Deceived (Private Justice Book #3): A Novel (11 page)

She stopped, blew out a lungful of air, and combed her fingers through her hair. All of that might be true—but if she was honest with herself, Connor’s motives weren’t the main reason for her agitation.

Her own reaction was the culprit.

The fact was, she liked the man. Found him attractive. Hoped his visit tonight was prompted by more than Phoenix standard operating procedures.

All of which made her uncomfortable.

No matter what Pauline said, she wasn’t ready to feel . . . tingly . . . about someone new. And until she was, she’d have to play this calm and cool.

Too bad she had no idea how to do that.

The sudden chime of the doorbell echoed in the quiet condo, and her heart stumbled—as if to prove her point.

Forcing herself to suck in a few deep breaths, she crossed to the foyer, peered through the peephole . . . and stared.

Dressed once again in snug jeans and a chest-hugging black T-shirt, Connor radiated magnetism even through the closed door. The sprinkling of black hair on his muscled forearms, his intense dark eyes, and that chiseled jaw didn’t hurt, either.

Get a
grip, Kate. Pretend this is purely a business meeting.

Right.

Grasping the knob, she exhaled, swallowed, and pulled the door open.

In greeting, Connor held up two cups bearing a familiar mermaid logo, each topped with whipped cream and capped with a plastic dome. “I come bearing gifts—which are melting as we speak.”

Smiling, she moved aside and ushered him in. “The perfect antidote to a hot day.”

“Since I didn’t know your preference, I brought a strawberry and a chocolate chip. I’m fine with either, so take your pick.”

After locking the door, she turned back to him. “I like both too.”

“I guess we’re easy to please.” He handed her the drinks and fished a coin out of his pocket. “Heads or tails?”

“Tails.”

He flipped the coin. “Tails gets chocolate.”

They both bent to examine the penny as it came to rest, and as she caught a whiff of that subtle, masculine aftershave he favored, she actually felt dizzy.

This was ridiculous

Standing, she handed him the strawberry and took a swift step back. “I guess I get all the calories.”

“Trust me, frappuccinos are equal opportunity when it comes to nutrition—or lack thereof.” He fished two straws out of his back pocket and handed one over, pinning her with an assessing look. “You doing okay?”

Hardly. Not when his mere presence was setting off an
electrical storm inside her to match the one Mother Nature was brewing outside.

But he was talking about her chore for the evening, and on that score, at least, she could give him an honest answer.

“I’m hanging in.” She brushed past him toward the dining room, leaving him to follow—and buying herself a few seconds to try and suppress the flush on her cheeks before she had to face him again. “But after you called, I decided to wait until you got here to start on the albums.”

“Good. Reviewing the pictures together should make the job easier.” He took a few moments to peruse the contemporary furnishings in her vaulted-ceilinged unit before joining her in the dining area. “Nice condo.”

She set her drink on the table and tore the paper from her straw. “Thanks. But I have to admit it’s never felt much like home. Probably because I sold most of the furnishings from my previous house before I moved, except for a few sentimental pieces. The therapist I went to for a while thought it would be healthier for me to start fresh.”

He freed his own straw and refocused on her. “How long were you in therapy?”

“Not long enough, according to both the therapist and my mother.” She poked her straw into the hole at the top of the plastic dome, giving her an excuse to look away from his probing eyes. “They both thought I was a mess—and they were right.”

“You had reason to be.”

At his quiet comment, she looked back up at him—and as the gentle compassion radiating from his eyes washed over her, she was blindsided by the sudden fierce pressure behind her own.

No!

She was not going to cry!

Crying didn’t change a thing.

“Some people would have handled it better than I did.” To her
dismay, the words she tried to make casual and conversational came out shaky. Maybe he wouldn’t notice.

His assessing expression dashed that hope. “Anyone in particular?”

Might as well be honest. This was a man who was used to delving for the truth.

She picked up her drink and played with the straw, creating swirls in the whipped cream. “My mother, for one. My dad was killed on a construction site when I was eighteen, and she didn’t miss a beat. She did her grieving, reorganized her life, moved on, and never looked back. She didn’t believe in lamenting about things that couldn’t be changed.”

Connor lifted his own drink as he studied her. “Some people feel more deeply than others. And I don’t consider that a liability. In fact, those people tend to be even stronger. They have to be in order to survive.”

Once again, pressure built behind her eyes. There was nothing he could have said to endear himself more to her than those few sentences.

Not trusting her voice, she took a sip of her drink before she responded. “I’d like to believe that—but I wasn’t very strong in the beginning . . . and I made some bad decisions.”

Dare she tell him about her biggest lapse in judgment? Would he revise his assessment of her if he knew just how weak she’d been?

“We all make bad decisions.” A flicker of pain rippled across his face, come and gone so fast she wondered if she’d imagined it. “In your case, you had an excuse. Thinking processes can be compromised by trauma. And the fact you’re standing here today, a fully functioning individual, tells me you’ve overcome whatever mistakes you think you made. Which I doubt were as bad as you seem to think they were.”

The perfect opening to spill her secret—if she had the courage to take it.

She gestured to the table, stalling as she weighed the pros and cons of baring her soul to this man she’d known for mere days. “Please, have a seat.”

In silence, he complied. Waiting. Giving her the time she needed to decide how much she was willing to share.

Sliding into her chair, she looked into his eyes, listened to her heart—and made her decision.

“You’re wrong about the magnitude of my mistake. It was huge—and very foolish.” Her words were steadier than she’d expected, rippled only by the barest of tremors.

He tipped his head but remained silent as he watched her.

She forced herself to maintain eye contact. “I used Valium. Too much of it. And I got hooked—big-time.”

His expression didn’t change. No disgust flattened his features. No disdain curled his lips. No condemnation crept into his eyes; just the opposite. If anything, they softened.

Or maybe she was seeing what she wanted to see.

Except his next words proved otherwise.

“I stand by what I said earlier. Breaking an addiction takes an enormous amount of strength.”

She traced a bead of sweat down the side of her cup with her fingertip, not as willing to forgive herself as he was. “I shouldn’t have gotten addicted in the first place.”

“I’m sure that wasn’t your intent.”

“No.” She took a sip of her drink, letting the sweetness dissolve on her tongue. But even the rich chocolate flavor couldn’t overcome the sour taste stirred up by the memories of those awful months. “In the beginning, I only planned to take enough to help me sleep at night. But as I later learned, tolerance to Valium builds quickly, and before long I needed fifteen milligrams instead of five. That went on for six months, and by then, if I missed a dose, I’d feel ill and shaky. That’s when I realized I was in trouble.”

“Did you get help?”

She inspected her drink. The whipped cream had deflated—along with her spirits. “No. I should have, but I was too embarrassed. My parents had raised me to be strong, to stand on my own two feet, and instead I’d turned to drugs to help me get through a rough time. I didn’t even tell my grief counselor. I just read everything I could find on Valium addiction and weaned myself off of it over the next few months.”

Connor frowned. “That can’t have been easy.”

“It was hell.” The words came out broken, and she took a few seconds to regain control. “From my research, I knew what to expect. Stomach cramps. Sweating. Tremors. Anxiety. Insomnia. Plus a lot of other bad things. But I was determined to overcome the dependence, and gradually, things did begin to improve—as did my outlook. I also made the decision to go back to work, and began looking for a job.”

“How did you end up in St. Louis?” He finished his drink, set it aside, and linked his fingers on the table.

She shrugged. “My best friend in college grew up here. I came home with her on a couple of spring breaks and liked the city. It seemed as good a place as any to make a fresh start.”

“Has it been?”

“Until the past two weeks.” She rubbed the spot above the bridge of her nose where a faint headache was beginning to pound. “It’s strange. I thought I was done with trauma. That I’d finally moved on, created a new normal. And then I have a chance encounter with a little boy that plunges me back into craziness. I’m trying hard to believe there’s a purpose in this, but most of the time it feels like a cruel joke.”

“Or an amazing opportunity.”

She lowered her hand from her forehead and scrutinized him. “Are you suggesting that . . . I mean, have you changed your opinion about this being a wild-goose chase?”

“I never said that.”

“I know. You were very discreet. But even I thought that at the beginning. You had to have had serious doubts too.”

“I did—and still do—but I also have an open mind. Not all coincidences are random—and miracles do happen. Until we make a positive ID on that boy, I’m not writing off any possibility. So . . .” He gestured to the scrapbooks. “Where do we start?”

Feeling more upbeat than she had since the day he’d taken her case, Kate pulled Kevin’s baby book toward her. The one she’d buried deepest in her closet. The one she’d been afraid to open for fear the glue on her carefully patched-together world would dissolve, leaving her as shattered as she’d been the day her son was declared dead.

But somehow she had a feeling Connor wouldn’t let that happen. That he’d step in and hold her together if she started to fall apart.

And while she might be more resilient than she’d once thought, she had to admit the notion of being held in those strong, capable arms was very, very appealing—no matter the burden of guilt that admission dumped on her shoulders.

E
xcellent.

Greg Sanders and the little boy were back at the daycare center right on schedule Tuesday morning.

Adjusting his binoculars, Connor watched their body language as they walked from the car to the entrance.

Sanders was attentive to the boy. He took his hand as they crossed the busy parking lot, shortening his stride to match the youngster’s. He looked down when the boy tipped his head up to speak, giving the child his full attention. Once on the sidewalk in front of the center, he tousled the boy’s hair and put his arm around his shoulders, tugging him close as they walked.

The boy appeared happy too, as he trotted along beside Sanders. His expression was animated, he gestured freely, he laughed often. And when the man bent down to hug him, he returned the embrace.

The love between the two of them was almost palpable.

As they entered the daycare center, Connor lowered his binoculars, frowned, and tapped a finger against the steering wheel. Cases involving children were never easy. Even when the outcome was positive, someone always got hurt. Often
the child suffered most . . . especially if he or she became the pawn in a custody battle.

That wasn’t the case here—but if by some chance this boy did turn out to be Kate’s son, his world was about to be disrupted. Again.

Sanders reappeared, and Connor watched him as he returned to his truck.

Interesting.

The man’s demeanor had done a 180. The smile was gone, and his posture was more taut. As if he was worried.

Had there been a problem during the drop-off—or might his anxiety be related to his encounter with a blonde-haired woman on a mall escalator? The one he’d been keeping tabs on over his shoulder as he’d hurried the little boy toward the parking garage a week ago Friday? Or
appeared
to be keeping tabs on. The evidence to support that conclusion was circumstantial at best, but his behavior that day had been consistent with someone running from a perceived threat.

As Sanders climbed into his truck, Connor started the engine. Time to find out where the man worked.

Forty minutes later, after tailing him to St. Charles County, Connor stopped half a block away as Sanders pulled into a subdivision in the early stages of construction. While he watched through his binoculars, the man replaced his baseball cap with a hard hat and joined a crew gathered around a house. Within minutes, he was wielding an electric saw.

Mission accomplished.

Connor put the van in gear and headed east, back toward St. Louis. The man’s profession fit the house he’d scoped out after Nikki gave him the address yesterday—a small ranch in a blue-collar area of South County.

He checked the clock on the dash. Not even seven yet. Too soon to stop by Elaine’s and drop off the images of Kate’s
son that were resting on the seat beside him—a key to their investigation. Elaine had an amazing eye, combining science, digital savvy, and art to produce better age-progression photos than any he’d seen in his years with the Secret Service, despite all the resources available to the agency. If her picture wasn’t a close match for the shots he’d taken of the little boy, he couldn’t, in good conscience, recommend that Kate continue to spend money on this investigation.

And until he had Elaine’s work in hand, it didn’t make sense for
him
to continue to spend her money, either. Or even communicate with her. Aside from a courtesy call to confirm he’d dropped off the images, there was no professional reason to contact her again for several days.

Probably a plus, since he’d almost crossed the line last night.

He merged onto I-70 and turned up the air-conditioning, but the rising sun radiating through the front windshield wasn’t the reason he suddenly felt too warm. The credit for that went to his client.

Flipping down his visor, he tried not to think about how much he’d relished the two hours he’d spent sitting beside her as she’d paged through her albums, sharing reminiscences about her son and a few about her husband, smiling one moment, close to tears the next. Giving him glimpses of a caring mother and a devoted wife with an infinite capacity to love. Of an admirable woman who’d lost and mourned and struggled, but who’d triumphed over her trials.

Mostly, though, he tried not to think about how appealing she’d looked as she’d said good-bye—and how tempted he’d been to respond to the subtle yearning in the depths of her eyes. She might not realize it yet—or perhaps she was fighting the realization—but the electric sparks between them had been as powerful as the flashes of lightning zigzaging across the sky outside the sliding doors off her dining room.

He’d come close—too close—to giving in, to leaning over to brush his lips across hers.

Even more reason to stay away for a few days.

So he’d call her this morning, tell her he’d be in touch once he heard back from Elaine—then get himself back under control and in 100 percent professional mode before they spoke again.

He hoped.

Greg’s eyes flew open, and he stared into the darkness. What had awakened him at—he squinted at the digital clock on his nightstand—three in the morning?

He lay motionless, listening. The house was quiet save for the muted hum of the air conditioner. No suspicious noises intruded on the silence. Still . . . it wouldn’t hurt to look in on Todd.

As he swung his legs to the floor, a muffled sound came from the direction of his son’s room. A sound he recognized all too well. One he’d heard almost nightly in the early days.

The beginning of a nightmare.

He rose and flipped on the bedside lamp, waiting a moment while his eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness. He’d thought they were past this. That once the bad dreams had subsided, then disappeared, they’d never reappear. And they hadn’t.

Until two weeks ago.

Now, thanks to a bizarre coincidence in a mall, Todd had regressed. The disturbing dreams were back—different in subject matter, but related—and fragments of memory were resurfacing. Nothing specific enough to raise concerns . . . yet. But who knew what else might get shaken loose?

Hurrying down the hall, he swiped a bead of sweat off his temple as the thrashing sounds and muttered cries grew louder.

As he reached the threshold of his son’s room, one clear word emerged from the otherwise unintelligible mumblings.

Kevin.

No!

He fought for air, grabbing the door frame for support. Telling himself the name was just the product of a dream. That dreams fade quickly. That there was no danger. That Todd wouldn’t remember what he’d said once he woke up.

So wake him up! Stop the dream!

Prodding himself into action, he lurched toward the bed and sank down on the edge.

“Todd.” He grasped his son’s shoulders and gave a gentle shake. “Todd . . . come on, wake up, buddy. You’re just having a dream.”

It took several tries, but finally Todd’s eyelids flickered open. “Dad?”

“Yeah, I’m here.”

Todd rubbed his eyes. “I had that dream again.”

Not what he’d wanted to hear.

“What dream?”

“You know. The one I had when Diane was here the day I was sick, with the lady at the mall. I told you about it.” He picked up his Cardinals bear and held it tight against his chest. “I kept trying to get to her, but people were pulling me back. And this time, there was water at the bottom of the escalator. Like a lake. Why would there be a lake in the mall? And how come I keep dreaming about that lady?”

He wished he knew.

“Hard to say, buddy.” He kept his tone casual. Unconcerned. “Our brains can do strange things while we sleep. But I’m sure you’ll stop having it soon.” If fate was kind.

Not that it ever had been in the past.

Todd yawned and stretched, his eyelids already growing heavy again. “Do we know anyone named Kevin?”

Greg’s breath hitched. So much for assuming he wouldn’t remember what he’d said in the dream.

“I don’t think so.” Greg swallowed as a sharp pain pierced his midsection. “Why?”

“I don’t know. That name’s stuck in my mind.”

Meaning he didn’t connect it with the woman on the escalator—yet.

And Greg intended to keep it that way, if he could.

“You know, I think one of the guys who worked at the hardware store back in Montana was named Kevin.”

Todd squeezed his eyes half shut, then shook his head. “I don’t remember him.”

“You were real little. But sometimes strange things stick in our brain, like you said.”

“Yeah, I guess.” He yawned again and snuggled into his pillow. “Dad, do you think we could go to church some Sunday?”

Where on earth had that come from?

“We can talk about that later. You need to go back to sleep now.”

“Diane said we could go with her if we want to.”

One mystery explained, at least. Diane had been after him for weeks to attend services with her after he’d mentioned he’d once been a churchgoing man.

Not going to happen—for him, anyway. Todd . . . maybe.

“You have books about the Bible and Jesus.” It was the best he could do for now, even if it was less than Jen would have wanted. How could he do more when talking about God made him uncomfortable?

“It’s not the same. She said they sing songs and have classes for kids and eat donuts afterward.”

“We’ll talk about it another time, champ.” He tucked the sheet over his son and stood. “Right now we both need our sleep.”

“Okay.” Todd’s eyelids drifted closed. “We’re gonna have cupcakes at daycare tomorrow. I hope I get a chocolate one.”

Greg watched him for a few moments, the steady rise and fall of his chest, the sturdy arms holding the Cardinals bear, the
placid features. This was all he’d ever wanted. His son, asleep in his bed, looking forward to tomorrow.

With a sigh, he trekked back down the hall to his room, sat on the edge of the mattress, and dropped his head into his hands.

What a night.

Kevin.

God.

Nightmares about blonde women and water.

Why couldn’t all of his problems go away and leave him in peace?

Even Diane had become a burden. The very woman who’d given him hope that maybe, just maybe, he could start over. That it didn’t have to be him and Todd alone against the world. That there might be room in their life for someone else to love. But now that Kate Marshall had intruded, stirring up memories best left forgotten, having Diane around was dangerous.

Having
anyone
around was dangerous.

Wearily, he lay back on the pillow. Once they got past this crisis . . . once Todd’s memories ebbed back into the dark recesses of his mind where they belonged . . . he might be able to try again with Diane. But that could be way down the road, based on the stuff he’d read on the Net about children’s memories. And most women weren’t willing to hang around all that long. Especially someone like Diane, whose trust in men was already low, thanks to her jerk of a husband.

He bunched the sheet in his fingers. If only he could explain things to her. Tell her he cared, and come up with a valid reason for the temporary separation.

But creative thinking had never been his strong suit. He was a practical, hands-on, analyze-the-problem-and-fix-it kind of guy. Give him the right tools, he could work magic.

Except this problem couldn’t be fixed with a hammer or screwdriver.

Turning on his side, he reached over and flipped off the light. The room plunged into darkness—kind of like his life had of late.

His stomach gurgled . . . just like it used to. The burning in his chest had returned too, the piece of leftover pizza he’d eaten as a bedtime snack coming back to haunt him. He’d thought he was past all this too.

Yet the nightmare was starting again—the waking nightmare. The one where he battled against constant fear, wondering if this was the day he would lose his son. The one he’d finally wrestled into submission and overcome.

Still gripping the sheet, he tried to will the heartburn and indigestion away—but twenty minutes later he gave up and trudged to the bathroom. In the back of the medicine cabinet, he found the bottle of antacids. Almost full.

Good thing.

Because as he shook several into his palm, he had a feeling he was going to be using a lot of them.