Mother by Fate

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  The little girl had a slight concussion. She’d have to be watched, and woken several times during the night. They weren’t giving her anything for her headache, but she’d seemed appeased with the promise of whatever snack she wanted and someone to watch Curious George with her.

  As the adults around her argued about where these activities were best suited to take place, Michael’s mother pulled Sara aside.

  “Michael hasn’t had a relationship since Shelley died.” The implied warning wasn’t subtle. Nor was the possibility of a warm welcome, if the woman’s sharp gaze was any indication.

  “We’re not in a relationship.” Sara’s tongue practically tripped over the words in her haste to get them out. She’d seen how Michael’s two youngest sisters had looked at her. Had seen them whispering.

  Once they knew that Mari was going to be fine, they’d turned all of their attention on her.

  “I’m helping him find someone,” she explained, leaving it to Michael’s mother to fill in the blanks.

  She thought that was that until Mari spoke up as she was being wheeled out in her chair. “Sara, Daddy said that maybe you can come see us as soon as he’s done getting the bad guys, and I know he’ll forget to ask, so will you? I can show you my kittens,” the little girl said.

  “They aren’t your kittens, Mar,” Michael said quickly. Sara was pretty sure he was blushing.

  “So we’re taking her home because all of her stuff is there, and Peanut and I will both stay with her, and Mom and Dad will be calling to check in, okay?” Ashleigh looked at her brother, but included Sara with a quick glance.

  “Fine. I’ll be calling, too,” Michael said. And with a last kiss and a hug for his daughter, he turned to leave.

  “Sara?” Mari’s voice, which had been plenty strong when she’d been naming the snacks and movies that she wanted, suddenly turned frail again.

  “Yes?” Sara turned back, pretending that her heart didn’t skip a beat. It was like Bessie all over again. And Sara hurt with a life-stopping ferociousness she hadn’t felt in a while.

  “You’ll come over and see my kittens. Won’t you?”

  Six sets of eyes were trained on her.

  “Yes, of course I will.” She gave the appropriate answer. The expected answer. The kind answer.

  Because the little girl had just suffered a painful trauma.

  But she was lying.

  * * *

  ONCE MICHAEL KNEW that Mari was fine, he was back on the job 100 percent. Mari’s accident had strengthened his resolve, reminded him of his purpose. He was going to get Nicole off the streets. And the next dangerous bail jumper and the one after that, too.

  They’d missed their afternoon rendezvous time at the convenience store, but he drove straight there anyway. And followed Sara into the store as she showed Nicole’s picture around and asked again if anyone had seen her.

  “No, she hasn’t been here, but you’re the second person who’s been in asking for her this afternoon,” the clerk, a tanned young man with coal-black hair, told him.

  “Who else has been asking?” Michael asked. Sara stood right beside him.

  “Some guy, about thirty or forty, skinny, with a tattoo on his neck.”

  “About five-eight and blond?” Michael asked, describing Trevor.

  “No, this guy was taller than me and I’m six foot. And he had dark hair, I think. I really just noticed that tattoo. It was awesome. And hard to miss.”

  Michael thanked the clerk and Sara checked out the bathroom, neither of them speaking until they were back inside the SUV.

  “Someone has the Ivory Nation looking for Nicole,” Sara said as soon as the door closed. Her gaze told him she thought he was somehow behind the new development.

  “Robert and Nadine.” Michael told her the conclusion he’d already drawn. “She’s their daughter. They want her safe. And they believe they have the means to see that she stays that way. They’re going to find her and bring her in under Nation protection.”

  “Trevor sent the brotherhood after her,” Sara replied. “She knew he would. He’s determined to get her out of his life once and for all. She gave him the son he wanted from her, and he has no further need for her. These guys kill for status in that so-called brotherhood of theirs.” Sara wasn’t nearly as reticent as she’d been up until then. “I’m telling you she’s in grave danger, Michael. We have to find her fast.”

  He agreed with her. For very different reasons. The more people who were out to find this woman, the more desperate she was going to get.

  And with the Ivory Nation joining the search, even if just to appease an older couple, the chances of someone getting hurt had just escalated greatly.

  Nicole might still have been doing Ivory Nation work, as Trevor said, but she’d been doing it covertly. She might believe in her father’s cause. But she wanted nothing to do with the man.

  Or she wouldn’t have told Sara he was dead.

  She wasn’t going to go willingly if she knew the brotherhood was going to deliver her to him.

  * * *

  SARA COULD HARDLY stand to sit in the SUV anymore. So close to Michael—and so far away. In all respects.

  The Ivory Nation was close. They had to do something. While Nicole was still staying put and before Trevor or his men got to her.

  She checked her phone every five minutes, hoping for a message from Lila telling her that they’d found the apartment on Venezuela Avenue. That they had Toby in sight.

  Or, better yet, that the paperwork had gone through and they had him in custody.

  “I have a plan for tonight that will work better if you join me.”

  If you join me? Did he think she was going to give up on finding Nicole now?

  Or was he simply giving her the respect of making her own choice?

  She was tired of the confusion. Nicole. Trevor. A brotherhood that killed innocent people without remorse. Michael Edison—bounty hunter. Michael Edison—family man. Michael Edison—delicious hunk at the pool. Michael Edison—a man tangled up in her emotions.

  “What will we be doing?” The one thing she trusted for sure was that Michael Edison was good at his job. And he was determined to get Nicole Kramer.

  He turned the vehicle back toward town. “Being homeless.”

  “Posing as homeless people?”

  “I’m certain that Nicole was down there last night. I don’t know how she disguised her body type or facial features enough that we couldn’t recognize her from up above, but I know she was there. I believe she’ll be back there tonight.”

  “We had binoculars. We were on the cliff right above them.”

  “So she kept to the shadows and hid against the cliff. Walked on stilts...”

  “Wore platforms and a coat with padded shoulders and stomach.”

  “I didn’t think she’d be on to us. I thought she’d feel safe enough to just show up sans disguise. Because she wouldn’t want any encumbrances if she had to make a run for it.”

  Nicole had arrived at the Lemonade Stand with only a satchel and the clothes on her back. When she’d been given the opportunity to pick whatever she’d wanted for free out of the Stand’s thrift shop that first day, she’d taken one pair of pants and the shirt with green-and-gold stripes.

  “I think at this point, if she’s still in town, she’s more concerned about hiding than about running. She changed her MO when she hung with the homeless in San Diego because she knew Trevor would never look for her there. It stands to reason that she’d change it in other ways, as well.”

  “Makes sense.” And she was still in town. Sara was as positive as she could be about that without actually having seen her there.

  “Having grown up as she did, Nicole’s a person who has to feel a part of a bigger whole. A community. She nee
ds that sense of belonging to feel safe. She finds that with the homeless community. I think she’s started to identify with them.”

  He was sharing his thought processes with her. Letting her see how he worked. She didn’t know why. Knew he might have an angle. But she said, “I agree.”

  “And I believe now that the only way we’re going to find her is to gain access to her community.”

  The sun was starting to sink toward the horizon, giving the perfect blue sky the start of an orange glow.

  “I want to get there while it’s still light out. I’m convinced Nicole won’t show up until after dark. Her obsession with cleanliness is ingrained in her enough that it’s likely she’ll still need to enter the seemingly filthy community under the cover of darkness so she can’t see the filth. Arriving in the dark will also allow her to feel more hidden, safer.”

  They’d be there before Nicole arrived. She liked that. They could get familiar with the lay of the land before anything happened.

  “We should eat some of those sandwiches before we go. Once we’re there, we aren’t going to be able to leave until morning.”

  He turned into the parking lot of a run-down secondhand shop and glanced her way.

  “Okay.” She had some questions. But wanted to hear everything he had to say first.

  “I think we should pose as a couple. Like Simon’s friends. Not married, just traveling as a pair. We came down the coast from San Francisco, which will explain why we’ll be overdressed—which in reality will be to disguise ourselves because Nicole knows what we look like. And we’re just passing through for a day or two.”

  She and Michael were going to be a couple. “Fine.”

  “What’s your gut instinct on her still being here?” It was the only important question she had left.

  “She’s here.”

  Good.

  “Let’s go shopping, shall we?”

  Michael smiled at her just before they got out of the car. A smile like the one he’d given her that day at the pool. Without thinking, before she could help herself, Sara smiled back.

  God help her, danger aside, she was looking forward to the next few hours.

  * * *

  THERE WAS MORE to Michael’s plan than just hanging out with the homeless under the pier. While Mari had been getting an X-ray that afternoon, he’d taken the opportunity to look up Nicole Kramer’s court case on the internet.

  He had facts.

  And he had to be able to convince Sara that Nicole was the bad guy here.

  That she posed the danger.

  Because now that they knew for certain someone from the Ivory Nation was looking for Nicole—and he and Sara were most likely going to have to grab her while in the company of others—he was not going to hesitate to use force.

  Of whatever kind necessary.

  He was not going to allow any innocent lives to be lost.

  Most particularly not Sara’s.

  * * *

  DRESSED IN A drab brown dress that was three sizes too big, a sweater that they’d stuffed with cotton batting and with her hair sprayed black and stuffed underneath a beige baseball cap that they’d rubbed in the dirt, Sara trudged across the sand in rubber shoes with a few belongings in a worn, ripped cloth satchel. Her one convenience was that the dress was so big that the pouch she was still wearing was well hidden beneath it.

  They’d been on foot for a while, having left the vehicle at the top of the cliff above the pier. It was in a public parking lot with a scenic-view sign and a cement patio with an iron railing that invited observers to look out over the ocean.

  The lot was at the foot of a path that led through the woods and down to the beach.

  She and Michael had taken the path, then walked up the beach a ways to circle back and approach the pier closer to the water.

  “What do we do when we get there?” she asked Michael, who looked nothing like himself, unless she dared meet his gaze.

  He’d sprayed his hair gray. Cut enough of the length to make it look uneven. His face had dirt rubbed in it like face cream. In too-short but baggy green pants, a stained T-shirt and an old baggy windbreaker with a broken zipper, he walked with a bit of a limp in tennis shoes with the toes cut out to fit his feet.

  “If this happens as I want it to, we’ll be the first ones there. The city doesn’t let people congregate down here during the day because of the tourists on the beach. It’s illegal to sleep on the beach at night, but as long as no one’s putting up a tent, they turn a blind eye to homeless folks getting a bit of rest under the pier at night.”

  She glanced at him as she shuffled along beside him. Her muscles were starting to ache with the effort and she’d be glad when she could just sit down. “How do you know this stuff?”

  “I did some reading from my phone while you were in there spraying your hair.”

  They’d used the public restrooms on the beach to get into disguise.

  “I wanted to make sure I knew what I was getting us into.”

  She’d been on the phone, too. Letting Lila know what they were doing. And finding out that Trevor Kramer had been nowhere near Venezuela Avenue. He’d used a credit card to buy diapers. From there, the off-duty cops who’d volunteered to keep an eye on Toby had been able to track him to a motel by the airport.

  Had Michael lied to her again? Or had Trevor lied to Michael?

  Sara wasn’t sure it mattered anymore. Except, maybe, to her. Because she’d done an incredibly stupid thing and started to care for the man.

  Seeing him with other people, questioning them with respect and kindness; the way he treated her, watching out for her even when he couldn’t trust her; his diligence; the way he’d loved his wife; the way he took accountability for his actions; the love and tenderness he had for his daughter, the fear he’d felt for her; his patience with his sisters and mother...

  It was all adding up.

  In a very personal way.

  And for naught. No matter how sweet Mari had been, Sara was not taking on another man’s daughter.

  Period.

  So every time she found herself thinking about Michael, she consciously switched her focus back to Nicole.

  The members of the High Risk Team were afraid Trevor might be planning to take his son and disappear, just as Nicole had feared he’d do, and police work within the LAPD had escalated. She didn’t know what that meant. They hadn’t had a lot of time to talk.

  But Sara prayed that Nicole showed herself that night. They were all running out of time.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  AS THE FIRST ones to set up camp for the night, Michael and Sara got to pick their spot. He chose for them. The highest corner beneath the pier, right at the entrance from the beach. It was mostly covered by the wooden slats of the pier and jutted up against the cliff wall that he and Sara had stood on the night before. They were on an angle and couldn’t sit completely upright, but the cliff would have their backs.

  And they’d have easy access to anyone who ventured under the pier.

  They were also about as far as they could get from the circle of charred ashes, down on the sand closer to the water. Might be a little chilly when the ocean air blew in, but they’d have less chance of being seen.

  “We can sit here for a bit and enjoy the sunset,” he said. “But when people start to show up, we’re going to have to huddle together and pretend to be asleep.” He’d brought his blanket from the car for them to hide beneath, but also because, with temperatures expected to be in the low sixties that night, they might get cold.

  “Huddle together?”

  Yeah, he’d left out that part.

  “We’re going to spend the night with our arms wrapped around each other, using each other’s bodies for pillows, with the blanket over top of us.
We can take turns keeping watch without being seen.”

  And he could have his knife out of the brown paper bag he’d shoved his things into and within reach. His gun was strapped to his calf above the too-short hem of his pants.

  He expected her to be disconcerted. To put up a token argument. But she just nodded.

  Like him, she seemed to know this was all a job now. And would get it done.

  She stood, gathered a smashed cardboard box and brought it over for them to sit on. And then pulled the brown glass bottle out of her cloth satchel. They’d dumped out the liquor and filled the bottle with water. She took a sip. Offered him one.

  Michael would have preferred the whiskey he’d dumped down the drain. But a hint of the taste left in the bottle would have to do.

  “Mari’s precious.”

  He’d known the subject was going to come up. And still had been hoping she’d keep things strictly professional between them.

  It would be better for both of them.

  “You were great with her,” he said. “I didn’t get a chance to thank you.” He’d had the chance. Several of them. He hadn’t wanted to bring it up.

  Hadn’t wanted to hurt her.

  “I work with a lot of distraught, traumatized kids.”

  “At the women’s shelter.” He made the statement on purpose. Waited for her denial. Or prevarication.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have an office outside the shelter, as well?” An attempt at distraction. And a desire to know, too. Not that it mattered. After this night he might never see Sara again.

  He might still try for the dinner. Because he was going to have a hard time letting her go.

  But what would be the point? Mari stood between them as plain as day.

  “No.”

  “You work long hours.” He was making small talk. Building up to showing her what he had on Nicole.