by Pamela Fryer
“Swing your feet when you go forward. That’s right. You’ve got the hang of it.”
“This is fun. Push me higher, Aunt Lily!”
Lily experienced an unexpected surge of joy. Annie’s happiness was contagious.
Having children had never been important to her. Dating had always been awkward, and once she’d started her own business it had taken up all her time. Because she’d never imagined herself married, naturally she’d never imagined having children. When she’d learned Cassandra had a child even though she wasn’t married, Lily had chalked it up to one more extreme thing her wild sister had done. Their mother had raised them with traditional Catholic values, and while Lily was no virgin, she had been a little disappointed with Cassie.
But when she’d met Annie she’d learned instant adoration. The thought of missing out on children of her own simply because no man was interested in her was heartbreaking. She no longer condemned her sister for having a child out of wedlock, and regretted she had.
Miles strolled closer as she pushed Annie on the swing. He leaned against the railing surrounding the playground and scuffed his foot in the tanbark.
Lily ached for him. To know this beautiful joy and then lose it was unimaginable. His pain had to be unbearable.
“Higher! Higher!” Annie squealed with delight.
“I think you’re high enough,” Lily said.
Miles laughed. The glimpse of happiness brought a surge of warmth to her heart.
Annie jumped off the swing. “Ride the slide with me, Aunt Lily.”
“I’ll watch you.”
“Oh, please. It’s so much fun.”
Lily climbed the ladder to the wooden platform and slipped into the steel spiral. Thankfully, the structure was built solidly with thick beams and heavy-duty steel. She slid down and hopped off the end laughing, and her elation was tripled by the grin Miles wore.
“I can’t tell you the last time I did that,” she said as she walked over to him. “Having a kid can make you feel like one again.”
Miles’ smile faded, and too late Lily realized how insensitive that had been. She glanced at his downcast expression, wishing she could put the happiness back into it.
“I’m sorry.”
He shook his head and looked away.
“I realize this is difficult for you. You’ve made a great sacrifice for us.” She leaned against the rail beside him and placed her hand on his where it rested against his hip.
Her heart gave a little leap, as though she’d done something forbidden. His hand was rough, rugged, his masculinity a foreign thing resonating through the sensitive nerve endings in her fingers. Indeed, he felt forbidden, but there was something enticing about the sensation that made her leave her hand there.
“I’m so grateful to you. I can’t imagine what might have happened to Annie if you hadn’t been there last night.”
Now she did move her hand away. To leave it there longer would have been improper, almost suggestive. It was not the impression she wanted to give him.
When he glanced at her his eyes were soft. It was the first time he’d looked at her without suspicion.
“Something’s been nagging at me.”
Her defenses immediately bristled again. Was this just another cop tactic? She was a fool to think he would ever look at her in a way that wasn’t one hundred percent official.
“Last night Annie said they made her sleep in the water. Do you have any idea what she was talking about?”
Lily relaxed. Maybe she’d been hoping for a little more from him, that he might look at her like a woman and not just a victim. Not just another case assignment.
“She’s absolutely terrified of the dark. Maybe she had bad dreams. I can’t get her to talk much about her life at the compound.”
“Did she actually live inside IntelliGenysis?”
Lily shrugged. “I can only guess. If Cassandra owned property or even had personal items in a rented apartment, I think her lawyer would have said something.”
“The Ross guy she mentioned in the video?”
Lily nodded. “Doug Ross. He’s the one who called me when she died. That’s why I didn’t know about Annie until I got to Spokane. He assumed I already knew I had a niece and it was a given I would retrieve her.”
“Didn’t he find your surprise strange?”
She nodded. “But there wasn’t anything he could do. One of the documents Cassie had given him was a notarized document naming me her godparent and guardian in the event of an emergency. Colton’s name isn’t even on Annie’s birth certificate. It just says ‘unknown’ in the section for the father’s name.” She frowned. “I got the feeling Doug wanted nothing to do with the case.”
“Did he give you anything significant? Purse, wallet, diary?”
“Everything he had of Cassandra’s fit into a small box. There was a satchel with some documents and her wallet. The wallet had her ATM card, a MasterCard from Scientist’s Foundation Credit Union, her driver’s license and Social Security card. It seemed like…”
“Like what?”
“She had given him things she wanted to keep safe from Colton; Annie’s birth certificate, the notarized document. All her bank statements. Cassandra had sixty-two thousand dollars in a savings account and almost four thousand in her checking. No keys to a house or car. Her driver’s license shows Ross and White’s address. She had a living trust instead of a will.”
Overhead, a helicopter passed across the trees. Its sleek black contours were an ominous sight against the smoke-gray sky. It was far away and continued on, but a bad feeling wove through Lily’s stomach.
Annie ran over. “We should go now.” She scampered ahead on the trail back to the parking lot. Her sudden decision to leave made a shiver of déjà vu skitter over Lily’s flesh. It was almost an exact repeat of the morning in the hotel when Roberta Barker had been killed.
She and Miles started after her. Miles touched Lily in the small of her back as they walked close together on the narrow path.
“Annie said the same thing to me about the water, but she won’t explain,” Lily told him. “All I know is she doesn’t like to take a bath. The shower in the hotel room was the first she’d ever seen, and she insisted on learning to use it by herself.”
His hand remained as he helped her up a slight slope. It was such a small gesture, but it revealed the protective nature of this capable man. The disquiet she’d felt vanished.
“When I first met her, I didn’t know how much she knew about bathing or dressing herself. I didn’t know anything about kids, like at what age they become self-sufficient.” She glanced over her shoulder and smiled. “You could say I’ve had a crash course.”
Annie had seemed fairly capable from the start, almost with military precision. Lily wondered if the child’s quiet nature was from shyness, or her own crash course in independence. She was so eerily mature, and other than her ignorance of simple things like hamburgers and Sesame Street, Lily found Annie’s fear of the dark as practically the only childlike quality about her.
Miles returned her smile. “Consider yourself lucky your crash course can talk. When Michelle was a baby she scared the hell out of me. She would cry like the world was coming to an end and I had no idea why.”
Miles’ face blossomed red and his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat like he’d just swallowed a rock.
Lily turned forward with her own secret smile. That had to have been a difficult memory to relive. The confession had been nice, though, as though she’d earned another notch of his trust.
“Annie can brush her teeth and comb her own hair,” Lily told him. “But she didn’t know how to tie the laces on the shoes I bought her. If there is one thing I know about kids, they usually learn that before six.”
She stepped left and right as the trail took an “S” curve before the parking lot. Her wariness jumped as she realized she couldn’t see Annie.
The little girl’s scream sent the hair on her nape prickling. Lily broke int
o a run but stopped before she got two steps.
A hulking man emerged between the trees, holding Annie in front of him like a shield. His face split into a grin of pure evil. Annie twisted and kicked, screaming for all she was worth.
Time sped up. The man thrust a beefy arm forward. A silver gun with a black, elongated end pointed directly at her. Miles appeared beside her, arms forward. The clicking of his weapon as he thumbed back the hammer ricocheted through her head like breaking glass.
“Put her down!” Miles demanded.
Lily gaped. Her mind skipped over the sight before her, refusing to believe it was truly happening. Her feet were frozen to the ground and she was no longer in control of her own body.
Where time had been moving in blink-fast flashes, now it slowed down like the special effects in a horror movie. Miles shoved her out of the line of fire. The kidnapper’s aim swept past her in a wide arc. The gun in his hand bucked once, twice. Puffs of debris exploded in tiny clouds from the sleek, black extension. There was no sound.
In her peripheral vision, she saw Miles dive into the shrubbery.
Annie’s scream brought sound back into Lily’s world. “You hurt my mommie!” Annie flailed her arms and kicked her heels into the man’s stomach, but he didn’t even flinch.
The words made no sense. Then they made perfect sense. This was the man who had killed Cassandra.
He aimed at her again. Lily swallowed. Was this her end? She wouldn’t run.
“You’re not taking her,” she said.
The extended barrel pointed straight at her face. He jerked his aim over her head and fired. She winced, but felt nothing. This time the discharge came with a dull pop.
She stepped forward. His eyes widened in surprise, but his wicked grin increased as though amused by her foolishness.
Lily took another step. Annie fought like a wildcat, but she was no match for this man who stood inhumanly tall. His hands were like baseball gloves, his neck almost as thick as his head.
At her third step, he narrowed his eyes menacingly.
“You can’t have her!” Lily’s throat burned. She screamed the words. He lifted his hand, and for a frightening moment she thought he would put the muzzle to Annie’s head.
The man swung the butt of his gun at her. A blinding light flashed in her eyes and a crack like thunder filled her ears.
Light turned to gray, then to black.
Chapter Eight
“Lily!” Strong hands shook her. Her eyes flashed open. The bright gray sky behind his head sent a spike of pain into her brain. Confusion set in as her vision twisted. She was lying on moist earth pungent with the scent of a recent rain.
Miles. A strange coppery odor. The dull whuff whuff whuff of the helicopter, closer now.
The last five days came rushing back. At the forefront of her awareness was a hulking man in black. She bolted upright. “Annie.”
Miles yanked her to her feet. They ran through the shrubbery to the parking lot in time to see the helicopter landing at the far end in the area reserved for commercial trucks. The man in black spoke into a radio. Annie flailed, still kicking and thrashing, her bright blond hair whipping in the stir of the chopper’s blades.
“Annie! Oh God, no!”
She ran, though not knowing what she would do. Jump onto the runner so it couldn’t take off, only to be shot off like a clinging insect?
The kidnapper jumped into the unmarked helicopter and it immediately took off. Miles shoved her aside. He took stance and aimed.
“Don’t shoot, you’ll hit Annie!”
Already the helicopter was lifting away. Lily ran toward it with the absurd hope she could plead them back, that they might take pity on her and return the sweet child. And through she knew that was futile, she continued running anyway when she saw Annie’s desperate face peering out at her, hoping to convince the little girl she wouldn’t give up, this wasn’t the end. She would get her back.
“Annie!” Lily reached toward the sky as the chopper mixed with smoky clouds and the phantom spots swirling across her vision. She fell to her knees sobbing out her anguish.
Miles arrived beside her. Strong arms enveloped her. She smelled his leather jacket, that odd coppery odor, but she saw nothing but the black helicopter fading into the dark sky.
“Annie!” Lily bent forward, seized by sobs. A scream tore through her throat, then another. Miles’ grip tightened. The chopper faded away, and there was nothing but the sound of the wind howling through the trees and her pitiful sobbing.
He hauled her to her feet. The world around her dipped and surged. Lily’s body felt like rubber.
“We have to move.”
“I can’t.”
“Come on, Lily. I’ll help you.”
“God, Miles, I lost her. How could I have lost her?”
“You didn’t. You stood up to him like a tiger.”
The words hardly registered.
“She’s gone. Annie’s gone.”
Her feet dragged as he helped her across the empty parking lot, one arm around her and the other gripping her forearm to keep her upright.
Moments ago there had been a happy family here, with laughing children who played on the jungle gym, piquing the interest of a sweet, innocent child who had never even seen such a thing. Now the lot was empty except for the Cherokee and a black SUV parked at the far end. No people in sight. It seemed they were the last people on earth. Lily was caught in a surreal science fiction movie, as though she’d fallen asleep with the television on but couldn’t wake herself up. This couldn’t be real. Things like this didn’t happen to normal people.
He pushed her against the side of the Jeep and held her steady as the tears came in great waves and her sobs choked the breath out of her. Miles pulled her against his chest and a strong arm squeezed around her middle.
“Shh, it’s all right. Nobody’s hurt. The situation is salvageable.”
Lily sniffled and pulled away. Contact like this, at this time, was inappropriate. “We have to go back to Spokane. That’s where he’s taking her.”
“Listen to me.” He gave her a gentle shake.
Lily glanced at the hole in the arm of his jacket. It was circled by something dark and shiny. Blood. What little sanity she had left slipped further away.
“Miles.”
“We need to continue to Seattle. We’re only an hour away. We’ll go straight to the police.”
“You’re hurt.” She reached for the hole in the jacket, pulled it wide and peered inside.
“Easy now.” He caught her by the arms and the dark spots in her vision faded.
Lily jerked away. She bent in front of the Jeep and lost the sandwich. Vomiting was horrible, but it was something with which she could identify. Miles came up behind her, touched her back with one hand and held her steady with a firm grip around her forearm with the other, and the minute sliver of control she’d regained vanished.
The memory that she’d wanted his compassion, his trust and even his interest seemed years ago. It was shameful. Annie was in the clutches of a madman because she’d been fantasizing about a man instead of paying attention.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Lily turned into his grip and received his assessing gaze. His magnificent blue eyes flicked back and forth across each of hers, as if gauging her sanity.
“I’m okay,” she assured him. “I’m not afraid of blood. Let me see—how bad is it?”
Miles shook his head. “The guy is a lousy shot, thank God.”
“I’ll get the first-aid kit.” Without waiting for a response, she rounded the Cherokee and opened the back. Only then did she realize it sat askew, all four tires slashed. The nausea returned, rising and falling over her like a wave. Lily swallowed it back. She was not a fragile kitten, useless and blubbering. Now was the time to formulate a plan.
“We know where they’re going.” She snatched the first-aid kit and unzipped it. “We can be at IntelliGenysis by nightfall.”
He touched her shoulder. She glanced up into his pitying eyes. He shook his head.
She turned on him and planted both hands on her hips. At the same instant a new surge of tears sprang into her eyes. “I am not going to let him have her.”
“We need to go to the police.” He spoke calmly. If he’d shouted at her, she could have shouted back. Orders she could have argued with. But the tone he took left no opportunity for disagreement.
“We’ll call them from here,” she snapped.
Again he shook his head. She glanced over his shoulder at the two public phones. Both handsets had been ripped from their boxes and tossed aside. Her nausea surged and receded. Annie’s kidnapper had probably destroyed them with his beefy bare hands.
Miles shrugged out of his coat. He gingerly let it slide off his left arm.
Her decision to leave him and go on her own if he wouldn’t comply was dashed in an instant.
This man had been shot for her.
Her eyes filled with new tears. “Oh God, Miles, I’m so sorry.”
He grimaced as his jacket fell away. “It isn’t your fault.”
“The whole thing is my fault.” She sucked in a breath to force back a sob which escaped anyhow. “If I hadn’t left the highway for a smaller road we never would have crashed into your life.”
He offered a thin smile and touched her chin. “It wasn’t much of a life. You’ve actually done me a favor.”
Lily didn’t know what to make of that statement. Rather than try, she took a clean gauze swab and poured some of the antiseptic cleanser into it.
He winced as she touched it to the streak running across the back of his upper arm. “That stings.”
“Payback,” she said in a pathetic attempt at teasing. The tears wouldn’t stop. Maybe she was a blubbering, helpless kitten. She let them fall, concentrating more on keeping the sobs at bay so she could hold a steady hand.
“What are we going to do?”
“We’re going to continue to Seattle PD,” he told her. “As planned.”
“How? We’re stuck here. The cell phones don’t work out here.”
He glanced past her and she followed his gaze. “He left his car.”