11:17 p.m.

Melanie couldn't sleep. Charlie, in spite of his outburst, was curled up on the bed and snoring. So much for his guilty conscience, and yet, she was relieved. She didn't like seeing him like that. She didn't like thinking he had anything to feel guilty about.

Andrew Kane had given in and stretched out on the other side of Charlie, but Jared had insisted on tying together the author's feet and wrists, cutting in half and using the cord from the hotel's phone. Of course, he didn't care about the phone. He still had Andrew's cell phone. She wondered if that was why he'd left the room. Did he need to call his outside contact? And who the hell was it? He was being secretive, when they couldn't afford to have any more secrets. It felt like a betrayal.

She watched her brother in the dim light from the TV. She had convinced him to let her keep it on with the sound off when he was turning out all the lights and pulling the curtains tighter. He sat with his elbow on the small table, his fist bracing up his head. That's how he slept. Every once in a while his head rolled off his clenched hand but without waking himself.

She wished she could sleep so easily. When they were kids, Jared had taught her what to do when she couldn't sleep. How to go away in her mind to a place with all the things she loved. He'd made her list them-cotton candy, the Bee Gees, Ferris wheels and corn dogs. That was the summer he had taken her to the county fair, so all her favorite things were associated with that experience.

His tactic helped her fall asleep many nights. It became her weapon against the obstacles that invaded her sleep, the biggest one, of course, being fear. The fear that her father would come up and wake them, ripping off the covers and pouring ice-cold water on them or yanking them out of bed by grabbing onto their ankles and pulling until there was nothing left to hang on to. Melanie could still feel it, her head bouncing off the mattress, hitting the bed rail and cracking against the floorboards. But that was the easy part. Over the years she had tried to erase from her memory the sting of the whip or the smell of scorched skin, her own skin burning under the flaming red ash of his cigarette.

Melanie shook her head. She didn't need to be remembering all that now. What she needed to remember was that Jared had cleaned up the mess that night. She owed him, That was a debt she'd never be able to repay and he knew it. Even if she had supplied him with an alibi for Rebecca Moore, they still wouldn't be even. They'd never be even. And now here they were in yet another mess. How could Jared have let this happen? Only this time it was worse. This time he had involved her boy, her baby, her poor

Charlie, She wondered if she would ever be able to forgive her brother for that.

She got out of bed to go to the bathroom and noticed that Jared had left the cell phone on the dresser. She glanced back at him. His head was down, his breathing heavy with sleep. She snatched the phone and took it with her into the bathroom, carefully closing and locking the door. She flipped it open and started looking over the buttons. Somewhere there had to be one that would tell her what she wanted to know.

She hit Menu and there on the list was Call History. This was easier than she'd thought. She clicked on Call History, bringing up yet another list. She chose Outgoing Calls to see if Jared had, indeed, gone off to call his secret contact. And there it was: the date, the time-only an hour ago- plus, the phone number and the person's name. She clicked back to find the earlier call-the one from this morning in the car-just to check, to make certain. There it was again. The same number, the same name.

Why was Jared keeping in touch with his attorney? Why in the world did her brother trust Max Kramer more than he trusted her?

Part5 Point of No Return