Dead by Sunset: Perfect Husband, Perfect Killer? (76 page)

"We're still great friends today," she said.
 
"We just couldn't be

married."

Oeep down, Dana knew she was pretty, but she wondered if she had

anything else to offer.
 
Her own husband hadn't cared enough about her

to come home more than once a month, even during the honeymoon phase of

their brief marriage.
 
Her confidence was shaken, and she was

particularly vulnerable to men who responded positively to her.
 
She

dated some, men came on to her everywhere she turned.
 
There was one

man, Nick Ronzini,* who sold men's clothes in the department store

where she worked.
 
Dana liked Nick a lot and he was very handsome, but

when he drank, his personality changed.

Dana was at a crossroads in 1990.
 
If nothing came along to change her

life, she might stay with Nick.
 
Or she might go home to southern

Oregon and stay with her family.
 
As it turned out, somethingþsomeone

þdid come along: Brad Cunningham.
 
"He called me and told me that he

remembered me," Dana said, "even though there had been people standing

in line' for the nanny job."
 
She had almost forgotten that she had

applied for the job.

When she went to the Dunthorpe house for her second interview, Brad

told her that he was separated from his wife, Dr. Sara Gordon.
 
"We

aren't getting along," he said.
 
"I live here with my sons."

Dana assumed that the huge home with its sprawling grounds and

two-story guest house belonged to Brad.
 
She found him "very

distinguished."

Brad was forty-one in the spring of 1990, but he didn't look it.

He was running ten miles a day and was in peak condition.
 
He dressed

in expensive dark suits and drove a new (rented) Mercedes.
 
"He was so

charming," Dana said, "but he was humble, too, and quiet."

When Brad told her that she had won the nanny job over all the other

applicants, Dana was thrilled, but she looked upon it only as a job.

She would care for his three little boys during the week and live in

the guest house, but she planned to continue her job selling cosmetics

on the weekends.

Sara had to sell the Dunthorpe house.
 
The cash drain of the bakery and

then the bistro was bad enough, but the payments on the big house, not

to mention the taxes, were more than she could handleþeven if she

worked twenty-four hours a day.
 
But Brad blocked her every attempt to

sell the house.
 
It was outrageous, and it was ridiculous, but Sara

understood.

She knew Brad's charisma, and she had learned how frightening and

relentless he could be to get what he wanted.
 
If she had not had Jack

Kincaid to back her up, she might have buckled under the pressure.

Sara's money had paid for the Dunthorpe house and the Riverplace

apartment, but she no longer lived in either.
 
In truth, she really

didn't live anywhere, she was a woman in hiding.
 
The few items she had

managed to take out of the Dunthorpe house were in the Riverplace

apartmentþbut she wasn't.
 
Instead she slept at Providence Hospital

feeling some slight sense of protection with her coworkers surrounding

her.
 
She never slept in the suite she had shared so many times with

Brad and the little boys.
 
Brad knew where that was, and there was

always the chance he might encounter some new employee who didn't know

about him and talk his way into the suite.
 
Sara knew what a glib

talker he was.
 
So she slept behind doors that were behind doors that

were behind doors, deep in the bowels of the hospital.
 
If anyone

called for her, anyone, the ground rules now demanded that the caller

never be told where she was.
 
All of her calls were transferred to

trusted friends inside Providence.
 
Only then would the call be passed

on to her.

Once again Sara's work was her life, just as it had been when she first

met Brad in 1986.
 
However, by 1990 she no longer took her life for

granted.
 
The memories of being able to concentrate on her work, to

walk without fear into the parking lot, to live without fear in her own

home, were only thatþmemories.
 
Somehow Brad always seemed to be aware

of where she was.

Sara never knew what she might find.
 
Sometimes she found black spray

paint along the sides of both her carsþan Audi and a Volvoþ sometimes

splashes of paint across their hoods, the edges drying into segmented

clots, the way blood dries.
 
The cars were white and she saw the damage

immediately.
 
It didn't matter where she parked.
 
Once, when she had

spent the night at a girlfriend's house, she found that twelve nails

had been pounded into her tires.
 
For some reason the tires hadn't gone

flat and she was able to drive to a tire dealer and have them

repaired.

But worstþbecause of what they symbolizedþwere the flower petals.

Some unseen hand had sprinkled rose petals all over her car, as if

casting flowers on a grave.

Even when she went to bed in one of the on-call suites deep in the

inner sanctum of the hospital, Sara didn't sleep well.
 
It was hard not

to think of all she had lost.
 
Most of all, she missed her sons.
 
"If I

hadn't been afraid of Brad, I would have sought custody of the boysþbut

I didn't dare."

Sara harbored the hope that she might have Jess, Michael, and Phillip

for three weeks in June.
 
Seeing the boys meant seeing Brad, but she

wasn't afraid of him in the daylight.
 
It was the unexpected that

frightened her.
 
Brad would never let her have the children for long

periods, but he allowed short visits.
 
Meanwhile, their divorce

proceedings inched along.
 
An uncontested divorce in Oregon took only

three months, but Brad claimed federal law guidelines and said his

pending bankruptcy gave him an automatic stay.
 
And, as usual, he

changed attorneys.
 
It would be fall at least before Sara could hope to

have her divorce finalized.

On June 10, Sara met Dana Malloy when she returned the boys to the

Dunthorpe house after they had visited her.
 
The two women liked each

other, and Sara went away somewhat relieved at Brad's choice of a

caregiver for the boys.
 
She noticed one thing that shouldn't have

surprised her.
 
Dana looked a lot like herself, same coloring, same

general facial features.
 
Dana was taller, of course, and about ten

years younger than she was, but their resemblance was remarkable.
 
Sara

was glad she liked Dana.
 
But if she hadn't, it wouldn't have mattered

to Brad.

He no longer listened to anything she said.

Dana had settled happily into her job at the Dunthorpe house.
 
If she

couldn't have babies of her own, Brad's sons were great little kids and

she soon became very attached to them.
 
She looked after Jess, Michael,

and Phillip, saw that they got to school, cooked, washed dishes, and

made the beds.
 
The work wasn't hard, and Dana enjoyed being with this

little motherless family.
 
She did not know, of course, that there had

been two mothers whom Brad had ruthlessly cut out of their lives.

Before a month had passed, Dana was surprised but a little pleased,

too, when it became obvious that Brac!
 
was attracted to her.
 
"When I

went to work for him, I had my own life," she said.
 
"I had my weekend

job.
 
He didn't even know me but, within a month, he didn't want me

working weekends.
 
He got obsessed with meþI guess that's how you'd

describe it.
 
He put me on a pedestal.
 
He wouldn't let me make beds or

wash the dishes.
 
After I was with him thirty days, he hired Molly

Maid' to come in.
 
But cleaning was supposed to bepart of my job."

Dana believed that Brad was a wealthy businessman.
 
She had no idea

that the house they lived in belonged to Sara and that Brad had no

income at allþbeyond $1,608 a month he collected in Social Security

survivors' benefits for Cheryl Keeton's boys, and the sporadic payments

that he got from the Colville tribe.

Brad began to court Dana avidly and she was dazzled.
 
"He ordered these

exotic flowers flown in from Hawaiiþflowers I'd never seen before.

I didn't even know you could buy flowers that way."
 
The five of

themþBrad, Dana, Jess, Michael, and Phillipþwent out to dinner often as

a family.

It was pleasant and fun, and Dana found herself falling in love with

Brad.
 
It wasn't much more than a month after she began working for him

that they became intimate.
 
"He was a wonderful lover þa passionate

lover.
 
When he kissed you, you believed you were the only woman in the

world for him."

Dana had been ignored by her husband, but now she had become the center

of Brad's universe, completely unaware of the bitter divorce and the

terrible struggle he and Sara were having over the house.
 
Dana never

knew about things like that, Brad took care of his own business

affairs.

He dictated what they would do, where they would go, how she would

dress, whom she would see.
 
She was so happy to be with him that she

didn't notice how short her leash was becoming.

Life with Brad was sheer joy, but it wasn't perfect.
 
Dana's awe of him

lasted for a relatively brief time, and some things really bothered

her.

She didn't like the way Brad disciplined his sons, even though he

seemed to love them.
 
She watched him administer the precise number of

"swats" that he had toted up during the boys' lapses when they were

away from home.
 
Once they knew that punishment was awaiting them, most