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“Did Seth tell you about the man who tried to take my son?”
“He did.”
“I’ve never been so scared in my life.” And that included the two times she’d been certain Richard would kill her, when he’d lost even a semblance of restraint. “If anything happens, please save Jacob first. No matter what.”
Eyes keen, he studied her face. Then he nodded.
At the same moment, she realized Seth was hovering in the kitchen doorway and had undoubtedly heard her request. Well, she would have asked the same of him when she got a chance, anyway. She tipped up her chin, saw his eyebrows twitch. Finally, he inclined his head in acknowledgment. And agreement, if she wasn’t mistaken.
Then he came into the kitchen as if nothing had happened. “What do you need upstairs right now?”
Robin picked out the bag that held her toiletries and pajamas as well as clean clothes she could put on in the morning. Which was all of about two hours away, thanks to Jacob’s early-rising habit.
Seth had wrapped Jacob in his blankie after lifting him out of the car, so she knew he had that. Blue bunny was...in that bag, she thought, along with a bunch of Jacob’s clothes and toys. She picked it up, too, before being hit with an inexplicable feeling of abandonment.
“I suppose you’re going home.”
Seth shook his head. “No, I’ll sack out here. Dad keeps my bedroom for me, except when my sister and her family are home and need it.”
“Oh.” Feeling uncharacteristically shy again, Robin said, “Well, good night, then.”
“To you, too.”
As usual, she hadn’t a clue what he was thinking as he watched her follow his father toward the staircase.
* * *
HOLLOW-EYED FROM lack of sleep, pain throbbing in his temples, Seth poured himself his third cup of coffee for the morning and got on the phone as soon as he reached his desk.
It didn’t take him long to connect with a sergeant at Seattle PD who proved willing to look for any domestic violence calls to Richard Winstead’s address.
“Not a one,” he said at last. “You know who Winstead is, don’t you?”
“Better than you do, I suspect. I suppose the house is on a big piece of property.”
“I’d call it an estate. Waterfront. That part of Magnolia—” He broke off. “You’re suggesting neighbors wouldn’t have been able to hear crashes or someone screaming.”
“I’m asking.”
“It’s a butt-ugly house,” the sergeant said thoughtfully. “I’ve heard it’s like Bill Gates’s, wired so lights turn on when someone walks into the room and off when they leave it. That kind of thing. Heat and appliances can be controlled from a distance by an app. I guess it was on the cover of a magazine for architects, but when I drove by I thought the really nice older brick mansions on each side were doing their best to lean away.”
“I know the kind of place you mean,” Seth said, kneading the back of his neck with the hand not holding the phone.
“I thought Winstead was divorced,” Sergeant Hammond said thoughtfully.
“He is. Unless he’s remarried, that I don’t know about.”
“Ah, let me check.” The clatter of fingers on a keyboard came through the phone. “Nope.” He paused. “The divorce wasn’t contested. Is there something I should know about this?”
“His ex-wife is here in Lookout. I’m investigating the murder of a woman in the ex-wife’s kitchen. Victim looked a lot like the ex. I think she was the intended victim.”
“Robin Winstead.”
“Robin Hollis now. She went back to her maiden name. And yes. She says Winstead swore if she ever tried to leave him, he’d kill her.”
“You got any proof?”
“I’m working on it. Okay if I get back to you in a few days?”
“Looking forward to it.”
Seth modified a template for requesting medical records and printed a couple of copies, then drove back to his father’s house hoping Robin would be awake. She’d been deep under when he left, although Jacob was wide-awake and cheerful. Seth had disposed of the sodden diaper, cleaned up and dressed the little boy, and escorted him downstairs. He’d been happily settled in front of a short stack of pancakes when Seth left. Dad liked making pancakes.
