Sanctuary

the moonlight—and she’d have wanted her shoes. Would she be angry enough with her husband to stay away, to worry him like this because of a house?”
    “I don’t know. People do unaccountable things to each other when they’re married. Things that seem cruel or indifferent or foolish to outsiders.”
    “Did you?” She turned her head to study his face. “Did you do cruel, indifferent, and foolish things when you were married?”
    “Probably.” He tucked the hair blowing across her face behind her ear. “I’m sure my ex-wife has a litany of them.”
    “Marriage is most often a mistake. You depend on someone, you inevitably lean too hard or take them for granted or find them irritating because they’re always there.”
    “That’s remarkably cynical for someone who’s never been married.”
    “I’ve observed marriage. Observing’s what I do.”
    “Because it’s less risky than participating.”
    She turned away again. “Because it’s what I do. If she’s out somewhere, walking, avoiding coming back, letting her husband suffer like this, how could he ever forgive her?”
    Suddenly she was angry, deeply, bitterly angry. “But he will, won’t he?” she demanded, whirling back to him. “He’ll forgive her, he’ll fall at her feet sobbing in relief, and he’ll buy her the fucking house she wants. All she had to do to get her way was put him through hell for a few hours.”
    Nathan studied her glinting eyes, the high color that temper had slapped into her cheeks. “You may be right.” He spoke mildly, fascinated that she could shift from concern to condemnation in the blink of an eye. “But you’re heaping a lot of blame and calculation on a woman you don’t even know.”
    “I’ve known others like her. My mother, Ginny, people who do exactly what they choose without giving a damn for the consequences or what they do to others. I’m sick to death of people. Their selfish agendas, their unrelenting self-concern.”
    There was such pain in her voice. The echo of it rolled through him, leaving his stomach raw and edgy. He had to tell her, he thought. He couldn’t keep blocking it out, couldn’t continue to shove it aside, no matter how hard he’d worked to convince himself it was best for both of them.
    Maybe Susan Peters’s disappearance was a sign, an omen. If he believed in such things. Whatever he believed, and whatever it was he wanted, eventually he would have to tell her what he knew.
    Was she strong enough to stand up to it? Or would it break her?
    “Jo Ellen, let’s go inside.”
    “Yeah.” She folded her arms as clouds rolled over the sun and the wind kicked into a warning howl. “Why the hell are we out here, worrying ourselves over a stranger who has the bitchiness to put her husband and friends through this?”
    “Because she’s lost, Jo. One way or another.”
    “Who isn’t?” she murmured.
    It would wait another day, he told himself. It would wait until Susan Peters had been found. If he was daring the gods by taking another day, stealing another few hours before he shattered both their lives, then he’d pay the price.
    How much heavier could it be than the one he’d already paid?
    When he was sure she was strong, when he was sure she could bear it, he would tell her the hideous secret that only he knew.
    Annabelle had never left Desire. She had been murdered in the forest just west of Sanctuary on a night in high summer, under a full white moon. David Delaney, the father he had grown up loving, admiring, respecting, had been her killer.
    Jo saw lightning flash and the shimmering curtain of rain form far out to sea. “Storm’s coming,” she said.
    “I know.”

TWENTY-THREE
    T HE first drops hit the ground with fat plops, and Kirby quickened her pace. The search group she’d joined had parted ways at the fork of the path. She’d chosen the route to Sanctuary, and now she shivered a bit as the rain fell through the overhanging limbs and vines to soak her shirt. By the time she reached the verge it was coming down hard, wind-whipped and surprisingly cold. She saw Brian, hatless, shoulders hunched, trooping up the road to her right.
    She met him on the edge of the east terrace. Saying nothing, he took her hand and pulled her onto the screened porch. For a moment they simply stood dripping as lightning stabbed the sky in pitchforks and thunder boomed in answer.
    “No word?” Kirby shifted her medical bag from hand to hand.
    “Nothing. I just came over