by Barb Han
“Yes, but I’m not ready to jump to any conclusions just yet.”
The line went quiet again. Because the implication sitting between them was murder.
“You know I’m here for you anytime you want to talk,” Tommy said at last.
Dallas realized he was gripping his cell phone tight enough to make his fingers hurt. “Any word on the SUV? Because the driver easily could’ve been the kidnapper from yesterday.”
“It disappeared and we lost the trail.”
* * *
THE NIGHT WAS pitch-black and the temperature had dipped below freezing. The wind howled. At least Jackson was with Janis, in a cozy bed sound asleep.
Kate’s teeth chattered even though she wore two layers of clothing underneath her coat.
She and Dallas had decided to wait until after dark to go to Wayne’s house, reasoning that if they left too late, then dogs in the neighborhood might give them away. He’d parked four blocks over.
Ever since she woke from her nap, she’d noticed something was different about Dallas. His mood had darkened and he’d closed up.
Was he preparing himself for the news as to whether or not he was a father?
He had to have considered the possibility that if he’d had a son, the boy could’ve been targeted in the kidnappings, as well.
At nine o’clock, lights were still on and households busy with activity. Dallas put his arm around Kate’s waist and even through the thick layers she felt a sizzle of heat on her skin.
Wayne Morton’s house was on a quiet lane in a family neighborhood. Smoke billowed from chimneys on the tree-lined street of half-acre lots. The crisp air smelled of smoke from logs crackling in fireplaces. Halloween lights and decorations filled front yards.
There were enough neighbors about that she and Dallas could slip in and out of Morton’s house without drawing attention.
As Kate walked down the sidewalk, tucked under Dallas’s arm, she could see kids in the front rooms watching TV or reading on couches, their mother’s arms curled around them.
Someone whistled and then called out, “Here, Dutch. Come on, boy.”
A tear escaped before Kate could sniff it away. She turned her face so Dallas wouldn’t see her emotions, while wondering what it must be like to have a mother’s unconditional love and acceptance. She wished that for her and Carter.
Another person half a block down was rolling a trash can onto the front sidewalk for weekly garbage pickup.
“Morton’s place is on the next street,” Dallas said in a low voice, interrupting her thoughts.
When she didn’t respond, he glanced at her.
A second, longer look caused him to stop walking. He turned until they were face-to-face.
Another errant tear escaped and he thumbed it away.
“Are you okay?” He spoke and she could see his breath in the cold air.
Instead of speaking, she nodded.
Dallas’s thumb trailed across her bottom lip and then her jawline. Kate had never known a light touch could be so sweet, so comforting.
A set of porch lights turned off across the street and they both pulled back.
Dallas laced their fingers together as they strolled down the lane.
As Morton’s house came into view, Kate couldn’t help but notice it was the only one on the street that was completely blacked out. That image was sobering and a sad feeling settled over her, making walking even more difficult.
Thinking of Stacy in the hospital, how sad she’d been, made Kate feel awful. Would she come home to an empty, dark house in a few days when she recovered? How would she get past this? Wayne, her job, seemed to be her life. She’d said they were all she had. Before Jackson had come into Kate’s life, she could relate to feeling empty inside. And now with Dallas in the picture, she’d never been more aware of how alone she’d been when she was married to Robert.
Dallas stopped at the bottom of the stairs, clearly as affected by the scene as Kate was. She could see guilt so clearly written in his expression. There was something else in his eyes when she really looked closer. It dawned on her what: he might be about to find out if he was a father.
Worse yet, if his child had been adopted out to a stranger, then Dallas might never find the little boy. Given the nature of closed adoptions and the privacy of all involved, it would take moving heaven and earth to locate the baby, and Dallas O’Brien didn’t strike her as the kind of man who could live with himself if he had a child out there somewhere and didn’t know him.
“Are you ready for this?” she asked.
A car turned onto the street two blocks down.
Dallas glanced around. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
The layout was just as Stacy had described. Dallas ushered Kate inside, closing and locking the front door behind them as she disarmed the alarm. The office was to the left of the foyer and had double French doors with glass panels.
There was enough light coming from the surrounding houses with the Halloween lights on for them to see large objects like furniture.
Dallas slid the office key into the lock and then paused to take a fortifying breath.
Here went nothing…
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Dallas stepped through the door and quickly found the next keypad, to punch in the code for the office.
They kept the lights off so as not to alert anyone who might be driving by or watching the place that they were there.
Inside the office, Dallas located a few books and brought them to the window. Stacy had said the volume they wanted would be on the second shelf, two books from the right. She hadn’t told them there would be a wall of bookcases to choose from.
A beam of light flashed from outside. A cop?
That would so not be good. Kate froze and held her breath until the beam moved across another window.
What the heck was that?
She didn’t know and didn’t want to ask questions. Fear assaulted her as memories from yesterday invaded her thoughts. The men, the guns…
She took a deep breath to calm her frazzled nerves. Getting worked up wouldn’t change a thing. They’d still be in a dead man’s house going through his things. And even that didn’t matter as much as getting back to Jackson safely. Janis had taken him to the main house to sleep tonight, and Kate’s heart ached being away from him. Even though she wouldn’t see him until morning, being back on the ranch would calm her racing pulse.
She moved to another bookshelf and pulled out a couple of volumes, making her best guess where the right one would be. Then she stepped next to Dallas at the window, where there was more light. One of the books was definitely less heavy than the others. She’d noticed the instant she’d slid it from the shelf.
Disappointment filled her when she opened the lighter book. Nothing.
She and Dallas moved on to other bookcases and flipped open more volumes, placing them back as closely as possible to their original spots.
“I think I have it,” he said at last, making tracks to the window to get a better look. He held his offering up to the light. “Yep. This is it.”
A noise from the alley caught their attention. Dallas grabbed her hand and moved toward the door in double time.
“It’s probably just a cat, but we don’t want to stick around and find out,” he said.
“What if someone’s watching the house?” she asked, ignoring the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Adrenaline had kicked in and her flight response was triggered. She needed to get the heck out of there more than she needed to breathe.
* * *
“STAY CALM AND pretend like we’re supposed to be here.” Dallas checked the peephole before opening the door. So far, the way looked clear, but he couldn’t be certain no one was out there. He tucked the book under his coat, thinking about the meeting he needed to set up with his brothers in the morning to deliver Tommy’s news about their parents.
Right now, he needed to get Kate and himself the hell out of there and back
to the ranch.
After locking the door behind them, he led Kate down the few steps to the porch. That was when he heard the telltale click of a shell being engaged in the chamber of a shotgun.
“Where do you think you’re going?” a stern male voice said. “Turn around and put your hands where I can see them.”
“Don’t panic,” Dallas whispered. “Do as he says and we’ll be fine.”
Dallas turned slowly to find himself staring down the barrel of a shotgun. Behind it was a man in his late sixties with white hair and a stout build. Dallas had spent enough time around law-enforcement officers to know that this guy had been on the job. He wore pajama bottoms, slippers and an overcoat.
“What are you doing here?” the man asked.
“We just stopped by to check on the place for a friend,” Dallas said, figuring this was more a friendly neighborhood-watch situation than a real threat. He couldn’t relax, though. This guy looked like he meant business.
“Does this friend have a name?” the man asked, business end of the shotgun still trained on Dallas.
“Wayne Morton,” Dallas replied, hoping that would be enough. “He and Stacy are out of town and asked us to keep an eye on the house.”
“That right?” The guy eyed them up and down suspiciously.
Kate stepped closer to Dallas and put her arm around him. “They’re friends of ours and I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t point that thing at us.”
The man lowered the barrel, much to Dallas’s relief. It was too early to exhale, however.
“You should turn on the porch light,” the man said. “And it’s dark in the alley. There’s a light back there, too.”
“Will do,” Dallas said, although he’d pretty much agree to anything to walk away from this guy without raising suspicion.
“Honey, we have to go. Babysitter’s waiting,” Kate said, twining her fingers in his.
“Thanks for the tip,” Dallas said with a nod. His chin tucked close to his chest, staving off the cold. He decided keeping it there would shield his face. A man who used to be paid to notice things wasn’t a good one to have around.
“When’s Morton coming back?” the guy asked.
“In a few days,” Dallas said, praying he hadn’t read today’s newspaper.
That seemed to satisfy the neighbor. Dallas could hear his feet shuffling in the opposite direction. He glanced back just in case and was relieved to confirm the man was heading home.
If this guy was watching the PI’s house, then others could be, too. And that got Dallas’s boots moving a little faster.
Another sobering reality struck him.
The data on the thumb drive tucked away in the book he held on to could change his life forever.
The weight of that thought pressed heavy on his shoulders as he drove back to the ranch.
“I don’t think Stacy should go home until we figure all this out,” Kate said, breaking the silence between them as he pulled onto the ranch property.
“Agreed,” Dallas said, thankful to focus on something else for a minute. Another thought had occurred to him. The information on that drive might tell him what had happened to Susan. And at least one area of his life could have resolution, even as more questions arose in others.
Whatever was there might be valuable to someone. Morton could be dead because of the information gained since he was on an investigation for Dallas when he was killed.
And then there could be nothing relevant on it, too. Dallas was just guessing at this point, his guilt kicking into high gear again. There were so many emotions pinging through him at what he might find on that zip drive.
Dallas gripped the steering wheel tighter as he navigated his truck into his garage.
“I doubt I’ll be able to sleep without Jackson here,” Kate said, and he could hear the anguish in her voice.
“You want me to have him brought over from the main house?” Dallas asked. “I can make a call and he’ll be here in ten minutes.”
“No. I don’t want to wake Janis after she was nice enough to help care for him in the first place.” Kate sighed wistfully. “He’s probably asleep anyway, and waking him up just so I can look at him seems selfish.”
“I can send a text to have her bring him over first thing in the morning, as soon as they wake,” Dallas offered, turning off the engine. “In fact, she probably left a message already, letting us know how the night went. I silenced my cell phone before we left.”
He fished the device from his front pocket and then checked the screen as he walked in the door to the kitchen. “Yep. Here it is,” he said, showing it to Kate.
Her eyes lit up and they felt like a beacon to Dallas. Everything inside him was churning in a storm.
There was a picture of her sleeping baby, with one word underneath: angel.
“Thank you,” Kate said, tears welling.
“I didn’t mean to make you cry.” Dallas held the phone out to her. “You can hang on to that if you want. I need to check the contents of this drive.”
“Mind if I come with you?” she asked. “Or I can stay out here if you’d like some privacy.”
Normally, that was exactly what he would want.
“I’d rather you be with me when I take a look,” he said, and he surprised himself by meaning it. As crazy as everything had been in the past few days, and as much as his own life had been turned upside down even more in a matter of minutes, being with Kate was the only thing that made sense to him.
She set his cell phone on the counter, took his hand and once again laced their fingers together. Rockets exploded inside his chest with her touch.
“Ready?” she asked.
“As much as I can be,” he said, and the look she shot him said she knew exactly what he was talking about.
They walked into his office hand in hand and Dallas couldn’t ignore how right this whole scenario felt. It seemed so natural to have her in his home, which was a dangerous thought, most likely due to an overload of emotions.
Dallas sat in his office chair and Kate perched on one of his knees. He had to wrap his arms around her to turn on his computer, and that felt so good. A big part of him wanted to lose himself in her and block out everything else.
Another side of him needed to see what was on that flash drive.
His computer booted up quickly and he mentally prepared himself for what he would find. There could be nothing at all, and that would bring a disappointment all its own.
Dallas needed answers and yet there was a healthy dose of fear exploding inside him at finding the truth.
He plugged in the device and a few seconds later a file popped up in the center of the screen.
Dallas clicked on the icon with a foreboding feeling. He scanned a couple of documents.
“Okay, from what I can tell so far, Wayne tracked a baby to Safe Haven and that’s where the trail ends,” Kate said. “Which is what we already knew.”
That about summed up what Dallas had seen, as well. And, no, it wasn’t helpful.
“Here’s the odd thing. Once the baby was born, Morton seems to think Susan disappeared,” Dallas noted. He also realized that the dates didn’t rule out the possibility that Jackson was his son.
“And, like, seriously vanished,” Kate mused. “No more records of her exist anywhere. I mean, I guess I can see that she might have had a closed adoption, and the agency would have coded her file so as not to give her identity away. That happened with mine. The birth mother wanted a sealed adoption and I was in no position to argue. Plus, I thought it would be better anyway. But there should be some trail of her somewhere—an address, credit card, cell-phone record.”
“Her bank account has been closed. There’s no record of her existence.”
“It’s almost like she died,” Kate said.
“But then, wouldn’t there be a record of that?” Dallas shoved aside the thought that Kate’s baby could actually be Susan’s.
This was not the time for that discuss
ion. First things first, and that meant Dallas needed to figure out if he was a father.
He opened the other documents one by one, scanning each for any link to his and Susan’s baby. If there was one.
There was nothing.
Morton had been thorough and yet… Dallas opened the last file. It was labeled WS.
“Morton questioned your attorney the day before he was killed,” Dallas said.
Kate’s eyes were wide. He could see them clearly in the reflection from the computer screen.
She opened her mouth to speak but no words came.
“We need to have that DNA test. It’s the only way we’ll know for sure that you’re not Jackson’s father,” she said.
“If that’s what you want. I can arrange one in the morning,” Dallas told her.
She muttered something under her breath. She’d spoken so low, Dallas wasn’t sure he heard right.
Should he be offended?
“I hope you know that I’d make one hell of a fine father someday,” he said, a little indignant. His emotions were getting the best of him.
Kate turned those blue eyes on him and his chest clutched.
“I didn’t mean to insinuate that you wouldn’t be a good father. You would.” Her eyes were filled with tears now. “It’s just Jackson’s all I have. My relationship with my parents is practically nonexistent. My brother and I used to be close and now he’s siding with my mother, which stinks, considering how little she supported either one of us growing up.”
Dallas’s arms tightened around Kate’s waist, and that was a bad idea given the mix of emotions stirring inside him. A very bad idea.
Tears streamed down her beautiful face. Dallas wanted to say something to make it better, and yet all he could manage was “I’m sorry.”
“No. I don’t expect you to understand, and I’m embarrassed to say anything. I have Jackson now and he’s my world,” she said.
“I can see that he is,” Dallas assured her.
“And he’s enough. All I ever wanted was to have a family. Is that too much to ask?” She buried her face in her hands and released a sob.
“It’s not,” Dallas said. “And I understand more than you know. Because I have an amazing family, I know exactly how much we build each other up, rely on each other. I can’t imagine where I’d be if I didn’t have my brothers by my side, and especially since we lost our parents.”
