by Jaycee Clark
Hindsight was an evil damned bitch.
God, please . . . he prayed, stopping in the middle of the room.
He couldn’t lose her now that he’d found her again.
• • •
The following day
Quinlan stood in the office of the police chief in Taos. Ella still wasn’t here. She hadn’t showed up during the night, not early this morning either. He’d dodged his brother’s and cousin’s phone calls that morning. Spoke to the Richardsons and found out what he could about what his wife had been doing.
He’d called and spoken to the chief a couple of times. He had the feeling no one was taking this seriously. Not as seriously as he wanted them to be taking it.
It was already stretching into the twenty-four-hour mark. He rolled his head around on his neck, trying to get the tightness out.
Where the hell was she? He’d been up to the Retreat and found nothing. Weird place for pregnant women. Out in the middle of nowhere, a big sprawling adobe complex that billed itself as a sanctuary from the busy demands of the world. It had taken him almost an hour to drive up there. Now he knew it had been a wasted trip.
“Look, it’s not just me. Her neighbors, like grandparents, or parents or whatever, know as well. This isn’t like her.”
“She’s stayed at the place she works, the Retreat, they said before. The Richardsons. The Retreat person we contacted agreed with them.”
“Yes, and I just came from there. No one has seen her in two days. She didn’t come into work yesterday. Called in and said she wasn’t feeling well. She called me, scared and worried. I’ve told you this. My wife, my pregnant wife is God knows where and . . .”
“And?” the chief asked. He shifted and stood. “Look, Mr. Kinncaid, I looked you up. I know you’re used to getting your way, and though I appreciate you wanting to help, perhaps you could let us do our jobs.”
“Then do your damned job and find her.” His phone vibrated again in his pocket.
“I’m also concerned that you show up and she’s missing.”
“Really? Really? I get here and realized she’s missing. We’ve been over this. You do the timeline. My whereabouts are tight until we called the cops.” Who had done too little. “You know what. Never mind. I’ll make a few calls until someone does something.”
His phone buzzed again. He looked again. Not her number. He’d put it into his phone. Ian. Again.
Aiden had already buzzed him countless times. It was Saturday afternoon.
Saturday afternoon.
“Mr. Kinncaid, maybe she knew you were coming and just took off instead of wanting to work things out.”
Ran from him, the man meant.
“You have no reason to trust me, I get that,” he told the man, taking a deep breath. “But my wife is missing and I’m about to rain holy hell down on your entire career and this police department if you don’t start looking for her. She’s pregnant. Scared someone is going to take the baby. What part of this picture do you not get? She wouldn’t have just left. She was waiting on me, she wouldn’t worry her neighbors like this either. She’s just not like that.”
Again the phone buzzed. He glanced at it. Ian. Fuck it.
“What?” he snarled into the damned thing.
“Hello to you to. Where the hell are you? It’s Mom’s party and—”
He closed his eyes. “Ian, tell her I’m sorry. But I don’t have time right now. I need you to find out who the hell will help me here in New Mexico. Because the local cops sure as hell won’t.”
A beat of silence.
“Where are you?”
He jerked the door open and said over his shoulder, “Never mind. I’ll call the feds, maybe they’ll be more interested in helping me.”
“Mr. Kinncaid, wait.”
He walked out and into the hallway.
“Kid?” his older brother asked.
“I need a federal contact out here. Can you get it for me?”
“Depends on where you are, more specifically what the hell are you in the middle of?”
“Mr. Kinncaid. Please, come back and let’s talk a bit more.”
He gripped the edge of his cane and saw the Richardsons talking to another cop.
“Ian, I’ll have to call you back. Tell Brody I’ll need him too.”
Carmine turned to him. “Oh, thank God you’re here. They won’t listen to us. Her car. Did you look in her car?”
He nodded. “This morning before I drove over up to the retreat place. It was full of stuff, luggage, boxes. Full.”
“She wouldn’t have left all that in the car. Why won’t they listen?” Her voice trembled. Mr. Richardson pulled her into the circle of his arms. “We’ll find her.” But his dark brown eyes bore into Quin.
The chief of police motioned them all into a side room. They all filed in along with another cop.
“Okay, we’ll go through this again from the beginning. And we’ll need a photo.”
Which the man, or his patrolmen, should have asked for yesterday—earlier this morning? Whenever.
Quinlan pulled her photo up on his phone. “I have one from about six, seven months ago.”
“Oh, there’s one here. I was always taking photos of her,” Carmine said, and pulled her own phone out. She scrolled through a bit and showed it to the chief.
He nodded and smiled. “Pretty. Can you send it to me?” He gave her his email and watched as she typed it in and sent it to him.
Quinlan started to ask, but waited as the chief sat back down.
Carmine handed the phone to Quinlan. “I took it of her a few weeks ago when we were at the farmers’ market.”
The breath caught in his chest.
“God, she’s beautiful,” he whispered. Ella stood in the sun, her hair pulled back from her face in a knot. She was holding an apple. He chuckled. “An apple. We met over apples.”
“I know,” Carmine said and patted his knee.
So damned beautiful his chest hurt. She was in a pair of yoga pants, black, but a purple tie-dyed shirt stretched over a very pregnant belly. She was holding the apple in one hand while the other cradled her stomach, and she was smiling at the camera. Pregnant. She was carrying his baby.
His wife, his baby.
“God, I missed her,” he said softly. “She was always beautiful, but now . . . she’s just . . .” Pregnant and smiling. “Wow.”
“I can send that one to you and the others I took,” Carmine said.
He gripped the head of his cane and realized his hands shook, nodded and just stared at that smiling face he’d fallen in love with. He zoomed her face closer and traced the dimples. Swallowing, he handed the phone back and looked to the chief. “You have to find her. Please,” he said.
The chief was studying him. “Holy hell?”
Quin held his stare. “And then some.”
“We’ve already written the report up, I’ll get it pushed through and sent out everywhere. We’ll get her photo circulating as well. Might want to send it to your friends, email, online social medias, that sort of thing.”
Yeah, like he had a Twitter account?
“We’ll want to talk to you more.”
He nodded. “Fine. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll help however I can.”
His phone buzzed again but he didn’t answer it.
• • •
Washington, D.C., later that day
Ian Kinncaid sighed as his mother wiped her nose on Jock’s white handkerchief. She was decked out in some sort of silky dress that reminded him of a peacock with the blues and greens melding together.
“Have any of you heard from him? Seen him today?” she asked.
No one asked to whom she was referring. He checked his phone again; still not so much as a text after that last short burst that had told him nothing other than his brother was in New Mexico and not here in D.C. to make their mother’s party. They were all waiting, planning a family meal here at the hotel before the party.
What th
e hell was going on with their younger brother now?
Aiden said, “Mom, don’t worry. I’m sure he’ll be here later making a grand entrance.”
Gavin shook his head. “I’m sure he’s fine. You know Quin. He doesn’t do crowds too much anymore. Maybe he just had a bad night and needed some quiet time.”
Aiden made a noise in his throat.
Jock merely looked from Aiden to Ian and back to his wife. “Kaitie lass, don’t worry. He’ll be here. You know he will.”
Ian checked his watch again and stepped away.
Aiden stepped up beside him and pulled at the collar of his tux. They’d gone all out on planning Mom’s party.
“Have you heard from him?”
Ian shook his head. “Not since he called earlier. And that’s not a convo you want to hear about just yet.”
“Kid’s been weird the last few months. Where the hell is he? Mom’s crying for God’s sake, she’s so worried. He better have a damned good explanation for this.”
Ian agreed, but he also knew there was only one thing—one someone that could possibly pull Quin away from them all without the kid saying a word.
He pulled his phone out and noticed that none of the calls he’d made previously to Quinlan had been returned.
He pressed his brother’s number again—simply by hitting redial.
Kid wasn’t going to answer any more this time than he had the other times Ian had tried to call him. Or Aiden or whoever else in the family had tried.
He waited for the voice mail to click on.
“Hello?”
Ian glanced to their parents and then stepped away. “Where are you and what the fuck is going on?”
For a minute there was only silence.
“Quinlan?”
“She’s not here. No one knows where she is, Ian.”
Ian frowned. “Who’s not there?”
“Ella. She’s not here. You said—you said if I ever needed anything . . .”
Quinlan didn’t sound right. Normally short, his voice had held a slight irritated edge of late. But now, now he just sounded . . . flat, controlled. Too damned controlled.
“Ella’s not there?”
“She called me last night, worried and scared. I flew out here. She was scared, Ian. Scared someone would . . . fuck.” Quinlan blew out a breath. “Jesus Christ, I want to hit something.”
Ian looked up as Rori stepped up beside him and rested her hand on his shoulder. Aiden was watching him.
“What’s going on?”
“She wasn’t here. Didn’t pick me up like she was going to. We can’t find her. The police are finally looking. Got here and she wasn’t . . . We can’t find her.”
He heard the fear in his brother’s voice.
“Where are you?” he asked again.
“There’s more,” his brother said.
Ian listened, but Quin didn’t continue.
“Where is he?” Aiden asked quietly.
Ian shook his head.
“Ian . . .” Quin took a deep breath.
“Are you in New Orleans?” he asked his brother, wishing now he’d just kept tabs on Ella, boundaries be damned anyway. This wasn’t going to be good.
“No. No, I’m not. She was so scared when she called. Terrified.”
“Of what?”
“So I flew out here and she’s missing. The police are at least looking into it now. They didn’t last night when we called them. Or maybe they did and I just didn’t see it.”
Ian had no idea who the “we” was, as all of the people Quin might have with him were standing in this room.
“Okay. Okay, I’ll see what I can find out on this end and—”
“Ian. She’s pregnant. Due in a few weeks.”
“Fuck.” Ian strode to the windows overlooking the Potomac and ran a hand over his face. “Yours?”
“Yeah.”
Ian shook his head. “Did you know?”
“Oh yeah, I left my pregnant wife to fend for herself. I’m just that great a guy.”
“I just—”
“Until last night, I didn’t know a damned thing. She was scared they were going to take the baby. Our baby. A girl from what she said. She was rambling and not making a lot of sense, honestly. And now she’s missing.”
“Right when you show up. Where are you, Quinlan?”
“At the police station in Taos.”
“Taos? New Mexico?”
“Yeah.”
Then he shook his head and snapped his fingers at Brody. “We’ll head out there, Quinlan. Don’t talk to the cops. They’ll just focus on you and—”
“I already know that, but I’m talking to them anyway. Filed a missing persons report because I pushed like hell with the chief of police here and—”
“And I’ll bring Brody, just in case.”
For a minute there was only silence again. Then Quinlan cleared his throat. “Tell Mom I’m sorry I missed the party.”
“A few others of us will apparently be missing it as well.” He glanced over at the people now standing there watching him. The rest of the family. Great. “What do you want me to tell them?”
“I don’t know. The truth?”
Ian laughed. “And that would be what?”
“She’s my wife, Ian. Ella’s my wife.”
Ian sighed and ran his hand over his head again. “I know, Quin. I’ve known. Leave me the fun stuff. Ass. Keep your phone on you. I’ll call you back.”
Ian hung up and shared a look with Rori. Then he turned to his parents. “Quin won’t be making it. And Rori, Brody and I need to leave.”
“Is he okay?” their mother asked. Jock put his hands on her shoulders.
“He’s not in the hospital with a bullet wound or—”
“Not funny,” Rori muttered.
Both his parents narrowed their eyes at him. Ian held up his hands. “Sorry. He’s . . . Look, he . . . he . . . .”
Brody cleared his throat and raised a dark brow.
“He went to get your birthday present,” he said finally. “And . . .”
“And?” Aiden asked. “This birthday present was in Taos, New Mexico?”
“Yes. Um . . . well . . . he wanted to introduce you.” That sounded good. He looked to Rori, who smirked.
“Please, keep going, love. Can’t wait to see how you’ll do this,” Rori said softly beside him.
“Introduce? You mean a girlfriend?” his mother asked, smiling. “And he wants to introduce her? To us? Like bring her home? Oh thank God, I’ve been so worried about him.”
No one said anything for a bit. The last woman Quinlan had brought home almost killed a good portion of them.
“Sort of,” Ian hedged.
“A . . . boyfriend?” his mother ventured. Then she said in a rush, “Because if he’s gay, that’s okay. We’ll welcome whomever he loves.”
Brayden chuckled. “This is going down in the family books.”
Ian could have fun with his little brother, but sadly this wasn’t the time. “Mom, Quin’s not gay.”
“Well, he hasn’t dated anyone.”
“Might be a reason for that,” Brody finally ventured.
“For God’s sake, I heard you say Ella,” Aiden said. “What has she got to do with Quinlan not being here?”
Ian looked at his older brother. “Ella’s missing.”
“Who’s Ella?” their father asked.
Yeah, how to explain that one?
Taking a deep breath, Ian stretched his neck. “Ella’s Quin’s . . . wife.” What the hell. “His missing pregnant wife.”
Chapter 11
New Orleans, late February
Quinlan grabbed enough food at the market to feed both him and her for a couple of days. He’d taken the afternoon off of work, flown down out of Dulles, and here he was.
Why the hell not?
How many years had he put in? He owned the business, or part of it. They had a board, plenty of managers. He could take a few afternoons off
, a few days, and the Kinncaid empire would not fall down around their ears.
He checked his watch again. He hoped she was okay with him just showing up.
Quinlan sat on her stoop with the bags and opened a bottle of water. The light was fading quickly. He hoped to hell she didn’t walk home in the dark.
He also wondered if the shelter had gotten his gift. He’d called last week and made sure a local art store had delivered the supplies he’d wanted the kids there to have. He hoped the kids enjoyed it. Granted, his family had always helped others, but after Ella two weeks ago, he’d looked into local shelters in the D.C. area. Especially women’s shelters. He knew that many of them left with their kids, had no place to go. Kids like to draw and art was a great way to deal with issues you couldn’t let out any other way. He’d drawn enough in the last year, and even more in the last couple of weeks. In the last week, he’d painted again. So he also researched art therapy in theory and then talked to Dr. Garner about starting art therapy projects in a couple of the shelters, maybe even some of the after-school programs. He’d gotten the balls rolling and, actually, he enjoyed it. Enjoyed knowing he might be able to help someone, or at least give a kid a reason to believe, to just be able to breathe. Art had done that for him, though very few knew that.
Hell, it had helped him deal with the mess in the last couple of weeks—lovely mess that she was. Drawn, sketched, painted.
Painted her. Painted New Orleans. Painted colors. Bright vibrant colors. He’d forgotten how much he loved art.
Until color had come dancing into his life.
He’d thought about asking his brothers to donate as well, but then didn’t. He wanted this for his own—his own secret, for some reason.
But he did want to share it with someone.
“Well, there’s a sight I didn’t expect to see, sugar,” she drawled, pulling him from his musings.
And there she was . . . dancing color.
He tilted his head and studied her, noticing her hair first and the fact she was dressed in more tie-dyed yoga clothes. The clothing melded orange and purple together in a bright burst that worked and matched her hair. “Purple this week, huh?”
