“I thought you’d be gone,” she whispered.
A flash of pain came and went, after which he raised his eyebrows. “Hid in your room until you thought I left?”
“No. I just woke up. I didn’t sleep very well.”
It was obvious he hadn’t, either. Exhaustion carved deep lines in his face, aging him. His gaze met hers, expression bleak. “I couldn’t take off without saying goodbye, Bailey. And apologizing for last night. I was a jackass. You need to do what feels right to you.”
Oh, crap. She was going to cry again. All those years with him she didn’t cry, and now she was a watering pot. “I’m scared. I’m running away. Okay? You were wrong about me. I am a coward.”
“No.” Despite his tiredness, he rose fluidly from the stool and came to her, his hands closing gently on her upper arms. “No, Bailey. You’re not. Don’t ever say that, or even think it. You survived hell and walked out on the other side with your head high.”
“I’m not—”
“You are.” Very carefully, he pulled her close.
With something like a lunge, she wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek to his chest. The feeling of his arms enclosing her filled her with a painful tumult because it was so good, and this was the last time he would hold her unless— She blanked her mind to the “unless.”
“Another thing you need to know,” he murmured, nuzzling her temple and ear. “Finding Hope, that was really something. But for me, finding Bailey was a life changer.”
Oh, God. She bobbed her head to say, I understand. Her sinuses burned.
“And, Bailey? I’ll miss you. And I’ll be waiting. You got that?”
Another nod.
His “Good” was rough, hardly articulated. With one finger, he tilted her chin up, and then he kissed her. Hard, hungry and brief.
Next thing she knew, the front door was closing and she was alone in the kitchen. An animal cry of pain burst from her.
* * *
SHE MADE IT through that day, feeling robotic. Two-hour drive south to SeaTac, mostly on I-5. She focused on what she had to do now, on the next minute. Flow with the traffic, change lanes when she absolutely had to. Watch tensely for road signs, then signs leading her to the airport, and finally for rental car return. Check her bag, hoist the giant tote that held her laptop and some of the purchases she’d made here in Washington, clutch her quilt in the other arm. Security. Plod to a far gate, sit on an uncomfortable chair pretending to read until her row number was called. And then grip the seat arms, knuckles white, because she couldn’t hold Seth’s hand.
The flight passed in a blur. In a window seat, she didn’t so much as glance out. Sleep beckoned, but she couldn’t catch it. Instead she read the same few pages over and over, and endured.
There wasn’t much of a wait for the airport shuttle, thank heavens. She blinked when she stepped outside into a dry, hot day, the sky a smog-tinted blue. Southern California. Instead of a sense of homecoming, the scene felt alien.
She was dropped outside her small apartment building. Inside the shabby lobby, she gazed at the mailboxes and thought about checking for mail but didn’t care. Tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow.
Expecting some comfort when she stepped into her apartment, Bailey instead had the strange feeling she’d walked into someone else’s. It was her pink bedroom all over again. Another life, barely remembered.
Tomorrow, she told herself again. By tomorrow, this would feel like home again. It had to, because it was.
The apartment was also stiflingly hot. To hell with her utility bill—now a woman of independent means, she could afford air-conditioning. She adjusted the thermostat to a shockingly low level before scrounging in her cupboards for something edible, settling on a can of soup. Groceries could wait until tomorrow, too.
At last she stripped and fell into bed, pulling only the sheet over herself. Mercifully, oblivion came fast.
* * *
SETH REMAINED AS close to numb as he could make himself until late afternoon, when Ben walked back from the coffeemaker, cup in hand, and paused by Seth’s desk.
“When’s Bailey heading back to start school?” he asked casually.
Pain stabbed, so intense Seth lifted a hand to rub his breastbone in an attempt to ease it. “She’s gone.”
“Gone? Already?”
“What’s that mean?” Seth asked tightly. “She has a job, too. It was time.”
Ben regarded him in silence for a minute, then nodded and continued past to his own desk.
Seth went back to staring at his computer monitor without seeing it. He’d accomplished jack shit today. Should have just stayed home, except... He couldn’t.
God, he was dreading the unavoidable moment when he had to walk in his front door to the absence of Bailey. He knew already that he’d be getting something to eat on the way, if he could work up any appetite. If he were a drinking man, he’d have gone to a bar, but waking up tomorrow feeling like crap because he’d gotten plastered tonight wouldn’t bring her back, or make the house any less empty tomorrow night, or the next night. It wouldn’t make her miss him.
He couldn’t say his depression eased in the week that followed. He checked his phone incessantly, hoping he’d missed a call from her, but there wasn’t one. The way they’d left things, Seth didn’t feel as if he could call her. She’d openly expressed her need to give herself distance and space. She might feel as if his calling was meant to put pressure on her.
She might even be right.
He encountered Eve after a twelve-year-old boy collapsed during PE at the middle school, and upon examination at the hospital was found to have hideous bruises and broken ribs, one of which had punctured his lung. Even after regaining consciousness, he refused to name his assailant. X-rays indicated a long pattern of abuse, though, and Seth did some serious leaning on the mother and stepfather as well as the father, who had the boy two weekends a month.
“James asks me almost every time I see him if he can’t live with me,” the father said, his voice heavy with guilt. “I keep saying no because I travel so much for my job. I thought he was doing okay with his mother. If he’d told me—” He began to sob.
The stepfather claimed to have been on a hunting trip the week before the kid collapsed. Mom supported his assertion, but Seth felt sure she was lying. He’d long since quit wondering how a mother could support an abusive son of a bitch of a man even when he endangered her children.
When he encountered Eve at the hospital, they sat down in one of the small rooms set aside for doctors to talk privately to family members. She asked if he was close to making an arrest.
He shook his head. “I need to find some witnesses who can place the stepfather home that week. I’ve been doing a door-to-door, but I’m getting the feeling the neighbors are afraid of him, too.”
“The father has already put in for a transfer to a job that won’t demand so much travel. I’d ask for an assessment of him as a secure placement for James, but I can’t do that until you’re sure he wasn’t the abuser.”
“I can’t tell you that with a hundred percent certainty yet,” he said.
She sighed. “I have a receiving home lined up once he’s released.”
“I’ll do my best to get answers.”
She gave him a small, twisted smile. “That’s good enough for me. Your best is exceptional, Seth.”
“Thank you,” he said, surprised.
She picked up her briefcase but didn’t stand. “Have you heard from Bailey?”
He shook his head.
“Me, either. She called Mom and Dad, though. Said she worked for a few days, but couldn’t deal with being recognized. She might look for an office job or something, maybe on campus, but hasn’t decided. They said she sounded good, but...too upbeat. They worry she isn’t really happy.”
He hoped like hell Bailey wasn’t really happy, then castigated himself for wanting that. She of all people was owed some happiness.
When he didn’
t say anything, Eve gave a small nod, acknowledging whatever she saw on his face. “Let me know,” she said, and left him sitting there in the small room, unsure whether she’d been referring to answers about the boy—or Bailey.
After a moment, he rubbed a hand over his face, allowed himself one groan, and heaved himself to his feet. One of the stepfather’s supposed hunting buddies had been dodging him, which suggested he didn’t want to outright lie. Time to corner him.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CALLING SETH THE first time was really hard. Bailey was afraid she’d break down, just hearing his voice. No, it wasn’t only that—she was afraid of so much. She was afraid he’d be angry because so much time had passed. It had been a whole month since they’d said goodbye, since she’d felt his arms around her.
And, she knew better, but still feared that, given so much time, he’d discovered he didn’t miss her, that whatever he’d felt had evaporated.
No, believing in anything good was still hard for her.
She had denied herself permission to call him until the month had passed because she needed to know she could do this on her own. That she wouldn’t be turning to him for the wrong reasons. And maybe she’d wanted to be immersed in classes so she couldn’t run back to Seth.
She had needed this month to think, and to absorb what she’d learned about herself, about her newfound family and about Seth. To an extent, it had worked.
She’d realized he and her father didn’t have much in common on the surface, but what they shared was the remarkable ability to be tender without ever looking at her with pity. Her memories of her early years were still few and fleeting, as they probably were for most people, but in the ones that included her father, she had always felt both loved and safe. The word safe might not have occurred to her then, but it was a powerful one for the Bailey who had learned so painfully how it felt not to be safe.
She thought a lot about the physical part of her relationship with Seth, since that was new, too. It hadn’t abated. When she pictured him, she felt a deep, aching knot that only he could loosen.
But, always, she came back to the reassurance and belief in her he offered. So, in the end, she closed her eyes and pictured his face as he told her how strong she was. And then her thumb pressed Send, and a moment later his phone was ringing.
She’d forgotten the resonance of his deep voice.
“Bailey?”
“Yes, it’s me.” Great start. “Um, I wanted to say hi.”
“I’m glad you called. I’ve been thinking about you.”
“Really?” Oh, pathetic. What did she want—him to tell her how miserable he was without her?
Yes?
“Your mother called a few days ago. Said you’re liking your classes.”
“School is really good.” Prompted by questions from him, she told him about some of her current classes, including Intro to Clinical Psychology and Children’s Learning and Cognitive Development. A little shyly, she admitted to being in the honors program, which meant taking a senior honors seminar spring semester and writing a thesis. “Oh, and I’m taking Pilates. I’ve got to do something to make up for my lazy lifestyle now that I’m not slinging heavy trays.”
He laughed, as she’d intended, but then said quietly, “No ballroom dance?”
A lump formed in her throat. “You kind of do need a partner.”
“Really? To take the class?”
“No, but...without the right partner, it wouldn’t be much fun.”
The silence throbbed with everything she wanted to say but couldn’t—wasn’t ready to say—as well as with whatever he wasn’t saying.
“Did you see the article in People about me?” she asked. She’d finally chosen them for an exclusive. Freelancers still trailed her sometimes, but she’d learned to ignore them. Mostly, interest was waning.
“I did. They did a reasonably sensitive job of it.”
“I thought so,” she agreed. She still hadn’t got over the weirdness of seeing her own face on the cover of a magazine displayed at seemingly every checkout in every grocery store in the country, or of flipping it open to see more photos of her, quotes from her.
“People treating you any differently than they did before this all blew up?” he asked.
“Yes.”
The new self-consciousness had dimmed her pleasure in returning to school. She’d known almost immediately she couldn’t stay on working at Canosa. Her boss, a brusque man uninterested in the private lives of his employees, was just about the only person who didn’t gape, or ask intrusive questions, or whisper with others when they thought she was out of earshot.
“People ask all the time if I’m Hope Lawson. I don’t think I could have kept on as waitstaff at Canosa or anywhere else. If not for the help from Karen—” she stopped herself “—Mom and Dad, I’d have had to find an office job where I didn’t interact with the public.”
“What about at the university?”
“There, too. I’m a five-second celebrity.” She tried for the light touch, but doubted he bought it. “I mean, I can tell the other students all read the articles about me. I think most of them went online to pull up the press conference, too. But it’s getting better. Except for Pilates, I’m in upper level classes, and everybody is feeling some stress because it’s our last year. Most of them are a lot younger than me, too, you know. Sometimes I feel ancient compared to them.”
He chuckled. “In other words, at their age, they’re self-centered enough to have lost interest in you pretty quick in favor of themselves.”
Bailey laughed. “I’m afraid so. And around campus...well, I’ve gotten pretty good with the disguises. I haven’t dyed my hair brown yet, but sunglasses, baseball cap, baggy USC Trojans T-shirt, and I pass incognito.”
His amusement pleased her. He commented that he’d heard she talked to Eve a few days ago.
“Mom told you?”
“Actually, Eve did. We’re working a case together. Kid that was brutally beaten. I made the arrest, she put him initially in a receiving home, then placed him with his father.”
“Then...it wasn’t the father who hurt him?”
He talked about the investigation, and how he’d finally got lucky—although it sounded to her as if it would be more accurate to say his persistence had paid off—when one of the stepfather’s buddies had admitted that the guy had left for two days in the middle of the hunting trip that had been his alibi. Once that friend had broken the wall of silence, the others had come forward, too.
“The stepfather talked to his wife every evening. The others wondered about that a little, but he was a controlling SOB, and it fit his pattern. He was mad about something she said one night and he told them he had to make a quick trip home to take care of something.”
Assaulted by memories, she murmured, “His stepson.”
There was a momentary silence. “Hell,” Seth said. “What was I thinking? You don’t need to hear about anything like this.”
“Yes. Yes, I do. It’s...it’s part of your life.” And if she was to let him in, she needed to know he wouldn’t close the door on what he did on the job. “Plus, you achieved justice for this boy. I want to hear about that. There was a time I didn’t even know it was possible.”
“Damn, Bailey.”
“What?”
“You break my heart.”
“You’ve said that before,” she said stoutly. “But you must hear stuff almost every day as heartbreaking.”
“With anyone but you, I can maintain some distance.”
Some of her tension subsided, leaving a warm glow in its place. Of course he was waiting, just as he promised. He was a man who meant what he said. She had a sudden image of herself clambering up a tree, not afraid in the least that a branch would break and she would crash to the ground, because there Seth was, standing below, prepared to catch her.
Past a constriction in her throat, she said, “Thank you. For saying that, I mean. I kept thinking...” She had to stop.
“What? That I was so mad at you I’d decided, to hell with her?”
She clutched the phone tight. “Something like that.”
“No, Bailey.” His voice hit a lower timbre. “I was never mad. I was afraid I was losing you. But I understand why you had to go.”
“Thank you,” she whispered again.
“There’s nothing to thank me for.”
She composed herself. “Will you tell me the rest? I mean, about the boy?”
After a pause, he said, “There’s nothing that will surprise you. Once his story was blown, the boy’s mother confessed to what really happened. She’d told the bastard that the kid had pleaded with her to leave him. During that phone call, she made the mistake of saying, ‘Maybe I should. Unless you start treating us better.’ So he felt obligated to go home and beat the crap out of the boy and say, ‘Keep your goddamn mouth shut or it’ll keep happening.’ So she did.”
Bailey didn’t ask how the mother could have been so frightened of her husband, she had chosen obedience over her child’s safety. Because I know. Except it had been different for her. She’d been terrified into silence, too, but there hadn’t been anyone she felt the need to protect. If she’d had a little sister, would she have done anything differently? Bailey hoped so.
And I was a child, not an adult.
“Have you found out anything more about Hamby?” It was all she could do not to say him. Probably Seth would have known who she was talking about, but maybe not.
“Nothing new,” he said, in a voice that told her he knew everything she felt.
“Are you still looking?”
“I will never quit looking. I promise you that, Bailey.”
Comforted, she could breathe again. “Okay.”
He asked if she’d talked to Anna, and she was able to smile.
“She’s doing great. A lot is coming back to her. She still calls Betty every few days, but she said her mom is okay with that. Her parents have put her in counseling, too, which is good.”
Yesterday's Gone (Two Daughters Book 1) Page 25