Mortal Danger

exactly one month after John’s attempt to kill Kate, David Terry, an ACLU attorney, called her to say that John had contacted his agency. Terry had approached the Curry County district attorney’s office to feel them out. If John turned himself in, could he count on a plea bargain that would net him far less time behind bars than the three or four hundred months the charges against him called for? They weren’t enthusiastic.
    “He’s very, very scared,” Terry told Kate, “and given the position of the DA’s office, he has reason to be.”
    “So I’ve been told,” Kate said without expression.
    Would Kate intercede with the prosecution to help John get a more humane resolution to his case? Terry asked. She didn’t know; all Kate wanted was to have John locked away someplace where he wouldn’t do any more harm. She wanted to be able to walk free without constantly glancing over her shoulder, or waking to the smallest rustle in the night.
    John’s temporary attorney said he realized that John had been deluding himself about the way he’d treated Kate.
    “He minimizes—,” she began.
    “Oh…hugely.” It didn’t take anyone long to see how manipulative John could be, and the depth of his need for absolute control. Kate herself had been so caught up in keeping some vestige of peace that she hadn’t realized how tightly John had trapped her in his power over her.
    Even though she never wanted him back in her life, Kate still hoped that he would get some kind of psychological treatment, albeit in prison. She asked Terry if he had a way to contact John, and there was a long pause on the line.
    “If I did, I would not be at liberty to share that with you, because that would be a confidential communication….” Terry then reminded her that at the very minimum John faced twenty years in prison. “My personal observation is that he’s continuing his abuse of you by doing what he’s doing—”
    She sighed. “Some things never end. I’d like my life back, and I’m doing the best I can to take it back.”
    “You’re familiar enough with therapy and with self-empowerment to know that you are the person who is going to do the heavy lifting there.”
    “Yep,” she said wearily. “And I’m in the process.”
    She promised to call Terry if she had any questions or wanted a message passed on to John. But she had no messages to pass on—unless she could make herself believe that John had the capacity to feel regret for what he had done, and, even harder, make herself believe that he wantedto change, to get better, and think of someone other than himself.
     
    Kate concentrated on who might be inclined to help John stay free of arrest. Tamara, of course, but her fiancé, Dan, not as likely. She talked to John’s dentist friend, Stan Szabo, and hung up with the feeling that Stan knew where he was, and that he, too, was protecting John.
    Sometimes, it seemed to be a conspiracy of silence.
    Tamara and Dan were practicing Buddhists and therefore against violence of any kind. She wondered why they were helping John hide when she was the victim of his rage, both emotional and physical.
    She thought about whom she and John had been in frequent contact with in the past year. They had been close to Bill and Doris, of course, but John wouldn’t contact them because they were helping her. Then Kate recalled the young woman with a practice in Napa, California, whom John had taught to do blood screenings. She hadn’t sent any reports since the end of May, nor had she called. With all that had happened, Kate had almost forgotten about her.
    Napa was in wine country, about twenty-five miles north of Oakland, and some three hundred and forty miles from Gold Beach. Suddenly, Kate felt the little hairs on the back of her neck stand up: John was hiding in the Crichtons’ house in Napa . She was so sure he was there that she accepted it even before she called Bonnie Crichton. When she did, Bonnie’s voice was wary, flat; and Kate visualized John standing there next to her, telling her what to say.
    He must have convinced Bonnie and her husband, Joe, that he’d been falsely accused. Then he’d preyed on their sympathies. He was so skilled at playing that part.
    As soon as she hung up, Kate called Dave Gardiner. “Don’t ask me how, but I know where he is. John’s in Napa, California, with some people named Crichton….”
    Kate gave Gardiner the address, and he immediately called deputies in Napa County. It