wide, Allison turned and looked sharply at Kane. “So I was, Mr. Kane. And how would you happen to know that?”
He had her full attention now. Good. “What I know and how I know it isn’t important. What is important is that you try to remember where you’ve been this last week, especially on the days those pictures were taken. Everywhere you went, everyone you talked to and everyone who talked to you. Think carefully.”
Allison was having trouble thinking at all. First she’d had the shock of the pictures, and now this man was nonchalantly reporting who she’d been to dinner with. She was beginning to wonder who she should be more worried about—the man taking the pictures or Mr. Thomas Kane.
“I’d remember anyone strange at the center,” she said with exasperation. “But beyond that I couldn’t possibly remember every person I’ve talked to.”
“You have to remember,” he insisted. “A clerk, a waiter, someone who may have asked you for the time or held the door for you. Anything and everything. It might matter a lot to you, and to your father, as well.”
Her father. She remembered the murdered CEO and closed her eyes, concentrating, forcing her mind to recall every movement of the last few days, to search for anything even remotely out of the ordinary.
There was the dry cleaners’…the service on her car…dinner with Michael…
Nothing exciting and certainly nothing out of the ordinary.
Sighing, she looked at Kane and shook her head. “I couldn’t even tell you what I had for dinner the other night.”
“Chicken amandine.”
Stunned, she simply stared at him. And then something incredible happened.
He smiled.
Well, almost a smile, Allison corrected. It was more like the slightest uplifting of one corner of his mouth and an imperceptible tightening at the edges of his eyes. Though only for a second, the hard, sharp angles of his face softened. The change was subtle, but the effect was overwhelming. She felt the steady, deep thud of her heart and cursed herself for finding him attractive. “You mentioned my father hired you because you’re the best, Mr. Kane. What exactly is it that you’re best at?”
Too late, Allison realized the sexual nature of her question. In the briefest moment, as they stared at each other, it seemed as if the storm had moved into the room with them and charged the air with electricity. She felt it skipping up her back and tightening her skin. She held her breath, anticipating his answer.
“Kidnapping.”
She blinked slowly. “You kidnap people?”
Kane’s smile widened a fraction. “I’m more interested in prevention.”
“That’s what you do?” She lowered her brow. “You prevent kidnappings?”
“It’s a living.” A good one, Kane might have added, but didn’t. His business had increased fifteen percent last year and he expected that figure to double this year. Men—and women—of wealth and power paid well to protect themselves and those they love. “My company is based in Miami. I have references, if you’d like to see them.”
“That won’t be necessary.” This man needed no references, Allison thought. And it wasn’t just his height or the muscular build of his body that was so formidable. There was a presence about him, a manner that radiated from him that was as primitive as it was powerful. A power that men respected and women responded to at the most basic level. And she, Allison noted with annoyance, was obviously no exception.
Reminding herself there was an issue here much more important than her own hormones waking up from hibernation, Allison stared down at the streets below. Cars were bumper to bumper in the rush-hour traffic. Windshield wipers swiped back and forth in syncopated rhythm. Thousands of people going home with nothing more on their minds than dinner with their families.
And somewhere down there was a man with a camera.
She turned slightly at the sound of men’s voices from the outer office. “Those men in the hall, are they with you?”
“No.” He stood beside her, following the movement of traffic. “They’re part of your father’s security team. I’m here to work with them, teach them what I know.”
She wondered briefly who had taught Kane. “And what about our friend with the camera?” she asked quietly.
Kane would have liked to tell her that they’d catch the guy in a day or two and she could go about her business as usual. But he never made promises and he never underestimated a potential problem.
“He’s already made a number of mistakes—stealing a car and losing the film for starters. My guess is that he’ll make more. He’s going to go after the wrong person, at the wrong time, and that’s when we’ll get him.”
She turned to him, hugging her arms tightly to her. “And which ‘wrong person’ do you think he’ll go after?”
He waited until her gaze lifted to his. “You.”
Allison’s eyes widened. “Well,” she said on a shaky laugh, “you certainly don’t mince words, do you?”
“Neither will a kidnapper.”
She sucked in a sharp breath and nodded slowly. “So what now?”
“For now, it would certainly make life easier if you’d do as your father asks and stay home from work for a few days.”
So they were back to that, Allison thought. She straightened her shoulders and leveled her gaze with Kane’s. “Do you have any children?”
She could have sworn she saw him flinch, but then wondered if she’d imagined it.
“No.”
“A wife?”
A hard glint entered his eyes. “No.”
“Then it might be difficult for me to explain this to you, Mr. Kane, but I’m going to try anyway. There are twenty-five children at St. Martin’s Center who look forward to seeing me. I take them to the movies, read to them, play games with them. All the things their drug-addicted or alcoholic mothers and fathers don’t do.”
Because she wanted him to understand, she leaned closer. “But there’s something else I do that’s even more important. I hold them. I kiss them. I tell them they’re special, then wipe their tears away when they don’t believe me. And then I hold them some more. For just a little while I share their pain, a pain that I thank God I never experienced, a pain that most people can’t possibly understand.”
Kane let the old ache pass through him, ignoring the fact that it seemed sharper this time. Deeper. If he’d wanted to, he could have told her that he did understand. He understood too damn well. But he said nothing.
Allison clenched her hands into fists, angry not only at the situation, but at herself for trying to explain to this man why the center and the children there were so important to her. Based on the hard-set expression on his face, he hadn’t heard a word she’d said. She wouldn’t
