by Dani Criss
He should never have left her alone. Should have insisted on twenty-four-hour protection regardless of her wishes. He’d failed her. He couldn’t just stand there, he decided, anger at himself mixing with the adrenaline. He had to do something.
“Slater is talking to the police,” Martin said.
Jake nodded. Where could she be? The travel agency was closed on Sunday, so she wouldn’t have gone in to work. She wouldn’t have gone anywhere at five in the morning. She had to be in trouble. Serious trouble, and he was to blame.
He pulled out his cell phone and paged Rob. While he waited for Rob to phone back, he started switching on lights.
“Look through the whole place,” he growled at Martin.
“Check for signs of a struggle, a fight, a scuffle—anything. I want some answers.”
Jake took the windows, starting in the bedroom, examining each for signs of forced entry. Then he checked the garage doors and the sliding glass that opened onto the backyard patio. Not a single sensor seemed to have been disturbed. Frantic, he stood in the middle of the kitchen, trying desperately to figure out how to find her.
When Rob called, Jake quickly related the situation, then asked Rob to put out an APB for Kaitlyn and her car.
“I’m going over to Fallon’s address,” he told Rob.
“Damn it, Jake, you just got out of jail for assaulting him. You go over there and roust him, you’ll end up back behind bars and it’ll take more than me and your highpriced attorney to get you out.”
“I have to find her,” Jake snapped, already heading for the door.
“Anything could have happened. She could have gone out for breakfast for all you know. You said there were no signs of forced entry.”
And Katie wouldn’t have let Fallon inside, he was sure. But to leave the house at this hour—
“Just meet me at Fallon’s house,” Jake barked at his friend. “If I get there first, I’m going in without you.” He shut off the phone and shoved it into his pocket.
“Sir,” Martin said, coming up to him. “There’s no sign of her purse.”
“Purse?” Jake echoed. “It’s not here? You’re sure?”
“I’ve searched everywhere. Her briefcase is in the other bedroom, but there’s nothing that looks like a purse.”
Did that mean she’d left on her own? Surely Fallon wouldn’t have bothered with her purse. But where the hell would she have gone? And why hadn’t she disarmed the system first?
Could Fallon have come up with something to lure her out of the house? A very real possibility. Jake didn’t waste time wondering how Fallon had done it. He sprinted to his car. He pulled up at Fallon’s town house behind Rob and a squad car. The two uniformed officers reached Rob first.
“Take the back,” he told them, then glanced at Jake. “You stay here.”
“Like hell,” Jake snarled. He didn’t see Katie’s Honda, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t there, terrified or hurt.
Rob seemed about to protest, but took one look at Jake’s determined expression and reconsidered. “All right. We’ll take the front. You stay behind me, though.”
As much as he hated taking orders under these circumstances, Jake stood behind Rob on the doorstep. He pounded on the door and rang the bell once, then again.
“Break it in,” Jake ground out as Rob reached to knock a third time.
Finally a light came on inside. One in the upstairs, then in the living room and on the front porch. The door opened a crack. Fallon peered out. Jake clenched his jaw to keep from losing control. He slid one hand around his back, ready to draw his gun instantly.
“Police,” Rob said, showing his badge. “Are you Craig Fallon?”
“Yeah,” Fallon said, his voice sounding thick with sleep.
Jake knew it had to be a ruse. Katie had to be there. He wasn’t wasting time standing on the porch when she might need him. He pushed by Rob and into the house, ignoring Fallon’s sputtering protests.
“What’s he doing here?” Fallon shouted as Jake raced up the stairs. “I don’t want him in here. Do you hear? I don’t want him in my house.”
Jake tore through the bedroom and bathroom, not finding Katie or any sign of her. He rushed into the spare bedroom. Katie wasn’t there, either.
“What the hell is he doing?” he heard Fallon demand as he came down the stairs. “I’m going to press charges again. I’m phoning my lawyer right now.”
“Just shut up,” Rob ordered, catching his arm when he started toward the phone. “You’re not calling anyone.”
Jake searched the downstairs and the basement. Katie was nowhere. Racing back upstairs, he grabbed Fallon by the T-shirt front and pulled him up until they were nose to nose. Fallon’s pretty face contorted with rage.
“Go ahead,” he taunted. “Hit me and you’ll spend more than a couple of hours in jail.”
“What have you done with her?” Jake growled, ignoring the man’s words. He had to find Katie. That was his only concern. “Where is she?”
Fallon laughed until Jake tightened his hold on his shirt. “I don’t know where she is,” he snarled. “But she obviously isn’t clearing her agenda with you, is she?”
Rob grabbed Jake’s arm before he could smash in Fallon’s face. “Let him go, Jake. Let him go,” he repeated when Jake didn’t comply. “This isn’t going to accomplish anything.”
“Other than to get you arrested again,” Fallon said.
Reluctantly Jake released the other man and let Rob usher him out the door.
“I’ll see you in jail again, Riley,” Fallon shouted after them. “I’ll see you in jail.” He slammed his front door shut and switched off the light.
“Go back to whatever you were doing,” Rob told the two uniforms. “I’ll handle the paperwork in the morning.”
They nodded and walked away, obviously grateful they didn’t have to file a report.
“We’ve got to find her,” Jake insisted to his friend. He didn’t know what to make of the desperation he heard in his own voice.
“Jake, she could be anywhere. Overland Park, Kansas, covers a big area, damn it. We could search for days and not find her if we don’t know where to look. For all we know she drove across State Line Road and into Kansas City, Missouri. That covers even more territory.”
“Fallon knows something. I know he does.”
“Fallon was asleep when we got here. I’d bet money on that. Because you’re a friend, I got Wilson to put out an APB on her. That’s all we can do for now. Go home. Fallon hasn’t done anything to her.”
Jake’s jaw clenched. He knew Rob was right. But no way was he going home. Not until he knew what had happened to Katie. If she needed him, he would be there. He only hoped he wasn’t too late.
Kaitlyn paced a small spot in the emergency room waiting area. Sharing the room with her were a middle-aged couple, two elderly ladies and a mother with a crying toddler holding his ear. Several times she tried to sit as patiently as they all were, but she never lasted long.
She looked to the treatment area. What were they doing with her mother now? How much longer could it be before the doctor came out and told her what was wrong? All she knew was that her mother was in serious trouble. She’d phoned Kaitlyn, her speech terribly slurred. The panic in her voice had warned Kaitlyn this was caused by more than a few drinks. She’d called 911, had pulled on a pair of jeans and a shirt, then rushed over there, arriving as the paramedics were unloading their equipment.
She’d let them into the small apartment. There they’d found her mother unconscious on the sofa—not a liquor bottle in sight. Only a glass with a small amount of water in the bottom and an empty pill bottle, which one of the paramedics pocketed.
Had she had a heart attack? The paramedics couldn’t tell Kaitlyn anything. She’d followed them to the hospital. They’d rushed the stretcher back into the treatment rooms and the nurses had immediately begun work on their patient, telling Kaitlyn the doctor would talk to her as soon as he knew someth
ing.
She glanced at the clock on the wall. That had been over an hour ago. She’d signed forms, given them her mother’s insurance information, then had waited. And paced.
“Miss Adams.”
Finally, Kaitlyn thought, whirling on her heel to see the nurse standing in the doorway. The woman led her back to a room filled with an enormous number of machines. Her mother lay on a gurney, still unconscious, her small body hooked up to several of those machines, one of them a ventilator.
Kaitlyn’s footsteps faltered. She swallowed in fear. The doctor, balding already, though he was only in his thirties, finished writing in the chart, handed it to the nurse, then came to stand by Kaitlyn at the foot of the bed.
“Your mother tried to kill herself,” he said gently.
Kaitlyn opened her mouth in protest, but no sound came out. She couldn’t believe what she was being told. And yet she could. “The pills?” she finally managed to say when she found her voice.
“Xanax,” the doctor said. “Prescribed for anxiety attacks. Do you know how many were in the bottle?”
Kaitlyn shook her head.
“Have you noticed that she was unusually depressed?” the doctor asked.
“She’s been fighting depression off and on for several years. But I hadn’t noticed that she was getting worse.”
Of course her mother would have tried to hide it from her for as long as possible. She never wanted to be any trouble to anyone, especially her daughter. That was her way. Kaitlyn had always thought of her as a quiet little mouse, hiding in the corner until the cat was gone.
“We’ve pumped her stomach and she may need to have kidney dialysis to help remove all the medication from her system. The next twenty-four hours will be critical. We’ll put her in intensive care and she’ll be closely monitored around the clock.” The doctor touched Kaitlyn’s shoulder. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you how this will progress. You’ll just have to wait and see how she responds.”
So Kaitlyn followed as two nurse’s aides wheeled the gurney up to the intensive care unit. Once her mother was in the room and the ICU nurses had her hooked up to their monitors, they allowed Kaitlyn a few minutes beside her mother’s bed.
She touched her mother’s frail hand, the one without the IV tube, and stroked her thinning gray-red hair. She didn’t know whether her mother could hear her, but she talked to her nonetheless.
“Everything’s going to be fine, Mom,” she said, as much to convince herself as to offer comfort. “They’re taking good care of you, and when you get out, we’re going to see that you get better. All you have to do is come back to me.”
Then she stood there, listening to the rhythmic noise of the breathing machine until the nurses gently shooed her out to the waiting area.
There were two other families keeping vigil in the small room, so Kaitlyn couldn’t pace. She found a corner chair and tried to read a magazine, but the words blurred as she fought back tears. Instead she stared at the pages and reminisced about the happy times she and her mother had shared. She’d understood how difficult it was for Kaitlyn to deal with her father, understood how hard Kaitlyn had tried to please him and how devastated she’d been when she continually failed. Sometimes she’d even nurtured her daughter’s developing rebellious streak.
Kaitlyn remembered how, when it was just the two of them, her mother had laughed and sung. Those times they would have such fun. Then shortly before her father was due home, her mother would become withdrawn and nervous. That’s when she would dig out the liquor bottle she’d hidden. Kaitlyn would find that her own stomach would knot in dread.
Life was so difficult for her mother. Kaitlyn had thought that the divorce would make things easier for her, but it hadn’t. All the little things about living on her own seemed to overwhelm her and even Kaitlyn’s help wasn’t enough. She’d lost that ability to laugh and sing and it seemed nothing would bring it back. Her father had a lot to answer for, Kaitlyn thought for what had to be the thousandth time that day.
By seven o’clock that evening, one family had left the ICU waiting room to go to the floor with their loved one. Two more smaller families came to take their places. Still there was no change in her mother’s condition.
“She could be like this for several hours,” the nurse told her. “Why don’t you go home and get something to eat and rest? We’ll notify you immediately if there’s any change and you can call us at any time if you’re worried.”
In the end Kaitlyn decided she would go home for a short while. There’d been one enchilada and some rice left over from the dinner Jake had made last night and she was hungry just thinking about it. Then she needed to phone Mary to fill her in on what was happening, let her know that she might not be in the office much the next few days.
She pulled into her garage several minutes later, fatigued and drained, afraid that even if her mother came through this, she would try suicide again, and possibly succeed. Kaitlyn had to help her find the joy in life she’d lost so many years ago.
With a heavy sigh, Kaitlyn went into the house, set her purse on the countertop and opened the fridge. She’d just taken the enchilada out when the alarm system let out an earsplitting wail. Hands over her ears, she rushed to punch in her code. The screeching stopped and she let out a weary breath. She was so exhausted she hadn’t even thought about safety gadgets.
Almost instantly the phone rang. Knowing it was Jake’s office calling to make certain she was all right, she dug in a drawer for the card with her response code. She picked up the phone and read the number to the woman on the other end.
“Mr. Riley has been notified and is on his way,” the woman said.
“Mr. Riley?” Kaitlyn repeated. “Why? I forgot to punch in the code, that’s all.”
“He’s asked to be notified whenever the system is activated,” the woman replied, then hung up.
Kaitlyn ran a hand across her forehead. She wasn’t up for company, wasn’t sure this was such a good time to deal with Jake—a man who could make her want to forget all her hard-learned lessons about relationships. Now more than ever, seeing what a relationship had cost her mother, Kaitlyn needed to stick to her resolve not to tie her fate to that of another person.
She put the leftovers in a glass dish, laid it in the microwave, then set the timer just as the doorbell rang. Wiping her hands on a towel, she walked over to open the door.
The sight that greeted her made her take a step backward. Jake. Unshaven. His hair finger-combed and falling across his forehead. His clothes badly wrinkled. His eyes blazing fury. She took another step back, realized what she’d done, then stood her ground.
“Where have you been all day?” he growled, pulling the door out of her hand and shutting it firmly.
He looked dangerous to the core. She had to resist the urge to run from him. The microwave chimed. She turned on her heel and walked to the kitchen without answering him.
“I asked you a question,” he said, storming into the kitchen after her.
“Jake, I’m extremely tired, physically and mentally. I don’t want to get into a fight with you because I came in and forgot to punch in my code.”
“That was tonight. Just now. What about when you left right before five o’clock this morning?”
He knew what time she’d left? Frowning, she took the steaming dish out of the microwave, then slowly turned to face him. “What do you mean?” she asked, fearing she knew the answer.
He leaned on the countertop, one hand on either side of her, pinning her to that spot. He towered over her, dark and menacing. Anger poured from him.
“I have been worried since five this morning, wondering where you were, what made you leave this house....” When the intensity in his eyes made her look away, he caught her chin and forced her to meet his gaze. “Whether Fallon had hurt you.”
“Fallon?” She blinked under the deepening scrutiny of his gaze.
“When the alarm went off this morning and I couldn’t find you, I went over
to his house.”
“Jake!” she cried out, remembering he’d been ordered to stay away from the other man as part of his release conditions. “Why? You could have been arrested again.”
“I had to find you. To make sure you were all right. And I couldn’t sit around waiting. I had to do something. I’ve been checking every place I thought you might be. I even got Rob to put out an APB on you.”
He’d been through hell and back. She could see it in his eyes, in everything about him. He’d done it for her, to make certain she was safe. And he’d gone through it all for nothing, anticipating a catastrophe as usual, never thinking there might be a perfectly logical, and non-life-threatening, explanation for her forgetting to disarm the system before leaving the house.
She wanted to hug him for caring and rake him over the coals for going overboard with the worrying. She laid her palm along the side of his roughened jaw.
“Jake, I’m so sorry,” she said sincerely. “Sorry you had to go through all this. I should have had someone else put in the alarm system.”
His eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about? This isn’t a case of a faulty system.”
“I didn’t mean to imply that it was. It’s just that I know how you are and I know how I am. I should have figured that something was bound to happen sooner or later to make me forget the alarm and I should have known that you would overreact when it did.”
He leaned an inch closer. “Overreact?”
“I was perfectly safe. But you didn’t know where I was, so you let it eat you up inside all day.” She sighed. “Look at you, Jake,” she said gently. “You’re a basket case. And it’s totally uncalled for.”
“I care—”
“I know, but it’s not your place to. For all you know, my boyfriend could have come into town this morning and I was so excited at the prospect of seeing him again I forgot the procedure for leaving home.”
His frown changed to a full scowl. “You’re not seeing anyone. You would have mentioned it, because you’re so ethical in everything. And...I asked Shelly.”
She shook her head. “The point to all this is that you have to set limits. I did not hire you as my bodyguard.”