"The baby's mom, Brenda Benteen, was an in-house referral from my partner, Kate."
"Kate, the Ice Woman," he said after asking her to spell Brenda's last name. "Now there's an interesting lady. Real tidy and buttoned up. Make's a man's fingers itch to undo some of those buttons."
He flashed her another grin—the wicked, slightly naughty one he and Grady shared.
Flynn and Kate had met at Ria's wedding. Kate had considered Grady's brother a lightweight—pretty face, a gorgeous body and the emotional depth of paint. But then Kate was drawn toward the slick, corporate types. Suits, Tova called them.
"Kate had been treating Brenda's baby daughter for severe colic for about three months," Ria said, "when one day out of the blue last November she got a call from one of Lafayette's finest, asking her to fax the baby's records downtown. Naturally Kate being as much a fanatic about confidentiality as she is about everything else, she asked him why, which was when the callous jerk casually dropped the news that the baby had been found dead in his crib that morning."
Flynn winced. The lingering glint in his eyes disappeared in the span of a blink. "I assume Kate sent the records."
"Eventually. Her first concern was Brenda, of course. The poor woman was a wreck. Bouncing from hysteria to an almost catatonic state and then bursting into wild tears again." Ria drew a breath. "My mother used to do the same thing. It can be … scary."
Flynn smiled back. "Yeah."
Ria let her smile fade. In her manic state Virginia had smothered her little girl with maternal attention, sometimes rousing her in the middle of the night to dance in the moonlight to a tune only her mother could hear.
Ria came to dread those once-a-month days when her mother's welfare check landed in the mailbox of their musty, dingy apartment house. With a crow of delight, Virginia would dress Ria in her best and hustle her to the first of a series of movie houses. Sometimes they would attend five movies in a row before Ria could talk her mother into going back to the apartment for a meal and sleep.
Ria had lived a life of constant fear, never knowing when her mother's mood would suddenly turn. Those were the worst times—dark, frighteningly unpredictable times, when her mom would huddle beneath the covers of her bed and sob. School became Ria's respite. Her haven. The only order and security in her life.
Her caseworker, a raw-boned, homely earth mother named Alice Mansfield, had tried to protect her, but she'd been hampered by the rules and regulations of a system unwilling to deny a mother custody of her own child—even though that mother was mentally ill.
She'd been in the sixth grade when her mother had tried to kill her by putting sleeping pills in her milk. It had made her deathly ill instead, finally giving Alice the ammunition she needed to end Virginia's parental rights.
Ria had been made a ward of the court then. Instead of placing her in a foster home, Alice had taken her into her own. Her husband, Glen, was the pastor of a small neighborhood church and the kindest man Ria had ever met. She'd lived with the Mansfields until she'd gone off to college.
Her mother had died a few days before Ria's fifteenth birthday. In many ways it had been a blessing for both of them.
"Kate gave Brenda a mild tranquilizer and stayed with her until she was able to answer questions." Ria paused, trying to remember exactly what Kate had told her. "Brenda swore the baby had been fine when she'd put her back in her crib for her morning nap. She said she'd been putting a load of laundry into the washing machine when her husband came home. He's a long-haul truck driver. I think he works for one of the local freight haulers, but I'm not sure which one."
"You have a name for this guy?"
"Brenda calls him Monk. I don't know if that's his real name or not."
"I'll check."
Ria thanked him with a quick smile. "Last night, my neighbor told me she'd seen Brenda and someone I think was Monk in the Center's parking lot." She went on to recount Mrs. Cocetti's story.
He digested that. "Have you ever seen signs of abuse? Bruises, for example?"
"No, nothing." Ria shook her head. "It's just something I feel, you know? Like one of the hunches Grady used to talk about."
His smile saluted his brother before he returned the notebook to his pocket. "It'll take me a few days to put it together."
"You have at least fourteen before I start bugging you."
"Fair enough," he said, reaching for his coffee cup. "Here's to a great vacation."
"Thanks." Ria lifted hers in salute before she took a sip.
"Guess you know Grady's thinking about relocating to the west coast."
Shock stunned her into a temporary silence. "You mean, permanently?" she asked when she found her voice again.
Flynn nodded. "A small town along the Oregon coast is looking to hire a chief of police. Apparently Grady's at the top of their list. Last I heard he was planning to fly out there over the Fourth for a look-see at what they've got to offer."
Ria took a sip, a large one. "He always said it was his life's ambition to become chief before Kale."
"Yeah, those two always were pushing and shoving about something. Grady generally came out on the bottom—until he grew into his hands and feet." Flynn leaned back and stretched out his legs. "Grady told me once that he'd only started to like himself when you fell in love with him. Before then, he'd considered himself a born loser."
Stunned, Ria jerked her gaze to his face. His gaze bored into hers, dark with a truth she didn't want to see.
"Think about it," he ordered gruffly. "Kale graduated from college with honors up the wazoo. The twins are music geniuses and me—" he shrugged, then preened "—what can I say? All-American in three sports."
She grinned and shook her head. "Modest, too."
"There is that." He glanced down at the plate that had once contained a mound of peanut butter cookies. Now there was one lone survivor.
"Be my guest," she said when he lifted a brow.
"Guess I will." He devoured half with one bite. "Grady wasn't special in anything," he continued, after wolfing down the remaining bite. "Unless you call screwing up, in which case he was A number one."
Outside, a siren wailed, and in the distance a dog joined in with an off-key howl.
"He told me once that he sometimes wished he'd been born crippled instead of dyslexic," she admitted. "He said that when you had a visible handicap, people cut you some slack, but he just came across as stupid."
"Which he's not," Flynn said quietly.
"Yes, anything but." Grady could add a column of figures in his head faster than she could total them on a ten-key. He could remember the lyrics to songs he'd only heard once or twice. And he could read the needs of her body with the sensitivity that took her breath.
Ria stood up, too agitated suddenly to sit still. Heart pounding, she stalked past him to retrieve the coffeepot from the warmer.
She was just about to refill the mug he extended when the phone rang. The answering machine picked up on the second ring.
"Aren't you going to answer?" Flynn asked over the drone of her terse message.
"Not unless I have to. I'm on vacation, remember?"
"Ree, are you there?"
At the sound of Grady's distinctly husky voice, she froze, her gaze darting to Flynn's. Before she could move, Grady spoke again. "Brace yourself honey, okay? It's about Jimmy."
* * *
"Do you hear the Charger?"
Without waiting for an answer, Ria jumped up from the easy chair by the fireplace she'd never used and crossed the living room to the bay window overlooking the street.
"Grady has different wheels these days," Flynn said from the sofa where he'd been for the past hour, playing solitaire on the coffee table.
Astonished, Ria turned to find him watching her with hooded eyes. "Where's the Charger?"
"He sold it and put the money in the reward fund. These days he drives a banged-up pickup he'd bought from impound and fixed up."
She took a careful breath be
fore returning her gaze to the empty thoroughfare. Grady had spent hundreds of hours rebuilding the muscle car from the chassis up. In many ways he and his speed machine were exactly alike. Big, fast. Potentially lethal.
She remembered the first time she'd seen him climb out of that car and stalk toward her. She'd been working her way through grad school waiting tables in an Italian restaurant at night and on weekends. When one of her fellow waitresses had been raped, Ria had been dismayed to discover just how pitifully limited the resources for rape victims had been.
Consequently she and Kate, who'd been in her first year of med school, had helped found a hotline for victims. In order to raise money, one of the sororities had come up with the idea of a calendar featuring local hunks. One of Grady's younger brothers, Davon, had been dating a member of that sorority and, as a prank, had given them Grady's picture to use.
It had been taken one hot day in August when he'd been practicing with his grandfather's old Carbine. He'd been wearing threadbare cutoffs that barely covered his tight buttocks and a Lafayette PD ball cap pulled down low. His huge chest had been bare and sweat glistened on the curve of broad shoulders, running in meandering rivulets over the hard-packed musculature of his upper torso.
The photographer had caught him in the act of slipping shells into the chamber, his eyes narrowed against the sun as he'd looked up, his mouth a split second into a grin. One big hand caressed the barrel of his rifle in a pose so erotic Ria had felt the impact all the way to the soles of her ratty old sneakers.
A feeling like a warm melting sigh ran through her as she remembered the way her mouth had gone dry and her hands had curled around the stiff glossy paper.
The calendar had sold out. Mr. August had become an instant favorite. Ria had been on the phone when he'd come charging into the hotline's cramped office, brandishing the calendar, his jaw hard and his brown eyes sparking with outrage.
He was being ragged within an inch of his control by his fellow officers, he'd bellowed at her the instant she'd hung up. All because of a damn picture taken two years earlier and used without his permission.
Because she was alone and a little intimidated, she'd jerked her spine a little taller and ripped into him.
"So what?" she challenged. "It's for a good cause. Or don't you care?"
His tawny brows drew together, and his chin came up. "Hell, yes, I care. That's not the point."
"Then what is?"
"I'm a cop, damn it. It's tough enough going against bad guys who've got better firepower and faster cars, without having a damn suspect drooling all over the arresting officer."
She fought the grin that tickled the corners of her mouth. "You have bad guys drooling over you?"
His mouth slanted just enough to tease a shallow dimple into one lean cheek. "More like one professionally bad girl I busted on the stroll near the bus station. Gave me this come-hither grin before going on and on about how August was her favorite month, it being so hot and all. Offered me a freebie—and then slapped my butt when I was giving her the Miranda."
Ria choked on a laugh. "Did it hurt?"
"Only my dignity. It so happened the duty sergeant saw the whole thing." His voice was more rough than resonant and was lashed with something that sounded suspiciously like humor.
She knew now she'd started falling in love with him at that moment. And when he'd asked her for a date, she'd accepted.
After the divorce she'd tossed the calendar in the trash, then got up in the middle of the night to retrieve it from the barrel she'd already set out for pickup. It was in the bottom of the trunk where she stored her wool sweaters.
She drew a ragged sigh. "He told me he'd be here in two hours," she said as she paced back to the chair she'd just left. "It's been two hours and ten minutes."
"Maybe he got stuck in traffic." He put a red nine on a black ten.
"At 1:00 a.m.?"
Flynn turned over the last card, frowned, then let out a long-suffering sigh before admitting defeat. "Are you sure I can't fix you a drink?"
"I'm too nervous. It'll just make me sick."
"Wine then?" he suggested, shuffling with the easy skill of a Vegas dealer. "I saw some Grand Marnier behind the Scotch. How about a couple of fingers to take the edge off?"
"The only thing to do that will be seeing my baby again."
The cards slapped the table's glass top in a steady rhythm as he laid out the hand. Only then did he glance up.
"Ria, remember what Grady told you? The boy doesn't have any memory of his life before he was abducted."
"Not consciously, maybe. But I've saved all of his things. His books, his Matchbox cars. His Pooh bear." She nodded, folded her arms across her middle and nodded again. "You'll see. He can't help but remember Pooh."
His dark eyes held hers, his expression a little pitying. "He thinks his name is Steven Wilson." He paused to add far more gently, "He didn't recognize his own dad or the picture of you Grady had in his wallet."
She drew a breath. "It's an old picture. From college. My hair was longer, for one thing, and I was much thinner."
Of course Jimmy would remember his mommy, she reassured herself as she jumped up to return to the window.
"Maybe I should have had you pick up a hamburger when you went out for groceries," she murmured, leaning closer to the window in an effort to see headlights at the far end of the block. "Jimmy always liked hamburgers—" She broke off, her heart taking off suddenly as a dark-colored pickup truck suddenly came into view below. Even before it slowed she knew.
"Oh, God, they're here," she whispered, her gaze riveted to the truck turning into the residents' parking lot.
Flynn surged to his feet and hurried to join her by the window. Her heart thumping wildly, she watched Grady park next to Flynn's vintage XKE, then climb out. He paused to grab a couple of bags from the back, then circled around to open the passenger door.
Her breath dammed in her throat. "There he is," she exclaimed eagerly as a boy climbed down. "Flynn, it's Jimmy. Oh God, it's really my baby." She pressed closer, desperate to see her child's face. But she was too far away to make out his features. "He's gotten so tall." Her voice broke, and she bit her lip. "He's all arms and legs."
Beside her, Flynn cleared his throat. "Looks like the kid hates haircuts as much as his old man does."
Ria choked out a laugh, but her gaze remained glued to the man and the boy walking toward the entrance to the building. They were so much alike, both long and lanky, with the same wide shoulders and loping walk.
"I'm so scared, Flynn," she whispered when they disappeared from view.
He slipped a brotherly arm around her shoulders and gave her a quick squeeze before he let her go again. In unison they turned to face the front door.
* * *
Grady had never been inside Ria's new place. Never even driven by, although he'd had the new address scrawled in his Rolodex next to her new phone number. A couple of times when he'd found himself in the area, he'd been tempted to stop by, just to make sure she was settling in.
Like she would actually let him in, he thought bitterly. It was a decent neighborhood, a mix of town houses and single-family, moderately expensive homes. The area had average crime stats, mostly break and enter. Just in case, he'd had a quiet talk with the desk sergeant in charge of scheduling, and, in the way of cops everywhere, had let it be known he'd consider it a personal favor if the guys on the street kept a close watch on this particular complex. Specifically the pretty, dark-haired lady in Unit B in Building 2. And in the way of cops, the sergeant had understood that in granting that favor he was entitled to a favor in return.
So far Sgt. Gruen hadn't called in the marker. Maybe he never would. Cops didn't take kindly to attacks on one of their own.
"Nice place, huh?" he said as he guided the reluctant child up the steps to the second floor. "Real classy."
Jimmy grunted something unintelligible, his gaze fixed on the carpeted risers. Talk about stubborn; this scruffy s
ix-year-old with hot, angry eyes could give lessons to a barnyard mule. In the three days since Grady had walked into that small pink bungalow in Calexico—and damn near lost it in front of a roomful of strangers when he'd recognized his son—Jimmy hadn't voluntarily said more than a couple of dozen words to him. This from the kid who had once started his day chattering about everything and anything, rarely stopping until he fell into bed at night.
He glanced down at the unhappy little boy. "Your mom is pretty emotional, so she's probably going to cry all over you," he told the boy as they headed up the carpeted stairs leading to the second floor. "When you're older, you'll realize women do that a lot. Sometimes at the darnedest times. Best thing to do is just suck it up and let her vent."
The boy flicked him a sullen look. "She's not my mom," he grumbled in a surly tone that set Grady's teeth on edge. "I don't know why I have to be in this stupid old place, anyway."
"Because this is where you belong."
At least part of the time. They hadn't worked out a custody agreement in the divorce settlement. He'd had to fight to get Ria to accept half of their assets, though he would have willingly given her everything he owned. But no way would he give up access to his son.
When they reached the landing, Grady put a hand on the boy's shoulder and drew him to a stop. When he had the kid's undivided attention, he crouched down so they were face-to-face, eye to eye.
He hated the defiance he saw there, but he understood it. Maybe he even respected it. In Jimmy's world, he was the bad guy, the stranger who'd taken him away from the parents he loved. The boy was fighting back the only way he could.
"No matter what anyone has said, you are my son. All you have to do is look at my face, then look in the mirror. Your name isn't Steven Wilson. It's Jimmy. Jimmy Hardin." He kept his voice soft, but with enough bite to make the point stick. "Maybe you don't want to believe that, but it's as true as true can be."
Jimmy's eyes flashed. "It's not! My mom and dad wouldn't lie to me! You're the one who's lying. You put them in jail, and I hate you!" He tried to jerk away, but Grady wrapped a hand around the boy's bony shoulder to keep him rooted.
ONCE MORE A FAMILY Page 5
