by Hinze, Vicki
“We’ve checked the airport, train station, bus terminals—they’ve vanished.”
“Credit card slips?” Parker asked in a level tone.
“We’re working on it.” Sandy took the cigar stub out of his mouth. “Lot of roads lead out of New Orleans. We’re looking at a few days.”
Parker stiffened, opening a door he wasn’t sure wasn’t better off closed. “Your murder scene is the fishing camp where you met with Linda.”
“I got your call, Parker.” Sandy studied his cigar. His hand was trembling. “The man you left tied up in the house is at Charity Hospital. Three broken ribs and a sprained wrist.” He looked at Parker’s chin. “Our guys are on-scene at the camp now.”
Caron frowned. This didn’t make sense. “What about the people we heard drive up?”
“I told you, honey. They never got out of the car.” Parker narrowed his eyes, demanding Sandy tell Caron he’d been the “they” who hadn’t gotten out.
Sandy clamped his teeth around his cigar. “I’ve got to go. I just wanted to let you know what we’re up against.”
Parker looked at Caron. She’d caught it, he realized.
“Keep us posted.” Parker had to bury his emotions deep to keep a calm face and a civil voice. Anger boiled in his gut. Sandy wasn’t going to tell her, and Parker couldn’t. It was bad enough that he hadn’t yet told her his own sins. He couldn’t tell her about Sanders’s.
Parker glared at the man’s back, willing him to turn around and face the music. He didn’t. He headed down the hall, and stopped at the elevator. When he stepped inside and the door closed behind him, Parker knew Sanders had decided not to tell her. Not now, not ever.
And the proverbial knife slid in, right between Parker’s shoulder blades. He had no choice.
“Caron?” he began uncertainly, staring at the floor.
“It’s okay, Parker. I know. It was Sandy.”
He looked up and something inside him died. Caron’s eyes held the same betrayed look they had when she’d told him about her father. “I, um, need some air.”
“I’m going with you.” He reached for her hand, but she curled it to her chest and stepped back.
“No, Parker.” Her eyes were rimmed with red, and her chin was quivering. “I’m better off alone.”
Her words slammed into him like a hard right. She was trying so hard not to cry. His heart felt as if it had been squeezed and hung out to dry. He couldn’t let her shut him out. He couldn’t let her just walk away. The words rushed unbidden out of his mouth. “I need you, Caron.”
She stopped, but she didn’t turn around. He went to her, taking the longest three steps he’d taken in his life. “I’ve wanted to tell you so many times. But I couldn’t.”
Her eyes shone her doubt. He was holding back, and she knew it. And for the thousandth time since he’d seen Sanders leave the fishing camp, he cursed the man. Sanders would never give his confession to Caron. And Parker’s Caron would never hear.
The bleak look in her eyes, the ramrod stiffness in her shoulders, proved that Caron had made up her mind. She’d trusted a man for the last time.
God help him.
Caron swallowed the sob that was threatening her throat. She loved Parker so much, and still he was lying to her. He didn’t need her; he just didn’t want her alone with her fears. Didn’t he think she’d know the difference?
He’d told her he needed her for the same reason that he’d torched the shed. He wanted Misty to know that what had happened to her couldn’t happen to her again. He wanted Caron to know that what had happened to her again had happened for the last time.
“Caron, I wish I had the right words. I wish I could take the hurt…”
He was sincere. And, touched by his concern, Caron leaned against the wall next to him and pressed her forehead against his arm. “I understand.” The strange thing was, she really did. He cared. He didn’t love her, but he cared. She wanted love.
“Do you?” His eyes burned black with stormy emotions.
The shield hiding his thoughts melted away. He was torn, afraid of hurting her, afraid of losing her. He wasn’t like Sandy, like her father or like any of the others. He was going to tell her the truth; she sensed it!
“Not now.” She pressed a fingertip over his lips. “Not here.” A hospital corridor was no place for soul-baring confessions. They deserved privacy and uninterrupted time; and they’d have it, just as soon as they wrapped up this case. They needed to laugh together and make silly jokes, and to enjoy each other. When they’d had those things, the good that could come between two people who cared about each other, then it would be time to share their dreams and desires…and their secrets.
“I don’t know how to thank you.”
Caron looked into the soft eyes she’d so often imaged and saw gratitude. Inexpressible gratitude.
Collin Phillips sat on Misty’s bed, cradling her in his arms, and his smile lit up his whole face. He didn’t look homely anymore, Caron realized. His bulbous nose was still red, but his long, lean face was too full of love for his daughter to be anything but handsome.
He stroked Misty’s shoulder with a bony hand that bordered on gaunt and spoke to Caron and Parker. “I wish I could tell you how much having Misty back means to me. I—I—” Choking up, he paused, then smiled. “Thank you.”
Parker stepped forward. “We’d like a moment, Mr. Phillips.” Parker looked pointedly toward the hallway.
Phillips unfolded his lanky body, dropped a kiss on Misty’s forehead and followed Caron and Parker into the hall.
“We have a few questions,” Parker said.
“So do I. Are you with the police?”
“No.” Caron ignored Parker’s grimace. This time she was playing it straight. “I’m a psychic, Mr. Phillips. I imaged Misty. That’s how we knew she was in trouble.”
“I see.”
He didn’t. But he was a kind man and a grateful one, and he wasn’t about to insult Misty’s rescuers. “When your daughter went missing, why didn’t you file a kidnapping report?”
“I did!” Phillips wrinkled his nose and shoved his glasses back on his face. “The kidnappers said they’d…kill—” he stumbled over the word “—Misty if I went to the police. But a man in my position knows the odds. Getting my daughter back unharmed was more likely with the police than without them, so I went down to headquarters and talked to Detective Sanders. He took the report and said he’d keep the record off the wire. I assumed that meant the other officers would know, but that the information wouldn’t be available to outsiders.”
“When exactly was Misty kidnapped?” Caron said. A sick feeling had her stomach queasy. Sandy had been into this up to his cigar stub.
“On the fifteenth. We lunched at the park, and I left to go back to work. The next thing I knew, I was getting a call at the office telling me she’d been abducted.”
“Did they ask for a ransom?”
“Yes.”
Parker grimaced. “How much?”
“Five million.”
It fit. Caron’s heart knocked against her ribs. All the pieces fit.
“Where’s your wife, Mr. Phillips?”
“I’m not sure, Mr. Simms.” Phillips’s face and neck splotched red, and he lowered his gaze. “I haven’t seen her for days. The pressure was too much. She said she had to get away.” Bitterness threaded into his voice.
“When did she leave?”
“I’m not sure.” He gave Parker a sad smile. “The days have been running together, you know? Tuesday, I think.”
The images that had whirled in Caron’s mind time and again returned. The park. The woman binding Misty’s hands. The hatred…
“What’s your wife’s name, Mr. Phillips?”
He frowned and shoved at his glasses. “Vanessa.”
Caron looked at Parker, and at the same time he looked at her. “I’ll call Sanders,” Parker said.
Caron frowned and looked at Phillips. “We know who kidnapped
your daughter.” Shoving open the door, she went back into the room and over to Misty.
The child was still a pasty white, but her eyes were more alert. She was getting stronger.
Parker came back, and he and Phillips stood behind her. Caron edged up onto the bed. “Your mom took you to the man, didn’t she, Misty?”
She looked past Caron’s shoulder to her father.
“Misty, look at me.” Caron touched her chin. The room was quiet, the only sound the steady beeping of the heart monitor connected to Misty’s chest. “You’ve got to tell us.”
Phillips stepped to Caron’s side and took his daughter’s hand. “I need to know, honey. Just tell the truth, okay?”
Her tiny face twisted in pain. “My bike wasn’t broken, Daddy. Mom said my tire was flat, but it wasn’t. We stopped behind the store. The man scared me. But Mom said he was going to fix my bike, that I had to go with him. I told her I didn’t want to, but she said he was a good stranger. She made me go.”
His face a blind mask of pain, Collin looked down… and saw the rope burns on Misty’s wrists. “She tied you up?”
Misty blinked, then blinked again. Tears splashed down to her cheeks. “Mom didn’t mean to lie!” she cried on a choking sob. “She didn’t mean to hurt me!”
Misty gasped and clutched her chest. And the intermittent beep of the heart monitor became a shrill, steady blast.
In the waiting room, the hours crept by. How many, Caron wasn’t sure; it seemed a lifetime. Parker and Collin Phillips were sitting together, talking quietly. Caron stood at the window, looking outside. They’d pushed Misty too hard, forcing her to admit her mother’s wrongs. Why hadn’t she sensed it? Why hadn’t she known that Misty couldn’t handle it? It was her fault. If Misty died, Caron was to blame. She’d made a mistake. Just as she had with Sarah.
Two nurses all in white walked across the parking lot, laughing. A brown car screeched to a stop at the emergency entrance. A man got out and rushed to help his pregnant wife inside. They were coming to have a baby. It was a boy.
A palpable tension clouded the room, but suddenly it elevated, thickened enough to slice. A second later, Caron heard footsteps behind her, stiffened, turned, and saw Dr. Z.
“Misty’s fever broke and her breathing is improving,” the doctor said, her eyes shining overly bright. “She’s going to make it.”
Tears sprang to her eyes, and Caron ran into Parker’s
arms. “We weren’t too late.” Deep sobs rattled her chest.
”Oh, Parker, we weren’t too late”
Parker squeezed his eyes shut. How could he have doubted her? How had he been so blinded by Harlan’s rage and despair that he hadn’t seen her for the woman she was?
He forced his eyes open, refusing to run. He wasn’t hiding his feelings—not anymore. He wept openly, unashamed. “No, love.” His voice gruff, raw and ragged, he pressed his cheek to her shoulder. “We weren’t too late.”
“Take her home, Parker.” Dr. Z. examined Caron with a motherly look. “You’re both exhausted, and there’s nothing more you can do here.”
“But I don’t want—” Caron began.
“To collapse on my floor, I hope.” Dr. Z. clucked her tongue. “Your job is finished. You found Misty, and she’s going to be fine. Her father is here, the guard is right outside the door, and Detective Sanders will be coming back momentarily. He did want you to find her. She’s safe now. Her needs have been met, Caron. Yours, however, have not. You need rest.”
Parker agreed with a healthy nod and rubbed his two days’ growth of beard. “While you’re at it, could you mention something doctory here about her diet? The lady lives on Butterfingers.”
“No candy.” She wagged a finger. “Now go home.”
“All right,” Caron muttered, primed to blister their ears for ganging up on her. But Misty was watching avidly. She smiled at the girl, then gave the good doctor and her cat-that-swallowed-the-canary sidekick a glare to let them know they weren’t getting away with a thing.
“See you in a little while, sweet stuff.” She pecked a kiss to Misty’s cheek, then stood. Her legs wobbled.
“Come on, jelly knees.” Parker slid an arm around her shoulder. “Let’s go home.”
Parker adjusted the heat on the stove, then cut the omelet in two and slid it onto plates. He arranged wedges of buttered toast around the edges, and put a plate in front of Caron. “Eat.”
She grunted at him and dutifully picked up her fork. “I don’t like the way this is working out.”
He slid onto a chair opposite her. “We’re done, Caron. It’s up to the police now.”
She swallowed a bite of the eggs. Spicy tomato sauce and melted cheese tingled her taste buds. “Hey, this is almost as good as pizza.”
Parker grinned. “Thanks—I think.”
“I love pizza.” She took another bite and crunched down on a piece of toast. “What I hate is the way this case is working out.”
“Caron, we’re done, honey. Let it go.”
She sighed and stared off.
“Okay.” He put down his fork. “Let’s have it.”
Caron smiled. He really was such a nice man. “Okay. Logic tells me Forrester killed Linda. I know the man’s as guilty as sin. So why doesn’t it feel right?”
Parker pushed his food around on his plate. “Because you’ve omitted Sandy’s part in this.”
“Yes.” Suffering again the sting of his betrayal, she shoved a bite of omelet into her mouth and slowly chewed. “But Sandy isn’t capable of murder, Parker. He— Oh God.”
“What?”
“Sandy knew where Misty was! He knew she’d been abducted right from the start!”
Parker winced. She was fast on the uptake. Within minutes she’d have it all worked out. “I don’t think he did. He asked me to help you find her. Remember?”
“Yes,” she admitted, some of the excitement fading from her voice. She swept back her hair and gave him a pleading look. It was still damp from the shower. “You still haven’t told me why you agreed.”
Parker looked her right in the eye and did what he’d vowed he’d never do again: He lied. “I told you. He and Charley were friends.”
“Right.”
“Right,” he insisted, damning his voice for its wimpy tone. But it was hard for a man to work up much righteous indignation when he was dead wrong.
Caron saw despair in Parker’s eyes, and the truth hit her like a sledge. She loved him, yes. She’d known that since...well, she didn’t know exactly how long she’d known it. It had crept up on her while she wasn’t looking. But love was there. And sitting here at this table, seeing him look at her with his heart in his eyes, she felt new stirrings join the others. She loved him, and she was in love with him. That truth scared her to death.
The unwelcome voice of reason intruded, telling her she was crazy even to consider what she was considering. He knew she’d figured it out, and still he hadn’t told her the truth. He was like her father. He was a slick charmer who wouldn’t blink at using her love for him as a weapon against her. He was no different from the rest. He’d want her to “see” something, be it racing forms or—or whatever.
Her head listened to the logical whisper of reason and agreed completely.
But her heart ignored it.
As full as a swollen stream, it promised that Parker was exactly the man he seemed—warm, loving, caring. He’d proven time after time that he was not like her father. The night someone had left that god-awful message on her door, Parker had arrived shirtless, frantic and terrified for her. He’d begged her not to image, not to return to Decker’s to touch Misty’s bike, not to touch the leash. He’d acted on gut level instinct, on raw emotion, because he cared about her. That was the real Parker Simms. His methods at times were sinfully shaky, but weren’t there times when a man had to follow his heart, and endure his conscience?
Of course there were. And there were times when a woman did, too. This was one of them. “You kno
w kids lie about being beaten and abused, because in their hearts they can’t believe their parents really meant them harm.”
She paused, and when he didn’t say anything she went on. “I’m not abused, or a child, Parker, but I can be hurt. I know you’ve never meant me harm.”
“Never,” he said on a rushed breath. “I swear it.”
The room stilled as if it were in the eye of a storm. Caron stood and went around to his side of the table. He scooted back in his chair and looked up at her, his gaze burning. The cool gray she’d seen there the day they’d met, and so many times since, was gone. Warmth and care and so much more were in his eyes now.
Feeling powerful and humble, she just stared at him and let the feelings soak in. Parker Simms was gorgeous and gentle and the most virile-looking man she’d ever seen, and she loved him with all her heart. Now she had to trust him.
“One day you’ll tell me, Parker.” She dropped a kiss to his lips and brazenly settled on his lap. “Until then, I can wait.”
He brushed her lips with his, drew back, then brushed them again. He lifted a strand of hair from her cheek and smoothed it back with his big, rough hand. “You scare the hell out of me, lady. You give so much.”
“Kiss me.” She parted her lips and pressed them to his. The words were hard for him, but Parker could reassure her without words. He could show her that the want and need and desire she was feeling were there in him, too.
His mouth hot and hard on hers, he bore down, melding their lips, tangling their tongues. Desire flamed, grew
stronger, consumed.
He let his mouth slide over her cheek and whispered raggedly against her ear. “Caron?”
“Yes, Parker.” She understood his question. “Yes.”
The muscles in his legs and arms bunched and grew thick. He held her tighter and stood. She nuzzled his neck, placed tiny kisses along his collarbone, knowing this was right.
He walked through the lit hall to her bedroom, then let her slide down his hard length to the floor. “Are you sure, honey?”
One more chance to reconsider. More nervous than she’d ever been in her life, she clasped her hands and wet her lips. A flicker of doubt lit in her mind. Taking risks that involved her heart was still so hard. She gripped his waist and looked up. “I’ve never invited a man to my bed, Parker. There’ve been a few sexual experiences, but they’ve been rare.” That was true. They’d been heated encounters borne from deep-seated cries for approval and acceptance. Acceptance that had faded as soon as the flush of desire had passed. Never before had she been the initiator, the one who desired, the one whose body craved mating as it craved food. And never before had she been the one left vulnerable to being refused and rejected.