ago.
Before she made the wrong choice, and the wrong person paid the price.
“We’re so sorry,” the director was saying. Fear drenched her voice. The poor woman’s livelihood wobbled at stake. A day-care center that lost children in its care would not stay in business long. “I don’t know how he wandered off. We were watching him the whole time—”
“It’s not your fault, Elaine.” Danielle put on her blinker and zipped around a slow-moving minivan.
“But it is,” Elaine insisted. “This is inexcusable.”
Fear crawled through Danielle, as dark and slimy as an army of the earwigs she’d always hated, but she managed to keep her voice steady as she explained it would be several days before Alex returned to the day-care center. By the time she pulled into the cracked driveway of her little white house, she’d convinced Elaine Myers she wasn’t going to press charges.
“Alex!” She called his name the second she pushed open the car door. “Alex!”
Nothing.
The house looked so still, still and dark and quiet. Too quiet for the house of a six-year-old boy who didn’t even hold still when he slept.
She unlocked the front door, shoved it open and ran into the darkened foyer. “Alex!”
Nothing.
Her whole body started to shake, and this time she didn’t have to pretend. Didn’t have to hold back. She let the tide crash over and around her, let it push her to her knees.
The sobs came next, big, gulping sobs. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God.”
Breathe, she told herself. Breathe. Think. But she couldn’t. She’d never felt so helpless in her life, not even the horrible rainy night she’d watched a car spin out of control and crash, then burst into flames. She’d run toward the wreckage, screaming, her brother Anthony trying to hold her back. But there was no one here now. No one to hold her back. No one to hold her, period. No one to help. Her son was missing. Gone.
Images assaulted her then, darker than the fear, the horror, the rage snaking through her. Her little boy. His dark hair and laughing blue eyes. His impish smile. He’d never spent the night away from home. Away from her.
He could be anywhere. His abductors could be doing anything to him. Bile backed up in her throat, and this time she couldn’t stop the churning of her stomach. She gagged, lost what little lunch she’d consumed.
She wasn’t stupid or naive. She watched the news. She knew about child predators. Knew too much.
Anthony.
Her brother’s name came to her on a shattering rush of memory, and with it came more tears. Dear, dear Anthony. So tough and brave, wounded on a level few would ever suspect. He’d taken on a man’s responsibility long before he was able to wear a man’s clothing. And for a long while, he’d succeeded. He’d protected her and her sister, Elizabeth. He’d sheltered them, saved them from the bad man.
But she’d turned her back on Anthony, on them all.
Blindly she staggered to her feet and ran to the kitchen, grabbed the phone. She had to call Anthony. He would know what to do. He wouldn’t turn his back on her. Not now. He would be on the next plane to Chicago and—
One word about this call to anyone, and your son will pay the price.
Danielle sagged against the small white tiles of the counter and let the receiver drop from her hands. She couldn’t make the call, couldn’t take the risk.
The contact came thirty-three minutes later. She was staring at the phone, waiting for it to ring, but the noise resonated from the foyer. A knock. At the door.
She stood there a minute, stunned, before her training kicked in and she calmly dragged a chair to the cabinet and removed a lock box from the top shelf. Inside, the trusty Derringer awaited her. By rote, blindly, she retrieved the clip from a second box and slid it into place, all the while the knocking continued. Louder. Harder.
Sliding the gun into the waistband at the small of her back, she walked to the front door and pulled it open.
Nothing prepared her. Nothing could have. He stood against a wash of late-afternoon sun, the play of shadows and light stealing the details of his face, but not the force of his presence.
Danielle saw what the shadows stole. She saw the aura of danger, the hard, dark eyes, the sharp lines of his cheekbones, the square jaw. And she knew. Instinct urged her to draw the gun, cram it against his jugular and curl her finger around the trigger, while demanding he lead her to her son. But something else, sanity—caution—prompted her to stand very still, with the air-conditioning slapping her back and the hot summer sun blasting her face, not moving other than a slight tilt to her chin.
“You’re awfully bold, aren’t you?” she asked.
The big, tall man who wore confidence like body armor blinked. “Excuse me?”
Her fingers itched for the cool steel of the Derringer she’d received in honor of her sixteenth birthday. “It’s daylight,” she pointed out, glancing beyond his wide shoulders to the quiet suburban street, where Jonah Johnson raced by on his dirt bike. “Someone might see you.”
His lips, ridiculously full and soft for such a grim, hard man, twitched. “And would that be such a bad thing?”
“Not for me,” she said with a cold smile. “You’re the one taking the risk.”
“I see.” Slowly, very slowly, never taking his eyes from hers, he slid a hand into his pocket.
Danielle’s breath slowed to the slide of his fingers. Adrenaline ebbed, flowed, guided her own hand behind her back, to the waistband of her tailored black skirt. She’d stood face-to-face with monsters before. Talked with them. Pretended. Played their game.
“It’s a good thing I like risks, then, isn’t it?” His question was casual, as unexpected as the dimple that flashed with his smile. He stepped closer, lowered his voice. “I have to say, though, this is hardly the greeting I expected.”
“No?” Her fingers curled around the cool metal. “Did you expect to find me quivering in the dark? On my knees? In a puddle waiting to be mopped up and pushed aside?” If so, the man was sadly mistaken. Danielle had learned at an obscenely early age that the best defense was a strong offense. If she let this man see the stark fear slicing her to thin painful ribbons, gave him one clue how hard it was to stand there and face him, to keep her voice calm, then his power over her would grow.
“Look,” he said, “I’m afraid—”
“You should be.” Slowly, calmly, she pulled the gun and pointed it at his chest. “Very, very afraid.”
The man went still. She saw his eyes flare in surprise, then narrow in confusion. His mouth thinned to a flat line. His body, straining against the dark-gray of his wrinkled button-down and black jeans, froze.
“Doesn’t feel very good, does it?” she asked, enjoying the brief upper hand. Pray God she wasn’t making the biggest mistake of her life. “Now get inside
