by Debra Webb
“All right,” he conceded, knowing he’d have to speak to Victoria Colby about the time off. Since he wasn’t currently assigned to a case he doubted it would be a problem.
This was a mistake. He knew it. Bill knew it, too. Ryan’s gaze moved back to Melany. But he couldn’t just walk away. He owed her that much. If he let himself admit the truth, he owed her a lot more than that. He’d taken all she had to give for three years, all the time knowing he would never give her the one thing she wanted with all her heart. He forced those thoughts from his mind. This wasn’t about him. She’d obviously forgotten him and moved on.
The idea of Melany with another man sat like a stone in his gut. But he couldn’t ignore the facts. She’d had a child with someone since he’d last seen her.
“So all we have at the moment,” Ryan deduced aloud with as much objectivity as he could marshal, “is Mel’s word against everyone else’s that her daughter is, in fact, alive.”
Bill closed his notebook and tucked it back into his pocket. He didn’t look at Ryan this time, his full attention remained on the woman they both cared for far too much. “That’s about the size of it,” he said, resigned.
“Well, then.” Ryan loosened his tie. “Let’s start with what we’ve got.”
He watched Melany for a few more seconds before leaving the viewing room. The one thing that made the whole damned situation different was Melany. She was a mother suffering through the kind of agony all mothers prayed they would never know, that much was true. But Melany Jackson was not like other mothers. She had received the same training as Ryan. She had seen many of the same cases and haunting faces as he had. And Ryan knew in his gut that no matter how far over the edge circumstances pushed her, at some point that deeply entrenched instinct kicked in.
If Melany believed her child was alive, he would damn well do everything in his power to help her find the truth.
Whatever that truth might prove to be.
* * *
MELANY SAT like a statue, her full attention focused on keeping thoughts and images of the past two days away. Despite her best efforts, snippets of her tense conversations with Bill kept echoing in her head. Sounds from the psych ward at Memphis General. The endless pacing and murmuring in the corridor…doors slamming. The distinctive click of locks turning…patients moaning. And the smell. God, the smell. She swallowed hard. Medicinal, yet somehow menacing. She never wanted to go back there.
She knew what they thought. All of them. They believed she had lost it. Her baby was dead, they thought, and she’d gone over the edge.
But it wasn’t true. Well maybe she had slipped over that precipice temporarily. She squeezed her eyes shut and blocked the instant replay of those frantic minutes in the cemetery. She had lost it for a little while…that much was accurate. When she’d tried to explain what she knew in her heart, no one would listen. She was nuts, they’d murmured.
But she knew the truth.
Bill believed her.
She opened her eyes and stared intently at the scarred table before her, tracing the lines of age and abuse wrought by belligerent suspects and frustrated detectives. Anything to prevent those horrifying images from filling her mind. But it was no use. The dizzying emotions bombarded her, leaving her defenseless.
The tiny grave surrounded by wreaths of withering flowers. The cold rain plastering her clothes to her skin. The sodden earth oozing between her icy fingers. Needing desperately to find her baby. Lights shining in her face. Two policemen dragging her away from her daughter’s grave. And then struggling with the hospital orderlies.
A pathetic sound intended as a rueful laugh but falling well short of the definition erupted from her throat. They hadn’t even bothered running her downtown, she’d been taken straight to the hospital. No one would listen to her explanations of why she was at the cemetery or her concerns about her daughter. A nurse had, and with the help of an orderly, stripped her, forced her into a shower, then strapped her into a bed and sedated her. Twenty-four hours later, after she’d been questioned and analyzed by the shrink on duty, they had allowed her a telephone call.
Who else could she have called? She had no family. Melany rubbed her eyes, then dried her cheeks with the backs of her hands. She hadn’t wanted to call Bill, but she hadn’t known what else to do. She knew she could trust him and if anyone on earth would listen to her, it would be him.
He had listened. Despite her lack of hard evidence, he’d ordered the exhumation. She shuddered as those memories tumbled one over the other into her head. It was just like in her dream. No vault…just that tiny white coffin with its pink satin interior.
And just as she knew it would be, it had been empty.
She closed her eyes and struggled with the emotions twisting inside her. Where was her little girl? Why had they lied to her at the hospital? How had they fooled her friend?
She knew with every fiber of her being that Katlin was alive. But how would she ever prove it? The doctor had signed the death certificate. The funeral home attendant had signed for the body. Her good friend, Rita, had identified Katlin from a photograph. A new surge of pain constricted her throat.
How could all of them be wrong? But how could they be right? She wouldn’t let them be right.
Another shudder quaked through her. She had to be strong. Her baby was out there somewhere and Melany had to be strong for her. She stiffened her spine and blinked back the tears welling in her eyes once more. Bill would help her find Katlin. She could trust Bill. He’d been her mentor at the Bureau. Her mentor and her friend. She’d known him for eight years. He wouldn’t let her down.
The door opened behind her and someone stepped inside. Melany smiled weakly. She knew it was Bill even before he walked around to the other side of the table and took the seat opposite her. He smelled vaguely of Old Spice and the cigarette he’d no doubt just sneaked a few puffs from in the closest men’s room.
Bill looked tired. Hell, they were both tired. They’d been up the better part of the past forty-eight hours. His suit was a little wrinkled, but still presentable. Lines of fatigue had scrawled themselves into his familiar face. He was like family and she was so glad he was here.
“How’re you holding up, Mel?” he asked gently.
She forced a little more feeling into her smile. “I’m okay.” It was a flat-out lie, but he understood. Her child was missing. How could she be okay? Her head still ached a little but most of the soreness was gone. None of that mattered right now. She had only one thing on her mind, finding her daughter.
“Have they found the employee from the cemetery who…” Her words trailed off. She couldn’t say the rest. God, would this nightmare never end? She just wanted her baby back.
Bill shook his head. “Not yet. But don’t worry, we’ll find him soon.”
She wasn’t really worried on that score. Not anymore. Not with Bill here. He would see that this investigation was handled properly. He wouldn’t be swayed by the local authorities who considered her just another distraught mother who wouldn’t face reality. To them, this whole thing was nothing more than a misplaced body. The body would show up, they’d assured her. She might as well come to terms with the loss now.
But she couldn’t do that. Wouldn’t do that.
Bill leaned forward, propped his arms on the table and peered at her with those steady gray eyes. “We’re going to need help on this one, Mel. I’m good, but not good enough. We need the best on our side.”
Melany stilled. A new kind of emotion stirred inside her. A mixture of fear and a kind of anticipation she didn’t want to feel. No. Not him. She shook her head. “I don’t want you to call him. I trust you. You know how to do this.”
“This is too important,” Bill countered firmly, his voice carefully gentled. “You know it better than anyone. We need the best. He is the best.”
She started to argue but he stopped her with an uplifted palm. “I’ve already called him. He’s here. He wants to see you.”
Da
mmit, she did not want to see Ryan Braxton. She twisted her hands together in her lap to keep them from shaking. “He’s here? Now?”
Bill nodded. “He wants to help you, Mel. Let him. He’s the best there is and you know it. We need him.”
Bill was right. Ryan Braxton had been the best man at Quantico when it came to finding missing children and their predators. His instincts were uncanny. His skills unparalleled. He never failed. Katlin deserved the best. Melany needed him, even if she didn’t want to admit it. But hadn’t he left the Bureau?
As if reading her mind, Bill said, “He’s with a private agency now, but he’s willing to take the case if you want him.”
If she wanted him? She almost laughed, but couldn’t manage the energy required. With monumental effort she pushed the past aside and focused on one thing, her daughter.
“All right,” she agreed, her voice so stilted she hardly recognized it as her own. “Whatever it takes to find my little girl.”
As if on cue, the door behind her opened once more. He’d been listening, she realized. He knew she didn’t want him here, but then that wouldn’t surprise him, she imagined.
That damned anticipation spiked again, sending adrenaline rushing through her veins. She moistened her lips, summoned her resolve, and looked up to greet the man she’d walked away from two years ago. The man she’d loved with her entire being. The same one who’d chosen his career over a life with her. And Bill was right, she suddenly realized. She needed Ryan Braxton. It would take his kind of relentlessness to look beyond the obvious and find Katlin.
When her gaze met his she wasn’t at all prepared for the impact of those deep blue eyes. Her resolve crumbled immediately, leaving her as defenseless as she’d been two years ago, all over again. His dark hair was still short. There was a peppering of gray at the temples. Her gaze lingered there. That was definitely new. She would never have believed anything, not even age, could touch Ryan. He was far too invincible, too unreachable. But there it was. Did he look older, otherwise? She resisted the urge to shake her head. No, he looked exactly the same.
Tall and lean with broad, broad shoulders. His Armani suit looking as if he’d just put it on. The navy a perfect match for those dark eyes. His too-handsome face clean-shaven, the set of his square jaw all business.
“Hello, Mel.”
He didn’t sit down. She’d known he wouldn’t. It was an indication of power. She’d seen him in action countless times. He was in charge now and the sooner she realized that, the better it would be.
“Ryan,” she returned. Fierce emotions warred inside her. The need to drink him in with her eyes, the need to touch him…and at the same time the urge to run like hell. How could she talk to this man, tell him about her daughter, and not tell him everything? She considered the sculpted angles of his face again, the shallow cleft in his chin, the mouth she’d kissed so many times, and then she looked fully into those all-seeing eyes. Her heart lurched at what she saw there. Something more than the sympathy he wanted her to see. And then it was gone, but not quite quickly enough.
He still cared for her and, damn it, that only made bad matters worse.
“I want you to start at the beginning,” he said in that deep, husky voice that made her shiver. His words were calm, quiet, as if they hadn’t lived together for three years…as if they hadn’t made love night after night all that time.
“Tell me everything,” he added, then reached into his inside coat pocket and removed a document. When he’d unfolded it and laid it on the table, he pushed it in her direction. “Make me believe that this is a mistake.”
Melany dragged her gaze from his to stare at the document. Shelby County Health Department. Certificate of Death. Katlin Jackson.
“Give me one shred of evidence that this is a mistake, Mel,” he told her, “and I swear I’ll move heaven and earth to find your daughter.”
CHAPTER TWO
By 7:45 p.m. Ryan and Bill had commandeered a fair-sized office with two incoming lines and a fax machine. Memphis P.D. was happy to help, and to turn the case they definitely did not want over to the Feds. Bill inconspicuously passed Ryan off as an agent, as well. The usual jurisdiction battle lines went undrawn. No one wanted to touch this case. Even the press had played it soft. Minimal coverage in the papers. None of the local television channels had spent more than a perfunctory thirty seconds on Melany’s grave-digging escapade.
It was just as well, she decided. Any hype in the media could work against them. The last thing they needed were calls from people who thought they knew something when they really didn’t. She wasn’t ready for false Katlin sightings from strangers just yet. She’d worked in the investigation business long enough to know that most of the input generated by the media was useless. There were times when the media could actually be a very efficient tool, but those occasions were few and far between.
At least the local cops were no longer looking at Mel as if she was crazy. She almost smiled. Those accusations now rested firmly atop Bill’s and Ryan’s shoulders. The boys in blue merely looked at her with sympathy at this point. No doubt the possibility that the Feds were only dragging out the inevitable had been discussed by all on duty.
Mel didn’t care what they thought. All that mattered was that she finally had help. Expert help. If anyone could find Katlin, it was Ryan. Her gaze drifted in his direction. They had to find her. Soon. Mel wasn’t sure how much longer she could take the not knowing.
They had exchanged cell phone numbers for convenience and Ryan had already started a time line on a wall-mounted whiteboard. Sitting stiffly at the equipment console-turned-conference-table, Mel stared at the time line now, her abdominal muscles clenched in a familiar knot of anticipation. She knew this routine, somehow found it comforting. This was the first step and her relief was almost palpable. Bill was on the telephone getting a court order for copies of all the hospital reports related to Mel and Katlin, his voice a low, but gruff murmur. Any minute now he would snag one of the locals and make him his personal gopher.
“What can I do?” Mel’s voice sounded stark in contrast to Ryan’s silence and Bill’s quiet cadence.
Ryan stopped labeling and dating incidents and turned to her. “What?”
The trance. A familiar pang of jealousy speared through her. The Braxton trance. Whenever he took on a case he immersed himself so completely that he was barely aware of anything else around him. He blinked now, focusing on her, waiting for a response, attempting to assimilate her comment. Their relationship had never stood a chance against his work. It consumed him…defined him. Nothing or no one else mattered. If only she could tune out all else as he could, maybe the next few days wouldn’t be so bad.
“Would you like me to set up witness interviews?” she offered. She cringed at the old hurt weighting her tone. The flicker of surprise in his eyes told her he’d heard it, too. But she couldn’t just sit here…she had to do something, to help in some way. “Additional interviews,” she clarified when he only stared at her. “That’s the next logical step, right?” She stood to punctuate the question.
He scrubbed a hand over the five o’clock shadow darkening his chin as if considering her offer. “Look, Mel. You know the drill. The fact that you’re even in this room is a breach of protocol. You really—”
“Don’t even think about it, Braxton.” The hurt was gone from her tone, anger and an icy warning vibrated in its place. Bill looked up from the notes he was making, his end of the telephone conversation stumbling to a halt.
“This is my daughter.” Mel pointed to the pictures taped to the wall and stepped closer to the man she refused to be intimidated by. Glared up into those cool blue eyes without flinching, which was a pretty amazing feat considering her heart was pounding like a drum. “She’s not just some statistic in a case. She’s my flesh and blood. And you’re damned right that makes me personally involved. But the bottom line is, I don’t give a damn what it makes me. You will not shut me out. Either I help you with
this investigation or I start one of my own. It’s your choice.”
He hesitated, damn him, just long enough to make her sweat.
“Start with the paramedics and any witnesses at the scene,” he ordered coolly. “I want a copy of the police report and I want to see the vehicle first thing tomorrow morning.” He didn’t miss a beat at her sharply indrawn breath. “I want to know who else was on duty in the pediatric ward when the child coded. I want to know,” he pressed, his voice harsh, demanding, “every little thing—no matter how insignificant—they did to revive her and their conclusions about what went wrong. I also want to know the name of anyone who so much as looked at her from the moment she was wheeled through the E.R. doors. Any questions?”
He wanted to scare her off. But it wouldn’t work. Mel fought to control the trembling that had started in her legs and was working its way up her rigid body. “None.”
“Good.”
He gave her his back, turning his attention once more to the time line he was so meticulously constructing. She forced herself to take two unsteady steps back to the table that served as their workstation.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m still here. That’s right,” Bill said into the receiver as he watched her ease down into the seat across from him. “I’ll send someone over for it, ASAP.”
Melany picked up a couple of freshly sharpened number twos and dragged a yellow legal pad in her direction. She wet her lips and forced her attention to the task of list-making.
“You okay?” Bill asked quietly.
She nodded, still uncertain of her voice, then blinked back the fresh tears brimming. By God, she would not cry. Not now and give Braxton the satisfaction of thinking he’d accomplished his goal.
Bill punched in another string of numbers and mumbled something that sounded vaguely like self-righteous ass. Mel felt her lips curl upward in spite of the damned tears now spilling past her lashes.
“Ayers?” Bill barked. “What’s the name of that rookie you said we could borrow?” He listened. “Well, send him down here. I have a job for him.”
