“Too bad about the dental practice. You’ll find something else, though,” he said as he played with a few strands of her hair. “You bet. We’ll get together as soon as you’re home. Okay, here’s Jane.”
Relinquishing the phone, he covered his face with his hands and dropped his head back.
Jane couldn’t find her voice. She had to say hello twice to get it to sound right.
“Hi, babe,” Oliver said. “How are you?”
Bringing her knees up, she hugged them to her chest and stared at her lacquered toenails while she talked. “Fine.”
“What’s Noah doing there?”
“Just—” she cleared her throat “—fixing a few things. You know, helping me get the house ready for when you come home.”
“That’s nice of him.”
She felt her heart break a little, because she’d no longer have Noah once Oliver returned. She wished their affair didn’t have to end, knew the coming months would be easier if he was there to support her. But they couldn’t risk continuing the relationship.
“He knows I want it to be nice for you. He and your parents have been so good to me.” Feeling Noah’s hand on her head, she let her forehead rest against his knee.
“They should be good to you. You’re my wife,” Oliver said.
That was something she wasn’t likely to forget. Her tie to him had humiliated her in the worst possible way. And yet he was the father of her daughter, the man she’d once loved, someone who could never have committed the crimes Skye Kellerman claimed.
“You still getting out on Friday?” she asked.
“Yeah. Just six more days. I can’t believe it, can you?”
“No.”
“Once I’m home, we’ll forget about the past and move on. We’ll buy a big house, like we had before. My folks will help us if we need them to.”
Betty and Maurice had told her the same thing. They knew, just as Jane did, that Oliver wasn’t a violent criminal. Sure, there’d been a desperate struggle between him and Skye Kellerman. Oliver had come home pretty carved up that fateful night, so badly injured Jane had been forced to take him to the emergency room. But it was Skye who’d freaked out and attacked him. She must’ve been on drugs, just like he said.
“Jane?” Noah whispered. He knew she was dying inside, but she couldn’t look at him. It was too hard.
Raising a hand to indicate that he should wait until she’d dealt with Oliver, she walked over to the window to gaze out at the postage-stamp yard behind her cheap rental. She hated living here. The neighbors went on drunken binges and fought half the night. Teens loitered in the empty lots, smoking pot, or they ran around vandalizing property. And the schools were nothing like the one Kate should’ve been attending. Jane had to get out of here. But she wasn’t going to do that cutting hair at a low-end beauty salon. She needed Oliver. They had to reestablish what they used to have, forget everything that had happened since—Skye, prison, Noah, the anger, the hurt, the resentment. Even the guilt.
Suddenly cold, she wrapped both arms around herself. “Skye was on television again last week,” she told Oliver.
“I know,” he responded. “Don’t worry about her. She’s a pathological liar.”
“She was raising money to help other victims.”
“Hopefully, they’re real victims, not like her.”
“She’s capitalizing on what she did to you, using it to launch a whole new career. I mean, look at all the publicity and sympathy she got because of her lies.” It made Jane want to write her another letter. She’d sent a few over the years, telling Skye what she thought of her. But they’d all gone unanswered. And any more she sent would probably go unanswered, too.
“I’ll bet she’s taking a hefty salary from that nonprofit, too,” he said.
While Jane was cutting hair eight hours a day just to pay the rent on a dump like this…
“But it doesn’t matter what she does. That’s all behind us,” he went on.
Could it be true? Jane ached with the mere hope of it.
Noah came up and kissed the back of her neck, and she let the enjoyable sensations he evoked force Skye from her mind. She wouldn’t think about the past. The past brought such rage. “We’ll start over, build a new life,” she said into the phone, repeating what Oliver had told her so often.
“Exactly.”
“Just like the one we had before.”
“Just like the one we had before,” he echoed.
She leaned into Noah, drawing strength from him while she could. “Sounds great. See you Friday morning.”
“Leave Kate with my mom and bring enough money for a hotel. We deserve a night alone in San Francisco, don’t you think?”
“I guess so.”
“Aren’t you excited?” Oliver asked.
She wasn’t sure. She’d loved him once. Would that feeling return after he came home? She hoped so—for her sake, for Kate’s sake, for everyone’s. “Of course.”
4
“You’re late.”
David stood on the stoop of his ex-wife’s two-story home—his old home—and managed what he hoped was a pleasant smile. “Nice to see you, too, Lynnette.”
“Where’ve you been?” she asked. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”
He’d silenced his phone so he wouldn’t have to listen to it ring. Hearing her bitch at him as he fought the Monday-evening commute wasn’t going to bring him home—to her house—any sooner. He refused to let her badger him. “Bad day at the office.”
“They’re all bad.” She walked away, leaving the door open, her irritation dissolving into an attitude of bored indifference. “Jeremy’s been asking for you. He was afraid you’d cancel again.”
It was David’s turn to be irritated. “What are you talking about? I hardly ever cancel. Only when work gets in the way.”
“Yeah, well, you do love your work.”
As a phlebotomist at a local lab, her hours were fixed—nine to three, five days a week, which was perfect because it coincided with Jeremy’s school day. But the regularity of her schedule certainly didn’t make her more understanding of the spontaneity and extra hours required in police work. “You know I can’t always quit at five, Lynnette.” His job was demanding, but not nearly as demanding as she’d been when they were together. Highly emotional, she was quick to laugh when she was in a good mood and quick to anger when she wasn’t.