Making Her Way Home

by Janice Kay Johnson

  CHAPTER TEN

  WITHOUT HESITATION, BETH LAID her hand in his. “How long ago did it happen?” she asked.

  “Eight years.” He closed his fingers around hers, feeling their delicacy. She was so fine-boned. There wasn’t much to her but those bones, smooth skin, vivid eyes and hair of a color so rich he sometimes imagined closing his eyes and inhaling its essence like freshly brewed, dark-roasted coffee.

  “You must have been young.” Even if he were a few years older than her, he had to be in his early twenties when he had his son.

  “We married younger than we should have. Neither of us were ready to start a family that quickly, either, but Nate… When your kid is born, you fall in love like you didn’t know was possible.” Those memories squeezed his heart. “At least that’s how it was for me.”

  She was holding his hand as much as he was holding hers. Warnings flashed as stridently as the rack of lights on a squad car.

  “I should probably get out of here,” he said, but didn’t let go of her.

  Beth nodded acknowledgment. “You must have other cases, too.”

  It took a little effort to dredge up a memory of the theft reported from J. N. Sullivan Landscaping Services and the half dozen other investigations that had also gone on the back burner the minute he heard the dispatcher report a possible missing child. Sicily still had to be his focus. None of the others were life and death. Now that he had the boyfriend’s name, he could go back to the same people he’d already talked to. Tyler could be a first or last name. With that nudge, someone might remember more. Yeah, there were plenty of things he should be doing besides holding hands with a woman who was still a suspect. He didn’t know if he could let go, though—literally or figuratively.

  “Beth.” He stood and tugged her to her feet, too, and around the corner of the table. Stupid, a voice in his head screamed, but it was drowned out by the little sound she made as she stepped forward and rose on tiptoe. Mike bent his head. Their mouths met urgently, no tentativeness, only hunger and something more powerful yet.

  * * *

  “HEY, KID!”

  Sicily pulled the comforter over her head. She didn’t want to talk to him. She wasn’t hungry. She wasn’t…anything.

  Worry tugged. I can’t just lie here like a lump.

  Yes, I can.

  “Good news. Your grandparents are being smart. They’re going to give me my money. That means you’ll be out of here before you know it.”

  She was suddenly so mad she couldn’t stand it. Sicily threw back the cover and sat bolt upright. “But you aren’t going to let me go, are you?” she yelled. “So quit lying to me!”

  “Why would you think…”

  “Because I know what you look like!” I shouldn’t have said that, I shouldn’t have said it, maybe he was so dumb he hadn’t thought about how he shouldn’t let me see his face. But, seeing his expression, she knew—he wasn’t that dumb.

  “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “No?” She clutched the comforter up to her neck. “Then why are you doing this?”

  “Because they owe me, okay?” He was the one yelling now. A tide of red rose from his neck. “They owe you, and you don’t even know it.”

  “I don’t want anything from them,” she said sullenly. Her heart was pounding hard, but she thought suddenly, Maybe if we keep arguing he’ll come into the room. Maybe I can get by him to the open door.

  But if she did and he caught her, he might not let her use the bathroom anymore.

  But I have to try eventually, don’t I? Trying not to be obvious about it, she pulled her feet up close to her body to make it possible to leap up.

  “Well, you should care,” he said in a really ugly way. “Do you know what they did to your mom?”

  “Yes!” she yelled, then whispered, “Yes. That’s why I don’t want their money.”

  The color on his face was subsiding and she realized he was getting over being mad. He shrugged. “Your problem. Here’s some food.” Without looking away from her, he bent and set down the paper bag and drink on the floor right inside the door. The next thing she knew, he’d backed out and closed it.

  “Wait!” She threw herself off the mattress and raced over to hammer on the steel door. “I need to go to the bathroom! Come back!”

  She kept hitting until her hands hurt so much she couldn’t anymore. She kept screaming at the top of her lungs, “Come back, come back, come back.”

  But he didn’t. Maybe he couldn’t even hear her. “Please,” she croaked, and slid to her knees, her hands balled against her belly. She cried, and that made her so mad she cried even louder and harder.

  It was a couple of hours before she discovered the now cold meal he’d left her wasn’t a cheeseburger. He’d bought her an egg sandwich with bacon on it and even some pancakes.

  * * *

  MIKE KISSED BETH UNTIL SHE WAS nothing but sensation and need. He lifted her so that she was plastered against him, thighs to breast. She anchored herself with her arms around his neck. Her fingers drove into his thick, unruly hair. Her tongue slid against his, dancing around each thrust. Once he lifted his head, studied her with heated eyes, then tilted his head to change the angle and kissed her with even more intensity, if that were possible.

  Her hips pushed against his and the thick ridge of his erection. She wanted—needed—to be closer. Skin-to-skin. To have him inside her.

  There were alarms blaring somewhere. She could hear them. This wasn’t like her. She didn’t dare…

  Not until he tore his mouth from hers and swore did Beth realize the beeps were real. His cell phone was ringing and vibrating on his hip.

  Growling, he took one hand from her and lifted the phone. Whatever number it displayed made him take a deep breath and step back from her.

  “Ryan.” His voice was rough.

  He listened, his eyes never leaving hers. Shaken, she’d retreated a step of her own and gripped the high back of a chair. Her cheeks burned—his jaw had been rough. The flush on his cheeks told her how aroused he was.

  But as she watched, his expression changed. “Tomorrow? What’s the plan? Uh-huh.” He made a few more sounds and finished with, “Yeah, I’ll be there.”

  When he slid his phone closed, she said, “What?”

  “Your father has received instructions for dropping the money.” Voice clipped, jaw tight, Mike was making plain that the mood had shifted. “It’s happening tomorrow morning. University District.” With a hand on her lower back, he nudged her back to a seat and chose the chair across the table from her again. “A sort of command central is being set up at your parents’ house. Your father is making the drop, per instructions. The parcel will have GPS on it so we can follow even if we somehow miss the pickup or the guy gets away.”

  “How can he get away if enough police are watching the drop-off point?”

  “Because this is one thing he’s being smart about. Your father is supposed to casually put the package behind a trash can right by a corner a short block from the University of Washington campus. You know how many small businesses are along there. The university bookstore is half a block up and it has entrances front and back. Oh, hell—so do the small businesses probably, although they let out in the alley. At that time of day, there’ll be shoppers, students arriving for class, bicyclists, heavy street traffic. The sidewalk could be really crowded. He could run a lot of different directions. There’s a parking garage for the campus close by. Or if he melts into the crowd successfully enough, he could even hop a bus.”

  She was wringing her hands. “But you swear you won’t lose him.”

  “Beth…” His voice, at least, had softened. “I can’t swear anything. I’m not running this operation. But there’s a good chance we’ll get him.”

  She nodded slowly. “Woul
dn’t it be smartest to let him take the money and follow him home?”

  “Not necessarily. He might arrange for some hand-offs to a couple of friends who have no idea what they promised to hold on to for their buddy Chad. Or ‘home’ might not be where he’s got Sicily.”

  What if they arrested the kidnapper and he refused to tell them where Sicily was? “I want to be there,” she said.

  Mike frowned. “You know you can’t…”

  “At my parents’.”

  The laser blue of his eyes locked on her. “You sure?”

  “I’m sure,” she said steadily.

  “All right, that’s probably a good idea, in case we pick her up right away.”

  He left almost immediately after that, his expression completely closed. Classic cop. She felt cold inside. How could I have hugged him? Kissed him?

  * * *

  HE HAD JUST COMMITTED THE possibly unforgivable sin of kissing the suspect in a child kidnapping. The knowledge felt like a block of ice lodged in Mike’s chest. Sharp-edged, cold and damn uncomfortable. Impossible to ignore. What had he been thinking?

  Gripping the steering wheel hard, he gave a grunt that wasn’t close to a laugh. Thinking? Right. Sure. That’s what he was doing.

  He couldn’t justify it. There was no way. What really stuck in his craw was the knowledge that he’d be tempted again the next time he saw her. He’d been fighting this attraction since the first day.

  Even if she were cleared… Was he really considering getting involved with a woman whose issues made his own look petty?

  Brooding, he almost missed his exit and had to flash his lights briefly to get over in time. Damn it, he needed to get his head where it belonged.

  But even as he maneuvered city streets, he knew: yeah, he was considering getting involved, all right. He was doing more than that. When she’d told him about her childhood, he had wanted to kill on her behalf. That was new to him.

  No, he’d had no business putting his hands on her, not now. But eventually, yeah, he wanted to kiss her again. And more. He had a bad feeling he’d been sunk from the minute he’d seen beneath her utterly controlled facade.

  A parking place opened in front of him, and Mike managed to pull himself back into work mode. Finding Sicily was paramount, but clearing Beth of suspicion had become a major motivation.

  He spent the next couple of hours chasing down Tyler Whoever. The shocker was that he succeeded. Maya, whom he’d talked to yesterday, was sure Damian would know who’d introduced Rachel and Tyler. Damian was at work, a slightly aging barista who served Mike a caffè Americano along with with a mumbled, “Um, yeah, Jagger, he said Peterson is a good guy. Jagger, see, he’s this dude I know.”

  The sizable barbell through his tongue might have something to do with the way he tripped over words.

  “And who is Peterson?” Mike asked, clinging to his patience.

  Damian blinked at him. “Tyler. You wanted to know his last name, right?”

  Yes, he did. Turned out Damian was surprisingly helpful, even knew that Tyler was currently crashing with someone named Spencer in this apartment down on Sixth Street.

  Tyler and half a dozen other people were home. Mike persuaded him to step into the hall where they could talk in semi-privacy. Medium height, hair dyed an improbable shade of yellow, he had a wispy brown goatee and a snake tattoo wrapped around his right arm. The smell of marijuana that permeated the apartment clung to him as well and his eyes were bloodshot.

  “Yeah, I heard about Sicily. That sucks, man. She’s an okay kid, you know?”

  Mike went for blunt. “I hear the way you looked at her made her uncomfortable.”

  “What?” He looked genuinely astonished and outraged. “That’s bull! I never looked at her any way except sometimes I wished she wasn’t there so her mom and I could get it on. Having a kid around, it’s kind of a nuisance, you know?”

  “Where were you last Saturday?”

  “I’ve got this new woman. Alessia.” He nodded toward the closed door. “She’s here. She can tell you. We slept late and then we went to Pike Place Market. She sells jewelry there. She’s really good.”

  Alessia, hair streaked with purple and green, came out to confirm Tyler’s story. Her earrings, Mike had to admit, were eye-catching. Both agreed they’d mostly been together throughout the week. Neither could imagine anyone who would do anything like kidnap Sicily. Looking embarrassed, Tyler said, “I mean, some of Rachel’s friends might do some drugs, you know, shit like that, but mostly we all have jobs and are kind of regular.”

  Alessia gave him a piercing glance that Mike took to mean Tyler was not, in fact, working, but she said he manned her table at the market sometimes so she could make more jewelry.

  Mike asked Tyler if Rachel had talked about her sister.

  “I didn’t even know she had a sister until she died and Sicily said she was supposed to live with her aunt Beth. Rachel was really screwed up about her family.”

  Tyler had no cell phone, but Alessia gave Mike her number in case he had further questions.

  Dead end.

  A better way of looking at it was that one thread was now untangled. Pull enough of them, and the knot would fall apart. That’s what most detective work was all about.

  He glanced at his watch and decided that, by God, he was going home. He might even stop at the grocery store first.

  * * *

  LEFT ALONE FOR WHAT SEEMED like forever, Sicily ate her cold meal and tried not to wonder if the man would come back at all. Her mind kept reverting to the worry, though. If he got the money, why would he want to return to this crappy place? Maybe he was going to leave the country. Her mom hadn’t cared if she watched R-rated movies, and she’d seen lots of hostage dramas. That’s what kidnappers usually did once they had the money. He could go straight to the airport. If he was paid up on his rent, it might be a long, long time before a landlord even noticed he was gone.

  It took Sicily ages to convince herself he wouldn’t do that. Except…she hadn’t liked the way he’d said, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  That might mean he would do it anyway, but be sorry. It might also mean that leaving her to starve to death was exactly the kind of chicken thing he’d do. He could lie to himself and figure somebody would find her.

  It could also mean he did intend to let her go, couldn’t it? Or tell someone where to find her once he’d made his getaway? He had been almost nice to her, in a way. And the way he’d talked about Mom meant he knew her well. Really well. It wasn’t like Mom met new people and said, “Hi, my mom used to hit me.”

  My own father wouldn’t leave me here to starve to death.

  Would he?

  * * *

  IN THE PALE PEARL OF EARLY morning, Mike parked in front of Beth’s house, then walked down the street to the only house on the block where he’d yet to find anyone home, the one with the light that might or might not be on a timer. He’d noticed it coming on as he drove down the street. Six a.m. on the nose. These front blinds were drawn, as they’d been all week, but they were sort of lacy and not light-tight.

  Without a lot of optimism, he rang the bell and listened to the far off ding-dong.

  He was about to give up yet again, when he heard a rustle of sound inside. A moment later, the door opened a foot or two and a woman in a long velour robe zipped to the neck said, “Yes? Can I help you?”

  He displayed his badge and gave his usual spiel.

  She relaxed and exclaimed, “Oh, I was so upset to read about Beth’s niece! She told me about the little girl coming to live with her. I haven’t caught up on my newspapers yet, but… Didn’t she vanish from that park?”

  “We’re covering all the bases, ma’am. Have you ever seen Sicily?”

  “Well, of course.” An attractive woman in
, at a guess, her forties, she looked at him as if he were an idiot. “She catches the school bus on the corner right there.”

  He turned. The corner was indeed clearly visible from the porch and probably her front window.

  “I noticed she wasn’t there last Friday. I remember hoping she wasn’t sick. But if she was, it must have been a twenty-four-hour bug, or she wouldn’t have felt well enough to go to the beach Saturday morning, would she?”

  “No, ma’am. Is there any chance you saw them leaving the house Saturday?”

  She looked surprised at the question. “Yes, I was having a lazy morning and hoping none of the neighbors noticed me sneaking out for my newspaper still in my robe so late. Beth was just backing out of the driveway. Sicily waved. Such a pretty girl. I so hope…” She stopped, not having to verbalize her fears.

  First disbelief, then relief punched him. Could it be this easy? He asked, “Do you know approximately what time it was that you saw them?”

  “Almost exactly, because I looked at the clock before I slunk out. I like to read my Times with breakfast,” she explained. “It was almost ten o’clock.”

  He took out the school photo. “This is the girl you saw?”

  “Well, of course it is.” Her expression changed. “Surely you don’t think…”

  “It’s our job to consider all possibilities,” he said without inflection. “You’ve eliminated one.”

  “What a terrible thing to suspect!”

  Yes, it was. Walking back to Beth’s house, he felt lighter, one burden lifted. He knew his relief was massively out of proportion, given that he was no closer to finding Sicily. While he couldn’t one hundred percent eliminate Beth from suspicion of being a partner in the kidnapping—though he’d never really believed that scenario—thanks to this neighbor Mike could at least be pretty damn certain Sicily had indeed arrived at the park. The timing fit, and it was too tight to allow much deviation now that the ten o’clock departure time was confirmed. Mike didn’t see any realistic way for Beth to have disposed of her niece within the available time.

  The iceberg in his chest seemed to have melted in a steaming rush. The warmth, he discovered as he rang Beth’s doorbell, felt something like exhilaration.