Shadows At Sunset - Anne Stuart [96]
“And why shouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t I go away with him? He loves me.”
“Yes, he does,” Coltrane said grimly. “Just a little too much. He’s your real father.”
“Oh, God,” Jilly said, breaking her shocked silence as it all finally made sense.
For a moment Rachel-Ann didn’t move. And then she crossed the room very slowly, ignoring them, walking into the bathroom. A moment later they heard the sound of her retching.
Finally Coltrane turned to look at Jilly, unflinching, unrepentant. “You have to get her out of here. I thought she’d stay away and I wouldn’t have to worry about her.”
“You just had to keep me occupied?” she said.
“It was your idea, Jilly. Not mine.”
Of all the things he could have said, that was the cruelest. She had no doubt that he knew it, that he’d said it deliberately. “What will he do to her?”
“Force her to go with him. Your father doesn’t give a shit about laws or morality, he just doesn’t want to get caught. And he’s not willing to give up anything he wants, including Rachel-Ann. You’ve spent your life protecting her, Jilly. Get her out of here before he comes back.”
“And what will you do?”
“I don’t know,” he said flatly. “I’ll figure it out as it happens.”
“Murder’s against the law.”
“Tell your father. And it wouldn’t be murder. It would be justice, long overdue.”
“You made a mistake with me, you know,” Jilly said slowly. “You can’t get to him through me or through Dean. He doesn’t care about us. It was a waste of time trying to play your games with me. Sure, I fell for it. I’m only human. But it didn’t get you anywhere you wanted to be.”
He looked at her, letting those green eyes sweep down over her body, slowly, pausing between her legs. “Oh, yes it did,” he said softly.
There was an art deco lamp on the bedside table. Without hesitation she picked it up and flung it at him, yanking the cord from the wall.
He didn’t bother to duck. He didn’t need to—the lamp didn’t even come close, simply smashed on the marble floor. “Get her away from here, Jilly,” he said again. “Take her and get as far away as you can. And with any luck you’ll never have to see your father or me again.”
Without another word he walked out of the room, not bothering to close the door behind him. Roofus rose with a huge doggy sigh and followed him with mindless canine devotion.
Jilly was still sitting there, motionless, when Rachel-Ann emerged from the bathroom, pale, shaken. “What am I going to do, Jilly?”
It took her a moment to respond. She looked up at her sister with a kind of shock. “I’ll get you out of here. Coltrane is right—Jackson’s dangerous. He always was, but now that he’s desperate I don’t think anything will stop him. We need to have you out of here.”
“You, too, Jilly. You need to come with me. If he can’t have me—”
“He certainly doesn’t want me,” Jilly said. “He never has and he never will. Thank God.” She tried to pull herself out of her momentary paralysis. Her sister needed her. “Rachel-Ann, did he ever…?” She couldn’t bring herself to say the words. “When you were young, did he…?”
“No,” she said in a shaky voice. “I wasn’t sure, but it seemed as if he came close a few times, but something stopped him.”
Jilly breathed a tiny sigh of relief. “Nothing’s going to stop him now. You need to get your stuff together and we’ll go. We’ll drive up north, or maybe out to the desert where he can’t find us.”
“I have a place to go. Where I spent last night. He’ll never find me there.”
Jilly stared at her. “Who is he?” she asked calmly.
“Don’t pass judgment on me, Jilly. He’s not some one-night stand. He’s someone I cared about, a long time ago.”
There was a moment’s weary silence. “Actually I wasn’t passing judgment,” Jilly said. “For once I was a little more preoccupied with the mess I’ve made of my own life, speaking