A Daughter's Story (16 page)

People didn’t always get what they deserved. Claire had
certainly not deserved to be stolen from her family. Rose had not deserved to
lose the child she’d paid such a high price to bear.

And look at Lucy…

“What about you and Ramsey Miller?” she asked. “You two seem
pretty close.”

“We think the same, professionally speaking.”

“You spend a lot of time together.”

“Not really. Last week was only the second time we’d ever met.
We talk on the phone. Mostly about work. Ramsey’s married to the job, Emma.
Truth be told, I’m not sure he has it in him to open up to intimacy. Some people
are just that way.”

“Something must have happened in his past. Something that made
him this way.”

“I’m sure you’re right. But it’s not just Ramsey. I love my
job, too. Way more than I can ever see myself loving a man. Any man.”

“Don’t you want a family of your own someday? Kids?”

“Truthfully? I’m not sure. With the things I see on the
job…this job does something to you. It takes away your innocence. Once you’ve
crossed a line, once you know things, once you’ve seen firsthand things that no
one should have to see, you can’t go back. A normal life in suburbia doesn’t
work for you anymore. It’s not real.”

Maybe that was Emma’s problem, too. Not the seeing part, but
the knowing. Maybe she couldn’t believe in real happiness because she knew how
quickly it could be taken away. Maybe she’d had it mostly right all along—opting
for safety and security over excitement and joy.

She’d just chosen the wrong man.

Twice.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

C
HRIS
BROUGHT
BACK
ANOTHER
lobster for dinner.
Emma made garlic mashed potatoes and steamed asparagus.

If nothing else, they were both eating well.

“How is your mother?” Chris asked as they finished serving
themselves.

“I didn’t go to Mom’s.” Emma sat down and put her napkin in her
lap.

Chris was a fisherman. He set his napkin, still folded, on one
knee.

“I went to the Caffeine Café instead. Mom’s getting ready to go
to an educator’s seminar on Wednesday and I didn’t want her to see something
different about me and do something stupid, like cancel,” Emma said. She hadn’t
looked him in the eye since he’d gotten there. “She needs these times away. Four
days to think about nothing except her job.”

“You think she’d notice something different about you?” Like
the fact that she was pregnant?

“I don’t know, Chris.” Emma’s tone was truculent. It was a
different side to her and he kind of liked it. “Let’s see,” she continued. “In
the space of a few weeks I’ve slept with a man I didn’t know, multiple
times—”

“Well you only slept with him once when you didn’t know him.
Sleeping with a guy kind of qualifies as getting to know him, wouldn’t you say?”
Chris interrupted, feeling kind of irritable, himself.

“I’ve reunited with my stepbrother,” she continued as though
she hadn’t heard him, “was told that my baby sister might have been a victim of
a pedophile, then told she wasn’t but that she was at a home known for
black-market adoptions three states away. I caught my fiancé in bed with another
woman, which Mom already knows, but now he’s stalking me. I find out he has
internet sex associations, and he probably has some connection to my sister’s
disappearance. I’m guessing someone as close to me as my mother would know that
something’s going on.”

“You forgot to mention that you might be pregnant.”

She shoved a hunk of lobster in her mouth, if a woman as
refined as she could actually shove, the butter dripping down her chin.

He wanted to lick it off. She wiped her chin with her
napkin.

“Yes, and even if I’m not, have someone making sure I worry
about it. So if that’s why you’re here, because you think you have to be in case
I’m carrying your child, you can go now.”

“You’re telling me to leave?”

“Would it do any good if I was?”

“No.”

“But you admit that you’re here because you think I might be
pregnant.”

“I’m here because I’m not a man who can walk out after giving
my word, or my commitment, to anything.”

Which was why he would never marry. Never have a family. He
knew he could not be true to the commitment.

“If I walked out and Evert got away with this and hurt you, or
anyone else…well, let’s just say I need to be able to look myself in the
mirror.”

“I don’t think he’s physically dangerous.”

“I’m not willing to take that chance. And obviously, neither
are the off-duty police officers keeping a watch on you. Besides, if Evert’s
somehow involved in your sister’s disappearance, if keeping up this charade can
help you and your mother find some answers, then I want to help. No one should
have to live with what the two of you have been through these past twenty-five
years.”

He’d said more than he meant to, but the words must have
mollified her as she finished her dinner without another word.

And before the tension building in both of them had another
chance to explode, Chris took Emma upstairs to bed. It was going to be the last
time he’d have sex with her. It had to be.

* * *

I
NCONCLUSIVE
AGAIN
.

Emma wasn’t surprised at the results of the pregnancy test
Chris had handed her when he’d walked in the door Tuesday evening after work.
She’d been hoping that with everything else that was going on he’d have been
able to let it go another day—her doctor’s appointment was tomorrow.

“I told you this might happen. My cycle is about to begin
again. The internet said that can sometimes cause higher than normal levels of
HCG, just not enough to confirm pregnancy.”

He was standing before her in black jeans, a black T-shirt and
the blackest expression she’d ever seen on his face.

“Don’t you think that if I was pregnant, the HCG should have
risen enough in a week’s time to change the results?”

“You have an appointment with your doctor tomorrow, right?”

“Yes.” The man was beside himself. Emma’s heart reached out to
him. Putting the test kit in the trash, she turned off her bathroom light and
led the way downstairs.

“Let’s watch a movie. Get your mind off things.”

“Will she give you an answer the same day?”

“Chris…” She knelt by the DVD shelf to the right of the large
flat-screen television Rob had insisted they get. “Try to relax.”

He stood over her.

The man was desperately afraid of the thought of being a
father. If she’d needed any more proof that he was wrong for her, he was serving
it to her on a silver platter.

“Yes, she’ll give me an answer before I leave the office.
There’s a lab on-site and that kind of test doesn’t take long for results.”
Giving up on the movie, she took his hand and pulled him over to the couch. Rob
had called seven times that day and left the same brief message.

And, so far, besides making the phone calls, he’d done nothing
out of the ordinary since Miller had begun looking at him.

“Maybe we should go out. Have a glass of wine or something,”
Emma said.

“You shouldn’t. Not until we know for sure you aren’t
pregnant.”

“Fine. I’ll have tea.”

“You really aren’t worried at all?”

“No, I’m really not.” At least, not that she’d ever admit. If
she found out she was wrong, that she was somehow carrying Chris’s child inside
her, she’d have plenty of time to panic then.

“What’s the point?” she said. Maybe she could help him see that
his way of dealing with this was counterproductive. “It’s like borrowing
trouble. It’s not as though I can do anything at this point to reverse what
happened. If I could go back in time I would. If I have to pay for my negligence
sometime in the future, I will. But right now, I don’t feel pregnant and I’m
going to save myself the stress of worrying about it. Life’s too short and gives
you enough trouble to borrow more.” Emma was so concerned about kidnappers,
Claire’s fate and a dangerous ex-fiancé, that the possibility of an unplanned
pregnancy just didn’t seem that threatening at the moment. The whole idea seemed
surreal.

He seemed to ponder her words and Emma went back to browsing
her movie selection. Anything that would take her mind off Claire. And Rob. And
the fact that she and Chris were so diametrically opposed.

The real tragedies.

* * *

C
HRIS
WAS
FEELING
cantankerous. He’d had more sex in the past week than he’d had in one
week’s time ever. And he was randy again.

And worried, damn it. He’d always heard that stress wreaked
havoc on a guy’s libido. He wasn’t seeing it. The woman of his desires was
thumbing through movies as though she didn’t have a care in the world. From
where he sat, she had more to deal with than he would’ve been able to handle.
“What
do
you worry about?”

“You want the truth?” She stared at him.

He wasn’t sure how to answer that. Of course he wanted the
truth. But he didn’t want to know her any better. “Yeah,” he said finally.

“What I’m most worried about these days, what I worry about
almost constantly, is the fact that all I have to do is look at you and I’m
suddenly willing to risk anything just to feel you inside me one more time.”

He shouldn’t have asked. His zipper was ready to burst.

“I’m like a stranger to myself when you’re around,” Emma said.
“I hate it.”

He didn’t. But he should.

“I don’t know what it is about you, but you’re a lethal weapon
and I can’t seem to keep myself out of the line of fire.”

He had to stop her.

“And what if this is it for me?” she added. “I’ve never reacted
like this to a man before. What if I never do again?”

“You will.” He found his voice. He was older, so supposedly
wiser. It was up to him to steer them both out of danger. “Trust me on that one.
Sexual attraction is merely a set of circumstances.”

“You’re saying sex feels just as good for you all the
time?”

“No, but our circumstances—”

“Do you feel turned on all the time when we’re together?” she
interrupted, her eyes burning right through him.

“No.” He was his mother’s son, apparently, able to lie while
looking someone in the eye. “When we have sex, yeah, I get turned on. But that’s
normal.”

“That’s it? You only get turned on when we’re intimate? So, it
has nothing to do with me, in particular?”

“That’s right.” He was doing her a favor.

“I’m disappointed in you, Chris.”

So be it. It was for the best.

“I’m just telling it like it is,” he said, sealing their fate.
Relief was good. He’d concentrate on that.

And hope to ignore, and forget, the pain he saw in her
beautifully expressive brown eyes.

“No. If what you just said was true and you really were telling
it like it is, I’d be embarrassed—humiliated, even—but I wouldn’t be
disappointed. I didn’t figure you for a man who would lie to me. That’s what
disappoints me.”

Shit.
Chris sat up. “I don’t lie.”
The words came from deep within. From the boy who’d adored a woman who wouldn’t
be straight with him. From the man who swore to himself that he would never be
like her.

“You did just lie,” Emma said. “You were as hard as a board a
few minutes ago. You’re definitely aroused by me—and not just when we’re having
sex. I’m not alone here.”

Chris sat back. Wiped his hand over his face, and then laughed.
“Aw, Emma, what the hell am I supposed to do? Yeah, you turn me on. All the
time. But I’ve lived four decades, have four decades’ worth of experiences that
have given me wisdom, and I know that you and I are a recipe for disaster.
Everything you want and need, physical attraction aside, is the exact opposite
of what I want and need—or even have the ability to give to you.”

“I know that.”

“So I thought I was doing us both a favor by shutting this
down. It’s going to end, anyway. Tomorrow. Or the next day. Or soon after that.
But with us spending this time together, we’re getting to know each other better
and better, and someone’s going to end up hurt. We probably both will.”

“I know.” Her voice sounded strong. “I’m as determined as you
are to end this, Chris. I just don’t know how to stay away from you.”

“Oh, Lord, woman, I can’t seem to keep my hands off you,
either.” Chris reached for her, pulling her on top of him and plunging his
tongue deep inside her mouth.

And heard someone coming down the stairs.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

E
MMA
HEARD
THE
FOOTSTEPS
at the same time she felt herself spin
over and be crushed. She couldn’t breathe. Chris’s body held her down to the
cushions. His lips pressed against her cheek, blocking her head from view.

In the second it took her head to clear, she realized he was
protecting her.

“Let her up, Talbot.”

Rob’s voice! How had he gotten in her house? She’d had the
locks changed. No one but her mother had a key. The windows were all dead-bolted
from the inside. She’d double-checked them on Saturday after her meeting with
the detectives.

“How’d you get in?” She gasped for air, her words muffled
behind Chris’s shoulder.

He held up a single key. “With this, of course. I was upstairs
getting some discs I needed for work when I heard you both come in. Nice little
scene there in the bathroom. I was just around the corner in the office, waiting
with bated breath. So you think you’re knocked up? No problem. We’ll say the
baby’s mine.”

The off-duty cops were protecting
her,
watching
her,
not her house.
Regular-duty officers were making random drive-bys on her house. It would have
been easy enough for Rob to watch for police cars and slip into the backyard
when the coast was clear.

And then it dawned on her.

He had her mother’s key. He’d gotten to Rose.

“No!” she screamed, shoving her weight against Chris until
she’d unbalanced him enough to get out from under him.

“What have you done to my mother?” she screeched at the man who
was standing in the living room they’d shared for two years, a gun pointed at
the man she’d been about to have sex with. Rob thought he’d pass Chris’s baby
off as his? Not in this lifetime.

Rob glanced at her, and then immediately back at Chris, the gun
aimed straight at the older man’s heart. “Rose is safe,” he said, staring at
Chris. He didn’t so much as glance at Emma as he said, “I wouldn’t hurt your
mother. You should know that. I care about her.”

“Put the gun down, Evert.” Chris’s voice. In a tone Emma didn’t
recognize at all. It was deep. Threatening.

She was glad he was there.

And scared to death for him, too. If he died because of her—if
he even got hurt because of her…

If something had happened to Rose…

“Like hell you care, Rob,” she snapped. How could she ever have
thought this man was safe? “Where is my mother?”

She couldn’t live without Rose. Couldn’t bear the thought of
her mother afraid. In pain.

“She’s apologized to the conference committee for her absence,
and no one else is going to miss her for the next few days. Don’t worry, she’s
perfectly safe.” His smugness nauseated her.

Emma took a step toward him. “Where is Rose?” she yelled. “What
have you done with her?” She had to keep him talking.

She had to get to her mother. Assuming Rose was still
alive.

She was.

Emma had to believe that.

“Let’s just say she won’t be making any phone calls anytime
soon,” Rob said, turning her blood cold. “Maybe never unless you come with
me.”

“She’s not going anywhere with you,” Chris said, putting
himself in front of Emma. “You’re not going to get away with this.”

“Step aside, old man. You had your chance to do what was best
for Emma, but you were more interested in getting in her pants. You don’t care
for her at all.”

“Put the gun down.” Chris moved toward him.

“Stop or I’ll shoot.” With both hands on the gun now, Rob kept
a steady aim on Chris’s chest.

“Don’t, Rob! Stop this craziness! Tell me what you want from
me.”

“It’s a little late for that now, Em. I’ve been trying for
weeks to tell you what I want, but you’ve ignored all my calls. To be fair, I
gave you lots of chances. All of this could have been avoided if you’d only
called me back.”

This was all her fault? And Chris’s for not listening to Rob’s
warning?

Thoughts flew through her mind. “I’m sorry,” she said slowly,
finding a calm that surprised her. “I should have called. I just needed time to
figure things out.”

“So what’s Talbot here? Your
therapist?
”

“You can’t really be angry with me for one indiscretion, Rob.
Not after all the women you’ve slept with since we’ve been together. I was
looking for a way to understand why you did what you did. Believe it or not, I
was looking for a way to forgive you.”

Rob stole a glance in her direction, his expression
questioning.

Chris was moving slowly to the right, inching up on Rob. Emma
kept talking.

“I couldn’t forgive you this last time. Even after a few days
passed, and the initial shock wore off, I wasn’t okay. Before…was horrible. But
now…with us engaged…you hurt me, Rob. Really bad.”

His gaze was trained on Chris, the gun still held steady, but
his jaw had loosened a bit.

“I had to do something.” Emma kept the words coming. “You
guessed it that Saturday after I met Chris,” she continued. “You guessed that
I’d spent the night with someone. You said you were relieved, remember?”

“Sleeping with him is one thing, but seeing him? Like you’re a
couple? Having him in your home, like he could move in, be a part of your life,
that’s unacceptable.”

And this man with the red, twisted face was not Rob.

She couldn’t look at Chris. Couldn’t draw attention to him. But
she wanted to.

“You brought Tiffany into our bed, Rob. Remember? That was a
first. And that was why it was so hard for me to get over it this time. Besides,
as you now know, I’m afraid I’m pregnant.”

Were Miller’s off-duty officers outside? Rob had been in the
house since before she and Chris got home—and he’d entered with a key—so there
was no obvious sign anything was amiss.

How did she alert them?

She’d yet to see one of them. She didn’t know if they were
watching her 24/7 or in shifts. She hadn’t thought to ask.

Hadn’t really wanted to know.

Hadn’t wanted to believe she’d need them.

And what about the random drive-bys from the duty officers?
Would anyone notice she and Chris were in trouble?

“Tell me what I have to do to get my Mom back,” she said, not
daring to plead for Chris’s safety, as well. But she prayed for it.

“You’re going to come with me,” Rob said. “I knew if I couldn’t
get you to talk to me, all I had to do was get to Rose. You’d do anything for
that woman.” Rob’s voice dripped disgust. “You act like her life is more
valuable than yours. It’s your fault that people shit on you, Emma. You let
them. But I’m not like you. I don’t let people shit on me. Not even you.”

“What have I done to you?” Instinctively Emma moved forward,
toward Rob, toward his gun, with some idea that she’d get his attention away
from Chris, if nothing else.

Rob didn’t move the gun, but he looked at her. And Chris slid
toward him from the side.

“You think after all the time I’ve put in, I’m going to let you
throw me out like yesterday’s trash and bring someone else in here to reap the
benefits?” Rob spat, spinning sideways to keep his gun aimed at Chris’s
chest.

The words were practically a repetition of what Rob had told
Chris that day he’d threatened him by the dock.

“What benefits?” she asked, frowning with genuine confusion,
praying that Chris would be safe.

“I don’t even have a savings account, apart from my teacher’s
pension, and I can’t cash in on that for another twenty years,” she told Rob,
drawing closer to him, trying to get him to look at her. “You know that.”

“Don’t play stupid with me, Emma. I’ve been telling you for
years that you needed to reopen your sister’s case. You know what this is
about.”

“About Claire? How do you benefit if we find Claire?”

Was Ramsey Miller right? Did Rob have ties to Claire’s
abductor? “If you know where my sister is, Rob, if you have any idea what
happened to her, you’d better tell me now.” She spoke through gritted teeth,
feeling capable of grabbing the gun from the sanctimonious bastard and aiming it
right at his face.

“I don’t know where she is, but you can bet your life that
someone does,” Rob said. “Someone in the Comfort Cove Police Department. And
now, you’re going to come with me. We’ll go get your mother, and the two of you
are going to agree to keep quiet about all of this. You are going to marry me.
Your mother is going to welcome me as her son-in-law. We are going to go on as
planned, with one little difference. As soon as we’re married, you and your
mother are going to file a lawsuit against the city of Comfort Cove.”

Emma took another step forward, making sure she didn’t lose eye
contact with Rob. “What for?”

“Negligence. You’ve got a seven-figure lawsuit sitting in your
lap and you’re going to cash it in.”

A vague memory came back to her. When she and Rob were first
dating, he’d told her about the class he’d taken in college that had dealt with
liabilities. The class had been designed to keep students from falling prey to
lawsuits. Rob had mentioned suing the city as a possibility in her sister’s
case, but after they’d talked she’d been certain they both knew there was no
grounds.

“We don’t have any proof of wrongdoing,” she reminded him.

“Wrong again, Em. And from now on we’re doing things my way. So
first, because you’ve created a mess here, babe, you’re going to take this gun
and shoot our witness. You’ll dispose of his body and this whole thing will be
our little secret. And it will also be my insurance that for the rest of your
life you’re going to do exactly as I say or I will turn you in to the police for
murder. You will never, ever ignore one of my phone calls again.”

Chris lunged, but Rob got to her first, grabbing her by the
neck. Rob had the advantage. Emma had planted herself right at his feet.

“Let her go, you bastard.” There was venom in Chris’s voice as
he stood back, scowling at the gun Rob held pointed at his chest.

“Not on your life.” Rob chuckled, tightening his hold around
Emma’s throat with the crook of his arm. “I’m just starting to enjoy myself.”
Keeping the gun trained on Chris, he brought the weapon close to Emma’s hand and
hissed, “You’re going to take this now, love. I’ll help you keep the gun steady,
but you are going to pull the trigger.” He tightened his arm again and she
choked, gasping for breath, and trying not to move at the same time for fear
she’d make the gun go off.

Rob used the hand on the arm around Emma’s throat, to pull her
hand up and place it on the gun.

“Have you ever shot a gun before, Em?”

He knew she hadn’t. He knew she was petrified of them. But she
couldn’t answer him, anyway. He wasn’t leaving her enough air to speak.

She didn’t have a lot of time before she lost consciousness.
And she would not let it end this way. Not her life. Or Chris’s. Or her
mother’s, either.

Her fingers were on the barrel of the gun. With his index
finger, Rob forced her middle finger to the trigger. She was starting to see
stars. Getting light-headed. She was going to faint.

But before she went down, she went limp beneath Rob’s arm,
becoming deadweight. She should have known he’d be prepared for the eventuality,
that with his strength he could sustain her weight. But it didn’t matter.

She wasn’t afraid. Didn’t feel any emotion at all as she felt
her finger start to push against the trigger. She couldn’t look at Chris, but
his presence, the life she was saving, the joy she’d known with him, gave her
strength.

She only had a second, that was all it took to jerk sideways,
using every bit of strength she had to reposition the gun in the last second so
that it was pointing at Rob.

Before she could succeed, she heard the explosion as the gun
went off.