by Sara Davison
The bottom line at the moment was that Detective Sergeant Lector was not happy, which meant that no one in the station was happy, least of all he and his partner. She shifted in the seat beside him, clearly as uncomfortable as he was.
He had taken his time in establishing a relationship with Nicole Hunter, not wanting to move too quickly and make a mistake that could cost them. Unfortunately, the slow and steady approach had cost them. They’d lost valuable time. Even more devastating, another parent had lost his child. His fists clenched. It had been a week since she’d kicked him out of the diner. He’d go and see Nicole again today, ramp up the pressure. They needed to find whoever was taking these children, and they needed to do it now.
Dragging his feet, Daniel followed Sharleen down the hall and into her office. She collapsed onto her desk chair, and he pulled up the plastic one from the corner and sank down beside her.
She swiveled in her seat to face him. “Now what?”
“Now we take a deep breath. I know this is bad, and the last thing we wanted to happen, but I don’t want it to push us into doing something rash and blowing this investigation completely.”
Sharleen nodded. “Okay. Deep breath. Got it. Now what?”
Daniel grinned. Only his partner could joke at a time like this. The tension that had gripped his chest loosened slightly. “I still think we’re on the right track here. Let’s find out where Holden and Gage Kelly were last night. I know we can’t watch them both every minute, but let’s play the odds and see if we can increase surveillance on Holden, at least.”
“We can’t keep doing it on our own. I’m going to try submitting another request to the DS. Maybe he’ll reconsider now that a sixth child has been taken.”
“Hopefully.” It would be nice to sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time.
“What about Nicole Hunter? Did you get anything from her when you saw her?”
Nothing that I want you to know about. Heat crept up Daniel’s neck. “Not yet. I’ve talked to her a couple of times, but she is extremely guarded. The last time she got pretty worked up. She told me to stop watching her.”
Sharleen began rifling through the papers on her desk.
Daniel’s eyes narrowed. “What are you doing?”
“I’m looking for the memo that says that suspects will now be telling us how to do our job. I must have missed it.”
He shot her a dark look. “That’s very cute. And she’s not a suspect. But she did threaten to lawyer up, so I want to tread carefully here.”
“Lawyer up? That sounds a little fishy. Maybe she’s more involved than you believe.”
“I don’t think so. I watched her face when I mentioned the kidnappings and she didn’t react at all. I honestly don’t think she knows anything about them. Not yet, anyway, but she is in the best position to help us, as long as we can get her to trust us.”
Sharleen sat back in her chair and studied him intently.
“Now what?”
“I’ve been watching your face when you talk about her. And you do react. A lot.” She frowned, still scrutinizing him. “What’s going on here, Grey?”
“Nothing. But she is our only link to these guys. I don’t want to have to go through a lawyer to talk to her, or we’ll never get anything we can use.”
“Did you at least get a sense that that’s a possibility?”
“Definitely. If we can plant the idea in her head that helping us would be the best way to keep whoever is doing this safe, I really believe she will watch for anything unusual and report it to us.”
“What’s her previous relationship with the law, any reason she might have to distrust us?”
“Actually, that’s a good point. I haven’t done a lot of research into her background. I’ll start there this morning.”
A smirk crossed his partner’s face. “I don’t know. That doesn’t sound like something she would approve of at all.” Sharleen spun in her chair and grabbed the phone. “Do you want to call and check with her, just in case?” She held out the receiver.
Daniel batted it away. “You’re a real comedian, you know that? Any chance you could save that routine for open mic night so we can get some work done here?”
She laughed and replaced the receiver. “Okay, so I’m going to submit a formal request for surveillance to the DS, in writing this time, and you’re going to check into Nicole Hunter’s background. Time to figure this thing out. I do not want to sit through another meeting like this morning’s.”
“Me neither.” Daniel pushed to his feet. “I’ll check in with you later and we’ll see what we’ve got, okay?” Sharleen nodded as she swung around to her computer. He stared at the back of her head, briefly contemplating whether or not to tell his partner he was going to pay another call on Nicole that afternoon. He turned and headed for the door. For the first time since they’d started working together, he decided the best recourse might be to keep information from her. Sharleen was already suspicious of him and his feelings for Nicole. He didn’t want her to insist on coming with him. After his last visit to the diner, Daniel knew that would only increase the chances that Nicole would go to a lawyer. He’d tell Sharleen after he went, apologize if he needed to, but hopefully also have some information, or a lead of some sort, to give her by way of a peace offering.
Daniel crossed the hall to his office and settled himself in front of his computer. An hour later, he tapped a fist to his mouth. Very interesting. Nicole was an only child, and her parents currently resided in London, England where her father was project manager for an international engineering firm. He couldn’t find a record of them having returned to Canada in at least five years. Unless Nicole traveled occasionally to see them, she appeared to have been essentially cut off and left on her own here.
He shook his head. What kind of parents would do that to their only daughter? Given her father’s job, money couldn’t be the issue, so why wouldn’t they make an effort to see her once in a while?
Daniel snatched his mouse. His chest was actually aching for her. What is wrong with you? Children were disappearing, and he was letting himself become emotionally involved with the one person who might be able to help them stop the abductions. He had to pull himself together, steel himself against allowing any feelings he might have for Nicole Hunter to grow.
He clicked on a few more buttons and drew in a quick breath as a picture flashed across the screen. A little blonde child smiled back at him. She looked to be around two or three and could easily have been Nicole as a toddler. Quickly he scanned the story, shock sending cold prickles across his skin. It wasn’t Nicole, it was her twin sister, Ella. According to the news article he’d pulled up, she had disappeared from a park a couple of months before her third birthday and was presumed dead. Before their third birthday.
Did Nicole even know she’d had a sister? Should he tell her? Daniel clasped his hands behind his head. No. More than likely she knew. Her parents couldn’t have been cruel enough to abandon her without any explanation, could they? And if they had, and she didn’t know, the last thing she needed at the moment was another traumatic revelation that something else in her life was not as she had always believed it to be. Maybe sometime, after all of this was over, he could talk to her, make sure she knew the truth.
It did help him to understand why her parents couldn’t bring themselves to see her. The memories her appearance would stir had to be unbelievably painful. Maybe, if she had distracted them somehow in the park that day, they even blamed Nicole for her sister’s disappearance. Which was crazy, since the two of them would have been toddlers at the time. Of course, in his work, he’d seen people doing crazier, more damaging things to each other, but when it happened to someone he cared about … Daniel dropped his arms to his sides. Whatever their motivation, it was still an incredible cowardly thing to do. Did they have no idea how leaving her on her own had affected Nicole’s life?
He pushed to his feet and grabbed his jacket. Enough of this. Even given
this new information, he couldn’t let himself feel anything more for her. It was time—past time actually—for him to rid his mind of any distractions and focus on doing his job.
Chapter Thirty
“Ms. Hunter?”
As Daniel watched, every muscle in her body contracted. Nicole set the pile of dirty dishes into the gray bin on the cart behind the counter with a loud clatter and turned around slowly. “Detective.”
“I need to speak with you for a moment.”
“I’m working.”
“So am I.” A good reminder for both of them.
A shadow flickered across her face. She glanced around the diner, obviously hoping to be able to claim she was too busy to meet with him. The restaurant was empty, like he’d figured it would be at this time of the afternoon. Her shoulders slumped. “You’ll have to be brief. We’re getting ready for the dinner crowd.”
Daniel nodded and followed her to the table they had sat at before, in a quiet corner. No coffee this time. He wasn’t surprised. The social had gone out of his call pretty abruptly when he’d stopped by here a week ago, and Nicole was clearly not interested in re-establishing it.
Daniel slid into the booth across from her and pulled a notebook from the inside pocket of his jacket. He flipped it open and drew a pen from his shirt pocket. “I’m sorry to bother you at work again. As you have probably heard, another child was taken last night, and I need to ask you a few questions.”
She stiffened at the sight of the notebook. “I really have nothing to say to you.”
He narrowed his eyes and studied her for a moment. Then he set the pen down, flipped the notebook closed, and clasped his hands together on top of it. “Here’s the thing, Ms. Hunter. I think you probably do know something about these cases, more than you told me the last time, maybe even more than you realize. For example, I’m sure you know where Gage Kelly was last night and what he might have been doing. I’d like to keep this relaxed, but if you push me we will have to move this down to the station for formal questioning.”
The green eyes hardened. He had a pretty good stare, one that usually managed to intimidate, but Nicole Hunter didn’t back down one bit as she met it. Neither of them moved for a few seconds. When she spoke, her voice was as cold as ice. “Fine. I’ll answer your questions. But Gage is innocent, and I will not allow you to twist anything I say to make it look otherwise. If I think that’s what you are doing, I will tell him that you are investigating him without his knowledge and using me to get information. He’s a lawyer. He’ll know how to handle this.”
Great. He’d managed to infuriate her and alienate her in less than thirty seconds this time. Either he was losing his touch, or this case was affecting him like no other case had in his fifteen years on the force. He had no desire for things to turn nasty, and he wasn’t ready for Gage or Holden to find out they were under suspicion. Better go back to his original plan of treading very carefully where she was concerned. Somehow he’d managed to veer away from that the first time he’d opened his mouth.
“That’s all I ask. And I would advise you against telling Gage anything at this point. If he is the one taking the children, you’ll only drive his operation further underground, and greatly lower the chances that we can stop him before someone, likely him, gets hurt. Or worse. If he is innocent, and he very well may be, then anything you can do to help me with this case can only move us toward clearing his name.”
“And Holden’s.”
“And Holden’s, of course.” He almost smiled. She wasn’t about to give him an inch. No problem. He’d take a lot less than that at this point. “Do you mind?” He pointed to the notebook.
Nicole shrugged. “I guess not.”
Daniel flipped it open again and checked the notes he’d written on the first page. “So, do you know where Gage was last night?”
“He was working late, but he called me at ten o’clock to say good night.”
“Land line or cell?”
“His cell. He sounded the same as always, a little tired, maybe, but he’s been working a lot lately. Then he came into the diner for breakfast this morning. We talked for quite a while and nothing struck me as different or unusual about the way he was acting.”
Daniel decided to switch gears. “Are you aware of Gage’s home situation when he was a child?”
Her eyes grew wary. “If you are referring to the fact that his father was a drunk and beat him and Holden up continually, then yes, he told me about that. What is your point?”
“It has to do with motivation. All the kids that have been taken were living in violent, abusive situations.” He was giving her way more information than he should, but he was desperate to put a crack, however small, in the shield she’d wrapped around herself.
“What does that have to do with Holden and Gage?”
“It makes sense that the person willing to risk everything to save these kids would have had a similar childhood.”
Something flickered in her eyes. Is that anger or fear? Hopefully fear. If he could place even the smallest amount of doubt in her mind, she might be of some use to him.
Nicole drew herself up in her seat.
Anger, then. His heart sank.
“Let me get this straight, Detective. Your entire case is built on a theory, quite possibly faulty, that you came up with one day while sitting in a little cubicle. And that theory has led you to the conclusion that of the three million people in this city, the only possible perpetrators are two good, hard-working men who go to church every Sunday and spend the rest of the week trying to make an honest living?”
His glance flicked over her shaking hands, and the way she clenched them to keep them steady. He raised his eyes to meet hers. She was clearly angry, but something else churned in their depths too. Something he couldn’t quite put a finger on. The woman had more safeguards in place against possible losses than a Vegas casino. It wouldn’t be easy to break through them to reach the real Nicole. Somehow Gage had done it. If he were a betting man though, Daniel would wager a lot of money that it hadn’t been easy. “Why do you think the theory is faulty?”
“Maybe narrow would be a better word. You’ve latched on to the idea that the person responsible for these kidnappings has purely selfless motives. Isn’t it more likely that anyone who would steal someone else’s children would do so for personal gain? What about human trafficking? Selling children to wealthy, infertile couples? Or some kind of child pornography ring? Have you even considered these possibilities, or did you reject them off-hand because it was so much easier to go with the theory that left you with a nice, neat list of two possible suspects?”
Heat rose in his chest. Daniel counted to ten slowly in his head as he slid the notebook back into his shirt pocket and leaned forward. “I assure you, Ms. Hunter, that over the last several months every single possibility has been put forth and thoroughly investigated, including all of those you mentioned. This faulty theory of mine is the only one that has given us any concrete, plausible explanation for the disappearance of these children.”
“And yet here you are,” Nicole countered, “scrambling for information from someone who has already told you she knows nothing. That shows me that your explanation and, more importantly, your evidence, are considerably less concrete and plausible than you would have me believe.”
Daniel closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead with his fingers, trying to calm himself. The woman was impossible. In all his years of police work he had rarely come across anyone who raised his ire so quickly and so thoroughly. Of course, you did stop just short of accusing the man she loves of kidnapping two children. The heat in his chest cooled a couple of degrees.
Bells jangled above the diner door. Daniel dropped his hand. “Look, do one thing for me. Keep an eye on Gage’s activities. If he does anything unusual, or if he says anything to arouse suspicion, let me know. If you help me, we might be able to eliminate him as a suspect.”
“And if I refuse to spy on him for yo
u?”
“Think of it as helping me clear his name.” The weight of working so hard to stay focused and speak firmly when the ground that had always been solid beneath his feet quaked and bucked, pressed down on him. Daniel reached for his pen, suddenly desperate to end this conversation. The side of his hand inadvertently brushed against hers, still clasped together on the table. He froze, her skin like silk against his. Her hand jerked, as though she felt the current that had jolted up his arm, but she didn’t pull away.
Slowly, she raised her eyes to meet his. The doubt and fear he’d been hoping to see in their green and gold depths swirled through them now, but the sight didn’t bring him comfort, like it would have earlier. Instead, it sent a hot flush of guilt and confusion pouring through him. What are you doing? Go. Leave. Get away from her. He didn’t move.
“Nic? Is everything okay?”
Nicole yanked her hands into her lap as an older woman walked toward their table, her soft blue eyes clouded with concern.
Daniel mentally kicked himself for having this conversation in such a public place, surrounded by people who knew Nicole. He’d hoped that she’d be more comfortable, maybe even cooperative, in familiar territory. Another faulty theory. He suppressed a grim smile.
“Everything’s fine, Connie,” Nicole said, her voice strained. “Mr. Grey was about to leave.”
He’d been dismissed. Daniel stood.
Connie didn’t look convinced, but she nodded in his direction. “Come again soon.”
His eyes met Nicole’s over Connie’s head. “Oh, I will. The coffee here is very good. Apparently.”
A pink flush crossed her cheeks, and he immediately regretted taking the jab. So much for treading carefully around her.
“I’ll see you again, Ms. Hunter.”
She didn’t respond, only inclined her head slightly.
Daniel made his way through the diner which had begun to fill up with customers looking for an early dinner.
He could only hope, for their sakes, they were able to leave the restaurant considerably more satisfied than he was.