Stevie concentrated on folding the side along one red stripe. "What kind of signal?" he asked when he had it right.
"You ever hear of Mayday? Or maybe SOS?"
"Sure. There was this war movie and this ship got torpedoed. They sent out this signal."
"If you hang the flag upside down, with the stars down, it means that you're in trouble and you need help."
"Hey, that's gnarly."
"Guess it is." Grady handed over his end, and Stevie finished folding. "One thing, though, Jim. Don't ever do it unless you really need help. But if—let's say someone came around looking to hurt you or your mom—do it as quick as you can, and then hide someplace and wait for help." Grady glanced at the lake again. And then at the hill where the road was. "Is that clear, son?"
Stevie nodded, a little scared. "I can run really fast if I have to."
"Good man." Grady ruffled his hair before grabbing his stuff. "You put away the flag and I'll meet you at the boat. Old Whiskerface is waiting."
* * *
Chapter 13
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He was a big boy, now. Three years old. He almost never sucked his thumb anymore and pretty soon he was going to ask Mommy to turn off the night-light when he went to bed. He knew there were no such things as monsters because Daddy said so, and Daddy never lied. But Daddy also said that there were some really bad guys in the world who liked to hurt little kids, which was why he wasn't ever s'posed to talk to grown-ups he didn't know. And he hadn't.
He'd gone to his room to get Pooh when two men with funny masks on their faces had snuck up behind him. Jimmy had tried to scream for Mommy, but the big man in the black clothes had shoved something into his mouth, then dragged him off to the van with no windows.
Jimmy had kicked and punched at the guy's chest, but the guy just laughed and stuck an awful needle in his arm. Jimmy didn't remember anything else until he woke up in the back seat.
Jimmy was trying his bestest to be brave, but he was so scared his throat felt funny and his head was all fuzzy. He wanted his mommy, but the two bad guys just laughed whenever he asked how long before he could go home.
Jimmy really wished Daddy was here now.
He felt real safe when Daddy was in the house. When Mommy and Daddy tucked him in and told him to sleep tight Jimmy knew everything was okay. Sometimes he'd wake up and hear Mommy and Daddy laughing in their room down the hall, and he'd laugh, too, 'cause he felt so warm and safe.
"My daddy's a p'liceman and he'll shoot you if you don't let me go h-home," he told the man with the funny mask in his best scary voice.
"Forget it, kid. Ain't nobody coming for you, no matter how long you bawl."
The man's name was Nikolai and he was big, like Daddy. Only the man's eyes were mean, like the rattlesnake in Jimmy's favorite book about bugs and reptiles and dinosaurs.
Jimmy scrubbed the tears off his cheeks. He didn't know what to do. His Daddy was s'posed to be here by now. His mouth trembled, and the tears spilled out of his eyes again.
"I want to go home!"
"Shut your yap, kid, or I'll shut it for you."
Jimmy clamped on his cheek between his teeth but he couldn't stop crying. The little man jerked around, then cocked back his fist…
* * *
The scream was earsplitting, jerking Ria from the warm cocoon of deep sleep. Heart pounding at a frightening speed, she fumbled for the light, even as the high-pitched sound reverberated through the cottage.
Grady was already up and tugging on his shorts. An instant later, he was gone, the weapon he'd taken from beneath his pillow in his hand.
"Oh, God, Jimmy!" she cried, even as she struggled to free herself from the sheet. In her haste, she tumbled to the floor, banging her elbow on the nightstand as she fell.
"Mama's coming," she called as she somehow scrambled to her feet.
Grady reached Jimmy first. He'd turned on the light and tossed his pistol onto the top bunk. Half lying, half sitting on the bed, he was holding the obviously terrified little boy who was kicking like a wild thing, his brown eyes round with terror.
"Let me go-o-o-o-o!" Jimmy shouted, his voice little-boy shrill. "I want to go home."
Grady wrapped his arms around Jimmy's lanky body and brought his face close to his. "Jimmy, look at me, son," he commanded in a low, insistent tone that somehow pierced the shrill cries. "You are home, son. It was just a dream. No one's ever going to take you away again."
"They put tape over my mouth and I c-couldn't breathe. And then … and then they made me drink awful stuff and then that guy Nikolai, he said I'd never see my m-mommy again."
Grady glanced her way, his eyes bleak, his jaw tight. "Jim, look. There's your mom. Right there by the door."
Jimmy stopped struggling and jerked his head toward her.
"Here I am, baby," she said in a soothing tone as she approached one slow step at a time. "Mom's here."
His face crumpled, and he jerked away from his father. "Mommy!"
Looking achingly like the baby he'd been once, he held out his arms. She gathered him to her breast as he started to sob.
"It's all right, baby. It's all right." She stroked his hair, ran her hands over his shaking little body. Finally, after endless, miserable months, her baby was home again.
"D-Daddy didn't come. I w-waited and waited."
Grady went white. "I would have come, Jim. I couldn't find you."
"Moira said you didn't want me 'cause I'm too dumb to learn to read and write."
"That's not true. I swear it's not true."
Grady looked destroyed. Ria's heart broke for him. He had found their son. "Sweetheart, Daddy wouldn't lie to you. He did everything he could to find you. Tomorrow I'll show you the folder with the flyers he sent out every six months. Every day he called other police departments and talked to lots and lots of people."
She broke off to take a quick breath. "We were so sad when you weren't here. For years before you were born, Daddy and I prayed to have a little boy just like you. And when we did, we were so happy we just kept smiling and smiling, so you see we'd never, ever do anything to hurt you. We certainly wouldn't send you away."
"But Moira said—"
"Jimmy, look at me," she ordered. His lashes were stuck together, and his innocent mouth trembled, but he looked. "Have we said anything since you've been back with us that would make you think we don't want you?"
His shoulder aimed for his ear in his version of his father's quick, impatient shrug. Ria brushed back his hair and kissed his forehead. "Sweetie, your daddy has been getting up at four in the morning and going to work early so he can come home early. So he could teach you to play croquet or how to fish. Having you back was the most important thing in the world to him. To both of us."
She glanced at Grady's face and saw anguish beneath the stone. He needed to be reassured as much as their son. Right now, though, the son they both adored needed her more. "Jimbo, if you could choose right now, would you really want to go back to California and live with Lance and Moira?"
His lashes flickered as he looked from one of his parents to the other. She saw the conflicting loyalties, the terror that he would be tossed out if he wasn't good enough or nice enough or quiet enough, and her heart ached.
Suddenly she was six and her mother was screaming obscenities as a stranger dragged her away. Ria had screamed, too, and tried to fight off the arms holding her. Her mother had been crazy, yes, but she'd been the only security Ria had ever known.
Terrified and lonely, Ria hadn't been able to stop crying. Her foster mother had finally given up and called social services, who'd found her another home. By then Ria had figured out that people threw you away if you cried, so she stopped. She had nightmares too, screaming in the dark. Her foster parents tried, but they had a new baby, and Ria's screaming made the baby scream, too.
The social worker she'd had before Alice had lectured her sternly about controlling her emotions. No one wanted a little girl who was out of con
trol. Besides, look what had happened to her mother when she couldn't control herself. By the time she'd started college, she'd gotten very good at controlling herself.
Oh, God, she thought. What have I done?
"I want to stay here with you," Jimmy said softly. "If it's okay."
"Very, very okay," she said through the tears that were suddenly blinding her. She hugged him tightly, feeling love flood her. Finally he'd had enough and started to wiggle. A good sign, she thought, letting him go.
"Since we're all up, why don't we have a snack." She smiled at the glint that appeared in Jimmy's eyes. "Cookies and milk okay with you?"
"I wouldn't mind." Jimmy dashed his hand over her face, then shot a hesitant glance at his father. "Is it okay?"
"Sure thing." Grady cleared his throat and smiled. "Okay if I give you a hug first?"
Jimmy shrugged, a young male uncomfortable showing emotion to the leader of the pack. "I guess, if you want."
Ria saw the flinch deep in Grady's eyes. But the look on his face was pure Hardin bluff. "Hey, no problem," he said as he ruffled Jimmy's hair instead. "We'll do it later."
Looking relieved, Jimmy scrambled to his feet. "I'll get the cookies," he said, before racing from the room, his hair standing on end and the nightmare forgotten.
"Looks like our son is back," Ria said with a shaky laugh.
"Looks like." Careful to duck his head so he wouldn't bang the upper bunk, Grady stood up. Ria stood as well.
"He was only three, Grady. He didn't understand that daddies aren't superhuman."
His mouth slanted into a bitter line she'd seen only once—on the day they'd faced a judge in divorce court. "Especially his, right?"
"You did all you could. It's finished. Let it go." His gaze froze, then seemed to bore into her. She felt his tension, saw his mouth soften.
"I would die for you if that would prove how much I love you," he said quietly.
"I don't want you to die."
His grin flashed, a little cocky. "Works for me, honey," he drawled before retrieving the .45 that was such a part of him. "I'll just put this up."
He started to step past her, but stopped when she put out a hand to touch his arm. "Are you all right?"
"Sure. Why wouldn't I be? Jimmy's back where he belongs. With his mom." He leaned forward to brush his mouth across her cheek. "Best move those gorgeous buns, honey. Your son's waiting."
* * *
"Fish not biting, little brother?"
Grady glanced up from the arrest report he'd been reading to see his brother on the threshold, looking every inch the deputy chief in a conservative gray suit and tie. Shiny stockbroker shoes, too, he noted with a sardonic quirk of one corner of his mouth. The only shoes he owned with laces were his sneakers and the ugly black brogans that went with the uniform hanging in the back of his closet. But then he was at the end of his climb. Kale was still heading up.
Word was Kale was a lock for chief when the present one retired in three or four more years. Grady was proud of his brother, even if he was dreading the day when he had to salute him for real.
"You know how it is with us dedicated types," he tossed off with a grin that was only a little forced. "We'd rather push papers than sit on a shady bank and toss out a line."
Kale snorted as he stopped propping up the door frame and limped to the chair opposite Grady's cluttered desk. For the past week he'd been in San Francisco attending a conference of senior law enforcement officials. Before that he'd spent a week in Florida visiting his teenage daughter who lived with her mother in Miami.
"You get tired of the fast lane on the left coast, Bro?" Grady asked, leaning back.
"Got tired of my butt going numb is more like it. Never did like listening to bull, no matter how pretty it's packaged."
The chair suddenly seemed a lot smaller as his brother settled six feet four inches of lean muscle and heavy bone into the seat. Kale's face tightened as he stretched out his legs. Though big brother would never admit it, his bum hip was obviously acting up.
It had been seven years since he'd taken a header from a second-story window while trying to rescue a three-year-old hostage. In one of life's more painful coincidences, Grady had been at Home Hospital when they'd brought Kale in, darn near every bone in his body busted. While the rest of his family had huddled outside the OR praying for his big brother, Grady had been upstairs in the birthing suite with Ria, coaching her through thirty hours of hard labor as she struggled to deliver the child they'd been awaiting so eagerly.
Once Jimmy had been safely delivered, Grady had rushed to the nearest pay phone to call his folks, only to get word from the sympathetic nurse that the brother he worshiped was downstairs battling for his life.
The doctors hadn't given him odds worth spit, and it had taken him a full year before he was steady on his feet, but Kale being Kale had muscled his way back to health.
"I damn near shouted down the roof when I heard the message you'd left on my machine." Kale cleared his throat and glanced at the bulletin board where the last of a series of flyers was still pinned. Grady intended to leave it there as a reminder never to lose sight of his priorities again. "You done good, Bro."
Grady frowned. "I did diddly and you know it."
Kale lifted an eyebrow. "I know a man who needs a reason to keep beating up on himself will always find one. The question is why the need."
Grady shifted and told himself he wasn't squirming. "You always did have a wild imagination."
Kale was silent for a moment. Beyond the glass partition the usual Monday morning circus had taken on a fourth ring. Already Grady had made a couple of judgment calls that hadn't sat well with a couple of his detectives. A "no" on asking a judge for a search warrant that was too shaky, a "no way" on an elaborate sting that wasn't ready to be put in place. His In basket was buried under a stack of stuff his assistant had flagged as priority, meaning, he'd be lucky to get out from behind his desk before noon.
Ria's vacation officially ended in three days, but she was planning to do a lot of her work from the cottage. On the days she had to be in town, Grady would stay with Jim at the lake.
Neither had talked much about the future. By tacit agreement, they were waiting to talk with McCurry one week from today before making any changes.
"So … how's my nephew, besides being bigger and older?"
"A hell of a kid." He glanced at the photo on his desk. He needed to take some new ones. "He's dyslexic. Can't read more than a few words. The bitch keeping him couldn't be bothered to get him help."
Kale's comment was savagely raw. "Does DEA have a positive ID yet?"
Grady lifted an eyebrow. "Did some checking, did you?"
"You think I wouldn't?"
"Nope." Grady wanted to be pissed. Instead he was touched. Kale had the same instinct to take care of those he loved as he did. "Got a call from Mendoza last Friday. Said the guy was a Canadian national with a long list of priors for larceny and fraud. Seems there's a nice fat warrant waiting to be served in Toronto. Mendoza was walking the extradition through channels himself."
Kale nodded. "And the woman?"
"A former hooker from New Orleans. She's wanted for killing a john."
Needing to move, he got to his feet and pulled down the blinds screening his office from the bullpen. "Ria doesn't know that. It would kill her to know what kind of woman had been raising her child."
"Jimmy's your child, too."
"Yeah, well it's doing a number on me, too. I just have more experience handling it."
Kale's gaze followed him as he paced off a few laps. When he'd worked off enough of the tension that had him wanting to climb walls, he sat again.
"Better now?" Kale asked, amusement lurking in his eyes.
"Some, yeah."
Kale shifted awkwardly, his face tightening. "So are you two working on a second chance or just sleeping together?"
"There are no second chances, Kale."
"That sounds heavy. Wann
a talk about it?"
"Not much to talk about. She needed a shoulder for a while, now she doesn't."
Kale adjusted the knife pleat in his trousers. "The way you were after the divorce, we all pretty much figured you were still in love with her."
"Was and am."
"So what's the problem?"
"It takes two. Bottom line, I can't make her love me again."
"You gonna keep trying?"
"Nope."
His big brother pinned him with a look that never failed to peel away a few layers of protective camouflage. "In that case, how about a drink?"
"You buying?"
"Guess I am, yeah."
Grady glanced at his watch. He and Ria were scheduled to take Jimmy to the amusement park at Indiana Beach for a picnic lunch.
"What the hell, they won't miss me," he muttered, getting to his feet. "Hope your wallet is fat, brother, 'cause I feel a long afternoon coming on."
* * *
Monk Benteen parked the stolen van behind a storage shed to the rear of the property. During the week he'd spent watching the house, he hadn't seen anyone but the woman who'd turned Brenda against him and the blond guy she was shacking up with. Damn woman must have left a half dozen messages on his machine, the last one just yesterday, begging Brenda to call her.
It had taken him time to come up with the Hardin woman's whereabouts. He had to grease a coupla palms, threaten to bust a coupla heads, but he'd traced her to this place.
Monk allowed himself a congratulatory smile as he performed a final equipment check. Duct tape. Skinning knife. A really sweet Beretta.
His blood pumped hot as he swept the area with a trained gaze. It couldn't be better. The nearest neighbors were screened from view by a row of thick cypress trees, and the house was set back from the road far enough to prevent observation by a passing motorist. Though he couldn't see the lake, he'd spent enough time cruising by in the fishing boat he'd rented to feel sure he could block any escape in that direction.
Finally, his mental checklist completed, he declared himself ready.
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