Chapter Six

So what had she expected from him? That he’d gather her up in his arms and kiss away the hurt and the mistakes of seven long years? That he’d be overcome with joy to learn he was a father and promise to make them a family as soon as possible?

Kathryn sighed. Her stomach contracted with longing at the very thought of being held and comforted. How long had it been since anyone cared enough to want to make her feel better? How long since anyone had cuddled her in their arms and soothed her?

Her mouth thinned to a grim line. For so long she’d been the comforter, not the comforted. Her mother had died when Kathryn was just fourteen, and her father’s grief had become the dominant motif of her teen years. Ben had held her and comforted her when they were dating, and look how that had turned out! She’d turned to Ket Morgan, her boss who showed sympathetic interest for her plight, and later turned into the coldest person she’d ever known.

She shivered as she remembered her own father crying, begging her not to let them “put him away.” But even then she’d had no power, no control over her own life. She had let Ket shut the old man away in the “convalescent care clinic” so his drunken ways wouldn’t embarrass the Morgan family. Seven years later, her poor father was still drying out and still pleading with his daughter to let him go home. Kathryn’s chest twinged with guilty pain. One betrayal leads to another, and another. Would there ever be an end?

The corners of her mouth turned down in anger. It had all started with Ben Asher. She’d been doing fine until he came along. A good job, one that paid enough to feed and house her father and herself, and enough left over to save just a little for the rainy days that had occurred so frequently in her young life. She’d been happy, too, in a fashion. Her job as a teller in the Morgan Bank was interesting and certainly a notch above the insecure work on the lines in the shoe factory or, worse, in the lobster cannery.

Then Ben had come along. The attraction had shot between them like irresistible fire. At 19, she’d had neither the experience nor the will to resist him, and like a lamb to the slaughter, she’d believed every lie he’d told her. Swallowed the secret she was holding, wanting to make the telling special. She had believed he’d be back for her.

But he hadn’t come back. And she’d had to make some hard decisions.

“I married the boss,” she smiled a thin smile at the irony. “What a lucky girl I am. What a cliché.” Kathryn rubbed weary fingers over her face, catching sight of her reflection in the mirror. Sudden anger at the pale, frightened creature who stared back at her roared through her blood and without thinking, she snatched up a small crystal bowl from a side table and threw it at the gilt-framed looking glass. Her aim was perfect. The mirror shattered and she had a fleeting glimpse of her own face flying apart in a hundred deadly shards of glass.

“Tsk, tsk…that’s seven years bad luck, you know, breaking a mirror.”

Kathryn whirled around at the mocking voice behind her. Andrew Shepherd, Ket’s secretary and personal assistant stood watching her, a smirk on his handsome face.

“Well, I’ve served seven years already, maybe the Bad Luck Fairy would give me time off for good behavior.” She tried to make light of it, but she knew Andrew heard and enjoyed the bitter tone in her voice.

“What? Are you trying to shatter the illusion of the happy, pampered bride?”

Kathryn drew in a deep breath, straightening her spine. Sometimes she hated Andrew almost as much as she hated Ket. “We both know all of this is an illusion, so why don’t we stop pretending, Andrew?”

The grin left Andrew’s handsome face. “You know, we’re not too different, you and I. We both want what we can’t have.”

Kathryn stared at him for a moment, eyes wide. “I guess I’ve never looked at it that way. But I tell you, right this moment, if Alex were here safe, I’d take him and leave this house forever. You could have Ket all to yourself.”

“You would?” Brief hope flared in Andrew’s eyes, to be quickly extinguished. “And what difference would that make? He may not want you here, but he needs you and the boy to keep up appearances. Appearances are so very important to a Morgan.”

The secretary turned on his heel and left the room. Kathryn ran after him, grabbing hold of his shirt sleeve to detain him. When Andrew glanced sharply down at her hand, she pulled it back and hugged her arms around her waist as if to ward off a chill.

“You wanted something from me, Mrs. Morgan?” he asked softly.

Kathryn bit her lip. She hated so much to ask anything from this man, but if he could help her find Alex, she’d get down on her knees and beg. “I meant what I said, Andrew. Help me find Alex, and I’ll be gone from Lobster Cove on the next bus.”

She had to look away from the pity in his eyes. “I can’t help you.”

“But you must know something—Ket tells you things.”

Andrew grinned savagely. “Yes, he does. But not about this. I think, Mrs. Morgan, that your son has really been kidnapped. I think, in fact, that you and he are in deep trouble. I’m kind of fond of the boy, but I haven’t got a clue as to how to help either of you. I’d be willing to bet Ket can’t help…won’t help, either.”

****

“You’re sure that bitch you married isn’t behind this?”

Ket stared at his father. It hadn’t occurred to him that Kathryn would be capable of spiriting her son away and pretending he’d been kidnapped. “What are you talking about?”

“Well, it’s been more than obvious that this marriage of yours is a sham. Either you’re not man enough to satisfy a woman or she’s really the frigid piece of work she appears. I don’t much care either way anymore. She’s given me what I wanted—an heir to the Morgan name. I want that boy back here, and if Kathryn Fitzgerald is behind this, make her tell you where he is. Whatever it takes!”

Ket swallowed. If there was one person in this world who inspired fear in him, it was his father. A little frisson of pleasure darted up his spine, though, to know his father didn’t mind what he did to make Kathryn tell him the truth about where the brat was.

A pleasure quickly extinguished when he considered what his father was capable of doing to him if he ever discovered the truth about Alex.

****

Kathryn was at her desk in the small room she used as a study when Ket came in. Even in this cubby hole, she could never enjoy private space. She’d been phoning all their friends, all Alex’s friends, the school—everyone she knew who might have seen Alex, or anyone he might have tried to get for help. This was her second time around, and she was nearly at the end of the list when Ket’s hand swooped down and yanked the phone receiver out of her hand.

The small white phone squawked sadly as he slammed the receiver back into the cradle, to be quickly silenced when he picked the instrument up and flung it across the room to smash on the far wall.

“Ket! What? Have you lost your mind?” Her startled words were lost as her husband dragged her from the seat and threw her backward against the wall, his eyes wild with anticipation and rage.

Oh, God help her! She’d known someday it would come to this, that someday the vicious shakes and pinches would escalate to blows, or even worse. But not right now, she couldn’t afford to give into Ket’s bullying. Not when Alex needed her.

The thought of her son was still in her mind as Ket’s hand smashed across her face. Purple haze enveloped her as the stinging pain zinged through her body and she struggled to speak through bleeding lips.

“Don’t bother calling for help. Nobody here gives a damn what I do to my wife!” Ket spat the words through clenched teeth. “No one’s going to interfere, so the quicker you tell me what kind of games you’re playing, the better for you.”

She stared at him, dazed, desperately trying to gather her senses as she saw his hand raised for another blow. “Ket, I don’t know—” But she couldn’t stop him.

This time his fist ploughed into her belly, and the breath was knocked out of her. She hadn’t known such agony existed. She fought to pull air back into her lungs as suffocating pain racked every inch of her being.

“Tell me where Alex is! I know you’ve stowed him away somewhere, plotting to ruin things with my father, and get your greedy little hands on a nice fat ransom so you can run away with your beloved little bastard! Just you remember this…you and the boy belong to me. I’ll never let you go!”

So that was it. Kathryn’s pain-fogged brain cleared. Ket really believed she had Alex, that she was trying to milk the Morgans for ransom money so she could take her child away. Kathryn had the crazy thought that she wished she’d thought of the plan before and started to smile. Which was a mistake.

Infuriated to see her smile, taking it as defiance, her husband raised his fist for another blow. Hating her lack of courage even as she cowered backward, she knew she was cornered and there was nowhere to go. No one to rescue her as she stared in fascination at the anticipation and malevolence on the face of the man before her. She called on the anger that had been simmering over the years, pulling herself up and readying herself for the pain that would surely come. She could see from his face that Ket wanted her to beg, that he was enjoying this.

Kathryn was not going to give him that pleasure. No matter what.

“Lay a hand on her one more time and I’ll kill you myself!” Ben Asher spoke the words like a man who meant what he said. Ket froze, his fisted hand dropping back to his side. Kathryn gave a little hitch of a sob, knowing she was saved—for the time being.

“Maybe you’d like to step outside and see what it’s like to fight with someone closer to your own size?” Ben’s offer dripped with icy promise.

Ket managed to paste a cocky smile on his face as he turned around. “Well, that wouldn’t be so good now, would it? I certainly don’t want to be charged with thrashing the acting sheriff.”

“I think the thrashing would be the other way around, but if you like, I can take off the badge.”

“But then it would be all around the town that a Morgan had been rolling around in the dirt with trash, and that wouldn’t be much good at all.”

Ben’s mouth thinned to an angry slit, and for a moment, Kathryn thought he would attack Ket anyway. But then he grinned savagely and stepped back from the brink with a visible effort. “You know, Morgan, I don’t think you’d even be worth getting my hands dirty.”

The very air throbbed with suppressed violence. She couldn’t let these two men come to blows, not over her. There’d been too much pain and hurt already, and besides, all she wanted in the world right now was for them to help her find Alex.

“When you two have finished sparring with each other, maybe you could tell me if you’ve made any progress with the search for my son, Sheriff Asher?” She spoke through the tearing pain of her mouth where Ket’s blow had split the tender skin, but she kept her voice cold and her head high as she questioned Ben.

Ket snorted. “Well, I’ll leave you two alone to discuss your business, but you’d better remember what I told you, Kathryn, my dear.”

Ben bided his time until the door was closed behind the other man before asking: “Exactly what did he tell you earlier?”

Kathryn shuddered, remembering Ket’s threats. But she stood up straighter, ignoring the aching bruises on her arms and breasts where Ket’s blows had landed. “That’s no business of yours.”

He’d moved closer to her without her even being aware of it. Now she could feel his warmth, almost feel his breath on her cheek. And that familiar smell, part light citrus aftershave, part clean healthy male, part simply Ben. She had to swallow hard to maintain her grip on her feelings as he smiled mockingly down into her face. “On the contrary, Kathryn, everything about your life is my business now. At least until I have custody of my son. If he is my son, of course.”

****

The man was back again. He was wearing that funny black cap pulled down over his face, leaving just slits for his eyes. Like Batman wore, kind of. But this wasn’t a Superhero come to rescue him. Alex might be barely seven, but he could still tell the good guys from the bad guys. And this was the bad guy who’d pulled him into his car and brought him to this nasty, dirty place.

The man didn’t speak to him, just placed a greasy-looking, paper bag on the little plastic table near the blanket-covered pallet where Alex sat, turned, and silently walked out of the room, pulling the heavy door shut beside him. He waited until he heard the heavy clack! of the bolt on the other side of the door. It wouldn’t have mattered if he hadn’t locked the door. Alex was tied to the makeshift bed with a nylon cord that dug into his ankle when he tried to pull himself free.

He didn’t want to eat the food the man had brought. All he wanted was to go home to his momma. But the smell of a hamburger and French fries tickled his nose until finally, he reached out and opened the bag. He’d wolfed most of the food inside before he saw the plastic knife at the bottom of the bag.