Dancing with Detective Danger (19 page)

“I knocked.”

“I guess I was busy working,” she offered, nervously running her hand through her hair. Feeling raw, she tried to shield her eyes from his probing look.

“Are you all right, Sterling?” Ben rounded her desk to sit on its top, too close. He stroked a lock of hair back from her face, sending her heart fluttering at the touch of his skin. His twilight-warm eyes beckoned her to trust him with her heartache. “Why are you sitting here in the darkness?”

“I’ve just been thinking.” Ben’s beard was a dark stubble on his chiseled cheeks, and Sterling guessed he’d put in a long day, too. “You’re here on business, aren’t you.”

Eyeing her carefully, Ben let his hand linger on her shoulder. “I figured I’d find you here. Your apartment is a mess. You wouldn’t want to bother Lacey, and you’re a workaholic. It was an easy guess. But you haven’t answered my question. Are you all right?”

Why did he have to always put her on the spot? “I’m fine. What do you want?”

Ben seemed to sense she wasn’t going to let him inside her deepest thoughts. His eyes went dark and he let his hand drop from her shoulder.

“I want to talk sense into you. Trust me, Sterling. Let me set up a tap on this phone. Let the police handle this. You can’t beat these guys alone.”

Sterling sat silent, listening to the muffled sounds of the street below. The immense weight of everything she’d been fighting during the last fourteen years bore ruthlessly down on her. “I am not going to let these bastards win. And I don’t want you or anyone else getting in my way.”

“They’ve contacted you, haven’t they?” On his feet, Ben stared down at Sterling, daring her to hide the truth.

She couldn’t look away. “Yes. They’re going to call tomorrow morning with instructions for exchanging Tyler for the key and the memory card.”

Ben pulled Sterling to her feet. “You’ve got to let me help you, Sterling. What are you afraid of?”

Stunned, Sterling felt Ben’s words reverberate through her back to the time her father asked the same question. Her eyes locked to his, she stood unable to make a sound. Her knees wobbled and she struggled to make sense of the moment.

Drawing her into his arms, Ben rubbed his cheek against her hair. “You’re in a pretty tough place, aren’t you?”

Reluctantly resting against his solid chest, Sterling let the beating of his heart soothe her frazzled nerves.

Ben was so right, but that didn’t mean she would back away. “You can stay if you want, but you have to promise to let me handle this case my way. It’s the way it has to be.”

“You’re asking a lot, you know. It could mean my badge,” he answered, still holding her close.

“It’s something I have to do on my own. If anything happens and the police are responsible, well, I could never forgive myself.”

“When is it going to be enough, Sterling? When are you going to stop living in the past and stop being afraid? You can’t let fear shape your life.” Holding her at arm’s length, his eyes begged for so much more than an answer and Sterling’s heart beat savagely in her chest in response.

But she couldn’t muster a reasonable answer. Gathering her senses back under her reins, she stepped out of his arms. “Do we have an understanding?”

Ben ran his hand through his thick, dark locks and sighed. “God, you’re a tough one. Have it your way. But I’m staying right here tonight.”

• • •

Exactly how it happened, she wasn’t quite clear about, but sometime during the endless night, Sterling ended up with her head resting in Ben’s lap. Rousing herself from a shallow sleep, she stretched and gazed up into his deeply blue eyes. For a moment, tenderness washed over her responding to the rich sincerity that lived there.

Then it struck her and her heart clenched. Tyler’s life rested in her hands.

“I guess I dozed off,” she managed. “Sorry. What time is it?” Stiff from her cramped sleep on the couch, Sterling slowly pulled herself together and withdraw from the intimate space she so readily fell into around Ben. She couldn’t let anything dilute her focus.

“It’s nearly eight, and there’s nothing to be sorry about,” Ben answered, idly scratching his head. “I dozed off, too, for a while. Got anything to eat around here?”

“There might be some crackers out there in the coffee area.” Sterling stretched and walked to her desk. Eating was the last thing on her mind. Every muscle, every cell, perched in anticipation of a ringing phone.

Ben, intent on making coffee, nodded to Lacey as she passed him on her way through the outer office door.

Sterling’s heart wrenched at the sight of Lacey’s red and swollen eyes. “It’s going to be all right,” she assured her sister.

“I’m scared, Sterling. I just keep thinking of Tyler with those awful people.” Lacey’s voice broke and she sunk into the couch. She drew in a breath and let it out slowly. “But I’m okay. I have confidence in you. And you’re right, everything will be okay.”

Sterling looked at her watch, then up at the clock. Nine o’clock would come. She would deal with the creeps. Nothing could keep her from bringing Tyler back. She was a well-trained professional and she had everything to lose. That made a formidable combination that would ensure she would kick butt.

Sterling drummed her fingers nervously on the wooden desk, sounds of the coffeemaker so casually making coffee in the other room. If only she could feel more hope and less pain. It threatened to eat away at her, like a rat gnawing on a raveled piece of twine.

Without warning, Sterling caught a sense of Ben’s intense presence, and she looked up to see him saunter back into her office. His eyes seized her gaze for a brief, suspended moment. Solid and assured, he not only drove her to madness, he comforted her. The thing he offered, without knowing, asked her to yield the walled-off places in her heart and soul to the gentleness of something that would sustain and fill her.

The shrill jangle of the phone sliced through the air and Sterling reached to answer it.

“Hello.”

“Ms. Aegar, are you ready?”

“I am.” Jerry’s voice made her skin crawl, but he didn’t scare her. It was the other man she worried most would harm little Tyler.

“Get in your car and drive to the corner of Oak and Maple. Come alone.”

There was no time for questions, with only the sound of the dial tone abruptly humming in Sterling’s ear.

She steadied her racing heart with a long breath.

“I can come with you,” Ben offered, regarding her with the devotion of a truly trusted friend.

“No, you can’t.”

His gaze never faltering told her he understood in a way only he could. “You know I’ll be right here. All you have to do is call me.”

• • •

Sterling parked her car in a nearly empty parking lot lined with small shops and looked around for something to clue her of her next instructions. Surely it would become obvious what she should do next. Perhaps a car would pull up beside her and one of the men would walk up.

But there was nothing. No sleazy scumbags, no Tyler, nothing glaring out a message telling her what to do.

Subtle signs of the day’s beginning popped up around her as shopkeepers opened their shops for the day. A jogger and his dog ran past her car. It struck a surreal note in Sterling’s head. Such an ordinary-appearing day continued around her, yet she felt as though she stood on the brink of Hell.

A Monarch butterfly fluttered past the car window and landed on the windshield. So close to Sterling’s eyes that she could see subtle variations of shades in the vivid black and orange wings, the butterfly accepted the warmth of the morning sun. With the next gentle breeze the butterfly lifted off and darted gracefully away, leaving a longing for such simple trust straining inside Sterling. The contrast between the effortless tranquility of the butterfly and the chaos Sterling faced seemed so glaringly sharp she felt it like a knife in her gut.

Doubts triggered questions. Could there be another way?

From the corner of the strip mall a faint jangle of a pay telephone sent Sterling bolting from her car and racing across the parking lot.

“I’m here,” she answered, gasping.

“Do you have my articles?” Jerry asked.

“Of course. Where’s my nephew?”

“Drive to the corner of Pine and Poplar. You’ve got ten minutes.”

“Wait, I don’t know if I can make it in ten minutes.”

“Then you better get started, Ms. Aegar.”

Leaving the phone dangling, Sterling tried to put all thoughts of what could go wrong out of her mind as she headed her car out of town toward the spot Jerry directed.

What are you afraid of, Sterling? When you know the answer to that, everything will fall into place.

Her dad’s words came back to her, ringing inside her head like an alarm clock. Was she making a giant mistake with Tyler’s life? Sterling feared police involvement would endanger his life, but was this all just a misguided effort to prove herself, to maintain the illusion of control? Why was that so important?

As the blocks whirred by her car window, Sterling dared herself to let the truth filter in.

What are you afraid of, Sterling?

Why did she so fear letting Ben help? Was she afraid of letting her father down? Afraid of being less than perfect? Afraid of failure? Afraid there was no one to trust, to count on? Was she as afraid of having love as losing it? Was her fear of letting Ben close really just blocking her from making sound judgments?

Too many questions and too many unknowns.
Get out of your head, Sterling. Focus.

Sterling slowed her breathing and realized that she knew something was wrong. She’d lost control of the situation, a huge problem. They were leading her out of town and getting her alone. Shaking, Sterling grabbed her cell phone and quickly punched in the numbers to her office. With one ring, Ben was on the other end.

“What it is, Sterling?”

“I don’t know, Ben. Something’s not right, I can feel it. I need you with me.”

“Tell me where, and I will be there.”

“We’ve got to be discreet, you know. They’re expecting me at the corner of Pine and Poplar any minute.”

“Trust me. You won’t see me, but I’ll be there. Just in case. And if you need me to show, just whistle. You can whistle, right?”

“I can whistle.” The tightness in her throat eased a bit, and she could even smile a little at his attempt to lighten up things.

“I’m on my way. And Sterling … ”

“Yeah?”

“Tyler is going to be okay. I promise you. We’ll handle these sleazebags and Tyler will be okay.”

Dropping her phone to the car seat, Sterling felt the rightness of reaching out to Ben. She breathed a silent prayer.
Thanks, Dad.

Maybe she didn’t know the answer to her dad’s question yet, but he’d given her something to hang onto in a moment when fear nearly denied her of right thinking.

Approaching the designated intersection, Sterling scanned the surroundings for a clue to what would happen next. Although located nearly on the outskirts of town, the area bustled with activity from shops and apartment complexes.

And this time there was no mistaking where she would find the slime bags. Her stomach tightened painfully. The sight of her nephew standing in the parking area flanked by Rutherford and Cummings was practically more than Sterling could bear.

Sterling pulled into a spillover parking lot across the street, and threw open the car door.

“Tyler!” Separating her nephew from his captors was the first order of business.

“Aunt Sterling!” Tyler tried to pull free of the man holding his small arm.

“It’s all right, Tyler.” Slowly approaching the group, Sterling fingered the key and memory card inside her pocket and let her strategy unfold inside of her. “Let him go, Cummings.”

“Do you have my things?” the surly man hollered from across the narrow street.

“What do you think?” Longing to reach out and grab Tyler to her, Sterling knew she had to play the scum’s insane game, at least a little longer.

“I think you’d better hand them over,” Cummings ordered, tightening his grip on Tyler.

“Not until I know Tyler is safe.”
Ben, are you here?

“What makes you think you can order me around? You forget, we have the kid.” Angrily, Cummings stepped closer, dragging Tyler with him.

Her heart pounding loudly inside her head, Sterling took a step, then another, noting the sparse traffic traveling the road. “And I have what you need to get your money. Want it?” Dangling the items in the air, Sterling lifted her fingers to her lips and let out a shrill whistle. “Then go fetch!” she hollered, pitching the key and memory card inside the day planner with all her might toward the road that separated her from Tyler.

“You bitch!” Cummings cursed, lunging for her as Jerry raced to the road.

“Run, Tyler, run!” Sterling screamed.

Suddenly Ben was there, breaking from behind a billboard to Sterling’s right. “Here, Tyler!” Ben motioned to the little boy while sprinting toward him and dodging traffic.

Tyler used Sterling’s distraction to stomp on Cummings’s toes, break away, and run toward Ben. Frozen, Sterling watched in the split seconds it took for the two to meet. Ben protectively wrapped his arms around Tyler and pulled him to safety back on the side of the road.

Relief welled inside Sterling, blocking out all else.

Piercing pain tore at her arm. It was Cummings, wrenching her arm behind her back and pulling her across the street toward his car. Sterling’s eyes locked with Ben’s, his face drenched in pain and anger.

“You’ve got what you want, now let her go,” Ben commanded, eyeing Jerry, who had avoided oncoming cars to retrieve the key, day planner, and memory card from the pavement and now stood back beside Cummings.

“It’s not that simple, and you know it,” Cummings yelled, yanking harder on Sterling’s arm. “What’s to say you won’t come after us if I let her go?”

The smug tone of the man’s voice enraged Sterling. She kicked at his shins and tried to twist free, but it only made him tug harder on her arm.

“I’ve got what I want. The little boy,” Ben said. “You let her go and I’m through with you.”