by Dana Nussio
Sarah couldn’t help grinning she reached in with both hands and pulled out the creature and his snack.
“A gorilla?” Evelyn exclaimed.
“Do you like bananas?” Belinda wanted to know.
“Doesn’t everyone?” she said with a chuckle.
Her fellow waitresses might not have been impressed with her gift, but she wouldn’t have loved it more if it had been both roses and chocolates. The plush toy was a perfect replica of the lowland gorillas they’d visited at the zoo on an equally flawless day. The bananas only added to the memory.
“Is there a card?” Belinda asked.
Sarah didn’t need one. No one else could have chosen this gift that held such special meaning for her. Still, her curiosity won out. She hated that her shoulders drooped after she searched the bottom of the bag and came up empty.
“Wait. What’s that?” Ted pointed to the gorilla’s back.
She flipped the toy over, and safety-pinned just above its rump was a folded piece of paper.
Her heart thudded as she detached it and unfolded it.
Sarah,
Thanks for the amazing day at the zoo. Sorry I was such a...gorilla. Please accept my apology and bananas from this furry friend. You’re one of the good ones.
—J
The first part of the message made her smile, but as she read his last sentence, her eyes filled. She blinked rapidly and turned to brush at them, so the others wouldn’t see. You’re one of the good ones. They were the same words she’d written on the note to him, the one that seemed so long ago now.
She’d once regretted writing that note, sorry she’d even opened a door to connecting with someone when distance had been central to her strategy for keeping her family safe. She didn’t know what to do now with the truth—that she wasn’t sorry anymore.
He’d been too nice, too approachable, too easy to know. And he’d really listened. He probably had no idea how attractive those things could be.
Now in true Jamie fashion, he was being gallant in taking responsibility for what had happened at her front door. Didn’t he realize he was no more than fifty percent to blame for those heady moments? Didn’t he realize there’d been two of them in that apartment, and she’d been as enthusiastic as he was? Had he forgotten that she’d kissed him first?
She was surprised to realize that she no longer regretted that as much as she should have, either. There could be no more between them; that was a given. The risk was too great. But she wasn’t sorry that she’d had at least one chance to be cherished in a man’s arms.
In Jamie’s arms.
As her fingers gently brushed the gorilla’s faux fur, her tender skin reminding her of the burn, Sarah looked up to find her coworkers watching her. Her cheeks heated as she lowered her hand.
“Wow,” Evelyn said. “If she gets this choked up over a gorilla and some bananas, can you imagine how she’d react if someone sent a stuffed rabbit and some carrots?”
“What does the note say?” Belinda asked.
“Nothing important,” she said, but her hand went automatically to her apron pocket, where she’d tucked it.
“Come on, ladies. Time to get back to our customers.” Ted gently guided them away from the table and the gift. “She’s a private soul, our Sarah.”
As she tucked her gifts back in the bag, her boss stepped closer again.
“It’s a really nice gift,” he said.
“And he just dropped it off with you?” Her face warmed at the idea that Ted knew exactly who’d left the surprise for her.
“If you’re talking about a polite young police officer who wears the biggest smile whenever you pour his coffee,” he paused as if waiting for her reaction, “...then no.”
“I don’t understand.”
“But if you mean a mop-headed teenager who said some dude paid him ten bucks to bring that bag inside, then absolutely.”
“You’re rotten.” She swung the bag by its handles and allowed it to thump against his calf.
“And for the first time since you’ve started working here, you’re smitten.”
“That’s ridiculous.” And unacceptable. And untrue, though she wasn’t as certain as she needed to be. “Where did you pick up that word, anyway? Did you steal it from the 1600s?”
“I’d definitely say he is,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. “Smitten, that is.”
He pointed to the bag dangling from her fingers.
“He’s just one of the mentors who works with Aiden at the after-school program.”
“Yeah, Aiden told me all about Mr. Jamie,” Ted said. “But if that’s all he is, then why wasn’t the gift for your son?”
Sarah couldn’t answer that. How could she explain that the gift was an apology for a make-out session, when the many texts he’d already sent would have sufficed? When none of those things had been necessary because he wasn’t to blame.
“Hey, I haven’t seen Trooper Donovan in here all week. Wonder what that’s all about.”
Ted glanced at the bag again, as if he knew an apology gift when he saw one. At least he couldn’t know about all the calls and texts she’d dodged, or all of Aiden’s requests for “play dates” that she’d refused.
“I hadn’t noticed,” she said, though she wondered why she bothered lying. “Anyway, I’d better get back, or you won’t have any desserts for the dinner crowd.”
“Okay, go do your magic so you can get some rest before your shift.”
She practically ran to the kitchen, so it frustrated her that their conversation chased her. Sure, Ted was an old romantic who believed everyone could have the same love story that he’d shared with his late wife, but could he also have been right? About Jamie at least.
Even she hadn’t missed the way that Jamie had watched her at the zoo. It had been disconcerting, but a little exciting, too. Had he looked at her that way when he’d been just one of her customers at the diner? Had she been too busy watching for hands reaching out from her past to notice?
She was relieved when the kitchen door closed behind her. She ducked into the staff locker area, so she could put away the bag before the kitchen crew started asking questions.
But before she returned to the oven, she couldn’t resist pulling out her phone and checking for texts. She was almost disappointed when she didn’t find any new messages.
“The gorilla probably counts,” she whispered in the tight space.
She started to tuck the phone in her purse again, but then stopped and opened her texts again. She clicked on the trail of message bubbles from Jamie, read but never answered, and then clicked on the bubble at the bottom. Taking a deep breath, she started typing a reply.
Apology unnecessary...thanks... A BUNCH. J
Before she could talk herself out of it, she tapped the arrow to send. She tried convincing herself that it was only a thank-you, a small attempt at manners in a world where true thank-you notes and letters of apology had all but disappeared. But she was tired of lying to herself. Tired of denying her connection to the gentle man, who had his own scars but had reached out to her, anyway.
As she glanced down at the conversation stream, she braced herself for a moment of panic. Instead, an almost unsettling calm flowed through her.
With that tiny message, she’d opened the closed door between them at least a crack. If she had any sense at all, she would have bolted it with more locks than could fit on the entrance to any apartment. But for now, instead of running for her life, she was choosing to really live.
* * *
Jamie reread the text message on his phone for what had to have been the twentieth time that day, the butterflies in his stomach slam-dancing like they had the first time he’d seen it, ten hours before. Only this time when his thumbs twitched to type a response, it wasn’t some uncool phrase like “You’re welcome bunches”
or a lighter “No prob” that came to mind.
He had a different message to send her, and he couldn’t talk himself out of writing it.
Don’t you get tired of lying?
Jamie tapped the screen to send the message but didn’t bother watching his phone for a response the way he had for all the others over the past week. He didn’t care whether or not she answered. Not this time. He turned his phone facedown on the counter and stuck his plate of leftover chicken Parmesan in the microwave.
He didn’t know why he bothered cooking. After everything he’d learned that day, and everything he’d guessed since then, he wasn’t even hungry.
“She played you for a fool,” he whispered to the dark walls.
While he’d thought they’d made some deep connection as they’d shared their stories and their pain, she’d been feeding him a pack of lies, using his need to serve and protect against him.
Now he knew the truth. Not only was there no Michael Cline currently serving drug charges in the Illinois prison system, there didn’t appear to be any “Michael and Sarah Cline” married or divorced in that state in the past twenty years.
Sarah Cline—if that was even her real name—had made up the whole story, and he’d swallowed it faster than a goldfish getting its first meal after a week of neglect. He understood why he’d believed her, but why had she lied? To throw him off her trail because she was on the run from the law, just as he’d guessed earlier? To make him pity her? If either was true, her plan had failed. He hadn’t stopped asking questions, and he’d never felt sorry for her, though he’d been furious on her behalf. He was still mad. He’d just found a new target for his anger.
The worst part was that he couldn’t recall the pain and fear in her eyes, not to mention the passion, and accept that it all was a lie.
He was well aware that suspects could lie about anything when cornered, but until now, he hadn’t thought of Sarah as a suspect. That was his first mistake, though he’d made so many with Sarah that it was difficult to count them. Kissing her and wanting her and letting himself believe that she wanted him back were just a few of them. Each one showed he was a lousy cop.
He’d been so busy pursuing her that he’d forgotten to confirm her story. The irony of it was that he’d longed for the chance to earn her trust when he shouldn’t have trusted her. He’d known better than to let someone get too close, to risk losing someone he cared about again, and yet he’d raced in, lights flashing and sirens blaring, the moment she’d hinted that she might need him.
He carried his plate to the sofa and then set it aside, letting his head fall against the cushion and closing his eyes. He couldn’t breathe. It felt as if his patrol car was parked on his chest. For nearly three weeks, he’d been hiding his suspicions from his fellow officers because of who she was, but wasn’t it about time for him to ask for help to find the answers he was positive would be there?
He had grabbed his cell and was scrolling through his contacts, determining which of his friends he would ask, when the phone buzzed in his hand. The screen flashed the name Sarah, and at first, all he could do was stare at it. Finally, he brushed his finger across the screen to answer.
“Now you call me back?”
His heart thudding in his ears was the singular sound as he strained to hear her voice, but just as he pulled the phone away to see if the call had been dropped, her reply came through the line.
“I’m sorry, Jamie,” she said in a small voice. “For everything.”
“What are you talking about?” Could it have been the lies, or was it something even worse than he’d thought?
“I should never have involved you.”
Her voice was louder this time, but there was a shaky edge to it. Whatever acidic thing he’d been about to say vanished in the cellular waves.
“What’s going on, Sarah?”
“Aiden’s missing. He’s just...gone.”
His gaze slid toward the window, where the blackest part of the night stared back at him. He came off the couch in a move fueled by fear. Her betrayal. His righteous indignation. None of it mattered now. Her little boy was missing, and no matter what Sarah’s track record for honesty, he was sure that this time she was telling the truth.
“Now slow down, Sarah. Tell me what happened.”
“I just got home from work, and when I went to Nadia’s apartment, where she puts him in her bedroom to sleep, he wasn’t there. Nadia was in the shower. Door was closed. She doesn’t know how long—”
“The door was locked. It had to be locked,” an equally panicked female said in the background. “Baby Boy was sleeping.”
“They took him, Jamie,” Sarah continued, as if she hadn’t heard the other woman. “He has my baby. Again.”
“Now hold up.” Jamie knew his voice was sharp, but he had to get past her panic. “Have you called the police? Because if you haven’t, you need to do that right now.”
Either that, or he would call it in himself. But instead of flicking through the phone’s screens, he pressed the device to his ear, as he waited for the words he was certain would come next.
“I...can’t.”
The heartbreak in her voice sliced through him. He barely took a breath before stuffing his feet in his shoes next to the sofa and grabbing his jacket off the back of the recliner.
It didn’t matter that she’d just confirmed every assumption that remained after all the truths he’d already learned that day. She couldn’t call the police because she was on the run from law enforcement. But she had called him. No matter what she’d done before, she was reaching out to him now.
“Sit tight,” he said, already jogging to the door. “I’m on my way.”
Chapter 13
The moment the car pulled into her apartment’s lot and took the only remaining parking spot, Sarah released the breath she’d been holding. She hadn’t even confirmed yet that the driver was Jamie, but she was sure it would be. He’d promised he would come, and she believed him. She tried not to think about how, with each minute, whoever had taken Aiden had added another mile of distance. And with each mile, the likelihood that they would find her son slipped away.
“Is that your police officer friend?”
Nadia stood next to her in a floor-length flannel nightgown and a bathrobe, staring out the window and watching the same scene. Her neighbor’s face was swollen from crying, and she didn’t even know the whole story.
“Yes,” Sarah said, before the car door even opened.
“Sometime, you’ll explain why we couldn’t call 9-1-1, and you phoned him instead?”
She nodded as the door opened, and light stretched from the car’s interior to the asphalt. A man of Jamie’s size and shape slid from the vehicle and started toward the apartments. He disappeared from her sight near the building’s center.
“It’s going to be okay,” Nadia said in a shaky voice. “You’ll see.”
Nadia patted Sarah’s arm to comfort her, though she couldn’t know that nothing would ever be okay after today. That the only thing worse than a monster with no face was one she knew intimately but had been unable to stop anyway.
After she’d given Jamie enough time to make it up the stairs, Sarah stepped around the afghan-covered chair and opened Nadia’s door. Unlike her own, this door had only two locks, and if what she guessed was true, Nadia might have neglected to secure even those.
“Jamie, we’re over here.”
He glanced left and right, then hurried toward them, stopping before he crossed the threshold. “Are you sure you want me to do this?”
“What are you talking about? Of course, I want—”
“I mean, whatever you’re hiding from, it can’t be as bad as—”
He stopped himself, but not before she understood what he was saying. As bad as losing her son. She couldn’t think about that now. They had to find him
. They would find him.
“I mean there’s just one of me when you could have a whole team of officers, even multiple agencies, activating all at the same time. Every minute we waste—”
“Lets them get farther away. I know,” she said in a tight voice.
“How bad is it?” he whispered.
“It’s bad.” She copied his tone as she answered his question about why she couldn’t go to the authorities. “Are you going to help us or not?”
Jamie reached in his jacket pocket, and pulled out a small notebook, pen and a pair of nitrile gloves. He set the notebook on the back of the chair and then worked his fingers into the gloves. He probably thought she was an awful, selfish person, but she couldn’t bring the police into this if they could locate her son without involving them. What good would it do to have them help her find Aidan, only to have them take him from her?
He didn’t even look her way as he produced a stack of tiny paper bags from his other pocket.
“For evidence,” he explained, though no one had asked. “If the lab would even agree to accept anything like this from me.”
He took a few steps forward and stopped in front of Nadia, whose shoulders were still shaking.
“You must be the babysitter?”
She sniffed loudly. “Yes, I’m Nadia Antonov.”
She automatically extended her hand, which Jamie denied with a shake of his head. He held up both hands to remind her he was wearing gloves.
“Okay, let’s do this as quickly as possible. Maybe there’ll be something...”
But his tone didn’t offer much hope. Was he already sorry he’d agreed to come without insisting on calling in other authorities, so they could at least file an Amber Alert? Worse, had she decreased her son’s chance of escape or survival by limiting the response to his disappearance? She thought she’d been protecting him by keeping him away from his father, but maybe someone should have protected him from her.