Taking a deep breath, Cole forced his mind back to his new mission. Opening the file, he quickly reviewed the pages he’d read last night. Keeley Fairchild was a young woman who’d lost too much already. She’d been raised by a single mother who had died during Keeley’s second year of college. Dying from breast cancer at the age of forty was a sad ending for woman who’d apparently struggled all her life.
A year after her mother’s death, Keeley had married the son of one of the wealthiest families in South Carolina. They’d had a seemingly happy marriage until Stephen was kidnapped last year by Donald Rosemount’s organization.
Just before the abduction, rumors of Stephen Fairchild’s infidelities had become rampant, leading to accusations from Stephen’s mother that Keeley set up the abduction. The infidelity proved to be true; the accusations against Keeley were denounced.
Ransom had been demanded, and Keeley Fairchild had paid. However, two days after the ransom drop, Stephen’s body was found in the woods close to the abduction site, his neck broken. Donald Rosemount had been in charge of the abduction, but who’d hired him was still a mystery. Though Stephen Fairchild wasn’t supposed to die, finding out who had hired Rosemount could lead to who had taken the children. Solving one mystery might well solve another.
Turning the page, Cole caught his breath and then expelled a long, shaky sigh. He’d never seen pictures of Keeley Fairchild. Had avoided them along with any personal information. In his mind, knowing more would have put him in the category of a stalker. Now he regretted not seeing photos of her before. If he’d known what to expect, then maybe he wouldn’t feel as though he’d been gut-punched and thrown off a cliff.
To say Keeley was beautiful would be wrong. What Keeley had was something women all over the world spent thousands on each year. Her light olive skin was so clear and creamy that wearing makeup would be like adding paint to a rose. Thick, lustrous shoulder-length black hair famed a heart-shaped face. Eyes the color of dark chocolate were surrounded by long, thick black lashes. Full, luscious lips were the color of pink rose petals and little creases on either side of her mouth indicated that those lips probably lifted a lot in laughter. A softly pointed chin and high cheekbones completed what was one of the most exotic and loveliest women he had ever seen.
Cole swallowed hard. That wasn’t where her outward beauty ended. The photograph was a full-body shot. Faded jeans emphasized impossibly long legs and rounded womanly hips. The white T-shirt she wore, lovingly molded over …
He slammed the file shut, feeling like a voyeur and a sleaze. Here he was trying to make amends and all he could think about was what those beautiful lips would taste like against his. How her gorgeous ass would feel cupped in his hands. Or how it would feel to bury his head between what anyone in their right mind could only term world-class breasts.
He shifted in his seat. Of all the freaking times for his libido to come back full force. And of all people, for this woman. Cole had often felt that his life was one giant irony; his attraction to Keeley proved the point even more.
It’d been years … he pressed a finger to his temple. Hell, had he slept with anyone since Jill? Though he and Shea had been briefly married, they’d never felt that way about each other and had never slept together.
No. As far as he could remember, there had been no one since his first wife. As usual, when he thought of Jill, a dull ache thudded in his chest. She’d been gone over five years now, and thanks to Rosemount’s drugs, many of his memories of her were gone, too. She had been his childhood sweetheart and he’d planned to spend his life with her. Fate had stepped in and taken her from him.
But Cassidy … in some ways, losing Jill had been easier than losing his precious daughter. Adults die … children shouldn’t, especially not in the way his little girl had.
Cole rubbed at his eyes, not surprised to feel the sting of tears. Cassidy had been seven years old, just a few days shy of her eighth birthday. Seven too-short years on this earth. Then some freaking kid with no sense of right or wrong because of a head full of drugs and a gun had taken her away.
Of all the things he would like to never remember, the most painful was the moment he walked into the kitchen and found Jill and Cassidy lying on the floor in a pool of blood, wrapped in each other’s arms. There were still large patches of his memory missing. Why the hell couldn’t that be one of them?
The doctors told him he could probably force out any missing memories with drugs, but damned if he wanted to put any more garbage into his body. Whatever he never remembered, he would never remember. That was just the way it would be.
Another irony. He remembered the horror of his family’s murder, remembered Shea’s torture, his own agonizing pain, but many of the good memories were gone. He knew there were some … he’d felt small blips and shadows … knew they were of happiness. Sometimes he saw Jill’s face, heard Cassidy’s laughter … but those memories were much too few. Just another way that Rosemount’s drugs continued to torture.
His only hope was that Donald Rosemount was enjoying his own torture in hell.
Cole forced himself to open the file again. Any other photographs of Keeley he came to, he ignored. Having any kind of interest in the woman beyond rescuing her children would be a million miles past off-limits.
He turned a page and his chest tightened with an almost excruciating squeeze. Hannah and Hailey Fairchild—Keeley’s four-year-old twin girls—looked up at him with the precious eyes of innocence and candor.
Hannah had her mother’s coloring—olive skin, deep, dark brown eyes, thick black hair. Her sister, Hailey, supposedly resembled her father, who’d been blond with light blue eyes. Cole remembered those eyes all too well. He still saw them in his nightmares.
Another memory he’d love to forget.
His head pressed back against the seat cushion, he closed his eyes. There were certain degrees of hell; he figured he’d experienced almost all of them. Meeting Keeley Fairchild for the first time would just be one more.
five
Something about Cole Mathison bothered Keeley on sight. At first glance, she got the impression of a tall, muscular man with thick black hair, oddly colored eyes, and a grim expression.
Eden, who stood beside the large, fierce-looking man, looked like a beautiful delicate flower standing beside a giant, weathered oak.
When Eden saw Keeley hesitate at the door, she gave her an encouraging smile. “Keeley, this is Cole Mathison, the other operative we told you about.”
As Eden made the introductions, Keeley tried to pinpoint why the man bothered her so much. His outward attractiveness was undeniable. With his striking looks, Cole Mathison might well be considered movie-star handsome. But something was missing … keeping his good looks in check. An underlying danger, a hollow sadness.
He was very tall … maybe around six-five. Tall men certainly didn’t bother her. She stood close to five feet eleven in her stocking feet. Perhaps it was his eyes that disturbed her. They were an unusual color—dark charcoal, with striations of silver and electric blue. Or maybe it was just the sheer bleakness of his face. Did he ever smile? Lines around his eyes and mouth indicated that he might have at one time, but she couldn’t imagine that happening. His face was cold and austere, almost emotionless. He didn’t look as though he had an ounce of humanity or sympathy inside him.
Not that it mattered what he looked like. Her only priority was finding her children. Still, he worried her on a level she couldn’t fully comprehend.
Despite her uneasiness, Keeley forced stiff legs to move forward as she held out her hand. “Thank you for your help, Mr. Mathison.”
A brisk, hard press of her hand and a quick nod was his response.
An awkward silence surrounded them, finally broken by Eden saying, “Cole has read your file and all the interviews conducted by the FBI and by us. He’d like to talk with you now, if you feel up to it.”
Keeley nodded. While she hated having to repeat for the thousandth time what
she’d told a seemingly endless amount of people, she would do it a million times more if it brought her girls home.
Eden gave her arm a reassuring squeeze. “I’m going to go make us some tea.”
Before Keeley could respond, Eden left the room, leaving her alone with Cole Mathison. Forcing herself to look up at him, she was surprised by the quick expression of what looked like pain flashing across his face.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
In an instant, the cold remoteness returned. “I’m fine.” He indicated a chair across from him. “Have a seat.”
Fighting her odd nervousness, Keeley perched on the edge of the seat and wrapped her arms around herself.
“Let’s start on the day your girls were taken. See where that leads.”
“Okay. We were at the park and I—”
Cole held up his hand. “Start earlier. When you got up that day. Take me through as much as you can remember.”
“We started out early … only an hour or so after breakfast. I packed a picnic lunch for all of us. My friend, Jenna Banks, was supposed to meet us there, but had to work instead. Miranda, my sister-in-law, and her daughter, Maggie, were supposed to come, too, but Miranda called the night before and said Maggie was coming down with a cold and was running a temperature. She didn’t want my girls to get sick.
“It’s a public park … I thought we would be safe.” She cleared her throat and continued. “It was a warm and sunny day, the first one we’d had in months … a perfect day for a picnic.”
Cole forced a cold stoicism as he listened to the pain in Keeley’s voice. After his year of hell, much of the emotion and compassion he’d once felt was gone. He didn’t know if it would ever return. There was an odd sort of comfort in that kind of emptiness. Today was the first day he’d felt anything close to breaking through that impenetrable void.
This woman bore little resemblance to the photographs he’d seen of her. Then she’d been healthy and tanned, vibrantly alive. The camera had captured a serenity and peacefulness in her expressive face. A love of life. Today, she looked washed out, tortured, and almost thin—a shadowed image of what she used to be. Losing her husband had taken a toll; having her children taken was destroying her.
“Why’d you decide to go to the park? I checked out back. You have a big yard and almost everything a park would have.”
A slight lift of her lips was barely a smile. “It’s something different for them. They play in the backyard every day. Saturdays are park days.”
“How long have you been going on Saturdays and do you go the same time each Saturday?”
“We started a few weeks after Stephen’s death. We don’t usually stay more than an hour or two … the picnic was unusual. But yes, it’s usually around the same time.”
“And do your friends Jenna and Miranda usually join you?”
“Almost always. It’s not only a chance for the girls to play, it’s an opportunity for Jenna, Miranda, and I to catch up.”
“You said you started going to the park after your husband’s death. Why then?”
“Playing in the backyard was something Stephen did with the girls when he got home from work. It was their time together. They missed him so much, I just wanted them to be able to play without wondering why their daddy wasn’t with them.”
“Did it help?”
Her dark brows shifted slightly as though she was surprised by the question.
“It helped a little. Stephen’s been gone well over a year now … they were barely three years old when he died, still babies really, so their memories of him aren’t as vivid as they once were. They’ve adjusted better than I thought they would.”
“And you?”
“Me?”
“Have you adjusted?”
Her expressive face was telling him she thought his questions were not the least bit related to her children’s disappearance. Cole knew he needed to back off and focus on the abduction. This one last question and he would.
“Yes, I think so.”
Had she? From all accounts, she had little social life. Her children and running on her trail were her only outlets. Keeley Fairchild was only twenty-nine years old. Much too young to bury herself in a tiny town, especially since most of the residents seemed to dislike her.
As Cole continued, taking her through the series of events of what happened the day her children were stolen, he began to see why Keeley seemed to have no life outside of her small world. She lived for her children. It was obvious in the way she spoke of them as individuals, relating little tidbits of information on each child. Her mobile mouth moved up in a small smile as if talking about them brought her comfort.
“So Hailey was on the monkey bars and Hannah was heading toward her?”
“Yes, I was getting a juice box for Hailey when I heard them scream. I turned. Saw that a man had both of them in his arms. I started running … then another man tried to grab me.”
“The man who tried to grab you. Did he say anything to you?”
Her smooth brow wrinkled in concentration. “He said, ‘Come on, bitch,’ once, and then another time, he shouted, ‘Bitch.’” She lifted a slender shoulder. “He might have cursed a couple more times, but nothing more.”
“And the voice didn’t sound familiar at all?”
“No.”
“Anyone else around to see what was going on?”
“Just an older couple—the Wilsons. They’re the ones who called the sheriff’s office. By the time they realized what was happening, the van had disappeared. I was unconscious.”
“How were you injured?”
“I was chasing the man who had my girls … they were screaming for me.” Her throat moved convulsively. “My hand was on the man’s sleeve. I wasn’t fast enough … he pulled away.” She closed her eyes briefly; when she opened them, Cole saw unending horror. “I tripped and fell. The next thing I knew, I was in the hospital. Jenna was there.” Her eyes sparkled with contempt as she added, “And the sheriff.”
“I understand he didn’t want to send out an alert about the children until he talked with you. Why is that?”
She gave a soft snort. “Hiram Mobley is an imbecile. Despite what the Wilsons told him, he insisted he had to hear my report first. When I woke up, he became more cooperative. When the FBI arrived, he backed off completely.”
Though he figured Keeley’s mother-in-law had control of the local sheriff, Cole made a mental note to talk to Sheriff Mobley very soon.
He glanced down at a previous interview Jordan had done with her. “You gave a description of the two men. One was stocky, between five-eight and five-ten; the other was more muscular and about six feet tall. They were masked and wore jackets, but you were able to see that both men were Caucasian?”
“Yes. The man who grabbed me … I clawed at his arm, his sleeve jacket slipped, and I glimpsed pale skin.”
“And the other?”
Her eyes anguished, she bit her lip and said, “Hannah was crying, tugging on the man’s ski mask. She pulled enough of it away for me to see his neck…. He was white, very fair.”
Telling himself this was just like any other case he’d been on, Cole worked hard to avoid revealing how Keeley’s obvious grief affected him. In his years with LCR, he’d interviewed many grieving mothers. This should be no different.
“Tell me about your family. I see your mother passed away several years ago. What about your father and his family?”
“My father died before I was born. He was from Venezuela, here on a work visa. He met my mother and they fell in love. They’d planned to marry but he was killed in a car accident. She found out she was pregnant with me a few weeks after his death.”
“And you’re sure there’s no one from his side of the family who could be involved in this?”
“Quite sure. My mother didn’t know his family and they never knew about us.”
“Your husband’s family … tell me about them.”
The deep breath
she exhaled revealed much about her feelings. “There’s only Stephen’s sister and mother left. His father died long before Stephen and I became involved.”
“No aunts, uncles, cousins?”
“No close relatives … just some distant cousins in Kansas. Stephen didn’t know them and never talked about them. Nolan Fairchild, Stephen’s great-grandfather, founded the town of Fairview over a hundred years ago. The Fairchilds were once a large, thriving family, but Baker Fairchild, Stephen’s father, was an only child. So is Elizabeth, Stephen’s mother.”
“I understand that Miranda, Stephen’s sister, is a good friend.”
A small smile. “Yes, she was a few years behind me in school, so we didn’t really get to know each other until after Stephen and I got married.”
“And Miranda’s mother? Tell me about Elizabeth Fairchild.”
As if unable to sit still while she talked about her former mother-in-law, Keeley stood and went to the large window that overlooked the backyard. Her face averted, she spoke softly, reflectively. “She’s very protective of the Fairchild name. Anything that could bring shame or tarnish the family’s reputation is something she’d do anything to stop.”
“And she thinks you tarnished it? How?”
“By marrying her son.”
“Do you trust her?”
She looked at him then. “Absolutely not. But if you’re asking if I believe she was involved with my children’s disappearance, then the answer is no. Elizabeth might not love them, but she would’ve done anything to prevent the media circus their disappearance caused.”
“What makes you say your mother-in-law doesn’t love her grandchildren?”
“Elizabeth despises me and, in turn, hates my children.”
Though Cole knew enough about her background to know the answer to many of these questions, getting her perspective was vital. “Why does your mother-in-law hate you?”
A wry smile twisted her full mouth. “I’m a walking cliché. Poor girl from the wrong side of the tracks marries the richest boy in the county. My mother was an unwed mother. In small towns, especially this small town, that means something. Elizabeth was horrified to have me as a member of her family.”
Last Chance 05 - Second Chance Page 5