He would listen to her. But she was going to have to be made to understand that they had to do things his way. Maybe she would be ready to accept his help at last. She needed help.His help. On many levels, and she was afraid to take it on all of them.
His lips compressed as he wedged a chair beneath the doorknob and walked on into the kitchen. He hit the light switch and illuminated the spotlessly clean room. He filled the percolator with water and measured out four scoops of coffee, then added another. Then he set the pot on a burner and leaned against the counter absently as his thoughts continued to roam. Why would someone want a bunch of publicity shots badly enough to kidnap a little boy and hold him for ransom?
There had to be something else in those pictures. Something so harmful that... "Lee?"
He glanced across the kitchen to see Bryn standing nervously in the doorway. His shirt engulfed her, overlapping her black jeans to the knees. It seemed strange, but she looked all the more bewitchingly feminine in a man's shirt.
A covert glance at his wristwatch told him that exactly five minutes had passed. He would have smiled if the situation had been less tense.
"Sit down." A wave of his arm indicated the wicker stools that surrounded the kitchen's butcher-block table. She lowered her lashes and did so. Lee felt his heart pound achingly within his chest. He wanted to rush over to her and hold her. Touch her and soothe her and convince her that it was going to be all right.
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This wasn't the time. Nor would he allow himself to reach for her again--no pressure, no bargains. She would have to come to him, and she would have to do so because she wanted to.Badly enough to cast aside all her doubts and fears.
He turned around and rummaged in the cupboard for mugs. "Start talking," he told her flatly. "I..."
"Don't hedge!" he said sharply."Talk."
He could almost hear her grind her teeth. But she began. Sporadically, choppily, but bluntly, she told him the story. "The morning after...after I took the pictures...a man appeared at my door. He offered me five thousand dollars for them. I don't know whether I believed him or not, but I explained that you owned all the rights to them. I kind of forgot about the incident. But then I got a threatening phone call.""From a man?"
"I'm not sure. The voice is always a whispered hiss.""Always?"
"Yes, I've had several calls."
Bryn watched Lee as he poured out two cups of coffee, set them on the table and drew out the stool opposite from her. I'll never be able to explain this with him sitting there bare-chested and staring at me, she thought, despising herself for a coward. But she was going to have to explain. The way he was looking at her, jaw firm and eyes relentless, she had no choice.
"Keep going," he told her.
"I might get a little lost--"
"I'll bear with you. Go on."
Bryn tried to sip her coffee and almost scalded her lips. She set the mug back on the table and stared at it. "I'd given my film to a friend who owns a camera shop the night I shot it, and then I turned the proofs right over to Barbara, so I never had them in the house. But when I came home from work, I found all my film, file pictures and some personal photos destroyed. My darkroom was literally ripped apart--chemicals emptied, anything that could be done was done. Another phone call followed that, threatening me again."
As Lee watched her, he saw a flush spread across her cheeks. "That's when you decided to seduce me into giving the pictures back?"
"Yes," Bryn admitted softly, still staring at her coffee.
"You should have just asked me; I would have given them to you."
Her startled eyes flew to his and he smiled bitterly. "I don't like being taken for a fool, Bryn." She stared quickly back down to her cup again. "They've got Adam. They kidnapped him.""How? And when?"
She swallowed painfully and moistened her lips. "Last...last night. When I left here, I went home and found Barbara knocked out on the couch. She never knew what hit her. At first we were afraid that someone was still in the house. That's when I discovered that Adam was gone. And--''
"You got another phone call right away?" Lee's words were more like a flat statement than a question.
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Bryn nodded. A flush rose to her cheeks again. "The voice...suggested that if I tried harder, I could...seduce you. And that if I didn't get the pictures from you, I wouldn't see Adam again."
"But you decided not to seduce me, but to rob me instead," Lee stated dryly.
"I..." Bryn paused, her words catching in her throat. He certainly wasn't trying to make this any easier for her. "I was desperate, Lee. And I knew...what the whisperer didn't. That...that I'd failed, and that--"
"That what?"
"Another try wasn't going to change anything," Bryn said softly, her eyes on her coffee cup again.
Lee was silent for a minute, not responding to her words. Then he asked, "What did Barbara have to say to all this?"