Her Detective's Secret Intent

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “At most,” he told her. He’d leaned back in his chair, was sitting partially sideways so that one arm was on the table, the other hanging off the corner of his chair. As though he didn’t have a care in the world.

  But the way he watched her...assessing...made her nervous. Like he was seeing more than she could ever allow.

  This was a bad idea. Worse even than she’d feared.

  What if she let something slip? Some little nugget of a fact that made him curious...

  No.

  She stopped that thought, too. She was not going to let paranoia take over again. She’d won that battle. Wasn’t going to let fear and suspicion get close enough to have to fight them again.

  At least not if she could see it coming.

  Since returning to the table, Tad had contributed nothing to their conversation. If she wasn’t still humming inside from his admission that he was attracted to her, preceded by an apology for “crossing a line,” and followed by his backhanded admission that he wanted to ask her out, she might be able to convince herself that they had nothing to talk about.

  That she’d been worried for nothing.

  “I told Ethan we can be friends, the three of us, you and me, you and him, but that we can’t need each other for things. Or rely on each other,” she said in a rush.

  Half hoping he’d miss the “you and me” part of that. And yet fearing he would.

  “I’d like to be friends.” He rested both arms on the table again, and she could hardly comprehend how relieved she felt. Almost giddy with it. Like she had to laugh out loud. And maybe cry a little, too.

  “All three of us, me and Ethan and you and me,” he added.

  And she started to tremble.

  Chapter 7

  In the spirit of friendship, with a phone call to North Carolina lurking in his very near future, Tad asked Miranda how her weekend had gone.

  He knew she’d gotten the training wheels off Ethan’s bike. The boy had been riding like a pro when Tad had checked on them later that afternoon. He’d found a place around the corner from them where he could park and still see their house between the other houses. And when he drove down the street behind them, he could keep tabs, too.

  At first, watching them had felt good. Righteous. He was keeping them safe. But the more he got to know them, the less great he felt. The cause was important.

  Still, did the end always justify the means?

  The sixty-four-million-dollar question of his life these days.

  The question Internal Affairs was pondering on his behalf.

  “Ethan kept asking me to call you on Sunday.” She’d been talking about a movie she and her son had seen and that Ethan had wanted him to see, too. With them.

  “You should have.”

  “I’m sure you have things to do.”

  The things he was being paid to do were much easier when he was spending time with her.

  “I do a lot of sitting around,” he told her. “In meetings, in my car... I’m finding I’m not all that good at it.”

  “You want to be out saving the world,” she said. He noticed a difference in her tone. Not necessarily negative, but...different. Aware.

  And he figured he understood why. “You know someone like that?” he asked.

  Her father.

  The man, a true hero, must have been an incredible parent. Growing up with someone who was willing to take risks over and over again, to fight the hard fights selflessly, must have been remarkable. Such an inspiration. With Tad’s father’s defection from their family when Tad was just a baby, Tad had been the man in his family his whole life. He’d been all his mom and older sister had for protection.

  And he’d failed them.

  Just as Miranda’s husband had failed her.

  “Not personally, I don’t,” Miranda said, with no hint of subterfuge. “But since you were hurt on the job, I’m guessing you didn’t make your living sitting at a desk. I imagine that for someone like you, who usually works in dangerous situations, it would be difficult to have, as the highlight of your day, driving around checking up on a little boy.”

  Her blue eyes were filled with warmth, and they directed her nurturing to him; he sucked it in like a man dying of thirst.

  “But you must realize that what you’re doing is far more than being ready in case Danny’s in trouble,” she continued. “You being out there, watching, gives Marie extra strength, too. And it reminds her that she can’t give in and contact Devon because everyone would know and he’d be the one in trouble if he came around. She might not be able to protect herself, but she’s been programmed to protect him.”

  The insight struck him hard. He’d been doing a lot of reading on domestic violence over the past three months. And gained more understanding in five minutes of conversation with Miranda. Her experience spoke to him.

  Probably more than she knew.

  Or maybe because he knew.

  “She’s at possibly the most critical point in her life,” Miranda was saying, her voice low as she leaned closer to him. Tad could feel her intensity.

  “If she makes it through this total break, if she can stay out from under Devon’s mental control long enough to free her own thoughts from him again, to counteract his voice in her head, then she’ll be able to work on recovery and building a new and happy life.”

  He felt like he’d just slipped a bit deeper into Miranda’s own psyche. Wanted to be there. But only with her permission.

  “I’ll do whatever I can to help,” he told her. And added, “If there’s more I can do, please let me know.”

  He’d do whatever it took to help Marie stay out of harm’s way. To help her win this victory over evil. And if he got any insights into how he could help Miranda as well, all the better.

  “I will,” she said. “I know that when you came to see Danny at the office, that really helped.”

  Dropping his pants, she meant. He’d relived that one a dozen or more times in the days since, mostly with mortification.

  But he wasn’t sure he’d do anything differently...

  Ends and means and all that stuff.

  “If I tell you something, do you think you can keep it to yourself?” she asked.

  “Of course.” What else could he say? The more of her secrets he knew, the better he’d be prepared to protect her.

  Not that she was in any danger. He’d just feel relieved knowing firsthand that her husband was really gone.

  “When Marie was in the office the other day I gave her my personal cell number,” she told him. She sipped from the coffee he’d pretty much forgotten was there. But she met his gaze—standing up for the choice she’d made. Standing by it.

  “Paranoia can be a lasting result of being a victim of domestic violence. When your trust is betrayed on such an intimate level—”

  She broke off, and he needed to take her hands in his, or preferably, take her in his arms, let her know he’d die before he allowed anyone to hurt her again.

  “I’ll keep an eye on her, too, if you’d like.” There was only so much he could do for Miranda at the moment. But he could help Marie get through the things he hadn’t been there to help Miranda with. The first steps of the difficult journey to freedom.

  Surprisingly, Miranda shook her head. “If she found out, it could do more harm than good,” she said. “The point is for her to learn to trust herself. To be able to rely on herself, on her own strengths. To discern the difference between being dependent and asking for help. No one’s good at everything. She needs to do all she can, and to know when she needs help and then ask for it.”

  He got that. More than he ever had before.

  And thinking of her son’s training wheels two days before, he wondered where Miranda was in the process.

  “That’s why I gave her my number,” she told him. “It’
s not illegal or wrong or anything for me to do that, but it does go outside normal medical protocol. I just saw a chance to give her a tool to help her fight her demons and knew I had to do it.”

  And she was telling him this because...

  She didn’t trust herself all the time? Would she ever?

  Even when you won the battle and became a survivor instead of a victim, did you ever fully lose the sense of having been there once? Did anyone?

  Life shaped people. Changed them.

  “I think it’s great that you did that,” he told Miranda now, meaning the words. She’d been dealt a horrendous hand, and she’d saved herself.

  So much for needing the protection he kept trying to assure himself he was giving her. Truth was, maybe he needed to give it to her more than she needed to get it from him.

  “I just hope she uses it,” Miranda said, and then smiled at him. “This is nice,” she added. “Being friends.”

  “You want to have a friendly dinner sometime this week? Maybe give me another shot at becoming a zookeeper your son can’t easily obliterate?”

  She hesitated, and he fell a little flat. “Or not.”

  “No.” Miranda sat up straighter, took a visible deep breath. “I mean, yes, let’s talk about that. I... I’m pretty odd about my house,” she said. “I...don’t invite people over. I know, it’s weird, but being a single mom , you never know who you can trust, and I’ve always kept our home a safe place. You know, where it’s just the two of us.”

  He remembered the way she’d rushed him through to the backyard on Saturday.

  “I could invite you to my apartment,” he told her. “It’s not much, but there’s a kitchen and a TV where we could hook up the game.”

  “No. I’m just being...”

  Paranoid?

  “Maybe it’s time to open up Ethan’s world a bit more. To expose us both to a society that’s been good to us. Let me check my schedule and get back to you with a night. Would that work?”

  Let me think about it, he translated.

  “Sure,” he said with a shrug. “I’m available.”

  “Do you like baked spaghetti?”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “It’s one of Ethan’s favorites. I’m off early on Thursday because I work Saturday this week. We could do it Thursday night.”

  “Does this mean you’ve already checked your schedule?” He grinned at her.

  She grinned back. “Smart-ass.”

  Miranda had to go back to work, and he wanted to get in a workout at the gym before heading over to Danny’s school for his afternoon watch. He walked Miranda to her car, moved on down to his own, but didn’t unlock it until he’d watched her drive out of the parking lot and out of sight.

  He’d never admired a woman, wanted a woman, as much as he did her. For the first time since his sister was murdered, something mattered to Tad more than getting the bad guys off the streets.

  Suddenly, seeing a woman—and her young son—happy was what mattered more.

  Marie and Danny’s safety mattered most, certainly. Absolutely.

  They had an entire team of people helping them. He was proud to be among them.

  But his mission was much more personal, too.

  It was time for Miranda Blake to be free to become Dana O’Connor again. To return to the father who adored her. The life she’d been forced to leave behind.

  To be free from the past that clearly still haunted her.

  She’d won her battle; now it was time to come home from the war.

  Chapter 8

  Miranda waited until Wednesday night to tell Ethan that Tad would be coming for dinner on Thursday. Purely for self-preservation. She needed to have her own thoughts securely in place before dealing with her son’s barrage.

  Was she doing the right thing? Could she have someone in their home without somehow revealing any piece of their past that might help someone find them?

  Would someone approach Tad in town, someone he thought she knew, and ask him some innocuous question? He might well answer, unknowingly, with something that could expose her. Her father’s superhuman ways opened any possibility.

  She’d been told to live a normal life. Had saved nothing from her past. Nothing. No pictures. Not even the fourteen-karat gold heart charm Jeff had given her the day she’d told him she was pregnant. A symbol of the love he felt for her, and the love she’d given him. The love they’d created in their baby, through their baby. He’d told her that whenever she doubted her worth or questioned herself, to hold on to that charm and talk to him—promising that he’d hear her from wherever he was and find a way to answer her.

  The night she’d run, she’d taken a side trip back to college and buried the charm alongside Jeff’s grave, thinking that maybe, someday, when Ethan was grown, she could take him there, tell him the truth about the wonderful man who’d fathered him and give him the charm.

  Was it wrong to steal a moment of happiness for herself by inviting Tad over again? Was she risking Ethan’s life?

  Or was she hurting it by keeping them cloistered? Would her son grow up being afraid of the world?

  He’d gone to bed ecstatic Wednesday night. And had jabbered about dinner the next evening, wanting to know what she was going to make, suggesting that she bake brownies, too, and asking if he could have a night off from homework.

  She’d made the brownies as soon as she got home on Thursday. Crossed her fingers that there’d be no homework, and if there was that they could get it done quickly. She was smiling as she waited in her usual spot outside Ethan’s school that afternoon. As she’d cooked and cleaned her way through the early afternoon, she’d had a long talk with herself. And maybe with Jeff, too. Listening to his voice in her mind, telling her how smart and capable she was.

  Of all the friends he could’ve had in college, he’d chosen her—a normal-looking, quiet, shy loner—to hang out with. Jeff had always seen something in her she’d never seen herself.

  “I don’t like Tad and I don’t want him to come over for dinner.” Ethan’s words were spewing out before he’d even climbed into the front seat beside her. His glasses made his eyes look bigger as he turned them on her. “You have to call him and tell him he can’t come,” the boy said, and then shoved his backpack on the floor at his feet and sat there, arms crossed, with his lower lip jutting out like it did when he was trying not to cry.

  Heart thumping, Miranda went immediately into calm mode. “Why? What did he do?”

  “I thought he was my friend. Our friend. But he’s friends with any old boy.”

  “I don’t understand,” Miranda said, her tone filled with the love the little guy drew from the depths of her. She ignored the other cars and kids milling around outside her vehicle.

  “I saw him,” Ethan said. “He was here, on the other side, where they play baseball. At recess. I thought he came to see me, but when I started to run over to him, some other kid went over and Tad didn’t even see me. Or wave. He just talked to that other kid for our whole recess and then... I don’t know what. Maybe took him for ice cream or something.”

  “What other kid?” Miranda’s senses were on alert for an entirely different reason now. She’d known Ethan and Danny Williams went to the same school; it was a big school and the boys were in different grades.

  “I dunno.” Her son’s chin was down by his chest, and she had to fight the need to pull him close and rock him against her as she had when he was smaller.

  “I’m sure, since the other boy was at recess, too, he couldn’t just leave school. Do you really think Tad took him for ice cream?” she asked, seeing so many complications and not knowing what to tackle first, or at all.

  “No.”

  “So you think Tad shouldn’t have any friends but you?”

  “I dunno.”

  “But you know, people care a
bout more than one person. Jimmy likes more kids than just you and you like more than just him.”

  “He’s only a little kid like me.”

  “You liked Tad, and that didn’t mean you didn’t still like me, right?” As she tried to assuage her son’s hurt feelings, it occurred to her that she’d failed him in a way she hadn’t seen coming, focusing only on her work and on him, giving him unrealistic expectations of the adults in his life. Few as there were...

  “I dunno,” he said again. “I thought he was my friend.”

  Kids’ feelings got hurt. It was all part of growing up.

  Maybe some of them were better acclimated by the time they were six. More exposed to human interaction. Probably most of them had to share the caregivers in their lives. And they’d likely had more than one.

  In an effort to keep Ethan safe, she’d sheltered him, figuring he’d have his own interaction with others when he started school. When he was old enough to protect himself. Or at least tell someone if he was hurt or afraid.

  She’d had it all planned out. Had him prepared and...

  You’d think, given that, he’d be jealous of sharing her, not jealous of Tad being friends with another boy.

  The way he’d taken to Tad—the first person she’d shown real warmth to in front of him, other than the professionals with whom they came in contact...

  Could be this wasn’t so much a relationship thing as it was a “daddy” issue. Having a man around.

  She had no idea what to do about that at the moment. How to explain...any of it.

  “You said you wanted me to go on a date, right?”

  “Yes, but not with him. Not anymore.”

  “It’s a little late for that,” she told him. “I already invited him over. And he’s planning to be a successful zookeeper tonight.” Dealing with children was her forte. Not only because of her training, but because it somehow came naturally to her.

  Still, she felt completely, uncharacteristically, lost.

  “Can you do me a favor and be nice to him? Just for tonight?” Give her time to figure out how to handle the newest bump in their road. She’d known bigger bumps were coming. Had been as prepared as one could be when facing the unknown.