Maryse closed her hand on the doorknob, grateful to have an excuse to pull away from Brooks and the temptation of his wide, strong chest. She hadn’t expected to have such a strong reaction to his tanned skin, and the pleasant prickles of heat had almost overwhelmed her.
Well, she conceded, at least it adds an element of realism.
And her breathless greeting as she cracked open the door definitely screamed of something sexy. “Hi there.”
The concierge—the real one—stepped back and eyed her a little warily. “Mrs. Small?”
She inched the door open a little bit more. “Yes?”
“We had a report of some noise?”
“Noise?” Maryse intentionally let the sheet drop, then laughed and pulled it up again before she was fully exposed. “Oh! Oops.”
The concierge averted his eyes. “I, uh, tried to call the room a few times, but—”
“We’ll pay for it.” Brooks’s voice came from just above her ear, and his hand landed in the small of her back as he made the announcement.
“Pay for what?” the concierge wanted to know.
Brooks’s palm slid from her back to her hip, and he pressed her to his side. He held out the broken phone.
“For this,” he said. “And anything else we inadvertently broke during our—”
Maryse jabbed an elbow into his stomach, cutting him off, and she smiled as sweetly as she could manage. “We’ll pay. We got a little carried away, but we’ll keep it down from now on.”
The concierge hesitated. “You sure you’re okay, Mrs. Small?”
“Yes.”
She might’ve added something else, but her brain suddenly ceased to work properly because Brooks’s lips had landed on her throat. They worked from a spot just below her ear down to her shoulder in a trail of light kisses.
The concierge cleared his throat. “So. Right. I’ll just... Right.”
“Uh-huh.” Brooks’s voice rumbled against the sensitive skin of her neck. “Thanks for checking on us.”
“You’re wel—”
Without warning, he reached around Maryse to slam the door shut. And he didn’t let her go as it closed. Instead, he brought up his other hand and turned her to face him, then pulled her close and tipped his head down so that their lips were less than an inch apart.
“That was a good plan,” he murmured.
“You think so?” she breathed.
“Can I just ask you for one favor?”
“What?”
“Next time you’re going to get mostly naked in front of me...give me a bit of warning. Especially if it’s happening directly after a fight and a head injury.”
“Okay.”
“Thank you.”
He dragged his mouth over hers—just barely more than a whisper of a touch—then released her. As she picked up her pants and watched him button his shirt, desire mingled with a need for more than that simple, gentle touch.
Maryse knew the timing was off.
Way off, she amended as she thought of Cami.
Her heart squeezed, and her gaze followed Brooks. He’d bent down beside the blanket-covered man on the other side of the room and was searching the ground for something.
But she had to admit that in spite of the timing, her want wasn’t quite banked. If anything, Brooks’s protective nature and determination just heightened it. And besides that, he’d said next time. That had an appealing ring to it. Something to look forward to, when the future seemed painfully uncertain. In fact, if she really thought about it...he was the only semisure thing in her life at the moment. Which was strange, considering how little she knew about him.
He’s an off-duty cop.
He’s willing to help.
And he’s got the softest lips in the world.
“Right. What more do I need?”
She didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until he answered.
“What more do you need in regards to what?” he repeated. “Did I miss something?”
Blushing, she shook her head. “Nothing. Never mind.”
“If you say so.” He pushed himself up from the floor. “Our unconscious friend is staying that way for a while, but I’ve got his phone here and I think we should...um. Maryse?”
“I’m listening,” she said.
One corner of his mouth tipped up. “I’m sure you are. But you might want to get dressed?”
Her blush deepened as she glanced down at the sheet she still held wrapped around her body. Wishing there was a more graceful way of throwing on clothes as fast as she could, Maryse scrambled to get re-dressed.
“Okay,” she said when she’d finally pulled on her second boot, “you’ve got his phone, and...?”
“I think you should take a look through it. See if anything is familiar.” He held out the phone, and she took it.
“I can do that.”
“The gun?”
“Under the bed, I think.”
He bent down again, and Maryse swiped her finger over the phone, relieved to see that it wasn’t password protected. She scrolled through the text messages, but nothing stood out, and there was nothing about Camille. She switched over to the address book. She didn’t recognize any of the names except Maison Blanc.
“Any luck?” Brooks asked.
Maryse shook her head. “No. I wish I did recognize something but...nothing.”
“What’s the last number called?”
As she clicked on the call log to check, her finger slipped to the redial button instead. And before she could correct her mistake, a woman’s voice—crackling with irritation and loud enough to be heard without lifting the phone to her ear—carried through the line.
“Greg?”
Maryse held her breath, her finger hovering over the hang-up button. But when she lifted her eyes to Brooks’s face, he shook his head and mouthed for her to wait.
“Greg!” the woman repeated, even louder this time, then launched into an angry, muttered monologue. “You’ve got to be kidding me. He pocket dialed me again? We’re supposed to be leaving, and instead I’m stuck here with a kid who doesn’t talk. And I swear to God there’s some car circling the block. You’d think the money would be motivation enough. Hell. Incompetence is gonna kill me.”
Then the line went dead and Maryse exhaled, trying to curb her side-by-side jumps of hope and fear. “The kid who doesn’t talk. She has to have been talking about Camille. We have to get to her, Brooks. We have to find her. Call her back and... Oh, God. She said they were supposed to be leaving. What’s the best thing to do?”
“I don’t know what the best thing to do is, but the first thing...we need to figure out who the woman is.”
“The call went to someone named Dee.”
“Dee?” Brooks reached out and took the phone from her shaking fingers, then tapped across the screen—far more precisely than she had done—and a frown creased his brow.
“Does that name mean something?”
“I think it does.”
He pocketed the phone, then strode across the room where he pushed through the papers that had come loose during his fight with the fake concierge. After a swift search, he lifted one sheet from the messy pile and scanned it.
“‘Dee White,’” he read aloud, then looked up at her. “She’s the real daytime concierge. The woman who was supposed to be at the counter when the man with the gun was there instead.”
Maryse eyed the still-unconscious man on the bed. “So they were working together.”
“Looks like it. And neither of them has any connection to you or your daughter?”
“Not that I know of.” It was the truth, even if it wasn’t as complete an answer as she could’ve offered. “Does that paper say where they’re from?”
“Just that Ms. White lives on rue Riel.”
Hope surged through her again, and this time she didn’t try to tamp it down. “Brooks...that’s only ten minutes from here.”
“You want to go there?”
She swallowed her fear and looked him in the eye. “I don’t want to. I have to.”
* * *
As he followed the simple driving directions Maryse had outlined before they exited the hotel, Brooks strummed his thumbs against the steering wheel. What they were about to do went against his training and his better judgment.
He’d left behind a suspect. A felon. Secured and unarmed, yes. But unguarded, too. There was nothing to stop the man from waking up, somehow breaking free, then walking out of the hotel room. It wasn’t just a bad decision; it was a crime. A step well above the occasional jaywalk that made up the entire history of Brooks’s lawbreaking behavior.
On top of that, he was carrying a possibly—likely—illegal weapon and willfully taking a civilian straight into what was guaranteed to be a very dangerous setting.
You could’ve said no, he reminded himself.
But when he sneaked a look at Maryse, he had to admit it wasn’t quite true. Her need to rescue her daughter herself was palpable, but underneath her outward stoicism he knew she must be terrified. Brooks had learned over the course of his career that people gave away a lot about themselves in times of immense pressure, so there were a few things about Maryse he was pretty sure of.
For one thing, he sensed she needed someone to rely on in the wake of that fear. For another, he got the feeling that she didn’t have someone like that in her life already. And he somehow doubted that going through the proper channels would provide it.
So. No. He couldn’t have said no. Not so long as he really wanted to help her, and not so long as he let his instincts and conscience have a say in the matter.
And that aside...you have no real authority in this country.
That, at least, was true. Sure, he could probably call in some favors and find a way to get a good word put in with the local police, but it wouldn’t guarantee him any insight into an ongoing investigation. So this was the best alternative to that, really. And she trusted him, at least a little.
But not enough to tell you her whole story.
That was true, too, and he wished he could find a way around it.
“Brooks?” Her hesitant voice wrapped softly around his name, interrupting his internal argument.
“Yeah, sweetheart?”
“The woman on the phone was talking about money. And the guy who pretended to be the concierge mentioned it, too.”
“Pretty standard in a hostage situation like this one. If you want to pay it—”
“I would want to,” she said quickly, and with no uncertainty.
“You would want to?”
“I’d drain my bank account to get her back. But the person—or people—who took Cami didn’t ask me for money.”
“No ransom note?”
“Well. There was a note.” She chewed on her lip for a second before going on. “But it didn’t bring up any money. It sounded like they just wanted Cami and that was it.”
“Wanted her for what?”
“Personal reasons.”
Cursing himself for not asking about the terms of the kidnapping in the first place, Brooks swerved the car to the side of the road, then faced Maryse. “I know we’re strangers, and whatever secrets you’re keeping are yours and not mine. But if this is a custody issue...”
“What? No.”
“Then you really need to give me something else to go on. Something to negotiate with.”
She looked down at her hands. “I don’t know what to tell you. I didn’t think money had anything to do with this.”
Brooks fought an urge to demand to know what she’d meant by “personal reasons,” and instead he asked, “Is it possible that it’s both personal and about the money?”
“I guess it could be.”
Frustration nipped at him. “Are you sure you don’t want to tell me something more?”
She lifted her eyes to meet his gaze, indecision playing across her features. Then she shook her head. “It would take more time than we’ve got. And I don’t think it would help get Cami back.”
“Maryse...”
Please, she signed. Can we just keep going?
Frustrated, he nodded curtly, then pulled the car back onto the road. She was right that time was of the essence. It always was in a kidnapping case.
He guided the car through the rest of the streets quickly, not speaking again until they reached rue Riel. He found the house with the correct address—a nondescript one-story—then circled the block and parked on the next street over. It would put them just far enough away that they wouldn’t draw attention to themselves, but would still be able to make a quick exit if necessary.
He turned to Maryse again, trying to keep his irritation from his voice. “I’m assuming I won’t be able to talk you out of coming with me.”
Her determined look was back. “No.”
“Can you at least do me a favor?”
“What favor?”
“Most of the work I do is in gangs and guns, so hostage negotiation isn’t my specialty. But this won’t be my first one. I think if Dee sees you right away and recognizes you, she’ll panic. And the last thing we need is a panicked, out-of-control kidnapper.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to expect not to rush in there like a SWAT team. We’re not going to find an excuse to walk up to the front door and knock, either, because I highly doubt Dee White would just let us in.” He paused to make sure she understood, then went on as she nodded. “I want you to hang back. Be my lookout while I assess the layout and access points. From there, we come back to the car and we decide on our next move.”
“I can do that,” she acquiesced quickly.
“Perfect.” He reached for the handle, but her voice stopped him before he could push the door open.
“You think I’m crazy for not telling you the whole story, don’t you?” she asked.
“Crazy? No. Not the right word.”
“Counterproductive, then.”
“It’s easier for me if I can see all of the puzzle pieces,” he admitted.
“I’ve been on my own with Cami for her entire life,” she said. “This is—literally—the first time I’ve ever trusted someone to help me with anything that has to do with her. Not because I haven’t needed or wanted it, but because it would put us both at risk. And I want your help. I really do. But it’s hard for me to make a leap this quickly.”
He examined her face. The short but impassioned confession had deepened the flush so that it covered her throat, too. It also made him want to ask a hundred other questions. But her eyes held a guarded hope, and a hint of something else, and he wanted to fulfill both desires—to help and to respect her need for privacy.
“You’re asking me to be patient,” he said slowly.
“Yes.”
“I’ll try, sweetheart. But patience has never been my strongest characteristic, and in my job, it’s hard to sit around waiting.”
“You’re a good cop, aren’t you?” she asked.
“I like to think so.”
“I didn’t mean to say that you’re good at your job...” She trailed off, a hint of pink dotting her cheeks, and her hands flashed, What I meant to say was that you’re a good man.
“I’m not perfect, but I try.”
He reached for the door handle again, but this time it was her hand that stopped him. Her fingers landed on his elbow, and warmth immediately crept up his arm.
“Brooks... Cami isn’t your job,” she reminded him softly. “And neither am I.”
Frustration slipped away at the emphatic statement. He met her eyes and nodded.
“You’re right. You’re definitely not a job.”
He gave her jawbone a light stroke, then slid from the car and hurried to the passenger side to open her door. He swung it wide, and she started to step out. As she moved, though, her boot caught on the rubber seal at the bottom of the door frame, and she fumbled a bit in an attempt to get it free. Automatically, Brooks reached down to help. One hand gripped her boot, and the other landed on the curve of her calf. Try as he might, he couldn’t shake the sudden memory of how that same calf had poked out temptingly from the bedsheet at the hotel room.
Without meaning to, he slid his fingers over it. Maryse let out a little gasp, and he wasn’t sure if it was from the heated contact or from the fact that her foot suddenly came free. When he lifted his eyes, though, he was sure it was at least partially the former. He saw desire—the same pull of attraction he felt—reflected in her gaze.
His hands lingered for another heartbeat before he forced himself to pull away, and he stood and held out his palm for her to take. For a long second, Maryse stared at him without moving.
“I’m okay,” she finally told him.
“You said you wanted my help,” he pointed out.
“I do.”
“So take it.”
She continued to hold still, and Brooks almost pulled his offer of assistance away. Then her hand snaked out and landed in his, the guarded look dropping into a smile.
“Thank you.”
And as he assisted her from the car, Brooks was sure there was something symbolic in the small, simple gesture of trust.