“No problem. You’ll call if you need anything?”
“Yep.”
He gave me another kiss and whistled for Rufus, who galloped over. Together, they headed up the lane to Dovie’s house. I called for Thoreau, who ran inside ahead of me.
I set my tote bag by the door and kicked off my ballet flat. I set the crutches against the wall, sick to death of using them. Grendel came running over, meowing pathetically. He looked up at me accusingly—he hated when I was gone all day.
I scooped him up—not an easy task with him being such a big boy. A good twenty-five pounds of pouting kitty. “Sorry, G.” I rubbed his ears and nuzzled with him as I gimped over to the sofa. One-handed, I pulled a throw blanket up to Sean’s chest and scratched Ebbie’s chin as she gazed sleepily at me.
I bent and kissed Sean’s forehead, then flicked a gaze toward the kitchen. My stomach was rumbling, but Mac hadn’t been kidding when he said I smelled. A shower definitely took precedence over food.
Setting Grendel down, I hobbled as quietly as I could toward the crib in the corner. Em had gone overboard with shopping. Besides the crib and stuffed animals, there were toys scattered about, piles of clothes, a box of diapers, a baby gate, and some sort of plastic booster seat that attached to one of my dining chairs.
The crib had been done up in a playful monkey theme. Monkey bumper pad, monkey sheets, monkey blanket. Monkey everything. It smelled as though it had been freshly laundered and it all looked soft and cozy. I wanted to climb in there myself, but Ava was a bit of a bed hog.
Dressed in a tank-and-shorts pajama set adorned with smiling suns wearing sunglasses, she slept with wild abandon, her arms flung out, her legs askew. Her blond hair shone like spun gold, but contrarily stuck up from the top of her head like the crown of a pineapple. Her sweet face was turned to the side, her cheeks flushed pink.
As I stood there, I tried not to think too hard about what could have happened to Aiden today. I wasn’t much the praying type, but as I watched Ava, I couldn’t help but say a small plea for this little one—that she always be as worry free as she was at this very moment.
It was an impossible request. More of a wish.
Ava’s eyelid twitched and she let out a quiet sigh from slightly parted lips.
Such innocence. Such…perfection.
Her jammie theme was appropriate. She was the sunshine on this stormy day.
I tugged her monkey blanket a little higher toward her chin, whispered “Goodnight,” and went into the bedroom, shedding clothes as I limped along.
I didn’t think my skirt suit would be salvageable. Between the rips, tears, and smell…it would probably appreciate being put out of its misery.
I winced at the loud noise of the Velcro on the boot as I took it off. I inspected the bruising on the top of my foot—it was definitely starting to fade despite my less-than-stellar crutch usage. Those crutches were getting on my last nerve, and I wondered if I could get away with using only one of them. Or a cane, even. I decided I’d check with my orthopedic doctor as soon as possible.
On my way to the bathroom, I stopped at the cage sitting atop my bureau and made kissing noises at Odysseus, who was busy taking his own bath. He licked his tiny hands and rubbed them over his head, causing his fluffy black-and-white fur to stick up much like Ava’s had. He paused in his ablutions to give me the stink eye, which wasn’t entirely his fault considering he had only one eye to begin with. His expression seemed especially cranky, however, and in an attempt to cheer him up, I promised him a piece of cantaloupe as soon as I was done with my shower. He didn’t seem placated.
In the bathroom, I turned on the shower for the water to warm up, took a deep breath, and faced the full-length mirror hanging on the back of the door. I’d been avoiding my reflection all day.
With one eye closed, I peeked at the mirror with the other. The slice near my temple was the worst of the cuts. My skin was red—like a light sunburn. I reluctantly opened the other eye. A couple of strands of hair had been singed, leaving behind brittle frizz. I glanced over my shoulder and saw enormous bruises starting to form on my shoulder blades and hips—from when I hit the ground after being blown over the fence.
Steam began to fill the bathroom as I took one last look.
All in all, I was extremely grateful. It could have been so much worse.
I carefully stepped into the shower and breathed deeply as the hot water coursed over my skin. A layer of grime washed down the drain as I kept thinking about that explosion. No cause had been determined yet, but I doubted it had been an accident. The timing was too coincidental to Kira’s disappearance, and happening when Aiden opened the door… No, the explosion had been planned to keep people out. But by whom? And why?
I racked my brain but couldn’t come up with anything that made sense. Suddenly, I was so tired that I fully understood the meaning of “bone-weary.” I leaned against the aging tiles and let the hot water run down my body, washing away the stress of the day. I didn’t want to think about explosions or fires or babies who didn’t know where their mothers were.
There was a soft tap on the door, and a second later Sean poked his head in the shower. Even sleep rumpled, bleary-eyed, and busted up, he still made my heart lurch.
He said, “You should have woken me, Ms. Valentine.”
“You looked too peaceful.”
He ducked back out and said, “When did you get back?”
“Not long ago. Fifteen minutes or so.”
A moment later, the shower curtain pulled back and Sean stepped in with me. I couldn’t help but smile. “Nice hat.”
He smirked. “It’s the latest fashion.”
He wore a clear plastic shower cap to protect his head wound from the water.
“Now,” he said, “let me look at you.”
He cupped my face and tipped my head back and forth. His right thumb swiped under the cut on my temple.
“Flying glass,” I said, shifting to the side so the water could reach him.
The shower hadn’t been made for two. In fact, it hadn’t been updated since the little cottage had been renovated in the seventies. A few of the tiles were loose, the enamel on the cast iron tub was chipped, the grout was…dismal. But right now it felt like paradise.
His eyes crinkled. “You’ve had a stressful day. I thought you might like some help in here.”
“That’s very…thoughtful of you.”
“I’m nothing if not thoughtful.”
“Oh, I’m aware.” I wrapped my arms around his waist, clasping my hands behind his back, loving the feel of his skin against mine.
Smiling, he reached for the shampoo, squirted some into his palm, and then worked it into my hair as I told him about the explosion. As the shampoo lathered, he massaged my head, using exactly the right amount of pressure. Pleasure instead of pain.
“I saw the footage on TV. I’d bet money that house had been doused in accelerant. It went up too fast.” He angled my head into the spray to rinse the shampoo.
“Makes sense. It was fully engulfed in minutes.”
“Any leads on Kira yet?”
I told him all we’d learned, starting with Trey and his soon-to-be ex, the doll, and Dustin McDaniel.
I braced myself for a possible reaction to that last bit. Sean had once been in the same system as Dustin, in and out of foster care before running away with a friend. It was fate that put him—and Sam—in the path of the Donahues, whose big hearts welcomed the pair into the family without a second thought.
He reached for the conditioner. “So, you’re essentially working on two missing person cases now.”
“Yes.”
“If the two are connected, this case is…”
Explosive. We both left the words unsaid.
Finally, he said, “Productive day.” He rinsed the conditioner from my hair and frowned at the singed ends.
“Well, except for the part where it blew up.”
Grabbing a bar of soap, he built a
lather, then ran his hands down one of my arms, then the other, stopping just shy of my hands, but even so, I felt little zaps.
“When I saw what happened on TV.…” He shook his head.
I caught his chin. Stilled it. “I’m fine. A little achy but fine.”
His arms went around me. “Achy? Where? Here?” He pressed a kiss to the side of my face.
I let my head fall to the side. “Mmm-hmm. A little lower, too.”
His lips slid down my jawline. “Here?”
“Yep.” I ran my hands across his wet chest, loving how easily my fingers slid over his hard muscles. I loved him. It was that plain and simple. “There and lots of other places.”
His head dipped to my breast. “Here?”
I sucked in a breath. “Really, Sean, this could take all night.”
Looking up at me, his dimples popped as he smiled—a smile so full of promise that my knees went weak. “That’s okay,” he said. “I had a nap.”
8
Later that night, Sean was sitting up in bed reading, and I was trying to watch news footage on my iPad. Try, because there was a cat stretched across my chest making the task difficult.
Ebbie playfully tapped my chin, and I scratched her head as I listened to Kira’s voiceover on one of her exposés last year. As a result of her investigation, an election official had been arrested and charged with voter fraud.
Her voice was calm, smooth, confident. She came off as completely earnest, and it was easy to see why she was so popular—she elicited trust from those who watched her.
I noticed, too, that Ava had her smile.
With a few swipes of my fingertip, I called up another search. This one of Dustin McDaniel. I read article after article. Watched video after video.
The media had certainly made it seem as though Alisha McDaniel had been guilty of whatever happened to her son. The court of public opinion had tried and convicted her. But Alisha McDaniel was dead… So what had prompted the anonymous tip that Kira had received? And where had it led her?
Ebbie’s purrs vibrated against my chest, and I smiled down at her. She was settling in just fine. Grendel had no time for affection as he needed his beauty sleep. He was curled with Thoreau at the foot of the bed; their two bodies so close that it was hard to see where one ended and the other began. Odysseus was running a marathon on his wheel, his piece of cantaloupe stored away in his plastic igloo for a midnight snack.
I queued up news footage, taken shortly after the original story broke (thank goodness for YouTube). Cameras had followed police as they took Alisha in for questioning. She, of course, had denied any culpability, laying the blame squarely on the CFC. She claimed they’d taken custody of Dustin months before, in January, yet she’d told no one about it. For months. I had to admit, she seemed guilty as hell.
I clicked on another video, this one of Dustin’s caseworker as she left the district attorney’s office after being questioned. Catherine “Cat” Bennett was twenty-five years old and looked fifteen. Young and pretty with light brown hair and big brown eyes. She’d been crying as she raced to her car, her husband at her side attempting to shield her from cameras with his suit coat. When he dropped his car keys and bent to pick them up, photographers swarmed as they tried to capture Cat’s tear-stained face. The encounter had her hysterically sobbing by the time the pair had driven off.
Cat Bennett claimed the last time she had seen Dustin was December, and he’d been alive and well. She fully accepted her role in the case—that she had let Dustin fall through the cracks by missing months and months of check-ins.
The next video was of similar footage, except this time of Elliman Bay, Cat Bennett’s supervisor, as he exited the police station with his lawyer. He wore a baby-blue button-down shirt that complemented his dark skin. His lawyer kept repeating “No comment” to the reporters as he headed for a dark SUV.
My phone rang, and I leaned so far off the bed to grab it from the nightstand that I nearly fell off. Laughing, Sean grabbed my arm, pulling me back up.
“Dovie,” I said to him.
“Good luck.” He went back to his book, a nonfiction account of hikers lost in the wilderness. Not my idea of light bedtime reading.
“You need to come down here,” Dovie said, her voice going up an octave. “I need reinforcements.”
I let out a breath of relief that she hadn’t learned about Kira’s investigation. “What’d Preston do?”
“It’s what she won’t do. She doesn’t want to watch TV, doesn’t want to play Scrabble, doesn’t want to do a puzzle. She keeps sneaking out of bed to try and find her phone. I finally had to bury it in the sand.”
“X marks the spot?”
“Not funny, LucyD.”
“It’s only a couple of weeks,” I said.
“I need help.”
“Cutter’s there.” I still needed to call him.
“He’s the only reason she’s eating.”
Preston was as stubborn as they came.
“You’ll come?” Dovie pressed.
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“I can’t leave Sean. He needs me.”
He raised an eyebrow. I shrugged. Any port in a storm.
“Bring him. There’s plenty of room.”
Ebbie swatted the phone. “The pets…”
“Bring them,” Dovie repeated.
“I have some readings scheduled…”
“Reschedule them.”
“Dovie, you’ll be fine without me. You might want to rent a bunch of musicals—Preston loves those. Then go to the bookstore. She loves to read. Anything and everything. Buy her lots of trashy magazines. And ice cream. Gallons of ice cream.”
Dovie sniffed. “Fine, but if none of those work, then you’re getting your ass down here even if I have to drag you myself.”
“I love you, too.” At the click in my ear, I hung up, and glanced at Sean. “She might disown me when all this is said and done, and she learns the truth.”
“That’s a lot of disowning in one day.”
I’d already told him about my father. “I’m lucky that way, I guess.”
“You still have your mother.”
“Until she wants to get matching tattoos.”
He laughed and switched off his bedside lamp. Ebbie slid off my chest and went over to curl up against his.
I looked at the iPad screen one more time before shutting it off. On the screen, the video had been frozen on Dustin’s adorable face, all big blue eyes and long blond hair.
I thought about the doll in Kira’s SUV, her fear for Ava, and the way her house had exploded. I wasn’t yet sure what had prompted the anonymous tip that Kira had received, but I could only hope it hadn’t led to her death.
At a little past seven the next morning, I woke to an unfamiliar sound. It took me a moment to place the noise. Thoreau, lodged between Sean and me on the bed, heard it, too. He launched to his feet, his ears perked.
Sean slept face-down, one arm flung over the side of the bed, the other stuffed under his pillow. Morning light crept under the window shade, highlighting the hollow of his back.
I resisted the temptation to kiss that area. Undoubtedly, it would wake him up—and he needed the sleep.
I yawned and listened for the noise again.
There. A hummm-hummm-hummm. I smiled.
Ava was awake.
Tossing the covers aside, I held in a groan.
Holy hell. My body ached something fierce. I winced at the pain as I slipped into my robe and fastened my boot. I hoped a couple—or five—ibuprofen would take the edge off the hurt.
Ebbie stayed glued to Sean’s side like a barnacle to a skiff. I was beginning to think her decision to live with me had more to do with Sean than anything else. I couldn’t blame her much—she obviously had excellent taste.
Then I shook my head at my thoughts. Jeremy Cross’s animal communication skills still amazed me. To talk with animals… It would be amazing. I glanced at G
rendel, who glared at me for disrupting his sleep, and decided that maybe it was a blessing that I didn’t have that kind of psychic gift.
I left my crutches by the bed and walked at a snail’s pace toward the bedroom door, which was ajar. I nudged it far enough open to peek out into the dining room. Ava sat in the middle of her crib, a doll in her hands that she was bouncing up and down. The hummm-hummm noise seemed to be Ava’s way of speaking to her new friend. She used it in a conversational pattern that was adorable to listen to.
Thoreau zoomed to the crib and stood on his hind legs to try and see in. Ava’s head snapped up at the sound of his claws on the wooden floor, and she abandoned her doll and rose to her feet to look over the railing. She held onto the side of the crib and bounced. “Scow!”
My heart clenched at the thought of the real Scout. I hoped someone was taking care of him. After all, the last I’d seen of neighbor Morgan, he’d been getting stitched up in the emergency room.
“Psst,” I said to get Ava’s attention, barely catching her eye before I ducked back into the bedroom.
Slowly, I leaned forward—just far enough to see her. “Peekaboo!”
A smile crept across her face.
During the middle of the night Em had called with an update on Aiden. The scan had revealed he had a laceration of his spleen that would either heal on its own or require surgery. Time would tell, but until then the doctors needed to keep a close eye on his condition. He’d be in the ICU for the next couple of days, then if progressing to his physician’s liking, he’d be moved to a recovery floor for a few more days of bed rest. Em didn’t want to leave his side, which meant that Ava would stay with us for a while.
It also meant missing some of her exams. I knew choosing Aiden over the tests was a no-brainer, but I also knew Em. She was going to be stressed.
Until Aiden was released, I was in a bit of an investigative limbo. I usually worked with Aiden or Sean—both of whom were currently out of commission. Time was of the essence with Kira’s disappearance, so I’d go solo if I had to. And it was looking like I had to.
I hid again, then popped out. “Peekaboo!”