by Julie Miller
“Katie Lee Rinaldi,” Trent chided. “Why did you call me?”
“I’ll handle it myself.”
“Handle what? Damn it, woman, talk to me.”
“Sorry. I don’t need you to rescue me every time I make a mistake. Enjoy your date.”
“I’m not on a... Katie?”
“Good night.” She disconnected the call, ending the interrogation.
Seconds later, the phone vibrated in her hand. The big galoot. He’d called her right back. Not only did she feel guilty for interrupting his evening, but now she realized just how crazy she’d sounded. Practically perfect Erin Ballard would never panic like this and make a knee-jerk call to a friend for help.
Pull it together and think rationally. She should simply call 9-1-1 and report a break-in or say that an intruder had vandalized the lights in the theater. She could call Uncle Dwight. But as Kansas City’s DA, it would only be a matter of minutes before half the police department knew that she’d lost her son and wasn’t fit to be his mother.
Katie inhaled a deep breath, pushing aside that option as a last resort. She didn’t ever want to be labeled that impulsive, needs-to-be-rescued woman she’d been as a teenager again. Katie Rinaldi stood on her own two feet. She took care of her own son. The two of them would never end up like the girl in that file again.
“Tyler!” With her phone on flashlight mode once more, she hurried as quickly as she dared toward the exit sign. “If you are playing some kind of game with me, mister, I’m grounding you until you’re eighteen.”
Silence was her only answer.
Had Tyler gotten tired of waiting for his flaky, work-obsessed mother and headed on out to the car? Or was he still inside someplace, trapped in the darkness like she was? Why didn’t he answer? Could he answer?
First that damn case file and now this? She couldn’t stop the nightmarish memory this time. Her feet turned to lead. Katie didn’t have to close her eyes to remember the hand over her mouth. The prick of a needle in her arm. Her limbs going numb. Cradling her swollen belly and crying out for her baby as she collapsed into a senseless heap. The night she’d been abducted she’d gone to help Whitney and wound up in the same mess herself. A few weeks later, she’d given birth to Tyler in a sterile room with no one to hold her hand or urge her to breathe, and she’d nearly given up all hope of surviving.
But the tiny little boy the kidnappers laid in her arms for a few seconds had changed everything, giving her a reason to survive, a reason to escape, a reason to keep fighting.
If anything happened to her son...
If he’d been taken from her again...
Finally. Her palm flattened against ice-cold steel. Burying her fears and summoning her maternal strength, Katie shoved open the back door. A blast of bitter cold and snowy crystals melting against her nose and cheeks cleared her thoughts. “Tyler!”
It was brighter outside the theater, even though it was night. The campus lights were on, and each lamppost was adorned with shiny silver wreaths that shimmered with the cold, damp wind. The rows of lights illuminated the path down into the woods behind the auditorium and marked the sidewalk that led around the back of the theater to the parking lot on the north side. New snow was falling, capturing the light from the lamps and reflecting their orange glow into the air around her.
There were dozens of footprints in the first layer of snow from where the cast and crew had exited out to their cars. But there was one set of man-size prints leading down the walkway into the trees, disappearing at the footbridge that arched over the creek at the bottom of the hill. Good. Run. Whoever had been in the darkened building with her was gone.
But the freezing air seeped right into her bones when she read the hastily carved message in the snow beside the tracks.
Stop before someone gets hurt.
She shivered inside her coat. “Gets hurt?” She looked out into the woods, wondering if the man who’d trapped her in the dressing room was still here, watching. “Stop what? What do you want? Tyler?”
Confusion gave way to stark, cold fear when she zeroed in on the impression of a small, size-five tennis shoe, left by a brown-haired boy who hated to wear his winter boots. She hoped. The prints followed the same path as the senseless message. “Tyler!”
Thinking more than panicking now, Katie searched the shadows near the door until she found a broom beside the trash cans there. She wedged the broom handle between the door and frame in case the footprints were a false hope and she needed to get back inside the theater and search some more. She followed the smaller track down the hill. Had the man taken her son? Convinced him to come along with him to find his missing mother? Had she been stuck inside the building for that long?
But suddenly, the boy-size footprints veered off into the trees. Katie stepped knee-deep into the drift next to the sidewalk, ignored the snow melting into her jeans and headed into the woods. “Tyler!”
She heard a dog barking from somewhere in the distance. Oh, no. There was one thing she knew could make her son forget every bit of common sense she’d taught him. The boy-size prints were soon joined by a set of paw prints half the size of her fist. Both tracks ran back up the hill toward the parking lot, and Katie followed. “Please be chasing that stupid dog. Please don’t let anyone have taken my son. Tyler!”
The trail led her back to the sidewalk and disappeared around the corner of the building. Katie broke into a run once she cleared the snow among the trees and followed the tracks into the open expanse of asphalt and snow. She was almost light-headed with relief when she spotted the boy in the dark blue parka, playing with a skinny, short-haired collie mix in the parking lot. “Tyler!”
A blur of tan and white dashed off into the woods, followed by clouds of hot, steamy dog breath and a boy’s dejected sigh.
Thank God. Tyler was safe.
Sparing one moment of concern for the familiar collarless stray disappearing into the snowy night, Katie ran straight to her son and pulled him into her chest for a tight hug. She kissed the top of his wool stocking cap, hugged him tighter and kissed him again. “Oh, thank goodness. Thank goodness, sweetie.”
“Mo-om,” Tyler whined on two different pitches before pushing enough space between them for him to tilt his face up to hers. “You scared him away.”
Katie eased her grip around her son’s slim shoulders and brought her mittened hands up to cup his freckled cheeks and look down into those bright blue eyes that matched her own. “I was so scared. There was a blackout inside the theater and I couldn’t find you.” Since running across the parking lot in panic mode and hugging the stuffing out of him had probably already worried him enough, Katie opted to leave out any mention of the cryptic message in the snow or the man who’d pushed her down in the dressing room. “I kept calling for you, but you didn’t answer. What are you doing out here?”
“Feeding Padre. Doug told me he was out here again tonight, so I came to see him.”
“Doug did?” Why would the director send her child out of the theater on such a bitter night?
“He said he’d tell you where I was.” But Doug hadn’t. “I think Padre’s hungry, so I saved my peanut butter sandwich from lunch for him.”
Still feeling uneasy, her breath came in ragged puffs while Tyler knelt down to stuff an empty plastic bag into the book bag at his feet. Katie looked all around the well-lit but empty lot to verify that her red Kia was the only vehicle there and that no one else was loitering about. If Doug had meant to tell her Tyler’s whereabouts, he’d forgotten amid the busyness of shutting down a tech rehearsal and had apparently gone home without giving her mother’s concern a second thought. Maybe the mix-up was all perfectly innocent. But if he’d done it on purpose...
“Come on, sweetie. We need to go.” Katie draped her arm around Tyler’s shoulders when he stood back up and hurried him along besid
e her to the car. “Didn’t you eat your lunch?”
“Most of it. But I can always have a bowl of cereal when we get home, and Padre doesn’t have anybody to feed him.”
“Padre?” She swapped her phone for the keys in her coat pocket and unlocked the car.
Tyler opened the passenger door and climbed inside on his knees, tossing his book bag into the backseat. “Did you see the ring of white fur around his neck? It looks like the collar Pastor Bill wears, and everybody calls him Padre.”
Katie closed the door and hurried around the front of the car to get in behind the wheel. Naming a dog she knew he couldn’t have was probably a bad thing, but she was more worried about blackouts and intruders and not being able to find her son. She placed her bag in the backseat beside Tyler’s, locked the doors and quickly started the engine so she could crank up the heat. “Why didn’t you wait for me? Or come get me as soon as you’d changed? I’m sorry I got distracted, but I was sitting out in the auditorium. I would have come to feed the dog with you. You shouldn’t be out here by yourself, especially at night.”
Tyler turned around and plopped down into his seat. “I know. But I wanted to see Padre before one of the other kids got to him first. He likes me, Mom. He lets me pet him and doesn’t bite me or anything. Wyatt already has a dog, and Kayla’s family has two cats. So he should be mine.”
She grimaced at the sad envy for two of the other children in the play. “Tyler—”
“When everybody else started to leave, I tried to get back in, but the door was locked. So I stayed outside to play with Padre.”
“Is that the real story? I don’t mean the dog. Doug sending you outside? Getting locked out?” She pulled off her mitten and reached across the car to cup his cheek. Chilled, but healthy. She was the only one having heart palpitations tonight. “There wasn’t anyone left in the cast or crew to let you back in?”
“Maybe if I had my own cell phone, I could have called you.”
“Really?” She pushed his stocking cap up to the crown of his head and ruffled his wavy dark hair between her fingers. “I was scared to death that something had happened to you, and you’re playing that card?”
He fastened his seat belt. “I put a phone on my Christmas list.”
“We talked about this. Not until middle school.”
“Johnny Griffith has one.”
“I’m not Johnny Griffith’s mom.” Katie straightened in her seat to fasten her own seat belt. “You’re up past your bedtime. Let’s go home before your toes freeze.”
“Did Doug ask you out again?” Tyler asked. “Is that why he wanted to get rid of me?”
She glanced over at the far too wise expression on her son’s freckled face. “He did. I told him no again, too.”
Tyler tugged off his mittens and held his pink fingers up in front of the heating vent. “I thought maybe you were still in there talking to him. He’s a good director and all, but I don’t want him to be my dad.”
Katie reached for Tyler’s hands and pulled them between hers to rub some love and warmth into them. “He won’t be.” Not that he’d had a chance, anyway. But endangering her son certainly checked him off the list. “I can guarantee that.”
“Good.” When he’d had enough of a warming reassurance, Tyler pulled away and kicked his feet together, knocking snow off his shoes onto the floor mat. “Do you think Padre’s toes will freeze out there tonight? Dogs have toes, right?”
“They do. But he must have dug himself a snow cave or found someplace warm to sleep if he’s survived a whole week outdoors in the wintertime. I think he’ll be okay. I hope he will be.” Katie smiled wryly before turning on the windshield wipers and clearing away the wet snow. She shifted the car into gear, but paused with her foot on the brake to inspect the empty parking lot one more time. Maybe Tyler hadn’t been in any danger. Maybe she hadn’t really been, either. But why leave that message? And if the intruder had run along the pathway, had Tyler seen him either sneak into the building or run out of it? The man could easily have parked in another area of the campus so she wouldn’t be able to spot him. But could Tyler have gotten a description that might put him in some kind of future harm? Her grip tightened around the steering wheel. “Did anybody talk to you while you were out here by yourself?”
“Wyatt and Kayla said goodbye. Kayla’s dad asked me if you were still here. I told him as long as the car was, you were, too.”
She’d make a point to thank Mr. Hudnall for checking on her son tomorrow night. “I meant a stranger. Anybody you didn’t know? Was anyone watching you or following you?”
Tyler dropped his head back in dramatic groan. “I know about stranger danger. I would have shouted really loud or run really fast or gotten into the car with Kayla’s dad because I know him.”
“Okay, sweetie. Just checking.”
He sat up straight and turned in his seat. “But if I had a phone—”
“Maybe later.” She laughed and lifted her foot off the brake. “I need to talk it over with Aunt Maddie and Uncle Dwight first. We’re on their phone plan.”
And now the sulky lip went out. “Am I going to get anything that’s on my Christmas list?”
“There are already some presents under the tree.”
“None of them are big enough to be a dog. And none of them are small enough to be a phone. They’re probably socks and underwear.”
“I’m sure you’d be really good with a pet, sweetie, but you know we can’t have a dog in our apartment.” She pulled the car up next to the sidewalk at the corner of the theater building. “Hold on a second. I propped the door open in case I couldn’t find you out here. I need to go close it so we don’t get in trouble with the college. Sit tight. Lock yourself in until I get back.”
After pulling her lime-green mittens back on and tying her scarf more tightly around her neck, Katie climbed out, waited for Tyler to relock the doors and hurried back to the exit. She glanced through the woods and walkway for the stray dog or a more menacing figure, but saw no sign of movement among the trees and shadows. But she slowed her steps once she shifted her full attention to the door. It was already closed, sealed tight. Had she not wedged the broom in securely enough?
Pulling her phone from her pocket again, Katie checked the time before turning on the camera. She’d only been gone a few minutes, hardly enough time for the security guard to make his rounds. And if he’d been close by already, why wouldn’t he have answered her shouts of distress or turned on a light for her to see?
Who had closed this door? The same unseen person who’d flipped on the running lights and hidden in the dark theater?
The man who’d run off into the woods after knocking her off her feet?
No matter what the answers to any of those questions might be, Katie worked around enough cops to know that details mattered. So she moved past the door and angled her phone camera down to take a picture of the disturbing message.
Her breath rushed out in a warm white cloud in the air, and she couldn’t seem to breathe in again.
The message was gone.
The marks of her heeled boots were clear in the new layer of snow. But the rest of the footprints—boy-size tennis shoes, paw prints, the long, wide imprints of a stranger running away from the theater—Stop before someone gets hurt—had all been swept away.
A chill skittered down the back of her neck. She was bundled up tight enough to know it wasn’t the snow getting to her skin. This was wrong. This was intentional. This was personal.
Katie backed away from the door. The man inside the theater had come back. He could still be here—hiding in the trees, lurking on the other side of that door, watching her right now. Waiting for her.
She glanced back and forth, trying to see into the night beyond the lamplights and the snow. Nothing. No one. She hadn’t seen the man who grabbed h
er the night she’d been kidnapped, either.
She was shaking now. Katie didn’t feel safe.
Her son wasn’t safe.
“Tyler.” She whispered his name like a storm cloud in the air as she turned and raced back to the car, banging on the window until Tyler unlocked the door and she could slip inside. She relocked the doors and peeled off her mittens before reaching across the seat and cupping his cheek in her palm again. “I love you, sweetie.”
His skin was toasty warm from the heater, but she was shivering inside her coat as she shifted into gear and sped across the parking lot to the nearest exit.
“Mom? What’s wrong?”
Tyler’s voice was frightened, unsure. She was supposed to be his rock. She was a horrible mother for worrying him with her paranoid imagination. She was putting him in danger by not thinking straight.
“I’m sorry, sweetie. I’m okay. We’re both okay.” She shook the snowflakes from her dark hair, smiled for him, then pulled out onto the street at a much safer speed. “Why don’t you tell me more about Padre.”
* * *
“CONFOUNDED WOMAN.” Trent slowed his pickup to a crawl once he saw that the parking lot outside the Williams College auditorium had nothing but asphalt and snow to greet him after his zip across Kansas City to get to Katie and Tyler.
As he circled the perimeter of the empty lot, just to make sure he hadn’t misunderstood the location of the distress call, and the tiny Rinaldi family truly wasn’t stranded someplace out in the bitter cold, Trent admitted that Katie Lee Rinaldi knew how to push his buttons—even though she never did it intentionally. It was his own damn fault. If he hadn’t felt especially protective of Katie ever since she’d decided back in high school he was the one friend she could rely on without question, and if all the hours he’d spent with Tyler didn’t make him think he wanted to be a father more than just about anything—more than making sergeant, more than playing for the Chiefs, more than wishing he didn’t have the time bomb of one concussion too many ticking in his head—then he wouldn’t charge off on these fool’s errands to protect a family that wasn’t his.