have any more secrets. It felt like a betrayal.
She watched her brother in the dim light from the TV. She had convinced him to let her keep it on with the sound off when he was turning out all the lights and pulling the curtains tighter. He sat with his elbow on the small table, his fist bracing up his head. That's how he slept. Every once in a while his head rolled off his clenched hand but without waking himself.
She wished she could sleep so easily. When they were kids, Jared had taught her what to do when she couldn't sleep. How to go away in her mind to a place with all the things she loved. He'd made her list them-cotton candy, the Bee Gees, Ferris wheels and corn dogs. That was the summer he had taken her to the county fair, so all her favorite things were associated with that experience.
His tactic helped her fall asleep many nights. It became her weapon against the obstacles that invaded her sleep, the biggest one, of course, being fear. The fear that her father would come up and wake them, ripping off the covers and pouring ice-cold water on them or yanking them out of bed by grabbing onto their ankles and pulling until there was nothing left to hang on to. Melanie could still feel it, her head bouncing off the mattress, hitting the bed rail and cracking against the floorboards. But that was the easy part. Over the years she had tried to erase from her memory the sting of the whip or the smell of scorched skin, her own skin burning under the flaming red ash of his cigarette.
Melanie shook her head. She didn't need to be remembering all that now. What she needed to remember was that Jared had cleaned up the mess that night. She owed him, That was a debt she'd never be able to repay and he knew it. Even if she had supplied him with an alibi for Rebecca Moore, they still wouldn't be even. They'd never be even. And now here they were in yet another mess. How could Jared have let this happen? Only this time it was worse. This time he had involved her boy, her baby, her poor
Charlie, She wondered if she would ever be able to forgive her brother for that.
She got out of bed to go to the bathroom and noticed that Jared had left the cell phone on the dresser. She glanced back at him. His head was down, his breathing heavy with sleep. She snatched the phone and took it with her into the bathroom, carefully closing and locking the door. She flipped it open and started looking over the buttons. Somewhere there had to be one that would tell her what she wanted to know.
She hit Menu and there on the list was Call History. This was easier than she'd thought. She clicked on Call History, bringing up yet another list. She chose Outgoing Calls to see if Jared had, indeed, gone off to call his secret contact. And there it was: the date, the time-only an hour ago- plus, the phone number and the person's name. She clicked back to find the earlier call-the one from this morning in the car-just to check, to make certain. There it was again. The same number, the same name.
Why was Jared keeping in touch with his attorney? Why in the world did her brother trust Max Kramer more than he trusted her?
Part5 Point of No Return
CHAPTER 59
Friday, September 10
7:45 a.m. Comfort Inn-
– Hastings, Nebraska
Melanie awoke to the sound of slamming doors. It took her a while to realize where she was. Sunlight filtered in through the crack between the curtains. Somewhere, not far away, she could smell freshly brewed coffee. The last thing she remembered was being stretched out on top of the bedcovers, watching a late-night horror movie-a giant tarantula invading a desert town-and she remembered thinking about pink cotton candy. Someone had pulled the covers up over her, and she curled into them, hugging a pillow as if for security. Which reminded her of Charlie. She raised herself onto her elbow to see that Charlie was gone. Andrew Kane still lay on the bed tied up, only now he had pushed himself into a sitting position, leaning against the headboard.
'Where's Jared and Charlie?' she asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
'Jared's in the bathroom. I'm not sure where he sent Charlie.'
'He sent Charlie somewhere?' Melanie sat up, scanning the room in a panic until she saw Charlie's backpack.
'You love him a lot, don't you?'
She met Kane's eyes, looking for sarcasm and surprised to find none.
'You wouldn't get it,' she said. 'It's been just the two of us for a very long time. We watch out for each other.'
'And Jared?'
'What about Jared?' she asked, glancing at the bathroom door without meaning to.
'Nothing.' He shrugged his one shoulder as if it didn't matter. 'It just sounds like he's gotten you and Charlie into a real big mess.'
'Sometimes things don't go exactly the way you think they will.' Her mind flew back to another time, another mess. Why was it so much on her mind? She thought she'd removed it from her memory, gotten past it. And yet, Jared's reappearance less than two weeks ago seemed to bring it all back.
'What is Charlie? Eighteen? Nineteen?'
'He's seventeen,' she blurted out as if needing to defend her baby before she could even figure out why Andrew Kane wanted to know.
'Geez! He's still a kid.'
Her thoughts exactly. Charlie was too young to be involved in such a mess. What the hell was Jared even thinking? And the guns. She'd never forgive Jared for bringing along guns.
'I could help you and Charlie,' she heard Andrew Kane say, but her mind was focused on the image of all that blood on their coveralls when they came running out of the bank. It had reminded her so much of that night with her father, the bloody drag marks, all the blood seeping in between the cracks of the linoleum, the splatters on the white wall. She never knew how Jared cleaned it all up. But he did. He took care of it.
'I know some detectives with the Omaha Police Department,' Andrew continued.
Melanie heard only bits and pieces of what Andrew Kane was saying. Something about Charlie being a minor, about Jared having killed before and about her not even being in the bank. She wasn't really listening. Instead, she was back at that nightmarish scene, and only now did she realize Jared had never told her where he'd buried him. And she had never asked. She remembered seeing her brother hosing down his tennis shoes and the muddy shovel, scrubbing down the floor and the wall while she just watched, unable to move, unable to help. She wasn't even sure if Jared had told their mother when she got home later that night. And yet. he must have. Why else would she have told everyone that her husband 'just up and left''1 Why else would she be so absolutely certain that Jared couldn't have killed Rebecca Moore? Because that was exactly what Corrine Starks told the police, that her son couldn't possibly kill anyone. She had to have known.
The bathroom door opened, startling her back. Jared looked awful. He hadn't showered. His short hair stood up in places like Charlie's, but the difference was Charlie wanted his that way. She was certain Jared did not. His face was unshaven even though Melanie knew he had bought disposable razors at the gas station. And his eyes were red and swollen. He scraped his hand over his face when he noticed her staring at him.
'What's your problem?'
'Where's Charlie?'
'Don't worry about your precious little boy,' he said in that tone meant to sting her. 'He's getting us some new wheels. He should've been back by now.' He checked his wristwatch and headed for the door, stopping at the window first to peek out. 'Here he comes.'
Melanie found her shoes and followed Jared out, leaving Andrew Kane on the bed and closing the door just enough that no one could see inside the room. Charlie pulled up to the door in a white Ford Explorer, looking out at them with a wide grin. He rolled down the window and said, 'I stopped at a gas station up the street and just traded vehicles. It was so easy. The lady left this one running with the keys in the ignition while she went inside to
