“Scow!” she squealed, her voice high and filled with utter delight.
I loved the natural happiness and curiosity of babies. True innocence. And I absolutely hated with every fiber of my being the people who stole that purity from them.
“What’s she saying?” I asked. Amused, I wondered if she thought Thoreau was a cow.
“I don’t know.” He fought off a yawn, barely winning the battle. “She only talks a little bit. Basic words like mama, juice, up, down. But she’s always jabbering, stringing syllables together. The only time she really cries is at bedtime. Missing Kira, I imagine, and missing normal routines.”
“It’s been quite an upheaval for her.” I didn’t say it, but he had been a stranger to this little girl. She had to be completely confused.
“I know, Lucy. I know.”
Birdsong floated through the open windows as I struggled to recall all I knew about Kira. I could easily picture what she looked like with her chin-length auburn hair that she always styled in loose curls, her inquisitive no-nonsense hazel eyes, her high cheekbones, and full lips slicked with nothing but sheer gloss. Mid-thirties, medium height, nice teeth, and a go-get-’em attitude. But other than appearances, I didn’t know much. “What are your leads?”
“One is Kira’s producer at Channel 3, and the other is a neighbor she was reportedly close with, Morgan Creighton.” He kept a watchful gaze on Ava as she tentatively investigated her new surroundings. Her steps were wobbly but taken with wild abandon.
I stretched my aching leg, adjusted my robe, and tried to figure out what direction to take with this case. “Do you know if Kira was currently working on a story?”
“No idea,” he answered, “but it’s a good place to start. She was serious about her job and not exactly known for fluff pieces.”
Kira Fitzpatrick was one of the best investigative reporters around. Having burned more than one bridge, it was possible she was hiding from one of her many enemies. It was easier to hide one person than two, which might explain dropping Ava with Aiden.
“I need to report her missing,” Aiden said softly. “It’s the only way I can truly get this case rolling. I’ll be able to get the subpoenas I need to access her bank accounts, her phone records.”
It would be nice to know if she’d withdrawn any large amounts of money recently, or used her credit or debit cards. Phone records would be invaluable, not only to pinpoint whom she’d last spoken to, but to also build a timeline. Both were excellent places to start and would tell us a lot, including possible locations to search.
“But I have to keep Ava safe. Kira was extremely worried for Ava’s safety. I can’t help but conclude that Ava is at risk from whatever—or whomever—had Kira agitated.”
I watched the little girl wander over to the bassinet Dovie had dropped off a week ago, another one of her strong-armed hints for Sean and me to procreate as soon as humanly possible. Ebbie and Grendel had taken a liking to the bed and were going to be sorely upset when Dovie repossessed it to give to Preston and my brother Cutter.
The sea breeze tussled Ava’s hair, making the short fine strands stand on end as she continued to explore. “What do you plan on doing with Ava while we investigate?” She couldn’t possibly go with us.
Clasping his hands, he leaned forward. “I don’t know what to do. I thought about taking her up to my parents’ house in Maine, but I don’t know who’s aware that I’m her father. If someone is desperate to get to her, they might come looking for me, and as an extension…my family. I need a safe house. Somewhere no one would think to look. And I need someone to watch her who I trust. Someone who’s good with kids.” Looking hopeful, he added, “I was thinking Dovie. She has a condo in New York City, doesn’t she? She could take Ava down there…”
She did. And Dovie would probably jump at the chance, but there were two big problems with that. One was Em and the fact that she’d kill him for not picking her. The other was that Dovie was already out of town. “She’s gone. Last night, she spirited Preston and Cutter down to her house on Martha’s Vineyard for a couple of weeks while Preston recuperates.” Dovie had taken away Preston’s phone and disconnected the Internet at the summer cottage. “No distractions or worries.”
At first, Preston hadn’t wanted to go. She didn’t know how to unplug, and certainly wasn’t used to not operating at full speed. But all it had taken was some gentle prodding by Cutter, and the full effect of his puppy-dog eyes, and she was packing her bags.
She’d taken some time off from her job as a columnist at the Mad Blotter, and fortunately, she wasn’t taking summer classes as she worked to earn a degree in journalism. Knowing Preston, though, she was probably itching to get back to writing. She had enough material on the recent arsonist case to fill several stories.
I was glad they were out of town. If Preston knew about Ava and Kira… She wouldn’t be able to keep out of the investigation. That was the last thing she needed right now. She needed to focus on healing.
I had to make sure she didn’t find out. Dovie, too, because she couldn’t keep this secret—it was too big. I was going to have to call Cutter and enlist him in my efforts.
Aiden shook his head in dismay.
I shifted on my seat, drawing my good leg up beneath me. “What about Em? She fits all your criteria. And she has the added perk of being a pediatrician.” Well, a former pediatrician. Taking care of sick children all day had taken an emotional toll on her, so after much deliberation she left her job to go back to school to get her teaching degree. “And, she’s still living with Dovie, who has plenty of room for a little one to run around. She even has a nursery done up in anticipation of all the great-grandchildren I’m supposed to produce.”
He closed his eyes for a long second. When he reopened them, I saw nothing but anguish. “I…I can’t,” he whispered.
“Why not?” I was honestly surprised. Em seemed the perfect solution.
“Dovie’s house is too close. I can’t put Em in danger. It’s too risky.”
Ah. I should have connected those dots. Aiden was nothing if not protective of those he cared for.
Trying to come up with a solution, I rocked as I watched Ava stomp toward the fluttering curtain sheers. She had a stiff gait, and was top heavy, but she was a speedy little thing. Much faster than I was these days thanks to my broken foot. My gaze settled on my orthopedic boot, and a solution to Aiden’s problem popped into my head. It wasn’t that long ago that I’d needed a safe house of my own…and had received a little help from an unlikely source. “What if Dovie’s house became a safe house?”
“It’s not possible,” he said.
“Oh, but it is.” I smiled. “I know people.”
Humor flashed across his features before being chased off by his anxiety. “Who do you know?”
“Rent-a-ninjas.”
“Rent-a-what?”
“You don’t have to use that disgusted tone. They’re not really ninjas, but are a group of highly-trained protection experts who are basically invisible when they’re on duty. They spent a good chunk of time here last week while that arsonist was on the loose, so they already know the lay of the land.”
One of his eyebrows lifted in skepticism. “Did you find them in the Yellow Pages?”
“No,” I said, insulted again. “They came to me through Jeremy Cross.”
Aiden stared at his empty tumbler with undisguised longing. “Who?”
Ava giggled as Thoreau ran circles around her legs. “Scow! Woof, woof!”
I couldn’t help but smile at her. “Jeremy is part of the Diviner Whiners,” I explained to Aiden as I watched Ava plop to the floor to play with Thoreau. “Kind of. It’s a long story.” Jeremy, a former FBI profiler, was an animal communicator with a devastating history of dealing with psychos. He was a man of many secrets, few words, and much angst.
He was also a perfect match for my other best friend, Marisol. They’d had a coffee date yesterday, and I wondered how it had gone—she ha
dn’t called with an update yet. Although her first impression of him hadn’t been favorable, auras didn’t lie. If both could let down their walls, I knew they would be happy together.
It was a big if.
Be that as it may, Jeremy was a security expert. In fact, Sean and I both owed him our lives—a debt I wasn’t sure I could ever repay. Standing, I tightened the sash on my robe and reached for my crutches. “No one is going to make it on this property who doesn’t belong here.” I slowly made my way to the kitchen, where earlier I’d abandoned my coffee when he rang the doorbell. “It’s the perfect solution.”
“I don’t know, Lucy. I don’t know these guys. How am I supposed to trust them with…my daughter?”
The anxiety in his voice nearly broke my heart. He was being torn apart by what he knew he had to do, and what his heart was telling him.
“I do know them,” I said, trying to reassure him. I stuck my mug in the microwave. “I trusted them with my life, with Sean’s, with Dovie’s, with Em’s… They didn’t let me down. They won’t let you down.”
He held my gaze. “Highly-trained security experts, you say?”
“Yes.”
“They carry weapons?”
“An arsenal.”
“All right,” he finally said, though he didn’t sound happy about it. “Can you make the arrangements?”
He hated turning control over to someone else, but there really wasn’t another option. We needed help. The microwave dinged. “Absolutely.”
Ava laughed as the curtains billowed into her face. Joyous little shrieks that filled my heart with happiness. Then suddenly, I found myself blinking back tears.
The thought of losing my own mother—not only losing, but not knowing what happened to her—made my chest tighten so much it hurt to breathe. As flighty as my mother might be, she was…my heart.
I’d had a complicated upbringing. My father was a world-renowned matchmaker, the King of Love, thanks to his secret psychic ability to read auras. It was a gift that reportedly came from Cupid himself and had been passed down through the Valentine bloodlines. When I was fourteen a lightning strike zapped my ability right out of me and zapped in the gift of finding lost objects…and also other abilities I was still learning about.
Cupid, reportedly, had also given my family a curse. We couldn’t see our own auras, and therefore, our matches were left to chance. So far, not a single Valentine marriage had survived the curse. My parents remained married but in name only. They’d led separate lives for most of my life…and in fact, during that time, my father went and had himself a love child no one knew about until six months ago. Cutter. The general public didn’t know about his parentage—at least not yet, but I was sure it would come out eventually.
Recently, my parents had started dating again. I didn’t expect it to last much longer, though I had to admit, it was cute seeing them together.
Despite my crazy life with my nutty family, my psychicness, and my independent streak, my mother had always been there for me. Through thick and thin, breakups, denouncing my trust fund, and even dead bodies.
I could only imagine the pain of what it would be like if she abruptly disappeared, and I could only hope that other than the obvious upheaval of being dropped off with Aiden, Ava was oblivious to all the grim questions surrounding the disappearance of her mother.
She seemed to be as she giggled while trying to catch the fluttering curtain.
Suddenly, the bedroom door whipped open, and Sean’s body filled the opening, peering out with his eyes narrowed. Bare-chested and sleep rumpled, he wore only a pair of drawstring pajama pants and a perplexed expression. Dark stubble covered both his superhero jaw and his cheeks as his milky gray gaze darted from me to Ava to Aiden.
He blinked then refocused on the little girl, who watched him with the curiosity of someone viewing a carnival sideshow freak.
I couldn’t exactly blame her. Bruising discolored his face, his head was wrapped in white gauze to cover dozens of stitches, thanks to an unfortunate run-in with a baseball bat. He looked like a cross between a ghoul and a mummy. My gaze went to an old scar on his upper left chest. Beneath it was an implanted defibrillator that kept his heart from stopping any time it pleased.
The man was a mess.
A gorgeous mess.
My gorgeous mess.
In the grand scheme of things, we hadn’t been dating that long—only since November. But there had been an instant, undeniable connection. Love at first sight—as sappy as that sounded. It was only with him that I could see visions of the future. When our palms touched it was electric. Literally. Little zaps that revealed what was in store for us. Some good. Some bad. He couldn’t see the visions, but he could feel them, the emotion. It was unusual. Magic.
His searching gaze finally settled on me. “Where’d she come from? Dovie didn’t get her as a housewarming gift, did she?”
I smiled above the rim of my mug. Even though Sean had also recently moved in, unlike Ebbie, he already knew how things worked around here just fine. “Don’t go giving her ideas,” I said. “That’s Ava, Aiden’s daughter.”
Sean’s dark eyebrows snapped downward in confusion. “His what?”
I poured him a mug of coffee and slid it across the breakfast bar. “Daughter.”
My Maine coon, Grendel, came striding out of the bedroom. The big orange and white furball was inordinately graceful for a cat with only three legs. Lazily blinking golden eyes he headed toward his food bowl. He was perpetually hungry.
“Meow! Meow!” Ava cried, lurching to her feet. She ran full-tilt toward the cat.
The fur rose on Grendel’s back. He hissed and practically did a flip to dart back into the bedroom. Ebbie was probably laughing her ass off at him from her spot under the bed.
“Meow!” Ava chased after him so quickly that her feet tangled up with each other. With a surprised cry, she pitched forward.
Before I could even squeak out a warning, Sean reached out, caught the girl, and hefted her easily into his arms.
I let out a relieved breath. Aiden, who’d leapt off the couch in those scary seconds, slowly lowered back down. Again, he mournfully eyed his empty glass.
Sean looked between us. “I think my concussion is messing with my hearing.” He carried Ava to the breakfast bar. “Because I thought I heard you say this little one was Aiden’s daughter.”
“Your hearing is fine,” I said. “Granted it’s the only thing that is right now. Ava belongs to Aiden.”
The corner of his mouth lifted in a smug grin. “Ms. Valentine, I thought I proved to you last night that there are other things that work just fine on me.”
I drew my lower lip into my mouth to keep from smiling too broadly. “There was that… Slipped my mind.”
“Maybe you need a reminder,” he said with a hint of promise in his voice.
Warmth swept over me. “Maybe so.”
“Hello?” Aiden interrupted. “I’m sitting right here. And don’t talk that way in front of my daughter.”
Sean’s gaze lingered on me for a moment more before Ava captured his full attention. She pointed to his head. “Boo-boo?”
“Yes, pretty girl,” he cooed. “Boo-boo.”
She made kissy noises, and the smile he gave her stole my heart straight from my chest.
He lowered his head and she pressed a noisy over-exaggerated kiss to his forehead. She said something I couldn’t make out, and he answered, “Yes, all better. Thank you.”
Apparently, Sean was fluent in baby talk. Who knew?
“Down?” she asked.
Ah! That I understood. He set her on the floor, grabbed his mug and mine, and carried them to the living area. Setting them both on the coffee table, he sat in an oversized armchair and kept staring at Ava. Thoreau quickly hopped up next to him. I had no doubt who truly held the key to the little dog’s heart. Our shared love for Sean was probably why we got along so well, Thoreau and me.
Fortunately for the cat, Ava
gave up her pursuit of Grendel and clambered onto Aiden’s lap as he gave Sean a quick run-down on how she’d ended up on his doorstep.
I crutched my way back to my chair and sat, grateful to sit down. My foot ached, but I’d rather eat Grendel’s kitty kibble than complain about it. It seemed so trivial when compared to all Sean had gone through. Instead, I put my booted foot on the coffee table, sipped my coffee, and listened as Aiden told Sean of our plans.
“Did you search Kira’s house yet?” Sean asked.
Aiden adjusted Ava on his lap. “Not yet. It’s on the to-do list.”
There was a lot on that list.
“This whole situation could be used as a case of what-not-to-do when a person goes missing,” Aiden said. “And technically, I still don’t know that Kira is missing. But I have a gut feeling that something is wrong. She packed only enough clothes for Ava to cover a day. That’s long past. Kira should be back.”
Gut instincts, so pure and simple, should always be trusted. And as I watched Ava—bright, happy, and healthy—relax against her father’s chest, I had the feeling Aiden was right. Something was terribly wrong for her mother to have failed to return.
“Do you know of any other family?” Sean took a gulp of his coffee and winced as though it had burned his throat. “Maybe Kira’s lying low for a few days.”
Ava yawned and Aiden stood, holding her close to his chest. She buried her face in his neck, snuggling in. He swayed as he paced, lulling her to sleep. It was obvious that even though the pair had been together for only a couple of days, an attachment had been formed. A close one. They were strangers no more.
Waves crashed in the background as Aiden said, “Kira’s dad died when she was young, and her mom died a year or two before I met her. She was an only child. I think she mentioned something about an elderly great-uncle in California, but who knows if he’s even still alive.”
Kira couldn’t possibly have been raising this baby all on her own. Not with her job. “Someone had to be watching Ava while Kira was at work,” I said. “That person is another lead, because most likely they have paperwork with emergency contacts, that sort of thing.”
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