Chapter Twenty-Five
Jack stood for a moment looking down at the lawman lying on his garage floor. He looked dead. Staggering back, he was already coming up with the story he would tell the cops. The man had broken into his house.
But as he did, he realized that wasn’t what really had him worried. He had no idea what was going on upstairs inside the house with his wife and the two women he knew were in there with her. Somehow, that felt more dangerous.
Bracing himself, he entered the house and took the expensive but wonderfully silent elevator to the main floor.
He’d loved this house from the first moment he saw it.
The view was incredible. From his bedroom window on the fourth floor, he could see his city, Billings, the largest city in Montana and where he’d made his mark.
Christine had argued the house was too large, too ostentatious, too expensive for where they were in life.
He hadn’t made his fortune yet when he’d purchased the house with all its bedrooms and baths.
He’d planned to fill it with his sons who would take over the business and daughters he would one day walk down the aisle with.
He had plans that his sons would take over what he’d built and make the family even more prominent and wealthy.
But he’d soon learned that he was unable to have children.
It had been a heartbreaking blow to his ego.
That was when he really started running around with other women.
From the outside it might have looked as if he had something to prove; he didn’t care.
Christine had mentioned adopting, but he only wanted children from his own seed.
The elevator door opened on the living room and kitchen level. He peered out, surprised to see no one, not even his wife.
“Christine?” Stepping out of the elevator, he called again a little louder.
“Jack.”
The sound of her voice directly behind him made him jump. He spun around to see her come out of the kitchen, which in itself was odd. Christine didn’t cook. Jack wondered why they even had a kitchen except for the wine fridge.
Standing backlit in a shaft of sunlight shooting through all those magnificent windows he loved, her face was in shadow.
But while he couldn’t see her expression, the light did catch on her slim wrist and the beautiful, very expensive tennis bracelet he’d bought her.
One of many “guilt” presents he’d given her. Only the best for his wife.
“Christine?” His voice cracked as he raised his gaze to watch her stop just inches from him. Her expression was one of calm concern. He cleared his throat. “What’s going on?”
“There’s something you need to take care of, Jack.” Her tone was as calm as her expression. “In the safe room.”
He glanced over at the closed steel door of the room Christine had insisted they needed to add during this latest remodel. “What’s in there?” His voice came out a whisper. What he meant to ask, he realized, was the question that he’d had since her call. “Who’s in there?”
She didn’t answer, but then she didn’t have to. He knew.
“You can fix this, Jack.”
He shook his head. He couldn’t imagine how. He wouldn’t even know where to begin, because he’d lost control of the entire situation. And now there were two women locked in the safe room to deal with, not to mention that body out in the garage.
“It’s over,” but as he said it, he fought the idea of giving up like a man determined to get out of the desert alive against all odds. There had to be a way out of this. He just hadn’t thought of it yet.
“You have to fix this.” Christine’s voice held none of the panic now hammering away in his chest making it hard to breathe. “You made this mess.” She made it sound as if he’d tracked in mud—not this catastrophe he’d brought home.
He met her gaze, his beautiful perfect wife, the symbol of the perfect life he’d built with her help. His ice princess. He wasn’t even that shocked that she’d always known what kind of man he really was and had looked the other way.
Even with two women locked in their safe room, she was calmer than what he thought was normal. He’d worked so hard for so long to prove that he was worthy of a woman like Christine and the life that came with her.
Yet she wasn’t what he’d wanted or needed when he wasn’t being the Jack Marshall everyone thought he was. Like this house, she’d been for show, he realized with a flash of insight.
And now here they were. He couldn’t imagine how things could get worse until she moved to him and pressed something into his hand before stepping back.
He looked down to find the knife handle in his palm and felt a shock.
It looked exactly like the knife he’d taken from the kitchen to kill Whitney.
He liked to believe he was only going to threaten her with the knife, but he’d known the only way to be rid of her was to kill her.
He’d planned to replace the knife before Christine knew it had gone missing, but when things had gone south, he’d forgotten.
Apparently, she paid more attention to the kitchen than he thought, because this was identical to the one he’d thrown away—except for the lack of blood.
Jack shook his head slowly, thinking of what could be waiting for him behind the steel door. He already had the detective lying dead in the garage. He hadn’t meant to kill him, but the cop had been a pain in his backside for weeks and then to see him breaking into his house…
“I can’t,” he whispered. He was so tired. He just wanted to go back to that day on the interstate when he spotted the young woman hitching a ride. He would sell his soul to change it all.
But when he looked into his wife’s eyes, he knew he’d sold his soul a long time ago, and the day of reckoning had arrived.
“This is your mess, Jack,” she said, and turned to walk back toward the kitchen.
His fingers closed around the handle of the knife against his will.
Amy Sue looked over at Liz sitting on the floor of the small unfinished room. There’d been that moment of panic for both of them when they’d realized there were no air vents yet in the room.
She’d had to talk Liz into sitting and calming down. “If there isn’t enough air, then we need to conserve it. Panicking isn’t going to help. Just the opposite.”
“I can’t believe this was my stupid idea,” Liz said now.
She’d been quiet, no doubt ruminating as Amy Sue had been doing.
Both of them regretted that they’d put themselves in this position as they waited, afraid of what was going to happen next.
As if being locked in this airless room wasn’t enough.
“I was so sure that if his wife knew, she’d call the cops and this would be over. ”
Amy Sue nodded, but said nothing. Would’ves and should’ves, her Gram would have said. Thinkin’ to change the past is a fool’s errand. Only thing you can change is yourself in the future.
“What do you think they’re going to do with us?” Liz asked quietly.
Wasn’t like anyone outside this room could hear them.
The walls were thick with soundproof material.
It made Amy Sue wonder what the real purpose of this room was.
Maybe exactly what it was being used for now.
It scared her to think that other women had shown up here to confront Christine hoping she would do something about her husband.
“If Christine wanted to kill us, she would have already.” It was the only positive answer Amy Sue had.
“But now Jack Marshall is out there,” Liz pointed out.
Amy Sue realized that neither of them had actually seen him or even really heard him come into the house before Christine had ushered them into this room. Maybe he wasn’t out there. Maybe he had no idea how far his wife would go—
Before she could finish her thought, she heard the steel door lock click. The door swung open. Jack Marshall filled the doorway.
Seeing Jack standing there, his expression dark and unreadable, was terrifying, but nothing like the knife he had clutched in his hand.