Jack Murray, Sheriff

She made a face at him. “I’ll call the Butte County Sheriff’s Office and pass on a message. Right.”

His mouth crooked into a faint smile. “That wouldn’t be a problem.”

Despite herself, she hesitated. “Thank you,” she said, and meant it.

Murray cleared his throat. “Ms. Sommers…Beth. I, uh, hope I haven’t made you uncomfortable. I want you to be able to call if you need me. I live close by.” He reached inside his suit coat and took out a business card, extending it across the table to her. “My home phone. I can be at your place in not much over a minute.”

Her sinuses burned and she gripped the card so tightly it crumpled in her fingers. “I don’t know what to say.”

He picked up his fork. “Don’t say anything. Just don’t hesitate if you need me.”

For an instant their eyes met, and her pulse took an odd leap. Then she pressed her lips together, gave a jerky nod and slipped out of the booth. One more “Thank you,” and she fled, pausing only long enough to pay the cashier.

She could feel his gaze on her back as she waited for her receipt and hurried out the front door. Why she was compelled to hurry, Beth couldn’t have said. Her heart was beating too hard; exhilaration was mixed with a need to run. She tried to convince herself that the news about Ray was the cause of her turmoil, but failed.

Not that it wasn’t upsetting. During the final months of their marriage, Ray had scared her by the depth of his temper; several times he had viciously flung a chair or lamp across the room, breaking it, and during that last, memorable fight, he’d slammed his fist through the wallboard. But even then, he hadn’t hurt her.

Had that changed? If Ray could break a man’s nose in a tavern brawl, what might he do to her?

He had been drunk, she reminded herself, but Beth recognized the excuse for what it was. Anyway, there was no saying he wouldn’t come to her house drunk some night.

The locksmith had already replaced the locks and added a few on windows and the French doors leading out to the deck in back. But she hadn’t done anything about buying a security system. It seemed so ridiculous in Elk Springs, for heaven’s sake!

But now she imagined Ray, drunk, pounding on the door, his fury rising because she wouldn’t let him in. The locks on the French doors wouldn’t stop him from breaking a pane of glass and opening the door.

She would definitely call around this afternoon and get some bids.

Beth’s pace slowed as she reached the main street and turned the corner. Face it, she told herself, stopping to look in the bakery window without seeing the temptations arrayed there. It wasn’t just the news about Ray that had upset her. It was Jack Murray. Why did he have to be interested in her?

And why now?

She wasn’t ready. In that part of her mind reserved for vague thoughts about the future, she had imagined another man, someday. He would be nothing like Ray, nothing. He was some sort of compendium of the modern men found in television commercials. She had seen him clapping at school plays, stir-frying dinner in the wok. He was a reader, a man who would think nothing of running over to Portland for a major museum exhibit, who never raised his voice, who listened intelligently, asked for her thoughts. He was faceless, this man, almost sexless, pleasant, thoughtful, even-tempered…unreal. A bloodless fantasy for a woman who had had too much of strong emotions, who didn’t want gritty and real, who’d had enough of that.

Jack Murray was real. She could imagine him strolling the hushed galleries of the museum, but when she closed her eyes, she saw him playing one-on-one basketball at the gym, sweating, grunting, using his elbows, slamming against another man as they went up for a rebound. He had been soft-spoken with Ray and her, but he also patronized women, undoubtedly raised his voice, and probably got some kind of charge out of wearing a gun.

And he tweaked something sexual in her that hadn’t been touched in a long time, and certainly not by the faceless man she tried so hard to see when she lay alone in bed at night.

Beth let out a long breath of air, blinked and realized that through the glass she was staring right at Mrs. Parker behind the counter in the bakery. The woman was smiling uncertainly, and Beth managed to pull herself together enough to return the smile.

Damn it, she thought a minute later, pushing open the door of Sisters Office Supply, a woman could make intelligent choices. Ray was all she’d ever known. The sexual part of her had been tuned to him; it was natural that she responded to the promise of brawn and dominance.

But she could change that, and would. Jack Murray’s capacity for violence might be harnessed on the side of angels, but it was there, as much a part of him as it was of Ray. She’d spent enough years tiptoeing around to avoid rousing the beast that was anger and violence. Somewhere she’d found the strength to wake him and not quail, to lock him out of her house.

She would not invite him in again, not in any guise.

CHAPTER THREE

“I WISH I COULD GIVE you better news,” Beth’s lawyer said, shaking his head. “We could go back to court and contest your ex-husband’s visitation rights, but frankly, I don’t think we’d win there unless you can bring proof that he’s done more than be late a few times bringing the girls back.” Mr. Knightley held up one hand to forestall her protest. “I’m not telling you what I think, I’m telling you what the judge will think. I have no doubt whatsoever that Mr. Sommers is at least trying to scare you. But we need proof.”

Beth let out a long breath. “Thank you, Mr. Knightley. I really didn’t expect anything else. But I hoped.”

The attorney was perhaps fifty, a handsome man who had gained more presence and authority with the addition of an extra thirty or so pounds that might have looked like fat on another man. He had done some legal work for her business, so she had turned to him when she decided to file for divorce.

“How do the girls feel about their father?” he asked, rolling a rosewood pen between his palms.

“I’m not sure,” Beth admitted. “The divorce upset them, of course, but also…” She hesitated. “I think they were relieved. There was a lot of yelling going on. And yet, until recently they seemed happy to see their dad and looked forward to their visits. It’s harder for Stephanie, because even though she only sees Ray every other week, she feels like she’s missing out on things her friends are doing. But lately…” She sought for words to define her amorphous awareness of their uneasiness. “I know they’ve both been, maybe not scared, but uncomfortable when he’s kept them so late. But I can’t in all honesty say he’s a terrible father or they’re frightened of him. That’s why I’ve hesitated about doing anything too drastic. I think it’s important for them to have a relationship with their own father.”

The lawyer nodded and set the pen back in its stand. “I wish I knew better how to advise you. Have you considered talking to a counselor? You might find somebody who’s an expert on anger management, who could at least give suggestions on the best way to defuse any situations.”

“That’s an idea,” Beth agreed, picking up her purse. “I won’t take any more of your time, Mr. Knightley. I appreciate the information you’ve given me.”

He stood, too. “If the police catch him red-handed pulling one of these malicious tricks, we might have the ammunition to go back to court. I think that would qualify as compelling evidence showing that Mr. Sommers is an unfit parent.”

And then what? Beth thought bleakly. How would the kids come to terms with a label like that put on their father? He was half of them; she had no desire to make them despise that part of themselves.

But what else could she do?

Nobody had any other suggestions, that was for sure. All she heard was “Call the police.” Wasn’t that supposed to be a last resort?

Well, one thing she could do, Beth thought, was talk to Stephanie and Lauren. It didn’t seem to her that a father could succeed in disappearing with a child as old as Stephanie without some cooperation from the child. On some level Stephanie especially would have to be willing to believe that her mother didn’t care, didn’t mind losing her, or would be hurt in some way if she called home. Beth’s job was to make sure her girls were unwilling to cooperate if Ray tried to take off with them.

So that evening she sat them down on the couch in the family room at the back of the house.

This was the time of day she had always—and still did—read bedtime stories to Lauren, who didn’t yet want to give them up although she could read herself. Stephanie, who claimed to be too old to listen, usually sat in the overstuffed armchair and pretended to read herself while eavesdropping avidly. Every few pages she’d ask to see the picture, and Beth would obligingly hold it up. “Why don’t you come and sit with us?” she’d ask, and Steph would curl her lip. “Little kids’ books are boring. I only wanted to see the one picture, that’s all.”

But tonight Beth patted the sofa next to her. “Come here. I want to talk.”

Her older daughter hovered in the doorway. “The phone’s ringing. I’ll go get it.”

“Just ignore it. Half the time nobody’s there anyway.” Beth had abandoned the fiction of wrong numbers. The girls had answered the phone themselves and found nobody on the other end too many times now. The doorbell hadn’t rung since that second night; the phone had, off and on. It hadn’t ceased to unnerve Beth, but the repetition had begun to make her impatient instead of terrified.

“But it might be one of my friends.” Steph was verging on a whine.

“Then she can call back,” Beth told her firmly.

Eleven years old, and Steph already had a sneer down pat. She sat reluctantly where Beth had indicated. Lauren curled trustingly against Beth’s left side.

She took a deep breath and began her prepared speech. “I just thought it was time we have one of those talks about safety.”

She’d expected rolled eyes, but instead Stephanie sat stiffly, looking down at her hands but not saying anything.

“Mostly we parents talk, just in case, about stuff that will probably never happen. This is one of those just-in-cases. I hope nothing bad or scary ever happens to you, but you should know what to do if it does.

“Once in a while, somebody steals a child. It isn’t always a stranger, either. Sometimes it’s somebody the child knows, like a neighbor. Sometimes it’s even a parent. Mostly with parents it’s when a mother and father are divorced and they’re fighting about who the kids will live with. You know your dad and I have already settled that. But I just wanted you to know that it isn’t always a stranger. It might be somebody you trust.”

Lauren’s blue eyes were wide and dark; Stephanie still had her head bowed. Beth could feel her tension as though it were a violin string quivering from the lightest touch.

“Now, if you took a child, not to hurt her, but because you want to pretend you’re her mother or father and she doesn’t have anybody else, you couldn’t keep her locked in the bedroom forever, right? So what you’d do is try to convince the child that she was supposed to be with you, that whoever she was living with really didn’t want her anymore.”