Private Eye Protector

by Shirlee McCoy

  Try to convince herself that she and Chance really couldn’t have all the things she’d given up believing in when she’d said goodbye to Michael.

  “I don’t think—”

  His cell phone rang again and he scowled. “Hello? Good to hear from you, Sheriff. He told me. I didn’t realize that. I’ll meet him there in twenty minutes.” He disconnected and stood. “Looks like you’re going to get your way.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “The sheriff is sending an evidence van out to my mom’s place. They identified the guy they took in last night. His name is Kent Mallory. He’s a computer tech from Arizona with a rap sheet for drugs and breaking and entering. The homeless guy Kai brought in? He identified Mallory as the man who was with Leon.”

  “What does that have to do with the police sending an evidence van to your mother’s place?”

  “The truck Fred saw going by his house the night of your accident looked just like the Mitsubishi Leon was driving. If the two of them were working together, a half hour is probably just enough time for someone like Mallory to clean your computer system.”

  “Why? I don’t even know the man.”

  “Maybe not, but he knows you. I’ve got to go. The sheriff hasn’t been able to reach my mother, and your apartment door is locked. I need to let them in. They’re going to pull prints from your place to try to connect Mallory to the scene. Stay in the room until I get back, okay?” He dropped a kiss on her forehead, dropped another on Em’s cheek and then walked out.

  Left her alone with the baby and her thoughts.

  Just as she wanted to be.

  Only it didn’t feel nearly as good as she’d hoped it would.

  Anxiety twisted her stomach, the thought of a stranger cleaning her computer system sparking a memory she couldn’t quite grasp.

  Emma.

  Danger.

  They were the only words she could pull from the black morass of her mind.

  She finished feeding Emma, changed her, set her in the crib and played peek-a-boo with her, but nothing could ease Rayne anxiety.

  Someone rapped on the door and she jumped, whirling to face it.

  “Come in,” she called, and the door opened, Ryder standing in the threshold.

  “You have a visitor, Ms. Sampson. A Dr. Michael Rathdrum.”

  “There’s no need to announce me. I was here earlier,” Michael said, and Rayne sighed.

  “I thought you were going to your hotel.”

  “I was talking to a police officer out in the parking lot when I saw your boyfriend leaving. I figured this was as good a time as any for us to have a private talk.” He glanced at Ryder, but the stone-faced guard didn’t budge.

  “Michael—”

  “We dated for three years, Rayne. I’m only asking for a couple minutes of your time. Then I’ll go back to my hotel and make arrangements to fly home. As I said, I need some closure. I guess I just need to make sure that we’re both satisfied with our decision.”

  Go jump in a lake.

  The words danced on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t bring herself to say them. “All right, but I only have a few minutes. Emma needs some attention.” She pulled a cloth book and a stuffed toy from the diaper bag, placed them in the crib.

  “I’ll be outside if you need something, Ms. Sampson.” Ryder stepped back out into the hall, closed the door and sealed them in together.

  “All right. We’re alone. Say what you have to say.” She didn’t even try to hide her impatience.

  “What I have to say is…complicated.” He walked toward her, and the hair on the back of Rayne’s neck stood on end, something cold and ugly slithering along her spine. She frowned and took a step back, bumping into the chair.

  “Maybe you should just leave then. I don’t have time for complicated, and I don’t have the energy to try to figure out what it is you want.”

  “What I want is to go back to the way things were.”

  “That’s not going to happen, Michael. I’m not interested in rekindling our…romance.”

  “Is that what you call it? I call it a convenient relationship, and that’s not what I want back. I want my life back. The life I lost when your friend decided to make you guardian of her baby. My practice, my home, my reputation. I can’t have it all taken from me because of one mistake.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  One mistake?

  Another memory surfaced. Emails. Tears.

  Hers?

  Someone else’s?

  “I know. That’s the shame of it. I wish I could believe the memories you lost would stay lost, but I know enough about amnesia to know it’s not likely. You could remember today or tomorrow. I can’t risk it.”

  “Risk what?” she asked, her heart pounding wildly as she tried to move toward the door and Ryder.

  “Don’t.” He pulled something from his pocket. Something small, but very deadly. A handgun. Not pointed at her. Pointed at Emma. “If you scream, if you run, I’ll kill the baby. Sure, I’ll go to jail, but she’ll be dead.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “It might be better if I were. I would have killed Chandra before the baby was born, and none of this would have happened. But I’m not crazy, and even a guy like me has some compassion. I couldn’t stomach the thought of a pregnant woman dying, but that was when I thought Chandra would cooperate. Unfortunately, she didn’t. I’m sorry to say, you two are more alike than I imagined. Both of you hardheaded and unreasonable. Come on. We’re going for a walk. If you try anything, I’ll kill whoever is unlucky enough to be nearby.” He grabbed her purse, tossed it at her. She caught it, his words echoing through her head.

  Killed Chandra before the baby was born?

  Chandra had died of a prescription drug overdose.

  Hadn’t she?

  Or had her death been like Leon’s?

  Staged to look like an overdose?

  The thought settled in Rayne’s gut, stayed there.

  “You killed Chandra, didn’t you?”

  “No.”

  “Then you paid someone to do it. Who? Mallory?”

  “Enough questions, Rayne. We don’t have time for them, and I’m not in the mood for answering. Remember what I said. You try anything when we walk out this door, and I kill whoever is closest.”

  He didn’t say he’d kill Rayne.

  He knew her well enough to know that she wasn’t afraid of death, would risk her life if she thought doing so would offer her a chance to save it.

  What she couldn’t risk, would never risk, was someone else’s life.

  She nodded, her heart thudding desperately as she hung her purse over her uninjured shoulder.

  “Let me say goodbye to Emma.”

  “Sorry. We don’t have time.” He tucked the gun back under his jacket, kept his hand on it as he grabbed her arm just hard enough for it to hurt.

  “I hope you’re a good actress, Rayne. Because if you’re not, the guy outside this door had better be prepared to meet his maker.”

  He shoved her forward, and she opened the door, praying desperately as she stepped out into the hall.

  EIGHTEEN

  Chance glanced at the clock on the dashboard as he pulled up in front of his mother’s house. 6:00 a.m. He’d left Rayne at the hospital less than twenty-five minutes ago, but every second had seemed like an eternity. Despite the guard posted outside Emma’s room, despite Rayne’s assurance that she’d stay put, he was worried.

  Something felt off.

  Everything felt off.

  Maybe it was Michael Rathdrum’s visit that had put him on edge. The guy had an arrogant swagger that rubbed Chance the wrong way.

  Actually, everything about the guy rubbed him the wrong way.

  Or maybe it was the thought that someone had been in his mother’s house, been in Rayne’s apartment, been that close to taking the things that were most important to Chance, that was troubling him.

  Whatever th
e case, he’d felt antsy since he’d walked out of Rayne’s room.

  What he wanted more than anything was to go back to the hospital and do exactly what he’d been doing before the sheriff called—protect Rayne and Emma. Sure, Ryder was there, but he didn’t have a vested interest in Rayne and her daughter.

  He didn’t have a personal interest.

  Chance jogged up the driveway, passing an evidence van and a marked patrol car.

  Shreds of yellow crime scene tape spilled out from a garbage can that sat near the newly rebuilt porch. A coat of paint, a little varnish and the facade of the house would be good as new. Maybe even better.

  “Sorry, sir. You’re not going to be able to go inside,” a female officer called out from the patrol car.

  “My mother owns the place. The sheriff asked me to come out and unlock the attic apartment.”

  “I don’t know anything about that, sir. I only know what I was told. No one is allowed in until the evidence team is finished.”

  “Is Kai inside?”

  “Kai?” she asked as if she’d never heard the name before. “Deputy Parker.”

  “Oh.” Pink stained her pale cheeks and she nodded. “Yes.”

  “Can you let him know I’m here? Just tell him that Chance is waiting on the porch.”

  “I’ll radio him.”

  Chance waited impatiently as one minute passed, then another. He was about to open the door and walk inside when it swung open.

  “Hey, man. Sorry for dragging you away from the hospital. We finally reached your mom a few minutes ago. She was at your neighbor’s place and she let us in.”

  A wasted trip.

  Not something he wanted to think too much about.

  “It’s okay. Did you find anything?”

  “A bucketload of prints. Hopefully, we’ll get some matches with Mallory. The more charges we have to throw at him, the happier I’ll be.” Kai grinned, but there were circles under his eyes and worry lines etched in his forehead.

  “Is he talking yet?”

  “Nope. Guy lawyered up before we even knew his name. It doesn’t matter, though. We’ve charged him with attempted murder and attempted kidnapping. If we get prints here, we’ll throw unlawful entry into the mix. We’ve already dusted the motel where we found Leon. If Mallory’s prints are there, he’ll go up on first-degree murder charges.”

  “Great, but none of those things will help us figure out why Leon and Mallory were after Rayne.”

  “No, but that murder one charge might be enough to get Mallory talking.”

  “Do we know what the connection is between the two men?” Chance asked, and Kai’s smile broadened.

  “That’s something we do know. Both men were addicts, and both men were treated for their addiction at Sunshine Acres.”

  “Sounds like a farm.”

  “A farm for recovering addicts. Mallory was there two months ago. Leon spent the last three months there. And it gets better. The terms of both of their sentences required that they attend weekly group counseling sessions. Bet you can guess where this is headed.”

  “They attended the same counseling group?”

  “Monday nights at seven.”

  “So we know where they met and how they knew each other. What we don’t know is why they were coming after Rayne.”

  “Or who paid them tens of thousands of dollars to do it. Or why Mallory killed Leon. There’s plenty we don’t know, Chance, but at least we have a place to start. Which is more than we had yesterday. Maybe if we dig a little deeper into who else attended meetings with them, we might learn more. Could be Rayne knew a female drug addict, and the lady took offense at something she said or did. She was working at a women’s shelter before she left Arizona, right?”

  “Right.”

  Working at a shelter, but she’d had a friend who was an addict. A friend who’d been in rehab. A friend who’d died of a prescription drug overdose shortly after Emma came home from the hospital.

  Leon.

  Mallory.

  Chandra.

  Three addicts.

  All of them in rehab. All of them seeing a counselor.

  Now two of them were dead. Both from prescription drug overdoses.

  Easy to get a prescription from a doctor.

  And Rayne knew a doctor, too.

  A doctor she’d met when she picked Chandra up from a group counseling session.

  One thought after another jumped through Chance’s mind, spun into a bull’s-eye that landed on the one person who might have a connection to them all.

  Michael.

  The name slithered into Chance’s head, filled him with cold, sick dread.

  “I need you to do me a favor, Kai. Call Sunshine Acres. Find out if Michael Rathdrum led Leon and Mallory’s group counseling session. Rayne mentioned that he did a lot of volunteer work. I’d be interested to know if he volunteered there.”

  “Who is Rathdrum?”

  “Rayne’s ex-fiancé. And he’s in town. He showed up in her hospital room while I was there. Said he got in this morning, but what if he’s been here since the accident? If he called her from the airport, she’d have gone to meet him. That’s just the way she is.”

  “That would explain why she went out there during a storm.”

  “It would explain a lot. I need to get back to the hospital.” Chance felt cold with rage and fear, his heart thudding as he ran to his SUV. His cell phone rang.

  He answered it as he jumped behind the wheel.

  “Richardson. What’s up?”

  “We have a problem,” Kane responded, and the tone of his voice froze Chance’s blood.

  Kane didn’t have to say what the problem was.

  Chance knew.

  Knew he shouldn’t have left the hospital.

  Knew that somehow Michael Rathdrum had taken Rayne or Emma or both.

  He asked anyway, hoping, praying that he was wrong.

  “What kind of problem?”

  “Rayne went down to the cafeteria to get something to eat with a friend. She hasn’t returned to the room.”

  “Who was she with?”

  “Guy named Michael Rathdrum. He told Ryder that he’s a doctor and an old friend of Rayne’s.”

  “A doctor and most likely a killer.” Chance explained the connection between Rathdrum, Chandra, Leon and Mallory, his mind racing in a million directions.

  None of them good.

  “This isn’t good, Chance. They’ve been gone for twenty minutes. We’ve searched the entire hospital. Neither of them has shown up.”

  “Does Rathdrum have Emma, too?”

  “No. She’s with Ryder.”

  “Tell him not to let her walk off with anyone,” Chance growled, his blood pulsing in his ears.

  He had to find Rayne.

  Had to.

  “You’re angry, and I don’t blame you, but Ryder followed protocol. He checked Rathdrum’s ID, he checked with Rayne. He wanted to escort her to the cafeteria, but she said Emma had to be under the oxygen tent, and she didn’t want her left alone. She refused to wait. Said she was too hungry. Short of leaving the baby unprotected, Ryder had no choice but to call for backup and wait things out.”

  “So he let Rayne go with Rathdrum and now she’s disappeared.”

  Disappeared.

  Missing.

  Gone.

  Didn’t matter which way he said it, it all meant the same thing.

  Rayne was with a killer.

  Please, God, let her still be alive.

  “What’s your ETA, Chance?”

  “I’ll be at the hospital in ten.”

  Maybe less if he didn’t get pulled over.

  He gunned the engine, pushing the SUV to its limit, a police car pulling in behind him, lights flashing, sirens blaring.

  He ignored it, didn’t slow until he pulled into the hospital parking lot.

  Please, God. Please.

  The prayer shouted through his mind as he raced into the building, someone cal
ling out from behind him.

  He took the stairs two at a time, raced down the hall.

  “Chance, slow down, man!” Kai’s voice registered, and he turned.

  “Rathdrum has Rayne.” He said the only thing he could think, the only thing that mattered.

  “I know. Kane called the sheriff. He put out an APB on Rathdrum’s rental car. I took off as soon as I heard what was going down. Just so we’re clear, your racing down the highway like a fool and killing yourself or someone else isn’t going to save Rayne’s life.”

  “Was that you behind me?”

  “Yeah, and you’re lucky it was. Otherwise, you would have had an entire squad of cars chasing you. I called Sunshine Acres as I drove. Confirmed what I think you already knew. Rathdrum led the counseling session.”

  “So he manipulated both men into helping him get rid of Rayne.”

  “Why?”

  “If we knew that, we might be able to figure out what his plans are now that he has her. Rayne had a friend who died from a prescription drug overdose a few months ago. Like Leon and Mallory, she attended counseling sessions with Rathdrum.”

  “There’s your connection then. Too bad we don’t know what it means,” Kai responded.

  “Connection to what?” Kane stepped out into the hall, his eyes lined with worry.

  “Rayne’s best friend was an addict. She attended counseling sessions with Rathdrum.” And saying it a hundred times wasn’t going to save Rayne. He needed to know how it fit. How every puzzle piece of information worked together to create a picture of why Rathdrum had kidnapped Rayne.

  “You’re talking about Emma’s birth mother, right?” Kane asked, and Chance nodded, something ugly lodged in his head.

  Something unthinkable.

  But he had to think it.

  Had to say it.

  “This all makes sense if Rathdrum is Emma’s father,” Chance blurted out. It didn’t sound any better out loud than it did in his head, but it fit. Fit so well he couldn’t deny it.

  “Have you gone nuts, bro? What makes sense about that?” Kai asked, his dark eyes flashing with frustration.