by Debra Webb
Two loud raps echoed from the door. “Laura, are you up in there? In about three seconds I’m coming in,” he warned.
So that’s what woke her. Laura bounded off the bed and hurried to the door. Today she would find a way to prove to Nick that Robby was real. Then maybe he would put some serious effort into helping her. If not, she would set out on her own. She reached the door just as Nick opened it.
The grim expression on his face loudly proclaimed his thoughts without his having to open his mouth. For at least a moment he must have thought she had made good on her threat to make a run for it. The realization that he had even considered her capable of giving him the slip lightened Laura’s mood considerably.
“Good morning,” she said with exaggerated cheer. God, why did he have to look so good? Her pulse reacted the moment her eyes lit on him.
He took stock of the room and then settled his searching gaze on hers. “Really, what’s good about it?”
Laura studied his chiseled features as she shoved her unbrushed hair back from her face. She cringed inwardly when she considered how she must look. Her hair a mess, her clothes slept in, no makeup. But not Nick. He always looked picture-perfect. Never a hair out of place. He looked as if he had taken great pains with every aspect of his appearance. But Laura knew that wasn’t the case. Perfection came naturally to Nick. It was the same with his lovemaking. Slow, thorough. Laura’s mouth went unbearably dry.
“We’re alive,” she offered in answer to his question, and directing her mind away from his expertise between the sheets. “That’s definitely good. And maybe today I’ll find my son.”
“There’s coffee in the kitchen,” he said impassively. He ignored her comment about Robby. “We should finish last night’s discussion.”
“Okay,” Laura replied just as impassively. “Give me five minutes to change.” Today was his last chance, she reminded that part of her that wanted so to believe in him. If he didn’t help her today…
Nick’s gaze traveled down the length of her and back. She didn’t miss the glint of male appreciation, but his gaze was hard when he met hers once more. “Five minutes. I’ve got a lot of questions that need answers.” Without another word, he turned and walked away.
Laura shoved the door closed behind him. She blew out a breath of annoyance. Men. She would never understand them. She was the victim here! Laura railed silently. Why did he make her feel like the villain? Someone tried to kill her last night. Again. Why wouldn’t Nick believe her?
James Ed. Laura crossed her arms over her chest and considered her loving brother. He had done this to her. Taken her life away, taken her child and the man she loved. And for what? Laura shook her head in aversion. Money. It was all about the money.
To hell with the money.
Maybe it was time Laura got down on his level. James Ed wasn’t the only one who could play dirty. Laura clenched her teeth until her jaws hurt. Whatever it takes, she promised herself. One way or another she would get her son back.
SEVEN MINUTES LATER, Nick noted impatiently, Laura breezed into the kitchen looking for all the world like a little girl. Jeans hugged her shapely legs while an oversized pink sweater engulfed the rest of her. Her hair was pulled back high on her head in a ponytail. Her sweet face was freshly scrubbed and bright with hope. Nick’s chest constricted. He swallowed that damned burning need to take her in his arms and just hold her. He couldn’t do that. It would jeopardize his perspective even further. He had a job to do. He shifted in his chair. Damn. Three seconds in her presence and his body was already reacting.
Things between them had always been like this—fast and furious. But neither was to blame. Their circumstances were equally fast and furious. Despite that fact, something drew Nick to her, made him want to believe her. To trust her. Whether Laura was telling the complete truth or not, something was wrong here. His instincts warned him that Laura was in real danger. Evidence or no, things just didn’t add up.
Laura popped a slice of bread into the toaster. Nick sipped his coffee and watched her graceful, confident movements. The drug had worn off completely now, he decided. Good. That would make things a lot easier, unless, of course, she became overwrought. Nick set his cup on the table and started to speak but speech eluded him when Laura bent over and poked around in the fridge.
He averted his gaze from her heart-shaped rear and passed a hand over his face. “I’m glad to see your appetite is back.”
“I just realized I was starving.” Milk in one hand, jam in the other, Laura shoved the fridge door closed with one slender hip. “I have no idea when I ate last.” She smiled as if knowing some secret he wasn’t privy to. Nick almost groaned at the angelic gesture. “But I’m about to make up for at least part of it.”
“The man,” Nick began, drawing her attention from spreading strawberry jam on her toast to him. “Did he actually tell you that James Ed hired him to kill you?” Nick had replayed their conversation a dozen times during the night. He kept coming up with the same questions. Questions he needed answered. And only Laura could answer them. Half the night had been spent running scenarios, the other half fighting the need to go to her bed. Nick tensed. That couldn’t happen—even if she were to invite him, which was highly unlikely. This go-around Nick had to remain as personally detached as possible. It was the only way to really protect Laura, and to get to the bottom of whatever was going on.
Laura placed the butter knife on the counter. She frowned thoughtfully. “No, not in so many words. But when I asked him why he was doing this, he said ‘for the money, of course’.” Laura shrugged. “Who would stand to gain from my death?” She met Nick’s gaze then, hers certain in her conclusion. “James Ed.”
“I checked his financial standing forward and backward. His assets were a bit shaky prior to the election two years ago, but he recovered. Most politicians barely skate through the election process without financial crisis. James Ed didn’t seem to need your trust badly enough to kill for it, in my opinion.” Nick pushed his now cold coffee aside. “He appeared to have enough money already.”
Laura deposited her skimpy breakfast on the table and dropped into a chair. “Then why would that man have wanted to kill me if he weren’t working for my brother?”
Nick lifted one shoulder in a semblance of a shrug. “It could have been a kidnap-ransom plot gone awry,” he suggested. That had been the police’s theory two years ago.
Laura shook her head. “No. He intended to kill me, then and there. What good’s a ransom if the sacrificial lamb is already dead?”
She definitely had a point there. If only Nick had remembered more details about the man’s physical features, maybe they could have nailed down his intent and his associates two years ago. But Nick had barely survived the gunshot and ensuing surgery. The entire event was forever a blur in his mind—except for the snatch of conversation he had heard. Nick would never forget that. The guy was dead according to Laura. Whatever had motivated him, he had gotten his in the end.
Nick took a deep breath and forced the old rage to retreat. “Maybe he was just a nutcase who wanted to get back at James Ed,” he suggested.
Laura laughed humorlessly. “You just don’t want to believe that James Ed is behind this little soap opera.” She leveled her determined gaze on Nick’s. “He tried to marry me off, then he tried to prove me mentally unstable. And when all that failed, he got desperate and hired someone to kill me. Think about it,” she urged fiercely. “Ten million dollars is a lot of motivation. If I married, was pronounced mentally incompetent or dead before my twenty-fifth birthday, big brother gained control of the money. No matter what your investigation turned up, he wanted that money.” Laura leaned back in her chair. “He still does.” Laura blinked. “If he hasn’t gotten it already.”
Nick shook his head, still denying her assertion. “But why? He had enough of his own.”
“Is there ever enough?”
Nick just couldn’t reconcile the picture Laura painted with the man
he knew. James Ed had truly grieved after Laura’s disappearance. His happiness at having her back home was so clear a blind man could have seen it. “It just doesn’t feel right,” he countered.
Laura sighed. “I don’t know anything to say that will convince you, but I know I’m right. And somehow he found out about my son and took him to get at me. He knows I won’t go far as long as there’s any chance my child is here somewhere.” Her gaze grew distant. “How can I run from James Ed when he holds my heart in his hands?”
Laura’s words touched Nick so deeply that he couldn’t speak for a time. If Laura had a child, he would definitely help her find him. And if he discovered that James Ed was behind the threat to Laura, the man would not live to regret it. Finally, Nick looked from her untouched toast to her. “You should eat,” he said quietly. No one was going to hurt Laura again. But what about the hospital report? his more logical side argued.
She shook her head. “No. You have something else to say.” She pressed him with her gaze, reading him like an open book. “Say it.”
“All right. How do you explain the hospital report? I read it myself.” Give me an answer I can live with, Nick urged silently.
Laura pressed her lips together and blinked rapidly to fight the fresh tears shining in her eyes. “You know I’ve even considered that maybe I am crazy. Maybe I imagined the last two years.” She shrugged one thin shoulder. “Maybe Robby isn’t real.” Laura flattened her palms on the table and slowly shook her head from side to side. “But I can’t even imagine that. He is real, Nick. As real as you and me. And I have to find him, no matter what it takes.” She drew in a bolstering breath. “There’s no way I can live without him. He’s all I have in this world. Can you understand that?”
Long minutes passed with nothing but silence and a kind of tension that only old lovers could feel between them. Emotions he knew he shouldn’t feel battled with his need to stick with the facts. “Prove it,” he demanded softly. “I need hard evidence, Laura.”
“Okay.” Laura licked her trembling lips. “Take me to the clinic where he was born. They have records. Would that be proof enough?” she asked sarcastically.
“Absolutely,” he said gently.
“Fine.” Laura stood. “We should get started then. The clinic is a good half-day drive from here.”
“First,” Nick ordered, “you’ll eat. Then we’ll go.” Nick held her gaze with his until she relented and settled back into her chair. A single tear trekked down one soft cheek. Every cell that made him who he was reacted to her pain, ached to reach out to her. The strength and determination radiating beneath all that vulnerability played havoc with his defenses. “You show me one slip of evidence and I swear I’ll move heaven and earth to find your child,” he vowed.
WELCOME TO PLEASANT RIDGE the sign read.
Laura’s heart rate accelerated. She suppressed the excitement bubbling inside her at finally reaching the small Alabama town where Robby was born. In just a few short minutes she would have the proof she needed. Then Nick would help her find her baby. Laura brushed back the tears of relief. Hold on, girl, she told herself. You’ll find him. Nick won’t let you down. He promised.
Laura glanced at the strong profile of the man behind the wheel. He was so good-looking. She had fallen hard and fast for him two years ago, and had loved him ever since. A tiny smile tugged at Laura’s lips. Confusion had reigned supreme in her life back then with the insanity revolving around the election and James Ed’s strange behavior. Laura’s smile dipped into a frown. And the attempts on her life. Nick had charged in and taken control of everything, including her heart. She had rebelled at first. Just another man trying to tell her what to do, and who would believe nothing she said, Laura had assumed. But Nick proved her wrong on that score. He reached out to her, made her want to trust him.
But nothing had prepared her for the way he made love to her. Only her second sexual experience, Laura’s unskilled enthusiasm couldn’t hold a candle to Nick’s complete mastery of the art. She trembled inside at the memory of how easily he had coaxed the woman in her to bloom with just his touch, his kiss. Then when he had been inside her, all else had ceased to exist. There was only Nick and the way he loved her.
Hours had melted away as they had loved each other that one night. Then that murderous thief had barged in unimpeded and stolen the life she could have had with Nick. Laura clutched the car door’s armrest and closed her eyes as the painful pictures flashed through her mind. Her heart pounded harder and harder with each passing frame of memory. Nick had pushed her behind him to protect her. Unarmed, he had looked death square in the eye without hesitation.
The sound of the gun firing echoed in Laura’s ears. Nick had fallen at her feet, but the other man had grabbed her before she could help Nick. He had forced the small handgun into her hand, closed her fingers around it, then pitched it to the floor a few feet away from where Nick lay bleeding to death. Laura hadn’t understood then that he was setting her up as Nick’s killer.
Laura shivered and forced the memories away. Nick was alive. Somehow he had managed to find his cell phone in the tangled sheet on the floor. The call to 9-1-1 before he had lost consciousness was all that had saved him. Laura had read the story in the newspaper. She had been listed as missing, possibly dead. She swallowed, but not dead enough to suit her brother. If the world thought she was dead, why hadn’t James Ed left it at that? She was out of his hair. He could have the money. Why had he hunted her down and dragged her back home?
Maybe, Laura thought with a frown, he hadn’t been able to access the trust fund without producing a body. Or maybe he was afraid she would show up when she turned twenty-five and demand her money. She considered her brother’s obvious determination. He wanted her dead, whatever the reason. Laura turned her attention back to the driver. Unless she could convince Nick that she was right very soon, she was as good as dead. Eventually he would have to turn her over to James Ed.
And where would that leave Robby?
“Is this the place?”
Laura jerked from her disturbing reverie. Nick had parked and was watching her closely, too closely. Laura quickly surveyed the one-story building in front of them. She nodded. “Yeah, this is it.” Pleasant Ridge Medical Clinic was lettered on the plate glass window. Not much had changed as far as Laura could see. Thankfully the clinic still opened on Saturdays. There were several other cars in the parking lot, but that was the norm. People came from all over the county for low-cost and, in some cases, free medical care. The cost was based on income, but the service was as good as anyplace else. Laura had been extremely pleased with her care, as well as Robby’s, here.
“What name did you use?”
Laura turned to Nick, but hesitated. Would he find her choice of aliases suspicious? There was no other way. She needed those records. “Forester,” she said quickly before she lost her nerve. “Rhonda Forester for me, Robert—” Laura’s heart skidded to a halt in her chest. Her son’s full name was Robert Nicholas Forester. Oh God. “I named my son Robert.”
“Just follow my lead,” Nick told her as he opened the car door. “Don’t say anything unless I ask you a question.”
Laura nodded and scooted out after him. She followed Nick toward the entrance. She clenched and unclenched her hands, then smoothed the damp palms over the fuzzy material of her bulky sweater. There was no other alternative. She had to do this. Laura would deal with Nick’s suspicions later. Right now she had to do what she had to do. Proving Robby existed was her primary goal. Without proof Nick wouldn’t help her. Laura shivered and hugged herself. She had forgotten her jacket in her rush this morning.
Nick pulled the door open and waited for Laura to enter first. She met his gaze one last time before going inside. Okay, Laura, you can do this. Laura forced a smile for the numerous patients who glanced her way as she crossed the waiting room. Nick followed close behind her. She stopped in front of the receptionist’s window and waited for the young blond woman to look
up from her work.
“May I help you?”
She was new, Laura noted. The receptionist before was blond as well, but a little older.
“I certainly hope so,” Nick said with a charming smile. The receptionist warmed to him immediately.
“What can I do for you, sir?”
Laura looked away. She didn’t need to see this interaction, and she sure didn’t need to feel what she was feeling as a result. Women probably responded to Nick this way all the time.
Nick displayed his Colby Agency ID. “My name is Foster. I’m a private investigator from Chicago.”
The woman was impressed, Laura noticed when she allowed herself a peek in her direction.
“I’m working on a child abduction case.”
“Oh my,” the receptionist named Jill, according to her name tag, said on a little gasp. “How can I help you?”
“The child, a boy, was born here last…” Nick looked to Laura.
“August sixth,” she finished, praying that Nick wouldn’t do the math. Jill looked doubtfully from Laura to Nick.
“Records you might have to corroborate that birth would be of tremendous assistance,” he added.
“Well, our records are private,” Jill said slowly, caution finally outweighing Nick’s charm.
Nick smiled reassuringly at her. “I don’t need to see your records. I just need you to verify the birth, and that the child was a boy and left this clinic alive and well. His name was Robert Forester, the mother was Rhonda.”
Jill looked uncertain. “I don’t see any harm in that.”
“It’s perfectly legal for you to answer that question,” Nick offered placatingly. “I’m sure you would much rather answer that simple question than to be subpoenaed to court.”