Page 449 of A Matter of Time

“Yes.”

“He’s not gonna die, right, Sam?”

“Right,” he affirmed.

I realized I’d asked him again, but I couldn’t help myself. Sometimes, I had to be reassured more than once.

I was quiet, savoring his warmth, and he tucked my head under his chin as he hugged me tighter.

“Close your eyes.”

I did, even though I was sure there was no way I could ever sleep again.

“I’ll be right here. I won’t move.”

Which turned out to be all I needed to hear. Safe there in his arms, I was out in seconds.

TWENTY-FOUR

Sometimes people try to make decisions for you because they feel they know what’s best. I have an issue with this kind of thinking. For instance, two weeks later, when Susan Reid wanted me to go with her to the hospital to see Caleb, Sam and Dane made a decision not to tell me. Unfortunately for them, Gwen called me and told me what her mother wanted, and I went alone to meet her at the psychiatric hospital in Evanston.

We sat together, Susan and me, in the area just outside the heavy metal door and talked. I apologized for thinking she was crazy. I told her I would have sent her a card, but Hallmark didn’t make one for mistakenly assuming someone was a homicidal maniac. There was no flower that conveyed that sentiment either.

She gave me a trace of a smile.

“Why did you do it?” I asked her gently.

“Cover for him, you mean?”

I nodded.

She took a settling breath, tears welling in her eyes. “I’d already lost Dane and my husband… I couldn’t lose anyone else.”

“But Caleb…He could have killed again. If not me, then eventually Dane.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know, Jory. I wasn’t thinking straight. I’m still not… I just… I lost my life when I gave Dane up, I just didn’t know it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I was obsessed with getting him back, making him a Reid… I didn’t think of what it would do to Daniel. Or to Caleb.”

“Sure.”

“Caleb was always the most sensitive, so attuned to me, and when I told him… I think he felt like I’d been lying to him all those years.”

I wanted to ask about Jeremy or Gwen, but she seemed like she was in shock. It looked like she’d aged years. Her face, the worry lines around her eyes and the shadows under them… She didn’t look at all like the happy, vibrant woman I’d first met. She looked completely drained, the weight of the world just crushing her.

“And Daniel…he’s asked me for a divorce. After so long, he can’t even bear to look at me anymore. And I know it’s my fault. If I had never given Dane up, or if I’d kept the fact that I did to myself, taken it to my grave…none of this would have ever happened.”

That was true, though her having an affair with Mr. Haddock did nothing to help her marriage either.

“Dane didn’t want us, and that made Caleb angry… I just had no idea that he had it inside of him to kill people. I never knew.”

“They told Sam he has two complete and separate personalities, which is apparently very rare,” I replied.

“Yes. When he was killing those poor men…thinking he was me… It’s horrible.”

I had no doubt it was. “I wish I could help.”