If they hadn’t already established that he was only there for a period of time, he’d have been hit hard by that one. As though he was just one of a number. She’d put it right out there without her usual compassion. It wasn’t like her to be harsh.
And then he understood. She was being practical, with her emotions shut off, because she had to be. How else could she have faced leaving her father? She’d had to ignore the demands of her heart when she left that life. It was the only thing that made sense.
It wasn’t much to give the chief, but he was done fulfilling that request.
Chapter 21
It was getting too messy. Miranda saw everything closing in on her and knew that her time with Tad had to end. She’d known it all along.
Just as she’d known she couldn’t have a long-term committed relationship—with anyone. The closer she and Tad got, the more he tried to know her, to discover exactly who she was. And there was only so much “her” to know. His questions weren’t wrong. His curiosity was perfectly normal. By the same token, she wanted to find out everything there was to learn about him.
Still, she didn’t ask much. She couldn’t take what she couldn’t give.
But she wasn’t ready to lose him. Not yet. He had at least half a dozen more months in town. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to handle the lies for that long. For now, for this day, and maybe the next week or two, maybe even a month, she had to try.
Just thinking about him had pulled her out of the dark realms of paranoia and panic, to a place where she’d actually been able to sleep the night before. She’d woken around three in the morning on the couch and had managed to get to her room, crawl into bed and fall back asleep.
She hoped she was helping him, too. He didn’t want a long-lasting relationship with her, either. He was far from home while he healed—not just physically, but emotionally. He had to be somewhat on edge, waiting to hear about the Internal Affairs investigation and his job. His entire career. She and Ethan did seem to be helping him get through it.
They might be ships passing in the night, but were meant to anchor together for this brief time. She had it all worked out.
She just had to quiet the clamoring of her mind and live in the moment. The day. The next week or two. A month...
She had to get through this stage of whatever step she’d reached on her life’s journey. Ethan was branching out. She was branching out. They were getting through the changes.
And it was understandable that she’d be uneasy. That a bit of paranoia would present itself. It always would during moments of vulnerability. The trick was knowing how to deal with it. To beat it back rather than give in to it.
“Time for bed, little man,” she said as she and Tad came in from the back porch just as Ethan’s movie was ending. “Say good-night to Tad and then put your jammies on and brush your teeth.”
Ethan got up from his place on the floor, his glasses bobbing on his face as he rubbed his eyes. “Night,” he said to Tad, and headed down the hall.
A signal to her that it was Tad’s time to go.
“He doesn’t ever argue about going to bed,” Tad marveled, after telling Ethan to “sleep well.”
“Never has,” she said, loving her boy so much. “When he’s tired, he wants his bed.” She didn’t invite him to sit. To hang around. She stood there, listening while Ethan brushed his teeth.
“Mind if I use the restroom before I go?” Tad asked. “I thought I’d drive by Marie’s place before I go home.”
Of course she didn’t mind. She told him to use her bathroom, since Ethan was in his. And then stood there wishing she could join him in his car, in the dark, driving slowly through town. Wished she could help him more than she did.
Perhaps they could go to the beach again on Sunday. The three of them.
Ethan crossed the hall to his room and she went to tuck him in, reveling in the small arms that wrapped sleepily around her neck. “Night, Mommy, love you,” he said, and her heart lurched. He was already half-asleep as he turned on his side and curled his hands under his pillow.
Mommy. He hadn’t called her that in a while, other than when he was particularly sleepy.
“Love you, too, sweetie. Sleep tight,” she whispered.
This was why she lived as she did. Why she’d gone through everything she had to get Ethan out of North Carolina. And continued to sacrifice to keep him safe. She and Jeff had created a life—their son’s—purposefully. Jeff had trusted her, even knowing about her father’s power over her. And she was going to do everything in her power to give Ethan the life she and Jeff hadn’t had. A life free of violence, with a caring parent who was capable of unconditional love.
She heard her bathroom door open and instead of returning to the living room to show her guest to the door, she pulled Ethan’s door partly closed and continued into her own room.
She just needed a minute. Something to sustain her as she spent the rest of the evening alone. The ghost in the black sedan that morning was starting to loom in her mind again, gray baseball cap and all. But she had it under control. Knew it for what it was. Now those memories were simply reminders that she’d never have a man in her life full-time—at least until Ethan was grown. She’d never know what it felt like to say good-night to her child and crawl into bed with his father.
Meeting Tad halfway between her bathroom and her bedroom door, she wrapped her arms around his waist, shivering as his arms came around her.
“I wish you could stay,” she whispered.
His answer was to press his pelvis against hers, letting her feel how ready he was to crawl into her bed.
Conscious of the hallway, of her son’s door just feet away, she pulled Tad into her bathroom, closing that door.
It was the one door Ethan was used to seeing closed. She’d decided when he was four, and getting curious about physical differences, to answer his questions as they came, and to shut that door so they didn’t come too soon or too often.
She’d opened her mouth to tell Tad that she just needed a kiss before he left, but his mouth covered hers before she got the words out. She eagerly met his tongue with hers. He broke the kiss, breathing heavily, and trailed his lips across her jaw to her neck, sending tingles all through her.
Weak-kneed, she fell back against the counter, leaning there as her hands touched the bulging fly of his jeans. She rubbed it, wanting more access, but when he reached for the button on the fly, she stopped him.
“Not like this,” she said. And not with Ethan in the next room. “But...how about Tuesday? After the meeting.”
He laid his forehead against hers. “You’re killing me, you know,” he said, but he was grinning.
“So that’s a yes?”
“That’s a hell, yes! Of course.”
With that he kissed her, hard, one more time, then let her go.
* * *
Tad hit the gym first thing Saturday morning, intending to be home, showered and ready to get to the baseball diamond where Danny Williams would be playing T-ball. Not running the bases yet, but practicing fielding and batting. Marie had texted the night before to say she was scared someone had told Devon she’d signed their son up for the intramural spring league, but she didn’t want the police involved. She thought Devon was finally doing better, that they could part amicably, and she didn’t want to raise his ire.
Tad had responded immediately, telling her he’d be happy to hang out and watch the practice.
Miranda, as she’d stood at the door the previous night, watching him walk to his car, had called out an invitation to go to the beach for another cookout on Sunday. He’d been happy to accept that invitation, as well. For entirely different reasons.
Everything felt like it was coming together. He didn’t know how things would end up, but he was tentatively hopeful that his future would somehow include Dana O’Connor and her son. Pro
bably at his job in North Carolina. More and more it felt like he needed to get back to what he was trained to do. What he did best. Didn’t have to be in North Carolina, but if he had a job there...he really would like to pursue the idea of starting a High Risk Team in the area.
And figured, once she’d reconnected with her father, Miranda would want to head home, to be closer to him.
Tad didn’t kid himself—there was a chance she was going to hate him, or at the very least feel unable to trust him, when she found out he’d been duplicitous with her from day one. Who wanted to hear that your lover was on your father’s payroll to spy on you? But as bad as that sounded...when she heard the truth, when she knew why, surely she’d understand...
Just as he fully understood why she was still keeping her secrets from him. Hell, her whole life was a lie. But one that had to be told to save her life.
Because he was waiting to hear from Gail, he checked his burner phone before jumping in the shower. While he was eager to get out of his sweat-soaked T-shirt and gym shorts, they weren’t the priority.
He had a text.
Not much yet. Looked at all finances that were filed as part of his campaign for office. Seem to be perfect. Tax records, the same. I’ve got a couple of people looking into how he spends any spare time. Will be following up with his public calendar. He’s on vacation right now. Left a couple of days ago to go fishing.
That was it. Innocuous. Nothing at all, really, which was what he’d hoped he’d find. Not that any blackmailers, if they were any good at it, would likely show up in the first go-round. But if it was someone connected to her ex, chances were it wouldn’t be a professional. Still, on the surface things were as they should be. Nothing obvious.
And yet... He stood there, reading the message again.
On vacation?
He’d just talked to the chief the night before and he hadn’t given any indication that he was vacationing. Out on a fishing boat, or at a lodge.
Not that the man owed him any explanations as to his whereabouts, but it seemed...odd. Under the circumstances.
They were talking about getting him and his daughter back together. About moving forward. If he were the chief, he’d have been waiting by the phone to see if Tad called with responses from the interrogation he’d agreed to do. A call Tad had planned for later that afternoon.
The news would be disappointing to the chief. But maybe not. If, as Tad was thinking, Miranda’s lack of emotion, of any reaction at all, where her father was concerned was because she’d loved him so much, she’d had to block that love in order to leave him. To survive without him.
And he remembered the way she’d looked at Ethan at the first mention of her lack of a father, as though she regretted her son’s not knowing him.
Just because the chief was on vacation didn’t mean he wasn’t waiting to hear from Tad. They hadn’t specifically arranged a call outside their normal Friday ones, but the chief had said to keep him posted when they’d rung off the night before.
Deciding his shower was going to have to wait, Tad dialed the chief’s private cell number.
He picked up on the first ring. Because he was on vacation? Or had he been waiting to hear from Tad? Hoping to hear from him?
He filled the older man in on his conversation with Miranda the night before, ending with, “It was my impression that she might be blaming herself for the fact that you aren’t in their lives,” he said. Could be his theories were based on what he thought, not on what actually was. He was getting too close to Miranda to be just a detective.
“You think she could be ready...” the chief began.
“I do, sir.” With the man on vacation, the timing might be right. “If you want to fly out here, I can meet you if you’d like. Tell me how you want this to play out.” The man was on vacation. Now was the time to tell Tad, to let him know that he could fly out there that day. Tension filled him as he realized that he might not have any role in the reunion at all.
Or any chance to tell Miranda he hadn’t just been seeing her at her father’s behest. To tell her how his heart was open to her in a way it hadn’t been open in a very long time.
He hadn’t thought this part through well enough.
“I’m kind of involved at the moment,” the chief said. “Business I can’t leave unattended. And, frankly, I want to plan the reunion. So much is resting on it. I’ll go through some of her mother’s things. Take them to her. That way, even if she rejects me, she’ll have them. I don’t know when exactly I’ll go out there, but it’ll be soon. Very soon. For now, if you could continue as you are...”
There was nothing for him to say but, “Of course.”
In the shower, Tad was feeling rather glad the chief wasn’t rushing right out. Now that he’d realized he might not have a chance to explain himself to Miranda, he needed time to think about his own plan. To figure out if there was anything he could do, prior to her learning the truth. To let her know that his feelings for her were completely personal. And not likely to end.
Yes, he was glad, but a little uneasy, too.
The chief had said he was involved in business that couldn’t be left unattended. A fishing trip?
Surely his daughter and grandson meant more to him than catching fish.
Unless the “business that I can’t leave unattended” had to do with blackmail—someone trying to force him to provide large sums of money for Dana and Jeffrey’s safety.
In which case, he couldn’t afford to expose their whereabouts. Any traceable contact between the chief and Tad could do just that.
If that was the case, O’Connor should’ve told him. Eggs in different baskets or not. Tad understood the man was in an impossible position, but Tad couldn’t do his own job if he didn’t know what he was up against.
Not to disrespect the chief, but he wasn’t liking the guy all that much at the moment.
He couldn’t rest easy unless he knew for certain that Miranda and Ethan were safe.
Chapter 22
Miranda was cleaning bathrooms Saturday afternoon, with her son using the toilet brush to scrub his toilet and splashing water all over the rim and onto the floor, when the tone she’d set for High Risk Team notifications sounded.
Grabbing her phone out of the back pocket of her shorts, she clicked on the text.
Marie Williams and son Danny did not return home after T-ball practice and lunch as expected. Not answering cell. Devon not answering either. CF
CF. Chantel Fairbanks.
The notice went out to the full team, putting everyone on alert. And anyone who was available could join a search party to try to find them.
“Who’s that?” Ethan asked, peering up at her from behind his glasses. The unusually solemn expression on his face alerted her to the fact that she must look concerned.
She didn’t want him to know who it was. Didn’t want domestic violence to be a part of his life.
She had to help. As many vehicles on the road as they could get, as many eyes looking, would increase Marie’s chances that someone would spot something and be able to alert authorities in time to save her.
If indeed she was with Devon. They didn’t know for sure.
Which was why there wouldn’t be an Amber Alert.
It was up to them, the team and anyone the team could contact, to be the equivalent of Danny’s Amber Alert.
“You remember Danny, the boy you saw with Tad that day?”
“Yeeahh...” Ethan drew the word out as though hesitant about wanting to know more.
“His mom’s car is lost and she’s hoping some of us can drive around and help her try to find it. She can’t get to work without it.” The words came to her as though inspired.
Her son scrunched up his nose. “Huh?” he asked, the toilet brush dripping on the floor as he held it suspended above the bowl. “How does a car get lost?
”
Okay, not inspired. “I don’t know. Maybe it was stolen,” she said, taking the brush from him and wiping the floor with the towel in her hand. “But I think we can help, don’t you? Just drive around for a while and see if we see it. I’d need you to do most of the looking, since I’ll have to pay attention to the driving.”
“Okay.” Ethan shrugged. “Can I have a hamburger and french fries for lunch, then?”
“Of course.” Maybe he was playing her. Bribing her. Maybe she should teach him that doing good deeds for others meant you didn’t get paid for it. Teach him a lesson in selflessness. At the moment, though, she’d be willing to buy him ice cream for dessert, too. She just had to get out on the road.
* * *
Tad knew for certain that Danny and Marie made it safely away from T-ball practice. There’d been no sign of Devon all morning, and no cars following Marie as she left the diamond. He’d been watching.
He hadn’t followed them to lunch afterward. She’d texted, letting him know that Danny had asked for pizza and she was taking him to buy some at a place not far from home. That was the last he’d heard until he got a call from Chantel an hour later.
He was the last person to have seen the mother and son. He told Chantel that Marie had been wearing black capris and a ribbed white T-shirt, and Danny had still been in the jeans and T-shirt he’d worn to practice. He told her where they’d been headed.
She already knew both things and was just verifying what Marie’s sister, Ruby, had told her. Marie had texted her after she’d texted Tad, to ask if Ruby and her husband wanted her to bring home any pizza.
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