She unclasped her hands and held one up, thumb extended. “One, you’re not married.” A forefinger joined the thumb. “Two, you’ve never been married.” Another finger. “You’re in your forties, you live alone—” her hand returned to join its mate in her lap, and she shrugged. “Obviously not somebody who’s into commitment.” She tilted her head. “Just out of curiosity, what happened?”
“What…happened?”
“To make you that way. I mean, you know why I’m the way I am. So, what’s your story, Kincaid? Come on—give. It’s only fair.”
He just stared at her, his face stony, and her heart did a weird little skip-hop she’d never felt before. She wanted to reach out and touch his face the way he’d touched hers—a way no man had ever touched her before, that she could recall. She wanted to touch him like that and say the words that were in her mind.
Who hurt you, Holt? Who made you afraid to trust anyone with your heart?
“You’re right,” he said, just when she’d been sure he wouldn’t answer. “It is only fair. So, here it is, my reason—my excuse, I should say—for choosing to remain unencumbered by…emotional attachments.” His hand reached out for her again, this time to lie briefly on her shoulder, then brush lightly down her arm. And his eyes held hers like a hypnotist’s, with that ice-blue gaze she was beginning to realize was anything but cold.
“I was five years old. I remember it because I’d just had my birthday party, and there was a pony.” A smile flickered briefly. “I think that was the first and last time I was ever on a horse. Anyway, a couple of days later, my parents left me with a babysitter and went out to dinner and a movie, and never came back.”
He said it so matter-of-factly, it was a moment before it registered. She did a little double take, then whispered, “What happened? Was it a car crash?”
His hand continued its idle journey up and down her arm. “Their car was found in the movie theater parking lot. My parents never were. They just disappeared.”
She stared at him, appalled, half-disbelieving. “That’s…crazy. People don’t just disappear.”
“Actually, they do—more often than you’d suppose.” His eyes dropped to his hand, which had left her arm to brush across the front of her T-shirt where her nipples had beaded against the clinging cloth.
She shivered. “What happened? To you, I mean?”
“Well, my babysitter told me lies, at first. Everybody did. About how my parents had had to go away suddenly, but they’d be back soon. Eventually, I was sent to live with my mother’s aunt. She was a school-teacher—unmarried. She did the best she could, I’ll give her that.” His smile was wry, his eyes forgiving. “Let’s just say she wasn’t a warm and fuzzy sort of person.” He shrugged in a dismissive way that didn’t alter the smile. “She died when I was seventeen, and I joined the army soon after. When I got out of the service, I decided I wanted to become a cop—a detective—so I could find out what happened to my folks.”
“And did you?” It was hard to keep her voice steady, with his roving hand straying downward, stroking lightly across her thigh…
“No,” he said. “But I found out I was more interested in finding missing people than catching bad ones, so I quit the force and that’s what I’ve been doing.” He didn’t say any more, and a certain wariness in his eyes told her he probably wasn’t accustomed to saying even that much.
That awareness made her feel chastened and humble, at first. Even, in an odd sort of way, vulnerable, too. But then a new feeling began to grow in her, one she remembered experiencing only once before in her life—the day her daughter was born. Something so primal she couldn’t even put a name to it. Or didn’t want to. But whatever it was, it filled her with a new kind of power and purpose.
All the while this momentous thing was happening inside her, she was looking into Holt’s eyes and he was gazing back at her. His hand was sliding under her T-shirt and finding her nakedness all open to him, his for the taking. First, she gasped…shuddered…melted. Then, with her new inner strength, whispered, “No…” and leaned over to find his mouth, and at the same time was unfolding herself, finding her way inside the covers to sink against him and lay her body full length on his.
He made a sound low in his throat and his hands were big and warm on her back, stroking downward to hold her buttocks, then on to her thighs. But when he urged them apart, she murmured once more, “No…” mingling the word with the dark, sweet essence of his mouth. And then she slid down his body, slowly, kissing every part of him she met on the way, her heart growing quivery at the incredible sleekness of his skin. His hands were light on her sides, letting her slip between them, and his breath escaped him in the gentlest of sighs when she nestled her face in his warm, damp hair and kissed him there.
When he could take no more, he pulled her up to him and lifted his own body to meet her, and they found each other like old lovers after too long a time apart. He wrapped his arms around her, one low on her spine, the other cradling her head, and she brought her legs around his waist and arched to press her torso against his, nesting her breasts in the tickling softness of his chest hair.
Her mouth found his and she opened to him with no reservation at all, and would have gladly lost herself there, but for the sharp gasp that rushed from her throat when he seated himself deep inside her. He caught the gust of breath in his own mouth and held them both still, feeling the off-rhythm thumping of their combined heartbeats, until one or the other—maybe both—of them began to tremble.
Then he tore his mouth from her and in a rasping whisper said, “Billie…I—”
And for the third time she said it, a low, guttural sound from deep in her throat. “No—no words. Just…make love to me.”
“I will…I am…do you feel me loving you?”
And she answered, “Yes…yes…yes…” until she began to shake with dizzy laughter, the kind that sometimes comes with tears.
The next time they woke it was noon, or almost. This time hunger drove them out of bed and back to the kitchen, where a chilly November breeze was blowing through the broken window. While Billie made coffee, Holt taped a flattened cardboard cereal box over the hole, then turned on the noontime news.
“I usually eat peanut butter toast for breakfast,” Billie called from the other side of the counter. “Is that okay with you?”
“Yeah…fine,” he said absently, watching the crawl across the bottom of the television screen. He heard the thump-click of the bread being pushed down in the toaster and turned to say over his shoulder, “Hey, there’s an Amber Alert.”
She was coming toward him, rounding the end of the counter carrying a steaming cup of coffee, smiling. Her eyes went past him to the screen, and the smile seemed to dissolve into a look of utter bewilderment. “Holt?” she said, with almost no sound. The cup in her hands began to wobble, and he snaked out a hand and rescued it just in time to keep it from crashing to the floor.
He was licking his hand where the scalding coffee had slopped over and burned it when he turned back to the news broadcast. Then he no longer felt the scald. He felt as if all the air in his body had been sucked out of him.
Billie moved beside him in stunned silence, and together they stared at the face on the screen…the face of a little girl about ten years old, a little girl with blond hair and magical golden eyes.
Chapter 8
“H
annah Grace Bachman disappeared this morning while walking to school in this quiet suburban neighborhood just northwest of Reno. She was last seen wearing…” “This can’t be a coincidence,” Holt said unevenly. “Who do you know who’d—”
“It’s got to be Miley.” Her voice was tight and breathless, like his was, both of them sounding like someone who’s just taken a blow to the stomach. “Who else could it be? He’s the only one who knew…but how could he have known where she was? I didn’t even know until you gave me that piece of paper—” Her face crumpled—for one brief moment—then settled into a mask
of rigid control. She turned in a swift, unbalanced jerk and gripped the edge of the countertop to steady herself. “The paper—the one with her name and address—where is it? I put it down, right here. Did you see it? When we got home last night? It’s not here. It’s not here, Holt—”
“Miley must have found it when he broke in here yesterday,” he said, more calmly than he felt. “Probably right after we left. He was looking for the money, you said. I guess he figured he’d found a way to get it out of you.”
“This is my fault.” She was pacing, hugging herself, her face still empty of all emotion. Only her eyes were alive, crackling with rage, and he understood now why she wore the sunglasses when she played cards. “I should never have asked you to find her. It was stupid. Why did I think I had anything to give her? It was selfish, that’s what it was. Stupid and selfish. God, I can’t even—”
“Cut it out. You may be the reason this happened, but it’s hardly your fault. Look, there’s one good thing, at least. He’s not likely to hurt her, right?”
She stopped pacing to give him a hard look. Then she seemed to deflate as she sagged back against the counter. “I don’t know. Miley’s a weasel and a coward, but he’s desperate. Plus, the people he owes money to probably wouldn’t hesitate to hurt him and anybody else if it’ll get them what they want. And like I told you—I can’t get to the money. At least, I don’t know how to get to it. It’s in an ‘irrevocable trust’—whatever that means.”
“It means you can’t get to it,” Holt said grimly.
“Okay, so what should we do?” She seemed to vibrate with energy. He thought of a warrior, adrenaline-charged and primed for battle.
He picked up the remote and thumbed the television off. “The first thing we have to do is go to the police.”
“Go to…the police.” She said it the way someone would who hasn’t had many reasons to be reassured by that prospect.
He took her gently by the arms. “Think, Billie. That cabdriver is going to do so for sure, the minute he sees that Amber Alert. If he hasn’t already. I’m expecting to hear sirens any second.”
She stared at him as if the words weren’t making sense, and what he wanted to do more than anything in the world was pull her into his arms and just hold her for a while, until the shock of this had diminished, or at least let her know he was there to prop her up if she wanted to break down.
Fat chance of that, he thought. And anyway, there wasn’t time. He planted a quick kiss on her forehead and was about to release her when the phone rang, making them both jump and clutch at each other.
She stared at it as she might a coiled rattler, then looked back at him with a question in her eyes. He nodded. She walked over to the counter, wiped her hands on her bare thighs and picked up the phone.
Her heart banged inside her chest like something trapped and trying desperately to get out. She tried to take a breath, but there was no place to put it, so she held it and managed a raspy, “Hello?”
When Billie heard the voice on the other end she almost dropped the phone. She wanted to hurl it through the window…pound it against something until it broke into a thousand pieces.
“Hey, Billie, you watchin’ television? You seen that Amber Alert thing they got goin’ right now?” The voice sounded high, excited. Scared.
He better be scared because I’m going to kill him, she thought.
Her rage-fogged vision cleared enough so that she could see Holt trying to get her attention, his eyebrows raised in a frowning question. She threw him a look and gave a jerky nod, and he mouthed the word speaker.
She jerked the phone away from her ear, but the buttons on it were shimmering and out of focus, and her hands were shaking too hard to do anything with them anyway. Holt took the instrument out of her hands, punched a button, and Miley’s voice came slinking into the room.
“—you better turn it on. I’m not kiddin’—”
“I’ve seen it.” She felt like flint, the stuff of ancient spears—brittle, hard, capable of killing. “If you hurt her—”
“Jeez, Billie! What kinda guy do you think I am? I’m not—”
“I know what kind of guy you are, Miley—the kind who’d do anything to save his own ass. And if you touch one hair on my daughter’s head—”
“Hey. You got no room to threaten me. I’m holding the cards, here, not you. You give me what I want, I give her back to her parents, good as new. It’s as simple as that.”
Billie looked at Holt, then closed her eyes so he wouldn’t see her fear. Her fingers tightened around the phone, which had grown slippery in her hand. “Look—I told you the truth, Miley. I don’t have the money. I can’t give you what I don’t have.”
“Hey…that’s cool. You don’t have the quarter mil anymore—I get it. So, you just have to win some more. I got the buy-in money and you’re all signed up.”
Her stomach went cold. “What are you talking about?”
“The tournament—at the Mirage. You’re in. All you have to do is show up—and win, of course. You win the tournament, you give me what I need, the kid here goes home, and you get to take home what’s left of the pot. Everybody wins.”
“You are insane,” she said, unable to keep her voice steady. “I haven’t played a hand in more than three years. I’m out of practice. And what if the cards don’t go my way? You can’t seriously think—”
“You think I’m not serious?” His voice went shrill. “You think this isn’t serious, what I’m doing here? This oughta show you how serious I am. This is my life I’m talkin’ about. You better win, Billie. You hear me? You better win, and win big. Or else this kid isn’t ever gonna see her mommy and daddy again.”
“Miley, wait! At least tell me—”
But there was nothing but a dial tone. She let the phone slip from her fingers and never even saw where it fell. Her knees buckled. She felt Holt’s arms come around her and allowed herself to be held, and to hold on to him, for a moment. Just a moment. Then she pushed away from him, straightened and said hoarsely, “I’m okay. I’m okay.”
He let her go. She turned in a lost sort of way and combed the fingers of both hands through her hair. Coughed, and threw him a fierce look. “So…I guess we really have to go to the cops, huh?”
“Yeah, we do. We’re going to be their number-one suspects the minute that cabbie puts two and two together.”
“What makes you think they’re going to believe us?” she said in a bleak voice. “And if I’m in jail, how am I going to—”
“I thought about that, too. I think I know somebody who can help us.”
“So, you still have friends in law enforcement?”
“You could say that.” He gave her a dark smile. “Go get dressed so we can get out of here before the cops show up on your doorstep. I’ll tell you about it on the way.”
He waited until he heard her closet door slide back, then picked up the phone from the counter where she’d dropped it, hoping there was caller ID. There was. He hit the button for incoming calls, and at the same time he was opening and closing drawers, looking for pencil and paper. He found what he needed on the third try, scribbled down the number of the last call and tucked the paper in his shirt pocket. Then he took out his cell phone and scrolled down through his speed-dial list to the one he wanted.
A brusque voice answered on the second ring. “Portland P.D., Homicide, this is Detective Ochoa—can I help you?”
“Uh…yeah,” Holt said, “I’m looking for Wade. He anywhere around, by any chance? This is a friend of his—Holt Kincaid—I think we met last spring, during that serial killer thing…”
“Holt Kincaid…oh, yeah—the P.I., right? Sure, I remember you. Wade’s out of the office, but I’ll tell him you called.”
“He on a case?” Holt’s hopes of help were sinking fast.
The Portland detective chuckled. “Nah…I think he went home to have lunch with his wife. You know how these newlyweds are. If you have his cell or home number, you might tr
y him there.”
“Thanks,” Holt said, and disconnected. Letting out an impatient breath, he checked his speed dial again. This time he got voice mail.
“Hey, Wade, this is Holt Kincaid. Give me a call back on my cell when you get this message. Thanks.” He hesitated, then added, “It’s important.”
He disconnected and was searching his phone book for more options when Billie came in looking flushed, tucking the tail of a black long-sleeved pullover shirt into the waistband of khaki cargo pants. She looked ready to take on the world, he thought. All she needed was a flak vest with big letters on the back that said SWAT.
“Ready?” She sounded out of breath.
“Yeah.” He tucked his cell phone in his pocket, snatched up his jacket from the chair back he’d hung it on last night—a lifetime ago. “You happen to know where the police station is?”
Naturally, his cell phone rang on the way, and just as he was maneuvering through erratic lunch-hour traffic. He fumbled the phone out of his pocket and handed it to Billie.
“Here…I don’t talk and drive. Tell him I’ll be with him as soon as I find a place to park.”
He heard her say, “Holt Kincaid’s cell phone…” and then, “Yeah, he’s right here. He just has to find a place to park. Hold on.” She held the phone face down on her thigh. “He says it’s Wade, returning your call.”
“Yeah, I know.” Muttering under his breath, Holt made a right turn down a side street and into the parking lot of an auto parts store. He pulled into an empty space and left the motor running. Billie handed him the phone.
“Hey, buddy,” he said.
Kincaid's Dangerous Game (The Taken Book 4) Page 11
