by Alane Hudson
The problem was that he didn’t know anyone who would want to. No, that wasn’t true. Harold would. Harold had to have been involved in this somehow, but why? If he thought Sarah was in Colombia, abducting Andrea would prove it. With Andrea in his custody, he could call Sarah and see whether the phone in Andrea’s purse rang, or whether Sarah answered.
Harold was devious enough to pull something like that too.
But would he go through the trouble? Would he risk becoming involved in a kidnapping to prove a point? All he’d have to do was drop by the house, excuse himself to use the restroom, and make his call to Sarah then.
This was the man Blake’s mom was about to go into a business partnership with. Jesus. How had Blake not seen what a twisted ass Harold was? Now he had to figure out a way to get his mom out of it without getting her hurt. If he was willing to commit a federal crime to prove Sarah wasn’t with Blake in Hawaii, what would he do to keep his business deal with Clarity Telecom on track? No, no, no. There had to be a way to keep his mom safe and cancel the deal too.
He got stopped at another damned light and took a deep breath to calm himself. A calm mind was a more powerful weapon than an aggravated one, and in that fresh moment of calmness, it occurred to him that maybe Harold wasn’t behind this at all. What if the attackers were sent by the people Sarah had fingered in Bogotá?
That was a distinct possibility, more likely than a plot orchestrated by Harold. If these men ran a multinational human trafficking ring, they would do whatever it took to protect their criminal enterprise. Either way, Blake would need some wheels greased and strings pulled to ensure the police investigation wasn’t buried under others they considered more pressing. After all, an actual abduction would surely take priority over an attempted abduction.
He opened his phone and called Joe.
“Hey, Blake. Are you back from your honeymoon? How’s my future girlfriend?”
Blake ignored the taunt. “Yeah, we got back last night. Listen, something’s happened. Someone tried to kidnap Andrea today. Three guys in a van.”
“Oh crap. Is she all right?”
“Banged up a bit and probably scared as hell. I’m on my way to the police station to meet her now. I’ll know more when I get there. Is there anyone in particular we should be talking to to get this investigation fast-tracked?”
“Which station?” Joe asked.
Blake relayed the information Andrea had given him. “A detective Lowry is on it.”
“All right. Give me a few minutes. I’ll call you back.”
“Thanks, man. I appreciate it.”
He disconnected, feeling a tad more relieved. It would get handled. They’d find these guys and put them away. Blake was pulling into the station parking lot when his cousin called back.
“Here’s what I found out. Patricia Lowry is the detective, and she’s pretty good but tends to drop the ball if she doesn’t make an arrest the first week, so I’ll check in with my buddy, Doug Cameron, now and then to see how it’s going and to get him to prod her if needed. My dad is friends with their captain, so if we need to get him to light a fire, we have that option.”
“Thanks, Joe. I appreciate it. What if Andrea can’t ID anyone from the photos?”
“Then they’ll get a sketch artist to work something up. They should have someone in-house, or maybe a facial construction program we use to generate a computer image.”
“Yeah, I remember you trying it out on me when you first got it. Didn’t look like me at all.”
Joe snorted. “Oh, yeah. The latest version is a lot better. More lifelike. Anyway, that’s an option. I’ll find out from my dad which prosecutor would be assigned. Maybe you can reach out to him.”
“Joe, be careful what you say to Uncle Roy. Andrea got jumped, not Sarah. He doesn’t know who Andrea is.”
Joe exhaled hard across the phone’s mic, filling Blake’s ear with wind noise. “Right. Damn. That might make things interesting.”
“If you have to, tell him Andrea’s a friend of mine, and let’s hope he doesn’t meet her in the context of the case.”
“It might not be so easy,” Joe said. “Eventually, someone’s going to get arrested and have to appear before a judge. Andrea might have to testify. Wouldn’t it be funny if my dad got the case?”
Cripes. Could this situation get any worse? “Not funny at all.”
“I’ll keep my ears open and give you a heads up if it goes that way. It might give you time to come clean to Dad before he finds out on his own.”
“Yeah, all right. Hey, thanks, man. I’m at the station now.”
“You bet. Let me know if you need anything. Give Andrea my best. And Blake, I’m really sorry this happened to her.”
No one could be sorrier than Blake. “Yeah, me too.”
Inside, he went to the main desk, which reminded him of a bank teller in a seedy part of town. A harried-looking woman in a polyester blouse sat behind a thick pane of what was probably bulletproof glass, working at a computer. “How can I help you?” she asked. Her face was wrinkled with stress, but her eyes were kind.
“I’m here for Andrea Lindholm. She’s supposed to be with Detective Lowry.” He phrased it as a question, and the woman nodded.
“And you are?” She picked up the eyeglasses hanging on a chain around her neck and put them on.
“Blake Thomas.”
The woman peered through her bifocals at the screen, and then punched a button. “Come on back. They’re expecting you.”
The door to his left buzzed, and he opened it and went in.
“All the way to the back, take a left, then it’s the third door on the right.”
Despite the high ceilings and bright lighting, Blake had a hard time focusing, so chewed up were his insides. He realized when he went all the way to the back of the hall that he hadn’t truly been listening to the directions and asked someone for help finding Detective Lowry’s office, searching every face for Andrea.
A skinny man wearing a gray tweed sports coat approached and blocked his way. His hair stood straight up in a flat-top buzz cut, and his face was scarred from teenage acne. “Are you Blake?”
Blake nodded. “You must be Doug.” He offered a hand and the detective shook it. “Joe mentioned he called you.”
“I owe him a favor or two. I’ll keep him apprised of any new developments in the case.”
“Thanks, Detective. I appreciate whatever help you can give us to find these bastards.”
“My wife’s a prosecutor, and she’s chomping at the bit to get this case so she can put the bastards away. Come with me. Your wife’s with Detective Lowry.”
He followed Doug into another room and spotted Andrea seated in a chair beside a metal desk. Seeing her filled him with relief and concern and guilt but mostly relief that she was sitting in a police station and not lying in a hospital bed. Or worse. He hurried to her side. “Andrea. Babe, I’m so sorry.”
“Oh, Blake.” She stood and embraced him tightly, burying her face in the crook of his neck, and he knew everything would be all right.
Andrea insisted she was fine, though her knees felt wobbly and her hand trembled. Sitting around talking about the incident to police, looking at pages and pages of mug shots, and repeating her story for the umpteenth time wasn’t making her any more fine though. She recognized the need for all that—she’d counseled enough rape victims to understand that the more information the police had about the incident and perpetrators, the more likely they were to identify suspects. Still, she’d given them everything she had, as had Hank, and she was anxious to go home.
At least she didn’t have to worry about the dog who’d saved her. The vet hospital had called to inform her the surgery was a success and he was recovering well, even taking short but clumsy walks around the office to explore.
She closed the mug shot book. There were so many faces, they all began to look like blurry alien blobs to her and not real people. “My eyes are starting to cross. Can I come b
ack tomorrow to look further?”
“Yes, of course,” Lowry said.
“Let’s get you home,” Blake said. “Maybe an hour in the hot tub, a back massage, and quiet dinner will help you relax.”
“What time’s your mom coming over?”
“I’ll call her to cancel. She’ll understand, after what you’ve been through.”
Andrea felt mildly disappointed. Seeing Gloria and talking about their trip to Hawaii would get her mind off today. “No, I want to see her. Talking about our honeymoon and showing her the photos would do me a lot of good, take my mind off of the whole grab-me-and-stuff-me-in-a-van thing.”
“Oh, did you two just get married?” Lowry asked.
“Yes,” Blake replied.
“No,” Andrea said at the same time. “Sort of. I went with Blake to Hawaii while his real wife, the one the kidnappers mistook me for, was in Colombia.”
Lowry raised her eyebrows. “Do you mean Sarah...” She checked her notes. “...Gentry? So you two are having an affair, and Sarah found out about it, maybe sent some men to—”
“No,” Andrea and Blake said at once. Andrea dug into her purse for the power of attorney and handed it to the detective. “It’s not an affair. She gave me power of attorney to act on her behalf in the marriage. She’s the one who orchestrated the whole thing.”
Lowry examined the paper and put it into a folder, though her expression gave away her perplexity. “I see. That’s... different. When will she be back? I’d like to question her about the work she’s doing down there. Maybe she’ll recognize the van or have some ideas about who might have tried to abduct her, er, you.”
“She’s giving statements to the prosecutors in Bogotá, but she should be home this week. Maybe Wednesday or Thursday.”
“Could be as late as Friday,” Blake said.
“All right, Ms. Lindholm. Try to get some rest.” Lowry handed her a white business card with her contact information on it. “If you think of anything new, call me.”
Blake walked Andrea out with a comforting arm around her waist. Even surrounded by cops, she hadn’t felt as safe as she did once he showed up at the station.
Outside, she didn’t immediately see the limousine she’d grown so used to riding in, and so it surprised her when he directed her to the passenger door of a dark blue Jaguar. He opened her door, held her hand while she got in, and shut it behind her before jogging around and getting in behind the wheel. The car was clean and sporty yet classy—rather like Blake. “This car suits you,” she said with a tired smile. She turned sideways in her seat to face him and leaned her head against the headrest. The brown leather seat felt rich and soft, cradling her body like a giant, loving hand.
“Let’s get you buckled up,” he said, reaching across her to grab the seat belt. He snapped it into place and adjusted the straps across her body. “Are you sure you don’t want to cancel tonight?”
“I’m sure, but if we have time for that hot tub before your mom comes over, I could go for that.”
“You got it.” He kissed her forehead before firing up the engine and starting off. Once they were on the road, he called Sam to ask him to turn on the hot tub heater.
“Oh, crap,” Andrea said. She shut her eyes, wishing she could will away her problems. “Sarah’s car’s at The Lighthouse. I guess you should drop me off so I can drive it home.”
He put one hand on her leg. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll send Sam and Zach out to get it when we get home.”
“Who’s Zach?”
“He heads up grounds maintenance. All those plants and flowers don’t keep themselves pretty.” He squeezed her leg playfully.
“Oh, I thought you did all the gardening in your spare time,” she said with a teasing smile.
They stopped at the veterinary hospital on the way home so that Andrea could check on Hank. Though he’d been shaved and bandaged and had an IV drip in his foreleg, he seemed in good spirits. His stump tail wiggled enthusiastically as she approached and entered his eight-by-five kennel. When she squatted beside him on the cushion where he lay, he sniffed her bandaged skin and gave her nose a couple of gentle, reassuring licks. Andrea made a silent promise to him that, if ever Tracy’s circumstances no longer allowed her to care for him, he had a forever home with her. “You’re my hero, Hank. I’ll always be grateful.” She stroked his big, blocky head and placed a kiss between his eyes.
On the road again, she asked Blake to stop at Sarah’s house so she could pick up a long-sleeved blouse to cover her elbows and forearms. Gloria would ask about the bandages and the scrapes and bruises that hadn’t been worth covering.
Forty minutes in the hot tub when they got home relaxed her so deeply that Blake was afraid she’d fall asleep and drown, and he threatened to carry her upstairs if she didn’t get out. By then, Gloria was due to arrive in less than half an hour, and so Andrea took a cool shower to wake back up. Blake lovingly and expertly rebandaged her wounds. She was dressed and applying fresh mascara when the doorbell rang.
Isabelle showed off her exemplary culinary skills with a dinner of baked salmon topped by a mustard dill sauce, steamed asparagus and squash, a black bean side dish that was to die for, soft, twisted bread sticks, and a crisp salad. It was so delicious that Andrea was tempted to stuff herself, but doing so would just make her feel sluggish. She had an accent and appearances to keep up and didn’t want to blow it in the home stretch of her time as Sarah.
Blake inserted a thumb drive into the projection TV in his miniature theater, where they sat back in the cozy recliners and viewed the honeymoon photos as a slide show. Gloria made comments about the beauty of the scenery, but she seemed more impressed at how happy they looked in the pictures. Most of the photos that featured both of them, having been taken by a stranger when there’d been one nearby to ask, showed them with their arms around each other, smiling at the camera. A few were kissing photos taken by the self-timer or Blake’s outstretched arm pointing the camera back at them. Andrea made a mental note to request copies of those in particular when her time with Blake was over.
“How’d your face get scratched?” Gloria asked.
“Some guy was taking pictures of my wife.”
She looked at him in shock. “You beat him up? Blake.”
“No, Mom. He jumped me after I pulled the memory card out of his camera and broke it in half. I got scratched defending myself.”
She shot him a disapproving glare before returning her attention to the photos. “You look so happy together,” Gloria said. “To be honest, I wasn’t sure this marriage would happen. For the last three months, you just didn’t seem comfortable with each other, but at the rehearsal, I saw the little glances you gave each other, the small smiles and touches. At the wedding, the way you looked at each other and kissed, I could see something had changed. Maybe it was the reality of being married that finally made you let go. When you didn’t show up to the reception...” She leaned over and squeezed Andrea’s hand. “I knew everything would be just fine. And now looking at these photos, I see two people in love. That’s what being in love ought to look like.”
Blake and Andrea looked at each other in surprise. She didn’t know what to say. Did she love Blake? Her immediate response was yes, but how could she love a man she’d only known for three weeks?
It didn’t matter how. The fact of the matter was that she did. She loved him. She loved him with every molecule, every heartbeat, every fiber of her soul.
And that love would be her undoing.
He might not have been Sean leaving her at the altar, but he would leave her. He would go to his real wife in two days and leave Andrea just as devastated as Sean had. Her plan to enjoy the experience of being his wife moment by moment wasn’t brilliant. It was ungodly stupid, and she was an idiot for thinking she could get through it unscathed.
“I think you’re right, Mom,” he said, still gazing into Andrea’s eyes with a smile that mirrored his mother’s. “And this is what being in lov
e feels like.”
She smiled back, reassuring him it was okay to keep up the cover story he’d sold to his mom about him and Sarah being in love. She understood. It wasn’t for real. It couldn’t be, no matter how much she—or he—wanted it to be. She swallowed down the lump in her throat and shook off the pain that squeezed her chest. Moment by moment. That was how she had to get through this. The future would come soon enough.
But then he went on to say, “I thought I loved her before, but now I understand what a shallow puppy love that was. I’m head over heels, crazy in love with this woman and can’t imagine a single day without her.”
The sincerity in his tone and the depth of his gaze made her wonder whether he was doing more than just selling his mom a fantasy. Was it wishful thinking on her part? His words were probably coming from a place of concern and compassion after her frightening ordeal that day. He was undoubtedly feeling protective and guilty and maybe angry or scared for her, feelings that were sometimes difficult to voice, and he was just pouring those emotions into words that made sense to his mother. Andrea wondered how he was going to explain to his mom later why he was divorcing the woman he claimed to love so much.
She had to play along, and so she let the feelings she’d tamped down have a peek at the surface, just enough to moisten her eyes and put a catch in her voice. “And I love Blake with all my heart and soul. My life was empty and shallow before I met him, and for the first time, I feel truly cherished. I’m so happy to be part of your family.”
Except that her words were absolutely true. Her words weren’t spoken simply for Gloria’s benefit or for Blake’s.
“Oh, honey,” Gloria said. She stood and drew them both into her arms at the same time. “I’m so happy you’ve found each other. One of these days, not too soon, I hope to have a few grandchildren.”
“Mom,” Blake drawled, pulling back from her embrace. He put his arm around Andrea. “One year at a time, huh?”
“I said not too soon.” Gloria chuckled and laid a hand against Blake’s cheek. “It’s about time I headed back home and let you two get some rest. You look like you need another vacation. Thank you for inviting me and sharing your photos. I’ll go thank Isabelle for a delicious supper. I do so miss her cooking.”