Echoes (37 page)

"Pop?"

"Roman. Sofie's pop. Second floor."

"He has a key to all the rooms?"

"He owns the building, man." Rico twirled his drumsticks.

"Anyone else have any keys?"

Rico looked toward the stairs. "Bobby and Monica, Lucy and Lou up there. Dom and Vinnie in back. Chaz and me. Why?"

Matt shrugged. "How much do you know about what's happened with Sofie?"

"You mean before?"

"Before and now. She has Carly."

Rico's eyebrows shot up. "Carly? She was a baby last I saw her. Hair like a doll, eyes like an angel."

That description could still be applied. But was it accurate? "What about Eric?"

"Smooth talker. Movie-star looks." Rico cocked his head. "Sofie fell hard, but things didn't work out so good. You coming in?"

"Sure." Matt stepped into the room. "Where's Chaz?"

"Delivering flowers."

"Thought he worked in a restaurant."

"He works three jobs to send money to his father's church in Kingston."

Matt groaned. Would every person in the building bang the religion drum? He hadn't expected it from Rico. "The police are looking for Eric."

"What for?"

"Assault."

"On who?" Rico flopped onto the couch.

"His mother. She was hiding Carly."

Rico's eyes hooded. "If he knows Sofie's here, he'll come."

"You mean if he knows Carly's here?"

"Yeah, sure. But he's been here before, looking for Sofie."

"When?"

Rico crossed his ankles on the table. "Different times, hanging around in his car."

"Did he have a camera?"

Rico shrugged.

"Would anyone else have seen him?"

"Everyone would have seen him."

"Think he talked to anyone?"

"A few weeks ago, he was asking. But she was gone."

"Did they tell him where?"

"No way." Rico shook his head. "Everybody knows what happened before."

"They'd keep her secret? The whole neighborhood?"

"This part, yeah. Anyone who knows her."

Matt thought about that. "If we passed the word, would people keep an eye open?"

"Both eyes. But they're mostly old people like Dom and Vinnie."

"Even better. He won't suspect anything."

"You want them to call if they see him?"

Matt took out the half dozen cards in his wallet. "Give them my number. Sooner or later he'll guess Sofie's got Carly. I don't think there are too many others the girl could turn to." He'd isolated her in the same way he'd cut Sofie off from people who might have guessed things were wrong. "I don't know how long he'll evade police."

"Not that hard, man. Not around here." Rico looked like he knew.

No matter. He needed his help. What manpower could the force realistically commit to Carly? Best-case scenario, they'd snag Eric before he caught up to Sofie, but he couldn't count on that.

He'd had kids swiped right out from under supervising eyes or beaten up with neighbors right next door. Matt clenched his jaw. He'd never been through police or military training, but thanks to his father, he could fight.

"So you'll pass the word on the street?" It would go better from someone they knew and trusted. Rico didn't look the sort people trusted, but he guessed in a clannish place like this, he'd been accepted or he would have been gone.

Rico fanned the business cards like a poker hand. "I'll pass your number."

"They should also call the police, but I don't know what kind of response time . . . What?"

"They won't call the cops." Rico hunched forward. "We take care of our own."

Matt hooked a thumb over his shoulder. "I better get back." Though he doubted he'd been missed. Reading to Carly, Sofie had looked happier than he'd ever seen her. He tried to imagine the impact of losing a child, then six years later having her back.

Then he tried to imagine what could happen next. Sofie had no claim to Carly. With no priors, unless the grandma died, Eric would probably weasel out of jail time. Distraught and frantic to find his child, he'd overreacted. They both had. A jury could buy that.

If his mother recovered, and any of the rest actually stuck to Eric, she'd be next in line for Carly. If she was unable or unwilling, he supposed Sofie could be named guardian. Eric wouldn't let go without a fight, though maybe he'd used Carly as bait to bring Sofie back. He had to have learned she'd slipped his vigilance. The whole thing could be a setup.

Matt crossed the hall and went into Sofie's apartment, locking the door behind him. Her voice trailed from the bedroom, but it didn't sound as though she was reading anymore. They were conversing. How did one catch up on six lost years of a child's life?

Matt sat on the couch and used his PDA to contact the office, bring up his mail, check on a few loose ends. He had a note that Cassinia's mother had died and sent condolences, then ordered flowers to be delivered. He hoped she'd made peace with her mother before it was over, wondered if he'd ever do the same.

He contacted Officer Mantero for an update.

"Mrs. Malden's in fair condition. Two fractured vertebrae, a crushed disk. Bruises and contusions. She won't be getting up anytime soon."

"Any word on Eric?"

"A neighbor thinks she saw him coming out of his place with a suitcase, but doesn't know him well enough to say for sure."

"Sounds like he's on the move."

"We've got surveillance on your girlfriend's neighborhood. If she hangs tight with Carly a couple days, we'll get him."

He liked her optimism—especially the girlfriend part. "We've alerted the neighbors. They know Sofie and they know him."

"Good. How's the kid?"

"Not great. Better with Sofie, though."

"What's the deal there?"

"She lived with Eric for four years. Raised Carly from infancy until they had a disagreement and he took his daughter and left."

"Must be rough."

He didn't tell her it had almost been deadly. He thanked her for the update and hung up. Then he settled in to wait and wondered what, really, he was doing there.

A while later Carly went into the bathroom. He heard the shower start up with the groan of old pipes. Sofie joined him.

He slipped his arm around her. "You doing okay?"

"Yes. It's strange but . . . wonderful too. Having Carly."

Strange and wonderful having Sofie. Only he didn't. Not really. Not as long as her heart and mind were tied to Eric and his child.

Tucked into the crook of his shoulder, she raised her face. "I apologize."

"For what?"

"Saying things you didn't want to hear."

He frowned. "You have a right to your beliefs."

"Just don't impose them on you?" She half smiled.

"Don't imagine something that isn't there." The situation with Annie had reaffirmed his doubt about a supreme being. Lance claimed that the kingdom was now. If it was, it just wasn't enough.

Sofie sighed. "If there's no arbiter of good and evil, what separates moral from immoral choices?"

"Things either hinder or benefit society or individuals. It has nothing to do with some eternal condition after death."

That close to her face, he wanted to kiss her, kiss away all thoughts of religion, all piety, all inhibition. If he claimed her body, would her heart and mind follow? It had with Eric. He cupped her chin and kissed her mouth. "It's about you and me and what happens now."

The water turned off in the bathroom.

"And Carly."

He dropped his forehead to hers. "She's not yours, Sofie. You know that, right? They're not going to give you Eric's little girl."

"I can't let her down again."

"Sofie . . ."

She drew back. "I took the coward's way out last time, but God's given me another chance. Can't you see?"

"A chance at what?"

"Being in her life."

He shook his head. "There's no good way that can happen. Only if her grandma dies or you hook back up with him."

When she said nothing, he pushed up from the couch. "I thought you didn't want that."

"I don't." She dropped her face to her hands. "But you should have heard her, Matt. I'm all she has."

He could just imagine. "She's certainly her father's daughter."

Indignation ignited Sofie's eyes. "She did not intend any of this. How could she?"

"Whether she planned it or not, she's working you." He paced.

"Stop it."

"She said she wants you back. You and her dad and her, together again."

"Don't."

He threw out his hands. "She's playing on everything in you that's kind and giving and wounded. And you're letting her, just like you let him. They're two of a kind."

"Get out." The soft tone gave her words impact.

He'd gone too far. But he'd spoken the truth. He walked out the door, down the stairs and out to the street. He walked past stores and restaurants that seemed to be a page out of a time long past, skinned rabbits and sheep's heads staring out from display windows, an enclave of unreality. Sofie lived in an imaginary world. And liked it there.

He went back inside along with a handful of kids, climbed the stairs to the guys' apartment. He gathered his toiletries, put his clothes into the suitcase, and carried it out to the hall. Sofie's door was closed. He didn't knock. If he found Rico he'd tell him to direct the neighbors' calls wherever he wanted. Just keep him out of the loop.

From her window, Sofie saw him on the sidewalk, his suitcase beside him. He put his phone to his ear and placed a call. In the time it took the cab to arrive, he never looked up—not even when he climbed in and directed the cabbie. Her throat tightened. She hadn't meant to send him away, but she could not hear the things he'd been saying.

Somehow, some way, she would be there for Carly. From the moment she'd seen her in the closet
—"I knew you'd come"—
nothing else had mattered. She had to believe there was a way. God would not have brought her there, Carly would not have found her, unless they were supposed to be together.

Matt could not understand. He had not walked Carly through long hours in the night, had not thrilled over her first laugh, first words, first steps, had not melted in the glow of her. He hadn't seen the wariness creep into her being, the incomprehensible knowledge that more was needed from her than she could give. He hadn't worked day and night to meet a fathomless need so that the child could be spared a burden too great for so tender a heart. Matt couldn't know what it was to be utterly desired.

But she knew. And Carly knew. And when she went into the bedroom and found the girl, wet and clean, talking on her phone, it didn't surprise her at all that it was Eric she'd called.

————

Lance groaned through the mask as he moved the orbital sander over the wood floor of the hotel hallway. His spirit writhed with the swelling oppression.
Lord
. If it wasn't his responsibility, why was it weighing on him so painfully? Had something changed? Had he heard wrong?

He reached the wall and shut off the sander, dragged his phone from his pocket and keyed Sofie's number.
Come on, come
on. Tell me you're okay
. When he got her message again, he called Matt.

"Matt Hammond."

Hope choked him. If Matt was fine, Sofie was fine.

"Leave a message after the tone."

His arm fell to his side. A million reasons they might not be answering. Don't read more into that than there could be. But the weight was crushing him. He sank to his knees. Fingers locked behind his head, he dropped his chin to his chest.
Tell me. Show
me. What do I have to do?

"Lance?" Rese's voice penetrated.

He pushed up to his feet, shakier than he'd been in a while.

She came to him, touched him. "What's wrong?"

He found his voice. "I don't know."

She searched his face. "Is it Sofie?"

"That's my guess. I'm worried."

She had said she would tell him if she thought he should go, but she didn't say that now. "Lance, even if you were there, what could you do?"

He swallowed. "I don't think I'm supposed to be there."

Her shoulders relaxed. "What, then?"

"Come here." He took her hands and leaned his shoulder to the wall. "Pray with me."

"Here?" She looked down the half-sanded hallway where he'd been working alone. "Right now?"

"Unless you want me on a plane doing someone else's job."

"What are you talking about?"

He wasn't sure he could put it into words. "This isn't my fight. Yet. Or maybe it is in a different way. I've always been the one out there laying it on the line while someone like Chaz covers me in prayer."

"This time you're covering someone else?"

"Yes." His heart swelled that she'd gotten it. "It's not easy standing back. I'd rather be there guarding Sofie, making sure nothing hurts her, no one hurts her."

"You like that position of control."

No denying that. "And God knows I'll take it if no one else does." He brought her fingers to his lips. "So help me?"

Her uneasiness showed. God had invaded her professional space, the space she guarded above all others. But this was right. It was necessary.

"What are we praying for?"

"Matt." He said it with no forethought. It was just there. He closed his eyes, pictured the man Sofie had allowed into her life. Did Matt know the magnitude of her struggle? Without faith, what would he fight with?

Lance squeezed Rese's hands. He'd expected to pray protection for Sofie, and that was part of it, but his burden now was for Matt. He didn't know what had happened, or what might, only that a battle raged. He spoke without planning one word, letting his spirit lead.

When he looked up, Rese's eyes were still closed, and that glimpse of her in prayer excited him like nothing else. He expelled his breath. "I love you."

Her eyes opened. "Amen?"

A full smile grabbed his heart. "Yeah." He didn't always sweat the formalities. "Thank you, Rese. You don't know what that means to me."

"I think I do." She leaned in and kissed his mouth. Affection in the workplace—another breakthrough. "Think you can finish this floor now?"