raked her fingers through her hair as she studied herself in the mirror above the dresser. She no longer even looked like the woman she used to be. She hadn’t taken the time to get her hair trimmed—hadn’t wanted to visit the salon she normally frequented while everyone there was whispering about her—so it had grown out of the bob she’d been wearing before her world collapsed. All she could do was pull the thick, auburn mass into a ponytail or let it go wild and curly. She’d always liked the gray blue of her eyes, but they looked empty now—hollow, shell-shocked. Who was this person staring back at her with a face so pale she could almost trace the blue veins underneath? “Maybe I should’ve noticed the blood.”
“You have children. They scrape their knees and elbows now and then, don’t they? And Gordon fixed mining equipment, which meant he had to have injured himself occasionally. Why would you assume—from a few drops of blood—that he was out harming women?”
She turned away from the mirror, couldn’t bear to look at herself any longer. “I don’t know. It’s just that so many people think I should’ve spotted something. I’m beginning to doubt myself. The morning after he raped Meredith, he had scratches on his arm. I asked how he got hurt. He said he backed into a ditch he didn’t see at a mine site and got scraped up by blackberry bushes while trying to get a two-by-four under his rear tire. Maybe that seems like a lame excuse now that the police have pointed out the pattern of those scratches. It did look like four fingernails had gouged his arm, but...I honestly thought nothing of it at the time.”
“It’s only been a month since they locked Gordon up, Savanna. Surely things will get easier.”
She detected a hint of impatience. He’d heard so much about her problems of late. As sympathetic and supportive as he’d tried to be, she’d been falling apart for too long, ever since she’d learned that her husband was the primary suspect in the string of violent sexual assaults that’d sent the good people of Nephi into a panic. Understandably, Reese was eager to get back to his regular life. He was her younger brother, after all, wasn’t used to having to support her so much. She’d been the one to carry them both through the loss of their elder brother and both parents a little over a year ago.
He’d had enough sorrow for one fourteen-month period. She felt like an idiot for not realizing before now that she’d exhausted his reserve of compassion, that this was the point where she’d need to soldier on alone.
“I’ll let you go,” she said abruptly.
After a brief silence, he said, “I’ll call you later, okay?”
He probably felt guilty for revealing that hint of impatience. But he was with someone. He’d said that. Anyway, if he was capable of moving on after losing, all at once, three members of their immediate family and was beginning to feel good again, she wouldn’t continue to drag him down. “There’s no need,” she said. “I’m fine. I just wanted to let you know that I’ll be moving as soon as I can arrange it.”
“That takes time. You’ve got to sell the house, don’t you?”
“No.”
“You’re going to walk away from it?”
“Why not? There’s no equity. Gordon took out a second mortgage almost as soon as he inherited it from his grandmother. With the market the way it is...we’ve been upside down on this place for two years or more.”
“What about your credit?”
“The house is in his name. He never put me on the loan or the title. If his mother wants to save this place, she can move in and make the payments. I’ll leave all of his stuff behind—” she’d already boxed them up and stacked them in the garage, anyway “—and put the keys under the mat.”
“But where will you go? Back to Long Beach?”
“No.” They’d sold the beautiful five-bedroom, four-bath home their parents had owned in Los Angeles, where they’d been raised, and split the proceeds. Reese had paid off his student loans and was using what he had left for graduate school. He was planning to be a doctor. She’d spent a portion of her inheritance on Gordon’s defense—which she now considered to be a waste of money.
“Then where?” he asked.
The only place she could go. “The farmhouse in Silver Springs.” It was all she had left.
“Savanna, no. That place needs too much work. Dad was barely getting started with it when he...when they had the boating accident. How will you live there?”
“I’ll renovate it myself.” And why not? They had to do something with it. And neither one of them had wanted to put it up for sale. That home hadn’t been just another real estate purchase to their father, although he’d done a lot with real estate over the course of his life. This was the ranch his grandparents had once owned. He’d had fond memories of the place, was so excited to be able to bring it back into the family where he’d said it belonged.
“With what money?” Reese asked.
“The money I have left from the LA house.”
“That won’t carry you very far, not when you’ll be using it for the repairs as well as your monthly overhead.”
“Without a mortgage or rent, I should be able to manage a basic renovation and survive for a year, if I’m careful.”
“And what will you do once the renovation is complete?”
“I don’t know, Reese. Worst case, I’ll have to sell and move on, figure out what comes next for me. Best case, I’ll be able to get a loan against the property, give you your share and rebuild my life in Silver Springs.”
He cursed.
“What? You don’t like the idea?”
“I don’t like what you’re having to deal with. It’s not fair. First, we lose Mom, Dad and Rand—and then, as if that wasn’t tragic enough, Gordon starts raping women? How does all of that even happen to one person?”
She didn’t answer his question. Her mind had shot off on a tangent. “Maybe that was why I missed it.”
“Missed what?” he said, sounding confused.
“What Gordon was doing. I was so torn up I wasn’t paying as much attention to him as I should have been. I was barely holding myself together, trying to get through it.”
“But he only raped one woman last summer. The other two he attacked six months ago—almost back-to-back. Why the big gap if it was your bereavement over Mom, Dad and Rand that set him off?”
“There might not be a gap. The police believe he victimized other women. They’re looking at unsolved cases that might be similar in the cities and towns near the mines where he worked.”
“Shit...”
“You’re missing the point. I’m saying my grief—the fact that I was wrapped up in my own problems—is what might’ve started him down that road.”
“I understand, but that’s hardly an excuse. My God, you were mourning the loss of more than half your family. He should’ve been trying to support you for a change.”
She took a sip of wine. Gordon had never been particularly supportive, not in an emotional sense. He’d worked and contributed his paycheck to the upkeep of the family, same as she did, but he wasn’t all that engaged. He’d been gone too much and tired and remote when he was home.
Still, she’d thought they had a decent marriage, one that she could make work. Her parents had been together for thirty-two years when they were killed. She’d wanted that kind of life—one devoted to her family—and had been determined to stick it out for the long haul, even if Gordon wasn’t perfect. “You’re right. I don’t know what started it. I just keep guessing.”
“There’s something wrong with him. That’s what started it.”
She leaned against the headboard