But then, where was Jane’s mother? Her car was here.
He got out of the truck and walked the rest of the way down the hillside. “Jane?” he called. “Mrs. Norton?” He hoped Laurel’s hired muscle wasn’t around; his shoulder ached, it wasn’t right from that crowbar blow, and he couldn’t fight anymore. His good arm and hand ached from the punches he’d landed on the crazy man at the lake house.
He heard a noise. A soft call.
He went to the edge of the cliff. Looked down into a maze of branches and jutting stone. Saw nothing. Heard the noise again, moved farther to his right.
Then he saw Laurel Norton. She’d fallen forty feet, apparently hitting branches along the way, which had slowed her descent but beaten up her body. Her arm moved and she made a noise when she saw Trevor.
“Mrs. Norton!” he yelled. She reached toward him. She was hurt.
And by her lay a gun, next to her purse.
He dug into his front jeans pocket for his phone and pulled it out. It was smashed beyond repair from one of the blows of the crazy man’s crowbar.
“I’ll go to the house and get help,” he called. She could be dying right now. Panic filled his chest.
Laurel shook her hand, shook her head.
“No?” he called. “Why? Where is Jane?” He couldn’t leave her to go look for Jane. Horror struck him. “Is Jane down there with you?” He couldn’t see what was around Laurel.
He had to find a phone. “Your purse?” he called. “Is your phone in your purse? Can you dial?”
She tried to speak again but couldn’t. One-handed, she pulled it from her jacket pocket. In her hand it looked unbroken, but she didn’t seem to be able to press the buttons.
He heard voices coming. A man’s voice. And at its sound, Laurel Norton moaned and gave a weak, gasping scream, terror contorting her face. He decided it was best that whoever was coming didn’t see him. With his shoulder aching and still one-handed, Trevor started to make his way farther down the cliffside, feet carefully finding purchase.
He needed that phone. He needed that gun.
62
THE DOOR OPENED and Jane sprayed the cleanser.
But the man through the door wasn’t Cal—it was the man she’d talked to through the gate. The witness who had called the police after the crash. James Marcolin. He staggered back as the cleanser hit his eyes and he roared. She tried to shove past him, but Cal Hall was there and he punched her in the face. She fell back, Marcolin’s cussing booming in her ears. Then Perri beside her, trying to wrest the Glock from Cal’s hand, Cal overpowering his wife and shoving her hard to the floor.
“Get up,” Cal said, grabbing Jane by the hair. Her whole face hurt. He shoved the gun under her jaw.
“Cal, don’t do this. Don’t.” Marcolin had moved past Perri, clawing at his eyes, gasping, turning on the tap water to rinse his face.
“I’m just taking her to her mother,” Cal said. “It’s going to be OK, Perri. Just shut up and let me handle everything. Stay here. Help him.” Marcolin was still rinsing his eyes, hissing in pain and annoyance.
Cal shoved a cloth from a shelf into Jane’s mouth, wrapped duct tape around her head. “I’ll take her to Laurel and then I’ll be back. And I’ll explain everything to you.”
Jane shot a beseeching look at Perri as Cal hustled her away.
“The spray,” Marcolin gasped, squinting, “how long does it say to wash the eyes?”
She picked up the spray container and read it so he would believe her. “Fifteen minutes,” she said. They saw her as nothing. To Cal she was no risk, no threat, someone who would do whatever he said; to Marcolin what was she—the dense wife or just the dumb mother of the dead boy? She stepped back from him. “I told her not to do it. It would just make Cal mad.” She listened; the house was big and she needed to hear a particular sound.
She heard it. The shutting of the front door. She stepped out of the utility room and slammed the door shut, fumbling for the bolt. She slid it home as Marcolin yelled and threw himself against the door.
Police. Now. Cal had taken her phone, but there had to be one here in the house, a landline. She checked the next room. A spare bedroom, no phone. Next door down was a library. No phone.
She heard the blasts of gunshots from the laundry room. Marcolin must have had a gun under his jacket; he was shooting away the door lock.
Perri ran.
63
JANE COULDN’T SPEAK with her mouth bound with the tape. Cal hurried her down the street. Toward the crash site. She could see her mother’s Volvo parked along the side. Is he just going to hand me over to her and hope no one believes me at the asylum? But as they got closer, she saw her mother wasn’t in the driver’s seat.
Jane screamed under the gag and tried to spin out of his grip. Cal locked the gun on her head. “The memories are gone, right? It’s all going to be gone soon. You killed my boy. He…he wanted to get you away from this. From me. He begged. You were both crying as you drove.”
Cruel blows of memory, pressing upon her. His gun to her head, like then, like now. She fought back tears. Don’t let him hurt me, David, please don’t let him hurt me. Let me go, Mr. Hall, please, I won’t tell.
David’s voice, an echo in her brain: Dad, let her go, let her go, she won’t talk. Please, Dad. You can’t be serious; you can’t hurt Jane. Are you going to send her to those people? You can’t. Please, Dad, please.
“He unbuckled his seat belt and grabbed the wheel from you. You screamed ‘I hate you’ at me, he screamed he loved you. And the car crashed. Him trying to help you escape. My son, my wonderful son. You took him from me. I blame you.” His hand in her hair yanking her along. She tore at the tape, scoring her cheek.
“Taking you to your mama,” he said, and they rounded the line of cedars and oaks onto the stony decline. She saw Trevor’s truck, parked, twenty feet from the edge. Her eyes went wide.
Oh, no, Trevor couldn’t be here, he couldn’t, Cal would kill him. Where was her mother?
Cal skirted the truck, saw it was empty, gun pointed into the cab. He cussed under his breath and started dragging her toward the edge, in a hurry now. “Down there with her,” he said. “You and her dead, then Perri. Rid of you all that ruined my life and I go on, the crazy wife who’s been targeting people connected to the crash gets blamed, boom. All will pay. Finally.”
The blame for David’s death had twisted something in him: the affair with Laurel, leading to her father’s death, leading to the crash, leading to Perri leaving him. A seed of blame that had turned into a strangling vine. A man who could not see the blame was all on him.
She fought him. She tore at the tape and tried to scream.