Ultimate Fear (Book 2 Ultimate CORE) (CORE Series) (27 page)

For months after she’d been abducted, Jessica would awaken during the night and rush to her daughter’s room, hoping to find her sleeping in her crib, hoping it had all been nothing but a bad dream. What she’d found was that she was living a nightmare. She still was, and worried staying in the house and surrounding herself with memories would only make the pain worse.

When she parked behind Dante in their driveway, she reminded herself that he’d be with her. He’d stand by her side and help her work through the fear and anxiety. She had to believe it, she had to find the courage to move past her doubts. She couldn’t allow herself to take the easy road and run from him again, and didn’t want to. Losing their child had devastated her, losing her husband had nearly destroyed her.

Drawing in a deep breath, she exited her SUV, then grabbed her bag from the back end. As she closed the door, she noticed the crows circling the house and counted four.

One for sorrow,

Two for mirth;

Three for a wedding,

Four for birth…

If she were superstitious, she wouldn’t take the birds as an ominous omen like she’d joked with Dante yesterday about the thunder and lightning. No, she’d look at the four crows as a positive sign. The house represented sorrow and mirth. It held agonizing and also happy memories. Now she was returning home, not as the new bride she’d been fifteen years ago, but as the wife she hadn’t been since they’d lost their daughter. In a way, this past weekend, today, this moment was a rebirth. Not only of their marriage, but also a reawakening of the woman she’d once been.

“Let me take your bag,” Dante said after grabbing his from the trunk of the Camaro.

“That’s okay.” She pulled the strap over her shoulder, and followed him up the walkway to the front door. “It was too dark to notice the lilac bush the other night. It’s really taken over the front bed.” They’d planted the bush about ten years ago. She used to love to open the front windows and let the breeze bring in its soothing scent.

“I know,” he said, unlocking the front door. “I couldn’t bring myself to trim it back, though. It was always one of your favorite things in the yard, and reminds me of you whenever I catch a whiff of it.”

Leave it to Dante to consider her feelings. And as she stared at his back, she realized he was so much braver than she could ever be. He’d lived, slept and eaten surrounded by memories that had both haunted and taunted her, and he’d done it alone. Guilt enveloped her. She’d left him to deal with the house and all that it represented, while she’d run away with the hope of forgetting.

She touched his shoulder. “Thank you.”

He opened the door and tossed his bag inside, then turned to her. “For what?”

“For not giving up on me.”

The warmth in his eyes, along with his reassuring smile, gave her the courage she’d been searching for. “I wouldn’t even know how,” he said, then gave her a quick kiss. “Come on, let’s go inside. I’ll make us some dinner. Any requests?”

She followed him into the foyer. “I regret not eating the lasagna you made the other night.”

“You’re in luck,” he said, moving into the living room. “I froze it. While I warm it up, I’ll make a salad.” When she remained in the foyer, he stopped in the middle of the living room and faced her. “Remember, they’re just things.”

She drew in a shaky breath and, taking a step toward him, glanced to the pictures on the fireplace mantle. A barrage of mental images hit her all at once. Her and Dante’s wedding, their honeymoon, the knowing smiles, the passionate kisses…making love. The laughter and good times they’d had making their house a home for their family. She zeroed in on the pictures of her daughter and fought back the tears.

The joy of bringing a child, their child, into the world.

“Things that hold a lot of memories,” she said.

In two strides, he was holding her hands. “Happy memories, Jess. If I sat here day in and day out, dwelling on all of the bad, those happy times would become lost. I don’t want to lose them, and I don’t want to lose you. Say the word and we can leave.”

She gripped his hands. “No. I think I need to be here. It’s where I belong.”

“Always,” he said, before giving her another kiss. “Leave your bag. I’ll take it upstairs later. How about a glass of wine?”

“That sounds perfect,” she said, and let him lead her through the living room and into the kitchen-dining room they’d painstakingly remodeled a few years before she’d given birth. She looked to the corner, near the French doors leading to their deck. The highchair used to sit there. The Exersaucer had taken up space near the table so that she and Dante could keep an eye on their baby girl while they were cooking. As she remembered all of her sweet and precious sounds, the banging of toys against the Exersaucer or the walls, and the way their daughter had loved to crawl along the hardwood floors, Jessica smiled. Those were great memories and she
did
need to hold on to them.

Think about the good, not the bad.

She looked to the dining room wall. Instead of the newspaper clippings and missing children posters like she’d coated her dining room with, Dante had kept the watercolor paintings she’d created hanging on the pale yellow walls. One of the paintings had been how she’d remembered her grandparents’ farm—the golden fields, the old wooden fence and aging barn. The other was of Dante and their daughter. Drawn to the painting, she slowly walked toward it. As she did, she was taken back to the weeks she’d spent painstakingly trying to portray their likenesses from a photograph she’d taken of them. Standing before the painting, she swore she heard baby babble and giggles, smelled fresh, baby-soft scent, felt chubby arms wrap around her neck. Instead of sadness, the memory gave her contentment and comfort. Her daughter might be gone, but no one could take those wonderful memories away from her.

When she looked from her daughter’s dark eyes to Dante’s, her smile grew and pride settled in her chest. She’d been able to capture his happiness and the love he’d felt for their child. Sighing, she touched the painting. Ran her fingers over her baby’s toothless grin, then brushed along Dante’s smile. How could she have denied herself him for so long? How could she have thought that she could live the rest of her life without him?

“Hey,” he said, his tone, reserved, tentative. “Here’s your wine.”

With a smile, she turned and took the glass. “Thanks.”

He looked at the picture. “This is my favorite.”

“Mine too,” she said with a wistful sigh.

“You’re okay with me keeping it up?”

“Absolutely. It deserves to be displayed.”

“It does, I just wish you were part of the picture.”

“I’m in every stroke of the paint brush.”

He kissed her cheek, then the crook of her neck. “So true. You’re love for Sophia shows in your talent.”

She barely even winced at the sound of her daughter’s name. She set the glass on the table and turned into his arms. “My love for you, too.”

“That’s why I could never take it down.”

Tears filled her. “I’m sorry I left you.”

“You’re back now. That’s all that matters.” He kissed her forehead. “Whatever time you need to get used to being back, is yours. I’m not going anywhere.”

Unable to find the right words to express herself, she brushed her lips against his. When he opened his mouth, she deepened the kiss. Danced her tongue along his, ran her fingers through his thick hair, pressed her breast against—

Dante’s cell phone rang. He pulled away with a frustrated groan and took the phone out of his pocket. “It’s Phil,” he said, glancing at the screen. “He probably wants to know how it went in Montour.”

“Or maybe Mark called him with new information.” Mark Tanner, the detective with Marshalltown PD, had been a great liaison between them and the Iowa DCI investigators. He’d made sure they were able to walk the crime scene, and that they were given whatever information the forensics investigators had discovered.

“Either way, when we’re finished with Phil, we’re going back to that kiss,” he said, then answered the phone and put it on speaker. “Hey, Phil. I have Jessica with me. How’s it going?”

“Awesome,” Phil said, excited. “You’re not going to believe this, but Elton’s parents are on their way to Lamoni.”

“Oh, my God.” She hugged Dante. “That
is
awesome. How’d it happen?”

“Detective Brent Hargrove with Charlotte, North Carolina PD, saw the Attempt to Identify bulletin and contacted me this morning after you guys left for Montour. Hargrove said he had a DNA sample of a baby boy that had gone missing two years ago last April and wanted to compare it to Elton. My captain, in turn, contacted Iowa DCI and asked them to rush the DNA sample we’d taken from Elton. DCI called about thirty minutes ago to confirm the match.”

“Oh, my God,” she repeated, tears spilling down her cheeks. “When will the parents see him?”

“They’re catching a flight within the hour and will be flying into Des Moines. Between a quick layover in Atlanta and the hour plus drive from Des Moines to Lamoni, they should be in town just before midnight.”

If only they could be there for the reunion. She would love to live vicariously through the boy’s parents and share the relief and joy of finding their son.

Dante brushed a tear from her cheek. “What’s the boy’s real name?” he asked.

“Quinn Joyce.”

“Was the detective able to give you any details about the disappearance?” he asked.

“Yeah.” The shuffling of paper echoed in the dining room. “The Joyces both work. They’d hired a nanny to take care of Quinn. The day he was abducted was a nice one. While the baby was napping in his crib, the nanny had gone out on the back deck to let the dogs out and had decided to sit on the patio and read a book. The Joyces have a service door off the garage that leads into their mudroom. Hargrove said the window on the service door had been smashed. He thinks the kidnappers broke it, unlocked the door and made their way into the house. Took the baby and that was that. Poof. Gone.”

Jessica shuddered. “Why wouldn’t the babysitter keep the door from the garage into the mudroom locked?”

“I asked the same thing,” Phil said. “Turns out it was a matter of the babysitter forgetting to lock up.”

That slip up had cost the Joyces two years without their son. Jessica reached for Dante’s hand and squeezed. “What else?” she asked.

“That’s it. Hargrove said they checked for prints, DNA, anything and everything they could to find the baby. Until now, they’d had nothing.”

“And now they have their son back,” Dante said, bringing their joined hands to his mouth and kissing the inside of her wrist.

Phil released a nervous laugh. “I’m…I can’t believe it. I can’t wait to see the Joyces meet their son.”

“Can you call us tomorrow and let us know how it went?” she asked, anxious and slightly jealous. To be able to be the honored guest at that reunion… She glanced to the father and daughter watercolor. The Joyces were so fortunate and their good fortune gave her hope, not just for her, Dante, and their baby girl, but for all the missing children she saw every day on her computer.

“Of course. Um… not to change the subject from good to bad, but how’d it go in Montour? With everything going on, I haven’t had a chance to talk to Mark.”

Dante shifted his gaze to her. “It was rough,” he said, then sighed and kissed her wrist again. “And not something I think either of us will ever forget. Missy Schneider didn’t deserve what was done to her.”

That was an understatement. “Yes,” she said, her earlier enthusiasm over the Joyces being reunited with their son now lost as she pictured Missy’s baby, the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck four times. “That crime scene will stay with me for a long time. We can’t be sure if there’s a connection between what happened in Montour and the missing boys, but it’s not something we’re discounting.”

“Not with the coincidences,” Dante added. “DCI’s computer forensics investigators are going to check Missy’s emails. We told them about our current investigation and how the kidnapper was possibly looking at black Labs on a library computer. If Missy and the woman had been emailing, and the IP address leads DCI to a library in or near St. Joseph, that’s going to strengthen our suspicions.”

“Were the forensics investigators able to find any fingerprints or DNA evidence?” Phil asked.

“Another hair,” she said. “But it was brown, not blond. Forensics also thinks it’s synthetic.”

“A wig?” Phil asked. “I wonder why they’d bother with a wig… Unless they weren’t planning on killing Missy.”

She shrugged. “That’s hard to say. What’s interesting is that it only looks like one person was in the kitchen.”

Dante nodded. “Yeah, this is something Jessica and I kept going back to on our drive home. Because of the storm, any footprints or tire tracks that might’ve been left in the driveway were washed away. The front door was locked—with a deadbolt. The back door wasn’t locked at all. We’re thinking that one of the kidnappers met with Missy, she let her in the house and locked the door behind them. Could be that after the female knocked Missy unconscious, she let the male in through the back.”

“Makes sense,” Phil said. “When my wife was pregnant with Maddy, she was very paranoid. She wouldn’t even let the cable repair guy in the house unless I was home.”