This isn’t happening. There has to be a logical explanation.
The same two thoughts kept running through Elle’s mind, each time followed by an excuse for Katie’s continued absence.
She’s in that little green house over there.
But even from where she stood, Elle could see that a solitary boy in a blue ball cap was the only person seated at the table inside the structure.
She went to the bathroom.
But Katie would never, ever leave without saying something.
The excuses came faster.
She’s playing with those kids under the trees. She joined the baseball game over there. She’s playing hide-and-seek.
With each new theory, Elle swung her gaze and found no evidence to support her idea. Hope was sliding from view. And yet her brain argued. Pleaded. Insisted.
This.
Isn’t.
Happening.
But her body knew the truth. Panic was a wave under her skin. Fear clouded her vision, and her lips tingled with the terrible reality. She swayed. And she braced for a collapse. Her feet, though, were rooted to the spot, as though someone had poured concrete around her shoes.
She knew what she was supposed to be doing. Calling Katie’s name. Then yelling it. Darting through the park. Flipping from mom to mom to mom, asking if they’d seen her. Finally, acknowledging that she really was gone, then calling the police.
Except she couldn’t do any of that. In her head, she could hear a voice, telling her—low and deadly—what would happen. It was his voice—the man she wouldn’t name, even to herself—and the words were seared into her memory.
I’ll find you both, and when I do, I’ll take her. She’s mine. Rightfully. And you’ll have a choice. You can forget her. Leave her. Or you can come looking...and I’ll kill her. A pause. A light crackle on the phone. But not you. You... I’ll leave alive. That way, you’ll always know whose fault it is that she’s dead.
It was the one time in six years that he’d nearly caught up to them. And it was only a phone call. One that came in the middle of the afternoon, right during Katie’s naptime. Elle had answered quickly, hoping that the unexpected interruption wouldn’t wake the little girl in her toddler bed. She’d anticipated a telemarketer or a wrong number. Anything—anyone—but him. The moment she’d heard his voice, she’d wanted to hang up. But she’d needed to know just how close he was to locating them. The relief that all he’d tracked down was her phone number had been a physical thing. So had the realization that she hadn’t been careful enough.
Elle had grabbed two-year-old Katie, the diaper bag, and nothing else. Not her car, nor a single item of clothing. She’d taken the bus. Seventeen hours. And on the long trip, she’d come up with a new plan. Never stay anywhere longer than three months. Cash jobs, burner phones and no community connections. Nothing traceable. And it had worked.
Until now.
Her head swiveled again. A small part of her brain asked if maybe she should do all those things any normal mother would be doing. The yelling. The police. But a bigger part of her knew that his words had been more than a threat. She had the memories to prove it. There was the singular most terrifying one—the time he’d pulled out his knife and slit a man’s throat, right in front of her. And there were the longer-term scars, too. Mental and physical. The poorly healed broken rib. The burn marks under her left arm. The nightmares that she fought on a nightly basis.
Except it wasn’t herself she was really worried about. She’d endured the abuse for years, and while she’d sworn never to be under his thumb again, she knew just how much she could suffer through. It was Katie she cared about. Katie she had to protect.
Oh, God. Katie.
Elle’s throat constricted with fear and worry and all the feelings that hovered under the surface during her day-to-day life. And beside those...the terror that this was her moment of failure. What was she going to do? She truly didn’t know.
She let herself have a moment. She spun, eyes searching the playground for what she knew would turn out to be one more fruitless time. But as she turned in her slow circle, a hand suddenly landed on her arm. It paralyzed her. Not because the grip was hard or rough. If anything, it was gentle. But fright stilled her. And she braced for a threat. A marching order that would undoubtedly lead to her death. And a masculine voice did immediately fill her ear. Only it held a warning instead of a threat.
“You should turn around and pretend you know me,” the strange man said quietly. “Be excited to see me, even. I have a feeling that if you don’t, the gentleman in the car over there—just to your left—is going to follow through on some unpleasant plans for you.” He paused. “If I’m wrong, feel free to kick me in the shins. If I’m right...my name is Noah.”
Elle had no real reason to trust the man attached to the voice. But a quick look to her left told her that he—Noah—was right. About the car, anyway. It was dark colored and out of place.
Is Katie inside?
As soon as she wondered it, Elle knew that the answer was a resounding no. The man who wanted Katie was far too clever for that. Whoever sat in the vehicle was simply there to find her. And to observe her reaction.
Exhaling, she plastered her biggest, most winning smile onto her face. Then she spun, an equally enthusiastic greeting on her tongue.
“Noah! Is that seriously you?” she said. “It feels like it’s been forever!”
She barely had time to process his looks—intimidatingly tall, shaggy, biker-esque hair pulled into a ponytail, and a very attractive, stubble-peppered face—before he yanked her into a thorough hug. He even lifted her off the ground and pressed his lips to her cheekbone.
“Your name?” he murmured.
“Elle,” she whispered back, her voice surprisingly breathless.
“Elle!” he said as he set her down and pulled away. “You look fantastic.”
His eyes did roam over her for a second, but she caught the way they flicked toward the car again before settling on his face. He dragged her in for another hug, his lips brushing her cheek in a second light kiss.
“In case you were wondering... The thing you’re looking for?” he whispered in her ear. “It’s not in that car.”
“Yes,” she breathed back, disturbed to hear Katie referred to as an object, even though she understood that it was a logical precaution. “I figured.”
Noah released her again, his face dominated by a wide smile that didn’t come even close to touching his eyes. “I only have a minute. Work break. But I saw you standing over here, and I couldn’t pass by without saying something. Sit with me to catch up for a few seconds?”
He nodded toward a nearby bench, and as much as Elle wanted to scream that the last thing she wanted to do was to sit still, she nodded. “Sure. I’d love that.”
He guided her to the bench, gestured for her to sit first, then settled in beside her, his denim-clad knee resting against hers as if they knew each other well enough to sit like this often. As he turned his head her way, his mouth stayed easy, his jaw relaxed, his forehead smooth. But when he met her eyes, his near-black irises were so intense that Elle felt physically immobilized by their stare. So, when he leaned forward and brushed back a loose strand of hair from her face, she didn’t move at all. Not even when he stayed so close that she could feel the light heat of his lips as he spoke again.
“I don’t know what the hell’s going on,” he said, his cheerful tone at odds with his words. “And honestly, I don’t want to. But if you’re not going to call the police, I have to assume you have a damn good reason.”
She nodded and managed a smile. “I do.”
“Then here’s what I’ll tell you. Your friend in the car? He’s a lookout of some kind. The person who took your...property...is long gone. Car dude is waiting to see what you’ll do. Understand?”
Every one of his words caused another little stab of fear, but Elle managed—just barely—to hold it in. “Yes.”
“Good. Have you got a phone?”
“Yes,” she repeated.
“Okay,” Noah replied. “You’re going to pretend like I’m giving you my number.”
Elle swallowed, leaned back enough that she could drag out her cell from her pocket, then held out the slim device expectantly. The rough-looking man took it, flipped it his way, and typed into the screen, then handed it back. Elle looked down, and she was surprised to see he’d put an actual phone number into the address book. She’d been anticipating a coded message.
“That’s the number of a friend,” Noah stated. “He’s good at locating stolen property.”
Her pulse jumped, and she bit back another thrum of fright. “Thank you.”
He nodded once, then slung an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, raising his voice as he did it. “It was fantastic seeing you again, Elle. You’ve got my number now. Don’t forget to use it.”
She blinked up at him, hearing the emphasis behind his last statement. And before she could muster up a response—or even a falsely cheerful goodbye—Noah gave her shoulder a squeeze, then turned and strode away, leaving her alone. With no Katie. A strange man watching her from a car. And an insurmountable fear in her heart.
Noah could’ve kicked himself. What was he thinking, violating his own rules like that? The park. The kid. Both a recipe for trouble. That wasn’t even factoring in the fresh-faced woman and her palpable fear. Stupid mistake to jump into what was obviously a complicated personal situation. Probably a custody thing.
Yeah, yeah, said an annoying voice in his head. That’s probably all true. But what’s worse? Breaking your arbitrary rules, or leaving that pretty blonde alone back there?
For a second, her big blue eyes hung at the front of his mind. Oddly haunted. Afraid for her kid. And with no one to help her. Yet somehow trusting, too.
You’re being melodramatic, he told himself. You gave her Kirk’s number, and he’s the best there is in the kid-retrieval business.
Although that wasn’t quite true. Noah’s twin sister, Norah, was the actual best in the business. Hell. She ran a real-life reputable hostage negotiation firm. She often worked closely with the police. Her cases were sometimes worked on behalf of high-profile figures. Celebrities. Politicians. Her success rate was phenomenal, too. She was also pricey, rarely took pro bono work and didn’t do parental rights disputes. Oh, and she hadn’t spoken to Noah in close to a year. All in all, offering a referral her way would probably have done more harm than good.
Didn’t make you help the blonde personally, though, did it?
He scoffed at the self-directed guilt trip. It wasn’t that Noah himself didn’t care what happened to the kid or the kid’s mom. Just the opposite, really. He wanted them to be safe. Hence, the referral. Maybe the man was only second best, but he was still a better option than Noah himself. A bounty hunter was not a lawyer or a family counselor.
“And Kirk does a damn fine job,” he muttered.
The weirdest thing about it, though, was that he felt no relief at having handed off the woman to his acquaintance. Elle. Her name—simple but pretty—rolled over a few times in his head. Pleasantly. Worriedly. Was her kid a boy, or a girl? Was this actually a custody thing? Was she on the run from an ex? And most of all...what kind of jerk was he that he knew what’d happened, yet still took off?
Not my circus, not my monkeys, he insisted as he crossed the road.
Still. He had to walk a little faster to resist the urge to turn back. Determined to shake off the unusual—and unwanted—surge of conscience, he dug his hands into his pockets and focused on forward momentum. He took the next couple of streets at random, hoping that it would give his mind time to settle. Instead, it seemed to have the opposite effect. With no clear destination in mind, his brain churned even harder.
Living by a code mattered to Noah. His morals were sound, even if his chosen career sometimes took him into more gray areas than straight-up black-and-white. It was just that allowing his emotions to overrule his own code opened the door to weakness. Softness. A tendency toward feeling instead of doing. And with all that came something else—a hell of a lot of room for hesitation. Which he didn’t have time for in his work or in his day-to-day existence.
He rolled his shoulders a little, mentally reaffirming that he knew what he’d just done was right. A good deed. After all, he could’ve kept going when he realized what was happening. He could’ve told the woman what he’d seen, then not shared Kirk’s number. He sure as hell came in contact with enough shady characters to know there were many people who would’ve ignored the situation altogether, kid or no kid.
His mind wandered back to Elle, wondering if she still sat where he’d left her, or if she’d moved to a quiet place to make the call. Out of sight of the man in the car. The man in the car. Thinking about him gave Noah another stab of guilt, this one more forceful than the last.
Yeah, Loblaw. That’s because you can tell yourself whatever you want, but inside, you know that any normal dude would’ve made sure the creep wasn’t going after her directly.
Noah tried to brush off the thought as he’d done with all the others he’d had so far. He failed. With a sigh, he stopped abruptly, wondering if it was even possible to win an argument with his own, blunt conscience. He suspected not.
Sure, he wasn’t the blonde’s personal bodyguard. And yeah, whatever was going on with her and her missing kid and her lack of calling the police was really none of his concern. But everyday decency did kind of dictate that he make sure someone wasn’t going to jump out of a car and kill her right then and there, though, didn’t it? Even the minuscule shred of chivalry that Noah considered himself to possess hollered that he ought to have stuck around for a minute or two. So—dropping a curse under his breath—he started to turn around. And he immediately realized he didn’t have to. The random streets he’d traversed hadn’t been quite so random at all. All he’d done was circle to the other side of the park. Like he’d unconsciously known what he’d decide anyway.
Sighing, he swung a look toward the spot where he knew the car should be sitting. He didn’t quite complete the glance, though, because when he swiveled his head, he caught a flash of unidentifiable color disappearing behind a building just a ways up the block. Noah’s spine tingled. It looked as though someone had been following him, seen that he’d been about to catch them, then hidden.
What the hell?
His gut wavered between wanting to duck out of sight and wanting to initiate an angry confrontation. Assuming someone was actually there, and he wasn’t just being paranoid. He held still and waited, his eyes on the now-empty spot, his mind on Elle and the man who’d been watching her. The two things had to be connected. A random tail, right at this moment, would be too coincidental, and while Noah’s job might bring him in contact with unsavory people now and then, he was careful enough that disgruntled clients weren’t an issue.
And that’s what I get for breaking my own rules.
He stared for another few seconds, but the street remained still, and Noah knew he had to make a choice. If someone was following him, they were unlikely to reappear while he watched. Growling wordlessly—and damning his spontaneous decision to approach the blonde in the first place—he opted to steal a quick look at the park. First, he sought the car, and his relief at finding it in the same spot was oddly deep. Next, he brought his attention to the park itself, scanning for the blonde. When he didn’t find her, his heart did an unusual thing—it squeezed hard in his chest with concern. He tried to tamp it down, but the effort only made it spike.
Where was she?
Momentarily forgetting about his own potential stalker, he slowed his perusal of the playground and surrounding area and told himself not to assume the worst. She could’ve taken off in search of her kid. Or maybe found somewhere quiet to call Kirk. Either made sense. Except as he mentally posited the theories, the sudden squeal of tires made him dismiss them altogether.
Crap.
His eyes flicked to the dark-colored sedan just in time to see it peel away. Rules and codes and excuses all disappeared with the taillights. Automatically, Noah’s attention dropped to the license plate, trying to memorize it before the car slipped completely out of sight. He caught only the last three digits, and he took three steps before remembering that he couldn’t chase down a vehicle while on foot. His brain went into analytical mode, slamming quickly through his options, and dismissing them twice as fast as they came. The first and only one that stuck was to call a business associate who had an uncanny ability to digitally stalk vehicles. The man came with a hefty price tag, though, and was questionable as hell in the ethics department.
Only option, Noah thought grimly.
He dragged his phone from his pocket, spun with the intention of placing the call and making his way home—where his resources were—at the same time. Except the turn yielded him another flash of moving color. His stalker was still there. Closer, even.
Unusual tension rolled through Noah. He was accustomed to being in control. Now he had a missing woman, missing kid and missing car. Someone was tailing him, and he genuinely didn’t know which thing to shove to the top of his priority list.
“Seriously,” he muttered. “I don’t have time for this garbage.”
A voice on the other end of the phone spoke up then, making him jump.
“You called me, man,” said his acquaintance. “No need to be so salty.”
Noah grunted and started to pass off the call as a pocket dial, but then changed his mind. “Sorry, Spud. It’s Loblaw here.”
“Yeah, man. I know who it is. I have call display. Like about six billion other people.”
“Funny. You got time for a quick trace with a partial plate?”
“No such thing as a quick trace with a partial.”
Noah gritted his teeth. “How much?”
“How fast you want it?” the other man replied.
“Fast.” He didn’t mention the woman or her kid; it would only drive up the price.
The other man paused, then said, “Double my standard fee.”
Noah wanted to ask if he really expected to get that much, but Elle’s blue eyes filled his mind again, and he opted for not quibbling. “Fine. I’ll pay you in the usual way. But I’m gonna need to do it post job this time.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Time’s ticking by, Spud.”
There was another pause. “Triple.”
“Holy—Fine.” Noah ran his finger over his stubble and did his best to keep his voice level. “I need GPS coordinates pinged to this phone. Preferably.”
“I’m not a flipping magician.”
“You saying you’re incapable?” When he got no reply but a grunt, he continued. “Dark sedan. No make or model markings. Last three numbers are four-five-nine.”
“That’s all you’re gonna give me? You can’t be—”
Noah tapped the phone off before the other man could finish—and before he could ask for quadruple his rate—then pocketed the device. It wasn’t an ideal situation, and he far would’ve preferred to have gone after the car and the woman himself. But he was sure Spud would come through. He always had in the past. Knowing that a small bit of reassurance was in place, Noah narrowed his eyes in the direction of the flash of movement. Whoever was following him could probably answer a question or two about the rest of what was going on. It’d give him something to focus on, too, while he waited for Spud.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s see if you can outmaneuver me.”
He spun quickly, darted a quick look back and forth, then jogged across the road. Once on the other side, he pivoted again, and took off to his left. He passed two squat houses, then cut up a path that acted as a shortcut to the next block. Picking up his pace, he hurried past another three homes, around a corner, then straight through a yard.
Noah wasn’t being particularly stealthy, but he wasn’t being elephant-esque, either. Too-subtle movements might mean losing the stalker for real. Too-obvious ones would give away his game.
He kept going for a short while longer. Up the alley behind the yard. Between a truck and a camper van. Around a large shrub. Finally, he paused behind a six-foot fence, ducked down, and waited. It took only a few seconds before the light tap of approaching feet hit his ears.
He tensed as they got closer. He prepared for a fight. Except when the person following him rounded the wooden slats, it wasn’t the hooded bandit he’d pictured. Instead, a petite body slammed into his chest, and a blond ponytail whacked him straight in face.