Now that he had, a new layer of concern landed on Trent’s shoulders. He needed to get to Danny. If only to ease his own tensions.
The kids were taking off their choir robes and tossing them at each other playfully, to the dismay of Mary Catherine Cook, who laughed along with them as much as she scolded them.
Recognizing her from the time he’d made a presentation to her third-grade class, he went over to her. “Have you seen Danny Sullivan? The little angel?”
“He is, isn’t he?” She chuckled. “But no, I haven’t.” She leaned over and whispered, “If you find Annie Bosworth, you’ll find Danny. Look for her mother.”
“Good tip,” he said, and scanned the room, which, from his height, was easy. The heads of the children bobbed as they giggled and whispered to their friends.
He walked past shepherds removing their tunics and a wise man gingerly removing his paper crown.
The audience had dispersed, and many had gone outside. Trent couldn’t find Danny. A terror’s jagged edge sliced through him. It was the first time in his life he knew what it felt like to lose the most precious thing. A child.
Danny wasn’t even his, yet his heart thundered and his feet moved with incredible speed. “Danny!” he shouted as he made his way up the aisle. He jumped on a chair and scanned the entire room. “Danny Sullivan!”
People looked at him like he was crazy.
He jumped down and slammed his palms against the door handle, shoving the door against the outside brick wall.
“Danny!” he shouted into the frigid morning.
It was Annie’s red hair he saw first. Luke and Sarah were belting themselves into their SUV, which was on the far south side of the playground.
Annie was standing outside the red SUV talking to Danny. She laughed and touched his wings.
Trent started toward Danny. The boy was still in costume. No coat. No hat. No mittens.
People milled about and crossed in front of Trent as he made his way toward Danny. Astounding how many relatives and friends a little kid could have and how many of them wanted to be part of their Christmas.
Annie kissed Danny on the cheek and got in the car. She buckled up and waved to him. He waved back. The Bosworths drove away.
“Danny!”
Danny looked up. His eyes met Trent’s.
But Trent hadn’t called Danny’s name. Not at that moment.
Le Grande stepped away from a family of three who cut to the left and went to their car.
Le Grande grinned defiantly at Trent and then dropped his eyes.
Trent stopped breathing. Time altered as it always did when he went back there. But this time, something was different. The scene didn’t change. He was still in the moment and as horrifying as it was to watch Le Grande take two strides, reach out his arm and grab Danny by his angel wings, Trent had not flashed back.
“Danny!” Trent shouted with so much force, he thought he’d ripped a vocal cord.
Danny screamed. “Trent! Trent!”
Trent didn’t know what happened. His legs felt like iron had replaced his bones and muscles. He lunged toward Le Grande, who’d hoisted Danny under his arm. Le Grande turned and quickly shot away.
“Danny!” Trent shouted.
“Help!” Danny cried. “Help me, Trent!”
Trent forced his legs to run. He lifted his wrist and shouted. “Two-oh-seven in progress. Kidnapping. Send backup.”
* * *
CATE SAT IN Sal’s unmarked car watching her only son, the light of her life, being kidnapped by her psychotic ex-husband.
Chills raced down her spine. Her blood turned to ice, and she opened the door, unbuckled her seat belt and took off running.
The one thing Cate could do was run.
Brad had Danny.
Fear spread wide, menacing wings over her and then drew them in, strangling her. As incredulous and horrific as this was, Cate had known it could happen.
It was inconceivable to imagine a single day in her life without Danny. She pushed away the vision as it sailed toward her like a whorl of black smoke, a funnel of possibilities, sinister and deadly.
Sheer will pumped her legs—faster. She had to save Danny. The jarring up her spine as she pounded against the cold asphalt was the only thing telling her that what she was doing was right.
She should never have let Trent talk her into this insanity. She’d succumbed to altruism and community pride. As much as she’d believed that Brad would stop at nothing to get her back, she’d trusted Trent to keep them safe. She’d believed more in Trent and his promises than her own gut instincts. She should have insisted they leave town sooner. She should have run.
The cold air froze Cate’s ears and muted all sound.
The world around her fell away. Her vision was focused solely on Brad. Danny had freed an arm and was pounding on Brad’s back. He screamed for her, but she didn’t hear his voice. She watched his lips moving as if they were in slow motion.
She ran faster. Adrenaline sang through her body like smashing cymbals. The rush of energy catapulted her toward the street without looking for traffic. Oncoming cars didn’t dare stop her.
Shouting Danny’s name was impossible. No sound came from her throat, but she felt the fire of anger surge through her veins.
What was she going to do once she reached Brad? Shoot him? She didn’t have a gun. Strangle him? He still had Danny. Brad was big and strong—just like Danny dreamed of being. How sweet Danny had been all autumn wanting anything and everything that would mark his passing from a little kid to a bigger kid. Danny wanted so much to be grown up, and she did everything she could to hold him in place. Making time stand still hadn’t worked.
Her face burned with emotion. Sadness. Terror. Dread and above all, determination.
Brad would never have Danny. She’d rather die first.
She focused on Brad. What was he planning to do with Danny, now that he’d snatched him?
Her peripheral vision scanned the curb along the street. She didn’t see a vehicle. No paneled SUV in which to abscond with Danny.
She realized that Brad was running toward a house with peeling white paint and broken shutters. She saw faces behind the windows. Evil faces. Men with guns.
Guns. Instruments of death.
She had no weapon. She wasn’t wearing protective clothing or a Kevlar vest. These men could kill her. They could kill Danny.
Her ears had cleared along with another hot surge of adrenaline. She could hear Sal calling her name. She heard his heavy shoes hammer the pavement as he chased her, but she would beat him.
Even though Trent was nearing the street crossing ahead of her, she was more than halfway across the parking lot.
Trent. She’d been wrong to let herself fall in love with him. He didn’t care about her or Danny. He was a cop apprehending a criminal. Doing his duty.
If she’d been so much the fool that she lost Danny because of Trent, there was nowhere on Earth far enough away for her to run.
“Mom!” Danny screamed.
Cate pumped her arms and ran faster. The cops couldn’t save Danny, but she would. Even if those evil men shot her, even if Brad beat her, she would save her son.
* * *
POLICE SIRENS SLICED the brittle December air. The cars exiting the school parking lot stopped. Cops on foot thundered down the sidewalk toward the school. Orders were being shouted, but Trent couldn’t make them out. Didn’t want to hear them. He had to save Danny.
Trent hurdled over the curb, crossed the street and just as Le Grande was about to hit the steps to the house, Trent lunged at him, grabbed him by the heels and brought him down.
Danny screamed as he hit the sidewalk.
Trent grabbed Le Grande by the shoulders and yanked his arms back. “
No, you don’t. You’re mine.”
“Get off me, pig!” Le Grande spat and tried to wrench out from Trent’s hold.
Trent reached in his pocket and pulled out a regulation zip tie and snapped Le Grande’s wrists together. Then he leaned very close to Le Grande’s ear. “And now I’ve got you for kidnapping.”
Le Grande spewed a string of obscenities like venom.
Trent ignored him as his eyes flew to Danny.
“Danny...” His reassuring smile died on his lips as he saw the painful grimace on the boy’s face. “Danny... I’m so sorry.”
The child’s face was slick with tears as he held his left arm with his right. Danny looked up as Cate ran to him and scooped him off the pavement. “Danny, darling. Are you hurt?”
Danny’s expression was stoic, but his eyes swam with tears. “My arm. Mom, I think I broke it.”
The action around Trent increased in tempo like a film on fast-forward.
Sal rushed up and already had his cell phone out. “I need an ambulance.”
Sal took out his gun as he bounded up the steps and kicked down the front door. “Police! Freeze!”
A melee of uniformed policeman overran the house and hustled to assist Sal indoors. Police cars skidded to a halt at the curb.
Trent hauled Le Grande to his feet. He had a raspberry on his nose where Trent had pressed his face against the pavement.
“Danny, you’re going to be all right,” Trent said. “An ambulance is on the way.”
He looked at Cate. Her aqua eyes were unforgiving.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CATE KISSED THE top of Danny’s head for the hundredth time in the past two hours. Already, the pandemonium of police officers arresting the drug dealers, Trent and Sal dragging a very resistant Brad to a squad car and the EMTs who strapped Danny onto a gurney seemed surreal.
Trent had held her hand as she climbed into the back of the ambulance. “Cate, forgive me.” Then he’d shut the doors.
She hadn’t answered him. All she could think of at that moment was Danny. She’d sat on the narrow bench along the ambulance wall and placed her hand on the top of Danny’s head. “You’re going to be all right, sweetheart.”
But was she?
A thousand recriminations swirled like a tornado inside her. Cate knew she was at a crossroads in her life. Danny had been saved. Yes. But at what cost? Would he be traumatized—like Trent? Would he shut down his innocence and high-spirited friendliness that drew people to him like the magnetized force he was? All through these days of semi-hiding, under Trent’s promised protection, Danny had blossomed. He’d always been precocious, but she now saw leadership qualities in him. He wasn’t the least afraid to show his affection for Annie.
That was more than she could say for herself. She’d jumped out there, kissed Trent and he’d recoiled like a turtle into its shell. She’d backed away, too.
Her choices from here could determine whether Danny went on being the Danny he was born to be, full of a sense of adventure and willingness to learn new things and most importantly, to go on trusting people to do what they say they’re going to do.
Cate was afraid that if she revealed one trace of her own fears and paranoia, she would stifle him more than all the shock and panic he’d been through today.
“I love you, Danny,” she whispered, but the EMTs were talking on radios to the hospital and drowned out her voice.
His tears had dried, and the EMTs had stabilized his arm with a splint and a sling. Ice packs had helped to numb his pain. As the ambulance pulled away from the curb, rocking slightly as it hit a pothole, Danny had winced.
The one-mile trip to the hospital was over in a blink. The EMTs wheeled Danny into an ER bay that had been made ready for him.
* * *
“THE BREAK IS MINOR. A fracture of the ulna,” Dr. Hill, the emergency-room doctor, said. “But we still have to cast it. Fortunately, the EMTs did a good job stabilizing it and I don’t have to reset it.” He leaned close to Danny. “Resetting can be painful. This way, you don’t have to go through that. The worst is over, sport.”
“Thank you,” Danny said politely. “So, does this mean I don’t have to have any shots?”
“Shots?” Cate asked.
“Yeah. I was thinking I’d have to have shots. That’s why I was crying.”
Cate dropped her jaw in amazement. “You weren’t crying from the pain?”
He gave her a crooked grin. “No way. I’m big now. Tough like Trent. It’s just a broken arm.”
Cate rolled her eyes.
A nurse came in with an assortment of materials. Soft cotton pads and gauze were applied to the skin. “Danny,” he said, “you have to choose the color of fiberglass.”
“Yes!”
Danny mulled over the choices from checkerboard patterns, pink, yellow, blue and finally chose neon green.
Once the arm was cast, Danny was released.
As they walked out the hospital doors into the December afternoon, Cate realized her car was at the school.
“Trent!” Danny yelled. “Look, Mom, he came for us!”
The afternoon sun, as harsh and precise as a diamond-cutting blade, blinded her. She raised her hand to shield her eyes. Trent was standing in front of his car, arms folded across his chest. He’d been looking down at the pavement, but at the sound of Danny’s voice, his head jerked up and he smiled so broadly, Cate felt the warmth of it.
Danny raced toward him before she could stop him with warnings about possible dizzy spells from his earlier fall.
Trent squatted and opened his arms to Danny, who flung his arms around Trent’s neck.
“Ouch!” Trent laughed, lifting his hand to Danny’s small, cast-covered arm. “Green, huh?”
“Yeah, they didn’t have dark green, but they had Grinch green, I call it. You can sign it. The nurse gave me a special pen for my friends to use.” Danny looked at his arm. “I’m gonna ask Annie to sign it next.”
“What about your mom?” Trent asked, finally looking at Cate as she crossed the driveway.
“Oh, she can sign it anytime,” Danny replied.
Trent rose slowly, not taking his eyes off her. She wondered if he could see her trepidation.
She pulled the lapels of her long red wool coat over the black turtleneck and black pants she wore. Her black boots crunched against the piles of dirty, plowed snow.
She pointed to his car. “Is that another Christmas tree tied to your car?”
“No. Actually, it’s yours,” he said, stumbling a bit over his words.
She wondered if he was nervous. Impossible. The man was a hero. He’d just rid the town of the largest drug cartel in its history. In the ER, the nurses had talked of nothing else. The news of the bust was being reported by the local radio station.
“I thought I’d drive you home.”
“Home?” She moved closer, still thinking about that invisible crossroads. His eyes were glittering blue pools—serious, searching and hope filled. For much of their time together, he’d trained himself to shut her out. He’d built a wall so strong and permanent, she was convinced he’d never let her through. But here was a door, and she knew it was up to her to turn the knob. Take a chance. See what was behind the door.
“I want to take you to your home. Where you and Danny belong.”
“Really?” Danny asked. “I liked it at Mrs. Beabots’s house. She was always making cookies for me.”
Trent’s mouth turned up into a half smile. His eyes twin
kled. “My mother taught me how to make sugar cookies. A Christmas tradition I still keep,” Trent said, his gaze on Cate.
She tilted her head to the side. “Christmas tree and cookies? Are you trying to wrangle an invitation from us?” She wasn’t quite sure what he wanted, an evening with them? Did he want to be their companion for the holidays? Or was this part of his processing to assuage whatever guilt he harbored over the fact that Danny had nearly been kidnapped and suffered a broken arm.
“No, it’s more than that.” He shook his head sheepishly. “I just thought that after I got you settled at home, put the tree up, that I could help out—in the kitchen.”
“The kitchen,” she repeated. Disappointment wrapped sinewy fingers around her heart. He was being cordial. Performing his duty as he’d always done. That was all, she was certain.
“Sure.” She went to stand behind Danny and put her hands on his shoulders. “You can drive us home, yes.” She nodded toward the tree. “And it would be very kind of you to bring the tree in. But we can take it from there.”
Before he said another word, she walked to the passenger door and waited for him to unlock the car.
Danny was thrilled to be in the backseat of a real police car with no child protective seat to hinder his movement or his animated conversation. The cast notwithstanding, Danny couldn’t wait to rehash every detail of his own near-miss with tragedy.
Cate noticed that Trent’s responses were monosyllabic. And that his eyes tracked to her nearly every other second.
Once at home, Cate was surprised at the flood of relief she felt in the simple act of inserting her key in the door. Danny pressed past her and pushed his way between her and Trent.
“We’re home! Home for Christmas!” He whirled around. “Isn’t this the best Christmas ever?”
“It is, sweetheart,” Cate answered, not believing it.
“I gotta check out my room. See if everything’s still there. You’re not going away, are you, Trent?”
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