Stolen: A Novel of Romantic Suspense (17 page)

Normally, Shay would start feeling guilty right
about … now. Except for the first time, she heard the calculation lurking below Darcy’s voice. The almost sly taunting. It was more than that needling little whine—a lot more. The needling whine hid that clever manipulation, Shay realized.

“Just how have you been paying so much attention to a man you’ve never met, Darcy?” Shay asked.

“That’s what the Internet is for.”

“I don’t pay you to spy on the people in my life, Darcy.” Shay gripped the phone tighter and tighter. She was tempted to throw it. Tempted to smash it against the floor until the plastic was nothing but broken, busted bits.

“It’s my job to take care of you, Shay,” she said quietly.

“Your
job
?” Shay was pretty certain her jaw just about hit the floor.

“Yes. You pay me to take care of you.”

Take care of me?
Now she was certain of it—her jaw was all but dragging on the floor. She literally could feel it hanging open and it took a few seconds of letting it do that before she could manage to snap it shut with an audible click. “I pay you to help me keep business shit in order. I don’t pay you to
take care
of me. I had a mother for that, thanks.”

There was a pause, followed by a low, malicious chuckle. “And she did such a wonderful fucking job taking care of you … didn’t she … 
Michelline
…?”

Then the phone went dead.

But Shay never noticed. At the sound of that name, she went flying back.

“Michelline, do you remember what happened to you?”

“No.” She was sleepy. And tired of sitting here in this room with that grim-faced, sad-eyed man. Even though
he wasn’t mean or anything, even though he hadn’t yelled. And the woman next to her wasn’t much better. She’d promised she was there to take care of her, but Michelline knew better
.

Nobody took care of her. And she didn’t
want
anybody taking care of her …

The door opened
.

Another woman stood there. The other two stood up and moved to talk to the woman. They all spoke in low tones and then finally, the others left, leaving Michelline alone with this other woman
.

Michelline thought she looked familiar
.

“Hello, sweetie. Do you remember me?” The woman lingered in the doorway, holding something. A plate, Michelline thought
.

It was a plate
.

And on it were doughnuts …

Her belly rumbled
.

She remembered the doughnuts better than the woman
.

Slowly, she nodded. The lady had come out to the house a few times. And Michelline was always supposed to lie. She didn’t like doing it, but she had to. The lady was nice, though. And she always managed to sneak in doughnuts or bananas …

“Can I sit down, Michelline? I’d like to talk … if that’s okay.”

Michelline had talked to enough people. But this woman had doughnuts. Maybe she’d let her have one …

Slowly, Michelline nodded
.

“Michelline …”

That name. Shit, that name—

She wanted to puke, just thinking about it.

Shay sat there on the floor without even realizing how
she’d gotten there. Shit, she hadn’t had a panic attack
that
bad in years. Maybe ever. She hardly remembered
anything
and now she was on the floor, with Elliot crouching in front of her. He had his hands on her face and the look in his eyes was just this side of terror.

But when she spoke, he hauled her against him and muttered, “Thank God. Damn it, you gave me a heart attack.”

“She called me Michelline,” Shay whispered, curling her fingers into the bulky weave of his sweater and cuddling against him. His warmth seeped into her chilled bones and if she could have, she would have stayed there, just there, for the rest of her life.

His hand curved over the back of her neck. “Who, baby?”

“My assistant … my friend.” She swallowed and eased away, staring up at him while the knot in her throat threatened to choke her. “Elliot, I think she is the one doing this. All of it.”

She’d suspected Darcy was involved, but damn it … it could be worse than she’d feared. So much worse.
Michelline—

“Okay.” He pushed her hair back from her face, his thumb tracing one of the scars by her cheek. “But I’m not tracking the deal with the name …”

Shay closed her eyes and let her head sink back against his chest.

“I …” She took a deep breath, tried to brace herself. “I think it was
my
name.”

“What?”

Curling her hand into his sweater, she said quietly, “I don’t remember the first few years of my life, Elliot. They’re just a blank. But I think I was Michelline.”

NINE

E
LLIOT STARED AT THE SCRAPBOOK IN FRONT OF HIM
, battling so much anger and sickness, he couldn’t think straight.

He’d wanted Shay to open up to him.

There was no denying that. Although, shit, it would have been easier if she were just a reclusive author, dealing with agoraphobia or something.

They’d broken up because he couldn’t be with a woman who would share only half of herself with him. He couldn’t live his life in a vacuum and he’d wanted her too much, cared too much to watch as she suffered alone. She wouldn’t let him in, wouldn’t share her burdens with him, and he’d been dying inside. All he’d wanted was for her to let him in.

Now she had. And oddly enough, he still felt like he was dying inside—he hadn’t been prepared for this.

But how did any sane, decent person prepare for this kind of horror, he wondered.

He went through the scrapbook, stopped to read each article. There were many—articles about the trial, follow-up pieces, and letters from the Arizona Department of Corrections. The final letter was about the man’s release.

“They let him out,” he said quietly. Rage bit into him, tearing out chunks of him, and he wanted to scream, wanted to break something. Instead, he just focused on the scrapbook.

Behind him, Shay said softly, “He’s served his time.”

“His time,” Elliot muttered.
Fuck that
. He closed his hand into a fist to keep from hurling that scrapbook and its vile contents across the room. Then he turned around and stared at the woman in front of him.

In the article, the girl hadn’t been named.

But he knew, without asking. She was sitting before him now, curled up in the window seat and staring outside at the snow, a lost look on her face, grief in her pretty eyes, dealing with more pain than he’d ever thought a woman could carry.

She’d been under eighteen and that name would be kept quiet, since she’d been a minor.

The social worker’s name had been Virna Lassiter.

“Is your real name Shay Morgan? Or is it Michelline Lassiter?”

She drew her knees to her chest and shivered. “Shay is my name
now
. But that’s not my birth name … I don’t know what my real name used to be,” she whispered softly, her voice breaking.

The broken, awful pain in her voice all but killed him.

But he didn’t go to her … not yet. Somehow, he didn’t think she’d want it. Not until she had this out.

Yet he wanted so badly to go to her. To hold her.

To stroke away the naked fear, the pain he’d always glimpsed in her eyes.

To do something to ease the burden of the secrets she carried inside.

Secrets …

He needed to understand those secrets. Desperately.

Taking a deep breath, he blew it out and then focused. One small step at a time. If he could get her to talk to him about one secret at a time, he could begin to understand.

“You don’t remember your real name?” he asked.

“No. Not the name I was born with, at least.” She shook her head, staring outside for another moment before turning her gaze to his. Those eyes, with all their misery and secrets, stared into his.

“The man in the article was my stepfather—Jethro Abernathy. I doubt I shared his last name, so I don’t think I was Michelline Abernathy. And I’ll be honest, I don’t
remember
the name Michelline. Up until I changed my name after the trial, I went by the name Michelle … I didn’t realize I’d had another one. I don’t know much about Abernathy, except for what I was able to piece together. Virna, the woman who adopted me, would have known some of his history, but she died before she could tell me much and all of those records are sealed.” She shrugged and said, “I
might
be able to get my adoption records, but the records from her investigation of my family and all of that? Hell, I’ve thought about trying, but I don’t know if I want to dig up those skeletons just so I can find out what I already know.”

“And what is that?” Elliot asked.

She shrugged. “That I was taken away from him when I was young. I don’t remember why. I don’t remember him. I don’t remember my mother. I have some vague memory of being told she abandoned me, but I don’t know. I don’t remember much of anything before Virna.”

Just darkness
, Shay thought.
Darkness, fear, hunger
.

And a baby crying—and the angry, awful shouts that always followed.

Somebody shut that baby up—

Swallowing, she closed her hands into fists until her nails dug into her palms. As the pain grounded her, focused her, she sucked in a desperate breath. Once she could think, she said, “Virna was the part of my life that mattered. She was my mom. In every way that counted. I had her from the time I was four, until I was sixteen.”

“What happened when you were sixteen?”

At the low, angry throb of his voice, Shay looked back at Elliot. His whiskey eyes glinted with rage, but oddly, it didn’t scare her. She found herself comforted. Eased by it. He wouldn’t hurt her. He’d move heaven and hell to keep that from happening, she realized.

And he wouldn’t reject her, either. That was a realization that shook her to her core. Closing her eyes, she rested her head on her knees, waiting for the trembling in her limbs to stop. He wouldn’t reject her. He wasn’t going to see all the scars she had and turn away.

She just knew it in her bones.

Tell him
, something inside whispered.
Just tell him
.

Before the sudden burst of courage faded, she slid off the window seat and grabbed the hem of her shirt, pulling it off. She heard the surprised intake of his breath. And then she heard nothing but the roaring in her ears as the blood started to pound. As her heart raced and black dots danced in front of her eyes.

The room started to spin around her, and then it steadied as Elliot closed his hands around her elbows.

“He did that,” he rasped, staring down at her chest.

Her scarred chest.

“Yes.” Forcing herself to look up at him, she said it again, “Yes.”

It was ugly, the scars stark against the paleness of her skin. Even after all this time, the initials were visible.

She wasn’t wearing a bra—she rarely did unless she was leaving the house. It wasn’t as if there was ever really anybody who’d come by, right? But now she was standing there, bare-chested, in front of Elliot, with nothing between him and her scars.

The letters
J. A
.

“Why?”

“I forgot …” She whispered, staring past him. “That’s what he said. I don’t know
what
I forgot, but that’s what he kept shouting. I forgot and I’d never forget again. He’d make sure of it. This was his way of doing that. He …” She stopped and swallowed. “He marked me so I’d never forget again.”

“Forget
what
?”

“I don’t know.”

“Your father tortured you and you don’t know why?”

She started to shake, and as the cold got to her, some of the shock in her head receded. Trying to find something of herself left in the pain and the grief, she said, “Stepfather. As to why? Well, he’s a crazy-ass bastard … we can always use that as a reason. But … no. No, I don’t really know why.”

A hard shiver racked her body and she wrapped her arms around her middle, trembling. Lost, she looked down, searching for her shirt.

“Here.”

Elliot grabbed a blanket from the window seat and wrapped it around her shoulders. She gripped it, a ragged sigh escaping her, but it hurt to even breathe around the knot in her throat. Each breath was almost a sob.

“Are you okay?” Elliot asked, his voice quiet. Then he swore, taking a step back. “Okay … fuck. How in the hell can you be okay?”

He turned away and started to pace.

Staring at him, Shay gripped the edges of the blanket.

“Do you need anything?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He stopped and turned, facing her, his hands hanging loose at his sides. “What?”

“Stop moving around so much … and …” She licked her lips, closed her eyes. Then, taking a deep breath, she asked, “Would you maybe just sit with me for a while? I mean … I know you and I aren’t together anymore, and maybe you don’t have anything left in you for me, but I’m feeling kind of …”