Little Girl Lost

by Adrianne Lee

  She shoved the locket into her coat pocket and lurched off the bed, gathering the jewelry back into its box. Had the murderer come back? Had he been here all along? With her pulse galloping, she returned the box to the bottom dresser drawer, reclaimed her crude club and hurried into the living room.

  It was deserted.

  She didn’t waste time in relief. She doused the light, started opening the door a crack. The crunch of tires outside paralyzed her. She mustn’t be caught. Not by the police…or anyone else.

  Jane moved like a blind person in unfamiliar surroundings through the dark house until she reached the cellar door. She gained the top of the stairs, her heart thumping like a hammer. Cautiously, she pulled the door shut just as the front one opened. Her breath huffed out of her in quick, short spurts.

  The cellar had two tiny, ceiling-high windows that offered a modicum of light. Stepping gingerly, she descended the wooden staircase to the cellar’s shadowy depths. The air was cold and smelled of laundry detergent and stored apples. As soon as the soles of her cowboy boots touched solid concrete, she groped her way to the corner where she’d seen the washer and dryer. Overhead, she heard heavy footfalls.

  Was it the police? Or someone more dangerous?

  The footsteps reached the kitchen. Jane ducked down beside the washing machine just as the door banged open. Light flooded the cellar. With her length of wood at the ready, she jammed herself against the cold appliance. She held her breath and listened hard. A man muttered something unintelligible, but she heard enough to realize that if she knew this voice she didn’t recognize it.

  She had to see him.

  With her pulse drumming in her ears, she peered around the washer. A bear of a man filled the doorway. A Mariners baseball cap reposed atop his greasy black hair and an ugly scar slashed his left cheek. It was a face she wouldn’t soon forget, but one she did not recollect.

  He descended the first step. Jane flinched and pressed herself lower between the concrete wall and the edge of the washing machine. The man pounded down the stairs, his footfalls as heavy as the thudding of her heart. He moved across the cellar to within inches of where she hid. The stench of his flowery aftershave, combined with the acid taste of her own fear, sickened her.

  A second passed.

  Jane gripped her club tighter.

  Afraid to breathe, she cowered just out of sight.

  Seconds were soon a minute.

  She felt light-headed from lack of air.

  Scarface muttered, “Told the boss this was a waste of time. Ain’t no kiddy stuff down here, neither.”

  No kiddy stuff? As she risked taking a short breath, Jane pondered that. Were these two people looking for a child? She thought of Missy, glad that she was safe in Ellensburg with her sitter, Mrs. Ferguson. She wouldn’t want her little girl in the hands of a man like this.

  Again shoe leather slapped the wooden stairs, this time going up. The light blinked off. Jane chanced another peek at the man. He stood in the open doorway, dialing a cell phone. He pressed it to his ear. “It’s me. He didn’t lie, boss. Don’t know why you thought there’d be any kid’s stuff here.”

  He listened, starting through the door, still talking. “I’m leavin’ now.”

  The door banged shut. When she heard Scarface moving toward the living room, Jane let her breath out in a whoosh. Her heart was not as easily brought back to normal. Why had he and his “boss” expected to find a child’s things at Mom and Kayleen’s house? What child? An unthinkable possibility flashed into her mind. Surely not her child? Not Missy? The prospect washed her with terror.

  The voice overhead silenced. The front door slammed. Then all was quiet. She waited where she was for five minutes, swearing she could hear more than her own breathing in the semidarkness of the cellar.

  Rats?

  That thought sent her rushing up the stairs. At the landing she groped for the door handle. It wouldn’t budge. “Oh, no, he locked me in.”

  She gave the knob another twist, harder this time. It resisted. She swung her club at it. The clank of wood against metal rang out and the recoil from the impact sent pain jarring up her arm to her shoulder. Jane swore and tossed the piece of log to the cellar floor.

  Exasperated with herself and the situation, she spun around and gaped at the two dinky windows set high in the back wall. Snow floated against their grungy panes. Already the ground was layered an inch deep, and the earlier duskiness of the day had given way to a reflective fullmoon brightness, alleviating the inky darkness of the cellar.

  Consternation raced through her. If she didn’t get home soon, Mrs. Ferguson would be frantic. Would probably think she’d had an accident. “Damn!”

  How was she going to get out? Even if she could reach the windows and knock out the glass, she could never squeeze through. Of course, she could scream for help and hope someone would hear—a possibility as remote as her winning the state lotto.

  What she needed was something to jimmy the door latch. Hadn’t she seen a tool chest? She groped for the light switch. As the illumination chased away the shadows, she released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, and started down the stairs.

  Her mind swung back to the man who’d just left. Who was Scarface? Who was the “he” Scarface had referred to? The murderer? Her knees felt like wet sponges as that idea took hold, raising myriad other questions. Had “boss” hired someone to kill Kayleen and Mom? Was “boss” someone they knew?

  Someone she might also know? Someone she didn’t remember? The pain in her head sent a flash of white before her eyes and she shook herself.

  She needed to get out of here. Spotting the tool chest, she knelt and flipped open the lid. Inside were paintbrushes and a pair of sharp-pointed scissors.

  Behind her, boxes tumbled.

  Jane’s pulse skipped. She grasped the scissors and lurched around, expecting to see a mammoth rat.

  Her heart stopped completely as a man, rising like a cobra to the music of a flute, heaved himself up from among the tumbled boxes.

  A scream jump-started her heart. Shrieking, she lunged up the stairs.

  “Hey!” The man sprinted after her.

  She wheeled around, brandishing the scissors’s sharp points at him. He stopped two steps below her, and Jane found herself staring into the grayest blue eyes she had ever seen, a jaw so lean and chiseled it could cut steel, a nose bold with generations of character, and blond brows so furrowed they must be giving him a headache to rival her own.

  His tawny hair was long and wild, and he exuded a startling raw sensuality that tickled something deeply feminine in her. That paralyzed her. Her breath clogged in her throat.

  Dear God, he was drop-dead gorgeous, but if he was the killer returned to the scene of the crime, she would be the one dropping dead.

  The salty taste of fear flushed Jane’s senses and restored her nerve. At work, she’d been manhandled by the occasional drunk and had given as good as she’d gotten. Without a deadly weapon. She waved the scissors at him. “Stay away from me or I swear I’ll gut you like a deer.”

  “Whoa.” A wry grin quirked his mouth as he pulled back, his hands raised in a gesture that was at once disarming and little-boyish. “I’ve had women threaten me for sins I’ve admittedly committed, but, lady, I’ve never laid eyes on you before. Trust me, I won’t hurt you.”

  “If I’ve never laid eyes on you before now, why would I trust you?” Was he lying? Did she know him? She lifted the scissors higher.

  He replied, “All I want is what you want—to get out of here.”

  Keeping the scissors pointed at his midsection, Jane studied his face anew, trying to ignore the heady pull of his aftershave. He claimed he didn’t know her. Truth or lie? It unsettled her to think she would feel this drawn to him if she didn’t know him.

  She delved the aching chasm of her mind for the answer while extending her free hand behind her back to test the knob again. She had no memory of this man, and the damned kn
ob wouldn’t budge. Her mouth dried. She was trapped. Somehow she found her voice. “Who are you?”

  From outside came the crunch of tires on snow, then of footsteps on the porch. The man’s eyes widened. “Hush.”

  He rose another step. Jane reared back, bumping the door, lifting the scissors.

  “Quiet,” he growled. With one swift, lithe movement he joined her on the landing and grasped the wrist of the hand holding the scissors.

  “No.” Jane started to scream. Cursing, the man clamped his free hand over her mouth, then twisted her arm behind her back, wrenched the scissors from her grip and tossed them toward the cardboard boxes. They landed with a soft thud.

  Beyond the cellar door, from somewhere inside the house, came the sound of footsteps again. Hope flared in Jane. She jerked her wrist free, levered her palms against his chest, bunching her arm muscles, lifting a knee.

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” he whispered, his hot breath feathering her face, shooting fear and confusion through her. He raised his hand from her mouth and grabbed her wrists, pulling her against his powerful body in a vise grip that eclipsed all her struggles as effectively as any passionate embrace, bumping the wind from her lungs and rendering her second attempt to scream nothing more than a muted squeak.

  “I said, be quiet,” he ground out in a clenched whisper.

  Fear vanquished her confusion. She didn’t care who he was, or why her body seemed to know him. She gulped another lungful of air. This scream would tear out his eardrums.

  His mouth landed on hers.

  CHAD RYKER KNEW HE WAS over the top on this. Dangerously so. But pushing the envelope was as natural to him as the crooked pinkie finger on his left hand. Besides, ignoring conventions had paid off too many times for him to question or alter what some felt was his greatest personality flaw.

  Even so, scaring women was definitely not his style; however, this damned female didn’t seem to appreciate the peril they faced if they were discovered.

  He was acutely aware of her soft curves pressed taut against him; acutely aware that it had been too long since he’d enjoyed a woman’s touch. But he liked his women to enjoy the experience, too, and there was no mistaking how much this one was hating it. He understood her terror, but he didn’t dare lift his mouth from her supple lips and explain. Not the way she was squirming. She would scream the roof down.

  That could get them tossed in jail.

  Or killed.

  Over the pulse thundering in his ears, he strained to hear any sound coming through the cellar door. A loud bang could have been the front door being slammed.

  JANE BIT THE MAN’S lower lip. He let her go with a yelp, and she drove a knee into his groin with every ounce of her will to live.

  “Ughhh!” He dropped to his knees, groaning.

  Jane charged, ramming the heels of her hands into his shoulders. His head jerked up. As she shoved him off the landing, she saw pain and surprise in his stunning gray-blue eyes. He shot backward, then ground to a stop halfway down the stairs, his boot heels hooked on a riser, his whole body bent forward at the waist. He sounded like he was dying.

  Screaming for help, Jane jerked around and grabbed the doorknob. It resisted—then, to her surprised relief, popped loose and the door sprang open. It hadn’t been locked. Just stuck. She darted through it. No one was in the house. Or outside. All that remained of whoever had just been there was one set of footprints in the snow, leading to a pair of tire tracks.

  With her heart thundering and her feet slipping, Jane ran hell-bent for her pickup. She had just yanked the door open when she heard the man call out, “Stop or I’ll shoot!”

  Fear twanged down her spine. Did he have a gun? Not that she’d felt one while she’d been pressed to every inch of him, but she wasn’t waiting to find out.

  Bracing for a bullet in the back, she landed in the cab of her truck and had the engine started before she saw him coming, staggering through the trees. She slammed the pickup into gear and seconds later fishtailed onto the main road.

  “Dammit!” Hurting like hell, Chad grabbed a tree and caught his breath, staring after the truck, his reporter’s brain automatically recording the license number.

  A hint of her delicate perfume lingered on his coat. Who was she? What connection did she have to his story? He was damned well going to find out. “Go ahead and run, hellion. You can’t hide from me.”

  Chapter Two

  In her Ellensburg apartment, some thirty miles east of Cle Elum, Jane’s doorbell rang. The second she saw her best friend Edie Harcourt standing there, she had to resist the urge to throw herself into her arms. “I didn’t mean for you to run over.”

  “Like I could run in this snow.” Edie, the emergency-room doctor who had first attended to Jane and Missy after the interstate accident five years ago, looked every day of her thirty-six years tonight. “My legs feel like I’m wearing concrete boots. One emergency after another since five this morning.”

  Contrition flashed through Jane. She’d been so wrapped up in herself, she hadn’t considered that this weather would likely have caused Edie as brutal a day as her own. “Want to talk about it?”

  “Heavens no. I’m not up to a replay.” Edie shrugged out of her damp coat and hat and hooked them on the hall tree next to Jane’s and Missy’s parkas, slipped out of her boots and ran a hand through her short blond hair without concern that it now stood on end. Her soft blue eyes were awash with worry. “I want to know what’s going on with you. You sounded so strange on the phone.”

  Jane supposed she had sounded strange. She certainly felt strange, with all the unfamiliar sensations and emotions buzzing through her like a horde of ugly, stinging insects. She rubbed her temples where the headache lingered. “I’ll tell you all as soon as Missy is in bed.”

  “Mommy!” Both women turned at the child’s voice issuing from the bathroom. “I’m getting cold!”

  “Oops, I was just drying her off when the doorbell rang.” Jane managed a smile and pointed Edie toward the kitchen. “There’s fresh coffee. Help yourself.”

  Like the rest of the compact apartment, the kitchen was decorated in shades of gray blue. Jane had often wondered whether she’d always had a penchant for these hues or if the affinity had come on her after the accident. Now it struck her that her favorite colors were very like the eyes of the tawny-haired mystery man at the cabin. She wondered again if she knew him. Knew him intimately?

  The question zinged a stab of pain through her skull, roused her fear and sent his disturbing image fleeing.

  She hurried to the bathroom. Five-year-old Missy stood on the mat, a huge towel draped around her shoulders like a floor-length cape. Jane dropped to her knees, lifted the towel upward and rubbed the fluffy fabric against her daughter’s long, wet, platinum hair, then gently across her chubby body.

  Missy gazed at her earnestly. “Mrs. Ferguson and I built a snowman today.”

  Grinning, Jane rewrapped the towel around her daughter and hugged her. Some of the tension in her muscles dissolved. “I’ll bet it’s the best one on the block.”

  Missy peered up with deep-set aqua eyes that were duplicates of her own. “Can I show Auntie Edie and you?”

  “Not tonight, sweetie. It’s past your bedtime.”

  “Aw.”

  “Hurry and get your jammies on and I’ll read you a story.”

  “I want Auntie Edie to read it.”

  Jane tapped her daughter’s button nose. “All right, sweet pea. You may ask her as soon as you’re dressed.”

  “Goody. I’ll get dressed real quick.”

  Missy hurried off to her room, and Jane returned to the kitchen, filled a mug with coffee and joined Edie at the eating bar. Edie was reading the Cle Elum Gazette. Jane had forgotten to put it away when she’d arrived home. Maybe it was just as well. It would make what she had to tell her friend a bit easier.

  If anything could make this easier.

  Edie finished reading and glanced up. “Life is so pr
ecarious. But no one should die like these two women did.”

  Heartbreak jabbed Jane and tears clogged her throat. She’d thought she was ready to talk about this. Maybe not.

  “Auntie Edie, you can read me my story now.”

  Both women turned toward the little girl. Missy wore red pajama tops and green bottoms. Since she’d started kindergarten this past September, she’d insisted she was big enough to dress herself and even though she didn’t often select the right color combinations, as now, or always manage to get the right buttons in the right holes, Jane never criticized.

  Grateful for the time that Missy’s interruption would give her to regain control of her anguish, Jane glanced at Edie. “I volunteered you.”

  Edie smiled with genuine delight. She loved children, but had never been able to carry one to full term, and Jane knew the heartache it caused her. Edie replied, “I would love to read to my favorite girl in the whole wide world.”

  Missy beamed. Her cheeks were round and peachy and deeply dimpled.

  A warm glow swirled through Jane, melting the innermost layer of chill that had incased her heart since this afternoon. Whatever she might have done wrong in this life, she’d done this one thing absolutely right. She bent down and opened her arms. “I want a big kiss and then you can have your story.”

  Missy threw her arms around Jane and gave her a noisy smooch, then let go of her and scooted over to Edie, grasping her hand. “I have a new book from the library.”

  Laughing, Edie allowed herself to be dragged off the barstool and led across the living room.

  Twenty minutes later, Missy was tucked in and the two women had regrouped at the eating bar with freshly filled mugs. Jane felt more in control. Ready to talk. Ready for the scrutiny of Edie’s professional eye.

  The doctor’s frown held concern. “Something serious has happened. Tell me.”