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“No.” Seeming stricken, he shook his head. “Sherrilyn’s not dead. She’s just…missing. I’ve been looking for her for years. Almost every night. All over. I’ll find her eventually.”
His voice sounded so childlike. Had he slipped into a psychotic episode? And, if so, would that help or hurt her chances of getting out of this alive? “What about the others?”
“Don’t confuse me. This—this isn’t about anyone else.”
“Who’s Julia, Dean? Where did she come from?”
“Why should I tell you? I can’t trust you. You’re not my friend. I tried to be nice. But you—you weren’t interested.” He moved forward again. “I need to think of my mother. What did you do with the panties?”
What did this have to do with Elaine Wheeler?
Francesca came up against the headboard. She still hadn’t found the pepper spray, but making a run for it seemed just as big a gamble as a search. “They’re on their way to a police lab. So this is pointless, Dean. You might as well go home and not get yourself into any more trouble. If there’s DNA on those panties, the police will build a case against you, and they’ll put you in prison.”
“Why me? I haven’t killed anyone! And I’m not going to kill you. Whether you die is up to Butch. He’s the murderer.”
She wanted to believe him, but Butch wasn’t the one standing in her bedroom. And she couldn’t see why Dean would be holding a rope if he meant her no harm. “Then why are you helping him? Why are you doing this?”
“I told you. I have no choice.”
“You always have a choice.”
“Not this time.” When he lunged forward, she dropped onto the bed and shoved her hands under the blankets. Terrified that she wouldn’t come up with her pepper spray, she almost couldn’t believe it when her hand closed around the canister and she withdrew it so easily from the sheets.
Dean was already on her, forcing her onto her back, using his body weight to subdue her. But he didn’t realize she had a weapon.
Knowing that some of the spray would fall on her, Francesca squeezed her eyes shut and turned her face away as she aimed and pressed the button.
It hadn’t been a direct shot. They’d been moving, fighting. But her action had taken him by surprise, and he gulped in some of the spray when he gasped. Coughing and screaming, he seemed to forget that he had the rope in his hands. He dropped it and swung at her wildly, hitting her in the head, the jaw.
Francesca lost her grasp on the can as she coughed, too. The pepper spray burned her eyes, temporarily blinding her, but she knew her bedroom better than Dean did. Ignoring the flash of pain in her forearm from the recent dog bite and using every ounce of strength she possessed, she slammed him into the headboard.
A second later, she broke free.
He cursed at her, telling her she was dead, as he flailed around, trying to find her. And then he started to cry for his mother.
Stumbling toward the hall, guiding herself with her hands, she managed to make her way out of the house. But by the time Josephine let her in to call the police, and a patrol car arrived, Dean was gone.
* * *
Pounding on the door woke Jonah from a restless sleep. He’d been dreaming. Of Summer, who’d been drowning in a crystal-clear lake; try as he might, he couldn’t grab her. Of Adriana, who’d refused to help him, then screamed when she saw their daughter floating facedown, just out of reach. Of Francesca, who kept weaving in and out of the other sequences, while trying to escape an ax murderer. Beyond the woman-in-jeopardy theme, the dream made little sense. Except to magnify his fears. And fill him with a sense of foreboding.
Hearing someone at his door before dawn only intensified that feeling.
“Coming!” After scrambling to get out of bed, he pulled on a pair of basketball shorts and jogged over to check the peephole. Then he threw the door open.
Nate Ferrentino stood in the hallway, wearing sweats that didn’t match and a pair of slippers. He’d obviously just rolled out of bed, still had the imprint of a blanket on one cheek.
“What’s the matter? Is it Rachel? Is she having the baby?” Jonah had never been part of their birth plan before. But perhaps Nate’s mother was unavailable and they needed someone to watch Dylan….
“Where the hell’s your cell phone?” Nate demanded.
“I turned it off so I could get some sleep. Why?”
“You need to get a home line.”
“I’m not here enough. What’s up?”
He scratched his head, which did nothing to improve the state of his uncombed hair. “The answering service called me. They said someone from Arizona needs to get hold of you. That it’s an emergency.”
