by Lisa Childs
“I wish you never came back,” she whispered at him.
He didn’t blame her for hating him. At the moment he hated himself for putting their son in danger.
“If he never came back, Gray and I would be dead,” Natalie defended him.
He shook his head at his sister, not wanting anyone to further upset Caroline. His phone rang, with the call he’d been waiting to have returned, but he hesitated to reach for it. Not wanting to leave Caroline alone.
“Take it,” she ordered him. “If it’ll help you find my son, take the damn call.”
He clicked the phone on. “Kendall…”
“Still no chatter,” Anya replied without greeting. “I don’t believe you’ve been compromised.”
“Someone stormed a day care center with a gun today and abducted my son,” he told her, whether she cared or not.
She gasped. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t need your sympathy. I need your help,” he implored her. “I’m calling in every favor I’ve got coming. I need to find my son as soon as possible.”
“I’ll find out what I can from here,” she promised, “and call back.”
He clicked off the phone and turned to his family. “I want you all to do the same. Call in every favor you have coming.”
Devin was already reaching for his phone, as was Gray and Ash. Aunt Angela reached for Caroline instead, wrapping her arm around her trembling body and offering her support.
“You need to lie down,” his aunt told her, “and rest.”
Caroline shook her head. “I can’t…”
“You’re going through the worst nightmare a parent can,” she commiserated. “There’s nothing anyone can do or say to comfort you. But you have to keep the faith that your son will come back to you. And when he does, you’ll need to be strong.”
Because the boy might be traumatized from what he’d seen.
Devin lifted his phone away from his ear. “Jolie pulled the old employee records from dead storage. She found Ed Turner’s insurance applica—”
“Ed Turner?” Uncle Craig interrupted. “He hasn’t worked at the company in decades. He quit long before your parents were murdered. He started up his own company. Hell, Devin, you’ve been trying to get your hands—”
“I didn’t think it was him, either,” Devin said. “But Aunt Angela put him on the list.”
When her husband turned to her, Angela nodded. “I suspected back then…”
“But he was married, too. His wife just died.”
“Not every man is as honorable as you are,” Aunt Angela told her husband, her eyes warm with love for him.
“But what could Ed want with Thad’s son?” Uncle Craig asked, his brow furrowed with confusion. “He has his own money.”
“According to the records Jolie found,” Devin said, “he also had a son named Wade with a date of birth making him about a year older than you, Thad.”
Uncle Craig sucked in a breath as he realized what Thad had long ago. This wasn’t about money or even the past. At least not the two decades-old past. It was about revenge.
“The dentist is listed,” Devin said, “so she’s getting Rachel the information to verify dental records.”
Thad was glad that his brothers had been as clever as he was and had fallen for smart, resourceful women. He turned toward Ash. “You got an address for Turner yet?”
“Too many of them,” Ash said with a sigh. “The guy and his corporation own properties all over St. Louis and the surrounding areas. We have to run them all down.”
“We need to hurry,” he said.
He wasn’t sure how much time his son had, if he had any left at all.
CAROLINE WASN’T LIKE THAD’S brothers’ wife and fiancée. She wasn’t a crime-scene tech or even all that computer savvy. She didn’t know how to chase down leads to her son’s whereabouts. She didn’t have the slightest idea how to find her son. But she knew he wasn’t at the Kendall estate.
And she hadn’t wanted to be there, either.
Her son had gotten away from his kidnapper at the mall. What if he’d escaped him again and found someone to drive him home? He knew his address. So she held her breath as she opened the door, hoping he waited for her inside and would rush into her arms.
But her house was eerily quiet and empty. No Mark. She wasn’t alone, though. Thad had insisted on driving her home.
No matter what she said to him or how coldly she treated him, he had been considerate and patient with her. Of course he was used to kidnappings and to violence. She hadn’t been until his world had collided with hers.
“Aunt Angela was right,” he said. Sliding his arm around her waist, he led her toward the stairs. “You should get some rest.”
“How?” Her heart pounded erratically, and her legs shook.
He supported most of her weight up the stairs and down the short hall to her room.
“Do you have anything you can take that will help you sleep?” he asked, his blue eyes dark with concern for her as she dropped onto the edge of her bed.
She wasn’t the one he needed to worry about; he needed to worry about their child.
“My son,” she said. “I need Mark back in my arms. I won’t sleep until he’s home.” Her voice cracked as emotion welled up inside her. “I want my son.”
But her baby was gone…?.
“I’ll bring him home to you,” Thad promised.
“You don’t even know for sure who has him,” she reminded him. Sure, Ed Turner sounded like the most viable suspect, but because of Thad, there were so many. “You have so many enemies.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “I know it’s not your fault. You were just doing your job. You didn’t even know about Mark.” She sucked in a breath. “So I blame myself.”
He dropped to his knees in front of her, as if begging her forgiveness. “None of this was your fault,” he said. “I should have stayed away. I had no right to try to be part of your lives, not with the life I’ve lived.”
“You’re a hero,” she reminded him. “You saved your sister’s life and her fiancé’s. And you’ve probably saved countless other lives.”
“There’s only one life I’m worried about right now.”
Their son’s.
He cupped her face in his hands, so that their gazes met and held. “I will find him.”
But would it be too late?
“Then go,” she urged. He shouldn’t be wasting his time with her. “Do whatever you have to do to track down the man who took our son.”
“I don’t want to leave you alone,” he said.
“Mark needs you more than I do,” she reminded him. He had skills that no one else in the St. Louis Police Department possessed, not even his brother.
He nodded and reached beneath his jacket and pulled out a gun. “I’m leaving you this.”
She shuddered. “I don’t want that.”
“I won’t leave you alone unless you keep it,” he said.
She shook her head. “But I don’t like guns.”
“When we dated, I took you to the shooting range,” he said, reminding her of the date she’d found so exciting and so unlike her usual routine.
“That was my first clue that you were more than just a photojournalist,” she said. He’d been an expert shot and very familiar with the weapons.
“You were a natural,” he said. “Do you remember what I showed you about how to take off the safety and aim?”
She nodded. She hadn’t forgotten anything he’d taught her, but she still hesitated before reaching for it. “I really don’t want to have a gun in the house with a child.”
But the child wasn’t there. And if Thad didn’t leave to find him, Mark might never come home. So she grabbed the gun and immediately tucked it into the drawer of the bedside table.
“He’ll be home again,” Thad said as if he’d read her mind. “I’ll bring him home to you.”
Thad had never made her promises, not
four years ago and not since he’d been back…until today. She didn’t know if that meant he would be able to keep his promise, but at least she knew that he would try, that he would probably die trying.
She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his lips. His breath shuddered out against her mouth, and he kissed her back.
She pulled back when she tasted tears. They were hers. She’d cried so many she was numb to them. But she brushed the moisture from his face and mouth and implored, “Be careful…?.”
She didn’t want to lose them both, but a shiver raced down her spine with foreboding. And she knew their Christmas was going to be far from merry.
Chapter Thirteen
His heart thudding in his chest, Thad studied the blowup of Ed Turner’s DMV photo and compared it to the police artist sketch of the man who’d taken Mark. “It’s definitely him.”
“It’s the guy the day care director described hanging around earlier. I should have called you about him, but he’d gone into the coffee shop, so they’d figured he’d just been waiting to meet someone.” Ash, sitting in the driver’s seat of the unmarked St. Louis PD cruiser, studied the house across the street from where he’d parked.
This neighborhood wasn’t as nice or well kept as Caroline’s. The houses were smaller, older, in various states of disrepair or totally abandoned. It was hard to tell which of the last two was Turner’s house.
Was he there just living in squalor, or had he abandoned it all together?
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Ash said, shaking his head in confusion. “Of all the properties he owns—the high-rise condos or that three-story mansion near the country club, why would he be staying at this dump?”
“This was Wade Turner’s last known address,” Thad reminded him. “And Wade Turner was the man I killed, right?”
“His dental records match those of the man you killed,” Ash confirmed.
That was why Ed Turner had gone off the grid—he’d been grieving. “You said he’s owned this house for a while.”
“Property records show that he and his wife bought it when they were first married thirty-five years ago,” Ash said with a glance at his laptop, which was balanced between his seat and Thad’s. “Ed kept it even after they moved up. His son had been living in it for the past several years. Wade never really held down a job. With his mother slipping him his father’s money, he hadn’t needed one. He lived here for free and got enough money for drugs and alcohol.”
“He had a problem with both?”
“Not enough to get him arrested, but enough for him to turn up as a person of interest from time to time.”
“Until he turned up in the morgue.”
“Ed never claimed his body. Are you sure he even noticed he was missing?” Ash wondered. “It sounds like they were estranged for a while.”
“Wade was still his son,” Thad said. “Ed would have recognized that picture from the ATM footage.”
“It was grainy and hard to see—”
“Wade was his son, and I killed him,” Thad said. “And that’s why Ed Turner abducted my son. He wants an eye for an eye.”
Which meant that Mark might already be dead. Thad reached for the door handle. He couldn’t wait for the Special Response Team that Ash had called in. He had to know now if his son was alive or dead.
His brother’s hand grasped his shoulder. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“I’m going to bring my son home.” He’d promised Caroline.
The fear and pain on her beautiful face haunted him. Her image had been burned on his mind for the past four years. But always when he’d thought about her, she had been smiling and happy. Not devastated like she was now.
“If Turner really is as dangerous as you think, you’re going to get yourself killed,” Ash said.
“You may want to wait for backup,” Thad said, “but I don’t need it.”
On most of his assignments, he hadn’t had it, and those assignments had usually gone smoother than when he’d had help.
“Even when backup gets here, you can’t go in there with us,” Ash said, acting more like a protective big brother than a detective.
“The hell I—”
“You’re not authorized.”
“One phone call and I’ll be leading this investigation,” Thad warned him. “I have more authority than you do. Hell, I have more authority than the whole St. Louis PD.”
“More ego, too,” Ash retorted.
“More at stake,” Thad corrected him.
“Exactly,” his brother agreed. “You’re too involved.”
“He’s my son.” And that may have already cost the little boy his life.
Ash glanced back where the SRT van was pulling up along the street, out of the line of vision of the house they were watching. He blew out a ragged breath and then dragged in a deep one. “They’re here.”
Thad wasn’t so sure that was a good thing, a SWAT team storming the house. “Keep them back.”
“Until I assess the situation,” Ash said.
“I’ll assess the situation.” He had to get close enough to see inside, to see if his son lived.
Ash shook his head. “Let me do this for you. Stay out here.”
Thad shook his head. “I can’t do that.” Even though his heart pounded erratically with fear over what they might find inside…
“Thad—”
“I’ve seen things,” he reminded his brother. “You have no idea the things I’ve seen.”
“I was over there, too.” Ash reminded him of his deployment. “I’ve seen things. But if you’re right about Turner, this—”
“Is wasting time.” And he’d already done enough of that trying to convince everyone else that it didn’t matter what facade Ed Turner showed the world: successful businessman, humanitarian, leader in lifesaving military communications—he was still a killer. He had brutally murdered two people in their beds twenty years ago. He had killed Thad’s parents; he probably wouldn’t hesitate to kill his son, too.
“Let’s go.” Shaking off Ash’s hand on his arm, he threw open the door and, keeping below the other cars parked on the street, he headed toward the house.
Ash stayed close behind him, covering his back and keeping as low as Thad did. The only sound he made was the command he whispered into the radio pinned to his shirt collar. “Stand down until I give the order.”
Ash wouldn’t be giving the order. Thad didn’t need backup, not even his brother. All he needed was his son. He crept close to the house. The paint, which might have once been white, was now gray and peeling off the weathered wood. Icicles hung low from the eaves, dripping despite the cold temperatures, probably because there was no insulation in the attic. Or the walls.
If Mark was inside, he would be cold. And scared.
Thad rose just high enough to peer through a window. But newspapers had been taped over the glass. He couldn’t see inside, not even a shadow or a flash of light. Maybe that was good, though, because then Turner couldn’t see out, either.
“We need SRT,” Ash said. “They have infrared and heat sensors. They can tell us if there’s anyone inside.”
The heat sensor only worked if the person was alive. So it wouldn’t tell Thad everything he needed to know. He would only learn that with his own eyes. He walked away from the house, causing his brother to gasp and stare at in him surprise.
Thad needed that element of surprise. So after he’d walked a few strides away, he turned back and ran, hurling himself through that newspaper-covered window. Glass shattered and caught at his clothes and skin. He didn’t feel any pain; he was totally focused on the room.
He swung his barrel toward the doorways, expecting Turner to rush inside with his gun barrel pressed to Mark’s temple—if the child was still alive. But nothing moved inside the house. Not a creak or a curse. Then someone breathed—and it wasn’t Thad. He was still holding his breath. The breath turned to a gasp and then a cry.
“Daddy!”
&nbs
p; A little boy shifted out of the corner of the couch where he’d been cowering. He vaulted at Thad, throwing his arms around his neck.
Thad clasped him close with one arm while he kept his gun raised. More cautiously, Ash stepped through the window.
“Thank God,” he murmured when he saw father and son.
“Where’s the man?” Thad asked, not wanting his brother to step into a trap as he moved around, securing the house.
“My new friend, Ed?”
Bile rose in Thad’s throat, but he nodded. “Where is Ed?”
A smile of anticipation curved Mark’s little bow-shaped mouth. “He went to get Mommy for me.”
“What?”
“He’s going to bring her here, so me and her can be together,” Mark explained. “Ed told me that you would come later, but you’d be late…like you were that day at the mall.”
Turner had meant Thad would be too late—too late to save his family. He hugged the little boy tight, like he should have held Caroline.
He shouldn’t have left her alone even with the gun. Caroline was too softhearted to use it, even to save herself.
Thad had known that, but he’d still left her alone, thinking she would be safer at her house than out looking for their son with him. His only hope was that the police cars patrolling her neighborhood stopped Ed before he broke into her home. He couldn’t lose Caroline.
THE BLAST AND TINKLE of shattering glass snapped Caroline out of her daze of fear and concern for her son’s safety. Still clutching his teddy bear, she jumped up from where she’d been sitting on Mark’s bed, rushed toward the stairs and peered over the railing.
A man rolled across her living-room floor, toppling the Christmas tree before regaining his feet. He was an older man, probably nearly as old as Thad’s uncle Craig. Like Craig Kendall, he was also very good-looking with blond hair and dark eyes. But beneath the handsome facade was a madness and rage that had a sense of foreboding racing across Caroline’s skin.
He must have been the man she’d felt watching her and Mark. Was he the one who’d grabbed her son? She wanted to confront him, to yell at him and demand he tell her where Mark was.
