He smiled. Kissed the corner of her mouth. Nipped his way across her jaw until he found her throat. “Again.”
“I love you.” Her head fell back against the wall, and she flexed her hips, rubbing against his straining erection. “Oh, Alec. That feels so good. Don’t you dare stop.”
He had no intention of stopping. He kissed his way down the soft column of her throat, slid his hands under the hem of her shirt, and trailed his fingers up her rib cage until they brushed the satin of her bra.
She arched, offering him her breast, offering everything. “Alec . . .”
A humming sound hit his ears. Lifting away from her mouth, he stilled and listened, then realized that wasn’t trembling he’d felt. It was his phone vibrating in his back pocket.
His adrenaline surged, and he reached back for it. “Hold on. My phone’s going off.”
“Already?” Lips swollen, face flushed, Raegan looked down at the phone in his hand. “Is it Bickam?”
“I can’t—”
Alec froze when he saw the words “Unknown Caller” on the screen. A little voice screamed not to answer, but something else, some unspoken instinct deep inside, told him not to ignore this call.
He hit “Answer” and pressed the phone to his ear. “Who is this?”
“You know damn well who it is,” Gilbert said.
Everything inside Alec went cold, and he straightened, letting Raegan’s foot fall to the floor. “What do you want?”
“Alec?” Raegan’s breathless voice whispered close, and he felt her fingers grazing his abdomen, but all he could focus on was the gravely voice on the other end of the line.
“Can’t a father just call his son to see how he’s doing?”
He was just about to toss the father comment in Gilbert’s face when he realized Gilbert probably didn’t know Charlene had been arrested or that she’d spilled everything.
“What do you want?” Alec said instead.
Raegan’s fingers fell from his skin, and he looked her way. Her eyes grew wide and frightened. He squeezed her hand to reassure her everything was okay.
“Just calling to say good-bye. My ship’s finally come in.”
Yeah, his ship back to the big house. Again, Alec bit his tongue.
“Couldn’t leave without a proper good-bye,” Gilbert went on. “And a little somethin’ for you to remember me by. Step outside onto your ex-wife’s deck.”
Alec’s stomach tightened, and his gaze shot to the window.
“Yeah,” Gilbert said in a smug tone. “I know you’re there. I know everything, boy. I left a present outside for you.”
Alec’s adrenaline surged as he glanced toward the patio door in the living room and the city lights beyond. Was the fucker out there, watching? Was he somewhere close with another gun, waiting for the perfect moment to strike?
Pulling the phone away from his face, Alec covered the mouthpiece with his hand and whispered to Raegan, “Call nine-one-one.”
“What’s going on?” she whispered, panic quickening her voice.
“Gilbert’s outside,” he mouthed to her.
Her face went ashen. Pushing away from the wall, she took one step past him for the living room.
Alec caught her at the wrist and pulled her back. He shook his head. “Stay away from the windows,” he whispered again, covering the mouthpiece once more. “Use the phone in the bedroom.”
She nodded and rushed past him for her room.
When she was gone, Alec turned toward the patio doors. “Okay, you got my attention. What’s out there?”
“Too afraid to look yourself?” Gilbert taunted in his ear. “You always was a wuss.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
“No, you’re afraid of the truth. Step outside, Alec.”
Common sense screamed don’t do it, but Alec moved into the living room and eyed the glass door anyway, careful to stay out of view of the windows. “Why is this so important to you all of a sudden?”
“Look and see. Unless you’re too afraid.”
Sweat beaded on Alec’s forehead as he inched closer to the door, careful to remain in the shadows so Gilbert couldn’t see him. When he was close enough, he peered through the glass. The small deck was empty but for two iron chairs and a small iron table.
Turn around. Don’t fall for his games. Don’t look.
His heart beat hard and fast as he crept closer. As he narrowed his gaze to see through the dark glass. As he spotted what looked like a plastic bag on the round table.
Raegan’s hushed voice drifted from the other room, but Alec couldn’t make out her words. Reaching the wall, he flipped the outside light on. A scrap of fabric in a sealed plastic bag sat in the middle of the small table.
The blood drained from Alec’s face as he stared at a scrap of white fabric dotted with tiny pink hearts. Fabric stained red with dried blood. Fabric that matched the dress Emma had worn to the park the day she’d gone missing.
“I killed her,” Gilbert said in his ear. “Your daughter is dead. You said you always wanted to know the truth. There’s your fucking truth, son.”
“No.” Alec’s throat closed as he struggled for an explanation like a drowning man fights for air. It was a trick. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. Gilbert was fucking with him. Just like every other time he’d fucked with Alec. The phone shook in Alec’s hand, and his legs grew weak. But the roar in his ears was all he heard. “No, I don’t believe you.”
“Oh, you will,” Gilbert growled. “I told you I’d make you pay, son. You’re about to. There’s a logging road off Highway 26, just past Elsie up in the mountains. At the end you’ll find a shallow grave and all the fucking answers you deserve.”
“They’re not going to find anything,” Raegan said out loud, more for herself than for Alec. She shivered beneath the thick jacket and watched the team of FBI agents ahead, excavating through the snow at a spot near the end of the gravel road. “He was taunting you. The same as always. It’s what he does. You said it’s what he does.”
Beside her, Alec didn’t respond. Just stood stoic and silent as he watched the men digging beneath the spotlights.
Fear tightened Raegan’s throat. He’d barely spoken since finding the bag of bloody fabric on her deck. Hadn’t once turned to her the way he had after they’d left that trailer park. She tried not to read too much into that. She knew he was scared, just like her. But she couldn’t stop the fear from turning to terror as it slid into her chest to wrap an icy hand around her heart.
It was happening. Oh God . . . She swayed on her feet, not to fight the cold but to keep her legs from buckling beneath her. Anger whooshed in, and she fought back the terror. She wasn’t going to give up. She’d done that before. Walked away. Let Alec spiral. She wasn’t going to do that again.
“Alec.” She gripped his arm hard and turned him to face her. “Alec.” She wanted—needed—the Alec back from a few hours ago. The one who’d been so full of hope he’d made her believe anything was possible. “Look at me, dammit.”
His gaze slowly slid her way, but when his blue eyes met hers she didn’t see fear or stress or even heartache as she expected. She saw nothing. Just a flat, blank stare she recognized from three years before.
“Don’t do this,” she whispered, gripping tighter to his coat. “Don’t let him do this to you. Don’t think the worst.”
“McClane!”
Alec’s gaze shot past her, and Raegan’s heart pounded hard as she glanced over her shoulder toward Jack Bickam, striding toward them from the site.
Her stomach pitched. Bickam’s face was drawn and tight as his boots crunched across the snow. Shrugging deeper into his tan coat, Bickam lifted the satellite phone in his hand. “Just got word. Washington State Police spotted Gilbert in that stolen F150 about thirty miles south of Olympia. He ran, of course. They pursued. He lost control of the vehicle. Flipped three times. He’s being transported to Providence St. Peter Hospital as we speak.”
“I
s he alive?” Raegan’s hope rushed back. If Gilbert was alive, he could tell them he’d been lying to Alec. This could be over. They could go home. Forget this had happ—
“For now,” Bickam answered. “But he’s not conscious. EMTs aren’t sure he’ll make it.”
Raegan’s stomach dropped again, and she looked back at Alec. Still no emotion passed over his face. Just that same blank stare she remembered all too well as he gazed past Bickam toward the lights.
Please, Alec . . . She squeezed his arm through the thick coat, hoping he could feel her. If he wouldn’t look at her, she’d find another way to reach him.
“Look,” Bickam said on a sigh. “This could take days. If there’s anything out here, we’ll find it, but I guarantee we’re not going to find it tonight. Let me get someone to take you both home. I’ll call you right away if anythi—”
“Here!” someone yelled beneath the lights. “I’ve got something here!”
Bickam turned and jogged away from them. Without a word, Alec pulled free of Raegan’s grip and followed. Sweat broke out all along Raegan’s spine, and her heart thundered in her chest as she rushed to catch up with him.
It’s not her. It’s not her. It can’t be her, she repeated in her head as she drew close to the group of men staring down at a shallow hole in the frozen ground.
The voices turned to hushed whispers. The balding FBI agent who’d driven her and Alec up here turned and stared at her. The group slowly stepped back. Vaguely she heard, “Don’t contaminate the scene,” and, “We need to cordon off the area. No press gets in or out of here.”
Alec stopped steps in front of her and stared down into the pit. Nothing about his body language gave anything away. His shoulders didn’t tense or relax. He didn’t even move.
Raegan’s pulse thundered hard, pounding, pounding, pounding in her ears as she moved up at his side and looked over the edge.
Everything came to a screaming halt when she spotted the tiny skull and small bones of what she knew immediately had once been a child.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“No,” Raegan rasped beside Alec. “It’s not her. I don’t believe it.” The forest moved in slow motion around Alec, turning hazy and ethereal. He watched as if in a fog as Raegan stepped back, shook her head, and said, “No. It’s not her. She wouldn’t have been up here. She’s with another family. Charlie said they found kids new families.”
Somewhere deep inside he knew she needed him. Knew he needed her too. But he couldn’t reach that place. It was spinning away from him. Taking with it all the joy and happiness and hope he’d felt only hours before. Leaving behind nothing but . . . nothing.
His gaze drifted back down to the remains in the bottom of the pit, sticking out of the frozen mud. It was a child, he knew it was a child, but he needed to see everything. Needed to see what cloth was in the pit with those bones, needed to see the shoes. They’d still be there. Shoes wouldn’t have decomposed yet. There had to be more. There had to be something—
“We can’t tell gender from the bones of a child,” Bickam said quietly at his back. “We’ll need to run DNA tests against you and Raegan.”
Somehow Alec found the strength to nod. Wasn’t sure how he did. He felt as if he were moving through a thick soup, his limbs heavy, his eyes clouded, his heart—he didn’t know what his heart was doing because he couldn’t feel it. And he wouldn’t let himself feel it until he knew for sure.
“It can’t be her.” Sobs caught in Raegan’s voice as it grew higher. “It’s not her. It’s not her,” she chanted, almost as if to reassure herself. “I know it’s not her. Alec, tell them.”
Snow crunched, followed by a hushed voice.
“No,” Raegan said. “I don’t need to calm down. I’m fine. No, I’m not leaving.”
“Get her out of here,” Bickam muttered.
“No!” More snow crunched, followed by the rasp of fabric. “Oh God, don’t let it be her.”
The heartache in her voice slowly brought Alec around, but he was still moving through that thick soup, unable to process things in real time. By the time he spotted her, an agent was already putting her in the back of a car and closing the door.
Go with her.
His heart raced. In the center of his chest. Right where he’d felt it come to life when Raegan had kissed him and loved him and come back to him. His breaths picked up speed as he watched the car’s lights flip on.
Go with her.
With the heavy beats came a swift whoosh of blinding pain, right in the same spot, but somehow, somewhere inside, he knew he could live through it. As long as he was with Raegan.
He stepped toward the car, already backing up, and was just about to lift a hand to wave the driver down when an agent at his back, one standing over the shallow grave, said, “Does that look like a shoe to you?”
Alec’s whole body froze.
“Yeah,” another agent said in a grim voice. “A tiny shoe. Call Jack over here. We might be able to identify gender after all.”
Raegan ran her fingers through hair still damp from her shower and stared at her reflection in the mirror. Dark circles marred the skin beneath her eyes from lack of sleep, but it was the overabundance of stress and worry that made her look as if she could break at any moment.
Be tough. You can get through this.
Her gaze drifted to her cell phone on the counter, and another wave of fear rolled through her blood. Fear she told herself not to succumb to. She sensed she was fighting a losing battle.
Alec hadn’t come home last night. He hadn’t even looked at her when those FBI agents had removed her from the scene. She’d waited up for him, expecting him to return to her at some point, but he hadn’t. And now, at nine a.m. with no texts or calls in response to her efforts to reach him, she was afraid to think about where he was and what he was doing.
Panic pushed in, threatening to pull her under. She was walking a tightrope between freaking the hell out and trying to stay sane. Didn’t he know that? Breathing deep, she told herself to stay calm, to think rationally, and to focus on the facts.
She’d spent a lot of time doing just that last night alone in her room, and the only truth she knew for certain was that nothing definitively pointed to that child in those woods being their daughter. If there were no other objects in that grave, identifying those bones would take weeks—maybe even months. And after researching online late into the night, she knew that no coroner could even tell them if the bones were male or female because bones alone couldn’t tell gender unless a victim has passed the age of puberty. No, she wasn’t going to believe the worst until she was staring at the proof in front of her. She just hoped Alec didn’t believe it either and that he hadn’t slipped out of her reach, lost in the same guilt and pain that had pulled him away from her so long ago.
Grabbing her cell phone from the counter, she dialed and headed for her living room.
“Hey,” Hunt said, answering on the second ring. “I was just about to call you.”
Her feet stopped near the couch, and the fear she’d been fighting all night welled inside her like a geyser. Was he with Alec? “You were?”
“I found some information about that dead social worker and a charity he was involved with. I tried to call Alec, but he’s not answering.”
Her eyes slid closed, and she breathed slowly, but it did nothing to alleviate the pressure in her chest. “He’s not answering my calls either.”
“Alec’s not with you?”
“Not since last night.” Raegan’s hand grew damp against the receiver, and she didn’t want to say the words but knew she had to. “The FBI found a child’s body in a shallow grave in the mountains off Highway 26 last night.”
“Oh shit.”
It was shit. Everything about this was shit, and it was eerily similar to the shit of three years ago, but she wasn’t going to focus on that. She was going to focus on the here and now and what she could do to prove that wasn’t her daughter. “Tell me what you
found on the charity.”
“Raegan—”
“Tell me about the charity, Hunt.” Her eyes burned, but she refused to cry. Turning into her kitchen, she stopped in the sunlight streaming through the kitchen window and blinked several times, letting the warmth give her strength.
Hunt sighed, and she heard the worry in the sound but refused to give in. “It wasn’t easy to find, but I’ve got a name. The Children Are Our Future charity is managed by a corporation. BLK Conglomerates. It’s an import/export business. They move products all over the world. They have offices in LA, New York, London, and Shanghai. The CEO is Arnold Kasdan.”
The name was vaguely familiar. “Does he live in Portland?”
“No. Primary residence is in New York. But he’s from Portland.”
“He grew up here?”
“Yeah. Forty-two years old. Father’s deceased—he’s the one who started BLK Conglomerates fifty-some years ago. Only child, unmarried. His mother still lives in Portland.”
“What’s her name?”
“Miriam Kasdan.”
The name rolled around in Raegan’s head. She’d heard it before. Knew she’d heard it recently. A spark flared when she remembered where. “I saw her the other day at the news station. They were interviewing her for a segment about the arts. She’s a huge supporter of fine arts in the community.”
“Yeah. That’s what I found too. She’s on the board of directors for both the children’s museum and the Portland Ballet Company.”
“Is she involved with Children Are Our Future?”
“No. BLK Conglomerates manages their funds, but I haven’t found anything linking her to CAOF. Except for a photograph of her son, Arnold Kasdan, standing with Conner Murray in front of the children’s museum she supports with a bunch of kids from CAOF. It could be nothing, but it looks like Arnold Kasdan definitely knew Murray, even if only briefly to tour the museum.”
It wasn’t a direct link, but it was something worth looking into. “I’ll call her later today and try to set up an interview. Maybe I can find out if her son is more directly involved with CAOF and how well he knew Murray.”
Gone (Deadly Secrets Book 2) Page 24
