A Cry in the Dark

by Jenna Mills

  “To help,” he said quietly, transferring both her wrists into one of his hands. Then he shrugged out of his black jacket and draped it around her shoulders. “Why didn’t you call me? Why did you come here alone?”

  The breath sawed in and out of her. She fought his voice, the concern softening the rough edges, the same concern she lavished on Alex when she sat on the side of his bed, easing him from a nightmare.

  “Come onhe said softly, then slid his hand to clasp one of hers. “We need to get you in your car before the storm hits. Then we can talk.”

  The rain fell harder, cool and wet, but she didn’t move.

  “He’s not coming,” he said even more quietly. And his eyes, hard and penetrating before, gentled. “Whoever it is you thought you were meeting tonight, he’s not coming.” He tugged her toward the parking area. “Now, come on. Let’s get you out of the rain.”

  Deep inside she started to shake. There was no lightning with the storm, no thunder, but the truth flashed as garishly as though shards of light split the sky.

  She’d always been a woman to trust her instinct. Luck, her brother and sister had called it, a byproduct of the Gypsy blood that flowed through them all. Creepy, Ty had always said.

  Regardless of the label, Danielle had learned to listen to, to trust, the voice inside of her, the intuition that served as sentinel for them all. Over the years the whispering had warned of trivial things, like thunderstorms and blizzards, of impending accidents like the time she’d slammed on the brakes at a green light seconds before a drunk driver had careened through the intersection and mowed down the car next to her.

  Later, her knowledge of events before they happened had helped them know when to stay and when to go, which door to open and which to leave closed, who to trust, where danger lay hidden. Her Gypsy intuition had never let her down, not until that hot summer night when she’d watched in horror as Ty’s car wrapped around a tree, and exploded.

  In the days and months and years since then, she’d quit listening to the voice. She no longer trusted the gentle prodding she’d once considered a gift, not when it had failed her in the most fundamental way imaginable. Eventually the whisperings had gone quiet. Or maybe she’d just trained herself not to hear them.

  But now from that place she’d tried valiantly to wall off, the Gypsy instinct on which she’d once relied screamed, much as it had been doing since the moment she’d looked up to find the impossibly tall man with the dark eyes in the hotel lobby. At first she’d interpreted the uneasy hum as paranoia, maybe even a primal attraction she had no interest in exploring. Then, when Alex turned up missing, it had been so easy to blame him.

  But now as she stared up at him, at his hard face and shadow-drenched eyes, at the lingering shards of a pain she recognized all too well, a sobering truth drilled through her.

  He wasn’t the one who had taken Alex.

  He wasn’t the one who wanted to hurt her.

  He wasn’t the one she’d come here to meet.

  Which could only mean one thing. He really was FBI.

  “No,” she whispered, fighting the truth, the implication. The warning had been explicit. Tell no one. Come alone. But here she stood, on an open expanse of beach where anyone could see her with a federal agent.

  Horror convulsed through her. She hadn’t meant to, she’d been willing to play the nasty little game, but in the end she’d disobeyed the cardinal rule, and now her son was the one who’d suffer the c

  “No,” she said again, this time louder, and before Liam could react, she twisted from him and ran.

  Liam had seen a lot of ugliness in his life. He’d prowled crime scenes, studied photographs of grisly murders, listened while a child molester recounted how a five-year-old boy from Kansas City had ended up dead in a Mississippi canal. He’d walked among the wreckage of downed airliners and bombed buildings. He’d seen the shell-shocked faces of the survivors, listened to desperate descriptions of relatives searching for their loved ones. He’d seen the grim determination of rescue workers. He’d seen and touched, smelled and tasted. And through it all he’d learned.

  He knew the masks people wore to hide their pain. He knew the bravado that concealed sheer desperation. He knew how to recognize the tattered fabric of someone just barely holding on.

  He knew, and he hated, but he never felt. He never felt the pain, the desperation. He never felt the fear. He’d walked like an automaton from crime scene to crime scene, investigation to investigation, wearing the same masks as those he encountered, because, God help him, he was one of them.

  Until tonight.

  For three years he’d suppressed everything, biding his time, waiting for a day he knew would come. Now the day he’d craved, the one he’d lived for, planned for, was here. But he’d never counted on Danielle.

  She didn’t fit. She didn’t belong. Titan’s trail of destruction was littered with wealthy, influential, often political figures. He dabbled with the worst of them, piped drugs into elite circles all over the world. His name had even turned up during the World Bank investigation, linked to the reputed General DeBruzkya of Rebelia, who’d had deep ties to the Coalition.

  Anonymous women in the heartland of America did not match his profile. Hurting kids wasn’t his style. He always aimed higher.

  But now here was Danielle, this woman who teetered on the edge of a dark abyss Liam recognized too well but who refused his help. Hell, maybe Mariah was right. Maybe he really was chasing shadows. Maybe there was no connection between the woman with the wild green eyes and thick dark hair, the woman who now ran down the rain-soaked beach.

  But somehow that possibility didn’t seem to matter. Whoever the hell she was, she was in trouble, and she needed help, and there was no way Liam could stand in the shadows and watch her fall apart.

  So he ran.

  “Danielle!” His strides were long, powerful, determined. The tight fit of his dark jeans didn’t slow him. Nor did the damp, clinging sand. “Wait!”

  She didn’t. She ran with the grace of a wild gazelle with a predator hot on her heels, down the beach, away from him and her car. The rain whipped harder, merging with the wind to slap her in thick horizontal sheets. And still she ran.

  “Danielle, please,” he called to her, gaining ground.

  She glanced over her shoulder, saw him, staggered forward.

  “This isn’t the answer,” he said, surprised by how hard he was breathing. He ran ten miles every day. A short sprint down the beach should have been little more than a warm-up.

  He caught her from behind and realized he had two choices. He could tackle her and ensure she didn’t get away from him or he could snag her by the arm.

  The image of Danielle sprawled in the sand, beneath his body, with her chest heaving and her eyes flashing, dark hair spilled around her face as she glared up at him, appealed in ways that almost made him lose his step.

  “It’s over,” he said, reaching out to close his hand around her arm.

  She had no choice but to stop, but she didn’t turn around, just stood with her back to him, gulping in deep breaths of air and rain.

  “Hey, now,” he said, trying not to spook her. “I’m not letting you go, not until you tell me what’s going on.”

  Nothing prepared him. Nothing could have. Slowly she turned and looked up at him with those big horror-filled green eyes. “Why?” she asked, and God help him there were tears in her eyes. “Why won’t you just leave me alone?”

  There was water all around him, the lake to his right, the rain pouring from the sky, but it was in her eyes that he almost drowned.

  “Because I can’t,” he ground out. He tried to grab hold of the rough edges cutting through all those walls he’d tacked up after Kelly’s death, but they were too sharp, and he was too tired. “Because I know,” he added, pulling her closer.

  He knew he shouldn’t do it. He knew better than to put his arms around her, anchoring her to his body, but he could no more stop himself than he
could stop the intensifying storm.

  “I know,” he said again, as time turned backward and accelerated. Everything blurred: the days, the weeks, the months, the investigations, the people whose lives he’d walked through, carrying him back to the cold night he’d run down the quiet suburban street, clogged and congested with fire engines and police cars.

  “I know what it’s like to be afraid,” he told her, his voice pitched low. “I know what terror tastes like and smells like.” The primal instinct it unleashed. “I know what it’s like to be willing to trade anything.” It sickened him that this proud, brave woman had been willing to strip for him, to give herself to him, in exchange for her son.

  It sickened even more the way his body had reacted, the jolt of lust that had fired through him at the sight of the soft, creamy swell of her breasts.

  He stared down at her now, at the way she gazed up at him, the wet, tangled hair in her face and clinging to her slightly parted mouth, the noncomprehension in her eyes.

  “I know what it’s like to beg and plead.” He forced himself to go on, ignoring the ridiculous desire to ease the hair from her face, not with his hand as he’d done before but with his mouth. “To be willing to do anything, only to realize in the end there’s no option but to run.”

  As she had done.

  As he had done.

  But there’d been no one there to catch him. No one there to stop him. run and run, during the day, the night, toward the house, then away from the charred ruins, but no matter where he went, no matter the time of day, the truth was always there waiting.

  He’d killed his wife.

  “Let me help,” he said quietly, lifting a hand to wipe the rain from her face. “I can.”

  Her eyes, wide and dark and utterly exhausted, locked on to his. “Don’t.”

  The urge to pull her closer blindsided him. “Don’t what?” he asked, skimming his fingers along her cheek. “Don’t help you?” He’d forgotten how soft female flesh could be, forgotten the way a simple touch could make him want so much more. Forgotten what it was like to want something that had nothing to do with bringing down Titan. “Or don’t touch you?”

  She twisted from him, but this time she didn’t run. She just sucked in another deep breath and angled her chin in an endearingly defiant gesture.

  “I don’t know who you really are or what you want, but you shouldn’t be here right now. You shouldn’t have followed me.”

  Like he’d had a choice. After hanging up with Mariah, he’d returned to his rental car and retraced his path to her little house north of the city, where he’d sat waiting in the quiet suburban street. He’d watched the single light glowing from a window in her house, wondering, like some deranged pervert, if it was her bedroom and what she was doing inside. A hundred times he’d told himself to go home, to quit playing Peeping Tom. But instinct had hummed too loudly. There was no way he could have slipped beneath the cool, soft cotton sheets of his hotel bed when he knew this woman was in trouble.

  “I wouldn’t have needed to,” he said very slowly, very quietly, “if you hadn’t lied.”

  Her eyes flashed. She glanced desperately around the beach, toward the parking area, the road beyond, then back at him. “My God, do you have any idea what you’ve just done?”

  He was starting to. “Tell me.”

  “If anything happens to him…”

  Her words trailed off, but he heard what she didn’t say. “I’m not the enemy,” he told her, willing her to believe him, yet knowing she wouldn’t. “I’m here to help.”

  She shoved the hair back from her face. “You can’t, don’t you get it?”

  “Yes, I can, honey.” Because the endearment flowed from him with alarming ease, he cleared his throat and let the roughness return. “I know things you don’t know.” About Titan. His handiwork. The trail of devastation in his wake. “I have resources you can’t even begin to fathom.”

  “I don’t want your resources,” she shot back. “Why is that so hard for you to understand?”

  A fresh surge of fury shot through him. What had Titan done to her? Taken her son, to be sure. But it didn’t take years of investigative training to realize that he himself had done more. Worse. That he’d threatened her, as well, pinned her against a wall without so much as laying a finger on her

  God help him, Liam wanted to lay far more than a finger on her.

  “Because you’re scared,” he told her, even though he didn’t understand. Bringing down Titan was the only thing he’d thought about, dreamed about, wanted, for the past three years.

  “Because I stood in the shadows watching you for over an hour.” Because he’d seen her shaking, shivering. Because he’d stood there with his hands shoved deep in his pockets, fighting the urge to go to her, pull her into his arms and promise her he would find her son.

  “Because I’m your best chance,” he added, even though the reality, the hypocrisy, of that statement terrified him. “You need me, Danielle.” Just as he needed her. To lead him to Titan, he amended. That was all. “And whether you want to admit it or not, we both know it.”

  Slowly, her eyes met his, but in them he no longer saw the stark fear or punishing desperation, only the soft glow of a resolve he saw every morning when he looked into the foggy bathroom mirror and lifted a razor to his face.

  “I don’t need you.”

  Her words shouldn’t have stung. She was right, after all. There were those at the Bureau who swore playing chicken with an oncoming freight train was smarter than putting your faith and your future—your son’s life—in Liam Brooks’s scarred hands.

  He looked at her standing there, sleek and drenched and vulnerable in ways he knew she hated, and once again shoved his hands in his pockets. It was harder this time, because the thick denim was drenched and sticking to his body. Not because the urge was stronger. It was only human compassion, he assured himself, even if he hadn’t felt any in years. Hadn’t felt a woman, either. Hadn’t touched, hadn’t tasted.

  Hadn’t wanted.

  Until tonight.

  “Yes, you do,” he said, and the words scraped on the way out. “You do.” He stepped toward her, again lifted a hand to her face. “You need me in ways you can’t even begin to imagine.” And he needed her even more. “That’s why I can’t leave you alone.”

  Stopping the rain falling from the darkened sky or the wind lashing waves against the shore would have been easier.

  Then, because he wanted to step closer, because he knew he’d pushed hard enough for one night, he turned and walked away.

  He didn’t belong here.

  That was her first thought. It was too dark, too quiet and spooky. Too far from home.

  He was awfully brave. That was her second thought. The little boy with the sandy hair and skinned knees lay curled on a narrow white bed, staring into the darkness. He wasn’t crying, like she wanted to, wasn’t calling for his mommy, like she tried to do but couldn’t.

  The small room was cold, not like the winter in Boston when big fat fluffy snowflakes fell for hours and hours and she wanted to go play but Daddy wanted her to stay inside by the warmth of the fireplace, but like the dark corner of the basement. And it was still and quiet. Too quiet.

  “Who are you?” she wanted to ask, but her voice didn’t work here.

  The boy looked up anyway, looked directly at her, startled her with wide, red-rimmed eyes.

  “I’m Alex.”

  His name echoed through the quiet, strangely smelling room, even though she never saw his mouth move. “Are—are you okay?”

  He didn’t look hurt, just scared.

  She didn’t really expect him to answer, because her voice still wasn’t working. But his little mouth puckered, and he nodded. “I wanna go home.”

  So did she. She wanted to be back in her safe little pink and white room, in her cozy house with her mommy and daddy just a few doors down the hall. She wanted to open her eyes and see her favorite pink teddy bear, to hug it close to
her body, to breathe deeply and smell the soft scent of powder and lotion, not this nasty smell that reminded her of mud puddles several days after it rained. She couldn’t remember the word her mommy used to describe that icky smell, but she knew it was a bad word.

  Just like this was a bad place.

  “What are you doing here?” the little boy asked. “How did you get here?”

  She looked around, started to shiver. She didn’t know where she was. Didn’t know how she’d gotten there. It had all happened so fast. The last thing she remembered was crawling into her bed, her daddy reading a story, saying their prayers together, then him kissing her on the cheek and turning off the pink poodle lamp Santa had brought her for Christmas.

  Swallowing a sob, trying to match his bravery, she studied him more closely. She couldn’t understand why she felt as if she already knew him.

  He chewed his lips, glancing across the small room to where light leaked in from under the door. “We gotta get out of here.”

  She knew that. She may have been only two, but she knew she had to help the little boy get out of there. He was scared, and he was in trouble, and even though she was scared, too, and just a girl, she was the only one who could help him.

  But she didn’t know how.

  The only thing she knew how to do was draw. Her mommy said she was the best. Her daddy called her a prodigy, whatever that was.

  “I’ll try,” she promised bravely, then spotted the table and the crayons scattered on top. She didn’t want to move, didn’t want to walk across the room, but knew she had to. Biting her lip, she forced her legs to carry her, even though they felt all heavy. It didn’t matter how hard it was. It didn’t matter how scared she was.

  All that mattered was the little boy named Alex and finding some way to get him back to his mommy and daddy.

  So she could go back to her mommy and daddy. And her pink teddy bear.

  “What are you doing?” Alex asked, peering queerly at her.

  She wasn’t sure, just knew she had to draw. “Just wait,” she said, picking up a crayon and pushing it against a blank sheet of paper. “Maybe this will help.”