I need your help.”
“Katie…”
“I’m not going to ask you to tell Greg or Andrew any lies. I won’t even tell you where I’m going except that it’s somewhere there is winter and snow.”
Years ago she couldn’t wait to get away from the cold northern winters. Now she couldn’t wait to go back.
“How will you support yourself and Kyle?”
“Waiting tables, probably,” Katie said. “I’ve done it before. I was on my own from the day I turned sixteen. I can do it again.”
She’d been raised—if that’s what you could call her grandmother’s haphazard attempts to keep her in line after her parents split up—in Pittsburgh. She’d run away as soon as she could, quitting school, drifting south, ending up in Key West where she’d met Michael, a college senior who was there on spring break. He’d married her and brought her back to Miami. That had been the only time, she suspected, he’d ever gone against his father’s wishes. But Michael, weak, fun-loving Michael, had died and left her alone.
Her grandmother was dead, too. She had no idea where her parents were. There was nothing for her in Pennsylvania anymore. But she was going north. She was going to spend Christmas where it snowed.
“You’ll have to leave Kyle with strangers most of the time—or at day care. That’s no life for Michael’s child.” They both watched the little boy as he wiggled from his mother’s lap and toddled off toward the window.
“Neither is this.”
“Please, Katie. Don’t be rash.”
“I’ve given this a lot of thought. I’m not going to change my mind.” There was no use arguing with Patrice. Despite the advantages of education and family background she possessed, Patrice was as trapped in Andrew Moran’s web as Katie was. Patrice was trapped because she loved her husband. Only her husband was blind to the depths of that love because he was preoccupied with his business interests and winning his father’s approval. Michael had been the same way: in many respects a lonely little boy, still striving to win his autocratic father’s love. In Katie’s opinion, Andrew Moran had a lot to answer for.
“Katie…” Patrice persisted.
“I need money,” Katie said, taking her sister-in-law’s cold hands between her own warm, strong ones. Neither of them had jobs. The Moran men wouldn’t hear of it, but Patrice had access to more cash than Katie because of a trust fund left to her when her grandmother died.
Andrew had set up charge accounts for Katie at all the best stores. She’d never lacked for anything for Kyle or herself. And someday Kyle would be wealthy in his own right. But Michael had died in debt. Debts that Andrew had paid. And Katie herself had few assets. She didn’t even own a car or jewelry she could sell for cash.
“How much?” Patrice asked, still frowning, and Katie knew she’d won her over to her side.
“As much as you can give me.” She gave Patrice’s hands a squeeze. “We’ll need coats and heavier clothes and diapers for Kyle. I won’t be taking anything with me when I leave.”
“What the hell do you mean, she’s gone?” Andrew Moran threw his starched linen napkin down on the table as he stood to confront his chauffeur. Theo, a tall, grim-faced Haitian, also served as Andrew’s personal bodyguard. He’d been with Andrew for as long as Patrice could remember but he never stood in awe of his employer.
“Just what I said,” he replied in the melodious tenor voice so at odds with his broad-shouldered physique and scarred blue-black face. “She’s gone. Give me the slip, she did. Took off. Her and the man child.”
“Where the hell could she go? Did you drive her to the airport? What? Speak up, man.”
“I took her shoppin’. She wanted the little tyke to see Santa Claus,” the chauffeur replied, his composure unruffled. “The place was crawlin’ with kids and people. They just disappeared.”
Andrew snapped his fingers. “Just like that?”
“Jus’ like that.”
“Dad, don’t get yourself all worked up.”
Patrice shifted her gaze from her father-in-law’s angry face to her husband’s. Father and son resembled each other a great deal physically. Neither man was above average height. Gregory’s brown hair was receding from his forehead. Andrew was nearly bald, with only a monk’s fringe of white hair circling his head from ear to ear. Andrew’s eyes were faded gray, sunk in wrinkles. Gregory’s eyes were blue-green, changeable, steady and clear. She loved his eyes, and his smile, the one feature he’d inherited from his long-dead mother.
“I’m not worked up.” Andrew leaned both clenched fists on the table. “I want to know what the bloody hell’s going on here.” When her father-in-law was very angry the faint echoes of his Liverpool, England, upbringing could be heard in his speech.
“She’s gone,” Theo repeated stubbornly. “I drove ’round and ’round the mall lookin’ for her. There ain’t no sign. They be gone. Both of them.”
“Damn it! I knew the crazy bitch would do something like this. She’s stolen my grandson.”
Andrew pinned Patrice with a hard stare. She jumped. Not because she was afraid of her father-in-law but because she knew he was going to start asking questions, and she was a terrible liar.
“What do you know about this?” he demanded.
“I do wish you’d watch your language at the table, Andrew,” she said, calling on memories of her unflappable Southern belle grandmamma to keep her voice level and clear.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he said ominously, but he did sit again in his heavy teak high-backed chair.
“What precisely do you want to know?” she asked in her turn, wishing that Gregory would come to her rescue, knowing that he would not. She was seeing Andrew through new eyes, Katie’s eyes, and she didn’t like what she saw—a bullying old man riding roughshod over everyone around him.
“You two are thick as thieves,” Andrew said. “How long’s she been planning this stunt? Where did she go?”
“To answer both your questions: I have no idea.” Patrice folded her napkin neatly beside her plate, her roast beef left untouched. No leftover turkey the day after Thanksgiving at Andrew Moran’s table. No leftovers, ever.
“You’re lying.”
“Dad,” Gregory protested, but he in turn immediately began questioning her himself. “Why would she run away, Pat?”
“Because she’s unhappy.” Patrice felt a sharp, cutting stab of pain at Greg’s accusatory tone. She wondered if he really understood what she was saying. “She felt trapped. And she…she was afraid.”
“Afraid?” Gregory wrinkled his high forehead. “Afraid of what?” He looked genuinely perplexed, and then angry in his turn. “What has she got to be afraid of?”
“Nothing,” Andrew broke in before Patrice
