His father sounded hurt and Jack felt a surge of pleasure.

"Because I had something to prove. I thought once I was released from Ashlands, Kate and I could try again."

Don stared at him. "You were sleeping with her at the same time as Nathan's fiancee?"

Jack wasn't sure if he managed to look contrite. "I didn't mean to hurt Nathan.

Alison threw herself at me. I figured I'd show him she was a slut. I planned for him to find us in bed. I liked Nathan. I thought he'd be a friend. I guess making love to his fiancee wasn't such a bright way of getting him to like me, but hey, at least he didn't marry her."

His father rolled his eyes. "How did Kate feel about what you did?"

"There was no need for her to know and she didn't, not until Nathan came to Echo Lake causing trouble."

"Why didn't you tell me about Kate? I mean, getting married in Vegas for God's sake." Don patted his hand and Jack gritted his teeth. The bastard made his skin crawl.

"I wanted to make things right on my own. To show you I could be what you wanted and that I really had changed. I had responsibilities. A child. A wife. I didn't want to ask for anything. We came to Echo Lake because I thought it would give us time and space to catch up on the years we should have had together." Jack thought he was doing okay. His father hadn't laughed yet.

"Kate and I had plans. She came up with the idea of building a camp for disadvantaged kids." His father wouldn't believe the idea had come from him.

"We worked out how many cabins we'd need, whether we could renovate the boathouse, or if we'd have to knock it down. If we made a success of it, we could even go national."

"That wouldn't have happened. You're not touching Echo Lake." Somehow, that came as no surprise.

"We arrived to find the house a mess and had to work hard to get the place into shape. I had someone service the generator. A couple of times Kate said she'd had enough. Once she even walked out with Tommy in the middle of the night. I was scared to death I'd lost them."

Jack launched into a bout of coughing and clutched his chest. He didn't need to pretend it hurt. It did.

"Kate's a little crazy, but I guess that's part of the attraction. I never know what she's going to say or do next. I don't think I could have fallen for anyone normal.

We'd have been fine, except Nathan started going on about Alison, making trouble, telling Kate I'd been seeing Alison and her at the same time and that Alison expected me to marry her. Kate freaked out, and Nathan and I ended up fighting. He knocked me out and the next thing I know, the damn house is on fire and I'm inside with my wrists fastened together. When I did manage to get out, the three of them were gone. The propane tank blew up and I got caught in the blast. If it hadn't been for the SUV shielding me, I'd be dead." Don shook his head a little.

A fucking reaction at last, Jack thought.

"Over the past couple days, I got concerned about Tommy. A few things didn't add up. I was stupid not to have realized sooner. I did some checking. Turns out Tommy isn't ours. I don't think there ever was a baby. We're probably facing a kidnapping charge."

Don jumped to his feet. "Christ, Jack!"

"I know, I know. I've explained to the police. I should have waited for a lawyer, but I wanted Tommy back with his real parents." Jack squeezed out a tear. "And there's one last thing. This bit is good news. Kate is a few weeks pregnant. So you are going to be a granddad."

The smile on his father's face made everything worthwhile. Now Jack had finally made him happy, he'd enjoy destroying him even more. It wasn't entirely fanciful Kate was pregnant. He'd fucked her often enough. She hadn't had a period while she'd been with him and she'd thrown up a couple of times. If there was no baby, well, he could just say she'd lied about that, too. The game wouldn't be as good if she wasn't pregnant, but Kate was still the way he'd break his father.

Chapter Thirty.

Hedley paced up and down in the corridor while the duty doctor examined Nathan and Kate.

"Well?" he asked when the tall, bearded guy finally emerged. Hedley thought he looked like a ski-bum.

"Not good. They both need to be checked out in the hospital. The guy's lungs are congested. His head injury could be masking symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning. They need X-rays and blood gases taken." Hedley swore under his breath. Head injuries messed up everything. Nathan had written out a detailed statement of exactly what happened from the moment he'd knocked on the door of the house and Hedley wouldn't even be able to use it.

"Could blood gases tell us who spent longest in the house?"

"Only who was in the worst of the smoke."

"Any other physical injuries?"

"The guy's been knocked around. Two hard blows to the head that split his scalp. Bruised ribs. Swollen knee. An aggravated former injury." That tied in with what Nathan had said. "What about the woman?"

"I could hardly get near her. Wouldn't speak to me. She almost hyperventilated when I tried to examine her. I had the cuffs removed. Her wrists are in a mess. I'd say less smoke inhalation than the guy but she's in deep psychological shock."

"Could she be faking?"

The doctor shook his head. "Doubtful. I recommend you call a psychiatrist. I couldn't even ascertain whether she's aware of where she is and what's happening. She needs to be in a hospital."

"Okay, thanks."

Hedley asked for two ambulances and then went to talk to Kate. Even if this wasn't admissible, he'd follow procedures. Hedley sat down at the table, started the tape and repeated the same formalities.

"You did a good job looking after Sammy."

He waited.

"Are you going to talk to me?"

No response.

"How did you hurt your wrists, Kate?"

Not only did she not speak, Hedley didn't think she was listening. Under the dirt, her eyes looked huge and expressionless in her pale face. Her short hair was a tangled mess.

"He's been telling me all about his adventure-sleeping in the tub, you hitting Jack."

Nothing.

"He even told me you played a game involving your back and a knife." She didn't blink.

While he waited for the ambulance, Hedley tried everything to get her to talk.

Sympathy, interest in S&M, the offer of a shower, a meal. She tuned him out.

He'd seen it before and he suspected the Miranda wouldn't hold up in court. So far, they couldn't even prove who she was. No Kate Thompson was wanted for criminal activity in any state. Hedley had a guy in Las Vegas checking their marriage was valid.

The case was more complicated than he'd first thought. Had Kate really lost a child? Had she persuaded her husband this boy was theirs? Or was it the other way around? Maybe the whole thing was an elaborate hoax to try and escape responsibility for what they'd done, including setting fire to the house. Whilst Jack and Nathan had given different versions of what had happened, their stories were the same on one point, that Kate had lost a baby. Assuming it was true, Hedley thought a judge would be lenient, particularly because Sammy had been returned safe and well, apart from the trauma of the experience, but they needed to get her to talk.

"Has Jack been hurting you, Kate?"

She said nothing.

"Did you want him to? I'm not judging you here, just trying to find the truth." He was wasting his time.

"The word Charlie mean anything?"

It was the first time her face changed. Even then, it only lasted a moment, but Hedley knew fear when he saw it.

He came out of the room to take a call from a colleague in Las Vegas. Kate's identity had been confirmed by the marriage license application. Her social security number indicated her name was formerly Olivia Katherine Evans. The Home Sweet Home motel said no guests attended the ceremony. An employee had been the additional witness. The pair produced the license, said yes at the appropriate time and posed for photographs. The wedding organizer had grown defensive at the suggestion of coercion. She remembered the woman had been quiet, the man chatty. Both she and the minister recollected the wife falling earlier in the evening, but she'd taken part in the service without anyone holding a gun to her head.

The manager of the motel recalled some damage to their room. A broken tile and shower rail, but they'd already been replaced. A complete list of people staying at the motel over the same two days as the Thompsons had been provided and Hedley's guy was working on it.

Fun and games, Hedley thought. Nothing was ever simple.

Nathan had fallen asleep with his head resting on his arms. He jolted upright from the table when the Fed came back in and winced as a stabbing pain started up behind his eyes.

"An ambulance is here to take you to the hospital. The doctor says you have a concussion."

Nathan put his hand to the back of his neck and rolled his head trying to ease tense muscles. "If I have a head injury, you can't use anything I've said." Hedley gave him a grim smile. "Possibly."

"I've told you the truth."

"Except perhaps why you've come to Colorado."

"Laying ghosts to rest. That's all."

"Your former senior officer has nothing but praise for you. Honest and reliable-his exact words." Hedley sighed. "I accept you had nothing to do with the original kidnapping. As for the events of this morning, it appears you and your brother got into a bit of an altercation. Six of one, half a dozen of the other." Nathan pushed his chair away from the table, scraping the legs on the floor.

"What? He tried to kill me, tried to kill Kate and he left the boy in a blazing house!"

"Evidence?"

"My head. My word. Kate's word."

Nathan could see from the guy's face it wasn't enough.

"He makes a pretty good argument that you tried to kill him," Hedley said.

"Nothing to do with helping a kidnapped child. More to do with his affair with your fiancee. You admitted you didn't even know the boy wasn't Kate's until you were well away from the house."

Nathan rubbed his jaw.

"You trying to mess up your brother's marriage, like he messed up yours?"

"I was walking away. Kate slipped me a note. If she hadn't, I'd be half-way to Texas. Jack's a conniving bastard. Kate doesn't even remember marrying him. I think he drugged her."

"Why do you think that?"

Nathan bit his lip. Though he'd made a thorough statement, it hadn't covered what he'd been doing for the last few months. But he wanted the Fed to believe Kate. "I spoke to a cocktail waitress who thought Jack slipped a date-rape drug into her drink."

"We've checked the wedding venue. Nothing unusual happened." Nathan looked carefully at Hedley and wondered how he could be so blind.

The Fed's face was blank.

"Jack's abused her. You shouldn't believe anything he says. Kate's scared of him."

"Maybe she lied to you. Ever consider she could like playing the victim?" Nathan shook his head. "No, I don't accept that. Is she acting like someone who enjoys being frightened to death? She's hardly more than a kid herself.

Jack's the prime mover here. She was tricked into believing the boy was hers.

Now he's worn her down until she's too afraid to do anything other than what he tells her. You need to keep them apart, not put her in the same hospital." A knock on the door and a head popped round. "The ambulance is here."

"Am I under arrest?" Nathan asked.

"No, but I'll want to speak to you again. Go and get your head looked at, Beranson."

"Yeah, you too," Nathan muttered. "And I want my car back."

Kate felt as though she'd been caught in a huge clothes drier, spinning until she couldn't hang on to a thought. Voices filtered in and out of her mind. None of them were kind.

"She thinks staying silent will get her out of this. It won't."

"Kidnapper."

"Pervert."

"He calls her Mommy."

Whispers but Kate caught them all.

"Kate? Do you know where you are?" A woman's voice.

White walls. An antiseptic smell. Not hard to guess.

"Do you hurt anywhere? Tell us what's wrong." She wanted to be left alone, but that wasn't going to happen. Her sweater was pulled over her head and her fingers forced to release the material. While she stayed silent and still, things were under control. Kate didn't want to talk. Jack was near. If she said anything, someone would get hurt.

Charlie.

Blood was drawn from her arm and she winced, not from the needle but the press of the fingers on her skin.

"Get her out of those filthy clothes."