Chapter 10
The next day, Thad drove Lucy and Sophie to Rosanna’s house. It had been pure drama getting Sophie into the car. She didn’t want to leave. Thad was supposed to meet Darcy, but he’d called to push the time back so that he could go with Lucy to drop the child off. Just one look at Lucy confirmed that she felt the same as he did. Were they doing the right thing by taking her back to her foster mom? Lucy said Rosanna had sounded stable on the phone. Happy, revived, relieved. Layne was gone. She’d reclaimed her life and was eager to get Sophie back.
He looked in the rearview mirror as he had several times already. Sophie’s eyes were red but she’d stopped crying. Such a young mind didn’t understand what was happening to her. She was being yanked from one home to another, never having time to adjust, settle in and feel safe. He couldn’t shut off the nagging instinct to do something. The more time he spent with Sophie, the stronger that instinct became.
He pulled to a stop in front of Rosanna’s house and got out. Lucy did, too, and opened the back door.
“Come on, Sophie,” Lucy said.
“No!” Sophie whined. “I don’t want to go!”
Thad opened the other back door and retrieved Sophie’s overnight bag.
“We have to do this,” Lucy said.
“I don’t want to live here!”
“Out of the car, Sophie,” Lucy said in a sterner tone, but it sounded forced. She didn’t like doing this.
Sophie began crying again, but she climbed out of the car.
Lucy knelt down with her hands on the child’s shoulders. “I’ll come and see you.”
Thad walked around and stood over them, torn apart inside. A couple of tears ran down Lucy’s face.
Sophie cried, deep and genuine. This was more than a childish tantrum. Sophie was hurting.
When she reached her little arms up toward him, wailing unintelligible pleas, he dropped the bag and lifted her up into his arms. She cried against his shoulder while he rubbed her back.
“It’ll be all right, Sophie,” he tried to comfort her.
“Take me back home,” she sobbed, leaning back to look at him. Her wet face and sad, red eyes broke him.
He looked down at Lucy, who stood up and wiped her tears, crying outright now.
“Why can’t you take me home?”
Thad looked at her. “I would if I could.”
“Is everything okay?” a woman asked.
Thad saw Rosanna standing on the sidewalk, worriedly observing the scene.
“Rosanna’s here, Sophie,” Lucy said. She’d regained control, although it was obvious she’d been crying.
Sophie’s cries eased and she looked back.
“Hi, Sophie,” Rosanna said. “I baked some cookies for you. And I thought we could watch a movie together.”
Sophie turned back to Thad. Her sweet eyes heavy with innocent despondency.
“Lucy and I will come and see you,” he said, wondering what had made him.
“Promise?”
“Promise.” He kissed her temple, and then she hugged him, her tiny arms squeezing him around his neck.
Touched more than he could handle, he put the girl down, and she all but dragged her feet toward Rosanna.
Rosanna took her hand. “Things are going to be so much better around here. You’ll see.”
Until she had to be yanked out of this home and into another once she was adopted. Thad didn’t know what to do with the helplessness he felt.
Lucy knelt to hug her and then stood beside Thad.
Rosanna tugged Sophie toward the house. The little girl’s lower lip quivered as she looked back at them.
When she disappeared inside, Lucy turned to him and cried. He held her and for the first time noticed a car parked across the street. A man was inside and he was taking pictures.
* * *
Late that night, Lucy couldn’t sleep. Piling all the pillows behind her, she gave up and sat up on the bed, turning on the TV with a remote. Not only did Sophie’s heart-wrenching tears haunt her, so did the man who’d taken pictures of them. As soon as Thad had noticed him, the man had spun the car around and sped off. Who would do that and why?
Flipping channels for several more minutes, Lucy gave up on finding anything that would take her mind off Sophie and the strange man. Letting her head fall back, she stared up at the ceiling.
Thad barging through her bedroom door effectively changed her focus. Fully dressed in jeans and a leather jacket over a white T-shirt, he had an urgency about him. What had him so wound up? Cam? His mother’s shooter?
“I just got a call from the station. A 9-1-1 call was placed by Rosanna...”
Sophie.
9-1-1.
That was something she hadn’t expected. Lucy sprang out of bed as Thad went into her closet.
“What happened?” She quickly dressed in what he started throwing at her. A pair of jeans came first.
“Rosanna’s been murdered.”
Murdered? He threw a thin, soft sweater at her next. No bra. The shock of his announcement sank in.
“Where’s Sophie?” she asked.
Finally his eyes met hers, helpless and grim with bad news.
The stab of apprehension took her next breath. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“She’s missing?” Oh, God...
“It appears that way.”
Kidnapped? “Why would anyone take her?” And who? It didn’t add up.
And then she recalled the stranger parked in the car and taking pictures of them...of Thad holding Sophie. Of Lucy crying. Sophie crying...
Clearly Sophie and Lucy meant a lot to him. Lucy was harder to get to at the estate, with all the Secret Service agents roaming around. Sophie, on the other hand...
* * *
Minutes later, Thad raced to a stop in front of Rosanna’s house, where police had already strung up crime scene tape. He knew the officers there and some of the other crime scene investigators. He hadn’t been called officially because he was still on leave.
“We should have kept her with us,” Lucy said, breathless. The scene frightened her. It should. He dismissed the thought that they were behaving like worried parents. Under less serious conditions, he’d expect Lucy to tease him or tell one of her stories. If only that were the case.
Rosanna was dead and Sophie had been kidnapped—he had to assume this was related to the threat he’d gotten.
Thad faced her, putting his hands on her shoulders. “I think you should wait out here.”
In a daze, Lucy nodded.
Reluctantly, Thad left her and approached a detective he’d worked with on other scenes who stood at the front door. After greeting him, he went inside. He saw Rosanna facedown on the floor, a pool of relatively fresh blood beneath her. He’d seen it many times before, but this time it felt more personal.
“She made the call after the child was taken,” the detective said. “She was stabbed three times in the chest.”
And as she lay dying, she’d called for help, knowing that Sophie had been kidnapped. “Murder weapon?”
“Haven’t found it.”
“Any witnesses?”
The detective shook his head. “None so far.”
“Who took her?”
“The ex, or soon-to-be. She told the operator.”
Thad nearly closed his eyes. At least he had a lead. A solid one.
When he imagined what the little girl might be enduring, a cold sweat broke out in him. Quickly following that, brewing rage. He would do anything to bring Sophie back to safety. Anything.
Surveying the scene and taking in every detail, Thad spotted some photos on a white bookshelf. Going there, he looked at each one and stopped when he saw one of a birthday celebration. He couldn’t tell whose it was, but Layne was in it. He stood on a balcony. The day was sunny and in the background was a river. It looked like some kind of vacation home. There was a planter shaped like a fish, and a fish wind chime hanging from a jutting soffit.
“Do we know anything about this?” he asked.
The detective came over to the shelf. “What about it?”
“Did Layne have a vacation home by a river?” A fishing house, as Sophie had called it.
Suddenly, a feeling in his gut had his feet moving.
He went back outside to Lucy. She hugged herself, guilt-ridden over not keeping Sophie with them. He felt a little of it himself. He was relieved when Lucy had taken her back to Rosanna. The child would no longer be around to challenge his views and his reason for having them. Now he struggled with doubt over whether those views were justified, or even real.
A scream emanating behind them caused them both to turn around. A woman tried to break through two officers blocking her attempt to gain entry to the home.
“Rosanna!” she cried.
Police tried to calm her. Letting her inside would not only disturb the scene, it would gravely upset the woman.
“I’m her mother! Rosanna!”
One of the officers spoke to her and Thad could tell when he revealed that Rosanna was dead. The woman crumbled to the ground and screamed louder and much more gutturally.
Thad went over to the group. “May I?”
“Sure,” one of the officers said.
Thad crouched before the woman and told who he was. “Ma’am?”
The sobbing woman looked at him. With tears shining on her face, she said, “You have to find Layne. He did this.”
Lucy turned her head sharply toward him, and he nodded once to let her know that’s what he’d learned when he’d gone into the crime scene.
“Rosanna was afraid of him,” the woman said. “He threatened her more than once.” She leaned with her hands on the lawn and cried again. “Get him out of the house, I told her. Get him out. We thought she’d be safe once she did.” She resumed her sobbing.
Thad was certain he wouldn’t take Sophie to his new residence. “Did Layne have anywhere else he could go other than here or at his new home? A vacation home? There’s a picture inside of a place where he fishes.”
The woman regained some of her composure. “Yes. He fished a lot. Near Jordan Lake. His parents have a place there.” She gave him detailed directions on how to get there but didn’t know an exact address. It was enough.
“Do you have any idea why he’d kidnap Sophie?” Lucy asked.
And Thad understood the reason she’d asked. He wondered the same. And the image of that man taking pictures kept running in his head.
“No.” The woman shook her head. “He didn’t care much for kids. Not like Rosanna. Rosanna loved children. She wanted some of her own someday.” More tears spilled free. “He must have done it to spite her.”
But Rosanna was dead. If Layne had killed her, why take Sophie? Rosanna was no longer alive to care. No, the man who’d taken pictures had discovered what Sophie meant to him. More than even Thad had had time to comprehend.
“Thank you.” Thad stood and said to the policemen, “Take care of her, would you?”
The one closest to him nodded. “We will.”
Thad took Lucy’s hand and hurried to his car. There, he called Darcy, who could help him find the place Layne’s parents owned. Sophie could be anywhere. This was a shot in the dark, but it was the only one they had.
* * *
Lucy saw the average-sized house as Thad drove by. There were a few lights on, but no activity was evident from here. After they were out of sight from the house, Thad parked.
“Wait here,” he said.
But Lucy got out with him. “I’m coming with you.” If Layne hurt Sophie, she’d kill him.
Not arguing, Thad pulled out his pistol from the holster he hadn’t bothered to cover when he’d left the estate. He’d put it on over his T-shirt. Going to the front door, he tried the handle. It was locked. Listening, he heard no sounds. No cries from a child. No talking.
Around the back, he kept to the side of the house, the roar of the river a hundred yards from there. He saw the balcony he’d seen in the picture. There were stairs leading up to it. He tried the sliding glass door on the lower level. It also was locked.
Lucy trailed behind him, searching the darkness in case anyone appeared. They crept up the stairs. The blinds covering the windows on the lower level were all closed.
Trying the balcony door, the handle turned. Thad looked back at Lucy and mouthed, “Stay here.” When she nodded, he pushed open the door. He heard a television from somewhere down the hall that played a cartoon.
An instant later, a man’s form jumped out from the enclave of the kitchen, holding a pan. It was Layne. Thad blocked the swing and then drove his fist into Layne’s sternum. When Layne grunted and bent over slightly, Thad grabbed his wrist and used his weight to force him backward, slamming him against the stainless-steel refrigerator.
Thad pounded Layne’s wrist to the metal refrigerator door until the frying pan dropped and clattered to the tile floor. Then he rammed his knee into Layne’s chest and chopped his throat with the side of his hand. That sent Layne to his knees.
Pointing his gun at Layne, he demanded, “Did you hurt her?”
Lucy appeared inside the kitchen. Seeing that he had Layne under control, she ran down the hall toward the sound of the cartoon. She vanished into a room, and Thad heard Sophie begin to cry and say her name.
“I’ve got you,” Lucy said, emerging into the hall carrying the crying child, who clung to her. “I won’t let you go, I promise.”
Something in Thad shifted, the love Lucy had for the child touching the cold spot in his heart. Sophie trusted her and returned the love. The sight of them and the realization of that love choked him.
Sophie wailed unintelligible things, a patchy account of what had happened to her. Layne had come into her room and put something over her mouth that made her go to sleep. She woke up here, and he’d threatened to kill her if she made a single sound.
He’d drugged her. A child. That was so dangerous. What if he’d given her too much? Fury roiled, and Thad had to force himself to stay under control. The only positive in this was that Sophie hadn’t been aware of what happened to Rosanna. She may have heard the struggle and perhaps Rosanna screaming, but she hadn’t seen her body. Still a traumatizing experience, but it could have been worse. She’d woken in a strange place, kidnapped by Layne, a man she didn’t like. She’d been scared.
Rage propelled Thad to kick Layne, planting his boot on his chest and banging him backward against the refrigerator.
“Why did you do this?” Thad needed him to talk about the man who’d taken pictures.
Layne looked up at him, lip bleeding.
“Why?” Thad yelled.
Lucy put her hand on Sophie’s head, making sure she didn’t see what Thad did to Layne, and then talked into the girl’s ear to calm her.
Thad leaned down and yanked Layne’s head back with one hand and pressed the barrel of the gun to his temple. Layne was no hardened criminal. If he’d killed Rosanna, it was a crime of passion.
“Tell me now,” Thad said.
Layne looked up at Thad’s face, at his eyes, and relented. “I was paid.”
Just as he’d thought. “Who paid you?”
“You’re Thad Winston, aren’t you?” Layne asked rather than answering.
Had he recognized him from a picture or because of who his mother was? Maybe both.
“He warned me that you might come after me,” Layne continued.
“Who paid you?” Thad repeated.
Leaning against the refrigerator, Layne stretched his legs out in front of him and wiped his lip. Thad kept the gun aimed at his head but allowed him to get more comfortable.
“He wouldn’t tell me his name,” Layne said. “He just offered me a lot of money.” Layne explained about the call he’d received and although he’d been skeptical, he’d met the man an hour later, when he’d given him cash.
“Half today, half after the child was delivered,” Layne said.
“What did the man look like?” Thad asked.
Layne thought for a moment. “He wore a hat and sunglasses. He wasn’t as tall as you and had on a dark suit.”
That wasn’t much to go on and Thad hadn’t gotten a good look at the man who’d watched them before he drove away, which had been right after he’d been spotted. He hadn’t seen the license plate, either. “After you had Sophie, what were you supposed to do?”
“He was going to contact me to arrange giving her to him. He hasn’t yet.”
Thad had gotten here in time. “How was he going to contact you?”
“My phone. Cell phone.”
Thad searched him. Not finding the phone, he scanned the kitchen.
Finally having calmed Sophie enough to put her down, Lucy picked up a cell phone from the kitchen island and showed it to Thad.
Layne had agreed to kidnap a young girl for money without knowing who hired him or why. He hadn’t set out to murder Rosanna. He’d been desperate for money. And once embroiled in the plan to kidnap Sophie, there was no turning back.
Hearing sirens outside, Thad was assured of Layne’s arrest, but without a solid lead to identify the man who’d paid him to kidnap Sophie. He could only vow to protect Sophie from further harm. And that came with another kind of danger—one to his heart.