Nothing to Fear (30 page)

There was a guarded pause, then, “What can I do for you, Miss Wilson?”

Evie looked at Erik with his big solemn eyes in that pinched, thin face. She gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile as he munched on the peanut butter and jelly sandwich she’d made him. “I’ve got a problem, Miss Stone, and I’m hoping you can help me.”

Chicago, Wednesday, August 4, 10:45 A.M.

Ethan was switching to the next surveillance tape when his cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He’d called Clay right after seeing the sign language book in the woman’s hand, but just got voice mail. Clay was finally calling him back.

Bypassing salutations, Ethan snapped, “Where have you been?”

“A little busy.” Clay’s voice was drawn. Tight. “So we finally got something?”

“Finally, yeah. Yesterday at the bookstore, she touched the book she was reading without gloves. I think we should buy every copy of the sign language book the bookstore had on the shelves. We can get prints. And now we know she’s in the system.”

“How do you know?” Clay asked, strangely. Almost detached.

Ethan frowned. Something was very wrong. “She has a prison tattoo on her finger.”

Clay was quiet for a moment. “Let the police gather that evidence.”

Ethan frowned as he set the VCR to play. “Why?”

“Because we have to bring them in now. Sheriff Moore knows Alec’s gone.”

Ethan slumped back in the chair. “How?”

“She’s a damn good cop, that’s how,” Clay snapped. “She didn’t believe Stan’s story about Alec being with his grandparents in Europe. She had her office check with the Customs Office and found out this morning that no passport was issued to Alec Vaughn. Therefore Alec can’t be in England with his grandparents. Therefore we lied.”

“Oh, shit,” Ethan murmured. “What happened?”

“Stan clammed up. Randi went pale and I stood there and looked at her as if I had no idea what she was talking about. What was I supposed to do? Then Stan got nasty and asked if he needed a lawyer. Moore said no, but that she’d appreciate it if he didn’t leave town. Then on her way out she asked me if I knew a guy named Johnson. He was my captain in DCPD.”

“So she knows a great deal,” Ethan murmured. “Well, hell.” He sat in silence watching the gray figures move silently across the monitor on the tape from last Friday night. A group had just arrived on the Friday ten-thirty P.M. bus from someplace south. Hillsboro, he thought absently.

They had four known dead. Kristie Sikorski had been found yesterday in an alley. They had kidnapping, which was a felony in its own right. Transport over state lines, which would have brought in the FBI. And after four days of miserable searching, they finally had something to go on. He’d have to march into the local police department and confess. And hope he hadn’t done too little, too late.

Ethan sighed. “I’ll go report it now, Clay. Tell Stan and Randi.”

“It’s the right thing to do, Ethan.”

“I suppose it was the right thing to do Friday night.” Ironic, he thought. The tape he was looking at was made right about the time he and Clay had traced the first e-mail.

“You did what you thought was right. I agreed with you. I’m in this as deep as you are.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Just go report all this to CPD before anybody else gets killed.”

Ethan watched the crowd on Friday night’s tape disperse, then froze. “Wait.”

“Ethan—”

Ethan was on his feet. “No, I mean it. Here they are. I see them. It’s Alec.”

It was the woman, holding Alec by the upper arm, dragging him across the terminal. Practically lifting him to his feet when he stumbled. She was still wearing the damn hat, but he could see Alec. “She’s heading toward the east exit,” Ethan said tightly. Then watched the pair pause.

And his heart simply stopped.

For out of the shadows came a woman in a sleeveless polo shirt and a cotton skirt. She went down on one knee in front of Alec, tried to get the boy to look up, brushed at his hair when he didn’t. Ethan tried to breathe.

He couldn’t.

“Ethan? Are you still there?”

“Yes.” He made himself say the word, forced it from his throat.

“Dammit, Ethan, what the hell’s wrong with you?”

Ethan blindly sank into the chair. Watched Dana put her arm around the woman that had kidnapped a child and killed four people that they knew about. He watched her tip up the woman’s chin and he blinked at the first glimpse of their kidnapper’s face. It was bruised and battered, unrecognizable. He watched the pain cross Dana’s face as her eyes catalogued every bruise.

That she could be involved in something so heinous was unthinkable. Impossible.

Runaways. Dana volunteered with runaways. Runaway women, not teenagers as he’d assumed. The bruises on the woman’s face looked real. Dana sheltered battered women.

“Ethan,” Clay all but snarled. “What’s happened?”

Ethan paused the video, freezing the frame as Dana bestowed one of her warm smiles on the woman who’d stolen his godson. The same smile she’d given him just hours before, curled up in his arms. In his bed. “I know where Alec is.”

Chicago, Wednesday, August 4, 12:00 P.M.

She should have showered at the Sheraton, Dana thought, toweling her hair. It had to have had better water pressure than the little trickle in her shower. Critically she looked at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, tilted her head to one side. Saw on her neck the shadows of a small bruise put there by Ethan’s mouth. She swallowed hard. What a mouth that man had. Just the thought of his mouth made her want him all over again.

She’d come straight to her apartment after dropping Beverly off at the bus station. She couldn’t go to the shelter and she really needed some clean clothes, so she’d chanced a trip to her apartment, looking over her shoulder all the time. Her gun sat on the back of the toilet, just in case. But, she realized as she pushed her skirt into an overflowing hamper, she’d left both her pager and her new cell phone in Ethan’s room. So she’d called the hotel and left a message with the front desk. Call me at home. She left her home phone number—not something she’d ever done with a man before.

Now she rummaged through the basket under her sink, found the bottle of perfume Caroline had given her for Christmas. She’d never used it. She’d use it today, hoping to please Ethan.

With a sigh she again regarded her image in the mirror. “What will you do when he’s ready to go home?” she murmured. While under a load of guilt and fear and shock, she’d decided yesterday to leave Chicago. Today, she knew it was still the right decision. She could do her work anywhere. Even Washington, D.C.

She could live near Ethan. It was a heady thought. Unless . . . She bit her lip. Unless he wouldn’t want her there. What if this was just a fling for him? Was it any more for her? It wasn’t supposed to have been, but it was. Unquestionably. And Dana didn’t lie to herself.

A brisk knock at her front door made her frown. Nobody knocked on her door in the daytime. Goodman? She shrugged into her robe and slid her gun in its pocket. Walking resolutely to the door, she checked the peephole and gaped for a full five seconds before slowly opening the door.

Ethan stood before her, his face grim. “Dana, we need to talk.”

Chicago, Wednesday, August 4, 12:00 P.M.

“I came as soon as I could get away.” Sandy Stone was a fortyish woman with graying hair and thick glasses. But her eyes were kind and Evie knew Dana trusted her.

“Thank you. I didn’t know what else to do. I called Dana’s cell phone and her pager and even her phone at her apartment, but it just rang. So I called you.” Evie led her back to the kitchen where Erik sat silently, his large eyes still watching. “This is Erik. His mother goes by Jane Smith.”

Sandy sighed. “Original.”

“We get a lot of them,” Evie said. She ran her hand over Erik’s hair, smiled down at him. “Erik’s mother is less attentive than some mothers we get here. I’ve worried that Erik’s not getting enough nutrition and that she might be improperly medicating him. But this morning Erik brought me this.” Evie tapped the table next to the bag of white powder. She’d been loath to even touch it, avoiding it as if it were a snake poised to strike.

Sandy drew a very deep breath. “This belonged to your mother, Erik?”

Erik just looked at them, his eyes darting from Evie’s face to Sandy’s. And said nothing.

“If his mother has brought drugs into his environment, I can take him now and come back for her later.” Sandy tapped the bag with her pen and Erik’s eyes followed the movement. Then Sandy asked again. “Does this belong to your mother?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact it does.”

With a gasp Evie spun. Standing in the kitchen doorway was Jane. But not the Jane who arrived a few days before broken-spirited and bowed over. This Jane stood tall and strong. And wore Evie’s makeup.

And this Jane held a gun.

“You meddling women just can’t leave well enough alone,” Jane said. Her creepy light blue eyes narrowed. She pointed the gun at Evie and for a moment Evie was transported back. Two years. She’d been at the mercy of a man with that same cold, dead look in his eyes. He’d hurt her. She’d never be the same again. She couldn’t fight back that day. Today . . . Evie’s hand tightened on Erik’s thin shoulder, felt the bite of his bone as he pressed closer to her chest. Today there was a great deal more at stake. She thought about what Dana would do and felt her mind settle. Coldly, Evie met Jane’s reptilian stare.

“I don’t consider it a failing. Who are you?”

Jane just smiled, and Evie’s blood ran cold. “Get paper and a pen,” she said. “Now.”

Evie looked at Sandy, who looked shaken. “You should do what she says, Evie,” Sandy murmured. Evie looked down at Erik who was pale and trembling. But there was a resolute tightness to his lips as he stared at the woman with the gun.

Evie found a piece of paper and pen in the junk drawer, wishing with all her might that Dana kept her gun here at Hanover House. “I have paper and pen.”

“Then write this down. ‘We’re leaving. If you behave Evie will live.’ Write it.”

Evie looked at Erik and comprehension dawned. “He’s deaf. That’s why . . .”

Jane looked amused. “Kewpie doll for you. Now hurry up, I want to get out of here.”

Evie wrote the words, then pointed to her written name, then to herself.

Erik’s eyes flashed and his jaw set and he suddenly looked much older than ten. And Evie knew he knew the same thing she did. There was no way Jane was planning to let any of them live. She made her mouth curve and didn’t care that it was only half a smile. “It’ll be okay,” Evie said and hoped Erik could understand.

“I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I were you,” Jane said. “Who called the social worker, you or Dupinsky?”

Evie lifted her chin. “I did. I didn’t need Dana for this.” It was a lie, but the only way she knew to keep Dana safe. “Besides, she and I have been fighting all week.”

Jane considered it, then nodded. “That you have. You, social worker, I suppose you left word with your office as to where you were going.”

Sandy hesitated, unsure of what Jane wanted to hear. “It’s procedure,” she whispered.

Jane laughed. “Of course it is. Well, just to make you feel better, you would have picked the same prize whichever door you opened. Either way, I can’t stay here anymore, which pisses me off. The bed is hard as a rock, but the beef stew was really tasty. On the floor, on your stomach. I really, really hate social workers by the way,” she added companionably. “Just thought you’d like to know.”

Evie didn’t think she’d ever forget the look in Sandy’s eyes as she struggled to the floor. The woman knew what was going to happen and Evie knew there wasn’t anything either of them could do to stop it. All she could do was pull Erik’s face to her chest to keep him from watching Sandy die.

Chapter Fifteen

Chicago, Wednesday, August 4, 12:15 P.M.

Dana met his eyes and her stomach went queasy. “Why are you here, Ethan?”

He didn’t relax his gaze. “I need to talk to you.”

“No, I mean why are you in Chicago?”

He flinched, then reached into his pocket for his phone, his eyes still focused on hers. “Yeah,” he said into the phone. “I’m here.”

Dana took a physical step back and he took a step forward, maintaining their distance, and in that moment she actually considered drawing her gun from her pocket.

“No, not yet. Tell her to be patient.” He listened, then his eyes grew wide, horrified, and Dana watched every drop of color drain from his face. “Dear God.” It was a whisper. A horrible one. Ethan’s lips trembled and he firmed them. “His?” He expelled a hard breath. “Yeah. Tell them to come. . . . The Sheraton . . . Yeah, call me when you get here.” He snapped his phone closed. “You have a gun in your pocket, Dana. Why?”

Dana swallowed. He was different, this Ethan. Brooding and dangerous. Nothing like the man who had loved her so tenderly the night before. “Dangerous neighborhood.” She lifted her chin. “Why are you in my apartment and who is the she that should be patient?”

“Her name is Randi Vaughn. She’s Stan’s wife.”

“Richard’s brother.”

“Yes. Randi’s son Alec was kidnapped a week ago.”

Dana didn’t flinch, although every muscle in her body wanted to do so. “What does that have to do with me?”

Temper crackled in his eyes. “I tracked Alec here, to Chicago. I’ve been watching surveillance video in every major bus station between Maryland and Chicago. That’s what I was doing on Sunday. What were you doing in the bus station on Sunday, Dana?”

Her throat threatened to close. He knew. “I told you. I was meeting a friend.”

His eyes flashed. “Why won’t you tell me? Dana, don’t you understand? I know who you are and what you do.”

Her heart was beating too fast. “Why are you here, Ethan?”

He leaned a little closer. “Dammit, Dana. Friday night at ten forty-five you met a woman and a twelve-year-old boy. She kidnapped that child and you have been hiding them.”

Her heart was hammering. Jane. Erik. She’d known something was wrong with that woman. With the boy. But not this. Not this. There must be some mistake. He must be mistaken. I can’t have missed that. Not that. She looked away, unable to take his stare any longer. “Ten,” she murmured. “He’s ten.”