Search and Seizure

by Julie Miller

  She pushed open the door to her room and hit the light switch, more relieved than she cared to admit to see that the vase of roses had been removed. Exhaling a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, Maddie set Tyler’s carrier in the middle of the bed and unzipped the garment bag.

  Before she could turn around, the door closed behind her with an ominous click that thudded through her heart. No.

  Yes. The cigarette smell.

  Her scream strangled and caught in her chest as a voice from her past turned her veins to ice.

  “Zat my grandson?”

  DWIGHT ACTUALLY SPARED a full stomach-clenching minute waiting around the corner of Maddie’s house to ensure that she wasn’t hardheaded enough to come after him. The kid was actually doing him a favor this time—what Maddie wouldn’t do to take care of herself, she’d do for him.

  “Good girl.” Once the interior lights started popping on, Dwight was on the move. He hadn’t seen the threat coming that had taken his family from him six years ago. Hadn’t believed anyone could get to him and the things he cared about until it was too late.

  He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  He intended to stop this threat before it got any closer to Maddie. Or the kid.

  And the notion that caring had gotten mixed up in his thoughts about the redheaded schoolmarm went unnoticed.

  After ducking through the shadows of the neighboring houses, Dwight followed a hedgerow out to the street beyond where the black car was parked. He swiped his palm down his face to clear his vision. The rain made it difficult to get a good fix on anything at this distance, but that would work to his advantage, too, giving him the element of surprise as he approached the car.

  Hiding behind the hedge, Dwight waited for the headlights from a passing car to disappear before hunching down and dashing across the street. As he came up on the Impala’s blind side, he began processing details. Black. Faded by sun and wear and rusting at the wheel wells. Local plates. And unless they were midgets, dead or asleep, no one was in that car. No one was watching.

  Dwight paused. Was the idea of an unidentified stalker a manifestation of Maddie’s imagination? He quickly dismissed the idea. Fanciful didn’t describe the redhead he knew. The woman was down-to-earth. Practical. Sure, she was a bit naive in the heart-on-her-sleeve love-and-loyalty department. And she was way too stubborn. But she lacked the ego to make up stories about anyone making her feel afraid.

  So Dwight sidled up next to the car behind the Impala and squinted through the rain for other signs of movement. There. Skulking down the sidewalk toward his position. A tall man in dark, baggy clothes. The man turned his head and looked straight over his shoulder at Maddie’s glowing house before dropping his chin to his chest and slinking closer to the car.

  So the guy had gotten tired of sitting at his post.

  Dwight balanced his weight over the balls of his feet. He flexed his fingers into loose fists, breathed deeply and lunged from the shadows.

  The perp got in a “Hey!” and a curse before Dwight plowed into his gut and took him down. The two men slid across the wet grass, rolled across the sidewalk and into a puddle of standing water before Dwight could flip him onto his stomach and get an arm bent behind his back. The perp was taller, skinnier and younger, but he wasn’t putting up much of a fight.

  “Wait! Stop! I’m on your side.”

  Dwight froze. Ah, hell. The guy wasn’t putting up any fight. “You’re that kid across the street.” Dwight rolled onto his feet and extended a hand to help the young man up. “Sorry about that.”

  “No problem.” Yeah, tackling innocent pedestrians less than half his age was a problem. But the dark-haired kid seemed to brush off any offense as he brushed the grass and mud from his soggy jeans. “You’re Ms. McCallister’s boyfriend, right?”

  Now there was some unintended payback. “For the record, I’m too old to be anybody’s boyfriend. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  “Nah. I play football. I know how to take a hit.” He shook Dwight’s hand in a solid grip. “Trent Dixon, sir. Sorry if I surprised you. I was coming to check the car, too. Ain’t nobody been in it for a couple of hours now.”

  Dwight didn’t know if that news should relieve him or make him worry more since the enemy he sought was nowhere in sight. Ignoring the mud and grass staining his own khaki slacks, he pulled out his cellphone and punched in A.J.’s number. He could run the license plate. If the car wasn’t stolen, they could ID an owner. “You don’t know who it belongs to?”

  “No, sir. Ms. McCallister asked me to watch for it and let her know when I saw it again.”

  Dwight had to give the kid his props for vigilance. “How old are you?”

  “Seventeen, sir. I’ll be a senior this year.”

  Lucky senior class. The phone rang, but Dwight looked at Trent. “Appreciate you helping out.”

  “No problem, sir. Ms. McCallister’s cool. She used to baby-sit me when I was a kid.”

  “You can drop the sir. I’m not that old.”

  “Yes, sir—”

  The scream from Maddie’s house cut through the rain and set every nerve on edge.

  A.J. answered, but Dwight was already pushing the phone into Trent’s hands and moving toward the house. “That’s Detective Rodriguez. Get inside your house and lock the door. You give him my name and the make, model and plate of this car. Tell him there’s another break-in at Maddie’s house. Then stay on the line until the cops come.”

  “Yes, sir. I mean…”

  But the rest of Trent’s words faded into a blur. Dwight charged across the street, pushing his body as fast as it would go through the yards and up the wooden steps to Maddie’s porch.

  “Maddie!” Dwight twisted the knob. “Son of a bitch!” With all his planning and paranoia, he’d locked her inside with the danger and couldn’t get to her. He pounded on the door. “Maddie!” Something crashed upstairs. He heard muffled shouts—Maddie’s. And a man’s.

  “Damn. Damn.” He turned his pockets inside out. He had his own keys and a billfold and not one other thing to defend her with. Dwight whirled around. He tossed the welcome mat aside, searching for a key. He lifted flowerpots and checked inside the mailbox.

  “Stop it!” Maddie screamed. “Leave him alone!”

  “He’s mine. You McCallister bitches owe me a boy.”

  Dwight could see them through the sheer curtains at the top of the stairs now. A tall, skinny man wearing black glasses with the baby carrier in one hand—and a knife in the other.

  Joe Rinaldi.

  “Maddie!” Dwight hefted one of the big clay pots and smashed it through the front window.

  “Dwight, no! He’ll hurt Tyler!”

  “Shut up, Madeline!” Rinaldi shoved and Maddie flew back against the wall upstairs. He lunged toward her and Maddie sank to her knees and rolled out of sight.

  “You son of a bitch! Rinaldi!”

  Desperate to distract his attention from Maddie, Dwight ignored the shards clinging to the rim of the window and thrust his arm inside. Jagged glass ripped through his sleeve and skin, but he blindly found the dead bolt and released it.

  “Dammit, Rinaldi! You deal with me!”

  The challenge was enough to divert his attention, and Joe altered course and ran down the stairs. Blinded by a raging need to get to Maddie, Dwight shoved the door open. He crushed glass and clay and geraniums beneath his feet and blocked Rinaldi’s escape at the base of the stairs.

  “Oh, ho, ho. Well, if it isn’t Mr. Badass Attorney who twisted the truth and used all his pretty words to send me to prison.” Rinaldi slowed his descent with each deliberate step.

  “Maddie?” Was she alive? Hurt? Dead? Dwight didn’t dare take his eyes off the man with the knife.

  “Did Madeline finally land herself a man? What does she do for you? Cook? Clean? Can’t be the sex. She’s too prudish to put out. I ought to know. I had her first, you know—” the bastard winked “—before I found something bet
ter.”

  Dwight seethed. He wouldn’t be baited. He wasn’t budging, either.

  “If one hair on her head is out of place…”

  Joe laughed. “You got the wrong sister, you know. Karen’s the real catch. Unless you gotta thing for extra meat on a woman’s bones.”

  Maddie’s head appeared at the top of the stairs and Dwight’s heart pounded with relief. “Karen’s dead, thanks to you.” She was crawling on her hands and knees, heedless of his insults. “You used me. You murdered your wife. Terrorized your daughter. You have no right to take Tyler and destroy his life, too.” She pushed her hair off her face and Dwight swore.

  The shape and size of a man’s hand was marked out in blushing-red relief on Maddie’s cheek.

  Adrenaline poured through Dwight’s system, sharpening his senses, deepening his breath and bracing every muscle for a fight. The blade of the long, thin stiletto flashed in the foyer light, granting him a split second’s relief to see that the blade was clean.

  He hadn’t cut Maddie or the kid.

  He wasn’t going to get another chance to try, either.

  “You won’t get past me,” Dwight warned, retreating a step and leaving room to maneuver as Rinaldi hit the main floor. He could take a man with a knife. Hell, once upon a time he’d been able to. But with Rinaldi swinging the baby carrier between them like a shield…

  Rinaldi grinned through the black scratch of his beard as if he could read Dwight’s thoughts. “Trying to impress the lady, lawyer man? Now back off or I will cut this baby.”

  “Tyler!” Maddie screamed and charged halfway down the stairs.

  Rinaldi flicked the knife in her direction. “One step closer, Madeline, and I’ll do it.”

  She froze, gripping the railing and breathing hard, every terror shining in her face. “He’s your grandson.”

  “He’s my ticket to freedom.”

  Dwight flexed his fingers. He never took his eyes off Rinaldi’s. “Is the kid strapped in, Maddie?”

  “Yes.” He heard the breathy catch in her voice.

  “Good and tight?”

  “Yes, but—”

  Dwight slammed his right forearm against Rinaldi’s knife hand, knocking it up in the air and giving him the opening to smash his fist into Rinaldi’s jaw. The skinny man staggered back against the wall, but his grip on both the baby and the knife held fast.

  “Dwight! What are you doing?”

  He got another left into Rinaldi’s gut before the fugitive got his feet beneath him. The knife slashed down. In a split second decision, Dwight knew dodging the attack wasn’t an option. He snatched the carrier handle and jammed his shoulder between the knife and the baby to absorb the blow.

  He roared as steel sliced through skin and muscle. He pried the carrier loose and tossed it aside, spinning it across the wooden floor.

  “Tyler!”

  Dwight was only vaguely aware of Maddie shooting past them to check the kid. His ears were full of grunts and curses and deep, pained breaths. A lip split beneath his fist. A warm river of blood oozed from his forearm. He drove Rinaldi into the dining room table and toppled chairs. He absorbed a kick to the gut and stumbled back into the foyer, slipping on the rain-slick glass from the broken window.

  Before he hit the floor, Rinaldi was on him. Maddie was a blur of coppery-red. He glimpsed the chair she raised over the back of Rinaldi’s head, but Dwight was quicker. He locked his fist around his enemy’s wrist and rolled him onto his back, pounding the hand with the knife once, twice against the hardwood until Rinaldi’s fingers popped open and the weapon skittered across the floor.

  In his mind, he shouted, Grab it! But his arm burned, his ribs ached and a high squealing sound filled his ears.

  But Rinaldi was fading, too. Dwight heaved a deep breath and dragged the bastard up to his knees. “Enough,” Dwight ordered on his next gasp for air. He searched for Maddie in his peripheral vision. “Get something to tie him—”

  The dining room window exploded.

  “What the hell?”

  “Tyler!” Maddie ran to the baby carrier nestled in the corner beside the coat rack.

  He identified the distinctive pop of gunfire an instant before the window beside the door shattered. “Maddie!”

  She curled her body over the kid as glass showered down around them. “What’s happening?”

  “Stay down!”

  More shots fired. Dwight shoved Rinaldi aside and dove for Maddie as glass and rain and bullets sprayed the foyer. He dragged her as close to the wall and as low to the floor as he could, wrapping her and the carrier up in his arms and shielding them with his body.

  Rinaldi staggered to his feet and lurched toward the door. “Wait. Stop.” He swung the door open and raised his hands in surrender. “I found—”

  Rinaldi crumpled to the floor.

  The screech of tires on the pavement outside told Dwight that the assault was over. The thudding of Maddie’s strong heart beating against his chest told him she was still alive. The kid’s high-pitched cry told him he was unhurt, as well.

  The pool of blood spreading beneath Joe Rinaldi’s body told him the intruder was dead.

  Dwight crawled over to verify that the murdering son of a bitch had no pulse. Straight through the heart. Either someone was a hell of a lucky shot or Rinaldi was the specific target.

  There were plenty of details he needed to process, but his brain was a little fuzzy. He should get up to see if he could still spot the car the shooter had driven. He didn’t know if the Impala belonged to Rinaldi or whoever had taken him out of the picture. He could call Trent, see if the football-player-turned-neighborhood-watchdog had seen anything. Sirens blared in the distance—he should be collecting his thoughts to make a statement to the police.

  But right now, he needed two seconds to catch his breath. He sat on the floor, propped his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands, and let the emotions locked out by adrenaline finally work their way through him.

  Rinaldi had gotten to Maddie. He’d hit her. Hurt her. Threatened her with a knife. He’d tried to kidnap the kid. And where had he been? Off playing detective. He should have left that to the cops and stayed here to protect Maddie. Not that he’d done such a whizbang job of that.

  “Oh, Dwight.”

  He blinked his way through the rage and regrets. Of course. Maddie needed comforting right now. Her home was a shambles. A man was dead.

  But when he looked up to say something pithy and reassuring, she darted into the kitchen. She’d left the kid crying in the corner. Left the kid alone with him. “You okay? Hey.”

  “He’s fine.” Maddie reappeared. She knelt beside him. “Physically, anyway. You? Not so much.”

  “Agh.” Dwight bit back a curse as she pressed a towel against his forearm. Oh, yeah, more evidence of the adrenaline rush wearing off. His sleeve was soaked with blood and his forearm burned like hell.

  Maddie hadn’t been looking for comfort; she’d been looking out for him. “We need to get you to a hospital.”

  “We stay here until the cops arrive.”

  She brushed her fingers across his tender cheekbone, where a bruise to match the mark on her face must be forming. “I don’t even have any ice. You’ll need stitches and antibiotics. Maybe a tetanus shot.”

  And then she surprised the hell out of him by looping her hand behind his neck and pulling him in for a sweet, wild, all-too-quick kiss. When she pulled back, he felt his own blood warming like the shy blush that crept up her neck. “What was that for?”

  “I wanted to do it before I lost my nerve.”

  Dwight laid his hand over hers, where she stanched the wound in his forearm. “Red, there’s one thing you’ve got in spades, even if you don’t realize it. And that’s nerve.”

  The blush along her skin deepened. “You saved us, Dwight. Tyler and me both. If there’s anything you ever need…”

  Dwight wanted to touch his fingers to the thoughtful pout of her lips. No, he wanted to pu
t his mouth there and kiss her again. Thoroughly. Deeply. He wanted to see where else a kiss could lead.

  But he checked his libido and did nothing.

  “There’s a dead man in your house. If you think I’m doing a decent job of keeping you and the kid safe, then you’d better think again.”

  She didn’t argue. Instead, her attention shifted to the floor. “Dwight.”

  Her skin went ashen. She reached down beside him and picked up a small ring on a silver chain that had fallen out of Rinaldi’s pocket during the fight.

  “What is it?”

  She sank back on her haunches and stared at the filigree circle between her fingers.

  “Maddie?”

  She snapped out of her daze and laid the ring necklace in his palm. “It’s Katie’s. It was her mother’s. I gave it to her after Karen was killed so she’d have something to remember her mother by. She was wearing it when she ran away.”

  Dwight understood the implication. “Rinaldi saw Katie before he died.”

  He closed the ring inside his fist and looked down at the man who had terrorized this family for too many years. It was no coincidence that Joe Rinaldi had escaped so soon after his daughter had given birth and disappeared.

  He’s my ticket to freedom.

  Rinaldi hadn’t broken out of prison to find his grandson.

  The proprietors of the Baby Factory had helped him escape. So that he could find Tyler for them.

  Chapter Nine

  “Where’s the baby?”

  Katie roused herself to wakefulness. The voice wasn’t talking to her, was it?

  “We went to the aunt’s place, like you said. Put Rinaldi inside to get the information out of her. Then we left because the cops were sending regular patrols up and down the street.”

  “And?”

  “And nothin’.” That was the hulk’s voice—big, loud and more than a little worried. “Somebody shot up the place. By the time we got back, the house was swarmin’ with cops. Rinaldi’s dead.”