When Night Falls (18 page)

He saw it then, the black heap on the wooden floor, and his heart stopped. He didn’t know how his legs kept moving.
“Molly!”

“Oh, God,” Jessica cried behind him.

“Molly!” He ran toward the lifeless form. He could see paws, a tail. No movement. Through his blurred vision he saw a flash of red—the bandanna he’d secured that morning.

He stopped dead in his tracks, and his blood ran cold. He couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t. Emily loved that dog… “Molly.”

Jessica took over, mounting the steps when he couldn’t. She slowed, went down on one knee, lowered her hand. Let out a low, keening sound.

Liam blinked several times, trying to convince himself he saw what he thought he did—Jessica lifting a huge stuffed animal in the shape of a black lab.

She swung toward Liam. Honor and hope collided in her gaze. “It’s not her.”

He staggered forward, sick inside. Molly wasn’t there on the gazebo floor, but someone had clearly designed the scene to make him think what he had. “The bandanna?”

Jessica pulled the sleeves of her sweater over her hands before untying the bandanna. She slowly unrolled the fabric, revealing that, like on the one hurled through her window, someone had scrawled a warning.

First the mother, Then the daughter, Now the dog. Who’s next?

* * *

“I’m going to kill him,” Liam swore. “So help me God, I’ll kill the bastard who thinks he can turn my life into a game.”

Jess pushed to her feet, torn between comforting the man and cataloging the evidence. Liam’s face was hard and pale, making the glitter in his eyes all the more threatening. Almost unearthly.

The cop in her took over. Someone was playing games with this man. Kidnappings by nature were personal, but her gut screamed this extended beyond the typical motivations of money and greed to the dangerous realm of punishment. Torture.

Training overrode emotion, and objectivity pushed aside the sickness in her stomach. “Liam, I need you to think back on—”

“He was here, damn it!” Liam slammed a fist through the latticework of the gazebo. “The bastard who took Emily was close enough to take Molly, too, and I didn’t know. If I’d been out here… If I’d been paying attention—”

“Liam, don’t do this to yourself.” She crossed to him and took his arm in her hands. “You’re bleeding.”

He snatched his wrist out of her grip and turned on her. “I was wrong to leave you on this case,” he said with pinpoint precision. “I was wrong to think this thing between us wouldn’t blow up in our faces.”

Jess winced. He was retreating from her, a powerful wave churning back to the cold and dark depths of the ocean. “You weren’t wrong,” she said, reaching for him.

He caught her wrist. “I knew from the start you were dangerous, that this attraction between us was an accident waiting to happen, but for some insane reason, I talked myself into letting you stay on the case. I made excuses. I told myself you could make it better. But that’s not true, and we both know it.”

“Liam—”

“We were having sex, damn it!” The words were dark and tortured, appalled. He released his hold on her and shoved a hand through his hair. “We were having sex when we should have been paying attention. What else have we overlooked? Isn’t that cop rule number one? Never get involved?”

She cringed. Because he was right. But the word
sex
made what they’d shared during the long hours of the night sound so crude and common.

“Sometimes we can’t control what happens,” she said softly, as much to him as herself. “Sometimes the best plans, the best intentions in the world aren’t strong enough to stop fate.” She hugged her arms around her rib cage, suddenly cold. The sun still shone from high against the bright blue sky, but the breeze seemed more biting, almost vicious. “This is hardly what I had in mind, either, but it’s too late now to go back and change things. All we can do is move forward. Together, we can—”

“Not together.” He bit the words out. “This thing between us is like poison, a distraction no good can come from. I’m calling McKnight. I was right in the first place, should have had him remove you from the case after that night in Deep Ellum.”

His words sliced and serrated, left her raw and bleeding. But she refused to run and take cover. Not when so much lay on the line. “Don’t insult us both with excuses, Liam. Not now.”

His eyes hardened. “What are you talking about?”

“You’re right. I crossed the line. Making love with you while we’re involved on a case was wrong.” She lifted her chin, looked him dead in the eye. “But we both know that’s not why you’re pushing me away. You yourself told me you’ve never been one to shy away from breaking the rules.”

He stood stiff and unmoving. “This is my daughter’s life—”

“It’s your life, too.” She wanted to go to him, put her arms around his big body and hold him tight. But the time for comforting embraces had come and gone, flashed out of control.

William Armstrong wasn’t a man who let himself need anyone. She couldn’t change that any more than waves could knock over an ancient sea cliff.

“Sex isn’t why you’re shutting me out,” she told him, wanting—needing—the truth on the table. “You let me in last night, you let me close, and it scared the hell out of you. You’ve dedicated your life to Emily, as though by sacrificing everything, you can make up for what happened with her mother, but one day she’s not going to be your little girl anymore. One day she’s going to ask you to give her to another man.” A stab of guilt pierced through her as the words fell out, but she refused to tiptoe around the truth. For all Liam’s strength, he hid behind his daughter. “What happens then? What will your excuse be then?”

He winced as though she’d slapped him. “This isn’t about me. This is about an innocent girl whose life is on the line.”

“Yes, it is. But it’s also about her father, a man who shuts himself off from the world, a man who refuses to let himself feel. Want. Need. Even if Emily was upstairs right now, happy and safe, we’d still be having this conversation.”

Jess had come here angry and hurt, believing she’d been wrong about last night, but now she knew the truth. By some miracle, she’d chipped through Liam’s defenses to the core of who and what he was. Not the father, not the protector, not the survivor. Not the tycoon, the suspect, nor the pariah. Just the man and his need. No barriers, no pretenses, no defense mechanisms. Just Liam.

And for William Armstrong, that was the most heinous crime imaginable.

“We made love, Liam.” Saying the words sent warmth surging through her, but sadness, as well. The intimacy had been too great for Liam, the sharing too acute. “You need me, and you can’t stand it, and that’s why you’re pushing me away.”

He stepped toward her. “Damn it, Jessica—”

She held up an arm to stop his progress. “You say you don’t have time for love because your daughter is missing, but even before, you never let yourself have a life.” He’d spent too long learning to be numb, to hold feelings at bay, to not need anything. One night of loving, no matter how mind-numbing, couldn’t erase a lifetime of deeply engrained survival tactics.

“You never let yourself need. Love. In all your attempts to save time and make time, to protect time, all you’ve done is waste time, and now it’s too late.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Detective.”

She recognized the acid tone, knew she’d hit pay dirt. She also knew there was nothing she could say or do to change the truth. No matter how long and hard those waves battered the cliff, they always crashed, then fell back to the sea.

“I’m not talking to you as a detective. I’m talking as a woman who knows how destructive stolen moments can be.” Her heart broke on the words, but she refused to let him know that. “You’re right. They aren’t enough to find your daughter, and they’re not enough for me.”

She turned and strode across the gazebo before he could see the sadness flooding her eyes. She wasn’t doing any of them any good trying to tear down a wall with a toothpick.

“Jessica.”

Just that, the sound of her name on his voice, and her heart staggered. She squeezed her eyes shut but kept right on going.

“Don’t walk away from me, damn it!”

The pained words stopped her more effectively than one of those sea cliffs. She paused, straightened her shoulders, turned toward him. To hell with him, if he saw the tears in her eyes. He was a grown man. It was high time he faced the consequences of his actions.

“Where are you going?” he demanded.

She looked at him standing there in the bright morning sunshine, all tall and dark-haired, wearing just his jeans, the man who’d made love to her less than thirty minutes before. Somehow, the small, faded gazebo made him look even bigger, more isolated. Emotion sparked in his volatile cobalt eyes, a need that ripped at her. Again, she wanted to go to him, touch him, love him, but she refused to torture herself any further. She’d been careless to lose her heart to this man, but she wouldn’t make that mistake again.

A granite man, she reminded herself. Hard and enduring.

Alone.

“I’m doing the only thing I can do, Liam. I’m going to forget how it felt to make love with you. I’m going to pretend I never thought we could have a future. I’m one of two detectives assigned to find your daughter, and that’s what I’m going to do.” Starting with her father’s files. “I won’t come back until I do, and after that, I’ll walk away, and we’ll both go on with our lives. Case closed.”

And then, though it killed her to do so, she turned and headed for the gate.

* * *

Liam watched her walk away. Her back was stiff, her movements determined yet graceful. The breeze lifted the ends of her tangled auburn hair, the apple-scented strands he’d buried his face against less than half an hour before.

The memory sent a blade of panic slicing through him.

He wanted to charge across the yard and stop her. He wanted to pull her into his arms and destroy the hurt he’d seen glistening in her eyes. The hurt he’d put there. He wanted to tell her she was wrong, that he did need her.

But he didn’t. Couldn’t. Instead, he stood in the cool breeze and watched her stride through the iron gate.

She was a strong woman. She was a survivor. She was hurt and angry right now, but that would pass, and she would be all right. Better than all right, she would thrive, like she had before their paths crossed.

It was better that way, he knew. There was no room in his life for the kind of love a woman like Jessica Clark inspired. She deserved an uncomplicated love, a man who could make her smile, not rile her temper every time their paths crossed. She deserved a man without a tarnished past, a man she could walk beside and not feel the bitter sting of scorn and shame. A man she could be proud of.

Liam was not that man. He had a past that would never leave him. There would always be people who wanted to hurt him, those who believed he’d gotten away with murder, who sought to punish him by hurting those he loved most.

Like Emily.

He couldn’t let Jessica suffer the same fate. Wouldn’t.

* * *

Jess threw several coins into the tollbooth basket, then pressed her foot against the accelerator. She gunned the engine and zipped ahead of a rusty pickup that was ambling along. Too much adrenaline raced through her for her to tolerate a slow speed. Her heart beat as though she’d just finished a set of grueling wind sprints.

But she wasn’t tired, didn’t want to rest.

She wanted to drive and drive, faster, faster. She wanted to get away from Liam. Even more, she wanted to find his daughter. The truth hovered just out of reach, much like the way her father had taught her to swim by holding out his arms to her, then backing away when she got close.

Tears spilled over her lashes. She swiped angrily at them, letting out a keening sound of frustration as she did so. Now was not the time to mourn foolish dreams. She had a job to do. Liam’s daughter was the only gift she could give him that mattered. Her body, her heart, her soul … they were for the man. And so long as the father ached, the man didn’t exist.

The man didn’t exist, period, she corrected. Liam wouldn’t let him.

She pushed the morose thoughts aside and focused on the newest puzzle pieces.

Do I have your attention now?
She’d heard the distorted voice on the phone.
Doesn’t feel so good to lose, does it?

No mentions of money, only of suffering. The kidnapper had made demands for nothing other than Liam’s attention…

First the mother, then the daughter, now the dog. Who’s next?

Her heart heat a little faster, and a cold sweat broke out on her body. The nasty suspicion she’d been harboring needled deeper. She needed her father’s files, damn it.

Everything has to do with the past,
Kirby had commented, but in focusing on one battered tree, she’d neglected to see the forest.
Everything. It makes us who we are.

She inhaled sharply. She’d worked countless cases over the years, yet it never ceased to amaze her how obvious the answer usually was. How personal.

To this day, Carson Manning held Liam responsible for his daughter’s disappearance. The man still wanted to make him suffer.