“You’ll stay with Nell while I go outside?”
“Of course I will.”
Colin asked for permission to have Nell’s car towed to the Angel Butte P.D. impound yard. The deputies exchanged a glance and agreed.
The search turned up some trampled vegetation and a fresh wound on the trunk of a lodgepole pine. If snow had stayed on the ground out here, they might have found a good footprint or tire print. No such luck. None were clear enough to be worth taking a cast of. They didn’t find any cartridges; whoever he was, he didn’t believe in littering. A couple hundred yards beyond the Hales’ driveway was a gravel road that led to a cabin. When Colin jogged back, Roger Hale said it was a summer place. He didn’t think anybody had been there in months. The shooter had pulled in, probably knocked on the door to be sure no one was home and left his vehicle there, nicely out of sight of passing motorists as well as anybody at the Hales’, while he trekked through the woods and found a perfect blind to set up for Nell’s departure.
Colin suspected the first shot was the one that carved the groove on the tree trunk. Missed Nell. The shooter had corrected immediately, but she’d had time to react. He pulled the trigger a few more times, but likely knew people were at home at the Hales’, so he beat a retreat. By now, he could be anywhere.
Hale said he thought he had heard a vehicle about the time he was escorting Nell into the small lodge, but it was far enough away he didn’t think about it at the time.
The deputies agreed to wait for the tow truck. Nell thanked both the Hales half a dozen times and then allowed Colin to lead her out to his 4Runner. They were almost there when she broke away.
“I have to grab a couple of things from my car.”
Once he had her belted in and started forward, her gaze roved ceaselessly over the undergrowth pressing so close.
“He’s gone,” Colin said quietly.
“I know.” But he could tell she wasn’t convinced, and he couldn’t blame her.
He accelerated onto 253rd and left the former Bear Creek Cabins behind. Nell sat beside him, silent.
Colin waited until he’d reached the highway to ask his questions.
“Why the Hales’ place, Nell?”
She jumped. “I told you. It seemed familiar.”
“So you drove all the way in.”
“Yes.”
“Did anything there nudge your memory?”
She bowed her head and stared down at her hands. “Not exactly.”
“Evasive maneuvers 101.”
She shot him an angry look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know what it means, Nell. You’re hiding something. Why?” When she didn’t answer, he contemplated what he’d seen out at the Bear Creek property. Ten or twelve cabins—he hadn’t counted. Run-down enough, they probably wouldn’t appeal much to vacationers, but they weren’t falling down, either. Glass sparkled in windows. He’d noticed the raw look of new wood on a couple of the cabins where porches had been replaced. Someone was doing maintenance. Room in the dining hall for as many as thirty people to eat together, if he had to guess. He hadn’t really been paying attention to what Roger Hale was saying, but was able to pull it out of his memory banks.
Place used to be a summer camp. We foster kids off and on, have family that comes and goes. Works for us.
Voice elaborately casual. The guy had felt the need to explain the unusual.
“Runaways.”
Nell turned an alarmed look on him.
“The place is a shelter, isn’t it?” He braked at a red light as they came into town. Home Depot on the right, Staples on the left. Colin was able to turn his head and see the worry and guilt and who knew what else in those big brown eyes. “Did you already know about it, Nell?”
Her shoulders sagged finally, about the time the light turned green and he was able to start forward. “No. Colin, I’ll tell you about it, but I want you to promise you’ll leave them alone,” she begged. “Please.”
He wanted to give her the moon, but knew better. “I can’t promise until I know what you’re asking.”
After a moment she swallowed and nodded. But then she looked out the window, lost in thought, and stayed silent. Knowing how much she’d been through, he let her stay that way.
Colin kept an eye on his rearview mirror as he drove through town toward home. Nobody stuck behind them for an unreasonable length of time. In fact, they had the road to themselves when he turned into his driveway. He used the remote to raise the garage door and parked inside. Nell got out and stood waiting for him, her body language awkward and even rebellious. For a flicker he saw Maddie. She would have looked just like that, waiting for one of her parents.
The brew of anger and fear in him kept Colin from feeling as sympathetic as he might otherwise have.
“Come on up to the house,” he said. “Have you had lunch?”
She shook her head.
He didn’t ask if she were hungry. He knew what she’d tell him, but by God she was going to eat.
Inside, he nudged up the thermostat, then shed his parka as she did the same. He headed to the kitchen, and saw her set her bag on the table.
As he put soup on to heat and began assembling sandwiches, he said, “Talk to me, Nell.”
“I told Paula I’d try to keep what they do there to myself.”
“Paula?”
“Hale.”
“What is it they do?”
She told him, every word reluctant. A runaway shelter that, for all practical purposes, didn’t exist. Kids who refused to go home no matter what the courts determined. An underground referral network, he imagined.
“Kids can be damn fine con artists,” he said. “How do these people know they aren’t falling for sob stories and hiding criminals?”
“We didn’t get so far as to discuss how they screen the kids they take in. But Beck’s file...” She stopped, as if just realizing what she’d said.
Colin turned slowly from the stove. “Did you just say what I think you did?”
“Yes.” She lifted her chin defiantly. “I was going to show it to you.”
“But not tell me where you got it.”
“I was going to tell you about the shelter, just not where it is or who runs it.”
He swore under his breath and faced the stove again. The soup had reached a hard boil and with a frustrated motion he yanked the pan off the burner.
“You think I don’t trust you,” she said, sounding timid and diminished in a way that made him even madder.
He was overreacting and knew it. A man whose rigid self-control was so integral he never had to think about it, he didn’t like discovering he could be knocked off center so easily. This wild swing of emotion threw him back to his youth, to a time he didn’t want to revisit.
Dishing up the soup and carrying it to the table gave him a minute to regain a semblance of his usual calm.
Even that was shaken again at the sight of her face, pinched and anxious, turned up to his.
“Shit.” He set down the bowls, bent over and kissed her. The taste and scent and feel of her soaked in, giving him the reassurance he’d so far lacked. Arousing him, too, but he tried not to think about that as he ran his fingers over her cheek and into her hair. For an instant she stayed completely still, not pulling away but not responding, either. Then her lips softened and she pushed herself up enough to deepen the kiss.
Satisfied, he was able to straighten. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair tousled by his fingers. “I meant it when I said you scared me,” he told her.
She gulped and nodded, her eyes huge.
Maddie.
No...Nell. All Nell when she kissed him.
He returned to the kitchen for the sandwiches and drinks.
Sitting do
wn, half a sandwich in his hand, Colin watched as she picked up her spoon but made no move to start eating.
“Nell,” he said, “I know you have good reason to sympathize with what the Hales are doing. If anybody had recognized you during the years you were on the run, you’d have been returned to your parents, no question. Nobody would have listened when you said you were afraid to go home.”
“I suppose I was thinking that.”
In that moment, he made up his mind. “I’ll do my damnedest to keep the Hales out of this as anything but kind folks who helped you.”
“Thank you.” She seemed to be battling emotion. Not tears, he hoped. “Paula—Mrs. Hale—gave me the information she had on Beck even though she knew she was taking a risk. She said if one of their kids had been murdered, they’d do whatever they had to.”
Colin nodded acknowledgment. They’d seemed like good people to him. Officially, he couldn’t approve of an operation designed to thwart the law he upheld. But he’d been abused himself. He knew how often courts sent kids back for more, in part because quality foster and group homes were scarce.
“Did she remember Beck?”
“Yes. Mostly because his name is unusual. He’d only been with them about six months when he disappeared. She said kids sometimes just leave. That’s what they assumed he’d done. She gave me the entire file on him, which isn’t much.”
She dug in her bag and produced it. Colin flipped through the few pages. Beckett Spencer. Birth date included. He would have been seventeen when Maddie knew him. The uncle’s address in Eugene matched up with the address of the studio where the photograph had been taken of mother and son.
“Now you can find out if he’s alive, can’t you?” Nell asked, an entreaty in her voice.
“I can.” He spoke gently, because they both knew the boy hadn’t lived to turn eighteen. “He must have taken you out to the shelter.”
“Yes. Paula said they discourage kids from bringing friends home, but don’t forbid it. She’s sure she never met me, though, or she’d have remembered me when there was all the coverage after I disappeared.” She huffed out a breath. “It makes me crazy. I can drive straight to a place I probably only went to once or twice, but I can’t see his face.”
“You’re protecting yourself.”
She dropped her spoon. “I wish I’d quit.”
“It’s coming back, Nell, you know it is. Dealing with those memories in increments has got to be easier than being slammed with all of them at once.”
She nodded, but her expression said she was frustrated and angry. Colin didn’t blame her. He hated having his own emotions fluctuate. How would he handle feeling as helpless as she must?
Not well.
“Eat,” he said.
She made a face at him, but complied.
She’d finished half her sandwich before she said anything else. Then she fastened her gaze on him. “Do you think he hurt me, and that’s why I blocked him out?”
Although still a possibility, it was a remote one in Colin’s opinion. There must have have been a confederate. Somebody had dumped Maddie in the trunk of that car and then driven north to dispose of her. Somebody had shot Beck and buried his body.
“We can’t rule it out, but...no. That’s not what I think happened.”
“Then what?” she exclaimed in frustration.
He could only shake his head.
* * *
NELL OFFERED TO load the dishwasher while Colin studied the scant information in the file and then made a call. She couldn’t hear everything he said, just enough to know he was talking to the woman detective Nell had met. He gave the basic facts about the attempt on Nell’s life. Hearing anyone, but especially Colin, discuss it so coolly upset her for reasons she couldn’t pin down. She’d been trying to keep herself from remembering, and the matter-of-fact recitation made it flash in living color behind her eyelids.
She blinked hard, trying to obliterate the images, and became aware that, even as he talked on the phone, Colin’s gaze rested on her.
She turned her back and squirted soap into the saucepan.
Behind her there was a pause. Then... “Beckett Spencer.” Colin spelled the first name. “Yeah, that’s right.” There was a pause before he gave the date of birth and uncle’s name and address. “If the uncle doesn’t know Beck’s current whereabouts, it would be helpful if he can point us to dental records. After this many years, it’s not likely he kept something of the boy’s we might be able to get DNA from, but you never know.” He said “uh-huh” a few times before ending the call.
“Nell?” He’d come up behind her silently.
She took her time hanging up the dish towel before turning, her face carefully composed. “Are you heading back to work now?”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
There was something in his voice and in the way he was looking at her. Her whole body seemed to flush, and then did it again. She wanted to back away, even as she longed to throw herself into his arms.
“I might go take a nap.” She couldn’t back up, with the counter behind her.
“For my peace of mind, will you nap in here?” His voice had a noticeable rasp. “You can have my bed.”
“I... You don’t think...?”
“No. But right now, I need to keep you close.”
“Are you going to stand there staring at me while I sleep?” she joked, wishing her voice hadn’t wobbled in the middle. She could not imagine lying down and closing her eyes with him watching.
“I won’t do anything you don’t like,” he said gently.
Nell let herself look into his gray eyes. It was like falling down the rabbit’s hole, tumbling and tumbling. She couldn’t look away.
She knew what she wanted, but...was it what he wanted, too?
He took a step closer and cupped her cheek in his hand. “Nell?”
A little sound escaped her. Tears burned her eyes, and she couldn’t do anything but step forward, almost as close as she wanted to be.
“Nell,” he said again, this time sounding raw. The next minute, he was kissing her, devouring her, and she lost herself in a kind of pleasure she had never even dreamed she could feel. She flung her arms around his strong neck. He gripped one buttock and lifted her against him even as his other hand cradled her head. She was shaking, and thought he was, too.
He tore his mouth away at last and looked down at her, the gray of his eyes now molten. “Nell, the last thing I want is for you to feel pressured. I’m here for you, no matter what. Tell me you know that.”
“I know that.” She rose on tiptoe and pressed kisses along his hard, scratchy jaw. “I know you wouldn’t abandon me.”
“I want you.”
A chill chased away some of her body heat. “I want you, too, but...I have to tell you something first.”
His fingers sifted with exquisite gentleness through her hair. “Are you infected with HIV? Something else?” He sounded impossibly kind.
A little shocked, she stared at him. “No!”
“Then what, Nell?”
She closed her eyes, feeling such shame. Wanting to hide from the expression she feared to see on his face. “When I first got to Portland...I was afraid to ask for help, or go to a shelter. Some older kids sort of took me under their wing. They thought I was even younger than I really was.” She opened her eyes. “I did, too.”
“I know what you’re going to say, Nell.” His hand slid around to lift her chin. “Those kids told you how you could make enough money to buy food, maybe pay your share of a room, didn’t they? They probably told you where to go and what to say, how much money to ask for.”
Her face wanted to crumple, but she nodded.
“What were your options? Begging, stealing or selling yourself.”
�
��I couldn’t make myself steal. I just couldn’t.” She gave a broken laugh. “Letting a man do...do that upset me less than shoplifting. What does that say about me?”
For a moment something hard and dangerous crossed his face. “You’re honest,” he said finally. “That’s what it says.”
She shook her head even though she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what had passed through his mind. “You were thinking something else.”
He looked at her for a long moment. “All right. I’ll tell you, but first let’s go in the bedroom. I’ll tuck you in, and then you can invite me...or not. Completely optional.”
After a moment she nodded, wanting to believe she was courageous enough to take a step so monumental.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
WITH COLIN’S ARM around her, Nell felt brave. Besides, the worst was behind her, wasn’t it? She’d told him, and he really didn’t seem to mind.
As he guided her toward the back of the house, she caught a glimpse of an office. The other room, the one he steered her into, had a huge bed with a comforter covered in patterned ivory and navy blue flannel. She had trouble taking in anything but the bed. She made herself glance around, however, pretending if only to herself that accompanying a man to his bedroom was at least a seminormal occurrence for her. She liked the few furnishings, the simple Shaker-style. Closet doors were closed.
He sat her on the bed and knelt to untie her shoes.
“Oh!” Nell tried to stand. “You don’t have to...”
He smiled at her, so much tenderness in his expression she came close to crying. “I want to.” When she sank back down, he removed first her shoes then her socks before rising to his feet. “Do you want to take off your jeans?”
“I...suppose so.” Feeling the heat in her cheeks, she stood and shimmied out of them quickly, pulling back covers and climbing in before she dared look at him again. Then she lay back against his pillow, comforter tucked under her arms.
“Scoot over.” When she did, he sat beside her. “Have you done any reading about repressed memories?”
Her breath came faster and she quit worrying about where she was or that she was already half-undressed. “Yes.”
Bringing Maddie Home Page 20