Alone (Detective D.D. Warren, #1)(80)

It was easier for Catherine this way. Not so much because she was attached to the girl—in all honesty, she'd cared for Prudence no more and no less than the others. But the nature of the killing—neck snapped, body hanged from the rafters of Catherine's bedroom—led to horror beyond imagining. It implied an intruder in Catherine's home. It implied a man targeting her and the people around her. It implied that if she didn't surrender Nathan as her father-in-law demanded, she would be next.

She thought of James's soft-spoken threat. That he would make life miserable for her. That he had all the power. That she was nothing.

She thought, almost bitterly, he should tell her something she didn't know.

Right before she'd met Jimmy, she'd sunk so, so low. Her mother was dead, her life empty. Day after day she spent standing in a department store, spritzing perfume and trying not to flinch as man after man hit on her. She would study all the male faces, wondering which ones touched their children inappropriately and which ones beat their wives. Then she'd go home to her cockroach-infested apartment and dream of a darkness without end.

There came a morning when she just couldn't do it anymore. Couldn't stand the thought of spending one more day in a state of such perpetual fear.

She'd crawled into the tub. She'd gotten out a razor. She'd started to slice her paper-thin skin. And the phone rang. Without giving it a second thought, she'd crawled out of the tub to answer it. Ironically enough, it had been a telemarketer. Someone asking her if she wanted to buy life insurance, which had made her laugh, and that had made her cry, and while she'd stood there, sobbing hysterically into the ear of a very flustered salesperson, she'd seen the ad flash across her TV screen.

Feeling alone? Feeling like there is no way out? Feeling like no one cares?

A suicide hotline number had scrolled across the screen and, driven by a survival instinct she didn't even know she had, she'd slammed the phone down on the telemarketer, then dialed the number.

Thirty seconds later, she was listening to the calmest male voice she'd ever heard. Deep, soothing, funny. She had curled up on the floor and listened to him talk for an hour.

That's how she'd met Jimmy, though she hadn't known it then. Hotlines had protocols. Handlers were not to give out too much personal information. But they could ask questions, encourage their troubled callers to talk. So he did, and so she did, about her dead-end job, her apartment, her mother.

It wasn't the next day, that would've been too obvious, or even the day after that.

But Jimmy came to the department store where she worked. He found her, he flirted with her, he wooed her. And she found herself strangely moved by this charming young man with his incredibly calm voice. He'd asked her out. Much to her own surprise, she'd said yes.

It wasn't until months later that he admitted to her what he'd done. That he'd been so moved by her call, he'd felt compelled to find her in person. Please don't tell anyone, he begged prettily. Oh, she could get him in so much trouble. . . .

At the time, she'd found it romantic. This man had moved heaven and earth to find her. Surely it was a sign. Surely it meant he loved her. Her life was finally looking up.

It was only later, after they were married, maybe that one Monday evening when she'd commented on his drinking and he'd shocked her by slapping her across the face, that she'd started to wonder. What kind of man used a suicide hotline to pick up girls? What did that say about what he was looking for in a prospective mate?

Like his father, Jimmy had liked power. He'd liked to remind her that she'd be nothing without him. He'd liked to tell her that he'd scooped her out of the gutter, and he could damn well throw her back.

Sometimes, when Jimmy spoke, she actually pictured Richard Umbrio, standing way above her, haloed by daylight as one arm held up the wooden cover that would soon be sealing her in. “Better make my next welcome even more exciting,” he'd tell her gleefully. “Because otherwise, you never know when I might decide not to visit. I've given you this much, Cat. You never know when I might take it all away.”

Jimmy had never wanted to save Catherine. He'd simply wanted to extend her programming.

Well, she now thought matter-of-factly, she had shown him.

In Nathan's room, she snapped on the overhead light. Two sixty-watt bulbs blazed from the ceiling. It wasn't enough, however. For her, for Nathan, it would never be enough.

“Cowboy,” Nathan murmured sleepily against her shoulder. Obediently, she went to that night-light first. Snap.

Nothing.

She frowned, tried it again. No light magically illuminated the cowboy's cheery face. Bulb must be burnt out. She went to the night-light beneath it, the traditional clam. Click.

Still nothing.

Maybe a blown fuse? The police with all their spotlights and recorders, maybe they'd overloaded the system. She crossed to the dresser, Nathan's weight growing heavy in her arms. Two table lamps. One had a cactus as its stem, the other a bucking bronco. She tried both, fingers shaking slightly, breathing accelerated.

Nothing. Nothing.

Okay, lots of options. Plenty of options. What was the point of having a neurosis if you didn't do it properly? Nathan's room offered six night-lights, three table lights, and two standing lamps. The overhead light worked, which meant there had to be electricity to at least part of the room. She just had to find those outlets, get those lights humming.