In Broad Daylight (12 page)

"You'd be surprised at what you can see in a speck."

He made his own deductions from the tone of her voice. "Can you make this any clearer?"

"Odds are pretty good." But everything she needed was back at the academy. "I'm going to need to cross the yellow tape again. The school's got all the state of the art software,"

she reminded him.

That had been her excuse for crossing the restricted lines yesterday. He was far from

computer savvy and had no idea what they had at the precinct. He knew one thing, though.

The techs wouldn't let him hover and look over their shoulders. Brenda would. She had no

choice. "C'mon, let's go."

Walking out into the dining area, Dax stopped to glance at the menu. The same girl was

behind the counter, still looking eager to serve them.

He turned to Brenda. "Have you had breakfast yet?"

"Burnt toast."

He thought of the huge breakfasts his Uncle Andrew liked to prepare. On any given day,

there was anywhere from five to twenty people sharing the meal with him. He'd purchased

a specially made table just to accommodate everyone. The funny thing was, like the Greek

fable, Uncle Andrew never seemed to run out of food. There was always more.

He knew his uncle would have been horrified at what he was about to do. "Let me get

something to go for us, it looks like it might be a long morning."

Her stomach rumbled in response. "Fries, see if they have fries ready yet."

He looked at her dubiously. "For breakfast?"

She had a craving, but she didn't want to call it that. It was far too much of a giveaway.

"I've always liked fries."

Actually, so had he. Dax grinned and nodded. "Okay, fries it is."

He turned toward the girl behind the counter and placed their order.

«^»

Dax flipped his cell phone closed, ending the call he'd placed to Nathan. The lab was still

attempting to clean up the audio tape. Stripping away the layers of synthesized

interference took time. So far, nothing useful had surfaced, but Nathan promised to be in

touch once it did. In the task force area, his partner informed him, the volume of calls

coming in had increased. Leads were being followed, no matter how slim or far-fetched.

Before checking with Nathan, he'd called theTylers, letting them know that Brenda and

he had gotten the photograph of their daughter and that the little girl was still alive and

apparently well.

Tylerhad told him they planned to go on the air this afternoon to plead with the

kidnapper. Dax had a feeling that it wouldn't do any good, but he kept his opinion to

himself.

Behind him, Dax could hear the rhythmic tapping of keys. Brenda had taken a seat at the

most sophisticated-looking computer the second they'd entered the academy's state of

the art computer lab. The keys hadn't stopped clicking since she'd sat down.

He crossed to her. She hardly seemed aware that there was anyone else in the room, her

attention was so rabidly focused on the monitor. She'd scanned in the picture they'd

retrieved from the bathroom at the fast-food restaurant and she was in the process of

magnifying and cleaning up the tiny speck reflected on Annie's glasses.

He thought of his own approach at the keyboard. Three fingers, a maximum of errors. For

him, the computer had been no improvement over the ancient electric typewriters that had

graced the precinct when he'd first joined the force.

In contrast, Brenda's fingers flew over the keyboard. "You really know your way around all

this stuff, don't you?"

"Hmm?" Lost in thought, it took a second for her to hear his words. "Oh, yeah, I do."

The speck had begun to take on a shape, but her head was starting to ache from staring

at it so much. Brenda paused to massage her temples.

"I fell in love with the first computer I ever saw. We didn't have one when I was growing

up. My father didn't see the point of it since it couldn't cook or clean. And computers

didn't interest my husband, but the second I got into a classroom, I knew I had to have

one." She smiled, remembering. It had been like opening up a whole new world to her. "I've tried to stay on top of things as far as progress in the computer industry goes." Glancing

toward him she grinned. "It's both my hobby and my passion, I guess. I like the challenge."

Turning back to the computer, she straightened. Her back systematically cracked in three

places, one after the other. She could feel her headache spreading down her spine.

Dax saw her rotate her shoulders. The movement reminded him of a sleek jungle cat

stealthily making its way through the brush. She did it again. Because he had nothing else

to do, he came up behind her and began to knead her shoulders. He felt her instantly tense

under his hands. Gently but firmly, he held her in place when she tried to get up.

"Just trying to help you work the knots out of your shoulders." He laughed shortly as he continued kneading. "I've felt more relaxed rocks than you."

"Work many knots out of rocks do you?" It was hard not to groan the words out. He was

hurting her, but at the same time, she could feel some sort of release. The tension wasn't

exactly flowing out of her, but what he was doing was definitely helping ease it. "Is this

what they mean by exquisite pain?"

The only context he was familiar with when it came to "exquisite pain" was lovemaking. His mouth curved. "I don't think they were talking about shoulder massages at the time."

Since Brenda seemed to be able to take it, he slowly increased the pressure he was

applying. She winced once, but she didn't complain. She had grit, he'd give her that. The

lady was a lot tougher than she looked. Probably carried all her tension around in her

shoulders as well as on them.

"I'm surprised you haven't broken into a hundred little pieces by now."

Considering what she'd been through in her life, so was she. But she kept that to herself.

There was no reason to share it with a stranger, no matter how magical his hands might be.

Brenda shrugged. "I guess I'm a type A personality."

She didn't have to tell him that, he'd already surmised as much. "You should think about

being an A-minus once in a while." The stiffness wasn't abating, even a little. "Damn, I've worked on some hard knots before, but I think you take the prize."

For her part, she struggled not to let her eyes slip shut. This really did feel good. "You

moonlight as a masseur?"

"No moonlighting, but my cousins and brothers hit me up every so often for a good

massage." Janelle referred to him as "iron hand" and refused to let him come anywhere close to her, butTroyand Jared swore by him. "Stress of the job," he explained.

She would imagine that being a policeman had to be very stressful in a city likeAurora.

They had their share of crime. "So who does you?" The question came out before she could think to stop it. She bit her lower lip. He probably thought she was trying to pry into his

personal life.

"I don't get tense." That wasn't strictly true and he amended his statement. "At least, not to where it makes me walk around like a wooden soldier."

She took no offense. After all, if nothing else, wooden soldiers had great posture, right?

But she was curious about something.

"You don't get stressed?"

"Sure." Taking a smaller amount of muscle between his thumb and forefinger on either

side of her neck, he squeezed, then began to massage again. Finally, the knots grew

smaller. "You can't work this job and not get stressed."

"Well, then?"

Moving in a downward pattern, he pressed his palm against her back. Brenda tried not to

sigh. "I find other ways to release the tension."

"Oh." An image of Dax, his limbs tangled with those of some nubile, raven-haired woman, suddenly flashed through her brain. "Sorry," she murmured, shifting uncomfortably.

"Didn't mean to pry."

Realizing what she had to be thinking, Dax laughed. Yes, he did alleviate some of the

tension he felt by temporarily losing himself in fast, nonbinding relationships that lasted

slightly longer than a dandelion in bloom. But that wasn't something a man mentioned

around a woman, at least not unless he was setting ground rules. He wasn't sure if he

wanted to set any rules here, or even if they were necessary. This was a whole new place

he found himself entering.

Besides, it wasn't what he meant. "I swim and I work out regularly."

She had no idea why that made her happy. Or why it ushered in a feeling of relief. She

only knew she could feel her mouth curving. "That would explain the upper body strength."

"Come again?"

To explain, she reached over her shoulder and placed one of her hands over his. "It feels

as if you actually could pulverize those rocks you mentioned."

"Oh." He stopped massaging her shoulders and took a step back. "Sorry. If it was too hard, why didn't you say something?"

She didn't want to tell him his hands on her felt like heaven. So she gave him what had

become her standard excuse. "Because my father taught me not to complain."

Because if she had, he'd only hit her harder. So she'd learned to bite her lip and take it,

mentally taking herself off somewhere else and vowing to leave the first real opportunity

she found.

And Wade had been it.

"Was your father a military man, too?" Dax asked. Her husband had been a soldier. Maybe she was drawn to a man in a uniform because she wanted to please her father.

"No, just a frustrated bully who didn't like to hear crying."

Pausing, he turned her chair around to look at her, making the natural deduction. "You

cried?"

She didn't like being put under a microscope and examined. But she couldn't find the

words to tell him to back off. Maybe in part because she didn't entirely want him to. "I

learned not to."

"Or else?"

"Or else," she echoed. Those were her father's words.Or else I'll whip the flesh right off you.It wasn't something she cared to go into. What happened to her within those four

walls where she'd grown up was something she never talked about. In the beginning, she'd

wanted, at least just once to unburden herself. But Wade hadn't wanted to listen, saying

the past was best left behind her and that there was nothing to be gained by bringing it up

and reliving it. So she'd let it die.

Except that it wouldn't.

It came back to her in dreams sometimes. She'd see her father looming over her, a belt in

his hand, yelling at her to be quiet even as he whipped her over something she'd done, or

had forgotten to do.

Or for something that someone had done to him.

She learned quickly enough to make herself scarce after serving her father supper.

Brenda pressed her lips together. "Let's just leave it at that."

He looked at her for a long moment. This conversation was getting way too serious. That

was usually his signal to back away. The less he really knew about a woman, the less likely

he was to get tangled up with her. But there was something in Brenda's eyes that kept him

from his usual dance. "You know, I'm a pretty good listener."

Any minute now, she was going to say things she was going to regret, open doors she

wanted to keep closed. She needed to distract herself. So Brenda turned her chair around,

back to the desk, and started working on the image on the screen. She tried to sound

amused, detached. "Are you, now?"

He placed his hand on her chair. "Yes, I am."

She was aware that his fingertips were just a hair's breadth away from the side of her

neck. The sensitive side. She strove to keep things light. "And just what is it you listen

to?"

"Anything you might want to tell me." That wasn't enough and he knew it. She seemed

adept at finding loopholes. "Anything you might need to tell me," he amended.

Turning her head, she looked over her shoulder, expecting to see a flirtatious grin on his

lips. Instead of a grin, she saw a smile. An encouraging smile. As if he meant what he said

and he wanted her to take him up on his offer.

But the words were so deep down inside of her now, she didn't know if she could drag

them up.

"Nice to know," she murmured. "Thanks for the massage." She moved her neck from side to side. "It feels much better."

He'd only scratched the surface. "Good."

An image of giving her a full body massage materialized in his mind. He banked it down.

Something was humming between them, he realized. Something he couldn't put a name to

or identify. Something he wasn't even sure he liked, but it made him curious and he'd

never been able to back away from a puzzle. It was what made him good at his job. But

once the puzzle was solved, he moved on. That's what made him lousy at relationships.

Brenda hit a few more keys, striving to clean up the image she'd enlarged. It was still

fuzzy, but she'd finally brought it to a level where the speck now had a form.

And it was a female form.

She tried one more time, enlarging it further. Everything lost its perspective. Brenda hit

another series of keys, reforming lines and parameters. She stared at the face that had

emerged on the surface of Annie's glasses. "It's her."

Dax leaned over her shoulder, his hand braced on the back of her chair as he stared at

the less than pristine image. "Her?"

Her heart hammered harder. Whether it was because she felt they were getting nearer

to finding Annie, or because he was standing so close, she didn't know. "The woman who