www.millsandboon.co.uk

Cover Page

Title Page

About the Author

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELEVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Copyright

Janice Kay Johnson is the author of sixty books for adults and children. She has been a finalist for a Romance Writers of America RITA^® Award four times for her Superromance novels. A former librarian, she’s also worked at a juvenile court with kids involved in the foster care system. She lives north of Seattle, Washington, and is an active volunteer and board member of Purrfect Pals, a no-kill cat shelter.

“I’M GOING TO LEAVE HIM.” Determination was stark on Lenora Escobar’s face, but her hands, clenched on the arms of the chair, betrayed her anxiety.

Karin Jorgensen felt a thrill of pleasure, not so much at the statement but at how far this terrorized woman had come to be able to make it. Yet Karin’s alarm bells also rang, because the days and weeks after leaving an abusive man were the most dangerous time for any woman.

The two sat facing each other in Karin’s office, a comfortable, cluttered space designed to allow children to play and women to feel at home. For almost five years now, Karin had been in practice with a group of psychologists at a clinic called A Woman’s Hand, which offered mental health services only to women and children.

She remembered having a vague intention to go into family counseling. By good fortune, an internship here at A Woman’s Hand had presented itself while she was in grad school, and she’d never looked back. Women like Lenora were her reward.

Lately, she’d begun to worry that she went way beyond feeling mere job satisfaction when her clients took charge of their lives. She’d begun to fear they were her life. Their triumphs were her triumphs, their defeats her defeats. Because face it—her life outside the clinic was…bland.

Annoyed by the self-analysis, she pulled herself back to the present. Focus, she ordered herself. Lenora needed her.

“Are you sure you’re ready for this step?” she asked.

Lenora’s thin face crumpled with a thousand doubts. “Don’t you think I am?”

Karin smiled gently. “I didn’t say that. I’m just asking whether you’re confident you’re ready.”

Two years almost to the day had passed since Lenora Escobar had come for her first appointment. In her early thirties and raising two young children, she had virtually no self-esteem. Virtually no self. She had come, she’d said, because her husband was so unhappy with her. She needed to change.

She’d made only three or four appointments before she disappeared for six months. When she returned, her arm was in a sling and her face was discolored with fading bruises. Even then she made excuses for him. Of course it was wrong for him to hurt her, but…She should have known better than to say this, do that. To wear a dress he didn’t like. To let the kids make so much noise when he was tired after work. Only recently had she declared, “I don’t want to be afraid anymore. I don’t think he’ll change.”

In Karin’s opinion, Roberto Escobar was a class-three abuser, a man as incapable of empathizing with another human being as he was of real love or remorse. Rehabilitation for this kind of offender was impossible. His need to control his wife and children would only escalate; his violence would become more extreme. If she didn’t leave him, the odds were very good that eventually he would kill Lenora or one of the children.

Not that leaving him brought her any certainty that she would be safe. He had told her from their wedding night on that he would kill her if she ever tried to leave him. Lenora had once confessed she was flattered when he’d first said that. “He was so passionate. He told me I was his whole world.”

Now she said, “I know I have to go. I guess I’m scared. I’ll have to find a job, even though I’ve never worked. He’ll be so angry…” She shivered. “But I have put a plan in place, like you advised.” She talked about the safe house where staff already expected her, about the possessions she’d been sneaking out over the course of several weeks in case she had to go suddenly.

“That took courage,” Karin said with approval.

“I was so afraid he’d notice when I had something tucked under my shirt or my purse was bulging! But he never did.”

“How did you feel about keeping that kind of secret from him?”

“The truth?” Her face relaxed. “I felt good. Like a kid with a secret from her sister. You know?”

Karin laughed. “I do. Powerful.”

“Right! Powerful.” Lenora seemed to savor the word. When had she ever been able to think of herself as powerful? “I’ve been looking at him and counting off the days. Thursday is payday and he always gives me money for groceries. I’ve been stowing some away, but a couple hundred more would be nice. So I’m going to leave Friday.”

Karin nodded. “Enough for a month’s rent would be great.”

“But I feel I should tell him I’m going, not just disappear. After fifteen years of marriage, I think it’s the least I owe him. If I had somebody there with me…”

Karin straightened in her chair. “You know how dangerous confronting him could be.”

Lenora bit her lip. “Yes.”

“Why do you feel you ‘owe’ Roberto?”

Lenora floundered, claiming at first that owe probably wasn’t the best choice of word.

“Since I’ve never worked, he has brought home all the money.”

“You’ve talked about how you would have liked to work.”

She nodded. “If I’d had a paycheck of my own…”

Karin finished for her. “You would have felt more independent.”

Lenora gave a small, painful smile. “He didn’t want me to be independent.”

Karin waited.

“You don’t think I should tell him face-to-face?”

Usually, Karin let clients work their way to their own conclusion, but in this instance she said, “No. I don’t think Roberto will let you walk out the door. If you have someone with you, that person will be in danger, as well. And where will the children be? What if he grabs Anna and Enrico and threatens to hurt them?”

Just audibly, Lenora confessed, “I would do anything he asked me to do.”

Karin waited again.

“Okay. We’ll sneak away,” Lenora said.

“I really believe that’s smart.”

The frail woman said, “He’ll come after me.”

“Then you have to make sure neither you nor the children are ever vulnerable.”

“I wish we could join the witness protection program or something like that.”

“Just disappear,” Karin said. The ultimate fantasy for a woman in Lenora’s position.

Lenora nodded.

“But then you’d never see your aunt and uncle or sister again,” Karin pointed out.

“They could come, too.”

“Along with your sister’s children? And her husband? What about his family?”

Lenora’s eyes filled with fears and longings. “I know that can’t be. But I wish.”

“You realize you’ll have to stay away from your family and friends for now. He’ll be watching them. But if you can stay safe long enough, he’ll lose interest.”

Lenora agreed but didn’t look convinced. And as scared as she had to be right now, who could blame her?

When the hour was over and Karin was walking her out, Karin asked, “Will you call me once you’re at the safe house?”

“Of course I will.” In the reception area, furnished like a living room, Lenora hugged her. “Thank you. You’ve helped me more than you can imagine.”

Touched, Karin hugged her back. “Thank you.”

Lenora drew back, sniffing. “I can keep coming here, can’t I?”

“As long as you’re sure he’s never known about A Woman’s Hand. Remember, you can’t do anything predictable,” Karin reminded her.

“He’s never heard about this place or about you.” Lenora sounded sure.

“Great. Then I’ll expect you next Tuesday. Oh, and don’t forget that Monday evening we’re having the first class in the women’s self-defense course. It would be really good for you.”

They’d talked about this, too—how the course wasn’t geared so much to building hand-to-hand combat skills as it was to changing the participants’ confidence in themselves and teaching preparedness.

Lenora nodded. “I mentioned it to the director at the safe house, and she said she’d drive me here. She told me I could leave Enrico and Anna there, that someone would watch them, but I think I’d rather bring them. You’ll have babysitting here, right?”

“Absolutely.” Karin smiled and impulsively hugged her again. “Good luck.”

She stood at the door and watched this amazing woman, who had defied her husband’s efforts to turn her into nothing, hurry to the bus stop so she could pick up her children and be home before he was, ready to playact for three more days.

Karin seldom prayed—her faith was more bruised than her most damaged client’s. But this was one of those moments when she gave wing to a silent wish.

Let her escape safely. Please let her make it.

The blue-and-white metro bus pulled to a stop, and Lenora disappeared inside it. With a sigh, Karin turned from the glass door. She had five minutes to get a cup of coffee before her next appointment, this one a fifty-eight-year-old rape survivor who’d been left for dead in the basement of her apartment building when all she’d done was go down to move her laundry from the washer to the dryer.

In the hall, Karin slowed her step briefly when she heard a woman sobbing, the sound muffled by the closed door to another office. Maybe they should have called the clinic A Woman’s Tears, they ran so freely here.

Sometimes she was amazed that of the five women psychologists and counselors in practice here, three were happily married to nice men. She was grateful for the reminder that kind, patient men did exist. They might even be commonplace and not extraordinary at all. In the stories—no, the tragedies—that filled her days, men were the monsters, rarely the heroes.

She shook her head, discomfited by her own cynicism. This path she now walked wasn’t one she’d set out on because she’d been bruised from an awful childhood or an abusive father. True, her parents had divorced, and she thought that was why she’d aimed to go into family counseling, as if the child inside her still thought she could mend her own family. But her dad was a nice man, not one of the monsters.

She couldn’t deny, though, that the years here had changed her, made her look at men and women differently. She dated less and less often, as if she’d lost some capacity to hope. Which was ironic, since she spent her days trying to instill hope in other women.

In the small staff lounge, she took her mug from the cupboard.

Shaking off the inexplicable moment of malaise, she thought again, Please let Lenora make it. Let this ending be happy.

“MAN, I WISH I could shoot from the free-throw line.” Grumbling, the boy snagged the ball that had just dropped, neat as you please, through the hoop.

The net itself was torn, the asphalt playground surface cracked, but playing here felt like going back to the roots of the game to Bruce Walker, who waggled his fingers. “Still my turn.”

Trevor bounced the basketball hard at him. “It’s not fair.”

They argued mildly. The game of horse was as fair as Bruce could make it, handicapping himself so that he shot from much farther out. He pointed out that he was six feet three inches tall and had been All-Southern California in high-school basketball.

“Whereas you,” he said, “are twelve years old. You’ve developed a dandy layup, and you’re quick. One of these days, you’ll start growing an inch a week. Kid you not.”

“An inch a week!” Trevor thought that was hysterical.

Bruce guessed the idea held appeal for Trevor because it transformed him into a superhero. He was at that awkward age when most boys were physically turning into young adolescents, developing muscles, growing hair. In contrast, Trevor could have been ten years old. He wasn’t much over five feet tall, and so skinny even his elbows were knobby. His voice wasn’t yet cracking, or even deepening. He wanted to be a man, and didn’t even look like an adolescent.

Yeah, tough age.

Bruce, a homicide detective with the Seattle Police Department, had volunteered to be a Big Brother and had been paired with Trevor DeShon a year ago. He’d made the decision to offer his time as a form of payback. A cop had befriended him as a kid, making a huge difference in his life. What went around came around, Bruce figured.

Trev’s mother had struggled to keep them in an apartment after Trevor’s father was arrested for domestic violence. Her jaw had been wired shut for weeks after that last beating.

His dad had never hit him, Trev said, but that was because his mom always signaled him to go hide when Dad walked in the door drunk and in a bad mood. He’d huddle in his room, listening to his parents scream at each other, and would later get bags of frozen peas or corn to put on his mom’s latest shiner.

Bruce didn’t want Trevor growing up to be just like his dad, or turning to drugs like his mom. Maybe Bruce, by being a role model, showing Trevor there was a different kind of life out there than what he saw at home and in his rough neighborhood, could change what would otherwise be an inevitable outcome.

What Bruce hadn’t expected was to worry about the kid as much as he did.

After the game of horse, they practiced layups and worked on Trevor’s defensive moves, after which Bruce let him pick where to go for dinner.

That always meant pizza. Their deal was they both had a salad first so they got their vegetables. Bruce pretended not to notice how much cheese the boy put on his.

They did their best talking while they ate. Tonight, Bruce asked casually, “You heard from your dad lately?”

Trev shrugged. “He called Saturday. Mom wasn’t home.”

Mom would have hung up on him, Bruce knew. Trevor hadn’t seen his father in two years, although the guy had tried to maintain contact, Bruce had to give him that.

“You talked to him?”

“He asked about school ’n stuff. Like you do.”

“You tell him about that A in social studies?”

Trevor nodded but also hunched his shoulders. He stabbed at his lettuce with the fork and exclaimed, “Mom and me don’t need him. I don’t know why he keeps calling.”

“He’s your dad.”

Ironic words from him, since he hadn’t spoken to his own father in years and had no intention of ever doing so again. But Trevor didn’t share Bruce’s feelings toward his father. The boy tried to hide how glad he was that his dad hadn’t given up, but it shone on his face sometimes.

“I wish you were,” Trevor mumbled.

Bruce felt a jolt of alarm. He’d been careful never to pretend he was a substitute father. He didn’t have it in him to be a father of any kind, even a pretend one.

“If you were my dad,” Trevor continued, “I could tell everyone my dad has a badge and a gun and they better watch out if they disrespect me.”

Thank God. The kid didn’t want Bruce as a father; he wanted him for show-and-tell.

Diagnosing the true problem, Bruce asked, “You still having trouble with that guy at the bus stop?”

“Sometimes,” the twelve-year-old admitted. “Mostly, I walk real slow so I don’t get there until the bus is coming. ’Cuz if the driver sees anything, Jackson gets detention.”

Bruce had tried to figure out what he could do to help, but he couldn’t walk a middle schooler to the bus stop and threaten a thirteen-year-old kid. A couple of times, he had picked Trevor up at school, making sure to drive his unmarked vehicle, which even an unsophisticated middle schooler would still spot as a squad car. Mostly, his goal was to help Trevor gain the confidence to handle a little shit like Jackson by himself.

He glanced at his watch and said, “I’ve got to get you home. I’m teaching a self-defense class tonight.”

Scrambling out of the booth, Trevor chopped the air. “Like karate and stuff? Wow! I bet you have a black belt.”

Bruce appreciated the boy’s faith, but he laughed. “No, in my neighborhood how we fought didn’t have a fancy name. Anyway, this class is for women. I teach them how to walk down a street and not look like a victim. How to break a hold if someone grabs them.” How to fight dirty if things got down to it, but he didn’t tell Trevor that. He wasn’t going to teach him how to put out an assailant’s eye. Jackson might be a bully, but he didn’t deserve to be blinded.

Bruce was volunteering his time to teach this class for the same reason he’d signed up to be a Big Brother: his own screwed-up family. If he could help one woman choose not to be a victim the way his own mother was, he didn’t begrudge sparing any amount of time. He couldn’t change who he was, and he’d long since given up on trying to rescue his mother. But he was bleeding heart enough to still think he could rescue other people.

Trevor lived in White Center, a neighborhood on the south end of Seattle known for high crime and drug use. Bruce had guessed from the beginning that MaryBeth DeShon, the boy’s mother, was using. At twenty-eight, she was pathetically young to have a kid Trevor’s age. She hadn’t finished high school and lacked job skills. Since Bruce had known them, MaryBeth had worked as a waitress, but she was constantly changing jobs. Not by choice, Trevor had admitted. She didn’t feel good sometimes, he said, and had to miss work. Bosses weren’t understanding. Still, she’d managed to bring in something approaching a living wage, and had food stamps, as well.

Often Bruce didn’t see her when he picked up and dropped off Trevor. The last time he had, two weeks ago, she’d looked so bad he’d been shocked. She’d always been thin, but now she was so skinny, pasty and jittery he’d immediately thought, Crack. He’d been worrying ever since.

“Your mom—how is she?” he asked now, a few blocks from Trevor’s apartment building.

The boy’s shoulders jerked. “She’s gone a lot. You know?” Trev was trying hard not to sound worried, but his anxiety bled into his voice. His instincts were good. He might not know why he was losing his mother, but he was smart enough to be scared. “She says she’s looking for work. Sometimes Mrs. Porter checks on me.”

Sometimes? Bruce’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. A kid Trevor’s age shouldn’t habitually be home alone at night, especially not in this neighborhood. But he was twelve, and leaving him without adult supervision wasn’t a crime.

Bruce pulled into the apartment parking lot, and noticed that MaryBeth’s slot was empty. “Doesn’t look like she’s home right now,” he observed. Although it seemed possible to him that her piece-of-crap car had finally gone to the great wrecking yard in the sky.

Trevor shrugged and reached for the door handle. “I have a key.”

“If you get scared, you call me, okay?”

“Yeah. Thanks. I’m okay, though.”

Bruce reached out and ruffled Trevor’s brown hair. “You’re a great kid. But you are a kid. So call me if you need me.”

He was usually in a good mood after a day spent with Trevor, but this time his eyebrows drew together as he walked back to his car after leaving Trevor at the door and waiting to hear the lock click home.

I should have asked if the kitchen was decently stocked, he thought repentantly. MaryBeth sure as hell wasn’t eating these days. If she was hardly ever home, would she remember to grocery-shop? Assuming she hadn’t traded her food stamps for crack.

He’d call tomorrow, Bruce decided. Check to see if she’d reappeared, satisfy himself that Trev was okay. Frustrating as it was for him, a man used to taking charge, there wasn’t much else he could do for the boy.

It bothered him how much he wished there was.

BRUCE HAD PREVIOUSLY driven by A Woman’s Hand, the mental health clinic where he was to conduct the self-defense workshop that night. It was in a modern but plain brick building off Madison, the simple sign out front not indicative of the services offered within. He supposed that was because of the clientele, the majority of whom were victims of abuse. A woman cop in the sexual assault unit told him she referred every victim she encountered to A Woman’s Hand.

“The counselors there are the best,” she’d said simply.

When he arrived, it was already dark, but the building and parking lot were well lit. The small lot was full. Amid all the cars, he noticed the two plain vans, which he guessed were from battered women’s shelters. He had to drive a couple of blocks before he found a spot on a residential street to park his car.

When he got back to the clinic, he found the front door locked. Smart. He knocked, and through the glass he saw a woman hurrying to open the door. He allowed himself a brief moment of appreciation. Tall and long-legged, she had a fluid walk that was both athletic and unmistakably feminine. Hair the rich gold of drying cornstalks was bundled up carelessly, escaping strands softening the businesslike effect.

Her expression was suspicious when she unlocked and pushed the door open a scant foot. He took a mental snapshot: great cheekbones, sensual mouth, bump on the bridge of her nose. Around thirty, he guessed. No wedding ring, a surreptitious glance determined.

“May I help you?” she asked.

“I’m Detective Bruce Walker,” he said, unclipping his shield from his belt and holding it out for her to see. “I was invited to lead this self-defense workshop.”

A tentative smile warmed her face, but she also peered past him in apparent puzzlement. “Welcome. But weren’t you to have a partner?”

“Detective Beckstead will be joining us next week. She’s the labor coach for her pregnant sister, whose water broke this afternoon.”

He’d been hearing about the birthing classes from Molly Beckstead for the past two months. She was unmarried, hadn’t yet contemplated having a baby herself, and when she was a rookie had been scarred for life, she claimed, by having to assist a woman giving birth in the back seat of a taxicab. All spring, she’d provided weekly reports on the horrors of childbirth, half tongue-in-cheek, half serious, but he’d noticed she sounded more excited than terrified when she’d called to tell him she was meeting her sister at the hospital.

“Ah.” The woman relaxed. “That’s an excuse if I’ve ever heard one.” She pushed the door farther open to allow him in. “I’m sorry to seem less than welcoming. Some of the women participating tonight are from battered women’s shelters, and we always keep in mind the possibility that the men in their lives might be following them.”

“I understand. And you are…?”

“Karin Jorgensen. I’m a counselor here at A Woman’s Hand.”

“You’re the one who set this up. Good to meet you.” He held out his hand, and they shook. He liked her grip, firm and confident, and the feel of her fine-boned hand in his. In fact, he let go of it reluctantly.

“This way,” she said, leading him down the hall. “The women are all here. I hope our space is big enough for the purpose. It’s the first time we’ve done anything like this, and if this venue doesn’t work well tonight, we could plan to use a weight room or gym at a school the next time. We’re just more comfortable with the security here.”

He nodded. “I’m sure it will be fine. For the most part, we won’t be doing many throws. With only the four sessions, we can’t turn the women into martial artists. We’ll focus more on attitude and on how they can talk their way out of situations.”

She stopped at a door, from behind which he heard voices. She lowered her own. “You are aware that most of these women have already been beaten or raped?”

He held her gaze, surprised that her eyes were brown, although her hair was blond. Was it blond from a bottle? His lightning-quick evaluation concluded no. She was the unusual natural blonde who had warm, chocolate-brown eyes.

“I’ll be careful not to say anything to make the women feel they’ve failed in any way.”

The smile he got was soft and beautiful. “Thank you.” The next moment, she opened the door and gestured for him to precede her into the room.

Heads turned, and Bruce found himself being inspected. Not every woman appeared alarmed, but enough did that Bruce wondered if they’d expected only a woman cop. Ages ranged from late teens to mid fifties or older, their clothing style, from street kid to moneyed chic. But what these women had in common mattered more than their differences.

He was careful to move slowly, to keep his expression pleasant.

Karin Jorgensen introduced him, then stepped back and stood in a near-parade stance, as though to say I’m watching you.

Good. He had his eye on her, too.

Bruce smiled and looked from face to face. “My partner, Molly, asked me to apologize for her. Her sister is in labor, and Molly is her labor coach. She plans to be here next week. Tonight, you get just me.”

He saw some tense shoulders and facial muscles relax, as if the mention of a woman giving birth and another there to hold her hand somehow reassured them. The support of other women was all that was helping some of his audience, he guessed.

“We’ll work on a few self-defense drills toward the end of the session—I don’t want you to get numb sitting and listening to me talk,” he began. “But we’ll focus more on physical self-defense in coming weeks. It’ll be easier for me to demonstrate with my partner’s help. She’s just five feet five inches tall, but she can take me down.” He paused to let them absorb that. He was six foot three and solidly built. If a woman ten inches shorter than him could protect herself against him, even be the aggressor, they were definitely interested.

“Most women I know have been raised to believe the men in their lives will protect them,” he continued. “That’s a man’s role. A woman’s is to let herself be protected. How can women be expected to defend themselves against men? You’re smaller, lighter, finer boned, carry less muscle and are incapable of aggression.” He looked around the circle of perhaps twenty women sitting in chairs pushed against the walls of what he guessed was a large conference room. When the silence had stretched long enough, Bruce noted, “That’s the stereotype. Here’s reality. Throughout nature, mother animals are invariably the fiercest of their kind. Like men, women want to survive. Nature creates all of us with that instinct. You, too, can fight if you have to.”

The quiet was absolute. They were hanging on his every word. They wanted to believe him, with a hunger he understood only by context.

“Do you have disadvantages if you’re attacked by a guy my size?” He ambled around the room, focusing on one woman at a time, doing his best to maintain an unthreatening posture. “Sure. What I’m here to tell you is that you have advantages, too. You’re likely quicker than I am, for one thing. You’ve got a lower center of gravity. Women are famous for their intuition, for their ability to read mood and intentions. Chances are good you can outthink your attacker. And if you’re prepared, you’re going to shock him. He won’t expect you to fight back. He’ll have the surprise of his life.”

Murmurs, surprise of their own, but also a gathering sense of possibility: Maybe he’s right. Maybe I can outwit and outfight a man.

He told them stories of women who’d had an assailant whimpering on the ground by the time they were done.

“The greatest battle you have to fight from here on out,” he went on, “is with your own attitude. What you have to do is liberate yourself from every defeatist voice you’ve ever heard.

“Many of you have already been assaulted.” Heads bobbed, and renewed fear seemed to shiver from woman to woman, as if a whisper had made the rounds. “Then I don’t have to tell you submission doesn’t work.” He waited for more nods, these resigned. “I’m here to tell you aggression might. At worst—” he spread his hands “—you’ll be injured. But you know what? He was going to hurt you anyway.”

Something was coming alive in their faces. They looked at one another, exchanged more nods.

He had them, from the frail Hispanic woman in the corner, to the overweight teenage girl with acne, to the iron-haired woman who could have been his mother had Mom ever had the courage to seek the means to defend herself.

And, he saw, he had pleased Karin Jorgensen, who at last abandoned her military stance by the door and took a seat, prepared to listen and learn, herself.

He didn’t let her sit for long, asking her to help him demonstrate. As he showed how an attacker opened himself up the minute he reached out to fumble with clothing or lift a hand to strike, Bruce was pleased by tiny signs that Karin was as aware of him physically as he was of her. Nothing that would catch anyone else’s attention—just a quiver of her hand, a touch of warmth in her cheeks, a shyness in her gaze—all were a contrast to the confident woman who’d opened the door to him, prepared to face him down if he’d been anyone but the cop she expected.

She smelled good, he noticed when he grabbed her, although the scent was subtle. Tangy, like lemon. Maybe just a shampoo. Lemon seemed right for her sunstreaked hair.

He wanted to keep her with him, but finally thanked her and said, “Okay, everyone pair up.” Unfortunately, the numbers were odd and she paired herself with an overweight teenager, which left him partnerless.

A fair amount of the next hour and a half was spent with him trying to prepare them to grab their first opportunity to fight back and run. They learned some simple techniques for breaking holds or knocking a weapon from an assailant’s hand.

“Next week,” he said, concluding, “we’ll talk about how to use everyday objects as weapons and shields. Molly will be here to demonstrate more releases, more ways to drop me like a rock.” He smiled. “See you then.”

Several women came up afterward to talk to him. By the time Bruce looked around for Karin, she had disappeared. When he went out into the hall to find her, he realized that some of the women had brought children. A second room had evidently been dedicated to child care. He spotted her in there, holding a toddler and talking to one of the participants. Karin saw him at the same time, and handed the toddler to the mother, then walked over to him.

“I’ll escort you out,” she said. “I appreciate you doing this.”

They started down the hall, her long-legged stride matching his. “I thought it went well,” Bruce commented.

“It was amazing. I saw such…hope.” She said the word oddly, with some puzzlement.

Had he surprised her? Given her job, maybe she didn’t like men much and didn’t think one was capable of inspiring a group of battered women.

Or maybe she’d just been groping for the right word.

He wanted to ask whether she was married or involved, but how could he without making things awkward? And, damn it, he was running out of time—the front door stood just ahead.

“I understand you volunteered for this workshop,” Karin said. “That’s very generous of you.”

They’d reached the door. Opening it for her, he inquired, “Are you making any money for this evening’s work?”

He’d surprised her again. She paused, close enough for him to catch another whiff of citrus scent. For a moment she searched his face, as if trying to understand him. “Well…no. But I do work with these women.”

“I do, too,” he said simply.

She bit her lip. “Oh.”

“’Night, Karin,” someone called, and she retreated from him, going outside to exchange good-nights with women on their way to their cars.

Maybe just as well, he tried to convince himself as he, too, exited the building. He’d ask around about her. They inhabited a small world, and someone would know whether she was off limits. If nothing else, he’d see her next week.

“Good night,” he said, nodding. He’d finally snagged her attention.

“Thank you again,” she replied.

Their eyes met and held for a moment that seemed to bring color to her cheeks. Wishful thinking, maybe. He turned away. Even with his back to Karin, he was aware of her speaking to others in the parking lot. The voices, he was glad to hear, were animated.

He kept going, enjoying the cool air and the way the scent of the lilacs was sharper after dark. He liked the night and the sense he had of being invisible. He could see people moving around inside their houses or the flicker of televisions through front windows, but by now not a single car passed him on the street.

He reached his car, now sandwiched between an SUV and a VW Beetle. Not much room to maneuver. He’d be inching out.

His key was in his hand, but he hadn’t yet inserted it in the door, when he heard the first terrified scream.

IT HAPPENED SO FAST.

The parking lot had emptied quickly. Only a van from one of the battered women’s shelters remained, the director half sitting on the bumper as she awaited her charge. Satisfied with how the evening had gone, Karin was walking back toward the front door of the clinic when, out of the corner of her eye, she caught movement under a streetlight. She turned to see a dark figure rush toward the lone woman halfway between the building and the van. Oh, God. It was Lenora Escobar. She’d just said good-night to Karin.

“Roberto!”

The distinctly uttered name struck terror in Karin.

His arm lifted. He held a weapon of some kind. Lenora screamed.

The weapon smashed down followed by an indescribably horrible sound. Like a pumpkin being dropped, squishing. Lenora gurgled, then crumpled.

The arm rose and fell a second time, and then Roberto Escobar ran.

During the whole event, Karin hadn’t managed two steps forward.

As though time became real once more, Karin and Cecilia, the shelter director, converged on the fallen woman. Karin focused only on her, ignoring the squealing tires from the street.

Should I have run after him? Tried to make out a license-plate number?

But no. There could be no doubt that Lenora’s assailant—not her murderer, please not her murderer—was her husband. His vehicle and license-plate number would be on record.

Thank God, Karin thought, dropping to her knees, that Lenora hadn’t brought her children tonight. He would have taken them if she had.

Lenora’s head lay in a pool of blood. A few feet away was a tire iron. Karin’s stomach lurched. Fingerprints…Had Roberto worn gloves? No. He didn’t care who knew that he’d killed his wife for the sin of leaving him.

“Cecilia, go back inside and call 911. Or do you have a cell phone?” She sounded almost calm. “Unless…wait.” She heard pounding footsteps and swiveled on her heels. “Detective Walker,” she said with profound relief—relief she felt not just because he was a cop and he was here, but because tonight this particular cop had managed to reassure and inspire a roomful of women who had every reason to be afraid of men.

He was running across the parking lot, holding a cell phone in his hand. Then he was crouching beside her. He spoke urgently into the phone, giving numbers she guessed were code for Battered Wife Down.

He touched Lenora’s neck and looked up. “She’s alive.”

Karin sagged. “Can’t we do anything?”

He shook his head. “We don’t want to move her. The ambulance is on its way.” His gaze, razor sharp, rested on Karin’s face. “Did you see what happened?”

“Yes.” To Karin’s embarrassment, her voice squeaked. So much for calm. She cleared her throat. “It was her husband. She said the name Roberto. She just left him.”

“She and her children are staying at the shelter,” Cecilia added. “She didn’t tell him she was leaving him. I don’t know how he found her.”

“He had to have followed her tonight.” The detective was thinking aloud. “Where are the children? He didn’t get them?”

Cecilia was a dumpy, endlessly comforting woman likely in her fifties. Detective Walker hadn’t even finished his question before she shook her head. “Lenora’s aunt picked them up and took them home for the night. She’s to bring them back in the morning.”

Karin’s heart chilled at his expression. “You don’t think…?” Oh, God. If he had the aunt’s house staked out…

She’d warned Lenora. “Stay away from friends and family,” she’d said.

Focused on Cecilia, Detective Walker asked, “Do you know the woman’s name?”

“Yes…um, Lopez. Señora Lopez.”

Aunt…Karin groped in her memory. Aunt…“Julia.”

“Yes.” Cecilia flashed her a grateful look. “Julia Lopez. I have her phone number back at the shelter.”

“Call.” He held out his cell phone. “We need to send a unit over there. She should know about her niece, anyway.”

“Yes. Of course.” Cecilia fumbled with the phone but finally dialed.

Karin didn’t listen. She stared helplessly at Lenora, who had been so triumphant Friday afternoon because she’d successfully made her getaway. “He never guessed anything,” she’d told Karin in amazement. “He gave me money Thursday after he deposited his check. He was even in a good mood.”

Now, gazing at Lenora’s slack face and blood-matted hair, Karin could only say, “He followed her aunt to the shelter tonight, didn’t he?”

At the first wail of a siren, Karin’s head came up. She prayed fervently, Let it be the ambulance for Lenora.

A second siren played a chorus. Two vehicles arrived in a rush. A Seattle PD car first, flying into the parking lot, then the ambulance, coming from the opposite direction.

The EMTs took over. As Karin stood and backed away to give them room to work, her legs trembled as though she’d run a marathon. And not just her legs. She was shaking all over, she realized. For all the stories she’d heard from brutalized women, she’d never witnessed a rape scene or murder or beating. The experience was quite different in real life.

Cecilia came to her and they hugged, then clung. Karin realized her face was wet with tears.

Bruce Walker was busy issuing orders to two uniformed officers. Their voices were low and urgent; beyond them, in the squad car, the radio crackled.

“We should wait inside,” Karin said at last. She needed to sit. “He’ll probably want to ask us both some more questions.”

Cecilia drew a shuddering breath. “Yes. You’re right.”

Karin glanced back, to find that Detective Walker was watching them. He gave her a nod, which she interpreted as approval. His air of command was enormously comforting.

Thank God he’d still been within earshot. Imagine how much harder this would be had she been dealing with strangers now, instead.

The gurney vanished into the guts of the aid car, one of the EMTs with it. The other EMT slammed the back doors and raced to the driver’s side of the vehicle. They were moving so fast, not wasting a motion. Then once again the siren wailed, and the ambulance roared down the street.

She couldn’t stop herself from looking again at the blood slick, dark under the streetlight, and at the tire iron, flung like some obscene kind of cross on the pavement. Then the two women walked into the building, still holding hands.

HE CAME IN sooner than she expected, thank goodness.

Through the glass doors, both women were aware of the blinding white flashes as a photographer worked, a counterpoint to the blue-and-white lights from the squad car. Why don’t they turn them off? Karin wondered, anger sparking. What good did they do?

Once inside, the detective walked straight to them and sank into a chair beside Karin. Turning his body so that he was facing them, he was so close to Karin his knee bumped hers and she could see the bristles on his jaw. Like most dark-haired men, he must need to shave twice a day to keep a smooth jaw. But then, this day had been longer than he could ever have anticipated.

Karin gave her head a shake. Did it matter how well groomed he was? No. Yet she couldn’t seem to discipline her thoughts. She wanted to think about something, anything, but that awful smash-squish and the sight of Lenora collapsing. Karin had never seen anyone fall like that, with no attempt to regain footing or fling out arms to break the impact. As if Lenora had already been dead, and it didn’t matter how she hit.

Detective Walker pulled a small notebook and pen from a pocket inside his leather jacket. With a few succinct questions, he extracted a bald description of events from Cecilia, then Karin.

“Thank the Lord the other women had gone,” Cecilia said with a sigh.

“Amen,” Karin breathed. Imagine if Olivia, recently raped and still emotionally fragile, had witnessed the brutal assault.

The shelter director asked, “Have you heard anything about the aunt?”

“Not yet.”

Was he worried? Karin scrutinized his face. She couldn’t be sure—she didn’t know him—but thought she saw tiny signs of tension beside his eyes, in muscles bunched in his jaw, in the way he reached up and squeezed his neck, grimacing.

“This was a bad idea,” Karin exclaimed. “To bring all these women here like…like sitting ducks! What was I thinking?”

He laid his hand over hers. “No, it was a good idea,” he reassured her quietly, those intense eyes refusing to let her look away from him. “Once Roberto knew where his wife was, it was a done deal.”

“It’s true,” Cecilia assured her. “Don’t you remember? Just last year, Janine’s boyfriend was waiting outside the shelter for her. He shot her, then himself, right there on the sidewalk. It was—” She stopped, sinking her teeth into her lip. “This could just as easily have happened at the shelter. Lenora had to go out eventually.”

Karin deliberately relaxed her hands, and he removed his. What was she doing, thinking about herself now? Her guilt could wait. Right now the children mattered; Lenora mattered. Karin was wasting this man’s time making him console her, when he should be doing something to catch Roberto.

“Do you know which hospital they took Lenora to?” she asked.

“Harborview. It’s tops for trauma.” His cell phone rang. “Excuse me.”

He stood and walked away, but not outside. Although his back was to them, Karin heard his sharp expletive. Her hand groped Cecilia’s.

Still talking, he faced them. His eyes sought out Karin’s, and she saw anger in them. It chilled her, and she gripped the director’s hand more tightly. He listened, talked and listened some more, never looking away from her.

Finally he ended the call and came back to them. Karin wasn’t sure she’d even blinked. She couldn’t tear her gaze from this man’s.

He dropped into the chair as if exhausted. “He’s already been there. The aunt’s dead. A neighbor says the uncle works a night shift. We’ll be tracking him down next. The kids are gone.”

“Oh, no,” Karin breathed, although his expression had told her what happened before he’d said a word. Cecilia exclaimed, too.

“I’m heading over there. I’m Homicide. This case—” his voice hardened “—I’m taking personally.”

“The children…” Horror seized Karin by the throat. “Does that mean they were in the car? Did they see him attack their mother?”

Detective Walker’s mouth twisted. “We don’t know yet. He had a headstart. He could have gotten there, killed the aunt and snatched the kids after leaving here.”

She heard the doubt in his voice. “But…?”

“The officers who found her haven’t found a weapon. She was battered in the head. She could be lying on it, or it might be tossed under a bush in the front yard.”

Something very close to a sob escaped Karin. “But he might have used the same tire iron.”

“Possibly.”

“I pray they didn’t see,” Cecilia whispered. “Enrico and Anna are the nicest, best-behaved children. Their faces shone for their mother.”

“Have…have you heard anything?” Karin asked. “About Lenora?”

“Nothing.” His hand lifted, as if he intended to touch her again, and then his fingers curled into a fist and he stood. Expression heavy with pity, he said, “There’s no need for you to stay.”

“I’m going to the hospital.” Karin rose to her feet, too, galvanized now by purpose, however little hovering in a hospital waiting room really served. She couldn’t save Lenora, but somebody should be there, and who else was there until family was located?

Cecilia nodded, rising, as well. “I have to go back to the shelter first and talk to the residents. I don’t want them to hear about this from anyone else. I asked staff to wait. I’ll join you as soon as I can, Karin.”

“Thank you.” Karin squeezed Cecilia’s hand one more time, then released it. She turned to the detective. “You’ll let us know?”

He nodded. “Do you have a cell phone?”

She told him her number and watched him write it down in his small, spiral notebook. And then he inclined his head, said, “Ladies,” and left.

Neither woman moved for a minute, both watching through the glass as he crossed the parking lot, spoke to officers still out there, then disappeared into the darkness.

“He’s…impressive,” Cecilia said at last.

“Yes.” Thank goodness Cecilia had no way of knowing how attracted she’d been to him from the moment she’d let him into the clinic. Embarrassed, she cleared her throat. “I hope…” She didn’t finish the thought.

Didn’t have to. Cecilia nodded and sighed. “What’s to become of those poor children?”

“Lenora has a sister in this country. She has children, too. I’m not sure whether they’re in the Seattle area.” Once they talked to Lenora’s uncle, he’d make calls.

Karin shut off lights and locked up. Activity in the parking lot had slowed and the tire iron had apparently been bagged and removed, but a uniformed officer asked that they exit carefully, pulling out so as not to drive over the crime scene. Somebody, Karin saw, was vacuuming around the bloodstain. Trace evidence could make or break a case, she knew, but how would they be able to sift out anything meaningful from the normal debris?

Following her gaze, Cecilia murmured, “What a terrible night,” and got into her van.

Karin hit the locks once she was in her car, inserted the key and started the engine, then began to shake again. She was shocked at her reaction. She’d always tended to stay levelheaded in minor emergencies, whereas other people panicked. Minor, she thought wryly, was the operative word. Bruce Walker had been angry, but utterly controlled, while here she was, falling apart.

She sat in the car for easily two minutes, until her hands were steady when she lifted them. Finally, she was able to back out, and followed the police officer’s gestures to reach the street.

At a red light, she checked to make sure her cell phone was on and the battery not exhausted. How long, she wondered, until she heard from Detective Bruce Walker? And why did it seem so important that he not delegate that call?

BRUCE HADN’T TOLD the women that what he most feared was finding Anna and Enrico Escobar dead at their father’s hand, next to his body.

Bruce had gone straight to the Lopez home, but on the way he made the necessary calls to get a warrant to go into the Escobar house. If the son of a bitch had intended to take his whole family out, it seemed logical that he’d have gone home with the kids. He might have feared being stopped in the parking lot before he finished the job.

God, Bruce hated domestic abuse cases. Every single one struck too close to home for him.

The woman who now lay dead just inside the front door looked disquietingly like her niece—unfortunately, down to the depressed skull and blood-soaked black hair. Unlike her niece, she had tried to defend herself, though. Her forearm was clearly broken.

Gazing down at her, he thought, So, Dad, what would you think of this? To keep order in his own house, does a man have the right to kill not just his wife, but her relatives, too?

Not that his own mother was dead, although she seemed more ghostlike than real to Bruce.

He had barely time for a quick evaluation of the Lopez murder scene before the warrant for a search of the Escobar house came through. Wishing Molly were with him, he snagged a uniformed officer to accompany him to the Escobars’.

They turned off headlights and coasted to a stop at the curb in front of the small place, but the minute Bruce saw that it was dark he knew they’d find it empty. The front door, he discovered after one hard knock, wasn’t even locked. No, Escobar hadn’t worried about protecting his possessions.

Walking through, Bruce tried to decide whether the place had an air of abandonment because Lenora had moved out with the kids, or Roberto Escobar, too, had departed with no intention of returning.

Near the telephone in the kitchen, a fist-size hole was punched in the wall. Plaster dust littered the otherwise clean countertop. Had Lenora laid the note here, by the phone, telling her husband she’d left him? One of the kitchen chairs was also smashed, and lay in the corner behind the table. Roberto had read the note, thrown a temper tantrum and sworn he’d find his wife and punish her.

It was hard to tell in the small master bedroom whether he’d packed. Lenora hadn’t taken all her clothes, and some of his hung in the closet, as well. But Bruce found no coats and, more tellingly, no shaving kit or toothbrush in the bathroom. The tiny bedroom the children had apparently shared looked as though a burglar had ransacked it. Maybe Escobar had been trying to find a few toys and clothes for his kids.

Bruce poked into the single, detached garage and down in the dank, unfinished basement just in case, before finally sealing the property with tape. He’d come back tomorrow, in better light, to see what else he could learn. Right now, he was glad to have found the place deserted. That gave him hope that Escobar intended to run with the children, not murder them out of spite.

But there was no guarantee they wouldn’t find the bodies in his car, parked in some alley, or…It was the “or” that stopped Bruce. He hated knowing so little. He couldn’t even speculate on where Escobar might go to hide or to commit suicide.

Because he couldn’t resist the temptation, Bruce called to let Karin Jorgensen know they hadn’t located Escobar and to find out whether she’d gotten any word on the wife’s condition.

“She’s out of surgery, but in a coma. They…don’t sound hopeful.”

He wasn’t hopeful, either. He’d seen Lenora Escobar’s head, and the blood, bone splinters and other tissue on the tire iron. He wondered whether they ought to be hoping she didn’t survive. He, for one, wouldn’t want to wake up at all if it meant living in a vegetative state or anything approaching one. He wasn’t sure it would be much better if she woke up clear and present to be told that her aunt had been murdered and her children taken by the violent man Lenora had fled.

“Do me a favor and think back to anything Lenora ever told you that would suggest a place Escobar might go to ground. Does he have family in this country? In Mexico? Did she talk about friends? Hell, I don’t suppose they have a summer cabin.”

“No, I’m pretty sure they weren’t in that economic stratum. Uh…” She sounded muzzy, not surprising given that it was—Bruce glanced at his watch—3:00 a.m. Likely her adrenaline hadn’t yet allowed her to curl up in the waiting room and conk out.

“She didn’t talk about friends,” Karin continued. “I don’t think he encouraged them, at least not for her. Maybe not for him, either. He was jealous, of course. He’d imagine any other man would be coveting her, I’m afraid. As for family—his mother used to live with them, but she decided to go back to Mexico last year.” Silence suggested Karin was thinking. “Chiapas. That’s what Lenora said. Roberto was mad that she went.”

“Chiapas.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “So I suppose it’s reasonable that he might run for Mexico.”

“Maybe. But how would even a mother take the news that he’d killed his wife—tried to kill his wife,” she corrected herself, a hitch in her voice, “and murdered his wife’s aunt?”

“Depends on the mother. I’ve met some crazy ones.”

“You mean, the ones who pay a hit man to knock off the judge or prosecutor?”

“Or a rival cheerleader,” he noted dryly.

“Well…yes. But I had the impression Mama had thrown up her hands over Roberto. There was another son, if I remember right, still in Chiapas. But Roberto was the elder, so of course he thought she should stay here.”

“What—to babysit and keep a stern eye on his wife?” Bruce loosed a tired sigh. “No sign he’s bought airline, Amtrak or bus tickets, and we’ve got the state patrol here and in Oregon watching for his car. Sounds like it’s a beater, though. I doubt he’d make it all the way to the border, never mind damn near to Guatemala. I think you’re right about the economic stratum.” He paused. “How’d she pay for the sessions with you?”

“Department of Social and Health Services program. When a woman or child needs us, we find funding.”

“Ah.” He softened his voice. “You should get some sleep, Ms. Jorgensen.”

“Karin.”

“Karin. The night’s not done.”

“No.” Her breathing told him she hadn’t hung up. “I just keep thinking…”

Understanding stabbed him. “You’ve never been assaulted?”

“No. And now I’m thinking how—how glib I must have sounded to women who have. Ugh.”

God. Here he’d considered her as a colleague, in a sense, who’d seen it all. Of course she hadn’t. She’d only heard it all.

“I’ve been told by people who know that you and your colleagues at A Woman’s Hand are the best. I doubt you’ve been glib.”

Even through the phone line, her exhalation sounded ragged. “Thank you for that. And for calling. Oh. Have you talked to Lenora’s sister yet?”

“Sorry. I meant to say that first. They’re in Walla Walla. Asparagus harvest. No phone—I had to send an officer around. But they’re on their way. What is it—a three-, four-hour drive? They should be at the hospital by dawn.”

“Thank goodness. When Lenora wakes up…”

An optimist. He’d guessed she would be. He was well aware that he’d be wasting his breath to suggest she go home and go to bed. She felt responsible, justly or not, and wouldn’t let herself off the hook. Lenora wouldn’t know Karin was holding vigil, but Karin did, and would think less of herself if she didn’t.

There wasn’t much more he could do tonight. He’d sent officers out to canvass near neighbors to Julia and Mateo Lopez shortly after the body was found. None had heard a thing. Evidence techs had taken over the house and were still working. He wouldn’t get results from the crime lab on exactly whose blood was on the tire iron until tomorrow at best. He knew damn well what the results would be, given that no weapon had been located in or near the Lopez home.

There was a limit to how much he could do before morning to find Escobar’s rat hole, either. He’d put out the description of the vehicle and the license number, but not until tomorrow would he be able to access bank records or speak to co-workers and—if any existed—friends. Mateo was so distraught he’d had to be sedated. Bruce hadn’t gotten much out of him, not once he’d been told about his wife.

Resisting the temptation to drive to Harborview and keep Karin Jorgensen company in the waiting room, Bruce went home. Tomorrow would be a long day. He’d done what he could tonight to set a manhunt in motion. Now he needed a few hours of downtime.

Funny thing, how he fell asleep picturing Karin Jorgensen. Not with her face distraught, but from earlier in the evening, when she’d still been able to smile.

BRUCE SLEPT for four hours and awoke Tuesday morning feeling like crap. He grunted at the sight of his face in the mirror and concentrated after that on the path of the electric razor, not on the overall picture. Coffee helped enough that he realized the ring of the telephone had awakened him. He checked voice mail, and found a message from Molly.

“Houston, we have a launch. Baby Elizabeth Molly—yes, named for me—was born at 5:25 this morning. While you were no doubt sleeping, ah, like a baby.”

Ha! He grinned.

“Since I didn’t have an indolent eight hours of beauty sleep,” she continued, “I’m taking Fiona and baby home and crashing—Elizabeth Molly permitting—in Fiona’s guest room.” As an obvious afterthought, she added, “Hope the self-defense workshop went well.” Beep.

Oh, if only you knew.

He skipped breakfast, figuring to get something out of the vending machine at the hospital.

Karin had gone home, he found, and was surprised at his disappointment. Instead, the waiting room was filled with Lenora Escobar’s extended family. The sister and husband and their brood of five children, and one of the Lopez’s four grown children with his wife. Lenora, he was told, was still unresponsive in ICU.

He asked to speak privately with Lenora’s sister and her husband, and took them to a smaller room likely saved by hospital officials for the grave business of telling family a loved one hadn’t made it. Tending to claustrophobia, Bruce left the door open.

Yolanda spoke English well, her husband less so. They switched to Spanish, in which Bruce had become fluent on the job. He’d started with Seattle PD on a beat in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood, building on his high-school Spanish.

Both told him that they had always thought Roberto was scum. “Pah!” Alvaro Muñoz declared. “You could see the bruises, how frightened she was of him. But she lied to make us believe everything was fine. Only recently…” A lean, mustachioed man, he hesitated, glancing at his wife.

“She told me she was going to leave him. She said so on the phone. She lowered her voice, so I think maybe he was home. She said she’d call when she got to the safe house.” She bit her lip in distress. “Did he hear when she told me?”

Bruce shook his head. “Your aunt Julia went to the shelter to pick the kids up. I suspect Roberto was following her.”

Yolanda Muñoz was petite like her sister, but pleasantly rounded. Her husband’s skin was leathery from the sun, but hers was a soft café au lait. She must stay at home with the children, whatever home might be, given what Bruce gathered was their migrant lifestyle. Grief made her voice tremulous, kept her eyes moist. “You’ll find Anna and Enrico?” she demanded. “When Lenora wakes up, how can I tell her he has them?”

He offered his automatic response. “We’re doing our best. What I’m hoping you can do is tell me everything you know about Roberto. We’ll be talking to his co-workers, but what about friends? Hobbies?” Seeing perplexity on their faces, he realized the concept of hobbies was foreign to them, as hard as they worked and as careful as they likely were with every penny they earned. “Ah…did he go fishing? Work on cars?”

Both heads shook in unison. “He didn’t like to leave Lenora alone,” Yolanda explained. “Even when family was there, so was he. All women in the kitchen, and Roberto. As if he thought we’d talk about him.”

Or as if he couldn’t let his wife have anything that was hers alone, even the easy relationship with her family.

Bruce continued to ask questions, but they knew frustratingly little. Roberto Escobar worked. Yes, he was a hard worker, they agreed, the praise grudging but fairly given, and he did help keep their place nice. He talked about his mother coming to live with them again. He was angry when she went to live with his brother, instead. Lenora said he called the mother sometimes, but mostly he yelled, so they didn’t know if he would take the children to her. Yolanda thought maybe his mother liked Lenora better than her own son. And who could blame her?

Yolanda and her husband rejoined their children and cousins, and Bruce drove to the lumberyard where Escobar had worked. There, he learned little. Co-workers thought Roberto Escobar was surly and humorless, but his supervisor insisted that he was a good worker, and reliable until he’d failed to show up yesterday morning.

“So what if he ignores the other guys here, eats the lunch his wife sends instead of going out with them?” The balding, stringy man shrugged. After a moment, he added, “Maybe you can’t tell me why you’re looking for him, but…Will he be back to work?”

“I doubt it.”

“So I’d better be replacing him.” He was resigned, regretting the loss of a good worker but not the man.

Bruce’s only glimmer of hope came from the last interview, when the middle-aged cashier said suddenly, “He did used to be friends with that other Mexican who worked here. Guy didn’t speak much English. Uh…Pedro or José or one of those common names.” She leaned back in her chair and opened the office door a crack. “Pete,” she called, “you remember that Mexican used to work here? The one with the fake papers?”

“Yeah, yeah. Garcia.”

“Carlos,” she said with satisfaction. “Carlos Garcia. That’s it. They talked during breaks. ’Course, no one else could understand a word they were saying.”

“And this Garcia was the only person you noticed Roberto spending any time with?”

“Yeah, he wasn’t a real friendly type. After Pete fired Carlos—and he about had to, once he found out his green card was fake—Roberto went back to sitting by himself at breaks. Couple months ago, we all went in together to buy flowers when Toby’s wife died, but not Roberto. He was the only person working here who didn’t contribute.” The memory rankled, Bruce could tell.

Bank records next. Turned out the Escobars hadn’t had a debit card. Roberto, Bruce learned, had been paid Thursday and deposited his check in the bank on the way home, all but two hundred dollars. No checks had cleared subsequently. Monday morning, Roberto in person had gone into his local branch office and withdrawn the entire amount. He’d also taken a cash advance against his one-and-only credit card—which, Bruce noted, had not had his wife’s name on it. The whole added up to about fifteen hundred dollars. Not a lot, but if he had someplace to go where, even temporarily, he didn’t have to pay rent, he’d have enough to get by for weeks, if not months.

Yeah, but how to find that place?

Still, the fact that he planned to need money was reassuring.

Uncle Mateo was up to talking this morning, although he broke down and cried every few minutes, his daughter and a daughter-in-law both fussing over him. Bruce hid how uncomfortable the display of raw emotion made him.

Uncle Mateo gave Bruce the names of a few men he thought might have been friends of Roberto’s.

Yes, he’d suspected Roberto had hit Lenora sometimes, and since she had no father to speak for her, he had talked to her husband. Shaking his head, he said, “He thought it was his right. As if he were God inside his own house.” He shook his head at the blasphemy of it.

God. Yes, that was a nice analogy. King was what Bruce’s father had called himself. If a man can’t be king in his own castle… That was one of his favorite lines, just after he backhanded his wife for being lippy—a cardinal sin in the Walker home—or committing any of a number of other sins. Or pulled out the leather belt to use on one of his sons.

As if paralleling Bruce’s thoughts, Uncle Mateo begged, “What made him so crazy?”

Bruce wished he had an answer. Was it crazy? he wondered. Or too many years of being unchallenged? What would his own father have done if his wife had taken Bruce, Dan and Roger when they were little boys and fled? If a man was king, didn’t he have the power of life and death over his subjects?

Knock it off, he ordered himself. It seemed every time he dealt with a certain form of domestic violence, he leaped like a hamster onto a wheel of useless bewilderment. Why, why, why? the wheel squeaked as it spun and went nowhere.

Damn it, he’d put it all behind him, except at moments like this. He detested this inability to stop himself from going back and attempting to reason out his own family history. He couldn’t change the past; why replay it?

Back to see Karin Jorgensen. Lenora Escobar knew more about her husband than anyone, and he guessed that, in turn, she’d confided more in her counselor than she had in anyone else.

He called A Woman’s Hand and, after waiting on hold for a couple of minutes, was told Karin would be free in an hour and would expect him. Glancing at his watch, he realized the free time would undoubtedly be her lunch break. He’d offer to feed them both.

The moment the receptionist spotted him, she picked up a phone. Karin came down the hall before he could reach the counter.

He hadn’t imagined the tug he’d felt last night, even though exhaustion transformed her face from pretty to…Studying her, he struggled to understand. The only word he could come up with was beautiful. Not conventional, fashion-magazine beautiful, but something different: the purity old age or illness could bare when it stripped the illusions away and revealed the strength of bones and the life force beneath.

Bruce was not idiot enough to think she’d be flattered if he told her she looked beautiful like an old lady. And that wasn’t exactly what he meant, anyway. It was more like seeing a woman in the morning without makeup for the first time, and realizing the crap she put on her face was not only unnecessary, but it blurred the clean lines.

Not that Bruce had ever thought any such thing upon seeing a woman’s first-thing-in-the-morning face, but it seemed possible.

As she neared, Karin searched his eyes anxiously. “Have you heard anything about Lenora? Or found the children?”

He held out a hand, although he felt a surprising urge to hold out his arms, instead. “Last I knew, she’s still unconscious. And no, regrettably.”

“Oh.” She put her hand in his, and seemed not to notice that he didn’t shake it, only clasped it. Or perhaps she did because her fingers curled to hold his, as if she was grateful for the contact.

“Why don’t we go get lunch,” he suggested.

“Oh, that’s a good idea. I suppose you don’t usually take the time to stop.”

“Drive-through at a burger joint is usually the best I do.”

She shuddered. “I’m a vegetarian. Um…let me get my purse.”

He waited patiently, although he had every intention of paying for the meal.

Every block of the nearby stretch of Madison Street had a choice of trendy bistros and cafés tucked between boutiques, gourmet pet food shops and art galleries. The shopping area was an extension of an area of pricey homes and condos, many with peekaboo views of Lake Washington and the skyline of Bellevue on the other side. The street itself dead-ended at the lake, where city-paid lifeguards presided over the beach in summer.

Bruce let Karin choose a place, and they sat outside on a little brick patio between buildings. Today was cool enough that they were alone out there, which was fine by him.

She ordered a salad, Bruce a heartier sandwich and bowl of soup. Then they sat and looked at each other while the waitress walked away.

“Are you all right?” he asked quietly.

She tried to smile. “A nap would do wonders. But you must have gotten even less sleep.”

“I’m used to it. But that’s not really what I meant.”

“I know.” She began to pleat her cloth napkin, her head bent as she appeared to concentrate on an elaborate origami project that wasn’t creating anything recognizable to his eyes. “When Roberto hit her with the tire iron, it made an awful sound. I keep hearing…” For a second her fingers clenched instead of folding, then they relaxed and smoothed the damage to the napkin.

Bruce watched, as fascinated by her hands as she was.

“Naturally, I didn’t sleep very well.” She stole a glance up, her eyes haunted. “I saw him coming. And now I measure distances in my head and think, if I’d run, could I somehow have reached them in time?”

“You might have gotten your skull crushed, too,” he said brutally. “Julia Lopez did her best to defend herself. Her forearm was shattered before a second blow hit her head.”

“Ohh.” Her fingers froze, and she stared at him. “Oh.”

The image of her flinging herself between the furious, betrayed husband and the wife he was determined to kill shook Bruce. He tried not to let her see how much.

“There’s no way you could have reached her in time anyway. Even if it had been physically possible, you would have had to read his intentions first, and that would have taken critical seconds.”

“I should have walked her to the van.”

“I repeat—unless you’re trained in martial arts, you couldn’t have done anything but get hurt.”

Her shoulders sagged and the napkin dropped to her lap. “Do you think…Is there any way…?”

“She’ll survive?”

Karin bit her lip and nodded.

“Of course it’s possible.” Why not? People had huge malignant tumors vanish between one ultrasound and the next. They woke from comas after twenty years. Miracles happened. “From what I’ve read, the brain has amazing recuperative properties. Other parts step in when one section is damaged. Right now, I’m guessing the swelling is what’s keeping her in the coma.”

Those big brown eyes were fixed on his face as if she were drinking in every word. She nodded. “That’s what the doctor said.”

“It takes time.” He glanced up. “Ah. Here’s our food.”

They both ate, initially in a silence filled with undercurrents. He studied her surreptitiously, and caught her scrutinizing him, as well. He knew why she interested him so much. The question of the day: Did she see him only as a cop, or had it occurred to her to be intrigued by the man?

He cleared his throat. “I hope you weren’t alone last night. Uh…this morning.”

“Alone? No, Cecilia did sit with me for a while, and then Lenora’s sister came…” Comprehension dawned. “Oh. You mean at home.”

Bruce nodded.

“I live alone. I mean, I’m not married, or…”

Was that a blush, or was he imagining things?

“I fell into bed without even brushing my teeth. I was past coherent conversation.”

He understood that. “I, ah, live alone, too.”

“Oh.” Definitely color in her cheeks, and her normally direct look skittered from his.

Well. They’d settled that. It was a start. Although to what he wasn’t sure. He kept his relationships with women superficial, and somehow he didn’t picture Karin Jorgensen being content with cheap wine when she could have full-bodied.

Great analogy; he was cheap.

No, not cheap—just not a keeper.

Somehow that didn’t sound any better.

“The clinic’s receptionist said you had questions for me.”

He swallowed the bite of food in his mouth. Clear your head, idiot. “I want to know every scrap you can remember about Roberto Escobar. I’m hitting dead ends everywhere else I turn. No one liked him. I have a handful of names of men who might have been friends of his, although most people I’ve interviewed doubt he actually had any friends. If he really doesn’t, if he’s on his own with two little kids, we’ll find him. If he has help, that’s going to be tougher.”

She set down her fork. “What do you think he’ll do if he is on his own?”

“Rent a cheap motel room. Two hundred bucks a week. That kind.”

Karin nibbled on her lower lip. “That sounds…bleak.”

“It is bleak. Especially since I doubt he’s ever done child care for more than a few hours at a time.” He hadn’t thought to ask anyone. “Is Enrico still in diapers?”

She shook her head. “Lenora was really happy to get him potty trained just…I don’t know, six weeks or so ago. Although that isn’t very long. Under stress, kids tend to regress.”

She wasn’t exaggerating. Under enough stress, they regressed by years sometimes. He’d seen a twelve-year-old curling up tightly and sucking her thumb. Having your mother brutally bludgeoned right in front of you…Yeah, that would be cause to lose bladder control.

“He’d be mad,” Bruce noted.

“Oh, he’d be mad at them no matter what. Enrico is two. You know what two-year-olds are like.”

He didn’t, except by reputation.

“And Anna is only four. Well, almost five. They need routine, they need naps, they’ll want their favorite toys—” She stopped. “Did he take the time to collect any of their stuff from their aunt and uncle’s?”

“After killing Aunt Julia, you mean?” he said dryly. “We assume they had a bag packed for the night, and if so, yes. It’s not there. But the ragged, stuffed bunny Uncle Mateo says Anna is passionately attached to was left on the sofa, along with Enrico’s blankie. Uncle Mateo predicts major tears.”

“Stupid,” she pronounced.

“He panicked. Wouldn’t you, under the circumstances?”

“Yes, but he’ll be sorry.” Then she shook her head, visibly going into psychologist mode. “No, sorry isn’t in his vocabulary. Not if it means, Gee, I screwed up. Everything is someone else’s fault. The more he gets frustrated with the children, the more enraged he’ll be at Lenora. This is all her fault. What’s frightening is that without her to deflect him, he’ll start turning that rage on Anna and Enrico. That he would anyway is worrying. That’s what finally precipitated her decision to leave him. She knew that sooner or later he’d lose his temper with them, not just with her.”

The sandwich was settling heavily in Bruce’s stomach. He was hearing a professional opinion, professionally delivered. “How soon will that happen?”

“Soon. It probably already has. If he’d attacked just Lenora, I’d think there was a chance that he’d have a period of being…chilled. Justifying it in his own mind, but shaken by what he’d done, too. The fact that he attacked two women, with—what, fifteen minutes, half an hour in between?—suggests that he’s even more cold-blooded than I would have guessed. No, he’ll have very little patience. His own children are just…possessions to him. Evidence of his virility. Not living, breathing, squalling, traumatized kids. He literally has no ability to empathize.”

Bruce swore. He supposed he had hoped Escobar was a man made momentarily insane by what he perceived as his wife’s betrayal.

Ah, here we go again. Hamster wheel squeaking. What was true insanity—what was cultural and what was in the blood, a legacy from father to son?

Give me a straightforward murder for profit any day.

In this case, at least, Karin was telling him that Roberto Escobar wasn’t momentarily nuts. He was the real thing: a genuine sociopath. One who, unfortunately, was on the run with two preschoolers. Now, that was scary.

He mined Karin for every tidbit she could dredge from her memory about her client’s husband. His favorite color was red; Lenora had once mentioned looking for a shirt for his birthday. Did it say that the guy loved the color of blood?

“He’s five foot eight, not five-ten as it says on his driver’s license. Lenora said he lied.”

Bruce made a note.

“He snores. But he didn’t like it when she slipped out of bed to sleep on the couch or got in bed with one of the kids. So usually she didn’t, even if she couldn’t sleep.”

Snores, he wrote, for no good reason. Unless someone in a cheap motel complained to the manager about a guy who sawed wood on the other side of the wall?

He noted food likes and dislikes, Roberto’s opinion about people he worked with, his anger at what in his view was his mother’s betrayal.

“Guy wasn’t doing well where the women in his family were concerned,” Bruce commented.

“No, and Lenora admitted to being inspired by the way his mother just let his words wash over her—like rain running over a boulder, I think is what she said—and kept on with her plans to go home to Mexico. Possibly for the first time, she realized he could be defied.”

“I wonder if that was a good part of why he was so angry. Afraid his wife would see a chink in his supremacy?”

“Um…” She pursed her lips and thought about it. “No, I doubt he reasoned it out that well. Or believed Lenora had it in her to defy him in turn. Mostly, he’d have been angry that his mother chose her other son. Although since he’s continued to call her, he may be channeling that anger onto his brother, who somehow lured their mother from her duty to her older son.”

“In other words, he has a massively egocentric view of the world.”

“Oh, entirely,” Karin assured him.

They quibbled over the bill, with Bruce winning. He couldn’t help noticing how little she’d actually eaten. He suspected she’d picked up her fork from time to time more to be unobtrusive about not eating than out of actual hunger.

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