by Amy Gamet
“Okay, yes. We come from very different backgrounds.”
She blew out air and wrestled with her sneaker. “Oh, just say it. I’m not good enough for you, and I never was. Trailer trash. You were never going to marry Old Man Buckley’s daughter.”
“Stop getting dressed. Let’s talk about this.”
“What is there to talk about? I just got a real good look into your heart, and I don’t like what I see.”
“You know I love you.”
“Do you?” She pulled her sweatshirt over her head. “Do you love me enough to marry me and take me away from this place?”
He said nothing, only stared at her from across the room. She moved to the door. “Don’t call me. Don’t come to the diner and see me. In two weeks, you’ll be gone and finally free of me.”
She wanted him to argue with her, to insist he was wrong and whisper apologies into her hair. Instead, he said, “We could use the time to think about what we really want.”
She could still feel the devastation his words wrought inside her. Her world had been shattered that night, leaving her surrounded by shards with no way to fix it. A tear slipped down her cheek. A draft crept around the old window, and she hugged herself against the cold. Some things never changed, and she was grateful this house, at least, was one of them.
7
“Don’t finish all the Cap’n Crunch!”
“I got it first.”
“That’s not fair.”
“First come, first serve. It’s perfectly fair.”
Sloan’s eyes popped open, confusion permeating the thick haze of sleep. He stared at his living room ceiling. He was on the couch, and there were children in his kitchen.
Joanne’s children.
He sat up slowly, looking around. A pair of sneakers sat in the middle of the floor, one upside down. He scratched the back of his head and sighed, reaching for his prosthetic arm and securing it in place. His head ached a little from the scotch, and he longed for a cup of coffee to take the edge off the pain.
More screaming from the kitchen. “Give that back!”
“You finished the Cap’n Crunch, so I’m taking the Lucky Charms.” That was the girl… April. He got up and stretched.
“Mom!” yelled the boy.
“Just shut up and eat the Cheerios.”
“I hate Cheerios! And don’t tell me to shut up!”
Sloan had slept in his jeans, but he pulled on his T-shirt in an attempt to appear presentable as he dove into the fray in the kitchen. “Everyone hates Cheerios. I’d go for the Cap’n Crunch.”
The boy didn’t miss a beat. Lucas. “She touched it. I don’t want it after she touched it.”
April gestured dramatically. “I poured it from the box into the bowl.”
Lucas straightened his arms by his sides, fingers balled into fists. “I’m not eating that crap!”
Sloan held up a hand. “Watch your mouth.” He reached into the top of the pantry and dug behind boxes of macaroni and cheese, withdrawing a second box of Lucky Charms. “Here. I’m always prepared.”
A single clap behind Sloan made him turn around. Little Fiona stood in the doorway, beaming. “Marshmallows!” God, she was cute. “I don’t want milk.” She wagged a finger at Sloan and settled at the table.
“If you don’t give her milk, she’ll only eat the marshmallows,” said April.
Sloan nodded. “C’mon, we’ll all have them with milk. You want some, right, Lucas?”
“Yeah.” The kid pulled out a chair, the sound of chewing soon replacing the chaos.
Sloan poured his own bowl of cereal, momentarily torn. Usually, he just ate the marshmallows. He frowned. “Will you pass the milk, please?” He’d planned on doing some laundry and watching the football game at the bar this afternoon, but that plan was obviously thrown out the window. He picked the marshmallows out of their milky bath, careful to avoid the twiggy parts. “Where’s your mom?”
“She’s still sleeping,” said Lucas, his mouth full of cereal. “What happened to your arm?”
“Lucas!” snapped April.
Sloan held up a hand. “It’s okay. I lost it in an accident when I was in the Navy.”
The boy grinned. “Did it get sawed off?”
April smacked his arm. “Lucas!”
“No, it—”
Lucas’s eyes lit. “Was there an explosion?”
“No—”
“Did you get shot?”
April rolled her eyes and moved to the sink, rinsing out her bowl, while Sloan tried again to answer. “Nothing like that. I was—”
“Ooh, did it get run over by a Humvee?”
Sloan leaned back in his chair. “Nope.”
“Did somebody stab you?”
“Nope.” He smiled at Fiona, who seemed truly interested in their conversation and not at all disturbed.
“Somebody shot my dad,” she said, putting her lips on the edge of the bowl to scoop marshmallows into her mouth.
Sloan turned to the girl, suddenly interested.
“Shut up,” yelled Lucas.
Fiona slurped up a diamond-shaped marshmallow, her eyes never leaving Sloan’s. “He’s in heaven with the angels.”
Jesus Christ.
Sloan didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t this. David had been murdered?
“There’s no such thing as heaven,” said Lucas, picking up his bowl and dropping it into the sink with a clang.
“Yes, there is! Mommy said so.”
“She lied,” said Lucas, storming out of the kitchen.
The little girl’s face fell and her bottom lip quivered.
“Lucas,” snapped Sloan, but the boy was already gone. He squeezed Fiona’s arm. “He’s just kidding, honey. Of course there’s a heaven.”
“Do you promise?”
“Absolutely.” The girl seemed to accept that and went back to eating, clearly trying to avoid anything that wasn’t a marshmallow.
He stood and made coffee, careful to keep his distance from April. She had the air of a frightened animal, and he didn’t want her to bolt. On the contrary, he wanted information. “I’m sorry to hear about your dad. How long ago did he pass away?”
“Thursday.”
Fuck, no wonder Jo was a wreck. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. There was definitely a connection between David’s death and Jo’s sudden need for money, and he wondered if the other man had left an insurance policy to provide for his family. “What happened?”
The girl shrugged. “We don’t know. He was at his hunting cabin.”
“So it was an accident?”
April looked pointedly at Fiona, then back at Sloan. “No.”
“I see,” he said, but he didn’t really understand at all. He’d have to have Moto look into it for him. “Where do you live?”
“Just outside of Chicago.”
He pulled out his phone and texted Moto, who’d just gone on assignment with Trace out in Wyoming, but hopefully he could find some time to learn what really happened to David Regan.
Joanne appeared in the doorway. “I can’t believe I slept so late.” She kissed the top of Fiona’s head. “Lucky Charms, eh? Your favorite.”
“Marshmallows,” said the girl.
Jo headed for the coffeepot. “Morning, April.”
“Lucas was being a jerk.”
“I heard that!” Lucas yelled from the other room.
“Why don’t you hop in the shower?” Jo said, combing the girl’s hair back from her face with her fingers. “We’re going to get out of here in the next hour or so.”
Fiona perked up. “We’re going home?”
“No, genius, we can’t go home, remember?” asked Lucas as he walked into the room. “And I was not being a jerk. April refused to share the good cereal.”
April held up her hands. “I’m going in the shower. I can’t take this anymore.”
Lucas moved his head back and forth. “Good, ’cause you stink.”
&
nbsp; “That’s enough,” said Joanne.
Sloan handed her the first cup of coffee. “There’s half-and-half on the top shelf. You sleep okay?”
“Eventually.”
“Can I play in the snow?” asked Lucas.
“Sure,” said Jo. “But wear your snow pants. We don’t have a lot of clean clothes.” Lucas left the room and she turned to Sloan. “What time does the bank open?”
She was certainly in a hurry to get out of here, but his curiosity was piqued. David had died days earlier, Joanne was desperate for money, and she couldn’t go home. “They’re open now. Why don’t you come with me for the ride? It’ll give us a chance to talk.”
“I can’t leave Fiona with Lucas. They’ll kill each other.”
Sloan winced. “I was hoping we could talk privately.”
“I haven’t had a private conversation since 2007. I’ll grab her iPad and headphones out of the Porsche. I don’t think you’d fit in there. We were like sardines in a can.”
Fiona’s eyes went wide, her mouth forming the letter O. “I watch princesses?”
“Yes, pumpkin,” said Joanne with a smile. “You can watch princesses.”
8
Six days.
Acid flooded Joanne’s stomach as her anxiety reared to life. She only had six more days to find the money and return it to Bannon.
It had been her first thought when she opened her eyes this morning, the words repeating like a mantra while she brushed her teeth and showered.
Six days.
Six days.
You only have six more days.
She grabbed Fiona’s booster seat from the Porsche and strapped the girl tightly into the back of Sloan’s Bronco while he cleaned off the windshield. She couldn’t breathe, her lungs seemingly stilted by the overwhelming panic in her breast. She needed a plan, and she needed it now.
She slid across the smooth leather passenger seat and waited for Sloan as Fiona softly sang “Let it Go,” an appropriate soundtrack as Joanne took in the white and gray scene, desperate to distract herself from her anxiety and calm herself down.
The vehicle was quintessential Sloan, and memories of his old pickup truck and the things they’d done on its narrow bench seat came swiftly to her mind. The night she’d lost her virginity, her heart had been bursting with love so profound she thought it could never die. That felt like a lifetime ago, her own naiveté casting her in a light that was unrecognizable to her now.
Sloan climbed in and started the car. Aerosmith blared, startling her, and he turned it down. “Sorry.” The corded muscles of his good arm stood out against his honeyed skin as he backed out of the driveway.
She furrowed her brow. “Where did you get a tan in December?”
“Colombia. I was down there for two weeks hunting down a kidnapped CEO from one of the biggest banks in the world.”
She cocked her head. “What did you say you do?”
“I didn’t.” He smiled, stopping at a red light. “I work for HERO Force, the Hands-on Engagement and Reconnaissance Operations team. A lot of former SEALs working in the private sector.”
“So you made it. You became a SEAL.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And now you solve kidnappings.” The roads were worse than she would have thought, the tires slipping as the light turned green.
“Not so much solving as ending. More often than not, we pay the ransom for the families and get the person home. You’d be surprised how often it happens, but nobody wants it publicized, especially when it’s a key player in a corporation. Tends to scare shareholders.”
“I bet it would. Do you just do kidnappings?”
“Nah, we also do private security, personal protection, that kind of thing. Or, as the name says, reconnaissance. Anything, really.”
God, she could use someone like that. “Like Navy SEALs for hire.”
“Pretty much.”
“So, when you help a family pay a ransom, are the police involved?”
“No. Most kidnappers tend to frown on police involvement. The cases I’ve been on, the family has made a choice. They could have gone to the authorities, but they decided to meet the kidnappers’ demands and work outside the system.”
The similarities to her own situation were strong, and the first light of hope broke through the clouds. “And what do you think of that? Is that a smart thing to do?”
“Me? I think it makes sense a lot of the time. If you want to see your loved one again, sometimes you’ve got to play by their rules. The stakes are just too high.”
Could Sloan’s company help her? Give her a way to find the money Bannon was looking for, deal with this problem, and protect her family in the meantime? Who was she kidding? She couldn’t afford to pay them. She was borrowing money for rent, for God’s sake.
He glanced at her. “Why do you ask?”
“Just curious.”
He’d been driving down a residential street, but now he swerved to the side of the road and put the SUV in park. “Does that curiosity have anything to do with the reason you can’t go home?”
She shot a look at Fiona, who seemed not to notice they’d stopped, arms stretched out like she was freezing the forest. “What makes you think I can’t go home?”
“Lucas said so.”
She rolled her eyes. “He was being dramatic.”
“They told me David died. I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you.”
“Jo, if you did something—anything—you can count on me to help you find your way.”
“Did something? Like what?”
Now he peeked at Fiona. “Can she hear us?”
“Definitely not.”
He paused for a beat. “Did you kill him?”
“What?”
“I wouldn’t judge you. Not if he hurt you.”
“I told you, he didn’t. And I sure as hell didn’t kill him, but thanks for your never-ending faith in me.”
“I’m just saying, I would help you. You know that old saying, friends help you move; good friends help you move bodies.”
“So, you don’t even believe me.” She huffed. “Can we go, please? I need to get on the road.”
He sighed and pulled back onto the road. “I had to ask.”
“No, you didn’t. But you did it anyway.”
“I want to help, damn it. I need information to do that, and you’re not giving it to me. You didn’t even tell me David had died, for God’s sake. What happened?”
“Hunting accident.”
He turned onto Main Street, and they drove in silence until he pulled into the bank parking lot. “This would be a lot easier if you’d tell me the truth.”
“What makes you think I’m not?”
“I know you, Buckley. You never could lie worth a damn.” He got out and slammed his door.
Prick.
The car had finally warmed up and the heat was blasting. She turned it down with an irritated flick and stared out her window. The older she got, the more she hated winter, and her mind turned to possible places to start over—preferably far south of here.
A car pulled into the spot beside her. Georgia sounded nice, though she’d never actually been there, and she realized she was basing her assessment purely on a mental image of peach trees stretched as far as the eye could see. Florida didn’t sound appealing. Maybe Louisiana, or Mississippi. Someplace warm where she and the kids could disappear under the cover of Spanish moss and humidity.
A man got out of the car next to her and she averted her eyes, not wanting to engage. But he tapped on her window, drawing her head up. Richard Bannon stood on the other side of the glass, staring at her.
Icy fear coursed through her veins. How had he found her? He’d followed her here, all the way from Chicago, but that wasn’t possible. She’d had her eye on the mirror the whole time and would have known if they’d had a tail, wouldn’t she?
He gestured for her to roll down the window and, when it was open a crack, asked, �
�Are you making progress, Mrs. Regan?”
“How did you get here?”
“You didn’t think I was just going to trust you to get back to me in a few days, did you? I wouldn’t want you deciding to disappear with my money. I need to protect what’s mine.”
“Did you follow me?”
“I have my ways.” He looked at Fiona in the backseat. “Cute kid. I’d hate for anything bad to happen to her. You’ve got six days left, Mrs. Regan.” He moved to walk away, then bent back to the window. “And I wouldn’t go leaving the other two alone like that if I was you.”
9
Sloan winked at the teller, a sixty-year-old woman who used to serve him lunch in the school cafeteria. “Twenties will be fine, thanks, Mrs. Martin.”
“I don’t have that much in my drawer. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
Ten thousand dollars in twenty-dollar bills was sure to be a little cumbersome to deal with, but he suspected Jo would prefer the smaller bills. She’d only asked for a few thousand, but he wanted to make sure she had enough, and suspected if he pressed her she would clam up. Talking to her today was like walking barefoot over bird spikes. Her defenses had always run high, and her behavior this morning was no exception.
The teller returned and counted out bills. After this was over and Joanne was on her way, maybe he’d take a vacation. Let his toes sink into the sand someplace warm and forget all about Joanne Buckley and whatever the hell she was hiding.
Like you’ll be able to do that.
The thought brought him up short. Of course he’d be able to forget her. He’d been over her for longer than they’d been together, and nothing was going to change that. Besides, clearly she was knee deep in some kind of mess and wouldn’t even tell him what was going on. If he had half a brain in his head, he’d let her go just like she wanted. He sucked his cheeks in.
“Here you go,” said the teller, returning with a bound stack of bills. “Want me to count it out for you?”
“No, thanks, I trust you.” He took the stack in his hand. Ten thousand dollars. A simple stack of bills. This was all she wanted from him. He turned on his heel.