by Violet Duke
Lordy, she really missed the big lug.
Never one for long, emotional moments, Joe was already moving the phone away from his mouth when she heard him mutter crossly: “No, I don’t need a friggin’ tissue.” Activity shuffled on the other end before she heard his now distant voice snap, “Here, jackass. Don’t screw it up. And don’t you dare make her cry.”
The sound of Joe’s office door suddenly banging shut gave her a quick jolt, which was a nice warm-up to the even bigger, frazzle-her-entire-system thunderbolt she got hit with when she heard Caine come on the phone a second later.
“Addison.”
He said it softly, the way she imagined she’d say the word ‘rain’ after a year-long drought.
It was any wonder she was able to string together her profound answer. “Hi Caine.”
The deep, ragged exhale on his end effectively wiped out the possibility of her remembering any of the other things she’d pictured herself saying in this very moment.
He suffered no such problem, however. “Are you and the kids coming back?”
She almost smiled then. Caine just wouldn’t be Caine if he didn’t start with the hard-hitting questions right off the bat.
“Because you shouldn’t,” he added quietly.
Wow.
She’d always considered herself a tough girl, but that just about gutted her. She hadn’t been at all prepared to discover today that the thing she’d thought was the feeling of her heart breaking was just a tiny paper cut in comparison to the wrecking ball that was demolishing most everything inside of her chest now.
“He jumped bail, Addison.”
She jerked back and stared at the phone in disbelief, stuck somewhere between a bone-deep relief that there was an explanation for his saying what he did…to an oxygen-stealing terror that the explanation had anything to do with David.
The terror was winning out.
“It happened days after he made bail a few weeks ago. He just vanished during a meeting with his lawyers, and hasn’t been seen since.” Anger, worry, and a whole host of other emotions dropped his tone down to a coarse-ground gravel. “You and the kids need to keep hiding…like your lives depend on it.”
She learned then and there that her nightmares in broad daylight were somehow even scarier, like a menacing shadow she couldn’t hope to ever be free from.
“I don’t understand how he made bail.” It was funny how, in the absence of any early warning response type of system for life itself, a person’s auto-response to the unfathomable was often to find a random anchor point to focus their disbelief and frustration on. “I…I thought the judge was going to set bail really high.”
And sometimes, that anchor wasn’t all that random.
“Did the judge go lighter because I wasn’t there as part of the case anymore? Is this my fault for running?”
“No, of course not. Don’t ever think that. Honey, his bail was set for a million dollars, just like we thought.”
To hell with staying calm. “So you’re telling me David isn’t just a psycho, he’s a psycho with a million dollars just lying around?” Seriously, universe? You didn’t already give him enough tools in his stalker arsenal?
“No, he didn’t have to pay the whole amount. He got a bail bond—a promissory contract with the court and paid a bond agent a fee. Probably twenty percent or so of the bail amount.”
Two hundred thousand dollars. That was still a ton of money. She’d probably never smell that much in her savings in a single lifetime.
“Truthfully,” admitted Caine, “Drew hacked his accounts a while ago to keep track of them. Based on his available funds, we didn’t think he’d be able to pay a bondsman. We had no idea David had so much hidden away in cash.”
“Jesus, he was even able to outmaneuver Drew?” This was getting scarier by the second.
“Cash is hard; we can’t track it, and it opens a lot of doors he wouldn’t normally have access to. But, Drew was able to dig into David’s past and calculate a fair estimate of how much he likely has stashed. The guy wasn’t rich or anything; but he saved every cent, and didn’t have a lot of expenses. Full scholarship to college so no loans, and a family farmhouse he was living in out in the Midwest for over a decade rent-free. When his folks died, he made a decent amount when he sold that land. And far as we can tell, he’s had good-paying jobs in pharmaceutical sales since right out of school. Drew has been doing the math and looks like David’s been keeping a portion in cash with every paycheck. Same with the farm land settlement.” Agitated worry graveled his tone. “With liquid funds like that and morals like his, he probably got a new identity overnight, which is why we haven’t been able to find him.”
Addison was beyond frustrated. How was it fair that a stalker could basically buy a new life, while his victim was sentenced to an identity-less existence working for part-time pennies simply so he wouldn’t be able to find her? “I can’t believe the system just let a man like that walk right out the door.” Where was the justice? “What if I’d been in Creek Hills when he had cut and run, Caine? Me and the kids?”
“You don’t think I’ve asked myself that every single damn day?” he burst out in a near roar, sounding tortured, raw. As helpless and furious as a caged animal. “You don’t think that even though it decimated me to find you all gone that day, I’m actually thankful you disappeared without a trace? You don’t think I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if you’d been here instead of wherever you’ve been hiding off-grid for the past few months, and something had happened to you or the kids, I would’ve...” He dragged in a battered and broken breath.
Addison finally felt the tears fall. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” he asked quietly, sounding tormented in a whole new way. “Don’t admit I would’ve murdered the bastard with my own two hands?”
“No. No, Caine. You wouldn’t have.”
An incredulous grunt grated out of him, hardening his voice even more. “You really think I would’ve been able to stop myself?”
“Yes,” replied Addison without hesitation. “You’re a good cop, Caine. But more than that, you’re a good man. The kind that holds true to the oaths you take, and gives actual meaning to everything your badge represents. Integrity, honor, trust—those aren’t just words to you. You have faith in the things you believe in, so much so that even those around you who don’t, can’t help but find the hope they need to eventually get there too.” Admittedly, she was in that very group. “I may not believe in the system the way you do, but I believe in you. Just like I believe you’ll do what you feel in your gut is right if you find David.”
“When I find him,” he rumbled.
“And there it is,” she said softly, smiling because she could visualize the fierce expression he was likely wearing after that deadly serious, no-two-ways-about-it assertion. “You can’t have conviction like that without believing in yourself the way I do.”
He was silent for a long moment, before he finally asked again, “Are you coming back?”
This time, she knew he wouldn’t be telling her that she shouldn’t.
Which is precisely why she answered, “No.”
For both their sakes.
As if expecting that very reply, he said next without missing a beat, “Do you have a pen?”
She pulled one out from her ponytail, and poised it over her hand. “Yes.”
He recited a long string of digits slowly, twice, before explaining, “That’s the number to an untraceable satellite phone Max, Gabe, and Drew built for me that should withstand everything short of a nuclear crisis. I’ll never be without it, and you’re the only person with the number to it. If David finds you, you call that number. Promise me. Promise me you’ll call the number and let me protect you.”
He wasn’t using his cop voice—far from it—but still, his words felt as binding as an oath.
And just as powerful.
“I promise.”
“This isn’t over between us, sweeth
eart.” Again with the conviction, the incredible, hope-inspiring confidence. “When I find him, I’m going to come find you and the kids.” His voice roughened. “…So I can bring you all home. Home to me.”
A silent second passed before she heard him gently hang up the phone—saving them both from the hope-killing finality of an uttered goodbye.
She stared down at the phone and wondered if he hadn’t hung up, if she would’ve said a whole different set of parting words, the three words she’d never gotten a chance to say to him yet that had been burning a hole in her heart for months now—
“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop,” called out a low, familiar southern drawl not ten feet away from her, breaking into her thoughts. “Okay, that’s a lie. I was listening in on everything you were saying.” He flashed her a lazy, unapologetic grin.
Geez, the man was charming—in an audaciously impertinent sort of way. Has he been standing there the entire time?
“You’re Hale’s brother.” She looked at the man who reminded her a little of Caine in build and behavior, but was maybe a few years younger, and just a tad less gruff around the edges. “Alec, right? The other P.I. in Hale’s company.”
“I’m the actual P.I.,” he corrected with a frown. “Hale just handles the paperwork, and rams his fists into things when they get in our way. I can’t believe he told you he was a P.I.” Peeved annoyance thickened his country accent. “He’s my brother and my momma says I need to keep loving him and all, but the man wouldn’t be able to find a neon-blinking toy in a cereal box with a map and a cheat sheet if my life depended on it.”
Despite the heaviness of the past few minutes, Addison found a ghost of a smile trying to creep across her lips over how disgruntled he looked. In that moment, Alec looked a whole lot like Caine whenever his brother Gabe used to come up in conversation.
She took a giant step back then and peered up at the sky in the off chance a bolt of lightning with her name on it was heading their way as a result of the comparison. At Alec’s puzzled expression—and no cosmic intervention—she returned her attention to the relative stranger who now knew more about her situation than she’d ever willingly share with anyone.
While she’d originally had every intention of simply walking away from him after his confession that he’d been eavesdropping, the candid and clearly genuine brotherly annoyance showed a real side to him that prompted her to ask curiously, “You’re standing there like I shouldn’t be upset you were shamelessly listening in on a private call—why is that, exactly?”
“Because I’m as good at hiding people as I am at finding them,” he stated plainly, more factually than cockily. “And you may not want it, but sugar, you need my help.”
Chapter Three
Phoenix, Arizona -- Present Day
Caine punched in a few notes on his patrol car tablet on scene while two other squad cars took away the three men who’d started the bar brawl that had sent over a dozen people to the hospital with injuries, and caused a shitload of damage to the newest sports bar in the area during what had apparently been their very first big NFL Sunday hoopla.
Damn crowd mentality.
Fights had broken up all around the bar because of those three drunken idiots, turning into a massive brawl where half the people couldn’t even remember why they’d gotten to the point of throwing blows to begin with. And of the two men who had been foolish enough to take a swing at Caine, one hadn’t even realized he was a cop until mid-strike. Poor guy almost dislocated his own shoulder and popped himself in the eye trying to pull back at the last second. Meanwhile, the other had seemed to get an adrenaline boost because Caine was a uniformed officer—hulking out and doing this whole running and leaping into the air with a roar bit like the Wolverine, before delivering a Hollywood action scene worthy punch.
That had missed by a mile.
Seriously, that guy’s broken hand was between him and the brick wall; Caine hadn’t even had to duck. Frankly, he was contemplating not even dignifying the entire thing as an attempted attack on an officer in his report. It was way closer to simple vandalism of the wall, really.
Decisions, decisions.
The sudden sound of an ear-splitting scream cut off his mulling and yanked his attention from his report.
…Over to the sight of a screeching woman running in a pair of platform shoes that had to have been six inches high, designed to look exactly like fur-trimmed hooves with pencil-thin crystal-encrusted stiletto heels that looked like glitzy torture devices.
Honestly, Caine could live to be a hundred and never understand women’s fashion.
Collectively as a group, he and a few other nearby officers immediately began shuffling and swaying to the left and the right as the woman neared, getting ready to dart forward to catch her if need be every time she teetered and tottered throughout her entire perilous sprint down the sidewalk toward them.
His buddy Grayson was the one closest to dive and prevent her from falling on her face when she pitched forward while trying to come to a stop.
Clearly, this was the owner of the ice pink luxury Barbie-mobile convertible parked out front of the bar with the white fur seats and blinged-out steering wheel. After getting a good look at the damage to her car, the woman finally dropped the bounty of boutique shopping bags she’d been clutching—not even during the windmilling of her arms during her fall, had a single one of those babies been in any danger of hitting the ground. Kind of impressive, actually.
The brief silence that followed was the calm before the storm.
Or in this case, the shrill, apocalyptic conniption of epic proportions.
“Do you have any idea how much these repairs are going to cost?! More than you all probably make in a year! Who’s responsible for this?! And who the hell is in charge of this rat hole? I’m calling my lawyers!”
Figured even her phone would be bedazzled.
Some exhausting, long-ass minutes later, when it became obvious her shrieking rants and threats to sue everyone in the bar and their mother was falling on deaf ears, she redirected her hysterics at the remaining officers still taking witness statements. Somehow, she found a way to even blame them for the gigantic dents smashed into the hood of her car, and the shattered windshield with what looked like the leg of a bar stool still sticking out of it. “What good are you guys if you can’t even move a stupid fight away from the most valuable car on the street?” she shrieked, at ear-splitting decibels. “How hard would that have been?! For you to, heaven-forbid, do your frickin’ jobs?! You have guns don’t you? Some useless public servants you are! Can’t even stop bad things from happening to the good people paying your salaries!”
Caine sighed. Just a normal day in the office.
Thankfully, a tow truck arrived a short while later, and the furious f-bombs she’d been flinging all over the place finally came to an end.
Not that anyone was around to care. She’d managed to clear the street of every last sympathetic being. By the time her car was hooked up to the tow truck, Caine was the only cop left on site.
Despite her having just been a pretty heinous bitch to a half dozen of his buddies, Caine still didn’t want the distraught woman to wait alone for her ride to come. So he walked over to where she was standing, deflated, silently watching the tow truck cart her car away.
Years of experience had taught him not to ask any unnecessary questions in these situations. A simple ‘are you okay’ could backfire big time, sometimes turning into the equivalent of kerosene on embers packed full of crazy. The subsequent atomic meltdown that could potentially result was often even worse than the original flare-up.
He proceeded with caution.
The woman was looking more lost than angry as he approached. And silent. Silence was progress in her case. When he saw her guarded expression dim and finally disappear with a fizzled sigh, he pointed at a nearby chair she could sit down in, and then headed for it without a word.
Nine times out of ten, they followed.
&
nbsp; She did.
As soon as she sat down, he handed her an unopened travel pack of tissues from the case he kept in his trunk for just this purpose, and a bottle of water from the cooler in his front seat.
She stared at his offerings.
And then burst out into tears.
Yup, just another day in the office.
They didn’t talk. They just sat there while she cried and drank her water to replenish the amount pouring out of her eyes and nose.
Right around the time her ride came to get her, she’d calmed down almost entirely. Enough to point out to him, “You have blood on your uniform,” before climbing into her friend’s car and driving off.
He went ahead and chalked that up as a successful turnaround.
All in all, a pretty fitting end to his week. This past stretch on the day shift had been the most eventful he’d had all month. And to think, they were still days away from Halloween when all the really crazy shit happened.
“You’ve got the patience of an effing saint,” remarked the bar owner who, along with a few other employees, came filing out of the bar guardedly, peering around as if expecting to see natural disaster like devastation in the wake of the irate woman’s rampage. “Here.” He handed Caine a to-go cup of coffee. “I’d offer you something stronger from the bar, but it looks like you’re still on duty.”
Caine smiled his thanks and took the piping hot cup. “I’ve got a few more hours left in my shift so coffee works great. I appreciate it.”
“I already told your other police colleagues before they left, but I owe y’all a debt of gratitude. If you boys hadn’t intervened when you did, I would’ve ended up with a hell of a lot more damage. So stop by here again when you have a night off, and ask for T.J. at the bar. I’ll make sure you guys are taken care of.” T.J. gave him another grateful, hearty thump on the back before heading back in to continue the massive clean-up efforts.
Personally, Caine never took any forms of thanks for doing his job beyond crayon drawings by the kids in the schools he was invited to for presentations, and maybe the occasional doughnut or cup of coffee. The school art pieces, he always took home to put up on his fridge and in his office. The doughnuts, he ate in moderation because he didn’t have the time for daily mountain runs and grueling workouts every night like he used to back in the day.
