feel what I’m feeling.”
“You’d be surprised what I feel.” Her faint smile was anything but bright. “And it’s Allie, please. Doc sounds a bit clinical.”
“All doctors are clinical.” He sounded harsh. He didn’t care. Couldn’t let himself care. The only thing that mattered was Hope. “What if she’s run away again? She’s been doing that lately. It’s one of the reasons I moved out here.”
“If that’s what’s happened, we’ll find her sooner than later.”
“But you don’t think that’s what this is,” Max countered, daring the doctor to claim otherwise.
“She’s well aware she can trust you,” she said after the briefest of hesitations. “I’ve seen a marked improvement in her since you came to stay. She’s spoken about you often during our sessions. She loves you. Worships you, as a matter of fact. Her hero uncle Max who fights fires and saves people. I think I actually saw stars explode in her eyes talking about you one day.”
“Twist the knife deeper, why don’t you.” Max drank more coffee, surprised at how soothing the jolt of caffeine felt. The last thing he needed to dwell on was Hope out there waiting for him to find her, which he couldn’t do as long as he was stuck in here. Not that leaving was an option. What if a call came in...
His arms shook as his muscles clenched. “For the record, I don’t fight fires. Not anymore, anyway.”
Detective MacTavish reentered the kitchen.
“What?” Max’s spine went stiff.
“Crime scene unit is on its way. My partner is working on getting some FBI assistance while he’s up at the Vandermonts’ home. We want as many agencies on this as possible. The more we blanket the valley, the sooner we’ll find her.”
“Tell him to request Special Agent Eamon Quinn,” Allie said. “He’s out of the San Francisco office, but he’s one of their top experts in cases like this.” She flinched, as if afraid she’d said too much.
“Cases like what?” Max demanded.
“Missing persons,” Allie said quickly. Too quickly.
“Before this goes any further,” Detective MacTavish said, “I need to ask you something, Max.”
“Ask away.” What was it with these people that they were treating him with kid gloves? “I don’t have anything to hide.”
The detective glanced at Allie, who gave an encouraging nod. Max reined in his temper. Damned doctors always thought they knew best about everything.
“Given the custody fight over Hope,” Detective MacTavish said, “do you think it’s at all possible that either your sister-in-law or your brother could have taken her without telling you?”
“You have got to be kidding me.” Max set the mug down with a clack. “Seriously?”
“Very seriously. Allie’s filled me in on what she can—”
“Did she?” Max sneered. “Stretching those confidentiality boundaries are we, Doc?”
If his words hit an emotional target, he couldn’t tell. Not even a flicker of acknowledgment. Boy, she was one cold ice queen. “I told the detective what I could,” she said. “That your brother’s case has been contentious. Something I’ve been witness to in court on numerous occasions.”
“Joe wouldn’t do that to me.” Max couldn’t shake the sensation there was something more to this situation than he was being told. Or maybe he was overreacting. The last thing he could rely on these days was his own judgment. He’d never done well when people he loved were threatened. Situations like this always threw him into a tailspin and that’s when he made bad choices. Life-altering choices. “My brother wouldn’t set me up like this or use me. It doesn’t matter how much Joe and Gemma might loathe each other, he wouldn’t let me think Hope was in danger.” The very idea would have made him laugh if he could remember how.
“What about Hope’s mother?” Detective MacTavish asked.
“Gemma wouldn’t have any problem letting me hang.” Max grimaced. “We aren’t the other’s favorite person. We only get along for Hope’s sake. I’ve never trusted or liked her and she knows it.”
“Why don’t you trust her?” Allie asked.
He hesitated. No need to air that bit of dirty family laundry unless absolutely necessary. “Because my brother’s worth about three-quarters of a billion dollars and she didn’t pay him much attention until he hit the Fortune 500.” Aggravation built to the point of bursting. Max had long believed Gemma had only had Hope to ensure she would be financially tied to Joe forever. “Search the house, take my prints and DNA, hunt down Gemma, set up your phones or what have you, but I need to do something. I’ve got training. I can be out there looking—”
“We need you to stay close to home for the time being,” Detective MacTavish cut him off. “At least until we can get your brother or sister-in-law back here. You being around to answer any questions we might have is exactly the kind of help we need. Beginning with any friends of Gemma who might be able to help us track her down.”
“I’ll be here if you need me,” Allie’s too-soothing voice grated on Max’s nerves.
“I don’t need you,” he spat. “I don’t need anything other than for my niece to walk through that door and prove to me this is all some horrible mistake. So take your niceties and your platitudes and put them to use somewhere else. You find my niece.” He moved in on the detective, who straightened to meet him eye-to-eye. “And you do it fast. Or I’m going to do it myself.”
It was strange, Allie thought, how time possessed a vicious will of its own. It sped up when you wanted to stretch out the memories and slowed to an agonizing crawl when all she wanted to do was push forward.
The hours that had passed since she’d sat before three terrified little girls felt like days, days she’d do anything to pretend had been a dream. Now, as she stepped inside Hope Kellan’s second-floor bedroom, the reality of the little girl’s absence hit her like an anvil.
She watched as the last member of the Sac PD’s crime scene unit snapped a metal case shut and left. The tech offered a strained, understanding smile as he did so. Never before had Allie put so much faith in the department she’d worked closely with and in the detectives heading up the case. She trusted them, absolutely and without question.
And yet...
Allie, of all people, knew there were no absolutes in life. Not where children were concerned. Not twenty years ago and not today.
She’d needed solitude; she’d needed quiet. Watching Max Kellan occupy himself with pacing, sitting, standing, and then repeating the pattern, pressed in on her. She understood how he felt; all she wanted to do was go out the front door, breathe in the fresh air and walk until she couldn’t walk anymore.
His
