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Soft music filled the elevator. Two nurses and four doctors occupied the space when Damien entered. Based on the floor-buttons lit up, they all planned to alight before he did. Standing in the back corner of the metal box, Damien felt his stomach lurch as it lifted on its cables. By his side, Bob Holland stood in jeans and a shirt, attire that looked entirely out of place for a government official who usually lived in a suit.
One of the male doctors nodded a silent greeting, while two of the others argued in quiet voices over treatment options for a patient. At the next stop, the two nurses departed. Another floor later, the debating doctors stepped out. Left with the other two doctors, Damien glanced at the red numbers on the display count up before letting his focus fall squarely on Bob.
“What?” Bob’s eyebrows rose high on his forehead.
Damien smiled. “You’re looking well.”
Bob grinned. In truth, he’d practically pulled off a miracle in the last eight months, dropping enough weight to regain his health and then some. “Life is good.”
Yes. Yes, it was.
By the time the elevator reached their desired floor, they stood alone. Gratitude warmed his heart for the man beside him but putting it into words was easier said than done. It should have been harder to resume their friendship after ten years of separation, but it wasn’t and that alone gave Damien the greatest sense of security he could ever hope for.
The doors slid open and the sounds of a hospital ward filled his ears. Walking the corridor, he heard faint beeps, the shuffle of scrubs, and hushed voices. Hospital grade disinfectant nipped at his nostrils, reminding him of the night Stevie was born. The miracle he’d witnessed still gave him chills.
*
“It’s time. She’s coming.” Penny’s voice sounded strained.
The hairs on his nape twitched as he gripped the phone receiver tight. “She?”
“Your daughter, or at least, I think it’s a girl. Either way, we’re having a baby tonight.”
Of the course the baby would come while he was at work. His stomach dropped as he felt his mouth curve. “Call an ambulance, I’ll meet you at the hospital.”
“Already done. Hurry, Damien. I don’t think she’s prepared to wait.”
He hung up, slamming the receiver into its cradle. On the other side of the desk, his boss, Charles Nelson, merely nodded at him. “Go. What are you waiting for?”
Bob met him at the door to Nelson’s office, car keys at the ready. “I’m driving.”
Racing from the building, the two of them hit the pavement. The cold night made Damien shiver as they ran for Bob’s sedan. Winter felt like hadn’t left them, despite it officially being spring. Inside the vehicle, Damien strapped on his seatbelt while Bob cranked the engine. There was no point fiddling with the heating vents. The short ride across the Melbourne CBD would mean he’d be at the hospital before warm air even circulated through the car.
As they pulled up at emergency, a crowd of medical staff waited in the chilly air. After Bob dropped him off, Damien ran toward the entrance. A nurse smiled at him and he recognized her as one of Penny’s colleagues. His feet came to a halt.
“Where is Penny?”
The short, dark haired nurse nodded with a pointed look over his shoulder. “She should be arriving any minute. Wait with us, if you like?”
The ambulance arrived minutes later and he watched the paramedics unload the gurney with Penny on it. She hollered instructions as the wheels touched the ground. A brief smile calmed her momentarily when she spotted him, before she cried out again. Damien made his way to her side and found her hand, though the force with which she squeezed his fingers made him question his choice.
“She’s crowning,” a nurse announced. “We don’t have long.”
The troop of them raced through emergency but where Damien and Penny had a calm, serene birthing scenario in mind, no such thing took place. Like a hurricane, the kid was determined to make an entrance. Within the confines of a curtained cubicle, the medical staff worked at a feverish pace to keep up with the delivery. Barely ten minutes transpired before Damien witnessed his daughter enter the world with a squeal to declare she’d arrived.
The doctor took the baby as nurses cleaned up. Damien hugged Penny and kissed her sweaty brow. “How’d you know we were having a girl?”
She shrugged and beamed a deliriously happy smile at him. Anyone would think she was high on pain meds, but everything happened so fast no one had time to administer any. “I just knew.”
A nurse handed him a damp towel and he wiped away the sweat on his wife’s forehead. He smoothed down her hair and pressed his lips to hers. Emotions swirled in his chest. Gratitude for his wife’s strength competed with love for the newborn he’d yet to meet. A moment later, the doctor placed the little girl in Penny’s arms. Damien took in her squashed, red face before touching his fingertips to her button nose. The kid squealed again, then settled onto Penny’s chest. A tiny hand appeared from the blanket and Damien pressed his thumb into her palm. Miniature fingers wrapped around his digit and held him.
He’d never seen anything so fragile, nor so beautiful. Leaning in close, he kissed her forehead and then his wife.
“Look what we made,” he whispered, taking a deep breath of the babe’s scent. “She’s even more beautiful than I imagined.”
Tears streaked down Penny’s cheeks. Damien watched the woman he loved cradle his daughter and his heart threatened to explode with joy. In a blinding instant, he understood exactly the importance of family that Nelson had talked about earlier. A fierce sense of protectiveness stalked through his veins and he vowed to never let anything or anyone threaten his family.
God help them if they did.
*
“Hey? Are you okay?”
Damien shook off the memory. “Fine.”
Bob raised his eyebrows, clearly unconvinced. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
He had no idea. “Come on, let’s go.”
At the correct room, he pulled out his phone and switched it to silent mode. Bob did the same. Through the window, he could see the man they’d come to visit sitting up in bed. Conscious and alert, Charles Nelson Junior had defied all the odds to wake from his coma. While his memory was patchy, he remembered enough details from the car crash that almost claimed his life back earlier in the year to confirm it was no accident. Damien paused and mentally rehearsed his words.
Hand halfway to the door, Bob paused. “You look worried.”
Damien gave a nod. “Thank you for coming with me.”
He hardly knew Junior and, in truth, hadn’t come to see him. Damien almost felt guilty at the ruse, but with so much at stake, he batted away the feeling. It was the senior Nelson he wanted to catch up with, but seeing the room empty doused his hopes. Like the good old days, Bob had agreed to act as a smokescreen. More guilt threatened, considering he hadn’t told Bob why they were here at all, but every time he tried to tell his friend that Penny could still be alive, words eluded him. He had no idea how he’d tackle the issue with Charles, either, but he took solace in knowing both men were integral in finding out the truth.
Maybe then the words would come...
“Come on.” Bob pushed through the door. Damien followed and watched Junior welcome his godfather with a hug. “Do you remember Damien?”
Junior assessed Damien before shaking his head. “I’m not sure, sorry.”
Damien shook the outstretched hand. “I knew your father.”
“Damien McCafferty? I thought you were—”
Ah, so he’d at least heard the name. Damien nodded and they exchanged a smile. “How are you doing?”
Black circles ringed Junior’s eyes. If Damien wasn’t mistaken, worry hid behind the welcome he offered. “I’ll come good, they say.”
It seemed that unlike his father, Junior was a man of few words. “Very good.”
Bob fussed, pouring the younger man a cup of water. “No more midnight drives for you, young man. Is Jenny here?”
“She’s taking a well-earned rest. She’s been here day and night until I woke up.”
“And your father?”
Junior smiled. “He’ll be here soon, if you’d like to wait.”
They didn’t have to wait long. When the man they’d once called Chief walked in, the surprise in his expression at seeing Bob gave way to shock when he laid eyes on Damien. He swore under his breath. Despite the gray hair and the deep worry lines, he hadn’t lost any of his commanding presence over the years. Damien would never admit it, but those bushy eyebrows and deep dark eyes still intimidated him.
“I hope you don’t mind, Junior,” Damien started, “but I need to have a word with your father.”
The patient chuckled. “I’d leave you to the room if I could, but as I’m practically tied to this bed, feel free to ignore me.”
What Damien really wanted was privacy but since Charles didn’t look like leaving, he accepted the situation for what it was. Besides, if he were keeping score, Junior had enough credentials to bear witness and maintain confidentiality if so required.
“I’d heard a rumor you were alive.”
“Don’t worry, you’re in good company.” Bob chuckled. “He kept me in the dark too. I only clapped eyes on him last December.”
Damien turned to Charles before taking out his phone and opening the image JP had sent him. “I’m sorry about that. At the time, I felt it was necessary.”
Charles’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t trust either of us?”
“Honestly? The less you both knew, the safer you were. Turns out I was wrong, but we all make mistakes.”
His anger flashed at his own errors. The two men before him were probably the only ones he should have trusted with the truth. Perhaps if he had, Stevie wouldn’t have been put in danger by those who wanted him dead. Even as he had the thought, he realized that without those events, he might never have had the chance to reunite with her, or his team, or keep Magnus from going completely crazy.
The weird turnabout effectively doused his anger. He gave a shake to loosen the demons from the past and turned the phone screen toward Charles. The older man stepped forward to inspect the image, his brow wrinkling before his lips pulled into a tight, bloodless line. Worry darkened his eyes further as he glanced toward Damien briefly. Pulling back, he took a long breath and shook his head.
“What should I see?”
It wasn’t like Charles to hold out but Damien understood that if he’d had a hand in helping Penny disappear, he wouldn’t offer an explanation willingly. It was sad their years of friendship had come to this, but perhaps Charles wasn’t the man he’d once thought.
“Do you recognize her?”
A nervous chuckle filled the air. “The image is particularly grainy.”
Bob stepped closer to Damien’s side to get a better angle at the screen, swore and took the phone from Damien’s hand. He stalked across the room, staring at the image and mumbling under his breath. Growing more agitated by the second, Bob’s demeanor was telling. Pacing, he dragged a hand through his short, gray hair and shook his head. He came to a stop on the far side of the room and raised his face.
His focus ricocheted between Damien and Charles, his skin white as a sheet and his eyes pleading for an explanation. “What the hell is this?”
Damien caught Bob’s eye. “Tell me who it is.”
“Penny.” The answer came without hesitation. “Yes, the photo is blurry but there is no doubt in my mind. Where did you get this?”
“A friend.”
Bob’s eyes narrowed. “When?”
“Yesterday.” Damien turned to Charles. “You’re the only one I think she would’ve turned to for help. She knew I wouldn’t have let her do whatever she was planning.”
Charles waved a hand. “You don’t know how old that photo is. It could have been taken twenty years ago for all you know.”
Damien allowed silence to engulf them. With enough time to stew in his lies, Charles would come clean. He had to. If not for the sake of their friendship, then for the obvious reality that Damien would not leave until he had the truth.
A minute ticked by and then another, the silence deafening. When it looked like Charles would hold out, Damien shrugged and sat in the lone armchair. He made a show of getting comfortable, a not-so-subtle hint he could wait for as long as it took.
Almost in solidarity, Bob sat on the corner of Junior’s bed and examined the photo again. Before Charles could say a word, Bob gasped. “She’s been taken hostage. Jesus Christ, Charles, say something.”
Charles never took his eyes off Damien. “She made me promise.”
It almost brought a smile to Damien’s face. “She was good at that sort of thing.”
“I haven’t heard from her since her funeral.”
“Which was probably the plan.”
Charles shook his head and scrubbed a hand over his whiskered face. “Actually, no. The plan was for me to attend the funeral and then take her to the airport. When I got back to the car, she was gone.”
“So, it was all a set up? The accident? The burnt bodies?”
Charles hesitated. “Again, no. That was actually a strange twist of fate. We’d arranged for her car to be driven out to a remote location but everything went askew when the crash took place.”
“Who was driving the car?”
“I’d paid a transient to do the job. Told the woman she could sleep in it for a few nights if she needed.” He shook his head, remorse clinging to his features. “What a total cock-up. It wasn’t meant to happen like that at all but I made the most of a terrible situation.” He paled as his gaze met his son’s. “Good God that sounds awful.”
Damien empathized with the man opposite. He stood and crossed the floor. Charles could hardly look at him until Damien gripped his arm. Though he still needed more information, he knew how difficult staging a death could be. It had taken him months to plot his own and even then, things hadn’t gone quite according to plan. He had intended on confiding in Bob before it happened, and Riley was never meant to be there. That made it almost impossible for Damien to oversee the relocation of his daughter.
“Why?”
“I couldn’t say no, Damien. She was desperate to protect you and the little one from her father.”
That, she was. Finding out she was an illegitimate daughter of Massimo Mustang had shaken Penny’s world. She went from hopeful and optimistic, to fearful and paranoid in such a short time, it scared Damien. No amount of reassurance calmed her. She’d convinced herself that if Massimo didn’t track her down himself, one of his sons would. Though Damien thought she was scared, he hadn’t seen any evidence of her choice to make such a life-shattering decision.
It hardly made sense. He would’ve done whatever it took to protect her. Didn’t she know that? Or didn’t she trust he could keep her safe? It was like a punch in the guts to think she doubted him. Sure, Massimo was extremely powerful, but Damien knew he would never let the old mobster get his hands on Penny, or their daughter.
“That’s why you called me off the investigation.”
Charles conceded the truth with a nod. “I figured if I stopped you from making waves, the heat would die down. You were like a dog with a bone, but all she wanted was to stay off the Mustang radar.”
Bob made a sound. “We were like a pair of hounds.”
Not untrue. “So, she didn’t trust me?”
“Quite the opposite, Damien. She knew you would find what you were looking for. Just like she knew you would never have let her go.”
He let his hand drop away, a heaviness settling deep in his gut. Betrayal. Disloyalty. He’d been lied to and so fully duped that his mouth dried up. “She left us.”
“To protect you.”
Though the argument was valid, Damien had a hard time accepting it. She left us kept ringing in his ears like a broken record. “And you helped her. Jesus, Charles. I would’ve found another way.”
A sad smile lifted the corners of Charles’s mouth. “She said you’d say that.”
He stared at the man he’d once considered a mentor and found it harder than expected to put aside the hurt he felt. Reason told him that her request had wedged Charles firmly between a rock and a hard place but history whispered that the man who’d once been the chief of police had always had a good head on his shoulders. What on earth had convinced a cop with almost ten years on the job that her plan was the right one?
The need to hear Penny say the words herself struck him deep. He needed for her to look him in the eyes and tell him why she left, what she’d thought it would accomplish and whether she thought her daughter would understand her leaving. On a logical level he saw why she thought it was her only choice, but his heart didn’t agree.
“Where did she go?”
Charles looked startled. “You can’t go after her.”
“Why not? The Mustangs are no longer a threat to us, and if you hadn’t noticed,” he reached across and took the phone from Bob, “she looks like she could use a hand.”
Charles nodded. “Fair enough. Switzerland.”
Nigeria was a long, long, way away from Switzerland. “What, or who, was there for her?” He hated to think others had helped her.
“I don’t know. We didn’t speak about where she was really going, or what she planned to do. She seemed to think it was better that way.”
Damien growled deep in his chest. His wife had always been too smart for her own good. “What’s her name?”
Charles bit his lip and held out for at least thirty seconds. “Penelope Strong.”
He couldn’t help but be glad she’d kept her first name. He turned to Bob. “I need to find her and bring her home.”
Bob fixed him with one of those looks. “And if she doesn’t want to come home?”
Damien glanced at the image again and wondered what he’d do, because if it really was Penny in the photo and she still chose to leave him and Stevie...he didn’t know if his heart could take the rejection.
Again.