“Don’t worry,” he answered, pulling a notebook from his pocket. “We’ll find her. The owners of this house are Rob and Jennifer Waldorf. He’s in finance, and she’s an interior decorator. We ran a check on them after O’Donnell called from Kasdan’s place. They reported a private adoption about three and a half years ago. A little girl.” He shoved the notebook back in his pocket. “I’ve already got officers on the way to both their places of work. It’s the middle of the day. Assuming Kasdan didn’t tip them off after you left her, Raegan, that little girl is probably in a day care or preschool right this minute.”
Alec looked down at her and said, “See?”
Hope burned a path of fire through Raegan’s belly, giving her strength. She was almost too afraid to grasp it. “And what if Kasdan tipped them off?”
“They won’t get far. I’ve issued arrest warrants for both of them. The team I sent over to pick up Kasdan told me the files you found prove the Waldorfs knowingly purchased a child. That’s a felony in this county. We’ll find them, Raegan. It’s just a matter of time.”
Alec had said the same, and Raegan wanted to believe it, but she was afraid. Yes, they’d uncovered an abduction ring, and the people involved would all soon be prosecuted, but she still didn’t have her daughter.
Her energy waned again, and she sagged against Alec. His arm was right there to hold her up.
“Why don’t you two head upstairs?” Bickam said. “McClane, have one of the guys up there get her a bandage for that cut on her forehead.”
“Will do.” Alec’s arm tightened around Raegan’s shoulder as he steered her toward the doorway. “Come on, baby.”
Raegan wasn’t sure how they made it back up to the main level, but she did notice the number of people they had to step around as they walked. Moments ago, the house had been empty and she’d thought she was going to die. Now it was swarming with police and FBI, and all she could think was that the one person who was supposed to be here wasn’t.
The back stairs opened off the kitchen. Alec guided her around the granite island and through the great room toward the entryway. Daylight burned her eyes as they moved down the wide steps and into the circular drive. Someone rushed over, took her by the arm, and drew her away from Alec’s warmth to sit on the backseat of an open police cruiser.
She blinked several times, trying to shake herself out of this fog. When a burn cut across her forehead, she hissed in a breath.
“Sorry,” the young twentysomething officer said. “Just cleaning the wound.” He dropped a bloody piece of gauze in a bag at his knees that made her stomach pitch. “This might need stitches. Paramedics are on their way. I want you to let them take a look at it.”
Raegan nodded as the officer placed a bandage over the cut, searching for Alec in the sea of faces. The officer checked her other cuts and bruises. Several minutes later, he finally stood and stepped back. Just as quickly Alec’s broad shoulders and chiseled features came into sight, and just knowing he was close calmed Raegan and brought everything into focus.
She held out a hand to him. His long fingers curled around hers, and then he was there, on his knees in front of her, gazing up at her with so much love and warmth in his light-blue eyes, her heart contracted hard.
“You okay?” he asked, squeezing both of her hands in his.
She nodded, but tears pricked her eyes.
“Oh, baby. Come here.” He wrapped his arms around her.
Her hands slid over his shoulder. Closing her eyes, she focused on him, on them, on the fact they were okay and closer than ever to finding Emma, and just held on.
“You heard Bickam,” he whispered. “We’re gonna get her back. You were right all along. You said she was still alive, and I didn’t believe you. I was such a fool. Can you ever forgive me for that?”
“There’s nothing to forgive.”
“Yeah, there is.” He eased back and looked up at her. “I should have trusted in you—in us. I never should have given up on her. And I shouldn’t have left you alone last night.” He reached for her hands, gripping them against her lap as his gaze searched her face. “I should have gone home with you.”
Home. Their home.
Warmth filled her chest, pushing aside the fear, giving her strength. Lifting her hand from his, she skimmed her fingertips over his jaw. “I know you were upset and that you needed some time. I don’t care where you went or what you d—”
“I didn’t drink.” His clear blue eyes held hers. “I wanted to. But I want you more. I’ll always want you more.”
Those tears came rushing back, filling her eyes and blurring her vision before she could stop them. “I want you too. All of you. For better or worse.”
He pushed up on his knees and kissed her, his hand sliding into her hair, his strong body warm and solid against hers. “For better or worse,” he whispered, holding her tight. “I won’t leave you again. I will never, ever leave you again, Raegan. You’re my everything.”
She closed her eyes. Breathed in the scent of him. And felt an inner peace solidify inside her, because two things were certain now: Whatever happened, however long it took, they wouldn’t give up on their daughter. And they’d never, ever give up on each other again.
An engine sounded in the distance, then grew silent. A car door slammed. Voices echoed around them, but Raegan didn’t turn to look because she had what she needed right here.
Alec lifted his head, and his body stilled against hers. Near her ear, he whispered, “Oh my God.”
“What?” Raegan drew back and searched his face. His eyes widened as he gazed through the back windshield of the car at something behind her. Twisting in her seat to see what he was looking at, she said, “What are y—”
The words caught in her throat when she spotted the slim, blonde twentysomething woman standing beside a Toyota Camry Raegan didn’t remember being in the drive when she and Alec had walked out of that house, speaking with two FBI agents. And perched on the young woman’s hip, looking around with wide eyes, was an auburn-haired four-year-old girl.
“Alec,” Raegan gasped, reaching for his shoulder.
Alec stood quickly and pulled Raegan to her feet, his eyes never once leaving the little girl. “I don’t believe it.”
Raegan rushed around the back of the squad car with him. Others had noticed the woman and child too, and several officers moved toward the woman, blocking Raegan’s view. Her pulse shot up. Against her hand, Alec’s palm grew damp. An FBI agent on the outside of the group spotted them drawing close and stepped back. He tapped another agent on the shoulder to make room. As the sea of bodies parted, Raegan heard the young woman’s voice saying, “No, I’m not Jennifer Waldorf. I’m the Waldorfs’ nanny. My name is Lisa. Lisa Schneider. No, I don’t know where they are. Mr. Waldorf is away on business right now. I don’t know where Mrs. Waldorf is, probably at the spa. What’s going on here? Would someone please tell me why there are so many cops here? What’s happened?”
The last agents moved out of the way, and Raegan’s chest drew tight as a drum as she stared at the little girl in the young woman’s arms. The little girl with Raegan’s auburn hair and Alec’s mesmerizing blue eyes.
“E-Emma?” Raegan asked in a voice just above a whisper.
The woman’s forehead wrinkled, and a worried look passed over her features as she glanced from Raegan to the girl in her arms and back again. “No. Her name is Emily. Who are you and what do you think you’re doing here?”
The little girl blinked several times as if she had no clue what was happening. Her small hand fisted in the puffy fabric of the woman’s coat sleeve. But slowly, as her gaze darted between Alec and Raegan, a hint of a smile pulled at her lips. And when she tipped her head to the side in that shy, sweet way Emma always had, Raegan spotted the small, strawberry birthmark near the corner of her eye.
In a rush, all the fear and agony and longing inside finally slipped away. Raegan squeezed Alec’s hand, and tears blurred her vision all over again a
s she looked up at his shocked and joy-filled eyes, then gazed back at their daughter.
“We’re her parents,” Raegan managed, finding her voice. “And we’re finally here to take her home.”
EPILOGUE
Six months later . . .
“Stupid bastard doesn’t know when to quit,” Alec said into the phone pressed to his ear when he heard the news that John Gilbert had finally awoken from his coma nearly six months after he’d run from the cops and rolled his stolen pickup off I-5.
“No,” Jack Bickam said on the other end of the line. “He sure doesn’t. Miriam Kasdan is still blaming him for everything, saying he was the mastermind behind the whole abduction ring, not her.”
Alec huffed as he crossed one arm over his chest and tucked his hand against his side. “Gilbert isn’t smart enough for all that.”
“Don’t worry, her story isn’t flying. But it’s gotten Gilbert singing like a canary. He’s talking. A lot. According to him, Arnold Kasdan, the son, was the first abduction. I guess the Kasdans couldn’t have kids of their own, and Walter Kasdan, Miriam’s husband, was too busy building his empire to care much about his wife’s desire to be a parent. So she started volunteering with inner-city youth, trying to fill the void. They lived in Spokane back then. Arnold was one of the kids she came across during her volunteer work. The way Gilbert told it, Arnold’s biological mother was a meth addict, and his father wasn’t really in the picture. Good ol’ Miriam bonded with the kid and was so appalled by his living situation she decided to take him with her when she and her husband moved to Portland. She saw it as an extension of her ‘good work.’ I guess she told her husband Arnold’s mother had died of a drug overdose and that he had no other family. The husband agreed to let her keep the kid, and they passed him off as their son. We’re checking into the story. Gilbert also told us that when she got to Portland she continued her charity work and came across more kids like Arnold. She couldn’t adopt them all—nor did she want to—so she made it her life’s work to find them ‘better homes.’ Arnold has been involved in the operation for a long time. He, apparently, sees Miriam as his savior and totally bought into the whole ‘saving kids from a terrible life’ crap. He’s the one who got Gilbert released early, by the way. He’s also the one who arranged for Conner Murray to disappear when Murray got nervous after you and Raegan talked to him. It was a real family business all around.”
A family of psychos. “What about the kid you found in the mountains?”
“Just got a positive ID yesterday. It was a two-year-old boy named Kyle Jackson. He went missing in Seattle. Mother was a prostitute; father unknown. His disappearance didn’t garner a lot of press coverage. He was diabetic, though. According to Gilbert, he went into some kind of seizure, and his handlers—he claims he wasn’t one of them, by the way—didn’t know what to do. When the boy died, they disposed of the body in the Coast Range.”
Alec’s stomach churned. “And yet Gilbert knew exactly where to find the body. I don’t buy his I-wasn’t-involved story for a second.”
“Neither do we. We also found out why Emma was in Sherwood. None of the other kids were relocated that close to the city where they were taken. Kasdan didn’t arrange Emma’s relocation. Gilbert did. Taking her was revenge against you, as you know. As soon as he had her, though, he knew he had to get rid of her fast. He picked the Waldorfs from Kasdan’s files and dropped her off unbeknownst to Kasdan. Guess she was pretty ticked when she found out, but the Waldorfs were willing to pay three times what she charged other families, so she let the transaction stand.”
Bile churned in Alec’s stomach over the way Miriam Kasdan had sold children as if they were objects.
“Anyway,” Bickam said, “Gilbert will never see light outside a prison wall, and the Waldorfs will be spending a long time behind bars as well. You and Raegan don’t have to worry about any kind of retaliation from either of them. Mr. Waldorf still claims he knew nothing about the illegal adoption, but the wife already broke down and spilled everything. Guess guilt finally got to her. That or fear.”
Alec guessed fear. The Waldorfs had to know Emma had come from somewhere. Whether they’d turned a blind eye mattered little to him. They’d still broken the law, and they’d put another family through hell.
“You and Raegan did a good job bringing this all together,” Bickam went on. “It’ll take us some time to locate all the biological parents of the fifty-plus files we found in Kasdan’s office, but you’ve brought a lot of closure to a lot of people.”
Alec’s heart pinched as he moved to the window and gazed out at Raegan, who was smiling in the afternoon sunlight in an off-white sundress, her curly auburn hair hanging down her back while she pushed Emma, with matching hair and a miniature version of Raegan’s dress, on the swing Alec had built in their backyard. His sister, Kelsey, decked out in an off-the-shoulder jumpsuit, stood nearby with a glass of wine in her hand, along with his mother and Ethan’s fiancée, Sam, who were chatting away and waving at a giggling Emma on the swing. His gaze skipped over to Ethan and Rusty tossing a football nearby with the newest McClane, Thomas, then to his father, who was already starting up the grill on the patio while Hunt held a beer, feigning interest in Michael McClane’s inane chatter about the perfect way to sear a steak.
Yes, everything he and Raegan had uncovered would bring closure to a great many families, but not all of them would find the happily ever after he and Raegan had. Kyle Jackson’s mother wouldn’t. His gaze slid back to Raegan, and his heart filled with more love than he’d ever thought possible. It didn’t matter where a mother lived or what job she performed. She would always be a mother, and that bond between a mother and child could never be broken.
“Speaking of Raegan,” Bickam said in his ear. “I haven’t seen her on the news. Is she planning to go back to work anytime soon?”
“She is working.” Alec smiled because Raegan was smiling and because her infectious energy lit him up all over. “Just not at any news station. She’s staying home with Emma and writing.”
“A book?”
“Yeah.”
“Bet I can guess what it’s about.”
Alec’s heart turned over again when he thought of Raegan’s strength. She’d never let her doubts show. He knew now that she’d had them—way more than he’d thought she’d had—but she’d never let those doubts destroy her hope. “It’s therapeutic for her to get it all out. I’ve read some of it. It’s powerful.”
“I have no doubt it’ll be a bestseller. How’s Emma?”
His gaze drifted to his daughter in the swing, pumping her little legs, the buckles on her white sandals glinting in the sunshine. His heart filled even more. “She’s good. Really good. The child psychologist she’s been seeing has helped a lot. The first few months were rocky, but it’s better every day.”
“She see the nanny anymore?”
The Waldorfs’ nanny, Lisa Schneider, had agreed to stay on with Alec and Raegan after Emma had come back to live with them. Since she’d been more a caregiver to Emma than either of the Waldorfs, she was the one Emma had been the most attached to. The nanny had moved in with them, but because Raegan’s apartment was only a two bedroom and not big enough for all of them, he and Raegan had decided to relocate to his farmhouse outside the city. Alec’s father and brothers had chipped in and helped finish the renovations in record time, and after three months, when Emma had grown used to her surroundings, the nanny had slowly transitioned out of Emma’s life.
“Not since Memorial Day. She starts college in the fall and got a job with a new family for the summer in Portland. She’s good about checking in with Emma, but she doesn’t really need to anymore.” His smile widened as he watched his daughter lean her whole body back on the swing and laugh upside down at her mother. “I don’t think Emma can understand any of what happened at this point, but she will someday.”
“Yeah, she will,” Bickam said. “And she’ll know how many people love her. You’re a lucky man,
McClane. Don’t forget that.”
“Trust me, I won’t.”
They said their good-byes, and Alec hung up, thankful for the update from the FBI, even more thankful that everything was finally behind them. The Feds could sort out all the details. He’d leave them to it. The only thing he wanted to focus on now was his family.
He pulled the back door open, crossed the porch, and jogged down the steps to the patio. His father glanced up from the grill. “Everything okay?”
Alec slapped a hand on his dad’s shoulder, reached around, and grabbed a blueberry from the fruit tray his mother had set out on the counter earlier. “Everything’s great.” He grinned and stepped away. “Everything’s better than great.”
Michael McClane chuckled in his “I didn’t wash my hands” apron, the one he always wore when he played grill master because he thought the silly joke was funny. “That’s good to hear, son. Hunter, why don’t you go see if those women need more wine.”
“Sure thing, Mr. McClane.” Hunt set his beer on the counter and reached for the bottle of white Alec’s parents had brought. Under his breath to Alec, he muttered, “You didn’t mention I was playing glorified waiter all afternoon.”
Alec grinned and walked across the patio with his friend. “Minister, waiter . . . what’s the difference?”
Hunt huffed. “Careful. I get to stand up in front of all these people and talk about you.” His eyes narrowed in a sinister way. “Maybe I’ll tell Raegan about the time you got arrested in college for sneaking into that sorority’s sleeping porch.”
“Go for it,” Alec said. “She’s already heard that story.”
Hunt shook his head as he stepped out onto the grass and headed toward the women. Thankfully, Kelsey’s dick of a husband had decided not to show today. None of them liked the guy, but Hunt especially had no use for the man. Today of all days, Alec was grateful he wouldn’t have to break up any tense moments.