Dashing out my front door, I caught up to Kane just as he was opening the driver’s door of his black Expedition.
“Wait,” I panted. “Where are you going?”
“Calgary.” He swung into the driver’s seat.
“Whoa, hang on!” I wedged myself into the opening before he could swing the door shut. “Are you okay to drive?”
“I’ve only had two beers over the last couple of hours. I’m not impaired.”
I hadn’t been referring to his blood-alcohol levels, but he looked ready to peel out of there with me clinging to his door handle so I didn’t press the point.
“Okay.” I eyed him worriedly. “I’m coming along. If I go around to the passenger’s side, will you promise to let me in? Or do I need to crawl over top of you from here?”
The grim lines eased a fraction from his face and he pressed the lock release. “Go around. I promise to let you in.”
“Thanks.” I circled around the front of the vehicle just in case, but I made it into the passenger’s seat without incident and he even waited for me to do up my seatbelt before stepping on the gas.
When we reached the highway a few minutes later, he accelerated to just over the speed limit before activating the cruise control. He usually drove without it, but I guessed he didn’t trust himself today. His knuckles glowed white on the steering wheel.
I reached over to brush my fingertips lightly over the back of his hand. “Try to relax a bit. If you do that for the next two hours you won’t be able to feel your hands by the time we get there.”
He grunted assent and loosened his grip, then added, “Would you please call Hellhound? Put him on speaker.”
I extracted my cell phone from my waist pouch and dialled, and a few moments later Hellhound’s cheerful rasp filled the cab. “Hey, Aydan, how ya doin’? How’s the party?”
“Hi, Arnie.” I glanced at Kane’s rigid face and decided not to waste time on pleasantries. “I’m fine, but we have a situation. John and I are on our way to Calgary. I’ve got you on speaker so we can all talk.”
“Shit, what’s wrong?”
The muscles in Kane’s jaw rippled as though he was working to control his voice. “Do you know where Alicia is living now?”
A short pause. “Nah,” Hellhound said cautiously. “Why?”
“Can you find out?”
“Well, sure, it ain’t rocket science. But why d’ya wanna know? Thought ya didn’t wanna have anythin’ to do with her.”
“Get me her address and phone number. I’ll pay your usual P.I. rates.”
“The hell ya will,” Hellhound growled. “Ya don’t hafta fuckin’ pay me. But, Cap…” He hesitated. “Sorry, I gotta know what’s goin’ on.”
“I just found out she was pregnant when she divorced me.” Kane’s voice was tight with pain or anger, or probably both. “I have a six-year-old son. He was abducted today. I wouldn’t have known at all, except that the RCMP just finished questioning me.”
“What the everlovin’ fuck?” Hellhound demanded, his gravelly voice rising to an incredulous shout.
“I have to talk to her,” Kane ground out. “I have to see her. Find out… The fertility specialist said it was impossible. But…” His fists were clenched on the wheel again. “The police showed me a photo. He looks just like me. And she named him Daniel Wyatt…” His voice choked off and he swallowed audibly.
“Fuck,” Hellhound repeated.
“She must be lying.” Kane swallowed again. “Or the police got it wrong. It just can’t be. The specialist said it couldn’t happen.”
My heart clutched. I knew he wasn’t denying it because he didn’t want a child. He just didn’t dare to hope.
Hellhound hesitated. “I dunno about that, Cap. Remember when we were sittin’ in the bar after her last appointment? Ya said to me, ‘The specialist said it would be practically impossible for Alicia to get pregnant. He suggested we consider adoption. It’s over, Arnie; that was our last hope’. But it was you that said ‘no hope’, not the doc. ‘Practically impossible’ ain’t the same thing.”
Kane’s lips twisted in a parody of a smile. “You and your photographic memory. If you say that’s what I said, I believe you. So maybe I really do have a son.” His jaw muscles rippled. “If he hasn’t already been killed by the scumbag who abducted him. Find Alicia. Call me as soon as you have anything. If we get to Calgary before we hear from you, we’ll come to your place.”
“I’m on it.” Hellhound’s rasp softened. “Hang in there, Cap. Think good thoughts.”
He disconnected, and I stowed my phone again before reaching over to massage Kane’s neck. His muscles felt like iron under my touch.
“Try to relax a bit,” I urged. “Tensing up like this won’t help anyone, least of all you.”
Kane hissed out a breath between his teeth. “I know.” He shook his head as if trying to rid himself of dark thoughts. “I know better. I’ve been in situations like this before. I should be able to…”
He trailed off, and I said softly, “Maybe not exactly like this.”
He blew out another breath. “Not exactly.”
I kept rubbing in silence and after a while his muscles softened, probably due more to his own efforts to relax than to my ineffectual one-handed massage.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I inquired after a half-hour of silent driving. “It sounded as though his name is significant to you. Is he named after your brother?”
Kane spared me a glance before returning his attention to the highway. “Yes.”
I thought he was going to fall silent again, but he added, “We were just starting to talk about having a family when Daniel was killed. We agreed that if our first baby was a boy, we’d name him Daniel.”
“And Wyatt is your middle name, isn’t it?” I prompted.
“Yes.”
Silence fell again.
After several miles Kane spoke as though our conversation had never lapsed. “So either she was honouring my wishes… or she was deliberately taunting me.”
“She couldn’t have been trying to hurt you.” I sent up a silent prayer that it would be true. “If she wanted to taunt you she would have told you about him.”
“Maybe.”
“Was she, um…” I wasn’t quite sure how to phrase the question. “Was your split, um… amicable? I mean, I know it’s never easy, but…”
“Did she hate me that much?” Kane stared bleakly out the windshield. “I didn’t think so, but obviously I was wrong.” He barked out a mirthless laugh. “I guess my first hint should have been the way she slapped me with the divorce papers.”
“Well, yeah, divorce papers are usually a bad sign…”
“No, I meant her timing.” He stared straight ahead, his jaw working for a moment before he spoke again. “Maybe you thought it was odd that I remember the exact date and time.”
“Um, well… I guess that kind of thing is… um… memorable…” I fumbled, trying for tact.
“You could say so,” he said bitterly. “Do you remember the armed standoff in 2004 where ten hostages were killed? It started on June twentieth.”
I nodded, my heart sinking with recognition. “I remember, but I’d forgotten the exact date.”
“I was with the Emergency Response unit at the time,” he went on. “A gunman held fifteen people hostage in a bank. We tried to negotiate…”
“…but he wasn’t interested in negotiating, was he?” I finished. “He just wanted the media attention.”
“Yes. He played us like a cat with mice.” Kane spat the words with disgust. “He killed a hostage every four hours. Each time he made a demand before the killing, but it didn’t matter whether we complied with his demands or not. Six innocent people and the police negotiator were dead before we realized he was going to kill all the hostages anyway. So we had to take a chance on collateral damage when we stormed the building.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “I remember. That was a horrible no-win situation. He murdered four more and wounded the rest before the team killed him.”
“Yes.” Kane stared into the past, his shoulders bunched, hands clenched on the wheel.
When he didn’t go on, I murmured, “So it was a bad time to get hit with divorce papers.”
His face twisted. “We had been arguing when my pager went off. When I started with the RCMP I was assigned to remote areas. Alicia hated small-town living, so after a few years I transferred to the Emergency Response Team based in Calgary. But I had only been with the ERT six months and she was already nagging me to quit. I was angry because she was the reason I’d transferred in the first place, but she said she spent all her time worrying that I’d be killed and accused me of never being there for her. But when the pager went off, I had to go.”
He swallowed. “I was gone for forty-eight hours. No sleep. Running on pure adrenaline. Finally I got home. The blood of innocents on my clothes. On my conscience. Staggered up the front steps and she met me at the door. She’d packed my clothes into suitcases. She slapped the papers against my chest and said, ‘You’re never here anyway. Don’t be here when I get back.’ Then she turned and walked away. Got in her car and drove away. That was the last time I saw her.”
He let out a breath. “Four-fifteen on June twenty-second. Two hours after the last bullet was fired, my marriage died.”
My throat closed. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered.
Kane twitched his shoulders. “We had been having problems for quite a while. It was bad timing, that’s all.” We rode in silence for a few more moments before he spoke again. “Aydan… thank you.” His hand slid over to clasp mine. “It means a lot to have you in my corner at a time like this.”
I squeezed his hand. “What are friends for?”
My phone rang, and I snatched it out of my waist pouch and glanced at the call display before punching the Talk button and activating the speaker. “Hi, Arnie, that was quick. I’ve got you on speaker again.”
“Thanks, darlin’,” he began, but Kane interrupted.
“Did you find her?”
“Hell, yeah. Easy. She’s still livin’ at your old place. Same phone number, too.”
Kane let out a breath. “Good. Thank you.”
“No problem. How ‘bout if I head over there an’ see if she’s home-”
“No,” Kane interrupted. “I don’t want her to know I’m coming.”
“I could put on my Al Hamlin disguise,” Hellhound suggested. “Cruise past, make sure she’s there, maybe set up a little surveillance-”
“No,” Kane repeated. “The police will be there and I don’t want to take a chance. I’ll call you when we’re at the edge of town and you can meet us over there.” He hesitated. “…if you have time…?”
“Fuck, Cap, ya don’t hafta ask. Anythin’ ya need, I’m there.”
When the outskirts of Calgary came into view after another hour of silent driving, Kane spoke at last.
“Would you please call Hellhound again? Tell him we’ll meet him a block west of the house in forty-five minutes.”
“Sure.” I pulled out my phone and dialled.
The conversation was short, and after making the arrangements I disconnected and tucked my phone away again. Casting a sidelong glance at Kane’s rigid form in the driver’s seat, I cleared my throat and tried for a neutral tone.
“So, um… what do you plan to do when you get there?”
“I don’t know.” His jaw muscles bulged and his next words ground out between his teeth. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say to her. I can’t…” He broke off with a hissing exhalation. “What the hell’s wrong with me, Aydan? I’m an experienced agent. I should be able to handle this.”
Sympathy constricted my throat. “It’s nothing to do with your competence as an agent. You’re a dad who’s just found out his child is missing. There’s no way to turn that off.”
“A dad,” he repeated bitterly. “I’m not a dad. I’m just a sperm donor.”
“John…”
“It doesn’t matter,” he interrupted. “I have to let that go and stay focused.” He shot me a single tortured glance before returning his gaze to the road. “My son’s… Daniel’s life might depend on it.”
“No, you don’t have to.” When he shook his head and clenched his jaw, I reached over to grip his forearm and spoke more forcefully. “John, listen to me. This is not your case. The RCMP warned you off. Stemp warned you off. They’re right; you’re too close to it. And you weren’t even back to active duty yet so you shouldn’t be involved regardless. Talk to Alicia if you need to, but stay out of the investigation.”
“Don’t tell me that,” he said flatly. “If it was your child…”
I sighed. “Yeah, I know, I’d be in there like a dirty shirt. But you’re a professional. You know better.”
“So do you.” Kane’s lips twisted in a humourless smile. “And it wouldn’t stop you for an instant.”
“But…”
I racked my brain for some useful rebuttal and came up empty. I couldn’t preach from any moral high ground. He knew me too well.
We drove the remainder of the trip in silence while the fading sunset drained the western sky to black.