“Welcome to one-oh-five,” he said, gesturing to Elle to go in first.
He forehead creased. “The number on the door says ten.”
“Yeah. Apparently the five fell off a few years ago. Very confusing for pizza delivery dudes.”
“Why don’t you just get it fixed?” she asked, stepping through the door frame.
He followed her into the room, oddly conscious of the tiny bit of mess that he didn’t normally care about. “Apparently replacement door numbers aren’t included in the rent. I’m not gonna pay for it myself. On principle.”
“Okay, then. I guess it’s good to take a stand about the important things in life.”
His mouth twitched. “Indeed it is.”
As he tossed his keys into the unused ashtray on the dresser, then flicked on the air conditioner—the one good feature in an otherwise dismally bare-bones room—he pretended not to watch as Elle curiously perused the space. There was a solitary Chinese food box sitting on the edge of the trash can, and an array of local newspapers on the armchair in the corner. A stack of recently folded T-shirts sat on the nightstand, waiting to be put away. Cold coffee waited in a pot, and the hot plate needed a good wipe down. Noah had left the bed unmade this morning because he’d left in a hurry, and the pile of blankets lay scrunched up in the middle of the mattress, while a dog-eared copy of Stephen King’s The Stand rested on his pillow. He couldn’t help but note the way Elle’s eyes hung on the bed for an extra second, and his earlier entertainment at her assumption of what he wanted from her faded away.
Would she really have done it?
The question—and the possible answer—had a dark undertone that rubbed Noah the wrong way. What had Elle and her kid been through, that it was even in the realm of plausible options? An unusual flash of protectiveness surged up under Noah’s skin. He hated the idea of someone hurting the fresh-faced blonde and the daughter she clearly loved. Uncomfortable with the unexpected sensation, he cleared his throat and decided it was best to attempt to treat this like any other job.
Elle beat him to it. “About Katie… I’ve heard that the first twenty-four hours are critical.”
“True in most cases, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves, all right?” he replied. “First things first. I want to make it clear that missing kids are outside my normal realm of—” He cut himself off before he could say expertise—because it would’ve been a lie—and smoothly changed it to “work.”
Her expression became curious. “What is your realm of work?”
“I find and retrieve people who’d rather not be found and retrieved.”
“For money.”
“Couldn’t pay for this lovely place without it.” He swept his hand over the run-down space.
She met his gaze. “So you’re basically a bounty hunter.”
“More or less.”
“And you don’t work with kids. You live in a crappy motel. And you charge three thousand dollars for a single job?”
“Yes. Yes. And no.” He cleared his throat again, feeling more than a bit awkward about what he had to admit. “That three K is a direct payment to the man I hired to find your stalker in the car.”
“You hired someone to find the guy at the park?”
“Yeah. Surprised myself, too.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Guilty conscience,” Noah muttered, and then he sighed. “Look. If your ex is so determined to get his kid back that he’s got something this elaborate—”
“You can stop right there,” Elle said, her voice sharp. “The man who took Katie isn’t my ex.”
“Bull,” he replied immediately.
Blue eyes blinked up at him, visibly startled. “Excuse me?”
“Are you particularly wealthy?” he asked.
He already knew the answer. In fact, he didn’t doubt that she couldn’t afford to pay him at all. A big part of Noah’s job was noticing the details, and Elle’s details told him she wasn’t in a position to be throwing cash around. Her shirt and shorts were worn-out in a way that wasn’t designer, her hair had blunt ends that told him she probably used a one-hour, drop-in hairdresser rather than a real stylist, and her tennis shoes were a hundred percent knockoffs. He waited for her own answer anyway, wondering if she’d tell a lie. Or maybe avoid the question in an evasive maneuver of words.
After a second, though, she just shook her head. “No. I’m not particularly wealthy.”
“And we both know this wasn’t a random thing. The guy in the car. The fact that you didn’t immediately start calling the police. It adds up to this being planned, and you knowing it was a possibility. I’m good at what I do, Elle, but you can go ahead and correct me if I’m wrong.”
“No,” she said softly. “You’re not wrong.”
“So. I don’t buy it. People take kids for three reasons.” He ticked them off on his fingers as he went on. “One. For things I’d prefer not to talk about. Two. To extort their parents for cash. Or three…because they have a parental rights issue.”
Elle’s gaze was unwavering, and so was her response. “All of that might be true. But I promise you, the person who took Katie from the park is nowhere near an ex of any kind. I have nothing to gain by lying about it. So please. Can we just get the details out of the way and move on to finding my kid?”
Noah yanked out the single wooden chair from his tiny table. “Have a seat.”
For a second, he thought she was going to argue, but she just exhaled and sank down, her face weary and vulnerable and worldly all at the same time. “This is something you don’t want to do. I’m not ignoring what you’ve said. But be honest with me. Is it something you can do?”
It was a chance to opt out. To simply say no. He was sure that if she believed he couldn’t retrieve her daughter, that she’d walk out. But some reason, Noah couldn’t make the lie come.
“Yes,” he admitted instead. “Finding people is my job.”
Her face stayed pinched. “And your success rate?”
“Very, very high.”
“How high?”
“You know that term ‘the one that got away’?”
“Yes.”
“Applies perfectly to my track record. I’ve only had one miss.”
Her eyes closed, then opened, and her relief was audible as she said, “Hit me with the price tag. Whatever it is, Katie is worth it.”
Noah had to steel himself against the sudden need to reach out and take her hand, and he silently recited his mantra. Action over emotion.
“My flat rate is ten thousand dollars,” he made himself say. “I typically take five up front, and the other five when I find the subject in question. The fee doesn’t include expenses, which I keep track of and bill you for at the end. If I’m going to go over five hundred dollars at any one time—except in the case of emergency—I’ll let you know ahead of time. If I ever think I can’t complete the job, I’ll refund you half of the five grand, minus the expenses.” He paused, knowing she wasn’t going to be pleased with what he said next. “I work alone, Elle.”
As expected, her head shook vehemently. “No.”
“Yes.”
“I need to be there.”
“That’s not how this goes. I move quickly. I’m careful, but I sometimes have to do things that seem irrational. On top of which, I can’t take care of you and be effective at the same time.”
Her eyes flashed with a mix of irritation and stubbornness. “You won’t have to take care of me. I’ve been doing just fine on my own for the last six years.”
“Until someone walked off with your kid,” he snapped before he could stop himself.
Elle flinched, but to her credit, she kept her head high. “If you knew what kind of man he was, you’d know just how much skill it took to last this long.”
“Why don’t you tell me what kin
d of man he is, then? Or better yet, just tell me his name. It’s going to be a hell of a lot easier if I have a good place to start.”
“I’ll do my best to explain. But I’m not going to sit on my hands while you look for Katie. I can be helpful. I know this guy. I know what he wants and what he’s capable of.”
“If you know all of that, then why’re you bothering with me?”
She didn’t flinch. “He’ll be expecting me. And he knows my weaknesses.”
“Which makes you a liability,” Noah countered.
“My knowledge is an asset. But I don’t have the skills to track where he’ll take her. If I did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
Frustration crept in. He felt like he was losing a battle he shouldn’t have been fighting in the first place.
“Then let me ask you something else,” he said. “Can you put aside that pit that’s sitting in your stomach? The one that’ll remind you over and over that you let her be taken? That you failed? That makes you feel sad and hard and scared and furious all at the same time?”
She blinked at him, and he realized he’d probably said far too much. He didn’t give her a chance to respond. Very quickly, he added a question that he was sure would make her beg to stay in the background as he did what he was best at.
“Can you obey orders?”
Her blink became a frown. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Dead serious. I can’t stop and have an argument like this with every move I make. Some of your knowledge might be an asset, but that’s not as important as knowing that you’d be able to do what I say, no questions asked. So if—”
He stopped short as a familiar noise carried through the thin walls from outside—the squeak of the front gate.
“What’s wrong?” Elle asked right away.
“Someone’s out there,” Noah murmured.
She opened her mouth again, and he shook his head, waving off any further questions with a gesture to be quiet, then took a few careful steps toward the drawn curtain.
The sound wasn’t odd in and of itself. What was weird was the protraction. People who lived in the motel tended to push the gate hard and fast to get it over with. People who were passing through as temporary guests tended to be startled by the grating noise. They usually paused when they heard the squeal, then started again a second later.
But this…
It sounded like someone trying desperately not to be heard.
Noah inched along the window, careful not to disturb the heavy fabric that hung over it. Though he hadn’t made an effort to make the place his own, one thing he had done was invest in some drapes that blocked the room from prying eyes. Holding his breath, he took a hold of one corner of the curtain, moved it just wide enough to reveal a narrow view of the courtyard, and peered out through the diaphanous shade. A shadow of movement right by his door caught his eye, and he dropped a mental curse. He started to pull himself back, his mind on grabbing his gun, then getting himself and Elle out safely. Except as he reached up to flick the curtain shut again, something else drew his attention. Sitting across the street, just in sight, was the same dark sedan from the park.
How did he find us? Noah wondered. We sure as hell hadn’t taken the direct route home.
Mulling it over, he watched for several more seconds. What he saw surprised him. The shadow flashed again, then solidified into a person—a skinny teenaged boy in a dark tank top and faded black jeans. The boy cast a slow look back and forth, visibly nervous. When he was surveying the empty courtyard, he ducked low, loped over the pavement and exited the gate with another noisy squeak. For a moment, he disappeared from view. When he popped up again, he was right behind the sedan. He walked past it quickly, but the move didn’t fool Noah. He saw the kid’s hand come out sideways just as he reached the window. He also caught the size and shape of the item that the teenager palmed, and he’d bet his left arm that it was a wad of cash.
But for what?
His mind churned. An idea slipped to the surface, and he dropped the curtain and grabbed his phone. With another quick motion to Elle to stay quiet, he slipped to the bathroom to place a call to his neighbor. After some specific instructions, he moved back into the main room. Ten seconds went by, and a shuffle sounded from outside. It was quickly followed by the crack of breaking plastic. Satisfied, Noah spoke over his shoulder.
“All right,” he said. “You’re gonna need to strip.”
He snapped the curtain shut and swung to face a pair of startled blue eyes.
CHAPTER 4
Elle stared at Noah, sure she had to have misunderstood. “What?”
“You’re going to need to take off your clothes,” he said, a hint of impatience entering his voice.
Unconsciously, Elle’s gaze slid to the bed. It was a rumpled mess. Cream sheets tangled with a navy comforter. An unexpected vision filled her head. Noah, sprawled out, one hand on the back of his head, the other on the tattered book that currently lay on his pillow. And even weirder than that was the fact that the mental picture didn’t make her feel like running. If anything, she liked the way imaginary him looked up and smiled at her. But then non-imaginary him spoke, jerking Elle—with her face flaming—back to the moment.
“Not like that,” he said, obviously reading the way her thoughts had gone, and dismissing them with a wave.
And for no good reason, the gesture and words were somehow worse than if he had meant it like that. Which was ridiculous. Elle stood still, trying to compose herself as the rough-around-the-edges man ran his eyes over her in a way that wasn’t sexy, but that still made her feel exposed. When he finished his head-to-toe perusal, he lifted his attention to her face, his expression far grimmer than any man checking out a woman’s assets should be.
“On your way out of the park, did you bump into anyone?” he asked. “Talk to someone you didn’t know?”
“I don’t think so, but what does that have to do with—” She cut herself off, her mind latching onto a detail that she’d forgotten until right that second. “Wait. There was a woman who told me my shoelace was undone. But that was before I left the park.”
“Did she touch you?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Could she have?”
“Maybe. Why are you asking? What’s going on? What happened outside just a second ago?” She deliberately left out a query about why any of it meant she had to take her clothes off, but it was on her mind just the same, and she still couldn’t shake the heat from her cheeks.
“That was my neighbor, destroying a listening device some punk stuck to my exterior wall,” he replied. “And I owe him fifty bucks for it, so remind me to add that to your tab.”
She ignored the latter comment in favor of the former. “A listening device?”
He gave her another appraising look. “Someone is pretty damn determined to get to you.”
His tone wasn’t accusatory, and it had no edge, but it made Elle want to shake a little anyway. She knew exactly who had the desire and the resources to stalk her. The same man who would enjoy driving fear into her heart more than he’d enjoy straight up killing her. The one who’d taken Katie. And she needed to get to him. Which currently meant listening to Noah. Doing what he’d asked and obeying orders, no questions asked. Because while he might be right about not being able to shed herself of those thick, horrible feelings in her gut, she could at least fight them. Or use them. She had to prove that she could. Even if Noah needed her to take her clothes off for some insane reason.
Meeting his eyes for one second before she did it, Elle reached down and grabbed the hem of her shirt. She tugged it up and over her head, shivering as the artificially cooled air blasted over her skin. She only got the shirt as high as her face, though, before Noah made a choked noise and issued a protest.
“Whoa!” he said. “What’re you doing?”
She stopped with her arms raised. “You told me to take off my clothes.”
“I—” He muttered something incomprehensible, then added, “I didn’t mean strip for me.”
She lowered her arms a little and peeked over the hem of her shirt. “You literally said strip.”
“Not here.” He cleared his throat. “You can do it in the bathroom. I’ll tell you what to look for.”
“I don’t understand.”
“That makes two of us.”
He shifted from foot to foot, looking for all the world like a little boy caught doing something he shouldn’t have been doing. Surprised by his outward awkwardness, Elle rested her eyes on him for another second. He seemed to be straining to keep his gaze off her. When his eyes betrayed him a little—flicking from a spot over her shoulder to her midriff to her face, then quickly over her shoulder again—it actually made her feel a little pleased for some reason. It was certainly better than that analytical, all-over visual examination he’d done of her a minute earlier. Maybe it was silly to even care, but she felt it all the same.
Noah cleared his throat. “Could you, uh, pull that down?”
Stowing the poorly placed bit of satisfaction at his obvious effort to not check her out, Elle moved to reposition her shirt. But as she started to yank it down, the tiny, silver ring she wore on her right forefinger got stuck to the fabric. She pulled a little harder. The motion made the shirt bunch up even more. And another tug—Elle was getting embarrassed now—sent her elbow up so that her entire chest was exposed. The heat in her face flared so high that she didn’t know how the shirt didn’t just burst into flames. And she was afraid to make any more effort in getting herself free for fear of creating further issues. But just when she thought she was going to have no choice but to take it all the way off, Noah’s hands landed on her—one on her arm, the other on her stuck finger.
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