Finding Grace (14 page)

Paul gritted his teeth and both she and the Captain
watched the struggle play across his features.

With obviously great reluctance, Paul finally pulled
out his phone.

While he talked, Captain America gave her Sarah’s
cell number and she started a trace. Thorne tried to make
conversation with him, but she could tell from the way he looked at
her and winced when she talked that he was only reminded of the
terrible things that could happen to Sarah, could be happening to
her right now.

“Katherine’s on her way.” Paul put his phone back in
his pocket. “We had better not be upsetting her for nothing.”

“Good. It’s not for nothing, boss, I promise. I’ve
already started a search using the GPS in her phone, but that won’t
help with the motive, and that’s the heart of this. I keep seeing a
girl with curly red hair and glasses. A tall boy in a letter jacket
is threatening her.”

She ignored Paul’s rolling eyes.

“Sarah wore glasses when she was in school, I saw
the photo in her yearbook.” Captain America swallowed, his face
paling. “You’ve never met her. Her hair…it’s all these—” his voice
was soft and his hands twitched, like he was remembering touching
them “—silky copper corkscrews.”

“Well, here she is, or at least, I found her phone.
It’s moving.” Thorne continued to work since she clearly wasn’t
going to be much good at comforting the man.

Captain America looked over her shoulder and called
the cross streets in to dispatch. He instructed them to patch him
directly to a patrol in the area. It was hard for Thorne to
pinpoint a specific car in the steady traffic, even after it made
several turns. It wasn’t until the dot on her screen remained
immobile for longer than a traffic light would take that she could
finally narrow it down to a single car.

The speaker phone he’d switched to told Captain
America and everyone else in the room that no passengers were
visible, just the driver. They asked whether they should approach
the vehicle.

Thorne listened to the other voices, the ones only
she could hear.

“She isn’t with him. He must have her purse. He’s
stashed her somewhere, some place he thinks is fitting for her to
die. Go ahead and pick him up, but I don’t think you’ll get
anything out of him.”

There was a click-click of hurried heels in the
hall, the barest hint of a feminine scent, and then Paul’s wife
appeared. She was the most beautiful, perfectly put-together woman
Thorne had ever seen. She might have walked right off a magazine
cover. Thorne listened with half an ear as Paul brought her up to
speed while Captain America yelled at the patrol through the
speaker phone, telling them to “bust the sonofabitch right fucking
now.”

Somewhere along the line, Farley had joined them. If
a nosier man had ever been born, Thorne hadn’t met him. He wasn’t
the quietest one, either.

“Will everybody please shut the hell up!” She had to
yell to penetrate the din. “Mrs. Weston, do you remember anything
about Sarah and a jock threatening her?”

She brushed a strand of her flawlessly-styled blond
hair from her face and said, “You must be Thorne. Please call me
Katherine, won’t you?” in a warm voice accompanied by a weak smile
and a tilted head. “But how could you—?”

“Please, Katherine, we’re running out of time. I can
feel it.” She returned the woman’s smile encouragingly.

“We were juniors. She was smart and quiet, I was
silly and not.”

Her wide, summer-sky eyes lost their focus and
everyone fell silent, listening to her tell them about the day
Sarah had come to her locker in tears and told her that Buddy Todd
had threatened her with violence if she didn’t help him cheat on
the Trig final. He was a senior retaking it for the third time and
if he didn’t pass, the coach was going to have to cut him from the
playoffs. Four college scouts were going to be at those games and
he was desperate.

She had marched Sarah to the principal’s office and
made her tell the woman everything. Todd hadn’t been allowed to
play football the rest of the year. He’d never gone on to college
and, at their ten-year reunion, someone had said they’d seen him
working at a sporting goods store.

“Oh no! Poor Sarah. This is all my fault.” Her
delicate throat choked back a sob.

Paul sent Thorne an angry glance. She chose to
ignore it.

“None of that is important now, Katherine. Take off
your gloves and hold my hands.” Thorne kept her voice firm and
calm. Before she could consider the consequences, she peeled off
her wrist warmers and clasped Katherine’s manicured hands in hers.
“Take me back. Take me back to that conversation. I need to hear
the voice in Todd’s head. That’s it, picture the scene as clearly
as possible with as many details as you can recall, the more
minute, the better.”

It came to Thorne in waves. “
Sinking fast, help
me please, but you wouldn’t, worthless tease; held me down, made me
drown
.” She took a breath. “
A boat with a hole, a can to
bail. Hands too cold, she knows she’ll fail
.”

She shook her head to clear it of the vision. “Shit.
The hole’s big, the soup can wouldn’t cut it even if her hands
weren’t numb.” She took one look at the panic on the faces in the
room and took a deep breath. “Hurry. She’s still alive. Call the
Coast Guard. I can detail the scene for them. It’s out a ways, just
north of the harbor. She has a good chance if they move it.”

After releasing Katherine’s hands, she slipped her
warmers back on, but not before she caught Paul staring at the
scars on her wrists.

“Sick fucking bastards,” he said. Then he looked at
his wife and mumbled an apology for his language before taking both
of her hands in his and turning her away from Thorne—like he was
trying to erase her damaged touch. For just a second, it seemed
like he was going to say something to her over Katherine’s
shoulder, but he dropped his eyes down to the floor instead.

She was thankful. She hated that he knew about her
scars, hated the trace of revulsion in his eyes, hated the pity she
saw there most of all.

At least Captain America and everyone else was busy
or distracted. And Jack wasn’t here. Her everlasting thanks to all
the gods for that. Now, if they could just help her save Sarah,
too. It was going to be close.

Captain America had switched the speaker phone back
to the officers who’d arrested Todd. The man’s ranting and raving
was useless. It was highly doubtful he would have been able, even
if he had been willing, to tell anyone where he’d left Sarah. One
glance at the frozen rage on the cop’s face told Thorne that only a
life sentence or an insanity plea that kept Todd locked up would
keep him alive.

Waiting was hard on everyone, but Thorne honestly
worried that Captain America might have a coronary right there in
her office. He was clearly not a man accustomed to being
helpless.

Word finally came that Sarah had been sighted in a
swamped and sinking boat. The tension in the room ratcheted up
another notch.

It wasn’t until a woman’s frantic sobs came over the
speaker that everyone let out a breath of relief, followed by
cheers and applause. Katherine actually hugged Thorne right there
in her chair. Paul mumbled something Thorne didn’t want to hear
anyway and pulled his wife back into his arms.

Captain America was already sagging like a big
balloon the day after the party. His voice was raspy when he turned
to her. “I don’t know how to thank you. I owe you more than I can
ever repay.”

Thorne gave herself a moment to think. From her
experience, gratitude was fleeting and Captain America’s was too
useful to allow it to slip away unused.

“Actually, there is something. When you’ve got some
time, I’d like to talk to you about an unsolved murder that took
place about a year ago, not too far from here.”

When he just frowned at her, another idea popped
into her head. “But if you’re looking for something easy, put
Griggs on Traffic for a month where I can go by and flip him
off.”

He jerked as though all of her words had registered
at once. “An unsolved murder? Of course, any time.” He paused. “But
why Griggs? Haven’t you humiliated the man enough? That shiner you
gave him was fodder for a lot of…”

Maybe, but it wasn’t really enough to let him off
the hook.

Oh well. She shrugged. “Forget it. It was just an
idea.” Thorne started looking for her knitting and informed the
room at large, “I’d appreciate it if you all found somewhere else
to be. I’d like to get back to work.”

The room emptied but the rank smell of his dried-up
fear told her Captain America hadn’t left yet.

She looked up at him and waited.

“Um, I’m sorry, Thorne. I’m sure you’ve got your
reasons. We should talk about—”

“Whatever.” She waved him off. “Now go kiss Sarah
until she forgets her name, then put her in a nice hot bubble
bath.” She looked him over. “Maybe you should join her. You look
like hell, Captain.”

“It’s Lieutenant.” She heard him grumble just before
he closed the door behind him.

* * * *

Traffic hummed beneath the music in Thorne’s iPod.
For such a talkative and nosy guy, Farley sure had been quiet all
week. Not that she’d exactly encouraged conversation. He was
amiable enough, though, and if the looks and smiles he got from a
lot of the women drivers were to be believed, he was probably
handsome, too. Other than being Blackridge-sized, he looked just
like all men did to Thorne—men other than Jack, that is. But he
didn’t seem any more comfortable around her than the rest of the
team besides Jack were—or Jack had been, anyway.

She reminded herself that Jack didn’t want to give
her rides anymore. She didn’t understand; they’d been getting along
so well. Too well…Shit, not all that again.

Since Sarah’s rescue on Monday, Paul and the rest of
the crew had tried to be nice. They just didn’t know how to handle
her, not that anyone ever had. And it felt so good to be useful
again. She couldn’t quit over whatever was going on with Jack. At
least not yet.

“You miss Dagger, huh, Thorne? That office of yours
has been awful quiet this week.”

Farley appeared to have finally gotten up the nerve
to talk. And shit. Just what she wanted to talk about. Not. But he
was really working that smile.

What the hell. “I like Jack. Everybody knows that.”
She tried to make it sound nonchalant.

“He like you, too?”

She tried a cool shrug. “I thought he did. You’d
have to ask him.”
Let me know what you find out
. “We do have
a lot in common.”

“Oh yeah?” Farley’s eyebrows rose and he turned from
the road to eye her curiously.

Oh, for…“Not like that. God, Farley. I mean in the
way we feel about things.”

“Dagger talks to you about his feelings? Huh.” He
shook his head like she’d told him Jack was from Mars and drove a
little green spaceship. “Well, he’s different since you came,
anyway. I’ve known him for a couple years.” He lowered his voice to
a loud whisper, “Don’t tell him I said this, but I think you’re
good for him.”

“Really?” Thorne worked hard to make it sound like
she couldn’t have cared less.

“Yeah. He’s still an unnerving sonofabitch, but he’s
not as grim as he used to be. Actually, I think you’re good for the
whole place. Work is a lot more entertaining since you came on
board. Where’d Paul find you, anyway?”

Crap, another conversational direction she didn’t
care for. And things had just been getting interesting.

“You know Farley, through Captain America—uh,
Lieutenant Rigby.”

He smiled. “See, now, you’re funny too.” But after a
beat, like a dog back to a bone, he said, “Oh yeah, that’s right,
the kidnapping attempt down at The Plaza. What I don’t understand
is why someone of your talent was working as a waiter down
there.”

Thorne hoped she had done a better job of sounding
casual than Farley was doing.

“Nice try, Farley, but I don’t talk about it.”

“Not even to Dagger?”

“Not even to Jack.”

Farley let out a disappointed sigh. “Well, okay
then. What about this Jefferson fella Dagger mentioned?”

“Jack told you about him?”

“Me and the whole team down at O’Learys.” He looked
over at her. “You know, if you don’t want us to talk about you,
Thorne, you should join us. He told us about Tron’s, too.”

“The rat bastard. His middle name’s Judas, I know it
is.”

This time Farley laughed. “Why wouldn’t you want
anyone to know that stuff, Thorne? It’s pretty cool, really. Makes
you seem more humanlike.”

“Maybe I don’t want to seem more humanlike.” She
felt his eyes on her when she turned back to look out the
window.

His sigh had the ring of resignation to it. “Well, a
little bird did tell me that if we turn here, we’ll drive right by
that cop you wanted to flip off. Said he’ll be directing traffic
there for a while.”

She smiled. She had a hard time picturing either
Paul or Captain America as a little bird.

* * * *

L.A. sucked. Dagger hated the heat and the way the
bright sun seemed to wash the color out of everything. The
buildings were ugly and everything was so goddamn far apart you
practically had to live behind the wheel. Grace would hate it here,
too. Back when she told him she’d moved to Seattle for the climate,
that she loved it cool and dark and damp, he’d laughed at her. But
maybe she had a point.

With all this damn driving and mostly only dumbass
Mills for company, he’d had nothing to occupy his mind but
Grace—the memories of how she’d looked, how she’d moved, how sexy
her voice had sounded, particularly when she was all breathless…Oh
God…And, hard to believe as it was, she
had
responded to
him. He’d felt it. Felt her heat, seen that vein in her throat
throbbing…Damn, his jeans were too fucking tight. Like they’d been
too tight pretty much all week.