Well, damn. He’d suspected as much, but taking on new identities wasn’t easy these days. “Who were you before?”
“Um... I was Megan Cobb. She... I found her in a cemetery in Seattle. She died before her first birthday.” Once again Helen averted her face. “I felt like I’d stolen something.” She swallowed. “I did.”
“And Helen?”
“Her grave is in Bakersfield, California. She was eight when she died.”
Her voice held pity for children who hadn’t had a chance to grow up, for their parents, too, but also sharp regret because stealing those identities hadn’t kept her and Jacob safe, after all.
“How long had you been in Southern California?” he asked.
“A year and a half. Jacob was born there.”
“How did you know your ex-husband had found you?” Seth wondered if she realized she was clutching herself.
“Over several days, I kept seeing the same man. Just glimpses. At the grocery store, near the bus stop I rode to work. The one that wasn’t far from Jacob’s day care. That time—” she rocked slightly “—he was pointing a camera at me. One with a huge lens.”
“What did you do?” Seth couldn’t help hearing the growl in his voice.
She seemed calmed by his anger. “I got off the bus at my office, went in like I always do but slipped out through the parking garage. Took a couple of different buses until I got home. I threw a few things in a suitcase, picked up Jacob and just started driving.”
“To Bakersfield.”
“Yes. I’d decided to stay off major freeways.”
“And then you headed toward home.”
She chewed on her bottom lip for a minute before her desperate gaze met his. “That might have been stupid, I don’t know. I thought it was the last thing Richard would expect.”
“The question is how he found you in the first place. And whether he did.”
“Why would anyone else be watching me? Or hire an investigator?”
Seth shrugged his concession then grilled her. Had she maintained any hobbies from when she was married?
No. She looked at him like he was nuts. How was a single, working mother of a baby supposed to have time for hobbies?
What about work? Was she doing the same kind of jobs she’d had when married, or before her marriage?
Richard hadn’t let her work outside the home. His insistence was her first clue that a trap was closing on her. And no, she’d worked in community development with a specific focus on Seattle’s problem with a growing homeless population.
“That’s how I met him.” Her fingernails appeared to be biting into her upper arms. “He—I spoke to the city council. He talked to me afterward.”
It was all Seth could do to tamp down his reaction. “Tell me about your family.”
“My father died over five years ago, from a heart attack. It’s just Mom, me and my sister, Allie.”
“How much contact do you have?”
“Very little. I don’t know what can be traced, and what can’t. Once in a while, I buy one of those cheap phones, call and then throw it away. That’s it.”
“Do you always call your mother? Your sister?”
“No. I alternate, and Mom still has a landline, too, so sometimes I use that one.”
“Okay.” He rolled his shoulders to stretch tight muscles. Here was the part he was really going to hate. “Tell me about your marriage.”
* * *
THE FIRST WORDS that came out of Helen’s mouth were “I was stupid.” Even before Seth shook his head, she wished them unsaid. She knew better. She was a smart, educated woman who’d read about abusive relationships and how manipulative, power-mad men wrapped their coils slowly around their prey. Like dipping a toe in cold water, then going ankle-deep, thigh-deep—at which point she’d known she was in trouble—but getting out wasn’t so easy once she plunged into the icy depths.
“What happened is on him,” he said.
“Yes. Yes, it is,” Helen agreed fiercely. The counseling she’d received while in the women’s shelter had helped her recover her confidence. For her, it happened fast, because she’d escaped her marriage quickly. It hadn’t lasted even two years.