Silent Run - Barbara Freethy [61]
Chapter Thirteen
“What’s all this?” Jake asked from behind her.
Startled, she had to resist the urge to scoop up the identification cards and hide them away, but it was too late anyway.
Jake knelt down next to her, wearing only his jeans. Water still glistened on his shoulders, and his hair was spiked and damp. He picked up one of the licenses.
She licked her lips. In the picture her hair was blond, her name was Kelly Grimes, and the address placed her in Las Vegas. The next one he studied appeared to be a younger version of her with red hair. Her name was Stephanie Hamilton, and her address was in Palm Springs. There were a half dozen more identities.
“How did you know these were here?” Jake demanded, lifting his gaze to meet hers. “Were you just waiting for me to leave the room?”
“No, of course not.”
Skepticism filled his eyes. “Sure. You just happened to find these while I was in the shower.”
“Jake, if I had known they were here, I would have found a way to get rid of you for longer than a shower, and I wouldn’t have been kneeling here like an idiot waiting for you to discover yet another bad secret about me.”
“So what did happen?”
“I thought about what you told me, that I was always aware of odd details. As I looked around the apartment, I kept thinking there was something out of place, and it was this rug. Who puts a rug in front of a window?”
Jake peered back into the hole, reached in, and pulled out a pile of papers and a bunch of Social Security cards. “Dammit.”
“What are those?” she asked, not getting a clear view, as his broad shoulders were in the way.
“Birth certificates for a half dozen little girls. Someone went to a lot of trouble to get you and Caitlyn identities that you could switch around and around.” He paused and shook his head in disbelief. “You had help disappearing, Sarah. A lot of help.”
“Because I’m in a lot of trouble,” she whispered.
“I think so. And you’ve been doing this for a while,” Jake added, going back through the licenses. “You look at least five to six years younger in this picture.”
“It started before you, then.” She’d suspected that, but here was confirmation.
“Yes.” Jake gazed into her eyes. “But for two years you stayed put; you had a baby, a life with me. Was it always a temporary thing or did something happen to make you run again?”
“I wish I could answer that.”
“Maybe you would have run sooner if you hadn’t gotten pregnant,” Jake mused. “Perhaps that’s why you stayed as long as you did. You had to make it through the pregnancy, deliver Caitlyn, and get back on your feet. The pregnancy changed your plans for a few months, that’s all—which was probably why you were so agitated when you found out you were having a baby.”
“But why would I need to keep moving?”
“That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?” He gazed back at the birth certificates. “You had these made in the past sixteen months, which means you had to see someone to get them—either in San Francisco or here in LA. Since the names match up on several of the licenses done before Caitlyn was born, I’m betting it was the same person you’d gone to before, a long-term connection.”
Sarah picked up the cards and certificates and slipped them back into the hole, then replaced the vent and the rug and stood up.
“Why did you do that?” Jake asked.
“Uh . . .” she faltered. “What do you mean?”
“You hid everything away again.”
Sarah glanced down at the rug. “I don’t know. Habit, I guess. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Maybe your habits are the key to your past. When you’re not thinking, you rely on your instincts.”
“I guess.” She rubbed her temple with her fingers. Her headache had been steadily growing the past hour and was now a throbbing ache behind her left eye. “What do you want to do now?”
“I think you should take a shower,” he said. “Change your clothes. Brush your hair. Clear your head. Take a few minutes for yourself.”
She was surprised by the suggestion. “Do we have time?”
“We’ll make time. You have a headache, don’t you?”
“A little one,” she replied, dropping her