ONCE MORE A FAMILY

by Paula Detmer Riggs

  Eyes narrowed, weapon ready, he circled the outside, checked the garage, the van, behind bushes.

  Holstering the .45, he raced inside and up the stairs. Ria had made it to the bed where she sat bent over, her hand pressed to her head and her eyes closed. Concussion, he thought. And a stomach full of queasy eels.

  He knew the signs.

  He was halfway across the room when she jerked up her head and cried out. Her already-pale face turned a sickly gray.

  "Ree, listen to me," he soothed as he dropped to his knees and took her icy hand in his. "Sweetheart, I need you to think back."

  She blinked, then visibly swallowed down the nausea. "I'm … better," she whispered.

  "Did you see anyone?" he asked slowly, carefully.

  "No, no … one."

  "A car in the drive?"

  She shook her head, then winced.

  "Did you hear a voice? Male, female?" He paused, his fear growing rapidly. "An accent?"

  She blinked rapidly, her breathing shallow and too fast, but she made a valiant effort to control the panic. "I … nothing. I was packing… I heard Jimmy running down the hall and poked my head out to tell him to slow down." Her lips trembled, and she pressed them together for a moment.

  "Take your time," he ordered, his mind already zoned into procedure.

  "Jim-Jimmy told me he'd come up to get Pooh so they could watch his video together. I went back to my packing. I'd just opened your sock drawer when I heard Jimmy cry out. I called to him, but he didn't answer." She paused to take a deep breath, her hands clinging to his. "I walked into his room to check on him, but he wasn't there and then … I heard an odd swishing noise."

  She flinched at the memory, and he went cold. "That's all I remember."

  He drew his handkerchief from his back pocket and gently blotted the fresh blood from her temple. "Do you remember what time that was?"

  Biting her lip, she considered. "It was past three when he got up from his nap. I dressed him for the drive to the lake, and I didn't want him getting dirty so I said he could watch Pooh one more time. Maybe … maybe twenty minutes later."

  Give or take, two hours.

  "Oh, Grady!" she cried, her eyes dark with dawning horror. "Why is this happening? Who … who would want to take our baby? Who?"

  "We'll find him, sweetheart," he said as he scooped her gently into his arms. "I swear to you, we'll find him."

  It was then, while trying to comfort her, that he saw the scrap of newspaper, lying next to one of Jimmy's sneakers. The clipping had been torn from the front page of the Lafayette Journal-Courier. Headlines screamed Sergei Rustakov's conviction. Scrawled in red pen across the picture of Sergei being led away in handcuffs were the words,

  You were warned, policeman. Now you suffer as I suffer. You will never see your son again.

  * * *

  Chapter 1

  « ^ »

  Six months later

  The kidnappers had been pros. It was as though the earth had opened and swallowed their son. Once a KGB colonel before Glasnost had put him out of a job, Rustakov had always chosen his thugs with as much care as he'd once chosen assassins for the motherland. He'd layered his organization so well no one knew more than two or three other members.

  In spite of thousands of man-hours put in by dozens of dedicated professionals over the past six months, the case was as cold as it had been on the day he'd found Ria on the floor.

  Grady leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He was so tired the letters on the screen were jumping around worse than usual. It was so bad he'd had to sound each word out in his head, the way he'd done when he'd been learning to compensate for the dyslexia that had made his childhood a living hell.

  Even Trouble had given up and abandoned his customary spot next to the monitor for the basket Ria had fixed for him near the heater vent. After some initial infection, the cat's leg had healed perfectly. Ria's pampering had turned the scrawny stray with a death wish into a fat, spoiled lap kitty.

  Ria's lap, anyway.

  These days, whenever Grady tried to pick him up, the ungrateful animal hissed and bared his claws. Not that Grady blamed him. Nobody had to tell him he was rotten company.

  His family had started visiting Ria when he was at work. At the station house, everyone kept their distance. The officers under his command had taken to ducking into doors when he walked in.

  Because of his reading problems he'd always been a plodder. He'd had to be, working longer hours than anyone else. These days he put in a good twelve hours a day behind his desk, sometimes more. The brutal hours tired his mind so that he was able to sleep a few hours every night. Most nights, anyway. But not even the long hours or the physical work he'd taken to doing around the house eased the grinding ache in his chest that was there when he woke up and still there when he went to bed.

  Maybe it was time to take a few days off. Even though the weeks surrounding the end-of-year holidays were coveted vacation time, he had enough seniority to swing it. Heck, he was a detective captain now. Top brass, according to his baby brothers. He was entitled to some downtime.

  And do what, hotshot? Listen to Ria chatter brightly about everything and anything but their son? Watch the big-screen TV that was supposed to be Jimmy's big Christmas surprise and think about the stack of Jimmy's videos gathering dust? Make a snowman and remember last Christmas when he and Jimmy had pelted Ria with snowballs?

  In two days it would be Christmas. The enormous pine tree in the living room glowed with dozens of twinkle lights, strung with the same fierce absorption Ria brought to even the most inconsequential task these days.

  Grady hadn't wanted the tree, or the bright decorations, damn near each one evoking memories of happier times. Or the elaborate family dinner she was hosting in two days' time. Ria had insisted. She needed to keep busy, she'd told him with a smile that invariably tore him to shreds. So he'd listened to her debate about menus and table settings and schedules—then he'd gone out and chopped wood for hours. Anything to keep from thinking too much.

  Even though he understood what was driving her, he hated to see her wearing herself out. He guessed that polishing silver and baking yeast rolls from scratch was better than sitting on Jimmy's bed, holding the pillow that still carried his scent the way she had for weeks and weeks after their little boy had been stolen.

  Grady hadn't been in the room since the crime scene tape had come down. There was no need. He'd memorized every empty inch on the day he'd found Ria on the floor.

  He and Ria rarely spoke about their son. When they did, he usually ended up picking a fight so that he could stalk out. He could handle her anger. But the terrible grief she was trying to hide was slowly tearing him apart. Worst of all were those times when the phone rang and she bolted to answer it, both fear and hope alive in her eyes. It was becoming more than he could handle. God help him, he sometimes wished she hated him.

  After those first rocky days during which he was running mostly on rage, coffee and drags on borrowed cigarettes, he'd ruthlessly pared his emotions to the ones that kept him from falling apart—rage, mostly.

  He worked, he slept when he could, ate because he had to, and put in endless hours, talking to anyone and everyone he could think of who might have information to offer.

  Over and over he reminded himself that good police work was more about tenacity and hard, slogging work than brilliance. The system was often ponderous and slow, but it worked more often than most civilians realized.

  Tonight he'd added a good two dozen more printouts to the inch-high stack already on file. Tomorrow he would make calls to the contacts listed on the sheets and repeat his story one more time.

  He'd spent so many butt-numbing hours sitting in the dimly lit den, staring at the flickering images on the computer screen while methodically searching the various web sites on the Internet devoted to missing children he'd been forced to start wearing reading glasses to keep from suffering blinding headaches. Just his luck the hea
dache had hit anyway, pounding like a sledge inside his skull. Maybe a drink…

  Suddenly he realized he wasn't alone. Ria was standing just inside the door to his den with her dark hair mussed from the pillow and her pink fuzzy slippers peaking out from the hem of her flannel robe. Her arms were crossed over her too-thin waist, and her eyes were drowsy smudges in her pale face.

  "Grady, it's nearly 4:00 a.m."

  Her soft voice was flavored with the musical vowels of the south, a legacy from the years she'd spent growing up in a series of foster homes in Louisville. In spite of her impoverished background and a mother who'd gradually spiraled into madness, she carried herself like a lady. Folks just naturally watched their manners when she was around. Even his rambunctious brothers cleaned up their language in her presence.

  "Go back to bed, honey," he urged, his voice rusty. "I just want to get through the rest of these leads."

  She directed a weary glance at the file folder on his desk. "You've been through them so many times the paper is transparent from handling. If there was anything there, you would have found it."

  Her confidence in him broke his heart.

  "We just need a little luck, Ree. Someplace to start. Maybe a guy pumping gas who sees a little boy in the back seat and then remembers the flyer he's just taped to the station window. Or a mom in the park someplace watching a bunch of kids playing and sees a new kid who looks a lot like the picture on the milk carton she'd picked up at the market earlier."

  He shifted in his chair, wanting to beg her not to give up on him. To give him a little more time. But what good would that do? So far he was working on maybes and might-bes.

  "One of the staffers at the children's hotline gave me a list of private investigators who specialize in missing kids. A couple have pretty impressive records."

  Looking anything but convinced, Ria padded across the patterned rug she'd found in a little antique shop near Lake Freeman. She waited until she reached the circle of the light cast by the desk lamp before asking in the quick, nervous voice he'd come to expect from her, "You think that might help? Hiring a … a private eye?"

  He couldn't lie to her. He also couldn't admit he was so desperate at this point he was seriously considering a call to a psychic recommended by a sheriff in Fort Wayne.

  "Guys who work private have more time. Instead of twenty cases screaming for attention they can work one at a time."

  She drew a breath, her gaze fixed on the papers and folders littering the big desk. She smelled pretty and delicate, like the roses that were her pride and joy. His gut knotted as the memory of the last time he'd bought her flowers.

  "Can we pay for a detective and still offer the reward?" The department had started a fund to augment the forty thousand he'd been able to raise by cashing in his retirement policy and savings. After the first of the year, Ria was going back to work for the Indiana Department of Social Services in order to add her salary to the fund.

  "I've talked to Ted Ford at the bank. He's pretty sure we have enough equity in this place for a loan."

  She hugged herself more tightly as she leaned forward, her face soft as she gazed at the photo of Jimmy in the flyer. A grinning, happy three-year-old in a miniature Indianapolis Colts jersey, standing in a patch of summer sunshine. Grady had taken the picture himself, only a few days before their son's disappearance. Everyone who saw it remarked on what a good-looking little boy he was. The spitting image of his dad.

  Taller than average, he had broad shoulders and a sturdy build already showing the promise of a muscular physique. His hair was one shade lighter than Grady's own dusty blond, his eyes the same odd shade of golden-brown that all five of the Hardin brothers shared. His heart ached with a mixture of fatherly pride and anguish. If anything happened to his son, he wasn't sure he'd come out on the other side sane.

  "I can still see the look on his face when you brought home the shirt," she murmured, her voice breaking.

  "Jersey," he corrected, just the way he'd laughingly corrected her that day. Right before he and his son exchanged a smug "what does a woman know about football anyway" look.

  Teach me to throw, Daddy. Jimmy had begged, his eyes as bright as new pennies. But Grady had set a meeting with a snitch, and the man had been waiting.

  This weekend, he'd promised. But he'd been setting up a buy that weekend.

  Next Sunday for sure. He'd been twelve hours into a stakeout when he'd remembered the promise he'd tossed off so casually.

  He'd learned later that Jimmy had stood on the porch all day, with his football in his hand. Waiting.

  He drew a hard breath. He wasn't sure he could hate himself more than he hated himself at this moment.

  "Did … did he ever learn to throw a spiral?" he asked, his gaze riveted to his son's smile.

  "After a fashion. He … he wanted to surprise you when we were at the lake."

  He felt the sting of tears behind his eyes and lowered his gaze. "I, uh, just have a few more web sites to check. I'll be up in a minute."

  "Please, Grady. I'm tired of sleeping alone." She touched his shoulder, something she did so rarely these days he flinched.

  Ria carefully withdrew her hand and stepped back. "We can't go on like this." The pain in her voice tore at him, but somehow he couldn't make himself move. "I can't handle losing my son and fight for my marriage, too."

  The emotion that gripped him felt too much like the panic of a cornered animal. Somehow he fought it down. "Our marriage is fine, Ree. I'm just … tired."

  "I'm tired, too," she said softly, but with enough steel in her tone to have him glancing up. She waited until his gaze found hers before continuing. "I'm tired of fixing meals you don't eat, tired of watching the man I love work himself to death so he doesn't have to feel. I'm tired of living with a man who cringes whenever I touch him."

  "For God's sake, Ree," he muttered, his jaw hard. "You should know better than that."

  Ria ignored the stiff plea in his tone, her patience finally and irrevocably exhausted. For weeks—months—she'd been powerless to keep this strong, honorable man from flaying himself alive for something that wasn't his fault. Day after day he drew deeper into himself, aging before her eyes. She'd tried everything she could think of to help him. Nothing worked.

  She decided she had nothing to lose. Her marriage had been slipping away for years now due to Grady's constant work. Yet the thought of ending it was so painful she'd pushed it farther and farther into the back of her mind.

  "But you know what I'm tired of most, Grady?" She moved closer, crowding him, forcing him to listen. "I'm tired of wondering how long you plan to hide behind those walls of self-pity you've built around yourself."

  Something dangerous leaped into his eyes, and alarm raced through her. It was a look she'd never seen before, a look she suspected was as much a part of him as the ugly black gun that rode his hip. For an instant she wondered if she'd pushed too hard.

  He'd shown her anger before, but never this icy fury. She took a breath, made herself stand steady. But then, as she watched, he slowly absorbed the anger, drawing it inside like a banked fire.

  "I'm trying to find our son," he said in a voice as controlled as the rage. "Is that so wrong?"

  "Of course not! But what happens if you don't? Are we going to spend the rest of our lives creeping around the house like mourners at a funeral? Not speaking his name, preserving his room like a shrine?"

  He shoved back his chair and stood. His jaw was tight, his gaze fixed on the papers he shoveled into his open briefcase. "This conversation is pointless. We'll only end up saying things we'll regret."

  He was shutting her out again. Deliberately, coldly ignoring her needs. She realized she preferred the anger.

  "It's almost Christmas. Jimmy should be here, yes! He should be making his list for Santa and helping me bake cookies. I miss…" She felt her throat close, and paused to clear away the sudden burst of tears. "I pray every night that … that wherever he is, he's being treated w
ell."

  His face contorted, and for an instant he looked destroyed before he pulled her into his arms.

  "Don't, Ria, please don't."

  She fought the resurgence of tears, even as her body trembled. His big hand stroked her back, while the warmth of his body seeped through her robe. It felt so good to be in his arms again. To forget for a few moments that they'd been drawing farther and farther apart. That his obsession with proving himself as good a cop as his father and brothers wasn't driving them inexorably apart.

  "Remember the first Christmas we spent in this house?" she murmured against his chest. "I was pregnant with Jimmy and we hung this tiny stocking for him on the mantel. And then you made a big fire and we made love in front of the hearth."

  His breath was ragged. "You caught cold."

  She choked a laugh before pulling away. "And you fed me chicken soup and virgin hot toddies."

  His mouth slanted, and his face softened—and then, suddenly, she saw the flash of guilt. When Jimmy was born, he'd fought tears as he'd sworn to take care of them both. He felt he'd failed, and it was destroying him.

  If she lost him, too…

  "Make love to me, Grady," she pleaded almost desperately. "It's been so long. I need to be close to you."

  Grady heard the quick little catch in her voice and knew what it was like to be staked out and bleeding.

  It wasn't that he didn't want her. God knew he did, sometimes so desperately he'd ached with his need for her. But it seemed wrong, somehow, to feel pleasure while the room down the hall remained empty.

  "Ree, it's late—"

  "Don't push me away. Not tonight."

  Asking for what she needed shouldn't be so difficult, she told herself as she drew back. Grady was her husband, the man who'd taught her how wonderful physical love could be.

  They'd made love countless times in dozens of places. Jimmy had been conceived in a patch of clover on a deserted island in the middle of Lake Freeman while Fourth of July fireworks had burst overhead.

  In spite of the growing distance between them, they'd always had a wonderful sex life. Grady was a tender, thoughtful lover. When he was touching her, kissing her, he allowed the gentle, tender side of his nature to emerge. That was the man who'd won her, the man who'd looked at her with so much longing and love she'd felt like the luckiest woman in the world.