Typical Sophie. Too busy to eat.
Morgan scanned the aisle for a reasonable option. It would be at least another thirty minutes before they picked up Gianna and drove home. Thirty minutes was a loooong time to spend with a hungry and tired child. “How about a banana?”
“Can I have it now?”
“You can eat it as soon as I pay for it.” Morgan walked faster.
“OK.” Sophie perked up. Her purple sneakers swung back and forth as she began to sing the theme to Toy Story. An older woman smiled as they passed her cart.
Morgan turned down an aisle and collided with a male body. Knocked off balance, she steadied herself with her hand on the cart.
“I’m so sorry.” She stepped back and looked up. All the breath left her lungs and fear sent a bolt of adrenaline into her bloodstream.
Harold Burns stared at her, his eyes gleaming with recognition. The basket that dangled from his hand held a single can of tuna fish. “You’d better watch where you’re going.”
Morgan continued to move away, pulling the cart sideways and trying to step between Sophie and Burns. But the cart nosed into a display of canned peaches. The stacks of cans toppled and rolled across the tile.
Burns didn’t move. He just stared at her, his eyes full of malice—and satisfaction.
Had he been following her?
Cans rolled under the cart. Burns’s gaze drifted slowly from Morgan to her daughter. A silent alarm rang out in Morgan’s head.
Get Sophie away from him!
Next to her, Sophie said, “Mommy?” Her voice was soft and small and scared as she picked up on Morgan’s reaction to Burns.
Morgan glanced up and down the aisle. Thirty feet away, the older woman compared prices of Parmesan cheese. Next to her, a young man piled boxes of pasta into a basket on his arm.
They were in a grocery store. In full view of two other shoppers and multiple surveillance cameras, Burns couldn’t hurt Sophie.
She’s safe. Morgan breathed in an attempt to calm her screaming pulse. But her body responded to Burns’s proximity to her child with immediate protest. If she’d been alone, her response would have been completely different, possibly even rational. But her brain simply couldn’t override her primitive maternal instinct, the same internal wiring that helped cavewomen keep their offspring safe from predators and ensured the survival of the human race.
There was no arguing with pure and primal instinct.
This violent sexual predator could not be this close to her daughter. The very act of him turning his gaze upon her child was a clear and direct threat.
Morgan grabbed Sophie, pulled her from the cart, and backed toward the exit.
“Mommy, my bananas,” Sophie cried, reaching backward as Morgan hurried out of the store. She rushed across the parking lot.
Sophie sobbed quietly as Morgan broke into a jog, opening the side door of the van as she ran toward it. She put Sophie inside, climbed in the side door with her, then closed it behind them. Not even the click of the door locks could temper her panic.
“Get in your seat,” Morgan ordered, glancing over her shoulder and dropping her tote bag on the floor.
Harold Burns stood on the pavement just outside the grocery store door, his eyes locked on Morgan’s van.
“Mommy?” Sophie climbed into her seat obediently, her voice high with fear, her face streaked with tears.
“It’s OK, sweetie.” Couched in the small confines of the vehicle, Morgan fastened the safety seat harness and climbed over the console into the driver’s seat.
But Sophie clearly knew that it wasn’t OK. She sniffed, leaning her face on the headrest and crying quietly.
Morgan started the engine and drove out of the lot toward Sharp Investigations. She was not leading Burns to her home. With an eye on the rearview mirror, Morgan pulled her cell phone from her pocket and called Lance. “Are you still at the office?”
“Yes.”
“Can you meet me outside in a few minutes? I’m on my way there. Sophie is with me.”
“Morgan, what’s wrong?”
“Sophie and I went to the grocery store.” Morgan stopped at a red light, her eyes darting between the windshield and all her mirrors. A car pulled up behind her minivan. She exhaled when she saw an older gentleman at the wheel. “Harold Burns was there.”
Lance swore. “Where are you?”
“Four blocks away. I’m calling Stella next.” She punched “End,” then called her sister, giving her a brief explanation. “Gianna needs to be picked up at dialysis.”
“OK,” Stella said. “I’ll get her and meet you at Sharp Investigations.”
Morgan drove, checking her mirrors, looking for a red pickup truck.
What was Burns’s game? And where had he gone?
Chapter Twenty-Four
Lance paced the sidewalk.
Where is she?
The thought of Burns intimidating Morgan and her little girl stirred a giant pot of rage in Lance’s chest. He’d like nothing better than to find Burns and give him back a big dose of his own medicine.
When he’d been a cop, Lance had hated the revolving-door nature of the system. There were people who could be rehabilitated, but there were those who were just bad. Born bad. Made bad. Whatever. It hardly mattered after the fact. Violent men like Burns were dangerous. Occasionally, like now, Lance was appalled at the violence of his own response to them.
But this was personal.
This was Morgan. And Sophie!
Damn it.
Men like Burns shouldn’t be allowed to share air with an innocent child.
The heat of fury had climbed into Lance’s throat by the time Morgan parked at the curb in front of the office. Her face was as white as a fresh sheet of copy paper. She got out of the driver’s seat and opened the sliding side door. Sophie was still crying. Her big blue eyes were scared.
As much as the sight made Lance want to beat Burns senseless, he swallowed and shoved his anger back into its box.
Sophie needed calm.
She needed to feel safe.
God. How do parents do this?
Morgan’s hands were shaking so hard she couldn’t get the harness unfastened.
Lance stepped in. “Let me.”
“Hey, Soph.” Lance unfastened her harness, lifted her from the seat, and held her closely. “Everything is OK.”
She seemed to forget that she didn’t trust him. Her arms went around his neck in a panicked chokehold and her spindly legs wrapped around his waist. She clung to him with a strength that broke his heart.
He made her feel safe.
Morgan grabbed her tote bag from the van, and Lance herded her up the walk and into the office. Holding Sophie in one arm, he locked the door and engaged the alarm. “Are you all right?”
Morgan nodded. But her hands were still trembling and her face had gone from pale to gray.
Sharp emerged from his office, his face grim.
At the clatter of dog nails, Sophie lifted her head from Lance’s shoulder. “Puppy.”
Morgan smoothed her hair and worked to collect herself. “Sophie, this is Mr. Sharp and his dog, Rocket.”
Rocket leaned on Morgan’s leg and whined.