‘Yes. Maybe not for a few days, but yes, you’ll go back to the center.’ He gave her a sly smile. ‘You want to tell me about Stan?’
She blushed so prettily. ‘Daddy.’
He leaned in to kiss her cheek. ‘I’d like to meet him. You know,’ he added teasingly, ‘to make sure he’s good enough for my little girl.’
‘He’s very good,’ Julie assured him. Then she waggled her brows, startling him into a laugh.
Miss Brewster had been right. His baby girl wasn’t a baby. God. Am I ever going to get this right?
He loaded up the car, then secured Julie’s chair in the back. His land in California hadn’t sold yet, but he’d had enough investments that he’d been able to outfit her with all the things she’d needed when they moved. He was grateful for that.
He had so much to be grateful for. He had a new life here. Good friends. A job he really enjoyed.
‘Daddy?’ Julie said, as he got behind the wheel.
‘Yes, honey?’
‘I got another message. From Miss Brewster.’
He twisted in the driver’s seat, frowning. What the hell was the woman doing contacting her again? Julie shrank back, her grip on her tablet faltering – the tablet he hadn’t known she owned.
‘Where did you get that?’
‘From Miss Selma,’ she said, eyes wide.
The caregiver. She’d probably given it to Julie to keep her quiet. That had not been their agreement. Good riddance to the woman, then. He’d need to make sure the tablet was safe, that any harmful Internet sites were blocked.
‘Okay,’ he said, forcing his voice to stay calm. ‘What does the message say?’
‘She wants to call me again. But I’m not at home.’
‘I’ll call her,’ he assured his daughter, immediately dialing Sally Brewster’s cell phone. ‘Miss Brewster,’ he said sternly when she answered.
‘Mr Dawson?’ she replied cautiously.
He was going to dive right in. ‘Why did you message Julie again?’
Julie looked up from her tablet, where she was now watching a video of cats sitting in small boxes.
‘But I didn’t,’ Miss Brewster exclaimed. ‘I swear to you.’
‘Oh.’ He felt curiously embarrassed. But terrified. All at once. Because . . .
‘Somebody messaged her?’ Her voice became alarmed as well. ‘Pretending to be me?’
Smart lady, cutting right to the chase. ‘Yeah.’
She was quiet for a moment. ‘Like someone called Mr Thorne pretending to be Bernie? Or like someone called me pretending to be a cop?’
An unpleasant chill ran down his spine. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, maintaining his calm for Julie’s sake. ‘I’m going to check into this. Where are you right now?’
‘I just walked into work. I’m on second shift.’
‘Stay there, please. Around a lot of people. Don’t leave, even to take a break.’
‘I won’t,’ she promised, sounding appropriately afraid. ‘Call me to let me know that Julie is okay.’
‘She’s with me now. We’re temporarily relocating.’
‘Good. Just let me know how you are.’
‘Call me as well.’
‘I’ll do my best.’
They ended the call and Frederick drew a breath. ‘Julie, honey, can I see your tablet?’
She frowned at him. ‘You’ll give it back?’
‘Yes,’ he promised.
She handed it to him. He opened her messaging app and looked through her communication.
‘How are you reading this?’ he asked. Julie’s reading comprehension was not this advanced.
‘VR, Daddy.’
He lifted his gaze to hers. ‘What is that?’
‘Voice . . .’ Her brow wrinkled. ‘It talks to me. I tap it.’
He tapped the message and a computerized voice read the message. ‘From Sally: Can I call you again?’
Again. Dread was like a live wire, shocking his body from the inside out. If Sally Brewster was telling the truth, someone knew she’d called Julie already. He thought back to when he’d dropped her off at her car. Still shaken by their conversation inside the club, he’d asked her to contact him if Julie called her again and she’d agreed. If someone had been following them, they could have overheard. They would have known Julie would respond to a message from Sally. Or, if Sally was lying, she could have set it up. Either way, he needed to get to the bottom of this.
He typed into the messaging app: I’m not at home. Why do you want to call?
A new message popped up. I have a present for you. I want to know where to send it.
His hand shaking, Frederick clicked on the information button, to see from what number the message had originated.
He couldn’t control his gasp. The message was from the same number that had called Sally Brewster. The number used by a man who’d posed as a cop.
Baltimore, Maryland,
Monday 13 June, 1.45 P.M.
This is a fucking nightmare, Gwyn thought as she, Thorne, Phil and Jamie followed Lieutenant Hyatt through the maze of desks leading from the elevator to Hyatt’s conference room at the Baltimore PD headquarters. They were a depressed-looking bunch, all worried expressions and plodding steps. Even Jamie’s wheelchair seemed to be moving more slowly than usual.
Thorne was on autopilot, and Gwyn hated seeing him like this. His face was stark, his shoulders slumping wearily. He seemed to have aged twenty years in the moments after Hyatt told them that Stevie had been shot at too.
It was as if all the fight had been drained from him.
‘This will not do,’ she muttered. Gesturing Jamie and Phil into the conference room ahead of her, she grabbed a handful of Thorne’s suit coat and yanked until he stopped walking and stared down at her.
She stared back up at him, wishing for the millionth time in her life that she were taller. ‘Come here.’ Keeping hold of his jacket, she led him to the nearest desk with an empty chair and pushed him into it. That he made no complaint, uttered not even one question, told her how utterly defeated he was. This won’t do. At all.
She stepped between his spread knees, now face to face with him. Cupping his jaw in her palms, she tugged until he looked at her numbly.
‘Thorne, come on,’ she whispered fiercely, acutely aware that several detectives at nearby desks were watching their every movement.
‘And do what?’ he whispered back, so bleakly it was like a knife to her heart.
‘Do you remember the day you brought me out of the hospital? After Evan?’
He nodded slowly. ‘That was a shitty day.’
‘Why?’ she asked, knowing how he’d answer.
‘You were alive. But your light was gone. I couldn’t find you.’
‘But you didn’t give up. You let me grieve and mourn and heal. And it took me four and a half years.’
His eyes slid closed. ‘Longest years of my life.’
‘Yeah. Mine too.’ She stroked his cheeks with her thumbs, his stubble lightly scratching her skin. But in a welcome way. She loved touching his face. She always had. ‘You let me sit in your bed and rock, and you held me until I fell asleep.’
‘You remember that?’
‘I remember everything,’ she said quietly. Everything Evan had done to torture and hurt her. And then everything Thorne had done to help heal her.
His eyes flew open, his distress apparent. ‘I hoped you hadn’t. I couldn’t reach you. I hoped that meant you’d escaped someplace nicer in your mind.’
‘No, I was with you every moment. And I appreciate everything you did for me, every kindness.’ She sighed. ‘Today is another shitty day, but I’m not going to be as patient with you as you were with me. I’m going to tell you to get your head back in the game. Now. Because if you don’t, we’re never going to figure out who the hell hates your guts enough to try to pick us all off.’ She gave his cheeks a light squeeze and a pat. ‘I can’t give you time to feel like shit and get all morose. We need you now, Thorne. So stop moping. Stop dragging yourself around like you’re a fucking zombie. We need you.’ She leaned forward until her forehead rested against his, their noses lightly touching. ‘I need you.’