Take Another Look by Rosalind Noonan Read Free Book Online

yet?”
    â€œI’m calling now.” Jane punched the contact on her cell phone and hurried up the stairs to check the bedrooms. Not that she doubted the alarm system; she just had to see for herself. As she squared things away with Trish, she patrolled upstairs. The windows were closed and locked, though Harper’s bedroom looked like a laundry bomb had exploded.
    â€œMom?” Harper stood in the doorway of her room, hands on her hips. “What are you doing in here?”
    â€œIt’s amazing that you have any underwear left with the collection scattered on the floor.” Jane stepped over a purple-and-white-striped bra for emphasis.
    Harper scowled as she tugged the band from her dark hair. “This is so random.”
    â€œTake your shower. Make it fast.”
    Jane waited upstairs until she heard the shower running, then went down to Luke.
    He sat cross-legged on the floor, giving the dog a good rubdown. “Everything okay?”
    â€œSo far.” When she sank down onto the floor near him, she realized her limbs were quivering. “I’m so scared,” she whispered, leaning her head toward Phoenix to draw some peace from the gentle dog named after the mythological creature that had recreated itself. Jane was all about rising from the ashes. “I’m going to run Harper over to her friend’s house, but while she’s showering we can talk. I think my worst nightmare has caught up with me.”
    â€œFrank?” When she nodded, he patted the dog and shifted his hands to her knees. “Tell me.”
    She told him about the man seen in the school parking lot at the game, and then about the “charming” visitor who’d been asking for her in the office. “They described him as having dark hair, medium build. Friendly and amiable. It’s Frank.”
    â€œShit.” His voice was hushed as he rubbed his knuckles over his jaw. “And why is he here after all this time? It’s been . . . what? Fifteen, sixteen years?”
    A shiver ran through her as Frank’s words rattled in her brain: Don’t think you’re going to get away. I’ll hunt you down and kill you. She shook her head. “I know he’s vindictive. Maybe he’s been busy with someone else until now. Maybe something set him off. He could have run into my mother in Burnson. Mom was always trying to get us back together.”
    â€œHe really had her snowed.”
    â€œHe was a skillful manipulator, and my mother wasn’t very good at advocating for her kids. Besides, she was old-school. She believed that a woman could not be fulfilled without a husband.” The wounds of the past still ached when Jane allowed herself to revisit those days. She had told Luke about that Sunday morning when Dad was off at mass. Jane had been asleep in her old bedroom, huddled under the blue and gold star comforter. She had escaped to the safety of her parents’ house two days earlier, telling them she could never go back to Frank. Dad had accepted her decision, but Mom kept picking. “What could be so bad that you two can’t work it out?” Sandra Flannery kept probing. “It’s not all hearts and flowers in a relationship. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices to make things work.” Pride had kept Jane from spilling all the details. The veiled threats. The manipulations. She had thought her parents would keep her safe because she was their daughter. She had been wrong. When the bedroom door had creaked open and Frank’s hot breath had hit her cheek, a shrill alarm had torn through her.
    â€œGet your ass out of bed, princess,” he had said in a cloyingly sweet voice. “You’re coming home with me.”
    When Jane had refused, he had reminded her that he had a gun, lifting the leg of his jeans to reveal the ankle holster containing his off-duty revolver. But you won’t use that on me . . . will you? When she’d studied