She let out a shuddering breath. “Gary. I’m surprised to hear from you.” She could feel Ty watching her, but she didn’t meet his eyes.
“Believe me, I’m surprised to be calling. I got a call from Keating. Seems he’s had a change of heart.”
“A change of heart?” Megan could swear her own heart was pounding so hard, Gary had to be able to hear it.
“Says he overreacted last night. He wants to give you a second chance.”
So Evan had come through for her. The doubts he’d voiced about Gary flitted through her mind. “And you? Are you willing to give me a second chance, Gary?”
“I never wanted to fire you in the first place. You know that.”
First Ty, then Evan, now Gary. If this kept up, she was going to turn into a regular believer in the goodness of men.
“Glad to have you back, Megan. But Keating’s only willing to give you a two-hour window. Can you get it done in that amount of time?”
Two hours. That would be cutting it tight. But with Ty’s help, she could do it. “Not a problem.”
“Good. Now no more mistakes with the computers, eh? Don’t let me down.”
Her throat felt so thick she wasn’t sure she could push out the lie. “I won’t, Gary.”
She punched the phone’s off button and looked up at Ty. “I’m cleaning Keating tonight.” And this time, she would be ready for the extra security. This time she’d get what the kidnapper wanted.
Furrows dug into his forehead. “How did that happen, exactly?”
“Mr. Keating had a change of heart.”
“That’s quite a turnaround. You don’t look surprised.”
Time to fess up. “While you were talking to your friends in the department, I made a visit of my own.”
“To Keating?”
She didn’t know why she felt so uneasy telling Ty, but she did. “To Evan Blankenship.”
TY DIDN’T WANT TO ADMIT HOW much the fact that Megan had gone to Blankenship for help bothered him, but it did. He moved through the halls and offices of Keating Security, the backpack vacuum vibrating hot between his shoulder blades and roaring in his ears.
He’d spent last night struggling to convince Megan to accept his help getting Connor back, and yet she’d had no trouble waltzing into Blankenship’s office this afternoon and asking him for assistance. He didn’t know why he was surprised. Nothing had changed. Everything was just the same as when they were kids. Megan had turned down everything Ty had ever tried to give her, and yet as soon as he’d left for the police academy, she’d accepted Doug’s ring.
So why did it still rattle him like a damn kick to the head?
He passed the office where Megan was hunched over the computer keyboard and moved on to the employee break room. They’d entered Keating Security as soon as the last employee left, and even with the days growing winter short, the sky had just fallen to darkness outside the office windows. Turning off the vac, he cleaned the microwave. Breathing in the scent of something recently cooked, he tried not to dwell on the fact that he’d missed lunch. He should have at least ordered a burger at Buck’s when talking to Baker. Then he’d have gotten something valuable out of it.
He shoved his self-pity to the back of his mind. He didn’t like covering for Megan again, but he had to remember why they were doing this. And if they could get Connor back safe, all the lying and breaking the law and denying every cop instinct he’d ever had would have paid off.
He wiped down the tables and counters, then fired up the vacuum and raked the wand over the tile floor. Stray crumbs vibrated as they shot up the aluminum tube. Reaching the dining area, he picked up chairs and flipped them seat down on the table so he could clean underneath.
A newspaper lay open on one of the chairs.
Ty let out a groan. The “Wannabe Santa Claus” story wasn’t in this edition, but it would run tomorrow. He had to tell Megan the truth about the Shop with a Cop money before then. And when he did, what would she do? Ask Blankenship to help her the rest of the way? Rely on Doug to see her through this?
Leave him with a career in tatters and a truth he couldn’t tell?
He shook his head. He’d made his own decisions, his own mess of his career. And as for him and Megan? None of that should bother him. He and Megan weren’t a couple. She didn’t owe him anything.
So why was this so hard for him? Why did her not being willing to play along at the jewelry store and the sex shop bother him so much? Why was the fact that she’d gone to Blankenship for help getting her back into Keating so hard for him to take?
The answer hung in the back of his mind, just as it had for five long years. But now more than ever, he didn’t want to look at it too closely. What was the point? Before tomorrow rolled around, he would have to find a way to tell her who had really financed the Shop with a Cop trip, and anything that might still be between them would be over for good.
He wadded up the newspaper and was about to toss it in the trash when a headline caught his eye. MALL SECURITY GUARD DEAD.
Chapter Eleven
Megan stared at the monitor. This couldn’t be happening. This was her chance. Her last chance. It had to be here somewhere.
She glanced at her watch. Her two-hour window would be up soon. She and Ty would have to leave Keating Security or risk setting off the alarm again.
She scanned the directory once more, looking for hidden files. She must have missed something. The security files for each of Keating’s clients couldn’t have disappeared from their system. They had to be here.
As if she was going to suddenly discover them now. She’d been searching for almost two hours with no luck. It was as if the server had been wiped clean.
Not possible.
No doubt someone trained in computer forensics could retrieve the files. Unfortunately she didn’t have that kind of training. The files were out of her reach.
And so was Connor.
She clapped her hand over her mouth, trying to force back the sob. What would happen to her little boy? Now that she couldn’t come up with the files, what was she going to do?
She shut down the computer, backtracking, covering up her activities. She had to find Ty. She could only pray that he had an idea of what to do next.
Ty sat in the employee break room. The cleaning long since done and the equipment stowed away, he sat with a newspaper in his hands. He looked up from the newsprint. Lines dug into his forehead and bracketed his lips.
Probably a reflection of the stress on her own face. “I know why Keating agreed to let me come back.”
He looked concerned, as if he’d already read her expression and knew what was coming was not good. “The files?”
“Gone. Wiped clean by someone more adept at this than I am.” After her failure with the alarm and now this, she was beginning to think finding someone better at this wouldn’t be hard. A wisp of hysterical laugher stuck in her throat. “I couldn’t even come up with a client list this time.”
“It’s worse.”
“Worse? How could any of this be worse?”
“You might want to sit down.”
She teetered a little, her knees suddenly feeling weak. But she remained on her feet. “Tell me.”
“The technician at the department store, the one who handled the surveillance cameras, the one who was on duty when Connor was abducted? He’s dead.”
“How do you know?”
Ty offered her the paper and pointed to a small article on the local page.
She scanned the headline. “You’re sure it was the same guy?”
“Unless there’s more than one tech named Derek working in security at the mall. It doesn’t say much here, but Baker told me about the shooting this afternoon. He called it a probable suicide. He said they were waiting for the autopsy results and trying to tie up some loose ends before they made an announcement.”
“What kind of loose ends?”
“I didn’t know it was Derek Ernst, or I would have asked
.”
“So what does this mean?” She still wasn’t putting together why the suicide of a mall security guard made her situation worse. “You said he was helping search for Connor yesterday at the store, but what does that have to do with getting Connor back now?”
“He was in charge of finding images of the kidnapper’s face.”
“Your lieutenant said there were no good images.”
“Exactly.”
The pieces shuffled into place in her mind. She was finally getting it. “You think he made sure there were no images to be found?”
“Maybe. There was also something peculiar about the kidnapper. Something I noticed in the footage I saw of him yesterday.”
“What?”
“He never looked at the camera. He always turned so his face was hidden.”
“You think he knew where the cameras were located?
“I think it’s a pretty good bet.”
She could see where his thoughts were leading. And she had wanted more than anything to grab whatever she could and call it a clue that would lead to Connor. But that didn’t mean it was. Before she dared follow down the path Ty was going, she had to look at it from all angles. “Couldn’t anyone spot security cameras if they took the time and knew what to look for? We can’t be sure Ernst told him their location.”
He tilted his head, conceding the point. “But I don’t buy the coincidence. I have the feeling this is no suicide at all. And if that’s true…”
“Derek Ernst was murdered.” She finished his thought, the words hard on her tongue. “Why? To cover up a kidnapping?”
Ty’s nod was nearly imperceptible. “He could have wanted a bigger cut of the profits. He could have been talking to police. Whatever it was, it’s fair to say he was killed for a reason. And unless you believe in coincidence, odds are that reason has something to do with Connor’s abduction.”
“Is there any way we can find out more?”
“I can talk to Baker again. He’s working on the case.”
The familiar jitter started up again. She knew she could trust Ty. Didn’t she? So why was she hesitating?
“Leo called again tonight. He didn’t leave a message this time.”
“You think he knows Doug doesn’t have Connor?”
Ty didn’t answer. But he didn’t have to. The police wouldn’t wait forever to follow up. Even if the snowstorm had slowed things down, they’d still have checked up on Connor by now. And if they knew Doug didn’t have their son, they knew the kidnapper was still out there…somewhere…with her little boy. They would investigate. Exactly what the kidnapper ordered her to prevent.
But of course, she didn’t have anything else the kidnapper wanted, either. “You still think I should go to the police.”
“Of course.”
She felt sick. He was probably right. What few options she had once had disappeared along with those security files. But she was afraid. If she did the wrong thing, made the wrong choice, it could cost Connor’s life. She didn’t know enough to make that kind of decision. She couldn’t see enough of the situation. She was flying blind without any idea what danger would hit next. Without any sense of up or down. “What if the kidnapper finds out? What if it makes him angry? He said he’d cut his losses. He said he’d…”
“I don’t think you understand, Meg.” Ty’s voice was quiet, but his tone was dead urgent. “If this kidnapper killed Ernst, that suggests he’s covering his tracks.”
“Covering his tracks? And Connor is one of those tracks he needs to make disappear?” She scraped her fingernails into the palms of her hands. She needed to move, to do something. Her head buzzed until she could barely think.
“I don’t have to tell Baker everything. Not yet. Just enough to know what we’re up against. To get some of the answers we need. Or at least to know how to find them ourselves. Will you trust me to do that?”
It wasn’t a question of whether or not she could let herself rely on Ty. At this point, she didn’t know what she’d do without him. “I trust you, Ty. With Connor. With everything.”
DETECTIVE BAKER’S HOUSE LOOKED like so many other middle-class homes in the area. Split-level, with Christmas lights strung along the eaves and a wreath purchased from the Boy Scouts on the door. A decorated tree sparkled in the front picture window. The normalcy of the scene tightened in the back of Megan’s throat with a longing she’d felt since she was a little girl. Houses like that were filled with family and love. They smelled like cookies baking and evergreen and sounded of laughter on Christmas morning.
She hadn’t had much of that growing up. She hadn’t known anyone who had until she met Ty. She’d sworn that’s the kind of home she’d provide for her own son. A nice dream, and one that felt like it was fast fading away.
Ty passed it and pulled to the curb several houses down, just at the edge of a streetlight’s glare. He seemed nervous about talking to Detective Baker, his fingers gripping and regripping the wheel. His tongue rubbed back and forth on his lower lip. On the entire drive from Keating Security to Baker’s neighborhood, he’d been so focused, she doubted he’d even noticed her watching him in the glow of the dashboard.
And with each passing mile, she felt more awful.
He shifted into Park and twisted to face her. “I get the feeling you’d be pacing right now if the seat belt wasn’t strapping you in.”
Her mouth felt dry. She focused on the reflection in his eyes, their blue a light amid darkness. “I’m scared.”
He nodded, not trying to talk her out of it, not trying to make her feel her fear was wrong in any way, just accepting it. Accepting her.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being here for me.”
“I think we’ve been through enough thank yous and I’m sorrys to last a lifetime, don’t you?”
He was probably right. She didn’t need to say anything, but she felt compelled to say it all the same. As if at any moment, everything could be over and she’d never have the opportunity to say another word. “You asked why I wouldn’t accept anything from you. The help moving. The bracelet. Why I pushed you away.”
“Yes?” He grasped her hand.
She couldn’t feel his skin through both their gloves, but she drank in the pressure of his fingers like a woman dying of thirst. “The whole thing with my dad, it was really hard for me. When I found out he had a whole other life…” Her throat closed.
Ty squeezed her hand and waited for her to go on.
She swallowed hard and forced the words out. “It really shook me. And when my mom ended up in the hospital…” Again, she had to stop. She’d always known things weren’t good between her parents. They’d never even pretended to have a happy life. But to know her father was living with another woman on the side, it nearly killed her mother. “I thought my dad was part of my family, then found out he really wasn’t. I thought my mom was so strong, then when she tried to kill herself…it was like nothing I thought was true actually was.”
“And you thought that you and I, what we had, that it wasn’t true, either?”
She nodded, grateful that he’d said the words so she didn’t have to.
“I think you were probably right about me not being ready to get married, to settle down. But I loved you, Megan. And the more time we spend together, the more I am beginning to think I still do.”
She leaned toward him and he brought his lips to hers. His kiss was tender and gentle, although she could feel the passion built up behind it, as if he wasn’t sure she was strong enough, what they had was strong enough, for him to let it loose. When the kiss ended, he looked into her eyes.
She had to tell him the rest. He had to know. “After you left, Doug was there.”
He looked away, staring into the darkness outside the car.
“I didn’t feel the same way about him. Never like I felt about you. And for some reason, that seemed safer to me. I thought if he disappointed me, it wouldn’t hurt so much.”<
br />
“So you married him.”
“So I married him.” And the rest was history, as they said. A sad history. “I wish I’d waited. I wish I would have been braver.”
He brought his focus back to her. “And now? Are you braver now?”
She thought for a moment, even though she knew she could ponder hour after hour and still not know the answer. “I want to be.”
He nodded, as if that was good enough. “We’ll get Connor back. Maybe if you aren’t using all your bravery for your son, you’ll have some left over for me.”
She gave him her best try at a smile. “I hope so.”
Chapter Twelve
More than anything, Ty wanted to stay with Megan. To talk things out. Or maybe just be silent and hold her, maybe kiss her again. After she’d married Doug, he hadn’t let himself think too much about what it would be like to get her back. How he would do things differently. But even though she hadn’t totally opened that door, he felt that something major had changed between them. That there was hope. And with it, his whole life felt like it was shifting in front of him.
Not that either one of them could afford to spend time pondering those possibilities now. Not with Connor still out there. And although it was fairly early in the evening, they didn’t have a moment to spare. When the kidnapper’s next call came in, Ty wanted to know who they were up against. He wanted to know what their next move needed to be.
He took one last glance at Megan before he climbed out. “If anything happens, just drive.”
“What’s going to happen?”
“I don’t know. Probably nothing.” He’d been jumpy since he’d seen the story in the newspaper. He supposed a possible murder would do that. “But if something does, get out of here just the same. And if you can’t for some reason, there’s a gun in the glove box.”
She glanced at the compartment in front of her with alarmed eyes. “I think I’ll just drive.”
“Probably best.” He stepped out into the cold night, flicked the lock button on the car door and closed it behind him.
Baker answered the door wearing sweatpants and slippers. “Davis. What are you doing here?”
A Cop in Her Stocking Page 10