We used to boast we'd have a football team between us." There was silence for a moment while Nathan contemplated his coffee cup. "I found her in bed with someone."

"Shit." Elisa reached across for his hand. Nathan squeezed her fingers.

"See why I didn't want to tell you?"

"No, I don't. My God, Nathan, why didn't you tell us? Why did you let us think it was you? That you'd gotten cold feet about the whole idea of marriage?"

"Because of who I found her with."

Elisa's face paled. "Someone I know?"

"Jack Thompson."

"Oh God. Why didn't you tell me?" She clutched his fingers more tightly.

"What, and have Dad gleefully say it served me right?" Nathan pulled his hand away.

"He wouldn't have said that."

"Yeah, he would. He never wanted me to have anything to do with my mother's family. He said no good would come of trying to contact them. I can hear him saying I told you so."

"But Mom and Dad think you're the bad guy and dumped Alison."

"That's okay."

"It's not okay. It's been a year since you split up and you're so miserable.

Nothing makes you happy. You have to move on, get over it." Elisa gripped her stomach. "Ouch, bad time to start a serious conversation. Don't move." She struggled to her feet, her hands over her belly. "This baby's bouncing up and down on my bladder."

"Too much information." Nathan put his hands over his ears.

"Ha, ha. By the way, I'm expecting Mom here in ten minutes so you better talk fast." She continued shouting as she walked down the hall. "Don't you dare leave.

I know you're thinking about it."

Nathan smiled to himself, but he was leaving anyway. He finished his coffee, rinsed the mug and put it in the dishwasher. He stared at the dirty plates piled in the sink and loaded those, too.

Elisa came back into the room. "That's better. I can't wait to eject this little monster."

"I have to get going, Elisa. I've business in Houston that will take me a couple of days."

She glared at him. "Nathan, you can't-"

"I really have to go. When I get back, we'll talk, I promise." As he pulled out of the drive, Nathan saw Inez's car coming. He knew she'd seen him. He also knew Elisa would repeat their conversation word for word. He was a coward getting her to do this for him.

Easy to blame other people for the mess his life had become, but Nathan knew his unhappy teenage years were as much his fault as his father's and stepmother's. Once he discovered his birth mother was still alive, he'd been desperate to meet her. He traced her to Houston and borrowed the car without telling his dad. Nathan remembered he'd put on a brand new shirt and tie. In spite of the fact that she'd abandoned him, he wanted to impress her.

The house had amazed him. He got out of the car and stood by the elaborate wrought iron gates, staring down the tree-lined drive at a white colonnaded mansion. Everywhere he looked there were irrigated lawns so the gardens looked impossibly green, like some tropical sea with coral flower beds. He pressed the intercom button before he could change his mind. His stomach churned with a mixture of fear and excitement.

"You must be Nathan."

His mouth opened in surprise.

"I'm Don Thompson. Come in." He pried the flowers from Nathan's grip.

"Maria, put these in water."

"They're for...for-" Nathan stuttered.

Don put his arm over Nathan's shoulders and led him into his study. Nathan had known he was too late before Don had even spoken.

"Elizabeth is dead. She was murdered a month ago." But he still hadn't been able to take it in, to come so close only to lose her again.

"There was an intruder at our vacation home in Colorado. Elizabeth and Jack were stabbed. Steven, our youngest son is missing, presumed dead." Don's voice cracked.

In the space of a few moments, Nathan had found another family and had lost them.

"They all died?" Nathan whispered.

"Elizabeth was dead by the time I reached her. Jack's traumatized. Not speaking. After he recovered from his stab wound, he had a nervous breakdown.

He's in Hoopers, a private clinic."

"What was she like?"

"A wonderful mother and a wonderful wife." As Don talked about the fun they'd had as a family, Nathan hadn't been able to help himself. "If she was so perfect, why did she leave me?"

"She gave you up for me," Don said.

The truth hurt. She'd loved Don more than him. Nathan made his face show nothing, imagined himself wrapping the pain in endless sheets of paper, until he'd smothered it.

"What are your plans for the future?" Don asked. "Are you going to college?" He offered money and Nathan turned it down.

When he got back, he said nothing to his father and his father said nothing to him, though Nathan wondered if he'd looked at the odometer and guessed.

After Nathan graduated college, he joined the police. He said at his selection interview, it was his abiding sense of the unfairness of life that led him into law enforcement. Although some things couldn't be put right, a lot could. But deep down, Nathan had a feeling he'd ended up as a policeman because it was the one thing his father pleaded with him not to do. His father had failed to be good enough to keep his mother. Why should Nathan do anything to please him?

Nathan had thought about Jack over the years, how they'd both lost their mothers. Sometimes he was glad Jack had felt the same loss as he did. Alison listened to him talk about his unhappy childhood, commiserated when he described the way Inez treated him compared to his sister. She hadn't liked Inez either or his father, and he'd loved her for that. Alison encouraged him to contact Don Thompson again, to ask about Jack. So it was her fault. Yeah, right. Nathan had wanted to meet his half-brother because he wanted to ask him about their mother.

After he'd seen Jack and Alison in bed, Nathan walked downstairs, calmly poured himself a drink and sat on the couch. He remembered thinking he should have taken a photo and put it in a brown envelope. It was what he usually did. He swirled the bourbon in the glass, though he didn't drink. Alison giggled as she and Jack came down. The front door opened and she screamed. She'd seen his car on the drive.

She walked back into the living room, her face devoid of color.

"Nathan, I...."

Jack smirked and drove off, leaving her to him. Nathan waited for an explanation, but she couldn't speak and he wouldn't. He packed a bag. Alison sobbed as he left, talking now but not saying the right thing. She didn't say she was sorry, didn't see the ravaged expression in his eyes.

"What should I tell my parents? What should I do about the wedding gifts?"

"I don't give a fuck."

"What about the honeymoon?"

Nathan had the tickets, so he went alone to Cancun and had a miserable time.

When he returned, everything of Alison's was gone from the house. Just her smell remained and it lingered for a long time. He didn't try to get in touch with her. When finally she came to see him, Nathan didn't even want to invite her inside.

"I need to talk to you," Alison said.

As she shoved past, he smelled her perfume again and it sent a barb into his heart.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Why did you do it?"

"It just happened. A moment's madness."

"Was that the only time?" Nathan thought she must be able to see his heart pounding, see his pain but she gave no sign.

"No, but Jack flirted with me from the moment I met him. You must have noticed."

He hadn't. "I thought we were all having fun together. I didn't think my brother and my fiancee were screwing around behind my back." Had he been so certain of Alison and so mesmerized by Jack that he'd missed the obvious? Was he that stupid? Yeah, he guessed he was.

"So, are you still seeing him?"

"No. Jack's been admitted to Ashlands psychiatric hospital." She burst into tears and Nathan couldn't even bring himself to put his arm around her. She asked him to forgive her and he lied and said he did, but he never wanted to see her again. She had no concept of how deeply she'd hurt him. It had been as if all the misery of his past had been put right by loving her and now there was nothing to save him. The official line was they'd had an irresolvable disagreement, the rumor that he didn't want kids, but she did. Nathan let the wheel roll.

He pulled onto the interstate and headed for Houston. He wanted to see Don's face when he told him Jack had vanished.

Chapter Eighteen.

Jack stared at the double doors of the storage shed. He hadn't been inside there for a long time. He didn't particularly want to go in now, but he needed to check for wood and see if the roof was leaking. He unfastened the padlock and flung open the doors. Tommy followed him in.

It looked the same as it had when he was a boy-dirty, fucking spooky, full of cobwebs. The kid clutched his leg and Jack laughed. So it wasn't just him. Jack's gaze slid to the corner where he'd hid after his father had locked him in. Bastard.

"You said there were toys," Tommy whispered.

Old snow shoes hung on the wall. The wood rack was still in place, empty except for a broken rake. His toboggan stood in the corner. Jack fingered the weathered edges of the wood and brushed dust from the plastic seat. His mother once pulled him all the way around the frozen lake on that and complained the whole fucking time.

"Toys?" Tommy repeated.

"There should be," Jack muttered.

Lifting the lid on the nearest storage bin, he found his father's fishing gear, either forgotten when the place was cleared or deliberately abandoned. Probably the latter. The next held a jumble of toys. He heard the intake of breath as Tommy saw them. Jack picked up an action figure and pulled the string at the back. There was a whirring noise but the voice had long gone.

"For me?" Tommy asked.

"All for you."

Kate dreamed of waking up in a different world, but opened her eyes to the same one, although she was alone in bed. She felt as tired as if she hadn't slept.

Three times in the night she'd had to go down to Tommy. She'd woken Jack to get him to uncuff her.

She'd let him do what he wanted last night and now she felt guilty. Kate twisted the ring on her finger, leaving it in place was another act of cooperation.

As far as she was concerned, they weren't married. He'd tricked her and drugged her. She curled up in the bed, and gasped as a sharp pain shot through her back.

Her fear made him stronger, but she couldn't help it. He might not want her dead, but he didn't care if he hurt her.

The closet door was open, her clothes hung next to his. He'd planned everything so carefully, but she still didn't understand why. To create a happier version of his childhood? But if his mother had been killed here, how could he even want to be in the house? She heard Tommy laughing downstairs. He was her priority now. The police would be looking for him. Maybe someone saw Jack take him. She had to be patient.

Kate got out of bed, washed, dressed in jeans and a blue sweater, and went down.

"Here's Mommy," Jack said.

"Where?" Tommy turned and swung his arm into a glass of chocolate milk, sending brown liquid flying across the table.

Jack reached to grab the glass as Kate snatched a cloth and rushed to Tommy's side.

"You clumsy little-" Jack raised his hand and Kate stepped between them.

"It's okay. No harm done." She mopped up the liquid. "Accidents happen.

Didn't you ever knock anything over when you were a boy?" Tommy's eyes glistened with unshed tears. He stared at his bowl of cereal.

"Sorry, lady."

"Call her Mommy!"

"Sorry, Mommy. I didn't mean to."

Kate smiled at him. "It was an accident. Don't worry."

"Daddy got me toys."

Kate looked at the dusty pile on the floor. "Great."

"Am I a good daddy?" Jack asked.