at each other blankly, until something else niggled at the back of his mind. “Um, Lauren?”
“Yes?”
“If Beth is looking for something in this house, she will come back here.”
Lauren shivered. “The police aren’t sitting in their car anymore. They’re doing drive-bys.”
“I know.” Another reason Jason refused to go home.
Lauren shifted uncomfortably. “I still don’t think my sister would hurt me,” she said at last.
Jason, on the other hand, wasn’t so sure.
Gabrielle had an impromptu book-signing and speaking engagement in Boston. She’d invited Amber and Mike and Jason and Lauren. Despite the awkwardness between Jason and Lauren, they’d agreed to go. For Gabrielle’s sake.
Lauren was excited. A night away from the house. A night on the town. An evening when she could wear fun, funky clothing, put her troubles behind her and just have a good time.
She’d even taken the morning off from working on the house to head over to the nearest mall for a quick shopping trip. She couldn’t drive to New York for her clothes, but she could afford a few purchases on her credit card, or so she told herself as justification.
No sooner had she walked into the house and placed her bags on the floor than the doorbell rang. She shrugged off her jacket, placing it on the coat stand, then looked through the peephole before opening the door to one of the local cops she’d met before.
“Ms. Perkins, may I come in?” the officer asked.
A chill rushed through Lauren as she nodded and stepped back to let him inside.
“What’s wrong? Did you find my sister?” she asked, visions of a shoot-out running through her mind.
“What’s going on?” Jason asked, striding up to her side.
He acknowledged the cop with a nod of his head.
“He was just about to tell me.” Lauren swallowed hard, unable to keep the tremor from her voice.
Jason placed his hand on her shoulder and she appreciated the support.
The officer took off his hat and tucked the cap beneath his arm. “No, ma’am. We haven’t located your sister but we did have a report of a sighting.”
Lauren’s heart pounded hard in her chest.
“Where?” Jason asked.
“There was a convenience store robbery across state lines in Rhode Island. The suspects fit the description of your sister and her accomplice. Witnesses claim they took off in a southwesterly direction. Away from here.”
“Robbery?” Lauren could barely speak through her dry mouth.
The officer nodded. “I’m sorry to have to add to your burdens, but that’s the most recent update.”
“We appreciate it,” Jason said. “Is the search focused in Rhode Island now?”
“It’s as good a lead as we’ve got, so the Rhode Island authorities are following up. Of course we’ll still be vigilant here. This is her home, and if she panics and needs help, she might come to you.” He studied Lauren intently, as if sizing her up.
“What?” she asked, uncomfortable under the scrutiny.
“If you hear from her, you will let us know?”
“Of course! And I don’t appreciate you thinking otherwise.”
Jason’s grip on her shoulder tightened. “He’s just doing his job.”
She nodded. Antagonizing the police wasn’t a smart strategy.
“If there’s anything else you can tell us that you think might help find her, call. I’ll let myself out. Lock the door behind me.” He tipped his head and started for the door.
Then he was gone.
“Robbery?” Lauren asked.
“You can’t even pretend to know what’s in her mind anymore,” he said.
She nodded. “You’re right about that. If she’s in Rhode Island and heading away from here, do you think she’s given up on whatever it is she wants from this house?”
Jason spread his hands in front of him, apparently as confused as Lauren was. “Like I said…”
“I can’t begin to guess at what’s going on in her mind.” She sighed then met Jason’s gaze. “Hey. Why didn’t you tell the police there might be something here she’d come back for?” Lauren bit the inside of her cheek.
It hadn’t been easy for her to remain silent. She’d been surprised Jason had kept quiet, too.
He shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, staring at her. “I did it for you. We have no solid proof she wants anything here, just a series of coincidences like you said. I figured I’d give you the benefit of the doubt.”
“Even if you are certain she’s behind the vandalism, the tampering and the arson?”
He nodded, not denying his belief. “Even then. She escaped. She’ll be caught eventually and the truth will come out.” His expression filled with compassion and, despite the emotional distance between them, something that looked suspiciously like love.
Lauren’s heart beat more rapidly in her chest, her emotions a rioting mix she didn’t know how to deal with. And as long as he kept his feelings inside, as long as he kept sending out mixed signals instead of overt ones, she didn’t have to.
She ran her tongue over suddenly dry lips. “I don’t know what to say except thank you.”
She might not have anticipated her sister would fake mental illness, but she had to believe that whatever Beth’s motives had been, she was far away from here by now.
“They have to leave the house sooner or later,” Brody said in the whiny voice Beth had come to hate. She cringed every time he opened his mouth.
Still, she’d needed him and he’d come through. She’d managed to contact him with the nurse’s cell phone and leave a message. He’d gotten into the prison by telling them he’d left his tools behind, and a little fire had distracted people, enabling him to sneak her out amid the chaos. Minimum security and paying close attention to who was stationed where had helped.
But now that she was out, she didn’t need Brody anymore. Only he didn’t take a hint. Why would he when he knew about the diamonds, Beth thought, frustrated.
“Beth? Can’t you figure something out?” he asked.
“We need to have patience.” She glanced around the hiding place she’d chosen, a detached garage in a neighbor’s house next to her old home. It wasn’t comfortable but it was safe.
These neighbors spent winters in Florida, and like most people in town, they didn’t use burglar alarms. In this old garage, they’d had no reason. Even better, this particular neighbor had had a property line dispute with her grandmother. They’d lost in court, naturally. It had been so easy for her grandmother as mayor to switch old land surveys on file. Beth figured it was smart of her to pick a house where there was no love lost between the owners and the Perkinses. Less chance of the police thinking Beth would be hiding out there.
“I’m hungry,” Brody said.
Another whine.
Beth gritted her teeth. “Then you should have chosen a convenience store with more cash in the register because we need to ration what little we have.”
After leaving the prison, they’d ditched the car in a busy parking lot and walked until they found an unlocked car Brody could hot-wire. Another thing he’d been good for besides sex.
There wasn’t much else. He’d forgotten to bring cash for their road trip, leaving them no choice but to knock over a convenience store. It had been her idea to drive to Rhode Island for the job, keeping far from home. And in case anyone watched them leave afterward, she made sure Brody drove in the opposite direction from home. They’d waited a day in a motel, where she’d cut and dyed her hair, after which they’d doubled back on side roads to end up here.
“Can’t we go in when they’re asleep to get the diary?” Brody asked for what seemed like the hundredth time.
“No! I’m not risking having to hurt my sister.” Considering she had no idea where Lauren had put the damned thing, they’d need time to search.
They’d just have to wait until both Lauren and her Corwin boyfriend decided to leave the house together.