Silent Run - Barbara Freethy [56]
“That’s true. But if she wanted to track me down, she’d look here. I lived here for a couple of years when I was a little girl. I used to tell Jessica about the sand dunes on Pismo Beach and the beautiful waves. It was a happy place for me. I think she’d come here if she were looking for me. And my name is listed in the phone book.”
“Perhaps she was coming here,” Dylan suggested, his nerves tightening at the thought. It would give Sarah a reason for heading north from LA. She could have been on her way to find Catherine. “Sarah doesn’t know who she is,” he reminded Catherine. “She needs someone to tell her. If she’s Jessica, you could be the one person to bring back her memory. And it’s important, not just because her child is missing, but because someone is trying to kill Sarah.”
“What?” she asked in shock. “You didn’t say that before.”
“Her accident wasn’t random. Someone ran her off the road, and someone tried to smother her with a pillow in the hospital yesterday. That’s the truth.” He gazed into her eyes. “You can see I’m telling the truth, can’t you?”
“Yes, I can see that. But what you haven’t told me is why you’re trying to help someone you don’t like. What do you have against Sarah?”
“She wrecked my brother’s life. She took his kid and ran away seven months ago. Watching him search for his daughter . . .” Dylan couldn’t even finish the statement. Seeing Jake’s pain had just about killed him. He hadn’t been able to do anything to help his brother, the brother who had quite literally saved his own stupid life. But he had a chance now, and he wasn’t going to blow it. He needed Catherine to trust him, and she wasn’t a woman to trust easily. He couldn’t fake it with her. She was far too perceptive. “I don’t like Sarah, but I’m not interested in hurting her,” he said truthfully. “I just want to help my brother get his daughter back.”
“I never had a brother,” Catherine said. “I used to wish I did. Someone who would have protected me the way you want to protect your brother. All right. I’ll help you. I’ll go to LA with you tonight. But I’m as loyal to Jessica as you are to your brother. If I have to make a choice between them, I’ll choose her.”
“And I’ll choose him,” Dylan said.
“Then we understand each other,” she said.
“We do.” And what he understood was that he didn’t trust her any more than she trusted him. He would bet his life that Catherine knew how to run and hide as well as Sarah did.
Chapter Twelve
Sarah felt much better after their late lunch. Jake hadn’t said anything while they ate, and for that she was grateful. She needed a break from the constant onslaught of questions. A lot had happened in the past few days. She needed to process the odd facts that had come back to her and see if they made any sense. She started to clear their plates, but Jake waved her back.
“I’ll clean up,” he said. “You sit. Save your energy for the big stuff.”
“Thanks.” She watched him take care of the food and dishes with quick, quiet competence. There was a confidence about his movements, as if he were used to taking care of himself—which she supposed he was.
She wondered what his life had been like before they met. Aside from his job, she knew next to nothing about him.
“How old are you?” she asked.
“Thirty-three,” he said shortly as he rinsed off a plate and set it on the counter to dry.
Which made him five years older than her. “Where did you grow up? San Francisco?”
“Yes.”
“What did you like to do in your free time?”
Jake walked back to the table, looking none too pleased by her questions. “Why do you want to know about me? It’s not going to help you remember your life.”
“Probably not, but I’m curious. And you never know—something you say, something you shared with me before, might spark a memory.”
“You’re reaching, Sarah.”
“Okay, so I just want to fill in some blanks. Are you going to talk or not?”
Jake sat down with a sigh. “You never used to be so nosy.”
“I didn’t?”
“No. You weren’t one of those women who wanted to know every last thing about me. I thought at the