They picked their way through the shrubs at the end of the yard and stepped into the open lawn. For the few seconds it took to cross from the back to the front, they were exposed, and Maryse prayed that the neighbors were at work. Or at least too scared to look out their windows.
And her prayers were answered.
They made it to the street without notice. They slipped to the sidewalk and even made it to the car with no problems. There, Maryse let herself enjoy a moment of relief. But as soon as Brooks turned the key in the ignition, the fear came back full force. It only grew worse as they pulled off the curb and the flashing lights disappeared from sight.
“Hey.” Brooks’s voice cut through her fear, and she realized she’d closed her eyes.
She opened them and swallowed against the thickness blocking her vocal cords, then repeated his softly spoken word. “Hey.”
His gaze moved from the road to her. It landed on her wrist, where she’d slipped on Cami’s bracelet. The elastic was stretched, the beads spread wide. Brooks’s expression grew curious.
“It’s hers,” Maryse explained. “I found it with the passports. It’s not worth anything. But I didn’t want to leave it there.”
“I get it.” His eyes moved back to the windshield.
“Brooks...” Maryse trailed off as a lump formed in her throat.
She shook her head. She didn’t want to relive the past. Or talk about her brother and his criminal ties or his death. But it had nothing to do with Brooks. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to give the details to him. It was just that she hadn’t ever told the story aloud.
“Whatever it is...” he said. “You don’t have to tell me. You don’t owe me an explanation.”
“I owe you more than an explanation. I owe you my life.”
“I’ll hold you to the last bit.” A smile tipped up his mouth for a second. “But seriously. If you don’t want to go over the complications, I understand. I’m not going to try any less hard to find Cami.”
“I know. And that’s one of the reasons I want to tell you.” She sighed, then smoothed her hands over the laptop sitting on her knees and looked out the window as she went on. “Dee White is right. Camille isn’t my biological daughter. But I didn’t steal her from her parents. Or from anyone else. Her dad... He left her to me.”
“Left her to you? In the legal sense of issuing guardianship?”
“I don’t think that was an option. In fact, I don’t think my brother ever did anything in a legal sense, even when it was an option.”
“Your brother.”
“Yeah.” Maryse smiled. “He was a rebellious kid. I loved that about him. I used to wish I had a bit of it in myself.”
“Until...?”
“Until the rebellion became the kind of thing that turned into arrests. And bail outs. I kind of thought he was turning it around near the end there, but...” She shrugged. “Then he left Camille to me literally. On a doorstep with a note attached.”
“While he did what?”
“While he died.”
Brooks’s eyes turned her way. “I’m sorry, Maryse.”
“So am I,” she said.
“Did it happen long after he left Camille behind?”
“No. He knew it was going to happen. Which is why he left her in the first place.”
“What happened?”
“Wrong place, wrong time. Brought on by whatever he was mixed up in.”
“That’s kind of vague,” Brooks pointed out.
Maryse forced herself to explain. “It was a fire. Arson. He died, and so did three other people. And everyone said it was my brother who set it. The papers, the cops...”
“Ah.”
“He didn’t.”
“You sound sure.”
“His note said so.”
Brooks was silent for a long moment. “So your brother the troublemaker became your brother the lawbreaker. He got mixed up in an arson that he didn’t commit, left a baby on your doorstep and here we are.”
She could tell he was musing over the details rather than making light of the situation, so she nodded. “Yes. More or less.”
“And Camille is your niece.”
“Biologically. My niece... God. That sounds so weird to say. I’ve been raising her since she was a newborn.”
“I need to ask—”
“About her mother.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know who she was,” Maryse admitted.
“Was?”
“My brother didn’t say anything about her. But I’ve always assumed that if she was alive, he wouldn’t have given Cami to me.” She paused, thinking about it for a second before she corrected herself. “Maybe assumed isn’t the right word. I knew there was no way Camille’s biological mother could be alive. Family was the only thing that mattered to him. Literally the only thing that he had any kind of commitment to. So if there was any chance...”
“I understand.”
Maryse waited as Brooks tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, his brow furrowed in concentration. After a minute, he flicked on the turn signal, then navigated the car onto the shoulder of the road.
He faced her, his eyes a mask of concern. “Where did all of this happen, sweetheart?”
“Las Vegas.”
“Nevada.”
“Yes. He was living there at the time. It’s where he left Camille.”
“And that’s where Caleb Nank is from.”
Maryse’s chest tightened. “Who is he, Brooks?”
Brooks sighed, then ran a hand over his head. “He’s a bad guy. Truly. He came out of nowhere a few years ago, and he’s clever and creative and in control and elusive. The man deals in favors as much as he deals in cash.”
“Like Dee and Greg.”
“Exactly. Everyone who works under him owes him something in one way or another. A real puppet master.”
“Exactly the kind of man who’d attract a guy like my brother,” Maryse responded softly. “And the note—the one the kidnapper left—said he was taking what Jean-Paul owed them.”
“So the kidnapping wasn’t to do with you.”
“No. Is that a good thing?”
“It’s good that they see Camille as a valuable commodity. It’s good that they were willing to wait this long to take her, and I’d even go so far as to say that in this case, it’s good that they haven’t asked for ransom.”
“It is?”
Brooks met her eyes and shook his head slowly. “It means they’ll keep her alive.”
The breath she drew in was sharp enough that her lips vibrated, and the sound of it bounced through the car. Of course it had crossed her mind that Camille’s life might be in danger. It went without saying. But having that particular truth acknowledged out loud—even if it was in the name of dismissing it—sent a chill through her.
“What else?” she made herself say.
“I probably shouldn’t be telling you anything about him because the investigation is ongoing, but I don’t want to lie to you about the seriousness of Nank and his business. I’ve been personally chasing the man for over half a decade. Slippery as all hell. Never lets anything get tied directly back to him. And the truth is, I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting him personally.”
“You’re chasing a man you’ve never met?”
“It’s less crazy than it sounds. His reputation and the actions that’ve been timed to him on a tertiary level make it worth the wild-goose hunt.”
“So what do we do now?”
“If we want to get Cami back, we’ve only got two choices. We can find her and physically remove her, or we can try to find something he wants more...” He trailed off, his face full of something he didn’t want to suggest.
But Maryse knew what it was anyway.
“And make a trade,” she filled in, her heart somehow twisting and sinking at the same time.
The first option was undoubtedly rife with danger. The second was awful. At the moment, neither seemed viable.
“Maryse?”
It took a second to realize Brooks had been talking. She forced her attention back to what he was saying. Something about planes? She wasn’t sure.
She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I got lost for a second.”
“It’s okay, sweetheart.”
“I’m scared.”
“I know,” Brooks said. “But we’ve got a few things on our side. Nank doesn’t know I’m helping you. He doesn’t know we’re coming. And I’m guessing he’s the kind of man who doesn’t deal well with surprises.”
He reached across the console and closed his hand on hers. Maryse squeezed back, grateful for the contact, and thankful also that he didn’t just dismiss or minimize her concern.
“If you need to get lost for a second now and then,” he added, “do it. I promise I’ll be here when you get back.”
The look in his hazel eyes told her he meant it. The warm security she found there made her cheeks flush, and the heat of their clasped hands became a burn that drove away both the cold and her worry, at least enough that she could breathe.
“I know I keep saying it...but thank you.”
“Happy to help,” he replied, and he squeezed her fingers again. “You want to talk about our next move? Or you need another minute?”
Maryse shook her head. “Next move. Please.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. I was just telling you that Nank must’ve sent someone to make sure that Dee and Greg and Greg’s brother did what they were supposed to do. When they failed, his men took control. And an educated guess would say they’re likely on their way directly to Vegas.”
“And we should go there.”
“Whether we choose option one or option two, it’s the best way to do either,” Brooks said. “Have you got a passport?”
Maryse nodded. With the passport her brother had provided six years earlier, she’d managed to secure supplementary ID. With that, she’d been able to get a renewal for the old passport with no problems. It had surprised her, really, that she’d been able to go through legal channels to obtain the illegal document.
“I’m guessing you’re not carrying it with you?” he asked.
“No.”
“Okay. We’ll swing by my place, then yours. We’ll book the next flight out of Montreal, and we’ll be on our way.”
Brooks sounded confident and determined. And Maryse was glad. But suddenly nervous, too. And the added bout of nerves had nothing to do with her daughter’s kidnapping and everything to do with the fact that she was about to embark on a journey with the singularly most attractive man she’d ever met.
* * *
Holding Maryse’s hand tightly—a position that was fast becoming a habit—Brooks moved from the car to his apartment building at a pace that was just below a run. Even though the stop provided a much-needed breather, Brooks wanted to make the trip back to his apartment as quick as possible. No one had identified him yet, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t.
And the moment someone does...
It would fall apart. Caleb Nank’s dogs would be on him. His boss and the PD dogs would be on him. And he’d be officially asked to step aside. He could imagine how Maryse would react. Her desire for secrecy broken, her need to be involved directly in finding her daughter subverted. Worse than that, the authorities would have a field day with Camille’s parentage. There was no paper trail linking the two of them together. Even with the blood connection, Maryse had taken the child across the border and they’d undoubtedly been living in Canada illegally. There would be nothing Brooks could do to help her if all of that came out.
As they reached his door, he had no choice but to shake off the concern. He’d deal with the potential scenario when—if—it came up, and not before. He squeezed her hand before freeing his fingers to unlock the door.
“Shouldn’t take me more than five minutes to get ready,” he said. “You want to have a look on that laptop for flights that’ll take us from Montreal to Las Vegas?”
“Sure.” The quaver in her voice made her sound anything but.
Brooks closed the door. “Aside from the obvious...is everything all right?”
“I was just wondering if this can possibly be a coincidence,” she replied. “I mean, what are the chances that you—the cop investigating Caleb Nank—would be in this exact spot on the exact day that I’m here, looking for my daughter, who’s been taken by the same guy’s men?”
“Slim to none,” he admitted.
“What do you think it means?”
He reached out and cupped her cheeks in his hands. “Honestly, sweetheart, I’m not sure. I could work through the details. Look for other places our paths have crossed, or try to find some reason that someone might’ve deliberately driven us together. But if I do that, I’ll have to take time away from looking for Cami. And that’s something I don’t want to do.”
She stared up at him, little flecks of navy playing across her otherwise light blue irises. Brooks noted the mix of emotions there. Distress and fear. Appreciation and trust. Under any other circumstance, he’d toss aside everything he was doing just to get lost in that gaze and prove that she could give him the latter two and forget about the former two. He wished he could find an excuse to do it now. Instead, he had no choice but to push aside his feelings. He gave her a light kiss, then took the laptop from her and carried it to the coffee table, glad to see that it was fully charged and didn’t need a password to get in. With the exception of his phone, he’d deliberately left his own electronics back in Nevada, so the stolen computer would come in handy now.
“I’ll set you up with my frequent-flier account. All of my info is in there, so you can just add yours,” he told her as he clicked through and logged in to the website. “You’re probably the best judge of how quickly we can get from here to your place and back to the airport. So pick a flight that works.”
Maryse seated herself on the couch. “One way?”
Brooks hesitated, then shook his head and said what he knew she needed to hear. “No. We’re going to do this. Give us a forty-eight-hour window. And don’t forget to include a ticket for Camille on the way back.”
“Okay.”
She turned her attention to the computer, and he moved to the bedroom. He was still eager to get going as soon as possible, but he felt a need to pause and consider what Maryse had said about coincidence. It had been in the back of his mind, too, since the moment Dee White dropped Nank’s name. It had seemed odd from the beginning that of all the places in the world to choose from for a forced leave of absence, his boss would pick this one.
Laval, Quebec. A nice city... Brooks thought. If you can get past the ice.
He’d kind of assumed that was what had fueled the choice. It was no secret that he was a man who loved the blazing sun. And what good would the thinly veiled punishment have done if the captain had shipped him off to Honolulu for two months? He supposed he could’ve simply not taken his boss’s “suggestion” that Laval, Quebec, be his destination. But at the time, it seemed like ticking the man off even further was a bad idea. Brooks let out a sound, midway between a frustrated growl and an exasperated sigh.
The easiest solution was to call his boss and simply ask. Except if the man had gone so far out of his way to orchestrate this setup, drawing attention to it could bring down the operation, whatever it might be.
And so could hightailing it back to Nevada.
This time, the noise that escaped his mouth was all growl. “Little bit of insight would be nice right abo
ut now, boss.”
He moved his fingers over the pocket that held his phone, thinking over the idea of using it in spite of his worries. After a second, he dismissed it. His gaze sought the bedroom door. He wasn’t ashamed to admit that his decision to keep working on this independently was almost solely because of the woman sitting in his living room. He couldn’t yet pinpoint what it was that filled him with such a strong need to assist her—possibly at the risk of his own career—but he wasn’t going to deny its existence. Her understated bravery...her willingness to accept the help of a virtual stranger...both added to her allure.
And the fact that she’s beautiful doesn’t hurt, either.
Yeah, there was that, he acknowledged. Except there was way more than that, too. Even in the scant few hours they’d spent together, he sensed a connection that could run deeper, given the chance. Before he could stop himself, he wondered how she’d like the desert heat. Would she mind living there, or was she attached to the cold winters?
“You’re clearly going insane,” he muttered, forcing his eyes away from the door.
The brief glance he caught of his reflection in the mirror over his dresser confirmed it. His eyes were a little shiny, his face stuck in some kind of stickily sweet smile.
Seriously, Small. Get your crap together.
He mentally grabbed ahold of the command and made himself move toward the small pile of clothes that already sat atop his suitcase. He eyed it skeptically. Forty-eight hours, he’d told Maryse. How much stuff could he really need? Jeans and a couple of T-shirts. A single pair of dress pants and a collared shirt. A few smaller essentials, and he’d be good to go. His passport was handy, and he always kept a stack of emergency cash aside, just in case. In the end, he was pulling things out of his bag rather than sticking them in. When he had everything arranged tidily on one side, he clued in to what he was doing. Making some space for Maryse’s things.
Because if we’re going down there as a couple, we should look like one from the start, and sharing a bag makes sense.
The thought made him pause again in his final moment of rearranging. He hadn’t realized until that second that continuing the already-used ruse was a part of his plan. It made sense, though. They’d gone to the hotel posing as a couple. They’d approached Dee White’s house as a couple. Their chemistry made it workable.
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